by Dianne Drake
The drive from Mitch’s secluded log cabin to Anna’s house took forever, it seemed. With every mile he wondered why he was traipsing off into the night for someone who’d just fired him. And with every mile he thought about her stubbornness, and the vulnerability that she fought so intensely to camouflage.
She wouldn’t want him there, probably wouldn’t even open the door to let him in. And he was wondering why in the hell he was going, why an acquaintance of only a few hours commanded that kind of power over him. It’s because she’s a beautiful woman, he told himself. And she’s in a wheelchair and doesn’t have a clue about taking care of herself.
All things considered, he should just turn around and head back to bed. A good night’s sleep would have been better than her attitude. “Damn,” he muttered, gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. Something compelled him to go to her, and he sure hoped it was only his need to prove to her her need…for her own good.
Mitch’s first knock on Anna’s front door brought no response, and a twinge of alarm registered. “Anna, it’s Mitch,” he called, wondering if she might have passed out. Panic attacks could do that. And what he’d heard had sure sounded like a panic attack. He’d seen it in others coming to grips with their situation. It was about loss of control and self-doubt and fear. Thinking about Anna lying on the floor passed out in the midst of a panic attack, maybe even injured from the fall, he began pounding. “Anna? Answer me.”
A menacing growl from the bushes to the side of the porch was the only response, followed by a large head, teeth bared, poking out of the juniper. When the entire body emerged from its cover, it began pacing the length of the porch on the sidewalk below, snarling and daring him to make a move. Mitch did move, slowly and cautiously, until his back was flat against the door. “Nice doggy,” he soothed, realizing how silly it sounded. That nice doggy wanted to rip off one of his legs and chew it up. “Anna, let me in,” he yelled. “Or I’ll have to break the window.”
“Mitch?” came the hesitant voice from inside. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying not to get eaten by this hungry beast out here.” Her voice sounded better—stronger, more in control. Thank God for that much.
Anna pulled the door open fully, took one look at Ralphie skulking in the yard, and laughed. “That beast might lick you to death, but I doubt he’ll eat you. He prefers cookies to human flesh.”
Stepping backwards across the threshold, Mitch asked, “Has anyone told him that?”
Without saying a word, Anna patted her lap and all one hundred twenty pounds of Ralphie sailed past Mitch and flew into her arms. Since her chair wheels weren’t locked into place, he pushed her backwards across the entry hall, flat into a wall. Then, when he had her where he wanted her, he slathered her with wet, velvet, doggy kisses.
“Stop it.” She giggled, trying to push him away. But Ralphie wouldn’t budge.
“Should I do something?” Mitch asked.
“In the kitchen,” Anna gasped, trying to avert her face from the unwanted bath. “Cookies.”
The word “cookies” caught Ralphie’s attention, and he gladly abandoned Anna to follow Mitch into the kitchen. Mitch fished a few vanilla wafers out of the cookie jar and tossed them on the floor. Ralphie lunged and practically inhaled them, then turned his doleful doggie eyes back to Mitch, whining for more.
“OK, OK,” Mitch grumbled, emptying the entire contents of the jar on the floor. “That should hold you for a little while.”
While Ralphie busied himself chasing down the treats, Mitch stepped around him and returned to Anna. Her hair was dripping with slobber and her shirt was soaking wet. “Want a bath or something?” he asked, turning up his nose at the spectacle. “Maybe I should take you out in the yard and hose you down?”
Anna knew she looked—and probably smelt—bad. Ralphie’s hygiene wasn’t quite up to human standard, and on those occasions when he lavished her with his generous attention, he also shared his pungent odor. “I think I’ll go take a quick shower,” she said, heading for the hall. “Lock the door on your way out.”
“My way out?”
“You came because you don’t think I’m capable of taking care of myself, and now that you see I am, there’s no reason for you to stay, is there?”
“You were having a panic attack.”
“It’s over.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. I’ve had them before and they go away.”
