Page 26 of Sweet Devotion

That gave her pause. She was always ready. It was her new therapy location that wasn’t. Not sure what to say, she merely nodded.

Aiden did the same and she knew as his hand rested along the small of her back, urging her forward, that the man was making mental lists on how to do exactly what she needed.

Colleen had barely settled into the passenger seat before she found herself smiling. She could get used to having this man around. A true partner in crime, or in this case, renovation.

The drive to Millers Creek took less than an hour. They talked the way they’d learned to—without filling every space, without performing conversation, just following whatever thread turned up and dropping it when it ran out. He told her about his cousin Joe’s latest disaster, a bathroom renovation in the Bronx that had somehow compromised a load-bearing wall. She told him about a patient at Farraday’s who’d been so convinced Hannah was wrong about his timeline that he’d secretly started riding again three weeks early and set himself back two months.

“The drive isn’t too much for your hip is it?” She’d debated bringing this up at all, they’d been having such a pleasant drive, but she couldn’t deny that she was concerned about his hip after this much time in the car.

“Fine.”

She didn’t say a word, but cocked one brow higher than the other and waited for him to glance her way.

“Okay. Suffice to say, it’s better than it was.”

“Would that be before the accident or since the accident?”

“You mean the blast?” His harsh words gave her chills.

“It must have been awful.”

He blew out a deep sigh, stared momentarily at a distant unfocused point, and then heaving another sigh, she knew he’d made up his mind. “I don’t remember much about the explosion. It was a normal convoy like any other when suddenly everyone was shouting orders and scrambling. Next thing I knew the world went quiet as the truck door blew away and I went flying.”

“Probably the sound of the blast temporarily affected your hearing.”

He shrugged. “That’s all I remember. I don’t remember the fire, or the others, or even landing on the hard dirt. The next thing I remembered was waking up in a sterile environment and staring at the acoustic tiled ceiling and wondering why the hell did I hurt so much.”

“Your hip.”

“My everything. Radiant pain shot up and down my leg, my back. Some days I’d have sworn I could feel the pain all the way to my teeth.”

She tried not to grimace.

“When I finally realized where I was and what was going on, I saw my entire life crumble before me.”

That she didn’t understand. “What do you mean your entire life?”

“I’m a career soldier. At least that had been the plan. But if I can’t walk without a limp, if ordinary tasks send pain shooting in every direction—I won’t be any good to Uncle Sam.”

None of that had occurred to her. Especially not that this man was mentally dealing with the possible end of a planned career. “Do you still feel that way?”

“No. Well, yes. Okay, sometimes.”

That made her laugh. “Gotta love that military precision.”

He chuckled and then, to her surprise, the discussion over, he fiddled with the radio stations and settled on a University station that was playing Broadway favorites. The man had very eclectic taste and before she knew it, her toes were keeping rhythm with her fingers tapping on the arm rest.

“You like Broadway tunes?”

“My grandmother had all kinds of original cast albums going as far back as Bye Bye Birdie and West Side Story.”

“Wow, that is going back.”

“Did you know that they changed the lyrics for the movies?” He smiled, not the same smile she’d begun to get used to, but a coy, lazy grin that felt more like keeping secrets than grinning. Clearing his throat, the melodic lyrics came forth, “An English teacher is really someone. How proud I’d be if you had become one.”

Colleen was sure her jaw had hit the floor. “Yes. Bye Bye Birdie. In the show Albert was supposed to be an English teacher not a chemist.”

His head bobbed and the smile spread a little wider. “I’m sure the sensors had something to do with removing the line about bullets flying from West Side Story.”