Second Chance Dad

“We’ve got a deadline,

Dr. McLaren.”

“I don’t honestly care.”

Sophie leaned forward, her delicate brows drawing together. “Let’s give this a good shot anyway. I know I can help you. Let me prove it.”

“I don’t want this. Understand?” The others had given up and she would, too. He’d make sure of it.

She blasted him with another one of her dazzling smiles. “I think we’ll get along just great. I’ll be back Friday.”

Josh stared after her as she let herself out the door.

She was coming back?

He’d have to make himself perfectly clear—he didn’t want her intruding in his life. He didn’t want anyone promising the moon and stars, and the prospect of a full and rewarding future.

Because after what he’d done, he knew that was the stuff of fairy tales, not reality. And he only wanted to be left alone.

ROXANNE RUSTAND

lives in the country with her husband and a menagerie of pets, many of whom find their way into her books. She works part-time as a registered dietitian at a psychiatric facility, but otherwise you’ll find her writing at home in her jammies, surrounded by three dogs begging for treats, or out in the barn with the horses. Her favorite time of all is when her kids are home—though all three are now busy with college and jobs.

This is her twenty-fifth novel. RT Book Reviews nominated her for a Career Achievement Award in 2005, and she won the magazine’s award for Best Superromance of 2006.

She loves to hear from readers! Her snail-mail address is P.O. Box 2550, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 52406-2550. You can also contact her at: www.roxannerustand.com, www.shoutlife.com/roxannerustand or at her blog, where readers and writers talk about their pets: www.roxannerustand.blogspot.com.

Second Chance Dad

Roxanne Rustand

www.millsandboon.co.uk

What does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

—Micah 6:8

DEDICATION

In memory of my mom, Arline. Without her,

I would not have believed in this dream, and

her endless love, support, encouragement and

enthusiasm always meant the world to me. Mom,

this one—as always—is for you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With many thanks to Licensed Physical Therapists

Nancy Reilly and Erin Nicholas

for answering my many questions about

physical therapy. Any errors are mine alone.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

Sophie stepped out of her ancient Taurus sedan but lingered at the open door, staring at the massive dog on the porch of the sprawling cabin. The dog stared back at her with laserlike intensity, head lowered and tail stiff.

It was not a welcoming pose.

But set back in the deep shadows of the pine trees crowding so close, the cabin itself—with all the windows dark—seemed even more menacing than a wolfhound mix with very sharp teeth.

“Don’t worry about the dog,” Grace Dearborn had said with a breezy smile during Sophie’s orientation at the county home health department offices. “He’s quite the bluffer. It’s the owner who is more likely to bite.”

From the spooky appearance of the dwelling, Sophie could imagine the home health care administrator’s words about this client being true in the most literal sense. Ominous clouds had rolled in earlier this afternoon, bringing heavy rains and lightning, and from the looks of the sky, the current respite would be brief.

So what kind of person would be sitting in there, in all that gloomy darkness?

She looked at the folder in her hand again.

Dr. Josh McLaren. Widower. Lives alone. No local support system. Declined home health aides. Postsurgical healing of comminuted fracture, right leg with a knee replacement. Surgical repair of fractured L-4 and L-5 lumbar vertebrae, multiple comminuted fractures, right hand.

There were no details on the accident itself. Had he been hit by a truck? She shuddered, imagining the pain he’d been through. The surgeries and therapy had to have been as bad as the injuries themselves.

The only other documentation in the folder were the doctor’s physical therapy orders dated last year, originating from Lucas General Hospital in Minneapolis, and some scant, frustrated progress notes written by her various physical therapist predecessors.

The last one had ignored professional convention by inserting his personal feelings into his notes.

The man is surly and impossible.

Ten minutes spent arguing about the need for therapy. Five minutes of deep massage of his right leg and strengthening exercises before he ordered me out of his house.

And the final note…

I give up. Doctor or not, McLaren is a highly unpleasant client and I will not be coming back here.

