just some extension of the “blue code” that police officers used to cover for each other? Maybe, but she couldn’t help wondering if it was more than that. The rookie appeared to have genuine respect for Shane, the type that self-centered jerks seldom earned. It didn’t fit.
Shane glanced over at her, catching her watching him. Her cheeks burned so badly that she could only hope the waiting room’s low lighting helped to hide it.
“Well, let’s get to work then.” She buried her nervous hands in the pockets of her cardigan.
“Good, because I thought we were going to spend the hour standing around in the waiting room.”
He didn’t crack a smile as he said it, though one of them was clearly not standing.
Instead of responding, she stepped over to the sliding window of the receptionist’s desk. “Anne-Marie, could you—”
She stopped as the receptionist and the longtime office manager, Beverly Wilson, stared out from the suspiciously open desk window. At Beverly’s wink, Natalie tightened her jaw and her hold on the medical file.
“The buzzer?” she prodded.
“Oh. Right,” Anne-Marie said.
She reached below the counter, and a short buzz was followed by a click.
Natalie pulled the door wide. “After you, Mr. Warner.”
He glanced up at her again, those unnerving eyes trapping her and searching for stories she wasn’t prepared to tell. Her pulse dashed toward some unknown finish line, and her hands were so damp that she could barely grip the door handle.
“You mean...?” he prompted.
“Shane,” she choked out.
He smiled as if he’d won a competition and then carefully rolled his chair past her and through the door. Annoyed, Natalie stepped in behind him. She shouldn’t let this guy get under her skin any more than she should notice how his shoulders and arms flexed as he rotated the wheels. If only she could stop looking at those things.
“Which way?”
She didn’t know why he bothered asking for directions when he didn’t even pause as he rolled down the hall. He probably didn’t look both ways before crossing the street, either. Or check the date on the milk before chugging it right from the carton.
At the intersection where the hall and the activity room connected, Shane stopped so suddenly that Natalie bumped into the back of his chair. A whoosh of air escaped her where the handle hit her at the top of her thigh, and his file fell from her hands, pages fluttering to the ground.
“Sorry,” he said with a muffled chuckle. “You didn’t say which way.”
She crouched to pick up the papers. So much for the nice guy. And so much for streamlining his clinic visit. At the slow rate they were moving, they might as well forget ever getting a treatment plan set up today. In fact, they would probably spend the rest of their lives in this hall...
Natalie took a deep breath to keep from directing him through the nearest window. “Turn left. Then go to the open evaluation room on the right.”
Shane wheeled to the part of the clinic with laminate floors and curtained cubicles.
“About time! All right, let’s do this,” he said with another of those grins.
She couldn’t agree more. She might not have this police officer running marathons overnight, but she would work tirelessly to help the man to walk again. Then she could get the guy who reminded her of everything she’d lost out of the clinic and out of her thoughts for good.
* * *
SHANE FOLLOWED NATALIE’S movements as she closed the evaluation-area curtain, moved to the tiny desk to grab a clipboard and then crouched near the foot plate of his wheelchair. She moved one of the feet he should have been able to at least lift for himself, pushed the foot plate to the side and rested his shoe on the ground. Afterward, she repeated the whole process on his other foot.
It was bad enough having to accept help from people, but what bothered him most this afternoon was that the therapist he was counting on to help him get out of this damn chair seemed to want nothing to do with him. He’d picked up on it the moment they’d met. Sure, she was doing her job in a distant, clinical fashion, but he was trained to pick out liars.
He was looking at one of those right now.
Unfortunately for him, Natalie Keaton also happened to be an exotic beauty with the kind of willowy body that could tempt a guy to tell a few lies of his own. Her café au lait skin, with a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, made him think of Spanish coffee with whipped cream and nutmeg sprinkles. And those eyes, wide-set and nearly black, challenged him to take a deeper look.
One look too many, he guessed, from her frown when she glanced up from the floor and caught him watching her. Her loose bun was doing its job of keeping her mass of black-brown hair out of the way, but she shoved a loose tress behind her ear, anyway, as if she needed something to do with her hands. Oh, he could think of a few things... Clearly, they weren’t on the same page, he decided, as she lowered her gaze again to his feet.
Shane closed his eyes and opened them again. Why was he looking at his physical therapist like some item on the menu? What did chasing after a beautiful woman have to do with him learning to walk again? No. Run. He needed to be able to sprint if he ever hoped to be approved for patrol. Besides, there wasn’t a chance that a woman like Natalie Keaton would actually look back at him now. What did he plan to do, sweep her off her feet with his wheelchair?
“Today, in addition to looking at range of motion and doing a manual-muscle test, we’re going to check sensation, coordination and balance,” she said without looking up from the form on her clipboard. “Regarding balance, we’ll look at seated and standing balance and static and dynamic.”
“Thanks for not making me change into one of those cute little hospital gowns,” he said instead of asking for more details. “Quick costume changes don’t work well for me lately.”
“Both for here and for the home exercise program I’ll be giving you today, the sweat suit you’re wearing is fine.”
“And a whole lot less breezy.”
He grinned, but she didn’t look up to see it. Her jaw tightened, the same way it had when he and Jamie were joking in the waiting room. Those full, kissable lips curled in to form a grim line above her chin. She obviously didn’t appreciate his brand of humor. Or much else about him.
Well, why the hell not? He’d never done anything to her. Was it because he was a police officer? He would never understand why some people hated the cops without any good reason. But then, not everybody owed as much to heroes in blue as he did. Not everyone knew without a doubt that the police—or one officer in particular—had saved his life. Even if Shane would never understand why the guy had gone to so much trouble.
Without responding to his joke that even he no longer found funny, Natalie lifted his right leg and extended it from the knee until it was nearly straight. He couldn’t help but smile at the amount of effort it took for her to hold the weight of his leg. Maybe the muscle loss from inactivity wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, but it would only be a matter of time until his leg was as skinny as one of her arms.
“That’s pretty good, really,” she said as she rested his foot back on the floor.
“Flexibility is not my problem. Walking is the problem.”
“I know. But we have to start somewhere.” She lifted the other leg, extended it and then set it down again.
But did she know? Did she understand that he probably needed a shrink now more than a PT, since his continued paralysis might be in his head? Even his doctors had hinted at it. Did she have any idea how critical it was for him to get back on the job and at least work toward restitution over a debt he might never be able to fully repay?
Kent