On the Way to a Wedding (7 page)

“Yes, I know.”

“You know what?”

“That I could do a lot worse.”

“Victoria, don’t be like that.”

· · · · ·

Ryder pushed the button on the parking gate, and then waited. And waited.

Finally, the useless machine spit out a ticket for him. He found a parking spot and got out of the truck. A few speckles of rain touched his face.

He’d talked to the RCMP. They would arrange for towing the Honda to Cochrane.

The automatic doors of the ER whooshed open to admit him and he stepped into the waiting room.

The air had a non smell. Not offending, but not fresh either. The air conditioning was doing its job. Beige walls, beige tiled floors. Gray metal chairs with gray fabric, set in a grid. They needed Catherine in here to decorate.

Four boys in baseball uniforms sat near the door. One of them held an ice pack on his eye.

In the next row, an old man rested with his eyes closed. A bunched up brown corduroy jacket drooped over his lap.

Two chairs down, a smartly dressed woman sat beside a little girl, maybe four years old. She wore pink overalls and held a worn teddy bear in her arms, rocking it, and crying. The woman was reading a magazine. She turned the page slowly, ignoring the child.

And then, around the post, he saw Toria sitting alone, still wearing the same clothes as last night. The pink sleeveless shirt. The jeans with the muddy hems. Her injured foot was propped on her other foot, down on the floor.

No mother, thankfully.

“How’s it going?”

“You’re back?”

He dropped her purse in her lap. “You forgot your purse.” No use telling her he was trying to prove he could stay away from a job site.

He pulled a chair around and lifted her injured foot up onto it.

She grimaced. “I’m―”

“All right,” he said. “I know.” He sat in the chair next to her.

She looked cold. He should have brought his jacket in. “I called the police.”

“You did?”

“They’ll get your car towed back to Cochrane. Then they’ll want to talk to you.”

She looked at the floor, nodding her head.

“I already told them about the potholes in the road—they know about that road. They asked me if you were drunk. I told them you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Not when you were driving. But the peaches―”

“I didn’t know about the brandy.”

“Do you have collision on the car?”

“Collision?”

Please tell me she knows what that means
.

“Yes.”

“Then your insurance company will want to get your car out of the impound lot.”

“Can’t the police tow it straight to a garage?”

“That’s not the way it works.”

“So my insurance company will get it towed to a garage?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s totaled.”

“That means they can’t fix it?”

God, she was dense.
“That is what it means.”

“Then why not tow it straight to a scrapyard?”

“Your adjuster will have to look at it.”

“My adjuster?”

“You do have insurance, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. But―”

He took her purse out of her hands and zipped it open.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for your wallet.” Because it was going to take forever otherwise. He lifted the burgundy wallet out just as she pulled the purse away from him.

“You can’t do that!”

He flipped the wallet open. “I’m taking your pink card.” He found it, pulled it out. “I’ll call your insurance company. They’ll contact you. They’ll look at the car. And then they’ll tow it to a scrapyard.” He folded her wallet and handed it back to her.

“Why?”

Why?
“Would you like to keep it? Sentimental value?” Is that how women did things? At least women like this? Catherine didn’t have a sentimental bone in her body.

“I mean, the Good Samaritan thing. Why are you doing this?” She paused. “Helping me.”

Finally, a good question. “Because I don’t have anything else to do today,” he admitted. “My fiancée tells me I have trouble staying away from work. So I’m staying away.” And then he added, “For one day.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Do you like your work?”

“Love it.”

“Then . . .”

“Then what?”

She shrugged and smiled. A sort of smile. Kind of sad. “It’s funny. I like my work. Mostly. But my fiancé says I spend too much time there.”

He ran his fingers over the pink card from
Loche Monne
, reading her address. She lived in Dalhousie. Probably in The Towers.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a teacher.”

A teacher? “Really?”

“What do you mean—
really?
”

“I didn’t think . . . well―” What had he thought? “I put you more as a . . .”

“A what?”

“I don’t know.”
A bimbo
. “Just not a teacher. Where’s your mother?”

“Making a phone call.”

“Cancelling the wedding?”

“Not yet.”

