Love Me

by Olivia Cunning

  Once his limb was fitted into the sleeve, Keith showed him how to seal it tight by using a valve near the knee. The prosthesis fit snugly—there was no way that sucker would fall off—but it was no longer too tight, as it had been at Chad’s first fitting.

  “Looks good,” Keith said. “How does it feel?”

  “Good.” Chad was so eager to try it out, he might have lied even if it hadn’t fit right. “Great. It feels great.” Constrictive and odd, but great. Like freedom. Like opportunity. Like a new beginning.

  “I know we did a lot of work to shift your center of gravity over one leg so you could get around better, but now you have to forget all that and distribute your weight equally over both legs.”

  Chad couldn’t help but grin. “I have legs. Two of them.”

  “Mary should be here for this,” Keith said, glancing around the large room filled with physical therapy equipment.

  “She’s probably still at lunch.” Chad tended to show up for his sessions early so he could work on his own before his physical therapist arrived. Not because she didn’t do a great job, but because he liked to see what he could do without assistance. She accused him of being unable to accept help on a regular basis, and he had to concede to the truth in that.

  “Do you want to wait for her to get back?”

  “Before I get to stand?” Chad asked. He gave Keith a look incredulous enough to make him laugh. “Let’s do it now.”

  Keith had been working with Chad long enough to know he preferred as little assistance as possible, so he stepped back when it was time for Chad to stand. Keith pointed to the even parallel bars, and Chad lifted the oddly light prosthetic foot onto the wheelchair pedal before wheeling himself over to his old nemesis. A tremor of fear shuddered through him. What if he fell? He licked his lips and took a deep breath. If he did, he’d just get up and try again. He refused to let a trip or fall set him back. He sure as hell wasn’t going to throw another ridiculous tantrum. Chad locked the wheelchair wheels without being told and wrapped his hands around the ends of the parallel bars that he’d soon walk—walk!—between. He stood, careful to keep all his weight on his left leg as he’d been doing for the past few weeks.

  “Trust the prosthetic to hold your weight, Chad,” Keith instructed.

  Chad tried, but there was a huge disconnect between what he wanted to do and what his brain was willing to attempt. The prosthetic was light. It didn’t feel like a real leg. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected it to.

  “That’s okay,” Keith said, apparently recognizing Chad’s difficulty.

  Chad had hoped to leave today able to run marathons—or at least walk them—but it seemed he was a slow learner.

  “Try lifting your fancy foot and then setting it down in place. You’re not taking a step yet. Just standing with your feet side by side.”

  But Chad wanted to take a step. It was all he’d been dreaming about for weeks. He inhaled and exhaled several times to settle his expectations into reality and lifted his fancy foot. The physics of the device amazed Chad. It responded almost like a real leg—knee bending, ankle extending slightly. And when he extended at the hip, the knee straightened, the ankle flexed.

  “Well, that’s pretty cool,” Chad said.

  “It’s very cool,” Keith said. “And you look cool wearing it.”

  Mary, the physical therapist who’d seen Chad at his worst and encouraged him to be his best, rushed into the room, jerking her hair into a ponytail so they could get down to business.

  “Sorry, I’m late. The line at Panera was ridiculously long.” She stopped dead in her tracks and gaped at Chad. “You’re standing!”

  “My leg finally grew back,” he said, indicating the shiny metal and plastic appendage with the flourish of one hand. Keith had talked him out of a blade, pointing out that those devices were for running and not ideal for daily wear, and while Chad still thought blades looked awesome and wanted to get one someday, he had to admit Keith had been right. Chad’s his new gadget was perfect. The exaggerated movement of his arm didn’t make him wobble off balance and he hoped that was a good sign.

  “About time.” She clapped excitedly.

  Sometimes Chad thought Mary got more excited by his milestones than he did.

  “I’m not leaving today until I can walk out of here,” he said, “so we’d better get busy.”

  “I have another patient at two,” she said.