“You were hyperventilating when you called me. I need to check your vitals.”
“My vitals are fine,” she snapped.
“Do you take anything for it? Some kind of antidepressant?”
She ignored him, instead focusing her attention on Ralphie slobbering his way back into the entrance hall.
“A sedative?”
Still nothing from her, not even a passing glance.
“Anything?”
Looking straight at him finally, she didn’t answer, didn’t blink, didn’t move.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t tell me you’re not being treated for it.”
Anna shrugged indifferently. “OK, I won’t. And it’s none of your business anyway. I work through it, so leave me alone.”
“Does your dad or Lanli know you have these attacks?” He already knew the answer. It was written in her defiant grip on the chair wheels.
“Like I said, it’s none of your business. And I thought you gave up being a doctor.”
“You made it my business when you called me in the middle of the damned night. And I gave up being a doctor, but I didn’t give up my common sense, and common sense says you need medical treatment, or at the very least some counseling, which I’m sure you’re not getting either.”
“Pills don’t fix everything, Doctor. Neither does counseling. And I called because of that.” She pointed to the crumpled wad of paper on the floor next to the door. “You stuck it my mail slot to aggravate me. You thought I couldn’t pick it up off the floor by myself, which I did.”
“Why would I do something stupid like that?”
“Lanli said you weren’t sure if I’d let you come back and I figured this was just your way of letting me know how helpless I am.”
“Hey, lady, I don’t play games. And the only thing I’ve had anything to do with this evening was my bed. And I was right there when you called and started your little…episode.”
“My little episode?” she exploded. “It was my first night alone, and I thought—”
“Well, you thought wrong. If I wanted you to pick up something from the floor, I’d throw it there then watch you. I wouldn’t sneak around in the night and drop it through your mail slot, for God’s sake.” He picked up the paper and looked at it. “It’s a misprint, Anna. There are college students out all over the place tonight, delivering flyers. I saw a bunch of them on my way here. And this one’s just a blank. You had a panic attack over a misprint.”
“So I was wrong. Sue me.” She turned away.
Mitch looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. His eyes narrowed into a frown and he raised his hand to his head, running his fingers through his short, curly, brown, uncombed crop. Shutting his eyes, he said, “Look, I wasn’t the one who came asking to work with you, remember? And I don’t particularly want the job, since I really don’t like the work anymore. I agreed to do it for Lanli only because I owe her.” He opened his eyes, spun her back to face him and glared down at her. “I don’t have the time or the patience for this. So, if you want help, you call me. OK? Otherwise, I’m done.”
He headed to the door, opened it, stepped outside. “Lock it behind me,” he said without turning back.
“Mitch, I’m…” She raced to the door after him. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. I’m turning into the kind of patient I always hated to work with—grumpy, impatient…”
“Demanding?” He turned back to face her. “Impolite? Downright pain in the ass?”
She smiled, and actually
laughed. “So you’ve met me before?”
He stepped back up to the threshold and extended his hand. “Hi. I’m Mitch Durant, and I’ve come to help you if you’d like some help. Your decision this time, though. So what’s it gonna be, Anna?”
CHAPTER FIVE
ANNA studied Mitch’s hand for a moment—a strong, steady, gentle hand offering her nothing but hope. Hope frightened her. Latch on to it and it might take her wherever she wanted to go, or it might cut her to shreds.
She wanted to hope—wanted that more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. But she was already coping with all the tiny shreds of a shattered life, and doing nothing, trying nothing, hoping nothing was far better than adding more shreds. Too many emotions involved now, and too many disappointments.
Taking his hand scared her. But not taking it scared her even more.
Mitch was just about to pull back when Anna finally grabbed onto him, holding his hand like it was her lifeline—a lifeline she hadn’t known she’d needed until this very moment, thanks to so much self-pity and stubbornness strangling her. She did need that lifeline, though, and not just any lifeline. For reasons Anna couldn’t yet, or wouldn’t yet, define, she needed Mitch.
