Brock Read online

  She dug up that bright smile again and walked over to him. “Now, this is a good place to start. Let’s see if we can get that awesome body back.”

  He looked up at her and frowned. “I’m never going to get that back.”

  “You might not with Shane, there. But you will with me, if you’re ready to do the work.”

  For the first time, she saw a hint of interest in his gaze. Good, she’d been right about that. She’d worked with several bodybuilders in her time. She knew how important it was for them to have that look, or maybe that feel. She didn’t think he was bodybuilding material, a strongman competition would be better, but he’d been in incredibly good shape. So, he knew exactly what was required to maintain it. He was a long way away from that point. It was going be hard on him, but she could help him make a comeback—at least as much of one as he was ready to have.

  Sidney was not at all what he had expected. She’d come off as such a hard-ass this morning. Some of what she’d said burned. And some rang with truth. He didn’t want to transfer away, so here he was. And here she was, capable of seeing what he wanted out of this and trying to help him get it. He wasn’t concerned about appearances, but he knew damned well that having a strong back was going to make a difference in his work life. That was what he wanted. He wanted to feel like he could do everyday tasks and chores with at least a certain amount of ability.

  It meant a hell of a lot of muscle repair. He was up for it as long as the end result was the same goal he wanted. He wasn’t even sure why he hadn’t been able to work with the others. It wasn’t that they hadn’t wanted to help him because they had. Nor had they not seen that he needed help because they certainly had, and they were definitely professionals. But there’d been just something about doing the endless number of exercises, listening to them drone on and on about the body’s muscle groups and the injuries that made him want to throw the weights across the room.

  One thing he did know. He didn’t want to leave Hathaway. So far, this seemed like it was the best place for him. He just needed somebody to help him get where he needed to be. Maybe his luck had finally changed—maybe she was going to be the one.

  Two hours later, he was cursing her out—and she was cursing right back at him.

  “Come on. Push your sorry ass into that move. Don’t you start wussing out on me, you little weasel.” She danced in front of him as he pushed and tugged and pulled—moving the muscles, building the muscles, toning the injuries and forcing them to heal.

  He glared at her and swore. “Don’t take your frustrations out on me, you bitch.”

  She grinned. “Call me any name in the book. I don’t care. You’re not going to send me running. Besides, it just shows your lack of control.”

  “Goddammit,” he roared and did one more set.

  She laughed. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

  “I’m so not happy with you right now.” Sweat dripped, burning into his eyes. His body bowed over the weights and his back … Jesus! He hurt.

  “No, but you can put that big mouth of yours into the job and make the next move.”

  And on it went. By the time he was done, he was afraid he really was done. He’d never been so goddamned sore in all his life. All those knots of the last six months, and the months of lying in bed, the workouts up until now—all of it had been nothing. He sat down with a sigh, realizing his whole body was trembling.

  With any luck this torture was over—at least for the moment. However, he was quietly amazed. He had no idea that was inside of him. After completing BUD/s training, he’d felt invincible. The best of the best. He’d had a sense of personal accomplishment that had been the highlight of his life.

  Now, all he wanted to do was make his way back to bed and stay there, pampering himself with room service and forgetting about getting out of bed again—ever.

  Sidney had different ideas. With a sneer, she said, “Look at you, you’re already finished. Down to the pool! Twenty laps, and then we’ll consider a massage.”

  Shit. He glared at her in outrage. Had she read his chart? Did she know what he used to do? That swimming was a major part of a Navy SEALs career? Did she even care? “Twenty laps? Maybe I can’t even swim,” he challenged her. “Did you even think about that?”

  She shoved her face in his and said, “Then it should be an easy walk on the pool bottom, Tank.”

  He stared at her for a few minutes, and then he howled. Not at just being called a tank, but at the image of him walking on the floor of the pool. He’d actually been really good at that when he was a kid.

  Spirits high, and too tired to walk, he sat himself down in the wheelchair and headed for the elevator.

  This might just work out after all.

  Chapter 3

  By the time he’d made it through the pool session, she wondered if she’d overdone it. He was looking a little on the shaky side. However, his jaw was stiff, as if he was clenching it and refusing to break down and tell her. She could believe he’d had some of the worst taskmasters in the world. The military wasn’t known for light, fluffy workouts. At the same time, she didn’t want to be put in the same category. He did need to work, but he couldn’t afford to overdo it. Strain injuries were way too common in this business. By the time she’d helped him sit down on the bench, he’d relaxed slightly. She grabbed some towels.

  “Do you want your massage down here or back up in your room?”

  His answer was telling. “My bed, please.”

  “Wheelchair or walk?”

  Silence. He looked at the wheelchair, looked over at her and then stood. Instantly, he wavered. She moved the wheelchair into position behind him and pressed him back to sit down. “You can walk another time.”

