by Dale Mayer
“I’ll be back,” Shane said, and he smacked the door and left.
Iain didn’t know if that meant that shorts were available or what Shane would do, but Iain really didn’t want to lose out on an opportunity to get into the water if he could. And Shane was right. The inflammation was worse—seems no movement was not good, although too much movement was definitely bad—but Iain had been trying to minimize it with heat and ice and anti-inflammatories.
Of course he almost reverted back to that old joker personality of his, where he would laugh it off. Instead, he should have been open in acknowledging it and asking for help. But some here had seen it immediately. He wondered if Robin had said something because she’d been the last one he’d seen. He frowned, wondering about that insightful part of her, wondering if she saw enough—or too much—and then realized it didn’t matter if it had been her or not. He was grateful that somebody had noticed because he himself hadn’t.
Shane returned about fifteen minutes later, holding up two pairs of trunks. “Different sizes,” he said, “let’s see which one we can get you in and out of the easiest. After swiveling his legs to the side and pushing the sheet back, he allowed Shane to help him get dressed and then into a wheelchair.
“Well, I’m glad the first pair fit,” Iain said, gasping for breath. “I didn’t realize how much the movement would hurt.”
“And that’s something you’ve got to keep an eye on,” Shane said quietly. “No strong silent types needed, please. We’ve got enough of those around here. Take an interest in your own healing and be active in your own treatment.”
“I hear you,” Iain said, “but I might need a few reminders.”
“Not a problem,” Shane said cheerfully. “I’ve got no problem doing that for you, particularly if I see that you’re showing some progress. What pisses me off is when I see guys with potential who won’t apply themselves.”
“Do you get many of those?”
“Too many,” he said, “but not for long.”
“Meaning, you ship them out?” And that was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“No,” Shane said. “I definitely don’t ship them out,” he said with a laugh. “But we do shift that attitude real fast.”
Chapter 4
Robin stepped outside with a cup of coffee in her hand and brushed the hair off her face. She could hear several men laughing and joking nearby. Happy humans nearby, she thought with a smile. That was the thing down here. Happy animals made happy sounds, like barks, purring engines, but too often in a place like this they were silent or resorted to aggressive barking because the animals didn’t want to be here. Like now. They’d just finished a tough surgery, and she could use the break. Stan came out beside her with a cup of coffee in his hand. The two looked at each other and smiled.
“It went well,” Stan said. He motioned at the sun chairs out in the front. “Let’s sit down and relax for a minute.”
She walked with him over to the side and realized that they were approaching the patio where the pool was. “Is it okay to sit here when the patients are outside?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “The more we intermingle, the better. It stops the alienation and that line between them and us.”
It made sense, and she was happy to collapse for a moment. “That Jack Russell,” she said and then stopped and shook her head, “I thought we would have to put him down.”
“We might still,” Stan said, leaning his head back, his face up to the sun. He took a deep slow breath and let it out. “But, with any luck, he’ll pull through.”
“I can’t stand to see anyone in pain,” she murmured. Her gaze swept to the side, where at least six men had gathered in the pool, some doing laps and some doing what looked like PT exercises. Two men were in the hot tub. No females were around at the moment. And just then, two women came, both in shorts and T-shirts with clipboards in their hands, so they were probably therapists. Robin smiled as she watched the men get put through the paces. And then she recognized one in the hot tub was Iain.
Stan, his voice low, commented, “Anyone you fancy?”
She snorted. “It’s been a long time.”
“It doesn’t matter how long it’s been,” he said. “When there’s a spark, there’s a spark.”
She smiled, nodded, and said, “True enough. But I haven’t been here long enough.”
“Liar,” he said with a chuckle.
She grinned. “What about you?” she asked. “Anybody here for you?”
“No, I haven’t had a serious relationship in over a year,” Stan said. “I’m wed to my work.”
“I hear you,” she said. “It doesn’t change the fact that, when it happens, it happens, but you have to be in a position where you can meet people so it can happen.”
He burst out laughing. “Good point,” he said. “I thought maybe somebody would be here for me over time, but, so far, it hasn’t happened.” He shifted comfortably, then lifted his coffee and took a sip. “Man,” he said. “My lower back is killing me. I have to get that height adjustment fixed on the surgical table.”
“Yeah, that mechanism needs to be repaired,” she murmured. “That awkward bending we did today was due totally to the wrong height.”
“I’ll make sure somebody calls about it this afternoon.”
“If I get a chance, I will,” she said. “I know we don’t have long to enjoy these five minutes because the appointments are starting this afternoon, but, boy, oh, boy, it got busy this morning.”
Stan grunted his agreement.
She smiled as she watched Iain in the hot tub, and then Shane approached him, and Iain slid up and over and, rather than standing, he shuffled on his butt over to the pool before sliding in. She could see his left leg missing most of the calf, and his right leg—from where she sat—was purple and angry and about half the size it should be. She winced.
“Looks pretty raw, doesn’t it?” Stan asked beside her.
She rolled her head toward him, her eyes welling. “God,” she said. “What he must have gone through.”
