Authors: Noelle Adams
He hated the damn crutches. They made him feel like an idiot. That fact was bothering him more now than it had before.
Julie didn’t object to his taking the crutches, but she stood nearby watching as he tried to haul himself up.
It didn’t go well. He lost his balance before he could get upright, and he had to drop one of the crutches and catch himself on his chair to keep his casted leg from getting wrenched.
He was almost shaking with frustration when Julie handed him the crutch again. “I don’t need an audience,” he muttered.
“Why do the crutches bother you so much?”
“They’re just annoying.”
“It’s more than that. Everything about a broken leg is annoying. But there’s something about the crutches in particular that you hate, and it doesn’t make sense to me.”
He was staring down at the crutches he still held, and he didn’t think he would answer the question. He didn’t have to. She had no business asking him something like that.
But then he finally muttered, without even consciously saying the words, “They make me feel helpless.”
“More than the wheelchair does?”
“Yes. I can move around without much trouble in the wheelchair. I can’t move around fine with the damned crutches.”
The obvious response for her would be to say that he just needed to practice more. If she said that, then he could be mad at her again, not torn like this. But instead she asked softly, “Why is it so hard for you to feel helpless?”
“Because I’m never helpless.”
“Of course you are. Everyone is occasionally.”
He made a throaty sound and waved a hand to dismiss her words. “Sure, occasionally. But why let yourself feel helpless when you don’t have to?”
She gave a little shrug. “Why try to feel powerful when you aren’t? And why blame your poor crutches for doing what life does to us anyway?”
His brows drew together, but he was meeting her eyes now, trying to understand what she meant. “What does life do?”
“It makes us helpless.”
Their gazes held for a long time, longer than they should have. Then he felt an inexplicable wave of fear as a different kind of helplessness crystallized in his head, one that made him far more vulnerable than his physical impairment.
He said, “Okay. I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
“Fine. But I’m not going to leave you until you’ve gotten up.”
He knew it was smart—that it would be foolish of her to leave when it was possible that he might fall—but that just made him feel even worse. He gritted his teeth and tried again.
After a few minutes, Julie came over and repositioned his hand and his good leg. “Try it this way,” she suggested in her normal mild voice.
There was nothing critical or impatient in her tone, but Eric felt like a child just the same. When he’d managed to get his feet on his own, he gritted out, “Okay. I’m good. Get out of here.”
Julie didn’t respond in words. She just gently shut the bathroom door behind her.
He wondered if he’d hurt her feelings. If he could just get a little more mobile, everything would be easier and he wouldn’t feel compelled to always be such an ass.
He went to the bathroom and washed his hands and stared at himself in the mirror for a minute. He was sweating, and he looked pale and kind of sick. No wonder Julie wasn’t impressed by him. There wasn’t much chance she would be into him in this condition.
Not that it mattered. Nothing could happen between them anyway.
Despite knowing this, he still felt compelled to pull himself together a little more. So he couldn’t walk. That didn’t mean he couldn’t attract a woman. He’d always been good with women. They’d fallen for him with very little exertion on his part. Julie was different, but she wasn’t invulnerable. Surely he could soften her up a little with some effort.
She was waiting for him outside the bathroom door. He smiled at her in a way that usually appealed to women. Her eyes widened, but she smiled back. “What do you want to do this evening?”
“I’ve got some calls to make.”
“If they’re work calls, then they can wait. I thought Kristin was handling all that.”
“She is, but a few calls aren’t going to—”
“The doctor said you were supposed to rest.”
“Who’s in charge here? If I want to make some calls, then you’re not going to stop me.”
“I will stop you, even if I have to steal your phone and put it on the top shelf of the bookcase.” Her voice was still quiet, but there was a spark in her eyes that appealed to him.
He liked her like this, a lot better than when she was being distant, like he was nothing but an acquaintance. Or a patient.
“Tim will get it for me,” Eric said, nodding at Tim, who was walking in with a few groceries he’d gone to get from the store.
“Leave me out of it,” Tim muttered with his typical impassive expression.
Julie was obviously trying not to smile. “See? You’ve got no one on your side. Since you’re not going to be making calls or doing any work, what do you want to do this evening?”
Eric scowled. It would probably be another boring day watching sports on his own.
“It’s a really nice day. We can hang out by the pool, if you want,” Julie suggested.
Eric perked up. Maybe Julie would put on a bikini.
Three hours later, Eric was stretched out in the sun next to the pool in a chaise, feeling better about the world in general.
Julie hadn’t put on a bikini. She had a regular suit and a thin blue cover-up, but at least he could enjoy the sight of her legs. Tim was grilling steaks, and Julie had made margaritas, so overall it was a pretty good day. He’d even dozed off for about a half hour, something he almost never did.
It would have been better if Julie would talk to him more, but all of his attempts at conversation were falling flat.
She was lying in the sun beside him, reading a book on her e-reader. She looked beautiful with the sunlight turning her hair to gold.
She glanced over at him then, as if she sensed he was looking at her.
“Did you go to the beach a lot as a kid?” he asked, using the first question that came to him to draw her into a conversation.
She’d been so skittish this week. It was very frustrating.
“We always went to Myrtle Beach,” she said. “We went about every other year.”
“You liked it?”
“Sure. I liked to swim, and we went out to eat some. We never ate out much when we were at home, so that was a big treat.”
“Why didn’t you eat out?”
She looked surprised. “We didn’t have much money.”
“What did your dad do?”
“He worked in a factory. My mom stayed at home with me and my sister. We weren’t destitute or anything, but there was never a lot of extra money.”
Eric’s parents had both worked—his mother in a department store and his father as a coach. They hadn’t been rich, but they’d always had plenty of money. Then, once he’d gone pro, he’d had more money than he could possibly spend.
