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Modern medicine, one. Mother Nature, zero.
She was about to close the chart when one of Mac’s notations caught her eye: Mental status exams inconclusive for residual cognitive impairment. However, nursing staff reports episodes of confusion and disorientation. Consider neurological referral if condition persists.
Before she could ask the nurse on duty about those episodes, the doctor stepped into the cubicle on his evening rounds. He’d been kind enough to drive her home after she’d ridden to the hospital in the ambulance with Joe.
“Hey, Mallory, what are you doing here?” He pulled a patient’s chart from the rack and flipped it open to jot a quick note. “I thought one of the perks of being a clinic doc was no weekend duty.”
“Just checking on Mitchum.” She closed the chart and patted it. “Sounds like he’s doing all right.”
“Physically. He appears to have suffered some memory loss, but considering what he’s been through, his recovery has been amazing. In fact, I’m ready to discharge him.”
She shot him a questioning glance, and he shrugged. “No insurance. I’m catching flak from the business office to cut him loose.”
Mallory groaned. Mac knew her opinion of the early release policy for indigent patients. She turned to the nurse seated nearby. “Good news for the staff, huh? I don’t imagine Mitchum is a very pleasant patient.”
When Nurse Evelyn Dodd looked up, her apple dumpling face was etched with surprise. “Are you kidding? Joe’s a sweetheart. A real pleasure to have on the floor. Such a gentleman.” The middle-aged nurse pulled homemade treats wrapped in cellophane from the stash in her bottom drawer and offered them to the docs. “Here, you two look hungry. Actually, I’ll be sorry to see him go.”
Now it was Mallory’s turn to act surprised. Sweetheart and gentleman were not words she would have chosen to describe Joe Mitchum. “Really? That’s interesting.”
“He hasn’t had a single visitor,” Evelyn went on. “I asked if he wanted me to contact anyone, and he said there was no one to call. That just breaks my heart. A nice boy like that ought to have lots of folks worried about him.”
Nice boy? “We are talking about Joe Mitchum, right?” Mallory could believe the loner had no friends or relatives concerned about his well-being. He’d managed to alienate just about everyone who’d ever tried to have a relationship with him. The thing she found hard to accept was the nurse’s generous assessment of his personality. And the fact that he hadn’t summoned any of his bottom-feeder female companions to his bedside.
“Yeah, he’s not as bad as you made him out to be, Mal.” Mac finished charting and returned the file to the rack. “You had me expecting a dumb oaf with the IQ of a keg of lug nuts. Instead, he’s soft-spoken and polite. Pretty sharp, too, considering how close his brain came to frying like a funnel cake.”
“What gets me is he’s so grateful for every little thing we do for him.” Evelyn wiped a tear from her eye. “It’s embarrassing. I keep telling him I’m just doing my job. Speaking of which…” she slipped her stethoscope around her neck. “I’ve got vitals to check. You docs be good now.”
Mac bit into Evelyn’s brownie and rolled his eyes in bliss. “Mmm, delicious.” He noticed her watching him and sighed. “What?”
Mallory shook her head. “That just doesn’t make sense. I did some research on lightning strike survivors and didn’t find a single case where being charged with 100 million volts of electricity actually improved the victim’s personality.”
Mac laughed. “You never know. Maybe rubbing elbows with the Grim Reaper made the guy turn over a new leaf.”
“Hmph! Joe Mitchum would have to turn over a whole forest to achieve sweetheart status.”
Mac poked the last of the brownie in his mouth and held out his hand for Joe’s chart. “I’m writing the discharge order. I don’t have any medical reason to keep him, and I’ve already told him he could go home.”
“What about the ‘episodes of confusion and disorientation’ I read about?” Mallory fidgeted in the swivel chair. Sitting still was difficult. New nervous energy made her want to keep moving. Moving toward Joe. Disgusted by the thought, she forced herself back to reason.
Mac looked up from his note-writing. “Taking a jolt like that would give anyone a memory lapse. Didn’t your research turn that up?”
“Well, yeah.” Her reading had revealed a broad range of lightning effects. Victims often sustained skull fractures, ruptured eardrums, bruises on the heart, brain contusions and paralyzed lungs, among other things.
