Native Affairs (65 page)

“I was trimming the fuel line when the knife slipped,” he replied tersely, wadding the dingy terry cloth against his hand. It was rapidly turning red.

“That’s really bleeding badly, you have to get to the hospital,” Ann said. “Let me just run inside and get my car keys and I’ll take you there.”

“No way,” he replied. “My truck is parked out by the road, I can drive.”

“You can’t drive with your hand like that, especially a manual transmission,” Ann said, already turning for the house. She didn’t wait for him to answer but sprinted back inside, grabbing her purse from her dresser and pulling a pair of shorts on over her bikini bottoms. She paused to slip into her sandals as Luisa came after her and asked, “Where do you think you’re going? Lunch is almost ready.”

“The boy working on the boat hurt his hand badly, I’m taking him to Palm Hospital,” Ann replied, running for the side door leading to the garage.

“You can’t drive him all the way to the hospital!” Luisa called anxiously, scuttling after her charge. “Let one of the carpet cleaners take him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ann said to Luisa over her shoulder, jumping into her car and pressing the release for the garage door, which began to ascend automatically behind them. “They have a schedule to keep and they’re already unraveling the hose from the van. And you know what my father will say if his rug isn’t cleaned on time. I’m doing nothing, I can take him. Now get out of the way so I can back up the car, okay?”

Luisa moved reluctantly, her expression unhappy, as Ann backed the car down the long drive leading to the street. Once there she saw that the boat workman was trying to do a U turn in his ancient truck, operating the controls with his injured hand.

Ann zoomed in front of him, blocking his truck with her car. She got out, leaving her door open as she walked over to him and looked up inquiringly into the cab.

“Get out of my way,” he said tightly, not even pausing to glance at her.

“Having a little trouble?” she asked mildly.

“I’ll make it,” he replied shortly.

“Sure you will, if you can manage to drive that Stone Age truck with your mangled hand and don’t pass out from loss of blood along the way.”

“Not all of us can afford a new sports car every year, Miss Talbot,” he said irritably. He threw the truck into reverse awkwardly and it lurched and died. He closed his eyes.

“Very good—looks like you’re stuck. Now will you stop being such a macho idiot and let me drive you to the hospital?”

He said nothing, his conflicted expression indicating the struggle between his overwhelming desire to handle the situation himself and his realization that she was right. Logic finally won and he put the truck into neutral and let it roll to the side of the road. Then he jumped down from the cab and said tersely, “I’m going to bleed all over your fancy leather upholstery.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” Ann replied, getting back behind the wheel of her car as he slid into the front seat on the passenger side, trying futilely to rewrap the already sopping towel around his wound.

“Use this,” she said, grabbing a sweater from her back seat and handing it to him.

“Isn’t this yours?” he said, accepting the garment with his good hand.

“I have others,” she said shortly.

He shot her an unreadable glance and then did as she said, dropping the towel on the floor and substituting her pullover for it. He cradled the injured hand in his lap and sat bolt upright, looking out the window as Ann drove.

“Why don’t you sit back and relax?” she said to him. “I’m not going to bite you.”

He obeyed, letting his shoulders touch the seat and closing his eyes. He looked pale beneath his tan and seemed drained. The loss of blood, or the shock of the accident, must have been affecting him.

“You should hold your hand upright and put pressure on the cut,” Ann said. “It will slow the bleeding.”

“Who are you, Florence Nightingale?”

“I had a first-aid course in school.”

“Stop telling me what to do, okay?”

Ann shrugged. “Okay. I’m only trying to help.”

Out of the corner of her eye Ann saw him lift the injured hand with the good one and press his opposing thumb over the cut.

She smiled to herself and kept on driving.

The trip to the hospital over the causeway to Big Palm Island took only ten minutes, but it seemed longer. When they reached the emergency room entrance he bolted out the door of her car as soon as it stopped moving.

“Hey, wait for me!” Ann called, throwing the gearshift into park and grabbing her keys from the ignition. By the time she got inside he was already registering with the clerk.

“Insurance?” the clerk said.

He shook his head.

“You have no insurance?” the clerk asked.

“That’s right.”

“I will pay cash for it,” Ann said, producing her wallet.

He turned around and glared at her. “You’re not paying for this with your old man’s money!” he said in a fierce undertone.

“They might not take you otherwise.”

He snatched the wallet from her hand and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

“You two kids want to take this outside?” the clerk said in a bored tone, pencil poised above the admitting form.

“I’ll pay cash,” he said firmly as Ann rooted in the trash for her wallet.

“Fine,” the clerk said. “Fill in the bottom part of this form and then see the triage nurse.”

He took the clipboard with his good hand and sat in one of the plastic chairs lined up in the emergency room. Ann, wallet secured, sat next to him.

“Look, you did me a favor and brought me here, now you can go,” he said to her.

She looked back at him blankly.

“Thank you,” he added shortly.

Ann didn’t move.

He sighed and began to fill out the form, holding the clipboard awkwardly on his lap.

“You’re getting bloodstains on that paper,” Ann said.

He ignored her.

“You’re putting the information in the wrong section,” Ann noted pointedly, and he turned to her abruptly, dropping the clipboard on the floor. He groaned.

“Why don’t you let me do it?” Ann suggested as she retrieved the board for him. “Just dictate and I’ll write. You’ll bleed to death before they see you at this rate.”

