Below, at the end of a narrow footpath worn through the thick mountain grasses, looking like something from a picture postcard, sat a weathered gray structure. Complete with tin roof and quarter-moon hole in the door. An outhouse. Lovely.
She turned to her new patient and smiled bravely. “Please lie facedown on the bed with your shoulder near the edge. No pillow.”
He went to the heavy four-poster bed tucked up under the roof between two dormer windows, pulled off his boots, struggling with the left one, then did as she asked. Laura stood over him, warming some lotion between her palms and wondering how in the world she could continue. Though she’d admitted to herself right away that he was handsome, actually touching him had been a shock.
His skin was tanned, smooth and warm. As soon as she laid her hands on his firm back, she felt an electric thrill run through her fingertips, unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Certainly a sensation unlike any she’d felt while touching any other patient.
She’d made it through the warm-up phase of the therapy on sheer professional concentration, but now she wondered if she could complete the painful stretches and manipulations necessary to remove scar tissue without communicating her nervousness to him.
He was lying very still, his back muscles relaxed and his breathing regular. Careful not to drip the lotion on his bare back, she leaned forward and realized the man had fallen asleep.
WHEN HE WOKE UP, he realized he was upstairs in his bed, but couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten there or what time it was. The sunlight slanting through the western dormers was low and golden, so it must be evening.
He was startled when he saw a cowboy slumping between the wall and the bed, denim legs sprawled straight out as if the man was drunk. Then he remembered.
The safety dummy. Her.
He’d been so relaxed when she’d finished the first part of the treatment that he’d trudged up the stairs in a fog, flopped on the bed the way she told him to and then?
He sat up, rubbed his eyes, flexed his injured arm and shoulder. It felt pretty good. And he felt fantastic. He hadn’t slept like this since…He heard voices downstairs. Doc and Katherine. The delicious spicy aroma of Katherine’s lentil soup drifted up. Was it dinnertime already?
Laughter.
Laura Duncan’s laughter.
Man. Having her here was going to be tough. Why did they have to send him a beautiful female physical therapist? It was hard enough looking at her, but when she touched him…
He couldn’t afford to let himself have these feelings. He needed a fully functioning arm and shoulder if he was going to do what he had to do, and he didn’t need to be distracted by the charms of his therapist. This arrangement would never work. Somehow he’d find another way to get his therapy done.
He pulled on his boots, which set off a twinge of pain in his shoulder, found his shirt, sneered at Ned while he buttoned it, then headed down the stairs.
The laughter fell off when he ducked his head around the narrow door at the foot of the stairs.
“Adam,” Katherine said kindly, and stepped away from the stove toward him. “Did you sleep well?”
“We were just getting acquainted with Laura.” Doc smiled up at him from the rocker.
Laura Duncan was standing at the chopping block, where the big gift basket sat with the cellophane all askew as if they’d been digging around in it. Evidently she’d been slicing chunks of cantaloupe into a crockery bowl, but now she stopped. She, too, was smiling. Everybody looked happy. He was glad to see Doc and Katherine enjoying themselves, but he had no intention of joining the party. For him there was no such feeling as happy. Only one thing drove his days and nights now. One thing. And Doc and Katherine knew that.
“Ms. Duncan, I need to speak to you. Alone.” He marched past her into the main room and waited with his boot propped on the big stone hearth.
IN THE KITCHEN, Laura looked from Doc to Katherine, confusion and embarrassment rendering her speechless. Things had been going so well!
She’d immediately liked Doc and Katherine Jones, lean white-haired retirees who wore Birkenstocks and sincere smiles. As soon as they’d walked in the back door of the cabin, their arms loaded with groceries, Laura had sensed their good humor, their kindness, their wisdom.
As the older couple bustled about putting away the food and chattering, it was obvious they felt at home and knew where everything was stored in the small kitchen. In no time they were all sipping steaming mugs of the herbal tea Laura had taken from her basket.
“We come up the mountain all the time,” Katherine explained. “We try to help Adam. I cook. Doc tends garden and does odd jobs.” She sighed. “Poor Adam—such a long recovery.”
After they’d helped Laura situate her gear, they’d given her a tour of the place—forty acres in the middle of a national forest. The last of such private land, Doc explained. The log cabin was built late in the nineteenth century, Katherine told her. The stone house, she said, was added later.
The whole time Adam Scott had slept soundly, and as the sun lowered, there had been an almost palpable peace about the breathtakingly beautiful old homestead.
Then, Laura thought, the minute the man stomped down the stairs, there was tension again.
Doc cleared his throat and scratched the top of his balding pate. “You’d better go see what he wants, Laura.”
“Yes,” Katherine added. “The soup will keep.” She turned to the stove and stirred it.
“Excuse me, then.” Laura laid aside the knife, wiped her hands on the apron Katherine had supplied and went into the main room.
She wished he’d lit a lamp. The pale evening light that filtered in through the lone unshuttered window didn’t allow her to see him, much less read his expression.
His voice rumbled, disembodied, from beside the fireplace. “We need to discuss this arrangement,” he said.
Laura dropped her hands to her sides and squared her shoulders. “Mr. Scott, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I’m not the right therapist for you, after all. I’ll arrange some sort of replacement immediately and, of course, I won’t hold you to that contract.”
“What?” Even in the darkness, Laura sensed his sudden dismay.
She wished she had a plausible excuse. She’d tried to think of one all afternoon while he slept. But what could she say? I think I’m attracted to you, so it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to do your therapy? Though it was true, that sounded so unprofessional it made Laura cringe. “I’m leaving, but I’ll stay till I find a replacement.”
Wait a minute, Adam thought as he studied Laura in the dim light, she’s leaving? The strangest mix of emotions assailed him. He was a scientist, a logical man, but he couldn’t explain these feelings. Upstairs he’d been certain she should go, but the second she announced that she was leaving, his heart had started to beat faster and his breath had actually become short. She reached up self-consciously to adjust her tiny earring, making it glint, and he was struck again by how feminine she was, how even her slightest movement affected him.
“Ms. Duncan—” he found his voice “—I know I’ve been…less than cordial. But now that you’ll have the Joneses here with you…” His voice trailed off. He felt genuinely at a loss. When had his goal become keeping her here?
“Please, believe me, Mr. Scott, it’s not anything you’ve done,” Laura was saying. “And I like Doc and Katherine a lot. I just…I just don’t think I’ve got what it takes to complete your therapy. I know my limits.”
“But my arm and my shoulder—when I woke up they already felt better.”