“He does fine on cognitive tests, but seems to have a few word finding problems and trouble recalling past events.”
“What about the neurological referral?”
“I told him if he’s still having problems in a week or two to let me know. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye on him for me.”
“Me?”
“Isn’t that what neighbors are for?”
“Please.”
“Are you going to eat that?” Mac eyed the brownie she’d forgotten.
Mallory handed it over. “If you’re planning to remain a confirmed bachelor forever, you really should learn to cook.”
“No time.”
“I think I’ll look in on Joe before I leave.” Mallory made the decision sound professional. In truth, she’d had a weird urge to see him all weekend. What was the matter with her?
Walking down the hall, she gently pushed open the door to his room and watched his clumsy efforts to make the bed for a moment before speaking. “You don’t have to do that, you know.”
At the sound of her voice, he stopped trying to smooth the blanket and turned, leaning on a pair of aluminum crutches. When he saw her, his face creased in a wide, happy grin. “Mol-Mallory! I mean, ma’am. Dr. Peterson. Lordy, I don’t know what to call you.” He grasped the crutches and turned, leaning awkwardly against the bed.
It took Mallory a moment to respond. The lightning bolt had left quite a transformation in its wake. He was clean-shaven for the first time in as long as she could remember. His shaggy hair had been clipped short. A do-it-yourself job, judging from the uneven results. She noticed tiny flecks of gray gleaming among the dark strands. Were those new?
“You can call me Mallory. We go back far enough for that.”
“Yes.” He nodded and gave her a small, enigmatic smile. “We do.” He must have noticed her staring at his clothes. “Nurse Evelyn showed me the outfit I was wearing when I got here. Everything was so tattered, it looked like I was the loser in a bear fight.”
“Yes, that happens sometimes with lightning. Clothing is shredded, metal zippers and fasteners fuse. People have been knocked right out of their shoes.”
“She said the owners wouldn’t be needing these now.” He was dressed in a pair of freshly laundered jeans and a wrinkled white shirt that had been washed but not ironed. “I don’t know about wearing a dead man’s clothes, but since I was pretty near dead myself, maybe they won’t bring me bad luck.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
“I reckon not. I’ve been plenty lucky lately.”
Reckon? Hardly a Joe word. Now that she thought about it, he sounded different too. The timbre of his voice had changed. It was deeper, more confident. Temporary inflammation of the trachea maybe.
That wouldn’t account for the change in his eyes. Where before they had been mud-dark and flat, the luminous brown depths now possessed an indefinable mystery. As if that weren’t unsettling enough, there was also a new stillness in his features. Surely, such composure hadn’t been there before. Just looking at him was like glimpsing the familiar for the first time. Like what Brindon’s wife Dorian had said about the Eiffel Tower. The image had been imprinted on her consciousness for so long that when she finally saw it, she had felt an eerie sense of recognition.
Joe’s straight nose, firm lips and dimpled chin were the same. Yet, they were different, too. Finer. Like a stone tumbled by a river, until all its rough edges had been worn smooth. Why had she never noticed how good-looking he was? A twist of shame tightened her belly. Maybe she’d never really looked at him before. Never truly listened. Never given him a chance.
Her character flaws didn’t explain how he had morphed from a greasy, ill-mannered slacker into a clean soft-spoken man who said “reckon” and “ma’am” and endeared himself to career nurses. Now there was a mystery.
“Seriously. You don’t have to make the bed. They have people to do that.”
“Seems the least I can do, considering everything folks have done for me. They bring me tasty grub three times a day and juice and cookies whether I want ’em or not. Some lady’s always coming in to check my temperature and make sure I’m comfortable. It sure is a hospitable place. Hmm…guess that’s why they call it a hospital, huh?”
“Maybe so.” Mallory smiled, but his comments confused her. He was sincere, not flippant or sarcastic. Sincerity was not an attitude she expected from a man who had been born obnoxious and then suffered numerous relapses. “Dr. McKinley tells me you’re ready to go home.”
“Yep. As nice as it is here, I can’t afford to run up a bill for room and board.” He gestured to the bedside chair. “Would you care to have a seat?”
Mallory sat, marveling at his courtesy. The last time she’d seen him, he had suggested she buy a six-pack and watch a wrestling match. “Has anyone talked to you about your bill?”