“I can do it myself!” he said as her sweater slipped off his hand and a fresh smear of blood stained his pants.

Ann scribbled the date and time in the correct square and said, “Name?”

He closed his eyes in extreme forbearance, waited a beat and then said resignedly, “Heath Bodine.”

“Last name spelling?”

He spelled it.

“Address?”

He gave a Port Lisbon address unfamiliar to her.

“Age?”

In the course of the exercise, she found out that he was a nineteen-year-old male and worked full-time at Jensen’s Marina. Her reaction was disappointment. The only thing she hadn’t known before was his age and she didn’t learn any new information.

He turned in the form and was called by the triage nurse, who determined that he could wait his turn among the senior citizens, the toddler with a fever, and the plumber who had caught his hand in a pipe, all currently sitting in the reception area. He returned to his seat and stared straight ahead as Ann said, “Heath?”

He looked at her.

“Why are you trying so hard to get rid of me?”

“There’s nothing more for you to do.”

“I’d like to wait and make sure that you’re all right.”

“I’m all right, or the triage nurse would have sent me in ahead of the others. The cut’s hardly bleeding anymore, you can see that. You can go.”

She held his gaze with hers, feeling his cat’s eyes penetrating to her very soul. She felt like she was drowning in them.

“Humor me, okay?” she said softly.

His lips relaxed slowly into the trace of a smile.

“Okay,” he said.

They sat in companionable silence for another fifteen minutes. Toward the end of the wait, Ann got up from her seat and purchased a can of orange juice from a nearby vending machine. She took a sip and then handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he said.

“An atomic bomb,” she answered.

He shot her a sidelong glance.

“Juice to help your system replenish the blood you’ve lost,” Ann said.

“Another souvenir of your first-aid course?” he said.

“Haven’t you ever donated blood?” Ann asked. “They always give you juice and cookies.”

“Good works are not high on my list of activities,” he replied dryly. “So, where are my cookies?”

“I’m working under makeshift conditions here. Juice is the best I can do.”

An emergency room nurse in surgical greens came through the admitting door and called Heath’s name.

“Courage!” Ann whispered as he got up, and he looked back at her, obviously suppressing a grin.

When he returned a short time later, he had four stitches in his hand and a prescription for antibiotics. He didn’t volunteer what he had done about the bill and Ann didn’t ask.

“Thanks a lot for your help,” he said, grimacing down at the bandage on his palm. “I can get home from here.”

“I’ll drive you.”

He stared at her.

“Don’t give me an argument, Heath. You have no transportation and I’m standing right here with a fully functioning car waiting outside that entrance.”

He shrugged and followed her through the glass doors to the parking lot. They got into the car and he sat with his long legs stretched out, speaking only to give her directions. When he told her to stop, she looked around in bewilderment. They were at an intersection with railroad tracks on one side and a series of bars on the other.

“There are no houses here,” she said.

“That’s right.”

“But where is yours?”

“I can walk.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll drop you off at the door.”

He was already out of the car. He leaned back in through his open window and said, “Thanks for what you did, Princess. I really do appreciate it.”

Ann watched in amazement as he walked off down the street. Short of chasing him down with the car, she had to let him go.

He obviously didn’t want her to see where he lived.

Ann made a U-turn in the middle of the street and went back the way she had come.

* * * *

Luisa was waiting for Ann in the front hall of the Talbot house when she returned.

“What happened? Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right, Luisa. What’s the matter with you? I took Heath to the hospital, they stitched up his hand, and I drove him home. End of story.”

“You drove him home?”

“Well, to the intersection at Railroad Avenue. He wouldn’t let me go any farther. Where does he live, anyway?”

“Never mind about that, just sit down and eat your lunch. I’ve reheated the soup.”

“I don’t want any lunch, Luisa. I want you to tell me why you’re so twitchy about that guy. Did he just bust out of the county jail or something?”

“Your father would not consider him suitable company,” Luisa said expressionlessly.

“Why, because he lives in Hispaniola? So do you.”

“All poor people are not the same,” Luisa said firmly. “My family may not have much money, but we are always respectable. We work hard, we take care of our children, and we don’t accept welfare.” Her tone was disdainful.

“And Heath’s family?”

Luisa set a bowl of soup on the kitchen table and pointed to a chair. “Sit,” she said.

Ann sat. “If I eat my porridge like a good little bear, will you tell me?”

“It’s none of your business. Why are you so interested in that boy’s background?”

“I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“You’re curious about too much that doesn’t concern you, young lady.”

“That’s because nobody ever tells me anything.” Ann lifted a spoonful of steaming vegetable soup to her mouth and swallowed it ostentatiously. “It’s too hot for soup, anyway, whose idea was this?” she said peevishly.

“Your mother wants you to have a balanced diet.”

“She’s probably eating potato chips and onion dip for lunch at the club,” Ann muttered. “With chocolate turtles for dessert.”

“Your mother is an adult.”

“So am I. In six months, anyway, according to the State of Florida.”

“Until then you’ll eat your soup.”

Ann peered over at the housekeeper, who was now folding dish towels. “What happened to the truck Heath left here earlier?” Ann asked. “I didn’t see it when I drove in just now.”

“I called the marina and they sent someone to pick it up,” Luisa replied.

Ann absorbed the information in silence. Luisa hadn’t wanted Heath to return for it.