“Yes, you can,” she laughed, then turned to answer the phone.
Picking up the patient information sheet, I skimmed his injury. Dislocated left knee, left femur fracture with pins – good grief, I felt bad for him. Relearning how to walk on this injury must have been unbelievably painful.
I was great with shoulder work, but touching a man’s leg above the knee seemed like it was encroaching on his personal space, so to speak.
Maybe it was strange that I’d made it through three years of medical education without touching a man remotely intimately, but I’d been lucky so far.
I’d have to keep my nervousness to myself. This poor man had been through a lot, and all he had to do was keep up the easiest part of the physical therapy. I couldn’t help wondering what his problem was that he hated the easy stuff so much.
As I walked into the main room, I looked around to find anyone who matched the description on the forms. There was only one man in his late thirties holding a cane, standing up and looking around.
He was huge. Tall, with thick, broad shoulders and sharp features that belonged on a model. There was no way on earth that I could approach a man who was that gorgeous. Except that I had to. As I came closer, I noticed a tiny scar on his forehead that somehow made him look even sexier.
“Mr. Little?” I approached him slowly, trying to appear calm. “Hi, I’m Molly.”
As I held out my hand politely, I couldn’t understand the way he was staring at me so intensely. “James.” His voice was deep and slightly raspy, which I found unusually sexy.
I saw Linda walking from the back room to the front, giving me a pointed glare. She definitely did look irritated, and I really had to impress her immediately.
Leaning closer to James, I said in a low voice, “I’m sorry, but I’m really going to need your help today.”
He looked absolutely surprised, Then a slow, warm smile spread across his handsome face. “Anything you like, Molly. How can I help?”
I led him to the far corner of the room where there was a bit more privacy. We settled on the mat, and I guided him through the first round of warm-up stretches.
It was a bit awkward to be basically sitting between his legs as they were spread out in a wide V so that he could lean forward and to each side so that I could check his range of motion. He seemed to be used to it, or at least, didn’t seem to mind.
I guess if a man was being poked and prodded by a therapist, he would probably prefer that it was me rather than Douglas or Bruce.
As soon as there were no staff members nearby, I said, “I think I’m on thin ice with my new boss, and she’s having a really bad day. There’s a note in your file that you don’t like to complete the full round of exercises, but if you could possibly find it in your heart to do every single thing for me today, it would make me look like a star. I’d really appreciate it.”
He nodded, and I reached out my hands to him to help him stretch forward an extra inch.
I knew that I shouldn’t have felt a tingle from holding his hands, and I shouldn’t have been looking straight into his eyes the way I was. A low, simmering heat was passing like a current just under my skin.
It didn’t make any sense that I could be attracted to a man I didn’t even know. And a patient, no less. But the urge to throw myself into his arms was indescribable.
I’d always craved the touch of others. Maybe it was because my family rarely hugged, or that I’ve always expressed things more physically than mentally. Just the touch of his hands when he was looking at me this way was sending a sparkle like dozens of fireflies through my stomach.
I helped him pull gently to the right, then very carefully to his injured left leg. Suddenly he smiled broadly. “Wow, you’re a lot better at this than last week’s guy,” he chuckled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Linda pass close by and disappear into the office.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“No problem.”
“Did you have any trouble with this week’s homework exercises?” I asked.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “I ran through them once, sure.”
Releasing his hands, I put mine on my hips a bit too high as I tried to glare at him through a smirk. “Mr. Little, you know that you have to do your exercises every single day if you want to heal as much as possible.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I could tell that he wasn’t being grumpy at me, he just seemed to dislike this entire process.
“If you like, I could give you stretches that are more ballet-style. Would that help? Do you have a mirror and a barre at home? Wearing the pink tutu is not optional. ”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he chuckled.