Forever's Embrace (Forever In Luck Series Book 2) (25 page)

He
shook his head, not liking the rationale. “I washed up. How long do you have to
wear that plastic thing?”

Wiping
up one of the counters, she answered him. “It’s a thoracolumbosacral orthosis,
or TLSO for short, essentially a back brace, and I have to wear it for a total
of six months.”

“Linnie
and Nate in the cities?”

She
shook her head. “They went to Duluth for the day, won’t be back till late.”

“You
about ready?” Nik asked from the kitchen’s entrance.

Pulling
the stopper on the sink, Jules nodded. “Yep, just give me a minute.”

Jake
looked back and forth between the two of them. “Ready for what?”

Jules
hung a dishtowel out to dry. “Nothing, we have a daily ritual is all.”

“What
do you mean a daily ritual?” he asked, following them to the entryway.

Nik
clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you what to do.”

Jake
was getting peeved, he didn’t know a damn thing about what was going on around
here, and it was starting to piss him off. “Show me how to do what?”

Nik
shook his head, “Boy, you sure are a nervous nelly. Just watch.”

Stepping
outside, Nik put one arm behind Jules back, and the other behind her knees,
then picked her up and started walking with her to the barn.

“Hey,”
Jake snapped, clearly annoyed. “What are you doing? Give her to me,” he
demanded, stepping in front of Nik, “I’ll carry her.”

Nik
laughed as he shook his head. “Nope, you don’t know what to do, and we don’t
want her falling. Quit acting like an old banty rooster, we’ve got a routine
and you’re holding up progress.”

Jake
was feeling mighty jealous right about now, and not liking it one bit.
Irritated, he looked at Jules. “Is this what’s been going on around here, him
carrying you all around the farm?”

Both
Jules and Nik looked at him and shook their heads. Then Jules answered flatly,
“No, Nik carries me out to the barn, and Kris carries me back. It was a
compromise, they either carry me, or Nik threatened to dump me in the
wheelbarrow and take me that way, while Kris said he’d use the poo scoop on the
bobcat.”

Taking
a deep breath, Jake stepped out of the way and they continued on to the barn.
Smarting from the moment’s injustice, he mumbled, “She could’ve just told me
what to do.”

Nik
stopped and looked at him. “Here’s your first lesson, don’t listen to her. She
lies through her teeth and is always trying to break the rules.”

Jules
smacked Nik on the chest as he started walking again. “I do not!” Then she
looked at Jake and very innocently said, “I don’t lie, Jake. Honest. They’re
just overprotective.”

Jake
looked at the two of them with scrutiny, and knew without a doubt Nik was
telling the truth. She was too damn independent for her own good.

“Lesson
number two,” Nik went on, “is one of my favorites. Think BLT sandwich and
you’ll never forget it. It stands for no bending, lifting, or twisting. She’s
not to bend, lift, or twist. The brace prevents the bending and twisting of the
spine, but the lifting bit—he closed his eyes briefly, while giving an
admonishing shake of his head—tsk, tsk, tsk. She’s
always
violating that little rule.”

Scowling
at Nik, Jules instantly defended herself. “That’s not true! I follow the rules.
I do!” Then she quickly turned and looked at Jake openly. “Hairbrushes don’t
count, and the doctor said it was okay to lift.”

Nik
busted out laughing, immediately calling her bluff. “Riiiight, sunshine, don’t
forget the part where he said ‘anything weighing five pounds or less’. You’re a
repeat offender of that little rule.”

Annoyed,
she smacked Nik on the chest again. “Stop that!”

Nik
was telling the truth, Jake had seen her lifting multiple things weighing more
than five pounds that morning. Reaching the entrance to the barn, Jake opened
the door for them. Stepping in, they neared the office and stopped.

“Warm
up those feet, and I’ll talk Jake through this. Is that alright?” Nik asked.

She
nodded and began moving her feet in all different directions.

“They
still numb?” Nik checked.