She needed Mitch. Such a huge revelation, and one rocking her to the very core.
“Hi,” she said, her voice resolute. “I’m Anna Wells, and I need your help, Mitch. But I’m afraid I’m not always the easiest person to get along with. I’m demanding, impolite, grumpy.”
“And?”
“You want more?” She smiled at him. “You want me to open a vein and just bleed it all out right here?”
He nodded, and a twinkle popped into his eyes. Nice twinkle, she thought. A little devious, but nice all the same. One she could easily get used to.
“OK, I’m a pain in the ass. I’ll admit it.” She said it so quickly the whole string of words flew out as one.
“Big pain in the ass.” He grinned—twinkled. “Great big…”
Why doesn’t Kyle ever twinkle like that? “OK, OK. Point taken. So if you can put up with my bad disposition…” Anna saw the full smile cross Mitch’s face. So much better than Kyle’s pinched, conserved smiles. Even in the dim yellow porch light Mitch’s smile was guileless and pleasant. Pleasantness—another thing she hadn’t seen anywhere near Kyle’s face for months. In spite of his advanced skills as a plastic surgeon, she doubted he could suture it there even for the sake of a pretense. But with Mitch there was no pretense. He was exactly what she saw.
Suddenly, the crimson flush of emotion began creeping up Anna’s neck. Since she was blond and fair-skinned, it took over at a gallop and there was no stopping it. Neck, cheeks, whole face in a split second, and she needed to fan herself. Well, now I know what it means to swoon, she thought, feeling some dizzying effects. Rapid change in blood pressure—that was what the nurse in her diagnosed. But then the nurse came back with a second opinion: a natural reaction to a good-looking man. That was definitely not the professional second opinion she wanted.
No matter what the diagnosis, her reaction to Mitch was a big-time embarrassment. One that had nothing to do with the little spark of something that kept her clinging to Mitch’s hand for much longer than any handshake should ever drag out. But she couldn’t let go yet. “If you can put up with my bad disposition, I’d really like for you to be my trainer, and I apologize for being…”
“Bitchy,” he supplied.
Her eyebrows rose playfully. “If you must, but I prefer petulant. Has a much more fashionable ring to it.” She finally let go of his hand and wheeled herself backward to let him fully inside the house. At the same time, Ralphie lumbered over to the door, nudged up against Anna’s wheelchair then dropped his oversized head into her lap. As his little stub of a tail started wagging frantically, he drooled a big, round puddle on the leg of Anna’s light blue lounging pajamas.
“I suppose he comes with the deal?” Mitch asked, shutting the door behind him.
Anna laid her hand on top of the dog’s head. “Wish he did. I’d sure like to keep him since they hardly ever pay him any attention. Which doesn’t have anything to do with my training. So where do we start?”
“We start with what’s important to you. If there’s something you want to accomplish right away, that’s it.”
“Right away, as in now? How about a shower? I need one, and I’ve never done it alone since…well, you know. Would you mind?”
Mitch backed up to the door, tossing his hands into the air like he was at the wrong end of a shotgun barrel. “Hey, I can train, I can rehabilitate, I can prescribe, but I can’t do…” he sputtered, shaking his head. “I’ll call someone. My mother? She could probably come over and, well, do whatever you need to have done.”
He’s actually blushing. Cute. “You don’t have to bathe me, Mitch.” Laughing, she disengaged Ralphie from her lap and moved further into the entry hall. “That I can do by myself. But would you mind staying here while I do it, just in case?”
“I knew that’s what you wanted,” he lied, clearing his throat.
“It’s OK if you don’t want to stay,” Anna hastened to add. “I mean, if it’s too late…”
“Hey, I’m already here.” Mitch stepped over Ralphie and headed for the living room. “And how long can a shower take anyway?”
