by Nancy Adams
Copyright
Old Dreams Die Hard
Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Adams.
All right reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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Published by: Nancy Adams
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Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
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1
“Bubba,” Anna said, “you look fine! Stop messing with your hair, stop fidgeting with your tie. You look great.”
“What do you know?” Rob asked her. “You're just my kid sister. How in the world could I be expected to take your advice on how to look for my first date with the girl of my dreams?”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Oh, good grief,” she said. “Look, Bubba, I know how you feel about Katie Lou, right? I mean, haven't I had to listen to it for the last few weeks? All I hear about is how wonderful she is, how beautiful she is, how crazy about her you are…”
“I have never said anything about how crazy about her I am,” Rob said. “You added that part in. I really don't need you to put words in my mouth; I'm perfectly capable of putting them there myself, and ending up having to eat them.”
“Stop it! I'm only trying to help,” she told him. “Besides, I'm a girl, so I'm perfectly capable of looking at you from that perspective, as far as your hair and clothes and such are concerned. I'm qualified to give advice on how you want to look for this girl.”
Rob had been trying to get ready for the dance for over two hours, but he’d found some sort of fault with everything he put on. He was suddenly irritated with himself over the fact that he hadn't bought a new suit since the day he graduated college, and that had been just long enough ago for styles to have changed a bit. The nicest suit he owned would probably look a little out of place at the country club, and he just couldn't stand the thought of not looking his best for Katie Lou.
Katie Lou Brennan had come into his life a few weeks ago, sent by Dr. Capshaw, the neurosurgeon from the Columbia University Medical Center who had first treated her after she was life-flighted there. She'd been sent to the medical center in the hope that they could save her life after she was thrown through the windshield of a Corvette that hit a tree. Once the ER had gotten her stabilized, Dr. Capshaw had been called in to deal with the serious damages done to her spine and cranium. There was neurological damage, the doctors knew, and she was in a coma. The coma was severe enough that, for a while, the doctors and nurses wondered if she were ever going to awaken, or if she'd be on life support for years to come.
Miraculously, the coma lasted only a day and a half, but when she did awaken, they discovered that she was paralyzed from the waist down, and Katie Lou had been sure that that was the moment when her life actually ended.
But that was weeks ago. Now, Katie Lou had made progress that was almost considered unbelievable, and she was well on her way to beginning a whole new career. She had already gotten her degree in psychology, and would shortly have her license as a counselor. Because she understood the trauma and fears of someone who had suffered a spinal injury, she had decided to go into the field of specialized counseling for people with disabilities.
Katie Lou credited her incredible progress in large part to her physical therapist, Dr. Rob Christopher. Rather than simply inundating her with all of the conventional exercises that most physical therapists adhere to, Rob had demonstrated his creativity, coming up with exercises that were designed specifically for her. He looked at each step of her progress, and considered how to enhance it for her, how to play on each strength that she demonstrated in order to develop the next level of that strength.
She had come to him in a wheelchair, barely able to get around on her own at all. Within days, she was up and walking back and forth on the parallel bars. A week later, she was using a walker, one with wheels and brakes and a seat that made it possible for her to be far more independent.
Katie Lou had been injured in an accident with her former fiancé. The Corvette they were riding in had been his, and while she didn't remember the actual accident, there was substantial evidence that he may have fallen asleep behind the wheel. The car struck a tree, and Katie Lou went through the windshield, due to wear on the seat belt that was abnormal, and primarily the fault of the car's owner.
Her ex-fiancé, Darren, had great political ambitions. A number of powerful people and organizations were backing him in a long-term plan that they hoped would eventually lead him to the White House, and it didn't take long for them to decide that a crippled wife would be a liability, rather than an asset to his future candidacy. After a weak attempt to argue the point, he allowed himself to put those ambitions before everything else, and when it became obvious that Katie Lou was going to need long-term therapy, he broke off the engagement.
In order to protect his career, his backers advised that he should forestall any attempt by Katie Lou to reveal what had happened, or to file a lawsuit for damages. Since both he and his father were attorneys, they quickly put together a settlement offer. Darren's insurance was already on the hook for all of her medical care, so they offered her three-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollars to sign an agreement that she would never discuss what happened, or seek any future damages from Darren over the accident or the canceled engagement.
Katie Lou wanted to put the episode of her life that included Darren as far behind her as possible, and so she signed the agreement. The money she received in the settlement would be more than enough to allow her to establish herself in a counseling practice, and when she mentioned the idea of specializing in disability counseling to Rob, he immediately suggested, since there were additional, unused rooms in the building he had purchased for his clinic, that she simply open her practice there.
