Dream Mender

New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods brings readers a beloved tale of hope and second chances

When a tragic fire landed Frank in the hospital, all he wanted was to be left alone. His hands were injured, the very way he made his living destroyed. How could he face life—or his sprawling, well-meaning family—again?

Then Jenny Michaels waltzed into his room and claimed she was going to bully and badger him until he got on the road to recovery. The pretty, pert occupational therapist claimed she, too, had faced adversity—and won! And though Frank said he didn’t want her pity, he knew deep down that Jenny was a dream come true…and perhaps in more ways than one.

Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Sherryl Woods

“Sherryl Woods writes emotionally satisfying novels about family, friendship and home. Truly feel-great reads!”

—#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Sweetly satisfying, clever characters and snappy, realistic dialogue…a delightful read.”

—Publishers Weekly on About That Man

“Woods is a master heartstring puller.”

—Publishers Weekly on Seaview Inn

Praise for bestselling author Allison Leigh

“Allison Leigh’s honest, beautifully rendered story doesn’t depend on any tried-and-true plot devices, and it’s a joy to read.”

—RT Book Reviews on All He Ever Wanted

“A love story packed with emotion…Ms. Leigh gracefully moves her richly textured characters through a plethora of emotions.”

—RT Book Reviews on Stay…

SHERRYL WOODS

With her roots firmly planted in the South, Sherryl Woods has written many of her more than 100 books in that distinctive setting, whether her home state of Virginia, her adopted state, Florida, or her much adored South Carolina. She’s also especially partial to small towns, wherever they may be. Dream Mender is a rare foray into a West Coast setting, but Woods’s distinctive heartfelt emotions are still very much at the core of the story.

A member of Novelists Inc., Sisters in Crime and Romance Writers of America, Sherryl divides her time between her childhood summer home overlooking the Potomac River in Colonial Beach, Virginia, and her oceanfront home, with its lighthouse view, in Key Biscayne, Florida. “Wherever I am, if there’s no water in sight, I get a little antsy,” she says. Sherryl also loves hearing from readers. You can join her at her blog, www.JustBetweenFriendsBlog.com, visit her Web site at www.SherrylWoods.com or contact her directly at Sherryl703@gmail.com.

Dream Mender

Sherryl Woods

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Karon Gorham, with thanks for her insights and technical expertise and for sensitive burn-unit experts everywhere

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Copyright

Chapter One

Frank Chambers prowled the narrow hospital room, feeling like a foul-tempered bear awakening from hibernation with a thorn in its paw. He stared at his own bandaged hands and muttered an oath that would have curled his mother’s hair and earned him a sharp rap across his already-injured knuckles. He wanted to smash something, but settled for violently kicking a chair halfway across the hospital room. It skidded into the pale blue wall with a satisfying crash, but did nothing to improve his overall mood. His mother, a wise woman with little sympathy for self-pity, would have said it would have served him right if he’d broken his toe.

The door opened a cautious crack and yet another nurse peered in, an expression of alarm on her face. “You okay?”

“Just dandy,” he growled.

When he didn’t throw anything, she visibly gathered her courage and stepped inside, marching over to his bed and folding her arms across her chest, assuming a stern posture clearly meant to intimidate. Considering her tiny size, it wouldn’t have been an effective stance even if he hadn’t been feeling surly.

“You ought to be in bed,” she announced. She pulled back the sheet and gestured in the right direction just to make her point.

He glared at her and ignored the invitation. “I ought to be at home. I’m not sick.”

“That’s not what your chart says.”

“I don’t give a—”

She never even took a breath at the interruption. She just kept on going, talking over his swearing. “Less than twenty-four hours ago you were in a serious fire. When they brought you in, you were suffering from smoke inhalation. Your blood gases still don’t look all that good. You have second-degree burns on both hands. You need rest and therapy.”

It was not the first time he had heard the same detailed recitation of his medical condition. “I need to go home,” he repeated stubbornly. He tried another fierce scowl to emphasize the point. Grown men had cowered at that scowl. He was certain of its effectiveness.

Clearly unintimidated, the nurse rolled her eyes and left. He doubted she’d gone to get his release papers. None of the others had, either. Hell, his own mother hadn’t sided with him when he’d insisted he didn’t need to be admitted in the first place. He’d been whisked up to his room and hooked up to oxygen so fast it had left his head spinning. He’d tried bribing each of his brothers to spring him, but they’d ignored his pleas. Not even his softhearted baby sister had taken pity on him. She’d patted his arm and suggested to the afternoon-shift nurse that they tie him down if they had to.

