Necessary Roughness Read online

  Jordan took a deep breath. This guy looked like a gift-wrapped challenge.

  Despite his irritated expression, the guy with the walker wasn’t hard on the eyes. He was tall with broad shoulders and a chest that tapered into a slender waist. He had long, thickly muscled legs, one of which was casted and sported a knee brace. His dark hair was an unruly tangle of waves and curls. As he got closer to her, she noted dark brows and long eyelashes that framed silver eyes flashing with annoyance. Stubble shaded his cheeks, and his lips were red, full, and compressed into a thin line.

  The receptionist stopped in front of Jordan and said, “This is your new client, Tanner. Tanner, this is Jordan, your physical therapist. She specializes in sports medicine.”

  Tanner’s buddy stuck out one hand to shake Jordan’s. “Nice to meet you. I’m Harrison.”

  Tanner didn’t extend his hand. His eyes started at Jordan’s toes and worked their way up. Slowly. He gave no indication of what he saw until he managed to unfold his mouth long enough to speak.

  “Get me someone else. I don’t want her.”

  Chapter Two

  TANNER STARED AT the physical therapist who looked like a Disney princess with a day job. She wore a logo-stamped polo shirt and a pair of warm-up pants. The top of her head wouldn’t brush his shoulder. She stood on tiptoes to look into his eyes, and he could have sworn she was bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. Her sunlight-streaked auburn hair was secured in a high ponytail. Delicately shaped eyebrows and long, dark lashes framed big forget-me-not blue eyes, and a few light brown freckles dusted the bridge of her perfectly proportioned nose. They were the only imperfection he could see on her flawless skin. Her perfect teeth flashed white when she smiled. There was a dimple in her determined little chin too. Dammit. If all that wasn’t enough to get his heart rate up, her mouth could bring any guy to his knees, and it had nothing to do with the words emerging from it.

  He could imagine many things he’d like to do to and with her mouth, none of which involved G-rated movies. He wished he could be on another planet right now, though—preferably one she wasn’t also inhabiting. He wasn’t sure why, but her innocent facial expression and sweet little voice were already under his skin. He realized he was having a bad day and maybe he should cut her some slack, but she was so goddamn perky. She smiled at him like she meant it.

  Not today. He’d like to think he could handle this, but he’d already (seemingly) scared the hell out of the receptionist. It wasn’t looking good for him, and he’d better make more of an effort to act like an adult instead of an angry bear with a sticker in its paw.

  Jordan looked like she should be wearing some gauzy, filmy ball gown or something in blue that matched her eyes while sitting on a blanket in the sun-drenched woods somewhere. She would talk to the birds while they sang for her. Maybe a fawn or two could be drinking out of a stream nearby. There would be wildflowers. And she’d laugh while puppies gamboled in the grass next to her: yellow Labs, who didn’t chew a damn thing in her cottage in the forest, gave licks with abandon, and knew what sit and stay meant.

  Maybe the pain meds were eroding his powers of reasoning. He was obviously hallucinating.

  He wanted to work with a guy. Someone who would give him shit so he wouldn’t cry like a little bitch over how painful things were going to get when he did the exercises he’d been assigned and the physical therapist dreamed up some more. He could pretend like he cared about discussing anything else but the pain he was about to encounter five mornings a week. He wanted a guy who didn’t want to make small talk about kitty videos or whatever it was women like Jordan chatted with their clients about while they put them through hell for an hour a day. A guy who would talk to him about the game and how he was buying a new and bigger backyard grill for summertime no matter what his wife thought about that decision. After that, they could talk about beer and cars. He needed a distraction, and that distraction had to be anything but the woman who stood in front of him right now. The ability to explain all of this to her was beyond his abilities today, so he dug deep and went for his typical fallback: cranky.

  He took a deep breath and recognized the scent of pears and some flower. He arranged his facial features into the fearsome scowl he’d employed to great advantage on many football fields over the years, but it didn’t seem to faze her at all.

