by Tami Hoag
Jace propped an elbow on the arm of his chair and rubbed his hand across his mouth to hide his smile. He knew for a fact that Rebecca would not appreciate him seeing humor in the situation.
He remained quiet for a moment as he watched her. He could almost see her willing her composure back into place as she read over his file, her brilliant green eyes framed by a pair of large black-rimmed reading glasses. Even seven years before, she had worn a mantle of self-possession the way a queen would wear an ermine-trimmed cloak. The only trouble had been that Rebecca’s cloak had regularly slipped off one shoulder. She had never managed to be quite as aloof as she had wanted to be. She’d had too much warmth in her, too much caring to pull off the ice princess role. Then, too, there had been her penchant for dropping things and bumping into things when she got nervous. He still found that little quirk endearing.
It was damn good to see her again. The feeling was so strong, it almost startled him. Over the years he had never quite forgotten her, but it had been only since the accident that her image had become so clear in his mind. During his stay in the hospital he had begun to think of her often, to wonder what had become of her, to wonder if she ever thought of him.
In those weeks a lot of things had come into focus for him—the mistakes he’d made, the opportunities he had squandered, the precious treasure he’d once held in his hands and then casually tossed aside. The time had come to set some of those indiscretions to rights. Rebecca Bradshaw was where he needed to start.
He wanted to rebuild their relationship from the ground up. He needed to show her she could give her heart to him without fear of his breaking it again. Where the relationship would ultimately go, he wasn’t certain. Why it was so important to him it kept him awake at night, he couldn’t quite say. He only knew he had to connect his life to hers once again in a deep and basic way.
As she turned one page of his file over and studied the next, Jace studied her. Seven years ago she had been a lovely girl, tall and willowy with a sense of fragility lying just under the surface, a vulnerability she hadn’t quite been able to hide from him with her serious, studious expression. She had matured into a beautiful woman. A shock of black bangs was brushed up off her forehead, adding length to her rectangular face. Artfully applied makeup subtly emphasized her high cheekbones and the slight hollows beneath them.
A coat of sheer gloss drew his gaze to her mouth. It looked every bit as soft as he remembered, every bit as alluring. It was a very French mouth, something she had inherited from her mother. Her lips often fell into a sultry pout that was not in the least affected but was perfectly natural and incredibly sexy. He could remember the taste of that mouth, the texture, the way it had whispered his name in passion.
As arousal began to settle blood in his groin, Jace cleared his throat and asked, “How’s your father?”
Rebecca didn’t look up even though she wasn’t comprehending a bit of what she was staring at. “He’s fine.”
“And your sister—ah—Ellen, right?”
She hesitated, her fingers automatically clenching and unclenching the pen she held in her left hand. “Fine.” At least she hadn’t heard any differently.
“I’ve missed you,” Jace said, surprising himself. Where had that come from? Not that it mattered. Rebecca wasn’t about to believe it.
“Right,” she said, covering her vulnerability with a derisive laugh. “I read that between the lines in all those letters you never wrote me.”
Jace sucked in a long breath between his teeth and let it out slowly, wishing he had a cigarette.
With an effort Rebecca pushed all disturbing thoughts aside and forced herself to concentrate on her job. Her highly efficient, highly intelligent brain absorbed and processed the technical terms on the page in front of her. “So this wasn’t a sports’ injury?”
“No. Car accident.” He still couldn’t say those two words without feeling a stab of guilt and remorse.
“According to this, you were receiving excellent care in Chicago. Why change horses in the middle of the stream?”
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said, unable to keep some of the bitterness from his voice. “The Kings’ management sent me down here. I’ll be playing with the Mavericks once I get this old hinge working again. The sooner, the better. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, I’ll get called back to Chicago before the end of the season.”
“I see.” So he was planning his great escape from the rustic provinces already, and he hadn’t even been here a day yet. Same old Jace. He was no doubt champing at the bit to get back to the bright lights and big city. Rebecca told herself she was glad. The only thing that could have been better was if he hadn’t shown up at all.
