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In response she got a blank stare.
“We need to preserve your joints—your hips, your knees, your ankles. Heaven forbid you should develop foot drop.”
“Why?”
“For a better quality of life.” That went over like a conk on the head. “You know that.” More staring. “Or how about for when they finally figure out how to help paraplegics walk through nerve innervation.” Still no response. “Come on, Wes, you’re a neurosurgeon, you crack open people’s heads for a living and do all kinds of things to their brains. Surely you’ve thought about the future, right?”
He shook his head. “These days I only think about the present.” End of topic? Not if she could help it. Besides, she detected his defense mechanism in full force.
“Baloney. I believe there are hundreds of patients you’ve helped and saved who need you back on the job. I believe your future is still bright.”
“Anyone ever tell you how annoying you are?”
Wesley was impressed with Mary’s thoroughness, and also with her positive attitude, but wasn’t about to let her know that. Why give her the upper hand? His personal doctor had promised him a much rosier recovery than he’d had, and as far as he was concerned he’d done his part to get as strong as possible. Yet he’d never get out of this damn wheelchair.
“I’m annoying?” She mocked surprise. “Yeah, all the time. I’m a physical therapist, what can I expect, I tick off all my patients. It’s part of my strategy.” Her expression went serious. “I know I’m bothering you, but I’m doing it because it’s important. And speaking of important, where’s your stationary bike?”
He screwed up his face. “In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t use my legs.”
“You need the aerobic exercise to enhance circulation and increase oxygen. Let me show you.” She dug into her shoulder bag and shoved a catalogue at him. “This is expensive, but from the looks of your house you can afford it.”
He took a look, but wasn’t the least bit enthusiastic about what he saw. The bicycle strapped the legs and feet in place and stimulated the muscles as the patient rode it, or so said the product description. Completely high tech and necessary for paraplegics, according to some Norwegian study.
“Since they did this study, I’ve recommended this bike to all of my paraplegic and even quadriplegic patients.”
He tossed her his best “so what” face, straight out of the teenage contrarian handbook. It didn’t faze her.
“You might think it does all the work, but this little baby will keep you in tip-top shape.” She stopped herself from saying more, but he understood she was about use the “D” word—“deteriorating”, and take the broad-brush approach for life expectancy in paraplegics.
“Look, I get it, Mary. My tough-love doc showed me a video early on when all I wanted to do was shut down.”
That notorious video, which he could tell from the change of expression on her face she knew of, used time-lapse photography to document a young man’s demise. Hell, she probably carried around a copy of it in her bottomless shoulder bag, to use on uncooperative patients like him.
The patient in the video had been eighteen at the time of his skateboarding accident and had quickly given up on himself. The photographer had crunched ten years down to one minute. The brutal video transformed a young generally healthy man into a shadow of his former self and had shocked the defeat right out of Wes. Mission accomplished. From that day on he’d worked at his rehab with a vengeance. Never wanting to quit, even when hospital personnel pleaded with him to slow down, he’d refused to give up. Since he’d been home, if the rehab PT didn’t like his work ethic in the gym, he’d fire him or her. He didn’t care which gender they were, out they’d go.
“So I don’t have to paint that graphic picture for you, right?” Little Miss Sunshine returned.
“Right. I’ve seen it and I never want to go there.” The thought terrified him; his worst fears had been laid out before him by that video. Never, ever, did he want to wind up like that. Not without a good fight.
“So I can order this for you, then? It says they can have a rush delivery here in a week to ten days.”
The room went thick with silence as they carried out a staring contest. Why was she pushing this bike so hard? Did she have stock in the company, or know something he didn’t?
She used her thumb and forefinger to pull back the hair above her forehead, a frustrated gesture, for sure. His stubbornness had gotten to her. “You’re still a doctor, Wesley. It’s completely possible for you to go back to being one and performing surgery again.”
“Ha! That’s rich.” He let his honest reaction slip through the cracks. Been there, done that. Failed! Now he didn’t believe a word. She may as well be selling snake oil. “I’ve already tried to go back to work and it was a miserable failure. My department head sent me home.”
