Romance: Altered Engagement (Wild Hearts, Contemporary Romance Book 1)

by Nancy Adams

  “I think I just blew a hole in a piston,” Kylie said. She had always been the tomboy as they were growing up, and had been the one to hang out in their dad's garage tinkering with cars. She knew a lot about them, while Katie had been the one to insist on spending time with their mother whenever she was home, learning to cook and sew, and do different hairstyles and makeup. “I'm gonna have to go by the shop.”

  Katie just nodded, and went back to leaning against the door. Despite the smoke, the car seemed to keep moving as far as she could tell, and that was all that mattered to her.

  They turned in to the drive of their father's garage about ten minutes later, and Kylie pulled right up to the door. She slid out and walked inside, where a half-dozen guys were working on just as many cars. She spotted her father toward the back of the building, and then realized what he was doing.

  The Corvette was there, and Allen was carefully taking it apart. Kylie saw the gaping hole in the windshield that her sister had flown through, and felt a sudden wave of nausea, but she forced it back down. She walked up to the car and looked down at the smashed front end, then at the part her father was working on.

  He had the front-end assembly off, and was looking at the steering box. It was undamaged, the electric rack and pinion system still intact and functional, even though the frame was warped beyond any hope of repair.

  “Find the problem?” Kylie asked, and Allen looked up suddenly. He hadn’t realized she was there, and was caught off guard, but he recovered quickly. “Nope,” he said. “There's not a thing wrong with the steering in this car. I don't know why they hit the tree, but it wasn't a steering problem, like Darren said.”

  Kylie shook her head. “You think he's lying? Or just doesn't remember what really happened?”

  “I'm not sure,” Allen said, “and it isn't going to make any real difference now, other than in the insurance claims.” He wiped his hands on a rag that was hanging out of his pocket. “What brings you down here this morning?”

  She thrust out her bottom lip, the way she always did when the car was acting up and she needed his help to fix it. “I think the Riv just blew a piston. With me taking Katie to physical therapy and all, I don't have time to tear it down and rebuild the engine right now...”

  Allen grinned. “Put it over on the side, and I'll have Jason start on it tomorrow morning. I'll drive you home and you can use Katie's car for now.”

  Kylie groaned. “Dad, Katie's car is too small, the wheelchair won't fit into it anywhere. Isn't there something else I can drive ‘til the Riv is fixed?”

  Allen sighed. “Good point. Let's go see what I've got on the lot.” Like a lot of mechanics, Allen ended up buying cars and fixing them up for resale at times, so he'd gotten his dealer's license a few years before, and set up a small used-car lot beside his shop.

  They walked outside and toward the lot, and Kylie instantly pointed to a Ford Ranger pickup truck. “How about that? The chair can go in the back, and Katie should be able to get in and out of it okay.”

  Allen nodded and went into the little office building to get the key and a dealer tag to put on the truck. Kylie started it up and moved it closer to where she would park the Riviera, and then went to get her car and her sister.

  “Dad's gonna fix my car, so we're taking a little truck for now,” she said as she got in. She started the car up, and smoke swallowed them up, so she backed up carefully until she was able to see, and then turned it to park where her father had indicated. Allen was standing there, waiting.

  “Hey, Sweetheart,” he said to Katie. “Let me lend a hand, here.” He opened the door and reached in to pick her up, then carried her over to the truck and put her on the seat. “There you go!”

  She smiled at him. “Thanks, Daddy,” she said as Kylie got her wheelchair out of the trunk of the car and swung it up and over the side of the truck bed.

  Kylie smiled at the two of them. “I'm glad that thing is so light,” she said. “This truck bed is a lot higher than the trunk of the Riv.”

  Katie rolled her eyes, and Allen chuckled as Kylie got into the truck and behind the wheel. “You girls drive safe,” Allen said, closing Katie's door. “I'll see you this evening.”

  They pulled out of the lot and turned onto the street, and Kylie looked at Katie again. “So, are you hungry? I'm kind of in the mood for tacos, myself, what do you think?”

