Rachel Gibson - Nothing But Trouble

Leaving the cane by the toilet, he placed his good hand on the wall and moved to the walk-in shower. He turned on the water and waited for it to get warm before he stepped inside. After months of hospital sponge baths, he loved standing in the shower on his own two feet.

Except for the injury to his right hand and a fracture to his right tibia, most of the crushing damage had been done to the left side of his body. His ability to drive was one thing the doctors assured him he would get back. He looked forward to the day when he didn’t have to rely on anyone for anything.

The hot water sprayed across his chest, and he stuck his head beneath the powerful stream. He was fairly sure he’d gotten rid of the health care worker with the two-toned hair and the Pucci.

Water slid into the crease of his smile as he remembered her scandalized gasp. The way she’d said “Pucci,” he’d figured it had to be some high-priced designer. She’d said it like his former wife had said, “It’s Chanel.” He didn’t care how much something cost. He knew ugly when he saw it.

He washed his hair and soaped up his body, then reached for the detachable showerhead and turned it to massage. He held it against his hip and left thigh and let the hot water beat the hell out of his muscles. It hurt like a son of a bitch but gave him relief from the sharpest pain. When he was finished, he dried himself and brushed his teeth. A day’s growth of beard darkened his cheeks and jaw. Instead of shaving, he moved into the huge walk-in closet and dressed in a pair of blue nylon jogging pants and a plain white T-shirt. He shoved his feet into black Nike flip-flops because tying shoes was a hassle. Yesterday morning before the news conference, it had taken him forever to button his shirt and tie his shoes. Well, maybe not forever, but things that he used to do by rote now took thought and effort.

He placed the splint on his right hand and tightened the Velcro before he grabbed his black titanium cane from the couch where he’d been sitting last night.

The original homeowners had a servants’ elevator built inside a large closet down the hall. With the aid of his cane, Mark walked out of the bedroom and past the spiral stairs he used to take two at a time. He glanced over the ornate wrought-iron and wood railing as he moved across the landing. Sunlight poured in through the heavily leaded glass in the entry, tossing murky patterns on the marble floor below. He opened the closet door and rode the small elevator down. It opened into the kitchen, and he stepped out. He poured himself a bowl of Wheaties and ate at the kitchen table because he needed something in his stomach or the medication he took would make him nauseous.

For as long as he could remember he’d eaten the Breakfast of Champions. Probably because it’s what his father could afford to feed him. Sometimes he couldn’t remember what he did last week, but he could recall sitting at his gran’s old kitchen table, a white sugar bowl in the center of the yellow tablecloth, eating Wheaties before school. He remembered perfectly the morn-ing in 1980 when his grandmother had set the orange box on the table and he’d stared at the Olympic hockey team on the front. His heart had stopped. His throat closed as he’d looked at Dave Silk, Neil Broten, and the guys. He’d been eight and they’d been his heroes. His grandmother had told him he could grow up and be anything he wanted. He’d believed her. There hadn’t been a lot he’d believed in, but he believed het he be his grandmother Bressler. She never lied to him. Still didn’t. Not even when it would be easier. When he’d woken from his coma a month after the accident, hers was the first face he’d seen. She’d stood next to his father by the foot of his bed and she’d told him about the accident. She’d listed all his injuries for him, starting with his skull fracture and ending with the break in his big toe. What she hadn’t mentioned was that he’d never play hockey again, but she hadn’t had to. He’d known by the list of his injuries and the look in his father’s eyes.

Of the two adults in his life, his grandmother had always been the strong one. The one to make things better, but that day in the hospital, she’d looked exhausted and worn thin. After she’d listed all his injuries, she’d told him that he could still be anything he wanted. But unlike that morning thirty years ago, he no longer believed her. He’d never play hockey again, and they both knew that was the only thing he wanted.

He rinsed his bowl as the heavy chimes of the front doorbell sounded. He hadn’t called for a driver yet, and could think of only one other person who’d show up at such an early hour.

He reached for his cane and walked out of the kitchen and through the hall. Before he reached the front of the house, he could see a kaleidoscope of color through the muted glass. He balanced on his feet and pulled open the door with his good hand. The health care worker stood on his porch wearing her big sun-glasses and yellow and red hair. Her piece-of-shit Honda was parked in the driveway behind her. “You’re back.”

She grinned. “Good morning, Mr. Bressler.”

She looked like she was covered in painted feathers. Like a peacock. A pea-cock with large breasts. How had he missed those? Maybe the pain he’d been in. Most likely the ugly orange jacket.

“You like the shirt?”

He raised his gaze to hers. “You wore it just to irritate me.”

Her grin widened. “Now why would I want to irritate you?”

Chelsea pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and looked way up at the man standing in the entryway’s natural light. His damp hair was brushed back. It curled around his ears and along the neckline of his bright white shirt. He scowled at her from beneath dark brows; the annoyance shining in his brown eyes made his feelings for her clear. He hadn’t shaved, and a dark shad-ow covered his cheeks and strong prominent jaw. He looked big and bad and dominant. All dark and foreboding, and she might have been a little intimidat-ed if he hadn’t had the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man. Those lashes were so out of place on his chiseled masculine face that she smiled.

“Are you going to invite me inside?” she asked.

“Are you going to go away if I don’t?”

“No.”

He gave her a hard look for several long seconds before he turned and walked across the stone flooring. As she’d noticed yesterday, he moved slower than men of his age. His cane was a smooth extension of his left hand. What she hadn’t noticed was that he used the cane on his left side, the wrong side. She might not have noticed at all if not for the big brouhaha about Gregory House using his cane on the wrong side in the television medical drama House. The writers of House had made a mistake, but she supposed Mark Bressler used the wrong side because he wore some sort of splint made of alu-minum and blue Velcro on his right hand.

“There’s nothing for you to do today,” he said over his shoulder. “Go home.”

“I have your schedule.” She closed the front door behind her, and the three-inch heels of her sandals echoed on the marble floor as she followed him into a large office filled with hockey memorabilia. “You have an appointment with your orthopedic doctor this morning at ten-thirty and an interview with Sports Illustrated at one o’clock at the Spitfire.”

He leaned his black cane against the edge of a massive mahogany desk and turned to face her. “I’m not doing the Sports Illustrated interview today.”

Chelsea had worked with a lot of difficult employers. It was her job to get them where they needed to be, even when they didn’t want to be there. “It’s been rescheduled twice.”