Clash of Hearts (Wild Hearts, Contemporary Romance Book 2) Read online

  Anna shot her brother a look from the corner of her eye, but other than a smirk, she refrained from making any comment. Rob rolled his eyes, certain he'd be hearing about this later. The bad part about having your sister as your assistant, not to mention as a roommate, was that you could never got away from the ribbing that was always part of a sibling relationship.

  Rob didn't really care, though. After their father was killed and their mother became mentally disabled in a car wreck when he was thirteen, it was up to him, he had figured, to hold the family together. Rob had spent four years in a wheelchair, and underwent eight different surgeries before he was back on his feet at seventeen, and he, his mother and Anna had all lived with his mother's sister during that time. His mother, unfortunately, had passed away shortly before he was able to walk again, and never got to see her son on his feet once more. Her loss only crystallized his determination to take care of his sister from then on. By the time he finished school, she was in her early teens, and was quite a handful for a single young man to raise, but he felt that it was his responsibility to do all he could for her. Now that she was grown, they stayed together more out of a sense of mutual support than any true dependence upon each other.

  Of course, none of that saved him from the ribbing. She'd been teasing him earlier about how often he took Katie to lunch, and here he was doing it again. He was certain that would mean a lot of comments thrown his way the rest of the afternoon and evening, but it would be worth it.

  Besides, if he could manage to be truthful with himself, he had to admit that he really did find Katie Lou an attractive and intriguing young woman. He'd had a few girlfriends since getting out of college, but none of them really excited him, none of them really made him feel that they could contribute something to a relationship. Katie Lou had something that he’d never encountered before, and he wasn't quite sure what it was. Determination? Yes, she had that by the truckload. Courage? There was no doubt she was courageous, facing every new challenge head on and with a complete lack of fear.

  No, it was something else, and he just wasn't sure what it was that drew him to her. Unfortunately, she had just been done very, very wrong by her recently ex-fiancé, and the last thing she wanted or needed was another man in her life at this point. That was something he could understand, and so he kept his attraction under control. He even allowed himself to wonder if perhaps his attraction was not even real, if maybe it was more of a sympathetic attraction than a romantic one. That was one of the reasons he had asked her sister Kylie for a date, to see if he could find an attraction for her, instead.

  Everyone was ready, so he followed the girls outside and into the parking lot, where the pickup truck awaited. He watched as Katie walked herself on Willie straight to the passenger side of the truck, turned herself so that her back was to the door she’d be getting in through, leaned against the truck, reached down and grabbed the handle that would fold Willie up, lifted suddenly, and swung the walker into the back of the truck.

  Then, still leaning against the pickup, she turned herself around, opened the door of the truck and held onto it as she stepped forward, then grabbed the door and the roof as she had done before and swung herself inside. Smiling back at Rob, she buckled her seatbelt and then reached out to close the door.

  Rob grinned and shook his head in admiration. "Great job," he said. "I think you're gonna make it!"

  "Woo hoo," Katie said. "Come on, you slow pokes, let's go eat!"

  Kylie, laughing with excitement, hurried around and got behind the wheel. "Katie, I am so proud of you!" she said, as she started the truck and backed out of the parking space. "That was incredible."

  "Hey," Katie said, "he put a price on my independence; trust me, I'm going to accomplish this. Having Willie might not make me ready to run a marathon, and I know I still can't get upstairs, but that's okay. At least I'm that much closer to being back to walking like I should be."

  Rob and Anna got into Rob's car, and Kylie followed them down to Rob's favorite restaurant, the first one he had taken them to. They parked, and Rob hurried over to watch as Katie got herself out of the truck, reached into the back and grabbed Willie, snatched the walker out and unfolded it, then started off toward the front door without waiting for anyone else.

  She glanced over her shoulder and called out, "Hey, you guys coming?"

  The four of them had eaten there several times over the past couple of weeks, so the waitress, Miranda, smiled when she saw Katie coming through the door on her feet. "Holy cow," she said, "would you look at this? Girl, you're doing great!"