“You’re head of the department already, huh?” he commented, glancing around her orderly white-walled office. Framed diplomas and award certificates hung on the wall behind her. A thriving English ivy plant trailed over the edge of its pot and crept down the side of a black cabinet. “You’ve done well for yourself, Becca.”
“Thank you.” She ignored the twinge his nickname for her caused and tried to focus on the notes his previous therapist had made.
“You cut your hair,” he said softly, mesmerized by the way the straight glossy mass swayed as she moved her head. He remembered when it had been so long, he’d had to nuzzle through the silky tresses to find her nipples. His voice dropped a note as he said, “I liked it long.”
Rebecca forced her heart down out of her throat as she tried to block out the memory of him lifting the curtain of black over her shoulder so he could kiss her breast. Why should she care whether he noticed her haircut or liked it or not? “Yes, well, you weren’t around for a consultation when I decided to cut it off.”
He let her sarcastic remark slide. “I like it. It makes you look very sophisticated.”
The comment was right on target, whether Jace realized it or not. She had parted with her long tresses just after Jace’s departure, partly for symbolic reasons. Idealistic, romantic girls had long hair. Practical, sophisticated women did not.
Rebecca heaved an impatient sigh and stabbed him with a pointed look. “Thank you, Vidal Sassoon. Now, can we please get on with the evaluation of your knee?”
He shrugged affably. “Sure.”
The injury to his knee had been serious, she noted. Cartilage had been torn and ligaments had been damaged. It had been severe enough to require major surgery rather than the more common arthroscopic surgery. It wasn’t so serious an injury that Jace would be left permanently crippled, but it was severe enough to make an athlete seriously consider retirement.
“According to what I’m reading here, you’ll have your work cut out to regain the kind of mobility you need to play major league baseball. The knee will always be susceptible to heavy stress, meaning it could go on you again if you don’t maintain a rigid exercise program or if you try to use it too soon.” She looked up from the papers with serious eyes. “You’re past your prime, athletically speaking. Why don’t you retire?”
He’d heard the same question from his other doctors and therapists. He’d heard it from teammates and the team management. Apparently no one believed he was capable of coming back. They couldn’t seem to understand his need to come back, his need to prove to himself that he had what it took to work for a dream instead of sitting back and waiting to have it dropped into his lap. He’d been that kind of man once, the kind who took his good fortune for granted—but those days were over.
“I need to prove something.”
“To your adoring fans?” Rebecca questioned, arching a black brow.
“To myself,” he said quietly. “Fans aren’t very adoring once you fall out of the limelight.”
He wasn’t the old Jace Cooper. Somehow the thought unnerved Rebecca. The Jace she remembered had had a boundless belief in his own popularity. He had been a horrible patient because he had believed he was entitled to a perfect body. He hadn’t wanted to work for it. He had been the t
ype who floated through life on a wealth of charm and talent, but charm and talent wouldn’t help him now.
“Getting that knee into shape will require a great deal of hard work, sweat, and pain,” she declared.
Jace flashed her one of his patented smiles. “No pain, no gain. Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about taking me on as a patient?”
“No. Even if I could work you into my schedule, I wouldn’t. I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to work together.”
Jace pushed himself out of his chair, braced his hands on Rebecca’s desktop, and leaned over her, a keen watchfulness lighting his dark blue eyes. “Are you saying that after nearly seven years, you’re still so angry with me that you can’t be objective enough to treat me?”
Rebecca bristled. “Of course not. I don’t feel anything for you.”
“Liar,” he said with a good-natured chuckle, not the least offended by her claim. It was a load of garbage. He was willing to bet his house on that—if he hadn’t already lost it to the tax man and if he hadn’t given up gambling. “Ever since I came through the front door, you’ve been as nervous as the proverbial cat in the room full of rocking chairs. Admit it, Becca.”
