"They're backed up down there--this could take a while, a few hours even," the nurse informed Mia as she began pushing Frisco out of the room. "You can't come with him, so you'll just be sitting out in the waiting room. If you want to leave, he could call you when he's done."

"No, thank you," Mia said. She turned to Frisco. "Alan, you are so wrong about--"

"Just go home," he said again.

"No," she said. "No, I'm going to wait for you."

"Don't," he said. He glanced up at her just before the nurse pushed him out the door. "And don't call me Alan."

Frisco rode in the wheelchair back to the ER lobby with his eyes closed. His X rays had taken a few aeons longer than forever, and he had to believe Mia had given up on him and gone home.

It was nearly eight o'clock at night. He was still supposed to meet with the doctor to talk about what his X rays had shown. But he'd seen the film and already knew what the doctor was going to say. His knee wasn't broken. It was bruised and inflamed. There may have been ligament damage, but it was hard to tell--his injury and all of his subsequent surgeries had left things looking pretty severely scrambled.

The doctor was going to recommend shipping him over to the VA hospital for further consultation and possible treatment.

But that was going to have to wait. He had Natasha at home to take care of, and some lunatic named Dwayne to deal with.

"Where are you taking him?" It was Mia's musical voice. She was still here, waiting for him, just as she'd said. Frisco didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. He kept his eyes closed, and tried not to cane too much either way.

"The doctor has to take a look at the X rays," the nurse told her. "We're overcrowded tonight. Depending on how things go, it could be another five minutes or two hours."

"May I sit with him?" Mia asked.

"Sure," the nurse said. "He can wait out here as well as anyplace else."

Frisco felt his wheelchair moved awkwardly into position, heard the nurse walk away. Then he felt Mia's cool fingers touch his forehead, pushing his hair back and off his face.

"I know you're not really asleep," she said.

Her hand felt so good in his hair. Too good. Frisco reached up and caught her wrist as he opened his eyes, pushing her away from him. "That's right," he said. "I'm just shutting everything out."

She was gazing at him with eyes that were a perfect mixture of green and brown. "Well, before you shut me out again, I want you to know--I don't judge whether or not someone is a man based on his ability to beat an opponent into a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. And I wasn't running away from you on the beach today."

Frisco shut his eyes again. "Look, you don't have to explain why you don't want to sleep with me. If you don't, then you don't. That's all I need to know."

"I was running away from myself," she said very softly, a catch in her voice.

Frisco opened his eyes. She was looking at him with tears in her beautiful eyes and his heart lurched. "Mia, don't, really... it's all right." It wasn't, but he would have said or done anything to keep her from crying.

"No, it's not," she said. "I really want to be your friend, but I don't know if I can. I've been sitting here for the past few hours, just thinking about it, and..." She shook her head and a tear escaped down her cheek.

Frisco was lost. His chest felt so tight, he could barely breathe, and he knew the awful truth. He was glad Mia had waited for him. He was glad she'd come to the hospital. Yeah, he'd also been mortified that she'd seen him like this, but at the same time, her presence had made him feel good. For the first time in forever he didn't feel so d.a.m.ned alone.

But now he'd somehow made her cry. He reached for her, cupping her face with his hand and brushing away that tear with his thumb. "It's not that big a deal," he whispered.

"No?" she said, looking up at him. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek more fully into the palm of his hand. She turned her head slightly and brushed his fingers with her lips. When she opened her eyes again, he could see a fire burning, white-hot and molten. All sweetness, all girlish innocence was gone from her face. She was all woman, pure female desire as she gazed back at him. His mouth went totally, instantly dry.

"You touch me, even just like this, and I feel it," she said huskily. "This chemistry--it's impossible to ignore."

She was right, and he couldn't help himself. He pushed his hand up and into the softness of her long, dark hair. She closed her eyes again at the sensation, and he felt his heart begin to pound.

"I know you feel it, too," she whispered.

Frisco nodded. Yes. He traced the soft curve of her ear, then let his hand slide down her neck. Her skin was so smooth, like satin beneath his fingers.

But then she reached for his hand, intertwining their fingers, squeezing his hand, breaking the spell. "But for me, that's not enough," she told him. "I need more than s.e.xual chemistry. I need... love."

Silence. Big, giant silence. Frisco could hear his heart beating and the rush of his blood through his veins. He could hear the sounds of other people in the waiting room-hushed conversations, a child's quiet crying. He could hear a distant television, the clatter of an empty gurney being wheeled too quickly down the hall.