  Katie grinned as she pushed the walker up behind a chair, then sat down. "I know, right?" she said, but it was obvious she was a little out of breath. "It beats the wheelchair in every way, but I can tell you it's going to take some getting used to. These legs just aren't doing what I really want them to do, and that's frustrating. I'll get there, though, just wait and see."

  Miranda grinned and nodded. "Oh, I believe you." She waited until everyone else had gotten seated at the table, and then asked for drink orders. Everyone but Katie wanted sweet tea, but she decided to splurge and have root beer instead.

  Miranda went to fetch their drinks, and Kylie decided it was time to liven things up a bit. "Rob, you said that you decided to become a physical therapist because you knew what it felt like to need one, right?"

  Rob nodded. "That's right," he said. "I spent the better part of four years in physical therapy as a patient, so I figured I would be very well suited to helping other people overcome physical handicaps. I mean, why not take our experiences and put them to work? Do good with them? Doesn't that make sense?"

  Katie was glaring at her sister, but there wasn't a lot of real anger in it. Kylie smiled and went on. "Well, someone else is following in your footsteps," she said. "Katie Lou has decided to go into counseling for people with disabilities. After all, now she's got a pretty good idea what they go through. Don't you think that's a great idea?"

  Rob's eyes were wide, and he was looking at Katie Lou. "I do," he said, "I absolutely do! Katie, that would be wonderful! Would you be staying around this area? Or are you thinking of relocating somewhere else?"

  “Oh, I'd be staying around here, I'm sure. I don't want to move away, I don't think, and I've come to notice that there are a lot of folks around here who are dealing with handicaps like mine, or worse. The way the world is nowadays, I think maybe it wouldn't matter where I was, I'd find people who might need some counseling in this field, and that seems to be where I'm feeling drawn.”

  "I think that's just an incredible idea," he said. “I know that a lot of my clients are in counseling, and most doctors recommend it for patients who find themselves with sudden, unanticipated handicaps, not to mention for those who have progressive illnesses, who know it's coming. I think a counselor who has some knowledge of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that sort of thing would be a wonderful counselor for most people in the situation to have.”

  “That's what I thought, too,” Katie said. “I mean, I haven't had to deal with this as long as you did, and hopefully I'm going to be back on my feet sometime soon, even without old Willie there, but at least I have some sense of what it feels like. I can let people know that I understand, that I've been there, too, even if only for a while. Maybe just knowing that the person they're talking to is someone who really understands will help them to find ways to let the pressure off. I know there have been times already when I felt like I was going to explode, y'know?”

  Rob was nodding. “Trust me, I know exactly what you mean. When I was paralyzed, I would have times when I just wanted to scream, just let it out, but there wasn't any way to do it. I had Mom and Anna to think about, and Aunt Kay; if I started losing it, how could I expect them to hang on? So I bit my tongue and held it in and prayed for God to show me how to cope. Finally, the idea hit me that if I ever got out of that wheelchair, I'd go to school and become a physical therapist, and do you know, I started showing in
credible progress after that?”

  Katie grinned. “Oh, good, then maybe I'll suddenly start getting better faster, now that I've made up my mind to become a counselor to the disabled, right?”

  Rob's face suddenly looked somber, and everyone turned to stare at him.

  “Bubba, what's wrong?” Anna asked, and then he smiled.

  “Nothing, nothing at all,” he said. “But look—Katie Lou, you made this decision already? Like, before today?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, yesterday, after we left here. Why?”

  “Well, maybe it's coincidence, but it seems to me that you've suddenly started improving at a faster rate. When I got that walker for you yesterday, I never would have believed I'd be considering letting you take it home already. I seriously figured you'd need at least a few days of working with it before you'd be ready to solo, you know? And yet, here we are, and you've earned it. Yeah, I think maybe it's like what happened with me, and you're doing better now that you've made a decision.”