Sophie scanned the documents again, searching for a birth date or mention of the man’s age, which was basic information present in the other nine case charts she’d been assigned. Thus far, nothing.

Maybe this guy was an old duffer, like her grandfather. Crotchety and isolated and clinging to whatever measure of independence he could manage.

This morning, Grace had studied Sophie’s home visit schedule before handing it over, and she’d made it clear once again that Sophie had to succeed with every physical therapy client, to the limits of their potential, and that she’d be closely evaluating Sophie’s progress.

The job was temporary—just three months while covering for the regular therapist who’d gone to Chicago for some intensive advanced training. Excellence was expected on a daily basis, Grace had emphasized. But if Sophie did exceptionally well, Grace would try to push the county board to approve hiring her on a permanent basis.

The thought had lifted Sophie’s heart with joy, though now some of her giddy excitement faded. She set her jaw. If her ability to stay in Aspen Creek hinged on those stipulations, then no one—not even this difficult old man—was going to stand in her way. Far too much depended on it.

“Buddy, I’m going to overwhelm you with kind ness, and your mean ole dog, too,” she muttered under her breath as she pawed through a grocery sack on the front seat of her car. “See how you like that.”

Withdrawing a small can, she peeled off the outer plastic lid, pulled the tab to open the can and held it high. “Salmon,” she crooned. “Come and get it.”

It took a minute for the scent to drift over to the cabin. The dog’s head jerked up. He sniffed the breeze, then he cautiously started across the stretch of grass between the cabin and driveway.

She stayed in the lee of her open car door, ready to leap back inside at the least sign of aggression. But by the time the dog reached her front bumper his tongue was lolling and his tail wagging.

She grabbed a plastic spoon on her dashboard—a remnant of her last trip to a Dairy Queen—and scooped up a chunk of the pungent, pink fish. She dropped it on the grass and the dog wolfed it down, his tail wagging even faster. “Friends?”

She held out a cautious hand and he licked it, his eyes riveted on the can in her other hand. “Just one bite. When I come out, I’ll give you one more. Deal?”

His entire body wagged as he followed her to the cabin door.

No lights shone through the windows. She knocked. Then knocked again as loud as she could and listened for any signs of movement.

What if…what if the old guy had passed on?

Her heart in her throat, she framed her face with her hands and pressed her nose to a pane of glass, trying to peer into the gloom. Knocked again. And then she quietly tried the doorknob.

It turned easily in her hand. She pulled the door open, just an inch. “Hello? Anyone here?” She raised her voice. “I’m from the home health agency.”

No answer.

Thunder rumbled outside, heavy and ominous. A nearby crack of lightning shook the porch beneath her feet. She opened the door wider, then bracketed her hands against the inner screen door and tried to look inside. “Hello?”

The dog at her side whimpered. Then he shoved past her, sending the door swinging back to crash against the interior wall.

So much for subtlety.

“Hello,” she yelled. “Are you here? Are you okay?”

Something moved in the darkness—probably just the dog. Still, she took a cautious step back.

If the old fellow had died, she had no business disturbing the scene. The sheriff should be called, and the coroner. And if he was in there with a shotgun, she sure didn’t want to surprise him.

But on the other hand, if he needed help, she could hardly walk away. Steeling herself, she reached around the corner and fumbled along the inside wall until she found a light switch and flipped it on.

Only a single, weak bulb came to life in the center of the room, leaving most of it dark. She started to step over the threshold…then drew in a sharp breath.

The room was nearly bare. She could make out the shapes of a sofa, chair and what might be a desk in one corner. But it was the figure suddenly looming over her that made her heart lurch into overdrive with fear. Tall. Broad shoulders. Silhouetted by the faint light behind him, she couldn’t make out his expression, but his stance telegraphed irritation.

This wasn’t some old guy.

