Page 55 of Silent Threat
She wore a soft cotton T-shirt with yoga pants. She’d kicked off her sneakers before climbing up. She was positively languid, sitting cross-legged on the diving board and doing her morning meditation. One by one, her troubles fell away from her: the ruined fence, the opened gate, the intruder in the night. Yesterday’s troubles could not be allowed to carry over and soil a brand-new day.
She breathed in, breathed out, and emptied her mind little by little. The wind flung rain against the windows. Trees bent in the wind. For a few minutes, Annie allowed herself to be a vulnerable little leaf, allowed herself to feel fear and anger and dismay, even helplessness. The goal of any kind of therapy wasn’t to shut away unpleasant feelings. The goal was to give the patient tools to be able to deal with those feelings. So she let herself feel all the emotions that swirled inside her, and she acknowledged them. It was OK and completely normal to feel that way.
But it didn’t mean she had to wallow in her feelings.
She pulled her essence from the leaf into the branch. She still felt the storm on her skin, she still bent and shook, but she could handle it. The emotions were more muted, more manageable. Bad things happened, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She could stand up to this storm.
When she felt comfortable in that spot, she pulled herself fully into the massive trunk of the tree and relaxed completely. The storm was a buzz around her. It couldn’t do serious damage. She’d seen storms come and go. She’d survived them.
By the time she was in the roots, she was in Zen bliss. She was one with the earth. Down there, deep inside, an incredible peace waited for her. And the best thing was that this place was always here, always waiting. She could come anytime she wanted.
A metal door slamming downstairs brought her out of her zone. She drew another deep breath, held, released, then blinked her eyes open, as reluctantly as if waking from a pleasant dream.
Far below her, Cole walked across the tile floor in nothing but a pair of navy swim shorts. She sucked in a sharp breath as her gaze focused on his powerful body.
He had scars so large she could see them from the distance, and she suspected she’d see more if he was closer. Annie looked away. He wouldn’t hear if she called a greeting, and without knowing that she was here, she felt as if she was spying on him.
She should go. She would. In another minute. First she needed to catch her breath. Her gaze strayed back to him.
Water glistened on his head and wide shoulders from his shower. He stretched his muscles, and she could see for the first time the difference in range of motion between his two arms. His right shoulder was obviously stiff, and his right elbow wouldn’t contract enough to bend all the way.
Was he even able to lift a fork to his mouth?
She’d never seen him eat with his right hand. She’d never seen him do a lot of things. The sudden thought of how briefly they’d known each other startled her.Less than a week.
Yet, even with all the other craziness going on, he spent a disproportionate amount of time in her thoughts. And in her company too. He had helped with the fence. With the midnight feedings. And when he couldn’t find her, he’d come to check on her in the middle of the night.
A soft, tentative kind of longing unfurled in the middle of her chest. Suddenly she could see what life might be like with a true partner. Not a casual boyfriend, not somebody she went on dates with, but someone to share the little day-to-day things, someone who would have her back. She’d never experienced that.
She longed for a deeper connection than the ones she’d had before.Not with Cole, though.He was her patient. So she stashed that longing away for another day, another man.
When Cole finished stretching, he dove into the pool. He swam just under the surface of the water, both arms at his sides, his great body propelled only by his powerful legs.
Every once in a while, he came up for a quick pull of air as he swam a lap, then another and another. He propelled himself with his feet and left arm, his right arm dragging in the water.
Annie needed to leave, but she couldn’t look away as he kept going, lap after lopsided lap, swimming a lot longer and harder than she could have.
He had to be growing exhausted.
When he slowed at last, she expected him to move to the edge and climb out of the pool, but instead, he abruptly sank to the bottom.
Her breath caught all over again.
Did he have a cramp?
She jumped to her feet, heart hammering as Cole lay on the bottom of the pool, an alarmingly still, dark shape.
Her chest constricted. She struggled to fill her lungs. She called without any hope that he would hear. “Cole!”
Before she knew it, her feet were at the end of the diving platform as she stared down, her heart hammering madly. God, she was up high. Cole seemed far away, the distance insurmountable: a leap over Niagara Falls.
Don’t let me break my neck.
She pushed off.
She was in the air long enough for some serious regrets. Then she slammed into the water, sideways, because what did she know about diving?
For a long moment, she felt paralyzed with pain, then instinct kicked in, and she was happy to see that her limbs scrambled on their own. So far so good, except that same instinct was pushing her up. She forced herself to swim down. She didn’t make it. Halfway there, a submarine hit her, propelling her to the surface.
