Free Hawk's Way: Callen & Zach by Joan Johnston

determine whether he had a reading dysfunction or not?
    The problem got pushed to the background when Sam returned home hobbling later that afternoon. His face was ashen, and his body was trembling.
    “My God! What happened?” Callen exclaimed as Sam lowered himself gently to a kitchen chair.
    “I got stomped by a cow. Made the mistake of getting between her and her calf while I was repairing some fence. I managed to slide to the opposite side of the barbed wire, but not before she laid into me some.”
    “Why didn’t you go straight to the hospital!” Callen exclaimed as she dropped to one knee in front of him. She reached up to unbutton his torn and dirtied shirt and hissed in a breath of air when she saw the growing bruises on his chest. “Sam, this looks serious,” she said in a wobbly voice. “Please let me take you to the hospital.”
    “It’s too expensive,” he said flatly. “Besides, I’ve been through this before. I’ve got a broken rib, maybe two. The most a doctor can do is bind me up. I can do that for myself.”
    Callen was terrified that Sam might have internal injuries he wasn’t aware of, or that one of those broken ribs might puncture a lung. “Please,” she begged.
    “No, and that’s final.” He tried to get up, but groaned and slid back into the kitchen chair. “You’re going to have to bind me up. I can’t do it myself.”
    “I can’t—”
    “I’ve got bandages I’ve used in the past. They’re under the sink in the bathroom. Go get them.”
    Callen found several rolls of Ace bandages where Sam had told her to look and brought them back to the kitchen. Sam had slid his shirt off his shoulders. The skin was scraped raw in several places, and the bruising looked terrible. She bit her lip to keep from pleading with him again. In the short time they had been married, she had learned how stubborn he could be. There was no sense wasting energy arguing. She would bind him up, put him in bed and then get a doctor to come see him, whether he liked it or not.
    The color was returning to Sam’s face by the time Callen finished. “Do you need help getting to bed?”
    “I think I can manage.”
    When he tried to get to his feet, he swayed dizzily. He reached out for her, and she slid herself under his arm to support him. “Just take it easy,” she coaxed.
    Callen eased Sam into bed and retreated to the kitchen to phone the Whitelaw family doctor. “I know you don’t usually make house calls, Dr. Stephens, but Sam refuses to go to the hospital. I’m afraid he may have some internal injuries. Thanks. I’ll be expecting you then.”
    Sam lay in bed staring at the ceiling, disgusted at having gotten himself into this situation. He didn’t like depending on Callen for anything. He had to admit she had done a good job of binding his ribs. And he would have fallen flat on his face in the kitchen if she hadn’t been there to catch him. But he already felt enough in her debt for all the work she had done around the house.
    He had been a changed man since his marriage, rising earlier than he had in years and working late intothe night. No matter how tired he was, he had always found time to make love to Callen. He had tried to convince himself it was all part of the plan. But he realized now he had done it because he had wanted to please and impress his wife. He had wanted to earn her respect. And now here he was stuck in bed, helpless, flat on his back.
    He tried rising, but his ribs hurt him too much. He didn’t have any choice but to stay where he was. He had just started wondering where Callen was keeping herself when he heard her talking to someone in the kitchen. His first panicked thought was that Garth had come to visit. He gasped at the pain when he tried to rise and fell back to the bed.
    “Who’s there, Callen?” he called out to her. His answer came in the form of a strange man in the doorway. One look at the black bag he carried, and Sam swore under his breath. He turned