Page 51 of Colton in the Wild
With that echoing in her mind, Hetty eased up until it only hurt, not felt like her leg was tearing apart.
“I have to say,” Mrs. Cowell said when she finally called a halt and led her to one of the tables where she would do some massage and heat therapy to promote further healing, “you’re the most determined patient I’ve had in a long time. You’re doing well, Hetty.”
“Enough for you to give me an estimate on when I’ll be back to normal, Mrs. Cowell?”
“I think you’d better call me Liz. We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. But in answer, I’d say a year or so,” the older woman said as she worked with nimble hands on Hetty’s leg. “That’s assuming there’s no permanent nerve damage too great to ignore.”
Hetty felt a chill ripple over her. She focused on the time span rather than the maybe in the statement, because right now that’s what scared her most.
“A year?”
With a tiny quirk of her mouth that told Hetty she was about to get one of those comparisons she loved to make, the therapist said, “I assumed you meant back to where you were before this happened. I’d say you’ll be back to functional much sooner, if you keep working this hard. Another week like this, and maybe you can try that cane your man came in and got for you.”
Hetty let out a breath of relief. But then the last of the woman’s words truly registered. “Wait, who got the cane?”
Liz’s brow wrinkled. “The guy we just chased out of here? Spence Colton?”
Hetty felt a flood of warmth inside her. She knew that Spence had brought the cane into her room for inspiration—which she’d needed after the worst parts of these sessions—but she hadn’t realized he’d been the one to actually come here and get it.
They were wrapping up before Liz spoke about Spence again. “He’s a good man,” she said, her tone devoid of any of her usual prodding or teasing. “I’d hang on to that one if I were you.”
“We’re…still working that out.”
The therapist smiled widely. “Judging by the way he looks at you, it’s already worked out in his mind.”
Hetty’s gaze shot to her face. She’d already realized the therapist noticed everything and sensed even more, so she risked the question. “You really think so?”
The tough, relentless woman’s expression softened in a way Hetty had not seen before. “He looks at you the way my Matt used to look at me.”
Used to?Hetty glanced at the woman’s left hand, where a simple gold band adorned her ring finger, then back at her face. The truth was there in her eyes, in the aching sadness, before she confirmed it with words.
“I lost him a few years ago. He was KIA overseas,” the woman said quietly.
Hetty couldn’t stop herself, she reached out and clasped that hand, her palm over that ring. She didn’t want to say the usual, trite platitudes, which had always seemed useless to her. So instead she said, just as quietly, “He chose well.”
The woman’s eyes brightened and she knew somehow she’d found the right words. “We were good together.”
There was a sound from the doorway and they both looked. It was Spence, who apparently had just made the other therapist—a young man about a foot shorter than he was—laugh. Liz looked back at Hetty.
“Don’t waste time you can never get back,” she said softly, and there was an amazing combination of remembered pain and goodwill in her voice and her expression.
“You’re right,” Hetty said decisively. “That ends today.”
Back on the crutches—which she was now determined to be rid of after that two weeks Liz had mentioned—she made her way toward the door. Spence was still just outside the door, now looking at something on his phone. She didn’t think she’d made any noise, but his head came up sharply and he turned to look as if he’d somehow sensed her coming.
And she thought she’d go through any amount of this hell to see the smile that spread across his face when he saw her.
He looks at you the way my Matt used to look at me…
She was done wasting time.
“Do you have a run this afternoon?” she asked him without preamble.
“No,” he said, sounding startled. “I cleared the day. I’ve got nothing until tomorrow.”
“Good. We’re going to have that talk.”
He drew back slightly, either startled again or…wary. Well, if it was wary, she wanted to know now. Before she let herself fall any further than she already had. Maybe he’d decided that night in the cave had been a mistake, or a hallucination, or maybe he’d only been trying to placate her because she’d been hurt. She didn’t know, but it was past time she found out. It wasn’t like her to be this indecisive, to have let this drift along for nearly two weeks. But she wanted this so much, maybe she was just afraid of the answers she’d get.
