Shane ( Horse Whisperer Novel Book 2)

by Carol Devine

  He had to go slowly for once. He had to stay smart, protect his long-range health and manage his short-range strength, using it for recovery rather than waste it on worrying about the many things of which he had little control.

  He made progress. Slow progress. Agonizingly slow, for him. All his life, athleticism and physicality were what he depended on in his natural state, ready to be tapped at a fraction of a second. Being a blur in motion was like breathing to him.

  Six weeks in and he still had a walker by his bedside and a second one at the bottom of the stairs. He couldn't even pick it up and carry it up and down, he was that weak.

  To have Mariah see him weakened to such an extent was torturous. He didn't know how she stayed cheerful, as though having her husband home was a dream come true. She had all this extra work, yet she acted like taking care of him was a no-holds-barred wonderful thing. Rather than depend on hired help, she claimed she'd rather administer to him herself than deal with what she called the bane of her existence: home health care workers.

  She learned how to care for him properly, to handle everything including the worst of the chores. The only thing she couldn't do was the professional therapeutics involved in his recovery. It was his job, she said, to follow and complete the continuously changing program of exercises and goals of his occupational and physical therapies. He was in charge of his rehab, and if he proved ready, it advanced progressively every week.

  Thank God there was something she didn't know how to do. Thank God she stayed away when the therapy people came to the door. It was humiliating to bring a glass of water to his lips and have it fall out of his fingers because it was too heavy.

  His right leg had been broken in several places. The stitches had been removed from the various rods, metal plates and surgeries needed to save it. It was far from healed, however. He struggled to put half his weight on it. Bending at his hip and knee proved nearly impossible because his stiff muscles were atrophied from the coma.

  He'd stand on the bathroom scale and see the readout saying he weighed sixty pounds less than what he'd weighed every day for the last twenty years. He'd stare at the numbers, disbelieving, like he stared at himself in the mirror, unable to recognize his shrunken body and hunched and wasted frame. He looked eighty, not forty.

  The self-loathing shot straight to the gut, to his core, to what he believed a man should be: able to hug his wife for more than a few seconds, or heft his child high enough to sit her on his lap. It was a good thing Cassie liked to climb. She was getting more practice scaling him than the far more natural scaling of the household stairs.

  There were times he wished Mariah would complain, complain about the endlessness of the endless daily tasks she performed for him. Bathing, shaving, watching him pee while he sat on the toilet. He couldn't stand up on his bad leg long enough to complete the task. When he tried the conventional way, he'd make more mess for her to clean up.

  Instead of complaining, she teased him and made light of the disgusting things she had to do. He was little better than an infant yet she treated him like a man, daring him to order her around. She pretended to worship his big hairy body and his manly smells, doing more to his private parts than simply washing and drying them, to see if they were, in her words, in good working order.

  He did react, slowly but surely. His body could do that much if she made it quick. But since he couldn't return the favor, having her play around with him held no joy. He needed to be well enough to begin and end the process without leaving her high and dry.

  She tried cuddling with him in their big bed at night. His lower back muscles rebelled, refusing to relax, except in one position and one position only: where his head and shoulders were raised, similar to the position he'd gotten used to being in while hospitalized. Even the extra weight of her hand on his arm was difficult for him to bear. He wanted to hold her against his chest but his back couldn't even handle that.

  She finally moved to the baby's room, a temporary sleep arrangement, she said, important because she needed her rest the same way he needed his.

  He was glad, glad to be left alone. He didn't like feeling the heat of her body, either, despite loving that body and being attracted to it even now, from afar. Before the accident, she'd been the one with the freezing cold hands and feet, always needing him to warm her up. It was stupid of him, but he missed doing that for her, missed the smugness he felt at being the big furnace she loved. These days, he was always cold, needing extra blankets and sweatshirts. Simple body heat was one more thing on the list of the many things he'd taken for granted.

