Her Favorite Temptation

by Mayberry, Sarah

  “Are you still on leave?” Audrey asked.

  “At the moment, yes.” Although she hoped to be very intensely busy in the near future. If Will accepted her offer.

  “I’ve got a meeting your way tomorrow afternoon. How do you feel about trying dinner again? Maybe somewhere a bit less cool and hip this time?” Audrey asked.

  “I would love that,” Leah said instantly, unable to hold back a smile.

  “Good,” Audrey said, and Leah knew, somehow, that her sister was smiling, too. “Any place uncool near you?”

  “So many it’s ridiculous.”

  “Why don’t I pick you up, and we can take it from there?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  She ended the call feeling better than she had all week. One thing had gone right for the day, at least. Her phone chimed before she could put it down, and when she touched through to messaging she saw she had a text from Will.

  Good book, Dr. Mathews. Thanks.

  He’d liked it. Thank God. She typed a message:

  Are you in? It’s hard work, but def. worth a shot.

  It took longer than usual for him to respond, then she remembered he was working one-handed with his left hand.

  What did Melissa say?

  Leah quickly composed a response.

  She agreed it would be hard work, but def. worth a shot.

  She watched the screen, waiting for his response.

  What do I need to do to make it happen?

  She started typing a long response, then deleted it and hit the button to dial Will’s number. This was not a text-message-appropriate conversation.

  “Dr. Mathews.”

  She loved the way he said her name. There was something so gentle and familiar, teasing in his tone. As though he liked her. A lot.

  God, she hoped that was true.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Keen to get out of here.”

  She sank onto the arm of the couch. “I need to ask you something. And you need to be honest, because C.I.M.T. is full-on, so if this doesn’t work for you, you need to say so, up front, and we can work out something else for you.”

  “Why do you sound nervous all of a sudden?”

  “Do I?”

  “You’re talking fast. You always talk fast when you’re nervous.”

  “I guess that’s because I am a little nervous.” She took a deep breath. “How would you feel if I was the one who helped you with the therapy?”

  There was a profound silence on the other end of the phone, and, like the doofus she was, she rushed to fill it.

  “The thing is, it’s apparently impossible to get a physiotherapist or occupational therapist who can drop everything and work with you full-time for two weeks straight, so they usually recruit a family member to take on the therapist’s role. But your family has got commitments up the you-who, while I’m killing time here before I start my course, so I figured, hey, that kind of works. But it has to work for you, too. That’s the most important thing. Obviously.”

  Finally she ran out of words, squeezing her eyes tightly shut while she waited for Will’s response.

  “Why would you want to do that?” he asked after a too-long silence.

  Because I love you.

  “Because I know how important your music is to you. And I want to help.”

  Another long silence. This time, she bit her lip to stop herself from filling it.

  “I’ll be honest, I don’t know how I feel about you seeing me like that.” Will’s voice sounded a little rusty. As though it had been hard for him to say the words.

  She sighed softly. Will had obviously read the Chapter closely. He understood that there would be a lot of frustration, a lot of fumbling and failure as he worked to retrain the part of his brain that controlled his right hand.

  “I don’t know what to say to help you get past that, except that I think we’d work well together. And I would be honored to be able to help you with this. You’ve been so good to me, Will. I’d like to return the favor.”

  He made an impatient sound.

  “You don’t believe me? I would never have had dinner with my sister if it hadn’t been for you. We’re catching up again tomorrow night, by the way. Thank you for that, too.”

  “Like I had anything to do with it.”

  “More than you will ever know,” Leah said quietly.

  Another long silence.

  “How long would it be for?” he asked.

  “Two weeks, give or take. Ten days on, four days off, six hours a day.” Although she would be happy to work longer and harder if required. If he wanted to. If he needed to.

  He sighed. If he still had hair, she figured he’d be running his hands through it right now.

  “When would we start?” he asked, and she knew she had him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WILL WENT HOME the next day, leaving the hospital via a service door to avoid the handful of photographers loitering near the main entrance. So nice to know that his small personal drama was fodder for the tabloids and entertainment for the masses. Really heartwarming.

  His father drove, his mother chatting almost endlessly during the two-hour trip. Will watched the world slide past the car window, surprised to feel a faint swell of panic now that he was free of the hospital’s bustling, antiseptic embrace. He was on his own—his doctor had done his bit, now it was up to Will to steer the remainder of his recovery.

  A pretty freaking daunting prospect, given how weak and unresponsive his hand was.

  Every time the panic threatened to swamp him, he reminded himself of the book Leah had given him and what she’d said.

  I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think this offered some hope.

  She was one of the smartest, most honest people he knew. He trusted her implicitly. If she believed he could regain the use of his hand, then he figured he had a chance.

