“I’m hungry,” Melissa admitted. “Shane put me through the works this morning.”
“I did not,” Shane protested from behind her.
She twisted around and smiled up at him, loving the teasing banter from everyone in the place. “Well, let’s just say you put me through more than you have so far.”
“That’s true,” he said. “I’ll let you get away with that one.”
She chuckled and looked up to see the Major, studying her and Shane, a speculative look in his eye. She immediately shook her head. “No, no, no. No, you don’t.”
He smiled and said, “Be good for you.”
“None of that,” she warned.
He chuckled, grabbed the handles of her wheelchair, and said, “Food. Let’s get food.”
“You don’t have to look after me,” she protested.
“Well, it hasn’t been so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like,” he said. “It’s not as much of a case of looking after you as helping you. Remember that,” he said.
“I’m trying to.”
“I remember you always used to be a tough little nut who hated to ask for assistance, who hated to have other people do things for you, feeling like you were supposed to do it all yourself.”
“Well,” she said hesitatingly, “was I like that even back then? Because that hasn’t changed.”
“Oh, my goodness, you so were. You had this big shield around you that said, Stay away, nobody’s allowed in. But Dani and I didn’t listen.”
Melissa chuckled at that. “No, you didn’t.” So much affection was in her tone that she realized, of all the things she had missed, it was Dani and the Major.
Shane was interested to see how Melissa related to Dani and the Major. Particularly the Major. Shane could see the affection in her eyes. And he realized just how much of her issues stemmed from the loss of her parents in her late teens. She’d become very close to Dani at the time, until Melissa had made the decision to join the navy. Her Hathaway House record had multiple notes on the issue, some from Dr. Sullivan as well, and Shane knew that Melissa would have to deal with an awful lot of adjustments and life patterns. Hearing the Major brush aside her protest made Shane feel good to realize the Major had pegged her right.
Dani looked at Shane. “She’s a good person,” she whispered. “She took a big hit at a young age.” Dani explained about the loss of Melissa’s parents, how Dani and her father had been as close to Melissa as she would let them get, but the Major had been right. “She forged this big wall, afraid that, you know, anything else happening in her world and she’d break, couldn’t handle it. I tried hard not to get her to go into the navy, but she was pretty adamant, and I didn’t really have any reason to keep her away from it. I wanted her to stay with us, where she could be with somebody who knew her and cared, but she was determined to move on and to find something else in her life.”
“And maybe she just needed to find her own path,” Shane said.
Dani nodded. “Look where it left her.”
“Yes, but everything for her is fixable,” Shane said.
Dani looked at him. “Hopefully. You think she’ll come through this okay?”
“Once we can stop the pain that’s crippling her all the time. And that’s mostly about muscle alignment and some structural stuff. With that alone, she’ll be a different person.”
Dani beamed and said, “I’ll hold you to that.”
He laughed. “Well, I’m glad you care so much about her. I get the feeling she really needs that.”
“She does, and she also has a hard time asking for it.”
“She has a hard time asking for anything, including for me to stop when she’s had enough. It is a problem.”
“She’s always been very stubborn,” Dani muttered. “Stubborn, capable, frustratingly independent.”
He nodded. “I’ve seen all that plus,” he said with a smile. “And that’s all good. She’ll need it all. But it’s all about having it balanced.”
Dani faced him. “That’s part of your job, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he said, “but it sure helps if I have something to work with, instead of something to work against.”
Chapter 7
Life at Hathaway House was not what Melissa had expected, but it settled into a rhythm faster, smoother, and easier than she thought possible. The days were whipping past, and she was adapting. She looked forward to seeing Dennis every day, and, of course, Shane was the highlight of her day, but she didn’t want to tell him that. She knew that she was building up a stupid childhood crush on him, and she would have to get past that real fast.
If anybody in this complex belonged to everybody, it was Shane. Well, maybe Dennis too. Dani and Stan appeared to belong to everybody as well. Stan definitely had a soft spot in everybody’s heart. But then he kept bringing up animals that made them all want to take him and the animals home. He’d shown up with two baby squirrels the other day.
They were just old enough to get into mischief, and he’d been hard-pressed to keep the squirrels contained in the little bundle he had them wrapped up in. But she’d loved every minute spent with them. Definitely something she would love to do in the work sector. She was just about to ask Stan about the work involved downstairs, then realized that she was still a long way away from being physically capable of working at all.
She hadn’t seen Aaron yet, but apparently he was coming home soon for a visit. He was almost done with the year’s schooling; then he’d work downstairs with Stan. She couldn’t think of anything better.
Melissa wasn’t up for attending a university, not for many years of it at least. But maybe she could do something. She would love to be around
