Chapter 12
“Alright, we’ll call it a night,” Rob announced. They had been at it for an hour now. He was covered in sweat, as was June. She had picked up on the lessons quickly. Thanks to the medical history from Dr. Shane, he had added some leg kicks in but nothing too strenuous.
June had tried everything without complaint. He was proud of her. He felt bad for the next guy who came at her in a dark alley.
“Good job,” he praised as he grabbed his towel off the shelf along the back wall. He had a stack of them set out for instances like this.
“Thanks.” June was breathing a little heavily, but she was still standing straight instead of hunched over exhausted.
“Feel free to grab a towel.” He waved toward the stack. There were plenty. Some of the guys came over to work out sometimes, so he had plenty just in case.
“I brought one.” She headed over her bag and sat down on the bench to retrieve it. After toweling off, she unstrapped her leg, peeled off her socks and liner, and wiped off the sweat there too before reapplying clean socks.
She was so at ease doing it like she did it all the time. If she’d lost her legs at eighteen, he supposed she was pretty used to doing it now and didn’t care where she was.
Rob took a seat next to her. “I’m curious about something.”
“What’s that?” she asked as she set her stuff back in her bag before grabbing her water bottle and taking a drink.
“Why did you wait six years before getting legs?”
June froze with the bottle hallway to her lips. “How did you know I waited that long?”
“Because I rea—remember you saying something about it.” Shit, he wasn’t supposed to know that. He couldn’t tell her he’d read it in her file.
June seemed to accept his word. “It hadn’t been a thought for a long time.
I just accepted my life as it was wheelchair-bound.
Then one day I saw someone with a prosthetic leg, and I decided I wanted to do that.
I missed walking and not relying on others to push me around.
I had a live-in nurse, Rosa. She was a godsend, but I felt bad that she had to always go where I did.
She couldn’t have a life. I also wanted my independence back, and now here we are. ”
“Here we are,” he echoed.
“How soon after your accident did you get your ear?”
“Right after.” He remembered waking up in the hospital in Germany confused. A doctor explained what had happened to his ear and hearing. His surviving teammates were there. One of them had been awake for everything and relayed what had happened and that the rest of the team was dead.
He had wanted to fly out of bed so he could get back in the fight and avenge his fallen comrades, but by then the Army had medically discharged him.
He couldn’t be of help with complete hearing loss in one ear and partial loss in the other.
It had sucked, but he’d gotten his own form of justice for them now.
“So, you said you had a live-in nurse. Where was your brother? Didn’t he help?” A live-in nurse wasn’t cheap.
“When he could. He was gone for work a lot.” June suddenly stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. “I should get going. It’s getting late, and I’m getting hungry.”
Rob was pulled from his line of questioning. Shit, he hadn’t thought about food. He normally ate after a workout, but he hadn’t thought about asking June if she wanted to stay to eat.
He did a mental list of what he had in the cupboards. He had the fixings for just about anything. He could grill up some steaks. He had salad makings in the fridge.
“You’re more than welcome to stay for dinner.”
June looked shocked by the offer but quickly covered it with an easy grin. “I don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not; I’m offering. We can have steaks and salad. Or I can make something else if you prefer.”
“No, steaks would be fine. Um…” June looked away, uncertain.
“What is it?”
“Do you care if I use your bathroom to freshen up?” She gestured at her sweat-covered shirt which prompted him to look down at his own sweaty state.
“Of course. I’ll do the same.” He could use a shower, but since he wasn’t offering to let her use his, he wasn’t going to be clean while she had to sit in her sweaty clothes.
He would do a quick rinse-off and a change of clothes. He would shower after she left. Rob led the way back into the house. “Bathroom is that way.” He pointed toward the guest bathroom.
“Thank you.” June clutched her bag to her chest as she brushed past him.
Rob went to his room, which was just further down the hall, to clean up. He rushed through rinsing off with a soapy washcloth and dried off.
He pulled a clean black shirt over his head, pulled blue jeans on, stuck his feet in his favorite boots, and headed back out.
Rob stopped short when he smelled food cooking. Strange. He hadn’t started cooking anything yet. He followed the smell to the kitchen where he found June bent over rummaging through the fridge.
He was rooted to the spot at first. Mainly because it wasn’t often, he’d seen another person cook in his kitchen. Another was he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a woman in his house who wasn’t his sister.
June hummed a tune that was too low for him to hear what it was as her hips swayed back and forth.
“Can I help you with something?”
June jumped, stood up, and spun around, her eyes as big as saucers as her hand rested over her heart as if she were afraid it would beat right out of her chest.
He noted she had changed. He hadn’t realized she’d packed spare clothes. She wore a floral printed shirt that hugged her curves and stopped just above the waist of her shorts, showing off just a hint of skin. Even her hair was down and draped over her shoulder.
He had never seen June in something so feminine. Normally she wore shorts and a t-shirt in muted colors.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What did you expect walking on silent feet,” she snapped defensively. “Sorry, that wasn’t your fault. I snap when I get startled. This is your house, not mine. Walk however you choose.” She waved off and then went back to looking in the fridge.
“Thanks.” He could hardly say he was being stealthy in his own house a second ago. Just walking. Obviously, she hadn’t been paying attention. “What were you looking for?”
If June was hoping to learn anything about him by raiding his cupboards, she would be sorely disappointed.
“I was going to help you with dinner, so I was looking at what options you had.”
“I told you, we’re having steaks.”
“Yeah, but we need something to go with it.”