  “Then I hope I’m a prodigy.”

  Chad soon discovered that his body knew how to walk with a prosthesis even if his brain struggled with the disconnect of him not feeling the floor beneath his foot. If he didn’t think about it too much, he could take several steps in a row. Yet as soon as he started paying too much attention, he stumbled. But he didn’t fall. Not even when they let him try walking beyond the safety of the bars. He didn’t fall once.

  He’d thought about inviting Lindsey, Owen, and his mom to accompany him today, but he was glad he’d come alone—driven himself, gotten into and out of the car on his own, walked inside using his crutches. They knew he was being fitted for his prosthesis, but not that he planned to wear it home. He was going to surprise them the next time they saw him. He was going to walk right up to Lindsey, scoop her into his arms, and kiss her senseless. He tried the technique with Mary, minus the kissing part. She laughed her head off as he carefully took one step while holding her in his arms and then took another.

  “He is a prodigy, Keith,” she said.

  “You knew he would be.”

  “Yep,” she said, “I called it.”

  “So I get to wear the leg home, right?” Chad asked.

  “After we go through how to properly care for your limb and the device,” Keith said, “and if I’m sure you can take it off and put it on, I’ll think about it.”

  “You’re such a buzzkill,” Chad said, but he knew those things were important.

  With the new leg came new warnings about chafing and misalignment of hips and taking stairsteps one at a time. Apparently, there was still a lot of physical therapy in his future. Actions as trivial as shifting from low pile carpet to a plush rug nearly sent him toppling—he couldn’t feel the subtle cues in his artificial foot that he’d never realized were important for walking. And going down the ramp was a hell of a lot harder than going up it, but he’d stick with it until it was second nature.

  He’d long passed his designated time slot for therapy, and Mary’s next patient—a sweet elderly woman recovering from hip surgery—had already arrived. But neither Keith nor Mary sent him packing. Chad wanted to try everything in one day.

  “You’re going to wear yourself out,” Keith said.

  “I’m in great shape,” Chad said. He’d been out-repping Owen in the gym for over a week now. “I can do this all day.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase that,” Keith said. “You’re going to wear Mary out.”

  “I’m good,” she said, her hands on Chad’s hips to remind him to align them properly as he walked forward with his hands on her shoulders and she walked backward, watching each step he took with the attention of the skilled professional that she was. “I’ve been waiting for this day for weeks.”

  “Okay, I’ll rephrase one more time,” Keith said. “You’ve already worn me out, Sergeant Mitchell. Let’s call it a day.”

  “If you need to get in better shape, you should come to the gym with me and my brother.”

  “I’d never keep up with you.”

  Chad smiled, remembering Lindsey telling him something similar. “But you could try.”

  Before he left, he was given a cane to use if he needed it, but he planned to leave it in the trunk of the car. If he fell, he’d get up. If he stumbled, he’d figure out his error and correct any shortcomings. He refused to take a step back. He would only move forward from here on out.

  When he pulled up into the driveway, Lindsey and Mom were digging in the dirt in front of the house. Pots of red columbine, purple verbena and sage, and several s
pecies of plants he didn’t recognize had been set out in a pleasing arrangement awaiting placement in the ground.

  “Dear lord, Lindsey,” Mom said, not looking up as Chad stepped up behind them. “This is the sandiest, poorest soil I’ve ever dealt with in my life. We’ll be lucky if anything survives the night.”

  Lindsey didn’t respond. She’d spotted him standing without assistance on the uneven path that needed replacing. He wasn’t sure if he could walk on the lawn yet—though the patchy tufts of dried out grass couldn’t be called turf by any definition.

  “You’re walking,” Lindsey squeaked. “I thought you were just trying it on today.”

  He grinned. “You should know me better than that by now.”

  Mom looked over her shoulder and dropped her trowel. Her silly wide-brimmed hat and the dirt on her cheek warmed him from the inside out. Being the more agile of the two women he loved more than life, Mom hopped to her feet and nearly knocked him over in her enthusiasm to hug him.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, tears streaming down both cheeks. “This is a wonderful surprise.”

