Fully Engaged

by Catherine Mann

  Still he couldn’t stop himself from croaking out the name. “Nola?”

  The woman moved toward him, stepping into the light streaming through the rehab area’s windows and revealing a face from the past he’d never expected to see again…

  At a time when he very likely didn’t have a future.

  Putting the past to rest so she could move forward with her future was easier said than done. But Nola was a determined lady.

  She needed to wrap her brain around a reality she barely dared dream was real. She’d reached her five-year remission mark.

  Her docs all encouraged her to celebrate. The mind and body worked in synch after all.

  Easier said than done. Believing in the future was tough after so long of living for today. Milk the most from each second because today was a gift and tomorrow an unknown. Walk to the towering man inching slowly her way.

  Her hand closed around her purse, which held her very organized day planner, which held her list.

  The list. A list of all the people she needed to make contact with for closure. She’d already contacted every friend she could think of that she may have wronged. A flight student she’d been unnecessarily harsh to during a check ride because in her early days as an instructor perhaps she’d been a bit full of herself.

  She’d even contacted a guy from junior high who she’d picked on unmercifully all because she’d liked him and had been too immature to know how to show it. He’d thought she was nuts for calling, but ah well, such was life. She wasn’t as worried about looking cool these days.

  Today she’d finally tracked down Rick DeMassi, the man she’d left high and dry and gloriously naked in a VOQ room. Once she’d learned of his injuries, her relief at finding him alive had been stronger than she would have expected for someone she’d only spent thirty hours with five years ago. But they’d been a crucial thirty hours. He’d given her a great gift over that weekend, even if he hadn’t known.

  His talented touch had been the last she’d felt on her breasts. More importantly, his gentleness and strength had bolstered her to walk into hell alone and she would never forget him.

  She’d had a mastectomy, but beaten the cancer. Now she needed to see Rick one more time to complete her list before she could close the door on the recovery part of her cancer journey.

  So she’d driven all the way from her home base in Charleston, South Carolina, and here she stood at a physical rehab center connected to the same hospital where she’d started her treatments. How ironic was that? But somehow serendipitous.

  How bad must his injuries have been for him to still be recovering a year later? Her stomach knotted at even the mention of hospitals. Walking into one usually had her fighting back an anxiety attack. Striding into this one in particular threatened a flat KO.

  But she refused to let anything stop her, especially once she’d heard he was the patient. No way could she turn her back until she was certain he had everything he needed. Theirs may have only been a weekend together where he unwittingly gave her comfort, but those two days stayed with her still. His face on the back of her eyelids, recalling his touch to override pain…

  All of it carried her through hell as surely as his arms had carried her across a room to rest her so gently, seductively on a mattress.

  Right now, he could barely carry himself across the room.

  Overall, he might be slimmer, but his chest bore the same rippled muscles, his eyes the same fathomless intensity. But his face had an angular cut to it, his features a hard enigmatic look. No joking this go-round as he shuffled the last two feet between them to stop. She’d seen his lips move with a muffled whisper, but couldn’t hear what he’d said.

  She inhaled deeper with a bracing breath and noticed something else familiar. Even through the antiseptic hospital smell she recognized the spicy scent of him.

  A cleared throat pulled her out of her reverie. The sergeant—a therapist of some sort—raised a brow, mumbled something about break time and draped a hand towel around Rick’s neck before leaving.

  Okey doke. Time to quit daydreaming.

  “Hello.” She forced a smile over her lips when she really just wanted to stare awhile longer, and doggone it, there went her mother’s voice again about rude manners. “I don’t know if you remember—”

  Long lashes swept down over his chocolate brown eyes and up again in his first sign that he’d actually noticed her. “You’re a memorable lady, Nola.”

  Thank God, thank God, thank God he remembered her name and she hadn’t just made a total idiot out of herself.

  Then a smile twitched at one corner, just a hint but enough of the man she’d known to help her relax her grip on the Tupperware container she’d forgotten she held.

  “Why thank you, Rick.”

  “And you’re here because?” He released one bar and held on single-handed.

  He looked more “okay” that way. She couldn’t gauge the extent of the injury to his legs since he wore dark blue sweatpants and a gray T-shirt with Air Force logos imprinted. Whether or not his sudden easy stance was an act for her benefit she didn’t know, but it eased some of the tension inside her. She understood about “brave front” acts.

  “I have a list.” She blurted.

  Sheesh. She was a mature woman. A seasoned combat veteran, trained to fly multimillion-dollar cargo jets and here she was acting like hormonal mush.

  All right. Maybe not hormonal. More like knocked off balance by the whole hospital scene and seeing his pain. Remembering her own. Knowing how pride hurt more than any needles.

  Rick shifted from one foot to the other and studied her through narrowed eyes. “They took me off the painkillers a long time ago, so my brain’s clear. Still, you’ll need to run that by me again, because you’re not making a bit of sense.”

  She couldn’t help but notice how he continued to grip the bar, his arm not even shaking, but his complexion beginning to pale beneath his tan.

  More of that pride.

  She scanned quickly for one of those industrial-looking uncomfy sofas they always had everywhere in places like this, and sure enough there was one right behind her. She plunked down to sit and hoped Rick would cut himself some slack and do the same.