“Yes, ma’am. A nice lady came in. Called herself a social worker. How can she be social and work at the same time?” He shrugged. “Said they’d fix me up with a payment plan so I can settle my debt when I get back on my feet.”
“Good. How are you planning to get home? Have you called someone to come for you?” Mallory tried not to stare, but was intrigued by the way the setting sun shone through the window and backlit his head with a golden corona.
“No. There’s no one I care to call. Since I’m afoot, I guess I’ll walk it.”
“On those?” She eyed the crutches propped against the bed. “Excuse me for saying so, but you haven’t exactly mastered their use.”
He grimaced apologetically. “I’m about as gimpy as a one-legged chicken. Dr. Mac said I should keep off my feet for a few days, but I figure I can make it home.”
“Slapdown’s twenty miles from here,” she reminded him.
“It is? Well, of course it is. Maybe hoofing isn’t the way to go.”
“I can give you a ride home.”
His face brightened, his warm brown eyes glowing with appreciation. “I’d be much obliged.”
She echoed Mac’s words. “What are neighbors for?”
“We’re neighbors?”
Was this an example of the confusion the nurses had noted? “You live next door to the clinic where I work and close to where I live.”
He beamed. “Well, good. That’s about the best news I’ve heard all day.”
News? Had he forgotten where he lived? “Really, Joe, how are you feeling?”
“Right as rain and happy as a pup with two tails.”
Brain damage was definitely a possibility. Simply being charged with negative electrons wouldn’t cause him to suddenly start talking like a character from Mayberry. “Are you sure?”
“Matter of fact, I haven’t felt this alive in…well, let’s just say in a long, long time.”
A couple of hours later Joe checked himself out of the hospital, and they drove home. Dodging Mallory’s questions was like walking through a cow pasture: you had to watch where you stepped. He couldn’t tell if she was suspicious about him or just abnormally curious. The only good thing about living through lightning was having an excuse to act as worn-out as a fat uncle’s welcome.
He pretended to wake up when Mallory parked her little truck in front of a rickety metal house on wheels. From the beat-up look of it, the trailer as Mallory called it, had been plunked down in the middle of the junk-strewn lot by a cyclone. Several skinny dogs crawled out of the shade to bark a yapping welcome. Joe’s heart sank deeper as he looked around. “I live here?”
Mallory grimaced. “Home sweet home. I fed the demon horde while you were in the hospital.”
“The what?”
“The dogs.”
“Oh. Thank you.” He looked around in disgust. What kind of self-respecting man lived in a rat-hole like this? The place would embarrass a blind fur trapper. “Are all these dogs mine?”
“Apparently so. Five at last count.”
“That’s a heap of dog.”
“And not a keeper in the bunch.”
Joe reached for the door handle, and grinned when he knew exactly how the contraption worked. That happened more often than not. As Celestian had predicted, his new body carried the old Joe’s physical memories. Deeply ingrained in his sinews, they enabled him to adapt to his new life without going walleyed over twenty-first century advancements. That’s why watching television and walking through automatic doors and racing along the road at more than fifty miles per hour didn’t feel nearly as strange as it should have.
“Thanks for the ride,” he told Mallory. “If you’ll fetch my crutches from the back, I’ll get on in the…house.”
“Shall I help you out of the truck?”
“I can manage.” She handed him the crutches, and he hopped onto the uneven ground. Pain zinged up his legs from the burns on the soles of his bandaged feet. He hoped the inside of his new home wasn’t as junked up as the outside. If it were, he’d have a heck of a time getting around.
Mallory walked ahead and opened the door. He limped across the yard, and the hounds slunk up to sniff him. A couple growled and backed off, while the rest tucked their tails and whimpered back into their hiding places. None of them seemed exactly enraptured to see him.
“So much for man’s best friends, huh?” Mallory held the door open. “Leave for a couple of days, and they forget who you are.”
Joe struggled onto the cinder block that served as a step, and Mallory took his arm to help him inside. He ducked under the low threshold, and a powerful stink slapped him in the face. “Whoa! It smells worse in here than hell on housecleaning day.”