“Because it was too soon. How can someone as smart as you be so dense?” He saw determination in her eyes as she sat straighter, and he let the slur slide. Maybe he needed to listen to her. “As long as we keep your motor skills intact and your mind alert, there’s nothing to stop you from going back when you’re ready. The key phrase being ‘when you’re ready’.”
Mary went back to her large bag, which apparently held the world in it from everything she kept taking out. She lifted a stack of medical journals and handed them to him. “Here. Why not catch up on the latest in neurosurgery?”
“Look, I appreciate your enthusiasm and concern, but I’ve got my own plan for getting back on the job.”
“Sheer will and body sweat isn’t a plan, Wes. My plan can’t make you perfect again. No. But I guarantee it can and will help you improve and increase your chances of performing surgery again.”
“How can you guarantee that?” He dug in, because he wanted what she preached so badly it hurt, but what if her promise never came to be? So far his Neanderthal work-out-until-you-drop approach hadn’t panned out. Sure, he was buffer, but ready to go back to work? She was right. Not yet.
She pushed her face right up into his, those daring green eyes seeming to have X-ray vision over the battle going on inside his head. He tensed, shutting down a little, but he didn’t look away.
“Prove me wrong.” She put the journals on his lap. “Prove it. Give me a month and you’ll see and feel the difference, then give me another month and you’ll be amazed. I know it and totally believe it, and you’ll just have to prove otherwise. Of course, all things considered, I’d rather you co-operated.”
He couldn’t deny the determination in her stare, or the genuine look of caring. She gave a damn. About him and his situation. And from the fire in her gaze, she wouldn’t give up.
Then he felt it, that tiny flash of hope that throughout all of the trauma and disappointment and pain he’d suffered had refused to die. That pinpoint of faith in modern medicine and optimism for the future suddenly beamed brighter, because of her enthusiasm, and he found his mouth moving before he could stop it. “I doubt that I’ll be amazed, but I’ll take your challenge. Hopefully, you’ll win.”
Her eyes widened, she was obviously as surprised as he was, a sweet beam spreading across her face. She clapped her hands then pumped the air with a fist as if she’d just scored the winning point. “Yes! So does this mean I can order that stationary bike?”
“Order the damn bike,” he said, rolling himself out of the gym.
* * *
The next morning Mary arrived with a mug of coffee, and found Wesley waiting for her in a halfway decent mood. She chose the stairs, two at a time once again, as he took the elevator to the second-floor gym.
“The first thing we need to do today is get you loosened up.” She pointed to a thick floor mat beneath the workout bench. “Can you lower yourself to the floor?” She didn’t have a clue how much he could or couldn’t do for himself, so today would be one of discovery.
“Sure, but I don’t make a habit of it.”
“You should, you know. You have perfectly good arms, so I’m sure chair presses are a cinch for you.”
“Let’s find out.”
She laced her fingers, stretched her arms and cracked her knuckles, then rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck side to side, like she’d be the one to do the lift and lower. He got a kick out of it, but didn’t let her know. Then he put his hands on his locked chair wheels and pushed up until his hips left the seat. She stood back and let him move himself forward, repositioning his legs on his own, using his arm and shoulder muscles to their capacity as he lowered himself as close as possible to the mat and plopped down.
“Great,” she said, helping him lie down and straightening his legs for passive range of motion. “Okay, you know what I’m going to do, right?”
He tipped his chin upward. “Yup.” Reminding himself to be tolerant, that she wanted to help.
Positioning herself beside Wes, Mary took his right leg, carefully lifted and bent the knee and pressed the leg toward his chest, noticing how tight he felt. How long had he been ignoring the parts that didn’t work? She ran him through several basic exercises to loosen his hips and knees and then concentrated on his ankles. He watched her intently as she repeated the same exercises on the other leg.
“Once I loosen your joints, I’ll show you how to do all of this for yourself.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Yeah, so why haven’t you been doing these?”
