I Wouldn't Take Their Daughter's DUI, So I Healed the Man She Crippled novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Cold Harbor House

Colonel Strickland throws a mug and an insult at her, but she works his leg anyway and they set terms. On his desk lies the police file naming the Haldane car.

The car that picked me up was a gray Army sedan, and the driver did not speak for forty minutes.

We reached Cold Harbor House as the sky was turning pale.

It was a long stone house on a hill, with a gravel drive and every downstairs window lit.

A sergeant in shirtsleeves met me at the door and took my suitcase without asking.

"Ma'am, I should warn you," he said. "The colonel threw a coffee pot at the last one."

"Which one was the last one?" I asked.

"Thursday." He glanced at my face. "Did somebody hit you?"

"Yes," I said. "Where is he?"

The colonel was in the library.

They had moved the furniture to the walls and set up a hospital bed under the tall windows.

Lorne Strickland stood at the far end of the room, bracing himself on two canes.

He was taller than I expected, six foot three at least, with dark hair and a beard a few weeks old.

His gray eyes found me and did not warm.

His left leg shook with every breath he took.

"Another one," he said. "Does the Army send you in a pack?"

"Good morning, Colonel," I said. "I'm Wynne."

"I didn't ask for a Wynne."

"I know. I'm here anyway."

He lifted one cane and threw it.

It hit the shelf beside my head, and a row of books went down.

I did not move, because I had grown up in a house where anything thrown at me was usually thrown for a reason that had nothing to do with me.

"That was your good cane," I said. "Now you'll have to cross the room on one."

He stared at me.

"Sergeant," he said. "Get her out."

"Sergeant, stay where you are," I said. "Colonel, you have been standing for four minutes and your left knee is locking. In another minute you'll fall, and I'd rather not catch six foot three on a bad morning."

His jaw tightened.

"Then sit down," I said.

"I don't take orders from a physical therapist."

"I'm not a physical therapist yet. I'm a neuro-rehab assistant with an advanced certificate."

I took one step toward him.

"I work legs that three doctors said wouldn't work again. Sit down, or I will walk over there and make you."

For a moment I thought he would throw the other cane.

Then his leg gave a small jerk, and he sat down on the edge of the bed very fast.

The sergeant breathed out behind me.

I knelt on the rug beside him.

"I'm going to touch your leg," I said. "Tell me where it hurts, and don't say nowhere."

"Everywhere."

"Then we'll start with the worst."

I put my palms flat on his thigh, above the knee, where the muscle was a hard cord.

He flinched, but he did not pull away.

I worked up toward his hip, slowly, along the scar that ran from the joint to his knee, thick and red and stitched in a straight line.

The muscle under my hands was hot and rigid and shaking.

"Breathe out," I said.

He breathed out.

I felt the cord ease by a small, stubborn inch.

He was watching my hands, not my face.

"You've done this before," he said.

"Every night for two years."

"Where?"

"A clinic. Nights, for cash."

His eyes went to the red mark on my cheek and stayed there.

"Who hit you?" he asked.

"A woman who wanted me to lie for her daughter," I said. "I didn't."

Something shifted in his face, not softness, only attention.

"Ninety days," he said. "That's what I have. The medical board meets in ninety days and I have to walk across a room without a cane, or the Army is done with me."

"Then ninety days is what we have," I said. "Twice a day, every day. You do what I say during sessions, and you don't throw things at me."

"And I get a rule," he said.

"What rule?"

"No one touches me but you." He said it flatly. "No other therapists, no nurses, no doctors with cold hands."

"That's easy."

"And no one lies to me." His gray eyes held mine. "Not about the leg, not about how long it will take. Not about anything. I'm done with people who hand me a nicer story."

I kept my hands steady on his scar.

I thought of Bree coming in at two in the morning with a bumper hanging off.

"Agreed," I said.

It was the first lie I told him, and I had not even known I would tell it.

Later, when he finally slept, I went to find the sergeant's coffee.

The colonel's study door stood open across the hall.

A file lay on his desk, the police report on the Route 9 crash.

The top page had a plate number highlighted in yellow.

Under it, in a clerk's neat print, was the registered owner: Haldane Land Holdings.

Below that, a single line said the vehicle had been reported stolen the next morning.

I stood in the doorway with the coffee pot in my hand and did not move.

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