by Lori Ryan
She reminded herself he was still responsible for testing a drug that had ended up killing five of their test subjects. She needed to keep her distance here.
Why? A little voice inside her head asked.
She didn’t need to list the reasons for the voice, but she did anyway. Because she was attracted to the man. And that was not okay. Not on any planet or in any scenario was it okay for her to fall for a man again. Especially this man.
It may have been years since her fiancé walked away from her, but the look on his face when he’d looked at the stump where her hand used to be would stick with her forever. They hadn’t even gotten to the point where she might ever touch him with it, or where it might ever brush against him while they shared a bed. She could only imagine his response then. It wasn’t hard to imagine. He would have been disgusted.
Sara pushed thoughts of Mitchell away and wandered down the hall to look through the viewing windows into the production room. Three technicians checked the machines and busied themselves as the 3D printers whirred. Trays held various pieces ready to be assembled, and Sara smiled at the colors they’d chosen to print. There was her purple alongside a bright pink, bright blue, deep gray, rich brown, and a white that was almost clear, letting the user see the inner workings of the hand.
She moved further down and saw a printer working on child-sized prostheses. That had been Warrick’s idea. They would distribute them to children needing prostheses and charge on a sliding scale according to the family’s ability to pay. The colors for the child sizes were the bright pink and purple, as well as a red and blue one that reminded Sara of Spiderman and a yellow that looked like melted crayon.
She felt Warrick when he came up behind her. She had noticed that started happening. At least he couldn’t sneak up on her anymore, but honestly being able to feel him behind her wasn’t a great feeling either. It meant she’d become too aware of him. Her body reacted involuntarily to him. She turned and found him watching her. He glanced over her shoulder through the room and seemed to be assessing the progress for a minute, but she could see he wasn’t only in businessman mode right now like he usually was. She had noticed that about him lately. There seemed to be something different about him.
Whatever he had been looking for in the room, he apparently found it, because he refocused on her. Once again, Sara felt the unwanted response her body seemed to have to him. It was that small tangle of butterflies that started in her belly, the little bit of excitement that comes on a first date. The buzz of the first kiss.
She stepped back. This was not a date. There would be no first kiss. This would not happen.
“Everything okay?” Warrick’s question was casual, but his voice was just one note lower on the register than it should have been.
Sara nodded and stepped to the side, turning to face the window, so they were standing side-by-side rather than with her trapped between him and the wall. Not that she wouldn’t mind being trapped between him and the wall. Oh Lord.
She went from nodding to shaking her head in a matter of seconds, before she realized he wouldn’t understand why she was shaking her head. She was shaking her head at herself because of the way her mind kept going to places she didn’t want to go with him.
Of course, when she looked over he was eyeing her quizzically.
“You sure about that? Because yes and no at the same time makes me wonder.” Now he was laughing at her and she couldn’t really blame him.
She cleared her throat. “Yes.” She infused the word with as much confidence as she could. Then she turned to him, deciding they needed to focus on business so her mind wouldn’t keep going to places it shouldn’t be. “I spoke to Marissa in marketing today. She had a great idea for an ad once we’re ready to open the prostheses up to the open market.”
Warrick turned to her, seeming to take the bait and focus on business. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“We put together a video montage showing all of the things this hand can do that other prostheses can’t do. Shaking hands, opening a jar, a woman curling her hair with a curling iron. Maybe a child swinging a baseball bat or couple holding hands.”
“You couldn’t hold hands with the regular prosthesis?”
“No.” Sara quickly warmed to her subject. This was something she was comfortable with. She liked talking about the advancements that had been made in the field lately, the new things that her prostheses could do that more traditional prosthetics couldn’t. She placed her hands on Warrick’s upper arms. “With this prosthesis, I can control the strength and intensity of the grip.” She squeezed her natural hand on his upper arm, at the same time making the required movements with her forearm to do the same with her prosthesis where her left hand should have been.
“With this prosthesis, the movement is very similar to the movement a natural hand makes. With a traditional prosthesis it wouldn’t be the same. The fingers don’t curl the same way. The grip couldn’t be made softly. It was either open or closed, no in between.”
It didn’t take long for Sara to stop and realized her mistake. They were now standing close together. Too close together. And her hands were on him. On muscles far too strong and enticing. Muscles that shouldn't be hiding under a business suit, yet there they were.
Sara froze and looked at Warrick, realizing she was holding her breath. That breath seemed to vanish altogether when she saw his eyes darken and he somehow seemed to move closer to her. She’d felt this before with him. The moment when it clicked, when the air in the room shifted and they both realized there was something going on that they hadn’t been acknowledging.
She dropped her hands, preparing to step back, but he caught her wrists, not even seeming to care that one of them wasn’t flesh. He didn’t say anything but those eyes never left hers. There was a question in them now as if to ask her what they were doing or why this kept happening. She didn’t have any answers for him.