He shrugged, and she would have given anything to know what was going on inside his head. It didn’t make sense to work himself to the limit with weight training, then ignore the fragile part that needed equal attention. “Okay, I’m done here, for today anyway. You can get yourself back in that wheelchair, and we’ll do your favorite part.”
She sat back on her heels and watched with admiration as he bent his own knees then put the other arm on the wheelchair seat and essentially did a one-arm press to push himself back in. Impressive. And for someone who’d avoided doing this regularly, he made it look damn easy, too.
As they worked through Mary’s planned program of weight exercises, Wesley was struck by how intent she was on balancing his training. She’d forced him to remember he had a lower half where circulation was just as important as the top. Where bad things could happen if he didn’t take care of all of himself. Like a child, he’d been playing a game—Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away. One thing was sure as the sun, paraplegia didn’t go away.
Halfway through the second set of butterfly presses with free weights, he focused away from himself, and watched Mary in all of her earnestness as she studied his technique like a perfectionist, adjusting his elbow here and his shoulder there. He liked the attention.
Later, when he shifted from his chair to the bench for some chest presses, Mary leaned over him, like a life coach, motivating him to keep pushing. He didn’t need motivation, being determined as he was to be in top-notch shape so he could go back to work again—the upper half of him anyway—but he appreciated her interest and help. Which surprised him. All the other PTs had seemed like pains in the butt and he’d treated them all accordingly. But Mary was different.
“Let’s up the weight,” he said, testing her ability to let him call some shots.
“Sure.” She put more weights on the bar and he went right back to work. Okay, so she was fine with him pushing himself.
In amusement, he watched her facial expressions mimic what he assumed were his as he lifted the heavier weight, and it made him lose concentration. He pressed the bar above his head, then laughed and lost ground. Spotting the weights, she had to move in quickly to catch the bar before it slammed onto his chest. Though he was perfectly capable of doing it himself, since he’d had to many times on his own, and had the bruises to prove it, he admitted he liked having her there, on point.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Just wondering when you turned into a slave driver.”
“You’re the one who wanted more weights.”
“And you’re the one who loaded them on.” He got a kick out of goading her, and she fell for it every time. Just like she used to. And unlike the other PTs she was willing to push him as much as he wanted to go, not slow him down.
“So are you saying you want to take a break?”
“Could use some water.”
She lunged for a bottle. “Five-minute break.”
He gulped a drink. “I take it back. You’re not a slave driver, more like a dominatrix.”
“What?”
It felt good to tease and smile, like a lost and forgotten part of himself had suddenly shown up again. “All you need is some little leather get-up and a whip.”
Her cheeks flushed and she stepped back. So he’d rattled her. Excellent.
“You’d look hot in skin-tight leather.”
“Okay, the break’s over. Finish your water, and let’s move onto the back exercises.”
Wesley caught her gaze. He’d definitely gotten to her. Good. “See what I mean?”
Her gaze shot up toward the ceiling, just like it used to do when she was a teenager and he’d frustrated and bothered her.
He pulled himself into a sitting position and she separated his legs on either side of the narrow bench with the weight bar just out of reach above his head. She straddled the bench in front of and facing him, and used her legs as support beside each of his knees, with her feet guarding his, keeping them in place.
“We’ll start with fifty pounds, and go from there.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’? Seems like I’m doing all the lifting here.”
“As you should be,” she said, with a serious as hell expression.
She squeezed his shoulder and it took every last bit of his attention away from the teasing. Her hand on his shoulder woke a bundle of nerve endings, and warmed the skin all the way up to his neck. He couldn’t deny he’d missed the touch of a woman these past nine months.
Her touch made him think of the last time he’d seen her. It had been at his sister’s wedding, where they’d played a dangerous game of getting high on bubbly champagne and acting like they didn’t know what they were doing. Then they’d kissed, teasing each other with their lips and tongues, crossing the line with their touches. He glanced at her chest then quickly looked away, needing something to get his mind off those thoughts.
