Page 24 of Bluebell Promises

Ben turned toward Sammy, but already she was on the phone, calling an ambulance. Ben sat beside the woman, thinking it best that he keep her “with it.” This meant conversation. This meant reminding her that she was still in the world.

“You’re going to be all right,” he said tenderly. “It’s a warm day out there. It can exhaust anyone.” Was this what he’d want to hear if he was this old, if he was this unwell? He thought of Wren, upstairs in her bedroom, listening to Ivy lecture her. He reached over and poured a glass of water from the cooler beside him, which he offered to the woman. He tried to help her drink it, holding it and helping her ease her head back, but it was no use. She was shaking too hard.

Three minutes later, the ambulance arrived. Four EMT workers hurried in and helped the woman onto a stretcher that they then carried back to the ambulance. In no time, the woman was gone, leaving Ben and his secretary alone in the clinic. Sammy was petrified. “What do you think was happening to her?” she asked Ben.

Ben could list a number of possibilities, but it was impossible to know. “I wonder why she came in,” he said.

“Maybe she thought you were a doctor?” Sammy suggested.

“Maybe.” But Ben couldn’t imagine that she’d been so confused as to come into a veterinary clinic instead of a real doctor’s office. It smelled of dog food and cat hair in here.

Later, at their favorite bar, Ben explained what had happened with the older woman.

“That’s scary,” Landon said, his eyes widening. “You didn’t recognize her?”

“I mean, maybe I met her before,” Ben said. “But she’s quite old now. Maybe eighty-five or ninety?”

Landon scratched his beard. “It scares me to think that maybe she has children who can’t find her. They don’t know what happened.”

Ben wondered if he’d done the wrong thing in not following the ambulance. His stomach roiled with guilt.

“Why don’t we go to the hospital now and see if she’s all right?” Landon suggested.

“I don’t think they can tell us anything,” Ben reminded him. “And she must have had identification on her. I’m sure they could contact her children?”

“If she has children,” Landon said.

Ben groaned. This added another complication. What if the older woman was alone in a hospital bed with no one to come see her? What if he, Ben, had been the last person to ever speak with her before she’d died?

“I feel sick,” Ben murmured.

Ben had opted to be a veterinarian rather than a human doctor for many reasons. For one, he was tremendously caring and empathetic toward animals, and he always had been. But number two, sometimes his empathy went too far. If he knew about a sick person, or an accident, or some kind of emotionally heartbreaking incident that had befallen another person, he was often so heartbroken that he didn’t know what to do or say.

When the bartender came over to clear their beers and get them a fresh round, Landon asked him about the older woman. “She’s quite small,” Landon said, describing her the way Ben already had. “Maybe four nine?”

“And she shakes quite a bit,” Ben said, feeling foolish. “She came into the vet clinic today and had a medical emergency. Just want to make sure she’s okay.”

“And that she has people,” Landon said.

The bartender furrowed his brow, then snapped his fingers. “I don’t know, but my wife always knows everything that happens around here,” he said. “She’s best friends with the secretary at the hospital.”

Landon clapped the bar. “Small towns, man,” he said.

Ben was anxious, watching as the bartender headed into the little back area of the bar to call his wife for info. He was gone no more than three minutes before he returned with the name.

“Nelly Winston,” he said. “The name rings a bell, but I don’t think I’ve seen her in years.”

Landon nodded. “Yeah. I think I remember her from the Christmas Festival and stuff.”

“She always made those little frosted cookies?” The bartender narrowed his eyes, as though he were peering back through time.

“The very one.” Landon laughed. “How is she?”

“She’s stable,” the bartender said. “My wife couldn’t give me much more info, though.”

“Good to know she’s stable,” Ben said, his voice much smaller than his brother’s.

“We wouldn’t have been able to sleep tonight,” Landon affirmed. “Thanks, man.”