Second Chance Dad (6 page)

“She's a good daughter.” Sophie knelt in front of her and began massaging her ankle and lower leg. “And good for you, for making such an effort. You'll be even better than normal in no time.”

Alberta fixed her with a piercing look. “So how's it going with that young man of yours?”

“What?” Caught off guard, Sophie looked up. “Oh—you mean my son?”

“No. That nice young man you go visit on the afternoons after you see me.”

Well, there was Beau, the surly high school student with an ACL injury received after falling over his sister's bike last month—no doubt a tale too embarrassing to tell his teammates. It was too soon to know if he'd be missing out on his senior year basketball season next winter, and he was alternately angry and worried about that.

And there was the surly client
after
Beau, Dr. McLaren, who mostly just wanted to be left alone despite his initial, grudging agreement to receive therapy.

He'd had five full therapy sessions now, and he'd seemed more remote with each visit. Which was probably just as well, given the attraction to him that had come out of nowhere.

The warm, deep tone of his voice always made her skin tingle. Whenever their eyes inadvertently met, they would both still for a long moment, then she would drop her gaze and hastily begin describing a new set of strength-building exercises, or would start babbling inanely about the weather or about happenings in town.

By now, he had to think that she was a complete idiot.

Sophie poured more lotion into her cupped hand, then resumed the massage. “I haven't told you where I go after seeing you, Mrs. W. That wouldn't be professional.”

“Never trust an old newswoman, dear.”

“Newswoman?
Really?
”

Alberta's smug smile wreathed her face in wrinkles. “Cooking column,
Aspen Creek Chronicle
. It ran twenty-two years, until the paper folded in ‘76. And I peeked at your schedule one day when your planner was open.”

“Mrs. R!”

“Don't worry, I won't let anyone know.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “So tell me, is that Dr. McLaren as gorgeous up close as he is from a distance?”

Sophie rocked back on her heels and tried to stifle her laugh with a cough. “I can't say anything to you about my clients.”

Her eyes lit with merry twinkles. “Well, is he
nice
?”

“I can't say—”

Alberta snorted. “Well, even
I
can say that much, just from seeing Dr. McLaren on the street a few times before I got hurt. He looks just like that…that Pierce somebody. The actor, you know—the hand some one? And from what I hear,” she added in a triumphant, conspiratorial voice, “he's
single
!”

“The actor?”

“Your patient.” Alberta settled back in her chair with an expression of bemused annoyance. “Keep up, dearie. A young lady like you ought to pay attention to these things before it's too late. You aren't getting any younger, you know.”

Sophie gave up and laughed aloud, reining in her impulse to give the chipper old gal a hug. “That's true. But honestly, I'm just not looking.”

Alberta gave her a knowing look. “Honey, we're
all
looking for happiness, even if we've been burned too many times to count.”

 

Josh glanced at the calendar on the wall above the kitchen table, then the clock on the wall. A quarter of five. She was fifteen minutes late.
Sixteen.

And now he felt like some high school kid hoping his date would show up, which was totally insane. There hadn't been one moment during the past weeks
when the visits by his home health therapist had even remotely strayed into a more personal realm.

Sure, she'd bullied him into agreeing to those visits. She'd teased and cajoled and spoken soothing words to get him to push himself beyond his limitations. She'd lightly chattered about world events and sports news to distract him while providing punishing deep tissue massage that might have made him weep if he'd been a lesser man.

But she hadn't departed from her professional persona, and he'd tried to maintain a barrier of nonchalance—no easy feat, when he was far too aware of her smile, her soft touch, the light scent of her perfume.

Maybe he was experiencing some strange form of the Stockholm syndrome, finding that he wanted to get to know the physical therapist causing him discomfort on a more personal level.

Or maybe it was some sort of need to analyze and control his unwanted attraction to the whirlwind of activity that blew into his cabin three times a week, bringing with her even more challenges for him to face. Maybe—

Maybe he'd better admit it to himself right now. She had been businesslike at every visit, but he'd begun to see her in a far different light.

Bear gave a single low woof—his here-comes-a-friend greeting as tires crunched up the lane outside. Even Josh had learned the unique sound of Sophie's
car, and now he stroked the dog's head to distract himself from his rising sense of anticipation.

“Here she is, Bear. Dog biscuits for you and misery for me. Quite a deal.”

Only it wasn't all misery.

He
was
starting to feel stronger. More supple. The sessions no longer left him reaching for a couple Tylenol the second she walked out the door.