Maybe…maybe he was an intruder. Maybe he’d hurt poor old crotchety Dr. McLaren and was hauling away all the loot in this cabin…

Raising her hands defensively, she backed up a step, and then another, preparing to run.

But then she saw the dog amble over and sit at the man’s side, leaning its shaggy body against his hip. He rested a gentle hand on the animal’s head.

“I—I’m sorry,” she faltered, searching his face. He didn’t look disabled…but then she saw the tell-tale signs of tension in his stance, as if it had been painful to make it to the door. And the angle of his body, as if he were guarding himself against injuries that probably still kept him up at night.

He said nothing.

“You must be Dr. McLaren. I thought…I thought you were old,” she stammered as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. He wasn’t only a much younger man—probably in his mid-thirties at the most—but he was striking in that tall, dark, and dangerous sort of way that always made her self-conscious about her very ordinary self. “When you didn’t answer, I…um…I was afraid that you might be dead.”

“Unfortunately, no,” he growled. He glanced at her upraised hands, then met her eyes with a piercing stare. “So who are you, and why are you threatening me with a can of salmon?” His gaze slid over to the folder in her other hand. “Second thought—just forget it and go away.”

He started to close the door. She stopped it with her foot. “I can’t leave. I’m Sophie Alexander, your new physical therapist, from the county home health agency.”

“Well, Sophie, maybe you’re the new therapist, but you’re wrong. You certainly can leave.”

“No, I can’t.”

“The others did, which was fine with me.”

“Look. I’ve been given my schedule, and Grace Dearborn—”

“Grace.” He sighed heavily.

“Right. Ms. Dearborn made it very clear that I had to follow through without fail on every person in my caseload. And honestly? Today hasn’t been good. I’ve been scratched and bitten by an eighty-seven-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s who should be in a care center, not living with her son. And I have been screamed at by an old man who was sure I was his ex-wife come back to life, and who called 911, while I was there. You can call 911 too, or you can just let me in and we’ll talk about where you’re at with your therapy. Okay? Because either way, I’m not leaving. I cannot let Grace down.”

He scowled back at her, obviously impressed…or maybe, just stunned into silence.

“Please.” She softened her tone. “It was a long drive up here. I’d like to get this visit over before that storm hits, so I can get back to town before the roads wash out. Okay?”

“Why does pleasing Grace mean so much to you? It’s just a job.”

“It means a lot more to me than you could ever imagine. So now, can we get down to business?”

For someone who couldn’t be more than five foot three and a hundred pounds soaking wet, the latest physical therapist to land on his doorstep appeared to be one very determined woman. He could only hope that she wasn’t as stubborn as she looked, but right now the fiery gleam in those pretty green eyes spelled trouble.

“Well?” She pinned him with a steady look. “Can I come in?”

Josh gritted his teeth and inwardly braced himself to mask his pain as he waved her on into the great room of the cabin. “Suit yourself.”

She hit him with a blinding smile, then traipsed on in, coochy-cooed his dog, Bear, who—traitor that he was—moaned with pleasure at her soft touch and followed her when she headed for the sofa under the moose head mounted on the wall.

She gave the moose a sad look, then angled a disapproving glance in Josh’s direction.

“Don’t look at me—he came with the cabin.” Josh turned on a table lamp beside his chair and waited until she settled on the couch with a folder in her lap that probably told her more about him than he wanted anyone to know—much less some perky little pixie who was planning to gush platitudes and false empathy about his “situation,” and then come up with yet another completely useless plan to turn his life around.

He’d been there, done that, and wasn’t going there again with anyone—even if this gal did have a smile that could rival the lighting in a surgical suite.

Glancing between the can of salmon in her hand and the rapt attention of the dog at her feet, she set the can on the table at the end of the couch and waggled a forefinger at Bear. “Don’t even think about it.”

“How do I know you haven’t poisoned my dog with that stuff?”

