Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (22 page)

When he returned, she realized Caden would have to go with them. “Caden’s out on the pier—or she was. Could you get her?”

A moment later, she heard him calling Caden, then the soft rumble of his voice as he talked with her. While Sam waited, she took off the cold pack and lifted herself onto the couch. Her ankle, now level with her hips, pulsated with pain. She was about to elevate it on the couch’s arm when Caden and Landon entered.

“Mom?” Caden looked at Sam’s discolored, bloated ankle.

Sam tried to smile. “It’s fine, honey. It’s just a sprain.” She narrowed her eyes at Landon. “But Mr. Reed seems to think I need a doctor.”

Landon hung back in the kitchen while Caden sat by her on the couch. Sam placed the bag of peas back on her ankle. The swelling had gotten worse, if anything.

Landon returned with a glass of water and three Advil. Despite Sam’s ire, she wanted to hug him. She gulped the pills and set the glass on the table.

Caden watched silently while Landon slid his hands under Sam and eased her off the couch. She held her foot as steady as possible, but there was no stopping the agony. She settled her arms around his neck as he turned toward the door.

The Advil had put a small dent in the pain, and now that it was elevated on the gurney, the ache eased. The doctor examined it and took X-rays. Now they waited for a verdict.

“How you feeling?” Landon asked from his chair beside her bed. The soggy bag of peas lay across his thigh.

“Better.” Sam looked at Caden next to Landon. Her daughter did her best to fake nonchalance, but Sam knew she was worried. She gestured toward the peas. “Guess you got out of eating those, huh?”

Caden’s mouth turned up a bit.

The doctor entered the room with an X-ray film, which he put on a board on the wall. The light flicked on. He studied the picture, tilting his head back to look through his tiny glasses.

Seconds later he flipped off the light and turned to Sam. “No break, young lady. Looks like you’ve torn a ligament, though.”

Sam exhaled in relief. “Just as I thought.” After sending Landon an I-told-you-so look, she asked the next question bearing down on her. “How long will it take to heal?” She had to finish painting and apply polyurethane to the floors. Those things were absolutely necessary.

“I’ll send a nurse in with an instruction sheet, but you need to stay off your feet for forty-eight hours. After that, you can gradually ease your weight back on it. I suggest using a crutch at first. You tore it pretty badly.”

Forty-eight hours?
“I can’t stay off it for two days.” She would barely get finished as it was.

“You will if you want it to heal correctly. I can give you a doctor’s excuse for work if you need one.”

That was a whole other concern. “How long will it take to get back to work?”

“Acute ankle sprains heal in two to six weeks.”

Sam’s jaw dropped. Hers had better heal in one week, or Patty was going to have a fit.

“I’ll send the nurse in. Take care, now.” The doctor left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Not what you wanted to hear,” Landon said. “But at least it’s not broken.”

Sam swallowed. “You don’t understand. I have to be back at work next Monday. I don’t have six weeks. I don’t even have two.”

“I think he meant it takes that long for it to heal completely. Maybe if you rest it over the next seven days, you’ll be able to work, even if you have to limp a little. You can wrap the ankle in order to stabilize it.”

Rest it the next week? Landon knew she couldn’t do that. The cottage had to be finished. She wouldn’t be able to get away from work even for a weekend to come back and work on it. Not with all the time she’d taken off already. Not to mention the travel expense of going back and forth.

Frustration lumped in her throat. “I have to finish the cottage.” Couldn’t he see how important this was? She’d worked so hard to get it done. For Caden’s future.

The nurse came to give her take-home instructions. Rest. No pressure on it at all. Ice. Compression. Elevation. For forty-eight hours. After delivering the directions, she left to retrieve a wheelchair.

“I can help, Mom.” Caden’s small voice begged her attention. Her mask of indifference had lifted, and Sam caught a glimpse of the old Caden.

“With what?”

“The painting and stuff. I can do it.”

Caden couldn’t possibly do all the work. Sam was proud she’d offered. She smiled at her daughter. “I appreciate that, hon.” The ache in her ankle made her want to check out for a while. “We’ll figure it out later, all right?”

There was really nothing to figure out. Sam would have to do the work. She could load up on painkillers and paint on one leg, right? She’d wrap her ankle during the day and elevate and ice it at night. She could hop around to keep her weight off it. She imagined the jarring it would cause and cringed. Maybe she could borrow a crutch from someone.

Landon came to her bedside and rested his hands on the metal rails. “I see that look in your eyes.”

“What?” she asked innocently.

“You need to do what the doc said. Otherwise, you won’t be able to work come next Monday. Or worse yet, your ankle won’t heal right.”

Sam lowered her voice so Caden wouldn’t hear. “You know I can’t do that. There’s too much work for a kid. The floors will be a challenge even for me.”

“Then just leave it. Does it really matter if they’re done? The house will sell as is.”

How could he understand how much every dollar counted to her? He was a successful veterinarian, and she was a struggling single mother. “You wouldn’t understand.”

A house in tiptop shape could fetch thousands more than a house that still needed work. Stopping now was like throwing thousands of dollars into the sea. She’d worked too hard to be so wasteful.

“I can see by the stubborn set of your jaw that I’m wasting my breath.”

Good. Maybe he would stop pestering her about it.

