She stepped in front of him. His features were set, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I appreciate you coming to help Travis with Calvin. And about the other. I, um…” Words failed her. How could she express what she was feeling when she couldn’t begin to sort out the tangled mess of her emotions? “Thank you.”
He opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, but clamped it shut. His gaze bounced around. After several excruciating seconds, he looked her in the eye. “I’m not as coldhearted as you seem to think, Coralee. Your brother and your father needed help, so I helped them, but my job here is done. I won’t darken your doorstep again.”
She couldn’t let him leave. Not yet. He had to understand. “About Daddy. Very few people know.”
“You think I’m going to flap my jaw about what I’ve seen, don’t you?” He scoffed. “I thought you knew me better than that, but clearly I was mistaken. Good day, Miss Culpepper.” He didn’t wait for a reply but strode off, mounted his horse in one graceful movement, and headed for the 7 Heart.
She watched as Houston put distance between them. The chasm was wider than ever. Why that troubled her, she didn’t know, but it did. He’d accused her of not knowing him. Perhaps she didn’t, not as well as she’d thought anyhow. She didn’t have time to ponder that. Her family needed her. She headed back inside, dragged herself up the stairs, and entered Calvin’s room.
Her brother looked up from where he lay, propped up against his pillows just as Daddy was in his room down the hall. Calvin sent her a lopsided smile and spoke in a slurred voice. “Howdy, sis. Sorry about this.” He swept a hand at his chest, the bulky bandage around it visible through the cotton of his nightshirt.
“I’m sorry for you. That Toro is a troublemaker.”
“Yep.” Calvin chuckled and winced.
Travis snapped his leather case closed. “No laughing for you for a while, Calvin. You need to heal, and that’s serious business.”
“Whatever you say, Doc. Right now, I need … to take … a siesta.“ He closed his eyes and was asleep before Coralee and Travis reached the hallway.
She closed Calvin’s door and accompanied Travis to the upper landing, where she asked the question that had been on her mind ever since hearing the news. “How is he?” She dreaded the answer. Calvin’s injury was serious. A ranch hand had been run over by a wagon when she was a girl, and a number of his ribs were broken. He’d died a week later.
“The dose of laudanum I’ve given him will help ease the pain, but keeping him down won’t be easy. If he’s to heal properly, he has to stay in bed the next four weeks. You can help by seeing that he does.”
A month? What was she to do about the ranch? Since Calvin had dismissed his foreman the year before and taken over his duties, there was no one to fill that role while her brother was laid up. “I’ll do what I can, but he’ll be champing at the bit to get back to work.”
“Houston is going to ask Pa if he knows of someone who could fill in.”
“That’s kind of him.” He hadn’t mentioned that when she’d talked to him outside. “Oh. In all the excitement, I almost forgot. I’d like you to take a look at Daddy. His lack of color concerns me.”
“Certainly.” Travis followed her into her father’s room and performed a quick examination. He pulled the sheet back into place and nodded toward the door. “If you’ll see me out, I’ll tell you what I think.”
She led the way to the entryway below, clutched the edge of the narrow console table, and braced herself for the news. “He’s failing, isn’t he?”
“I don’t see a marked change, but it does appear his circulation has become even more sluggish. You’ve been completing the arm and leg lifts regularly, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Morning, noon, and night, just like you said. Sally and I stretch his palms and rotate his ankles the way you showed us, too.”
Travis glanced from Daddy’s room to Calvin’s. “I know you’ll be busy tending to your brother’s needs, as well, but if you could increase your father’s sessions to six a day, that would help to stimulate his blood flow and might result in better coloring.”
“I’ll do whatever he needs.”
“I’m sorry, Coralee. You’ve been doing a fine job, but it just got harder. My family will do all we can to help. You can count on that.”
Travis meant well, but there was one Hart who wouldn’t set foot on the Culpepper ranch. Not that she wanted him to. She didn’t need Houston throwing her world out of balance any more than he already had.
Chapter Six
Sweat trickled down Houston’s brow. He removed it with a quick swipe of his sleeve. He’d forgotten what hard work stacking hay was. Although his work cutting firewood to sell in his hardware store out West had kept him in shape, haying used different muscles. Several of them were protesting now. At least the temperature wasn’t a problem. He’d dealt with heat in California. The humidity in south-central Texas was another story. He wasn’t accustomed to it. But he would readjust.