Mallory stepped inside and poked around the tiny kitchen until she discovered the source of the stench. “Sheesh, Mitchum! You left a pound of hamburger in the fridge, and the electricity’s been off all weekend.”
With her hand clamped over her nose, she couldn’t have looked more disgusted if she’d uncovered a decaying corpse. “You can’t stay. The place is filthy. There’s no telling what kind of infection you’d contract just walking around in here.”
“I reckon I can clean things up.”
“You and what hazmat team? There’s no power, no running water and it’s hotter than a brick oven. No one should live like this.”
Being from west Texas, he didn’t mind the heat, though a smart man could learn to like the cool air they had at the hospital. He wouldn’t miss electricity and running water. Such luxuries had been beyond his ranger’s salary. That toe-curling smell, though, would take some getting used to.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here.” Mallory found a couple of brown paper bags. Into one, she stuffed clothes from the tiny wardrobe and built-in drawers. She dropped the rotting package of meat into the other and carried it outside, flinging it into a charred metal barrel. “I hope those mutts don’t turn over the trash can.”
“Might improve the looks of the place.” Joe leaned on the crutches and limped down the step. “Where are we going?”
Mallory tossed his makeshift suitcase in the back of the truck and helped him into the passenger seat. “I have an extra room. You can stay with me until the bandages come off, and you can walk without crutches.”
Her offer confused him. “I don’t know about that. How will it look for a young maiden lady to take a man into her home?”
She laughed. “A young what?”
“I couldn’t forgive myself if I besmirched your reputation in any way.”
She glanced sideways at him as she started the engine and shifted gears. “You’re kidding, right?”
The blast of cool air from the dashboard was a modern convenience he would hate to give up. “I know how people talk.”
“Don’t worry about my reputation, Mitchum, I can take care of myself. And don’t get any smart ideas. I’m offering you a place to stay. Nothing else.”
“Well, if you’re sure it won’t get you into hot water.”
“Let me ask you something.” She threw the gearshift back into Park and turned to face him. “Since when have you been so concerned about what people think?” Her golden eyes flashed, and her full lips clamped together in a don’t-lie-to-me line.
“A good reputation is the most valuable thing a person can own,” he replied.
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’d rather lose my right arm than my honor.”
Her sudden hoot of laughter wounded him in a way he hadn’t known possible. He fell silent in the face of her ridicule. The old Joe must have lived by a different code. That’s why Mallory held him in such low esteem. An obstacle like that would complicate his mission, but sharing living quarters with her would provide him with plenty of opportunities to win her over.
He watched Mallory angle the gearshift into Reverse and back out of the rutted drive. He couldn’t see Molly in her face, but at times, he could hear his old love in her words, sense her in Mallory’s efficient movements. Not now of course. At the moment, she was all Mallory. A smart woman who wouldn’t admit there were things she couldn’t understand. A familiar stranger who would never know how important she was to him unless he opened her eyes.
He wouldn’t lose this chance. He was meant to be here and felt at peace in Mallory’s company. He felt like a man who’d finally made it home after a long, heart-sore journey.
When he and Celestian hadn’t been biting each other’s heads off, they’d had deep discussions. A hundred years added up to a lot of gab. One topic they’d thrashed out was the purpose of corporeal life.
The Spirit-Maker divided every created spirit and sent it on an earthly mission to find its other half. The Plan provided each questing spirit with the knowledge needed to complete its search. However, due to a snag in the system, once a spirit assumed human form, it seemed to forget its mission. Human beings expended enormous time and energy creating philosophies and religions to explain their existence. But what they didn’t know—couldn’t know—was that when they made the right connection, everything else fell into place.
A whole spirit could change the world, do unlimited good, serve the Spirit-Maker and mankind. A half spirit could only quest. And while that spirit might accomplish worthwhile objectives on earth, it would never feel complete as it yearned forever for its missing half.
Without even knowing what it hungered for.
Hope was eternal, and if a half-life spirit alighted in Reception, it was carefully rerouted to begin the cycle again. Considering how important the quest was in the scheme of things, it was an ironically sad fact of cosmic life that only a few managed to find the spirit that would make them whole. All were given the opportunity, but most were too blind to use it.
