LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Okay. Have it your way. For today, anyway.”

      Natalie had closed the file now, her steady gaze seeming to judge him a coward.

      “You know, the sooner we get you up on your feet—”

      “I know. I know. It’s just...” He shook his head, the truth too embarrassing to share. He was like a toddler who’d fallen once and decided to settle in as a permanent crawler.

      “I guess we can continue a few more days with your first group of home exercises. But by the end of next week—”

      “Yes. Next week,” he said to cut her off. The sooner they stopped talking about it, the sooner he could stop sweating like a marathon runner hitting a wall near the twenty-two-mile marker.

      “Well, let’s get started.”

      She flipped open his file again to the sheet of exercise instructions she’d given him on Wednesday. He didn’t need to see it to begin the stretches he’d already memorized. Filling the role his coworkers had taken during his home sessions the past few days, Natalie lifted his leg, straightening and bending it several times before lowering it to the ground.

      “I’m getting an idea why the muscles in your upper body haven’t atrophied as much as we would have expected by now,” she said as she lifted the other leg. “You’ve only been working out from the waist up.”

      He couldn’t help grinning at that. “So you noticed my upper body?”

      She frowned up at him, the color in her cheeks deepening.

      “It’s my job to pay attention to such details about my clients.” Without looking at him again, she repeated the stretch on his other leg. “Besides, who could avoid noticing when someone looked like a cartoon character?”

      “I guess there are worse things to be compared to than a cartoon hero.” He’d take her words as a compliment, even if she hadn’t intended them that way.

      “Whoever said hero?”

      “It was one of the few things I could still do in bed.”

      Her lids fluttered, her blush deepening over his comment about his activities in bed.

      “What was?” she managed.

      There were so many things he could say, but he gave her a break this time. “Low-weight strength training. Sometimes I couldn’t watch another minute of TV, and my eyes were strained from reading. So I had a friend bring over her hand weights. I started with the five-pound ones.”

      “You should have been exercising under a medical professional’s care. It might have caused more damage—”

      “More damage than a bullet?”

      She shrugged. “Well, not that much.”

      “Anyway, there was hardly any moment when at least one medical professional wasn’t watching me or telling me what to do.”

      “We tend to do that.”

      Shane smiled at that. At least some of the tension between them had dissipated. He just hoped she didn’t ask him now why he was putting up roadblocks in the path of his recovery—because that would only multiply the stress again.

      If he knew the answer to that question, he would be pushing the obstacles out of the way as fast as his arms could move them. It wasn’t that he was afraid of walking again—he couldn’t think of a single thing he wanted more.

      But what if it just wasn’t in the cards? What if he got up there on the parallel bars and nothing moved, ever, except his arms as they dragged his legs behind him? How could he repay his debt to society then? He had to make some progress, had to have some good news to share with Kent. Especially now, since his mentor’s cancer had failed to respond to the most recent round of chemo.

      But he couldn’t tell Natalie that. It probably wouldn’t come off as such a great story, since Natalie definitely had something against police officers. He’d been wondering what it could be for the past few days, but had told himself he would only be opening a can of worms if he asked. But suddenly he had an irrepressible urge to pop open that can’s lid.

      “So, what do you have against cops, anyway?”

      She dropped the file and had to pick it up again before she could look at him. “I don’t have anything against cops. Why would you ask something like that?”

      “That’s the story you’re sticking to after the other day with the cops and robbers comment and the question about whether or not I bothered to wear a vest?”

      “It was just a bad—”

      “A bad day. So you’ve said. But most of us have our bad days without offending an entire profession.”

      Instead of answering, she shrugged.

      “Is it about the problems law enforcement has had with the African-American community?”

      Her eyes widened as she stared at him.

      He cleared his throat, his face suddenly hot. “I mean...well... I thought that maybe you might be...”

      “Biracial?”

      “Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. It’s just—” He cut off his words, but he couldn’t stop his gaze from gliding over the smooth-looking skin of her neck before returning to her gleaming eyes. “Again...sorry.”

      But the side of her mouth lifted. “Usually I pass.”

      “For white?” Immediately, he wanted to know why she would want to pass for anything other than the amazing beauty that she was.

      Her chuckle surprised him.

      “It’s only fair since my main exposure to the African-American side of my heritage is the two boxes I check on applications.” She glanced at the exercise list, not meeting his gaze. “But race issues aren’t the only reason I’m not a fan of cops.”

      “Then why not?”

      “People become police officers for the excitement of shooting suspects or driving fast cars to chase down criminals,” she said and then pulled her sweater tighter over her shoulders.

      He lifted a brow. “That’s it. Really? Even after the number of high-profile police shootings involving unarmed young black men, that’s your reason?”

      “I said those weren’t the only reasons.”

      “Did you know that the majority of police officers work a full career without ever having to discharge their weapons, except in training? And in some cities, they don’t drive fast cars or motorcycles at all. Some are on horseback. Or even riding bicycles in crowded areas.”

      She sighed as if she realized he wouldn’t give up the point—she was right about that.

      “I just hate...hate when they act like cowboys, racing around like no one else matters.”

      For several seconds he could only watch her. What wasn’t she telling him?

      “Present company excluded, right?” he asked when she didn’t say more. “Lately, I don’t drive anything fast or get to race around anywhere.”

      She shrugged. “Forget it. Let’s get back to work.” She stared pointedly at him. “And you’d better keep up your upper-body regimen, because you’ll need those arms to support you on the bars next week.”

      “Guess so.”

      He shifted again, as she’d probably guessed he would. She was deflecting, and that told him that she was hiding something. Had something happened between her and a police officer? Had she dated a cop who turned out to be a creep? Just the thought of that had him strangely unsettled. He knew plenty of guys who wore the uniform and were jerks in the dating department. Some women he’d flipped through in his continual rounds of speed dating might include him in that category.

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