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“Okay, Will,” Krista said after she’d explained the rehabilitation center’s policies and procedures. “Let’s see what you can do.”
“I want to try to walk without these damn leg braces, that’s what I want to do.”
She heard the vehemence in his voice. Underneath, she also heard the worry. She’d read his chart carefully. News of the car accident that had left Billy the Kid, the golden boy from Nebraska whose cockiness and down-home charm had melted the hearts of baseball fans everywhere, had made national headlines three months ago. Today, she’d read the doctor’s version of his spinal injury. Periodically interspersed with notes about his progress were inferences to his bullheadedness and determination.
Crouching down close to the floor in front of his chair, she said, “I know you do. I want you to walk without those braces, too. That’s why you’re here. And that’s why we’re going to do this my way.”
Will’s blue eyes were narrowed, his chin set stubbornly. After a long silence, he said, “Three months ago the doctors thought I’d never get out of a wheelchair. Two weeks ago the therapist in New York took the liberty to tell me that she doubted I’d ever walk without crutches.”
Stilling her hand on the strap of his leg brace, she said, “Then she was wrong. If you say you’re going to walk again, I believe you will.”
Will hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he noticed a burning sensation deep in his lungs. He let out that breath and took another, a sense of awe filling him. It was going to be all right. Krista wasn’t going to restrict his rehabilitation. He was going to be up and walking on his own in no time.
Her hand felt warm where it rested on his thigh as she loosened the straps of his leg braces. In his mind’s eye, he flexed the muscle beneath her palm.
In reality, nothing moved.
Until three months ago Will “Billy the Kid” Sutherland, had been considered the fastest base runner in pro baseball. Today he couldn’t even move one tiny muscle. Squaring his shoulders and straightening his spine, he decided he’d better take things one step at a time. He’d work on walking first. And then he’d work on running.
Half an hour later he was ready to scream in frustration. He was exhausted, and he’d barely done anything. His muscles refused to work no matter what he tried. He sat in a chair, gripping the armrest while Krista issued commands.
“Push against my hand. Push. Not from the hip. Use your leg muscles. Push.”
Nothing happened. He had some movement in his toes and all the feeling in his legs had come back, but without the braces his thigh and calf muscles were mush.
“Try it again. Push.”
Will tried it again, with no better results. He strained every muscle that moved, from his neck all the way down to his lower abdomen. He’d pulled his ham string sliding into third base during his first season with the Cougars. Today, no matter how hard he imagined it, no matter how hard he worked, he couldn’t make any of the muscles in his legs push against Krista’s hands. He wanted to learn to walk, dammit, but after forty-five minutes, all he felt was more frustrated than ever.
“Come on,” she said. “That’s it. Concentrate. Push. Again. Push.”
“I am pushing,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
Krista glanced up into Will’s face. His brow was glistening with sweat. Beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip. His teeth were clenched as if he wanted to bite somebody’s head off. She had a feeling that somebody was her. Good. She could deal with anger. In fact, it was a great motivator.
“If you want to get mad, go ahead,” she said. “This is going to take time, and your anger is going to help you get through it. You’ve made remarkable progress, and I’m sure you’ll continue to—”
“Don’t patronize me, all right? I got enough of that from Miss July!”
After a moment of silence, a sheepish expression stole across his face. She watched his shoulders move and his chest expand as he drew in a deep breath and said, “I guess I’m a little edgy.”
This was the Will she remembered. A little arrogant, a little cocky, and underneath it all, maddeningly sweet.
“Don’t worry about it,” she replied levelly. “One whole semester in college was dedicated to dealing with ornery, pigheaded patients.”
His blue eyes reflected the overhead lighting as he said, “Who are you calling ornery?”
Krista noticed he didn’t dispute the pigheaded portion of her statement and couldn’t help smiling. In that moment, the years seemed to fall away. She felt just as exasperated and infatuated with Will as she’d been when they were both young.
On impulse, she ran her finger along the bottom of his long foot. His heel jerked out of her hand, landing on the floor with a soft thud. She looked from his toes to his face and found his eyes mirroring her own surprise.
“You moved your leg!” she said from her position on the floor.
Featherlike laugh lines crinkled around his eyes, and a wondrous smile pulled at his mouth. Her instinctive reaction to him was powerful, nearly as powerful as the silent communication that passed between them. The shock of it ran through her body. Their gazes locked, and their breathing came in unison.
