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  Only forty minutes left.

  “So, Jake, how old are you?” he asked, though his feigned interest had perked into something more now.

  “Twenty-six. On the mat,” Jake responded lightly, gesturing at the yoga mat in front of him before crossing his arms.

  “And do you live in town?” Crash pressed, staying obstinately on the couch, “or did you have to commute? How was traffic? I hear it comes to a standstill at noon.” Crash would be labeled a talker by absolutely no one, not even those that knew him well, but he could ramble when he needed to.

  The handsome, lean man didn’t answer, his long fingers tapping a patient rhythm on his strong biceps as he waited for Crash to get on the mat for the stretches.

  When Crash artlessly offered an apparently unending arsenal of further questions, however, Jake finally shook his head and smirked.

  “You can’t distract me, Crash,” he said lightly. “Now get over here and lay down, or I’ll have to make you.”

  Crash pursed his grumpy lips, giving a groan and carefully sliding off the couch. The yoga mat was surprisingly comfortable as he lay down on it. His arms and legs stretched out around him like a starfish.

  “I’m going to lift your knee up,” Jake explained gently. “Like I said, we’re going to keep it light and easy today. There’ll be some pain now and some soreness tomorrow, but it won’t be too bad. Next time will be harder.”

  Except there won’t be a next time, Crash wanted to say, but he opted for an irate silence instead.

  His knee prickled and pinched as Jake manipulated it with warm, guiding hands. Crash wasn’t exactly proud of how his mind wandered with every touch on his inner thigh and calf.

  “You’re a hockey man, aren’t you?” Jake asked as he took Crash’s strong ankle in his hand, extending the man’s leg outward and up from the ground as Crash winced and inhaled sharply.

  If this was taking it easy, Crash was in for a world of hurt, he realized.

  “Goalie for the Miners,” he grunted before arranging his face so that it was perfectly calm and composed. He wasn’t the type to show any sort of vulnerability, especially pain. “They’re practicing right now, and I’m getting a damn massage.”

  Jake had caught the pained expression on Crash’s face and he could see through the cracks with ease. He surmised that Crash’s knee had probably been bothering him long before his injury.

  “You know, I saw one of your games once,” Jake continued. “You were playing Boston, I think. Two years ago.”

  “You think? You must not have been paying much attention.” Crash closed his eyes, trying to think of anything but the sharp pain in his knee as Jake slowly stretched it once more, Crash’s hands fisting at his sides.

  “Nope,” Jake responded with another one of those charming laughs. “I was way more into the guy I was dating.”

  Jake glanced down at Crash, noting the tension on his knotted brow. Jake wanted to tell the burly man that he should be proud of himself for doing as well as he was right now. The therapist had been able to do some advanced stretching. Usually, if he tried this one the first session, his patient would be reduced to tears. Crash, though, took it all like a champ.

  Crash was a special type of man. Jake knew it the second he laid eyes on him. Crash was strong, and not just in his body; he had a stalwart soul. A rare quality these days.

  “I can’t imagine being distracted at a hockey game,” Crash almost chuckled, the sound husky and grating in his throat. “I live for those two and a half hours I’m on the ice. If the game you were at was Boston, we beat them four nothing two seasons ago.”

  Jake hummed slightly, unable to recall if Crash was right. “Do you remember all your games?” he asked, impressed.

  Crash shook his head, hands folding over his stomach now, “Just some. If they mean something.”

  “What did that one mean?”

  “It was the first game of that season. Our last decisive win.”

  “Really?” Jake asked, startled. “I thought the Miners were amazing.”

  “We were. We lost our mojo sometime that year. It still hasn’t come back. Our last season was pathetic. We lost almost every game.”

  Jake wanted to say that if Crash had gotten his knee examined when it first started bothering him then perhaps the goalie would’ve been operating at one hundred percent all season long, but thought better than to put the grumpy man back into his foul mood.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out by the time the next season starts. The pendulum swings, right?”

  His statement was met with only another caveman-like grunt from the goalie.

  With a glance at the clock across the room, Jake carefully lay Crash’s leg back on the mat, did a quick examination of the knee under the gauze wrapping, and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “All done here.”

  Crash kept his eyes closed, hands neatly folded. “Now what?” he asked. “What other exercises are left?”

  “That was it,” Jake responded, climbing to his feet and reaching a hand towards Crash to help him up as well. “We’re finished for the day.”

  Disbelieving, Crash whipped his head around toward the clock.

  Five past three.

  He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again to find the same time. Had the session really passed that quickly?

  Crash ignored Jake’s hand, grabbing hold of the couch and hauling himself up to his unsteady feet before quickly easing back down on the couch just a step over with a heavy sigh. His knee ached, throbbing from the stretches.

  “This is a printed graphic of some home stretches you need to do between our therapy sessions,” Jake said, handing over a folded pamphlet.

  Crash glared at it with distaste, tossing it behind him on the couch.

  “You’re going to want to do those unless you want every single session we have to be incredibly painful,” Jake explained. “It makes a world of difference for your recovery as well.”

  Biting back a comment on how his recovery would progress just fine without Jake, Crash stared at the physical therapist with doubt clearly rippling over his rugged face.