  He drifted asleep somewhere outside of Geelong, lulled by the road noise, the warm car and the sound of his mother’s voice, and woke only when the car stopped in front of his house.

  He looked at its familiar white-painted facade and felt a fierce rush of gratitude. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how much comfort he’d denied himself by going to Melbourne.

  He caught his father watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “Good to be home?” his father asked quietly.

  “Yeah. Just a little.”

  He could smell something fragrant and fresh when he opened the front door. His gaze gravitated to the colorful bouquet of flowers occupying the mantel in the living room. Vanessa’s touch, he guessed, since she had the green thumb among them. The room was sparkling clean, the cushions freshly plumped, and a warm breeze flowed through the half-open windows.

  “Your sisters wanted it to be nice for you,” his mother explained as he took it all in.

  “Getting soft in their old age.”

  She smiled. “Something like that. Let’s get you unpacked before we think about lunch. Are you hungry? Izzy brought over some soup, or I could make you some sandwiches....”

  “Actually, I might check out the studio, if that’s okay,” he said.

  “Of course. You do what you want to do, darling.”

  He left his parents to bring his things in from the car, collecting the key to the studio from the drawer in the kitchen and letting himself out the stacking patio doors onto the deck. The lawn was freshly mown—thanks to Vanessa’s husband, Brian, no doubt—and he walked across the deep green grass to the studio he’d had built last year.

  The size of a double garage, it was clad with the same white-painted boards as the house. He let himself inside, inhaling the smell of new carpet. Amazing how long it lingered, even though the buil
ding had been completed and in use for nearly ten months now.

  His gaze took in the control booth and Mark’s kit in the corner before coming to rest on his guitars where they sat along one wall, each resting in its own stand. The Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster, the PRS 85 Tribute and the Taylor acoustic with the delicate mother-of-pearl inlay. Several thousand dollars’ worth, all told.

  If his hand didn’t improve, he would have to sell them all. Not because he needed the money—although that might become an issue eventually—but because there was no way he could bear to own so many beautiful guitars and not be able to play them.

  Whinge much, Jones? You want catering for that pity party you’re throwing yourself?

  In the early days after his diagnosis, he’d spent hours in online forums, reading accounts by tumor survivors. Anything to help him get some perspective on what was happening to him beyond what his neurosurgeon had told him. He’d read stories of miraculous recoveries—people walking and talking perfectly normally post-surgery, with no perceptible deficits whatsoever—and he’d read stories of enduring disability and discomfort. Everything from ongoing balance issues and persistent headaches to loss of sight, loss of sensation, loss of mobility.

  He’d quickly worked out for himself that the really bad cases weren’t posting their stories online. The people who’d lost the ability to think, to navigate their own way through the world. They were shepherded through their days by someone else. A caregiver, a family member.

  He’d been so terrified then, so not ready to die, he’d convinced himself that if he survived the operation, if he was still himself in the most essential sense afterward, he would be grateful and happy. That that would be enough. The important thing was to be alive, to not have a ferociously malignant tumor to deal with.

  It was amazing to him how quickly his initial gratitude and relief had been whittled away as the reality of his post-craniotomy life hit home. Apparently, he was greedy. Apparently, simply being alive and knowing who he was wasn’t enough for him.

  He wanted to be able to walk from room to room without having to concentrate on every single step. He wanted the easy, effortless confidence he’d once had in his own body. Most of all, he wanted his hand back. He wanted to play the guitar again. He wanted the hope that Leah had offered him to be real and not a mirage. He wanted it so badly, he was afraid to reach for it. To believe in it. And yet he couldn’t not hope, either.

  He was well aware that all of the above probably made him an ungrateful, self-indulgent whiner, but it didn’t change the way he felt. The frustration and fear, hope and dread, was all tangled up inside him. He felt the way he felt, whether it was attractive or not.

  It simply was.

  “You ready for some soup now?”

  He started, and his mother gave him an apologetic smile from the doorway.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

  “You need to take up whistling. Or maybe I should get you a collar with a bell.”

  “Just try it, smarty-pants. You coming in?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her gaze went to his guitars, but she didn’t say anything. Halfway across the lawn, her hand came to rest warmly in the center of his back.

  “Will. Phone for you,” his father called from the deck. “It’s Leah.”

  Will fought to keep his expression neutral as he walked the final few feet and took the handset from his father. He knew his parents were trying to work out what was going on between him and Leah, but he so didn’t want to have that conversation. Not at the moment.

  Anyway, it wasn’t as though he knew himself.

  “Leah,” he said, turning his back and walking toward the side fence to gain a little privacy.

  “Hey. You’re home. Is it amazing? Were there dancing unicorns and rainbows as you came in the door?”

  “It’s pretty good to be back.”

  “I thought it might be. I wanted to keep you in the loop and let you know that I’ve found an occupational therapist who specializes in C.I.M.T.”

