Читать книгу A Man Of Influence - Melinda Curtis - Страница 15
ОглавлениеAN ELDERLY WOMAN with short, wiry blue hair in stained blue coveralls and driving around with a truckload of chickens.
This would be fun.
Chad’s inner voice had him veering away from Tracy and the disappointment he felt over her fear of a challenge. He didn’t want to think about Tracy or why he cared what happened to her. He called out a greeting to the old woman, ignoring Tracy’s parting shot of, “Be nice!” and introducing himself.
“I’m Roxie.” The old woman adjusted the hang of her coveralls, wheezing as if she’d just run a race. “You must be that reporter people are talking about.” She tightened a strap that held her cages down with hands that seemed plumper than fit her thin, petite frame.
Interest in a story was elbowed aside by the alarm flashing in his head, the one experienced during years spent raised by elderly parents. Roxie’s shortness of breath. Her poor circulation. Was her skin pale because she didn’t get outdoors? That was the argument his mother had made when Chad had asked her to see a doctor. Too late, it turned out.
“You don’t talk much.” Roxie hit him with a sideways glance. “Are you a friend of Tracy’s? From one of those clinics she goes to?”
“No.” Chad drew back. She thought he had speech difficulties? “I was distracted by all your chickens.” He hoped to be distracted by whatever reason she had a truckload of fowl, distracted enough to ignore what he saw as warning signs in her health.
“I’m taking them to the farmers market. Getting dotty in my old age.” She gasped for breath. “Let too many roosters in the hen house and ended up with too many chickens. Or so my daughter says. She made me promise—” Wheeze. “—to get rid of them all last time she visited.” Panting, Roxie climbed unsteadily onto the rear bumper and untied a small cage with a small blue-gray speckled hen. “The load unbalanced when I came around the corner. I’ve just got one cage too many. Poor Henrietta.” She slumped over the tailgate, balancing the cage on the fender. “Whew. You’d think we were at a high elevation. I can’t seem to catch my breath.”
“Let me help.” He placed a steadying touch at the small of her back. “Give me Henrietta.” Once the hen was on the ground, Chad took Roxie’s hand and helped her down.
Roxie’s was cold. Her grip weak. Up close, her skin had an unhealthy tinge to it.
Mom, you don’t look so well. Let’s go to the doctor.
Tension pinched between his shoulder blades. “You shouldn’t be doing this trip alone.” Roxie shouldn’t be doing it at all. She should be seeking medical attention.
It’s none of your business. That’s what his mother had said. I may be slowing down, but everyone slows down at my age.
He was looking at Roxie, but that didn’t stop an image of his mother’s face from coming to mind and replacing hers.
I could be wrong. I’m not a doctor.
It didn’t feel wrong. And he would have appreciated anyone who could’ve made his mother see a doctor. Maybe then she’d still be alive. Maybe then he wouldn’t be alone and empty.
“I’m glad you offered to come.” Roxie smiled up at him mid-wheeze. “Won’t take more than an hour. My friend Marty says he’ll sell them for me, so it’s just a drop-off.”
“But...”
“Get a move on.” Roxie pressed her keys into his hands, picked up Henrietta’s cage and walked around the truck to the passenger side, huffing and puffing like a six-pack-a-day smoker.
Chad was dumbfounded. This was just like earlier when Eunice and Tracy left him—a stranger—with a baby. What was it about Harmony Valley that inspired such trust in their fellow man? Didn’t they realize the world was a dangerous place?
And yet... His reporter instincts stood on end—this is the story. Chad stood still, rejecting the idea. He didn’t write smarmy, feel-good pieces. He didn’t do good deeds, like pointing out to someone they might be sick. Or driving them to the doctor. There must be someone in town who’d drive Roxie.
Although no one in the bakery had been willing to drive him a few blocks. The only volunteer driver, the petite woman—Aggie/Agnes—was probably still busy taking Mildred to her doctor’s appointment.
Roxie got in with a mighty door slam and a raspy gasp.
The chickens in the back startled, clucked and stared at Chad as if to say, “Get a move on!”