Sara’s eyes fell to where one of Warrick's hands had closed around the wrist of her prosthesis and she suddenly felt the need to squirm. She felt like she should apologize for him having to feel rubber and metal and plastic where skin should have been. But when she looked up at him again, the intensity in his face hadn’t left. It hadn’t been replaced by disgust or discomfort and she found the breath suddenly came back into her lungs. She inhaled deeply. It came easily, that breath.
Then Warrick turned his head slowly toward the window and a thought crossed Sara’s mind. They weren’t alone. Sure enough, when she turned her head, she found all three of the technicians in the room had stopped the work and were staring back at the two of them.
Warrick leaned close to her ear. Too close. “Later.” His voice was a commanding growl that should have been a turn off. Sara wasn’t into being bossed around.
Sadly, it wasn’t.
Chapter 11
What did “later” mean?
Sara leaned back against the couch cushion, drawing her legs up under her. She was still trying to figure out if later meant “we’ll talk about this later” or “something’s going to happen between us later” because there had been something happening.
“Hey, you still listening or have you zoned out again?” Samantha handed Sara a glass of wine, then sat on the other side of the couch.
“Sorry.” Sara winced and focused on her friend. She hadn’t told Samantha what happened with Warrick and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Maybe she was reading a lot more into it than it was. Samantha wouldn’t laugh at her, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to embarrass herself if Samantha didn’t think what happened was as significant as Sara did.
She distracted herself removing her prosthesis and setting it and the sleeve that went under it next to the couch. She’d been in it all day and her arm needed a break.
“Okay now, tell me what’s bothering you.” Before Sara could ask what she meant, a wail came through the baby monitor and Samantha jumped up. “Hold that thought.”
Minutes later Samantha buzzed throu
gh the room, stopping long enough to pause and hand baby Joey to a startled Sara, then headed for the kitchen.
Sara didn’t have time to brace herself for the ache that hit her as Joey settled into her arms, his bottom resting on her left arm, his small head cradled in her right hand. She closed her eyes and focused on the feel of his weight as he snuggled into her, his face brushing against her cheek. The feeling was heaven and hell, all wrapped in one. Because she wouldn’t ever have this herself.
Samantha came back with a bottle and held it out to Sara.
“What is that?” Sara didn’t move to take the bottle, but Samantha took one of the couch pillows and nestled it next to Sara, then shifted Joey so he leaned onto the pillow.
She pressed the bottle into Sara’s hand. “A bottle. Feed him.” She moved Sara’s hand toward the baby, who eagerly began to drink.
“Wait, don’t you breastfeed him?” Joey didn’t seem to mind the bottle or the fact that Sara was a bit awkward in juggling the pillow and bottle setup.
“I do.” Samantha pointed toward her glass of wine. “But not if I’ve had a drink in the last hour. I don’t usually drink if I expect to need to nurse him, but he woke up early. He’s cluster feeding. It’s a thing.” She shrugged. “I keep some pumped milk in the freezer and he’s used to a bottle when the sitter comes.”
Sara leveled Samantha with a look. “You’ve had two sips of wine.”
Samantha grinned. “Feeding babies is good for you. It makes you all loosey goosey and happy and shit.” She waved her hands around in waves in front of her and Sara couldn’t help laughing. But Samantha was right. Feeding a baby was magical.
“All right, now that my baby has you all loosened up and I’ve plied you with wine, tell me what’s got you so distracted.”
Sara sighed. It wasn’t worth fighting it any more. Samantha was relentless when she wanted her friends to open up. “I think something happened with Warrick. I mean, it did happen. Something happened. I just don’t really know what.” She was babbling. Not to mention, making no sense whatsoever.
Samantha waved a hand at Joey. “Listen he can’t understand what we’re saying yet. It’s A-okay if you want to get into specifics.”
“You’re crazy.” Sara said this with a smile.
“Point taken. Still, start from the beginning.”
Sara recapped the incident at the lab with Warrick, including the employees watching them and his growled warning of “later.”
“Ohh, later sounds good.” Samantha said this with a little shimmy like she was imagining all the things later could entail.
“But maybe he means later like we’ll talk about what an idiot you are for fantasizing about me like that later. Or we’ll talk about how you’re fired because you made this uncomfortable between us later. Maybe those are the laters.”
Her friend’s face softened, the amusement gone. “Tell me what happened with your fiancé, Sara.”
Sara looked down at Joey who’d fallen back to sleep in her arms. His tiny mouth was open, the bottle still resting on his tongue. He looked content, happy. He clearly didn’t have a care in the world, just the way it should be for him.
Samantha reached over and took him, bringing him to her shoulder where she rubbed and patted his back, bringing out a soft burp. She didn’t let up on Sara, though. “Clearly, he left you with rejection issues.”
“He left.” Sara raised a shoulder. “What more is there to say?”
“How about how he left?”
Sara was quiet for a minute. When Mitchell had left her, she hadn’t had any girlfriends around to talk to about it. Her mom had been around but she hadn’t told her the details. She’d been in a military rehab facility surrounded by tough soldiers fighting their own battles.
