“I also like to concentrate around the fibular head, because stricture here is directly related to ankle mobility.” When she was done there, she picked up his foot, bent his leg at the knee, and worked the tool along one side of his shin, then the other. “This reinitiates first-stage healing. The body directs blood flow to what it sees as a new injury, and starts the healing process again. But now as it heals, you’ll have constant therapy and a kickass diet, which will keep the scar tissue from forming as intensely again. The new tissue will be strong and flexible—all the better to snowboard with.”
By the time she finished, Noah’s skin burned. But underneath, he felt fluidity within his limb, a loose, comfortable sensation he hadn’t had in months.
“Okay, roll over again,” she said.
He shifted to his back and propped himself up on his elbows. She pressed the flat of his foot to her abdomen again, gripped his foot with both hands, and manipulated the joint. Sure, there was a little discomfort, but far more movement than he’d had since before the accident.
“That’s a start.” She didn’t seem anywhere near as pleased as Noah felt. “Hop off the table. Try some toe lifts.”
She stepped back, hands on hips, eyes riveted to his feet. But the last time Noah tried to push his body weight up on his toes… A shiver ran down his spine; gooseflesh rose on his arms. Despite his deliberate effort to erase the memory, he could never forget the knife-sharp gouge that had stabbed his calf.
He rotated his ankle first. Then, hand braced on the table just in case he needed support, Noah took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and pushed up on the balls of both feet.
And both ankles bent. Just like they should.
Sure, his left was stiffer, but it bent. And it held his weight. “Oh my God.” He lowered and pushed up again with no pain and no difficulty. “Oh my God.”
She turned away, pulled a jump rope off the wall, and tossed it to him. “Try a few. Slow and close to the ground.”
“Whoa.” He gave her his you-can’t-be-serious look. “Toe lifts are a whole lot different from jumping.”
“You’ve got the muscle and the support structures in place. Now that the fluid is flowing around those tissues again, they’ll move the way they should. And the best way to keep them moving is exercise.”
He offered a hesitant “Okay…”
He started with single jumps on his good foot, his injured foot barely touching the ground.
“Add a little more of your weight to your other foot with each jump,” she said.
With little more than a twinge, his ankle moved with the pressure, bounced back with the release. And did it again. And again. And within a couple of minutes, he was jumping rope with his weight distributed evenly on both feet. “No. Way.”
He continued jumping, testing out different amounts of pressure. He felt strong and free for the first time in months. “You’ve been here one day, and look at me. I’m jumping rope.”
When he looked up at her, she was grinning. A big, white smile that split her pretty face and brought out dimples beside her mouth. The joy there lit her from the inside out, and the sight made Noah lose his rhythm. The rope hit his shins, and he looked down in confusion.
“Okay, get dressed and jump for five minutes without shoes.” She tossed him his jeans from the table. “Then put on socks, running shoes, and tie them tight enough to support your ankle but not tight enough to stop circulation. Jump another fifteen minutes. Finish by sliding into your hot tub for an hour to soak. That will give me time to unpack the groceries and get ice ready for you. You can ice it while I’m giving you a nutrition and cooking lesson.”
He stared at her while thoughts clicked through his mind in split-second wisps—she wasn’t bitching about pulling groceries in by herself; she was letting him relax while she continued working, and she was still planning on cooking and teaching—all after a very long twenty-four hours. Sure, it was her job, but still…
“Who are you,” he asked, “and what did you do with the Julia I drove to meet the tow truck this morning?”
“Get used to it—Julia’s on duty now.”
But as she walked out, Noah found he was both thrilled by today’s success and disappointed she was so steadfast in her opposition to sleeping with him while they worked together. Because watching her ass tip back and forth beneath that cheek-hugging denim created an ache deep in his gut, one he’d be living with for a long damn time if he couldn’t convince her to ease those rigid rules.
Julia stepped into the back door of Noah’s house to blaring rap music. Not unusual, but she still winced a little at the assault on her eardrums as she slid her parka off, toed out of her boots, and shook snowflakes out of her hair.
She’d quickly learned over their first week together that she and Noah had similar tastes in a lot of things, including music. He just liked his about fifty decibels higher.
She started toward the kitchen five feet away, but jerked to a stop as someone whizzed through the room on something that moved entirely too fast.
That was another thing she’d learned over the last seven days—Noah really, really, really liked speed, air, and adrenaline. Not necessarily in that order. He was also an incurable extrovert, and every time she came into the house, there was inevitably someone, or more than one someone, there talking business, hanging out, working on the boarding trampoline in his gym or raiding the fridge. She’d never known men could eat so damn much food until she had to keep his fridge stocked.
Since she wasn’t sure if the blur she’d just witnessed was Noah or one of his many buddies, she decided to hold off yelling at said blur.
She set down the electrostimulation machine she’d received in the mail today on the breakfast bar and started toward the living room. “Noah—”
His name ended on a scream as the blur whipped into the kitchen. Julia jumped back to avoid collision. She grabbed the counter with one hand and slammed the other to her chest as the blur slowed to a stop in front of her. Noah. Surprise, surprise. And the thing he was riding looked like a cross between a snowboard and a skateboard.