Worth It All (The McKinney Brothers #3) (6 page)

“Carson is ready to try out the new finger plate whenever you are,” Simon said, stepping out of the elevator ahead of JT.

“Great.” They’d been waiting on the placement of sensors in the man’s chest that would translate sensory feedback to his brain. If it worked, he’d not only be able to move his prosthetic hand with his mind, but he’d be able to feel the heat and texture of what he was touching. The new finger joint he was working on for the patent should greatly increase reflex speed. “I’ll let the team know, and you can get him scheduled for next week. Anything else?”

“No. I sent over the rest of the data I had this morning.”

“I got it. Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I’ll get to it by the end of the day.”

“No problem.” They passed the rock-wall area on their way to the PT side. He wanted to see their latest robotic arm in action.

“How’s the sexy mom from the diner?”

“Haven’t you given me enough shit about that yet?”

“Not possible.
Jake.
She’s hot.”

JT’s jaw clenched. “Stop saying that.”

Simon busted out a laugh. “God, you’re so easy. Have you seen her again?”

“No.” Not since last week when he’d kissed her and had his entire world rocked. And he wanted to again.

“Well, you’re about to.”

He glared at Simon, about to ask what the hell that meant as they rounded the corner.

“I asked her to come back, let Casey play around some. Make sure the fit was still good. Did I forget to mention that?”

JT saw Casey first. She was with a young therapy assistant, Marcy, working in a small open area off to the side. There were mats, weighted pieces of foam, and a treadmill he knew was able to detect and measure the slightest gait inconsistencies. But as interesting as that was, his eyes searched for Paige.

The second Casey saw him, she called out, “Jake! Watch me!”

He stepped closer, watching as Casey bent forward on her hands, kicking up her one foot, no prosthesis. She went five steps on her hands before coming down. “That’s good stuff.”

“Yeah. I’m showing Marcy. You should try it,” Casey said and tried again herself.

His gaze landed on the woman who was keeping him up at night. Paige knelt on the floor in jeans and a white sleeveless top. Her eyes collided with his, then slid slowly to his mouth. She swallowed, cleared her throat. Yeah, she was thinking about that kiss too.

“Hey, Marcy.” He took another step until he was standing just inches in front of her. “Hi, Paige.”

“Hey.”

She wet her lips and pressed them together, and just that was enough to make him sweat.

“Hi, Paige,” Simon said. “Good to see you again.”

“You too. Thank you so much for having us back.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sure Jake can set up another visit if you want.”

Casey moved to a set of parallel bars used for walking support. “Look what I can do!” She hung by her hands, then her knees.

Marcy and Simon watched for a moment then excused themselves. But not before Simon sent him a knowing grin. Because he did feel like a schoolboy with a crush. Not knowing what else to do, he crossed the room for a rubber ball about the size of a basketball and lowered himself to the mat. It was this or stand there, undressing Paige with his eyes. He leaned back on his hands and gave the ball a toss toward his feet.

Curious, Casey moved to the mat. He kept it bouncing off the tops of his feet, alternating right and left, before giving it a final flick and catching it in his hand. “You want to try?”

Casey eyed the ball. “I’d have to put my leg on.”

“Yep, you would,” he said evenly, letting it be her decision.

She thought about it, but in the end he got some participation, wearing her prosthesis.

After a few minutes, Casey moved to sit close and stretched her leg out beside his. “Do all your friends have a leg like you?”

He took a second to think about how best to answer. “Well, there’s Simon.”

“What about your other friends?”

He tried to think of other friends and came up short. “I have five brothers, but—”

“
Five?
That’s how many years I almost am. That’s a lot.”

“I also have one sister.”

Casey’s face scrunched into a frown. “Well, that’s sad. You need more girls.”

That brought a sudden burst of laughter from him. Paige laughed too, which made it even better. “My sister, Lizzie, would be extremely happy to hear you say that.”

“Do all your brothers and your sister have one leg?”

“No. Just me.”

“Oh.”

“But that’s okay. There’s really nothing they can do with two legs that I can’t do with one.”

“Me too,” she agreed. “But…”

“But what?” Paige coaxed.

She stared at her prosthesis. “I don’t know anyone who has one of these.”

JT watched her blue eyes, hoping he was helping. He understood how, in her mind, it was the device that made her different. He’d known people in rehab like that. Those that felt fully capable but despised the very thing that could give them more mobility. In Casey’s case, maybe it was more about wearing something that no one else wore, like walking into school with clown shoes on.

