bit cruel.
How had she ever fallen for his act, for the facade? Oh, he’d been a good actor, for sure. Attentive. Interested. Caring. And she’d wanted to see those qualities in him. She’d wanted to believe the best in him so much that she’d ignored every warning.
Except he’d done it all to feed his own ego, to prove to himself that he still had whatever it took to win a woman’s heart. But after the winning, he’d been more than happy to crush it. And now that she knew it, it was easy to see in every facial expression, easy to hear in every word.
“Oh, you’ll see me around,” he said. “You forget we have ties to the same circles.”
“What circles?”
“The Pacific Coast House carnival fund-raiser is next week.”
“You wouldn’t.” She narrowed her eyes and pressed her hands to her waist. “You’ve never cared about anyone as much as you care about yourself. You wouldn’t show up at the carnival.”
“Sure I would.” He let the flowers drop to his side, still holding her gaze. “And Camilla might be there, too.”
“Why? She has no connection to PCH.”
He shrugged one shoulder beneath his dark brown leather jacket. “She always said she didn’t like you. Maybe she thinks you’re the reason our marriage fell apart.” He turned on the charm as if he’d flipped a switch. “Of course, I know that’s not true. We were doomed from the start. She has a terrible habit of lashing out when she’s angry.”
A scene from Mandy’s waiting room four years before flashed through her mind, and her insides twisted like a screw. Camilla’s eyes had been wild with rage, her motions fierce. She had knocked over chairs and broken a lamp and left the office in disarray. Gary had sworn she wasn’t normally like that. When she was on her medications.
Mandy covered her mouth with her hand, her breath suddenly short.
If she wasn’t taking her medications, Camilla was prone to lash out. Like trying to run someone over.
A brick settled on her lungs, and Mandy fought to speak. “Is she taking her meds now, Gary?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Okay. You need to go now.”
Gary opened his mouth to refuse the request, but instead of his voice, another one filled the room. “You heard the doc. It’s time for you to go.”
* * *
The guy Mandy had called Gary took one look at Luke—even on his crutches—gave a silent nod, tossed the flowers on Mandy’s desk and ducked out of the room. The bell on the door declared his exit from the building.
Luke kept his distance from Mandy, trying to read her face, but she’d put a mask on, all professionalism. “Let’s get to work.” She marched past him and down the hall toward the exercise room. She pointed to the closest exam table. “Hop on up.”
He bit back every question racing through his mind and did as she said, letting her have this moment of control.
When he was settled onto the table, she rested her hands on his back. Even through his T-shirt, they were like icicles, and he jumped.
“Sorry.” She blew on her palms and rubbed them together until they whistled at the friction. “Go ahead and lie down. Let’s get this brace off and see where your range of motion is at.”
He did as she instructed while she began loudly peeling back the Velcro strips. “Lift your leg.” She helped him raise it just enough to slide the brace out of the way. He felt a hundred pounds lighter and also as if he might fly apart given a stiff breeze. The knee brace had been his companion since the surgery, and without it, he was incomplete.
“All right. Really carefully, we’re going to bend your knee.” She put her hands around his calf and pulled gently.
He inhaled sharply. His leg felt as if it would split into two pieces. Like a freight train running him over, the pressure against the stiffness was more than he could handle. He pinched his eyes closed and brought a fist to his mouth.
“Good. You’re doing really well.” Mandy’s tone was soothing and calm as she straightened his leg and then bent it again.
“Are you trying to tear my whole leg off?”
She laughed. “No. But this is your first appointment. You never know about next time.” On the fourth pass, she said, “Think about something else. What did you think about when you were in SEAL training?”
“About how much I wanted to be a SEAL, but now...” He let the silence that followed finish the thought. He didn’t have to say it. They both knew that now there were no assurances. There was no certainty that he’d ever be on another mission with his SEAL brothers.
Nothing was a guarantee. No matter how much he’d begged God to heal him, to give him a new knee, he hadn’t heard anything from above.
But he did have a mission now. His assignment was Mandy’s safety. And he could think on that.
“So, are you going to tell me about the guy in your office?”
“No.” There was no humor in her response.
“Okay. What about the Camilla woman? Sounds like she might be holding a grudge.”
Mandy kept her hands gentle, but her tone firm. “Maybe.”
“What happened with her?”
“I don’t know.”
Luke frowned at her.
Even though she kept her gaze firmly locked on his knee, she said, “I only met her once.”
“Then why would she have it out for you?”
“She thinks I tried to steal her husband.”
Something strange and altogether unwelcome roared inside him, but he couldn’t call it by name. It burned like anger but not quite. It twisted his insides like bitterness, only not as strong. It was indistinct but demanding.
One thing he knew for sure. Mandy hadn’t stolen anyone’s husband.
He’d known her barely three days, and he already knew she wasn’t capable of such a thing.
“Why does she—” He groaned as she bent his knee farther than it had moved since Lybania. Since the explosion.
Mandy didn’t bother to apologize, but she did give his quad muscles a gentle massage. “You’re going to be a little stiff tomorrow, but it’ll be the good kind of sore.”
After a few more minutes, she reached for his brace.
“Already? I can do more.” He swiped his arm across his upper lip, wiping away the sweat that had pooled there, even from such a light workout.
“I know you can. But you shouldn’t.” Helping him sit up and swing his legs back over the edge of the table, she looked right into his eyes. “I have a feeling half of your battle is going to be just letting it rest. The surgeon didn’t repair your medial collateral ligament. That’s only going to heal with rest. So you have to take it slow.”
He leaned into her until their foreheads were only a couple inches apart. She smelled of hand sanitizer and citrus, and he offered her a compromise. “Then you’ve got to give me more to work on than the first name of a woman you haven’t seen in years.”
She reached for his crutches and wedged them in front of her. “You need to rest.”
“And you promised to let me help you.”
She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling as though asking for patience from above. “I don’t have anything else to give you right now. I’m going to call Detective Fletcher, who I reported the almost hit-and-run to, and tell him what Gary said so he can