Georgia was still watching her, so she shrugged. “Scott and I aren’t the most exciting people, so there’s really nothing to report. But I promise you’ll be the first to know if anything interesting happens.”
Georgia handed her a patient file and then backed away. “Okay. I’m holding you to that. I’ll order you some lunch.”
Penny turned to go to her office and almost smacked into her boss, Charles Winston. She dropped the file she was holding. Several sheets of loose paper slid out as it fell and fluttered to the ground.
“Penelope. Sorry about that.”
She tried to mask her annoyance as she knelt and scooped up the papers, placing them carefully back into the folder. Charles didn’t even attempt to kneel and assist, just stood over her with his usual pinched look.
Thanks so much for helping, Penny thought irritably.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. He had a way of making it sound as if that was her fault.
“Well, you’ve found me.” She held the file close to her chest and started walking toward her office. Charles was forced to follow.
“I was expecting an update on Chris Walters yesterday evening. When I came looking for you, you were already gone.”
Penny thought of her appointment the previous day with the star of the area’s pro basketball team. He’d hurt his knee at a critical point in the basketball season and many fans thought his team couldn’t win the championship without him. So when he’d chosen the Northern Virginia Rehabilitation Center for his physical therapy, it had brought a lot of attention to the center.
It wasn’t the first time a high-profile athlete had sought her out, either. It was all about the patient’s recovery for Penny but she couldn’t deny it brought her an incredible sense of pride that her unconventional methods had gotten the attention of the bigwigs in sports medicine. Enough for her to be specifically sought out by many professional athletes.
“Chris and I worked until about seven p.m. If you missed us, then you must have come pretty late.”
Charles sniffed. “I do keep a late schedule. I’m fully committed to being there for all our patients. Not just the high-profile ones.”
Penny whirled around. “I already sent out the e-mail update about Chris to the team. Did you need something else?” The saccharine-sweet tone of her voice must have alerted him that she was on edge. Or maybe it was the steam coming from her ears. Either way, he smiled, or as close to smiling as Charles ever got, and then inclined his head.
“No, Penelope. Nothing else.”
Penny walked into her office and closed the door behind her. After several deep breaths, she sat down behind her desk. The nerve of him suggesting that she only cared about the high-profile clients. She was the one constantly campaigning for the center to treat more patients pro bono. Charles hadn’t been in favor of the idea until he’d seen how much publicity and attention they’d received as a result. Watching him smile pretty for the cameras now was borderline nauseating.
She flipped open the file for her next appointment. Her next patient had a spinal injury. These were always the trickiest and the ones with the lowest success rates. They were also some of the most determined patients she’d ever had. The ones with the most hope that they could one day walk again.
Most of the patients she treated were coming to her as a last resort. They’d already been through surgery and sometimes multiple rounds of physical therapy. These were patients who wanted more. Her patients weren’t happy with just relearning how to walk. They wanted to run. They’d been told “no” over and over by doctors, physical therapists and even their own hearts in some cases. They came to her when they weren’t sure who else would take them.
Penny was the person willing to take a chance and say “yes.” She worked to push her patients past their limits. She thrived on tackling the impossible. In her opinion there was no hard-and-fast point of no return. It was just about how far you were willing to dangle over the edge before you fell.
If only she could be so sure of other areas of her life.
She shook off her lingering unease. There was no time in her life for negative thoughts. She was exactly where she wanted to be, doing exactly what she was meant to.
That was more than enough.
* * * * *
“ARE YOU KIDDING me?” Matt gripped the steering wheel tighter and slowed down as yet another car cut him off. He didn’t drive to Northern Virginia that often and each time he did, his subconscious mind blocked out all memory of how bad the traffic was until he was knee-deep in it. Naively, he hadn’t thought Wednesday-morning traffic would be this bad.
A mistake he wouldn’t be making again.
He let out a repressed grunt when he was forced to slam on the brakes. Again. He looked to his left and hit his horn as a car next to him tried to get in his lane.
“I’m here. There’s nowhere to go.” He shook his head as the driver gave him the finger.
His cell phone rang and he snatched it up. Normally he wouldn’t answer the phone while driving, but it wasn’t as if he was actually moving.
Over the last thirty minutes he’d managed to crawl no more than a mile on Interstate 95. He was almost to the point of pulling over and walking the rest of the way.
“It would probably be faster,” he mumbled. Then he put his phone to his ear and said, “Hello?”