And in the process, he was finding his therapist entirely too attractive as she earnestly lectured him about his exercises and checked his progress.

He'd even, Lord help him, imagined taking her to some quiet place for a candlelit dinner in celebration of the end of his therapy…though he didn't even know when that would be.

The car outside pulled to a stop.

But this time, she didn't hop out of the car and immediately jog up to the door, knock and bring in a rush of fresh, pine-scented air and pure energy.

The car sat out there, its doors closed for a minute, then two.

Her door finally opened, and his heart kicked in an extra beat as she stepped out, her cap of sleek auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight; her oversize dark sunglasses, peach shirt and khaki slacks accenting the bronzy glow of her early summer tan.

He had no business feeling any romantic interest in her or anyone else, he reminded himself firmly.
He had capitulated and agreed to accept her help, and she was here to work. End of story.

He'd started to turn away from the window when the back passenger door opened on the other side of the car. Sophie rounded the bumper then appeared to lean over, and now his curiosity was well and truly piqued.

When she reappeared, she wasn't alone.

He stared, blindsided, as a cold, numb feeling took hold of his heart, then slowly crawled through his chest.
She'd brought a boy along.

But not just any child.

This one was the embodiment of what Josh had always imagined his own son might have been, if he'd had a chance to live. Glossy, near-black hair. Big, dark eyes. A beautiful, shy, vulnerable little boy, and from the interaction between him and Sophie, there was no doubt that he was her son.

So she was a package deal.

An utter impossibility.

And no matter what his wayward heart had been urging him to consider regarding Sophie, there was absolutely no way that he could ever risk such responsibility again.

Not when he'd already let a beloved wife and child die.

S
ophie gave Eli's hand a reassuring squeeze. “We'll just be here for an hour, honey,” she whispered. “If you want to, you can sit on the porch with your books, or you could come inside. Dr. McLaren has a really nice dog you can play with, too.”

The door of the cabin swung open and Josh stood there, looking out at them with an unreadable expression that sent a shiver through her.

He was staring at Eli as if he were seeing a ghost.

“Dr. McLaren, this is my son, Eli. I'm sorry that I had to bring him along, but his grandma Margie called me an hour ago and said she had an appointment, so I had to pick him up. But I promise you that he won't be any trouble.”

He nodded curtly and opened the door wider, his face impassive.

Eli crowded closer to her side, obviously picking
up on the awkward tension in the room as the two of them stepped inside, but when Bear padded across the room, his tail wagging gaily, Eli looked up at her with awe.

“Can I pet him?”

“He's good with children, isn't he, Dr. McLaren?”

Another curt nod.

Josh stared as Bear approached Eli, his body wiggling in a full-body tail wag, then he jerked his gaze away. “Bear would play catch all day long, if your boy wants to stay on the porch and throw balls out into the yard. Or of course, they can also stay inside.”

Eli turned back to her, dancing from one foot to the other with excitement. “Please—can I go outside with him? Please?”

Josh was so stiff, so strangely formal with Eli here, that she nodded without hesitation. If the man didn't like children, he'd just slipped a few dozen notches in her book, but she'd try to make him as comfortable as possible during this single appointment with Eli tagging along.

As soon as the dog and Eli were out the door, she turned back to Josh. “Again, I apologize for bringing my son along. It wasn't a very professional thing to do—especially since you don't seem to care for kids very much. It won't happen again.”

A shadow crossed Josh's expression. “Not a problem. So, what are you doing to me today?”

 

At the end of the hour, Sophie took new measurements of the range of motion in his bad knee, then nodded with obvious satisfaction. “Do you feel a difference in that knee? Are you ambulating more during the day?”

He hadn't expected miracles. He hadn't expected much at all, when she'd first showed up at his door determined to prove that she could help him. As the past couple of weeks had passed, he'd been unwilling to admit to himself that he'd been wrong. But there was no way he could deny his improvement now.

“It does feel a lot better. I know it will never be like new, but…well, you were right. I'm able to walk farther, with a lot less pain.”

She looked up sharply and met his gaze, the laughlines at the corners of her eyes deepening and the corners of her mouth twitching. “You admit it!”

“Uh…”

“You do. I
knew
you would. I was right. Now, why didn't you decide to do this earlier?” She playfully rested her hand on his forearm, sending warmth sparkling up his forearm. “It would have been sooo much simpler.”

