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Black Leather. Ellen’s mother and most of the heroines of Shelter Valley—as Ellen secretly called the ladies who officially met for lunch once a month to solve the world’s problems, but who spoke to one another almost every day—had assured Ellen last night that they were going to have him out of town in no time. Not that Ellen had asked for, or needed, the reassurance.
She didn’t doubt the heroines’ prediction for a second—though she was half rooting for the bold man who had the courage to roar through their quiet town without apology.
“I heard he’s a massage therapist.”
Suddenly, considering that Shawna might actually be about to suggest that Ellen use massage as therapy for what ailed her, she decided this Friday-morning visit was unnecessary after all. She was happy not to be dating. Who had time for it?
When she met the right guy…
When she was ready…
“That’s right.” Shawna folded her hands on her desk. “I hired him.”
“Why?”
“He’s a medical massage therapist, and a good one. His reputation is above reproach. He works with elderly people, volunteers his services a lot of the time, and his success stories would keep the Hallmark Channel in business for years.”
“What kind of successes?”
“Patients with broken hips facing being bound to a wheelchair walking again. Stroke victims brushing their teeth, feeding themselves, learning to talk. A cerebral palsy patient taking his first step at seventy-two.”
“I don’t have a muscular disability. Nor am I geriatric.”
“No, but he’s also done quite a bit with trauma patients. Soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and abused women and children.”
“He helps them walk again?” She was defensive. She knew it. She just couldn’t help it. She wasn’t getting undressed for some biker guy. No way. Even if she was half rooting for him.
“No, he helps to retrain their instincts, teaching them to trust sudden physical movement in their space and, eventually, accept touch to their skin. He’s assisted women who couldn’t tolerate any kind of physical contact. Apparently several of them have invited him to their weddings.”
“Abused women. You mean women who were beaten? Like domestic abuse.”
“Yes.”
“What about rape victims? Has he ever had a rape victim for a client?”
“Not that I know of.”
She was off the hook then. “I don’t see—”
“What you’re going through, this aversion to being touched, even in a completely noninvasive, trusted situation, is the same thing many abused women experience.” Shawna’s words hung in the air. Echoing around the small office. Getting louder by the second.
Or so it seemed to Ellen.
“Fine,” she blurted to silence the sound. “I mean, what does this guy do? If you think I’m suddenly going to want a massage because a good-looking biker wants to give me one—” Heat flooded under her skin.
“You’ve seen Jay.”
“Maybe.”
“Were you afraid of him?”
“Not as much as I would have expected.”
“Good. He’s got a way about him.”
“My mother and her friends don’t think he should be trusted.”
“It’s not like them to judge by appearances.”
“I guess David invited him to the men’s group at church Sunday night and he said no. No excuses, just no, thank you.”
Shawna didn’t dignify the comment with a response.
“And Ben and Tory invited him to dinner. He turned them down, too.” Why Ellen felt compelled to defend the heroines wasn’t clear to her.
“Jay’s personal life has nothing to do with his skills as a therapist,” Shawna said. “I think you know that.”
Ellen didn’t always agree with some of the more narrow-minded opinions espoused by the heroines of Shelter Valley, as Shawna was well aware.
“If you see Jay, I’ll insist on being a primary player in your treatment. So far, with the few clients I’ve referred to him, Jay’s insisting on that, as well. I’ll want to speak with him first, but from what I know about his methods, the treatment will be completely noninvasive.”
The repetition of the word noninvasive set Ellen off. “What does that mean?” The words were out before she had a chance to take a deep breath. Temper her reaction.
“It means you’ll be fully dressed at all times.”
Oh. Well, then. She relaxed her fingers from the edge of her chair. “Where?”
“Here. I’ve given him a room right down the hall.”
She’d known she had to seek all the help she could get the second she’d pulled her son’s arms from around her neck five days ago.
She had a month to fix herself.
CHAPTER THREE
JAY HADN’T PLANNED TO spend the entire morning sitting in a car. It was a school day, Friday—what crazy school system started at the beginning of August?
With the academic year barely under way, why in hell hadn’t the kid left his house to catch the bus with the rest of the junior-high-aged kids?
There had been five of them. Three girls and two boys. Jay could describe them all in detail. He knew which houses they’d come from, too.
But he hadn’t seen the boy he wanted to see.
Only to see.
Without being seen.
At ten o’clock, after three hours of surveillance, he gave up. Either the boy was sick, cutting school, had spent the night at someone’s place or was in juvenile detention.
Hoping it wasn’t the latter, Jay made a couple of calls to be sure.
Satisfied with the news that Cole MacDonald—his primary reason for being in this state—wasn’t in custody, Jay spent the rest of the morning at the Department of Vital Records and the library accessing newspaper archives tending to the other reason he was in the godforsaken desert when he could be watching waves hit the sand. Before he could offer anything to an out-of-control boy, he had to find his father. Find some answers about his life, about himself.
