a full recovery was impossible.
And, he thought with self-derision, anything less meant he might as well be dead.
* * *
Kelly Andrews was as nervous as if she’d never worked with a patient before. She stood outside the small cluster of apartments in the freezing cold and tried to gather her courage. No matter how many times she told herself that Michael Devaney was a potential client, nothing more, she couldn’t help the rush of emotions that filled her.
Michael had been her first teenage crush. Three years older than she was, he and her brother had been friends throughout high school. Michael had never given her so much as a second glance, not as anything more than Bryan’s kid sister, anyway. That hadn’t stopped her from weaving her share of fantasies about the quiet, dark-haired boy with the intense, brooding gaze and a body that even at seventeen had been impressively well muscled.
It was Bryan who’d told her about Michael being shot and the doctors’ very real conviction that he would never walk, much less work as a SEAL, again. Bryan had come back from his visit with Michael sounding worried that his old friend was going to give up. That concern had communicated itself to Kelly.
“His brothers went out to San Diego and convinced him to come back here to recuperate,” Bryan had explained two nights before. “I spoke to Ryan after I saw Michael. He says his brother is going to be needing a lot of physical therapy, but so far Michael has flatly refused to ask anyone for help. He did ask about you, though.”
Kelly’s heart had taken an unsteady leap. “He did?”
“Apparently your name was on a list Ryan’s wife made of prospective therapists.” Bryan had regarded her with a knowing look. “You interested? I know how you love a challenge. I also know you always had a thing for Michael.”
“I did not,” she said, though the flush in her cheeks was probably a dead giveaway that she was lying.
As desperately as she wanted to be the one to be there for Michael now, she had hesitated. “From what you say, it’s going to be a long, difficult process. He’s going to need someone he trusts. Do you think he’ll pay any attention to me? In his mind, I’m probably still your kid sister.”
Bryan had grinned. “Sis, you forget, I’ve seen you in action at the clinic when I’ve come by to pick you up. You’re hard to ignore. So, should I tell his brother you’ll take the job, and that you won’t let Michael’s lousy, uncooperative mood scare you off?”
“Hold it. Back up a minute. You said that before—something about brothers. I thought there were only girls in his family.”
“The Havilceks only had girls, but Michael was a foster kid.”
“Of course. I knew that,” Kelly said, suddenly remembering. “At least, I knew he had a different last name. I guess I never really gave much thought to it, because he didn’t seem to. So, these brothers are his biological brothers?”
Bryan had nodded. “He hadn’t seen them in years till they turned up in San Diego.”
“That must have been a shock.”
“It was. They were separated when his parents bailed on all of them. Michael was only four. He barely remembered them.”
She’d stared at her brother with surprise. “Is this something you just found out, or did you know it when we were kids?”
He shook his head. “I knew he was a foster kid. But back then, Michael never talked about how he’d wound up with the Havilceks. Every time I started to ask about his real family, he told me the Havilceks were his real family, the only one that counted.”
The story explained a lot...and added to her fascination with Michael Devaney, a fascination she was going to have to ignore if she was going to do her job the way it needed to be done.
“I’m scheduled at the clinic tomorrow, but tell Ryan I’ll go by to see Michael the day after tomorrow,” she had told her brother. “Whether I stay, though, is going to have to be up to Michael. I can’t force him to do therapy if he’s not willing.”
Bryan had grinned at her. “Since when? I thought you specialized in difficult, uncooperative patients.”
She did, but none of them were Michael Devaney, who’d always left her tongue-tied.
Since that conversation with her brother, she’d had more than twenty-four hours to prepare herself for this meeting, but she was as jittery as if it were the first case she’d ever handled. Today she was only doing an evaluation, working up a therapy schedule and making sure that Michael was going to be comfortable having Bryan’s kid sister as his therapist. She was counting on a brisk, polite half-hour visit.
She was not counting on the crash of something against the door when she rang the bell. Nor on the bellow telling her to go the hell away.
Oddly enough, the tantrum steadied her nerves and stiffened her resolve. She had a key in her pocket, passed along to her by Bryan, but when she tested the door, she found it was unlocked. Michael might be furious at the universe, he might be testing her courage, but he wasn’t really trying to keep her out, or that door would have been locked tight with the security chain in place.
She plastered a smile on her face, squared her shoulders and called out a cheery greeting as she stepped across the threshold. From his wheelchair across the room, Michael glared at her, but he lowered the vase of flowers he had apparently been intent on heaving in her direction.
“Having a bad morning?” she inquired politely, ignoring the shock that seeing him had on her system. Incapacitated or not, he was still the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.
“Having a bad life,” he snapped back. “If you’re smart, you’ll turn tail and run.”
She grinned, which only seemed to infuriate him more.
“I’m serious, dammit.”
“I’m sure you are, but you don’t scare me,” she said with pure bravado. In truth, what really terrified her was the possibility that he’d force her to leave when he so clearly needed someone with her skills to get him out of that chair and back on his feet.
His scowl deepened. “Why not? I’ve scared off everybody else.”
“How? Have you been waving a gun around?”
“Not likely. I believe they’ve all been removed from the premises,” he said bitterly.
“Good. Then that’s one less thing I need to worry about,” she said. “Mind if I sit down?”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
She crossed the room, paused in front of his wheelchair and held out her hand. “It’s good to see you again, Michael. You look great.” And he did. Despite the exhaustion evident in his eyes, despite his unshaven cheeks, he looked exactly the way she’d remembered him—strong and invincible and sexy as sin. Not even his being in a wheelchair could change that.
For a minute he seemed totally taken aback by her comment, but eventually he clasped her hand in his. To her very deep regret, the contact sent a shock straight through her. She’d been hoping she was past