Good question, Anna thought once she was in the bathroom. Once a long shower was ten minutes tops, a short one three. And now, all alone, she wondered how she was going to accomplish the chore at all, no matter how many minutes she had. During the day either Sunny or Lanli helped. At night she managed a sponge bath on her own. But one look in the mirror told her Ralphie’s slobber demanded more than a sponge bath.
Where do I start? Such a simple thing, taking a shower. And so daunting. “So, let’s just do it, Anna,” she said, leaning forward into the shower, turning on the spray.
Now get undressed. “OK, it’s simple. You can do this.” This was going to be way tougher than she’d first thought, and before she’d even started she was already working up a good sweat over it.
“You called?” Mitch was on the other side of the door. “Do you need something?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure? I mean, if you need me to…I could. I am a doctor, so it’s not like I haven’t seen…”
He was pacing out there like an expectant father. She’d been hearing the creak of her hardwood floors above the drone of the shower for several minutes now. Back and forth, slow, steady. Never a break in cadence. Reliable. It was a nice sound, one she was glad to have so close by. “I’m OK, Mitch. Really.”
She listened for several more seconds until his pacing returned to normal before she set about the task of undressing, which, much to her surprise, wasn’t as difficult as she’d thought it would be. And it was so much nicer struggling out of her clothes by herself than having someone tug her out of them like she was a toddler. Arms up, Anna. Attagirl. Let’s get that shirt pulled over your head. Now let’s lift your right leg…left leg. Good girl, Anna, and now you get to choose a lollipop. Red or green?
She’d always wanted green, but they’d always given her the red. Their choice, and they’d meant well by it. But not anymore. Taking that shower without help would prove to Mitch, her well-intended friends, her dad, and most of all to herself, that she could do it, that she could have the lollipop she really wanted.
When the hot spray from the shower had sufficiently steamed up the bathroom, Anna aligned her chair with the stall, raised the chair’s armrest and scooted herself sideways onto the shower bench, inch by dreadfully slow inch. It felt like she was carrying the full weight of a football linebacker across with her—a linebacker who didn’t particularly want to go. Finally, all the way into the shower, Anna took a good, hard look at what used to pass as arm muscles. Mashed potatoes. Pudding. They were soft, without definition, not sufficient to lift or support her weight, even though her weight had dwindled from a respectable 120 to a piddly 105, and that was
with two, maybe three layers of clothes on. Heavy clothes.
So maybe I do need the weight training, she finally admitted. Lanli had been harping on about it for weeks. But then it hadn’t mattered because she hadn’t had to do this all by herself. Now she did, and from this moment on there would be no more bathtime audiences, not in the custodial sense anyway. Anna’s thoughts turned to Kyle in the shower with her. He was wonderful with a loofa. Anna sighed wistfully, settling herself into place. Somehow she didn’t foresee Kyle’s loofa in her future.
Out of breath and a little exhausted by the transfer, Anna leaned her head against the shower wall, shut her eyes and let the delicious spray trickle down the length of her body. It felt so good being there alone, just her and the water. Another one of the little things she’d always taken for granted before: the simple act of taking a shower. And this was the nicest she’d ever had. No one sitting on the other side of the shower curtain keeping up cheery bathtime banter, no one waiting to help her off the floor if she fell, no one ready to transfer her back into her chair if she didn’t. Just her and the water, and she let every bit of it trickle over her, deciding she wouldn’t get out until the water turned cool.
For the first minutes in the spray, Anna thought about nothing at all. She simply cleared her head of the past, the present and mostly the future, existing in a place without thoughts, without worry. Such a nice place, and she would have stayed there, but images of Mitch began seeping into it.
What kind of man was this Dr Mitch Durant, who came running to the aid of a virtual stranger? And why was he a medical burnout? What would cause someone like Mitch to simply quit? He didn’t seem like the quitter type.
He cared too much…the way she used to care about her job. Past tense for both of them, she guessed. Had he taken his job to heart too much? Or not enough? Whatever the case, too bad for both of them. She wanted to go back, and if he was half as good as Lanli claimed, he should go back. Big losses all the way around.