been, lecturing her on making something of her life. To do it for herself because no one else could.
He stopped the repetitions and stared out the gym window down to where her crazy little house stood.
Wes had seen the disappointment in Mary’s gaze after their chaste kiss the night of the prom, yet her sweetness had remained. She’d dutifully thanked him and promised not to let him down, playing her “kid sister” role perfectly. Before he’d left, he’d told her how beautiful she looked and even in the dark of night she’d beamed. So princely. Such power. All the more reason to save her from him. Yet he’d walked away wondering who between them had the most power over the other and sure he’d left a piece of his heart behind. Forever.
The least he could do was let her share her expertise with him now. Who knew, he might learn something, and if that helped his recovery and goal to get back to work again, it would be worth all of these memories bombarding him about his unwanted guest.
He’d had enough of the free weights and trained his sight across the room, out of that blasted window...to her house.
Returning to university that next afternoon, it had been easy to brush the moment—their special night—under the table and move on. Not really, but he’d worked at it at least. Truth was he’d carried those memories around with him for a decade until they’d been replaced with an amazing kiss they’d shared at his sister’s wedding several years later.
He rolled under the pull-up bar and grabbed hold, lifting himself out of the wheelchair, pressing his chin to the bar, over and over, until sweat rolled down his temples and his arms trembled.
Still on the fast track to success back then, he’d been about to become engaged to Giselle, a young woman of his social standing, with all the proper credentials and diplomas to be a rich doctor’s wife and a doctor herself. Plus she’d been vetted by dear old Dad. Yes, the decision had been cold and calculated, but it fit in with his future. To this day, long after his engagement had fallen apart, his medical practice had taken off and his bank account had doubled—but what did success matter anymore?—he’d recalled that champagne-inspired kiss he’d shared with Mary at Alexandra’s wedding with a longing smile.
He let go of the bar and landed with a plop in his waiting wheelchair—his special, no-choice buddy for the rest of his life—remembering the night of his sister’s wedding.
Mary had changed at twenty-four. She’d become a woman who knew herself and how to tempt a man. She’d taken control of her life just like she’d promised the night of the prom, and she’d radiated confidence and inner peace because of it. Always reaching for that next step on his ladder to the pinnacle, Wes had wanted that. A taste of her secret recipe for contentment. She’d also happened to look amazing in the strapless maid-of-honor dress. It had been ice blue, he vividly recalled, enough to make him smile.
A forgotten sensation tickled down his spine until it reached the location of his spinal cord injury and stopped. He glanced out the window again, watching her sweep her tiny porch as he experienced phantom tingles in his toes. What was that about? Maybe he’d pulled something during his workout?
He’d always known Mary deserved a family of her making, a place to call home. A shot with a decent guy. He’d also had the wisdom to know that they were never meant to be together, so he’d never followed through on his “what if” thoughts. BP—before paraplegia. Useless, silly thoughts, meant only for thinking, savoring even, but never acting on. Until it was too late... AP—after paraplegia.
He wiped his face with the towel, searching the room for another form of man-against-machine torture to take his mind off these wandering thoughts. What was the point? He chose the cable machine, first lowering the sides of his specially made workout wheelchair, then grabbing the bar to begin a series of triceps cable extensions.
Was this how she lived now? Dragging her mini-house with her everywhere she went like a mega-sized backpack? What kind of vagabond life was that for a woman like Mary? She’d been raised in a trailer park by inattentive parents. He’d always pegged her as a girl who wanted to set down roots, who wanted a family more than anything else in the world, the kind she deserved, not the one she’d been born into. Though he could never picture a guy worthy of her, he’d still imagined her settling down, raising children. Now, apparently, she traveled the country alone. In that thing. A house suited more for a mouse.
The irony didn’t take long to sink in about him wondering about what kind of life she led. Take a look at yourself. More money than one person could ever use, living alone in a fortress made of the latest building materials, a ten-million-dollar view of the Pacific Ocean out his front door, yet completely alone.
The last thing he needed to do was examine his own situation. Nope, he was determined to ignore that.
He shook his head. He wasn’t ready to think about the AP future. Not after failing miserably when he’d tried to go back to work prematurely three months ago. How the humiliation had burned like a branding iron when his department head had suggested he’d come back too soon, telling him to take more time off to get a better handle on balancing his demanding job with being in a wheelchair.
His father’s words to live by had infused his way of thinking. Failure is not an option.
The problem was, he already had. Failed. Big time.
He glanced out the window again, catching sight of the back of Mary as she pushed into her doll house.
One finger skimmed the area on his cheek where she’d bussed him when she’d first entered his house. He hadn’t had the chance to dodge it. Oddly enough, her touch had produced a sweet warm feeling, as she always had for him, and had unleashed his wrath for catching him off guard, for daring to make him feel something. Because these days he, like his legs, refused to feel a thing, other than pain from working out too hard and too long. Which he believed was strength. As crazy as it seemed, physical pain reminded him he was still alive, not locked away by his own choice in this castle by the sea.
He guided his top-of-the-line workout wheelchair down the hall, past the specially built elevator to his bedroom, where he would have slammed the damn door if he could’ve only figured out how to get the right amount of leverage to do it.
This was his truth now. He was a guy stuck in a chair.
* * *
Mary went about the business of settling her home after another long journey. For the last two years and over a half-dozen moves, she’d lived in the tiny house she’d helped design and for which she’d paid cash. Another lesson she’d learned inadvertently from her parents.
She’d chosen to bring her house along with her wherever she got assigned, rather than stay in cold, short-term rentals or soulless extended-stay hotels. This was home. She’d carefully chosen the floor plan to meet her every need, yet using the smallest amount of space necessary. That had turned out to be two hundred and fifty square feet. She’d gone the woodsy cabin route, yet the repurposed materials they’d used to build the house were surprisingly light, making it easy to travel, as long as she was willing to drive a pickup truck. Which had cost nearly as much as the house!
Her living room space came complete with a large enough mounted flat-screen TV. The kitchen had been a bit trickier, yet she’d made it state-of-the-art enough to make do, since she enjoyed cooking. She’d settled for a two-burner gas stove, minimal counter space but with a built-in table that folded down and opened up when it was time to eat or if she needed a place to knead bread dough or cut out cookies. The half-sized refrigerator kept her eating fresher and healthier, since she didn’t have much storage.