“Et tu, Brute,” he’d muttered as Karyn had winked at him over her shoulder. Then she’d linked arms with her new husband and sashayed off to dinner.

The attitude of the whole Chambers clan rankled. That good-natured defiance was the thanks he got for all those years when he’d put his own life on hold to help his mother raise his five brothers and his sister. When his father had died, he’d reluctantly stepped into the role of parenting and discovered that it fit, even at seventeen. Maturity and responsibility had been thrust on him, but he’d somehow liked being needed, liked being the backbone of a large and loving family. In a curious sort of way he’d even suffered through the empty-nest trauma, watching as his siblings had matured and struck off on their own.

Karyn’s recent marriage to race-car driver Brad Willis might have been the first wedding in the tight-knit family, but it was hardly the first sign he’d had that it was time to get on with his own life. He’d been told to butt out so often in recent years he’d had no choice but to start focusing on himself instead of his siblings. He’d been doing just that—most of the time, anyway—until yesterday afternoon. Now, suddenly, at forty he was discovering what it was like to have the tables turned on him, to have to depend on others for his most basic needs. And, he didn’t like it, not one bit. What man would? No wonder his brothers chafed at all his well-intended meddling. Now they were giving it back to him in spades.

Left alone with his unpleasant thoughts through the long night, Frank tried to face facts. He told himself he could live with the pain the doctors were warning him to expect as the nerves in his hands healed. Hell, he could even live with the long-term scars. He’d seen burn scars, and while they weren’t pretty, his big, work-roughened hands hadn’t been much to write home about anyway. What was killing him, though, what was creating this gut-wrenching fury, was the absolute, utter helplessness of it all.

He couldn’t do the simplest things for himself with these layers of gauze wrapped around his fingers, turning them into fat, clumsy, useless appendages. Forget holding a fork. Forget turning on the shower or washing himself. Forget pushing a button on the damned TV remote or holding a book. He couldn’t even go to the bathroom on his own. Nothing, ever, had left him feeling quite so humiliated. They might as well have lopped the damned things off at the wrist.

And all because of a stupid accident. One careless instant, a still-smoldering cigarette butt tossed into a trash barrel by one of his unthinking co-workers, and the next thing he’d known the entire woodworking shop had been in flames. He’d grabbed for a fire extinguisher, but the metal had already been a blistering red-hot temperature. He’d done the best he could, but with all the flammable material around, it had been like battling a towering inferno with a garden hose. He’d managed to get a few things out of the workroom before the blaze and smoke had gotten out of control, eventually destroying everything. He’d gone back in one last time to rescue one of his co-workers who’d panicked and found himself trapped in a workroom with no exit except through the fire. Only when he was outside, gulping oxygen and coughing his head off had he noticed the blistered, raw layers of skin on his hands. The adrenaline high had given way to shocked horror as paramedics rushed him to the hospital. His co-worker had been treated for smoke inhalation at the scene.

The injuries could have been worse, they’d told Frank in the emergency room. Third-degree burns, with the possibility of damaging tendons and bone, could have been devastating for a man who worked with his hands. His career, most likely, would have been over. He would have lost the woodworking skills that had turned his imaginative, finely crafted cabinetry into an art that was making its way into some of the finest homes in San Francisco. With second-degree injuries, he had a chance.

The recovery, though, would be slow, tedious and painful. Frank had never been out sick a day in his life. Now it appeared he was headed for a long vacation, courtesy of workmen’s comp. The concept didn’t sit well. Worse was the faint, terrifying possibility that he might never again be able to do the delicate, intricate carving that made his work unique and gave him such a sense of accomplishment.

By morning, after hours of focusing on the “what ifs,” panic had bubbled up deep inside him. He dragged air into his injured lungs. Each breath hurt and did nothing to calm him, nothing to wipe away the bleak images of a future without the work that he loved.

Determined to get out of the hospital, even if he had to escape on his own, he used his foot to lever open the closet door. The task was easier than he’d expected, and his confidence soared. Hope crashed just as quickly with the realization that the only clothing hanging in the closet was his robe. His sooty shirt and jeans were no doubt ditched in some trash receptacle. He’d never get past the nurses’ station, much less out of this place, wearing just an indecent hospital gown and a robe that still had a price tag hanging from the sleeve.