She shifted uncomfortably on her chair. Why did he have to get so darn close to her? The scent of his aftershave was having some weird kind of numbing effect on her brain and respiratory system. “I admit you caught me off balance. You’re the last person I expected to see walk into my therapy department.”
“So you’re saying what’s past is past? Then why won’t you work with me?”
“I told you,” she said, dodging his gaze and trying to take in oxygen without breathing in his clean male scent. “I can’t fit you into my schedule.”
“That’s it? That’s the only reason?”
Sick of his bullying, she glared up at him. “I don’t like you. That’s reason enough.”
“I’ll bet you don’t like a lot of your patients,” Jace speculated, trying not to let the sweet allure of her perfume distract him from the conversation. “You can hardly pick and choose the kind of people who get into accidents or develop debilitating diseases. I’m sure you get your share of jerks here.”
Rebecca pushed her chair back from her desk and rose to her full height, which nearly equaled Jace’s. “Yes, I do get my share of jerks here, and I have no intention of adding your name to the head of that list. If you want to take your therapy in this hospital, you’ll take it with whomever I say.”
“If you don’t feel anything for me, why can’t it be you?”
He was pressing his luck, pushing her this way. Lord knew he’d made enough mistakes with Becca. But it was plain she was going to retreat, that she would simply avoid him rather than be confronted with a painful reminder of the past.
He couldn’t let that happen. Somehow he felt that his whole future hinged on making a fresh start with Rebecca Bradshaw. He couldn’t accomplish that if she was never around, so he threw out a challenge. “I think you’re afraid, Becca. I think the thought of working closely with me scares you, because you’ve realized you do feel something for me, even after all these years.”
She pulled her reading glasses off and threw them onto her desk. “Yes, you’re right, I do feel something. Loathing, contempt, anger. I would have denied it yesterday, but seeing you has brought it all back to me. I thought I had put those feelings aside years ago, because, frankly, you aren’t worth the wasted effort. But I guess they’ve lain dormant since I never had the chance to vent them on you. A person doesn’t get a lot of satisfaction out of railing at someone who’s vanished into thin air.”
Well, you asked for that, Jace, old boy, he thought, straightening from the desk. As he propped one hand on his hip, he ran the other through his hair. He sighed and glanced out the window to the exercise room, where he could see a striking, statuesque therapist showing an elderly woman how to use a walker.
He’d hurt Rebecca when he’d left Mishawaka for Chicago, but he hadn’t realized just how deeply he’d hurt her. To think that she could still hate him for it after all this time cut him to the quick.
Lord, what a bastard he’d been. Rebecca had been so sweet, so giving. She had trusted him with secret fears and hopes she had never shared with anyone else. But when his shot at the big leagues had come, he’d walked away without a backward glance. He’d been so caught up in his own success, he’d packed up and gone without giving her anything more than a quick phone call to say good-bye.
When he turned back to her, there was pain in his eyes that had nothing to do with his injured knee. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Becca.”
“Thank you,” she said, combing her raven hair back behind one ear. She was angry with herself for confessing her feelings to Jace. Still, she couldn’t help adding, “Seven years after the fact.”
His dark brows bobbed above his eyes as he mustered a sad smile. What excuse could he offer? There was none. “Better late than never.”
“Better not at all.” Rebecca shook her head, which had begun to pound from tension and from having knocked it into the parallel bar and her desk. She stared down at her shoes and resigned herself to making another admission. “I wish you hadn’t come back here, Jace.”
“That’s honest.” It hurt, but it was honest. “I’ll be honest too. Life has come full circle for me, Becca. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of. I’ve wasted a lot of opportunities. I haven’t been the kind of person I should have been. I could have been killed in that accident, but I wasn’t. For whatever reason, God saw fit to save my miserable hide. I’ve been given another chance, and I’m going to make the most of it.”
He looked at her with the kind of hawkish determination she remembered seeing on his face when he was on the baseball diamond.