  “I have the same education and clinical experience as Marco does. My clients recover and move on with their lives,” she said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  He was betting there wasn’t a man alive who could resist her, but he would. He had to. He didn’t want to spend his PT time grinding his teeth into dust while she enchanted a herd of mice or something.

  “I was supposed to work with Marco. I want Marco. Not you,” he said.

  “Marco was in a car accident the other day and will be out for a while. Your therapy can’t wait until he’s better.”

  He’d already heard that from the receptionist, who was probably still curled in the fetal position under her desk. He’d better tell her he was sorry for being such a dick too. This day just kept getting better and better for him.

  The woodland nymph cleverly disguised as a physical therapist said, “I’m with a client right now. If you’d be willing to wait, I can see you in half an hour.”

  He’d rather stick a blowtorch up his ass. “I’ll hit the road and see you some other time.”

  “This is her appointment—”

  “Tanner,” Harrison said in a low voice. “Let’s get a coffee or something and come back in a few minutes.”

  “I don’t want coffee. I’m getting another physical therapist.” He redoubled his frown. “Bye,” he told her.

  “Maybe we could talk about your concerns when you come back,” she said in that sweet voice. She was doing her best to be cheerful and friendly to him, and he was not in the mood for that at all. He’d bite his tongue until it bled before he discussed his “concerns” with her. He was willing to bet that she was one of those women who would let one perfect tear shimmer on her lower lashes as she fixed her doe-shaped eyes on him again.

  Harrison was looking at her like she held his heart in her small hand. She probably did.

  “Not going to happen,” Tanner ground out.

  “Come on, man,” Harrison said. He reached out to shake Jordan’s hand again and held it a bit too long. “It’s really great to meet you.”

  “It’s nice to meet you too.” Her eyes sparkled as she glanced shyly up at Harrison. Harrison had obviously fallen in love with her on the spot. Just Tanner’s luck. “Sorry my friend is being an asshole today,” Harrison said.

  Her lips curved into a soft smile, which matched the elation in her eyes. “He’s having a tough day,” she chirped.

  Tanner hauled ass out of the business as fast as humanly possible. He dragged in a huge breath of pine-scented, rain-washed air when they stood on the sidewalk outside. Maybe his heart rate might go back to normal soon. “What the fuck was that?” he said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harrison said. “What’s your problem, bro?”

  “I didn’t want to come here in the first place. You insisted. Then I get to deal with a physical therapist that’s one-third my size and looks like she just walked out of a fairy tale or something—”

  “You’re into her, huh?”

  “No,” Tanner burst out. “She bugs the crap out of me. She’s so—happy. Yeah. She doesn’t talk; she chirps.” He let go of the walker and waved his arms around for emphasis. “I don’t want happy. I want a guy. He’s not going to have a bouncy ponytail and try to get me to turn that frown upside down—”

  He heard her voice behind him seconds later. “Here’s your upcoming appointments printout, Tanner. I’ll see you at eleven AM tomorrow.” She took another step forward and pressed the sheets of printer paper into his hands, smiled at him, and went back inside.

  Harrison let out a loud burst of laughter as he pulled the car keys out of
his pocket. “She’s got you.”

  ***

  JORDAN SPENT HER workdays cajoling her clients into another rep or stretching just a bit more, but she hadn’t met one yet who seemed to detest her on sight. She wasn’t sure what she’d done or said to Tanner Cole that made him react the way he had, but she was going to have to see him tomorrow. If he showed up. The PNB ballerina finished her appointment and patted Jordan’s upper arm as she passed.

  After checking his file, she had a bit more insight into what his problem might be. She’d worked with plenty of athletes before. She understood the pain of serious injury, the difficulty involved with making progress during recovery from that injury, and the almost-inevitable depression that resulted from the realization that sometimes one’s life would never be the same again. He seemed to have an extra helping of irritation.