Stan studied him, but she didn’t dare turn and look back.
“What he’s still going through,” Stan murmured. “He’s got to build that muscle back up. It looks like some of it has been surgically reattached. It’ll take a lot of time and effort.”
She nodded. “It’ll be worth it though,” she said, “because that’ll give him one good leg. Presumably at that point he might have a prosthetic for the other.”
“I think so, but it depends on the damage. I’ve put prosthetics on many animals, and sometimes it’s for the good, and sometimes the animal was better off without it.”
She smiled. “I think it’s all about adaptation. Speaking of which,” she said, standing. “We have to adapt to the fact that our break time is over.”
He groaned. “You are a slave driver.”
“If you won’t get help in,” she said, “we pretty well have to be our own slave drivers.”
“Aaron is coming,” he said. “Just can’t happen fast enough.”
“He’s also pretty green, right?” she warned.
“True, but he’s gifted,” Stan said. “I’d be more than happy to have him join in.”
“Good to know,” she said. She walked back with him and said, “Do you want to bet we have twenty people in the waiting room?”
“I hope not,” he said. They opened the door, and she laughed.
“Maybe not twenty,” she said, “but at least a dozen.”
He groaned, and they both walked in with smiles on their faces and got back to work.
Iain looked at the calendar in shock. It had been two weeks. Two weeks, when it seemed like he’d arrived yesterday. It had taken much longer than two days to get over the inflammation from his long truck drive, and he still hadn’t seen Bruce. He was due back in another couple days, having delayed his return for whatever reason. Iain hadn’t heard from his buddy yet.
As he got dressed this morning, Iain r
ealized that, so far, everything had been pretty easy and smooth. They were proceeding based on what his body could handle, and he appreciated that. But he also had the sense of not making any progress. When he looked back to where he’d come from two weeks ago, he realized his progress so far was basically getting back to normal, getting back to where he’d been. How depressing was that? The knock on the door brought him out of his musings and back to the present.
Fully dressed, he looked up and called out, “Come in.” He was surprised to see the woman who had brought Max the cat last time. He raised his eyebrows.
She smiled and said, “I know you’re heading out for the morning, but I was just wondering if you wanted to say hi to somebody.”
“Sure. What somebody is this?”
She opened the door wider but didn’t step closer. She held a leash in her hand.
“Did Max finally learn to wear a harness?”
She chuckled. “No, Max is still a project in the making,” she said. “Come on, Hoppers.” She pushed the door open more and in hopped one of the biggest, fluffiest rabbits he’d ever seen in his life.
He stared in shock. “Did you feed that thing steroids?”
She smiled. “He’s a giant breed,” she said, as she bent down, scooped him in her arms, and brought him over, closer to Iain.
Instantly the rabbit leaned forward, his nose twitching and his whiskers wiggling as he tried to sniff Iain.
He reached up a hand, gently stroking the bunny’s face and his long soft ears. “He’s adorable,” he said warmly. He shook his head. “You know what? I kind of like your job.”
“You do when it’s nice,” she said with a smile, reaching down to kiss Hoppers, still in her arms. “But parts of it aren’t so nice.”
He nodded soberly. “I can imagine.” He scratched and played with Hoppers’s big ears, admiring his legs. “Will he be another therapy animal?”
“Could be. He basically lives here now,” she said. “It’s good for him and for you guys to see him and visit with him. We’re hoping to build him a little pen, that he can come and go from, on a regular basis, which will allow him to spend a few hours outside without us.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said. “Wish I was back on my feet. I used to be pretty handy at building that kind of stuff.”
“Well, as soon as you’re mobile, we could use your help,” she said, holding out the rabbit again.
Iain reached out automatically, and, when Hoppers landed full weight in his arm, he oofed. “Wow,” he said. “This guy and Max are a mated pair.”
She burst out laughing. “He’s got some heft to him, doesn’t he?”
“Amazing,” he said. In awe, he reached down toward his face and his smooth silky neck. “He’s beautiful. Do you think the clinic would mind if I putted around with a hammer and some nails?”
“No, I don’t think they’d mind in the least,” she said. “You’d have to clear whatever project you envisioned with Dani and your medical team, but, other than that, I’m sure they’re happy to have some free labor.”
“Maybe, depends if I can get clearance from Shane.”
“That’ll be a challenge.” She grinned. “Now you can have your breakfast. I just wanted you to meet Hoppers.” She scooped him back out of his arms and walked away.
He studied her as she left, wishing he had a reason to call her back. “Robin?”
She stopped at the doorway, then turned toward him with one eyebrow up. “What’s up?”
He shrugged and said, “Nah, it’s okay.”
She frowned deeper. “Well, it’s not okay,” she said. “You did call me.”
He shrugged. “I just wondered if there was a way for people to get up and out of here too into the pastures, like the rabbit? If I ever get peopled out?”
Her initial confusion cleared. “You mean, like wanting to head down to the pastures to spend some time over in our corner of the woods instead of here?”
