Second Chance Dad (5 page)

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.

A
t 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 going 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.

Even if it was just a fluke, he was thankful for the first decent night's sleep he'd had in a year or more. If it was a portent of even better things to come, then he would be grateful.

Through most of his appointments so far he'd been ungrateful, though. Uncooperative. More than a little surly. Sophie's persistent cheerfulness had irritated him more than anything else.

That his bad attitude might be a defense against the twinkle in her eyes, her soft touch and her silvery laughter was something he didn't want to consider.

But someday, maybe he'd need to apologize, and admit to her that she'd been right.

 

“You need to do something with your grandfather. Soon.”

Sophie stared at her dad, and belatedly realized that her mouth had dropped open. She snapped it shut, then bent down to give Eli a goodbye kiss and sent him on up to the house where Margie was standing on the porch.

She waited until Eli was out of hearing range. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

Or why you don't make an effort, too,
she thought to herself, though she knew from past experience that it was better to leave such words unsaid.

“That woman from the Northwoods Gift Shop called again yesterday evening. She found Dad downtown, sitting on a bench in front of her store.”

“Maybe Gramps just wanted to get out of the house. He enjoys watching tourists.”

“Wearing those ratty white sweatpants, a purple Minnesota Vikings T-shirt and red corduroy slippers? He looked like a bum when I went after him and took him home. Abigail thinks he scares her customers away.”

“Did she say that?
Exactly?
I thought she liked Gramps. He says she always gives him hot tea and a cookie whenever he comes by and sits on her bench. If she isn't busy, she comes out and sits with him while he tells her stories about the old days in Aspen Creek.”

“So she's feeding him.
Luring
him to come back?” Dean sputtered. “I'll go back and have a talk with her.”

“He isn't a stray puppy, Dad. He may be color-blind, but he's an independent adult, and he wears those slippers sometimes because he has a bunion and his regular shoes hurt. I made a doctor's appointment for him, two weeks from tomorrow.” Sophie thought for a minute. “Maybe Abigail just thought he would need a ride home since there was a threat of rain.”

“Whatever. I've been saying for some time, and I'll say it again. It's time we looked into a long-term care facility for him—and if it can be arranged before Margie and I move south, all the better. Since you're the only one who can convince him to do anything, you need to get busy.”

“That would kill Gramps. You know that. He's always said he wants to die in his own home.”

“Being on the loose could kill him, too. What if he wanders in front of a car?”

“He doesn't wander. I've walked downtown with him many a time this spring. He's very slow, but sure. And he's cautious about traffic. He warns
me
about oncoming cars.”

Not for the first time, she wondered about Gramps's property and investments, and if her dad was keeping an interested eye on what would happen
once Gramps was safely stowed away in a nursing home.

“You'll be the one responsible for him, missy, if you don't listen to reason. And we all know how responsible
you
are.”

She drew in a ragged breath. Like tiny poison arrows, she felt his words pierce her heart, and it took a moment for her to control the first response that flew to her lips. But this was about Gramps, not her.

“He still balances his checkbook to the penny and writes his own checks,” she said evenly. “When you visited the lawyer, she made it pretty clear that Gramps is still able to make his own decisions. And his doctor says she thinks he is doing fine.”

“If you're going to be as stubborn as he is, then I'm going to do what I can to take care of this before I leave town. And this time, I don't want you to stand in my way.”

 

Her Friday morning home visit appointments went smoothly. Baxter, a ninety-year-old recovering from a heart attack on the golf course, was exceeding her rehab expectations—largely because he couldn't wait to get back on the course with his buddies.

Louisa, an eighty-year-old post-CVA rehab, was still as demanding as ever and driving her daughter-in-law to the brink of sanity, though her recent stroke had garbled her speech and her complaints were no
longer intelligible. Still, she was gaining dexterity for self-feeding and her ambulation was improving.

Minnie, with a hip fracture, and Theodore, with failure to thrive and generalized weakness, were both as cheerful and positive as they'd been from day one.

The afternoon brought one of her favorites and two of her biggest challenges.

At Alberta's cramped apartment, with its profusion of blooming violets, explosion of lace doilies and more pink than she'd ever seen in her entire life, she was greeted at the door by the aroma of fresh chocolate chip cookies and a chipper eighty-eight-year-old pushing a walker.

Though carefully guarding an ankle encased in a bright pink cast, the old woman beamed with an inner joy that radiated from within like candlelight. “Come in, come in,” she chortled. “I was hoping you'd be here today.”

“I won't ever miss a chance to see you, Mrs. Roberts.”

With a silvery laugh, the elderly woman awkwardly ka-thumped her walker against the floor in short stages to get turned around, and then she led the way into the small kitchen and dining area, settling herself into a chair. “I'm doing much better since you've been visiting me, dear.”

“It looks like you are.”

She snorted as she backed into a kitchen chair and
sank into it. “Never could've told me that I'd go and break my ankle instead of a hip, but for that I am truly blessed.”

“How are you doing with your exercises?”

“I do them exactly as you said. Three times a day during the
Morning Show
on TV,
Jeopardy
, and the ten o'clock news. These past few days I started using the two-pound weights instead of the one pounders.” She winked. “I've got to get ready for the Aspen Creek Marathon, you know.”

Sophie laughed. “Mrs. Roberts!”

“Well, why not? I'm spry for my age, and there are some handsome guys in the seventy-and-over division. My friend Martha said so.” She winked. “Find a young pup, and he might last as long as you do.”

With Alberta's age and fractured ankle, there'd been a number of therapy exercises that Sophie hadn't been able to implement. Still, Alberta was making excellent progress for someone her age at six-to-twelve weeks postop.

“Are you doing your Thera-Band stretches?”

She reached into the cloth bag hanging from her walker handles and pulled out her long yellow Theraband. “Just like you said.”

“I think we'll move you up to a red band—the next resistance level,” Sophie murmured as she watched the old woman demonstrate how she'd been doing her strengthening exercises with the six-foot-long stretchy band. “You're doing great.”

“My daughter has been taking me to the senior center for the exercise bike, and to the high school for the early morning Senior Water Exercise classes, too. Three times a week.”