  He didn’t like her? She wasn’t overly enamored of him, either. She could be professional and do her job, but in the meantime, she’d never had a client who had gotten under her skin within thirty seconds before.

  ***

  THE NEXT MORNING, Tanner checked his Apple Watch again as he waited for Jordan. He wasn’t surprised she was late; she probably had some type of clandestine meeting with elves or whatever. At least she couldn’t accuse him of being late. He’d taken a seat on the folding chair in the corner of her workspace and scrolled through his e-mail while he waited.

  This wasn’t his first time at the physical therapy rodeo, but he was tired of it. He knew he’d have to keep working in order to get as much range of movement as possible in his knee. Nobody had to remind Tanner that he’d have to push through the things every other person in physical therapy had to deal with: pain, more pain, and depression. He’d enjoy sitting on his deck with a cold drink and watching the world go by a lot more.

  Tanner had been referred to Marco due to the therapist’s track record with pro-athlete clients, but he wasn’t so nuts about the man’s attitude. Marco had acted like he was sleepwalking through Tanner’s last several appointments. Truth be told, Tanner had wanted to fire him. Marco had made it clear by his actions (or lack of them) he wasn’t interested in Tanner’s recovery and was going through the motions as a result. Tanner had been talked out of firing Marco by his orthopedic surgeon.

  “Marco’s a great guy,” the surgeon told him at his latest post-op checkup.

  “He’s lazy, and he’s not pushing me.”

  “Maybe you should be pushing yourself instead,” the surgeon said as he wagged a finger in Tanner’s face. It would be interesting to see how the surgeon would deal with a similar injury personally, but there were laws against stuff like that.

  It turned out that the orthopedic surgeon was one of Marco’s golf buddies. Now Tanner was between a rock and a hard place. Miss even more PT while he tried to find someone else to work with, or suck it up and deal with Disney Princess.

  “FML,” he muttered for the tenth time this morning.

  “What did you say?” Jordan said. She had rounded the corner seconds before. Her voice sounded like music, and she gave him another oh-so-cheery little grin as her ponytail slipped over one shoulder.

  “Nothing,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

  “We’ll get some work in, and you can go spend some time doing something a lot more fun for the rest of the day. How about it?” she said. She reached out to help him out of the chair, bracing herself so she could move him without injuring herself. “It’s a beautiful day out there, isn’t it? I love summertime.”

  “It’s peachy keen,” he said.

  She ignored the dripping sarcasm in his voice. He wasn’t surprised. “There must be something about sunny summer days you enjoy.”

  “I’m usually getting ready for training camp now.”

  He knew she heard him, but she indicated the padded table. “Why don’t you lie down and stretch your knee a bit before we continue?”

  An hour later, he was dripping sweat, his knee felt like it would hurt less to cut it off with a rusty butter knife, and he shoved himself off the machine he’d been working his legs at. She handed him a couple of dry towels and a plastic cup full of water.

  “Good job,” she said. “Your range of motion is improving. Are you still dealing with a lot of pain?”

  He sucked a breath in through his nose and counted to ten. “Why yes, I am,” he said in a deceptively quiet voice. Maybe she was so used to seeing people who were in pain that she ignored his trembling muscles and flinching, but maybe she enjoyed torturing him. Whatever. She’d better not trot out one of those “no pain, no gain” clichés he’d heard a million times or he was going to fling his walker through the plate-glass front window of the clinic. He used a clean towel to mop up the sweat. He draped the other around his neck.

  She refilled his cup of water before sitting down on the bench next to him.

  “Has your doctor made any effort to address the pain? You’ll heal faster if every appointment isn’t agony for you,” she said.

  Tanner took a long swallow of water. “He’s concerned about addiction.” His doctor was also mad that Tanner refused to live in an injury rehab center. He was winning all kinds of congeniality awards these days.

