Dr. Dad To The Rescue. Jodi O'Donnell
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progress with him in the short time she’d worked with him.
Yet another part of him, Holden acknowledged, rued that very development. He wanted to help his son. But as much as he hated to admit it, he wasn’t doing the boy any good the way he was now. Edie had the right idea: Sam’s welfare was his main concern.
Holden turned back to her. “All right, Ms. Turner. I’ll still be bringing Sam to his appointments, and you can call me in toward the end of each session to show me the exercises he’ll be doing. He’ll need my help to do them right, and I want to be there for him. I do promise not to push him or make him feel like he’s damaged himself in my eyes in any way. Fair enough?”
Relief broke out over her face as she smiled. “Fair enough.”
He held the door for her as Edie led the way back to the treatment room where Sam was. She paused outside the door, though, and looked up at him.
“Thank you, Dr. McKee, for seeing the sense in my suggestion.” She made a graceful swaying gesture with her head that swung her hair back over her shoulder. It really was her best feature, Holden decided. “I appreciate you putting your trust in me.”
She’d made the same statement to Sam, and despite still questioning the wisdom of such an assurance, Holden found himself liking that she’d make the same one to him, too. It occurred to him then that she might be apprehensive about what had happened back in the other treatment room.
“Just so you know, I won’t switch Sam to another therapist once he’s started with you,” he said gruffly. “You have my word.”
“I trust you, Dr. McKee,” she said, eyes vibrant with that emotion, undoubtedly sincere.
He would wonder later what impulse made him reach out and take a lock of that living mantle in his fingers. Edie stiffened but didn’t pull away, emboldening him to leisurely rub the strands between thumb and forefinger. Each filament was like that of a precious metal, shimmering in the light. And soft, like the feathers he’d imagined he’d felt as the tips of these copper-gold locks had brushed the back of his hand. As then, it took all his might not to surround himself in the curtain of her hair.
“Is it really as easy as that, Edie?” he murmured. “You say you trust someone, so then you do? I give my consent, and so I’ve given you my trust? Is believing really that effortless?”
He waited for her answer, still caressing the silky strands. When none came, he glanced up. The trust had been replaced by the same disorientation he’d seen at Sam’s misinterpreting her name.
“Naturally, it’s not that easy,” she said, her voice low. “Real trust can’t be built in a day. It’ll take time for Sam to put his faith in me. But I won’t let your son down.”
“Yes...Sam.” Holden dropped the lock of hair and stepped back. “Shall we get back to him?”
As he followed Edie through the door, he realized that, indeed, like Rome, real trust could not be built in a day. Yet he knew from experience that it could burn to the ground in an instant.
He would have to be very careful—for everyone’s sake.
Edie pushed open the door from the changing room to the pool area, her running shoes dangling from two fingers, her socks tucked under one arm. Warm, humid air surrounded her, along with the pervading smell of chlorine. Music continued to blast from a boom box on a bench, even though the seniors’ hydrotherapy class had ended five minutes earlier. Several of the attendees were still tooling around in the pool on their foam boards.
She spied her aunt Hazel among the balding pates and bathing caps just as the older woman saw her.
“How’d it go today?” Edie called above the echoing strains of Brooks & Dunn’s “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.”
“Fine.” Hazel dog-paddled over. “This left hip of mine is acting up again. Fool thing.”
“Hey there, Edie,” called one of the older gentleman.
“’Lo, Ralph.” She shoehorned her heel into her shoe with one finger and nodded toward Hazel. “Say, would it be possible for you to give her a lift in tomorrow afternoon, too, and I’ll see if I can get a room where some work can be done on Hazel’s hip?”
“You betcha.”
Edie grinned at the sight of her aunt’s pink cheeks. Ralph Janssen gave Hazel a ride to hydrotherapy class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, even though her house was out of his way, allowing Hazel to then ride back home with Edie. Ralph’s motives were not altogether altruistic. It was obvious to everyone that he was sweet on Hazel, but the older woman would hear nothing about it.
“Actually,” Edie suggested, “you wouldn’t have to come in tomorrow—so long as you spend another twenty minutes bare minimum doing your stretching exercises in the water while I’m working out, okay?”
Hazel frowned at her mightily. The pool was Ralph’s element. He could hang out there forever.
“Hey, Edie, whyn’t you join us?” Ralph asked.
Edie concentrated on picking a knot out of her shoelace. On a shrug, she answered, “I’m not much of a water person, to tell the truth. I guess it’s from growing up near Lubbock where the most water a person sees at one particular time is at the bottom of their bathtub—and that’s only during the wet season.”
Ralph laughed. “I thought I heard a West Texas twang. What brings a small-town girl like you all the way to Dallas?”
Instantly, the answer popped into her head: Holden McKee. If her mouth had been open, she’d have said it. Holden McKee.
A premonition rippled through her, making her shiver in the warm, humid air.
“You know why, Ralph,” Hazel jumped in. “She’s my caretaker. Gave up a good job in Lubbock to come be with me. Without her, I’d be in a nursing home.” She gave an emphatic nod. “Yup, she’s been nigh onto a savior to me.”
Edie smiled at her aunt with great affection. Rheumatoid arthritis certainly limited Hazel’s activity, but she was hardly an invalid. If anything, the older woman inspired Edie, for Hazel Turner lived daily with pain that was literally bone deep. Yet her spirit would not allow her to sink into despair. Whatever her limits, she lived life to the very edge of them, fearlessly so.
As for being a savior, it was Hazel who’d been one to Edie, urging her six months ago to leave Lubbock behind and come live with her. Family should be with family, her aunt had said, and each was all the family either had left.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Aunt Hazel, but flattery goes as far with me as it does with you.” Setting her hands on her thighs and shoving off, Edie stood and pointed a finger at her aunt. “Stretches. Twenty minutes. I mean it.”
“Oh, all right,” Hazel said.
Edie was still chuckling a minute later as she programmed the treadmill. She’d have preferred an outdoor run, but her hours rarely permitted it. At least at this time of the evening she had the equipment in the exercise room to herself. And she had Hazel’s company on the rather long commute home to rural Parker.
She sank into an easy rhythm, her mind coasting as impressions of her day sifted into place, such as the high school athlete with a torn rotator cuff she was rehabilitating, her conversation with the clinic supervisor...
Then there was Holden McKee. Of its own volition, her mind called up a picture of father and son, with their expressive eyes—one set gray, like beaten pewter, the other the gray-green of verdigris—and that unruly chestnut brown hair that both contended with.
Of course. She must have been thinking of Holden’s son when Ralph had asked what brought her to Dallas. Not that Sam had brought her here. It had been more like a sense of real purpose that had infused her upon seeing him. The serious, dark-haired boy had tugged good and strong on her heartstrings.