actually agreed to my invitation yet?”
She laughed. “Probably not, but if you think I’d miss the chance to see you reunited with your mom, you’re crazy. Of course I’ll take you, and lunch will be great.”
“You won’t mind pushing me around in this chair?” he asked, even though the real question was how he was going to feel letting her do it. He had a hunch she’d be more comfortable in the situation than he was likely to be.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, confirming his guess. “But you might want to change first. Otherwise the restaurant’s likely to make us eat outside, even though the temperature’s in the teens today.”
Michael glanced at his sweaty workout clothes and feigned indignation. “You think I need to improve on this?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said fervently. “Not that I haven’t always been rather fond of a truly male scent, but everyone’s not like me.”
“Maybe you should come back in a half hour,” he suggested.
She frowned at him. “Make it an hour. I could use a little sprucing up myself. Will that still give us enough time for lunch before you’re due at the Havilceks’?”
“Sure,” he said, unwilling to admit that he hadn’t exactly warned them that he was coming by. He hadn’t wanted to give his mother time to work up a good head of steam about his failure to get in touch the second he hit town. He was hoping the surprise of finding him on her doorstep would take the edge off of her annoyance.
Kelly grinned at him. “You haven’t told them you’re coming, have you?”
“Nope,” he said unrepentantly.
She laughed. “This is going to be fun. I’m not sure which I’m looking forward to more—the joyful reunion or listening to your mother deliver a blistering lecture about the way you’ve been hiding out in Boston the last few months.”
Michael regarded her with chagrin. “Something tells me you’ll get a chance to evaluate both options and decide which has the most entertainment value. The only person I’ve ever met who’s tougher on me than you is my mother. None of my commanding officers in the navy even came close.”
“Then I can definitely hardly wait to meet her,” Kelly said. “Maybe she’ll give me some tips on how to handle you.”
He leveled a look straight into eyes suddenly churning with emotion. “Trust me, that is not a lesson you need to learn.”
Kelly looked incredibly pleased by the backhanded compliment. “Even an expert can use an occasional pointer from someone with more experience.”
Michael groaned. What had he been thinking? The prospect of having Kelly and his mother ganging up on him was almost more daunting than trying to get out of this damned wheelchair.
6
Kelly deliberately chose the most wheelchair accessible restaurant she knew for their lunch. Though she wasn’t absolutely certain, she was fairly sure that this was the first time Michael had ventured out to eat anyplace other than his brother’s pub. She didn’t want the experience to be so stressful that he refused to try it again. He was a proud man and he was already chafing enough at letting her assist him with getting in and out of her car.
“Is this okay?” she asked as she walked along beside him as he rolled himself toward the street-level entrance.
“Looks fine,” he said, his expression grim as he contemplated the door. When Kelly started toward it, he grabbed her wrist. “I’ll get the damn door.”
Arguing seemed pointless. She waited until he’d maneuvered himself around and could hold it while she stepped inside. Then he faced the dilemma of how to get in himself without having the door crash into him. His face was a study in concentration as he shouldered the door open, then eased his chair through the entry. She didn’t release her pent-up breath until he was safely inside the restaurant.
There were more obstacles to come. The only vacant table in the busy restaurant was all the way across the room. When the room was empty, Kelly imagined the aisles were wide enough, but now with chairs jutting erratically out, they were all but impassable. Michael’s expression was filled with tension as he tried to make his way between tables without knocking into the backs of other customers, most of whom were completely oblivious to his difficulties. The hostess had long since placed their menus on the table and gone back to her post by the time Michael finally crossed the room.
“You did great,” Kelly said, taking her seat.
“I don’t need a pat on the head for getting across a damned restaurant,” he snapped.
She bit back a sharp retort of her own and turned her attention to the menu. She was still fighting the sting of tears when she felt his hand cover hers.
“Kelly?”
“What?” she responded, still holding her menu up to mask the fact that she was about to cry over something so ridiculous, especially when she could totally understand his level of exasperation. For a man whose work had required a peak level of physical fitness and agility, to adjust to being anything less had to be difficult.
“I seem to spend my life apologizing to you, but I am sorry. It’s just so damned frustrating to be tied to this chair,” Michael said, his tone full of contrition.
She lifted her gaze then and met his. “It won’t be forever. And even if it were, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
“It’s already the end of my world,” he said quietly. “No matter what, I won’t be going back to work as a SEAL. For months, in the back of my mind, I was convinced I could if I just worked hard enough.” He sighed. “But for weeks now I’ve been struggling to face the fact that that’s not going to happen.”
“I know I can’t begin to understand what it’s like to lose something that’s been so important to you, but you will find something else just as challenging,” she told him earnestly. “There are plenty of things a man with your intelligence can do. And a career’s not everything. You can marry, have a family. Your life isn’t over.”
“The only one I ever wanted is over,” he said flatly.
“If that’s going to be your attitude, then I feel sorry for you,” she told him, refusing to back down when a dull, red flush climbed into his cheeks. “There are plenty of people who will never walk again. You will get out of that wheelchair. So it’s taking a little longer than you’d like. And you won’t be able to do some of the rigorous things you once did, so what? You’re alive, dammit! Stop feeling so sorry for yourself and concentrate on what you still have, instead of what you’ve lost.”
For what seemed like an eternity she wasn’t sure if he was going to explode with anger or simply turn around and wheel himself right back out of the restaurant. She was still wondering when their waiter appeared and, completely oblivious to the tension, announced that he was Henry and he’d be taking care of them today.
“Just what I need,” Michael muttered. “Somebody else who thinks it’s his mission in life to take care of me.”
Henry stared at him in confusion. “What? Did I say
