Page 145 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

When I finally kissed Carson Rome, I didn’t want a mechanical witch or a family member anywhere near us.

Chapter

Eighteen

CARSON

Physical therapy had a distinct smell, specific enough that my body recognized it before my brain did. The rubber flooring, disinfectant, and sweat. Every physical therapy office I’d stepped into over the last five years smelled slightly different, but somehow exactly the same.

I sat on the edge of a padded table with my jeans folded beside me and stared at my prosthetic leg resting upright against the chair across from me. Without it attached, it looked strangely separate from me. Just an object I relied heavily on and couldn’t live without.

Something that had taken months of adjustments, fittings, frustration, appointments, and more tears than I would ever admit before it started feeling remotely natural.

Even now, five years later, natural wasn’t always the word I’d use.

My physical therapist, Hannah, rolled her stool closer and examined the irritated skin along my residual limb while I pretended the framed anatomy poster on the opposite wall had suddenly become fascinating.

“You’ve been overdoing it.” There was no accusation in her voice which made it worse, because she was only admitting the facts that were painfully obvious.

“I’ve been working a few extra hours,” I admitted still avoiding her gaze.

“You always work hard Carson, and your nub never looks like this.”

“I know.”

“So that isn’t an answer.”

I looked down at the little bit of my leg that remained from the accident. Hannah had always called it my nub, and I hated the word. Redness circled the area where my socket had been rubbing for the last several days. There was nothing serious yet. No open skin. No infection. Just enough irritation that every step had become increasingly difficult to ignore.

I’d known coming here was the right decision. Knowing didn’t make me enjoy it, though.

“I walked a couple miles in the rain two weeks ago.”

Hannah’s hands stopped. “A couple?”

“Maybe two.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

“Possibly closer to three.”

“Carson.”

“My truck broke down.”

“So naturally your next thought was to walk several miles on a prosthesis in wet jeans.”

I frowned and leaned back. “My next thought was that I had milk sitting in the truck and no phone service.”

“That isn’t better.” Hannah had been seeing me long enough that she no longer softened everything. I preferred our relationship like this, I wanted the truth from her and not some sugar-coated bullshit.

The first year after the accident, everyone had spoken to me gently.

Doctors.

Nurses.

Therapists.