“Oh, God. What do you need? Do you need me to call people? Bring some things from the lodge for her?”
One of the many reasons he adored Paige—she didn’t hesitate before offering to make a two-hour round-trip to help out the family. “I think she has everything she needs, but I was hoping maybe you could call everybody. After your shift ends, of course.”
“Absolutely. What should I tell them? I mean…do they need to come home?”
“No,” he reassured her. “It’s not that bad. But it could be if they don’t have her on the antibiotics and IV and shit. She’s going to be okay and nobody needs to come home. I just don’t want anybody finding out later Rosie was in the hospital and they didn’t know.”
“I’ll take care of it. You’re there now?”
“Yeah. Katie’s with Rosie, getting her settled and everything. Once she’s in her nice hospital jammies and tucked in, I’ll go in again. Oh, and she has her cell phone, but they’ll probably be fussing over her today, so tomorrow she might like to hear from people.”
After he got off the phone with Paige, he leaned his head back against the wall, stretched his legs out and closed his eyes. He should have listened to his gut instead of Rosie and brought her to a doctor sooner. Maybe she wouldn’t have had to be admitted to the hospital and stay for who knew how long.
And he had no idea how he was going to keep her corralled once she got out. With less than two weeks until the first guests of the season arrived at the lodge, the list of things to do was insane and quite of few of those things usually fell to Rosie. She was a stubborn woman and there was no way he could do everything and make sure she stayed in bed. As soon as he turned his back, she’d be running the vacuum or sneaking bedding down to the washer.
“The way the nurses keep walking back and forth, giving you the eye, I’m surprised you haven’t been offered a bed yet.”
Josh opened his eyes and grinned at Katie. “I’m holding out for the hot doctor who examined Rose down in Urgent Care.”
“Pretty sure she was wearing a wedding ring.”
He shrugged and pushed himself upright in the really uncomfortable chair. “So I’ll be holding out awhile. How’s your mom?”
“Worried about getting the lodge ready for guests.”
Josh sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair. “She can’t feel too awful, then.”
“I feel bad. They might have let her come home, but when they asked me if I thought she’d rest, I said probably not.”
He threw one arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “It was the right thing to say, because she probably wouldn’t.”
“I offered to stay, but she said we should go back to Whitford and get on with things.”
“Let’s say goodbye, then, because the thought we’re actually getting stuff done will comfort her a lot more than sitting around watching daytime television with her.”
Katie shook her head. “She was actually nodding off when I left her. She said to tell you she’d call you tomorrow.”
It didn’t seem right to leave Rosie without at least a kiss on the cheek or something, but he’d heard how rough her night had been and he didn’t want to wake her up if she was managing to sleep. “Probably with a list of things to get done.”
“Of course.”
He waited while Katie went to the nurse’s station to double-check all the contact info they had, and then they went outside to find it had started snowing at some point. It wouldn’t amount to anything, since it hadn’t merited a mention on the morning news, but every little bit helped.
The snow cover wasn’t quite as good as he’d hoped for, but the white stuff had been building up on the ground. Though there was hardly anything in town, in the woods and higher elevations there was enough for the groomer to pack down. Maybe every trail wouldn’t be open for the fifteenth, but the gates would open and there would be enough riding to keep their guests happy. Unless they had some weird warm-up and rain and all the snow melted. But that was something to worry about when he was supposed to be sleeping, as usual.
“I’m glad there’s snow this year,” Katie said as they walked across the slick parking lot. “Working to get business back up and then not having trails to ride would suck.”
“Got that right.” He shoved his hand in his pocket and dug out his keys. Suck wasn’t even a strong enough word for it. This season had to play out for him. Good snow, good business and a good opportunity to get the hell out of Whitford.
“So I was thinking,” Katie said when they were on the main road, headed back to Whitford. “Mom’s going to get released before the fifteenth.”
“Yup. And she’s going to drag her ass out of bed and make herself sick again trying to make sure everything’s perfect for the first guests.”
“I’m going to move in for a while.”