Page 32 of Shielding Aubree

They were in water shallow enough to hop up on the edge of the deck. She looked at him from her seat beside him and saw the pain etched into his features.

"We lost a man that day. A good man from Oklahoma. I had to miss the funeral, but I sent a letter to his family to tell them how much I liked John. How much I learned from him. They had to wait to put my spine together until the swelling went down and they could assess what happened to all the soft tissues and see what had happened to my nerves."

She wanted to reach out and touch him. To soothe the tension she saw in his shoulders and the painful pinch of the muscles in his jaw.

"You're walking again."

He smiled at her, and she felt the growing heat in her cheeks. "Doing more than just walking, but it’s a good thing to remember where I came from." He reached a hand around to his back and while she couldn't see what he was doing, she knew he was tracing his fingertips over the scars that she'd seen. "It'sa long way from the doctors telling me that I might never walk again or feel anything below my waist. So when I beat the odds and pushed forward, I told myself that I wanted to help other people find the same kind of miracles that I did."

She frowned at his words, and he caught sight of the change in her expression.

"What's that about? That little frown of yours."

"I guess I didn't expect you to believe in miracles."

He shrugged.

"There's something amazing about the human brain, Aubree. To think that men and women went to school for years to become a doctor. More to become a surgeon. I put my body and the future that I wanted to have in their hands, and they came through for me.

"But even if they hadn't, I had accepted that they'd come to help. There were always going to be question marks in why some procedures work and others fail, but I knew what I would have if I didn't go through with the surgery. And today I can help others rebuild their strength and hopefully find the same kind of healing and success that I live with on a daily basis." He lowered his head a little and gave her what looked a little like a shy, child-like smile. "I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, because I'm not. I just... I just love what I do."

She reached out a hand to touch his arm and drew it back.

"I didn't think you were bragging, Ruben. I just think what you do is amazing." She felt a knot in her throat and tried to swallow it down. "I'm sorry if I... NO. I know I made you uncomfortable today." She blinked back tears. "I hope you'll forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, Aubree." The smile he gave her made her physically hurt, smack dab in the center of her chest. "There's just a line I can't cross while I'm working with you as a member of the staff."

The words he said processed through her head slowly.

Almost a little too slowly.

When they sank in, she narrowed her eyes at him, hoping that she hadn't confused herself even more than she'd been before. "So you're saying that while I'm working with you here, we can't cross that line...."

"But once you're done here," he grinned, "I'm hoping you'll go out with me."

There it was, she thought.

A crazy silver lining in the thundercloud of her day.

"I thought... I thought I was more than a little silly."

"I don't mind silly," he grinned at her. "I don't mind anything as long as it's you."

"I guess once we're done here, Ruben. You've got a date."

"Thank God."

7

There was talk that she was going back to work.

He doubted it.

The information he'd paid for said that she still wasn't in any condition to get back behind a wheel.

He couldn't help but smile at that.

She was pretty high and mighty for a woman.

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