LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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