“You know me,” he said. “What if we were friends? Then you’d know someone and I’d know someone.”

“You’ll know two people and I’ll know one.”

“Hmm…true. But you know Simon, right?”

“Oh yeah.” Her face brightened. “So we’re the same.”

“Yes. We’re the same.” Looking into her sky-blue eyes and saying that caused some odd shifting around in his chest. She moved back to hang on the bars and he glanced at Paige, who was looking after her. When her head turned and she gave him a grateful smile, her eyes a bit watery, something else shifted.

Her eyes held his intently. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He stood and held out a hand to Paige and got that inexplicable feeling of rightness again just from the simple sensation of his fingers closing around hers. He thought she felt it too, if her sudden nervousness was anything to go by.

She let go of his hand and gathered her things.“Come on, Case. We have to go.”

“I’ll walk you out,” he offered.

“Okay.”

“Casey,” she said again, and Casey let go of the bars and obeyed.

They hadn’t gone more than five steps before Sean, a double-leg amputee, stopped him. “Hey, man, got a quick minute?”

JT hesitated, his eyes going to Paige.

“It’s okay,” Paige said with a smile. “We can find our way out.”

“Bye, Jake,” Casey said.

Sean went into a description of a problem he was having on the right side and not the left and an idea he had for the fix. JT listened and nodded, his attention divided between the man in front of him and Paige walking away.

“Let’s set up an appointment,” he finally said to Sean.

“Okay, sure.”

JT caught up to Casey and Paige just as they reached the double glass doors. Even from several feet away, he’d heard Casey’s high-pitched voice, clearly unhappy. “Hey. Everything okay?” He held the door for Paige, then fell in step beside them.

“No, it’s not okay,” Casey answered. “I don’t want to get shots.”

“Ah.”

Paige paused to pick her up. “Casey, you knew we were going to the doctor today. For some reason she thought I’d forget.” She said it with a smile but he caught the fatigue on Paige’s face before she covered it. He could only imagine the amount of stress she faced every day. He wanted to wipe that worried look off her face and replace it with the hazy, baffled desire he’d seen after their kiss.

“Or change your mind,” Casey said.

“I can’t change my mind, Case. It’s a rule.”

“But I’m not even five yet!”

Her sweet eyes filled with heavy tears threatening to spill over. It was disconcerting to say the least. “Does it have to be today? Maybe you could—” He broke off when Paige swung her face to his, eyes wide, brows raised. “Oh. Right. Of course it has to be today. You have an appointment, but…” Shit. The sight of Casey’s tears made his stomach twist.

When they reached her car, Paige put Casey down and started the engine to get the air going. “But on the bright side,” she said, sending Casey a pointed look, “tomorrow is her actual birthday, and we’re going to do something really fun.”

Casey sniffed. “Like what?” Her tone implied she didn’t think anything could make up for the torture she was about to endure.

“I don’t know, I was thinking the park. The one we passed with the big green slide.”

Casey wiped at her eyes. “Can Jake go?”

“No, honey.” Paige opened the back door and waited for Casey to climb into her booster. “Jake’s not going to the park.”

“If I get my shots, he can want to go,” she cried with her big blue eyes beaming up at him. “It’s my birthday and he’s my friend.”

He opened his mouth to say he could go if that’s what Casey wanted. That he’d do anything she asked if it would make her smile.

“Honey, getting shots for school is not optional. Come on, climb in.”

Casey obeyed and Paige closed the back door and faced him, blowing out a long breath. “One more strike against school. I hope the doctor’s office is ready for this.”

There was a touch of amusement in her voice, but also an underlying worry. He’d wondered about the weight on her slight shoulders, now he knew.

Paige glanced back at the car, then at him, biting her lip. “Thank you again. She didn’t want to do anything in there, or not anything with her prosthesis, until you got there. I should have gotten her into a playgroup, maybe a group of kids with prosthetics, but I didn’t think she needed it. I don’t know.” Her gaze fell and she shook her head slowly. “I should have gotten her into some kind of playgroup.”

“I think she’s great.” Paige’s eyes came back to meet his and, God, she was so beautiful, even with the little frown between her brows that he wanted to smooth away.

Casey slapped her hand against the window, then mashed her open mouth to the glass, which made them both smile.

