5 - Melissa

5

Melissa

The man who walked into the exam room wasn’t a doctor; he was wearing a blue button-down shirt tucked into jeans, with a brown belt and matching brown boots. He had a somewhat messy mop of yellow hair, and a diamond-shaped face with a warm smile and kind eyes. He was like if you started with Owen Wilson and cranked up the hotness factor a couple of degrees.

“Sorry,” I said, “I thought you were someone else.”

His smile widened, and butterflies erupted in my stomach. “You thought I was Jackie. He told me you were grumpy, but don’t worry—he seems to have that effect on everyone. I’m Doctor Richardson, but everyone calls me Noah.”

I looked him up and down again. “You’re… the doctor?”

Noah glanced down at himself and chuckled. “I forgot my coat. I was about to leave for the night when I heard Jackie was here.”

“If you were leaving, I don’t want to inconvenience you…” I began. But I desperately wanted him to stay. And touch me. My ankle, I mean.

“It’s not an inconvenience! Besides, I owe Jackie.” He disappeared back into the hall, lightly jogging based on the sound. When he returned, he was wearing a white coat.

He spread his arms out wide like a showman. “Better?”

I nodded, hoping I wasn’t gawking at him. “ Now I believe you’re a doctor.”

Noah smiled, and I smiled with him. My entire mood had changed in the blink of an eye. Was I really so shallow that a good-looking doctor could make me forget all about my throbbing ankle?

“Your grumpiness was the only thing Jackie told me about,” Noah said cheerfully. “But I’m guessing from the ice pack that you twisted your ankle?”

“Rolled it on the trail,” I admitted.

“Let’s pop that shoe off and take a look.”

I untied my hiking boots and pulled my foot out, wincing because of the pain, and because I knew my foot smelled like I’d been hiking all day. Giving him a whiff of my sweaty socks wasn’t the kind of first impression I wanted to make with a cute doctor like Noah.

But I stopped caring about that as he gently examined my ankle. Noah radiated a sense of caring and compassion. I felt safe with him in a way I hadn’t felt since beginning my journey a week ago, and that feeling of safety caused my entire body to relax.

It also helped that he smelled amazing . I tried to pretend like I wasn’t inhaling every molecule of his scent while he twisted my foot in one direction, then the other.

“I’m pretty confident nothing is torn,” he said. “Normally, I would order some scans to be certain, but your lack of insurance makes that tricky. For now, you should stay off it until the swelling and pain go down. I’ll wrap it; compression helps. And if you don’t see improvement in a day or two, we’ll get you back here and order the scans after all.”

“I don’t know how much an X-ray costs without insurance, but I, uh, definitely can’t afford it,” I admitted.

Noah’s smile was warm and comforting. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve to get it done off-the-books, if we need to go that route. But I don’t think it’ll be necessary, and you should see improvement in two days.”

“So I’ll be able to hike again in two days?” I asked hopefully.

Noah chuckled. “Oh, you’re a funny one. The swelling should start coming down in two days, but it will be at least a week before you can hike again.”

I groaned. More delay. My plans were officially off the rails.

“Try to stay off the ankle as much as possible,” he explained a few minutes later on the way back to the waiting room. “Keep it elevated, and ice it periodically. Are you sure you don’t need anything for the pain?”

“I’ve got Ibuprofen.”

He gave me a lopsided smile. “You remind me of my sister. She’s tough as nails, too. If the pain gets to the point that Ibuprofen doesn’t cut it, come see me. And stay off the ankle! Seriously, it’ll heal faster if you let it rest for the first few days.”

Great. I remind him of his sister . Not that it mattered, since I was just passing through. But a girl could entertain the idea of a crush if she wanted..

We reached the check-in desk in the waiting room. There was a new woman sitting behind the desk. “Theresa will get you all settled. Best of luck to you, Melissa.”

“Thanks, Doctor Noah.” I winced. “I mean, Doctor Rich… I can’t remember your name.”

“Noah’s fine,” he said with that easygoing smile. “And stay off the ankle!”

I watched him disappear back into the medical center.

“All right,” Theresa said. “We have the examination, ice pack, and the wrapping materials… your insurance has it all covered. You’re good to go!”

She gave me a slow, overly-dramatic wink.