“The
left one tingles, the right one is numb,” she answered.

“You
ready?”

Nodding,
she answered, “I think so.”

Jake
watched and listened closely as Nik went to set her down.

“Remember
to plant your feet and concentrate,” Nik cued, as he held on to her brace at
the waist. “March in place a step or two if you have to.”

“I
will.”

Jake
observed her right knee buckle a smidge, and then her leg wobbled a bit when
she lifted her cane to reposition it.

Nik
began to explain. “The areas most affected by her injury are her coordination
and balance. She can still feel pain, temperature, and touch, so that’s good,
but she continues with a lot of numbness, tingling, and burning. The doctor
says it all seems on par with what they call posterior cord syndrome, and the
abnormal sensations are called paresthesias.

Switching
his attention to Jules, Nik looked at her feet. “Widen your stance a little,
now flatten your right foot, it looks like your leaning to the outside. Good.
You ready?”

She
nodded and Nik let go, his hands hovering as he stayed within arm’s reach of
her. “She’s right leg dominant, and that’s the leg that’s taking the longest to
heal. She’s still recovering though, and is in a phase called hyperreflexia. In
other words, she went through a period of time with no reflexes, and is now in
a time with overreactive reflexes. So it’s still hard to predict what will be
permanent. The doctor’s encouraged by what he’s seeing though, and thinks
she’ll always have what she has now to some degree, but with her rate of
recovery, he expects it to improve more over the next weeks to months.”

When
it was clear Jules was steady on her feet, the two of them stepped back and
watched her walk away. “She does pretty good once she gets going,” Nik said, then
quickly shook his head, “but in the beginning, it’s like those legs of hers
don’t quite remember what their supposed to do, and since feeling and sensation
are still all messed up, she can’t quite tell when she’s got her stance wrong,
unless she looks down, and that’s a big no-no from the coordination and balance
standpoint. She needs to stand tall and look straight ahead, or risk tipping
right over if she looks down.”

Feeling
overwhelmed, Jake couldn’t look at Nik. “Thank you for helping her.”

“She’s
come a long way, Jake, and she’s lucky. Damn lucky. If there had to be an
injury, that it was to the backside of the cord is the best we could have hoped
for, as opposed to the front side which is responsible for motor function and
could have left her paralyzed. Linnie convinced her to come here because she
could walk the wings of the barn in the dead of winter without a problem, not
to mention we could all keep an eye on her. When she arrived, she could barely
go thirty, forty feet with the aid of a rolling walker before she’d have to sit
down and rest. We’ve all helped her, but she’s the one who’s worked the
hardest. She walks this whole place numerous times a day now.”

Jake
nodded, wondering where she went.

Smacking
him on the arm, Nik started walking. “Come on, by now she’s made it to the
calving pens to see Tinkerbelle, and is, no doubt, lifting feed buckets that
she shouldn’t.”

Jake
jumped in alarm and headed that direction. “She better not be!”

Nik
chuckled. “Did you know how exasperating she can be? She’s stubborn as a mule
and as sharp as a tack. That brain of hers comes up with some of the most
outlandish things. A conversation with her is like being on an intellectual
roller coaster moving at supersonic speed. When it comes to a screeching halt,
you’re left dazed, confused, and shocked all at the same time.”

Jake
laughed a little, then smiled as he answered, “Yeah, I’ve seen that streak in
her and have ridden that ride a few times.”

Nik
snorted. “We told her flat out, ‘you’re stubborn’, and you know what she said?
She said she preferred to view it as determined, and then thanked us for the
compliment. I don’t know, Jake,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a good thing
you’re getting educated, because you’ll need it to keep up with the likes of
her.”

Walking
into the maternity wing and heading down the row of calving pens, Jake found
her. “Stop right there, Ms. I Don’t Break The Rules.” She slowly turned and
gave him a beautiful smile, then batted her lashes at him. That little scamp!
“Ohhh, no,” he said, shaking his head, clearly having her number. “No, no, no
you don’t. It’s not working on me.”