“I could go. To the park,” he added quickly. “If that’s what she wants. Maybe if I watched her walk around more, watched her move, I’d get a better sense of what the problem might be.” His instinct said there was nothing wrong with the prosthesis, but he kept that to himself for now. Paige had enough weight to carry for the day. He had an idea forming that might help. And maybe if he spent more time around Paige, he’d get a better sense of what he was doing there too. Even though his head told him it wasn’t a good idea, the rest of him couldn’t seem to stay away from her.

“You don’t have to do that just because she cried. Anyway, I’m sure you’re busy.”

Actually, he wasn’t. Other than work, or screwing around with Simon. He smiled in Casey’s direction, now making slobbery faces against the glass with enthusiasm. He wanted to see Paige again, both of them. And he wanted to help. Not just Casey, he wanted to help Paige too. “The park would be fun, but I’ve got a better idea.”

Jake’s better idea was going to a citrus fair in the neighboring county. She’d invited Jenny, who’d already planned to spend the day with them for Casey’s birthday, and Jake had said Simon would most likely join them. It’d be a group. No big deal. No reason for her stomach to be a ball of nerves.

Paige paused at the doorway of their tiny bathroom and watched her cousin carefully apply eyeliner. “We’re going to a fair, Jen, not a club.”

“This is my norm, plus you said Jake might bring a friend.” Jenny finished the other side, then met Paige’s eyes in the mirror. “And I guess your flirty little sundress and perfectly styled hair are for the Twirly Bird?”

Paige ran a hand over the hair she’d left down for once. “I wouldn’t call this styled. All I did was brush it.”

“Don’t tell people that. They’ll hate you.”

“Ha. Not likely.”

Jenny raised a brow, giving Paige an up-and-down perusal.

“What?” She looked down at the pale blue fabric hanging a few inches above her knees. “It’s comfortable and it’s cool.”

“Uh-huh.”

Okay. Maybe she had spent more time picking out her clothes, maybe a little extra care with her makeup, but…“It’s not a big deal.”

“You’ve looked out the window more times than Casey, and that’s saying something.”

Paige ignored Jenny’s observation but felt a stir in her belly. Nervous and excited and unsure.

“You want him,” Jenny sang softly.

“Stop it. I don’t want him.”
Lie.
“I like him.” True, but there was the memory of his hard body plastered against hers, big hands framing her face, fingers sliding into her hair. If she’d thought it’d been hard to breathe around him before the kiss, that was nothing compared to after. She was surprised she hadn’t passed out yesterday at Evolution. And she had an entire day ahead of her.

“I told him I didn’t date, anyway.”

“What? Why on earth would you tell him that?”

“Because I don’t.” She’d barely given it a thought since she’d gotten pregnant. Until now.

“You haven’t. Not the same thing as don’t. And, you kissed him,” Jenny said, grinning.

“I regret telling you that.”

“I’m sure you do, but I saw your eyes when you told me. You can’t hide.” Jenny scooted past her out of the bathroom.

She’d known telling Jenny about that kiss was going to bite her in the ass. And with her emotions running rampant every time she thought of Jake, she could only imagine what her cousin had seen.

She joined Casey at the scarred table where she sat, circling numbers and placing animal stickers in a dime-store workbook. She liked to do what she called “her work.” That made her attitude toward going to kindergarten even more baffling, but they’d already discussed it several times. Casey could give no reasons she didn’t want to go other than she just didn’t want to. Not incredibly helpful. Hoping to sneak in a few minutes of her own studying, she opened her course book on the Roman Empire.

“Mommy, did you ever know a prince?”

Paige smiled at Casey’s out-of-the-blue question. “Nope.”

“Does everyone get a prince?”

“No, baby. No one gets a prince. Unless you live in a country that still has kings and queens, and then I guess it’s possible.”

Casey’s obsession with royalty just proved that kids came with their own likes and dislikes. She’d never bought Casey Disney stuff, didn’t buy her the movies or sing the songs; she’d never been into it herself. But a commercial here, a walk through Walmart there, and by the time Case was three she was all about the fairy-tale princess.

And the prince.

Her own mom had desperately wanted Prince Charming and Paige had watched her go through more than her share of frogs. My prince is coming, she’d tell Paige with tears in her voice. He never came.

“There’s always a prince,” Casey went on, drawing rows of tall, pointy rectangles sticking into blue clouds. “We don’t have one.”

“We don’t need a prince, baby.”