“I’m going to fight my way back from this knee injury—with or without your help,” he said. “I’m going to make it back to the majors—with or without the support of the Kings’ management. And I’m going to win you back, Rebecca Bradshaw—whether you like it or not.”
2
A chill went through her. Whether it was fear or anticipation, Rebecca couldn’t have said. She stared at Jace Cooper as if she was certain he had taken complete leave of the little sense she credited him with. “That’s absurd! You can’t have a relationship with someone who isn’t interested in you.”
“You were interested once,” he pointed out. He was a little shocked himself by the claim he’d made. He hadn’t planned on blurting it out that way, but he wasn’t going to back down. The idea of not only clearing the slate with Becca but also renewing the relationship they’d shared felt right, dead-solid perfect—like a hit that sailed over the left field fence before he could even let go of the bat.
“That was a long time ago,” Rebecca said, not liking the gleam in his eyes.
“It wasn’t so long ago that we’ve forgotten how good it was between us.”
Jace cursed his bum knee. If he had been more mobile, Rebecca wouldn’t have been able to hide from him behind her desk. He would have joined her back there, and he might have made good on the promise he was sure was in his eyes, the promise to refresh her memory. Damn, but he was aching to kiss her!
As if she sensed that, Rebecca backed away warily. She shook her head at the memories and at Jace’s idea. “I don’t want you, Jace. I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t blame you, honey,” he said truthfully, “but I’m not the same man who hurt you, Becca. I’ve changed, and I intend to prove it to you.”
“You’ll be wasting your time.”
He smiled as he perched a hip on one corner of her desk and picked up her round glass paperweight. He tested the feel of it in his hand and fleetingly wished it were a baseball. “I don’t think so.”
Rebecca rarely lost her temper, but now she was fuming. She literally saw red as she stared at Jace. “You arrogant jackass! If you think for one minute that you can just waltz back into my life after seven ye
ars and pick up where you left off, you’re out of your mind! I won’t be your little plaything while you bide your time waiting to get called back to the big leagues! I can’t believe even you would have the flaming arrogance to make that kind of assumption.”
She stormed past him but paused with her hand on the doorknob to deliver a parting shot. “Maybe women back in Chicago line up, eager to fall at your feet—and no doubt that will happen here as well—but I won’t be among them!”
Rebecca swung her office door open and ran head-on into Dr. Cornish.
She backed away from the door as the head administrator followed Dr. Cornish in.
“Rebecca,” Dr. Cornish said with an unrepentant grin. “I ran into Mr. Saunders downstairs. He was eager to meet Jace.”
“Yes, I was,” Saunders said, his pleasant smile revealing neatly capped teeth. He was a distinguished-looking older man whose passion for athletics showed in his youthful looking physique. “I have to tell you, Mr. Cooper, our little hospital may not have the prestige you’re used to, but you couldn’t put your knee in better hands than Rebecca’s. She’s a topflight physical therapist. I’m proud to say the Mayo Clinic tried to lure her away from us. We’re damn lucky to have her.” He shot a sweetly apologetic look at Rebecca. “Pardon my French, Rebecca.”
She couldn’t help but smile at him, even if he was infatuated with Jace. He was practically a second father to her.
Saunders’ sudden frown was very much that of a disapproving parent. “Donald tells me there’s some question as to whether or not you’ll work with Mr. Cooper.”
“You know I try to limit my caseload to severe problems, Mr. Saunders. Mr. Cooper’s injury really isn’t so serious.”
“It’s serious enough to threaten his career.”
It was the same tone of voice her father had always used when he was about to ground her sister, Ellen. Mr. Saunders could just as well have tagged “young lady” onto the end of his sentence.
Rebecca drew in a deep breath and glanced out the window. Bob Wilkes was making the rounds in his wheelchair, giving words of encouragement to other patients. As an idea took shape, a smile began to tug at the corners of her mouth.