Heartbreaker by Diana Palmer Page B

solemnly. “The girls and I have been in the emergency waiting room. She’s going to be all right. Tellie came to tell me about it,” he added reluctantly.

    “Then why in hell didn’t she ride in with you?” Grange asked, brown eyes flashing. “She must have been upset—she loves Marge. She shouldn’t even have been driving in weather this dangerous.”

    That was a question J.B. didn’t want to touch. He ignored it, following the gurney into one of the examination rooms with Grange right on his heels.

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    He got one of Tellie’s small hands in both of his and held on tight. “Tellie,” he said huskily, feeling the pain all the way to his boots. “Tellie, hold on!”

    “She shouldn’t have been driving,” Grange repeated, leaning against the wall nearby. He was obviously upset as well, and the look he gave J.B. would have started a fight under better circumstances.

    The entrance of Copper Coltrain interrupted him.

    Copper gave J.B. an odd look. “It isn’t your day, is it?” he asked, moving to Tellie’s side. “What happened?”

    “Her car hydroplaned, apparently,” Grange said tautly. “I found it overturned. She was lying facedown in a ditch full of water. If I’d been just a little later, she’d have drowned.”

    “Damn the luck!” Coltrain muttered, checking her pupil reaction with a small penlight. “She’s concussed as well as bruised,” he murmured. “I’m going to need X-rays and a battery of tests to see how badly she’s hurt. But the concussion is the main thing.”

    J.B. felt sick. One of his men had been kicked in the head by a mean steer and dropped dead of a massive concussion. “Can’t you do something now?” he raged at Coltrain.

    The physician gave him an odd look. It was notorious gossip locally that Tellie was crazy about J. B.
    Hammock, and that J.B. paid her as little attention as possible. The white-faced man with blazing green eyes facing him didn’t seem disinterested.

    “What would you suggest?” he asked J.B. curtly.

    “Wake her up!”

    Grange made a rough sound in his throat.

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    “You can shut up,” J.B. told him icily. “You’re not a doctor.”

    “Neither are you,” Grange returned with the same lack of warmth. “And if you’d given her a lift to the hospital, she wouldn’t need one, would she?”

    J.B. had already worked that out for himself. His lips compressed furiously.

    Tellie groaned.

    Both men moved to the examination table at the same time. Coltrain gave them angry looks and bent to examine Tellie.

    “Can you hear me?” he asked her softly. “Tellie?”

    Her eyes opened, green and dazed. She blinked and winced. “My head hurts.”

    “I’m not surprised,” Coltrain murmured, busy with a stethoscope. “Take a deep breath. Let it out.
    Again.”

    She groaned. “My head hurts,” she repeated.

    “Okay, I’ll give you something for it. But we need X-rays and an MRI,” Coltrain said quietly. “Anything hurt besides your head?”

    “Everything,” she replied. “What happened?”

    “You wrecked your car,” Grange said quietly.

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    She looked up at him. “You found me?”

    He nodded, dark eyes concerned.

    She managed a smile. “Thanks.” She shivered. “I’m wet!”

    “It was pouring rain,” Grange said, his voice soft, like his eyes. He brushed back the blood-matted hair from her forehead, disclosing a growing dark bruise. He winced.

    “You’re concussed, Tellie,” Dr. Coltrain said. “We’re going to have to keep you for a day or two.
    Okay?”

    “But I’ll miss graduation!” she exclaimed, trying to sit up.

    He gently pushed her back down. “No, you won’t,” he said with a quizzical smile.

    She blinked, glancing at J.B., who looked very worried.