Small-Town Dreams (21 page)

He and Prize took the last hedge and charged up the hill after her. “How was that?” he called on his way up.

“Perfect. You’re really ready this time.”

“I hope so. I don’t know if I want to be doing this in another four years.”

Hope nodded and looked around. “I love this view. Have you thought any more about getting Lavender Hill up and running again as a full-service farm?”

Jeff’s smile turned sad. “You mean other than that Father and Mother are already spinning in their graves because I’m breeding stock?”

“How long are you going to go on trying to please them? You went to the college you did because it was what they expected. You joined that stupid snooty fraternity because it was the right one to join. Sometimes I think the only reason you’re working so hard for the Olympics is that it gives you a blue-blooded excuse to ride. They’re gone, Jeff. You don’t have to win their notice by living your life in their
right way
any more.”

Jeff narrowed his gray eyes beneath the velvet peak of his helmet. “Well, you’re back at home again.”

Hope nodded. “But I made Dad come after me and beg me to come back. And he had to give me a raise. I’ve always been faithful to the Lord, much to my father’s annoyance. And I did invite you to the Valentine’s Party.” She grinned. “And you’re on his favorite horse right now.”

“Prize is incredible, by the way. I wish Ross had sold him to me. I’d be a shoo-in at the trials with him.”

“You’re a shoo-in anyway. Mr. March is a wonderfully trained animal.”

Jeff grimaced comically. “I still can’t believe I let you talk me into naming him that.”

Hope laughed. “It’ll keep you humble when you’re on the podium wearing that gold medal. They’ll be playing the national anthem and you’ll be thinking about how to explain his name to the reporters.”

Jeff stared at her, suddenly serious. “Why am I riding Ross’s Prize, Hope?”

Hope knew what he was asking. Her heart pounded. Jeff had always wanted a chance to ride Prize, and saddling him had been a conscious decision on her part. The answer he sought was a telling one. She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Because this was a good way to show my father who I’d choose if I’m forced to make a choice between you and him. Considering your parents, I thought maybe you needed to know that.”

“I did need to know that because—” he began, but Hope was suddenly nervous. If Jeff felt as she did, their relationship would change forever and there would be no going back. She wheeled Golden Boy away and downhill.

Hope would never know what Jeff had intended to say. As he followed her over the first hedge, the world went instantly insane. She watched it happen as if it were in slow motion while recognizing that time was moving full speed ahead. Prize left the ground with Jeff in perfect position, but then, in the next split second, the saddle broke loose and Jeff was falling backward. A look of surprise and consternation crossed his features, but that quickly changed. He landed on his back on the hard-packed soil, and his face contorted in pain. Then he went slack and still.

Hope was at his side without remembering her dismount or falling to her knees. “Jeff!” she shouted, but he didn’t respond. She looked toward the cluster of buildings half a mile away then at him lying broken on the ground. She had no choice but to leave him there. He needed help. And he needed it now.

Ross’s Prize had bolted as soon as Jeff hit the ground, but he wasn’t headed for the stables, so no one would know there was a problem. Harry Donovan was about to mount up when Hope galloped into the main yard. There were several other workers standing around “Call nine-one-one,” she shouted to no one in particular. “Jeff was thrown. He’s unconscious. Send the ambulance to the first rise above the eastern paddocks.”

The farm foreman frowned as he pulled out a cell phone. “You let Jeffrey Carrington ride Ross’s Prize?”

“And he’s running loose. I have to get back to Jeff.” Hope wheeled away and thundered up the hill, Donovan bringing up the rear. She didn’t want Jeff coming to alone and trying to get up. It would be up to the paramedics to say if it was safe for him to move.

But that didn’t turn out to be a problem, because he didn’t come to at all. Not when the paramedics arrived, sirens screaming. Not when they carefully rolled him so they could strap him to a back board. Not when they called for the rescue helicopter, nor by the time it took off, leaving her to watch him fly off alone in the care of strangers.

His whole life, Jeff had been alone.