  “I was in town, heard through the grapevine that you were here and thought I would stop in to say hi for old time’s sake.” She lifted the aqua-and-white Tupperware container full of chocolate chip M&M’s cookies, raising it at just the right level where he would have to come to the sofa if he wanted a chance at a cookie. She hadn’t met a male yet who could say no to cookies. “Hospital food usually sucks, so I figured you might like this.”

  Actually, she didn’t recall much about the hospital food since she hadn’t been able to keep anything down during chemo. But every man she’d met worshipped food, so she’d figured cookies would be a decent icebreaker.

  Rick shuffled with studied practice—holy guacamole, this guy had pride by the buckets—until he dropped down beside her. Sweat dotted his upper lip but somehow he managed not to sigh when he sat.

  “Thanks, you’re right.” He took the cookies, brow furrowing. “This is still…uh…unexpected.”

  “I imagine so.” She knotted her fingers in her lap, wishing she had that container back so her hands wouldn’t feel so empty.

  “I should let you get back to work.” He nodded to her flight suit.

  “I’m done for the day.” She didn’t want to reference her own swing by the hospital to gather old lingering paperwork and say farewells to some remaining staff members. “What about you?”

  “Me, too, but then I’m stuck here. Don’t you need to head home?”

  “Nope.”

  “No boyfriend or husband to call?”

  “God, no.” Her eyes fell to his ring finger. Still bare. Her stomach did that little flip again. “Do you really think I would bring cookies to a guy if I had a boyfriend or, heaven forbid, a husband?”

  “Why ‘heaven forbid’?”

&nbs
p; Her ex shouldn’t still have the power to hurt her. She didn’t love the bastard anymore. But still, his defection when she’d needed him most cut deeper than any surgeon’s knife. “Been there, done that, got the scars and divorce papers to show for it.”

  “Ah—” he popped open the container of cookies “—so you’re a card-carrying member of the Marriage Sucks Club, too, huh?” He shoved a cookie in his mouth and offered her one, as well.

  “You could say that.” She selected a cookie and weighed her words and finally asked the question that had been nibbling at the edges of her mind the same way she nipped around the cookie. “Want to tell me what happened with the legs?”

  He swallowed his treat. “Hurricane Katrina cleanup was hazardous.”

  The simple words painted a vivid picture. “I’m sorry.”

  Nola could also tell from his stony face the subject was closed. She understood the reticence well and had to respect the boundaries.

  She should probably pack up and go—cookies delivered. Mission accomplished. Page turned and book closed. Except… She couldn’t make herself get up off the uncomfy sofa.

  “When do you get sprung from this place?”

  “Soon.”

  “You’re such a crummy liar.”

  He shrugged. “I really am out soon. I just have to hire a babysitter and then they’ll cut me loose.”

  “I take it from your tone you don’t think you need one.”

  “Don’t want one.”

  Awkward silence settled, kind of like that first meeting, but they’d already exhausted the wrong-first-date topics. She reached for her purse beside her. “I should go and let you get a shower or something.”

  Shower? Sooo not a memory from the past she needed right now with him all sweaty and hot beside her, with her going on five years of abstinence, with his touch the last she’d felt. She clenched her fists to keep her hand from protectively covering her scarred breast. Yes, she’d had reconstruction, but she wasn’t the same by any stretch.

  Stop. She wasn’t going there today. Except how could she not?

  Ah hell, this was gonna be a long night with more than likely a few tears. She was human and closing this book was hard.

  Rick grabbed for his crutches at the end of the bars and nodded for the sergeant to pick up the cookies. “I’ll walk with you to the door.”

  She started to tell him no need to bother but then thought of that prickly male ego and opted to keep her yap closed. Let him do what he pleased. She stayed silent while he worked his way to his feet, shuffling to reach for crutches in what must have been a painful maneuver, yet he never even winced.

  He nodded toward the hallway and began thumping his way down the hall alongside her. The awkward silence grew heavier with each step down the hall closer to the door. The crisp November air outside along with the bright sun did nothing to lighten the moment.

  “Thanks for the cookies.”

  He cocked his head to the side, quizzical. Not rude enough to glance back at the rehab clinic, but she could sense his itchiness for her to leave.

  What had she expected? A resurrection of the relationship? The attraction was still there, but Rick’s walls were high. More of that pride. He undoubtedly just wanted to get her in her car and return to his room without falling on his face. The longer she waited, the harder she made things for him.

  She needed to quit being selfish. “I know it seems strange, my showing up like this out of the blue. I probably should have called first.”

  She’d most definitely been selfish, because she’d feared if she’d called first he might have rejected the notion of her coming. God, she didn’t like what that said about her. Asserting her needs above the needs or wants of others.

  Damn.

  He stared at her for a whole cycle on the red light before shaking his head. “I gave up trying to understand women a long time ago. You did a nice thing coming here today for whatever reason. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”

  She could see the strain of standing so long etched on his face, the color seeping away. Yet somehow that took nothing away from his strength, instead only adding to it because of the sheer will it must take to keep his feet under him. She understood well the grit it took to haul yourself through that kind of pain.