  Will’s stomach tensed. Was she about to dump him, hand him over to a paid professional?

  “Does that mean you’re bowing out?”

  “Oh, no.” She sounded surprised. “Not at all. It’s just that Melissa wasn’t confident she had the expertise to develop a program for you. C.I.M.T. is very much a specialty in Australia still. So I did a bit of digging and found Dustin. He’s meeting me next week for a preliminary chat, and he thinks we should be ready to roll in about two weeks or so. If that time frame suits you.”

  He was so busy being relieved it took him a moment to respond. “Sure. That works.”

  “Okay. Well...good.” She was silent for a moment. “Listen, Will, if you’ve changed your mind, if you don’t want me there, I don’t want to force myself on you. I can help you find someone else to do this with you, if you’d prefer that.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind.”

  Which was pretty astonishing, given how conflicted he felt about Leah witnessing him at his weakest and most pathetic. The bottom line, though, was that he trusted her, and apparently that trust—and his drive to recover—was stronger than his pride.

  Amazing as that seemed to him sometimes.

  “Then I guess I’ll see you soon.”

  “Leah...I know I probably come across as an ungrateful prick, but—”

  “You don’t, Will. Not in a million years.”

  “I want you to know that I appreciate what you’re doing. I honestly don’t know where my head would be at if I didn’t have something to hang on to right now.”

  “I’m glad I can help. That you’re letting me help.”

  He wished he could see her face, wished he knew what she was thinking.

  Yeah? And then what would you do?

  “I’ll call you when I know more, okay?” Leah said.

  “Okay.”

  She hung up first, the phone going dead in his ear. He contemplated the ground for a moment, thinking about what she’d said. Then he went inside to pass her news on to his parents.

  * * *

  TWO WEEKS LATER, Leah glanced from the street sign on her left to the map she’d drawn for herself, trying to work out where she’d gone wrong. Will had given her directions to his house when she’d called to discuss her arrival time last night, and she’d double-checked them against Google Maps before she left home. Somehow, though, she’d still managed to get lost.

  It took another five minutes of muttering under her breath and two random left turns before she finally recognized the name of Will’s street. Rolling her eyes at herself, she turned onto it.

  First hurdle down. Now she just had to survive fourteen days of intense one-on-one therapy with the man she loved without blurting out her feelings or revealing them in any other way. All while living under the same roof.

  Piece of cake.

  She’d tried to talk Will into letting her stay at one of the local motels, but he had been adamant that she make use of his spare room. And, truth be told, she hadn’t put up too much of a fight. Which was probably dumb, given her stated aim of keeping her feelings to herself, but she was only human. If this was the last chance she had to be close to him, she was embracing it to the full. No matter how challenging or wounding it might ultimately be.

  She spotted his house number and turned into a gravel driveway. A neat weatherboard house sat the end, its walls painted white, the windows picked out in teal-blue. It was so ordinary, so modest, that she couldn’t help smiling. Will had never once talked about money, but she knew he must be loaded. Yet he chose to live in this unassuming little house.

  One of the many reasons she liked him as much as she did.

  The door opened when she pulled up, the screen door swinging wide as Will stepped outside. The sight o
f his tall, lean figure made something tighten painfully in her chest, and for a moment she had trouble breathing.

  God, it was good to see him. To know that soon she would be looking into his eyes and hearing his voice and inhaling his smell.

  Down, girl. This is not about you, remember? This is about Will, and no one else.

  She fussed with her handbag, buying herself a few precious seconds to compose herself before climbing out.

  “Hello,” she said as he descended the three steps from the porch. “Sorry I’m late. I got a little turned around.”

  She drank in the sight of him in jeans and scuffed work boots and a pale blue T-shirt that made his eyes almost glow. He’d had his staples removed, she saw, and his hair had started to grow in, creating a dark golden shadow across his skull. Typically, he hadn’t shaved this morning and his jaw was also dark with bristles.

  “Even after I gave you such awesome instructions?”

  He was frowning a little, and she guessed that he was concentrating on his gait. Which, she couldn’t help noticing, was pretty damn good.

  “Your leg is better.” she said, unable to keep her delight to herself.

  “It is. Not perfect, but getting there.”

  Her gaze flew to his right hand, which hung loosely at his side. Had he had similar gains there, too? Because if so—

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Doc, but I’m still in possession of The Claw,” he said dryly.

  Leah frowned. “Let me guess—Vanessa, right?” She’d already heard how Will’s eldest sister had christened him Zipper-head because of his staples.

  “She has a way with words.”

  “Hmm.” Leah wasn’t entirely sure she would like Will’s older sister.

  “Don’t worry, I give as good as I get.”

  “If you say so.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, enveloping her in his smell—clean clothes, warm skin and something fresh and light that she recognized as his deodorant.