could push it herself.
Last night, before she’d gone on duty at the hospital, she’d rearranged some of the furniture in her living area to accommodate Mason. Her experience with him told her that he wasn’t the least bit clumsy. But Mason was a big man and, clumsy or not, he had a cast covering one leg from foot to thigh. That, combined with the cast on his opposing arm, meant he’d need all the space he could maneuver in, whether by wheelchair or by crutches.
The wheels on the chair squeaked slightly against the reclaimed-wood, planked floor as she pushed him down the hall, hesitating only briefly when they passed the bathroom. “Tub with a shower,” she told him in the most neutral nurse’s voice she could muster.
“Don’t tease me. Only thing I get these days is a wet washcloth.”
She felt heat in her throat again as she turned his chair slightly and carefully pushed him into the spare bedroom. “Sorry. I imagine a real shower is something you’re looking forward to.”
He made a grunting sound in reply.
After angling the chair alongside the bed, she moved around it. She’d already pulled the covers back, and the pillows were stacked up against the wrought-iron headboard. There was also an old recliner from her parents that Ryan had muscled into one corner of the room.
She stopped in front of Mason. He was wearing a white T-shirt that strained at his shoulders and a pair of gray sweatpants with one leg split up the side to accommodate the cast. His toes below the cast were bare, and he had on a scuffed tennis shoe on his other foot.
And he still managed to make her mouth water. Which was not what a nurse should be thinking about her patient, she reminded herself. “Ready to get out of the chair?”
He looked no more enthusiastic than she felt. “You’re not strong enough to lift me.”
“Not if you were dead weight,” she allowed. “But you’re not. So which do you prefer? Bed or chair?”
He didn’t look at her. “Bed.”
Which he probably took as some admission of weakness. Coming from a family of strong individuals, that, too, was something with which she had plenty of familiarity. “All right.” Before she could let her misgivings get in the way, she locked the wheels and removed the arm of the wheelchair. Then she bent her knees close to his and grasped him loosely around the waist, leaving room for him to brace his good leg beneath him as she lifted. “Ready?”
He gave another grunt, putting out his uninjured hand against the mattress, so he could add his own leverage. “Just do it.”
She tightened her arms, lifting with her legs, and held back her own grunt as she took his weight for the brief moment before he got his leg beneath him. Then he was out of the chair, pivoting more or less smoothly until he landed on the bed, sitting.
She held on to him only long enough to be certain that he wasn’t going to tip over, before she straightened. Her stomach was quivering nervously, but the sight of his pale face and tight lips took precedence. “I know,” she murmured. “Not very pleasant. But it’ll get better.”
His expression shifted from pain to pained. “I don’t need coddling.”
She gave him the kind of stern look she’d learned from her grandmother. Gloria was retired now, but she’d been a nurse, and it was in that capacity that she’d met Courtney’s grandfather, Squire Clay. And she’d had plenty of years since then to refine that stern look and pass it on to her granddaughters. “Believe me,” she assured him, “you won’t get coddling from me. Now, do you want to sit there on the side of the bed or lean back?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she reached down for his casted leg.
But his hands brushed against hers as he did the same, and she had to suck down another shock of tingles that ripped through her. She moved her hand from beneath his. Feeling shaky again, she deftly tucked a wedge of foam, which she’d gotten from the hospital, beneath his leg and stepped away, while he swore and jabbed at the pillows propped behind him.
Sweat had broken out on his brow.
She curled her fingers, fighting the urge to help him as he awkwardly shifted, lest he mistake her assistance for the banned coddling. “What can I get you to make you more comfortable?”
He finally settled, his head leaning against the headboard behind him. He shoved his hand through his hair and looked up at her. “I don’t suppose sex is one of the options, is it?”
Chapter Two
Courtney stared, and the heat that she’d been trying to keep at bay flooded hot and furious into her cheeks. “Excuse me?”
“You want me to repeat it?”
Her lips parted. She wanted to say something, but there just weren’t any words that were coming to mind.
And then there wasn’t time, because Axel came into the room and dumped a very worn leather duffel bag on the floor next to the foot of the bed. He also had a pair of metal crutches that he propped against the wall near the doorway. “I’d hang around and shoot the breeze,” he told them both, “but Tara’s got an appointment this afternoon and I’m on Aidan-duty. Hard to believe how much one fourteen-month-old kid can get around.” He pulled a slender cell phone out of his back pocket and handed it to Mason. “Courtesy of Cole,” he told him, before bumping knuckles with Mason’s fist and hustling out of the room.
A second later, they heard the front door open and close.
Courtney held her tongue between her teeth and looked back at Mason. “No,” she finally said, breaking the thick silence. “Sex is not an option. Obviously.”
His gaze trapped hers, but she couldn’t tell if he was amused or not. “Because you think I’m presently incapable, or because I didn’t call you the morning after?”
She shoved her curling fists into the pockets of her scrubs. She didn’t even want to entertain ideas of what Mason was capable or incapable of doing. “I didn’t ask you to call me,” she reminded. Not the morning after, nor during the twenty months that had passed since then. “You’re here because you’re recovering from an assortment of injuries. Period.”
The corner of his lips lifted a fraction. “Yeah, that’s what I expected but figured we might as well get it out of the way so you can stop looking worried that I’m going to bring it up.”
Ordinarily, she preferred being straightforward, too. But right now, she wished she could keep up the pretense that nothing had ever occurred between them. “Number one—” she leaned over and picked up his duffel bag “—I wasn’t worried. And number two, now it’s out of the way. Subject done.” She hefted the surprisingly heavy bag onto the empty surface of the dresser and glanced at him over her shoulder. “I’ll unpack this if you don’t mind?”
His lips twisted. His gaze was unblinking. “Do I have a choice?”
Her fingers let go of the zipper pull. “Yes,” she said slowly and turned to face him. “Nobody is trying to run your life for you, Mason.” She didn’t know what was more disturbing. His presence, the taste of his name on her lips after all this time or the disturbing notion that he considered himself some sort of captive.
