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“She’s not saying too much yet,” Maggie said, “but trust me, she knows how to make herself understood.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Michael said, already thoroughly under little Caitlyn’s spell.
“Think you can handle her for five minutes?” Maggie asked. “I have groceries in the car. I’m afraid I overdid it. I could use Ryan’s help bringing them in.”
“Sure. Miss Caitlyn and I will be fine.” He wasn’t sure how he knew that. It was just that it was the first time in months that someone wasn’t looking at him with pity. His niece’s expression was merely curious. He could deal with friendly curiosity, especially from someone who hadn’t yet learned how to ask complete and probing questions.
But the instant Ryan and Maggie left, Michael had a sudden attack of nerves. He didn’t know a whole lot about kids. He had dim memories of his twin brothers, but he’d been little more than a toddler himself when the family had split up. He’d been the youngest in his foster family. Now both of his foster sisters were married, but so far were childless. A couple of the guys on his SEAL team had children, but Michael had tended to steer clear of the gatherings when they’d been present. He didn’t like the feelings of envy that washed through him when he was surrounded by tight-knit families.
“So, kid, what do you like to do?” he asked the toddler who seemed perfectly content to sit cuddled in his arms. “I’ll bet you have a doll or two at home. Maybe a stuffed bear.”
Caitlyn listened intently, but said nothing.
“Then, again, maybe you’re one of those liberated little girls who has cars and trucks,” Michael continued. “Your mom strikes me as the kind of woman who’d want you to grow up knowing that you have options.”
Apparently he’d said the wrong thing, because Caitlyn suddenly looked around the room and huge tears promptly welled up in her eyes.
“Mama,” she wailed loudly. “Mama!”
She sounded as if her little heart was breaking. Feeling desperate, Michael awkwardly patted her back. “Hey, it’s okay. Your mama is just outside. She and your daddy will be right back.”
That brought on a fresh round of tears. “Da-dada!”
Michael was at a loss. He was about to panic, when the door swung open and Maggie and Ryan came breezing in. Maggie grinned, set the groceries beside the door and swooped in to pick up the squalling child.
“Hey, baby girl, what’s all that noise?” Maggie chided.
Just like that, the wails trailed off and the tears stopped. “Mama,” Caitlyn said contentedly, patting Maggie’s cheek. Then she turned back to Michael and held out her arms.
Michael couldn’t help chuckling. “Fickle little thing, aren’t you?” he said as he reached for her. “You’re going to grow up and break some man’s heart.”
“She won’t be dating until she’s at least thirty,” Ryan said emphatically.
“Good plan. I can hardly wait to see how well you stick to it,” Michael said. “Especially since this one obviously has a mind of her own already.”
“Don’t laugh. You might be called on to help me chase off the boys,” his brother informed him.
Michael looked at the little angel who was now snuggled against him, half-asleep. “Just say the word,” he said solemnly.
“That reminds me,” Ryan said, taking a slip of paper from his pocket and handing it to Michael.
“What’s this?”
“Maggie’s list of therapists. She reminded me just now to be sure and give it to you.”
Michael’s gaze narrowed. “And the connection to your daughter’s social life would be?”
“If you’re going to help me protect Caitlyn from hormone-driven teenaged boys, you’re going to have to be in top form,” Ryan said. “You might as well pick one and call. If you don’t, Maggie will.”
Michael glanced toward the kitchen where his sister-in-law was busily arranging his groceries and dishes so things would be within reach. He took the list and stuffed it in his pocket without comment.
It was only later, after Ryan, Maggie and Caitlyn had gone, that he took out the paper and glanced at the names. One jumped out at him: Kelly Andrews.
Years ago his best friend, Bryan Andrews, had had a sister named Kelly. Was it possible that this was the same girl? He remembered her as being a cute, shy kid, but by now she would have to be, what? Twenty-four most likely.
Michael had lost touch with Bryan years ago. Maybe he’d track him down and ask if his sister was a physical therapist. Purely as a matter of curiosity. He had no intention of asking some therapist to waste her time on him, not when every doctor he’d seen had said that a full recovery was impossible.
And, he thought with self-derision, anything less meant he might as well be dead.
Kelly Andrews was as nervous as if she’d never worked with a patient before. She stood outside the small cluster of apartments in the freezing cold and tried to gather her courage. No matter how many times she told herself that Michael Devaney was a potential client, nothing more, she couldn’t help the rush of emotions that filled her.
