One Sure Thing (Mamma Lou Matchmaker Series) by Celeste Norfleet

know what you’re talking about,” she insisted as she pulled on the blood stained t-shirt nervously.
    Hope reiterated slowly so as not to be misunderstood. “You didn’t have an accident as you claim, and you didn’t do this to yourself, and you didn’t fall down a flight of stairs.” She moved closer to the head of the bed and lowered her voice. “Mrs. Jackson, we’re here to help you. If there’s something you’d like to tell me, please, now is the time to speak up. I assure you, no one here will judge you. There are people here who will help you, protect you.”
    “Nobody can help me,” Leanne muttered. Tears welled in her eyes and tumbled down her bruised cheek. She raised her cast wrapped around her arm to wipe her face. She winced at the resulting pain. Although the swelling had subsided considerably, the discoloration around her eye could not be helped.
    Leanne looked at the print on the far wall. It was of a log cabin surrounded by a dense forest at the base of snow-capped mountains. It was the most beautiful thing she’d seen in a long time. She cried in earnest. “He,” she rasped out tearfully. “He…”
    “Take your time,” Hope encouraged her comfortingly.
    “He,” she began again then paused and turned to look at Hope. Embarrassment and shame clouded her face. “I fell and hit my head on the doorknob.”
    Hope, holding her breath, exhaled then nodded regretfully. “I see.”
    “I can’t,” Leanne looked away hurriedly. “I fell down.”
    “I understand,” Hope offered truthfully. “When you’re ready, someone will be here for you. I promise you that.”
    Hope slowly turned away and opened the door to leave. Just before the latch clicked she heard the sobbing again as her patient continued whispering, “I can’t. I can’t.”
     
    The memory of their conversation swirled and mingled into a colorless blur of hopelessness. She reached up and stroked the side of her face. Old memories of a forgotten past threatened to creep up. Frustrated, Hope spun the chair around again as her own childhood memories came in a flood of dark imagery.
     
    “No!” It began as it always had. He was drunk, she was accessible. “Don’t, please don’t.” She wailed, pleading in vain as he continued to strike out. The large fist swung high into the endless night. It hovered a moment in recrimination. Then it fell, leveling solidly against the side of her face. The cries of torment wailed as two young girls huddled in the corner listening to the screams of anguish.
    STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! She repeated over and over again in the child’s desperate voice. She watched the fist raise a third, fourth, fifth time.
    He was drunk, she was there.
    “Stop it!” Hope yelled from across the room. Propelled by anger she lashed out in a whirlwind of tiny fists as she jumped onto his back. She held tightly as the bucking beast tossed her from side to side then across the room through the plate glass window.
    She heard the voices as they shouted. Darkness engulfed her as she floated in cool white light.
     
    Hope spun the chair around sending the memories back  where they belonged, back to the recesses of her childhood. Several nurses who’d been standing at the counter talking looked over briefly then immediately went back to their conversation. Hope spun the chair several more times before she heard the familiar throat clearing of Dr. Scott Wallace.
    Scott had graduated at the top of his med school class, interned at Johns Hopkins, and did his residency here at Golden Heart. Yet, with all his renown, he had little sensitivity as far as doctors were concerned. In all his years as a physician, he had yet to learn that doctors were people too with the same pain as the people they try to help.
    Scott, whose facial features rivaled a Disney character, was a large man with an even larger personality. Often referred to as Big Foot, he was hairy with huge bushy brows that moved in synch when he spoke. His keen