Chapter 27
Hetty was glad when Spence left her alone at the therapy clinic.
Not that she wanted him gone, she would much rather have been someplace quiet and private with him now that they were finally away from his parents’ house.
But she was still new at this therapy thing, and she didn’t want him seeing her whimper when the therapist pushed her.
The fact that she had asked the woman to push her as hard as she could without doing damage—she wanted to be back on her feet, sans crutches or even the cane, as soon as possible—didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like crazy or that she didn’t yelp now and then.
And so she’d asked Spence not to hang around and watch, and Mrs. Cowell, who dealt with him like the former marine she was, convinced him of the wisdom of finding something else to do for a couple of hours.
This was not, Hetty thought as she gritted her teeth to do another leg raise, like it was portrayed in the movies.
And the next time she saw a film where the protagonist got shot in the leg and the next day was up walking around with barely a limp, she was going to boo and hiss audibly.
Maybe throw something at the screen if she was at home.
She pushed harder, until she could feel the tears gathering in her eyes from the pain. Her gut wanted her to push on through, but the therapist had cautioned her the first day that that could be one of the worst things to do.
“You need to listen to your body,” she had said warningly. “A little pain is fine, and expected. Agony, not so much. It will set you back, give your body more healing to do, and this will take even longer.”
With that echoing in her mind, Hetty eased up until it only hurt, not felt like her leg was tearing apart.
“I have to say,” Mrs. Cowell said when she finally called a halt and led her to one of the tables where she would do some massage and heat therapy to promote further healing, “you’re the most determined patient I’ve had in a long time. You’re doing well, Hetty.”
“Enough for you to give me an estimate on when I’ll be back to normal, Mrs. Cowell?”
“I think you’d better call me Liz. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. But in answer, I’d say a year or so,” the older woman said as she worked with nimble hands on Hetty’s leg. “That’s assuming there’s no permanent nerve damage too great to ignore.”
Hetty felt a chill ripple over her. She focused on the time span rather than the maybe in the statement, because right now that’s what scared her most.
“A year?”
With a tiny quirk of her mouth that told Hetty she was about to get one of those comparisons she loved to make, the therapist said, “I assumed you meant back to where you were before this happened. I’d say you’ll be back to functional much sooner, if you keep working this hard.
Another week like this, and maybe you can try that cane your man came in and got for you. ”
Hetty let out a breath of relief. But then the last of the woman’s words truly registered. “Wait, who got the cane?”
Liz’s brow wrinkled. “The guy we just chased out of here? Spence Colton?”
Hetty felt a flood of warmth inside her. She knew that Spence had brought the cane into her room for inspiration—which she’d needed after the worst parts of these sessions—but she hadn’t realized he’d been the one to actually come here and get it.
They were wrapping up before Liz spoke about Spence again. “He’s a good man,” she said, her tone devoid of any of her usual prodding or teasing. “I’d hang on to that one if I were you.”
“We’re…still working that out.”
The therapist smiled widely. “Judging by the way he looks at you, it’s already worked out in his mind.”
Hetty’s gaze shot to her face. She’d already realized the therapist noticed everything and sensed even more, so she risked the question. “You really think so?”
The tough, relentless woman’s expression softened in a way Hetty had not seen before. “He looks at you the way my Matt used to look at me.”
Used to? Hetty glanced at the woman’s left hand, where a simple gold band adorned her ring finger, then back at her face. The truth was there in her eyes, in the aching sadness, before she confirmed it with words.
“I lost him a few years ago. He was KIA overseas,” the woman said quietly.
Hetty couldn’t stop herself, she reached out and clasped that hand, her palm over that ring. She didn’t want to say the usual, trite platitudes, which had always seemed useless to her. So instead she said, just as quietly, “He chose well.”
The woman’s eyes brightened and she knew somehow she’d found the right words. “We were good together.”
There was a sound from the doorway and they both looked. It was Spence, who apparently had just made the other therapist—a young man about a foot shorter than he was—laugh. Liz looked back at Hetty.
“Don’t waste time you can never get back,” she said softly, and there was an amazing combination of remembered pain and goodwill in her voice and her expression.
“You’re right,” Hetty said decisively. “That ends today.”
Back on the crutches—which she was now determined to be rid of after that two weeks Liz had mentioned—she made her way toward the door.
Spence was still just outside the door, now looking at something on his phone.
She didn’t think she’d made any noise, but his head came up sharply and he turned to look as if he’d somehow sensed her coming.
And she thought she’d go through any amount of this hell to see the smile that spread across his face when he saw her.
He looks at you the way my Matt used to look at me…
She was done wasting time.
“Do you have a run this afternoon?” she asked him without preamble.
“No,” he said, sounding startled. “I cleared the day. I’ve got nothing until tomorrow.”
“Good. We’re going to have that talk.”
He drew back slightly, either startled again or…
wary. Well, if it was wary, she wanted to know now.
Before she let herself fall any further than she already had.
Maybe he’d decided that night in the cave had been a mistake, or a hallucination, or maybe he’d only been trying to placate her because she’d been hurt.
She didn’t know, but it was past time she found out.
It wasn’t like her to be this indecisive, to have let this drift along for nearly two weeks.
But she wanted this so much, maybe she was just afraid of the answers she’d get.
So when did you become a coward?
She wasn’t, she told herself firmly. The dodging ended now.
“Where are we going?” Spence asked after they were back in his SUV, still sounding somewhat nervous.
“Somewhere where we can look at this place we love,” she said.
Yet again, he looked surprised, but she saw one corner of his mouth twitch, as if he liked what she’d said.
She’d meant it, she did love this place, although maybe not quite in the “get out there and learn every inch of it from the ground up” way he did.
No, she preferred flying over it, where she could see the incredible vastness, the amazing range, from the water of the sound to the towering mountains, with every variation in between.
She especially savored this time of year, despite the lack of an actual nighttime.
She loved the way the snow forever on the peaks contrasted with the fresh green of new growth below and, in turn, with the deep blue of the water.
It made her heart swell; made her feel lucky that this was where she’d been born and raised.
“I got a text from Officer Reynolds,” he said as they stopped at one of Shelby’s few traffic signals. “He said Portland may have a line on the ex-wife, and he’ll let us know.”
“If it turns out to be her, remind me never to set foot in Portland again,” she said as the light changed.
A few minutes later, when Spence pulled the SUV to a stop atop a slight rise just outside of town, where they could sit and look at everything she’d just thought about, she wondered not for the first time if the man could read her mind.
Her stomach gurgled a little but she ignored it.
Food could wait. This could not. And then Spence reached into the back seat and came up with a small cooler.
He opened it, dipped in, and showed her a bundle wrapped in paper.
She knew at her fist whiff that it was one of the delicious roast beef sandwiches from the shop just above the marina.
“They said it was your favorite,” Spence said.
“It is,” she agreed, impressed yet again, both that he’d thought of this at all, and especially that he’d bothered to find out what she particularly liked. And in view of that, she decided eating could come first. But she’d do it fast.
“Then let’s go sit down out there and eat. You’re burning up a lot of energy in that therapy,” he said. “Mrs. Cowell is quite a taskmaster.”
“She said I should call her Liz. I feel like I’ve been honored.”
“I can see why.”
“We’re pushing for me to be off the crutches after two weeks.” She gave him a sideways look. “And on to using the cane you got for me.”
He didn’t even react. As if it were the most obviously normal thing in the world for him to go out of his way to both pick up the device and think to place it where it would inspire her to work toward it.
Judging by the way he looks at you, it’s already worked out in his mind.
She hoped the taskmaster was right.