need to be here.”
“Don’t you understand? Camilla and I aren’t together anymore. You and I can finally have a future.”
“What?” She shrieked the word so loudly that everyone in the building probably heard it.
Gary reached for her hand, but Mandy jerked away, shaking her head. “Camilla knew,” he continued. “She knew that I always loved you best.”
“Love? Is that what you call it?” Mandy gave up trying to keep her voice low, her tone even. This man was crazy if he thought she’d have anything to do with him after what he’d done. “Lying to me? Leading me on? Breaking my heart? That’s love?”
“Baby, it was you the whole time.” He gave her his best smile, and it succeeded only in making her stomach turn.
“Listen to me very carefully. You’re not welcome here. I don’t want your flowers. I don’t care what happened between you and Camilla. I don’t want to see you again.” She took a step in his direction, hoping he would back up, but he didn’t, and suddenly they were closer than she wanted.
His smarmy grin turned just a little bit cruel.
How had she ever fallen for his act, for the facade? Oh, he’d been a good actor, for sure. Attentive. Interested. Caring. And she’d wanted to see those qualities in him. She’d wanted to believe the best in him so much that she’d ignored every warning.
Except he’d done it all to feed his own ego, to prove to himself that he still had whatever it took to win a woman’s heart. But after the winning, he’d been more than happy to crush it. And now that she knew it, it was easy to see in every facial expression, easy to hear in every word.
“Oh, you’ll see me around,” he said. “You forget we have ties to the same circles.”
“What circles?”
“The Pacific Coast House carnival fund-raiser is next week.”
“You wouldn’t.” She narrowed her eyes and pressed her hands to her waist. “You’ve never cared about anyone as much as you care about yourself. You wouldn’t show up at the carnival.”
“Sure I would.” He let the flowers drop to his side, still holding her gaze. “And Camilla might be there, too.”
“Why? She has no connection to PCH.”
He shrugged one shoulder beneath his dark brown leather jacket. “She always said she didn’t like you. Maybe she thinks you’re the reason our marriage fell apart.” He turned on the charm as if he’d flipped a switch. “Of course, I know that’s not true. We were doomed from the start. She has a terrible habit of lashing out when she’s angry.”
A scene from Mandy’s waiting room four years before flashed through her mind, and her insides twisted like a screw. Camilla’s eyes had been wild with rage, her motions fierce. She had knocked over chairs and broken a lamp and left the office in disarray. Gary had sworn she wasn’t normally like that. When she was on her medications.
Mandy covered her mouth with her hand, her breath suddenly short.
If she wasn’t taking her medications, Camilla was prone to lash out. Like trying to run someone over.
A brick settled on her lungs, and Mandy fought to speak. “Is she taking her meds now, Gary?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Okay. You need to go now.”
Gary opened his mouth to refuse the request, but instead of his voice, another one filled the room. “You heard the doc. It’s time for you to go.”
* * *
The guy Mandy had called Gary took one look at Luke—even on his crutches—gave a silent nod, tossed the flowers on Mandy’s desk and ducked out of the room. The bell on the door declared his exit from the building.
Luke kept his distance from Mandy, trying to read her face, but she’d put a mask on, all professionalism. “Let’s get to work.” She marched past him and down the hall toward the exercise room. She pointed to the closest exam table. “Hop on up.”
He bit back every question racing through his mind and did as she said, letting her have this moment of control.
When he was settled onto the table, she rested her hands on his back. Even through his T-shirt, they were like icicles, and he jumped.
“Sorry.” She blew on her palms and rubbed them together until they whistled at the friction. “Go ahead and lie down. Let’s get this brace off and see where your range of motion is at.”
He did as she instructed while she began loudly peeling back the Velcro strips. “Lift your leg.” She helped him raise it just enough to slide the brace out of the way. He felt a hundred pounds lighter and also as if he might fly apart given a stiff breeze. The knee brace had been his companion since the surgery, and without it, he was incomplete.
“All right. Really carefully, we’re going to bend your knee.” She put her hands around his calf and pulled gently.
He inhaled sharply. His leg felt as if it would split into two pieces. Like a freight train running him over, the pressure against the stiffness was more than he could handle. He pinched his eyes closed and brought a fist to his mouth.
“Good. You’re doing really well.” Mandy’s tone was soothing and calm as she straightened his leg and then bent it again.
“Are you trying to tear my whole leg off?”
She laughed. “No. But this is your first appointment. You never know about next time.” On the fourth pass, she said, “Think about something else. What did you think about when you were in SEAL training?”
“About how much I wanted to be a SEAL, but now...” He let the silence that followed finish the thought. He didn’t have to say it. They both knew that now there were no assurances. There was no certainty that he’d ever be on another mission with his SEAL brothers.
Nothing was a guarantee. No matter how much he’d begged God to heal him, to give him a new knee, he hadn’t heard anything from above.
But he did have a mission now. His assignment was Mandy’s safety. And he could think on that.
“So, are you going to tell me about the guy in your office?”
“No.” There was no humor in her response.
“Okay. What about the Camilla woman? Sounds like she might be holding a grudge.”
Mandy kept her hands gentle, but her tone firm. “Maybe.”
“What happened with her?”
“I don’t know.”
Luke frowned at her.
Even though she kept her gaze firmly locked on his knee, she said, “I only met her once.”
“Then why would she have it out for you?”
“She