He cleared his throat, remembering the moment at the grocery store with the gaggle of giggling teenagers looking down at him as if he were a decrepit old man.

The overly obsequious store clerk.

And Sophie—who had expressed such concern for him. “I think I just needed a good wake-up call.”

She beamed at him, so clearly proud of him for making progress that he suddenly felt a nearly irresistible desire to haul her into his arms for an embrace…and a chance to kiss her silly.

She blinked, as if she'd just read his mind. “You've met our original goal for flexion,” she said hastily. “But you
will
get better yet. If you continue the set of exercises you have and keep up your walking program, you'll be surprised at how much further you'll come.”

He bit back a smile. “True, I would like to go a little further. In a professional sense, of course.”

A faint blush of roses crept into her cheeks as she reached into her duffel bag and pulled out a plastic container, peeled off the lid and handed it to him. “Now we're going to concentrate more on your lower back pain and start working on dexterity and hand strength exercises. Have you worked with this stuff before?”

“Play-Doh?”

“Thera-Putty. It comes in different degrees of plasticity, and this one is the easiest to manipulate. For starters, I want you to knead it with your injured hand, work on squeezing it into a tight ball, and use both hands to pull it apart. It will improve your flexion and hand strength.” She pulled out a hardbound notebook with
Journal
embossed on the cover in gold
script. “And, I want you to start writing, by hand. At least a page a day. It's wonderful for improving your dexterity.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “A diary.”

“A
journal
. Much more masculine, don't you think? Whatever you want to write. I won't read it, but I'll want you to flip through the pages for me now and then, just so I can see you've kept at it, and to glance at the overall appearance. Though since you're a doctor, I'm not sure about my usual legibility criteria.”

“I'll do my best,” he said drily.

“And with that, I guess it's time for me to go.” She stilled. “It's awfully quiet outside.”

Josh listened, realizing that he'd become so aware of Sophie in the past hour that he hadn't given the boy another thought. How had that happened?

She hurried to the door and stepped out onto the porch. “Eli? Eli!”

Josh followed her outside and whistled. “I don't see Bear, either, but I'm sure they're together.”

The dog emerged from the long, low log building nestled back in the pines, along the edge of the clearing surrounding the cabin, his tail waving gaily. He came partway to the cabin, then spun around and disappeared back through the open door of the shed.

“Oh, dear. I'm really sorry about this,” Sophie called over her shoulder as she hurried across the
expanse of short, wiry grass and rock. “Eli should know better.”

Woodworking equipment. Power tools. Axes and saws and metal gas cans. There were any number of things in that building that could spell trouble for a curious child. Josh had seen the tragic evidence in all too many cases brought into the hospital emergency departments where he'd worked.

He reached the building and stepped into the cool, dark interior, then flipped on the light switch, afraid of what he might find.

The silence inside was ominous.

To the left were the stalls where his SUV and pickup were parked in the dark shadows. Ahead, were the long workbench and all of the tools he'd inherited from his grandfather but had rarely used. There was no one in sight.

But to the right, a narrow apron of light spilled out onto the concrete from a partially open door leading into the storage area of the building.

“Sophie?” He barely noticed the aching of his bum knee as he strode toward the door and opened it wide.

The remains of his former life unfolded before him, in high stacks of unpacked moving boxes and plastic-wrapped furniture that filled most of the twenty-by-thirty space. His late wife's baby grand, still cradled on its side in a mover's crate. Her fa
ther's old Wurlitzer jukebox, wrapped in swaths of mummylike plastic wrapping.

The movers had unloaded it all here and he'd never even stepped inside. And now, the painful memories assailed him as he'd always known they would, at first in a trickle of snapshots, and then in a deluge—Julia's laughter as they'd sat on that love seat. The argument they'd had over the massive oak buffet she'd paid far too much for at an auction. A flat cardboard box tipped against the wall—the crib he and Julia had bought the day they'd learned she was pregnant.

A crib he'd never assembled.

Shoving aside the past, he now heard the soft murmur of voices wafting from the far end of the shed. He edged sideways through the crowded room until he came to the end, where a single skylight bathed his late father's battered, ancient Harley in a beam of soft light.

Eli was standing next to it, his face filled with awe as he reverently wiped away the thick dust from the chrome handlebars.

Sophie had her hand on his shoulder. She cast a guilty look at Josh. “I am so, so sorry. Eli should've known better than to trespass out here.”

Josh felt his heart constrict.