  More muscle was what he needed, layers upon layers from shoulders to arms, from chest to groin, from thighs to calves to ankles. Muscles came from exercise and protein. Mariah planned his meals, helped by the dietician and nutritionist. She made sure he always had snacks on hand, healthy protein-laden shakes and snacks. They made him want to vomit, they tasted so bad.

  The only good part was ridding himself of the pain pills. The therapists and doctors said he needed to experience pain in order to gauge if he was pushing himself too hard. He set his mind to working it out, of balancing effort with comfort levels. Before the accident, he'd never cared much about comfort levels.

  That was his life now, stuck between conserving his strength and testing the limits, keeping it in the middle range, a range which had never satisfied him and still didn't, not in the least.

  Today's physical therapy had gone well, which meant the little bit they'd done had wearied him to the point where he couldn't keep his eyes open. It was barely seven p.m. and he was in bed, fighting immediate sleep, trying to stay awake long enough to make it past Cassie's bedtime and Mariah's subsequent arrival to kiss him goodnight.

  He was adamant about staying awake for that, not so much because he enjoyed it, but because it seemed completely unnatural for a grown man to fall asleep before his baby daughter did at bedtime. That was one humiliation he refused to bear.

  Five minutes late, Mariah knocked, entered their bedroom and quietly shut the door. He managed to open his eyes before she approached, pretending he'd been awake the whole time, going so far as to have his phone on and in his lap like he was actually using it, listening to music or surfing the web.

  "Is she asleep?" he asked.

  "Like the little beauty she is. I swear, how did we get such cuteness out of our combined gene pools? It doesn't seem possible."

  He passed on the invitation to make some silly comment, his energy sapped to the point where the only thing he could do was kick up one side of his mouth in some semblance of a smile. Even that took concentration on his part.

  "I'm real tired," he said. "Give me a kiss so I can go to sleep."

  She plumped his pillow, tucked another blanket around his legs. "It used to take more than a kiss to make you sleep. No pressure, but are you sure it's all you want?"

  "Yes."

  He hoped the one syllable answer would lead to the high point of his day, the kissing part, followed by the low point, when he ended it, reminding her how important rest was to his recovery.

  She sat on the bed next to him and clasped his hand like she usually did, as if holding his hand actually made up for the paltry amount of attention he gave her.

  She kissed his cheek, spoke against it. "Tomorrow you'll be less grouchy."

  "I'm tired, Mariah."

  "Whatever you say, dear."

  She rubbed her cheek along his jaw like old times, using one of his favorite kisses to make him feel bad. Course she didn't know cheek to jaw was his favorite. He often told her it took too long, wasted time and breath. But she said she needed that kind of kiss sometimes, to make it last through the night.

  That was a woman for you. Didn't make a lick of sense for a five second kiss to create more than a momentary glow, but that was Mariah.

  Her cheeks seemed to like his jaw tonight, rubbing both sides. "I'm proud of myself," she announced, straightening.

  He took the bait, curious. "Why
?"

  "My shaving skills have reached the pinnacle of perfection. Your beard doesn't feel scratchy tonight."

  He snorted. "Get to the kiss."

  "Tonight, I especially need it to last through the night. I'm lonely sleeping in Cassie's room."

  "Sleeping alone keeps me from waking you and you from waking me."

  "I know how important uninterrupted sleep is to your recovery. I'm whining 'cause I'm tired, too." She kissed both of his cheeks and then his mouth. Briefly, thank God. "Good night, Shane. I love you."

  "I love you, too."

  "Is there anything else you need? You look like… like… "

  "What?"

  "Like you might want to talk."

  "I'm too weak to talk."

  "Good," she said teasingly. "No talking. Don't move any muscles. Lie there like, I don't know, a hamburger."

  "Time for quiet, Mariah."

  "I just want to lie down next to you for a few minutes. Is that okay?"

  Rather than answer, he kept silent, eyes closed, ashamed of the annoyance flaring inside him. She didn't seem to understand how important it was to save his strength for the physical therapy session scheduled in the morning. Usually his therapists came in the afternoons, giving him time to gird himself. But there was a change in the schedule.

