"I'll see what I can do," Elizabeth told her, sounding unhappy about it.
"Today, Lizzie. Find someone to take my place."
"It won't be easy."
"Try."
"I will."
"Try!"
"I will!"
"I mean it, Elizabeth. What good will it do for me to get Cavanaugh to walk again, only to have him spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering me? I'm glad you think that's funny!"
Angered by her sister's spurt of laughter, she slammed the receiver down. She hadn't even asked Elizabeth how she was feeling, but if she could laugh that hard, she must be feeling wonderful.
Lilah's professional integrity would be jeopardized if she deserted Adam in his present condition. Hopefully within a few days, though, she could leave and someone else would take over his physical therapy. In the meantime she would go through the motions as expertly as she knew how, but with as much detachment as she could maintain.
In that pragmatic frame of mind, she reentered Adam's bedroom. "Good. You ate all your breakfast." She removed the bed tray.
"What'd the doctor say?"
"The doctor?"
"Didn't you call the doctor?"
"Oh, uh, he wasn't in yet."
"He gets there early every morning."
"Then I guess he was making rounds."
"He said something you don't want to tell me, didn't he?" Adam asked suspiciously. "He told you not to get excited about the muscle cramp, that it didn't signify anything, right?"
Putting her hands on her hips she faced him. "God, you're paranoid."
"Then why don't you tell me what he said?"
"If you must know, I didn't talk to the doctor at all. I called Elizabeth and Thad."
"What for?"
"To quit." When Adam showed surprise, she demanded, "Well, isn't that what you want?"
"Yeah, sure, only — "
"Well?"
"You don't strike me as a quitter."
"I'm not. Usually. But our dislike for each other is so strong I'm afraid it will hamper your progress."
"Aren't you professional enough to put personal considerations aside?"
That was the second time in the space of a half hour that she'd heard those words. This time they were coming from Adam Cavanaugh in the form of a dare. His head was arrogantly tilted to one side, a nonverbal challenge in itself.
Turbulent blue eyes narrowed on him. "Damn right I am. Are you man enough to take the therapy without slinging personal insults at me?"
"Damn right."
"No slurs. No complaining. No temper tantrums."
"Agreed."
"Sometimes you'll hurt like hell, but I won't let up."
"I can take the pain."
"How badly do you want to walk again?"
"Walking isn't the issue. I want to run and sail and ski and … and climb that damn Italian peak."
"Then we've got weeks, possibly months, of hard work cut out for us. You'll work and sweat harder than you ever have. Before we're finished, you'll push yourself to limits of endurance you didn't know you had."
"I'm ready."
Lilah carefully hid her smile. His attitude had taken a complete turnaround. At least she'd achieved that much. He was no longer sulking like a wounded ogre, snarling at everybody who invaded his miserable space.
"What's first?" he asked, his eyes eager.
"A bath."
"Huh?"
"A bath. You stink, Mr Cavanaugh."
Chapter 4
He folded his arms across his chest and hunched his shoulders defensively. "I can't take a bath."
"Not in a tub, no. But I can give you one in bed."
She wheeled the hospital cart close to his bed. Taking a large washbowl from it, she disappeared into his bathroom to fill it with warm water.
"Pete can bathe me," Adam called to her.
"It's not Pete's job."
"It is if I say it is."
"I thought we had an agreement that you wouldn't complain," she said, huffing with exertion as she carried the filled bowl back to the cart.
"I didn't know our agreement included bed baths."
"It does. You should have read the fine print."
"A grown man being bathed in bed. It's humiliating."
"Not as humiliating as having BO."
With an assumed air of nonchalance she began to place towels under his body. He was capable of moving his torso to one side while she spread towels beneath it, but she had to roll his hips up in order to slide the towels beneath them and his legs.
To cover the awkwardness of the situation she asked, "Do you prefer a particular soap?"
"In the bathroom," he muttered.
She found a bar of soap in his shower. It was scented with an expensive, imported men's fragrance. "Very nice," she told him, sniffing at the bar. "Distinctive without being cloying."
"Glad you approve," was his sarcastic reply.
"Do you wear the cologne too?"
"Always."
"Then as soon as you shave you can put some cologne on."
"Shave?"
"Unless you'd rather I — "
"I can shave myself," he snapped.
"Then one might wonder why you haven't." She flashed him an insincere, sugary smile. "Or are you planning to grow that scraggly shadow into a full beard?"
He lapsed into a sullen silence as she folded back one side of the sheet and with efficient motions, dampened the washcloth and rubbed the soap into it until she had worked up a lather. She washed his foot first. As she was sponging his toes, she said, "Tickle?"
"Very funny."
"Come on, Cavanaugh, don't be such a sourpuss."
"Paralysis is something to laugh about?"
She frowned at him. "Laughter can't hurt. It might help. Are your toes normally ticklish?"
He turned his head and looked at her in a different way. His eyes gave her an insinuating once-over that was so hot it would have wilted the petals of the hibiscus on her chest had it been real. "Once I'm back to normal, maybe you can find out," he drawled in a sexy voice.
"I won't be giving you bed baths then."
"You wouldn't necessarily have to be giving me a bed bath. You could be doing something else to my toes."
"Like what?"
He named several pastimes, all prurient.
The washcloth became still in her hands for several telling seconds before she dipped it into the bowl to rinse it out. She shot Adam, who was smiling a tomcat grin, a sour glance. "How depraved."
"And fun."
"This conversation is bordering on the lascivious, Mr Cavanaugh. That violates our agreement too." She patted him dry, then covered that leg and circled the end of the bed to wash the other.
"How so?"
"I don't discuss my private life with patients."
"Don't want them getting excited, huh?"
"Exactly."
He studied her for several minutes as she routinely went about her work. "I can't understand how you and Elizabeth grew up to be so different."
"Most people recognize us as sisters right off."
"There's a family resemblance," he said musingly, "but there the similarity ends. You're as different as night and day."
"We're both blond and blue eyed."
"Yes, but she's a dainty and feminine and soft blonde. And you're — "
Lilah replaced the sheet and glanced up at him curiously. "I'm what?"
"A bold and audacious and aggressive blonde."
"So is Hulk Hogan. Thanks a lot." She raised his right arm and began sponging it with the soapy cloth, even washing the fuzzy hollow of his armpit.
"I didn't mean it as an insult."
"Oh, really?"
"No. Apparently quite a few men have found your flamboyance attractive."
"Now, I'm flamboyant," she muttered out of the side of her mouth like a comic stepping out of character to address the audience.