Katie Lou was thrilled, partly because it would put her in a perfect position to meet potential new clients, but also because it would allow her to see Rob Christopher every day. Rob felt precisely the same way, excited that his daily lif
e would now include Katie Lou. Rob's red-haired sister, Anna, and Katie Lou's sister, Kylie, rolled their eyes in tandem, both of them fully aware that Rob and Katie were falling in love.
At first, Kylie had been jealous. She happened to think that Rob Christopher was the most gorgeous hunk of male flesh she had ever seen in her life, and she had worked very hard to get his attention. It had sort of worked, because Rob had asked Kylie to go with him as his date to a charity ball at the country club, but after watching the way he looked at Katie Lou, Kylie finally accepted the reality of the situation, told Rob she wouldn't be able to go after all, and suggested he take her sister instead.
Rob thought that an excellent idea, and changed Katie Lou's physical therapy sessions for the next few days to include dancing as her primary exercise. That allowed them to develop their dancing style, since Katie Lou would have to spend a good part of her time on the dance floor basically hanging from his arms. Yes, she could move her legs about, but she was still suffering bouts of weakness in them, which meant that he would literally be holding her up, at times.
The girl was barely over five feet tall, and weighed in at less than 100 pounds; Rob didn't mind, and after they had practiced it just a little bit, anyone who didn't know that he was holding her up would never guess. In fact, they had become so comfortable dancing together that when Katie Lou's legs failed her, Rob could simply hook her toes with his and make them move where they should go. The move looked entirely natural, and he was thinking of recommending dance lessons to other patients of his.
Of course, he wasn't planning on being their instructor. Katie Lou had him all to herself in that regard.
However, Saturday had finally arrived, and the dance was that evening. Rob was a nervous wreck, and he had spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out how to look his best, which was what led to the current comical conversation with his sister.
“Bubba, please, listen to me,” Anna said. “You look fine. Fine, that's F-I-N-E. That suit will work—you don't have to go out and buy a new one, you don't have to have anything altered, and you don't have time for that, anyway. You might want to go with the red tie, rather than the blue one, but that's just my opinion. Other than that, though, you look great.”
“Red tie? Are you sure? I mean, the suit is kind of a dark blue, so I thought maybe a light blue tie would work, but if you think I should wear the red one, then I can do that.” He took off the tie he was wearing and put the red one on in its place.
Anna nodded. “Oh, yeah, that's perfect. And I do mean perfect, don't change a thing. No, leave your hair alone, did you hear me say don't change anything? I was being serious, you look perfect! Katie may not even recognize you, you look so good.”
If she were forced to tell the truth, on the witness stand for instance, Anna would've had to admit that she was pretty much having the time of her life. She and her brother, who had essentially raised her since she was four years old, were probably as close as siblings could possibly be, but that didn't eliminate the natural tendency they had for picking on one another. Anna loved her brother very much, and had long hoped for him to find a girl he could truly love, so that he could begin to have a life of his own. Katie Lou Brennan seemed to be that girl, and Anna was happy for them both.
There was a soft knock on Rob's bedroom door, and he called out, “Come on in, Linda.” The door opened, and a woman slipped inside, smiling at him as she did so.
Anna smiled back at her. “Linda,” she said, “doesn't Robbie look nice?”
The woman nodded vigorously, and any observer would have noticed that there was something childlike in her actions. “Robbie looks nice, nice,” she said.
Linda was their mother. She had been injured in the same accident that had claimed the life of their father sixteen years previously, and left Rob in a wheelchair. He had suffered severe spinal injuries, and it took eight surgeries over several years to get him back on his feet. He and little Anna, who had only been four at the time, as well as Linda, had all gone to live with Linda's sister, Kay.
Linda had suffered severe brain damage. She had regressed to the point that she was the mental equivalent of a five-year-old, with no memories of ever having been an adult. She did not remember her husband or her children, so as far as she knew, Rob and Anna were her own older siblings. Other than occasional flashes of the woman she once was, Linda was a child trapped in a grown-up body, and like many children, she wasn't capable of understanding a lot of rules. She could manage one rule at a time, but could not keep up with any kind of a sequence of them. She could not recognize normal social cues or signs of danger, and could easily be manipulated, so she could not be left unsupervised.
