Marked For Marriage. Jackie Merritt

      The aide went to the closet and took out a bag. “Everything you had on is in this bag.”

      “Great. I’m sure my boots are still all right.”

      “Probably are.” A nurse came in and helped Maddie into the robe and slippers she would wear home. Together then, they assisted Maddie from the bed to the wheelchair. The aide carried two bags while he pushed the chair, the one with Maddie’s clothes and another containing her prescriptions, and she held her purse on her lap with her uninjured left hand.

      The upbeat young man told jokes and talked incessantly during the trip from Maddie’s room to the hospital’s front door. A taxi was waiting, and in about one minute Maddie found herself on the backseat of the cab with her baggage beside her and saying “Thanks” and “Goodbye” to the aide.

      “Where to, miss?” the driver asked.

      Maddie told him the rodeo grounds, which was where both her trailer and truck were parked, although in different locations. “One more problem to deal with,” she said under her breath, which was the God’s truth. Certainly she couldn’t have the taxi driver drop her off at the site of her truck, because she could just barely focus her eyes and didn’t dare attempt to drive it anywhere.

      Then there was Fanny, who Maddie absolutely had to see with her own eyes the minute she got to the rodeo grounds. The stables were about a mile from where her trailer was parked—another problem. She tried to work it out systematically, attempting to picture the triangle of trailer, truck and stables in her brain, which seemed to be stuffed with cotton candy and thus wasn’t working very well.

      She was lucid enough, however, when they arrived at the rodeo grounds, to realize that she couldn’t wander around in a nightgown and bathrobe. Not with hundreds of vehicles parked in the lot and the huge reader board above the whole affair stating in bold letters that there was a meet of the Young Equestrians of Texas going on.

      Another hit, damn it! “My trailer is way over there to the right,” she said to the driver. “It’s over thirty feet long and white. Do you see it?”

      “Yeah, I see it,” he told her, and turned the cab in that direction.

      Then, quite unexpectedly, a surge of relief relaxed Maddie’s tension, because even with her stuffy brain she suddenly knew how to proceed. When the cab stopped next to her trailer, she laid out her plan for the driver. He agreed, and she got out—moving slower than molasses, she thought, feeling impatience with her own infirmities—unlocked the door of her trailer and managed to climb the two steps to get inside.

      It was far from a mansion, but it felt good to Maddie to be in her own special little place, and she wished that all she had to do right now were to crawl into her familiar and comfortable bed. Instead she entered the tiny bedroom, shed her hospital clothes as fast as she could manage and then stood before her closet and wondered what to put on. A dozen pair of jeans hung neatly on hangers, her favored apparel, but she also had some slacks and skirts.

      “Something loose,” Maddie mumbled, and reached for a long, flowered skirt. But then she spied something better—a cream-colored cotton dress that flowed softly from shoulder seams to hem line.

      Getting dressed wasn’t easy, but she finally was ready to leave again. Taking only her purse, she carefully exited her trailer and got back into the cab.

      “Thanks,” she said to the driver. “My truck is parked near the stadium, the second row, middle section, I believe. I’ll direct you.”

      They found her truck amongst the many parked vehicles without too much trouble, but Maddie made no attempt to get out. All she’d wanted was to make sure it was still there, and it was. She was satisfied.

      “You’ve got some things on the windshield,” the cab driver told her. “Held down by the windshield wiper. Want me to get ’em.”

      “Would you please?”

      The driver returned with two pieces of paper, one warning her to remove her vehicle at once and the other threatening a fine and impoundment if she didn’t comply with the first notice.

      She sighed heavily and told the driver where to find the stables. Once there, he asked if she’d like him to help her find her horse.

      “You’re a kind man,” she replied. “Yes, I would appreciate your help very much. Thank you.”

      As they slowly walked to the stables, with her hanging on to his arm, he asked how she’d gotten so banged up.

      “My horse and I took a fall in the arena. I have no idea how it happened, but I hit the ground pretty hard. I’m just thankful that my horse wasn’t injured.”

      “I have a couple of daughters about your age…and three other kids…and we’re all riders. I think every one of us has taken a spill at one time or another, but none of us was ever hurt as bad as you.”

      “It could’ve been worse,” Maddie said with a little smile at the cabby. “A lot worse.”

      “You’re taking it well.”

      “I’m not one to sit around and mope over something I can’t do anything about.”

      “Looks that way, all right. You’ve got spunk, little lady.”

      “Yes,” she agreed. “I do have spunk, but probably no more than most of us who are so drawn and loyal to rodeo. You don’t last very long in this field without spunk.”

      “I’m sure you’re right.”

      They were finally inside one of the long stock barns. Maddie’s strength had been fading during the walk, and she knew she was on the verge of collapsing. “There’s a bench. Let me sit for just a minute.”

      “You sit right there and let me find your horse. What’s its name.”

      “Fanny. Fanchon, actually, but I call her Fanny. What’s your name? I truly appreciate your help.”

      “I’m Joe. Now, you stay here and rest. I’m sure I won’t be long.”

      Maddie leaned her spinning head back against the wood wall and closed her eyes. She needed to be in bed, and she would be, just as soon as she made sure Fanny was all right.

      Joe, the dear man, was back in minutes. “Okay, Fanny is in the next barn, stall twenty-two. Can you make it that far?”

      “I have to make it. There’s no way I can really rest until I see her.” Maddie got to her feet and gladly took Joe’s arm again. Not everything is a “hit,” she thought, realizing that her taxi driver could have been some grump who wouldn’t help another person to save his soul.

      The second they entered the other barn Maddie heard Fanny whinny. “She knows I’m here,” Maddie told her companion. And then, at long last, she was hugging Fanny’s neck and wishing she’d brought some apples or carrots with her. The mare was visibly happy to see her mistress. Maddie believed it, anyway, whether it was true or not, and she told Fanny in quiet words that she was relieved to find her in good shape and that she would be back tomorrow.

      “Okay, we can leave now,” she said to Joe.

      They returned to the cab, and Joe took her back to her trailer. Maddie paid the fare, tipped him very well and expressed her heartfelt thanks. He did one last thing for her. He assisted her from the cab to the door of her trailer.

      Again Maddie climbed the two stairs that had never been a problem and now seemed to be a mile high, and went inside. Taking off her clothes, she donned the hospital gown again, as it was handy and she really didn’t care what she wore to bed, as long as it wasn’t tight. After checking the timing of her prescribed doses for each of her medications, she swallowed another pain pill, pulled back the blankets on her bed and crawled in.

      It felt like pure heaven to her aching body, and she went out like a light.

      Sometime in the night she began dreaming about her childhood, about her