  “If you do it,” Jake began, “there will be a reward at the end of our time together.”

  “I’m not a dog or a kid,” Crash snapped back indignantly. “You can’t tell me I’ll get a treat or a gold star and expect me to care.”

  “I think you’ll care,” Jake responded as he slid his bag over his shoulder and tucked the yoga mat under his arm. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

  “Maybe,” Crash responded with a shake of his head and a doubtful arch of his eyebrow.

  “I’ll see you in a few days,” Jake repeated with a knowing firmness and a wink.

  As the lean man slipped out, he gave a faint wave, the sun glowing gold on his tawny hair, his eyes gleaming molten jade.

  Crash only realized his jaw had fallen open after the door slammed shut once more.

  Chapter Three

  Jake angled back against the solid wood of Crash’s front door, heaving a huge sigh and running a hand through his thick hair.

  He squeezed his eyes so tightly shut that it almost hurt, trying to shove away the memory of how strong and sturdy Crash’s body had been beneath his hands.

  Touching Crash had been like brushing his hand against a jet plane or an elephant or something else that he knew was so powerful it could kill him in a second and so sturdy that it could carry him thousands of miles. Every inch of Jake’s body felt like it was shaking or vibrating, his blood surging so hot that he wasn’t sure if he would be able to walk without toppling right over sideways.

  Biting back a groan, Jake pressed a trembling hand to his heart, trying to quell the raging thunder into submission. He couldn’t feel like this. It wasn’t allowed.

  First and foremost, Jake was a physical
therapist.

  He absolutely could not be having vulgar fantasies about his patients… even if they were rugged as a horse and sexy as hell.

  Jake shook his head hard and shoved himself away from the porch before Crash noticed him lingering and asked what the hell was going on. Jake didn’t need to see any more of Crash’s face right now. That wasn’t to say that Jake didn’t want to. In fact, he wanted more than anything to turn around and step right back over the threshold of Crash’s house for just one more second of gazing at the man’s handsome face. Fortunately for Jake’s career, he had enough of a grip on reality not to do just that.

  He knew he was in trouble the second the hockey player had mentioned he was into guys. Jake should’ve packed up right there but he believed his libido could behave for an hour.

  Apparently, Jake had thought wrong.

  He’d have honestly considered passing Crash on as a patient to someone else who wasn’t so desperately attracted to the grey-eyed man, but Jake really did need the money from the sessions. He’d just gotten a new dog, a lab puppy he’d found abandoned in the middle of a thunderstorm, and poor little Monsoon needed some medical attention of his own.

  Somehow, someway, Jake was just going to have to soldier through this.

  He wasn’t looking to date anyone; he had so much on his plate with work and his new dog anyway. He’d barely had time to himself lately, he certainly didn’t have any time to dedicate to another man, and Jake wasn’t cut out for one-night stands. He’d learned that the hard way as a teenager.

  Even still, Jake couldn’t resist a lingering look back at the modest home behind him. He couldn’t help but wonder what Crash was doing in there, what he was thinking, what he was feeling.

  Honestly, Jake realized, Crash was probably cursing the physical therapist’s existence.

  Crash wasn’t the first patient to drag his feet like a stubborn mule through the painful rehab sessions, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. Despite that, Jake wasn’t about to let the man ruin his entire hockey career by refusing physical therapy. Jake had treated many athletes over the last couple of years that he’d been working in the rehab field, and he had yet to fail one. They all returned to their respective games right on time. Some were harder than others to cajole into accepting his help, and Jake had a feeling Crash would test even his strongest limits. Jake didn’t mind that though. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. If things came too easy, life would get boring, after all. That’s what Jake’s dad always used to tell him. He’d taken those words deeply to heart.

  A small smile played at Jake’s mouth as he shook his head and paced onwards. He’d never met anyone as hardheaded as Crash. There was something about that facet of the man’s personality that Jake liked, that continued to tug at the back of Jake’s mind and turn his thoughts in the dark-haired man’s direction.

  “You’re that nurse, aren’t you?” A voice suddenly chirped out to him as the young man that had been in Crash’s house reappeared from around the corner of the bus stop before Jake.

  The physical therapist slowed immediately to a halt, shifting the heavy medical bag he carried from one shoulder to the other and wishing that he’d put the mat inside it.

  “Timmy Lyon,” the man said with a grin that Jake didn’t trust, stretching out a hand. “I don’t think I said my name before.”

  Regarding the brown-eyed man carefully, Jake politely shook his hand but didn’t introduce himself. He’d already done that earlier, and he wasn’t about to give this random guy the pleasure of another one.

  “Your name is Jake, right?” Timmy offered, still smiling from ear to ear like a puppet.

  “Sure is,” Jake responded before his brow crinkled up just slightly. “Wait, shouldn’t you be at practice right now?”

  Timmy blinked, one brunette brow arching towards his hairline, “What?”

  “Crash mentioned that you all had practice now.”

  The raw unhappiness in the hockey player’s stony eyes when he’d mentioned that his teammates were all on the ice while he was not would stick with Jake for a long time. He’d never seen anyone who cared about anything the way that Crash so clearly did about hockey. It made Jake even more desperate to help him, to heal him, to get him back on his skates where he belonged.

