I guess at the end he realized how foolish that was and how much harm he'd already done you, so he tried to make it right."
I looked at her. "What wrong did he do me?
There was nothing but business between us."
She gave me a peculiar look.
"You can't see it yet?"
"No."
"Then I guess you never will," she said and walked out onto the porch.
We could hear Jo-Ann's shout of laughter as she rode the big bay around the corral.
She was doing pretty good for a beginner.
I looked down at Monica.
"She takes to it like she was born to the saddle."
"Why shouldn't she?" Monica replied. "They say such things are inherited."
"I didn't know you rode."
She looked up at me, her eyes hurt and angry.
"I’m not her only parent," she snapped coldly.
I stared at her.
This was the only time she'd ever mentioned anything about Jo-Ann's father to me.
It was sort of late to be angry about it now.
I heard the chug of Doc Hanley's old car turning into the driveway.
He stopped near the corral and getting out of the car, walked over to the fence. He never could drive past a horse.
"That's Doc Hanley. He's supposed to check me out."
"Then I won't keep you," Monica said coolly. "I’ll say good-by here."
She went down the steps and started walking toward the corral.
I stared after her bewilderedly.
I never could figure her out when she got into those crazy moods.
"I'll have Robair drive you to the station," I called after her.
"Thanks!" She flung it back over her shoulder without turning around.
I saw her stop and talk to the doctor, then I turned and walked back into the house.
I went into the room that my father used as his study and sank down on the couch.
Monica always did have a quick temper. You'd think by now she'd have learned to control it.
I started to smile, thinking of how straight her back was and how sassy she'd looked walking away from me, her nose in the air.
She still looked pretty good for a woman her age.
I was forty-one, which meant she was thirty-four. And nothing on her jiggled that shouldn't.
The trouble with Doc Hanley is that he's a talker.
He talks you deaf, dumb and blind but you don't have much choice. Since the war started, it's been him or nothing. All the young docs were in the service.
It was six thirty by the time he'd finished his examination and begun to close up his instrument case.
"You're doin' all right," he said. "But I don't hold with them newfangled notions of getting you out as soon as you kin move.
If it'd been up to me, now, I'd have kept you in the hospital another month."
Nevada leaned against the study wall, smiling as I climbed into my britches.
I looked at him and shrugged. I turned to the doctor.
"How long now before I can really begin to do some walking?"
Doc Hanley peered at me over the edges of his bifocals.
"You kin start walkin' right now."
"But I thought you didn't agree with those city doctors," I said. "I thought you wanted me to rest some more."
"I don't agree with them," he said. "But since you're out, an' there ain't nothin' that can be done about that, you might as well git to movin' about.
There ain't no sense in you jist layin' aroun'."
He snapped his case shut, straightened up and walked to the door.
He turned and looked back at me.
"That's a right pert gal you got there, your daughter."
I stared at him. "My daughter?"