The Cop. Jan Hudson

you packed?”

      He glanced to a black duffel bag on the bed. “Not much to pack, but I’ve been ready since daylight. My brothers are supposed to come by when Frank gets out of court.”

      He frowned at the therapist. “Who are you?”

      “Dan Robert Thurston, sir.” The therapist offered his hand, and Cole shook it. “Thought I’d give you a ride down.” He motioned to the wheelchair. “Hop in and buckle up.”

      “Down the stairs? In that?”

      “Dan Robert’s a pro. It’s a piece of cake for him,” Kelly said. “Not only is he a physical therapist, he’s a weight lifter.”

      Cole didn’t look convinced, but he shrugged and sat in the lightweight chair. Dan Robert strapped him in while Kelly collected the duffel and the walker from Cole’s room. In a couple of minutes, they were downstairs.

      “You make this seem easy,” Cole said.

      “It is easy,” Dan Robert said, “with a little experience. It’s more a matter of leverage than muscle. Shoot, they even got machines now that you can attach to wheelchairs and climb stairs by yourself.”

      “Why haven’t I heard about them?” Cole asked.

      Kelly grinned. “It’s the sort of information you get if you’re in physical therapy.” She ignored his rude snort.

      Miss Nonie bustled over as they passed through the shop. “Are you sure you’ll be all right alone, son?”

      “I’ll be fine, Mom.”

      “Your dad and I will be over tonight with your supper. Is there anything else you need?”

      “Not a thing,” Cole said. “And don’t worry about my supper. I’ll order a pizza or something.”

      “But—”

      “Don’t worry about it, Miss Nonie,” Kelly said. “Mary Beth plans to leave a plate from lunch in the fridge. He won’t starve.” She waved as they went outside and loaded into her car, Cole in the passenger seat and Dan Robert in the back.

      When she pulled away and turned left, Cole said, “Aren’t we going the wrong way to the Twilight Inn?”

      “Nope. I have to drop Dan Robert by the hospital, and we thought while we were there that you could go in with him and have your physical therapy session.”

      Cole cocked an eyebrow at her. “Who is we?”

      “Think of it as the imperial ‘we,”’ she said with a flutter of her hand. After a few moments of silence, she said, “What? No argument?”

      He shrugged. “Would it do any good?”

      “Not a bit.”

      Dan Robert made a slight choking sound from the back seat.

      When they stopped at the hospital entrance, Kelly said to Cole, “I’ll pick you up here in an hour.”

      “Don’t you have patients to see?”

      “It’s my afternoon off. I’ll…be…back.”

      Cole started to say something, then clamped his mouth shut. She could see his molars getting a workout.

      COLE HAD BEEN RIGHT, Kelly thought. He hadn’t had much to pack. In the duffel she found the sweats from the day before, four pairs of pajamas, a robe, some ratty underwear and three pairs of white and two pairs of gray socks. Besides his shaving kit, two paperback novels—and her forgotten jacket of all things—that was it. Why did he have her jacket in his bag?

      She shrugged and checked the sizes of his few belongings. Obviously the man needed some clothes. At least some more sweats to knock around in. Easy on and easy off, they would be simple to manage.

      By the time she drove to the hospital door an hour later, she’d been able to do a fair amount of shopping. Dan Robert was just wheeling Cole out the door as she pulled up. Cole looked exhausted.

      “Tired?” she asked when he was settled in the front seat.

      He merely nodded.

      By the time they reached the Twilight Inn, he was sound asleep. He looked so peaceful that she hated to wake him, so she sat in front of the manager’s apartment and let him sleep.

      B.D., one of the four old fellows who worked at the motel and played dominoes in the office, came outside to check. Kelly held her fingers to her lips and shook her head, and he ducked back inside.

      While Cole slept, she studied him. In the way that sleep softens features, his had modified to more a boyish cast, but he still looked far from innocent. He was a handsome man, but he reminded her more of a battle-scarred gladiator than a romantic Lancelot. The creases bisecting his forehead, though relaxed, were permanently etched there, and his jaw was clenched—probably a permanent state, as well.

      An old scar carved a crescent on his left cheekbone, and another furrowed through his beard at his chin. His nose looked as if it had been rearranged a couple of times, and a lone pockmark faintly pitted his cheek an inch below the thick, dark sweep of lashes. The scar was probably the result of childhood chicken pox or adolescent acne, and it made him somehow seem more…vulnerable. Well, maybe not vulnerable.

      The whole package that was Cole Outlaw made her toes curl and her fingers itch to run themselves through the waves of his thick hair and over the planes of his face and—

      She squirmed in the seat and turned her attention to a mockingbird sitting on a power line. What was with her? Good Lord, she felt as giddy as a high school girl.

      After about twenty minutes, Kelly gently shook Cole awake.

      He sat up with a start, instantly alert and scowling.

      “We’re home,” she announced in her perkiest voice.

      “Home?”

      “The Twilight Inn.”

      “The old place looks a lot different from the last time I saw it.”

      “Which was?”

      “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe five, ten years ago. It was a dump.”

      “It was boarded up and falling down when Mary Beth started renovations last spring. A lot of folks pitched in and helped. Now it’s a charming little motel,” she said, motioning to the row of neatly painted units with yellow chrysanthemums still blooming in the window boxes. “And the restaurant has been refurbished as well. Mary Beth serves the best lunch in town.”

      “No breakfast or dinner?”

      “Nope,” she said, “but I bought some breakfast items at the grocery store, and one of the guys will bring you an extra meal at lunch to stash in the fridge for dinner.”

      She hopped out and got the wheelchair from the trunk. By the time she got to the passenger door, Cole was struggling to get out.

      When he saw her with the chair, he waved her away. “If you’ll hand me my walker, I can make it in.”

      “Humor me this time and let me push.”

      He started to argue, then clamped his mouth shut and sat down in the wheelchair. They hadn’t gone three steps when the office door opened and the four old guys spilled out.

      “Land sakes,” one of them said, sticking out his hand to Cole. “I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age. Bet you don’t remember me.”

      “I sure do, Howard, but it looks like you’ve lost a little more on top.”

      Howard cackled and ran his hand over a head covered only by a few liver spots and a pink patch or two. “That’s for sure. Then you probably remember B.D. and Curtis and Will here.”

      After Cole shook hands with all the men, Will said, “Need some help getting in?”