  Katie looked over at her. “Take out or home made?”

  Kylie laughed. “Take out, of course, unless you feel like making them,” she said, and then drove directly to their favorite local Taco Stand. It was run by a Hispanic lady named Maribel, who made the best tacos either of the girls had ever tasted. “Eat here, or take them home?”

  “Let's take 'em home,” Katie said, and Kylie nodded and went to the window to place their order. She was back five minutes later with a half-dozen tacos, a bag of churros and two bottles of root beer. She handed all of it to Katie, and then drove them home.

  They ate their lunch together at the kitchen table, and then wandered into the living room to watch some TV. Kylie got up a few minutes later and went out into their garage, then returned ten minutes later with an old soccer ball. She bounced it on the floor twice, and looked at Katie.

  “How about it, Sis?” she asked, and Katie grinned. The living floor was carpeted, so she locked the brakes on her wheelchair and rolled out onto the floor as she'd done on the mat.

  “Bring it on,” Katie said, using her hands to slide herself back against the couch. Kylie took hold of her left ankle and lifted her foot, then set it down on the ball, as Rob had done.

  Katie stared at her foot, and it wobbled around for a moment before it rolled off the ball and hit the floor. “Nice,” Kylie said. “You kept it up there for a few seconds, first try! Let's call Dr. Christopher!”

  “No,” Katie said, and then realized her sister had been joking. “Okay, smart aleck, let's do it again.”

  Kylie lifted her foot and put it back on the ball, and once again she actually managed to keep it on the ball for a few seconds. “Oh, wow,” she said, “I can actually feel the muscles working! It's like, just a little bit at a time, but I can feel them straining a bit, making the leg move to keep my foot there!”

  Kylie lifted her foot onto the ball again, and this time they both watched, Katie with her teeth clenched tightly together, as it stayed on top of the ball for a good ten seconds, wobbling all around as her leg worked to keep it steady. When it finally fell off, Kylie said, “Okay, now, that was worth calling Dr. Christopher! Katie, that was wonderful!”

  Katie was smiling, and Kylie saw tears brimming her eyes. “Let's not call him yet,” she said. “I want to be able to really report something big when we do!”

  Kylie shrugged. “Okay, then, let's get busy and make something big happen!” She put Katie's foot on the ball again, and this time it fell off instantly. Her foot landed beside the ball, and Katie's face was a mask of despair.

  “Don't get upset,” Kylie said. “Just like this morning, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Look how much better you're doing, though. Come on, do it again.” She put the foot on the ball again, and Katie put all her concentration into forcing that foot to stay put.

  Ten seconds passed, and her foot barely moved at all. Another ten seconds, and the trembling of her leg was beginning to show, but the foot was still on top of the ball. Five seconds more passed, and then finally, the ball rolled slightly and her foot fell off to hit the floor with a thump.

  “Katie,” Kylie said, “you're getting there. Look how much you just did, and that's a million times better than what happened yesterday.”

  “I know, right? I can feel it, Kylie, I really am gonna walk again! I'll be back on my feet sometime soon, and Darren Allsip can...” She let her sentence trail off, and Kylie saw her eyes go dark.

  “He'll know what he lost, one of these days,” Kylie said. “And I can't wait until he does.”

  “The more I accomplish now,” Kati
e said, “the sooner he's gonna know that. Let's keep going.”

  Kylie grinned, and put her sister's foot onto the ball once again. This time she took out her iPhone and began taking video of what happened, and sure enough, Katie held her foot there for more than twenty seconds. They looked at the video together, and Katie was amazed at how obvious it was that she was controlling her leg, keeping the foot on the ball. She took out Dr. Christopher's business card, and had Kylie send the video to him through a text message.

  “Come on,” she said once it was sent. “Let's keep going!”

  Kylie lifted her foot onto the ball, but then her phone went off, and Katie let her foot fall off as they both leaned forward to look at Rob's reply: “Okay, slow down or you won't need me anymore! Awesome! Fantastic!”