On the nightstand beside the bed the phone rang. Grateful for the interruption, Frank lunged for it, knocking it to the floor with his inept hands. Another stream of profanity turned the air blue. How the hell was he supposed to answer a phone with fingers that stuck straight out like prongs on a damned pitchfork?

“Nurse!” he bellowed, rather than bothering with the call button. “Nurse!”

He glared at the door, waiting for it to open, fuming because he couldn’t even manage that simple task. This time, however, rather than inching open bit by cautious bit, the door was suddenly flung wide. Instead of a nurse, therapist Jennifer Michaels stepped into the room with all the confidence of a woman whose head hadn’t yet been bitten off by the fuming, foul-tempered patient in Room 407.

Frank recognized her at once. He had still been dopey from medication when she’d poked her head into the room the previous afternoon, but he hadn’t forgotten that perky, wide smile and that mop of shining Little Orphan Annie curls. Nor had he forgotten the cheerful promise that she would be back in the morning to begin his therapy.

“What do you want?” he asked, regarding her suspiciously.

Ignoring his challenging tone, she stepped briskly into the room, took in the situation at a glance and, with one graceful move, retrieved the phone from under the bed. “I was at the nurses’ station when we heard your dulcet tones echoing down the hall,” she told him.

“And you drew the short straw?”

“And I was on my way to see you anyway. How’d the phone land under the bed?” she inquired, as if it weren’t obvious.

He stared at her incredulously, then glanced pointedly at his bandaged hands.

If he’d expected pity or understanding, he didn’t get either. She shrugged and hung up the receiver. “I suppose some people would consider that an excuse.”

Frank glared at her just as the phone started to ring again. He stared at it, cursing it for the helplessness it stirred in him again. He took all of his frustration out on the therapist. “Get out!”

As skinny as she was, he was surprised his bellow alone hadn’t blown her from the room. She didn’t budge, every puny inch of her radiating mule-headed stubbornness.A tiny little bit of respect found its way into his perception of Ms. Jenny Michaels.

“I thought you wanted someone to answer the phone,” she said, all sweet innocence over a core of what was clearly solid steel.

“I’ll manage.”

“How?” she said, voicing his own disgruntled thought.

“What the hell difference does it make to you?”

“I’ll consider it the first step in your therapy.”

She waited. He glowered, his muscles tensing with each damnable ring of the phone. Finally, thankfully, it stopped.

“It’s probably just as well,” she said. “It is time for your therapy. I usually like to start with something less complicated.”

“Push-ups perhaps,” he suggested sarcastically.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said without missing a beat. “In the meantime, why don’t I just show you how to start exercising those fingers? You can repeat the exercises every hour, about ten minutes at a time.”

“I’m not interested in therapy. I just want to be left alone.”

Ignoring that, she ordered, “Sit,” and waved him toward the bed.

“Forget it,” he said, bracing himself for a fight. He’d been itching for one all morning. Everyone else had sensed that and run for their lives. Jennifer Michaels wasn’t scaring so easily.

“Okay, stand,” she replied, not batting an eye at his surliness. “Hold out your hand. I’ll show you what I want you to do.”

He backed up until he was out of reach. “What about me? What about what I want?” he thundered. “Don’t you get it, lady? I’m not doing any ‘exercises.’”

“You’d prefer to have your hands heal the way they are now?”

Her voice never even wavered. Frank decided in that instant that his initial impression had been right on target: Jennifer Michaels was one tough little cookie. He took another look and saw the spark of determination in her eyes. He tried again to get through that thick, do-gooder skull of hers.

“Listen, sweetheart,” he said with deliberate condescension. “I know you have a job to do. I know you probably think you can accomplish miracles, but I’m not interested. The only thing I want out of life right this second is to be left alone, followed in very short order by my discharge papers.”

She winced once during the tirade, but recovered quickly. After that her expression remained absolutely calm. Not stoic. Not smug. Calm. It infuriated him. The only people he’d ever seen that serene before had been drugged out or chanting. Around San Francisco it was possible to see plenty of both.

“I could leave you here to stew,” she said as if honestly considering the possibility. “Of course, it would make me a lousy therapist if I let you get away with your bullying tactics.”

“I’ll write you an excuse you can put in your personnel file. The patient was uncooperative and unresponsive. That ought to cover it, don’t you think?”

She nodded agreeably. “It’s certainly accurate enough. Unfortunately you won’t be able to hold the pen unless you do the exercises.”

