A Very Special Need

‘Yes, I do.’

Even her voice was wonderful. Soft, well modulated, almost a caress. He forced himself to stop fantasising and engaging her in needless conversation, and got to the point.

‘It may take several treatments.’

She swallowed. ‘I know.’

He nodded. ‘OK,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sure we can stagger the payments if that will help you,’ he told her, and was rewarded by the bright glimmer of tears in her eyes before she dropped her head forwards.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

He stood up, angry with himself for dragging out her misery and making her justify herself just so he could hear her voice. ‘Have a word with my receptionist—I can probably fit him in at lunchtime today so he doesn’t have to wait over the weekend. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to press on, I’ve got a patient waiting. I’ll see you both later.’

He watched her walk over to Christine, closed his eyes briefly to clear his mind of the sensual image burnt on his retinas and stuck his head round the waiting-room door. ‘Mrs Parker, would you come in, please?’

Woody found even the wheelchair difficult. Sitting was nearly as bad as walking, and by the time they arrived at the lovely red-brick house he was tight-lipped with pain.

He still managed a smile for her, though, as she wheeled him in. Lord, he was a gutsy kid. Judith looked away from him, her eyes bright with tears, and found herself face to face with the man whose image she had been unable to get out of her mind since this morning.

‘Hi,’ he said cheerfully, then hunkered down beside Woody. ‘You must be Edward. Pleased to meet you. I gather you’ve hurt your back?’

Woody mumbled a response, and Judith watched as they shook hands, then Mr Barber looked up at her. ‘I wonder if you’d mind filling in a card with all Edward’s details while we go and have a chat and I have a quick look to see what he’s done to himself?’

He gave her a card, a pen and a wink, and disappeared into his consulting room, pushing her son ahead of him in the wheelchair. She chewed her lip. Should she be in there with him?

She’d been clearly dismissed. Oh, well, perhaps he’d have some joy getting the truth out of him without her hovering about being a fussy mother.

She sat down with the card and obediently filled in all the information.

‘So, Edward, I gather you fell down some stairs, is that right, and now your back hurts?’

The boy nodded slowly. He certainly had quite a bit of spasticity in his muscles, Hugh noted. His handshake had been slow and deliberate but strong, and Hugh knew the hardest part of the treatment would be getting the muscles to relax enough to allow him to work on the spine.

Inevitably after thirteen years there would be some deformity and contracture problems. Just how bad and how insurmountable, he would have to establish. ‘I wonder if you could stand up and let me take a look at you?’ he murmured.

Woody struggled out of the chair, wincing as his back twinged, and Hugh forced himself to stand back and observe. One shoulder was a little higher than the other, indicating a slight scoliosis—a sideways curve to his spine which would be more obvious, of course, without clothes—but basically his posture was better than Hugh had expected.

‘OK. If you could just slip off your clothes down to your pants I’ll go and see how your mother’s getting on. Do you want her to join us?’

The boy shrugged, a slow, deliberate shrug, his face expressionless.

‘I think we can probably manage without her, don’t you? I’ll give her a cup of tea and we can get started.’

He left the lad undressing and went to find Judith. She was sitting in the waiting room with her head bent forwards, resting on a book on her knee while she filled in the record card. Her bottom lip was caught between small, even white teeth in an endearing little gesture that tugged at something inside him. The sun caught her hair, gleaming off the red-gold lights in it, and he had to fight against the urge to pull the band off the back and tunnel his fingers through it, fanning it out over her shoulders and spreading it across the crisp white pillow—

He yanked himself up short, shocked by the unruly direction of his thoughts, and cleared his throat. She looked up, straight into his eyes, and he had the sudden ghastly feeling that she could read his sordid mind. ‘Ah—how are you doing?’ he asked, conscious of the slow crawl of heat up the back of his neck.

‘All done,’ she replied, her voice soft and husky and unbelievably sexy. ‘I was just checking it.’

‘Good.’ He cleared his throat again and took the card from her outstretched hand, carefully avoiding touching her. ‘Look, I think your son might appreciate it if I treat him without you there?’ He phrased it almost as a question, to give her the chance to discuss it, but to his relief she nodded.

‘I rather thought you wanted to. Perhaps you’ll be able to find out what really happened.’

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ he told her honestly. Obviously he doesn’t want you to know the truth because he doesn’t want you hurt by it, and he knows you would be.’

Her smile nearly blew a fuse in his mind. ‘I’m so glad you understand,’ she said fervently. ‘They’re so convoluted, kids.’

He grinned at her. ‘I make an art form of understanding teenage boys—I’ve got one of my own. Look, I tell you what, you sit here and have a cup of tea while I get to grips with Edward. OK?’

She looked astonished, her eyes wide and soft and grateful. ‘Um—fine. Thank you.’

‘How do you take your tea?’

‘White, no sugar.’

‘Right.’ He escaped, almost running down the hall to the kitchen. Christine was sitting on the sofa with her feet up, resting her hands on the smooth swell of her pregnancy.

‘Hi. Any tea in the pot for Miss Wright?’

‘Should be. Hugh, my back’s giving me hell—I don’t suppose you could have a go at it, could you? It’s been dodgy all day again.’

He looked across at her. She seemed pinched, a bit tired. Hell. He really must find another receptionist so she could start her maternity leave—

‘I’ll just get this kid out of the way and I’ll have a look at you then, I promise. You stay here and take it easy for a few minutes—get some shut-eye. Oh, and while I think about it, Edward Wright’s bill is going to be staggered and I’m going to tell her I charge half-price for children under sixteen.’

Christine managed a wan smile. ‘Softy,’ she murmured.

He grinned. ‘That’s me. Just a sucker for a sob-story. Rest now. I won’t be long.’

She nodded, and he took the tea back to the waiting room and handed it to Edward’s mother. ‘Here—one cup of tea, white, no sugar.’

‘Thanks.’ She flashed that dazzling smile at him again, and he had to swallow hard and dredge in a great lungful of air before he could make his legs work again. How his system could have gone from years of near-coma to absolute screaming wakefulness in such a short time, he didn’t know, but it certainly had.

He shook his head to clear it, went back into his consulting room and shut the door. There, propped against the edge of the couch in some pain, was the reason this beautiful woman had come into his life—the only reason, he reminded himself—and he would do well to remember it.

‘Right, Edward, let’s see what we can do for you,’ he said briskly, and banished his intrusive libido from his thoughts.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_5198b53a-9602-5865-a70c-148f294996c0)

‘RIGHT, Edward, if you could stand up and turn round so I can see your back, perhaps we’ll be able to sort this pain out a bit for you. Can you tell me where it hurts?’

The boy put a finger on his back, just below his waist and slightly to one side, over the lumbosacral joint which linked his flexible spine to the less flexible ring of his pelvis. It was a common spot for difficulties, being the junction between the two areas and so subject to more stresses than the other joints.

Hugh watched as Edward bent slowly forwards, tipped sideways, rotated, straightened up and tipped back, generally showing a grossly restricted range of movement in that whole area. It wasn’t all due to the current injury—that much Hugh could see at a glance—but certainly the injury was compromising the movement Edward did have, and making the situation much worse.

‘Right, if you could lie on the couch for me on your right side facing me,’ he said, making it perfectly obvious which way he wanted the boy to lie by taking up his position beside the couch, and waited to see if he was able to follow instructions.

He could tell by the brightness of his eyes and the few things he had said that he was certainly intelligent. How much his brain had been damaged in the trauma which had caused his cerebral palsy Hugh didn’t know, but he wanted to find out for himself and not from the boy’s mother. He wanted no preconceptions.