Second Chance Dad

by Roxanne Rustand

  Olivia and Keeley wandered from the back room, where they’d had their book club meeting. Olivia lifted an eyebrow. “You must be talking about Beth’s mom,” she said. “She’ll sure add some zest to Aspen Creek if she comes back. I hear she’s talking to a Realtor about an empty storefront on Main for an art gallery.”

  “True…” Beth glanced between her friends, a smile tugging at her mouth and her eyes shining. “She does hope to relocate here. But there’s another reason it will be nice to have her back.”

  Keeley’s mouth fell open. “Don’t tell me. You and Devlin? Really?”

  Beth nodded. “We’ve set a date. September fourth.”

  Amid squeals of delight, the four women rushed together for an embrace.

  “This is just so wonderful,” Olivia murmured. “Seeing you two together is like stepping back in time.”

  “Do you ever wish you two wouldn’t have split up?”

  Beth tucked a stray wisp of her mahogany hair behind her ear. “I wish our marriage would’ve worked the first time. That we wouldn’t have wasted all that time being apart, and that we could’ve been spared the pain of our divorce. But now…it’s different. Deeper, somehow. Maybe we’re just more mature.”

  “Well, I’m really glad that Devlin decided to move back here, so we won’t lose you after you get married.” Keeley’s eyes widened. “That’s true, isn’t it? You two will be staying here?”

  “He’s out of the military for good. And, lucky for me, he found he loves owning a business here. He thinks the high adventure merchandise is fun, and customers have been building steadily since he opened.”

  “Lucky for us, too.” Olivia smiled. “Now we just have to make sure Sophie’s job turns into a permanent position so she can say in town, too, and then our little book club can go on and on forever.”

  At the reminder, Sophie’s stomach did a little flip flop.

  Yesterday, Dr. McLaren had finally agreed to start physical therapy. He was on her schedule at four-thirty on Monday. But with a whole weekend to think about it, would he even let her into his house?

  “I hope that happens. But if you’ve got an extra moment now and then, you might want to say a little prayer. I’ve got a couple of clients who aren’t all that compliant, and one who definitely doesn’t want to see me at all. If I fail…”

  “Well, you’re on my prayer list now, and those clients are, too,” Olivia said firmly.

  “Mine, as well. Absolutely.” Keeley frowned. “Can you…um…share their names?”

  Sophie shook her head. “Privacy issues.”

  “Well, they’re obviously people who need help and just don’t realize it.” Olivia pulled a small notebook from her purse and jotted a reminder to herself. “God will know who they are.”

  “You’re here,” Josh said glumly, eyeing the persistent pixie standing outside his door with a duffel bag at her side.

  She grinned up at him, then let herself in, dropped the obviously heavy bag on the floor by the sofa, and began pulling out the contents.

  A metal flip chart, probably detailing his injuries, surgical reports, lack of cooperation, and the data on his humiliating failure to show progress.

  A plastic goniometer—a hinged measurement apparatus for measuring angles of joint flexibility.

  Assorted physical therapy exercise devices, all of which he’d seen before. None of which had done a lick of good.

  He felt his heart hardening all over again. But still, he’d given his word.

  She glanced around, strode over to the old-fashioned, oak claw-foot table in the dining area at the far end of the room and pulled out a spindle back chair. “This will work fine. Have a seat.”

  He made his way across the room, leaning heavily on his cane while trying not to limp. Her gentle smile and the way she stood ready to provide support made him feel like an old man. “I can get around, you know. I’m not exactly an invalid.”

  “Of course not. But you could get around a whole lot better, and I’m here to help you make that happen.” She pulled up another chair, sat in front of him and flipped open the metal cover of the chart. “I just have a few questions and then we’ll get started with a physical assessment.”

  “My health history hasn’t changed since the last time a therapist was out here,” he drawled. He leaned forward and glanced at the upside-down list of questions on the sheet. “Just draw a downward arrow through the ‘No’ column there, and you’ll save us both some time.”

  She gave him a dry look.

  “I’m serious. No chronic diseases or conditions. No meds other than a baby aspirin. No changes, no complaints, no problems concerning any systems you could name.”

  “Then tell me what your goals are for your physical therapy.”

  He’d been ready for an argument over her questionnaire, and the abrupt change of topic felt like a punch below the belt. “I…don’t have any.”

  “Let me put it a different way. Where do you want to be in a year?”

  “Right here.”

  “So it would be safe to write up a report saying that you wish to remain in an isolated cabin with chronic pain. Limited ambulation. Weakness. An inability to return to a productive life.”

  Her smile softened her words, but he knew she was intentionally baiting him. He didn’t respond.

  “Very well,” she continued. “Those are lofty goals, but I’m sure you can easily achieve every one of them.”

  She slipped out of her chair and knelt in front of his chair, then measured the angle of his knee flexion as he lifted, bent, extended and lowered each leg.

  His first impulse was to launch to his feet and flatly refuse this exercise in futility, yet her gentle touch and matter-of-fact, coolly professional manner gradually put him at ease. Which was just as well.