“Dammit, don’t you ever give up?” he said, advancing until he was towering over her. She swallowed hard, but stood her ground as he continued to rant. “I’ll type it. I ought to be able to hunt and peck, even with my fingers like this.” He waved them under her nose for emphasis.

She leveled her green eyes at him and tried to stare him down. When he didn’t back off she shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She headed for the door and suddenly, perversely, Frank felt uncertain. At least she was company. And as long as they were hurling insults, he wouldn’t be alone with his own lousy thoughts. “You’re leaving?”

“That is what you said you wanted. I have patients who are interested in getting better. I don’t have time to waste on one who’s feeling sorry for himself. Think about it and we’ll talk again.”

She pinned him with an unflinching green-eyed gaze until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He turned away. A sigh shuddered through him as he heard the door shut softly behind her.

Well, Chambers, you definitely made a horse’s ass out of yourself that time, he told himself. Not that Jennifer Michaels couldn’t take it. There had been that unmistakable glint of steely determination in her eyes and an absolute lack of sympathy in her voice. At almost any other moment in his life that combination might have impressed him. He admired spunk and dedication. He was not in the habit of dishing out garbage the way he had just now, but on the occasions when his temper got the best of him, he appreciated knowing that the target had the audacity to throw it right back in his face. Jennifer Michaels had audacity to spare.

In her case, the unexpectedness of that tart, unyielding response had caught him off guard. He doubted she’d learned that particular bedside technique in therapist school. But he had to admit it was mildly effective. He felt guilty for a full five minutes before reminding himself that, like it or not, he was the patient here. Nobody was exactly coddling him.

Not that he wanted them to, he amended quickly. The papers might be calling him a hero for rescuing his co-worker, and his family might think he was behaving like a pain in the butt, but either label irked. He didn’t feel particularly heroic. Nor was he ready to don a hair shirt just because his attitude sucked. He figured he had a right. With his hands burned and his livelihood in jeopardy, it was little wonder that his stomach was knotted in fear. If he wanted to sulk, then, by God, he was going to sulk, and no pint-size therapist with freckles, saucer eyes and bright red curls was going to cheer him up or lay a guilt trip on him.

But to his amazement, the memory of her sunny disposition and sweet smile began to taunt him. It couldn’t be easy dealing with angry patients, some of them injured a whole lot worse than he was. How did she do it day after day? How much of the abuse did she take before lashing back? How much would she withstand before truly giving up? Somewhere deep inside he knew that she hadn’t given up on him after this one brief skirmish. She’d only staged a tactical retreat, leaving him with a whole lot to think about.

Frank spent the rest of the day intermittently pacing, staring at the door, waiting. Every time it opened, his muscles tensed and his breathing seemed to go still. Each time, when it was just a nurse or a doctor, disappointment warred with relief.

Finally, exhausted and aware that, like it or not, he wasn’t going anywhere today, he crawled back into bed. He was stretched out on his back, counting the tiny pinpoint holes in the water-stained ceiling tiles, when the door opened yet again. This time he didn’t even bother turning his head.

“Hey, big brother,” Tim said from the foot of the bed. “How come you’re not out chasing nurses up and down the corridors? There are some fine-looking women around here.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

His youngest brother stepped closer, a worried expression on his face. He placed a hand against Frank’s forehead. “Nope. You’re not dead. Must be the smoke. It’s addled your senses.”

“My senses are just fine.” He paused. “Except maybe for touch.”

Tim chuckled. “That’s better. A little humor is good for healing. I’ll go tell Ma it’s safe to come in now.”

“She’s here?”

“They all are. They’re just waiting for me to wave the white flag.”

Frank groaned. “All of them?”

“Everyone. You’re the one who taught us to travel in packs in times of crisis. We’re here to cheer you up. Feed you your dinner. Help with a shower. Of course, if it were me, I’d invite one of those gorgeous nurses to give me a sponge bath.”

Frank’s lips twitched with a rueful smile. “I’m sure you would.”

“I know you’re much too saintly to think in such terms. I’m a mere mortal, however, and I don’t believe in wasting opportunities that come my way. If life hands you lemons, make—”

“I know. Make lemonade. If you ask me, too damned many opportunities have come your way,” Frank grumbled, treading on familiar, comfortable turf. “You’re like a bee in a field of wildflowers. It’s a wonder you don’t collapse from overexertion.”

