Perfectly Able (6 page)

“
Yeah,” I agreed, turning to look out the wall of windows as the angry drops splattered into the lake like tiny bombs. The trees bent and swayed with the direction of the wind. “I love storms,” I said as I watched the scenery.

Thunder boomed again, and she jumped, a tiny screech slipping from her lips
. She laughed. “I do, too.”

***

Sometime during the night, the rain had stopped. I slept later than I had the previous morning, hoping that most of the rainwater would drain off before I started jogging. As I dressed, I admired the view through my bedroom windows. The sun cleared the tree line, and the water reflected its rays like a liquid mirror.

As I entered the living room, the glorious smell of coffee hit me
. I found Ava sitting at the kitchen table with a mug cupped between her palms.

“Good morning,” I greeted.

She looked up, a bright smile on her face. “Morning. You want some coffee?”

“I’d love some.”

She started to rise. I held my hand out toward her. “Don’t get up. I got it.”

I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat across the table from her.

“I take it you’re going running,” she said.

I nodded. “I am. You wanna join me?”

“No, thanks. I’m just gonna hang out and relax.”

“Relax or devise more ways to knock off old boyfriends?”

An impish grin lightened her face
. “I don’t have it in me to hurt anybody, but there’s nothing wrong with a little fantasizing here and there.”

I sipped my coffee
. “So in your fantasies, are you doing spinning karate kicks to the face? A swift kick to the groin?”

“
I was thinking more like bamboo shoots under the fingernails. Maybe a little Chinese water torture.” She frowned, and I could see the unhappiness momentarily reflected on her face.

“If you really want to torture him, you should lock him up in the sam
e room with our little sisters.” I stood and rinsed out my coffee cup before putting it in the dishwasher. “Being in the same room with Kelsey for any length of time would certainly drive
me
insane.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“We’re polar opposites. I like things calm and organized. She’s like a freakin’ hurricane.”

“And you let her borrow your car?”

I turned to look at her, icy fear filling my veins as I wondered whether my car was still in one piece. I lamented not have a phone signal. “Yeah, sucks for me.”

“Maybe your run will let you vent a little stress.”

“Hopefully. And speaking of, I guess I’d better get going.”

She stood, too, and put her cup in the dishwasher
. “How long will you be gone?”

“Probably a couple of hours.
” I headed toward the front door.

“See ya
when you get back,” she said.

I hurried out the front door
, eager to get my run started before the day heated up. Five minutes into the run, I realized that I’d forgotten my hand towel. Groaning, I turned around.

Taking the porch steps two at a time, I burst through the front door, planning to make a quick grab for my towel and hit the road
to minimize my delay.

With my fingers still wrapped around the doorknob, I froze
. Ava stood in front of the couch in a pink and black bikini, her long blond tresses pulled into a messy bun. My eyes fell to her ample cleavage and followed the narrow lines of her slender waist to the flare of her hips. She was beautiful, and while that would have been enough to render me speechless, it wasn’t the main reason that I found myself tongue-tied.

He
r lips turned down in a frown, and she watched me with vibrant blue eyes like prey observing its predator.

“Your leg,” I managed to ground out in a voice deeper than normal
. My eyes fell to the metal bar that extended just below her knee and disappeared into an artificial foot. “You’re missing a leg.”

Her gaze followed mine
. “Oh, my gosh! You’re right!” She then began frantically looking around her, snatching up the throw pillows from the couch in a dramatic display of searching. “Where’d it go?”

I immediately felt horrible for my reaction
. Holding my palm up in a conciliatory manner, I said softly, “I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect it.”

She gave me a sad smile
. “It’s okay. I’m used to it. I’m sure you must be thinking how horribly inadequate I am.”

“Inadequate?
” I asked in surprise. “No, I’m thinking not only have you finished a triathlon, even if you were a few seconds shy of the deadline, but you finished it with one leg, which really puts the pressure on
me
.”

A smile broke across her somber face.

“And I’m thinking you look incredibly sexy in that bathing suit,” I added. “And please don’t think me insensitive, but I have a huge Halloween party every year, and I’m thinking that you would make one helluva a pirate wench.”

Chapter 4

Ava

“A pirate wench, huh?”
I asked, snatching one of the decorative pillows from the couch and throwing it at him. “I hate to disappoint you. While I do have some spare legs, I’m afraid a wooden peg leg isn’t one of them.”

He rubbed his palm across his bare chest and shot me an endearing grin
. I exhaled a breath that I’d been holding since he’d first walked in the cabin.

Years of experience had taught me that it was impossible to tell how someone would react when they first learned about my leg
. And not unlike most girls, I was even more self-conscious around the opposite gender. There were times when I didn’t give a crap what people thought, and then there were times when I worried myself sick. Jack had dealt a major blow to my confidence, and no matter how many times I told myself to forget him, that he wasn’t worth the anxiety, my heart refused to listen. I had been devastated, and the ordeal had left me wanting to cower in the shadows. That was why I’d come here. I knew I needed to get it out of my system and move past it. I needed to renew my resolve. While I hadn’t expected to meet Ridge here, the fact that he had taken such a lighthearted approach to the discovery of my amputation had been a huge relief.

And the fact that m
y amputation hadn’t been the only part of my body he’d noticed had boosted my ego, melted away a sliver of my self-doubt.

“Is that why you wouldn’t go swimming with me?” he asked, pointing to my prosthesis.

