hoping he hadn’t heard. But he was reading an exercise chart on the wall, the one designed for clients with knee injuries. She would speak to Anne-Marie about her helpfulness later, though she wasn’t sure what she would say beyond hands off the clients. She could have used that reminder herself the other day.
“My last appointment ran over. Sorry.” She stepped to the sink and washed her hands, even though she’d just done so prior to switching clients. She spoke over her shoulder as she dried them. “Did one of your chauffeurs have to get back on patrol?”
“Four-car pileup on Interstate 96. Trooper Cole took the call. Priorities.”
“Trooper Cole?” She pursed her lips, trying to recall the name of the attractive woman she’d met the other day. “So it wasn’t...either of the officers from last time?”
His smile was slow, knowing and so sensual that it was all she could do not to fan her face with the chart. Heat rose up her chest and neck. If only she’d worn a turtleneck under her scrub top. She didn’t even want to think about any of the other places she felt warm.
She wished he would look away, and at the same time, she dreaded the moment he would. What the hell was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she stop asking dumb questions? She shouldn’t even be thinking the things she had been. She was acting as if he was the first guy she’d ever met. Well, he wasn’t, and she refused to get all flustered by this guy, who had probably turned that sexy smile on every woman in the office by now, including dowdy Beverly Wilson.
She cleared her throat, banishing thoughts that could only get her into trouble. “Have you been doing your exercises?”
“I was supposed to do them at home?”
“Are you—” But she stopped herself before adding “kidding” as Shane’s grin spread wide.
“Gotcha.”
Natalie rolled her eyes and looked at the chart. She couldn’t just keep staring at him.
“You’re not the first of my clients to say something like that on a return visit,” she said without looking up.
“I’m not like your other clients.”
He had that right in more ways than he could know. “How do you know you’re different?”
“Because I did my homework. Five times a day.”
She set his chart aside, stood and opened the curtain. “You put in the work. Probably more than you should have. Let’s see how much improvement you’ve made.”
Deftly maneuvering his chair out of the tight space, he followed her into the hall.
“You’re about to be impressed. Which of the exercises do you want me to demonstrate first? I’m an expert at each.”
“None of them.”
When the grind of his rotating wheels stopped behind her, she turned to find him watching her.
“What do you mean?”
She started forward again, hoping he would follow. He did. Continuing into the activity room, she led him past some of the machines they’d used the first time to a low-tech area filled with gym mats. She stopped in front of a pair of parallel bars on a wooden platform.
“I thought we’d give these a try.”
He just stared at the contraption. “Already?”
“Why not already?”
But he was still looking at those parallel bars the way some people gawked at a line of fire trucks and ambulances racing toward someone else’s tragedy.
“I just thought we’d build up to that,” he said finally. “You know...try some other things first.”
He still wasn’t looking at her when he said it, but she couldn’t stop watching him. This didn’t fit. For the first time since he’d appeared in the clinic, Shane exuded something less than unshakable confidence. His face looked downright ashen.
“You were already using the parallel bars at the intermediate treatment center, weren’t you?”
“Just once.” He paused and licked his lips. “It was too soon.”
“But you’re stronger now.”
“Maybe.”
He didn’t sound convinced. Which didn’t make sense. He’d been so determined to get back to work. And he’d worked so hard in the clinic and at home. So why was he reluctant to even try the most important step? Why was he stalling? Was he afraid of trying to walk again...or terrified he never would?
Natalie turned her head toward the wall of windows as if she could find answers in that angry sheet of gray. She shouldn’t become personally involved. Her only job was to use her skills to help an injured client become stronger. If he chose not to—or was too scared to—improve the quality of his life, that was none of her business.
It couldn’t matter that his reticence reminded her of her mother’s choice not to reclaim her life. She couldn’t go there. Shane and her mother might both be in wheelchairs, but they couldn’t have been more different. One knew the risks when he’d put on that uniform. The other had just been living her life until she became collateral damage in a public-sanctioned joy ride.
She shouldn’t allow herself to be drawn in by someone who represented all her family had lost. She shouldn’t wonder if he was hurting in a way that had nothing to do with the bullet-size scar on his back. She shouldn’t stick her nose into other people’s problems when she had enough of her own. But something was keeping Shane from walking when he should have been, and now that something was keeping him from even taking the critical first steps. And, God help her, she had to find out what it was.
* * *
SHANE STARED UP at the pair of parallel bars and then lowered his gaze to his gripped hands, his nail beds turning white halfway down from his tight squeeze. He could feel the sweat building just under his hairline, but there was no way he would reach up to swipe his forehead. Not with Natalie already watching him closely enough that she had to know what he was feeling, and it wasn’t confidence. Chicken, maybe? He hated like hell that he couldn’t shake off all those feathers.
Of course his PT would expect him to stand up from that chair eventually. Had he expected to walk again from a seated position? Maybe he should have tried it while lying flat on his back.
No, he hadn’t expected either of those things, but like he’d told her, maybe it still was too soon. It probably didn’t say anywhere in his file that he’d had a bad fall the first time the hospital PT staff had used that sling thing to lift him out of his bed and that half of his sutures had to be sewn again. If he’d believed that just by changing his treatment location he could exorcise his fear of falling again, he was dead wrong.
Was this why his recovery had stalled?
He glanced at the bars again, and a seed of panic embedded itself in his gut.
“Okay. Have it your way. For today, anyway.”
Natalie had closed the file now, her steady gaze seeming to judge him a coward.
“You know, the sooner we get you up on your feet—”
“I know. I know. It’s just...” He shook his head, the truth too embarrassing to share. He was like a toddler who’d fallen once and decided to settle in as a permanent crawler.
“I guess we can continue a few more days with your first group of home exercises. But by the end of next week—”
“Yes. Next week,” he said to cut her off. The sooner they stopped talking about it, the sooner he could stop sweating like a marathon runner hitting a wall near the twenty-two-mile marker.
“Well, let’s get started.”
She flipped open his file again to the sheet of exercise instructions