lingered in the air. It wasn’t the least bit feminine-quite the opposite, in fact—but it suddenly turned erotic. If he’d been another kind of man in a different situation, he would have brought her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Instead, he released her hand as if he’d been burned.
A faint flicker of surprise flashed across her face, followed almost instantly by understanding. To his disgust she’d apparently guessed that for one brief second he’d let himself cross some sort of line.
“Is there anything I can do for you before I go?” she asked.
A thousand and one wicked possibilities slammed through him. “Not a thing,” he said tightly.
“Are you sure?”
“I thought you were in a hurry.”
“I can spare five minutes,” she said, regarding him with amusement. “I could fix you some breakfast if you haven’t had any.”
Forget breakfast, and five minutes wouldn’t be nearly long enough to act on a single one of those wicked possibilities, Michael thought wryly. He wondered what she would do, though, if he suggested, say, a kiss.
It wasn’t propriety or the thought of Bryan pounding him to a pulp that stopped him. It was the very distinct likelihood that it would backfire on him. If he was already having totally inappropriate thoughts about Kelly after one very brief therapy session, a kiss could very well send him over the edge. He might start obsessing about the way she’d feel in his arms. He might forget all about the reason she was there...to help him get back on his feet, not to help him prove he was still first and foremost a man.
Michael sighed heavily, determined to ignore the tantalizing sparks sizzling in the air. “I’ll see you day after tomorrow.”
She almost looked disappointed. “Whatever you say.”
To keep himself from doing anything foolish, he deliberately turned his wheelchair in the direction of the kitchen, putting his back to her. “Lock the door on your way out,” he said.
He expected to hear the door open and close, the lock click into place. Instead, there was nothing, not even a whisper of movement.
“What are you going to do with the rest of your day?” she asked finally.
“Planning my activities is not part of your job,” he retorted more sharply than necessary.
“I was asking, not planning,” she responded, evidently undaunted by his tone. “I hate to think of you being shut away in here all alone.”
“You might not think my company has much to recommend it,” he said. “But I’m content with it.”
“Have you called the Havilceks and told them you’re back? Have you even told them what happened to you?”
Back still to Kelly, Michael frowned at the question. He’d made one call to them from San Diego to let them know he’d been injured, but that he was recuperating. To his astonishment, Mrs. Havilcek had wanted to fly out right away, but he’d explained about Ryan and Sean being there.
“Oh, Michael, that’s wonderful,” she’d said with what sounded like total sincerity. “I won’t come now, then, but you call me if you need me. I can be there the next day.”
The memory of that promise had been enough to warm him whenever loneliness had crept in after Ryan and Sean had headed back East. It was enough to know that Mrs. Havilcek would come if called, and amazing to think that after all the years she’d cared for and loved him, that he’d even doubted for a minute that she would.
“Have you gotten in touch with them?” Kelly prodded.
“Not since I got to Boston,” he admitted.
She regarded him incredulously. “Why on earth not?”
He wasn’t sure he could explain it. He loved his foster family. The Havilceks had been great parents to him. And he couldn’t have been any closer to the girls if they had been his real big sisters. But when Ryan and Sean had turned up, he’d felt almost disloyal to the Havilceks, as if having feelings for his biological brothers was some sort of betrayal of all his foster family had done for him. He was still wrestling with how to handle keeping all of them in their rightful place in his life, a life that had changed dramatically since he’d last seen them.
“I’ll call them,” he told Kelly, “once things are a little more settled.”
“You mean after you’re back on your feet? Don’t you want them to see you when you’re not a hundred percent? Do you think they’d care about that?” she demanded indignantly.
He found the suggestion that he was acting out of misplaced pride vaguely insulting. “No, of course not. It’s not about that at all.”
“What then?”
He regarded her with a wry expression. “You know, Kelly, maybe there’s something we ought to get straight. You’re here to help me walk again. Leave the rest of my life to me.”
“I would, if you weren’t so obviously dead set on wasting it,” she shot back. “But that’s okay. I’ll drop it for now.”
“For good,” he countered.
She flashed him a brilliant smile. “Sorry. I can’t promise that.”
Before he could threaten to fire her if she insisted on meddling in things that were none of her concern, she was out the door. The lock clicked softly into place, just as he’d requested.
Michael should have felt relieved to have her gone, relieved to be alone with hours stretching out ahead of him to do whatever struck his fancy, at least given the limits of his mobility.
Instead, all he felt was regret.
3
If Michael had been anticipating a lonely, boring day to himself after Kelly’s departure, he should have known better. Despite his admonition to Ryan that he was to be no one’s project, his brothers and sisters-in-law were apparently determined that he not have a single minute to himself to sit and brood. In fact, by the end of the day he wouldn’t have been surprised to discover a schedule of their assigned comings and goings posted outside his door.
Maggie was first on the scene, with Caitlyn in tow. His niece came in dragging a purple suitcase on wheels, which he discovered was filled with her favorite picture books and a doll that was apparently capable of saying all the words Caitlyn had yet to master. She shoved the doll in his arms, then climbed up beside him on the sofa, put a book in his lap and regarded him expectantly.
“She wants you to read to her,” Maggie said, as if that hadn’t been perfectly obvious, even to a novice uncle like him.
Michael studied the thick board book with its brightly colored pictures, started to flip it open to the first page, only to have Caitlyn very firmly turn it back to the cover and point emphatically. He gathered he was supposed to begin with the title.
“The Runaway Bunny,” he began.
Caitlyn nodded happily, then snuggled closer.