  What an abrupt departure attempt would earn him didn’t take much conjecture—he’d probably end up taking a header straight to the floor. Again.

  After sending him to the couch where she continued her assessments and documentation, she watched him stand and ambulate across the room and back.

  He’d started to almost enjoy their verbal sparring, but as she continued her assessment of his range of motion and strength, the light moment faded. Who was he kidding?

  One bad thing about being in the medical profession was that one knew too much to believe in false hopes and platitudes. He could recite the morphology and physiological details of every nerve and muscle she was evaluating. And he knew how badly they’d been damaged. How little hope there was—

  “Dr. McLaren,” Sophie repeated, a little louder this time. She waited until he looked up and met her gaze. “Here’s the deal. Grace Dearborn got new orders for your therapy, since there’s been such a long lull after you were last seen. It’s still an ‘eval and treat,’ which places the modes of therapy in my court.”

  He shrugged slightly.

  “I’m focusing right now on your knee. Sitting on a chair in a normal, upright position with feet flat on the floor requires a ninety-degree angle of the knee joint. Typically, people want to achieve a minimum of a hundred-twenty degrees of flexion—being able to bend the knee much more—for ease at climbing stairs. Your injured knee is at just around seventy-five. Which means your joint isn’t bending well at all.”

  He nodded.

  She glanced toward the front door, which led to a covered front porch and just a slight step off onto the gravel. “You don’t seem to have many steps to worry about here, but what about when you’re in town?”

  “I manage.”

  “But not well.”

  He tipped his head, silently conceding the point. And how could he not? She’d seen what happened in the grocery store.

  “You have a great deal of scar tissue, from the surgical repair as well as the injury itself. You also have contraction of the tendons in a situation like yours, so it becomes painful to even try to extend and flex the leg more fully.” He nodded.

  “We sometimes send patients in
to the hospital for anesthesia, so a doctor can manipulate and loosen those tight tendons and the inflamed knots of scar tissue without the patient feeling pain while it’s being done. But now…well, this has all gone on for too much time, so the doctor hasn’t given an order for that. We’ll need to take a different approach.” She eyed him patiently. “Any questions?”

  “So you’re planning some sort of Marquis de Sade therapy.”

  “Strengthening exercises on your own. Deep massage. And yes, it may be uncomfortable. But, the better you hold up your part of the bargain with the exercises you do here at home, and the more regular your PT appointment are, the better it will be.”

  “Great.”

  “Have you been given a portable TENS unit before? It’s about the size of an iPod or a Walkman that fits in a pocket or hangs from a belt, with wires leading to patches placed in the most painful of areas. A mild electric pulse stimulates endorphins in the brain and over-rides your own pain signals. It sort of tells the brain to accept a good signal instead of the ones that arise from chronic pain.” He shrugged.

  “Look, I know you do know all of this,” she said.

  Her voice was warm and compassionate, though as always, there was also an underlying thread of steel beneath her words that surprised him, given her young age. She looked as if she might be just nineteen or twenty, though with the years of college needed for a degree in physical therapy, she had to be in her early to mid-twenties.

  “I know you could describe all of this in far more technical detail than I’m using now,” she continued. “You’ve probably even prescribed these units to patients. But when it comes to yourself, maybe you haven’t been…willing to think about the possibilities.”

  Unwilling.

  Undeserving.

  Unable, maybe, given the enormous guilt and sorrow that had settled over his days like a blanket of suffocating impenetrable smog.

  But the hint of censure and challenge in her eyes belied her tactful words, and he realized that she thought he was sitting alone in this cabin, choosing to wallow in self-pity and apathy.

  But that wasn’t it at all.

  He stirred uncomfortably under her steady gaze, unaccountably caring about her opinion and wanting to prove her wrong.

  “I’ll do fine without a TENS.”

  “But—”

  “Thanks, but no.”

  “Okay. If you change your mind, let me know. I can bring one out, and most insurance plans will cover it, so you needn’t worry about that.”

  Given the stark, barren cabin, hardly upscale, and the old Jeep Cherokee parked by the shed, she probably thought money was an issue.

  Which was, come to think of it, a refreshing change from the usual expectations associated with his profession.

  “Are we done for today?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You wish. I need you back on the sofa so I can do fifteen minutes of deep tissue massage of your leg, then I’ll go over your first set of exercises to make sure you can do them.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said drily.

  A hint of a smile twinkled in her eyes. “You actually get to enjoy my company for another twenty-five minutes.”

  His first inward response was…enjoy? Yeah, right. The second blindsided him—that he was going to be sorry when she left.

  He already knew her efforts weren’t going to make much difference in his physical limitations. She was just too inexperienced to realize that just yet.

  Still, the thought of her coming back on Wednesday to brighten up the cabin with her irrepressible air of energy was already lifting his heart—not that he was attracted to her on a personal level.

  After the way his wife died, those days were long gone for him.

  But maybe physical therapy wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  Chapter Five

  At McLaren’s first real appointment, Sophie had managed to complete his assessment and provide some deep massage to the painful knots of scar tissue in his leg.

  The man had been civil, silent during that initial, painful procedure, but she knew what that silence had cost him in the way his face had blanched and jaw tensed.