He suddenly had an entirely new sense of what the million dollars he was paying Julie would mean to her. It had been a long time since he’d lived with the experience of wanting more money than he had.
Before he could think of anything to say, Julie had gone back to her book.
“What are you reading?” he asked, getting a little annoyed that she was making it so hard to sustain a conversation.
“A cozy mystery.” She didn’t even look up from her book.
“What’s a cozy mystery?”
Her eyes popped up. “You don’t know what a cozy mystery is?”
He frowned. “Should I?”
“I guess not. It’s a mystery without a lot of violence, usually with an amateur detective.”
“Oh. Who’s the detective in that one?”
“She’s a librarian.”
“Is it good?”
“Pretty good. It’s light and keeps you engaged with solving the mystery.” She stood up and picked up her glass and Eric’s. “You want another?”
“Sure.”
He watched her as she walked over to the bar, mesmerized by the slight sway of her hips and the line of her bare legs. She wasn’t in-your-face sexy and glamorous, like most of the women he dated. She kept all of her sexiness reined in, hidden behind clothes that covered her body and behind her quiet composure.
But for some reason that just made him want to draw her out more. He wanted to uncover all she was trying to hide.
When she came back, the steaks were done, so they ate them with salad and pasta salad at the table outdoors.
They were still outside a couple of hours later, and Eric was feeling better than he had since he’d broken his leg. The sun was setting, so Julie had turned on the lights around the pool deck. Tim had gone inside to watch television in his room, since they didn’t need him anymore.
He felt like he and Julie were alone in the world, listening to the sound of the waves behind the dunes, feeling the fresh breeze on his skin.
She was looking down at her e-reader again, but he wondered if she was even reading it at the moment. She seemed very far away.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
She looked up at him in surprise. “What makes you think I wasn’t reading?”
He could tell by her choice of words that he’d been right. “You think I don’t know you by now?”
His question had been light, thoughtless, so he was surprised when her expression changed. She looked a little self-conscious as she murmured, “I don’t think you really know me at all.”
“Yes, I do. And if you would answer my questions, I could get to know you even more.”
“I always answer your questions.”
“You always respond. But that’s not the same as really answering me.” His heartbeat sped up slightly, an excitement growing inside him that he didn’t really understand.
“What question didn’t I answer?”
“I asked you a minute ago what you were thinking, and you deflected.”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat and glanced away. “I was just thinking about how nice the evening was.”
She might have been referring to the weather, but something made him think there was more than that. She wouldn’t have been looking so self-conscious had she not been thinking something that embarrassed her.
Maybe, like him, she’d been just enjoying the whole experience.
He thought then of what the last several years must have been like for her, taking care of her parents, always on call, never having any time for herself. Eric had loved his parents, but he wasn’t sure he could have taken care of them the way she had hers.
He wondered when was the last time she had really let go. Certainly, she hadn’t since she’d been working for him. She’d been reluctant even to get a massage.
He suddenly realized he desperately wanted to see it, experience it—that moment when Julie finally let down her guard, gave herself over to something, anything.
“When was the last time you really relaxed?” he asked. He wanted to ask something more personal than that, but if he did, she would probably shut down the conversation.
“I’m relaxing right now,” she said.
“Maybe. Kind of. But not really. You keep looking up to make sure there isn’t something you need to do for me.”
“Well, that’s what you’re paying me for.”
“I know. But that’s why I asked. When was the last time you really relaxed?”
She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against her chaise. “I don’t know.”
“Have you ever?”
She frowned. “Of course, I have. Why wouldn’t I have relaxed in my life?”
“I don’t know. You just seem to spend all your life taking care of other people. It seems to have become who you are.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I can help other people without somehow letting it consume who I am.” She let her loose hair fall down past her shoulder, obscuring her expression from him.
“I’m sure you can. I just don’t know if that’s what you’ve done. I think you hide behind your responsibilities so you don’t have to put yourself out there.” He leaned closer to her, pushing back her hair so he could see her face. “I want to see the real Julie, and you haven’t showed her to me yet.”
She gazed at him, obviously taken aback by his words, and her expression softened as they shared the gaze. His hand stayed at her cheek, quite unintentionally, and soon he was cupping her face with it.
Then she abruptly pulled back with a quick breath. “I work for you. This is the Julie you get.”
If he was smart, he would just let it go, since she was exactly right in what she said about their professional relationship. But he didn’t want to let it go. He felt like he was on the cusp of getting a glimpse of her for real, and he wasn’t going to let her slip away.
“You’re just using that as an excuse. I bet you don’t show your real self to anyone. Not even that guy you’re dating.”
“It’s none of your business what I show to anyone else.” She looked rattled, although she was trying to hold onto her composure. “And you don’t know anything about who I date.”
Eric hated the thought of that guy. She’d gone out with the asshole again just a few days ago. “I’d know more if you’d tell me more.”
“I’m not going to tell you about who I date. It’s none of your business.”
“What if I want it to be my business?” He was feeling bristly now, at the thought of some other guy being with Julie when he couldn’t seem to get any closer to her himself.
“Well, I’m sorry. But some things are off-limits.”
There was a strange timbre to the last words, and it took Eric aback. He tried to think through why she’d said them that way, and where he had heard them before.
And he suddenly remembered. And with the memory he realized why she’d pulled back from him this week.
She’d asked him about Maddy and her mother, and he’d shut her down, slammed the door in her face. Told her it was off-limits. Because thoughts of his daughter made him feel weak, and he couldn’t stand to feel that.
He groaned softly and fell back against the chaise. “Damn.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“You know what. About being so rude when you asked about Maddy.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine. You had every right to end the conversation. Your daughter isn’t my business.”