meant to happen, it would happen. No sense in ushering it in prematurely and giving it a seat at the table.
Bracing one hand on the inside of the passenger door, the other against the headrest, Brandon finally managed to attain his freedom from the imprisoning sports car. Once out, he did his best to push himself up into a standing position. It was far from easy. His legs really had gone numb, and now there was that incredibly annoying feeling of a myriad of ants sashaying back and forth along the backs of his thighs and calves.
He still didn’t feel his feet.
Standing, although a bit unsteadily, he made eye contact with Isabelle. “But the prognosis is good,” he said just before he took a step forward.
The next moment, his right knee buckled, and he found himself sinking. He would have gone down all the way had Isabelle not instinctively sprang into action. She instantly placed her body in the way, angling her shoulder so that it was solidly beneath his. She caught the full brunt of his weight.
For a second, Isabelle sank down a little, her knees temporarily weakened because of the added weight. But then, with one arm wrapped firmly around his midsection, and relying on sheer determination—and the exercises she did religiously whenever she found the time—she managed to hold Brandon in place.
Brandon was clearly surprised. She weighed far less than he did. How, then, did she manage to support his weight and not buckle under? She really was rather an amazing woman, he thought as admiration flooded through him.
“You weren’t kidding, were you? You really are strong, especially for such a little thing,” he couldn’t help commenting.
Had her shoulders been free, she would have shrugged off the compliment. “It’s all in the technique,” she told him. Concerned about the condition of his legs, she added, “We’ll just stand here for a while until you feel up to walking inside.”
“Until then I guess we could practice singing some old beer drinking songs,” he deadpanned, leaning into her.
She stared, confused. He looked so serious, she couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. “What?”
“Just a joke,” he assured her. “With my arm draped like that over your shoulders, it reminded me of my slightly beer-hazy days in college where the reward for getting through a week of studies was to go to the local pub, swap stories and drink. The drinks got progressively taller, the stories got progressively shorter and then, in the end, we’d all stumble back to the dorms, the less plastered holding up the more plastered.”
At the time, it had seemed like the fun thing to do. Now, looking back, he wondered why he’d wasted the time and the money. He hoped to God that Victoria would prove to be more mature than he had been when it was her turn to go to college.
Hell, he thought, she was more mature now than he had been then.
“Sounds like a lovely time,” Isabelle commented dryly.
“It was then. In hindsight, though, maybe not so much.” He looked at her. He’d done more than his share of talking. It was time to find out something about her. “What was your college experience like?”
“Lots of studying. No stories. No beer.”
She felt almost envious of Brandon’s experiences because she’d had none to speak of, no fond memories to look back on. There had been just goals to reach and parents to impress. Succeeding in the former didn’t really make up for failing in the latter.
“Sounds like something I’m hoping Victoria experiences,” he told her honestly. And then, the next moment, he interrupted himself as his face lit up. “Wait, I think I feel something,” he announced. Looking down at his feet, he proclaimed with a grin. “Yes, definitely something. I feel my feet.”
Very slowly, like a man testing the waters, Brandon removed his arm from her shoulders.
His weight gone, Isabelle instantly straightened up. She did her damnedest not to look as if she even noticed the contact between them was terminated. Or that she missed it.
“Can’t you do anything to speed this up?” Anastasia asked impatiently.
It was several days later. Isabelle and her less-than-patient patient were in the room that Brandon had equipped to serve as his private indoor gym. Open and airy, with a massage table on one side and mirrors running along the length of two of the walls, reflecting a number of different exercise machines, it was the perfect location for Anastasia’s therapy, Isabelle thought. The mirrored walls would allow the actress to see for herself what she was doing wrong—and improve upon what she was doing right.
At the moment, the movie icon felt it was a great deal of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.
“You’re doing very well,” Isabelle assured her in the calm, upbeat voice that was her stock-in-trade when she worked with restless clients.
“Are you sure this is how this therapy stuff is supposed to go?” the woman questioned with more than a touch of frustration in her voice. “I thought I’d be lying on a table, having you knead the muscles around the affected area to get them back into shape.”
“That’s not therapy, that’s a massage,” Isabelle pointed out, her smile never leaving her lips. “Speaking of which, let’s get you up on the table,” she directed.
“For a massage?” Anastasia asked, brightening.
“No, to rotate the leg that was operated on, see if we can’t stretch those muscles of yours a little,” Isabelle told her.
Because she didn’t want the actress pulling anything, Isabelle discreetly moved a single-step step stool into place, getting Anastasia to use that in order to help her get on the table.
With effort, Anastasia lowered herself onto the table, then looked at her.
“Okay, now what?”
“Now, you lie down,” Isabelle said, gently taking hold of the woman’s leg and lifting it upward, “and we do this.”
Anastasia’s eyes widened, unprepared for the salvo of pain that shot through her. The anguished cry escaped the woman’s lips before she could think to stop it—not that she would have. “Aren’t you supposed to make a wish first before snapping the bone?”
“That’s only with a wishbone and there’ll be no bone snapping today,” Isabelle promised. “Just a couple more times,” she coaxed, rotating the leg even more slowly. “You’re doing fine.”
“That is a matter of opinion,” Anastasia grumbled.
Unfazed, Isabelle continued smiling and slowly rotating the woman’s leg from side to side to encompass what she felt were its essential limits for now. “Don’t worry, this’ll seem like nothing to you soon.”
Anastasia wanted something more definite than that. “When?” she demanded.
“When your body gets a little stronger.” Stopping, Isabelle lowered the woman’s leg