Stomping
her cane on the cement, she glared at Nik. “Blabberjaws.”

Busting
out laughing, Nik found great humor in her remark. “Hey, toots, I can’t help it.
You’re like the little sister I never had, so you better watch out.”

“What’s
in the bucket, Jules, hmmm?” Jake couldn’t wait to hear this.

“Huh?
What?” she played innocent. “Oh, this little ole thing? Nothing, just a few
grains of feed for Tinkerbelle.”

Jake
dropped his head and looked at her hard.

“What?”
she answered, continuing to try and play him. “It’s a plastic bucket.”

“It’s
a five gallon bucket near full of seed, Ms. I Don’t Lie.”

She
glanced in the direction of the bucket, then back up to him “Oh, dear me, I
guess I overestimated Tink’s ration. Whoops, my mistake.”

Shaking
his head, he walked over and took the bucket. It was way, way over five pounds.
Leaning in, he gave her a quick kiss. “Come on. Let’s go feed the calves. You
can show me which ones you’ve already done.”

By
midmorning, Jake became worried when he hadn’t seen Jules in a while. Searching
for her, he found her in the office sitting with his dad at a computer.
Watching and listening from the hall, he heard her say, “After you enter the
information in that column, hit enter.”

Slowly
his dad pecked at the keys.

“Very
good,” she praised. “Now see how your cursor has moved down one? You can either
continue in that column, or you can switch to another column with a click of
your mouse or by using your arrow keys. Which would you like to do?”

Stepping
back, he saw Kris motion for him and he headed over.

“What
the hell’s going on? Did hell freeze over or something?” Jake asked. “I feel
like I’ve entered a new dimension around here. We’ve been trying to get him to
go computerized for years, but he wouldn’t. So why now?”

Kris
laughed. “It was Jules, she worked her magic on him. Called his bluff by
speaking his language. Told him the computer is no different than a tractor,
and the keyboard no different than the buttons and levers he uses to operate
it. Then she likened the different software programs to farm implements you
hook up to your tractor to accomplish the job you need to get done.

“By
then, she had his full attention, and slyly threw in some reverse psychology
without his knowing it. Told him that anyone who had the intelligence and know
how to operate a tractor could safely and easily operate a computer, and when
he began to argue the point, she said, ‘I refute that argument on the grounds
that the opposite cannot be said to be true.’ You should have seen dad’s face!”
Kris laughed thinking back on the moment.

Oh
man, Jake would’ve loved to have been here for that! “You’re shitting me,
right?”

“Nope,”
Kris said, shaking his head, “dead serious.” Then pretending to be Jules, he
recounted the moment, “Now Karl, you would never ever blindly trust anyone who
simply knew how to use a computer to get behind the wheel of a dangerous piece
of equipment like a tractor, would you? No, you wouldn’t, but we would let the
person with brains enough to operate said tractor to use a computer at any time
without giving it a second thought. Therefore, it stands to reason, that anyone
with the intelligence and aptitude to masterfully operate a tractor can safely
and easily manage a simple tool such as a computer.”

Kris
clapped Jake on the shoulder, giving him a shake. “He fell for it! Hook, line,
and sinker! By the time she was done selling him on it, he was begging for the
chance to learn. They spend an hour or two on it every day. She looked over the
ledgers and developed spreadsheets to mirror what he’s accustomed to, then
showed him how a computer can manipulate the data into graphs and charts for
comparison. You watch, you’ll find him on there all the time now. She’s even
got him searching the web.”

“No
way!”

Kris
nodded his head. “Yep. Honest to God. He dotes on her as much as he does
Linnie. Things are different Jake, with Linnie home, and now with Jules here,
and then with the three of us taking on more responsibility, things are way
different. In about a half an hour, Nik will join the two of them and they’ll
go over some farm operations stuff. Jules is helping Nik write up a proposal to
send to biofuel companies seeking a partnership in collecting the methane gas
off the lagoon out back.”