By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Dale Mayer

Welcome to Hathaway House.
Rehab Center. Safe Haven.
Second chance at life and love.

Dealing with the loss of his right leg was one thing, but dealing with his missing left arm was more than Wesley can handle. He can hide the prosthetic leg. However, the arm is damn-near impossible to make look normal. And being normal mattered—or so he thought.

Alba is a therapist at Hathaway House, helping the patients come to terms with their new reality, in order to have the highest-functioning future possible. Wesley is on her roster, but, as their sessions progress, a connection builds that is hard to resist—or to ignore. But she has to stay professional. Yet, when she points out a few issues to help him change his perspective, their friendship hits a rocky spot. Needing to find her balance again, she pulls back.

Only when Wesley accidentally meets a young girl, visiting her father at the center, does Wesley get the paradigm shift he needs. The transformation is there within his reach, if he makes the effort. And the results will be worth it. He knows that. As Alba once again returns to his inner circle, he realizes just how much effort he’s willing to put in to get everything he wants.

We meet Wesley as he travels to Hathaway House, one of the paramedics with him has a prosthetic leg and that gives him some hope. It’s his arm that is his greatest concern since that really cannot be hidden away like a leg can. He’s had difficulty with both appendages not handling prosthetics well. There had been surgery to add some padding to hopefully rectify those issues, but there is no real strength in the wing that is left of his arm. As they approach, he sees riders on horseback, and he thinks that might be something to get back into. His eyes were also drawn to one of the riders.

Dani intercepts him and takes him to breakfast the next morning. It’s there that he discovers that the woman that caught his eye on horseback is Alba. Then there’s definitely some flirting going on as well.

The next day he runs into her again, this time it becomes clear she’s also his therapist.

This is a favorite scene.

Alba walked into work the next morning, she came upon Wesley, as he navigated through the hallway. “Are you lost?” she called out to him.

He turned and flashed her a shy smile. “Yes,” he admitted, holding up his e-tablet. “I know there’s a map of this place, but honestly it’s a little confusing.”

She nodded. “The new patient wing has added to the confusion. Where are you heading?”

He looked down at his device. “To Dr. Fendrick.”

“You’re in luck. That’s me.”

He frowned at her. “I guess I didn’t catch your last name yesterday. Sorry.”

“Not an issue,” she said. “Come on with me. My office is down here. You’re a little early.”

“I figured early would allow me time to find the place,” he shared. “I wasn’t expecting to run into you here.”

“I’m all over the place,” she murmured.

“And how long have you been here?” he asked.

“Ah, four years now, I think,” she replied, looking at him with a smile. “Any other questions?”

“I’m sure there’ll be lots. However, after you’ve had a number of people on your supposed support team,” he shared, “it makes you a little leery of some.”

She looked at him. “Well, you’re welcome to ask any questions you want. Absolutely no reason you can’t ask questions of me, since I ask them of you.”

“That’s good to know.”

And she could see from his surprise that he hadn’t expected that. She smiled at him. “No secrets here. We’re all on the same team, trying to get you back on your feet as quickly as possible.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “at least back on one, and I really want to find a way to make the arm work better.”

She looked at the stump that he had and nodded. “I have seen some people with a shoulder harness to help support the prosthetic arm and fingers, while the muscles in your arm are built up more.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I had one, but it kept soring up the stump,” he said. “We ended up taking it off. They’re supposed to be modifying my leg prosthetic too, maybe making it lighter in weight. Maybe we’ll go with a completely different design. Every time I wear either of them, I end up taking them off and then find myself held back by weeks.”

“Then definitely don’t wear those,” she said. “Be sure to mention any concerns you have with Shane, and he will work on getting you a new model.”

“That’s what I was hoping,” Wesley said. “I didn’t want to upset the guys who had been working on it before, but I’m no longer in the same hospital either.”

“And I don’t know how that works,” she noted. “Something for us to look into.”

“Or maybe I can get new ones?” he asked hopefully.

She shrugged. “Not my department, but I can put down a note, and we’ll see how it goes.” She looked at the flap of flesh on his stump. “Did you just have recent surgery?”

“I don’t know about recent but three months ago.”

“That’s pretty recent,” she replied, “and any prosthetic shouldn’t be worn for probably twice that.”

“I was a little eager,” Wesley admitted, with a nod. “And, yep, my own worst enemy.”

As she unlocked her office and pushed open the door, she shared, “News flash, we’re all our own worst enemies.”

“Oh, it’s not an isolated incident then, huh? I’m crushed,” he announced. “I was hoping to be special.”

She burst out laughing. “We’re all special in our own way,” she declared. “The joy is in finding it, and the challenge is in letting it come out.”

And those were words to live by, and they stuck with her for quite a while. She thought about him long after the session was over. Of course he would be on her roster. She was taking most of the new patients just because her schedule wasn’t as busy as some of the longer-term counselors here.

As she went to lunch later, she caught up with Shane. “Hey, have you met up with Wesley yet?”

“Yep, saw him this morning,” he said. “Concerns?”

“No, not necessarily,” Alba began. “We’re just starting obviously, but I was thinking about whether we could get a prosthetic hooked up for that arm of his. He’s only three months out of surgery and has pushed it, so then I think whatever he did use wouldn’t be viable any longer.”

“I’ll contact his former center and see if they’ve got anything. Some of his files came, and some of them look to still be missing,” Shane noted. “However, I did see a few notations in there how his prosthetics were hurting him more than helping him.”

“And I think that’s a huge issue for him.”

“As much as covering it up, or just making it viable?”

“Both,” she answered. “We all want to look normal, but I think, in his case, it’s more a functionality issue than anything. He wants to be vertical, of course, plus he really misses that lost arm. So anything we can do to make his prosthetics more functional is, as you know, obviously a priority.”

He nodded. “He also needs a new prosthetic for that leg too.”

“Wasn’t that some recent surgery too?”

“I’ll have to check his file for sure. I think his leg prosthetic is ill-fitting, and he’s got some nerve damage on the underside of his stump, so he didn’t recognize this problem because it was out of his line of sight. Plus the nerve damage doesn’t send the pain signal when there is a problem. Thus he ended up with a bad skin infection. That’s slowly healing, but he’ll be a little while getting back to his leg prosthetic.”

“Right,” Alba noted. “It seems to always be one step forward and then ten back.”

“Particularly when he couldn’t see it himself and couldn’t feel it because of the nerve damage. And that’s always tough.”
Dale Mayer. Wesley-Dale-Mayers-re (Kindle Locations 330-378). Kindle Edition.

We get to watch as the relationship between Alba and Wesley goes through changes.

We also see him learn more about what he wants to do once he leaves here. His therapy with Shane is also a bit different than we’ve seen before, showing how different the plan is for each individual that comes through the doors.

There’s also a chance meeting with a child that nearly brought me to tears and definitely affects Wesley.

I love these books so much, there is something new in each story and each relationship has its own trial to be overcome.

I can’t wait to read the next book in this series.

5 Contented Purrs for Dale!

Dale Mayer

Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).

She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!

To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.