Michael had been her first teenage crush. Three years older than she was, he and her brother had been friends throughout high school. Michael had never given her so much as a second glance, not as anything more than Bryan’s kid sister, anyway. That hadn’t stopped her from weaving her share of fantasies about the quiet, dark-haired boy with the intense, brooding gaze and a body that even at seventeen had been impressively well muscled.
It was Bryan who’d told her about Michael being shot and the doctors’ very real conviction that he would never walk, much less work as a SEAL, again. Bryan had come back from his visit with Michael sounding worried that his old friend was going to give up. That concern had communicated itself to Kelly.
“His brothers went out to San Diego and convinced him to come back here to recuperate,” Bryan had explained two nights before. “I spoke to Ryan after I saw Michael. He says his brother is going to be needing a lot of physical therapy, but so far Michael has flatly refused to ask anyone for help. He did ask about you, though.”
Kelly’s heart had taken an unsteady leap. “He did?”
“Apparently your name was on a list Ryan’s wife made of prospective therapists.” Bryan had regarded her with a knowing look. “You interested? I know how you love a challenge. I also know you always had a thing for Michael.”
“I did not,” she said, though the flush in her cheeks was probably a dead giveaway that she was lying.
As desperately as she wanted to be the one to be there for Michael now, she had hesitated. “From what you say, it’s going to be a long, difficult process. He’s going to need someone he trusts. Do you think he’ll pay any attention to me? In his mind, I’m probably still your kid sister.”
Bryan had grinned. “Sis, you forget, I’ve seen you in action at the clinic when I’ve come by to pick you up. You’re hard to ignore. So, should I tell his brother you’ll take the job, and that you won’t let Michael’s lousy, uncooperative mood scare you off?”
“Hold it. Back up a minute. You said that before—something about brothers. I thought there were only girls in his family.”
“The Havilceks only had girls, but Michael was a foster kid.”
“Of course. I knew that,” Kelly said, suddenly remembering. “At least, I knew he had a different last name. I guess I never really gave much thought to it, because he didn’t seem to. So, these brothers are his biological brothers?”
Bryan had nodded. “He hadn’t seen them in years till they turned up in San Diego.”
“That must have been a shock.”
“It was. They were separated when his parents bailed on all of them. Michael was only four. He barely remembered them.”
She’d stared at her brother with surprise. “Is this something you just found out, or did you know it when we were kids?”
He shook his head. “I knew he was a foster kid. But back then, Michael never talked about how he’d wound up with the Havilceks. Every time I started to ask about his real family, he told me the Havilceks were his real family, the only one that counted.”
The story explained a lot…and added to her fascination with Michael Devaney, a fascination she was going to have to ignore if she was going to do her job the way it needed to be done.
“I’m scheduled at the clinic tomorrow, but tell Ryan I’ll go by to see Michael the day after tomorrow,” she had told her brother. “Whether I stay, though, is going to have to be up to Michael. I can’t force him to do therapy if he’s not willing.”
Bryan had grinned at her. “Since when? I thought you specialized in difficult, uncooperative patients.”
She did, but none of them were Michael Devaney, who’d always left her tongue-tied.
Since that conversation with her brother, she’d had more than twenty-four hours to prepare herself for this meeting, but she was as jittery as if it were the first case she’d ever handled. Today she was only doing an evaluation, working up a therapy schedule and making sure that Michael was going to be comfortable having Bryan’s kid sister as his therapist. She was counting on a brisk, polite half-hour visit.
She was not counting on the crash of something against the door when she rang the bell. Nor on the bellow telling her to go the hell away.
Oddly enough, the tantrum steadied her nerves and stiffened her resolve. She had a key in her pocket, passed along to her by Bryan, but when she tested the door, she found it was unlocked. Michael might be furious at the universe, he might be testing her courage, but he wasn’t really trying to keep her out, or that door would have been locked tight with the security chain in place.
She plastered a smile on her face, squared her shoulders and called out a cheery greeting as she stepped across the threshold. From his wheelchair across the room, Michael glared at her, but he lowered the vase of flowers he had apparently been intent on heaving in her direction.
“Having a bad morning?” she inquired politely, ignoring the shock that seeing him had on her system. Incapacitated or not, he was still the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.
“Having a bad life,” he snapped back. “If you’re smart, you’ll turn tail and run.”
She grinned, which only seemed to infuriate him more.
“I’m serious, dammit.”
“I’m sure you are, but you don’t scare me,” she said with pure bravado. In truth, what really terrified her was the possibility that he’d force her to leave when he so clearly needed someone with her skills to get him out of that chair and back on his feet.