“I honestly didn’t think of a side other than salad.” It had been the only thing he could think of as a side to go with steaks. He felt like he was being a terrible host. He hadn’t thought about feeding her, and now he didn’t even know what he had in the fridge and pantry.
“We can do that. I don’t have anything against salad. Or I hope you don’t mind, I just poked through your fridge and cupboards and decided on asparagus and garlic-roasted potatoes. I already started the potatoes.”
“You don’t have to trouble yourself.” It was his house, and he’d offered to cook. She wasn’t required to help.
“It’s no trouble. I enjoy cooking. I don’t get to cook for more than myself often, so this will be nice.”
June looked at him with big innocent doe eyes that made him feel he couldn’t deny her anything. “That would be great.”
June smiled then, and Rob felt like he had just climbed K2. It was an odd feeling, feeling like he was a hero to someone. Sure, he had been thanked for saving people in the past, but that had been his job. Here he’d just agreed to make dinner her way. It wasn’t that big of a deal.
“I’ll work on the potatoes. They’ll take the longest.”
“Okay, what can I help with?”
It was his house and his kitchen. He wasn’t going to make her do all of the cooking while he just grilled.
“You can get the asparagus ready. Wash them and trim them.”
He could do that.
They worked in harmony as he got the asparagus ready, and she grabbed an onion and diced it up. She moved around the kitchen as if she had been cooking in it for years instead of a few moments.
“You’re a natural in the kitchen.”
“Thanks, I learned from Rosa.”
“Your nurse.” He remembered June mentioning her.
“Yeah, I felt bad when she was the one always doing the heavy lifting, so I thought if I learned to cook, I could ease her burden.”
Once again, Rob was struck by June and her thoughtfulness of others. Here she had been missing both of her legs, wheelchair-bound, and felt bad for the person having to care for her and wanting to help them instead of just letting others cater to her.
“Rosa protested at first of course.” June chuckled looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
“She was my caretaker, and as such, I was not supposed to help her. So, I had to get creative, and I told her I wanted to learn to cook for my husband one day or for friends and it shouldn’t be on her.
She caved and started teaching me. I wouldn’t brag and say I’m like an iron chef by any means, but I haven’t given anyone food poisoning yet. ”
Well, that wasn’t exactly an commendation, but at least she was honest. Not that he could brag about his cooking skills. He didn’t burn things, and it was edible.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
June gasped in fake horror before bumping him with her hip into his side. It had been light, so it hadn’t moved him.
“Kidding.”
“You’ll be eating those words soon enough,” she said, sticking her nose in the air and looking miffed before losing her stern look and laughing as she put the onions in a pan.
“We’ll see. I’m going to start the grill, then get started on the asparagus.” The steaks would need time to rest.
He ran out to heat it up then went back inside. Rob reached into the lower cabinet for a pot to start boiling them. “No,” June called out. “Just a pan. We’ll cook them on the stovetop, not boil them.”
“I’ve never had them that way,” he admitted. He had always boiled them before eating them.
“Rosa taught me to just cook them instead of boiling them. Boiling them gets them flimsy and loses their vitamins.”
Rob wasn’t an asparagus connoisseur, so he would just have to take her word on it. He was willing to try it this way. “Your mom didn’t teach you?”
He seasoned the asparagus and put it in the oil-covered pan. The house started smelling great between the garlic and parmesan in the oven and the seasonings on the asparagus and cooking onions. He didn’t think his kitchen had ever smelled this great.
“Mom wasn’t the best cook. She tried, but she burned a lot of food. Not exactly the role model you wanted to learn from.”
“Definitely not. It smells amazing.”
“It’s going to taste even better,” she said confidently. He didn’t doubt it. If it tasted half as good as it smelled, he’d be happy.
“I don’t doubt it. I’ll get started on the steaks. How do you like yours cooked?” He really hoped she was not a well-done girl. That was no better than eating a hockey puck in his opinion.
“Medium rare,” she answered, not looking up from the pan.
A girl after his own heart. He preferred rare, but it was close enough. Plus, the steaks wouldn’t take long to cook.
He felt bad abandoning the rest to June, but they needed the steaks to be ready to rest before they finished cooking everything else. That was the main star of the dish.
He stayed outside to wait on the steaks since they wouldn’t take long. Rob was bringing the plate of steaks back in when June was removing the potatoes from the oven. They were golden brown with a light caramelization from the cheese. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until now.
“Steaks just need a few minutes to rest, then we’ll eat.”
“Sounds good. This stuff needs a few minutes to cool down,” June responded as she scooped sour cream over the onions.
“What would you like to drink? I have water and juice. I also have a couple beers.” Rob set down the steaks and turned to her.
“Water is just fine. Thank you.” She spun from the pan and rummaged through the fridge. He had no idea what she was doing, but she seemed to have it under control.
Rob got the water on the table and came back to carve up the steaks as June served up the asparagus and potatoes. The pan she placed the onions in was covered in a white cream sauce. “Do you want any sauce for your steak? I have some A1.”
“I’ll use this onion sauce for my steak.” She pointed to the pan he had been wondering about. “I made enough if you want to try. I’ve never cared for steak sauces.”
Nor did he, but some of the guys liked it, so he kept it around for them. He preferred the steak on its own, but he was curious about this onion sauce and was willing to try it. “What’s in it?”
“Just onion and sour cream.”
Interesting combo. “Sure, I’ll try it.” He took a small spoonful and dabbed it on his plate.