Rawhide and Lace by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

even more important for you to exercise-if, that is, you have any idea of going back to work in the future."
     
    She stared at her hands, clenched in her lap. How could Ty do this to her?
     
    "We can, of course, have you drive to the hospital each day, and a physical therapist can instruct you and work with you."
     
    She looked up, her eyes disturbed. "Oh, no. Please," she asked gently. "I couldn't bear that...."
     
    "Suppose I work with her at the ranch," Ty suggested. He was sitting cross-legged in a chair, hat on one knee, looking impossibly arrogant. "I had a busted hip once, remember?"
     
    The doctor cleared his throat. "Oh, how I remember!" he said. "One of my best nurses quit, two physical therapists retired..."
     
    Ty just grinned, and Erin gaped at him, unbelieving. She'd hardly ever seen him smile like that.
     
    "I could give you a list of the exercises," the doctor murmured. "But she'll have to do them twice a day, every day, thirty minutes at a stretch."
     
    "She'll do them," Ty promised before Erin could open her mouth.
     
    "I'd like to examine that hip now," he added, calling his nurse into the room.
     
    Erin glared at Ty. "Unless you're planning to do a consultation, Dr. Wade, would you mind leaving?"
     
    He cocked an eyebrow as he rose. "Testy little thing, aren't you?" He moved past her. "Watch out," he told the doctor. "She bites."
     
    "Be sure your tetanus jabs are current," she whispered as he left the room.
     
    It was amazing, the ease of that repartee, when once she'd been too tongue-tied to talk to him. In spite of everything that had happened between them, she was still drawn to him. Ty was stronger than any other human being she'd ever known. Just for a little while, she needed to lean on someone. And who better than the man who was partially responsible for her condition?
     
    Dr. Brodie looked at the stitches, had an X ray made, and pronounced her well on the way to recovery. He prescribed some additional pain pills, in case she needed them, and gave her a preprinted sheet of exercises with special ones circled.
     
    She stared at them all the way back to Staghorn, dreading the ordeal they represented.
     
    "I don't want to start this," she muttered. "All that pain and cramping, and for what? I'll always limp!"
     
    "Not if you want to walk," he returned impassively. "But you have to be willing to do the work. I'll help, but I can't do it for you."
     
    "Why should you want to help?" she asked, turning in the seat to fix him with a cold, level stare.
     
    He was smoking. He took a draw from the cigarette before he answered, and he didn't look at her. "Because I did that to you, as surely as if I'd pushed you in front of another car."
     
    She stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Surely you don't think that you caused me to have the wreck?"
     
    "Didn't I?" He laughed mirthlessly. "You were half hysterical when you left here."
     
    "Yes, I was. And I pulled off the road and got myself together before I ever left the ranch!" she told him. "I'm not suicidal, and I'm not homicidal. I never drive when I'm not fit emotionally. By the time the wreck happened, I was at least levelheaded. Even the state patrol said it was unavoidable. I was hit by a drunk driver who took a curve too wide and came at me in my lane. He was killed outright."
     
    Ty's face paled, and his hands clenched the steering wheel tightly. "Lucky man," he said under his breath. Erin knew what he meant without asking for explanations.
     
    "So if you're on some guilt trip, let me reassure you," she continued quietly. "The only thing you did was try to save your brother from me. And you succeeded."
     
    "Beyond my wildest dreams," he said coldly, lifting the cigarette to his lips. "I ruined both your lives."
     
    She could hardly believe what she was hearing. He sounded bitter, anguished. "What could you have done that would have changed anything?" she asked calmly. "I would never have married Bruce. I didn't love him, and he knew