Destiny Bay Boxed Set Vol. 1 (Books 1 - 3)

by Helen Conrad

  She winced, filled with a sudden sense of sorrow. The human body was such a miracle, it hurt to see it carelessly destroyed. That was one of the things that had drawn her to physical therapy. But through her training she’d developed a necessary distance from individual cases. Without it she would sink under the burden of human suffering she saw.

  And yet, right now, she seemed to have lost that carefully acquired thick skin. She avoided his gaze, looking down at the notes she’d taken on her clipboard while looking over his records.

  “It looked to me from that X-ray that you had an old break in the right leg,” she said, her voice gruff to cover her emotions.

  There was a pause as Grant stared at her for a moment. He could tell that something had affected her composure. Was it the ugliness of the injury? Surely she’d seen worse in her line of work.

  Or was it . . . him? Was the fact that it was his injury somehow upsetting her? For some reason that embarrassed him. Funny. It had been a long time since he’d last been embarrassed.

  He flexed his shoulders and looked around for something to do, something to take his attention off her. He picked up a small rubber ball and began tossing it from one hand to the other. And finally he answered her question.

  “That’s right. I broke the same bone in another wreck about five years ago, at Le Mans.”

  She looked up, watching him carefully as she asked the next question. “Why didn’t it heal properly?”

  He nodded, impressed. “You can see that, can you?”

  She nodded too. “On the X-ray I can. I’d say it’s probably a big part of your current problem.”

  He tossed the ball high and caught it behind his back. “I guess I did a dumb thing,” he said slowly. “They had my leg in a cast after Le Mans, but the Talese Grand Prix was only two weeks later. The doctor refused to take off the cast, and with that thing on I couldn’t drive.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged, as though it were no big, deal. “So I soaked the cast off in the bathtub and raced, anyway.”

  She let out her breath in a burst of exasperation. “Well, I hope you won after all that,” she said with sarcasm, unreasonably angry.

  A grin split his face. “I did,” he said, and suddenly he looked about fifteen and as pleased as punch with himself.

  The smile was so infectious, she couldn’t help but lose her anger and smile back.

  “That was an awful thing to do,” she said, to make up for the smile.

  “I’ve done a lot of awful things in my life,” he told her, his grin fading. “Let’s just work with the here and now and forget the past.”

  She studied him for a moment. He was acting normal, a little on the cool side, even. It was a relief to know that he hadn’t planned to pounce on her the moment she came through his doorway. Maybe she’d been reading too much into his glances. Maybe he really did only want physical therapy for his leg. She might have a chance to do some real good. She brightened a bit.

  She eyed the long sweat pants. “We’re going to start with a massage of the leg,” she said primly. “I’m going to have to ask you to change into shorts —or better yet, a bathing suit, as we’ll proceed to aquatic conditioning in the pool after the massage.”

  He hadn’t realized that he was going to dread this so much. The scars. The horrible ugliness of it. He was going to bare that to her, ask her to examine it fully. It was like taking out his worst weaknesses and pointing them out to her—to someone he wanted, right now, to think well of him. Something caught in his throat. He didn’t want to do it.

  But he knew he had to.

  “Okay,” he said roughly, to discipline himself. He pulled a pair of trunks from the shelf next to the towels. “You can turn around or not, as you wish,” he added dryly, reaching to untie his sweats.

  She turned quickly and walked over to the exercise equipment, checking it out. “You’ve got just about everything here, don’t you?” she called back without looking.

  “Yeah. A lot of it I can’t use yet. But I haven’t given up hope on anything.”

  She smiled. That was the spirit she liked to hear. She looked down at her hands. They were, cold and stiff. She was about to put them on Grant Carrington’s leg. If she began shaking, she would never be able to face him. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself.

  “You can turn around now.”

  She flushed at the irony in his tone, but when she turned back, his magnificent body filled her gaze and she was stunned for just a moment. She stood still and breathless as she took in his hard, rounded shoulders, the flat planes of his torso, the incredibly sensual bulges that made up his upper arms and chest. He was nowhere near body-builder size, but everything he had looked hard and well-trained. She’d never had a man’s body take her breath away before, and she didn’t like the lack of control she felt. But she had to admit, there were things about it that felt very nice.

  After a quick, silent pep talk to get herself back on track, she walked back briskly, not about to let him see how much he affected her. She saw that he’d put on brief red trunks. And then she glanced down at his leg.

  The twisted scars jumped out at her, shocking her even though she’d known from experience exactly what to expect. She stopped herself from gasping aloud, but she couldn’t hide the involuntary widening of her eyes, and he saw it.

  “Not a pretty sight, I know,” he said bitterly. “If you don’t think you can handle it, I’ll understand.”

  But he wouldn’t understand at all. She wasn’t sure she could handle it, and she was almost tempted to take the way out he offered—but not because his leg disgusted her. Not at all. But because his bitterness covered a vulnerability that hurt, it lay so deep. And she wasn’t at all sure she was ready to deal with something like that.

  Squaring her shoulders, she motioned for him to get up on the padded table.

  “This is just what I’m trained to handle,” she told him evenly, her eyes meeting his and then quickly pulling away again.

