Wait for Me (9 page)

“So teach me!  For crying out loud, Lucas, we’ve got nothing else to do here!  You refused to let me even speak to the tow truck driver about leaving so you’re stuck with me for the weekend.  Now either let me help you or deal with the fact that I’m going to sit here and nag at you all afternoon.”  She sounded pretty smug and she knew that she had left him no choice.

“Fine,” he sneered.  “Normally when this happens I take the OTC stuff and ice it for a while.  I do my best to stay off of it and by the next day I’m usually better.  Satisfied?”

“Hardly.  What does your physical therapist have to say about this?  Why is this still happening?  I thought you had the surgeries to repair the injury?”

“That’s none of your damn business.”  Lucas so did not want to have this discussion.  He’d avoided talking to anyone about this and he certainly didn’t want to talk to Emma about it.  How did he explain that he’d elected out of the last two surgeries because even though the problem would have been repaired, he still wasn’t going to play football ever again.  Rather than continue to go under the knife, Lucas had simply given up and decided to live with the limp and the pain as a reminder that he couldn’t go back.

“It doesn’t matter what the therapist thinks or says; sometimes injuries just don’t heal.”

Emma looked at him suspiciously.  She may not know Lucas Montgomery as well as she’d like to but she could certainly tell that he wasn’t being completely honest with her.  “I would think that you would have gone for a second or maybe third, fourth and fifth opinion to get yourself better.”

“Who says I didn’t?”

“Did you?” she challenged.

“Christ, Emma, what do you want from me?”

All of her frustration burst to the surface.  “I want to understand why you choose to live such an isolated life!  I want to know why with all of your money and connections that your knee isn’t healed and that you don’t seem to care!  I want to know why you seem to have just given up on life!”  Her tirade ended on a near shout and she immediately regretted getting so riled up.  About to apologize, she opened her mouth to speak only to have Lucas cut her off.

“You want to know why, Emma?  Is that it?  Well let me tell you, sweetheart, it isn’t pretty.”

“Lucas, I…”

“No, you wanted to know, well here it is.  When I hurt my knee I was having my best season ever.  I had endorsement deals and was making more money than I’d ever dreamed of.  I thought that life certainly couldn’t get any better, and then I messed up my knee.  I had the first surgery and the doctors were optimistic and my coaches and agents were optimistic.  It didn’t take long for them to realize that I wasn’t healing properly.
  So they called in some specialists.

More tests were run and more doctors looked at me and saw a secondary injury and so they did a second surgery.  Everyone was cautiously optimistic at this point.  I was still promised the sun, the moon and the stars by everyone around me.  I was promised that I’d be back to full strength by the following season and all of my endorsement deals were still in play.”  Lucas took a steadying breath and adjusted the ice pack on his knee.

“After the second surgery and another round of physical therapy they let me go to a couple of practices to see how my endurance was and my knee gave out before I even hit the field.  A trip back to the hospital showed that I would probably need at least another two surgeries but even with that, I’d never play football again.”

“Oh, Lucas, I’m so sorry.”

And that was what he had wanted to avoid; her pity.  Now that he had started, however, he had to finish.  “I had a team of doctors encouraging me and even though my agents and coaches had pretty much moved on and all of the endorsement deals closed, I realized I had no reason to have the surgeries.  They weren’t going to give me what I wanted most: my career back.  Why should I subject myself to more pain and therapy and recovery for nothing?”

“But it wouldn’t have been for nothing; you wouldn’t have this pain!  You wouldn’t have to worry about watching what you do.”  Emma stopped and thought for a moment.  “Oh, gosh, Lucas; is that why you removed yourself from everything and everyone?  So that no one would know that you weren’t fully recovered?”

His eyes bore into hers.  “I didn’t want anyone’s pity; just like I don’t want yours.”

“It’s not pity that I’m feeling, Lucas, it’s…”

“What?  What is it Emma?  Are you telling me that right now you’re not sitting there thinking
‘poor Lucas’
?  That you don’t wish things could be different for me?”

Emma’s gaze hardened.  “Actually, no.  I’m thinking what an egotistical jackass you are.  You had the opportunity to live the kind of life that most people dream of and because you couldn’t keep having that one, you threw another one away.  Some people don’t have the means to recover from a catastrophic accident and have no choice but to go through their lives with their impairments.  You chose to keep yours and hide away.  So no, Lucas, I don’t pity you; I think you’re a coward.”

Lucas made to try and stand up and then thought better of it.  “That’s right,” she mocked, “you can’t get up.  You have an injury of your own making.  Sit there and wallow in the sheltered world you created.”  Turning from him she stalked to the doorway where her bags were.  “I’m going to get dressed,” she stated.  “I may not be able to leave here but I don’t have to sit here with you and your bad temper.”

“You wanted to know all the gory details, Emma,” he reminded her.

“You’re right; I did.  I guess I just didn’t expect such a disappointing tale.  My mistake.  From now on I’ll keep my curiosity to myself.”  Lifting her bags she headed toward the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

****

The first thing to go through Lucas’s mind was to go after Emma and defend himself and tell her how wrong she was, but what was the point?  She was right.  Lucas created a world where he was by himself in a misery of his own choosing.  No, he hadn’t chosen to get injured but he had chosen to keep the injury because correcting it was even more of a painful reminder that he still wouldn’t be able to play football.

He sighed heavily.  In less than twenty-four hours Emma had learned his deepest secret; one that he hadn’t shared with anyone.  Now what was he supposed to do?  His knee throbbed and all Lucas wanted to do was howl and rage at
the unfairness of it all.  He’d been a professional football player, dammit!  He’d made more money than he’d known what to do with and had his pick of women any night of the week and now look at him; he was sitting in a secluded house in the mountains unable to walk across the room and face a tiny slip of a woman.