He reached for both her hands, slowly drawing her up toward him. Steadying herself against his chest, she spread her fingers wide across the expanse of strong muscles. His hand grazed her face, his fingers sliding into the hair near her ear. His eyes were half closed, his expression dreamily intimate. She breathed between parted lips, her eyelashes fluttering down the instant his lips touched hers.
The touch of his mouth on hers brought back so many feelings that tears moistened her eyelashes and a knot rose to her throat. He pulled her closer, his thighs straddling her, his arms wrapped snugly around her back, making her body respond in an achingly familiar way. For a moment, time stood still, and there was nothing in the world but this instant with this man.
Gradually, some thread of rationality filtered through her fragmented thoughts. Will was sitting in a hospital chair in a hospital room. Good heavens, he was her patient.
Krista jumped to her feet and spun around, pacing to the far side of the room. “That can’t happen again,” she cried, amazed to hear the huskiness in her own voice.
“I think it could.”
His deep, husky voice took her back to the old days, when kisses like the one they’d just shared had happened every day. Her memories calmed her in ways she hadn’t expected. This wasn’t the end of the world. Sure, she’d kissed a patient, but it hadn’t been just any patient. This was a man she’d once loved, a man who could still ignite her desire in three seconds or less.
Taking a deep breath, she tried again. “Let me rephrase my statement. That won’t happen again.”
“That isn’t going to be nearly as much fun.”
His simple reply brought her head up. The kiss they’d shared had been a natural, spontaneous reaction, just as the movement of Will’s foot had been a natural reaction to being tickled.
“You may be right,” she said, hating the way her voice caught on the last word. “But you’re my patient. And I don’t kiss patients.”
“Do you mean I’m the first patient you’ve ever kissed?”
“The first. And the last. I’m not like your Miss July. I’m not a package deal. I’ll be your physical therapist, but this time, our relationship will remain strictly professional.”
He seemed to digest her words, his gaze trailing down her body as he said, “That isn’t going to be easy. When you touch me, I find myself wanting to touch you back.”
His honesty was wreaking havoc with her senses. She hoped he didn’t notice the quaver in her voice as she said, “I have to touch you. I have to help you get those muscles to move. You can touch me back, Will. As long as you remain friendly and professional.”
He was looking at his left leg, which allowed her a moment to study him unobserved. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and a New York Titans T-shirt. She knew his legs were weak from his spinal injury, but they didn’t look it. His upper body was powerfully muscular, his chest and shoulders broad. A vein ran up his forearm, only to disappear inside the sleeve of his shirt.
The bruising to his spinal column had been traumatic, but Will hadn’t sat around sulking. A person didn’t acquire this kind of muscle tone that way. Yesterday he’d told her he’d come to her because she was the only person who could make him reach for the stars. Now Krista realized that wasn’t true. With or without her, he’d always reached for the stars.
The Will she’d known back in college had been on the wild side, but even then he’d been completely motivated. He’d run track to increase his speed and stamina and practiced his swing, his throw and his slide. He’d never been the kind of man who enjoyed inactivity. This type of injury was terrifying to everyone, but to a man like Will, it must have been ten times worse. Krista eyed his crutches and leg braces lying next to his chair, her admiration growing. He hadn’t taken it sitting down, at least not for long.
Trying for a friendly yet professional tone of voice, she said, “We used to touch each other a lot, and old habits die hard. But I’m your physical therapist now, and you’re my patient. I think we need to establish some ground rules, things that are safe, and things that are off limits. Kissing me is off limits.”
He started to speak, but she interrupted. “Don’t look so stricken. I’ve sworn off all men, not just you.”
With that, she strode to the wall and grasped the handles on a lightweight wheelchair. “Come on,” she said, pushing the chair toward him. “Let’s take a ride down to the patient exercise room. You still have an hour of time left this morning. Let’s put it to good use.”
Will eyed the gray chair dazedly. He was aware that it was there, but his mind couldn’t seem to get past the fact that Krista had just told him she’d sworn off men. All men.