Once, a few years before, Linda had slipped out the front door when everyone thought she was sleeping, and she had gotten lost among the city streets. She had wandered toward the downtown area, and when she encountered a group of people, she hurried over to meet them. She had stumbled into a homeless camp, where several people were living in cardboard boxes and makeshift shelters. A couple of the men had seen her, and when they realized that she was quite simple, one of them tried to take advantage of her, but the other protected her. He and a woman in the group took Linda away from that area, and found a police officer who knew Kay and recognized Linda. She got home safely, and Kay had alarms installed on the doors the next day.
Aunt Kay, however, had passed away from illness a couple of years before, not long after Rob had started his own practice there in Maxwell. She had left her house and everything she owned to Rob and Anna, so they continued to live in the same place. The only real difference, other than Aunt Kay's absence, was that Linda went to an adult day care whenever Rob and Anna left for work.
Most evenings, Linda was there at home with Rob and Anna. Even when one of them went out, which wasn't that common an occurrence, the other one usually stayed home to take care of her, and the only times they got to go out together were when Linda was staying with a caretaker. That would be the case on this night, with Anna staying home with Linda, while Rob took Katie Lou to the dance.
Rob grinned at Linda. “You think I look nice?” he asked, and once again, Linda nodded vigorously, smiling as brightly as she could.
“Robbie looks nice, nice, nice,” she said. Repeating something over and over was her way of adding emphasis, letting them know that she was serious about something.
“Oh, I get it,” Anna said, “when I tell you that you look nice, you don't believe me, but when Linda says it, then it must be true, right? Well, I guess I can see which one of us really rates with you, can't I?”
If his little sister hadn't had the glint in her eye that she did, he might have thought she were seriously offended, but they'd had these conversations so many times that he didn't worry about it anymore. Anna loved him, he knew, and they both loved Linda. This was their life, and he wasn't sure, just yet, how things might change if he and Katie Lou became truly serious about one another.
Rob finally decided to take his little sister's advice, and declared himself ready. With Anna and Linda smiling and waving, he slipped out the door and into his car, driving away towards Ralston, where Katie Lou was waiting for him to pick her up.
Eleven miles away, Katie Lou was going through similar emotional turmoil, trying to get herself ready for their date. She had tried on several outfits, and discarded all of them. She'd actually bought a couple of things specifically for this evening, a few days before when she'd gone on a shopping spree, but now that Saturday had finally arrived, none of them seemed as appealing as they had when they were hanging on the mannequins in the stores.
“Oh, would you just chill out?” Kylie said to her. “If I remember correctly, you and Rob both said this wasn't really a date, right? You're just getting to know each other, right? Then why on earth are you getting so bent out of shape over what to wear?”
Katie Lou turned and glared at her sister. “First outing with the new guy that you happen to really like, can you honestly te
ll me you wouldn't be stressing out this way? If you say you can, you're lying, so don't bother. And hand me those black pants, again.”
Kylie grinned. “Of course I would,” she said, “and you'd be telling me to chill, now wouldn't you? It's what sisters do. Here.”
Kylie handed over the slacks, and Katie carefully slid her legs into them, then stood and leaned against the wall as she pulled them up the rest of the way. She held onto her walker with one hand as she examined herself in the mirror. With the pale blue top she was wearing, the slacks looked pretty good, and if she wore the black blazer, that would top it off perfectly.
She sat down on her walker and reached for her shoes. They slid on easily, and she decided she was as ready as she was going to be. Rob should be arriving sometime soon to pick her up, she realized, so she might as well stop trying to achieve an unattainable perfection, and just be ready when he got there. She stood again, took another look in the mirror, then took hold of Willy the Walker and headed into the living room.
“My, don't you look nice!” Judy, her mother, said as she entered the room. “Allen, look at your daughter, isn't she beautiful?”
Her dad turned and smiled at her. “Of course she is,” he said, “she inherited her looks from you, Dear.” He winked at Katie Lou, who smiled and winked back. “You do, Sweetheart,” he said. “You look absolutely beautiful. That doctor of yours is going to have to pick his eyeballs up off the ground once he gets a look at you.”
“Thank you,” Katie said, “thank you both. We talked about what to wear for this dance, and I'm just hoping this is okay.”
“Oh, I'm sure it will be,” Judy said.
“Katie, you gotta relax,” Kylie said, grinning. “It'll be fine.”
Katie sat down on the couch, and the four of them watched the television program that her father had turned on while they waited. Rob was scheduled to pick her up at six thirty, so that they could have dinner before going to the country club. He'd made a comment that it was a great place to dance, but not so great for eating, so they planned to slip off to a nice restaurant beforehand.