  Katie beamed from ear to ear, and Kylie put her foot on the ball once again. It fell right off, but Katie wasn't dismayed. She nodded, and Kylie put it back, and this time it stayed for a good ten seconds, the muscles in her leg flexing as she worked to keep it steady.

  They switched legs, and found that the right wasn't quite as cooperative as the left, but she was still doing better than she had been that morning, or the day before. Her foot wouldn't stay up as long as it did with the left, but it was still quite obvious that she was exerting effort that was keeping it in place for a time, anyway.

  By four, Katie was exhausted and sweaty, and Kylie was almost as bad. She helped her sister get back into her wheelchair, and followed her back to her room. She helped her get out of her clothes and into the tub in her bathroom so she could get a bath, then went upstairs to get a bath of her own.

  Katie sat in the tub as it filled, watching the water as the level rose and wishing she could feel it. She knew it was warm, but her legs and feet couldn't feel the temperature, or even the wetness of it. She felt a moment of depression, thinking of what life would be like if she never regained that feeling, and that led to thoughts of Darren and the life that would never be, now.

  She had always thought her life was planned out, that God or Fate or some Supreme Being had laid out a path that it was destined to follow. She had expected to marry Darren, have four kids and a dog, live in St. Louis for a few years and then in Washington, once he began his political career. She'd known that she would be a volunteer, that she'd serve on various charity committees, hold positions on hospital boards, organize church functions, and do all the other things that a rich lawyer/politician's wife did.

  All that was gone, snatched away in a matter of seconds. Something had gone wrong with a car, and because of that minor mechanical defect, she had been hurt and disfigured—she still couldn't bear to look at the raccoon in the mirror for longer than it took to brush what hair she had left—and she would probably be dealing with some of the aftereffects for years to come, but the most significant effect was the loss of the future she had believed in for the past year. That future was gone, and even if Darren came back begging her now, she knew that there was no way she could ever trust him again. He had betrayed her, shown her that there was something he loved more than he loved her, and no woman should have to live under the shadow of another love—not even one that was intangible.

  The worst part of it all was that she didn't know how to move on. She'd been with Darren for almost three-and-a-half years, and except for Sherry and Jay, the only friends she had now were the friends she had come to know through him. She wouldn't want to see those people again, and if she was going to be genuinely honest with herself, she hadn't ever really liked most of them anyway; they were steps on Darren's ladder, so she put up with them and entertained them and pretended they mattered, knowing all along that once she and Darren left for St. Louis, they'd never see most of them again. They would have served their purposes, and would no longer be needed.

  How long, she wondered then, would it have been before she would have served her purpose and been discarded? So many politicians were known for affairs, and for dumping one spouse in favor of a new one; would she have ended up like that? Considering how quickly and callously she'd been discarded for being crippled, she was certain that she would have faced that fate eventually. She'd have been kicked to the curb, and Darren would have had a new wife before she ever realized what had happened to her.

  She opened her eyes, as she felt water sloshing around her midsection, and realized that her left leg was moving. It was drawing up toward her belly, the knee rising up out of the water, and then thrusting forward again, and suddenly she realized what it was doing.

  Her leg was kicking Darren to the curb.

  9

  Kylie had come running down the stairs, wrapped in a towel, as soon as Katie screamed her name, terrified that her sister had slipped in the tub somehow and was drowning, or that some madman had broken in and was trying to strangle her. When she got to the bathroom and realized that Katie only wanted her to see that her left leg was making some kind of kicking motion, she almost got angry, until it hit her that Katie's leg was actually moving!

  “Holy cow,” she said, “are you doing that on purpose?”

  Katie nodded, but also shrugged. “Sort of,” she said. “I can make it draw up, and then it sort of kicks back out on its own. And I can make it stop, watch.” The leg thrust out, and then stopped, but a moment later, Katie said, “Okay, now here I go again,” and it drew up once more, then kicked out rather quickly.

  The girls looked at each other, and smiled. Katie said, “I hope I can still do that after I get out of the water.”

