LITMIR.BIZ

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him home on Friday, and he couldn’t get out of hospital quickly enough.

      Not that he’d really known that much about it for the first twenty-four hours, because he’d been in so much pain he’d been drugged up to the eyeballs.

      It was the bottom of his fibula where it joined the tibia on the outside of his ankle—the lateral maleolus, or some such bone—that had sheared off, and his fibula was fractured again just above the ankle joint. Such a skinny little bone to cause so much pain, although the ligaments between the two bones hadn’t ripped. This, apparently, was a good thing, or it would have been ages before he could bear weight.

      Even so, he’d have to be in a cast for weeks.

      Fabulous. In the summer, when he relied on the longer hours of daylight to do all those endless jobs about the farm that he couldn’t simply do in the dark. Hedging, fencing, repairing the fabric of the buildings—cutting up fallen trees?

      But on the bright side, luckily the skin hadn’t broken. It seemed a very slight thing to worry about, considering they’d had to cut it open anyway, but apparently it made a great difference to the sort of repair they could do, and it meant it could be plated and screwed, and he didn’t have to have an external fixator.

      Thank God, because there was no way he could work on the farm with a metal frame on the outside of his leg and pins going through into the bone, carrying filth and infection right into the heart of the injury. And, anyway, even the sight of them made him feel sick. There were several people in the orthopaedic ward with them on, and others in traction, even one screwed into a special revolving frame, bolts into his head and shoulders and hips and legs …

      Hideous. God only knows what it must feel like to be in there, he thought, but the man didn’t seem to be aware of too much. That had to be a good thing—probably the only good thing, if the drawn faces of his relatives were anything to go by.

      He glanced across at the man. On second thoughts, maybe it wasn’t a good thing. He discovered he was extremely grateful he wasn’t in so bad a way that he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, never mind his ankle.

      Although he felt all too aware of it most of the time, and he was desperate for a good night’s sleep in his own bed, with soft cotton sheets, their lovely down duvet and his own pillow.

      And Fran.

      God, he missed her. She’d been in to visit him each evening, but it wasn’t enough, and he couldn’t believe he’d been so reluctant to go away with her this coming weekend for the night. He’d give his eye teeth for the chance to do it now, he thought, lying there waiting for someone to come and discharge him.

      And then Ben strolled in, hitched his hip onto the edge of the bed and grinned. ‘Want to cut loose?’

      ‘Oh, do I ever!’ he said fervently. ‘Got the power to spring me?’

      ‘Absolutely. Well, not really, but I’ve just seen your consultant and he’s happy to lose you. They’re just filling in the paperwork, and I thought, as I’ve got the afternoon off, I’d give you a lift—unless you’re organised?’

      He shook his head. ‘No, not at all. I was going to ring my father or my brother, but I haven’t done that yet. I’m supposed to be getting a lesson on my crutches.’

      ‘Yeah, the physio’s on her way. I’ll get them to give me a call when you’re done, and I’ll get you out of here.’

      ‘You’re a star. Cheers.’

      ‘My pleasure.’

      It took another hour, but finally he was ready to go, and Ben came up, put him into a wheelchair and trundled him out into the fresh air. He dragged in a great lungful of it, closed his eyes and sighed hugely. ‘Oh, that feels so good. You can’t imagine what it’s like when you’re used to being outside all the time, to be cooped up in there without feeling the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. I just kept telling myself I was lucky not to be six feet under.’

      ‘Shouldn’t think you needed to,’ Ben said dryly, pushing him through the car park to his BMW. ‘I would have thought you’d got Fran doing that for you, on the minute every minute. She was beside herself, you know, when she realised how dangerous it might have been.’

      Mike gave a rusty chuckle. ‘She wasn’t alone. When I heard that tree go—well, let’s just say I won’t be taking chances like that again.’

      ‘Good. I’m glad to hear it, and I’m sure she will be. Right, shift across and I’ll get rid of the wheels while you settle yourself.’

      Easier said than done, he realised. God, how could anything so simple be so profoundly awkward? It took him ages, while Ben stood holding the wheelchair and telling him to take his time.

      But so much? Finally there, he slumped back in the seat, his skin breaking out in a cold sweat, and concentrated on getting his breath back. Not easy with his ribs screaming in protest.

      He was shocked at how hard he’d found it, how even such a comparatively minor injury could have taken such a toll on him. And once he was at home, he’d have to go up and down stairs. How the hell was he going to manage that? And bathing, for crying out loud. He’d have to shower with his leg in a bin bag.

      He gave the cast a jaundiced look and wondered for the umpteenth time how he could have been so stupid. It was going to be weeks before he was fixed—months, even. Certainly a couple of weeks before he could do anything even remotely useful on the farm. Even the dreaded paperwork would be too much for him at the moment.

      He swore under his breath, hauled his broken leg into the car, swung the comparatively uninjured one in beside it and eyed the bruises with disgust.

      Pity he couldn’t have worn trousers to hide them a bit, but he didn’t have any that would go over the cast, so he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and his Technicolor injuries were all on display.

      Well, not quite all of them. His body under the clothes was also black and blue all over, a million points of pain and mutilation. He’d caught a glimpse of the bruises over his cracked ribs in the bathroom mirror this morning and had nearly had a fit. Fran would take one look at him in the nude and run, if she had any sense. Probably just as well, because he didn’t have the strength to argue with her about how stupid he’d been and just now she wasn’t wasting a single opportunity to lecture him.

      He closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the seat. He just wanted her to come home and hug him. He’d missed her so much, and his family had all been in telling him off, so their visiting times had hardly been cosy, intimate occasions.

      ‘Come on, Ben,’ he muttered. ‘Take me home.’

      As if he’d heard him, Ben opened the driver’s door, slid behind the wheel and shot him a smile. ‘Sorry about that. Somebody wanted the chair and then couldn’t manage to get her husband into it. As he was having a heart attack, I didn’t feel I could leave them.’

      ‘Of course not,’ Mike said, trying for a smile and probably producing a grimace.

      ‘Right, let’s get you home.’

      He hadn’t heard anything so good in ages.

      ‘Mike?’

      Fran ran lightly up the stairs, crept down the landing and pushed open the bedroom door, tiptoeing round the bed so she could see his face.

      He was fast asleep, his lashes dark crescents against his cheeks. He looked pale under his tan, drained of warmth, and she bit her lip and blinked back tears. He looked awful. Washed out and exhausted, and it made her want to cry.

      She’d been fighting the urge since it had happened, moaning at him about being stupid when all she’d really wanted to do was curl up in his arms and howl her eyes out.

      She backed away, meaning to leave him alone, but her foot hit the creaky board and his lids fluttered open, those gorgeous brown eyes fixed on hers.

      ‘Hi.’

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