He’d known his share of women, but he’d never met anyone who was more sensuous than Krista. Back in college, she’d been as ravenous as he was. Sometimes, she’d been embarrassed about her earthy murmurs and sighs, her automatic reactions and responses to their lovemaking. He used to love to kiss her embarrassment away, to make her forget the inhibitions instilled in her by that prissy family of hers, to take her to the brink of completion, then watch her soar. He never would have imagined that a healthy, vibrant, sexy woman like Krista would swear off men. Not in a million years. But then, he never would have imagined nearly dying in a car accident three months ago, either, or perhaps never being able to walk again.
Eyeing the wheelchair, he said, “I spent the worst two months of my life trying to get out of one of those contraptions and now you want me to get back in?”
She shrugged in an offhand way and said, “I thought you were here to learn to walk again, but if you want to take the time to get into your leg braces so that you don’t have to ride in a wheelchair, suit yourself.”
He stared at her for a silence-filled moment, then grasped the chair’s armrest. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“I know,” she said as she leaned down to set the brake.
Her breast brushed against his forearm, the hair on his arm standing up at the brief contact. Slowly, his eyes moved upward, coming to rest on her face. Since Krista wasn’t very tall, it wasn’t a far climb, but it sure was a pleasant one. Will sucked in a quick breath as the intensity of her gaze hit him between the eyes. He’d reacted to her this way before, lots of times. He hadn’t seen or talked to her in eight years, but he hadn’t forgotten her. He was honest enough to know that he’d experienced some of the best sex of his life when Krista had been in his arms. Fleetingly, he wondered how he’d ever managed to leave her all those years ago.
Thoughts crystallized in his mind as he recalled a comment she’d made when he’d first seen her yesterday. I don’t remember receiving any letters from you eight years ago.
She’d only been twenty-one years old back then, but she’d loved him the way a woman loves a man. He’d loved her, too, he supposed. But he’d been a young twenty-two, his sights set on the major leagues, not on the woman with an unfailing spirit and unfathomable brown eyes.
Will grasped the other armrest and levered himself into the wheelchair. She bent to release the brake, her clean scent filling his nostrils. Before she straightened, he asked, “Did you swear off men because of me, Krista?”
The chair’s brake let go just as her breath pierced the silence in the room. For a moment she remained at eye level. Her eyebrows were arched and her voice was clipped as she said, “Don’t flatter yourself, Will.”
She straightened, pulling the chair back with more force than might have been necessary. Will let out a loud whoop as she pushed him through the wide doorway. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she’d said. Krista never had been one for trite lines or inane white lies. Her honesty was refreshing, but then she’d always been refreshing.
He used to tell her so. Will smiled to himself as he remembered what she’d told him in return. “I’m refreshing, and you’re fresh. Quite a combination, don’t you think?”
Krista called hello to other patients as they passed. Will barely noticed. His thoughts were elsewhere, deep in the fresh zone, where images danced through him mind, images of him and Krista in his dorm room, and later, in her tiny apartment just off campus.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
He turned his head slowly as a young boy with dark hair and huge brown eyes ran toward him from the opposite end of the hall. Will glanced around, searching for the object of the child’s gaze.
“Mommy, guess what?”
It took Will a moment to realize that the kid was talking to Krista. Mommy? Krista was somebody’s mother?
“Tommy,” Krista called. “Where’s Mrs. Hall?”
“She’s coming,” the child replied. “See? Back there.”
Will didn’t know why he glanced down the hall, but sure enough, a heavyset woman with frizzy brown hair was hurrying toward them.
“You’re Billy the Kid!” the boy exclaimed, staring at Will.
“Tommy,” Krista admonished, “where are your manners? This is Mr. Sutherland. Mr. Sutherland, my son, Tommy.”
Will heard the pride and affection in Krista’s voice as she spoke to her son. The little urchin extended his right hand, and in his befuddled state, Will enfolded the boy’s fingers in his own large hand. “Hi, Tommy. How ya doing?”
“Cool,” the child said in awe. “Wait until I tell Stephanie that I shook hands with Billy the Kid. She’s my friend. She doesn’t care much about baseball, so she doesn’t know you stole forty-two bases last season, but she’s still pretty smart.”
By the time the boy had finished talking, Mrs. Hall had joined him and Krista in the middle of the corridor. Krista spoke to the older woman, and Tommy rattled on about home runs and batting averages. Within minutes, Mrs. Hall was leading Tommy away. This time the child’s hand was tucked firmly in hers.
