would you just leave me alone!â
âOf course I will, when my job is finished. I canât let you ruin my record of successful cases, can I?â
âDo you know what you can do with your successful record?â he snarled, sending the chair jerking backward. He jabbed the forward button. âI donât want to see your face again!â he shouted as the chair rolled out of the room.
She sighed and lifted her shoulders helplessly when her eyes met Angelaâs philosophic gaze. Angela smiled, but didnât say anything. Alberta wasnât talkative, and Angela was even less so. Dione imagined that when the two of them were together, the silence was deafening.
When she thought that Blake had had enough time to get over his tantrum, she went upstairs to begin again. It would probably be a waste of time to try his door, so she entered her room and went straight through to the gallery. She tapped on the sliding glass doors in his room, then opened them and stepped in.
He regarded her broodingly from his chair. Dione went to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. âI know itâs difficult,â she said softly. âI canât promise you that any of this will be easy. Try to trust me; I really am good at my job, and at the very worst youâll still be in much better health than you are now.â
âIf I canât walk, why should I care about my health?â he asked tightly. âDo you think I want to live like this? I would rather have died outright on that cliff than have gone through these past two years.â
âHave you always given up so easily?â
âEasily!â His head jerked. âYou donât know anything about it! You donât know what it was likeââ
âI can tell you what it wasnât like,â she interrupted. âI can tell you that youâve never looked down at where your legs used to be and seen only flat sheet. Youâve never had to type by punching the keys with a pencil held in your teeth because youâre paralyzed from the neck down. Iâve seen a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you. Youâre going to walk again, because Iâm going to make you.â
âI donât want to hear about how bad other people have it! Theyâre not me! My life is my own, and I know what I want out of it, and what I canâtâ¦what I wonât accept.â
âWork? Effort? Pain?â she prodded. âMr. Remington, Richard has told me a great deal about you. You lived life to the fullest. If there were even the slimmest chance that you could do all of that again, would you go for it?â
He sighed, his face unutterably weary. âI donât know. If I really thought there was a chanceâ¦but I donât. I canât walk, Miss Kelley. I canât move my legs at all.â
âI know. You canât expect to move them right now. Iâll have to retrain your nerve impulses before youâll be able to move them. Itâll take several months, and I canât promise that you wonât limp, but you will walk againâ¦if you cooperate with me. So, Mr. Remington, shall we get started again on those exercises?â
Chapter Three
H e submitted to the exercises with ill grace, but that didnât bother her as long as he cooperated at all. His muscles didnât know that he lay there scowling the entire time; the movement, the stimulation, were what counted. Dione worked tirelessly, alternating between exercising his legs and massaging his entire body. It was almost ten-thirty when she heard the noise that sheâd been unconsciously listening for all morning: the tapping of Serenaâs heels. She lifted her head, and then Blake heard it, too. âNo!â he said hoarsely. âDonât let her see me like this!â
âAll right,â she said calmly, flipping the sheet up to cover him. Then she walked to the door and stepped into the hallway,
Ellen Kottler, Jeffrey A. Kottler, Cary J. Kottler