  “Surely you can,” Kylie said. “That shouldn't have anything to do with it, I wouldn't think. But I'm gonna go finish my shower, and then we'll find out, okay? I'll be back.” She turned and headed upstairs again, listening to the sloshing of the water as Katie's leg kicked again and again.

  When she came back down twenty minutes later, Katie was ready to get out. She had drained the tub and dried herself the best she could, and was sitting there with a towel wrapped around her, so Kylie leaned down and got her sister in a hug that allowed her to lift Katie up and out onto the wheelchair, which was sitting beside the tub. Katie rolled herself into her room, and dug out clean clothes.

  While she put on clean underclothes and a light dress, wriggling its skirt down around her bottom the way she'd wriggled the shorts up, earlier, she told Kylie about her reverie in the tub, and how it had led to the kicking of her leg.

  “So, have you tried it since you got out of the water?” Kylie asked, and Katie sighed.

  “No. I'm a little scared to,” she said. “What if it won't work, what if it was nothing but a muscular contraction from the heat of the water?”

  Kylie shrugged. “It's gotta be more than that,” she said, “because you were able to stop it and start it. Let's see if we can get any action out of it now.” She sat down on the floor in front of Katie, and lifted her foot off the footrest of the wheelchair and held it straight out in front of her. “Try pulling it back,” Kylie said.

  Katie stared at her leg for a moment, and suddenly it jerked, the knee coming back toward her chest. It drew her foot back about ten inches, and then stopped. Katie's eyes were wide, and her breath was a bit ragged, but she was smiling.

  “Well?” Kylie said. “Push, girl, push!”

  Katie tried to push her foot forward, and a second later her leg jerked again, kicking out the way it had done in the bath, and the two girls degenerated into shouts of laughter and excitement. While it seemed such a minor accomplishment, they both knew that it meant there were greater strides to come, and that eventually, Katie Lou would walk again.

  “We've gotta show Dr. Christopher,” Kylie said, and Katie agreed. The iPhone came out again, and soon there was a video of Katie drawing the leg back and thrusting it forward. They sent it off to Rob, and then went out to the kitchen to start dinner for their parent's, both of whom would be home around six.

  Kylie was surprised when her phone rang a couple of minutes later, and even more surprised when she saw that it was Rob's
number calling. “Hello?”

  “Okay,” Rob's voice said. “There's something going on at your house, and I want to know what it is. Watching so much improvement is mind blowing! How are you doing it?”

  Kylie laughed. “I think it has a lot to do with determination on the part of your patient, Dr. Christopher. She's a pretty determined gal.”

  “No kidding. I have never seen such rapid results. When you sent the video of her foot on the ball, I was blown away, but to see her entire leg move like that—I'm willing to bet we have her up walking on parallel bars within a week.”

  “That would be awesome,” Kylie said. “I know that would thrill her.”

  “Well, she keeps this up, and I'd say it's a definite. Tell her I said so, and I'll see you both tomorrow!” He hung up, and Kylie relayed everything he had said to Katie Lou.

  Katie smiled. “I know it's only been a few days,” she said, “since I was up and walking and everything was normal—but right now it seems like it's been a year, in some ways, and in other ways, I can't imagine that I can't just get up and walk. I've dreamed that I was walking, that I forgot I couldn't walk and just got up and started walking like nothing had ever happened, but then I wake up and remember.” She looked at her little sister. “Oh, Kylie, I can't wait.”

  The two of them decided to make spaghetti for dinner, and since Katie was limited to things she could do sitting down, most of the work fell to Kylie. Katie would make the garlic bread, and could help with wetting the table and such, but Kylie didn't mind putting the water on to boil, or making the sauce, so it was a good time that the girls enjoyed together.

  Judy was the first one home, and she called out as she entered, “I don't know if I'm in the right house or not, because something smells awfully good!”

  “You're in the right house,” Kylie called back, “but there's a lot more good here than just what you can smell!”

  Judy came into the kitchen. “Oh, really?” she asked. “Like what?”