“I love dogs. I’m just not sure about the ones that meet me with a snarl, and I happened to have the salmon in a grocery bag I forgot to take out of my car last night. But believe me, after meeting several grumpy dogs and their even grumpier owners today I’ll always carry something yummy in the future. Pays to make friends.” She gave him a slow appraisal. “What about you? Ghirardelli? Lindt?”

He masked a startled bark of laughter with a deeper scowl.

“Well, then, let’s get on with things, okay?” she continued smoothly. “I suspect that with your medical background, you know far more than I do about your injuries and how to provide the exact type of therapy for regaining maximum function.”

Did he? Not really. Not anymore. He’d specialized in emergency medicine, not the long haul of restorative medicine that often followed severe injuries, and after ten years of intense focus on his own field, what he knew was based more on logic and what was now outdated information from medical school.

“But then that would beg the question of why you haven’t achieved that progress on your own.” She smiled gently. “My guess is that you do need me. Because I can provide the kind of deep massage, flexibility exercises and encouragement to get you to where you want to be.”

He snorted. He was exactly where he wanted to be. Where he deserved to be. “Spend your time on those other clients in your caseload.”

“I will. But I’ll be coming here, as well.”

“I don’t think—”

“We’ve got a deadline, Dr. McLaren. Both of us do, given the time limitation on your insurance policy and my boss.”

“I don’t honestly care.”

She leaned forward, her delicate brows drawing together. “Let’s give this a good shot anyway. I know I can help you. Let me prove it.”

“I don’t want this. Understand?” Guilt lanced through him at the stricken expression in her eyes, and he had to steel himself against the feeling that he’d just kicked a puppy.

But the others had given up and she would, too. He’d make sure of it.

She blasted him with another one of her dazzling smiles as she stood and headed for him, then thrust out a hand. Without thinking, he reflexively accepted her handshake, feeling a little dazed at the firm clasp of her delicate hand.

“I think we’ll get along just great. I’ll be back Friday, so we can start with a baseline assessment and some goal setting.”

He stared after her as she let herself out the door and closed it behind her.

She was coming back?

He’d have to make himself perfectly clear, if she did show up again. He didn’t want her intruding in his life. He didn’t want anyone promising the moon and stars, and the prospect of a full and rewarding future.

Because after what he’d done—and what he’d failed to do—that was the stuff of fairy tales, not reality. And he only wanted to be left alone.

Back in town, Sophie sloshed through the county office building to Grace’s, her feet soaked and cold, her hair a sodden mess. Her first day on the job had presented more challenges than she ever could have imagined, but it was the final home visit that disturbed her the most.

Grace looked up from her computer screen and surveyed her from head to toe. “What happened to you?”

“My last appointment. The storm was only half the problem, believe me.”

“You look like a drowned rat—pardon the cliché.”

“I had a difficult time even getting to my car, it was raining so hard, and the roads up there turned to deep mud. I was lucky to get back.”

Grace gave her an appraising look. “So you did see Dr. McLaren.” Sophie nodded.

“And how did it go?”

Sophie braced her hands on the front edge of Grace’s desk. “There should have been much more documentation in his files. That man has had severe injuries. Multiple surgeries. I cannot imagine the pain he has suffered. And all I had were the therapy orders and a brief page of progress notes—by therapists who apparently didn’t get to first base. I wasn’t prepared at all. And,” she added softly, feeling another surge of regret, “because of that, I’m afraid I was really hard on him.”

“Good.”

“Good? I’m embarrassed. I normally wouldn’t talk to a client like that. But when I got there, no one answered the door. I thought he was old and might be dead in there, and then—”

A smile flitted across Grace’s face. “But you got in the door.”

“Well, yes.”

“And he talked to you. Right?”

“He wasn’t very happy about it.”

“Did he tell you about the accident itself—how it happened?”

“No. I asked when I was leaving, and his face practically turned to granite. He said he wasn’t going to talk about it, and suddenly that was the end of our visit.” She shivered a little at the memory, because she’d seen pain in his eyes that was so bleak, so beyond reaching, that she could only imagine what he’d been through. “I think he could be a very intimidating man…but now he simply doesn’t care about anything or anyone. Except maybe his dog.”