  With a laugh that sounded more mocking than jovial, Timmy shrugged. “He’s been out of the loop for a few weeks now. He must’ve forgotten when we practice.”

  Jake glanced doubtfully over his shoulder, contemplating heading back to Crash’s house. Jake was a people person, always had been. He loved chatting and shooting the shit. He even liked small talk. This, though… there was something off about this. Jake hadn’t met anyone he disliked at first meeting, but Timmy made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. This wasn’t a conversation that he wanted to be having.

  “So, have you been a nurse for long?” Timmy asked, though Jake was too distracted now to really hear him, especially the way Timmy was trying to offend the physical therapist by referring to his job incorrectly.

  There were some people, Jake knew, that just weren’t worth the effort of engaging with. Timmy was certainly one of those. It didn’t matter what Jake said, whether he went along with the insult or ignored it, Timmy would consider it a victory either way.

  Frowning, Jake swept his eyes towards the bus stop, trying to remember when the next one was scheduled to arrive. He had another patient’s appointment in an hour and a half on the other side of town. He’d checked out the bus routes when he’d been half asleep this morning before he’d had any coffee. Clearly, that’d been a mistake.

  “Waiting for a bus?” Timmy asked, head cocked slightly. “Need a ride?”

  “No.” Jake responded instantly, shoving his free hand into his pocket and hiding a grimace. There was no way Jake was getting in Timmy’s car, “I like the bus.” He shrugged, despite the fact that he knew nobody liked taking the crowded, smelly bus as transport.

  Timmy looked equally unconvinced but didn’t argue, which surprised Jake.

  “Okay then. I’ll be on my way. Nice to meet you, nurse.” Though Timmy had said goodbye, he didn’t move, still standing in front of Jake like a statue.

  Jake stared blankly back at him, shifting his heavy bag again. He could feel it pulling on his shoulder, leaving a deep red mark on the skin that would last even after he’d finished his last appointment for the day.

  Narrowing mud brown eyes, Timmy stared at Jake intently and cleared his throat, his eyes darting down to the sidewalk then back again. Confused, the physical therapist finally stepped hesitantly to the side.

  “See ya,” Timmy called from over his shoulder as he walked, giving a quick wave and whistling.

  When he was gone, a shudder rolled up Jakes back as he gave a small shake of his head. Though he was itching to set down his heavy bag, he held it close against him instead, keeping his gaze on the man until Timmy turned a corner and disappeared.

  Had Timmy been out here for the entire hour of Crash’s session? Just what was he doing hanging around like that? There was nothing around but a couple of houses, and Jake got the distinct impression that Timmy didn’t live in one of these little homes.

  Before Jake could contemplate the situation too hard, however, the hiss of the approaching bus echoed down the street. Jake turned back, taking his turn in line. Across the street, as Jake boarded the bus and greeted the driver with a smile, a baby blue sedan flashed its lights once then twice, barely visible in the sunny Montana afternoon. Jake would’ve missed it completely had he not been facing the window.

  Was that Timmy over there, reminding Jake that he was still nearby?

  Despite his brain accusing him of misplaced paranoia, Jake was all too happy to slink further down the bus aisle and ease into a seat on the opposite side of the car in the street. The bus hissed again, the doors slamming shut as it lurched forward. Still, Ja
ke couldn’t resist one cautious eye on the car until they rolled out of sight and down the road.

  Finally, Jake relaxed against the lumpy seat, his head pressing delicately against the cool glass of the window. Clouds were beginning to roll in overhead, though Jake doubted it would rain. The glum grey puffballs would just linger in the sky all day, ruining the sunlight and bringing a chill. He wished now that he had a sweater.

  Closing his eyes, Jake hugged his bag against his chest, the metal instruments and first aid supplies and equipment bumping against his lean arms.

  Against the black veil of his eyelids, a pair of steely grey eyes gazed back at him, set stern and square on the rugged face of Crash Wellerson.

  Jake found it slightly funny how he could so perfectly recall the faint blue flecks in Crash’s eyes, the power of his muscled legs, the subtle rasp of his deep voice. After all, Jake was the type of guy who had to write constant reminders to himself or else he’d forget his own birthday, but with Crash, everything seemed etched into Jake’s mind like a photograph.

  Everything, including Crash’s somber severity.

  Did he ever smile?

  Cracking open his eyes, Jake hoped that Crash’s face would fade away, though it remained burned in front of his gaze like those fuzzy black dots he got when looking at a lamp for too long.

  Jake wasn’t sure how he was ever supposed to focus again with a man like that on his mind.

  Chapter Four

  Jake would’ve been lying if he claimed that on his approach to Crash’s house a few days after their first session that an uneasiness didn’t follow him like a shadow slinking between the cracks of the sidewalk beneath his clean white sneakers.

  His sea green eyes flitted around him as he stepped off the bus that evening, his hands free of his pockets and coiled around the strap of his duffel bag instead. With every step he took, he expected Timmy Lyon to spring out at him again from around the side of a house or to sneak up with a rough tap on his shoulder.