Dr. Dad To The Rescue

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“Fine.” Hazel dog-paddled over. “This left hip of mine is acting up again. Fool thing.”

“Hey there, Edie,” called one of the older gentleman.

“’Lo, Ralph.” She shoehorned her heel into her shoe with one finger and nodded toward Hazel. “Say, would it be possible for you to give her a lift in tomorrow afternoon, too, and I’ll see if I can get a room where some work can be done on Hazel’s hip?”

“You betcha.”

Edie grinned at the sight of her aunt’s pink cheeks. Ralph Janssen gave Hazel a ride to hydrotherapy class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, even though her house was out of his way, allowing Hazel to then ride back home with Edie. Ralph’s motives were not altogether altruistic. It was obvious to everyone that he was sweet on Hazel, but the older woman would hear nothing about it.

“Actually,” Edie suggested, “you wouldn’t have to come in tomorrow—so long as you spend another twenty minutes bare minimum doing your stretching exercises in the water while I’m working out, okay?”

Hazel frowned at her mightily. The pool was Ralph’s element. He could hang out there forever.

“Hey, Edie, whyn’t you join us?” Ralph asked.

Edie concentrated on picking a knot out of her shoelace. On a shrug, she answered, “I’m not much of a water person, to tell the truth. I guess it’s from growing up near Lubbock where the most water a person sees at one particular time is at the bottom of their bathtub—and that’s only during the wet season.”

Ralph laughed. “I thought I heard a West Texas twang. What brings a small-town girl like you all the way to Dallas?”

Instantly, the answer popped into her head: Holden McKee. If her mouth had been open, she’d have said it. Holden McKee.

A premonition rippled through her, making her shiver in the warm, humid air.

“You know why, Ralph,” Hazel jumped in. “She’s my caretaker. Gave up a good job in Lubbock to come be with me. Without her, I’d be in a nursing home.” She gave an emphatic nod. “Yup, she’s been nigh onto a savior to me.”

Edie smiled at her aunt with great affection. Rheumatoid arthritis certainly limited Hazel’s activity, but she was hardly an invalid. If anything, the older woman inspired Edie, for Hazel Turner lived daily with pain that was literally bone deep. Yet her spirit would not allow her to sink into despair. Whatever her limits, she lived life to the very edge of them, fearlessly so.

As for being a savior, it was Hazel who’d been one to Edie, urging her six months ago to leave Lubbock behind and come live with her. Family should be with family, her aunt had said, and each was all the family either had left.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Aunt Hazel, but flattery goes as far with me as it does with you.” Setting her hands on her thighs and shoving off, Edie stood and pointed a finger at her aunt. “Stretches. Twenty minutes. I mean it.”

“Oh, all right,” Hazel said.

Edie was still chuckling a minute later as she programmed the treadmill. She’d have preferred an outdoor run, but her hours rarely permitted it. At least at this time of the evening she had the equipment in the exercise room to herself. And she had Hazel’s company on the rather long commute home to rural Parker.

She sank into an easy rhythm, her mind coasting as impressions of her day sifted into place, such as the high school athlete with a torn rotator cuff she was rehabilitating, her conversation with the clinic supervisor...

Then there was Holden McKee. Of its own volition, her mind called up a picture of father and son, with their expressive eyes—one set gray, like beaten pewter, the other the gray-green of verdigris—and that unruly chestnut brown hair that both contended with.

Of course. She must have been thinking of Holden’s son when Ralph had asked what brought her to Dallas. Not that Sam had brought her here. It had been more like a sense of real purpose that had infused her upon seeing him. The serious, dark-haired boy had tugged good and strong on her heartstrings. She didn’t get many children that young as patients; they were open books, their struggles written clearly on their faces. Naturally he’d make an impression on her.

But no denying it, there’d also been the tug from Sam’s father, perhaps because she was quite grateful to him. Holden McKee could have demanded a different therapist for his son today, which surely would have led her supervisor to giving her a formal reprimand. At one point, Edie almost thought Holden might report her.

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t let ego or pride or whatever drove him get in the way of doing what was right for his son.

There may be hope for you yet, Holden McKee. she thought wryly as she upped her pace so that she was now at a fast jog.

Yes, one had to look harder and work harder to bring out the flashes of humanity within him, such as when his son had first entered the treatment room on the heels of his incriminating remark. Or when he’d burst out at her about fearing for his son.

Or when he’d first looked at her, gaze open and unguarded.

It had been the memory of that look that had compelled her to hold out her hand to him across the width of the table. The man lived in a world of pain, and while he couldn’t be blamed for wanting to protect himself from more, neither could he remain in that place forever. Now seemed a particularly significant time for Holden McKee, when he might turn toward his son, toward the pain of losing his wife and get past it to heal.

Or he might just as easily turn away.

Edie didn’t think she could stand by and watch that happen to Sam. Happen to both of them. Happen to all of them.