His scowl deepened. “Why not? I’ve scared off everybody else.”
“How? Have you been waving a gun around?”
“Not likely. I believe they’ve all been removed from the premises,” he said bitterly.
“Good. Then that’s one less thing I need to worry about,” she said. “Mind if I sit down?”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
She crossed the room, paused in front of his wheelchair and held out her hand. “It’s good to see you again, Michael. You look great.” And he did. Despite the exhaustion evident in his eyes, despite his unshaven cheeks, he looked exactly the way she’d remembered him—strong and invincible and sexy as sin. Not even his being in a wheelchair could change that.
For a minute he seemed totally taken aback by her comment, but eventually he clasped her hand in his. To her very deep regret, the contact sent a shock straight through her. She’d been hoping she was past being affected by him, that a girl’s crush wouldn’t inevitably mean that there would be a woman’s attraction. It would make the next few weeks or months a lot easier on both of them if she wasn’t fighting unreciprocated feelings of attraction.
“You look good, too,” he muttered, as if he wasn’t all that comfortable with polite chitchat. That much at least hadn’t changed. Michael never had been much for small talk. He’d always been direct to the point of bluntness.
“I’m sorry you were hurt,” she said.
“Not half as sorry as I am.”
“Probably not. So let’s see what we can do about getting you back on your feet.”
His already grim expression turned to a glower. “Look, the doctors have already told me that I’ll never work as a SEAL again, so let’s not waste your time or mine.”
“And that’s the only profession out there for a man with a sharp mind?” she asked.
“It’s the only one I care about.”
She decided not to waste her breath trying to bully him out of such a ridiculously hardheaded, self-defeating stance. “Okay, then, if you’re not motivated to walk again so you can get back to work, what about so you can do a few simple things like going for a walk in the park or maybe going out to get your own groceries? The way I remember it, you’re an independent guy. Are you going to be content letting other people manage your life for you?”
He patted the wheelchair. “With a little more practice, I’ll be able to get around well enough in this.”
Now it was her turn to frown. “And you’re ready to accept that?”
“It’s not as if I have a real choice. The doctors said—”
She cut him off. “Oh, what do they know?” she asked impatiently. “The Michael I remember would take that as a challenge. Why not prove them wrong?” She looked him straight in the eye. “Or do you have something better you’d like to be doing?”
“I keep busy.”
Kelly eyed the computer across the room. A bingo game was on the screen. “I imagine you can earn pocket change playing bingo, but I also imagine you’ll be bored to tears in a couple of weeks.” She shrugged. “Still, it’s your choice. I certainly can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Damn straight,” he muttered.
She bit back a smile at the display of defiance. “So, Michael, what’s it going to be? Do I go or stay?”
Once again, she’d obviously taken him by surprise by leaving the decision entirely up to him. He blinked hard, then sighed. “Stay if you want to,” he said grudgingly.
She grinned at him. “Okay, then, let’s do this my way,” she said. “Here’s what I’m thinking.” She laid out the exercises and the rigorous schedule she’d already devised based on the medical information his brother had shared with her. “What do you think?”
“Do you have a masochistic streak I missed when you were a kid?” he grumbled.
Kelly grinned. “No, but I have what it takes to get you out of that chair.”
For the first time since she’d arrived, he actually looked her directly in the eye, then slowly nodded. “You may have, at that.”
“Then that’s all that really matters, isn’t it? I’ll see you first thing tomorrow. Be ready to work your butt off, Devaney.”
He chuckled. “You’re tougher than you used to be, Kelly.”
“You’d better believe it,” she said. “And I don’t have a lot of use for self-pity, so get over it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a salute.
She gave a nod of satisfaction. “It’s always helpful when the client realizes right off who’s in charge. Therapy goes much more smoothly.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“Not to worry. I’ll make sure of it,” she said, winking at him as she closed the door behind her.
She paused outside and leaned against the wall, unsuccessfully fighting the tears she hadn’t allowed herself to shed in front of him. She’d put on a damn good show for him, but she’d been shaken. What if she couldn’t do what she’d promised? What if she couldn’t get him out of that wheelchair and back on his feet?
“Stop it,” she muttered. Failure was not an option, not with Michael.
As for getting personally involved with a client, that wasn’t an option, either, but she had a horrible feeling it was already too late to stop it.
Chapter Two
“So, how did you and Kelly get along?” Bryan Andrews asked Michael when he stopped by for a beer at the end of the day.
