Lana had feared it might distress Ruby to see her dragging an unconscious and bleeding Papili onto the living room sofa, but Chewy licking the muffin crumbs from her pretty unicorn shirt had caught the child’s undivided attention.
“Papili, can you hear me?” Short of a better name, Lana used Ruby’s nickname.
With the bump on his forehead, two black eyes, and a crooked nose, the man looked like he had lost a fight in a back alley. The dried blood she had wiped from his face had come exclusively from his broken nose, but she hadn’t ruled out a concussion or internal bleeding, yet.
His eyes fluttered. “Ru-Ruby...”
“Ruby is fine. She’s eating a muffin by the fireplace.” While she hadn’t determined his exact relationship with Ruby, Lana was pleased he remembered the little girl. “I’m Lana. Are you in pain?”
Through two narrow slits, he gazed at her with piercing dark eyes. “Yes...I...I saw something in the middle of the road. I tried to avoid it...” He winced as he spoke, but he didn’t struggle to breath. “Where am I?”
She forged her most reassuring smile. “You’re in the house across the ditch into which you rolled your vehicle. Can you tell me where it hurts?”
With his fingers, he patted every inch of his head. “I feel like someone took a swing at my face and hit a homerun.”
“Between you and me, it looks more like a grand slam,” she teased. Sensing a presence behind her, Lana looked over her shoulder. Ruby and Chewy had sneaked up on her. “Come here, sugar pie. Papili is awake and he wants to see you.”
The child approached the sofa and scrunched up her cute button nose. “You have lots of owies, Papili, but that’s okay.” She ran a hand down his cheek then kissed his chin. “You will feel better tomorrow.”
A chuckle escaped his mouth as he enveloped the little girl with a tender hug. “I’m already feeling better, munchkin. Were you scared?” Ruby bobbed her head against his shoulder. “It’s okay to be scared. I was scared too. Are you hurting anywhere?”
“No, but I’m still hungry.” The little girl turned a charming puppy face toward Lana. “Can I have another muffin? Pleeease?”
Laughter bubbled inside Lana’s chest. “The muffins are on the kitchen table, sugar pie.” Lana had moved the candles to the window ledge above the sink, out of reach of little hands. “You can go and eat as many as you want.”
A soft thank you floated in Ruby’s wake as she ran toward the kitchen with Chewy on her heels.
The man whose name Lana still didn’t know attempted to sit. “Was she injured?”
Lana gently but firmly pushed on his right shoulder, halting his efforts. “No. The straps over her shoulders were padded and the harness was tight.” When she had helped Ruby take off her coat, Lana had also examined her upper body for bruises but seen none. “You buckled her up properly, but unfortunately for you, your airbag didn’t deploy. Would it be okay if I undo your shirt and jeans so I can examine you?”
“Go ahead.” He sank back into the sofa. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they actually did.”
You’re wrong. Things could have gotten even worse than they did. Lana parted his shirt in silence. One or both of them could have died tonight.
A bruise the width of his seat belt ran across his muscular chest from his left shoulder to below his right nipple, but the discoloration didn’t extend to his lower abdomen or hips. He only flinched when she touched the bruise, not when she palpated his chest or his abdomen.
“At this time, I don’t feel anything unusual or worrisome, but if your condition worsens instead of improving, you will need to go to the hospital.” She zipped his jeans then proceeded to button his shirt. “May I ask your name or what you were doing on a backroad in the middle of a blizzard after nightfall?”
“Eli...Eli Sterling. I’m from Halifax. I got lost searching for a place to eat and spend the night. After the oven caught on fire and burned the kitchen last week, I wanted to take my granddaughter away from the renovations and give her a special Christmas.” Having to deal with a house fire two weeks before Christmas sucked, but it didn’t explain why he traveled alone with his granddaughter. “I’d booked a three-week holiday vacation at Lisa’s Bed and Breakfast, except when I got there earlier...let’s just say they did have my reservation.”
The owner of Lisa’s stopped accepting reservations when he died over the summer, so Eli couldn’t have booked a room unless the rumors Lana had heard were true. “The bed and breakfast closed permanently last August after the heirs of the estate contested the owner’s will, but there were rumors in the fall that someone was making money advertising fake getaways at Lisa’s. You didn’t pay upfront for the three weeks, did you?”
“If I paid for two weeks, the third one was free.” A long sigh deflated his chest. “I knew the deal was too good to be true. Now I’ve ruined her Christmas.” He placed his large hand over Lana’s. “Thank you for coming to our rescue. I couldn’t have lived with my conscience if something had happened to Ruby. I know I have no right to ask you this, but if you don’t mind us spending the night here, we’ll be out of your hair in the morning.”
Decades ago, she had become a nurse so she could heal people, but it didn’t shield her from the wrenching pain of losing the ones she loved. The Christmas season was a stark reminder of the worst day of her life.
She doubted the blizzard had brought them to her front step to lessen her loneliness over the holidays, but twist of fate or not, she couldn’t throw them out. “The storm is supposed to rage for forty-eight hours, Eli. The plow won’t clear the backroad until the storm is over. Your vehicle won’t be out of that ditch until a day or two after that, then good luck getting it repaired by the end of December. Like it or not, you and Ruby are stuck with me for Christmas, but make no mistakes, your stay won’t be free. Once you’re back on your feet, there are two cords of wood waiting to be chopped.”
The reflection of flames dancing on his face unveiled the ghost of a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
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