LITMIR.BIZ

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I guess. I’ve completed training and passed boards to be a physiotherapy assistant in Texas, but I haven’t done any office work on it or taken boards here. The closest I came was a mission where the leader had back trouble and I helped her with the daily exercises her actual treatment prescribed … helped her handle being out in the field,” she answered, fishing a badge from under her sweater and answering the question that he’d been working toward.

      Anticipating. She really was perceptive. And the occupations fit. But then again, she could’ve said artist, pagan priestess, or tambourine player and he would’ve believed her. So, a massage therapist who called the owner’s daughter and resort doctor ‘Mirry.’

      He plucked another medication from the cabinet, the mildest prescription-level pain medicine Mirry … Dr. Dupris … had in stock, and put it on the clipboard. “I put another medicine there for pain for Chelsea. Frostbite pain is monstrous.”

      Shrugging out of his coat, he pushed his sleeves up and stepped over to the sink to wash his hands, paying special attention to the puffy and bloody knuckles. He gave his fingers a few more slow flexes. Burning. Tenderness. But no bone pain. He knew about bone pain, just as he knew about frostbite pain. So she was right, even without having that information at her disposal. Good eye.

      “Oh, my God, that’s all you …”

      He turned away from the sink, hand still under the water. “What’s all me?”

      “I was hoping that the coat was puffier than it seems to be.”

      He briefly considered not asking her for clarification, but he needed all the information he could get to keep up in conversation with this woman. “Why were you hoping my coat was puffy?”

      “You’re seriously beefy. Shoulders a mile wide, muscled. It’s going to make working on you hard. I was hoping that some of that was your gear, your coat … I’ve got pretty strong hands and upper body, but you’re going to be a tough case.” She’d put a tray on the table, an array of antiseptics, gauze, tapes and ointments on it, and then went to write the medicine on her special clipboard.

      “No, I won’t. I don’t need to be worked on.” He didn’t mention the compliment. Best ignore that attraction she’d all but said was mutual.

      “How’s it feeling?”

      Good. She wasn’t going to push the subject. “Nothing broken but the wall and my self-control. Bruised. Some abrasions …” He dried his hands on paper towels and wandered toward the table. “Maybe a mild sprain.” He’d hit the wall hard.

      “After you give the medicine to Chelsea, I want you on my table.”

      “Ellory, I don’t need it.”

      “Suffering for no reason doesn’t make you tough, it makes you stupid.” She made a noise he could only consider a verbal shrug, “Your shoulder needs working on. If you want that thing to heal up so you can get back out there to find Jude when the snow lets up, let me help you.”

      He should’ve seen that coming. Her vocation was one hundred percent hands on, and from what he could tell by having observed her, she was on a mission to take care of the world.

      The idea had some appealing qualities. Not the least of which the prospect of having her hands on his body … She might be dressed like a crazy person, considering the season and latitude, and conversing with her might be like running a linguistic obstacle course, but strangely neither of those things made her unappealing. And neither did the revelation about her spirit quest.

      But he didn’t really deserve comfort, and it was possible that his shoulder would calm down on its own in a little while.

      “Maybe later. I should stick around the lobby. Keep a watch on them and the weather.”

      “Have you seen the radar? The storm is going to be with us for a while, hours and hours. We’ll leave one of the radios with your people in the lobby and they can call us if …” The lights flickered, stopping her flow of words and her hands. When the power steadied and stayed on, she continued, “We’re going to lose electricity.”

      “Maybe. We should see about making preparations, on the off chance …”

      “It’s not an off chance, Anson. It happens in every bad storm that hits the pass. Summer. Winter. Doesn’t matter what kind of storm. It’s not the whole town, but the lines to the lodge are dodgy, always breaking or going out for some reason. Tree limbs. High winds. Accumulation of heavy snow or ice …”

      “I thought you were just in Peru.”

      “And before that Haiti. And before that the Central African Republic. Before that Costa Rica. But I was born and raised in Silver Pass. I needed to come home after my retreat, and Mira offered me a place to work. I have a history with the lodge. I know what I’m talking about. Nothing ever changes here. The power will go out.”

      “What does a massage therapist do in those places?”

      “Dig ditches. Build dams. Distribute food, clothing, or whatever the mission is. And I help at the end of the day when people are worn out and hurting from all the manual labor.” She disappeared into the office, and after some mucking around in there came out with a file folder, some forms, and another clipboard. “And there have been a few projects where I ended up with the same project leader, and I think she took me along as much to help keep her on her feet as to help with the actual project.”

      She left him to clean and dress his hand and made some notes in Chelsea’s chart.

      She’d grown up at the lodge, which explained why she was on such intimate terms with the owners. “You knew Dr. Dupris growing up?”

      “Yes, and before you dig further she’s my best friend. I love her more than anyone else in the whole world and if I’m upsetting you by making you help with the skiers, or making you let me help you, you’re just going to have to get over it. She’s having some much-needed downtime, and I’m going to take care of her people. Right now you’re one of them, Dr. Graves. So suck it up, get the medicine into Chelsea and meet me at the massage therapy room. It’s three doors down. There’s a sign.” She locked the drug cabinet and then turned and tossed her keys to him.

      He instinctively caught them with his right hand, and regretted it. The combination of flying metal hitting his throbbing palm and the quick jerk of his arm tweaking his shoulder doubled the pain whammy that followed.

      “Fine.” Not fine. Annoyed. But as annoying as it was, she had a point, and if she could help, he’d make use of her.

      “Lock the door when you leave. And turn off the lights. No wasting fossil fuels.”

      At least she didn’t gloat.

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