“Of course.” Jillian hid the blush warming her cheeks by helping Mike walk toward the chair. It was less embarrassment than guilt at being distracted from her job that had her sliding her shoulder beneath his arm and anchoring her hands at his waist to guide him to his seat. Mike’s balance might not be rock steady yet, but he was doing the bulk of the work, moving as quickly as his clumsy legs would let him. Maybe something had seized up with a cramp.
“Are you in pain?” his father asked, instantly standing behind the wheelchair like a wall of black granite to keep it still while Mike turned and plopped onto the seat.
“I’m fine, Dad,” Mike insisted, shrugging off his father’s hand while Jillian knelt down to adjust the foot rests and position his feet. She glanced up into the teen’s downturned expression. Just as she suspected. The only thing cramping was Mike’s attitude.
His father must have sensed it, too. With a measured sigh, he moved away from the chair and turned to greet Troy. He shook the young man’s hand. “Staying out of trouble?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’s your brother? Dex, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. He made the honor roll last semester.”
“Good for him. Good that he’s got a big brother like you in his corner. And your grandmother?”
“Working. Two jobs. Like always. I might be getting a job pretty soon, too. As soon as I get this thing all figured out.” He spun his chair in a tight circle, proving that, physically, at any rate, he was closer to healing than Michael’s son. “I’m trying to finish my GED, too, but the math sucks.”
Michael inclined his head toward his son. “Mike’s pretty fair with numbers. He’s in geometry at William Chrisman this year. Maybe he can coach you.”
“Dad!”
Troy shrugged off Mike, Jr.’s, shut-up-and-don’t-volunteer-me-for-anything reprimand, his own tone growing a little more subdued. “I’ll get it figured out.”
“I like hearing that. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks.”
Jillian stayed down longer than necessary so that she wouldn’t interrupt the man-to-man interchange that Troy got far too little of in his life. Even paralyzed below the waist and struggling to be the man in his family, Troy Anthony was still a big kid at heart. He beamed at the paternal approval in Captain Cutler’s voice before wheeling over to Mike’s side and thumping him on the arm. “Hey, will you be back on Monday, bro?”
Mike rolled his eyes, as if the Monday-Wednesday-Friday sessions he’d been attending for the last month and a half since mid-February would go on forever and ever. “I dunno.”
“Jillian said if enough of us got together, we could play some hoops. She says there’s a whole wheelchair league in Kansas City.”
Go, Troy. Jillian had hoped that pairing up her two youngest charges in therapy sessions would boost their mental outlooks as well as their physical training. “With that upper body strength and the hands you’ve got,” she observed, “you’d be a natural.”
If anything, Mike grew even more sullen at her compliment. “I told you I hate basketball.”
“Mike—” his father scolded.
But Troy was back in can’t-touch-this form. He knew how to push Mike’s buttons. “You hate losing, too?” He spun his chair toward the exit and took off. “Last one to the machine buys the pop.”
A beat of silence passed before Jillian coyly prodded Mike. “Didn’t you buy the sodas last time?”
“Hey!” With a sudden burst of movement, Mike raced after the other teen, his hands gliding along the wheels of his chair. “Get back here, loser.”
“I ain’t the one in last place, loser.”
“Shouldn’t you be walk—”
Jillian grabbed Michael, Sr.’s, arm, stopping him from going after the boys. His forearm muscles bunched beneath her fingers before he swung his attention back to her. “Shouldn’t he be walking to build up his leg strength instead of getting more used to that damn chair?”
Jillian drew her hand away from the crisp sleeve and the solid man inside the uniform before her curious fingers dug into that warm flex of muscle. “Let him have a little fun. He’s already put in a decent workout session today. Physically, he’s reached a plateau and I don’t want to burn him out.”
Michael Cutler’s eyes, as blue and dark as a twilight sky, assessed the shrug of her shoulders before zeroing in on her expression. “He’ll continue to improve, won’t he?”
“His doctors seem to think so.” Jillian reminded him of the good news without sugarcoating the bad. “Mike needs to build his self-confidence as much as anything right now. He needs to care about moving on to the next stage of his recovery before more strength and coordination training will do him much good.”
Michael, Sr., rubbed his palm over the top of his hair, making the black and silver spikes spring up in the wake of his hand. “Sorry. It always comes down to the mental game, doesn’t it?”
Jillian nodded.
“I just get frustrated that he’s missing out on so much. He’s still only sixteen.”
“Think about his frustration.”
“He won’t even talk to me about the night of the accident. I had to read the details in a police report.”
“Does he share with his trauma counselor?” Jillian’s own sessions with Dr. Randolph, the psychologist who’d helped her through rehab at the Boatman Clinic eleven years ago, and who remained a friend and occasional father confessor to this day, had been invaluable to her mental recovery as a teenager.
“Not much. You seem to be the only person he opens up to.” Captain Cutler worked the brim of his cap with long, strong fingers before everything about him went utterly still—as if he’d suddenly realized his emotions were showing and he’d shut them down. Such precision, such control. No wonder other cops snapped to his commands. Stop noticing details about the man, already. Jillian focused on what he was saying, made sure she was listening as he slid the cap into his hip pocket and continued. “He doesn’t have to play football anymore, or go to Harvard or get rich. I’d just like him to leave his room once in a while and walk without those damn braces—meet girls and hang out with his buddies and be a teenager again.”
“Trust me, it’ll happen.” Jillian went to retrieve the basketball Troy had left on the floor. She knew that damaged people healed at different speeds, and that not even a father’s unflinching support could force the process to go any faster. “He just needs time.”
“Well, I’m glad you have the patience to deal with him. You had him smiling and trading high fives before he knew I was here. Seems everything I say or do ends up in a shouting match or him closing the door and not saying anything at all.”
Jillian opened the storage bin outside the equipment closet and dropped the ball in. “Just doing my job.”
Michael Cutler was there to close the lid for her. His piercing eyes seemed to catch the light, even in the shadows from the stands and supports above them. “Working magic is more like it. He likes you. Likes coming here. It’s just me at home since his mom passed away. Some nights, when he’s shut up in his room and I can’t figure out what he needs, it feels like he doesn’t have anybody. I’ve thought about taking another leave of absence from work—like I did right after the accident—but then I think he prefers the time away from me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Don’t count on it. I’ve negotiated with crazy people, talked kidnappers into releasing their hostages and convinced