by Dana Nussio
“Oh, Mom.” She reached out to touch her mother’s short hair. “What did you do to yourself?”
But her mother only shifted her head until Natalie’s hand fell away. She gripped her hands together, another bloody tissue covering part of her fingers.
“Just a glass. I knocked it over. You weren’t here.”
Natalie didn’t even pause over the accusation as she reached for her mother’s hand. “Here. Let me see it.”
“It’s not like you cared enough to come home on time.”
“Just show me.”
Why didn’t Natalie defend herself? Why didn’t she at least explain that the team had finally won and they’d all gone out to celebrate?
With a petulant look, her mother extended her hand, and Natalie carefully unwrapped the tissue covering it until she came to the bloody smear on the woman’s index finger.
“It’s probably going to need stitches,” her mother said.
Stitches? Hadn’t she said something on the phone to Natalie about an ambulance?
Natalie shifted the hand a few times to get a better look and then glanced at the family room doorway where he waited.
“Hey, Shane, could you flip on that switch behind you? It’s too dark in here.”
Shane blinked. She’d known all along that he’d followed her. On the other hand, if she’d noticed his lack of surprise over her mother being in a wheelchair, she didn’t show it. She had more important things on her mind.
He moved through the doorway and located the switch plate on the wall, flipping both switches and flooding the room with too much light from several rows of recessed fixtures.
Natalie returned to studying the cut that either hadn’t stopped bleeding or had started again when the tissue had been pulled away, but her mother was looking straight at him.
“Who’s that?”
“My assistant coach, Shane,” she said simply. “Shane, I’d like you to meet my mother, Elaine Keaton.”
Immediately, the woman sat up straighter, her uninjured hand lifting to pat her hair. Her demeanor shifted just as quickly. “Sweetheart, you didn’t mention that we had a guest.”
“I didn’t get a chance.”
Shane painted on his best smile. “I’m happy to meet you, Mrs. Keaton.”
“It’s Miss, but you can all me Elaine.”
He ignored her coquettish tone, but he also didn’t look at Natalie. She would probably get a kick out of the awkward moment.
“I would shake your hand, but you seem to be a little busy with it,” he said instead.
“Just a silly accident.”
And not an international incident? This time he and Natalie exchanged a look, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
“We’d better get it cleaned up,” Natalie supplied. “I know it’s bled some, but I don’t think it will need a stitch. Why don’t we just keep pressure on it for a few minutes and see if we can get it to stop?”
“How do you know it doesn’t need a stitch?” Elaine frowned at her and then stared down at her hand again, moving her fingers as if to determine if they still worked. “You’re just a physical therapist.”
Again, Natalie’s jaw tightened, but she looked away instead of responding.
“You know, ladies, I had some first-aid training as part of my job. Would you mind if I looked at it?”
“That would be a good idea,” Elaine said.
She hadn’t even bothered to ask what job he’d done that would require first-aid training. She just seemed to need a second opinion when the first was her daughter’s.
Natalie’s gaze narrowed, but he gave her a small nod. He could help her out if she let him.
“We have some gloves over here,” she said, although she hadn’t bothered to wear them herself.
Resting Elaine’s hand on the tray, Natalie crossed to a section of built-in bookshelves with a row of cabinets stretching across the bottom. Inside, there wasn’t just one box of sterile vinyl gloves, but a whole stack of them, plus all kinds of other medical supplies. She pulled two gloves from the box and carried them back to him.
“You’ll have to be patient with me,” he said as rolled closer to Natalie’s mother and pulled on the gloves. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
But Elaine only extended her hand. Taking it in both of his, Shane carefully pulled the tissue away, and, again, a line of tiny blood droplets appeared along the cut. He examined the injury for several seconds before turning back to Natalie.
“You don’t happen to have any gauze in there, do you?”
“I think I do.” She dug around inside the cabinet and pulled out a box of sterile gauze pads, returning to offer him one.
“Maybe this will keep it from opening up each time,” he told Elaine. “It has to hurt, but, fortunately, I don’t think it’s deep. Natalie’s right. You probably won’t need stitches. We’ll just keep pressure on it until it stops bleeding and then clean it up and bandage it. You’ll be as good as new, but you might have a scar.”
“You mean to go with all of my other scars?”
Shane grinned as he lined up the gauze pad and applied direct pressure to the cut. “Now I can’t relate to that at all.”
Because it was obvious that they both had their share of scars, they laughed, and after a few beats, Natalie joined in.
“Now how exactly did this happen?” he asked, rephrasing Natalie’s question from earlier. Maybe she would answer this time.
“It started to fall. I tried to catch it.” She shrugged as if to say that the rest was obvious.
“The glass? I can see how that would happen.”
