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picked him up. At least she had done the right thing there.
    Peering harder at the blood spot, she said, “It looks like it’s dryin’.”
    She handed him a napkin to wipe his mouth. He wiped his fingers instead, so she handed him another and suggested he sit on the running board of the trailer, while she got a bottle of water from behind the truck seat.
    “Here.” She handed him the bottle.
    He tilted the bottle upward, swished water in his mouth and spat it out in a forceful stream. She regarded the action as a hopeful sign that he was okay, although the way he dropped his head did not seem altogether positive.
    She stared at him, and her mind went far astray thinking how undoubtedly his car had gone off the road in a split second, just as it had been a split second when she had almost run him down while she’d been lost in thought and music.
    How quickly things could happen, lives go all askew, when one was just going along.
    Bringing herself back to the present, she took the bottle ofwater from his hand, wet a couple of napkins and handed them to him to cool his face. He said a hoarse thank-you.
    Thinking it prudent to get an assessment of the wound, she boldly bent close and gently parted his hair with her fingernails. “You have a pretty good goose egg here,” she said.
    Blood matted a spot about the size of a silver dollar. Luckily it was on the hard bone well above his temple. His hair was silky, thick and the color of mahogany. She felt the life of him beneath her fingers and her nose.
    “We’d best get you to the hospital,” she said, quickly stepping back.
    “I’m all right. I don’t need to go to a hospital.”
    He spoke in a drained voice that was hardly assuring. She did not think she should take his word for his condition.
    “Oh, I really think you had better.”
    “I’ll be all right. I just need a few minutes,” he said in a sudden sharp manner that she did not think was called for.
    She clamped her mouth tight against a retort. And as she couldn’t see wrestling him into her truck to rush him to the hospital, she waited for him to either collapse or to regain what she considered full composure.
    Another minute and he took the bottle of water from her and again rinsed his mouth several times, each time spitting out the water in a forceful manner that succeeded in greatly easing her tension. Obviously he had enough strength that he was not likely to die any moment. Although there could be long-term ramifications from a good blow to the head.
    “I think you could have a concussion. You passed out in my truck and threw up. Those are definite signs.”
    “I slept,” he said, this time taking a swallow of the water.
    She watched him for a long minute, and then she said, “You should go to the emergency room, and the police can be calledfrom there. You’ll need to report your car. And possibly we should report about my almost running you down. I might have added to your injury.”
    It probably wasn’t too sterling on her part, but she did think drearily about a big rise in her insurance premiums; undoubtedly his insurance company would find a way to put a lot of it on her. It was seeming like a bigger mess all the time. She imagined a hospital, the empty halls at this time of night, painful fluorescent lights, and reams of forms to be filled out. They would likely be there all night.
    The next instant she noticed him looking up at her, his expression saying clearly that he considered her a very bossy woman. She might have jumped in with a good comment that these things really needed to be done, but a Trans Am flying around the rear of the trailer distracted her. The sporty black car, music booming, zipped up to stop with a squeal of tires in front of the nearest fuel pump, an action that irritated Rainey no end. She didn’t know why people had to speed into gas stations. Had she been crossing the lot, she could have been run over.
    Then her stranger—somewhere along the line she had