Her Sister's Child

“Don’t mention it. All in a day’s work.”

“I’ll bet.” He slowly reached out his left hand and stroked her cheek with his fingers. “You’ve got a little smudge there.”

For the first time she was aware of how she must look. She glanced down at her mud-caked jeans. Her hands were splotched with ravine debris and she doubted she’d ever get her fingernails clean again. She lay her hand where his had just touched and felt a flush of heat. If her face looked even half as bad as the rest of her, well, she didn’t want to think about it.

“So, are you all right?” he asked. “You weren’t hurt?”

“No. It takes a lot more than a freaky autumn sprinkle to take me down.”

He smiled again. “Not even a half-crazed driver plunging off a mountain?”

She laughed, relieved he seemed okay. “Nope, not even that. But don’t feel so bad. I saw an oil slick just before where you breached the rail. I don’t think the accident was all your fault.”

The paramedic lifted Cameron’s right arm and placed it on his abdomen. Julia flinched when she saw the bone threatening to poke through the skin covering his wrist.

Cameron winced in pain.

“Sorry, Professor,” the medic said, setting a splint under his forearm and wrapping gauze around it. “I’ve got to stabilize the injury before we take off.”

Cameron watched his practiced motions. “Do you think it’s broken?”

“I’m not the doctor, but I think it’s safe to say this arm is going to be out of commission for a while. It looks like you’ve got a compound fracture and my guess is you’re going to need surgery and external fixators to patch it up.”

Cameron frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

The medic taped gauze to Cameron’s wrist. “Could be better, I’ll admit. Do you remember how you damaged your wrist this badly?”

Cameron snickered. “The last thing I recall is feeling like a pinball inside my Jeep, complete with some pretty weird sound effects.”

Finished with his temporary immobilization job, the medic called to the driver in front of the ambulance. “I’ve got him ready to roll, Rick.”

Julia got up from the bench. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to leave. Good luck, Cameron.”

“Wait, Julia…” Cameron stared at her as if he were unexpectedly at a loss for words. “I haven’t really thanked you,” he finally said.

“Sure you did. We’re square.”

The medic looked at her. “Actually I was going to suggest that you come to the hospital, too. You need to be checked out.”

She shrugged off his concern. “That’s not necessary. I’m fine, really.”

“It’s a precaution,” he said. “There’s another ambulance waiting to take you, but since you two know each other, I guess it would be okay if you rode with the professor here. He doesn’t have any family in the area and would probably appreciate the company.”

Cameron stared up at her.

She looked at him but spoke to the paramedic. “He has a wife. I’m sure if you call her…”

“No, I don’t,” Cameron said.

“You don’t?”

“Divorced.” He raised his eyebrows in a placating way. “I’m all alone here, Julia. It would be nice if my rescuer agreed to hold my hand.”

Suddenly feeling light-headed, Julia sat back on the bench. Maybe she was experiencing repercussions from the night’s trauma, after all. Or maybe she’d just heard news that she hadn’t had time to process yet. “I’m not really the hand-holding type,” she said.

He gave her an earnest look. “Okay, no hand-holding. But I’d appreciate it if you’d come along. At least until they know what they’re going to do with me. I’ve been gone so long from the mountain, I don’t know anybody else to call.”

Before she could decline again, Bobby Cutter appeared at the back of the ambulance. “Everybody okay in here?”

Cameron answered for all of them. “I’m trying to get Julia to come to the hospital with me. She needs to be examined, too.”

Bobby shook his finger at her. “You’re going, MoonPie. No arguments. I don’t want you doing something stupid and girlie like staying here and fainting on me.”

Outnumbered, she sat against the ambulance wall and fastened the seat belt. “Fine. I’ll go. But ask my mother to come to the hospital to pick me up in an hour or so. And tell her to bring some clean clothes.”

Bobby slapped the door of the vehicle before closing it. “Will do. My job here is done.”

Cameron raised his good arm. “Just one more thing.”

Bobby paused. “Yeah?”

“How’d she get the name MoonPie?”

Bobby laughed. “You can blame me for that. Julia loved those damn cakes. Had ’em in her lunch box every day so I just started calling her that. I think Cora must have bought them by the caseful. And then, one day, she just decided to stop eating them.” He stared at Julia. “Why was that, Julia?”

She rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake, Bobby, that’s ancient history. Nobody cares anymore.”

“I care,” Cameron said.

Bobby gave her a what’d-I-tell-you look. “Anyway, I guess Julia didn’t want to hurt Cora’s feelings by telling her not to put any more pies in her lunch, so she started secretly swapping them for things like carrots and grapes and celery. But by then the name ‘MoonPie’ had stuck.”

Julia shook her head. “Exciting story, isn’t it?”

Bobby chuckled. “Julia’s the only person I’ve ever known who’d give up a MoonPie for a bag of carrot sticks. The first woman on Earth content to trade down.”

“Not anymore, Bobby,” Julia said. “I learned my lesson.”

Bobby laughed again and shut the ambulance door.

When Julia glanced at Cameron, she noticed his expression had changed, become more reflective than amused. “What?” she said.

“You’ve just given me my first Blue Ridge Mountain story,” he said. “A Girl Called MoonPie.” The ambulance lurched forward. Cameron sucked in a deep breath and looked at his arm. “Too bad I can’t hold a pen to write it down.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ONCE SHE’D LET the hospital staff coat her hands with antiseptic ointment and cover them with gauze, Julia was able to convince the emergency room nurse that she’d suffered no more ill effects from her trek into the ravine than minor cuts and bruises. The minute the doctor signed her release papers, Julia hurried to the admitting area, sounding as though she were walking on squeegees instead of shoes and leaving an embarrassing trail of mud flecks. She was going to make some maintenance people very unhappy tonight.

The receptionist at the admitting desk was the same middle-aged woman who’d assigned Julia to an examination room earlier. When she looked up from paperwork and saw her again, she wrinkled her nose. “Oh. They didn’t give you a hospital gown?”