As Blue as the Sky Page 3

The meds had taken the edge off the pain, although she’d almost fainted when she had to move her arm around for the x-ray. Feeling a little better now, her breathing settled into a steady rhythm as she glanced at the x-rays on the lighted glass behind the doctor’s desk.

  She tried to remember how many times she’d been in this position before, looking at her bones, broken or otherwise, in black and white in doctor’s offices. She peered at them as intently as she could from the opposite side of the large oak desk that stood between her and the backlit representations of her injury on the other side.

  “I imagine you’ve been in this position once or twice before,” the doctor finally said from behind the desk.

  “What?” Her head jerked away from the films and toward him. “Yeah, once or twice.” She winced at the memory of her multiple broken bones, sprains and contusions that she’d met with during her racing career.

  He met her gaze, holding it for a moment with one eyebrow cocked. “Okay. I have both good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

  She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until it came out with a whoosh as she said, “Good news. I need some good news.” She held his gaze and smiled.

  “The ankle’s the good news. No broken bones or even hairline fractures. I can see it’s been broken before, but it’s healed solidly. You were lucky. It should be sore for a while but fine,” he said, running his finger over the x-ray of her ankle. He moved to the left, and looked from the x-ray to her, his eyes steady on her. “Moving on to the bad news, can you tell me why this particular wrist looks like it’s been in this position more than once...or maybe way more than once.” He laid the pointer he had held in his hand down slowly on the desk. The clacking noise it made sounded particularly loud to her for such a small object, and she could hear the clock ticking next to it.

  Her good hand instinctively flew to her wrist, cradling it gently even though the pain had subsided a bit with the medication. “Well, this wrist’s been a problem. I’ve broken it a couple of times,” she said, looking down from his gaze. It had never bothered her before. She’d fallen, been patched up and raced again. The most annoying part of it had been the time she had to wait to get back on the bike, but her father had helped sturdy it up and she’d never had to wait as long as the doctors said she should. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d practiced or raced with a cast on, if it came to that.

  He continued staring at her as she spoke. He didn’t break his gaze even now. “I see that,” he finally said after what seemed like an eternity. “Anybody could see that.”

  Something in the way he said it made her face flush, and she felt hot under his gaze. “They were all accidents,” she said, the defensive tone in her voice not escaping her notice.

  The heat continued to rise in her cheeks as she felt his gaze, still steady on her. She realized that she was wringing her hands and abruptly looked up at him, surprised once more by the intensity of his gaze...and her reaction. She hadn’t noticed before, but he wasn’t much older than she was. Why did she feel like a child? Clearing her throat and gripping the sides of the wheelchair, she said, “It was just what had to happen to win.”

  Kyle felt Magdalena’s eyes on him as he walked down the corridor to the back of the clinic, entering one of the empty examination rooms and shutting the door behind him. His rapid breathing and sweat under his collar had surprised him when he’d heard the words from Jess. It was just what had to happen to win, she’d said, and all the old feelings took him over. He’d quickly excused himself, knowing he needed to be alone for a moment.

  He’d heard the exact same words five years earlier from his fiancée, the last he’d ever heard her say before she slipped into the coma she’d never come out of. Now, this beautiful young woman in his office, with her liquid dark eyes and curly hair, had the same bravado, the same attitude that Maggy had had. And it had been the death of her.

  No time for this now, he thought. Get a grip, Kyle. She’s not Maggy.

  He threw some water on his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, preparing to continue the conversation with this young woman who had flooded him with memories — good and bad. He missed racing, he missed the thrill, but he would never be able to go back there. He felt his heart beat slowing, and took a deep breath.

  He turned back toward his office and saw Magdalena quietly shutting the door behind her. “Is everything all right, Kyle,” she asked, the concern in her eyes comforting him.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” he reassured her, doing his best to give her a broad smile. “We’re almost done here. How are the ‘other’ patients in the waiting room?”

  Magdalena laughed, throwing a look toward the men sitting quietly. “They’re fine. Just worried.”

  Kyle looked at the door of his office, his hand on the door knob. “I can understand why,” he said as he opened it and went in.

  Chapter 7

  Just another crazy racer, Kyle thought as he picked up the pointer and looked at the young woman in front of him. Granted, it wasn’t often that he worked on or with a female rider...but it sure was often that he worked on racers with injuries galore, sometimes pure accidents, but usually involving some sort of recklessness on the part of the rider. It wasn’t something that he found particularly admirable anymore, having seen one too many permanent injuries. And it looked like this might be another one if he didn’t explain it correctly. She’d confirmed that she’d been injured many times, but now it was his job to explain the consequences of the decisions she’d made—and would be making.

  He sat back in his chair, looking intently at the girl in front of him. She seemed bright enough, and certainly committed to her goal. It really was a shame that she was willing to knock herself around like this, risking everything. She was lovely, and her brown eyes seemed to get to him and hint at something deeper than just a sense of competition, but so far he’d seen nothing but that from her.

  His shoulders felt tight as he realized it would be up to him to get her to understand her choices ... and for some reason, he wasn’t at all confident that he would succeed.