  "I understand you're too weak to do anything more than lie there. You have my permission to fall asleep. In fact, I encourage it."

  He relented without opening his eyes. "That's all I'm good for."

  "I'll stay for just a short time, I promise."

  He forced himself to relax. Talking tensed him up. Conserving his strength was his goal. He heard some rustling around as she changed into her pajamas. Soon, he felt enough of the bedcovers move to realize she was turning down her side of the bed.

  "I have a hard time relaxing when you're under the covers," he said, focused on keeping his eyes closed.

  "I'm a little cold."

  "Can you use the afghan? I left it on the chair."

  "You're right. That's a nice weight and it's warm. I'll just lay on top of the bedspread with the afghan on. I promise I won't touch you. I just want to be comfortable, know you're next to me even though we're not sleeping together. Then I'll move into the baby's room like usual."

  More rustling as she adjusted her pillow and sat on the bed. He peeked to see if he could figure out what her game was, but she was braiding her hair like she usually did before bed. She was wearing one of his old undershirts as a sleep shirt, clearly interested in being comfortable. Maybe she really was cold.

  "Let me know if this noise bothers you," she said.

  "What noise?" he muttered.

  "It's like white noise. I need it to relax. Can you hear it?"

  "Barely." It was a slight whirring noise, like a small fan or humidifier.

  "I think it's soothing myself. Like Cassie's sleep machine."

  He felt rather than heard her lay down. She tucked her pillow near the headboard. Then it got quiet. Except for the whirring noise which he could barely hear.

  Maybe she would lie close enough to feel her weight on the bed, hear her breathe. That might be nice.

  Real nice.

  He relaxed even more, using the meditations he'd been taught to help focus his mind on one thing. Peace.

  She caught her breath, interrupting his peace. Then she sighed, a rather peaceful sigh, he had to admit. He sighed, too, reminding himself how important breathing was while meditating. It helped speed healing; balance his mind and center his body, focus it on getting well.

  The whirring sound got louder, picking up speed, like an electric fan being turned up a notch. He opened his eyes, irritated. He spied Mariah on her back, eyes shut but squinting, like she was concentrating. The afghan stretched to her chin. Her head rested on the pillow like she was reading a book but there was no book on her lap.

  "What are you doing?" he grumbled.

  "Shhh. Go back to sleep."

  "I'm meditating. Whatever that noise is, it's bothering me."

  "It's my vibrator," she gasped. "I'm almost finished."

  He jumped out of bed but he was so weak, he slid sideways instead, barely moving. "Jesus Christ, Mariah. Do you have to do that here?"

  She writhed rather than answer and her breath jerked, underscored by a hushed, very long moan. He knew what was happening, knew her so well, he recognized the exact moment her orgasm started. He recognized her way of lengthening the apex of it, making it last as long as possible.

  He wanted to yell at her; wished he could yell at her. He inwardly cursed instead and waited for her to finish. He wasn't going to waste precious breath on someone who couldn't hear.

  She finally stopped moaning, stopped breathing hard. She recovered, put the vibrator aside and sat up. The afghan slipped to her waist, pooling around her. She smoothed the hem of the t-shirt so it stayed below her hips. He hadn't been able to see much of her body at all because of that damned t-shirt.

  "I can't believe you did that."

  "Would you rather me do it in the baby's room?"

  "No! Find someplace private. We have a guest room."

  "My equipment is in here."

  "Do you know what it's like to lay here and watch you do that?"

  "You saw me? I kept myself covered up."

  "I heard you!"

  "Sorry. I tried to be quiet. I thought you'd appreciate how much quieter I was than usual."

  "Are you done?"

  She bit her lip, squared her shoulders, looking hopeful. "I'd like to have one more if I may. It's been awhile."

  "No!" he roared.