To answer affirmatively would be to admit what a pathetic state of mind I was in. I blinked as I wondered how to answer. I supposed to acknowledge it out loud would be a start to getting over this hump. I wasn’t crippled because of my leg. I was crippled because of the delicate emotional states that I sometimes found myself in, times when I wondered whether my leg would keep me from winning the man of my dreams or make me so paranoid that I would sabotage those dreams. I knew it would only hinder me if I allowed it to, and I knew my battle right now was a mental one, not a physical one.

“Yes,” I said with a voice loud enough that I hoped it would resonate
within my own brain.

“Is it because your leg can’t get wet?” he asked.

That wasn’t the reason that I had refused to swim with him.

“
If you’ve participated in a triathlon, then I know you can swim,” he said, his brow furrowed as he waited for me to give him some indication as to why I had refused to swim with him.

“
I’m a pretty good swimmer, but I don’t use a prosthesis when I swim.”

“Damn,” he said, standing akimbo and shifting his gaze to the floor.

“What?” I asked.

“
It sounds like you didn’t swim with me because…you just didn’t
want
to swim with me. First, you put a huge dent in my machismo, and now you’ve dealt quite the blow to my ego. What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

I walked toward him, grinning like a peg-legged pirate who’d just found a boatload of booty
. He had gone out of his way to make me comfortable, and the gesture endeared him to me. I could feel giddiness travel through my veins like a long swig of rum.

“Don’t be
frettin’, matey, I’ll go fer a swim wit’ ye,” I joked as I approached him, and it felt good.

A crooked grin
turned up one side of his mouth. “Alas, ye’ve made me a happy scallywag, me beauty.”

“When do ye wants t’ go?”

“As soon as me lazy arse gets back from me run.”

I giggled, feeling more care
free than I had in months. “You do a fine pirate impression, if I do say so myself.”

He pointed at me
. “There’s more where that came from. You and me. Halloween party. Wear your peg leg. Deal?”

I nodded my head, my bun flopping with the motion.
I’d have to figure out the peg leg thing later, but I was definitely up for a party with Ridge. “Deal. It sounds like fun.”

“Awesome. I’m going to grab my towel and finish my run. Then, we’ll meet back here and go for a swim.”

“Okay.”

He stepped around me, heading toward his room, and I watched as he walked away from me, appreciating the way his broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist
. Once he had disappeared down the hall, a tiny squeal escaped my lips. A chest-crushing weight had been lifted from my body. Ridge Sutherland now knew that I was an amputee, and other than a momentary blip at the unexpected revelation, it didn’t seem to faze him one bit.

After he left to go on his run, I sat
on the couch and applied sunscreen. I had planned on taking a short swim while he was out, but now that fate had intervened, I lounged on the deck and read, opting to wait on him before I headed toward the lake. The late summer breeze had a bit of a nip to it, and I used a spare towel to drape over my body while I waited for the air to warm.

By the time
Ridge returned, the sun perched high in the September sky. He stepped onto the deck in the same low-riding pair of red trunks he’d worn previously, his well-defined abs clearly visible.

“How was your run?” I asked, positioning my bookmark before I shut the
novel and laid it on the chair beside me.

“
I’m glad it’s over.” He walked to the lounger and sat beside me, and after noticing his light, clean scent, I knew he had recently showered.

“You still want to swim?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t changed his mind
. While I knew that going for a swim was a small thing, I‘d been looking forward to it all morning.

“
Abso-freaking-lutely.”

A small smile tugged at my lips. I pushed the towel I’d been using as cover to the side and swung my
legs over the edge of the chair. I hadn’t removed my tennis shoes, and I would leave them on until I’d gotten to the edge of the water. Scooping up the folded towel that I had reserved to dry off with and the towel that I’d been using as cover, I waited while Ridge stood.

“Let me grab a towel, and we’ll hit the lake,” he said as he turned to go back in the cabin. A moment later he returned, and we made our way down the short set of steps that led from the deck to the yard.

Once we reached the shoreline, I spread a towel out on the grassy embankment and sat down on it. “You can go ahead,” I motioned to him. “I’m just going to take my leg off before getting in the water.”

“I’ll wait on you,” he said as he slid his flip-flops off beside the towel
. “I imagine you might need some help getting to the water, won’t you?”

“I can assure you that I’m perfectly able to get in the water by myself,” I said with a little more defiance in my voice than I meant
. In reality, I could do it. Although in all honesty, I wasn’t sure how graceful it’d be.

“I know you can,” he said easily, unpert
urbed by my stubbornness, “but since I’m here, I figure I may as well offer my favorite pirate wench a hand.”

He was so nonchalant that
it was difficult to refuse him.

“Fine,” I reluctantly agreed. He stood patiently, soaking in the peacefulness of our environment. Water lapped gently against the shore as I pulled the soc
k and shoe off of my right foot. Then, I removed my prosthesis.

Ridge held his hand out to me, but I pushed to my
good foot on my own accord before taking it. After a couple of hops, we were at the water’s edge.

“I could pick you up if it would be easier,” he offered.

“It’s not necessary,” I insisted, taking another hop and splashing water and mud all over both of us.

He shot me a grin.

“Oh, all right,” I finally agreed, prepared to die from the awkwardness of him actually having to lift me. If I had to find a bright side, it would be that I’d only had coffee for breakfast, so hopefully, I wouldn’t be too heavy.