The surreal moment continued to fuzz Chad’s brain and make him slow to react.
Roxie’s plump fingers flapped toward the open driver’s window. “Daylight’s burning.”
Chad climbed in the front seat and inserted the key in the ignition. And then he hesitated, the good Samaritan debating with the good reporter on a deadline. “Before we go, I have a few questions.”
“Shoot.” Roxie rested her arms across Henrietta’s cage and looked at him with faded gray eyes that matched her wiry gray hair and nearly matched the gray tint to her skin.
Her gray skin looked so much like his mother’s the last time he’d seen her alive, Chad felt pressure in his chest, pressure that forced words out in a rush. “Do you live alone, Roxie?”
“Are you asking me for a date?” She snorted and then gasped for breath, pressing a swollen hand over her sternum.
Biting back a few curses, Chad started the engine. It gave a mighty cough that sounded like a shotgun blast, one that shot down the cold-hearted bachelor columnist who wanted to leave Roxie to her fate. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m divorced.” She frowned. “My daughter lives in Cloverdale where the farmers market is.”
“Can you call her?”
Roxie’s eyes narrowed and her pale lips pinched. “If you’re thinking of kidnapping me.” Gasp and wheeze. “You may as well take my chickens. My family has nothing of value to ransom me with.”
Leave it, the reporter in him said.
He couldn’t. Each belabored breath Roxie took seemed as if it would be her last. “I think you need to see a doctor. Shortness of breath, swollen extremities.” He handed her his cell phone, trying to appear confident and commanding, because that was when his elderly parents had been least likely to challenge his decisions. “I’m going to take you to the emergency room. Call your daughter and have her meet us there.”
Roxie gripped his phone. “Is this a joke?”
“No, ma’am.” He turned the truck around, being careful of the chickens in the back. “I wish it was. You share some of the symptoms my mom had.” He spared her a glance. “Before she died.”
“I have indigestion, that’s all.” Roxie moved sausage-like fingers to cover her mouth.
She knew nothing of the warning signs of heart disease. “Maybe. The doctor will know for sure.”
“Has anyone ever told you...you’re the strangest man?”
“I’ve been called worse.” Tracy came to mind—her stubborn chin and disagree-with-you gaze.
“But...I can’t go to the hospital. My chickens...” And there it was. The denial of the need for a doctor. She was just like his parents. She’d probably put off seeing a doctor until her heart felt like it was stopping.
Well, he wasn’t letting another person die on his watch. He’d risk being called wrong and foolish and a meddler. Worst case? He’d pay for her emergency room visit. “I’ll drop off your chickens,” Chad said through gritted teeth. “Call your daughter.”
Surprisingly, Roxie did as instructed. And then she called Agnes to spread the word about the nice young reporter.
Chad may not like small towns much, but he knew how they worked. It wouldn’t take long for this to get around.
Leona wouldn’t bat an eye. Eunice would reassess her opinion of him once more. And Tracy?
Tracy wouldn’t believe it.
That was the only thing that lifted Chad’s spirits through the next few hours.
* * *
TRACY SLIPPED IN the back door to the bakery’s kitchen.
Maybe slunk was a better way to describe her entrance. That’s what deadbeats did, right? They slunk around, avoided notice and didn’t live up to their potential.
Tracy’s potential had been totaled along with Emma’s car in that accident.
She wanted the production job, but she didn’t want to appear on film.
She wanted to prove to Chad she was brave, but she didn’t want to appear on film.
She wanted to feel good about herself, but...shoot and darn. She wanted to veer right, up the L-shaped staircase to her mid-century modern studio apartment, which was way cooler than saying she had simple kitchen cabinetry from the 1950s, pink stucco walls and a pink toilet and tub, accented with pink subway tile. But there was Eunice and her purple curls in the alcove to her left, rocking Gregory between the crib and the shelves with baby toys, books and diaper supplies. And there was Jessica in the large kitchen with its four wall ovens, butcher block counters and a huge island in the middle. The paneling was dark, but windows above the staircase flooded the room with light, leaving Tracy no shadow to slink into.