  He squeezed her just as hard as she was squeezing him.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “But I’ve always been proud of you.”

  He met Lindsey’s gaze over his mom’s shoulder. She was crying for him again, but this time he was sure they were happy tears.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Mom pulled away and cupped his face in both hands, searching his eyes. “So,” she said, “when were you planning to tell me you broke up with Josie?”

  His jaw went slack, his eyes seeking out Lindsey. Had she told his mother his business?

  “I didn’t tell her,” Lindsey said.

  “I’m not ignorant,” Mom said. “It’s completely obvious. I haven’t seen her with you once since you’ve been home, and the two of you used to be inseparable. And when I waved at her at the store the other day, she dashed outside, leaving a cartful of groceries right there in the aisle. And apparently Lindsey is living with you now, which would be completely inappropriate for a man engaged to another woman.”

  It wouldn’t be inappropriate if he and Lindsey were just roommates, but that wasn’t the case.

  “She called off the engagement while I was in Afghanistan,” he said, not wanting his mother to be distressed over his broken heart—which, truthfully, hadn’t stayed that way long.

  “Liar!” Lindsey bellowed. “She dumped you at the fucking hospital in San Antonio.”

  “You owe the swear jar a dollar for that one, Lindsey,” Mom said, ever the cuss-word vigilante. “And you owe me an explanation, young man.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. “And don’t you dare tell me it isn’t any of my business.”

  So much for his dream greeting of sweeping Lindsey up into his arms and kissing her senseless. “You know Josie didn’t want me to join the military.”

  “You’re not in the military any longer.”

  “We drifted apart while I was away.” Well, she’d drifted from him. He’d been utterly clueless how far she’d wandered.

  “If that’s what you want to call what she did,” Lindsey said, crossing her arms over her chest—a mirror of his mother.

  “I guess I’ll call her and ask her what happened myself,” Mom said.

  “God, don’t do that, Mom. Let her live in peace. I don’t care that she dumped me, to be honest. I’m interested in building a life with someone else now, and if I was still with Josie, I might not have realized it.”

  Mom focused on Lindsey. “So, when were you going to tell me that you’re dating my son?”

  Lindsey licked her lips and avoided her gaze. “I didn’t think he wanted you to know.”

  He hadn’t, but only because he didn’t want to talk about the Josie situation. He supposed that made him a coward.

  “Are you two serious about each other, then?” Mom looked from Chad to Lindsey and back again.

  “Heading that way,” Chad said, his gaze locked with Lindsey’s. They never talked much about their future together. They discussed her future a little, and his future even less, but never their future, and he wasn’t sure if she wanted a permanent relationship with him. He hoped she didn’t leave him behind as soon as she got her life back on track, but he wanted her to be happy and for Daisy to grow up in a loving home. He wanted to provide that home for the both of them, but he’d never put that desire into words, because he didn’t have a clear impression of how Lindsey would respond to the idea, and he wasn’t sure he could take another emotional blow at this point in his life. Once she knew how he felt, she might feel obligated to leave before he got too attached, so it just seemed safer to keep his good emotions locked inside alongside the bad.

  “Well, get serious faster,” Mom said with a grin. “My grandbaby’s due any minute.”

  “I still have a month!” Lindsey protested.

  “The time will fly by,” Chad said.

  “Easy for you to say. You aren’t lumbering around in this heat from hell.”

  “That’s why you stay indoors until the sun starts to go down,” he told her. “Speaking of sunsets, would you like to go for a walk with me this evening?”

  “Depends,” she said.

  Huh? He was dying to show off his new leg to the entire neighborhood, and the park a few blocks away had great sunset views. He thought she’d be excited to accompany him. “Depends on what?”

  “Will you hold my hand?”