“So the two of you were at a game?” Elaine asked, looking at Shane instead of her daughter. “Was it a good one?”
Natalie’s jaw tightened ever so slightly. As responsible as Natalie seemed to be, she’d probably told her mother where she would be and that she would be coaching a game, not watching one. He waited for Natalie to remind her, but she only dragged her front teeth across her bottom lip.
“Yes, the game was great,” Shane answered to fill the awkward pause. “The kids won for the first time all season, so I treated everyone to ice cream.”
“That was awfully nice of you. I bet the kids loved it.”
Again, Shane and Natalie exchanged a look. If Natalie had said the same thing, her mother probably would have said something about how irresponsible it had been for her to go for ice cream instead of making it home on time.
“It wasn’t so altruistic of me,” he told her. “I just really like ice cream and didn’t want to eat it alone.”
“Still, I bet the kids love having someone like you—someone who understands what they’re going through—teaching them about basketball.”
He shook his head. “I don’t do much teaching, since I know almost nothing about the sport.”
At Elaine’s confused expression, he explained, “Your daughter’s the expert. I’m just backup since I have an obvious connection with the kids.” He patted the arms of his chair for emphasis. “We make a good team, though.”
Elaine rolled her eyes. “I doubt you’re ‘just backup.’”
Why had Elaine said that when she could have responded to his comment about their being a good team? Or even that he’d called her daughter an expert at something? But then, who was he to comment on awkward family relationships when he and his brother barely spoke?
“You’re right about that, Mom,” Natalie answered for him. “Shane has made such a difference on the team. The players love him.”
“I can imagine,” Elaine interjected.
Shane shifted in his chair, but Natalie only continued as though she’d missed her mother’s gushing.
“The kids were excited when they found out
that a celebrity would be helping to coach them.”
For the second time, Elaine looked to Shane when the answer could have as easily come from her daughter. “Celebrity?”
He immediately shook his head. Unless they were talking about the infamy from his past, then there was no truth to that claim.
But Natalie nodded. “To them you are.” Then she turned back to her mother. “Did I mention that Shane’s a police officer?”
Elaine blinked several times and then looked from Shane to her daughter.
Natalie continued as if she didn’t notice her mother’s surprise. “You know how kids love cops.”
Shane could only look back and forth between them. After everything that had happened to her, Elaine surely hated the police as much as Natalie did—maybe more—and yet Natalie had lobbed his profession in her mother’s face. He could have sworn he’d just been at the center of a polite boxing match, dodging passive-aggressive punches by both sides but not quite escaping without bruises.
Turning his attention back to accidental injuries rather than intentional shots, he lifted the gauze square on her mother’s cut and then stretched a bandage over it. “Now let’s wait a few minutes and make sure it doesn’t start bleeding again.”
He laced his fingers together and focused on his hands, finding it safer than looking at either one of them.
“Was that from a car accident, as well?”
It took him a few seconds to realize Elaine was speaking to him, but when he looked up, she indicated his chair with a tilt of her head.
He shook his head. “Shooting.”
“And I used to think I had bad days at work,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Shane’s hoping to get back to work real soon,” Natalie supplied.
Her brows were drawn together as if Elaine’s compassionate comment surprised her.
“So this isn’t permanent?” Elaine asked.
Natalie left that question to Shane. Of course, she wouldn’t be allowed to violate privacy laws by discussing his case, even if she was no longer his therapist.
“Hopefully not,” he said with shrug.
“I hope not, too.”
The woman’s simple words brought his gaze back to her. She was wishing for a positive outcome with his condition when her own prognosis was far less promising.
“Thanks.”
Elaine waved her injured hand as if to mark that the conversation had ended. “Look. Good as new.”
“So we don’t need to have 911 on speed dial?” Natalie asked her, this time grinning.
Her mother’s frown had a touch of a smile in it. “I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a cup of tea before bed.”
Natalie glanced at her cautiously. “Sure it won’t keep you up?”
“I’ll drink herbal.”
“Okay then.” She turned back to Shane. “Just give me a minute. I’ll make some tea for Mom and then take you home.”
“I was talking about drinking tea with you two. I need to get to know your friend here.” Elaine paused, looking from one to the other. “Are you going to make me drink alone? You don’t know how much damage I might inflict on myself with a teacup.”
As Natalie’s gaze flicked back to Shane, he shook his head.
“We wouldn’t want that,” he said.
But Natalie didn’t appear convinced. “Will it be a problem for you, getting back so late?”
He shook his head. “I’m a big boy. I don’t have a curfew.” He paused, glancing at her mother. “Besides, I want the chance to get to know this young lady, as well.”
That it gave him the chance to spend more time with Natalie was just an added benefit. He shouldn’t want it, knew it was a bad idea to allow himself to become more attached to her, but he couldn’t resist. Her troubled relationship with her mother only drew him in more.
