Read Online If Onions Could Spring Leeks by Paige Shelton - Free Book Online

didn’t know her, but I thought I’d seen her around Broken Rope. She must have been somewhere in her mid-to-late forties, petite, with a curly, short brown ponytail and small brown eyes that matched her hair color. Her mouth was pinched tightly, which made me think she was concentrating hard on checking my blood pressure. But at second glance, there was something else. She seemed upset.
    â€œI’m Betts,” I said, surprisingly curious as to why the nurse had red-rimmed eyes.
    â€œI know.” She looked at me briefly but didn’t smile.
    â€œWhat’s your name? I know I’ve seen you around Broken Rope.”
    â€œI’m Ridley.” The monitor beeped. She looked at the display on the front and then wrote something, presumably the numbers, on a small pad of paper she carried in her pocket. “Your vitals are perfect. I expect you’ll get to go soon.”
    â€œThat’s good,” I said as the exhaustion I wanted to fight seemed to dig in against me. I was suddenly tired enough not to care about pursuing the reason the nurse was upset. I slunked down and relaxed my head back on the exam table. If my vitals were fine I didn’t think I needed to fake feeling a hundred percent better anymore.
    â€œBetts Winston,” Dr. Callahan said as he came into the room, making way in the doorway for the nurse and the machine to exit.
    â€œHi, Dr. Callahan,” I said.
    â€œHow are you feeling?”
    â€œLike I was hit in the head, I suppose.”
    â€œImagine that.”
    It was always a little surprising to find him dressed in an official white doctor’s coat. He was more known for his emergency after hours’ attire, a plaid robe. He’d been seen in it so many times, tending to the sick or injured when his office was supposed to be closed and he was supposed to be at home, that it had become somewhat legendary.
    â€œI’ll be okay,” I said.
    â€œYes, you will. In fact, you don’t even have a concussion. I thought you must but you got really lucky.”
    â€œThat’s good.”
    â€œVery good.”
    Dr. Callahan went over what I needed to do to heal and feel better. I thought his idea about getting rest was the best idea ever in the history of all ideas. I was tired.
    As he was wrapping up his instructions, someone peered through the partially open doorway.
    â€œHi, Jake,” I said.
    â€œYou’re awake? You’re alive? How are you?” Jake said as he came into the room, too. It was getting very crowded.
    â€œI’m fine.”
    Jake stepped around Dr. Callahan, acknowledging neither him nor Cliff, and put his hand to my forehead. “No fever.”
    â€œNo, no fever.”
    â€œHoly smokes, what in the world happened?”
    I stayed out of the conversation as Cliff and Dr. Callahan relayed the story to Jake, and when Dr. Callahan told me I could go whenever I wanted I just nodded. Jake told Cliff that he would see that I got home okay. Cliff didn’t want to leave me, but he knew I was in good hands with Jake and I wanted him to hurry and test my bag for evidence. The flurryof activity finally settled and Jake and I were the only ones left in the room.
    I’d swung my legs around so that they were dangling over the side of the exam table. I was sitting fully upright and I wasn’t woozy. I did have strange, multi-directional shooting pains in my head and I was still tired, but had continued to feel better with each passing minute.
    Jake held onto my arm as I stood.
    I remembered that I was planning on finding Jake after my Trigger shift. Now seemed as good a time as any to talk to him. “Hey, I was going to come find you this afternoon. Gram and I have something we’re dealing with.”
    â€œGhostly?”
    â€œYes, two of them.”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œDo you know about a Broken Rope resident named Robert Findlay?”
    Jake smiled. “The man who spent every day of