The Harley had been locked away in his garage back in Denver. Even there, he'd never looked at it, never touched it. He'd even forgotten that it might be
in here, but the movers had been more than thorough about emptying out the garage and storage shed at the old house.

After his dad's fatal heart attack while riding it over a remote mountain pass, the vehicle had been no more than a painful reminder of the two days he'd lingered near death, too far off the sparsely traveled highway to be seen by passersby.

Toni had hated just the sight of the bike after that. Josh hadn't wanted it, either, yet he hadn't been able to bring himself to sell his father's prize possession.

Sophie bit her lower lip, apparently reading his troubled expression. She gave Eli's shoulder a squeeze. “Come on, honey. We need to leave.”

He stubbornly clung to the cloth in his hand and shook off her grip. “It's a 1965 Panhead, Mom.
Electra Glide.
Just like Dad's. But this one is all original and his didn't have the ball-tip levers and the one-piece shifter lever. I
never
saw one just like this. Not even in books.”

Josh stared down at the boy, who couldn't be more than eight years old. The child's expression was in tense, as focused on the bike as if he'd come across the Holy Grail. Like a miniature talking encyclopedia, he rattled off a long series of engine specifications on the bike—which sounded right, though Josh didn't have a clue.

He slowly lifted his gaze to meet Sophie's as realization dawned.

She tipped her head in slight acknowledgment. “Eli is obsessed with motorcycles,” she said, her voice low. “He has been ever since his dad had an aneurysm and passed away a couple years ago. He reads books and magazines on them, nonstop.”

There was more that she wasn't saying, but in just the hour that Josh had known Eli, it was fairly apparent that the child was extremely bright, extremely focused and had astonishing verbal skills for his age, once he lit on a topic he loved. But he probably had some issues, as well.

After all the kids Josh had seen in emergency room medicine, higher functioning autism had been his first guess. Now, he readjusted his casual diagnosis. Perhaps a mild form of Asperger's?

“I had no choice but to sell his dad's Harley so I could finish school,” she added sadly. “But of course, I didn't ever learn to ride it and never would've been brave enough to take Eli with me if I had. So it was the right thing to do.”

Coming face-to-face with his past in this storage room had hit him like a punch to the solar plexus, but now Josh felt the tightness in his chest ease as he realized just how much
Sophie
was dealing with, every day.

The loss of her husband.

Raising a child alone—a child with special challenges.

And probably, financial problems as she struggled to establish a career, support her small family and pay off her school debts.

He felt like a total jerk.

She'd practically had to plead with him to gain his cooperation with physical therapy because he'd been too wrapped up in himself to see anything beyond his own world of guilt and grief. And knowing Grace Dearborn, Sophie's job had probably been on the line.

He hauled his thoughts back to the present when Sophie grasped her son by the hand and gently tugged him toward the door despite his protests.

The boy turned around to see the motorcycle one last time, then looked up at Josh with tears welling in his eyes. “I want to stay longer. Please? I promise I won't touch it. I'll be good.”

“Dr. McLaren had the doors of his shed closed for a reason, Eli. You trespassed in here, and could have gotten into a lot of trouble. You could've been hurt. We have to go home.”

“But—”

“No, Eli.” She threw an apologetic glance over her shoulder. “I'll be back as usual on Monday, and I promise you I'll be alone. His grandparents usually watch him while I'm at work.”

Feeling like a first-class heel for not being more
welcoming, Josh started to call them back, then bit his tongue. Sophie was clearly making a point with her son, and an important one, about obeying her.

It was just as well that they were gone.

Josh had no business becoming involved in their lives. Even if he empathized with them, his relationship with Sophie was pure business and that's where it needed to stay.

And even if he'd felt a growing, simmering attraction to her, his heart had shattered long ago. He had nothing more to give.

Leading anyone to believe differently—especially someone with a needy young boy who probably felt a desperate need for a connection to his late father—was wrong on every level.

The boy had looked up at him with such longing, such adulation that there could only be heartbreak ahead, once Josh's therapy was over and the connection was severed.

He slowly paced through the crowded storage area, debating his next move. Should he call Grace Dearborn tomorrow and cancel the rest of his therapy appointments? He could explain that it was entirely his decision, and nothing to do with Sophie's excellent care. Surely Grace would understand.

And maybe it would be better for everyone if he did just that.

He punched in the 411 code for directory service, then waited for the transfer to her number. After
leaving a message on her voice mail, he snapped the phone shut.