Was it a mother’s job to quell the disillusionment of glitter and fairy dust, or her duty to foster a belief in beautiful possibilities? Of course she wanted the dream of a happily ever after for Casey, but what could she say when she didn’t believe in it herself?

“But what if you’re a princess? Then can you get a prince? What about turning a frog into a prince? I could do that. I need to draw a frog. When is Jake coming?”

“I don’t know.” And she didn’t miss her daughter’s thought flow from prince to Jake.

“I want to wait outside. I need to feed Leon.”

“Great idea.” All too happy for a change of subject, Paige closed her book and stood. “Grab your leg.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Casey, you’ll need it. I can’t carry you all day.”

“Jake can carry me.”

And he probably would too. Paige had a sudden, vivid image of that, her small daughter in his big arms. She ignored the little hiccup in her heart. “Casey, why don’t you want to wear it? Is it hurting you again?”

“No.”

Paige barely contained her sigh. She hated how much she wanted Casey to get over this. Hated how badly she needed Casey to go to kindergarten and be happy so that she could go to school herself. “Get it anyway. Jake wants to watch you walk in it.”

“Why?”

“So he can make sure it fits okay.”

“Is he wearing his?”

“Of course. Have you ever seen him not wear his?” She started to point out that Jake couldn’t cartwheel and forward roll around work, like she couldn’t do in kindergarten, but she didn’t. She was already afraid some misplaced comment about kindergarten had started this attitude toward her prosthesis.

“Okay. I’ll wear it.”

Paige waited for her to put it on, then followed her outside. “How are you going to get Leon to come out?”

“He’ll come. He lives in his ’partment under there.” She pointed under the trailer.

Paige had never actually seen the turtle, not that it mattered. Casey was happy enough whether he was real or imagined as she picked blades of grass for a bed or a snack, whichever Leon might choose.

The front side of the trailer blocked the afternoon sun and the breeze was warm and dry. She should put her hair up. She pulled a hair band from her wrist and did so, rolling her eyes at herself for the reason she’d left it down. No matter how attracted she was to Jake, no matter how much she liked him, she needed to remember that wasn’t part of her plan. Casey, work, school, better job. No time to get sidetracked.

Minutes passed and Casey sighed. “There’s not enough nature in our yard.”

Nope. And there wasn’t much of a yard either, which got her mind solidly back on track.

Paige moved down to sit beside Casey and picked up a tiny pebble. “Does Leon like chicken nuggets?” She dropped the rock into Casey’s hand, starting her on a new quest.

Jenny joined her on the step and whipped out her cherry-flavored roll-on lip gloss.

“Me too!” Casey said, reaching, always ready for Jenny’s makeup.

“Yes. You too, my little diva.” Jenny handed it to Casey and they watched her roll on the clear shine.

She smiled at her daughter’s excitement and grown-up look. She’d be big soon. All the more reason to stay focused.

A minute later, Jake arrived. Paige took a breath as he parked on the road at the end of the open space and got out amid Casey’s squeals of joy and Jenny’s deep, woman-smitten sighs. He had a quiet, easy way about him. There was no swagger, he didn’t saunter—though looking like he did, he most definitely could have. Could have sauntered, sashayed, skipped, or even flown, and any woman in his vicinity would have fallen into his arms, their eyes glassing over.

It was army green cargo shorts and a black polo-style shirt today, and she wondered if he’d worn shorts for Casey’s benefit. She hadn’t known him long, but it seemed like something he would do.

She stood, dusted off her bottom, then squeezed Jenny’s hand when she stood up beside her. “Do not run off and leave me.”

“What? Casey’s not enough of a chaperone? Afraid you’ll maul the man? I would be.” She sighed dramatically. “So hot.”

“I mean it, Jenny.”

“Of course you do.” Jenny sent her a too-sweet smile. “Here. Put on some lip gloss and simmer down.”

She definitely needed to simmer down. After years of not wanting a man’s touch—an opinion Jenny frequently called ludicrous—she was shocked by how much she wanted Jake’s.

“Hi, Jake,” Jenny said, meeting him halfway. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.” Jake met her with a handshake, let Casey grab onto his other hand, and smiled at Paige still some feet away. Was it possible to
feel
a smile?

If she was looking to rid herself of butterflies, or feeling like a leaf shaking precariously at the end of a branch, Jake McKinney and his earth-shattering kisses, his smile, and his sweetness were not the way to go. But, she thought, walking over to meet him, she was going.