  She didn’t give him any chance to answer but wheeled him toward the elevator. Just because he was ambulatory didn’t mean he was in the best position to make his way on foot all the time. Sometimes the workouts were just that much harder. Upstairs in his room, he was still dripping wet in his swimsuit, and she threw his dry towels down on the bed and wheeled him over to the side. She asked, “Do you need any help?”

  She was fully expecting to walk out without doing anything more for him because she knew how stubborn he was.

  There was fatigue in his voice when he answered, “Could you pull the bedding back?”

  She could see the bedding had bundled up. She untangled it and folded it back. Then she took several towels and stretched them out on top of the bed. “You can put on dry trunks or lie down without any on,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  With that, she walked out of the room. She headed into the office the physiotherapists shared where she had her own desk and dropped her towel on the back of the chair. She sat down, brought up his file on the computer and quickly updated it with the day’s efforts. He’d done a hell of a job so far.

  He was going to need a massage, however, to stop the muscles from tightening up too much.

  She’d picked up a couple of really good creams while she’d been away this last time. Some had special ingredients to help make the muscles heal a little faster. When she was done at the computer, she went to her locker, found the cream she wanted and returned to his room. He was lying on his stomach without a pillow, completely flat, with his eyes closed. A towel lay across his backside. She could tell he had no trunks on. Good, she didn’t want anything to impede her work. She opened up the cream, rubbed some on her hands and put the tube back onto the table. She kept the lid off in case she needed more. She hadn’t worked on him before, so she had no idea how dry his skin was.

  She started on the big trapezius muscles, gently at first. Mentally, she tested the tightness, the muscle mass from the injuries and his pain tolerance levels.

  “You can go a lot harder than that,” he murmured.

  “All in good time,” she said.

  Every therapist she knew had their own individual system. She liked to work lightly to loosen and warm up the muscles.
Then, she dug deeper and deeper, working at the knots, working at the tension, trying to ease everything up so the muscles relaxed. Staying focused, she worked her way through his back, his upper arms, shoulders and neck. Then she slowly worked down toward the bed of scars on the left side. She’d seen a lot of injuries in her life. Particularly working here, but these were some of the largest expanses of soft-tissue injury she’d ever seen.

  Compassion filled her as she gently eased back the pressure where the muscle layer thinned down. His recovery would have been painful as hell. As soon as she touched the area above his hip, she could feel him tensing up again. With one hand working the top of his neck, helping him to relax, she gently worked through the hip into the lower back. He was missing so much muscle development on that side it was almost painful for her to massage. She worked the whole area, refusing to give in to his pain, or her own, and then she slowly moved down. She pulled the towel off slightly to see part of his glutes had also been damaged. One side of his cheek was deformed. She grabbed some more cream, smearing it over her hands.

  “Not very pretty, is it?” he said in a gritty voice.

  “Pretty is not the issue,” she said calmly. “It must be a pain in the ass not to be able to sit flush.”

  That startled a laugh out of him. “I hadn’t actually noticed that being an issue.”

  “Good. Let’s see if we can build those muscles up, at least enough that you won’t sit lopsided.” With that, she went back to work. By the time she was done and easing her hands up and down his spine and neck once again, she could feel his breath dropping into a smooth, calm, heavy breathing instead of being tense and waiting for more pain.

  As she stepped away and pulled the blankets on top of him, she smiled.

  He’d nodded off to sleep. She stooped and picked up the wet towels he’d dropped on the floor and tossed them into the laundry basket. She grabbed her cream and walked out. As she left, she flicked the light switch off and closed the door. She didn’t want him to sleep too long because lunch was coming up. However, if anybody deserved a nap, it was him. As she headed back to the office she caught sight of Dani.

  The other woman changed course and headed toward her. “How was it?”

  “Well, I don’t think you’ll have to find a transfer for him,” Sidney said with a big smile. “He’s asleep right now. He worked hard—he deserves the rest.”

  Dani’s shoulders slumped with relief, and a big smile flashed across her face. “Oh, my God, I’m so happy to hear that. He’s such a good guy, but he just wasn’t getting anywhere.”

  “Sometimes just changing the personalities is enough,” Sidney said with another smile. She patted Dani on the shoulder. “Have you got time for lunch today?”

  Dani glanced at her watch. “Sure. Let’s go and eat.”

  Back in the dining room, there was another round of greetings from people who were seeing her for the first time since her return. Sidney picked up a Caesar salad, a sandwich, and a big yogurt, and carried the tray out onto the deck. Feeling welcomed and happy to be home again, she sat down and relaxed.

  While she waited for Dani to join her, Sidney flexed her fingers, feeling the ache of a job well done. That was another issue she was potentially going to have to look at down the road. Often, massage therapists had to change careers by the time they were forty because of their own physical injuries—arthritis being one of the biggest. She was licensed in both physio and massage.

  “Sore?” Dani asked as she sat down. Her tray was full with salmon, soup and a salad.

  Sidney laughed wryly. “Yes. But I worked hard this morning.” She leaned toward Dani and added in a conspiratorial voice, “Not as hard as he did, though.”