He sighed. “Fine. I’ll take off work this week and—”

“No,” she said firmly. She wasn’t putting him out again. He was always helping her.

“—move my appointments to next week. I can just work extra hours . . . when you’re gone.” Something deadened in his eyes when he said the last part. He looked down as his fists tightened around the bed rail.

“No,” she said again. “This is my problem, and I’ll handle it.”

“I’ve got vacation time coming, no big deal.” He shrugged one shoulder.

“Some vacation. You’ll work on my house all week,
then work extra hours when you get back.”

“We’re friends. Friends are there for each other, right?” His green eyes warmed again. For just a moment she wanted to get lost in them.

He made it sound like nothing. Sure, friends were supposed to be there for each other, but why was it always him being there for her? It made her feel needy. She wasn’t needy.

The nurse entered with a wheelchair, her wide hips swaying. “All right, Miss Owens, let’s get you on your way.”

Sam sat up, giving Landon one last look. “This conversation isn’t over,” she said quietly.

He smiled, a little too cocky for her liking. “It is. You just don’t know it yet.”

Twenty-three

F
rom Sam’s vantage on the couch, she watched Landon and Caden roll on paint. Pillows propped up her foot on the coffee table, and Ace bandages encompassed her swollen ankle.

The pain was better today but had awakened her at least a dozen times in the night, forcing her to hobble from the couch through the house for the Advil.

Since this morning, though, Caden hadn’t let her get up once. Landon came early and set to work. Caden dutifully brought out the bag of peas every three hours and set the timer on the stove for twenty minutes.

Sam measured time by her ice pack. The TV was off by her own choice; there was nothing worthwhile to watch. Caden tuned the radio to an oldies station, and as Sam watched Landon pour paint into the pan, she tapped her fingers to the upbeat tune.

“Hungry yet?” he asked.

She was tempted to say yes just to relieve the boredom. “No.”

“Need more Advil?”

“It’s not time yet,” Caden answered. “The bottle says every four to six hours.”

“Okay, then, Nurse Owens.” Landon tossed Caden a smile.

Sam was surprised at her daughter’s response to the injury. She’d never seen this mother hen side, and she realized Caden would make a great big sister. After their argument the day before, she was relieved her daughter’s anger had been curbed, even though it had taken an injury to do so.

Still, Sam felt better about staying within earshot of Caden and Landon. One slip was all it would take to unload her secret and change everything.

Awhile later, Landon prepared a simple lunch and carried it to the backyard, then he lifted Sam off the sofa as if she weighed nothing.

Sam rested her arm on his shoulder. “This is ridiculous. I feel so helpless.”

“You’re not helpless, just injured. Let someone lend a hand for a change.”

She tried to relax her body in his arms. He was always helping her, for heaven’s sake.
And you’re always pushing him away
.

Caden was diving into her sandwich when Landon settled Sam into a chair and pulled up another one to elevate her foot.

Above the whooshing sound of the waves rushing the shoreline, Sam heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway.

“I’ll be right back.” Landon trotted down the porch steps and around the house.

“Wonder who that is.” Sam dug into the bologna sandwich and chips, gulping down the ice water. The throbbing in her ankle intensified, and she realized it was time for medication.

Caden offered to get it, and while she was in the house, Landon returned, holding two crutches.

She grinned wryly. “Where did those come from?”

“Scott. Hopefully they’re the right height.” He leaned them against the wall at her side, then seated himself across from her.

Sam was surprised Scott was letting her borrow them. She’d always figured him for the sort whose kindergarten report card read “Does not share with others.” Besides, it was obvious the man wanted her gone yesterday, and that he disapproved of her friendship with Landon. Little did he know she didn’t want Landon here any more than he did.

Sam set her glass back on the table. “Getting tired of carrying me around?”

“Yep.” He smiled around the bite of food.

When they were finished eating, she hobbled back into the house on the crutches. By the time she made it to the couch, she was glad to elevate her ankle again. The jarring steps had aggravated it, and it seemed all the blood had rushed down, resuming the staccato throb.

Landon and Caden finished the kitchen and moved into the living room. The furniture was squished into the center of the room to allow access to the walls. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” played in the background. Not her favorite song. She laid her head against the sofa back and listened to the sucking sound of the rollers working against the walls. The window behind her was open, and fresh air trickled in, alleviating the heavy smell of paint fumes.

Landon balanced on the ladder, rolling paint onto the ceiling. His denim shorts hugged his hips, and Sam followed the long line of his sturdy legs to his tennis shoes. He rose up on his toes, and his calf muscles bunched in hard knots. She looked away.

She must be bored if she was checking out Landon. Wasn’t there a book or magazine anywhere in this stinking house? Sam tapped her good foot and drummed her fingers on the end table. She wanted up! She wanted out of here. She wanted to do the work herself, not sit here watching others do it. Stupid ankle.

Aretha Franklin’s voice crooned about respect from the radio. Caden turned it up, then resumed rolling the wall beside Landon’s ladder. He began singing, working in time with the beat.

Seconds later, Caden joined him. She swayed with the rhythm, waggling her head as she sang the words.

Caden and Landon traded a smile, singing in unison. Sam’s mouth curved into a grin. Caden was a good dancer. She was doing more dancing than painting as her roller went over and over the same spot.