A Match Made in Texas by Arlene James Page A

lights of emergency vehicles flashed macabre shadows across the scene, but Stephen knew it was too late. Still, he struggled, sobbing and screaming, desperate to reach the dearest person in his world. Nick could not be gone. He could not, for how could anyone possibly live in a world without Nicklas?
     
    The call came on the house phone, not the expensive mobile unit that Stephen Gallow had insisted she must have. Somehow, though, even as she reached for the receiver on the low chest beside her bed, Kaylie knew that it had to do with him. Hearing Odelia’s trembling voice on the other end of the line only confirmed that assumption.
    “Kaylie? Can you come? He’s fallen, and the pain is terrible. We don’t know what to do.”
    “I’ll be right there,” she answered without hesitation, throwing off the bedcovers.
    Her father tapped on her bedroom door as she pulled on her scrubs. “One moment!” Reaching for the doorknob with one hand, she stuffed a pair of socks into a pocket with the other.
    “What’s going on?” Hub demanded, yanking a knot in the belt of his plaid robe. “I heard the phone ring, and it’s not even 5:00 a.m.”
    “Stephen has fallen,” she told him, stomping her bare feet into athletic shoes.
    “Who is Stephen?”
    “Mr. Gallow.”
    “Your new patient?”
    “That’s right.”
    Hubner rolled his eyes. “I knew this job would turn into a terrible imposition.”
    Kaylie tried to hang on to her patience as she stuffed her wallet into her pocket and grabbed her keys. “I don’t have time to discuss it, Dad.”
    Pushing past him, she moved down the narrow hallway and into the living room. Hub padded along behind her in his house slippers.
    “When will you be back?”
    “I have no idea.”
    She skirted the room, with its comfortably worn furnishings and fieldstone fireplace. Just as she reached the opening to the small foyer, a lamp snapped on and her father spoke again.
    “What about breakfast?” he asked, the faintest whine in his voice. “Will you be back in time to get breakfast, do you think?”
    Exasperated, Kaylie rounded on him. “I don’t know, Dad. Thankfully, you can feed yourself.”
    Something dark and troubling flashed across his face, but Kaylie’s worry for Stephen pushed all other considerations away just then. She whirled and rushed out, telling herself thatshe would apologize later. As she raced toward Chatam House, her only prayer was for the injured man who had put that tremor into her auntie’s voice.
     
    Locking his jaw, Stephen held still as Kaylie injected medication into his upper right leg. Red-hot pain radiated up and down from the thigh, knifing up into his hip and down into the plaster cast below his knee, all the way to the ankle. Add to that the intense throbbing in his ribs, and it was all he could do retain consciousness.
    Nevertheless, as soon as Kaylie recapped the syringe, he insisted through his teeth, “I do not need an ambulance!” For all the good that did him. She had already made the call to 9-1-1.
    Ignoring his desires entirely, she turned to address those crowded into his bedroom. She surprised him, this small, wholesome, quiet woman; he might even have been fascinated by the cool, competent manner in which she had taken control and created order out of chaos within moments of her arrival, had she not ignored his every wish and order.
    “Carol, would you go down and watch for the emergency vehicle, please?” she directed briskly. “Hilda, I think everyone is going to need a hot cup of tea soon.”
    Carol, in her messy ponytail and hastily donned slacks and blouse, nodded. Dressed in a threadbare caftan, her elder sister Hilda did the same. Her straight, thin, gray-dulled yellow-gold hair flopped about her double chin.
    “I’ll heat some cinnamon rolls, too.” She went out with her younger sister.
    Chester, wearing black pants and a white undershirt with bare feet, watched his wife and sister-in-law leave without comment, then