  With that, they both grinned and dug into their food, enjoying the conversation and just being back together again.

  “You know,” Sidney said, “as much as I really like this place, it was the animals I missed the most.”

  “The animals are both good and bad,” Dani said. “We have a few easy cases—several needed to be spayed or neutered, and that’s something we subsidize for the rescue shelter. Of course, Stan is also very interested in prosthetics for the animals, so he has a couple of people working there helping him out, too. Aaron has expressed interest in that field as well.” She nodded toward a young horse in the field beside an older one.

  “Her name’s Molly. She came here with a badly cracked hoof. She’d actually been living in the owner’s house as a pet.” Dani shook her head. “The owner seemed to think she was going to end up as a dwarf of some kind. But instead, she’s got a full-sized lineage.”

  Sidney laughed. “That must have come as quite a shock.”

  “When Molly came here, she had never met another horse. Now she’s attached to Maggie, and the two of them are pretty much inseparable.”

  “Good. It’s not like you’re going to get rid of Maggie,” Sidney said with a smile. “Molly is a very lucky filly. And speaking of lucky, tell me about Aaron,” she added with a grin.

  “As I mentioned earlier, Aaron is going to school to become a vet. Stan gave him an awesome referral, but he worked damn hard and got great grades on the courses he needed to pick up. He’s planning to come back and work here.” Dani lowered her voice, looking around to make sure nobody was listening. “It was pretty hard not to fall in love with him at that point.”

  Sidney laughed.

  “And you? Whatever happened to John?”

  Sidney had been waiting for that question, but now that it was here, she really didn’t have an answer. “Nothing. That’s the problem,” she said with a sigh. “He didn’t want to move forward because he didn’t care enough.”

  “Ouch.”

  Sidney looked up to see Dani staring at her. She dropped her gaze to her food, unable to speak.

  A moment later, Dani reached across the table and covered her hand with hers. “I’m so sorry. You’re better off without him.”

  “I know that, but …” Sidney glanced around at the very large seating area.

  Dani had turned this place into a multi-functional, multi-purpose room that worked so well for everybody. Those who wanted to be inside could sit inside, and those who wanted to be outside could sit outside. There were large doors that could close in case of cooler, wet weather, but most of the time the weather here was perfect. There was a lot to be said for this part of Texas. She had had high hopes John might want to move here permanently, but apparently, permanency wasn’t high on her ex’s list of priorities.

  Sidney shook her head. “It’s been a while anyway. It happened when I first got back to class. I spent most of the term getting back on track again.”

  “Well, things have eased slightly here, by my own making.” Dani gave her a gentle smile. “Not that I’m advocating matchmaking or anything.”

  “Oh, my God, no!” Sidney lowered her voice, glaring at her friend, who was grinning at her impishly. “Absolutely no way is that going to happen.”

  “Sure, I was just kidding.” But her eyes didn’t stop dancing.

  Sidney stared at her in trepidation. “Just because you’re so happy doesn’t mean the rest the world has to be the same way,” she cautioned. “I’m totally okay to not have any romance in my life for a while.”

  “I believe you.” But then she snorted, letting Sidney know there was no way she believed her.

  And Sidney knew that if Dani had a chance, she’d find somebody for Sidney.

  Which was so not what she was looking for right now.

  The sudden knock woke Brock from his nap. He opened his eyes, feeling disoriented. He was in his bed, covered up with a blanket. And he hurt. Oh God, he hurt. But it was a different kind of hurt. Not like after the first injury or the weeks he’d spent in hospital numbed with morphine. It was the type of hurt he used to feel. The burn after a hard workout where he knew his muscles were functioning like they were supposed to. The burn that spoke of tiny microfiber tears in his muscles before they could build up bigger,
better and stronger. As he lay there, the memory of the morning flooded through him. Somehow, she had gotten him to work like he’d never worked before. He had to give her kudos for that. They had settled into a rhythm of swearing and cursing at each other, and somehow, he’d risen higher and higher and done more than he ever thought possible.

  The hard knock came again. He let his head roll to the side and called out, “Come in.”

  He had to wonder at himself. Before his accident, he could never have imagined a point when he would lie in bed and let somebody come into his room. He would’ve hopped up and answered the door.

  But now, he just couldn’t be bothered. He also didn’t know if it mattered. He’d changed in so many damned ways. The door opened and his doctor walked in, a frown crossing his face as he saw him.

  “Are you sick, Brock?”

  With a wry smile, Brock replied, “No, just tired.”

  Still frowning, the doctor clicked on his iPad and studied something on the screen.

  Brock figured Sidney had updated the reports, so the doctor was likely reading them over. For some reason, he felt protective. He didn’t want her to get in trouble. Not when she’d done so much good for him. He threw back the covers, deliberately keeping his face straight and not making a sound as he sat up. “I had a terrible night last night.” He glanced at his watch. “It looks like I missed lunch.”