“Uh, yeah.”
“You scared the snot out of me!”She pressed her hand against her chest.“What the hell are you doing here?”Her eyes narrowed.“How did you get in?”
“I, uh, watched Attila—I mean, I watched Celia the other day when she punched in the code and I …” Shit!Now what?
“You watched her punch in the code, and youusedit without permission?Did she say you could?”
He was so busted.Shaking his head, he closed the distance between them.As he approached, Angie widened her stance and crossed her arms like she was preparing for battle.The bleaching light from the overheads made the lines of her face appear even sterner.
“I was at the arena already—we’re playing tonight,” he added lamely.“Anyway, I thought I’d come down here and do some of those exercises I can’t do at home because I don’t have the right equipment.”
“Right.Nor should you because you’re supposed to be under my supervision when you use it.”An angry muscle in her jaw fluttered.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the shelter tonight?”
“Nice change of subject.How did you know I was going there tonight?”
“Because you always go on Wednesday nights.”Oops.She scrutinized him, as she should have, obviously waiting for an explanation as to why he knew this much about her schedule.“I pay attention.Sometimes.”
She scoffed.“The same way you paid attention when you were told you couldn’t access the department unless you were with a therapist?”
“I was trying to save you time and trouble.I figured since I was here anyway, I might as well bang out some of those exercises.”
One caramel eyebrow dipped.“You do understand you can overdo it, right?”
Sam gave her a nonchalant shrug.“I want to get there faster.”
She barreled ahead as if she hadn’t heard him, and she used that irritating, condescending tone of hers—as if she knew more than he did about his body’s limits.“And that by overdoing it, by pushing too hard, you can do more harm than good.You could possibly set your progress back a week, maybe more.There’s a reason I dole out the exercises the way I do.There’s a reason we work one machine and not another.”She jabbed her thumb against her breastbone.“And I make these decisions after carefully observing a number of different factors, not all of which are obvious to the untrained eye, nor are they obvious to the person exhibiting the characteristics because they can’t watch themselves as they’re going through different steps.Like your stance.How you’re carrying yourself as you walk.Like—”
“Are you saying I don’t know my own body?”He ground his molars.
Her entire posture relaxed on a sigh, and she softened her tone.“Look, this is not a contest.I’m not trying to one-up you.I’m trying tohelpyou.I want you to get there faster too.Iwantyou to have another shot this year, but high ankle sprains are tricky, and everybody heals at a different pace.”A tiny smile sprouted on her face.“Know what else?I don’t want to have to deal with you anymore, so I’m just as motivated to get you out of here faster.It benefits me too.”
“So now you’re saying I’m a pain in the ass,” he deadpanned.
“Give the man a gold star!He gets it.”The smile blossomed into a full-on smirk, and his tension ebbed.Then her expression shifted back into professional mode.“I know how important this is to you, Sam.But I don’t want to see you hurt yourself or set yourself back because you believe your body can take more than it’s prepared for.We all know how tough you are, so you’ve got nothing to prove.Especially now.”She stared at him for several long beats, as though waiting to see if the message sank in.“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
He gave her a reluctant nod.He wasn’t going to be able to exercise tonight anyway, so why fight her?
A light seemed to wink on in her pretty blue eyes.“Tell you what.Lie down, and while I check your ankle, tell me everything you put it through today.And don’t leave anything out, even if it’s as simple as you stopped at a convenience store to pick up Gatorade and stood in line for two minutes.I can’t help you if I don’t have all the facts.Once I know, and after I’ve evaluated your ankle, maybe we can run through a few movements.Would that satisfy your stubborn soul?”
“What choice do I have?”he grumbled.
She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes.“You have many choices.The one I wish you’d make is to trust me to have your best interests at heart and get you there as quickly as humanly possible.”
“You’re not trying to get your revenge on me?”
“My … what?”Her features screwed up in a question mark of puzzlement.Recognition finally seemed to dawn.“You really think I would use your injury to get back at you for what happened six years ago?”
“Maybe?”
She cast her eyes down, and her mouth quirked as she obviously fought a smile.When she raised her gaze back to his, the smile broke out in its full brilliance.“I admit I considered it when you first walked in.But that would go against everything I’ve been trained for, everything I believe in.I love what I do, and I want to be agoodtherapist, Sam.Believe it or not, I consider you my most important case, and I want to nail this not only for your sake, but for mine too.I have skin in this game too.”
He grinned for the first time that evening.“I’m the most important case you’ve got?Like, I’m at the top of the heap?”
Now shedidroll her eyes.“Don’t let it go to your head, ace.Considering my heap is fairly short, that’s not saying much.”
He hopped onto the bed, swung his legs over the edge, and lay back, a ridiculous amount of satisfaction oozing through him.Even more flowed through him when she removed the boot because normallyhewould have done that, but something about having her fingers on his skin … The way she touched him felt good, and he didn’t feel like denying himself the pleasure—especially since she was the closest he got to anyone touching himanywherethese days.