  Now, as she knocked again on his front door, a single woof sounded inside, and she wondered if he was going to barricade himself inside with Bear and refuse to see her. Surely not. “Dr. McLaren, are you in there?”

  The heavy wood door screeched open and he stood before her, his face pale and drawn, with Bear at his side. Past them, she could see stacks of folders and an open laptop on his round oak kitchen table.

  “Looks like you’re busy,” she said brightly, offering a big smile as she gave Bear a dog biscuit. “I’ll be out of your way in an hour.”

  “And I can only imagine how much fun that hour will be.” He sighed heavily. “Come on in.”

  “You won’t be sorry, you know. You’re going to thank me a thousand times over when you’re dancing down the middle of Main Street because you feel so much better.”

  He snorted. “My dancing days are long over, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” She bit her lower lip as she watched him laboriously turn and head for the chair by the sofa. “You look a lot more uncomfortable today.”

  “No kidding.”

  “You’ve been doing your exercises.”

  That earned another snort. “And they are helping so much. Can’t you tell?”

  “Yes, I can.” She knew the deep massage alone had been painful for him, though he’d suffered in silence. But as a physician, he had to know on an intellectual level how and why persistence would pay good dividends.

  But living here all alone in this dark and silent cabin, struggling with pain and impaired mobility, had to make the days seem long.

  She dropped her duffel on the floor and sorted through the equipment inside. “I want to measure your range of motion. Just relax and let me be the one to move your leg, all right?”

  He winced as she flexed and extended his injured leg, then wrote down each angle on her chart. “You understand that this would have been much easier if you’d had extensive therapy right away. More effective, too.”

  “I think you’ve mentioned it,” he said tersely. “Maybe a dozen times.”

  She rechecked her measurements.

  “But look here—you’ve got maybe fifteen degrees more this time. Look!” She held up the graph in his chart. “Isn’t that fantastic? Just think where you’ll be in a few months.”

  He glowered back at her. “What were you, a cheer-leader?”

  “You might as well be happy and excited about these things as not.” She started a deep massage of his leg. “Between your injuries and all the surgeries, you have a lot of dense scar tissue here—it’s like an angry knot of inflammation. My goal here—”

  He winced and took a deep breath.

  “You okay?”

  “Go on,” he muttered.

  She poured more lotion into her hand and continued her smooth, rhythmic massage, pressing deeper on the exact places that hurt. “My goal is to break down that scar tissue, so the muscles can remodel, and the exercises will help a great deal. How often are you doing them?”

  “Ten reps. Three times a day.”

  She paused and looked up at him. “You don’t need to push that hard now.” He shrugged.

  “And have you started using the ankle weights?”

  “Two pounders.”

  “No wonder you look like you’re in pain.” She rocked back on her heels. “One pound weights would be fine. You don’t want to injure yourself.”

  “I want to get done.”

  And have you out of my life were probably the words he didn’t say aloud.

  “So, tell me how you feel when you are doing those leg lifts. Could you, say, carry on a conversation? Because if it hurts too much to do that, then you need to slow down with this.”

  “Look, none of this is comfortable. And I know that, in the whole scheme of things, none of it is go
ing to make a big difference. But because of you, and Grace, and my sister, I’m giving it one last shot.”

  “A positive attitude is a big part of this, Dr. McLaren,” she said, blasting him with a big smile.

  Her smile warmed his heart and radiated through him like summer sunshine. He didn’t smile in return. “Just call me Josh. And my attitude is what it is. For good reason.”

  If she hadn’t seen the pain and sorrow flash in his eyes, she would have marked him off as just one more grumpy man in her life. But there was much more to him than that. She could feel it.

  And she’d heard it, in the gentle way he talked to his beloved dog, and in the rare hints of wistfulness in his voice. What had he been like, before his accident?

  A caring, romantic guy, maybe. Loving toward his family. The kind of husband every woman hoped to find, yet here he was, his life wasting away.

  Someone you could fall for, a small voice whispered to her heart. And it wouldn’t be anything like that simple, pleasant friendship you had with Rob.

  Whether he liked it or not, he was going to get better, and by the time she was finished with him, he was going to be happy about it.

  Or else.

  Josh scowled as he sat down to do another rep of his leg lift exercises. Chipper, talkative, happy people made him feel depressed and exhausted.

  Chipper, talkative, happy people who wanted him to be the same as them had no idea what it was like to be consumed with guilt and grief, with no way to ever make things right again.

  They made him want to punch a fist through a wall…though given the heavy log construction of the cabin, that would be a stupid thing to do. It would mean more medical care. More disability. And more physical therapy—the last thing he wanted.

  Still…despite everything, he did seem to be doing a little better.

  Sophie had been thrilled over an increase of just fifteen degrees in his joint movement last week. She’d been positively ecstatic about the modest improvement today.

  And, unbelievably, the new exercises and deep massage for the chronic pain in his lumbar vertebrae were actually starting to make a difference. Not much. But he’d expected no change at all, and last night he’d been able to sleep comfortably without any painkillers.