“I’ll leave it up to him, if he wants to tell you about what happened, though he probably won’t.” Grace pushed away from her desk and went to look out the window facing Main Street. “But you’re right—he no longer cares. A number of our therapists have tried to help him, and he wouldn’t see any of them a second time. He’s at the end of the line for us because his insurance coverage for therapy runs out in sixty days. But if you don’t give up on him, you have a chance of giving him back his life, Sophie.”

“I’m not sure he’ll let me in the door next time.”

Grace turned around to face her. “Like I told you before, if you prove your mettle by succeeding with your clients, I give you my promise that you’ll have a full-time job here. If Paul comes back at the end of August and wants to keep his job, I’ll find a way to stretch the budget, because I know we can keep two good therapists busy. Is that a deal?”

She couldn’t contain her smile. “Absolutely.”

Eli would have his school. His friends. They wouldn’t have to move to some big anonymous city, where they wouldn’t know their neighbors, and where Eli could be lost in the shuffle and never receive the kind of help he needed. They wouldn’t have to leave the little house where Eli felt secure.

It was exactly what she’d hoped for, all along. But still, a niggle of worry crept back into her thoughts.

What if she failed?

Chapter Two

Stepping into Aspen Creek Books early on a Saturday morning had always filled Sophie with a warm sense of peace and happiness.

Until today.

Glancing at the imposing grandfather clock by the front register, she hurried to the back of the store, peeling off her light sweater along the way while juggling a manila folder and her purse.

The comforting scents of fresh-brewed, blueberry-flavored coffee and peach tea barely registered as she walked into the circle of easy chairs and rockers at the back and dropped into the nearest one.

Beth Carrigan, dressed in a long denim skirt and a canary blouse that accented her wild tumble of chestnut curls, looked up from the coffee she was pouring at the old oak credenza along the wall. Her gray eyes filled with instant sympathy. “Oh, no. Not again.”

The other two women were already seated, and both leaned forward with matching expressions of dismay.

“Yes, again.” Sophie sighed. “I think I need to ask you all to start praying because my prayers aren’t doing the job.”

“We’ve all been doing just that—even Hannah,” Olivia Carlson murmured gently. At forty-nine, she was the oldest of the five book club members, with prematurely silver hair cut in an elegant, supershort style that framed her dark brows and regal bone structure. Hannah was the youngest, but she was still away, helping with a family crisis in Texas.

“I guess there’s no guarantee that my job on the county home health team will be permanent, no matter how well I do. Did you see the article in yesterday’s newspaper?”

“Big cutbacks,” Olivia murmured. “In almost every department.”

“And the article says that the Home Health Agency will suffer one of the largest. How can Grace even consider asking the board to hiring me full-time after her other therapist comes back? They’ll laugh in her face.”

Keeley North pushed her blond hair out of her eyes and frowned. “But surely if there’s a need…”

“It won’t matter if there’s no money. I’m beginning to think I’ll be trying to pay off college loans and raise Eli on restaurant minimum wage if I don’t find something permanent soon.”

“Maybe God just has different timing in mind,” Olivia said. “Who knows what He has in store?”

Sophie managed a rueful smile. “If He could just give me a hint, I would rest a little easier.”

“Surely something will turn up, sweetie,” Keeley said with a sad shake of her head. “I just don’t understand why this is taking so long. I mean, you’d think physical therapy graduates would be in high demand. Just look at all the baby boomers these days.”

“The economy has led to cutbacks at the small town hospitals and clinics all over the area.” Sophie dropped her keys into her purse and set it beside her chair, then drummed her fingernails on the folder in her lap. “I know I could find a job in the Twin Cities or Chicago. But being a single mom and not knowing anyone there would be so hard. And then there are Eli’s special classes…”