“No.”
“That’s good. They’re making them better and better these days. Hurt you some other way?”
“No.”
“Prefer to go without?”
“No.”
Teddy smirked at her short responses. “So, complaining for complaining’s sake?”
“I want my leg back,” she growled, “not some piece of me I take off at night.”
There was bitterness in her words that Teddy knew well, though he understood she had more to be angry about than he did. “Too bad,” he said anyway. “Doesn’t work like that. I should know. I can wish all I want that I hadn’t had the surgery that means I’ll never dance the same way again, but nothing changes the truth.” He tapped his hip lightly.
“You danced?” she asked with interest.
“Most my life.”
“LikeThe Nutcracker?”
Always eitherSwan LakeorThe Nutcracker. “Yes, actually. I played the Mouse King once, before I started teaching. I was always a good dancer, but better at creating dances for others.”
“The Mouse King’s the bad guy.” The girl’s eyes lit up, and she leaned closer across the bars.
“I made a good bad guy.” Teddy leaned right back. “You’d make a good Nutcracker, you know.”
“Isn’t he a boy?”
“I prefer hero, and that has never been gender specific. He’s not all flesh and blood either, but that doesn’t stop him. Heroes are made of more than their parts. If you’re going to keep complaining and giving Finn a hard time, maybe I’ll steal that leg from under you and save him the trouble. He already has to put up with me, and I’m no picnic. He really can’t handle another tough patient.”
“You won’t steal my leg.” She pulled away from him.
“Well, I don’t move as fast as I used to, but I am still quite the connivingrat.” Teddy lunged at her, and she laughed, moving so naturally to get away from him that she forgot to think of her new leg as a foreign extension. It was only halfway down the walking station that she stopped and realized with a wobble how far she’d gone without trouble.
“Better,” Teddy said. “Maybe you’ll go easy on Finn today.”
The girl stared, amazed at herself and at Teddy, just as Finn reentered the room.
“Look at you!” he called. “Not so hard, right? You’ll get it.”
She grabbed on to the bars as if embarrassed, but Teddy felt a flutter of pride like he hadn’t experienced since he taught his last student.
“Till next time.” He nodded at Finn in farewell, then turned back to the girl with a salute. “Miss Nutcracker,” he said and walked away without addressing Finn’s confused look.
All would have been well if that had been the end of it, but when Teddy exited into the waiting room with a small smile on his lips, he lost it upon seeing his sister not in the car but at the front desk chatting up one of the physical therapists.
This one was more on the petite side with beautiful long dark hair and an endearing smile. He kept tucking his locks behind his ear in an obvious nervous tic at having such a beautiful woman flirt with him. Erina never stopped to consider how her actions might hurt someone when she wasn’t actually interested.
Then she licked her lips.
She liked him. Wonderful.
“Your brother livesthere?” His eyes snapped to Teddy as he walked up to them. “Oh whoa, you… you’re the one Finn Florence Nightingaled last week. I mean—carried inside.”
“He what?” Erina stared wide-eyed.
This was Finn’s friend—thatfriend, who’d teased him over text when they disappeared inside Teddy’s beach house together.
