A forgotten sensation tickled down his spine until it reached the location of his spinal cord injury and stopped. He glanced out the window again, watching her sweep her tiny porch as he experienced phantom tingles in his toes. What was that about? Maybe he’d pulled something during his workout?
He’d always known Mary deserved a family of her making, a place to call home. A shot with a decent guy. He’d also had the wisdom to know that they were never meant to be together, so he’d never followed through on his “what if” thoughts. BP—before paraplegia. Useless, silly thoughts, meant only for thinking, savoring even, but never acting on. Until it was too late... AP—after paraplegia.
He wiped his face with the towel, searching the room for another form of man-against-machine torture to take his mind off these wandering thoughts. What was the point? He chose the cable machine, first lowering the sides of his specially made workout wheelchair, then grabbing the bar to begin a series of triceps cable extensions.
Was this how she lived now? Dragging her mini-house with her everywhere she went like a mega-sized backpack? What kind of vagabond life was that for a woman like Mary? She’d been raised in a trailer park by inattentive parents. He’d always pegged her as a girl who wanted to set down roots, who wanted a family more than anything else in the world, the kind she deserved, not the one she’d been born into. Though he could never picture a guy worthy of her, he’d still imagined her settling down, raising children. Now, apparently, she traveled the country alone. In that thing. A house suited more for a mouse.
The irony didn’t take long to sink in about him wondering about what kind of life she led. Take a look at yourself. More money than one person could ever use, living alone in a fortress made of the latest building materials, a ten-million-dollar view of the Pacific Ocean out his front door, yet completely alone.
The last thing he needed to do was examine his own situation. Nope, he was determined to ignore that.
He shook his head. He wasn’t ready to think about the AP future. Not after failing miserably when he’d tried to go back to work prematurely three months ago. How the humiliation had burned like a branding iron when his department head had suggested he’d come back too soon, telling him to take more time off to get a better handle on balancing his demanding job with being in a wheelchair.
His father’s words to live by had infused his way of thinking. Failure is not an option.
The problem was, he already had. Failed. Big time.
He glanced out the window again, catching sight of the back of Mary as she pushed into her doll house.
One finger skimmed the area on his cheek where she’d bussed him when she’d first entered his house. He hadn’t had the chance to dodge it. Oddly enough, her touch had produced a sweet warm feeling, as she always had for him, and had unleashed his wrath for catching him off guard, for daring to make him feel something. Because these days he, like his legs, refused to feel a thing, other than pain from working out too hard and too long. Which he believed was strength. As crazy as it seemed, physical pain reminded him he was still alive, not locked away by his own choice in this castle by the sea.
He guided his top-of-the-line workout wheelchair down the hall, past the specially built elevator to his bedroom, where he would have slammed the damn door if he could’ve only figured out how to get the right amount of leverage to do it.
This was his truth now. He was a guy stuck in a chair.
* * *
Mary went about the business of settling her home after another long journey. For the last two years and over a half-dozen moves, she’d lived in the tiny house she’d helped design and for which she’d paid cash. Another lesson she’d learned inadvertently from her parents.
She’d chosen to bring her house along with her wherever she got assigned, rather than stay in cold, short-term rentals or soulless extended-stay hotels. This was home. She’d carefully chosen the floor plan to meet her every need, yet using the smallest amount of space necessary. That had turned out to be two hundred and fifty square feet. She’d gone the woodsy cabin route, yet the repurposed materials they’d used to build the house were surprisingly light, making it easy to travel, as long as she was willing to drive a pickup truck. Which had cost nearly as much as the house!
Her living room space came complete with a large enough mounted flat-screen TV. The kitchen had been a bit trickier, yet she’d made it state-of-the-art enough to make do, since she enjoyed cooking. She’d settled for a two-burner gas stove, minimal counter space but with a built-in table that folded down and opened up when it was time to eat or if she needed a place to knead bread dough or cut out cookies. The half-sized refrigerator kept her eating fresher and healthier, since she didn’t have much storage. Yes, the kitchen sink had to double up for face-washing and tooth-brushing, but for payoff she’d managed a nearly full-sized shower, with a stackable mini-washer/drier nearby and a petite toilet, all at the back of the ground-floor living space.
She chuckled, thinking of her mini-house as two stories, but her favorite spot in the entire tiny house was her loft bedroom. That counted as a story, didn’t it? Plus, the permanent wood ladder she needed to climb to get to the loft doubled as a small A-framed bookcase downstairs. No space went to waste, and she liked living like that. Unlike the ratty tin and Formica filled trailer she’d been raised in, this was truly a home. Cozy. Warm. Filled with life. Her life.
She might not be able to stand up straight in her bedroom but, whichever city she set the house up in, each morning she could peer out of the small “second story” window at the head of her bed to greet the day. The view changed often, and so far she liked it that way. This time, she had the luxury of parking on Wesley’s grand Malibu estate, and she was guaranteed to see the ocean first thing every sunrise. If she hadn’t been so depressed about seeing him, she’d be excited about living here for the next two months. What she needed was a serious attitude adjustment.
She sat on the long pillowed and comfy couch, which doubled as a storage bench, with a cup of tea, and thought about Wesley. His situation broke her heart and she’d proved it with her meltdown on his doorstep earlier. He’d always been her hero, the guy with the world at his fingertips. The Prince of Westwood! Invincible. He’d made her want to be better than who she was, to build a dream then follow it to the end. Because of him, she’d pursued a doctorate after her post-graduate P.T. degree. She took a sip of hot black tea, thinking of his intelligent eyes, hers welling up again as her heart pinched.
The man might be considered disabled by everyday standards, but he was also a skilled neurosurgeon, and the world still needed him. She couldn’t allow him to hide away in his gym day in and day out.
It seemed he had to relearn how to be himself. The confident, outgoing guy he used to be. That was a task far beyond her physical therapist’s pay scale. All she could hope was for their once shared friendship and mutual respect to pull him back to what he’d been before the accident. Not the gym rat he’d become. Didn’t he know that true strength came from inside, not from muscles?
Her phone rang. It was Alexandra. “How’d things go?”
“A little rocky at first, but he’s agreed to let me stay for now.”
“How does he look?”
Great! Sexy as ever. “Determined, and obviously buffer than I’ve ever seen him.”
“If anyone can get through to him, I know you can.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Promise?” Mommy! Mommy! Mary heard children’s voices in the background. With three kids, Alexandra never seemed to make it through a phone call without interruption.
“Promise.”
“I’m going to have to cut things short.”
“I understand. I’ll keep you posted. Give those kids a hug from me, and two for Rosebud, okay?”
“Can