He picked her up, carried her at a jog all the way to the truck, eased her onto the seat, drove sixty miles an hour all the way to the hospital in Scottsbluff, with Emaline screaming at every bump. By six o’clock that afternoon, she had a cast on her leg from thigh to ankle.

It was a week before Doc Baker would let her leave the hospital. She spent the first four days with the leg in traction. It was broken in three places between the ankle and knee. She would walk again, but the leg would never be the same.

Jake was too restless to sit quietly when he came to visit. He ranged up and down the halls, flirted with nurses, argued with farmers and ranchers, played checkers with other patients. He was apologetic, but not in a way that dimmed her anger. He had been pulling the harrow the same way he did almost everything, in a frantic hurry. Getting something done was always more important to him than doing it right. Now she was the one who would be in pain a good, long time because of his haste and carelessness.

One morning, she woke to find him right outside the door of her room, leaning down to whisper in the ear of a pretty, dark-haired nurse. He had left a vase of wildflowers on Emaline’s bedside table while she was sleeping. She was tempted to hurl the flowers at his head, but a public display of anger was not in her character. She had to call him twice before she got his attention. He pulled himself away from the nurse and came to sit on the edge of her bed.

“Was there somethin you needed, Em?”

She answered in a whisper. “I need you to stop flirting with that nurse and sit with me for a while. You’re the reason I’m lying here with my leg broken, the least you could do is pay a little attention.”

“Hell, you don’t have to get jealous. I was just sayin good mornin to the little lady. You’re just cranky cause that cast is itchin your leg.”

“It is itching me, but I have a great deal more than that on my mind. If all you’re going to do here is flirt, you should go do the planting.”

“Now, see? That’s just a plumb jealous thing to say. I come in here to see you, I visit every doggone day, and you’re worried because I was sayin hello to a nurse. If that don’t beat all.”

He stormed out, leaving Emaline to worry about the mounting hospital bills, the spring planting, the mortgage on the farm, the health of her leg, life with a man as difficult as Jake McCloskey.

24.