Page 40 of Loving Lies (Granton University 3)

“We’ll start with the knee joint,” Frenchie was saying as he grasped Jonah’s leg and started bending and stretching.

Jonah clenched his teeth and focused on breathing through the pain. Every once in a while, a muscle would stretch over a sensitive spot, and he’d nearly black out from the agony.

“Does this actually help him?” Tess asked, edging in closer to watch the show over Frenchie’s shoulder. “He looks like he’s in a lot of pain.”

“Of course it helps. I wouldn’t torture him without a good reason.” Frenchie grinned up at her, explaining the reason behind each stretch. Tess looked so fascinated by it all, Jonah’s PT actually scooted aside to let her work his second leg, talking her through the procedure, step by step.

Jonah watched her, endeared by how seriously she took the task and how closely she listened to each one of Frenchie’s instructions. Her soft hands felt much better than Frenchie’s, too, and it didn’t hurt nearly as much when she pulled on sore muscle tissue. After she finished with his knee, she actually looked reluctant to step aside and let Frenchie finish. Jonah couldn’t take his eyes off her as she concentrated on every part of the process.

After working his hip joints, ankles, and feet, his PT dusted his hands off on his hips. “And with that, I think we’re ready for the main event.” He winked once at Tess and turned back to Jonah. “Let me go grab a couple more hands, and we’ll be good to go.”

When he jogged from the room, Tess immediately moved closer. He glanced at her warily, hoping to God she didn’t try to feed him any sappy words of encouragement. He didn’t think he could take that right now. Felt like he might throw up as it was.

But instead of a boosting “You can do it,” she wrinkled her nose. “That was kind of fun. Is Frenchie his first name or last?”

“Uh.” Jonah blinked and chuckled, glad she was still stuck on what she’d just done. “You know, I have no idea.” He’d never thought about Frenchie’s name before, because he’d been too bitter and rude to care before. But with Tess here, his bitterness had drained away. If only it hadn’t left behind an emotional time bomb. He wanted to yank her into his arms and sob against her shoulder because he was so scared right now.

“You really look different in those clothes.”

She blushed over her confession, causing a thrill of arousal to spark through him. Sitting upright in regular clothes with his feet against the ground, Jonah felt different. He felt like someone who might actually have a life outside this building.

His mouth spread wide as he caught her hand and tugged her closer. “Good enough to kiss?”

Tess licked her lips. “Oh, much better than that.”

At his urging, she shifted between his knees so her hips were braced by his thighs. But when Jonah bent his head to kiss her, a tongue clucked disapprovingly from the doorway.

“There you two go again. I swear, you guys are like magnets.” Frenchie grinned at them as he swept into the room, leading two nurses.

Tess backed away, and Jonah wanted to dive after her, tugging her back to his side. But Frenchie was already positioning her to stand behind him as he sat on a rolling stool in front of Jonah and slid a walker between them. His two helpers flanked them on either side.

Jonah lifted one eyebrow as he glared at the contraption. “A walker?” Jesus, he was going to feel like an eighty-year-old trying to get around with this thing.

“Hey, don’t knock it.” Frenchie stroked one of the metal railings as if to soothe its insulted feelings. “This baby is going to help you work a miracle, my boy.”

Under the PT’s instructions, two nurses helped him upright by the arms. Frenchie remained sitting in front of him and gripped him around the waist, talking him through each step and telling him how everything was going to work…or not work.

As Jonah hovered above the ground, not yet putting his full weight down on his legs, he glanced toward Tess where she stood

with her hands clutched together by her mouth as if in prayer.

Worried blue eyes took him in, and he immediately forgot what he was about to do.

“God, you’re tiny,” he said. He had no idea she was so much shorter than him. He’d always had a thing for petite girls.

With an immediate frown, she slapped her hands to her hips. “No, I am not.” Though clearly, she barely came up to his shoulder. “You’re just…mammoth.”

He grinned. He was so busy smiling at her that he didn’t notice how the orderlies had put his hands on the walker until cool aluminum filled his palms. His smile fled and dread filled the pit of his stomach. Somehow, he just knew this wasn’t going to end well.

“Now, gradually,” the therapist instructed him, “let out the weight in your good leg. Don’t put any pressure on the broken one.”

Jonah nodded, following the instructions. His knee trembled, but he felt as if he was actually holding himself up with his one leg, even though his weight seemed to settle on the wound in his gut instead of his hipbones.

The hands holding onto his arms began to ease up on their hold. Jonah instinctively put the weight down on his bad leg as well, to brace himself.

And he nearly blacked out. With a choked cry of pain, he crumpled, agony splitting through every atom in his body. Tess gasped and lurched forward. But the nurses had already caught him and were easing him back onto the bed, while his limp noodle legs dangled uselessly over the side.

“It’s okay. It’s fine,” Frenchie’s soothing voice reassured him. But Jonah knew it wasn’t. He couldn’t walk.

---