Will sat statue still, barely conscious of the lady with the walker who was steadily drawing closer. “How old is your son?” he asked.
“Tommy’s six going on thirty,” Krista replied. “He’s gifted.”
Will digested that statement easily enough. Since she had a six-year-old son, obviously she hadn’t sworn off men immediately after he’d left eight years ago. Yesterday, he’d assumed that Krista wasn’t married. The subject hadn’t crossed his mind today, especially not while he’d been kissing her. She said she’d sworn off men. Exactly what had she meant by that?
“Uh, Krista?” he asked, waving at the little boy at the end of the hall.
“Mm?” she asked, waving, too.
“Are you married?”
Two
Are you married?
The question hung in her mind as the faint swish, thud, swish, thud of a walker steadily drew near. She’d assumed Will knew her marital status. After all, he’d shown up at the Fourth Street Rehab Center in Allentown so sure she’d agree to be his physical therapist that he’d signed his outpatient admittance forms before talking to her.
She’d been fighting her reaction to seeing him again since the first moment she’d looked into his eyes yesterday. It was so easy to get emotionally involved with her patients, to share in their grief and in their achievements. The fact that she’d known Will intimately eight years ago made her even more susceptible to emotional involvement. Somehow she had to find a way to help him regain the use of his legs and retain her own equilibrium at the same time. That wasn’t going to be easy.
Oh, no, she thought to herself. That wasn’t going to be easy at all. She hadn’t been on an even keel since yesterday, but she hadn’t realized just how much Will had affected her until she’d seen Tommy running toward her a few minutes ago. She’d known he had the day off from school, and she’d known he and Mrs. Hall were going to stop by later this morning. But while she’d been working with Will, Krista had lost all track of time and had forgotten about Tommy’s visit. That hadn’t happened before, but then she hadn’t been kissed senseless by one of her patients before, either. From now on, she was going to have to stay on her toes and try to keep one step ahead of Will.
She watched as Tommy and Mrs. Hall disappeared through the door at the end of the corridor. Grasping the handles on Will’s chair, Krista finally answered his question. “I’m not married.”
Will turned around in his chair to look up at her. “That must make those tight-a—”
His eyes darted to the left, and he let the soft a sound trail away into thin air. Understanding dawned as she followed his gaze and noticed that Mrs. Felpont, Heather’s elderly patient, had moved within hearing distance.
“Er, make that those tight-lipped sisters of yours feel like gloating even more.”
Krista smiled at Mrs. Felpont, wondering how many men these days would have cleaned up their language because a kindly gray-haired lady was nearby. Once again she fought her rising sense of wonder.
Staring down into Will’s eyes, she couldn’t help noticing the derision in his expression. He never had thought much of her sisters. She shook her head in answer to his question, deciding not to go on to explain that she didn’t have a lot of contact with her family anymore. Not that she’d ever had much in common with them in the first place.
“Come on, Krista,” he said, drawing her back to the present. “We have less than an hour left for my therapy today. If we want to get me on my feet, we have to get moving.”
Krista hurried after Will, thinking it wasn’t going to be easy to stay one step ahead of this man. The fact that he couldn’t walk made absolutely no difference whatsoever.
She caught up with him inside the double doors and found him looking all around. In one corner of the room, another therapist was helping a young girl into a whirlpool tub. Brody was barking encouragement to a large black man who was lifting weights. Heather was working with Mrs. Felpont, and still another with a teenage boy.
Krista glanced down at Will’s face. His grin had slipped away and had been replaced with a serious expression people rarely associated with Billy the Kid. He really was different in many ways. She wondered if the years had changed him, or if the accident had.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you loosened up.”
He glanced from one end of her body to the other. By the time it came back to her face, the seriousness had left his expression. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She felt a tingling in the pit of her stomach and a grudging smile on her lips. Will always had been able to turn an innocent phrase into something provocative. She was definitely going to have a hard time keeping one step ahead of him. The surprising thing was, she was looking forward to it.
He set the brake on his wheelchair and placed one hand on the chair’s armrest and the other hand on the low table, swinging himself over with amazing ease. Krista moved the wheelchair out of the way and said, “Lie on your back with your head on that pillow. I’m going to stretch your muscles and help keep those joints limber.”
