The Devaney Brothers: Michael and Patrick: Michael's Discovery

He patted the wheelchair. “With a little more practice, I’ll be able to get around well enough in this.”

Now it was her turn to frown. “And you’re ready to accept that?”

“It’s not as if I have a real choice. The doctors said—”

She cut him off. “Oh, what do they know?” she asked impatiently. “The Michael I remember would take that as a challenge. Why not prove them wrong?” She looked him straight in the eye. “Or do you have something better you’d like to be doing?”

“I keep busy.”

Kelly eyed the computer across the room. A bingo game was on the screen. “I imagine you can earn pocket change playing bingo, but I also imagine you’ll be bored to tears in a couple of weeks.” She shrugged. “Still, it’s your choice. I certainly can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Damn straight,” he muttered.

She bit back a smile at the display of defiance. “So, Michael, what’s it going to be? Do I go or stay?”

Once again, she’d obviously taken him by surprise by leaving the decision entirely up to him. He blinked hard, then sighed. “Stay if you want to,” he said grudgingly.

She grinned at him. “Okay, then, let’s do this my way,” she said. “Here’s what I’m thinking.” She laid out the exercises and the rigorous schedule she’d already devised based on the medical information his brother had shared with her. “What do you think?”

“Do you have a masochistic streak I missed when you were a kid?” he grumbled.

Kelly grinned. “No, but I have what it takes to get you out of that chair.”

For the first time since she’d arrived, he actually looked her directly in the eye, then slowly nodded. “You may have, at that.”

“Then that’s all that really matters, isn’t it? I’ll see you first thing tomorrow. Be ready to work your butt off, Devaney.”

He chuckled. “You’re tougher than you used to be, Kelly.”

“You’d better believe it,” she said. “And I don’t have a lot of use for self-pity, so get over it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a salute.

She gave a nod of satisfaction. “It’s always helpful when the client realizes right off who’s in charge. Therapy goes much more smoothly.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“Not to worry. I’ll make sure of it,” she said, winking at him as she closed the door behind her.

She paused outside and leaned against the wall, unsuccessfully fighting the tears she hadn’t allowed herself to shed in front of him. She’d put on a damn good show for him, but she’d been shaken. What if she couldn’t do what she’d promised? What if she couldn’t get him out of that wheelchair and back on his feet?

“Stop it,” she muttered. Failure was not an option, not with Michael.

As for getting personally involved with a client, that wasn’t an option, either, but she had a horrible feeling it was already too late to stop it.

2

“So, how did you and Kelly get along?” Bryan Andrews asked Michael when he stopped by for a beer at the end of the day.

Michael studied his one-time best friend with a narrowed gaze. He still wasn’t sure how much he appreciated Bryan’s unequivocal recommendation of Kelly for the job as his therapist. “Did she do a tour in the marines I don’t know about?”

“Nope.”

“I remember her as a sweet kid. She’s changed.” And that was a massive understatement that didn’t even take into account the pale gold hair swept up in a knot that revealed the long, delicate line of her neck, the silky complexion and the woman’s body with all the appropriate curves.

“She deals with a lot of cantankerous patients at the rehab clinic. She’s had to change,” Bryan said. He gave Michael a warning look. “Give her any grief and you’ll have me to contend with, too.”

“Trust me, I don’t think she needs her protective big brother butting in,” Michael told him. “She could take me out in ten seconds flat.”

“Are you telling me there’s finally a woman who can get the upper hand with you?” Bryan taunted, clearly delighted. “And that it’s my baby sister?”

“Only because of my weakened condition,” Michael assured him.

“Good to know. Back in high school I used to envy the way you could take ’em or leave ’em. The rest of us were slaves to our hormones, but not you. There wasn’t a girl in school who could twist you in knots.”

That seemed like a lifetime ago to Michael. He’d had a purpose then, and he’d known that a teenage romance would only get in the way. “I was focused on what I wanted to do with my future. I didn’t have time to get serious about any girl.”

“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have had any one you wanted,” Bryan said. “It was great hanging out with you. The girls swarmed around you, and I ended up dating them.”

Michael gave him a wry look. “I hope you’re not counting on that happening now. I doubt any woman will give me a second look while I’m in this chair.”

“If you ask me, that alone is a great reason to get out of it,” Bryan said. “Stick with Kelly. She’ll have you whipped into shape in no time.” His expression sobered. “Seriously, pal, she’s good. Cooperate with her. Let her do her thing. If anyone can help you, she can.”

“Stop trying to sell her. She has the job. And it’s not as if she’s going to give me much choice about cooperating,” Michael retorted, able to laugh for the first time in weeks as he thought of the way Kelly had held her own in the face of his display of temper.

Even as the unfamiliar sound of his laughter filled his cramped apartment, he realized that Kelly Andrews had brought two things into his life during her one brief visit—a breath of fresh air and, far more important, the first faint ray of hope he’d felt since his SEAL team had dragged him out of harm’s way.

He immediately brought himself up short. He had been in some tricky, dangerous situations over the years, but nothing had ever scared him quite so badly as the sudden realization, that well-intentioned or not, Kelly might be holding out false hope.

Fear crawled up the back of his throat until he could almost taste it. If he tried to walk and failed, it might be far more devastating than never having tried at all. In the real world, how many miracles was one man entitled to? He’d gotten out of his last mission alive. Maybe that was his quota of good luck for one lifetime.

He looked up and saw that Bryan was regarding him with concern.

“You okay?” Bryan asked.

“Just reminding myself of something,” he said grimly.

“Judging from that expression on your face, it wasn’t anything good.”

Michael shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell Kelly’s brother that he’d been reminding himself that she was a mere woman, not a miracle worker. It was a distinction he couldn’t allow himself to forget, not for one single second.

* * *

“Are you sure you ought to be taking on this particular client?” Moira Brady asked Kelly, her expression filled with concern.

“I’m a professional. I can keep my feelings under control,” Kelly insisted. “Besides, it’s been years since I had my crush on Michael Devaney. I was a kid.”

Moira regarded her skeptically. “Then you had absolutely no reaction to seeing him again? He was just a patient, someone you happened to know from years ago?”