“Thank you,” I said, pulling out my phone to look for a hotel. Then I put it away and asked, “Do you know of a good place to stay around here? The cheaper, the better. I’m, uh, kind of low on cash.”

She brightened. “I know just the place! The owner owes me a favor, so I can get you a good rate.”

“That would be amazing ,” I replied. It was nice to rely on a woman rather than big, strange men. Even if they did save my ass by carrying me down the mountain and bringing me to a hospital.

“The place is only a mile away if you…” she trailed off, looking at my ankle and my massive backpack. “Oh, silly me. I’m just watching the front desk until Amy gets back from her break, if you wait twenty minutes I’ll drive you there! It’s on my way home.”

While waiting for Theresa, I sat on the bench outside and stared at my phone. My parents would want to know what had happened. They were tracking my progress on Find My Friends; as soon as it updated and showed my location almost two hundred miles from where I was supposed to be, they would flip out and start calling the authorities. Better to defuse that bomb first.

“Mel!” my dad picked up the phone. “We were just talking about you at dinner. The Mahers think it’s wonderful what you’re doing.”

“I still think it’s crazy!” my mom said, crowding close to speak into the receiver. “But we love you anyway.”

“Do you have your tent set up for the night?” Dad asked. “I bet you’re sitting around a campfire right now, enjoying the wild.”

“Actually…” I quickly caught them up on the day’s events.

“I told you so!” Mom immediately blurted out.

“Linda,” Dad warned.

“I did. I told her this would happen. Didn’t I? I said she would hurt herself, and be stranded in the middle of nowhere, and get eaten by grizzly bears.”

“None of that happened, Mom,” I argued. “I rolled my ankle and am taking a few days off to rest.”

“But that will put you behind schedule,” Dad said. “Do you have enough PTO for work? Or are you going to try to pick up the pace to make up for it once you’re moving again?”

I hadn’t told my parents about quitting my job. It would just make them worry. Well, it would make Mom worry. Dad would take it in stride, like everything else in life.

Ironically enough, I had intended to tell them the truth during the hike, to give them time to accept the big reckless thing I had done. My plan was to drop the news when I had a blip of cell signal, then hike into a deadzone so Mom couldn’t bombard me with questions and comments and suggestions and criticism.

But I sure as hell wasn’t going to do that now that I was stuck in a town with plenty of signal.

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” I told my dad.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Mom demanded. “You can’t just float through life like this, Mel. You need to plan ahead .”

“I’ll call my boss and work it out with him. Right now, I just want to get to my hotel and sleep.”

“I don’t blame you, sweetie,” Dad tried to say, but Mom’s voice overpowered his.

“What hotel is it? Have you checked the reviews? Nancy’s daughter was in Idaho last week and got bedbugs from a motel. It was a local place. This is why I always stay in chains. Holiday Inn or bust.”

“I’m staying in a nice hotel, Mom.”

“And Idaho is close to Colorado, so they might have a problem with bed bugs, too. If I were you, I would dial zero to talk to the local operator and ask for what they recommend, because…”

“Gotta go, Mom!” I said as Theresa walked out of the clinic. “I’ll text you if I need anything. Love you both!”

Theresa drove me a mile up the road, then turned down a dirt path with a faded sign that said: Luxury Cabins . That brightened my mood, although I wasn’t sure what the mountain equivalent of luxury would be. Anything was better than sleeping on the ground in a tent, I decided.

It was laid out like a normal campground, nestled in the bend of the Gunnison River with a little camp store and check-in building in the middle. Except instead of campsites, there were six or seven tiny-home cabins spread along the river. They were all different colors, each with a little porch and two rocking chairs. Four of them appeared occupied.

“Oh, this place is so cute!” I said.

“It’s a hidden treasure,” Theresa said while we walked up to the camp store. “I sure hope he’s here, because otherwise… Ahh, there’s his Jeep! You’re in luck.”

I glanced where she was pointing, and stopped dead. It was a white Jeep, with streaks of dried mud behind the tires. It was the same Jeep that had brought me across Colorado to this little town.

“No…” I whispered. “Is your friend—”

The door to the store opened, and Jack rumbled with laughter. “Well, well, well. So much for not needing my help, huh?”