“So I’ll do these exercises, but you’re going to have to entertain me by bringing me up to date on your life.” He didn’t need her help to hold him in place on the bench. He balanced himself every day and used sand bags to keep his feet from straying, but he liked having her this close so he kept it to himself. Now he needed distraction from her nearness. “The last time I saw you, you’d just gotten your Master’s degree. Oh, and your hair was a lot longer than it is now.” Though he definitely liked this more cosmopolitan yet sexy look. He pulled down the weighted bar and did repetitions. Fifty pounds was nothing, but she’d find out soon enough.
She watched his every move, ready to jump in and catch him if he lost his balance. Again, unnecessary, but he’d let her do it since it probably made her feel useful.
“Well, I went on to get my PhD, then passed the boards and became a physical therapist.”
“I get that part. I want the juicy bits. How many hearts did you break? Love affairs. The good stuff.”
She gave a short laugh. “That’ll take all of two minutes.”
He raised a brow in mid-pull, hands spaced wide on the bar working the neck, shoulder and trapezius muscles. As always, it felt great. But her personal assessment of what he thought was a damn important part of a person’s life—interactions with the opposite sex—felt all wrong. Two minutes? “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“I was totally focused on my career and it was hard to meet nice guys.”
“So tell me about the rotten ones, then. Come on, I’ve been living in a cave. There must have been someone.” He challenged her to dig deeper, just like she’d been doing to him. “I need some dirt.”
She sighed, hands on her hips, her legs in a hip-wide stance. For a sex-starved man, even that looked sexy. He gripped the weight bar tighter.
“I got engaged when I was twenty-nine. I think it was more out of panic for my upcoming birthday. The first big one after twenty-one, you know?”
“Do women still let that bother them?”
“You do live in a cave. Wes, some things never change. Like right now, I’m almost thirty-four and I’m re-evaluating my life. If I wait too long, it might be too late.”
“You don’t look a day over thirty. In fact, I don’t see much change at all since my sister’s wedding and that’s, what, ten years ago now?” He stopped in mid-press. “And too late for what?”
“My eggs are getting old.”
“Eggs? Oh, for crying out loud, get a dog or a bird or something. You can have a pet in that traveling house, can’t you?”
“I could, I’m just not sure it would be fair to a dog or cat.”
“A bird would be in a cage, what difference would it make?”
She shrugged, then stared off into the distance. That made him curious. “So why didn’t you marry the guy you were engaged to? You could’ve had a bunch of kids by now.”
Her prior open expression closed down. She paused. “It was the other way around. He decided not to marry me.”
“That’s harsh.” Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to marry Mary?
A wistful breath laugh escaped her lips. “Let’s just say it took me by surprise.” She kept staring toward the ocean, and he wished he hadn’t picked at an old wound by being curious. “I guess he wasn’t the one.”
Wes wanted to guffaw at such a silly notion, but he could see she was still hurting, so he trod lightly. “You honestly think that? The ‘one’ bit? Hell, I figured that out after my first engagement.”
With all of her attention now turned back on him, she’d clearly moved on and it relieved him. “How many times have you been engaged? Sheesh, Alex obviously didn’t keep me in the loop.”
Having successfully captured her interest, he sat straighter, ready to boast like the jaded man he’d become. “When I first graduated from medical school I thought I was in love. Didn’t work out, though, when I caught her in bed with my roommate. Then, after Alexandra got married, I guess I was feeling a little pressure. I proposed to my girlfriend of the time, a fellow doctor, and we set a date. With my neurosurgery fellowship and her pursuing thoracic surgery, sometimes the relationship felt more like a competition. Anyway, we were both extremely busy and we wound up not having enough time for each other, and whatever we’d had going on before kind of fizzled out.”
“Why didn’t you bring her to Alexandra’s wedding?”
Ah, so she hadn’t forgotten their time together. Their second world-class kiss and more? To be honest, he’d purposely opted not to bring Giselle that weekend. When he’d found out that Mary was the maid of honor, and he’d also be in the wedding party, he’d wanted to go solo. He’d been planning to ask Giselle to marry him, but had put on the brakes at that point, deciding to wait until after he’d seen Mary again. He wasn’t even sure why, but he knew for a fact that it was what he’d needed to do to be fair to Giselle.
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