  “Jess,” he said as he reached again for the pointer on the desk. “May I call you Jess?” He turned away from the x-rays and saw a brief nod from her on the far side of the desk, her dark curls that framed her face bouncing with her head in agreement.

  Making a quick circle around her wrist on the x-rays, he said, “You seem very committed to your racing, and I certainly do understand commitment. The problem, though, is how badly you want to be able to continue to do it.”

  Her sigh didn’t surprise him, and he walked around to the front of the desk, right across from her. As he sat on the corner of the desk, she said, “I’ve explained that I just need to get out of here and back on the quad. The race is coming up and I’ve been training for this for...well, for years, really. This is the most important one I’ve ever done.”

  Her eyes flashed for a moment as he held his gaze steady and tried to assess how she’d take the news. Deciding to just get it out in the open and see where the conversation went, he said, “This wrist has been injured repeatedly, over a long period of time, with much scar tissue and damage. This current injury is painful, right? I believe I heard you yelp a bit in the x-ray room.”

  A little color crept over her cheeks, and her chin jutted forward as she said, “Maybe.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh — she reminded him of one of those girls in elementary school who you just knew wanted to race with the boys but were too proud or stubborn to admit it.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, still cradling her wrist as dust billowed from the jersey. “I don’t think you can understand this, Dr. — Lewis, is it?”

  “Yes, Dr. Lewis. Have you let this wrist heal completely between injuries? It looks to me like you’ve taken some risks that maybe you shouldn’t have.”

  “Dr. Lewis,” she said, the words coming slowly from her mouth as her eyebrows furrowed her forehead, “I really don’t mean t
o be rude. Honestly, I don’t. But my father takes my career very seriously, and it’s not something we would take risks with.” Her eyes clouded as she said, “This means a lot to me, and to my family. We all care about each other very much, and I don’t want to let everyone down.”

  He sighed as he realized that nothing was going to make this any easier. Kyle watched the blood drain from her face as he said, “That’s good to know. But if you don’t give up this race and let that wrist heal, you’ll be taking the chance that you might not be able to use it without a brace ever, if you can use it at all, permanently.”

  Jess tried to catch her breath as the doctor stood and looked, eyebrows raised, toward the door. “I’m sorry, Doctor, I tried to stop him,” she heard the receptionist say as she grabbed the wheel of the wheelchair with her good hand and tried to turn herself around.

  “I’m not staying out there one minute more,” her father said loudly as he swept past the nurse and into the doctor’s office. As she turned toward the door, her father’s panicked face was matched only in worry by the one behind it — her brother, Cade’s.

  “Guys, guys, everything’s fine.” She tried to muster a smile after the bombshell she’d just heard, and she felt more than saw the doctor turn to her. She glanced quickly at him, and his mouth was open and his hands upturned at his sides.

  “Were we just on different planets a minute ago?” His hands dropped to his hips as he looked from Jess to her father. “I think you’d better tell him the truth.”

  She pushed up with her good foot when she felt a firm hand push her down in place. With an ‘oomph’, she plopped back down in the wheelchair. She looked down at her hands in her lap, and said, “You’re right. Will you tell him?”

  “Mr. McNally,” the doctor said, “it appears that she intends not to tell you the gravity of the situation. I realize that she has her heart set on racing the 250, but her injury is bad, and while she won’t have a plaster cast, she will need to stay completely away from using her wrist and likely her hand until she heals. If she doesn’t, and with the number of previous injuries she’s sustained, she’s risking a permanent one. One that could leave her with limited use of her hand permanently — or worse.”

  Her forehead fell into her hand as she realized that whatever amount of control she’d had over her universe was quickly slipping away.

  “Jess, is this true?” Cade said, her father silent as he looked from her to the doctor. She couldn’t read his face, and the familiar anxiety she’d felt when he was displeased crept into her once more.

  “We can check with an American doctor, Cade. He would probably see it differently,” she said, half-admitting the truth of the matter.

  From behind her, she felt the doctor’s laughter almost completely rush through her.

  “I am an American doctor. I’m just here on vacation in the south campos. But if you want a second opinion, that’s certainly your right. In fact, that’s probably a good idea. I can wrap these x-rays up for you to take with you up to the states.”

  She felt a twinge of regret, wishing she could put the words back in her mouth as he turned toward the x-rays. She had three sets of eyes on her, and the rush of indecision, as well as the heat under her collar, was overwhelming. She realized she’d just insulted his integrity, and he had taken very good care of her, but her dream was crumbling before her, and she could see the disappointment in her father’s eyes.

  It was Cade who spoke first. “Dad, it sounds like Jess wants to see if she can move forward with the race. We’re staying in the south campos, too. Maybe the doctor could check in on her and see how it’s going? Maybe see if she’s healing faster than planned, or monitor her pre-runs?”

  “If she continues practicing, the risk of re-injury, or a more extensive injury, is great. She shouldn’t be practicing at all, in my opinion, nor should she compete in the race.” He sat behind the desk and folded his arms over his chest. His green eyes had grown dark, and if Jess knew him better, she’d have thought he was angry.

