TWICE VICTORIOUS (11 page)

* * * *

Vowing to be good and doing it were two different things, Stell decided Tuesday
morning. The few exercises Carl was allowing her to do daily seemed too easy. She hardly
felt her leg working at all. She was losing all her muscle tone. By the time she got back on
the bike, she'd have to start all over.

She put the dumbbells down after only a few arm curls. What was the use? If her
legs were out of shape, her upper body didn't matter.

She wandered into the kitchen, conscious of a vague gnawing in her middle. The
bowl of fruit on the counter didn't look appetizing, but she took a few grapes anyway.

If only it would stop raining. This was the wettest year she could remember. The
gray days and constant sounds of dripping trees were beginning to get to her.

Maybe she should call Cindy. They could have lunch together, steal a couple of
hours to shop. No, Cindy had said she would be tied up in an audit all week.

She opened the refrigerator, looking for a seltzer. There were none, but there was
a can of Coke Classic hiding behind the milk. That sounded good. Caffeine and sugar
together. Just what she needed to stimulate her dragging body.

Maybe she should thaw something out for supper. She was getting tired of frozen
entrees. Pawing through the freezer, she found a pint of Haagen Daz. Chocolate chocolate
chip was her favorite flavor. Just a spoonful wouldn't ruin her appetite for lunch.

What she should really be doing was setting up the accounts for
Cards and
Letters
, her newest client. The little stationery store was already three months into its
fiscal year and nothing had been done. Its owner-manager, Catherine Greene, had been ill
and her sister, though competent to keep the shop open, hadn't known where to begin on
the books.

Tossing the empty ice cream carton into the trash, Stell stuck her head into the
pantry. Tomato soup and a tuna sandwich sounded good for lunch. With potato chips.

The only good thing about not being in training was that she could pretty much eat
what she wanted, could indulge her sweet tooth and her craving for salty, fatty foods.

She ate another handful of grapes as the soup heated. Maybe she'd just take today
off, watch a little afternoon TV, and work tomorrow. She might even make a batch of
peanut butter cookies, something she hadn't done for years. And she could turn the phone
bell off, let the answering machine handle her calls. Her clients weren't the sort to have
accounting emergencies.

* * * *

"Oh, go away," Stell muttered to whoever was leaning on her doorbell. What was
the matter with him anyway? If she didn't answer her door, he should assume she didn't
want company. She slipped the earphones over her head, returned her attention to
"Cinderella."

She didn't hear him enter. She hardly saw him, because her vision was streaked
with tears as two little mice gallantly climbed endless stairs with a key bigger than they
were. It was only when two long legs planted themselves between her and the screen that
she noticed her visitor.

She set the almost empty popcorn bowl on the floor and pushed the stop button on
the VCR control.

"Where the hell have you been?" Adam demanded, loudly enough that she heard
him well through the earphones. "I've been calling you for three days."

"I haven't been out of the house," she said, "since day before yesterday. And then I
was only gone for about a half-hour." She definitely wasn't glad to see him. In fact, she
resented his presence, almost enough to tell him to get lost.

"Why haven't you answered your phone, then?"

"It's my phone. I can decide whether or not to answer it." Even to herself, she
sounded petulant. She didn't care. She didn't care about much of anything. "What do you
want?"

"I came to see if you were all right." He was still standing between her and the
TV.

She wished he'd move, so she could turn the VCR back on. "I'm fine." She looked
pointedly at the control in her hand, hoping he'd take the hint.

"Turn that damn thing off." Adam snatched the control out of her hand and aimed
it across the room. All the lights on the VCR went out. "And get rid of those, too. I want to
talk to you."

With reluctance, Stell pulled the earphones from her head. "So talk." She waited
for him to sit on the sofa, but he remained standing. "Wait a minute! How'd you get in
here?"

"I came through the back door. It was unlocked. In fact, it was ajar."

