He Calls Her Doc. Mary Brady

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      She nodded.

      “Is it enough for you to have the job because your blood type is Stone, or do you want to be able to wield the authority you’ll be given?”

      When she didn’t answer, Guy tugged hard on her harness to show her it was safe. “The others crossed. And some of them may deserve to be president or CEO one day. You only need to recognize that in yourself.”

      She grabbed the harness and held on for a ten-mile ride. Too bad she was only going a few hundred feet.

      But, he might be getting through to her…

      “Just shove me across the damn thing and get it over with. And that man at the other end had better catch me because I don’t trust that flimsy-looking net, either.”

      Maybe not…

      “Use the hand brake if you have to, but it’s a gutsier experience if you let the net catch you.”

      “Just do it.” She kicked up a puff of light brown dust.

      Guy took hold of the harness and signaled Jake Hancock, the man who had been Henry’s friend and right-hand man, and who now stood waiting at the other end of the runway.

      “Are you sure?” he asked the woman in the harness.

      She lifted her feet from the ground and glared at him.

      He smiled and gave her a small push.

      After a few seconds, she glided out over the rim of the canyon filled with jagged rocks and a few hardy plants. When she scanned the distance to the bottom, she let out a shriek so piercing Guy expected birds to fall from the sky.

      “I got you, Ms. Stone,” Jake shouted as he gestured to show her he was waiting on the far side to help her.

      Hang in there a few more seconds, Guy thought as she picked up speed and hurtled toward the other side.

      “Stop me! Stop—ME!” The closer she got to the end, the harder she kicked and squirmed.

      “Use the hand brake, Ms. Stone,” Guy called.

      “Nooooo, I can’t!” She began to flail her legs wildly.

      As Jake reached out for her, she jerked backward and snapped her legs straight out; a blink later she landed with the thud of both feet in the middle of Jake’s chest.

      Guy watched in horror as Jake flew backward, landed, bounced and lay still in the dust. Guy grabbed a spare harness and attached it to the aerial runway.

      “Get her off.” He waved at the others as Cynthia sat sagging in the rig, her head resting against the safety netting.

      Instead of assisting Cynthia, the other five executives rushed up to Jake’s unmoving form.

      “Cynthia, get out of the harness,” Guy shouted.

      After a few more moments of helpless watching, he broke one of Henry’s cardinal safety rules and crossed the gap while Cynthia still hung in her harness.

      When he reached the other side, he dug his boots in to stop near where Jake lay on the ground. “I’ll be right back, Cynthia.” He signaled to the still-dangling woman.

      “He’s breathing,” a lithe forty-something executive said as she lifted her ear from Jake’s chest. Guy was sure the woman had wanted to put her head on the rugged cowboy’s chest since the first day.

      Guy knelt beside the man on the ground and shook him gently. “Jake, open your eyes.”

      Jake blinked. “What?” He started to sit up.

      A sharp scream came from over his shoulder. Guy turned to see Ms. Stone on the ground curled up in a ball.

      He turned back to Jake. “Don’t move until I can check you.” He gave Jake a reassuring pat and addressed the woman who had had her ear on Jake’s chest. “Stay with him.” To which she nodded agreeably.

      Guy ran to where Ms. Stone lay sprawled on the ground. What a sight, all that aqua covered with dust.

      “My ankle. My ankle,” she cried when she saw him, and then moaned loudly.

      “Ms. Stone, it’s all right. I’ll help you.”

      “It’s broken. I knew I shouldn’t have done it. I knew it was wrong to come here.” She waved a hand as if she were referring to all of Montana.

      She probably was.

      “Relax and let me have a look at your ankle.”

      “Don’t touch me. I want a doctor, not a seminar leader.”

      It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he nodded. “I’ll take you to the doctor.”

      He thought of the doctor in St. Adelbert, Dr. Maude DeVane. He should have let her take advantage of his younger brother’s good nature and generous heart all those years ago.

      He could have saved Henry from a gold digger.

      IN TOWN, Curly Martin held up his hot-pink cast. “Thank you so much, Dr. DeVane. This ought to set their tongues a waggin’.” He guffawed and stepped down from the table in the ortho room where he had acquiesced to sit so Maude could cast his arm properly.

      “I’ll walk you out, Curly,” Maude said. Her suggestion of keeping Curly for observation had been met with true mirth by the nonagenarian. “What’ll happen, Dr. DeVane?” he’d said. “I might die before my time?”

      The phone on the main desk rang as Maude and Curly passed. Abby snatched it up and began to write on a notepad.

      “Remember.” Maude walked beside the old man. “If there’s a problem, I want to see you within the hour, not the next day because you decided to wait and see what happened.”

      “Told ya, did he.”

      “Jimmy did the right thing to bring you here. And I want to check your arm in two weeks.”

      “I’ll be good, Dr. DeVane.”

      Curly’s great-grandson, who had been banished to the truck for “showing a bit too much concern for such a young fella,” jumped out and took his great-grandfather by his uninjured arm.

      Curly turned back toward Maude and rolled his eyes, but he let the boy help him as if he needed it.

      “Thanks a million, Doctor,” Jimmy called over his shoulder as he stuffed Curly into the cab of the truck.

      “Curly, either stay on the horse, or stay off it.” Maude smiled at the old man.

      He grinned and waved with the cast she had applied because she didn’t think he’d keep a splint on for any longer than he was in her direct sight. The pink had been his idea.

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