“By the way, I’m Tricia Adams,” the woman walking beside him said.
“Colin Middlebury,” he said as they half walked, half ran after Rowena. Sitting on the playground near one of the wooden structures was a girl who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. Cradled in her lap was a young boy, thin, pale and fragile-looking, with unruly reddish-blond hair and big expressive eyes. If he hadn’t known he was Rowena’s son, the eyes and hair would have been a dead giveaway.
The girl held a blood-spotted cloth against his head, but he wasn’t crying and didn’t even look distressed.
“What happened?” Rowena demanded, scooping her son out of the girl’s arms. She gently lifted the cloth and examined the wound.
“He tripped and went headfirst into the monkey bars,” Tricia said.
“He was running?”
Tricia nodded.
Rowena tilted her son’s chin up, looked him in the eye and in a calm but firm tone said, “Dylan, what have I told you about running on the playground?”
The boy’s lower lip curled into a pout and he shrugged.
“Are you supposed to run on the playground?”
His lower lip beginning to quiver, he shook his head.
“And why do I tell you not to run?”
“I could faw,” he said in a small and wobbly voice. Colin knew practically nothing about kids, but he was guessing that this one couldn’t be much older than two.
“But you ran anyway,” Rowena said. “And what happened?”
“I fawed.”
“And you got hurt, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Next time will you listen to Mommy?”
He nodded again, and Colin couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. She could at least give him a hug or a kiss or something to soothe him.
Rowena turned to Tricia. “It looks as if this will need a stitch or two. Can you handle things while I drive him to the hospital?”
When he heard the word “hospital,” Dylan’s eyes went wide and he started to squirm in his mother’s arms, shrieking, “No! No hobspital, Mommy!”
“But you have a bad boo-boo, sweetie. You need to see a doctor.”
He began crying in earnest, struggling and screaming, “No! No dopter! No hobspital!”
For whatever reason, he was clearly terrified. Colin wondered if the wound was really so bad that it needed stitches.
“Can I have a look?” he said.
Rowena turned to him, blinking in surprise, as if she hadn’t even realized he was there. Then she frowned and held Dylan closer. “Why?”
“I trained as a medic. I’ve seen every sort of wound there is. He may not need stitches. Or a hospital.”
Hearing that, Dylan instantly stopped fussing and looked up at Colin, eyes wide and full of hope. Rowena asked her son, “Is that okay, sweetie? Can Mr. Middlbury look at your boo-boo?”
Eyes narrowed with suspicion, he asked Colin, “You a dopter?”
“Not exactly,” Colin said, approaching him cautiously. “But I do know how to help people who are hurt. Will you let me see?”
Dylan hesitated, then nodded.
Colin tilted his head down and gently parted Dylan’s blood-matted hair to inspect the wound. Dylan had a small gash just above his hairline, barely more than a quarter inch long, and though the bleeding had stopped, it was awfully deep.
“Does it hurt?” he asked Dylan, who shrugged.
To leave it open would be risking infection. A stitch or two would do the trick, but the child was already traumatized. Fortunately, during his training, Colin had learned a few tricks.
“I don’t think he’ll need stitches,” he told Rowena, and she looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“It’s not as if we can butterfly it closed with his hair in the way. It’s a gaping…” She paused, censoring herself. “It’s d-e-e-p.”
Dylan’s mop of hair was the very reason they would be able to close the wound. “Do you have a first-aid kit?”
“Of course, but—”
“Have a little faith, Rowena.”
She opened her mouth to argue, and Colin said, “Do you want him even more traumatized, or will you at least let me try?”
Conflicted, she looked down at her son, and for a moment Colin was sure she would say no and drag the boy kicking and screaming to the nearest medical facility. But after several seconds she said, “Okay, you can try, as long as you don’t hurt him.”
As if he would purposely try to hurt the boy. “First we need to wash it out.”
“Bathroom sink?” she said.
He nodded and followed Rowena into the building. “Why don’t you sit with him in your lap and wrap your arms around him to hold him still?”