“He was disgusted by my injury,” she said, looking at her arm. “He was on leave. He came to see me twice, but I could see the disgust in his eyes. See the way he tried to avoid looking at my arm. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even realize he was doing it, but he’d cover it with the sheet when we were talking.” She looked at Samantha and laughed, but the sound was bitter. “He’d tuck the sheet around it like he could tuck it away from sight and not have to see it.”
“What an idiot!” Samantha’s indignation made Sara laugh again, and this time it didn’t tastes as sour in her mouth.
When the laughter stopped, she met Samantha’s eyes. “It hurt so much.” Her admission was only a whisper, but it was out there. For the first time, she’d admitted how much it hurt to see the man she’d thought would be by her side no matter what happened, walk out the door. Walk out of her life.
Samantha took her hand. “I know it did, hon. I know.”
“I just don’t think I’m ready to risk that again. Not with Warrick. Not with anyone.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’ll keep hanging out with him. I like him. But, I just can’t let it go any further, you know?”
Samantha smiled, but there was a sadness to it that told Sara her friend was hoping for her to move past this sooner rather than later. She looked at the baby sleeping on Samantha’s shoulder. She wanted the same thing. Unfortunately, she just didn’t see herself moving on anytime soon. As much as she put on a good front, she wasn’t brave enough to watch a guy walk away from her again.
Chapter 12
Warrick was tired. So tired. Maybe it was the fight for his company. Maybe it was the fight to resist Sara. But he just wanted a normal, easy night. Working at the office wasn’t doing it for him anymore. And resisting Sara was beginning to seem hopeless. He took the stairs down to Sara’s floor and was only mildly surprised to find her in her office.
“Pitiful.” He leaned against the door jamb and waited for her to look up. Those wide brown eyes met his and kicked his heart into overdrive. Those eyes of hers got him every time.
“You’re one to talk,” she said. She smiled, but there was a shadow behind her eyes he couldn’t decipher. He found himself wanting to.
He told himself he was just being friendly. That this was all part of the plan to practice being a normal guy. To practice hanging out and having friends, but a small part of him was starting to recognize the lie.
“Dinner?”
She hesitated so he pushed. He wanted to be with her. “Come on, dinner never hurt anyone.”
“Okay.” She shut down her computer and grabbed her keys, sticking them in the small bag she threw over one shoulder.
They walked in silence across to the park. It was quiet, but on the other end a lone hot dog vendor waited to take their orders.
Warrick turned to Sara to let her order.
“Two plain.”
He turned back to the vendor. “I’ll take two with the works.” Warrick looked back at the park where he could see the shadow of a man. It was Sara’s homeless friend. “Add another couple of plain dogs and three sodas, please.” He pulled out his wallet and handed a few bills to the man. “Keep it,” he said, raising a hand when the man began to count out his change.
“Thank you.”
Warrick juggled the hot dogs while Sara grabbed the sodas and they headed back into the park. “Here.”
They settled on a bench and Sara picked up the extra hot dogs and one of the sodas and walked toward where Warrick had seen her homeless friend. “Buddy?” She called out. “Are you hungry?”
Warrick spotted the man walking away. “Sara.” He pointed toward the path leading out of the park on the other side. “There.”
“Buddy! Are you hungry?” Sara called to him, but he only sped up.
“Huh.” She turned back to Warrick. “Maybe he’s not in the mood for company. We can leave it for him here. He might come back after we’re gone.”
Warrick nodded and she settled next to him on the bench. The conversation as they ate was easy and light. Too light, Warrick noticed. There was something going on with her. Something she wasn’t telling him. But as they talked, her façade seemed to fall away and she relaxed.
“So, tell me why you were at the office on a Saturday. I have an excuse. You got nothing.” Warrick cracked open one of the sodas for her.
“There was a time I never would have eaten hot dogs and soda for dinner. I was too much of a health nut.” Sara frowned at the food, but took a bite. It was heaven, just as she knew it would be. Somehow the hot dogs you got from a street vendor always tasted better than the ones at home.
“It’s good for you.” Warrick grinned. “Now, really, why are you working?”
“I don’t have an excuse. I was just bored, so I came in to work on the go-go gadget model.”
He laughed. “You’re calling it that now?”
Now it was her turn to grin. “It’s a working name.”
“Are you hoping to bring that one to market, too?”
“Maybe.” Sara crumpled the foil from her first hot dog and opened her second, then began applying the mustard packets she’d grabbed from the vendor. “It’s turning out to be a challenge to get the right pressure and to find a material that allows the telescoping effect without being too heavy.”
“Make any progress today?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to run some figures on a material a friend told me about, but I looked into it more when I got here. It looks like it has some of the properties I would need, but over time it would break down too much to be worthwhile. The life of the prosthesis would likely be a year or two at the most.”
“Could it work for a child’s prosthesis? They’re already going through them at that rate anyway because of growth, right?”
Sara sat up and tilted her head. “Possibly, but there are some kids whose growth rate during any given year wouldn’t be fast enough to go through it before the material wears too thin. In those cases, the failures wouldn’t only be frustrating, they might be dangerous if the prosthesis gives out unexpectedly.”