rolled past him and the two teens touched fists. “Sweet, man.”
Unexpected applause startled Jillian and drew their attention to the sidelines and the man standing in the doorway. “Nice shot, son.”
Easy, girl. Flighty female had never been her style. She wasn’t going to let her sick new pen pal turn her into a woman who jumped at the sound of a man’s deep voice. Fixing a friendly smile on her face, Jillian calmed the startled leap of her pulse. “Captain Cutler.”
Michael Cutler, Sr., filled the entrance to the gym, his square, muscular frame cutting an impressive figure in his KCPD uniform—black from shoulder to toe, save for the white SWAT logo emblazoned on his chest pocket and ball cap, and the brass captain’s bars and KCPD badge pin tacked to his collar. His sturdy bicep was marked by a black armband, his long legs by the gun strapped to his thigh.
Talk about sweet.
“Jillian.” He touched two fingers to the brim of his cap and acknowledged her with a slight nod.
Though she guessed he had only a couple or three inches on her in height, and was probably fifteen years her senior, Jillian couldn’t stop the quiet little flutter of breath that seemed to catch in her throat each time the widowed cop came by to pick up his son after a therapy session. There was something overtly masculine about the military clip of his salt-and-pepper hair and the laser beam intensity of his dark blue eyes. Or maybe it was just the mature confidence of a man at ease inside his own skin, evident in every stride as he pulled off his cap and crossed the gym floor, that made Jillian’s neglected feminine hormones stand up and take notice.
Objective appreciation, she told herself. An attractive man was an attractive man at any age—especially one who kept himself in as good a shape as Michael Cutler.
“Ow.”
His son, Mike, Jr., pinched Jillian’s shoulder in a painful squeeze, jerking her from her wandering thoughts. “I need to sit down,” he whispered between gritted teeth. “Now.”
“Of course.” Jillian hid the blush warming her cheeks by helping Mike walk toward the chair. It was less embarrassment than guilt at being distracted from her job that had her sliding her shoulder beneath his arm and anchoring her hands at his waist to guide him to his seat. Mike’s balance might not be rock steady yet, but he was doing the bulk of the work, moving as quickly as his clumsy legs would let him. Maybe something had seized up with a cramp.
“Are you in pain?” his father asked, instantly standing behind the wheelchair like a wall of black granite to keep it still while Mike turned and plopped onto the seat.
“I’m fine, Dad,” Mike insisted, shrugging off his father’s hand while Jillian knelt down to adjust the foot rests and position his feet. She glanced up into the teen’s downturned expression. Just as she suspected. The only thing cramping was Mike’s attitude.
His father must have sensed it, too. With a measured sigh, he moved away from the chair and turned to greet Troy. He shook the young man’s hand. “Staying out of trouble?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’s your brother? Dex, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. He made the honor roll last semester.”
“Good for him. Good that he’s got a big brother like you in his corner. And your grandmother?”
“Working. Two jobs. Like always. I might be getting a job pretty soon, too. As soon as I get this thing all figured out.” He spun his chair in a tight circle, proving that, physically, at any rate, he was closer to healing than Michael’s son. “I’m trying to finish my GED, too, but the math sucks.”
Michael inclined his head toward his son. “Mike’s pretty fair with numbers. He’s in geometry at William Chrisman this year. Maybe he can coach you.”
“Dad!”
Troy shrugged off Mike, Jr.’s, shut-up-and-don’t-volunteer-me-for-anything reprimand, his own tone growing a little more subdued. “I’ll get it figured out.”
“I like hearing that. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks.”
Jillian stayed down longer than necessary so that she wouldn’t interrupt the man-to-man interchange that Troy got far too little of in his life. Even paralyzed below the waist and struggling to be the man in his family, Troy Anthony was still a big kid at heart. He beamed at the paternal approval in Captain Cutler’s voice before wheeling over to Mike’s side and thumping him on the arm. “Hey, will you be back on Monday, bro?”
Mike rolled his eyes, as if the Monday-Wednesday-Friday sessions he’d been attending for the last month and a half since mid-February would go on forever and ever. “I dunno.”
“Jillian said if enough of us got together, we could play some hoops. She says there’s a whole wheelchair league in Kansas City.”
Go, Troy. Jillian had hoped that pairing up her two youngest charges in therapy sessions would boost their mental outlooks as well as their physical training. “With that upper body strength and the hands you’ve got,” she observed, “you’d be a natural.”
If anything, Mike grew even more sullen at her compliment. “I told you I hate basketball.”
“Mike—” his father scolded.
But Troy was back in can’t-touch-this form. He knew how to push Mike’s buttons. “You hate losing, too?” He spun his chair toward the exit and took off. “Last one to the machine buys the pop.”
A beat of silence passed before Jillian coyly prodded Mike. “Didn’t you buy the sodas last time?”
“Hey!” With a sudden burst of movement, Mike raced after the other teen, his hands gliding along the wheels of his chair. “Get back here, loser.”
“I ain’t the one in last place, loser.”
“Shouldn’t you be walk—”
Jillian grabbed Michael, Sr.’s, arm, stopping him from going after the boys. His forearm muscles bunched beneath her fingers before he swung his attention back to her. “Shouldn’t he be walking to build up his leg strength instead of getting more used to that damn chair?”
Jillian drew her hand away from the crisp sleeve and the solid man inside the uniform before her curious fingers dug into that warm flex of muscle. “Let him have a little fun. He’s already put in a decent workout session today. Physically, he’s reached a plateau and I don’t want to burn him out.”
Michael Cutler’s eyes, as blue and dark as a twilight sky, assessed the shrug of her shoulders before zeroing in on her expression. “He’ll continue to improve, won’t he?”
“His doctors seem to think so.” Jillian reminded him of the good news without sugarcoating the bad. “Mike needs to build his self-confidence as much as anything right now. He needs to care about moving on to the next stage of his recovery before more strength and coordination training will do him much good.”
Michael, Sr., rubbed his palm over the top of his hair, making the black and silver spikes spring up in the wake of his hand. “Sorry. It always comes