  She jumped to put everything away. "Sorry. Didn't mean to disturb. Let me get my robe. I'll be downstairs. See you in the morning."

  She slipped out of the room before he had the chance to yell some more, shaking his fist at the ceiling. He fumed instead, worming his way back into the comfortable position he had previously achieved.

  She'd rumpled the blankets and sheets on her side of the bed, however. The afghan and pillow she had moved in her haste to escape prevented him from smoothing the bedclothes out.

  Muttering and cursing, he stretched sideways. It made his back and hips ache. He managed to snag a corner, slide her pillow to where it belonged, stuffing it close to the headboard. There was an indent in the bedspread where she had been lying. He tried not to remember what she had looked like in the brief moment he had spied on her.

  Straightening the blanket, he folded it across his chest and smoothed away the wrinkles. Centered on her side was a tiny wet spot.

  His anger spiked, seeing it. She'd left evidence behind, evidence that prevented him from being able to forget what she'd done. It was plain selfishness to do that in front of him when he could do nothing about it. He didn't even have the ability to get himself off. That angered him, too.

  He stared at that spot and his anger grew. How could she? It was a deliberate act, a slap in the face as far as he was concerned. He wouldn't have done that in front of her, pleasuring himself while telling her to drift off to sleep under the soothing sounds of the groaning that happened when he came.

  He glared at that spot. If he'd had the ability, he'd make a much bigger spot for her to clean up. It would truly be horrible. Before it went in the laundry, she'd have to spray it with the wash n' spray stuff, really saturate the stain if she wanted it out.

  Her little spot was drying. He could barely see it any more. He lifted his head as high as he could for a better view. It truly had disappeared. He wiped it with his fingers to see if he could feel anything. He was right, though. It was dry.

  He turned his hand over and studied his fingers. They looked the same as they always did, pretty normal for a horseman and a cattleman, some of the knuckles bent more than others from decades of large animal care. But the pads of his fingers were what he was most interested in, the pads that had come in contact with the tiny bit of herself she had left behind.

  It took courage to bring those fing
ers to his nose. He sniffed them and closed his eyes as he started, already registering the scent of her insides, a scent he'd encountered and enjoyed many times before. He'd tasted it. Drank of it, if the truth be known. He loved her. He loved everything about her.

  Most of all, he missed her here in their bed.

  Pressure built behind his eyes, burning and wet. He grabbed her pillow and held it to his face, muffling his cries. Her scent was there, too, the scent of her hair, her shampoo, her soap and her skin.

  He cried because he wanted her back. He wanted to take back the no he yelled, return time to the moment when the whirring sound came into his consciousness. Except this time, he'd be aware of her activities from the very beginning. He would sit back and watch her as helplessly as he had done before, only now he would enjoy it. Witnessing her pleasure made him happy. She became alive in the experience, alive in ways she couldn't be anywhere else. And he had pretended to be disgusted by it.

  Now his disgust was real. He was disgusted with himself.

  He wished he had the wherewithal to go to her and carry her back to their bed. He'd show her how sorry he was. Since he didn't have the wherewithal, he punished himself by thinking what a dumb fuck he was.

  Unfortunately, as his thoughts often did these days, they darted elsewhere. They set up shop in the store of sensual memories of the love he had made with her in the time they had lived together. Except it had been love from the beginning, from the moment she accused him of scaring her and stripping her and making her ride on his horse with him.

  How could he blame her for how weak he'd become? She was his strength, the greatest source of inspiration and motivation he possessed. Even Cassie, bundle of bright and unconditional love that she was, didn't hold a candle to Mariah. Not when it came to lighting the fire that fueled him from within. She made him feel intensely loved, more than anything or anyone else.

  Exhausted, Shane fell asleep. He dreamed of fantasies and fate, bright colors in his mind, making him mumble and sigh and break out in slick sweats, some from fear, some from pain, the last from pleasure so intense, it woke him. Grunting and groaning, he tried to readjust his body and encountered a wet spot of his own making.