"I wondered where the draft was coming from," she said, remembering how cold
her feet had gotten last evening when the wind was from the east, but it was too much
trouble to look. She'd been right in the middle of "National Velvet" and had pulled up the
afghan instead of seeking the source of cold air.

Adam towered over her, his eyes travelling around the room. "How long have you
been holed up in here, Stell?"

She looked where he was looking and saw the tray full of dirty dishes, the empty
potato chip and pretzel bags. At least she'd taken the pizza box and the Chinese take-out
cartons into the kitchen yesterday. "I don't know. What day is it?"

"It's Friday, and we have a date."

"We do?" Strange. She couldn't remember agreeing to go out with him again. He
was an old poop, too serious for fun and games.

"We do. I've got tickets for a chamber music concert at Reed College. You'll enjoy
it."

On short notice, Stell couldn't think of anything she'd enjoy less. But that was all
right. She wasn't going anyway.

"Come on." He grabbed her hands and started to pull her to her feet. "Hit the
shower."

She twisted free and flopped back into her chair. "I'm not going anywhere. Just go
away and leave me alone." To her surprise she felt a stinging behind her eyes.

Adam stood very still, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her. For a moment he
was tempted to walk away and leave her alone in her self-pity. Instead he knelt beside her.
Taking her chin in one hand, he forced her to look at him.

She was a mess! Her usually crisply waving hair was matted flat against her head,
as if she had neither washed nor combed it for days. Her eyes were red and swollen, but he
attributed that to the sentimental schlock she'd been watching. There were stains on her
sweatshirt and crumbs on the floor around her chair.

From all the evidence, she'd been on an eating binge. Junk food. Refined sugars
and fats. Items not exactly forbidden to an athlete in training, but definitely to be taken in
moderate amounts.

He knew the symptoms. He even thought he knew the cause.

"Your P.T. gave you some bad news, didn't he?"

Her chin trembled. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. One lonely tear
made a new track down her cheek as she stared back at him.

"Tell me, Stell. What did he say?"

"I'm worse," she whispered. "My hip. It's not healing. The tissues are still swollen
and in spasm."

Gently he wiped the new tears away with his thumb. "Did he say why?"

She nodded, biting her lip. "I...I overdid it." A convulsive shudder went through
her. "He says I pushed it too hard and made it worse. He says...oh, Adam, he says I won't
be riding for weeks yet."

"Of course you won't! What gave you the idea you'd be able to?" God! He'd like to
punch out the idiot who'd given her false hopes. He knew, almost to a day, how many
weeks an injury like hers took to heal. He'd been there.

"I thought..." She faltered, cleared her throat. "I thought he was being too
conservative. I'm not a wimp. I can exercise a lot more strenuously than he had me doing."
Wiping her arm across her eyes, she sat up straighter. "So I did. And I made it worse."

Adam gathered her into his arms, lifted her, and sat in the chair she had occupied.
Once she was draped across his lap and nestled against his chest, he said, "How much
worse?" He hoped she hadn't permanently crippled herself. Even if she had to give up
racing, it had been too much a part of her life for too long for her to give up cycling
entirely. She needed to have time to adjust, physically and emotionally, to her loss.

"He didn't want to say. He wants me to take things really easy for a couple of
weeks. Then if the swelling and the muscle spasms haven't decreased, he'll send me back to
Dr. Pauvel."

A deep sigh blew warm breath against his neck, making Adam shiver.

"Until then, all I can do is one set of exercises every other day, and those only the
ones that don't involve the hip." Again the tremble in her voice caught at his heart. "By the
time I'm back in shape, it'll be too late to get into training. I'll lose a whole year."

He heard, and understood, the desperation in her voice. That first winter after his
return to Portland, he'd fought the same battle. No matter what deprived an athlete of his
sport,
his passion
, the results were the same.

Denial. Depression.

Stell had denied her loss by over-exercising. Now she was losing hope. The binge
eating was a classic symptom of depression. He'd gone through a lot of beer at the same
stage in his life.