She still had a mother. Didn’t she realize how lucky she was? Maybe Elaine had been selfish and angry since the accident, and she’d probably taken it out on her daughter sometimes, but there was good in Elaine Keaton. Good that Natalie couldn’t see. Maybe he was just the guy to show her.
* * *
SHANE STILL SAT at her kitchen table an hour later, his hands wrapped around an empty coffee mug, when Natalie returned from helping her mother to bed. She tried to ignore the jolt inside her when he grinned up at her. Would she ever get past that?
“I think I’m a hit with your mom.”
“Ya think?” But she couldn’t help grinning as she said it. No one had inspired that kind of spark in her mother since the accident. Maybe even before that. It had been like watching a sunflower turning to blossom under the sunlight. Part of her resented Shane for causing that spark when she hadn’t been able to do it, but the other part of her was grateful that someone had.
“Did you see how hard she was trying to stay awake, just to keep talking to you?” she said as she returned to the table.
Natalie sat across from him this time, even though her seat had been next to him when the three of them had been at the table. No sense in aiding her temptation to climb into his chair again.
Although he watched, he didn’t comment on the change. “She just relates to me the same way the kids on the team do. We all need someone who makes us feel understood.”
“She was giggling like a schoolgirl.”
“Maybe it didn’t hurt that she was getting attention from a guy, too, but I stand by what I said.”
“Okay, you stick to your story. I do have one question, though.”
He tilted his head. “What’s that?”
“Why weren’t you surprised that my mom is in a wheelchair?”
“Why do you think—” But he stopped when she frowned at him. “Okay, I knew.”
“How?”
“The accessible van for starters. Sure, a ‘connection’ might have let you borrow a van once in a while, but two or three times a week?”
She nodded. “That’s fair. But was that it?”
“Not exactly.”
“And...come on. You’re a cop. What would it tell you if someone answered like that?”
“That there was more he wasn’t saying.”
She held her hands wide and waited.
“I was curious about why you hated cops. And because I was—am—one, I did some research.” He shrugged. “The answers weren’t so hard to find.”
“I guess not.” Her gaze narrowed. “Just how long have you known about our accident?”
“Awhile. Since last week after I asked you about why you didn’t like cops.”
“And you didn’t say something before?”
He shrugged. “I figured you would tell me when you were ready.”
“How did you know I ever would be?”
“I hoped.”
He’d hoped? Why had it mattered to him that she would share her story? Why had he been so curious in the first place? She couldn’t be the only person he’d met who wasn’t a fan of police officers. She wasn’t sure what to do with this feeling of vulnerability. Like Hans Christian Andersen’s story about the emperor and his invisible clothes, she was the only who hadn’t known she was walking around with her secrets exposed.
“But you knew when I...when we—” She had to stop herself now before she said something she would regret even more.
A smile pulled at his lips.
She swallowed but didn’t say more. He should have told her what he knew before they’d shared such an intimate moment, but would she have preferred it if he’d pushed her away before that amazing kiss? Her obvious answer to that revealed how vulnerable she was to him. Even now, he seemed to draw her to him, making her long for sensations and emotions she had no business craving.
“So,
how much did you find out?” she couldn’t help asking.
“Details about the accident. The lawsuit. The two officers ultimately being cleared.”
“Then I guess you know all of it.” She played with her empty mug, turning it back and forth in her hands.
“Not all.”
“What more could you possibly want to know?”
“What happened after the accident?”
“Besides Mom’s long recovery and the lawsuit to cover her care for, hopefully, the rest of her life?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
Natalie thought for a second. Should she answer that? Would she be able to stop if she started? But finally the words came, despite her reluctance.
“Everything changed. Mom began her long recovery, and after my bruises healed, I just went on with my life.”
“Was it really as simple as that?”
She tilted her head side to side. “I guess not. I was still in college when it happened. A music major in piano performance, if you can believe that. I had my music and my boyfriend, Paul. And then the accident happened.”
“I take it the boyfriend bailed?”
“He just hadn’t signed on for all of that,” she said with a sigh. “The accident, my decision to take a break from school to care for Mom and then my discovery about my birth father. It was too much for him.”
“Did he have anything to do with your decision to go back and study physical therapy?”
She shook her head. “No. I’d just discovered while caring for Mom that I liked helping people. So I decided on a career in the medical field.”
“That’s a big change from music.”
She nodded. “I also needed to make a better living so I could provide for Mom’s needs. The settlement only covers so much. Since I wasn’t the next Beethoven, music wouldn’t have cut it.”
“You’ve had all of this to deal with before you’ve even reached your thirtieth birthday?”
* * *