Cole apparently needed a strong hand—and stability. Jay had an aversion to being tied down. Shied clear of emotional attachment to the point that he’d never had a committed relationship beyond the kind but emotionally distant one he’d had with the aunt who’d raised him.
Jay’s father had had an aversion to family ties, too.
Was Jay a chip off the old block? A man who couldn’t be counted on to hang around? Was his need to be a free spirit hereditary?
Jay had no idea whatsoever how to be a part of a family and that couldn’t be all by his choice alone. Was there something genetic that precluded the ability to have close relationships?
One thing was for certain, he wasn’t about to contact Cole until he was convinced his presence in the boy’s life would mark an improvement.
A call rescued him from the archives—in the library and in his mind—shortly after noon. Stepping outside to answer, Jay quickly agreed to Shawna’s request he take an afternoon appointment in Shelter Valley. He returned the car, collected his bike and hightailed it out of town.
All in all, the first half of his day had been a total waste. Good thing he wasn’t being paid for his private investigative work.
SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE AGREED to this. At the Shelter Valley Medical Center for the second time that day, Ellen studied the pamphlets on the bulletin board to the right of the reception desk in the lobby, waiting for her appointment with Black Leather—Jay Billingsley.
She would much rather be at Big Spirits, the retirement center and adult day care where she worked as a social worker and activities director. They were a relatively small operation—only fifty beds—and some days it seemed as though Ellen was a jack-of-all-trades, between the counseling and the planning and implementing activities to keep the seniors busy, challenged, healthy and happy. Still, she loved her job. Loved the people she cared for. They had so much wisdom. And many of them possessed an inner peace and acceptance that she would give much to obtain.
Even more than wanting to be at work, she would rather be with her son, who would have been playing happily at Little Spirits, the day care that was attached to the facility where Ellen worked. Had he been in town, that is.
“Ellen?”
Heart pounding, she spun around. Black Leather. He’d snuck up on her.
Not a good sign.
“Come on back.”
No. She didn’t think so. At all.
He smiled. Not a guy smile. Or a doctor smile. A…smile smile. Like what a stranger would give to another stranger passing in the hall. No threat. No invasion of her space.
Taking control of herself, Ellen stepped through the door with him, intending to tell him in private that Shawna had made a mistake, that this treatment wasn’t a good idea. Maybe Ellen would soften the blow by agreeing to reschedule.
Probably not. She had no intention of coming back. And she wasn’t duplicitous.
“Shawna says you work at Big Spirits.”
“That’s right.” She stayed a step behind him as they passed mostly closed doors that housed Shawna’s office, a weight-loss clinic and an eye doctor.
“I’ve got an appointment with a client there in the morning.”
Why didn’t Ellen know about that? Those were her people. Every one of them.
Not that she had a thing to do with their medical needs. She was their social-emotional captain.
No one needed her permission to call a massage therapist. Nor did anyone have to inform her when someone was having a medically prescribed procedure unless it related to something Ellen had planned. Or limited a resident’s participation in activities.
But they usually did let her know.
The man in front of her slowed.
A vision of Josh’s face as he’d turned around to wave goodbye to her at the airport flashed before her eyes. In the last minutes she’d been with her son, she’d pulled his arms away from her.
She had to get well.
For him, if nothing else.
Black Leather opened the door second from the end. The one Shawna had taken her to earlier that day.
Ellen knew exactly what waited inside. A padded table with a headrest extending from one end. There was a small table, too, with a box of tissues and an MP3 docking station. Next to that was a cloth-draped cart with drawers and a couple of shelves filled with white sheets and towels. The top of the cart was covered with various bottles filled with liquids.
She couldn’t go in there. Not even for Josh. Well, to save his life, she would. She’d die for him.
But Josh’s life wasn’t in danger.
Black Leather, who wore black denim jeans and a white lab coat with black leather boots that made no noise when he walked, turned in the doorway to see her standing several feet away.
“Wait here,” he said, when she’d already formed her lips to blurt out her unequivocal refusal to go any farther down the hall toward that door—or with any treatment he might have in mind.
Ellen stood there, the refusal to enter any room with him still hovering. She felt caged, staring at the ponytail hanging down his back as he strode away from her.
This was her chance to leave. She could have Shawna make her apologies. Shawna was the one who had put her in this spot so she could be the one to get Ellen out of it.
Not entirely fair. Ellen had asked Shawna for help. And Shawna thought Black Leather could help. He had training. History. Previous successes.
He liked old people.
So did Ellen.
He exited Shawna’s office carrying a chair. Was he intending to use it? Or to have Ellen use it? Didn’t much matter to her. She was not going in that little room alone with this man.
Not today anyway.
Not while she was in the middle of a panic attack.
She recognized the symptoms. The tightness in her chest. Butterflies in her stomach. Foggy thoughts that wouldn’t land.
“Try this.” Black Leather set the chair at the end of the hall and pointed.
“You want me to sit there?”
“Sure.”
“Out here?”