“You sound hopeful.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

A middle-aged, overweight nurse with a big smile and an orange uniform interrupted them. “Victoria Whitney? Oh good,” she said, looking at the wallet in Toria’s hands. “Your fiancé brought your Alberta Health Care card.”

Fiancé?
Did the nurse think
he
was the fiancé?

Amused at the thought, he watched as Toria fumbled through her wallet and handed the card to the nurse.

“You got here fast,” the nurse said, smiling at him.

Yeah, she thought
he
was the fiancé. A complete misunderstanding. As if he could ever be this woman’s fiancé.

“I can bring you in now,” the nurse said. “I’ll get a wheelchair.”

“That’s all right.” Ryder got to his feet. “Just tell me where to put her.”

Another big smile, directed at him. “Hospital policy,” the nurse said. “I’ll get her a wheelchair. Then you can bring her in.” She left.

“You?” Toria asked.

“Why not? I don’t have anything else to do.”

“But―”

The orange smiling nurse was back, pushing the wheelchair.

Ryder stood in front of Toria and reached for her waist. She glanced up at him for a second, then put her hands on his forearms. Cold hands. As cold as they’d been last night. He lifted her over to the wheelchair.

“Right this way. Follow me,” the cheerful nurse said, taking Toria’s purse.

They entered a large room with rows of stretchers on either side and a mission-control-style desk in the center. Beige curtains hung from the ceiling and divided the area into cubicles.

Ryder pushed the wheelchair, following the orange nurse past the desk, to the last cubicle on the right, the only one without an occupant.

“You can help her up here,” the nurse said, as she put Toria’s purse on the nearby table and began propping up the head of the stretcher.

Ryder locked the brakes on the wheelchair, lifted Toria in his arms and set her on the stretcher.

“Oh my,” the nurse said, looking like she hadn’t expected him to get Toria out of the wheelchair so quickly. She lifted the rails on her side, walked around to the other side and lifted those as well. “You can have a seat,” she said, as she whisked out of the curtained area. “The doctor will be right in.”

Ryder pulled the beige chair away from the wall and positioned it so he could watch the central desk.

Nurses—or doctors or whatever they were—flitted back and forth from the stretchers to the desk, sometimes sitting in one of the swivel chairs and sometimes hovering near the desk for a few seconds before buzzing back out of sight.

The desk held racks of silver colored clipboards, piles of brown envelopes, clear bags of fluid labeled with red tape, three monitors beeping out wiggly patterns, and an empty clear plastic Starbucks cup with a green straw.

“Why are you staying?”

“She told me to have a seat.”

“She offered you a seat. She didn’t tell you to do anything.”

A short, tired looking doctor with shaggy brown hair and rumpled green scrubs hurried into the curtained area. The pockets of his long white lab coat bulged with two coil bound notebooks, four pens, a stethoscope, what looked like a small hammer and who knew what else. The doctor consulted his clipboard, glanced at Toria’s tensored ankle and looked at Ryder. “Take off the tensor?”

Ryder stood up and took the clips off the bandage while the doctor scribbled on his clipboard. His name tag said
Dr. B. Delanghe
.

“What happened?”

“I guess I twisted my ankle getting out of the car.”

“In a hurry?”

“Well, the car was in the ditch. I thought I should get out.”

Dr. Delanghe stared at the notes on the chart. Probably the nurse had already asked all these questions.

“Seat belt,” Dr. Delanghe mumbled. “Good.” And then, “Air bag?” He lifted his eyebrows and looked at Toria. “The car must have been going fast.”

“No. It just stopped quickly,” Toria told him.

Ryder glanced at her. Was she toying with the doctor? She looked serious, but she always looked serious. And clued out. And kind of sad.

“Are you finished?” the doctor asked him.

Finished?

Right, he thought. He’d been holding Toria’s foot in his hands. He let go and started rolling up the bandage.

Dr. Delanghe set down his clipboard and picked up Toria’s ankle. Tensing, she drew a breath as he pushed and prodded. In a few minutes, he was finished.