The odds of her resigning herself to a life without cycling were slim to none. She
was even more obsessive than he'd ever been, and she didn't have something like
KIWANDA OuterWear to rechannel her passion into.

He was beginning to realize that it was very important to him that Stell be able to
deal with her situation. He wanted her emotionally whole.

He wanted her, period.

Years ago Adam had deliberately chosen to be an ant. He forsook the delights of a
grasshopper existence, with its emotional highs, its screaming triumphs, and the adulation
of fans. When duty called, he'd answered. Now he could share what he'd learned with Stell,
show her how to redirect her obsession into constructive channels. With luck she'd give her
passion to him instead of to sports.

Standing up, he set her on her feet. "Hit the shower," he said again. He swatted her
bottom gently.

"I told you. I'm not going anywhere."

"Stell, you're going to shower if I have to carry you in there and wash you myself.
Now scoot."

"You wouldn't." But the look she gave him showed her doubt.

"Try me."

She bit her lip, staring up at him. Even with her unwashed hair and puffy eyes, she
appealed to him. The niggling fear Adam had been shoving to the back of his mind for the
past week or two resurfaced. He was teetering on the verge of falling in love with Stell
McCray.

It could be the worst mistake he'd ever made.

Unless she could make the difficult adjustment to a life without competitive
sports, he was setting himself up for a broken heart.

Why? He knew why. The reason was standing here in the circle of his arms.

She kept forgetting how big he was. She was not a small woman, but Adam
Vanderhook would have absolutely no trouble picking her up and carting her off to the
shower.

She didn't really believe he would, but he could. And that might be the nicest thing
to happen to her this month.

She felt the springiness of his chest hair beneath his shirt, saw it framed by his
open collar. More than once her fingers had itched to comb again through the whorls on his
pectorals, to trace a bold journey across his hard belly. Time after time she imagined him
naked, wondered if he was the same rich golden tan all over.

She was doing it again! Forgetting that she had a purpose in life and that Adam
was a temptation that could prevent her ever reaching her goal.

On the other hand, she hadn't been out of the house all week, except to P.T. and
the store. Chamber music did sound better than another sappy video, another evening of
popcorn and pathos. She didn't have to give in to her treacherous emotions. A nice quiet
evening together, that's all she wanted from Adam.

"What time should I be ready?" Her tone was just a little belligerent, even to her
ears, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as him. She cleared her throat. "I
really should clean up this mess before I go anywhere."

"Leave it," he said. "If we want to have supper before the concert, you'll need to
hurry. I'll take care of all this." He started gathering up the debris of the past several days,
while she wavered.

But for the first time in days she wanted real food. Healthy stick-to-her-ribs food,
instead of sugar and salt and fat. "I'll be ready in half an hour," she promised.

She didn't quite sing in the shower, but she was conscious of the world seeming
brighter than it had all week.

* * * *

He was definitely not making progress. Stell had chattered brightly during dinner,
quickly changing the subject each time he brought up her injuries. During the concert,
she'd seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Now she was sitting on her side of the car,
silently staring out the window into the night, completely turned inward. "You've been
quiet all evening. Want to tell me why?" He knew what was bothering her, but she needed
to talk about it, to share her feelings. It was the only way she could get past the denial.

Besides, he didn't want to take her home, didn't want the evening to end so soon.
Instead of turning east on Burnside, he kept going north. There was a full moon and he had
the urge to drive up to Crown Point.

"No, I don't think so." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lean back against
the headrest. "It's not something I want to dwell on." Her voice lacked its usual briskness,
was flat and without color.

"Okay, but if you change your mind, I'm a great listener." He maneuvered the car
onto the freeway.

The acceleration penetrated her withdrawal. "Where are we going? This isn't the
way to my house."

"I thought we'd take a little ride. It's not late, and it's a beautiful night. Look at the
moon."

Rising into a cloudless sky just north of Mt. Hood's still snow-covered peak, the
full moon cast its pale light over the mountains to the east. Once they were free of the city's
lights, they would be in another world: empty, silent, tranquil.