She frowned, shaking her head. Maybe her supervisor had a point. Maybe Edie did need to pull back, take a more objective stance. Not become so emotionally involved. She’d certainly felt uncomfortable with the closeness generated by Holden’s own reaching out to her, capturing her hair in his fingers....

Thankfully, just then the pace on the treadmill kicked up to ten miles an hour—fast yet still well within Edie’s capacity. But it did take more of her concentration.

She regulated her respiration, two strides breathing in, two strides breathing out. She felt her body straining for oxygen. Just a few more minutes and she’d be in the zone...

Legs churning. Hard arms thrashing through a thick fog. Heart pounding.

Edie drew in a gasp, upsetting her rhythm. What...?

Images flashed before her eyes: Woods, all around. A boy. A dark-haired boy.

What was happening?

With a note of alarm, Edie noticed that her breathing had suddenly become uneven, almost labored, as if she were afraid and trying to get away from something—or someone. She struggled to bring it back under control. Two in, two out.

Now there was shouting. He was shouting something at her. Screaming it. Very upset. “Don’t... don’t give...”

Edie’s throat closed. She stumbled, caught herself with a hand on the side rail. Through a haze of emotion, she found the stop button and jabbed it.

The treadmill ground to a halt.

Her breathing came in gulps. Flattening her hand against her stomach, Edie tried to bring it back under control, her other hand clutching the rail for balance. She felt so dizzy, spinning around and around. She pressed two fingers to the side of her throat. Her heart was going like a trip-hammer.

Edie staggered over to one of the weight machines and sat down on its padded bench. She dropped her head between her knees, sucking air. What had happened? It had been as if she were inside someone else’s head, in a whole different place. The dark-haired boy: could it be Sam? Had she picked up on something the child was feeling?

What was that poor little boy dealing with right now?

Edie sat up, fingers digging into her thighs. Was she already in too deep with this child? Because she realized she wanted to see Sam McKee very badly right then, wanted to hold him, comfort him, let him comfort her—

Almost as badly as she did not want to see his father.

With a shaking hand, Edie wiped the perspiration from her forehead. No. All this was about was her internalizing her perceptions about both Sam and Holden. Whatever it was, whatever scared her about Holden, she couldn’t let it overcome her. Sam needed her. If she had to contend with certain feelings between his father and herself, then she would do it.

She would not be the first to turn away.

Chapter Three

“Can you try a royal wave for me now, Sam?” Edie said. “As if you’re greeting your loyal subjects. Excellent! How about some Motown moves?” Hand on her hip, she stuck her arm out straight and cocked her wrist. “Like, ‘Stop! In the Name of Love.’”

Grinning bashfully, the boy followed suit, earning him more kudos. Pride filled Edie’s chest. Only three therapy sessions, and Sam was coming along splendidly. If anything, he seemed even more pleased than she, and Edie had to give credit for the boy’s changed attitude to Dr. McKee. Even if Holden’s manner toward her was strained at best, he’d obviously been true to his word in setting aside his own emotional issues in order to see to Sam’s.

Whatever he was doing seemed to be working. Sam’s handsome face took on a look of amazement at being able to extend his wrist back to nearly a twenty-degree angle.

“I didn’t think my arm would ever be right again,” he breathed.

“Why not?” Edie asked, biting back a smile.

He had a constellation of dark freckles across one cheek, which he scratched as if they were bug bites. “I guess ’cause it made such a... cr-r-runch when I came down on it. Like a stick breaking. My arm just bent back, way back, like it could never straighten out again.”

Edie managed to conceal her wince of pain, knowing it was part of the healing process, this needing to relate the gory details of a frightening episode to another person in a post-traumatic-stress way of reliving it in order to be purged of it.

Which, once begun, now seemed to pour out of Sam. “I got up, and my hand flopped down a little in this really weird way. That’s when Mrs. Baxter came around the side of the staircase. She turned white as a sheet when she saw my hand. I thought, uh-oh, and I started to get scared. I tried to move my fingers but it hurt too much.”

She forestalled any further confession from Sam by asking, “Who’s Mrs. Baxter?”

“She’s my sitter. Kind of an older lady—”

“Whose heart probably isn’t used to seeing such daring.” She set her hand on the boy’s knee to emphasize her point, and for the first time Sam permitted the caress. “You must take more care, Sam. The next time you think about trying something kind of chancy like that, would you run it by your dad or Mrs. Baxter first? Would you do that, for me? It’d ease my mind so much.”

Dark lashes fell, then lifted again to reveal his clear-eyed gaze. “Okay. I don’t want people to worry ’bout me.”

“I know you don’t, Sam.” She thought of the boy’s father, remembering the look of stark fear that had come over his features when made to picture Sam’s accident—along with the anger in his eyes when he reprimanded her for putting more ideas into the boy’s head.

Perhaps Holden had been right in that judgment The last thing she wanted was for Sam to hurt himself again. Well, maybe her words to him now would help make up for that.

“You know, it might be best to stick to regular sports for a while,” she said. “Are there any you like you look forward to getting back to?”