No one was up at Laurel House, so Hope left a message with Sally and drove to the hospital. Later she would realize that she didn’t remember starting the car, or leaving Laurel Glen, or running into the emergency ward. The first thing she recalled was making a call to her church’s prayer chain after being told Jeff was still unconscious. She asked the chain leader to find someone to go break the news and to stay with Mrs. Roberts, Lavender Hill’s longtime housekeeper and the only real mother Jeff had ever known.

Then Hope had time to think. And to place blame. And that blame was all hers. When the paramedics had arrived, she’d picked up the saddle to get it out of their way and had been appalled by the condition of the girth. She’d stared in horror at the cracked and broken leather and the buckles still attached to the saddle. How, she asked herself over and over, had she missed such a danger when she’d saddled Prize for Jeff?

She paced and paced, going over and over that morning in her mind. But she’d been so excited by the flowers and his eagerness to ride with her. And nervous. She’d been keyed up and distracted. Had she been so distracted that she hadn’t obeyed safety rules? How could she have let herself forget to check the condition of the tack?

She just didn’t know.

At some point, Hope realized she had her fist so tightly clenched that her nails had scraped her palm raw. She went to wash her hands, fully aware of the danger of abrasions when working around animals. The burning sensation subsided some, but that left her with only her fears for Jeff and her guilt to haunt and consume her once again.

She found herself at a bank of windows staring at the sky.
Lord, please watch over Jeff and keep him safe. I love him. I know You would rather I love another believer, but that isn’t going to happen. I’ve tried to put my feelings for him aside, but I guess I’ve loved Jeff too long to stop. My dream has always been to show him Your salvation, but I can’t do that if You let him die. Please give him back to me.

“Hope?” Cole called as he strode into the waiting room. “What happened?” he asked as he gathered her in his arms. “Manuel said Jeff fell off Prize. That’s ridiculous. Jeff rides like he’s glued to the saddle.”

“The saddle came off and Jeff with it. I still can’t believe it. We were up on the rise between the two properties standing still and talking. Then we rode downhill, and when he took the first hedgerow, Jeff was suddenly flying backward and so was the saddle. He hit hard and he’s been out since, as far as I know. They won’t tell me anything because I’m not family. But Cole, he hasn’t got any family, and I need to know. Someone should be with him.”

Cole squeezed her shoulders. “Sit down and try to relax. I’ll see what I can do.”

Cole sauntered up to the young nurse at the desk and leaned on the tall counter, curling his ringless left hand over the edge about two feet in front of her face. “Hi, there. I wonder if you could help me.” He beamed his best lady-killer smile at her.

She sent back what he was sure was her best come-hither grin and leaned a bit forward trying to show off her considerable cleavage. Cole was immune to the whole dating game, but she couldn’t know that.

“I can sure try.” She all but purred the words. “What can I do for you?”

“I understand you have Jeffrey Carrington here. I’d like a report on his condition. I’m Dr. Cole Taggert.”

He could have sworn dollar signs flashed in her eyes. “Certainly, Doctor. Meet me at those double doors. I’ll let you in.”

Cole turned and winked at Hope, then approached the doors behind which he was sure Jeff was being treated. They swung open, and he followed the nurse to a big central desk where an Asian man in a lab coat and scrubs scribbled in an illegible script in a steel chart.

“Dr. Chin, this is Dr. Cole Taggert,” the nurse said. “He’s here about Mr. Carrington. Dr. Taggert, this is Dr. Chin, chief of neurology here at Paoli Memorial.”

The man stood and stretched out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Doctor.”

Nothing like a little professional courtesy, Cole thought as he accepted the chart. He’d never understand why medical doctors couldn’t master simple penmanship. He’d have been drummed out of veterinary school for handwriting like this. He handed it back. “Uh, I’m afraid I flunked illegible scrawl one-oh-one. Could you catch me up on my friend’s condition? He has no family but is about to become engaged to my sister.”

