Gift Wrapped Dad - Sandra Steffen

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used to tell her so. Will smiled to himself as he remembered what she’d told him in return. “I’m refreshing, and you’re fresh. Quite a combination, don’t you think?”

      Krista called hello to other patients as they passed. Will barely noticed. His thoughts were elsewhere, deep in the fresh zone, where images danced through him mind, images of him and Krista in his dorm room, and later, in her tiny apartment just off campus.

      “Mommy! Mommy!”

      He turned his head slowly as a young boy with dark hair and huge brown eyes ran toward him from the opposite end of the hall. Will glanced around, searching for the object of the child’s gaze.

      “Mommy, guess what?”

      It took Will a moment to realize that the kid was talking to Krista. Mommy? Krista was somebody’s mother?

      “Tommy,” Krista called. “Where’s Mrs. Hall?”

      “She’s coming,” the child replied. “See? Back there.”

      Will didn’t know why he glanced down the hall, but sure enough, a heavyset woman with frizzy brown hair was hurrying toward them.

      “You’re Billy the Kid!” the boy exclaimed, staring at Will.

      “Tommy,” Krista admonished, “where are your manners? This is Mr. Sutherland. Mr. Sutherland, my son, Tommy.”

      Will heard the pride and affection in Krista’s voice as she spoke to her son. The little urchin extended his right hand, and in his befuddled state, Will enfolded the boy’s fingers in his own large hand. “Hi, Tommy. How ya doing?”

      “Cool,” the child said in awe. “Wait until I tell Stephanie that I shook hands with Billy the Kid. She’s my friend. She doesn’t care much about baseball, so she doesn’t know you stole forty-two bases last season, but she’s still pretty smart.”

      By the time the boy had finished talking, Mrs. Hall had joined him and Krista in the middle of the corridor. Krista spoke to the older woman, and Tommy rattled on about home runs and batting averages. Within minutes, Mrs. Hall was leading Tommy away. This time the child’s hand was tucked firmly in hers.

      Will sat statue still, barely conscious of the lady with the walker who was steadily drawing closer. “How old is your son?” he asked.

      “Tommy’s six going on thirty,” Krista replied. “He’s gifted.”

      Will digested that statement easily enough. Since she had a six-year-old son, obviously she hadn’t sworn off men immediately after he’d left eight years ago. Yesterday, he’d assumed that Krista wasn’t married. The subject hadn’t crossed his mind today, especially not while he’d been kissing her. She said she’d sworn off men. Exactly what had she meant by that?

      “Uh, Krista?” he asked, waving at the little boy at the end of the hall.

      “Mm?” she asked, waving, too.

      “Are you married?”

      Two

       A re you married?

      The question hung in her mind as the faint swish, thud, swish, thud of a walker steadily drew near. She’d assumed Will knew her marital status. After all, he’d shown up at the Fourth Street Rehab Center in Allentown so sure she’d agree to be his physical therapist that he’d signed his outpatient admittance forms before talking to her.

      She’d been fighting her reaction to seeing him again since the first moment she’d looked into his eyes yesterday. It was so easy to get emotionally involved with her patients, to share in their grief and in their achievements. The fact that she’d known Will intimately eight years ago made her even more susceptible to emotional involvement. Somehow she had to find a way to help him regain the use of his legs and retain her own equilibrium at the same time. That wasn’t going to be easy.

      Oh, no, she thought to herself. That wasn’t going to be easy at all. She hadn’t been on an even keel since yesterday, but she hadn’t realized just how much Will had affected her until she’d seen Tommy running toward her a few minutes ago. She’d known he had the day off from school, and she’d known he and Mrs. Hall were going to stop by later this morning. But while she’d been working with Will, Krista had lost all track of time and had forgotten about Tommy’s visit. That hadn’t happened before, but then she hadn’t been kissed senseless by one of her patients before, either. From now on, she was going to have to stay on her toes and try to keep one step ahead of Will.

      She watched as Tommy and Mrs. Hall disappeared through the door at the end of the corridor. Grasping the handles on Will’s chair, Krista finally answered his question. “I’m not married.”

      Will turned around in his chair to look up at her. “That must make those tight-a—”

      His eyes darted to the left, and he let the soft a sound trail away into thin air. Understanding dawned as she followed his gaze and noticed that Mrs. Felpont, Heather’s elderly patient, had moved within hearing distance.

      “Er, make that those tight-lipped sisters of yours feel like gloating even more.”

      Krista smiled at Mrs. Felpont, wondering how many men these days would have cleaned up their language because a kindly gray-haired lady was nearby. Once again she fought her rising sense of wonder.

      Staring down into Will’s eyes, she couldn’t help noticing the derision in his expression. He never had thought much of her sisters. She shook her head in answer to his question, deciding not to go on to explain that she didn’t have a lot of contact with her family anymore. Not that she’d ever had much in common with them in the first place.

      “Come on, Krista,” he said, drawing her back to the present. “We have less than an hour left for my therapy today. If we want to get me on my feet, we have to get moving.”

      Krista hurried after Will, thinking it wasn’t going to be easy to stay one step ahead of this man. The fact that he couldn’t walk made absolutely no difference whatsoever.

      She caught up with him inside the double doors and found him looking all around. In one corner of the room, another therapist was helping a young girl into a whirlpool tub. Brody was barking encouragement to a large black man who was lifting weights. Heather was working with Mrs. Felpont, and still another with a teenage boy.

      Krista glanced down at Will’s face. His grin had slipped away and had been replaced with a serious expression people rarely associated with Billy the Kid. He really was different in many ways. She wondered if the years had changed him, or if the accident had.

      “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you loosened up.”

      He glanced from one end of her body to the other. By the time it came back to her face, the seriousness had left his expression. “I thought you’d never ask.”

      She felt a tingling in the pit of her stomach and a grudging smile on her lips. Will always had been able to turn an innocent phrase into something provocative. She was definitely going to have a hard time keeping one step ahead of him. The surprising thing was, she was looking forward to it.

      He set the brake on his wheelchair and placed one hand on the chair’s armrest and the other hand on the low table, swinging himself over with amazing ease. Krista moved the wheelchair out of the way and said, “Lie on your back with your head on that pillow. I’m going to stretch your muscles and help keep those joints limber.”

      Will did as she instructed, lying back and grasping the handrails to maneuver himself up to the top of the table. Krista started with his right leg, lifting it, rotating it, bending his knee and pushing toward his body. Her touch was firm yet gentle, and he tried to imagine that his muscles were moving on their own.

      “I know this is uncomfortable,” she said. “Tell me if it becomes unbearable.”

      He

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