“Sure,” Graham said, and he knelt down beside Bailey again, who searched her mother’s face with wide-eyed panic on hers.
“What’s the last thing you remember, honey?” Laney stroked her hair back behind her ear. “And tell us what hurts.”
Bailey reached up almost absently to the back of her head. “I think I fell out of the moving truck,” she said. “I had almost everything out and I was bringing in….” She trailed off, a frown coming between her eyes. “A couch cushion and some blankets. It had started to snow pretty bad, and it was going to be my last trip before I waited for you guys to come.”
Graham looked at all the boxes in the kitchen and those stacked up behind him. He heard the triumphant yell of Eli from down the hall, who called, “I found some clothes!”
There was no way Bailey could have unloaded the entire truck by herself in the forty-five minutes it had taken them to gethere. No, she had been here longer than that, especially if Reeves had found her lying in the snow. She could have been there for ten or twenty minutes, maybe longer, and that meant the truck had been unloaded before she’d even called them.
His irritation simmered into anger, because that wassolike Bailey. He and Laney had been trying to give her the autonomy and independence she required for this move, but now he wished they’d checked the map to see where she was instead of waiting for her to call.
“Yeah, the metal ramp was slippery,” Bailey said. “And I toppled over the side of it.”
“Where did you hit your head?” Laney asked, and she started probing through Bailey’s damp hair.
“I think just on the back,” she said. “I managed to roll and the wind got knocked out of me.” She looked down at her left ankle where Graham knelt. “My foot hurts. I think it got twisted.”
“It was up on the ramp,” Reeves said. “I pulled it down, because it didn’t seem broken. Mostly I was worried about her being frozen.”
They all looked at him as he emerged from behind the boxes, now fully clothed.
Eli entered the living room too, and he held a dark green sweater and a pair of black leggings. “Is this okay?” His eyes landed on Bailey, and a smile bloomed on his face. “Hey, pretty girl. You’re awake. You’ve got jeans and stuff back there, but I just don’t know what you want.”
“Leggings will be great,” Bailey said. “Thanks, Uncle Eli.”
“Do you think you can stand?” Laney said. “Graham, help her stand.”
Graham grabbed the blanket that had been covering her and Reeves, and moved into a crouch to help his daughter stand. She managed it, and he held onto one arm with one hand and wrapped the blanket around her with the other.
“Just hold here for a second, sweetheart,” he said. “Give yourself a minute.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I feel okay.”
“You’re not dizzy?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Do you feel like you’re going to throw up?” Momma asked.
Bailey shook her head again. “No, I feel fine.”
“What about your ankle?” he asked.
She took a step, putting full weight on it, and said, “It’s a little tender, but it feels like a mild sprain.” She looked around at all of them, a healthy pink blush coming into her face. “I feel like an idiot. Who lives in Montana for fifteen years and then slips on the snow in Wyoming?” She gave a half-laugh, and that took the mood down in the house from tense to tolerable.
“I’ll help you get changed,” Laney said, and she took the clothes from Eli and gripped Bailey’s arm tightly as they walked around the fireplace and down the hall to the bedroom.
Graham took a deep breath and blew it all out. “Well,” he said. “That was an exciting start to moving day.” He looked at Reeves and stuck out his hand. “Thank you so much for being here.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Did you see her fall?” Stockton asked.
Reeves pumped Graham’s hand and shook his head. “No. I came over with a loaf of bread to welcome her to the highway.”
He stepped around Graham, Eli, and Stockton to the heap of clothes in the dining room. “We can lay these on the hearth and they’ll dry out.”
Stockton took Bailey’s clothes from him and did that while Eli took her coat and set her boots upright.