  “Good,” Katie said. “I'll take every bit of good luck or good fortune or whatever you want to call it that I can get! If this is what God wants me to do, I sorta wish he'd found another way to let me know, but who am I to argue with Him?”

  Miranda came back with their drinks, and took their orders for lunch. When she'd gone, Kylie asked Rob about the dance they'd be going to that weekend.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, coming back to the present. “It's a benefit dance, raising money for something at the local hospital. I bought tickets because a lot of the doctors who send me clients are members there, and they bought tickets, so...”

  “Ah, I see,” Kylie said, “so this is really about maintaining good relations with the people who send you clients with good insurance, right? And here I thought you just wanted to spend some time with me. Oh, well, I guess a girl has to take what she can get, nowadays.”

  Rob looked flustered. “No, I do want to spend time with you,” he said. “I just figured this was a good opportunity for us to go have some fun, and get to know each other a bit...”

  Kylie started laughing, and Katie Lou smiled. “Rob, relax,” she said, “Kylie's just picking on you.”

  “Gotcha,” Kylie said with a wink, and Rob let himself smile. “Okay, I thought for a minute there you were really offended, and I didn't want that to be the case. Had me worried, there.”

  They laughed it off, and began talking again about Katie and her progress, and Kylie couldn't help but notice that Rob seemed to brighten every time that subject came up. There was a light that came into his eyes when he talked about how well she was doing, or even when he mentioned her name. When he actually looked at her, it was pretty clear that he couldn't see anyone else in the room, and the more she watched, the more certain Kylie was that the young physical therapist she had gotten such a crush on was apparently falling in love with her sister, Katie Lou.

  For a moment, Kylie felt jealousy and anger rising, but then it just faded, and she found herself surprised. Sure, Rob was hot, and she liked him—but it wasn't really all that upsetting, and she wondered why. Maybe it was because of George; maybe George had left her so soured on men that it just didn't really matter anymore. Could that be it?

  Nah, she knew better than that. She wasn't down on guys, she was just mad at George, and there was a big difference. No, the reality was that, while she liked Rob and thought he was hot, there really wasn't any chemistry there, and no amount of wishing there was could make it so.

  Oh, great, she thought, so what do I do now? I've got a date with a man who's in love with my sister! Do I go, do I cancel? Oh, God, give me some sign, please? What am I supposed to do?

  She kept the smile on her face and continued to enjoy the conversation and cutting up with the rest of them, but the longer she watched Rob and Katie Lou, the more convinced she became that they were right for each other and should be together. The trouble was Katie; she really was soured on guys, at least for a while. How could Kylie get her to realize that there was a great guy waiting, and all Katie Lou had to do was open her eyes?

  And then it hit her!

  “Hey, I just had an awesome thought,” she said out loud. “What if Katie Lou were to start her counseling, and work right along with you, Rob? You could offer professional counseling to your PT patients, right there in your own clinic?”

  5

  Allen faxed in the report to his insurance company as soon as he got to work that morning, and then made the call he was dreading. He dialed Darren's number, and steeled himself to speak to the man he'd thought would soon be his son-in-law.

  “Darren? Allen Brennan,” he said curtly.

  “Oh, Allen, hi,” Darren said, almost as if everything were still the same. “How have you been?”

  Allen shook his head in disgust. “Darren, you asked me to go over your Corvette and find out what could have caused it to go out of control that night, and I wanted to let you know I'm finished. I've just sent the report to my insurance company, and I'll fax a copy to the your father's office, as well, so you can send it in to yours.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you. And what did you find?” Darren sounded excited, as if he was about to hear that he'd won a lottery.

  Allen's voice was cold, he knew, but there was nothing he could do about it. All the pain and fear and anger of seeing Katie Lou hurt the way she had been came into his mind as he answered, and he didn't even care.