The Ranger considered himself lucky. He’d spent several lifetimes with his healer half and then a century in time-out, learning the way. Fate had handed him an undeserved gift when it allowed him to return as Mallory’s neighbor. He was not going to make the most human of all mistakes and forfeit his last chance.
Because of the old Joe’s poor housekeeping habits, he could spend the next few days under the same roof as his destiny. Things were looking up. Coincidences that weren’t coincidences had come to his aid.
Mallory steered the truck into the paved parking lot, drove past the clinic, and up a little hill. She parked in front of a white house with green shutters, surrounded with neat flowerbeds and trimmed grass. Potted plants swung from the porch posts. This was more like it. This was a home, not a hovel. Good things could happen here.
He sighed gratefully.
Thank you, Joe Mitchum, wherever you are, for being such a lazy ne’er-do-well.
Chapter Three
Mallory settled Joe in an extra bedroom at the opposite end of the house. He would have his own bathroom, so their paths would not have to cross any more than necessary. So far, he hadn’t been nearly as annoying as she knew he could be, but once the shock wore off, he might revert to old habits.
Openly admiring the accommodations, he limped around the blue-and-white bedroom on his crutches, pulling out drawers and inspecting the closet. He bounced the mattress experimentally with one hand and grinned like he’d never seen a pillow-top queen before. Some people were easily impressed.
She left him to put away the things she’d grabbed at the trailer while she started dinner. She hadn’t been her practical, logical self since that errant bolt of lightning had thrust Joe Mitchum into her life. Doing something mundane would restore her sense of normalcy. Making nice with a guy whom she’d always considered an odious nuisance was unnerving. Factor in the twitchiness that overcame her when he was near, and it was no wonder she was feeling weird.
Helping Joe was a way of paying back some of the generosity she’d received over the years. A distressing mission of mercy, but somebody had to do it. Hoping he wouldn’t give her a reason to regret opening her home to him, she heated water for spaghetti and dumped a bag of prepackaged salad into a bowl. Turning to the stove with pasta for the boiling pot, she jumped and nearly dropped it. Joe was watching her intently from the doorway.
“Jeepers! Don’t sneak up on me like that! Do you want to give me cardiac arrest?” After years of living alone, having another person around would take some getting used to. Having Joe Mitchum around…well, there were some things she would never get used to.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He leaned on his crutches and took in the gleaming appliances, glass-fronted cupboards and cheerful sunflower wallpaper. “Nice place.”
“Thanks, but it’s not mine.” She melted butter for garlic bread. “Remember? Housing is a perk I get for working at the clinic.”
“Oh, right. I forgot.”
He’d forgotten a lot of things. He hadn’t seemed to recognize much when they’d driven through town. She’d left him in the truck while she ran into the grocery store to pick up a few things. When she came out, Glorieta Tadlock was leaning in the passenger window attempting to engage him in conversation. In the loosest sense of the word. Dressed in a sequined halter-top that showed off the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and short shorts that showed off everything else, the blowzy blonde treated him like a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. To Joe’s credit, he’d seemed perplexed and embarrassed by the attention.
If she hadn’t known better, Mallory would have sworn he’d never laid eyes on the belly-ringed nail technician in his life. Which was pretty strange considering the two had once been an item. Since neither knew what the word platonic meant, he’d probably laid a lot more than his eyes on her.
“So you can live here as long as you’re the doc?” he asked.
“Or until I get a place of my own.” Before she did that, she planned to save enough to put a down payment on a house for her parents. Seeing their only child through medical school had cracked their working-class nest egg. Buying them a home wouldn’t come close to repaying all the sacrifices they’d made for her, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about the future.
Happily married for nearly forty years, Al and Lois Peterson had set a good example of wedded bliss for their daughter. Unfortunately, Mallory had never had time to be much of a romantic and didn’t believe she would ever find the kind of love her parents shared. Her doubts weren’t based on logic, they just were. She’d never suffered a betrayal. No faithless lover had broken her heart. She simply didn’t think of herself and true love in the same context.
She assumed it was because she’d always been too focused on her goals to fall in love. College and medical school and interning had made it impossible to fit a personal life into her schedule. She had more time now, but neither the inclination nor opportunity. A drought of available men had just about dried up the gene pool in Slapdown.