  He leaned back, and she turned so that her back was toward him, and she began to examine his leg. Placing her hands on either side of the knee, she began small, circular motions, softly at first, then more and more vigorously, loosening the tight muscles, softening the scar tissue.

  “Hey,” he said softly, his voice close behind her, “I’ve got punching bags if you need to let off steam.”

  “Sorry.” She slowed her massage. But the energy she’d released had freed her from the nerves she’d been feeling.

  “All right,” she said at last, “Flex and tell me how it feels.”

  He flexed and nodded, not saying a word. She didn’t press him. She spent the next half hour giving him stretching exercises, some of them similar to yoga in their slow, deliberate effect. Then she directed him on to the pool and put him through the water exercises designed to strengthen his leg with the least amount of strain. Finally he came out again for more land exercises and into his hot tub to take advantage of the therapeutic action of the water jets.

  “Fifteen minutes,” she told him. “I’ll stay until you’re finished.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” he said gruffly, almost as though he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

  “Yes, I do. Don’t you know how dangerous it can be to stay in those things too long? You should never use one without someone standing by to time you.”

  He grimaced in mock exasperation. “I’ve risked more dangerous fates,” he told her. “I think I can handle this one.”

  She shook her head stubbornly. “Not while you’re under my care.” She sank down beside where he was sitting in the tub. “What I propose to do is to continue the program I’ve outlined here today for four weeks. We’ll have an evaluation session at the end of each week to see how you’re responding and to make adjustments according to what you feel is helping you—tempered by my observations, of course. Okay?”

  He nodded, eyes hooded.

  “I’ll come out this afternoon for the session
with the sonar machine. I’ll do that again for two or three days, then I’ll let you take over that aspect of the therapy yourself.”

  There was a moment of silence, and when he finally faced her again, his expression was hard and unfriendly.

  “Is this it?” he demanded. “Is this all?”

  Taken aback, she said, “What did you expect?”

  His mouth twisted into an ugly line. “Miracles,” he said softly. “Instant cure. Some secret ingredient . . .” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. “I hardly even worked up a sweat here today. I can’t see what good any of this can possibly do. And even if it does, at this rate it will take forever.”

  She pulled together her papers, heart pounding. “I can’t provide miracles,” she said a bit breathlessly. “All I can do is help you to work slowly to regain the strength and flexibility in that leg. If you don’t work at it, you’ll lose everything.”

  “I’ve already lost everything,” he said so softly that she could hardly make out the words. “You’re not much help.”

  She rose. “If you don’t think this will help—“ she began stiffly, but he waved away her words as though they annoyed him even more.

  “You may not be much, lady,” he said coolly, “but you’re all I’ve got right now. See you this afternoon for the sonar treatment.”

  She stared down at him for a moment; then turned without speaking and left the way she’d come in, not waiting for him to emerge from the hot tub. It was impossible to please someone when they expected the moon. It was also impossible to figure out what on earth he wanted.

  She yanked at the handle on the huge front door, breaking a nail and not even stopping to look at it. The man made her furious.

  At first she’d thought he meant to seduce her. That had turned out to be totally wrong. Then she’d assumed that he was ready to work with her to achieve some progress on his leg. Now he seemed ambivalent about that. She couldn’t do a good job if she didn’t know what the client wanted—or if what he wanted changed all the time.

  She drove home at top speed and stewed all the rest of the morning, having conversations in her head in which she told him exactly what she thought of him. And if she could have thought of any way to avoid ever going back, she would have jumped at it. But she couldn’t come up with one good excuse, so she was back at Grant Carrington’s mansion that afternoon, sonar machine in hand.

  The lilt of Benny Goodman’s clarinet filled the room as the housekeeper let her in.

  “Mr. Carrington is in his study,” the middle-aged woman with sparkling black eyes told her. “He said for you to go on out to the gym and he will meet you there right away.”

  Carrie walked through the house quickly, as though she expected him to jump out at her any moment. She pushed open one of the French doors and started out around the pool, but a flash of lavender drew her attention.

  It came from one of the pool chairs. A lavender scarf lay caught against the arm, the ends dancing in the breeze. A lavender scarf very much like the one Eleanor Ashland had been wearing at the restaurant a few days before.

  Carrie hurried on, not wanting to be seen staring at the scarf. She’d barely reached the gym when she heard the door open and close and knew that Grant was coming behind her. Turning to look, she saw him stop by the chair, take up the scarf in his hand, roll it into a tiny ball, then shove it deep into the pocket of his sweats.

  So Grant was still worried about covering his tracks, Carrie thought to herself. For just a moment she almost despised him. How sordid it was to hide away with another man’s woman this way. Cheats did things like that. She wasn’t sure why, but it hurt to think of Grant as a cheat.

  “Hello,” she said without a smile.

  “You came back,” he answered shortly. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

  She gestured toward the padded table. “Of course I came back. You can’t scare me off that easily.”

  He turned his back to peel off the sweats. He wore his shorts underneath, she was relieved to note, but she’d sensed again his reluctance to bare his scars to her. He got up on the table without another word. She plugged in her machine and began to move it lightly over his leg, standing with her back to him again. It was easier this time.

