Come Lie With Me. Linda Howard

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СКАЧАТЬ sharply, her blue eyes narrowing with rage. She reached out and thrust Dione’s hands away from the wheelchair. “My brother has said that he doesn’t want you here!”

      “This doesn’t concern you,” Dione replied, still in a mild tone.

      “It certainly does! If you think I’ll let you just move in here…why, you probably think you’ve found a meal ticket for life!”

      “Not at all. I’ll have Mr. Remington walking by Christmas. If you doubt my credentials, please feel free to investigate my record. But in the meantime, stop interfering.” Dione straightened to her full height and stared steadily at Serena, the strength of her willpower blazing from her golden eyes.

      “Don’t talk to my sister like that,” Blake said sharply.

      At last! A response, even if it was an angry one! With secret delight Dione promptly attacked the crack in his indifference. “I’ll talk to anyone like that who tries to come between me and my patient,” she informed him. She put her hands on her hips and surveyed him with a contemptuous curl to her mouth. “Look at you! You’re in such pitiful shape that you’d have to go into training to qualify for the ninety-eight-pound weakling category! You should be ashamed of yourself, letting your muscles turn into mush; no wonder you can’t walk!”

      The dark pupils of his eyes flared, a black pool in a sea of blue. “Damn you,” he choked. “It’s hard to do calisthenics when you’re hooked up to more tubes than you have places for, and nothing except your face works when you want it to!”

      “That was then,” she said relentlessly. “What about now? It takes muscles to walk, and you don’t have any! You’d lose a fight with a noodle, the shape you’re in now.”

      “And I suppose you think you can wave your magic wand and put me into working order again?” he snarled.

      She smiled. “A magic wand? It won’t be as easy as that. You’re going to work harder for me than you’ve ever worked before. You’re going to sweat and hurt, and turn the air blue cussing me out, but you’re going to work. I’ll have you walking again if I have to half-kill you to do it.”

      “No, you won’t, lady,” he said with cold deliberation. “I don’t care what sort of contract you have; I don’t want you in my house. I’ll pay whatever it takes to get rid of you.”

      “I’m not giving you that option, Mr. Remington. I won’t accept a payoff.”

      “You don’t have to give me the option! I’m taking it!”

      Looking into his enraged face, flushed with anger, Dione abruptly realized that the photograph of the laughing, relaxed man had been misleading, an exception rather than the rule. This was a man of indomitable will, used to forcing things to go his way by the sheer power of his will and personality. He had overcome every obstacle in his life by his own determination, until the fall down the cliff had changed all that and presented him with the one obstacle that he couldn’t handle on his own. He’d never had to have help before, and he hadn’t been able to accept that now he did. Because he couldn’t make himself walk, he was convinced that it wasn’t possible.

      But she was determined, too. Unlike him, she’d learned early that she could be struck down, forced to do things she didn’t want to do. She’d pulled herself out of the murky depths of despair by her own silent, stubborn belief that life had to be better. Dione had forged her strength in the fires of pain; the woman she had become, the independence and skill and reputation she’d built, were too precious to her to allow her to back down now. This was the challenge of her career, and it would take every ounce of her willpower to handle it.

      So, insolently, she asked him, “Do you like having everyone feel sorry for you?”

      Serena gasped; even Richard made an involuntary sound before bringing himself back under control. Dione didn’t waste a glance on them. She kept her eyes locked with Blake’s, watching the shock in them, watching the angry color wash out of his face and leave it utterly white.

      “You bitch,” he said in a hollow, shaking voice.

      She shrugged. “Look, we’re getting nowhere like this. Let’s make a deal. You’re so weak, I’ll bet you can’t beat me at arm wrestling. If I win, I stay and you agree to therapy. If you win, I walk out that door and never come back. What do you say?”

      Chapter Two

      His head jerked up, his eyes narrowing as they swept over her slender form and graceful, feminine arms. Dione could almost read his thoughts. As thin as he was, he still outweighed her by at least forty, possibly even fifty, pounds. He knew that even if a man and a woman were the same weight, the man would be stronger than the woman, under normal circumstances. Dione refused to let a smile touch her lips, but she knew that these weren’t normal circumstances. Blake had been inactive for two years, while she was in extremely good shape. She was a therapist; she had to be strong in order to do her job. She was slim, yes, but every inch of her was sleek, strong muscle. She ran, she swam, she did stretching exercises regularly, but most importantly, she lifted weights. She had to have considerable arm strength to be able to handle patients who couldn’t handle themselves. She looked at Blake’s thin, pale hands, and she knew that she would win.

      “Don’t do it!” Serena said sharply, twisting her fingers into knots.

      Blake turned and looked at his sister in disbelief. “You think she can beat me, don’t you?” he murmured, but the words were more a statement than a question.

      Serena was tense, staring at Dione with an odd, pleading look in her eyes. Dione understood: Serena didn’t want her brother humiliated. And neither did she. But she did want him to agree to therapy, and she was willing to do whatever was necessary to make him see what he was doing to himself. She tried to say that with her eyes, because she couldn’t say the words aloud.

      “Answer me!” Blake roared suddenly. Every line of him was tense.

      Serena bit her lower lip. “Yes,” she finally said. “I think she can beat you.”

      Silence fell, and Blake sat as though made of stone. Watching him carefully, Dione saw the moment he made the decision. “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” he challenged, turning the wheelchair with a quick pressure of his finger on a button. Dione followed him as he led the way to his desk and positioned the wheelchair beside it.

      “You shouldn’t have a motorized wheelchair,” she observed absently. “A manual chair would have kept your upper body strength at a reasonable level. This is a fancy chair, but it isn’t doing you any good at all.”

      He shot her a brooding glance, but didn’t respond to her comment. “Sit down,” he said, indicating his desk.

      Dione took her time obeying him. She felt no joy, no elation, in knowing that she would win; it was something she had to do, a point that she had to make to Blake.

      Richard and Serena flanked them as they positioned themselves, Blake maneuvering himself until he was satisfied with his location, Dione doing the same. She propped her right arm on the desk and gripped her bicep with her left hand. “Ready when you are,” she said.

      Blake had the advantage of a longer arm, and she realized that it would take all of the strength in her hand and wrist to overcome the leverage he would have. He positioned his arm against hers and wrapped his fingers firmly around her much smaller СКАЧАТЬ