  She did know her father well, and anger wasn’t what she saw on his face. His eyes were dark, too, and his eyebrows formed a V. In times past, she would have expected he’d explode in anger, but his face softened and his voice was quiet when he spoke.

  “Doctor, my children have been race kids since the day they were born. It’s in our blood, and my wife was part of it, too, before she passed away. You’ll have to forgive us for being reluctant to give up on a dream that's been years in the making.” His fingers tugged at the brim of the race cap he held in his hands as he continued. “We’re staying south also and have a few days, at least, of repair on the quad. Would you be willing to check in on Jess until we see how this is going to go?”

  Jess had never seen her father like this — hat in hand, actual worry on his face rather than demand. While it may have been an unusual sight, it didn’t change the fact that he’d just asked this young doctor to look after her without consulting her. “Dad, I don’t need that,” she sputtered. “I’ll be fine. I can look after myself.”

  “I know you can, Jess, but your mom would never forgive me if something big happened to you. It might be time for a little more caution. Just let him help you with some physical therapy while we’re working on the quad and we can see how it goes?”

  “Ahem,” she heard from behind her. She turned to the doctor, his lips turned up into a smile. “Do I have a say in this? I’m down here for the next two weeks and have the time, but I’m not exactly excited by the prospect of looking after an unwilling patient. Or a racer, for that matter. Not my thing.”

  Jess felt all three sets of eyes turn to her once again and wished the wheelchair would swallow her. She looked at Cade and saw her eyes looking back at her, their connection as twins almost palpable to her now. The pleading in them was more than she could bear.

  “If this is the only way I can possibly run the race, I’ll do it,” she said, looking at her father.

  The doctor came around the desk again and stood next to her father. Mr. McNally turned toward the doctor with his own version of pleading in his eyes, one Jess had never seen before. “I’d be grateful for you to look after my little girl, doctor, and see if we could make this work.”

  Dr. Lewis shook his head vigorously and thrust his thumb at the x-rays. “Those don’t lie, sir. I’ll tell you right now she should not be running that race, and my opinion won’t change. If you still want me to look in on her, I will, but my position won’t change.”

  Jess could actually hear Cade’s sigh of relief. She hoped the decision would buy her some time, anyway, and she let out a sigh of her own, hoping nobody in the room heard it.

  Chapter 8

  Kyle had taken extra time splinting Jess’s wrist while waiting for the x-rays, so after contact information was exchanged with a time set for meeting the next day, he was able to get them out of the clinic pretty quickly. Magdalena had long since locked up and gone home, so he slipped off his white coat and took out the tape recorder, going over the day’s patients for Dr. Gomez’s return tomorrow. He wrote his mentor and friend a quick note of thanks for allowing him to help in the clinic and told him he’d be in town in a few days to catch up.

  The smell of salt and the sea tickled his nostrils as he walked out of the clinic and to his car. He stopped for a moment and turned out toward the water, watching as pelicans searched for their dinner, a loud growl escaping his stomach as he realized he had missed his. As he turned onto San Felipe’s main road and headed toward the oceanfront boardwalk and its enticing array of tacos and other Mexican fare, he was comforted by the sights and sounds of a town he had become intimately familiar with and grown to love. The colorful vendors selling jewelry, blankets and those awesome fish tacos were a welcome sight, and he was surprised by the sense of comfort in his chest.

  Turning onto the main drag, the malecon, bordered on one side by the Sea of Cortez and on the other restaurants, vendors and little shops, he pulled his jeep in front of his fav
orite restaurant and got out. Thinking he’d grab some fish tacos and eat them in the car on the twenty-mile drive to the south campo of Playa Luna that he lived in when he was down, he started toward the door.

  Loud voices pierced the air and he turned toward them. Further down the malecon, he spotted a shiny, new truck, big enough to hold several quads. “McNally Racing” was sprawled brightly in blue across the side and was something you couldn’t miss with the black background and sponsorship logos covering the rest of it. He considered walking over for a moment, but on hearing Mr. McNally’s firm and loud voice, he changed his mind.

  “You’ll have nothing to do with it, young lady, and that’s final,” he said, wagging his finger at Jessica as she stood on one foot and leaned against the hood of the truck.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “I am an adult, Dad. You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “I am your main sponsor, and I can pull the plug any time I want to. You’re not fixing this quad. If you won’t listen to me as your father, listen to me as your boss. You’re resting up — we’re fixing the bike. Period.” He turned from her and walked into the restaurant.

  Kyle sighed and shook his head. He realized she hadn’t heard a word he said as he headed into his favorite fish taco place, hoping to be on the road before they noticed he was there. He’d had enough for one night.

  Chapter 9

  The wind buzzed through her helmet as she flew through the air again, wishing she could do anything other than wait for the pain she knew would follow. She saw the ground approaching, the four-wheeler spinning out of control, and squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the coming collision, her arm crunching underneath her on the dirt.

  This time, she felt herself caught by strong arms accompanied by a warm and musky scent, feeling safe. This time, warm wafts of sage filtered into her consciousness and she breathed in deeply. This time, she heard herself sigh as she looked up into deep, green eyes, seeing their concern as she fell to safety in his arms...