how did you and Kelly get along?” Bryan Andrews asked Michael when he stopped by for a beer at the end of the day.
Michael studied his one-time best friend with a narrowed gaze. He still wasn’t sure how much he appreciated Bryan’s unequivocal recommendation of Kelly for the job as his therapist. “Did she do a tour in the marines I don’t know about?”
“Nope.”
“I remember her as a sweet kid. She’s changed.” And that was a massive understatement that didn’t even take into account the pale gold hair swept up in a knot that revealed the long, delicate line of her neck, the silky complexion and the woman’s body with all the appropriate curves.
“She deals with a lot of cantankerous patients at the rehab clinic. She’s had to change,” Bryan said. He gave Michael a warning look. “Give her any grief and you’ll have me to contend with, too.”
“Trust me, I don’t think she needs her protective big brother butting in,” Michael told him. “She could take me out in ten seconds flat.”
“Are you telling me there’s finally a woman who can get the upper hand with you?” Bryan taunted, clearly delighted. “And that it’s my baby sister?”
“Only because of my weakened condition,” Michael assured him.
“Good to know. Back in high school I used to envy the way you could take ’em or leave ’em. The rest of us were slaves to our hormones, but not you. There wasn’t a girl in school who could twist you in knots.”
That seemed like a lifetime ago to Michael. He’d had a purpose then, and he’d known that a teenage romance would only get in the way. “I was focused on what I wanted to do with my future. I didn’t have time to get serious about any girl.”
“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have had any one you wanted,” Bryan said. “It was great hanging out with you. The girls swarmed around you, and I ended up dating them.”
Michael gave him a wry look. “I hope you’re not counting on that happening now. I doubt any woman will give me a second look while I’m in this chair.”
“If you ask me, that alone is a great reason to get out of it,” Bryan said. “Stick with Kelly. She’ll have you whipped into shape in no time.” His expression sobered. “Seriously, pal, she’s good. Cooperate with her. Let her do her thing. If anyone can help you, she can.”
“Stop trying to sell her. She has the job. And it’s not as if she’s going to give me much choice about cooperating,” Michael retorted, able to laugh for the first time in weeks as he thought of the way Kelly had held her own in the face of his display of temper.
Even as the unfamiliar sound of his laughter filled his cramped apartment, he realized that Kelly Andrews had brought two things into his life during her one brief visit—a breath of fresh air and, far more important, the first faint ray of hope he’d felt since his SEAL team had dragged him out of harm’s way.
He immediately brought himself up short. He had been in some tricky, dangerous situations over the years, but nothing had ever scared him quite so badly as the sudden realization, that well-intentioned or not, Kelly might be holding out false hope.
Fear crawled up the back of his throat until he could almost taste it. If he tried to walk and failed, it might be far more devastating than never having tried at all. In the real world, how many miracles was one man entitled to? He’d gotten out of his last mission alive. Maybe that was his quota of good luck for one lifetime.
He looked up and saw that Bryan was regarding him with concern.
“You okay?” Bryan asked.
“Just reminding myself of something,” he said grimly.
“Judging from that expression on your face, it wasn’t anything good.”
Michael shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell Kelly’s brother that he’d been reminding himself that she was a mere woman, not a miracle worker. It was a distinction he couldn’t allow himself to forget, not for one single second.
* * *
“Are you sure you ought to be taking on this particular client?” Moira Brady asked Kelly, her expression filled with concern.
“I’m a professional. I can keep my feelings under control,” Kelly insisted. “Besides, it’s been years since I had my crush on Michael Devaney. I was a kid.”
Moira regarded her skeptically. “Then you had absolutely no reaction to seeing him again? He was just a patient, someone you happened to know from years ago?”
“Absolutely.”
“Liar.”
Kelly frowned at her best friend, who also ran the rehabilitation clinic where Kelly worked part-time on days when she didn’t have private patients scheduled. “I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal about this, Moira.”
“Because I don’t want to see you get hurt,” Moira said bluntly. “You always give your patients a hundred and ten percent, Kelly. You care about their progress. You feel guilty if they don’t achieve the results you’ve been anticipating.”
“Well, of course I do. Are you saying I shouldn’t?”
“No, but add in your personal history with Michael Devaney, and I see a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Oh, please,” Kelly said derisively. “Michael and I don’t have a personal history.”
“But you fantasized about one,” Moira countered. “I know that because you told me about him in glowing detail way back when we first met in college. He’d been gone for three years by then, but you hadn’t forgotten the least little thing about him. Can you honestly tell me that there wasn’t one teeny-tiny spark when you walked into his apartment yesterday?”
A spark? More like a bonfire, Kelly thought wryly. Not that she intended to admit it. “No spark,” she said flatly.
Moira’s gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Okay, is this one of those semantics things? What if I asked about fireworks? Would you admit to that?”
Kelly sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Michael Devaney doesn’t think of me in that way. I’m his friend’s kid sister.”
“Think he’ll remember that when you’re massaging his muscles?”
Kelly felt the heat climbing into her cheeks. She’d been wondering about that very thing herself. Anticipating it. She’d been itching to get her hands on those taut muscles of Michael’s for years. Now she had the perfect excuse. She swallowed hard and banished the totally unprofessional thought.
Scowling, she reminded both of them, “I’m a professional, dammit!”
“Yeah, sure,” Moira said. “You keep telling yourself that. And just in case you forget it, I’ll mention it to you every chance I get.”
* * *
Michael couldn’t seem to get his pants on. Lately he’d taken to wearing sweatpants because they were easy and comfortable and warm, but he’d gotten it into his head to put on a pair of jeans for this first session with Kelly. His bum leg wasn’t cooperating.
He had the pants half on and half off when the doorbell rang. Scowling, he gave one more forceful yank on the jeans and barely managed to stifle a howl of agony. Or at least he thought he had, until he looked straight up into Kelly’s worried gray eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and she was still wearing a bright pink ski jacket over a sweater that looked so soft he immediately wanted to stroke his hand over the material...and the woman under it.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Aside from having an uninvited guest appear in my bedroom, I’m just peachy,” he growled.
Her chin shot up and fire blazed in her eyes. “Not uninvited.