Shane. Age twenty-eight.
It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. Of course, the officer recovering from a gunshot wound would have a name like Shane. He even looked like a Shane. Like he could have acted the part of the gunslinger in that old Western with the same title. Only this guy’s version of the Wild West was a sanitized suburban wilderness some fifty miles from downtown Detroit.
Clearly, Trooper Shane Warner was just another cowboy in blue. Another risk-taking police officer who thought of no one but himself, just like—
Natalie cut off the thought with a firm clamp of her jaw. She couldn’t let herself go there. Even if the cavalier way he’d referred to his injury basically proved her point. Even if every minute of working with him would force her to relive the worst day of her life. She still had a job to do.
“Well, let’s move you to one of the exam rooms so we can do some range-of-motion and manual-muscle tests.” She shifted so she was behind his chair. “Let me help—”
“No!”
At Shane’s sharp tone, Natalie’s hands stopped inches shy of the wheelchair’s push handles.
He cleared his throat. “I mean, no, thank you. I can do it. Just tell me where you need me to go.”
Natalie frowned. As if this assignment wasn’t hard enough, now her client was going to be a difficult patient.
But Jamie only chuckled again. “It’s not easy for this guy to accept help, so he’s pretty grouchy.”
She could figure that one out for herself. He probably also hated looking up to Trooper Donovan like hell, who was no more than average height, when Shane must have towered over him...before.
“Didn’t I just say you were leaving?” Shane didn’t even look at him as he said it.
“Guess those are my walking orders.” Jamie snapped his heavy jacket over his uniform. “Oh. What time do you need me to be back?”
Shane turned to him this time. “Thanks, but you’re off the clock. Kelly’s picking me up.”
Kelly? Natalie’s gaze flicked to Shane, expecting him to answer the question she would never ask. The name shouldn’t have surprised her. Of course, a guy with his looks and his mastery in the art of flirtation would have a Kelly. Or a Jenny. Or a Kelly, a Jenny and a Jill. But that made no difference to her. She didn’t care if they all carpooled over in a minivan to pick him up as long as they showed up as soon as his appointment ended.
“Whew. That’s a relief.” Jamie brushed his hand back over his hat in an exaggerated gesture. “I don’t know how much longer I could’ve put up with this guy.”
But he paused to pat Shane’s shoulder. “Text if you need anything. Seriously. Day or night. Just ask.”
Shane couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable, but he nodded. “Thanks, man.” He waved and then watched as Jamie crossed to the door.
Natalie should have been going through a mental list of the exercises she might use to increase Shane’s flexibility. She should even have been checking her watch and counting down the minutes until this session would end. Instead, she found herself watching her client. Trooper Warner was exactly what she’d expected, right?
But the obvious friendship between these two officers didn’t fit well with the mental image she’d painted earlier. Was that bond just some extension of the “blue code” that police officers used to cover for each other? Maybe, but she couldn’t help wondering if it was more than that. The rookie appeared to have genuine respect for Shane, the type that self-centered jerks seldom earned. It didn’t fit.
Shane glanced over at her, catching her watching him. Her cheeks burned so badly that she could only hope the waiting room’s low lighting helped to hide it.
“Well, let’s get to work then.” She buried her nervous hands in the pockets of her cardigan.
“Good, because I thought we were going to spend the hour standing around in the waiting room.”
He didn’t crack a smile as he said it, though one of them was clearly not standing.
Instead of responding, she stepped over to the sliding window of the receptionist’s desk. “Anne-Marie, could you—”
She stopped as the receptionist and the longtime office manager, Beverly Wilson, stared out from the suspiciously open desk window. At Beverly’s wink, Natalie tightened her jaw and her hold on the medical file.
“The buzzer?” she prodded.
“Oh. Right,” Anne-Marie said.
She reached below the counter, and a short buzz was followed by a click.
Natalie pulled the door wide. “After you, Mr. Warner.”
He glanced up at her again, those unnerving eyes trapping her and searching for stories she wasn’t prepared to tell. Her pulse dashed toward some unknown finish line, and her hands were so damp that she could barely grip the door handle.
“You mean...?” he prompted.
“Shane,” she choked out.
He smiled as if he’d won a competition and then carefully rolled his chair past her and through the door. Annoyed, Natalie stepped in behind him. She shouldn’t let this guy get under her skin any more than she should notice how his shoulders and arms flexed as he rotated the wheels. If only she could stop looking at those things.
“Which way?”
She didn’t know why he bothered asking for directions when he didn’t even pause as he rolled down the hall. He probably didn’t look both ways before crossing the street, either. Or check the date on the milk before chugging it right from the carton.
At the intersection where the hall and the activity room connected, Shane stopped so suddenly that Natalie bumped into the back of his chair. A whoosh of air escaped her where the handle hit her at the top of her thigh, and his file fell from her hands, pages fluttering to the ground.
“Sorry,” he said with a muffled chuckle. “You didn’t say which way.”
She crouched to pick up the papers. So much for the nice guy. And so much for streamlining his clinic visit. At the slow rate they were moving, they might as well forget ever getting a treatment plan set up today. In fact, they would probably spend the rest of their lives in this hall...
Natalie took a deep breath to keep from directing him through the nearest window. “Turn left. Then go to the open evaluation room on the right.”
Shane wheeled to the part of the clinic with laminate floors and curtained cubicles.
“About time! All right, let’s do this,” he said with another of those grins.
She couldn’t agree more. She might not have this police officer running marathons overnight, but she would work tirelessly to help the man to walk again. Then she could get the guy who reminded her of everything she’d lost out of the clinic and out of her thoughts for good.
*