“Ah. This is personal for you, then. All right. We’ve ruled out brain injury. He was conscious for a while but we had to sedate him rather heavily when he became agitated over his condition. From what I can see from my exam and the MRI, there is some compression of the spinal cord at L-five S-one, which has produced paralysis, loss of some feeling and weakness of the lower extremities.”

Cole was instantly glad he hadn’t pretended to be Jeff’s doctor. He’d never have been able to hide his reaction. He could feel the blood drain from his head. “He’s paralyzed?”

Chin pursed his lips, then nodded and went on clinically describing what in effect was the end of all Jeff’s Olympic dreams and then some. “As you know, there have been considerable breakthroughs in the treatment of spinal cord injury. His condition could improve quickly or with time and work, but he didn’t seem to hear me say that. What function he has in six months will tell us how well he’ll recover. We’ve given him a corticosteroid to reduce the swelling and minimize further damage.”

“So we wait and see?”

Dr. Chin frowned. “He’ll need extensive therapy, of course.”

“I’d appreciate it if my sister could be with him. As I said, Jeff’s all alone but for her and his staff. Also it might help to realize that until today Jeff was a shoo-in for not only a spot on the U.S. Olympic Equestrian team but for a gold medal, as well.”

Chin nodded. “I can understand why he was so devastated. I’ll see that your sister has liberal access to him. He’ll be sent upstairs at any minute to the fourth floor. Room four-oh-eight. You might want to take your sister up there to wait for him.” The doctor smiled. “So what is your speciality, or are you in general practice?”

Cole grimaced. Granny Taggert’s training was inconvenient at the worst times. “My speciality? Equine surgery, actually. I’d better get back to my sister. Thanks for your help.”

The doctor’s soft laughter didn’t lighten Cole’s heart in the least as he made his way to the automatic doors at the end of the corridor. This wasn’t going to be easy. He didn’t know where he’d find the words to destroy Hope’s world.

She ran toward him when he exited the treatment area. “How is he?”

“Come on. Let’s sit down.” Cole took her by the arm and directed her to a chair in the waiting room. She sank bonelessly into it and looked at him, her blue eyes awash with tears.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Cole squatted and took her hands. “No, kitten, but he’s got some big problems.”

Her voice shook. “What kind of problems?”

There was no easy way to say it. “He’s paralyzed.”

“No. Oh, no. I can’t believe I did this to him. It’s all my fault. I invited him. I missed the damaged girth.”

“Don’t, Hope. It could just as easily have been a car accident.”

“But it wasn’t.”

Cole’s cell phone rang and he reached for it. “Hold on a second, kitten. This is from Laurel Glen.” He pushed the talk button. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” his father said. “Where are you and what’s all this about that boneheaded Carrington riding Prize and getting dumped off? Some Olympic contender.”

Cole gritted his teeth. “I’m with Hope at the hospital. Jeff’s not good. It looks as if he’s paralyzed. We don’t know how permanent that is yet.” Cole’s eyes widened at his father’s language. “Dad!”

“Sorry. Tell Hope I’m sorry he was hurt.”

That didn’t sound as if he intended to come to the hospital. Cole looked at Hope, who sat staring ahead, tears rolling down her cheeks. She needed her father, not a brother who’d been gone for thirteen years. “What time do you expect to get here?”

“I don’t,” Ross Taggert snapped. “Something’s wrong with Prize and I need you to look at him. He’s hurt and in considerable pain.”

“It’s probably because he was balanced for a hundred and ninety pounds of rider and tack that suddenly went airborne before he landed. I hate to leave Hope here alone.”

“Well, don’t expect me to go there,” Ross Taggert snapped. “If she hadn’t let him ride my horse without my permission, none of this would have happened.”

Cole gripped the phone tighter, annoyed by his father’s attitude and worried about Hope and Jeff. He felt torn. “I’ll come home, but I’m heading back here as soon as I get a look at Prize.” He disconnected, not waiting for a reply, and hunkered down in front of Hope. “Listen, when they found Prize, he was hurt. I’ll be back as soon as I get a look at him and take care of whatever’s wrong.”