  She started whistling, a nervous habit she’d had as a child that she hadn’t succumbed to in years. Dismay filled her as she realized that she was whistling “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” She cut it off hard and made a face, praying that he hadn’t noticed.

  But he had. If she’d turned around at that point, she would have seen a smile in his eyes. He watched her stiff back, the swing of her full, shining hair, and he was reminded of just how young and naïve she was.

  Carrie Harlow, he thought to himself, don’t you know I am the big bad wolf? Don’t you know you ought to run for the woods right now?

  “Before I eat you up,” he whispered aloud.

  “What?” she asked, looking back.

  He shook his head, very slowly. She went back to work. The sound waves from her machine pulsed, an evening breeze blew in and stirred the papers on the desk, and the scent of Carrie’s perfume filled his senses. Spring flowers. He closed his eyes, trying to deny what he felt.

  This was the only woman he’d wanted since the accident. Why did it have to be her?

  At last she stopped the machine. “How’s that?” she asked as he flexed the knee.

  “Well, it doesn’t feel any worse,” he answered.

  She swung around and glared at him. “Great,” she said sarcastically. “So glad I could help.”

  He didn’t say a word, and she decided it was time to leave. While he sat watching, she packed up her machine, putting away the cord and then the device itself. For some reason she couldn’t get the lock on the case to catch. She tried it once, twice, then repacked the machine, all the time feeling his caustic gaze burning into her. It still wouldn’t latch.

  “Damn!” she muttered, closing her eyes. She wanted to throw the thing at him. Finally she heard the click. Tossing her golden hair back, she threw him a triumphant smile and started for the door. But without seeming to hurry, he beat her to it and suddenly had hold of her arm, stopping her progress, turning her toward him.

  She couldn’t speak. The sense of his powerful presence washed over her, and she was paralyzed. Her eyes met his and locked, breath suspended. Time stopped, and the memory of the kiss they’d shared in the wine cellar flooded back in a wave of sensuous longing.

  Without realizing what she was doing, she raised her face, lips slightly parted. His hand moved up her arm, fingers caressing, and with the other hand he cupped her cheek. A sigh escaped her, a sigh as soft as a whisper, and she was lost in his gaze, which drew her in but frightened her at the same time. Her heart was beating much too fast. Every instinct told her to pull away, but she was caught and couldn’t move.

  And then Grant stepped back. He looked at his rough, dark hand against her silky skin, and he swore softly and pulled away.

  “Leave the sonar device,” he said roughly, sitting on the edge of the desk and folding his arms tightly across his chest. “I’ll take care of these afternoon sessions on my own, I don’t need you here for that.”

  He said the last almost fiercely, as though he were trying to convince himself. She swallowed hard, still off-balance from what had almost happened. There seemed to be a cloud of something that shimmered between them, but when she blinked, it disappeared, and she decided it must have been nothing more than a reflection off the pool.

  “All right,” she said shakily. “I ... I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She left as quickly as she could and didn’t look back. As she stepped down from the porch toward her car, she heard the strains of big-band music coming from the house.

  She would hear it often in the next few days, floating down from the upstairs bedroom when she arrived, or wafting out from his study in the afternoon. It began to seem like a trademark of the man.

  The therapy w
as uneventful for the next week. They treated one another with a cool distance, each pretending the other was nothing more than a stranger who had to be dealt with and then forgotten. Carrie was always aware of the electricity that seemed to pulse between them, but mostly she was able to shake it away and force herself to concentrate on the job at hand.

  And yet every moment away from him was filled with thoughts and memories in which he was the star. When Jerry called, she put him off with excuses of work and exhaustion. When her family called, she made similar apologies. She was becoming obsessed with the man, and she could only pray that he never realized how bad it was.

  In the meantime she picked up two more clients, a little boy with arthritis and an elderly man who was hoping to bounce back after surgery. It was wonderful that her practice was growing, but the case that still filled most of her thoughts was Grant Carrington’s.

  It was that damn kiss in the wine cellar, she told herself in disgust. If it hadn’t been for that, she might be able to treat him just like any other client. But the memory of that kiss was always there, always trembling between them.

  He hadn’t kissed her since. And he’d better not try it, she warned herself silently. And still she ached.

  Almost a week had passed, and Grant was still a total mystery to her. He was such a blend of seductive appeal and aggressive bitterness. He was taciturn to the point of being unsociable, and though his eyes sometimes told her things she didn’t want to know, he never opened up at all with words.

  But he did complain.

  “This is nothing,” he told her after a half-hour session of stretching and flexibility exercises. “I could do this in my sleep.”

  “You’ve got to take it slow and easy,” she warned him. “There’s a great deal of healing still to take place. If you try to go too fast, you’ll injure yourself and end up farther behind.”

  He didn’t like her answer. Swearing softly, he dived into the pool and did a fast few laps, kicking off hard from the side, rather than taking the lazy laps she’d told him to take. She watched helplessly, not sure what she could do to convince him. He was a strong, vigorous man used to a fast-paced life. She knew what she cautioned was anathema to him, but she also knew that she was right. His way would only make things worse.