  He’d be able to hold it for the first time because they could walk side by side and his hands wouldn’t be occupied with chair wheels or crutches, and the cane was still in the trunk where he planned to leave it indefinitely. “Of course I’ll hold your hand.”

  “Then, yes, I would love to walk with you.” She beamed at him, and his heart fluttered in his chest.

  “This is getting serious,” Mom said. She patted his face. “Are your father and I invited over for dinner tonight?”

  “You’re family. You have a standing invitation,” Chad said.

  “I’ll need to go to the store to get something to cook,” Lindsey said, pulling off her gardening gloves.

  “Don’t worry about that, honey,” Mom said. “James can pick up dinner for us all on his way home from work. We need to celebrate Chad’s new leg.” She turned her attention to Chad. “Where’s your brother? He should see this.”

  “He’s not in the house?”

  Mom shook her head.

  “Caitlyn must be home from her business trip.” Chad was just guessing; Owen hadn’t mentioned anything about her return.

  “Then she should join us too,” Mom said. “And I’ll call Kellen and invite him. You know, we should have a bigger family get-together soon. Bring in all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. They haven’t visited Austin for a while, and I’m sure they’d all be happy to see you. We can make it a huge welcome home party—you have no excuse now that you’re walking—and—”

  “Mom.” Chad interrupted his mother’s planning. She loved throwing family get-togethers. “I don’t think you should invite Kellen tonight.”

  “Why wouldn’t I invite Kellen?”

  Lindsey rested a hand on his forearm. “I think he’s still in Prague with his new girlfriend. Or maybe they’re in Venice now.”

  “Oh, she’s lovely, isn’t she?” Mom asked. “I met her at the engagement party that ended with my son being arrested.” Mom scowled. “When’s his court date again?”

  “Next month, I think,” Chad said.

  He took Lindsey’s hand and squeezed it—a silent thanks for getting him off the hook for refusing to invite Kellen to dinner. Finding out that Owen had been hiding a falling-out with Kellen on the same day she learned of Chad’s broken engagement would likely upset his mom. She honestly thought her sons told her everything.

  “I know you’re an only child,” Mom said to Lindsey as she wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the house, “but do you ha
ve cousins? Aunts? Uncles? Grandparents? Do they all live in Idaho? Or is planning a family get-together a major chore like it is for our family?”

  “Um . . .” Lindsey waved a hand. “I don’t have much family. Just my parents, and one aunt who lives in New Zealand. She doesn’t have any kids.”

  “I’d love to visit New Zealand,” Mom said, and then she started in on what Chad had been waiting for, her real questions. “So you honestly have no contact with your folks? I can’t believe they’d be willing to give you up, much less their first grandchild. Unless they’re on drugs or something. Are they on drugs?”

  Lindsey laughed. “Uh, no. They’re so straight, arrows are jealous.”

  “Have they been committed to an institution for insanity?”

  “Nope.”

  “Jail. They’re both in jail. Who did they kill?”

  “No one. They’re as normal as they come.”

  Mom shook her head. “Normal? What’s normal about abandoning your only daughter?”

  “Jeez, Mom,” Chad protested. “Give her a break.”

  Mom waved behind her back to shush him.

  “So, the whole out-of-wedlock thing truly bothers them?” Mom asked.

  “Not exactly,” Lindsey said, twisting her hands in the fabric of her billowy blue maternity dress. “The whole ‘my daughter belongs on Jerry Springer’ is what bothers them.”

  “Maybe they’ll change their minds once the baby is born. Who can resist a baby?” Mom scrunched her shoulders and squealed like a teenage groupie.

  “I can only hope,” Lindsey said as she grabbed the porch railing to haul herself up the steps.

  Chad shook his head at the embarrassment his mother could be and walked after his two favorite women on his own two legs.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took Lindsey two weeks to find the courage to call Adam.

  She sat at the newly installed kitchen island and tapped into her phone the number Owen had given her. She doubted Adam would even answer, so when he did pick up, saying, “Do I know you?” she dropped her phone on the speckled granite countertop.