“Great,” she said, pulling her hand away, pushing the questionable thoughts from her brain. “You need to really tackle the home therapy more often. Your second digit is the worst, and I’d hate to think you might develop a contracture.”
He frowned. “You really think that’s going to happen?”
“Hopefully not, but that’s why you need to really work hard so we can prevent that from happening.”
“I’ll try.”
At least that was some semblance of a commitment, Brooke decided.
After Brooke finished the treatment, she checked the clock again. More than an hour had passed, and she was beat.
“All done here,” she said after putting away her equipment. “Guess I’d better go.”
“One other thing,” he said. “A favor, really.” He looked as if it was costing him a lot to ask.
“What favor?”
“I’m having trouble doing some things. Personal things.”
Whoa, Nelly. Brooke wasn’t at all sure what he meant by that, or if she even wanted to know. Or did she? “What kinds of things?”
He rubbed his bearded chin. “Shaving, for one.”
A doctor who performed open-heart surgery on a regular basis had just admitted that he had trouble using a razor. The old sympathy bug bit into Brooke once again. She tried to resist its sting. “Have you thought about hiring an occupational therapist or maybe a home healthcare aide?”
“I don’t want to involve anyone else.”
She could understand that he wanted to maintain as much privacy as possible, but where did she fit into this picture? “I’m not sure I can help you.”
“I assume you know something about OT.”
“Yes. Some.”
“Then I don’t see why you can’t do it. I’ll make sure you receive extra pay for your time. We could make it a private arrangement.”
It wasn’t the money that concerned Brooke, not that she couldn’t use the extra funds. The fact that she would be even more deeply involved in his recovery, his life, bothered her on some level she didn’t care to explore at the moment.
Her mind catalogued all the pros and cons. The pros won out. She was going to do it. Help him with personal things. And of course, administer therapy.
“Okay, I can help you shave. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”
His expression suddenly turned serious. “First, there’s something I need to say.”
Brooke braced for a demand, a warning, something in his tone that would help her regain her emotional bearings.
“I just wanted to say thanks,” he said. “It’s been a long time since…” He studied the table before looking up again. “Not many people would be willing to do this for me. I appreciate it.”
She smiled, buoyed by his gratitude. “You’re welcome. So do you want to try the shaving tonight?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” He rubbed a hand over his almost full beard. “I thought it would be easy to do with my left hand, but it’s weird how you take things for granted, like how you need fingers to lift your nose up to get to your upper lip.”
“To be honest, I’ve never thought about it.” She stood. “You want to do it here or in the bathroom?”
His smile came slowly, a hint of devilment in his crystalline eyes. “Where do you like to do it?”
Brooke’s face heated to desert proportions. Had he really sounded that suggestive? Or was she simply imagining the innuendo? “Depends. How small is your bathroom?”
“Not nearly big enough, unless we stand up. I might have a hard time maneuvering with my bum leg.” His eyes sparkled in the overhead light, full of mischief and something else. Surely not desire, Brooke thought.
Another image filtered into Brooke’s brain, this one much more vivid. A vision of heated kisses, his hands on her, his mouth on her…
Obviously her libido had suddenly commandeered her brain.
Get a grip, Brooke. “I think that since you’re fairly tall, in order for me to show you how to hold the razor, you should be sitting, and I should be standing. Don’t you agree?”
“Oh, so we’re back to shaving again.”
“I don’t think we ever really left. Did we?” She cringed at the question, as if she were baiting him to admit that for a moment he was considering other things, too.
“I don’t know about you,” he said with a wicked smile, “but I just took a mental trip that didn’t have a damn thing to do with personal hygiene.”
Surely he wasn’t already suffering from transference, that pesky condition where a patient thought himself in love with his therapist. No, she didn’t think so. Besides, this had more to do with lust, not love, although that wasn’t totally out of the ordinary, either. He was simply trying to validate himself as a man. Needing some confirmation was understandable. And for heaven’s sake, she’d only touched his hand up to this point. But she was about to touch his face. Much more intimate, and not a repulsive idea at all.
Stiffening her frame, she forced herself into business mode. “You just stay where you are. We can do it…shave you in here.” She looked around the room. “I’ll need an outlet for your razor.”
“I don’t use an electric razor. I prefer a blade.”
Wonderful. “Maybe you should reconsider, at least until your hand’s better.”
“I like using the real thing, so you’re not going to get me to bend on this one. Besides, most women prefer a closer shave. Less whisker burn. Don’t you?”
He was doing it again, making her feel all hot and bothered. And those darned scenarios that kept popping into her brain. The man had more pull than a Supreme Court judge. No wonder he was also known as the Stud of Surgery. “Okay, we’ll work around it. Where are some scissors? I need to cut off the excess fur before we bring out the razor.”
“In the bathroom drawer,” he said, pointing toward the hallway leading from the living room. “First door on the right. Shaving cream’s in the medicine cabinet along with the razor.”
Making her way down the hardwood hallway floor, Brooke came to the small bathroom. It, too, was cluttered with towels and discarded rags piled in the corner.
She rummaged through the organized drawer and found the scissors with little trouble. The mirrored medicine cabinet was much the same, everything lined up in neat rows like multicolored perennials in an immaculate garden. Obviously he’d had some order in his life at one time.
She opened the linen closet behind her. It was bare. No towels, no washcloths. He must be recycling,
