really think this is best for you.” The brightness in her eyes faded a fraction. “But before I take you on, you need to promise me something.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. What was one more promise to tangle in all those he’d made to Sam already? “What’s that?”
“I’ll do everything I can to get you healthy in time to go on your filming trip. But if you’re not ready, you can’t go.”
He inhaled sharply as his gut clenched. “Deal.”
She’d better get him rehabbed in time. Because no matter how ready—or not ready—he was, when the helicopter lifted off to take the filming crew into the backcountry, he’d be on it.
Meet me in the pool at one tomorrow.
Cadie cringed as yesterday’s instructions to Zach echoed in her head. What had she been thinking? She floated in the shallow end of the public aquatic center and watched him amble along the pool deck toward her, supported by his crutches. Shirtless. Showing off a perfect sprinkling of trimmed hair leading down abs that could grace a fitness magazine. Her skin tingled and not from the water kissing her limbs. Yeah, the pool had been a brilliant move. If only she could change history, go back to when she was three and not learn how to swim. Then she could throw herself in the deep end and be done with it. Drowning sounded way smarter than taking him on as a client.
Nice choice of words, Cadence.
Her mental sarcasm landed like a boulder in her stomach. For one, this was her choice, and a necessary one. She could truly help Zach and, in doing so, could boost Evolve’s reputation. And she needed to start doing all that without thinking of crappy death comparisons. Sorry, Sam.
Lacquering on a smile, she waved at Zach, who slid into the water and crossed the pool with long, muscled strokes. He stopped a yard or so away, close enough that she had to tilt her chin a little to keep her attention on his face. He was a good six inches taller than her own five-seven. The height difference held so many possibilities. If he were healthy he’d be able to pick her up and—
She pinched her thigh under the water. He’s your client. Your best friend. Do not screw that up. “Ready to work?”
He nodded curtly.
“We’ll start with walking back and forth across the shallow end and work up to a jog.” The pool wasn’t too crowded—a parent-and-tot class occupied the splash pool and a dozen-odd people were swimming laps in the deep end.
“Uh, sure.” Following his gaze was a challenge. It seemed to land on her tank swimsuit for a second and then everywhere but, darting from the waterslide to the diving platforms and settling somewhere on the wall behind her. “Walking. Okay.”
She raised a brow. “Quite the conversationalist today.”
A faint rosiness bloomed on his cheeks and he rumpled his already disheveled hair, dampening the strands with his wet hand. “I...”
Way to make your client feel self-conscious, idiot. “Zach. Deep breath. You’ve done this before.”
“Right.”
Ri-ight. She loved the way he drew out his vowels sometimes. His voice had become her touchpoint when she’d been in her darkest moments. Blaming herself and Sam and the universe.
Smiling encouragingly, she motioned for him to follow her. He complied. And as long as she kept her eyes fixed on the oversize lap clock on the wall, and her attention on counting their steps backward and forward, she could almost ignore the way the water swirled around his waist, drawing her gaze to the delicious V of muscle dipping below the ripples.
Good grief. Focus. And not on that.
She went to pinch her thigh and brought her elbow up, accidentally deflecting off his forearm.
“Ow.” He brought his other hand to his arm in an exaggerated gesture.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry!” Heat flooded her face. Could she not do anything right these days?
“Cadence.” His thumb dragged along her jaw and she blinked long, trying to ignore the shimmering trail on her skin. “I wasn’t serious. You barely touched me.”
“I know,” she said, trying to throw a duh tone on the retort.
He moved his hand from her face to her shoulder. His pupils flared wide despite the bright pool lights and his mouth parted. Snapping it shut, he yanked his hand away.
“What’s the next exercise?” he blurted.
“L-lunges.” And thankfully his legs would be under the water while he did them, because the unyielding strength of Zach Cardenas’s thighs could make a nun renounce her vows. Neck heating, Cadie splashed her skin and silently begged the clock to tick faster. Why couldn’t she have stayed in her blissful, mothering fog, unaware of the perfect definition of his quads?
She worked him through a set of lunges and leg balances, filling the time with chatter about Ben’s attempts to climb the toddler-focused play structure Zach and her dad had built in the backyard a few weeks before Zach had taken his header down Hammond’s Chute. Her son was just figuring out walking, and many a face-plant awaited Ben in his immediate future. Hopefully Zach’s calming influence could moderate the daredevil tendencies her son had inherited from his father.
Before Ben’s birth, she’d been clueless about how much she could love another being. It consumed her, filled in all the cracks in her soul left after the earthquake that was Sam. His life, and his death. “Get this. I left Ben in his bedroom for all of a minute yesterday to answer my dad’s landline, and when I get back, he’s made his way to the bathroom and is holding on to the edge of the bathtub, crowing for ‘Baff!’ and trying to figure out how to climb in. He’s growing too fast.”
She tried to laugh but her heart cramped.
Zach’s lips curved in a forced smile. Good to know—she had him working to the point of not being able to comfortably talk. Either that or he didn’t like Ben growing up, either. Maybe both.
He finished up his leg balances and she rushed him into the next exercise. She held out two pool noodles. “Pink or orange?”
A hint of amusement warmed his eyes to a mossy green and he grabbed the candy-pink foam tube.
“Sure, leave me with the one that clashes with my bathing suit,” she teased, tucking the tube around her back and under her arms. Using the water as resistance, she took him through another thirty minutes of therapy. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the series of half-moon indents on her leg from the number of times she’d dug her nails into her skin while he’d done push-ups against the pool wall. The effort it took not to stare at his chest made her pulse race.
Yeah, right. That effect is from the chest itself, not the effort.
After finishing a set of squats that made him flinch in a way she didn’t like, he glanced at the clock. “We done?”
“In the pool? Almost. Swim a few laps to cool down and then hit the showers. But I want you to meet me at Evolve. My office is still a disaster, but the table’s set up. And I want to work you through some physical manipulation.”
She kept a visual track on him as he pushed off from the bottom of the pool and headed for the other side, which was cordoned off as a lap lane. Did he depend on his left arm and right leg in the water as much as he did on land? She’d probably find some impressive knots of muscle in a few places. She knew how to loosen those.
The knots in her stomach were another story.
“Evolve in twenty?” she asked once they’d gotten out of the pool.
He grimaced and toweled off his hair.