He nodded. That was close. It wasn’t quite what he wanted to say, but it headed in the right direction. “Something like that,” he said with a shrug. “It’d be nice to sit down, have a coffee with somebody, and get to know them, instead of being surrounded by hundreds of somebodies.”
She grinned, surprised and flattered to think that he wanted to have coffee with her. “My break is at noon,” she said. “I plan on sitting out in the pasture, so feel free to join me if you want, and I’ll introduce you to the horses.”
“I miss horses,” he said in a low voice.
“Are you used to horses?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I am,” he said. “I’ve been riding ever since I was a kid.” He looked down at his mangled right leg, and his left leg missing its foot and beyond and said, “Make that past tense.”
“Doesn’t have to be,” she said. “We have horse therapy here on a weekly basis.” She frowned. “Didn’t you know about that?”
He looked at her, shook his head slowly, and said, “No, I hadn’t heard about that. I knew horses were here …”
“Mention it to Shane,” she said. “He may not think that you’re quite ready yet, but it’s an option down the road. And, if you’re a good rider, we have lots of other people here who ride horses. I think you have to talk to Dani about that though, because she handles all the horses.”
“Well, Dani is right here,” Dani said, interrupting the two. She stepped into Iain’s room and looked at them. “I just happened to be walking down the hallway. What’s up?”
“He was wondering what the horse therapy thing was,” she said. “He’s used to being around horses, been riding forever.”
Dani looked at him with a smile. “And, if you’re a horse person,” she said, “it’s got to be hard not to have them close by again.”
“It is,” Iain admitted. “Just seeing them outside again is pretty special.”
“So true,” Dani said. “I’ll see when the next opening is in the horse therapy, but I guess we must get clearance from Shane first.”
“Shane,” Iain said with a shake of his head. “It sounds like he’s the go-to man in this case.”
“We use horseback riding as therapy, and it’s a recurring thing here. So if you miss the next session—or four—you’ll catch it later,” Dani said seriously. “And, if it’s the right thing for you, then that’s perfect. But, if it will hinder your healing, it’s not a good thing.”
“Right,” he said. “That makes sense.”
“Absolutely, but I have seen you in the hot tub already, so Shane must be thinking of moving you to the pool. That’s something you can look forward to as well,” Dani said with a smile. “Is that okay with you?”
He thought about it, realized that Shane had been the one who had been here every day for him so far, and he nodded. “Shane is a good guy,” he said with a smile. “And, speaking of which, I need to get moving so I’m not late for my appointment with him.”
“Never do that,” Dani warned. “He doesn’t like slackers.”
“So far I don’t feel like I’ve been doing very much,” he said drily. “Slacking just seems to be the way of it here. I expected much more.”
Dani looked at him in surprise for a moment. Then she nodded. “I think your arrival slowed things down.”
“Well, I’m ready to have that slowness taken off my chart and make some progress,” he announced.
She smirked. “Watch what you say. You could come back to your room today feeling very sorry to have spoken those words.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s better to feel like you’re doing something and feeling the pain of it than to be doing nothing and feeling nothing rewarding either.”
“Then tell Shane that,” Dani said. “There’s lots you can do once you reach this point, you and your body.”
“Will do.”
Chapter 5
Robin wondered over the next few days how Iain had done with Shane unleashed. She’d gone out to lunch that afternoon, as she had mentioned to I
ain, thinking he would join her, but Iain hadn’t shown up. She’d gone out a few days later, and again she saw no sign of him. Now she stopped expecting him to show up at lunch, thinking that either something must have happened or he hadn’t been quite so ready to make that lunch date with her. He’d seemed to be the one making that initial gesture, but maybe his health hadn’t been as strong as he’d hoped.
Still, she didn’t want to go to his room and make it seem like she was pushing him. It was dinnertime on Friday, her last day before two days off, and she walked upstairs after a shower. It had been another tough day with so many people in the clinic. It wasn’t a surgery day thankfully, but lots of individuals were picking up animals, so it seemed like a never-ending revolving door of activity today. As she walked toward the cafeteria, she saw Stan at the top of the stairs, waiting for her. “You ready for dinner?”
He nodded. “I was thinking about taking mine and going back to my apartment,” he said. There was such exhaustion in his expression, and the lines on his face etched a little deeper.
“I hear you,” she murmured. “I just figured I’d sit in the sun and soak up some of that late afternoon heat.”
“Don’t burn,” he warned.
“Nope, I won’t,” she said.
They separated at the line as Stan got his to go. He must have arranged it ahead of time because he ended up getting a tray with silver domes on top. He smiled at her as he disappeared back down the stairs.
She got into line, and Dennis looked at her and said, “You look as bad as he does.”
She wrinkled her nose up at him. “Okay, now that sounds pretty bad.”
Dennis went off on peals of laughter. “Vegetables,” he said. “That’ll help perk you up. You need nutrition.”
“And I love my sautéed vegetables,” she said, “but I was thinking something like a big salad first.”
“How about a big chef’s salad?”
“Or a cobb salad?”
“You pick,” he said. “Happy to make it for you.”