  “How nice of him to decide what you should or should not have to live with.” He glanced up at Jordan in shock. His frozen heart melted just a little at her comment. “You won’t heal until you can get control of the pain.” She got up from the weight bench, sat down at a small desk, and typed onto a keyboard for a few minutes. The printer stored below her laptop spit out a piece of paper seconds later. She brought it back to him as she grabbed his walker.

  “I realize you may not want to switch doctors right now, but I’d like to recommend one who might really help,” she said. She handed him the piece of paper. “That’s her contact information. If you’d like, I’ll call her and let her know I’ve referred you.”

  “Why her?” he asked.

  “Her patients are healing faster because she works with them until they find a balance that lets them rehab their injuries without terrible pain.” She indicated his walker with a nod. “Do I need to brace this so you can stand?”

  He could see Harrison in the lobby waiting to drive him home. “Uh, yeah,” he muttered. He folded the paper she’d given him and jammed it into his pocket as he reached out for the handles of the walker.

  Instead of the insincere smile she’d greeted him with earlier, her eyes sparkled. “Good work, Tanner.” She held out her hand to shake his. “I’ll see you tomorrow. If there’s anything else I can do that will help your rehab, let me know.”

  She still bugged the crap out of him, but she’d worn his ass out. He was hurting in areas he hadn’t ached in for a couple of months now; she knew her stuff. That was worthy of some respect. He took a couple of steps away from her, glanced around, and said, “Hey, Jordan.”

  “You know my name,” she teased.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Will you let that doc know I’ll be calling her?”

  “Of course,” she said. She reached out to pat his upper arm. “See you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  AT NINE FIFTEEN the next morning, Tanner heard the buzzing of his front gate over the speaker of his cell phone. It buzzed again at nine sixteen, nine seventeen, and nine nineteen. Finally, Harrison stuck his finger in the buzzer and yelled over the speaker, “Open the gate, asshole.”

  Jordan had worked him over like they’d been in an MMA octagon. Shit, he hurt. Everywhere. Maybe he needed a day off or something. He’d spend the day trying to figure out how to stick that Icy Hot electro-stim thing onto his own back, order some food from Amazon Prime Now, and watch some shitty TV.

  Tanner tapped the button on his phone that let him respond to Harrison. “No fucking way.”

  “So you’re afraid of a woman one-third your size? That’s pathetic.”

  “I have other things to do right now.”

  “Like what? Watching The View? Are you missing Wendy Willi
ams? That’s too bad. You’re getting off that couch if I have to come in there and drag you off it myself.”

  “You’re not going to be able to, since I’m not buzzing you in. Tough shit.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Harrison shouted in response.

  Tanner hit the button that let him see the security cameras on the gate. Harrison had vaulted over it. “Fuck me. Why do I pay for monitoring?” he asked nobody in particular. A minute or two later, Harrison was pounding on his front door with both fists.

  “I know you can hear me,” Harrison yelled.

  The tri-state area could hear him. Sure enough, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck,” he muttered. It was his old lady neighbor. He really wished she’d find a damn hobby besides monitoring what he was doing more closely than the alarm-monitoring company did.

  Her voice was quavery. “Tanner? Some guy just went over your fence. Do you want me to call the police?”

  “No. That won’t be necessary. Everything is fine.”

  “He doesn’t look like he lives here,” she said. Of course Harrison didn’t look like he lived there. Tanner took a deep breath and reminded himself that he really didn’t need an encounter with the overzealous cops of their community.

  “I’ll handle it, Mrs. Waterman. Thanks for letting me know. Have a nice day.” He clicked End Call as she sputtered.

  He called up the app on his phone that controlled everything in his house and hit the button that opened the front door.

  Seconds later, a text came in from his ex-girlfriend Star. He deleted it without looking at it.

  Fifteen minutes later, Tanner was loaded into Harrison’s crossover and on their way to the physical therapist’s.

  “Don’t think I’m doing this every day,” Tanner said.

  Harrison turned into a parking place outside the physical therapist’s office, glanced over at Tanner, and said, “Ready?”