Thoughts of their earlier kiss came to his mind and Lucas gave a mirthless laugh.  He’d known that Emma was attracted to him well before this weekend.  He’d seen it in the way she would watch him or smile at him whenever he went into the office.  But when he’d touched her, especially this morning, he knew the feelings weren’t all one sided.  He wanted Emma with a fierceness that had nothing to do with the way he’d been denying his body for way too long and everything to do with the woman before him.

What was he supposed to do now?   If things had been different, if there’d been no tow truck to disturb them, Lucas had no doubt he’d have taken Emma to bed and not let her up until it was time to take her home after the roads had cleared.  Boss or no boss that would have been what he’d done.  In the span of a few short hours, however, everything had changed.  Her opinion of him certainly had and Lucas was in too much pain, mentally and physically, to deal with seduction.

Turning his head he glanced at the bedroom door and wondered when she was going to come back out.

On the other side of the door Emma lay curled up on Lucas’s bed.  What had possessed her to go on such a rant?  She was normally way more even-tempered and she certainly never pushed someone when they were down and Lucas was most certainly down.  He didn’t deserve her cruelty, he deserved compassion.  Had she given him any?  No.  That was a bitter pill for her to swallow. 

While her job was certainly not a factor in what had just transpired, Emma couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen come Monday morning when she was back in the office and Mr. Montgomery found out how abhorrently she’d treated his son.  She groaned and curled up even tighter on the bed. 

The clock read that it was barely one in the afternoon and between the disturbed sleep the previous night and the emotional toll of their argument, Emma decided that with nothing else better to do, she’d give in to the urge to nap.  Maybe everything would look better after she’d slept and cleared her head a little.

It wasn’t the
coward’s way out, she reminded herself, it was simply a matter of doing what was necessary to not make this bad situation even worse.

The sun was nearly set when Emma opened her eyes.  She sat up slowly and glanced at the clock, surprised to see it was nearing five o’clock.  Well, that was one way to avoid spending any time with Lucas; sleep the time away.  When was the last time she’d indulged in an afternoon nap?  Too long ago to even remember.

Standing and stretching, she walked to the wall of windows and blinked hard.  Surely it couldn’t be snowing again?  It was too dark and shadowed for her to tell for sure so Emma walked over to her bags and pulled out some clothes to change into and walked into the bathroom to freshen up.  Maybe some cold water on her face and clean clothes would wake her up from what was turning into a nightmare.

How much longer was she going to be stranded here with Lucas?

When she stepped out into the living room, Lucas was exactly where she’d left him earlier; the only difference was that now he was watching the large plasma TV that was mounted on the fireplace mantle.  There was a football game on and Emma knew that she had no idea if it was actually football season or if he was watching old footage of his own career.

She hoped it was football season.

Lucas turned his head when he heard the bedroom door open and didn’t know what he was supposed to do or say, so he chose to wait and let Emma take the lead.

“Is that snow I’m seeing coming down again?” she asked.

“Fraid so,” he said cautiously, not sure what would set her off at this point. 

“Fabulous,” she grumbled and headed for the kitchen.  “How’s your knee?”

“A little bit better.  This ice pack is pretty much melted away now but I think I can manage to get up and make some dinner.”

Emma froze in her steps and stared at him.  “You’re kidding, right?”

Lucas arched an eyebrow at her.  “Excuse me?”

She sighed dramatically.  “Could you please jus
t sit and relax?  There is no reason for you to get up.  I am perfectly capable of handling putting dinner together.”

“You’re a guest in my house…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said as she rummaged through the cabinets in search of what to make.  “I’m a guest in your house; that’s just great.  That doesn’t mean that you have to jump up and wait on me.  I can certainly put dinner together; I managed just fine with lunch, didn’t I?”

Now it was his turn to sigh with frustration.  “Yes, you did.  Geez, Emma, all I’m saying is that I don’t expect you to do all the work.”

“I don’t consider it work.  I enjoy cooking. And although I think it’s a little late to take something out to thaw, I think I could whip up some omelet’s for dinner if that’s okay with you.”

He nodded.  “That’s fine.  Thank you.”

Emma went about gathering ingredients from the refrigerator and was impressed with what she found.  When she hummed with approval, Lucas wanted to know what she was doing.  “Well, it’s just that you seem to be a step above the average bachelor.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“It means that you have real food here; your freezer isn’t stocked up with frozen entrees and your refrigerator is not just housing condiments.  You have fresh fruit and vegetables and all kinds of goodies.”

“Goodies?” he laughed.

“Yes, goodies.”  Emma shut the fridge door and put her armload of ingredients down on the counter.  “You don’t have what I would need to make any desserts from scratch but you’ve got plenty here to make a gourmet meal.”  She looked down at what she had to work with.  “Just not tonight.”  She smiled at him and was relieved when he smiled back.

Twisting around she found the pans that she would need and the paring knives to cut the vegetables and then out of the corner of her eye saw Lucas stand.  And wince.  She slammed the frying pan down on the stovetop burner.

“What?” he snapped.

“I’ve got everything under control, Lucas!  I don’t need you to get up and help.  I am more than capable of doing this!”

His head dropped forward and it was a tense several seconds before he spoke.  “I wasn’t getting up to help you, Emma.  I was thinking that I’d grab a quick shower while you cooked.  I should have done that earlier when I came back inside but I was too uncomfortable.”  His tone was harsh and Lucas forced himself to calm down.  Would they be able to have one civil conversation this weekend or were they doomed to fight over everything?

“Sorry,” he said sincerely.  “I’m going to grab a quick shower.  I shouldn’t be too long but don’t hold dinner if it’s ready before I’m out, okay?”