  Whoa. Hold on. This was getting way too deep.

  She backed toward her SUV, fishing in her purse for her keys so she could thumb the remote starter and warm the car. Texas in November wasn’t as cold as some of the Northern climates where she’d been stationed, but there was a definite chill in the air. Besides, she always started her car first to get the temperature right.

  The weather matched her mood. This hadn’t gone at all as she’d expected. She should be happy. Instead she felt chilled.

  Hollow.

  Nola smiled her farewell to a man she knew she would never forget.

  “Goodbye, Rick.” Her fingers closed around the keys. She thumbed the remote starter—

  And the world blasted into a fireball of heat as her car exploded.

  Chapter 2

  Blast still ringing in his ears, Rick dropped his crutches and flung his body on top of Nola’s. Thank heaven his professional instincts hadn’t abandoned him in the rubble of Hurricane Katrina or that flying shard of fender would have caught Nola square on the temple.

  He’d lived through his fair share of explosions overseas, but he’d never expected to face one on American soil. What the hell had just happened with Nola’s car?

  The crackle of flames echoed in his ears, the stench of burning fuel stinging his nose. He stayed on top of Nola while he scanned the parking lot.

  No sign of anyone suspicious. Just people with concerned and shocked faces pouring from around the medical park, others running or flattened to the concrete watching. A couple of persons had cell phones in hand, dialing. Good. Cops should be on the way soon.

  “Nola?” he asked against her ear, working like hell not to think about how much better her hair smelled after months in a hospital. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. Squished, but okay,” she gasped. “What about you?”

  “Fine,” he lied, his left knee already aching like a sonuvabitch.

  Nola elbowed him gently in the gut. “Rick? Let me up, please.”

  “Right.” He rolled to the side while still keeping an arm hooked around her waist to anchor her to the ground so she wouldn’t do something reckless like spring to her feet. She might be a trained combat vet, but he didn’t have any time in the field with her to know anything about her skills. “Sorry about that.”

  “No need to apologize. Good God, you saved my butt from flying debris.” She kept her position, breaths steady as she grappled for her keys a few inches away. “I’m not some prickly ingrate. I just got a little smooshed. You’re a big fella.”

  Not so much as he used to be, but hey, he hated the self-pity gig. No use dwelling on that. Since there didn’t seem to be any further immediate threat, time to haul his sorry hide the rest of the way up.

  He shifted. His knee hollered back at him.

  Damn.

  How was he going to get to his feet and keep her safely at his side until the cops arrived? He searched around him for options to brace himself… If he rolled right, he could grab a bench for leverage, pull himself up and sit. From there, he could retrieve a crutch and stand.

  Easy. In theory.

  Nola reached for her purse from under a park bench and jammed her keys inside. “Do you need help?”

  Like hell. “No. I’ve got it.”

  “Prideful guy, aren’t you?”

  “When I fall on my ass you can help me.” He reached for the bench and kept his eyes open for surprise threats in spite of the seeming calm after the storm. Screw worrying about himself. Her safety had to be his first priority. “Until then, I’ve got it. How about that?”

  “Fair enough, big guy.”

  Deep breath. Thirteen teeth-gritting seconds later—yeah, he counted ev
ery one to keep his mind on something other than the grinding pain—he was on his feet again scanning the perimeter. And he damn well waved away the attendant coming toward him with a wheelchair. The smart young goon knew to back off and help somebody else who’d apparently twisted an ankle in the mayhem.

  Meanwhile, Rick kept the lone crutch jammed under his arm, enough to hold his balance since the majority of the damage was to his left leg. In some portion of his brain, he heard the rustle behind him of Nola pushing to her feet, too. Good. That meant he truly hadn’t hurt her when he’d shoved her to the concrete.

  Keeping the crutch tucked securely, he grabbed her wrist and urged her to the safety of the portico of the rehab center, into the anonymity of a cluster of nurses and orderlies in purple scrubs. That should serve as a decent safety net of anonymity for now in case someone was gunning for her and waiting around. Watching.

  He continued to scan. Adrenaline surged. Damn, he’d forgotten the rush that compelled his body beyond normal endurance, but he welcomed it now.

  Still, what kind of guardian did he make? Well, at least he was one more barrier between her and whoever was trying to blow her up. He had his brain and instincts.

  And that brain and those instincts were telling him whatever threat there was to her had passed for the moment.

  “Ohmigod, Rick!”

  Her voice stalled him.

  “What happened to your back?”

  Hell. Now that she mentioned it… His back did sting almost as much as his knee.

  Her hands skimmed over his shoulder blades. “Something hit you. It looks like you’ll need stitches.”

  The glide of her touch almost made him forget the pain.

  “Am I going to bleed to death until I get to the doc?”

  She moved to his side, the loose blond curls of her bangs brushing along the top ridges of her furrowed brow. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then it can wait.” He exhaled long and slow, his fingers itching to thread through that cap of whispery curls all around her face and pull her to his chest where nobody could hurt her. Except his chest wasn’t as invincible as he’d once thought. “Any chance your car was a rental?”