“Just a sprain,” he said. “Tell your mother not to worry. You’ll be fine in three weeks. You’ll be able to walk down the aisle.” He scribbled some notes, spending more time with the chart than Toria’s ankle. “Make sure she rests,” he said, speaking to Ryder. “Ice for comfort. Keep the tensor on as long as there’s swelling. And keep the extremity elevated. That should take care of it.”

“What about her head?”

The doctor stared at him. “What about her head?”

“I think she hit her head.”

“I
didn’t
hit my head.”

Dr. Delanghe retrieved a small flashlight from one of the bulging pockets and flicked it at Toria’s eyes. “She’s alert, awake, oriented. No deficients.”

He pulled out a pad of paper and looked at Toria. “Do you have any allergies?”

She hesitated, and then, “None that I know of.”

Dr. Delanghe scribbled on his pad, then handed the piece of paper to Ryder.

It was a prescription for 292s. He’d had those before. They made him fall asleep.

Then the doctor wrote something else on the chart and closed it.

“Can she go now?”

“Soon,” Dr. Delanghe said. “Put the tensor back on. Physio will be in to fit her for crutches. Then you can take her home.” With that, he was gone.

Ryder set the prescription on the end of the stretcher and picked up the tensor. “You live in Dalhousie? The Towers?” He wove the bandage around and around.

“Yes. But how―”

“I’ve got your insurance card.” Almost done, just needed the clips.

He looked at her. She had another question forming somewhere in that scatterbrained head of hers. “I’ve got your luggage.” He paused. “And a wedding dress.”

She closed her eyes.

He’d guessed right. She wasn’t supposed to be carting around her wedding dress.

“I could give it all to your mother,” he said, making it sound like it wouldn’t make any difference. He attached the clips to the tensor and released her foot.

“Uh . . .”

“Or I could bring it by later.” He rested his hands on the edge of the stretcher. “Will your mother be taking you home? Or to her place?”

“Home,” Toria said, firmly. “My apartment.”

He picked up the prescription again. “Six. Tonight. Don’t do anything special. I’ll bring dinner.”

“But―”

“You like pizza?”

Her mother fluttered into the room. “Victoria, I was looking for you. What did the doctor say? Will your ankle be all right?”

Ryder looked at Toria, right into her deep green eyes. “Well?”

She looked back at him, holding his gaze. He could see the struggle going on in her mind, the weighing of options. And then she nodded.

“Victoria?” Her mother again, asking for attention. “Will it be all right?”

Toria’s face showed doubt and wariness, and something he couldn’t name. She seemed to brace herself. “It’s a sprain,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”

Her mother exhaled, like she’d had a close call. Finally, she looked at Ryder. “What are
you
doing here?”

Oddly, it felt like an attack. He took a step back from the stretcher, set his stance and felt the need for discretion. “Toria forgot her purse in my truck.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “She’s so forgetful. And it’s Vic-toria. You don’t still use that nickname do you, Victoria?”

With her mouth half open, Toria stared at her mother.

“Let’s go then. I have to meet Geraldine. The chef at the Red and―”

“She needs crutches first.” Somebody needed to stand up for Toria, since she didn’t seem to be standing up for herself. At least not with her mother.

Mrs. Whitney stared at him. “Crutches?”

“Yeah. They’re these stick-like things that you lean on. They help you to walk.”

Mrs. Whitney watched him for a second longer. And then she laughed. “What a funny man. Yes. Well. Where do we get the crutches?”

“Physiotherapy will bring them.” He handed Mrs. Whitney the prescription. “You’ll need to get this filled for her.”

Mrs. Whitney glanced at the paper and then looked up at the ceiling. “Oh my. So many things to do.” She stared at her daughter on the stretcher and shook her head. “Victoria, you can be so much trouble.”

· · · · ·

Toria watched him leave, saw his tall dark form turn around the corner of the nursing station and disappear from sight.

Why had she agreed to let him come over tonight?

“How long will this take?” Her mother glanced at her watch. She was probably tapping her foot.

But what was the alternative? If she hadn’t agreed, he would have hauled in her luggage—and the infamous wedding dress. And―

“Geraldine and I need to meet with the caterers at the Red & White club.”