LITMIR.BIZ

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she thought. Then why do I feel like a clumsy schoolgirl?

      “Mr. Conners, you wanted to see me?”

      “Please, Nathan.”

      “All right.” Catherine nodded, mentally wrinkling her brow in thought. Nathan Conners. Why was that name so familiar?

      “I wanted to apologize for earlier. I…things have been on edge for me lately.”

      “Really, that isn’t necessary. It’s understandable.”

      “Yes, but I still wanted—”

      “Nathan,” she began, surprised at the waver in her voice when she said his name. She cleared her throat. “Nathan. Your apology is accepted. Was there anything else?”

      “I did want to ask some questions about my recovery. You looked…please don’t take this the wrong way, but you looked almost as if you were hiding something. Is there something wrong with the way my knee is healing?”

      Catherine stilled and met his tawny gaze without flinching. Nathan Conners was more perceptive than she had realized.

      Nathan Conners. Again she had the nagging feeling that she knew his name from somewhere else. She focused on the man across from her. Deep eyes, thick, dark hair that hung a bit below the collar of his short-sleeve Henley, a slightly crooked nose that looked like it had been broken once or twice before. Tall, very well-muscled—definitely in good health.

      And young. Catherine judged him to be in his early to mid-twenties, and she suddenly felt old. She shrugged the feeling off and continued studying him. He had physique, health and age on his side, which would help him through any extended recovery period he would need—if he needed it. She hadn’t studied his file as thoroughly as she would have liked, and she didn’t know what kind of recovery time Brian expected of his patient.

      “No, your knee seems to be healing well. There’s still some swelling and I detected some roughness under the kneecap, but that’s to be expected. Dr. Porter will be able to better answer any questions you may have the next time you see him.”

      “So there shouldn’t be any problems?”

      “No, I don’t see why there should be.” Catherine noticed the slight lines that creased his forehead as he frowned. He was overly worried, and she offered him a comforting smile meant to reassure him. His sigh of relief would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t been watching him closely.

      “Good. I was starting to worry. It looked like you were ready to permanently confine me to a wheelchair for a minute there. I’m not sure I could handle being crippled.”

      Catherine’s sympathy immediately vanished at his choice of words. She mentally chastised herself, cautioning against the overreaction blossoming in the pit of her stomach. She forced a tight smile but failed to keep the coldness from her voice.

      “I really don’t think you need to worry about that, Mr. Conners. Now if there’s nothing else…”

      Nathan didn’t miss the slight narrowing of her eyes, or the sudden frost in their brown depths. Her shoulders stiffened, too, and he knew without a doubt that he’d just offended her. She was dismissing him. Plain and simple. And he was torn between leaving without saying another word or staying to apologize for whatever he’d said or done to cause this reaction in her. The abrupt buzzing of the intercom stopped him.

      “Dr. Wilson, Matthew’s here.” A disconnected voice made the announcement. Nathan winced as the doctor’s slender finger punched the intercom button. There was no doubt that she wished she were punching something entirely different—like him.

      “Tell him I’ll be out in a minute.” Her frosty voice melted only a few degrees before she turned a cold look on him. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other business to attend to.”

      He finally stood when she did. She was shorter than he was, but he suddenly felt small as she fixed him with that cold look.

      No, not small, he corrected himself. He felt like a worm.

      “Dr. Wilson, I obviously—”

      “Good day, Mr. Conners.”

      Nathan studied her a second longer then turned to leave, knowing that whatever he’d said, he wasn’t going to correct it just then. He walked out of the office, feeling the chill of her stare in the middle of his back. Not until he reached the end of the hall did he dare turn around, certain her attention was no longer focused on him.

      With that one quick look behind him, he reconsidered his earlier self-assessment. He cursed under his breath as he watched the scene in the hallway.

      Catherine was kneeling on the floor, her arms wrapped protectively around a little boy about nine years old. The boy motioned wildly, obviously embarrassed as he tried to shrug off her embrace. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary with the scene, except for one thing: the boy’s slight frame was nearly lost, engulfed by the bulky wheelchair that surrounded him. Nathan didn’t need to look hard to see that the boy’s right leg was missing, amputated just below the knee.

      No, he wasn’t a worm, he was worse. No wonder the doctor’s warmth had suddenly vanished and she’d seemed ready to throw him from her office. A chill swept through him as he pulled his gaze away from the boy and saw Catherine looking straight at him.

      Nathan pivoted around and jabbed the elevator button. The child’s excited voice at the end of the hall drew closer, and he closed his eyes as a feeling of utter dread swept over him.

      “C’ mon, c’mon,” he muttered impatiently, watching the digital readout above the elevator with a sense of helplessness.

      “But, Mom, don’t you know who he is?”

      “Matty, I don’t think—”

      “C’ mon, Mom!”

      Nathan smiled to himself at the whine in the boy’s voice as it got closer still. No matter what else may be wrong with him, he had the normal impatience of all kids his age.

      “Hey, Mr. Conners! Mr. Conners! Can I have your autograph?” Nathan heard the excitement in his voice, knew that the boy in the wheelchair had nearly reached him. He took a deep breath, turned around and forced himself to look only at the boy.

      “Sure, no problem, kid.” Nathan automatically kneeled and winced as a sharp pain shot through his knee before he repositioned himself. He sensed the doctor’s sudden reaching and waved her away before taking the paper and pen the young boy offered. He looked into the kid’s brown eyes and felt a smile spread across his own face at the hero worship he saw in their depths. “So are you a big fan, Matthew?”

      “Wow!” The kid reached up and tugged on Catherine’s arm. “Hey, Mom, he knew my name! Wait till I tell everyone at school! I love hockey, Mr. Conners.”

      “Matty, that’s enough.”

      Nathan winced at the ice in her voice but still refused to look at her. He scrawled a brief greeting on the paper, followed by his name, and handed it back to the boy.

      “You can call me Nathan. So, how many hockey games have you been to, Matthew?”

      The young boy shrugged. “Not a whole bunch. Mom says she doesn’t like it. But I watch on TV. When it’s not real late, I mean. Hey, Nathan, when are you going to start playing again?”

      “I guess that’ll be up to the doctors. So…I bet your dad’s a fan, too, huh? How’d you like to go see a game? I could get tickets for you and your dad. Your mom, too, if you’d like.”

      “I don’t have a dad.”

      “Oh.” Nathan swallowed around the foot in his mouth as Catherine’s icy glare drove deeper into him. “Um, well, how about just tickets for you and your mom then?”

      “Wow! Could you? That would be neat!”

      Nathan felt the urge to laugh at the boy’s excitement and tried

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