“Do you realize how many women get on a bus every single day?” his brother countered. “You want me to make an informed choice, don’t you?”

“I knew I should have insisted that you work your way through law school by cutting lawns for little old ladies instead of driving a MUNI bus.”

Tim stared at him thoughtfully. “I wonder if I could get them to bandage your mouth shut for a couple of weeks.”

Frank sighed. “You and most of the staff around here.”

“Yeah, that’s what your therapist said.”

Immediately interested, he searched Tim’s face for some indication of his reaction to the conversation. “You talked to Jennifer Michaels?” he prodded.

“Listened is more like it. That woman can talk a mile a minute. She had plenty to say, too. I’d say you got under her skin, Brother. What did you do? Try to steal a kiss? Ma’s out there trying to calm her down and convince her that at heart you’re a good-natured beast worthy of saving.”

“She’s just frustrated because I won’t do her damned exercises.”

“I wouldn’t mind doing a little exercising with her. She’s a fox.”

The observation, coming from an admitted connoisseur of the fair sex, irritated the daylights out of Frank for some reason. “Stay away from her, Timmy.”

A slow, crooked grin spread across his brother’s face. “I knew it. You’re not dead after all. Just choosy. Actually, I think you’ve made an excellent choice.”

“I didn’t make any damned choice.”

Tim went on as if he’d never uttered the denial. “Redheads are passionate. Did you know that? Fiery tempers and all that.”

Frank thought about the therapist’s absolute calm. “I think our Ms. Michaels may be the exception that proves the rule. She’s unflappable.”

“Are we talking about the same woman? Not five minutes ago she told Ma if you didn’t get your butt out of this bed and down to therapy in the morning, she was going to haul you down there herself. I think she has plans for you.”

The first faint stirrings of excitement sent Frank’s blood rushing. “I’d like to see her try to drag me out of here,” he said, a hint of menace in his tone. The truth of the matter, he suddenly realized, was that he really would like to see her do just that. If nothing else, going another round with Ms. Miracle Worker would relieve the boredom. Maybe if he tried her patience long enough, he’d witness a sampling of that fiery temper Tim claimed to have seen.

Before he could spend too much time analyzing just why that prospect appealed to him, the rest of the family crowded into the room and filled it with cheerful, good-natured teasing and boisterous arguments. Once he’d finished the tedious task of eating tasteless chicken and cold mashed potatoes with the help of his nagging sister, Frank leaned back against the pillow and let the welcome, familiar sounds lull him to sleep.

Tonight, instead of the horrible, frightening roar of a raging fire, he dreamed of a fiery redhead turning passionate in his embrace.

* * *

Jennifer Michaels could feel the tension spreading across the back of her neck and shoulders as Frank Chambers’s chart came up for review at interdisciplinary rounds. The doctors and nurses on the burn unit had their say. Then it was her turn. It was a short report. In a perfectly bland voice she recited his status and his refusal to accept therapy. At least she thought she was keeping her tone neutral. Apparently she was more transparent than she’d realized.

“You sound as if that’s something new,” Carolanne said when rounds had ended and the others had left the therapy room. “Almost every patient balks at first, either because of the pain, because they’re depressed or because they refuse to accept the seriousness of the injuries and the importance of the therapy.”

Jenny sighed. She’d delivered the same lecture herself dozens of times. “I know. My brain tells me it’s not my responsibility if the patient won’t begin treatment, but inside it never feels right. It feels like failure.”

“Must be that Catholic boarding school upbringing again. You haven’t developed a full-fledged case of guilt in months now. You were overdue.”

“Maybe.”

The other therapist watched her closely. “Or maybe something specific about Frank Chambers gets to you.”

Jenny thought of the anger in his voice, the strength in his shoulders, the coiled intensity she had sensed just beneath the surface. Then she thought of his eyes and the wounded, bemused look in them that he fought so hard to hide. He was getting to her all right. Like no patient—or no man—had in a very long time.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Carolanne persisted. “Want me to see him tomorrow? I can take over the case.”

Jenny hesitated. That would be the smart thing to do, run while she had the chance. Then she thought of the lost, sorrowful expression in those compelling blue eyes.

Because she understood that sadness and fear far better than he or even Carolanne could imagine, she slowly shook her head. “No,” she said finally. “Thanks, but I’ll see him.”

How could she possibly abandon a man who so clearly needed her—even if he couldn’t admit it yet?