  “What I found, Darren, is that there was nothing on the vehicle that could have caused the malfunction you described. Nothing at all was wrong with the steering mechanism of your car, before it hit the tree that almost killed my daughter. From what I can tell, you either just weren't paying attention, or else you fell asleep behind the wheel. That's all in my report, and I'll fax it to your dad's office now.”

  “But, Allen, I swear...”

  “Darren, I don't want to hear it. I've been fixing wrecks for more then twenty-five years, and I know what I see in this one. There was no malfunction, nothing that could have done what you said it did.”

  He hung up the phone, and then sat back and breathed a sigh of relief. He picked up the coffee cup that sat on his desk and took a drink, then punched in the Allsip Law Office's fax number, which he’d gotten from their big Yellow Pages ad, and sent the report through to Darren's father, as well.

  That was done, and it was time to get to work. He took another swig of his coffee, then got up and walked out of the little office in the corner of his shop. There was a big Dodge pickup there that needed a transmission installed, a jeep that was getting a lift kit, and a number of cars in for general maintenance, like oil changes, tune-ups and such. Allen's was one of the most popular shops in the area, and he got a lot of business from towns as far as twenty miles away.

  Then there was his daughter Kylie's car, the sixty-six Buick Riviera. It was sitting in one corner of the shop, the engine out and on a stand, waiting for all-new parts to be installed. Kylie was coming in after lunch sometime to get started on it, and Allen knew that all his guys loved to watch his beautiful daughter getting her hands all greasy, working on her car, and most of them got a kick out of the fact that she was as good at it as they were.

  “Allen, you got a minute?” Mike Bull, his shop foreman, asked.

  “Sure, Mike, what's up?” Allen walked over to where Mike was standing beside the big Dodge.

  The mechanic held out a round steel disk and a handful of bolts. “Flex plate's shot on this thing,” he said. “There are three cracks in it, and if the tranny hadn’t been slipping already, it would have failed and maybe ruined the engine. I already called in a new one, just wanted you to see it.”

  “Right, no problem. Let's get it right, I want the customer happy.” He patted Mike on the back and went on to check on the other jobs in progress. Each of his mechanics knew their jobs, and each had been hired for a particular skill or ability. Jimmy and Steve were doing general work, such as oil changes and spark plugs, and Paul was doing brake jobs an
d wheel alignments. Allen's was a full service shop, where you could get just about anything done, and that was one of the reasons he was so well liked.

  Allen himself liked to specialize in engine work, and particularly in building performance engines. He'd always loved hot rods, and had owned several in his time; his favorite had been the fifty-nine El Camino he'd built five years before, which was still being used as the parts runner for the shop.

  That Riviera of Kylie's, though, was a dream car. He'd always liked the sixty-fives, but when she'd come home and told him she'd bought this baby, all original and with only seventy thousand miles on it, he'd been impressed, and the more he saw the car and helped her with it, the more the old fastback luxury vehicle had gotten under his skin. When the engine had cracked a piston, he'd told her it was time to get serious about the car, and they'd agreed to build a powerhouse out of the engine. Allen had sent the transmission out to be rebuilt, as well, so that it would be able to handle the horsepower that would be coming through it once the engine was put back in.

  He went to his own workstation, where a late-model Chevy V8 was on the stand. This one had a failed main bearing, so he was installing a new crankshaft for the customer, a warranty job. Allen was ready to get it finished and out, so that he could start on the next one he had waiting; that one was a custom build for an old friend of his, a restoration of a Shelby GT 500. Allen would be building the CobraJet 427 for the car, which had him excited.

  The morning went on, and he felt like he accomplished a lot. The biggest thing they got done was the installation of the transmission in the Dodge, but he got the crank into the Chevy and had it ready to go into the car again when he got back from lunch. At a few minutes before noon, Allen called lunch-time, and everyone headed out for their favorite spots. A couple of the guys went home to eat, and one or two brought lunch with them to eat in their cars, but most went down to one of the three restaurants that were within walking distance.