Baby Im Back

herself from the intimate act of touching another person, but with Barry, it took all her concentration. The man was a beautiful specimen of male strength, with long, lean limbs, and a well-muscled torso. Steeling herself against his powerful appeal, Lora knelt to lever her weight over his knee and massaged the flesh with firm, deep pressure. He grimaced.
    “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Are the phantom pains bad?”
    “Better than they were in the beginning,” he said through gritted teeth.
    She cast about for conversation to take his mind—and hers—off his magnificent body. “Do you mind telling me how it happened?” She held her breath because she knew she could be treading on a touchy subject.
    He was quiet for a while, wincing as she coaxed the muscles in his thigh to relax and the nerve endings to stop sending sensations to an absent limb. “Common story,” he finally said with a shrug. “I was on reconnaissance patrol, an IED went off.”
    “That must have been horrifying.”
    He only grunted.
    “Were there other injuries in your unit?”
    She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but after a long silence, he said, “Yeah,” but in a way that let her know the topic was closed.
    She released him and sat back. “Okay, break’s over. Fifty more sit-ups, please. Try to raise both feet at the same time and to the same level.”
    She put him through several series of exercises nonstop. He wasn’t happy about some of the Pilates poses, especially when she made him lean on her to balance, but at the end of the session, he was sweating and tired, and she was satisfied with his effort, if not his progress.
    “Good session today,” she said. “Do you know yet how long you’ll be in Sweetness?” She told herself it had everything to do with wanting to make the most of his PT and nothing to do with the fact that she was enjoying their time together.
    “I’ll know soon. Probably a week or so, then I have to get back to my life.”
    “Where is that?”
    “Not here,” he said with a bite to his voice. “Hopefully somewhere exotic and exciting.”
    He couldn’t have made it more clear that nothing of interest was happening in Sweetness. “You said something about being in town to do a favor for a friend?”
    “That’s right.” But he averted his glance and didn’t offer details.
    “Where are you staying?”
    “Porter was good enough to let me stay in the bunkhouse with the workers while I’m here.”
    She nodded, recalling that all the Armstrong brothers had military backgrounds…of course they would extend themselves to a fellow soldier.
    “Same time tomorrow?” he asked, already heading toward the door.
    Lora was accustomed to her patients being happy to see an end their PT appointments, but a small part of her was disappointed that Barry seemed so eager to be out of her company. “Yes, same time tomorrow,” she said.
    But he was already gone.

    *****

    As he closed the door behind him, Barry sagged with fatigue. Frustration crowded his chest—he didn’t like appearing weak in front of Lora and he really didn’t like the push-pull of attraction he was starting to feel for her in such a short time. He attributed it to the undercurrent of tension he felt concerning the way he and his friends had treated her when they were younger. There was so much in the news lately about peer pressure and bullying; he’d listened to the reports with a sanctimonious attitude, wondering how kids could be so thoughtless, with zero recollection that he’d done the same thing, and to someone who’d probably grown up to do better things with her life than most of the people who’d teased her.
    She was obviously well thought of in town—that evening he spotted her running down the same road he’d driven in on and everyone she passed waved and honked. And the next morning when he arrived for his appointment, she was in the lobby giving parting instructions to another patient who hung on her every word.
    “Thanks, Ms. Jansen,” the man said, rotating his arm from the shoulder. “I haven’t felt this good in years.”
    “The credit’s all yours, Mr. Pennington,” she returned. “You’ve been faithful to your exercises and put in a lot of hard work.”
    But the man beamed at her. “You’re a godsend, Ms. Jansen.”
    She thanked him and winked. “I’ll see you next week.”
    “Sure thing.”
    Barry squashed an unreasonable pang of jealousy and decided he needed to unburden himself