"I can't give you that," he told her.

"I know," she said softly. "And that's why I ran away." She smiled at him, so sweetly, so sadly. The seductive temptress was gone, leaving behind this nice girl who wanted more than he could give her, who knew enough not even to ask.

Or maybe she knew enough not to want to ask. He was no prize. He wasn't even whole.

She released his hand, and he immediately missed the warmth of her touch.

"I see they finally got you cleaned up," she said.

"I did it myself," he told her, amazed they could sit here talking like this after what she'd just revealed. "I went into the bathroom near the X-ray department and washed up."

"What happens next?" Mia asked.

What had she just revealed? Nothing, really, when it came down to it. She'd admitted that the attraction between them was powerful. She'd told him that she was looking for more than s.e.x, that she wanted a relationship based on love. But she hadn't said that she wanted him to love her.

Maybe she was glossing over the truth. Maybe she'd simply omitted the part about how, even if he was capable of giving her what she wanted, she had no real interest in any kind of a relationship with some crippled has-been.

"The doctor will look at my X rays and he'll tell me that nothing's broken," Frisco told her. "Nothing he can see, anyway."

How much of that fight had she seen? he wondered. Had she seen Dwayne drop him with a single well-placed blow to his knee? Had she seen him hit the sidewalk like a stone? Had she seen Dwayne kick him while he was down there, face against the concrete like some pathetic hound dog too dumb to get out of the way?

And look at him now, back in a wheelchair. He'd sworn he'd never sit in one of these d.a.m.ned things again, yet here he was.

"Dammit, Lieutenant, when I sent you home to rest, I meant you should rest, not start a new career as a street fighter." Captain Steven Horowitz was wearing his white dress uniform and he gleamed in the grimy ER waiting room. What the h.e.l.l was he doing here?

"Dr. Wright called and said he had a former patient of mine in his emergency room, waiting to get his knee X-rayed. He said this patient's knee was swollen and damaged from a previous injury, and on top of that, it looked as if it had recently been hit with a sledgehammer. Although apparently this patient claimed there were no sledgehammers involved in the fight he'd been in," Horowitz said, arms folded across his chest. "The fight he'd been in. And I asked myself, now, which of my former knee-injury patients would be stupid enough to put himself into a threatening situation like a fight that might irrevocably damage his injured knee? I came up with Alan Francis...o...b..fore Wright even mentioned your name."

"Nice to see you, too, Steve," Frisco said, wearily running his hand through his hair, pushing it off his face. He could feel Mia watching him, watching the Navy captain.

"What are you thinking?"

"Allow me to introduce Mia Summerton," Frisco said. "Mia, I know you're going to be disappointed, but as much as Steve looks like it, he isn't the White Power Ranger. He's really only just a Navy doctor. His name's Horowitz. He answers to Captain, Doctor, Steve, and sometimes even G.o.d."

Steven Horowitz was several years older than Frisco, but he had an earnestness about him that made him seem quite a bit younger. Frisco watched him do a double take as he looked at Mia, with her long, dark hair, her beautiful face, her pretty flowered sundress that revealed her smooth, tanned shoulders and her slender, graceful arms. He watched Steve look back at his own b.l.o.o.d.y T-shirt and battered face. He knew what the doctor was thinking--what was she doing with him?

Nothing. She was doing nothing. She'd made that more than clear.

Horowitz turned back to Frisco. "I looked at the X rays--I think you may have been lucky, but I won't be able to know for certain until the swelling goes down." He pulled a chair over, and looked at the former SEAL'S knee, probing it lightly with gentle fingers.

Frisco felt himself start to sweat. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mia lean forward, as if she were going to reach for his hand. But he closed his eyes, refusing to look at her, refusing to need her.

She took his hand anyway, holding it tightly until Steve was through. By then, Frisco was drenched with sweat again, and he knew his face must've looked grey or maybe even green. He let go of her hand abruptly, suddenly aware that he was d.a.m.n near mashing her fingers.

"All right," Steve finally said with a sigh. "Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go home, and I want you to stay off your feet for the next two weeks." He took his prescription pad from his leather bag. "I'll give you something to make you sleep--"

"And I won't take it," Frisco said. "I have a...situation to deal with."

"What kind of situation?"

Frisco shook his head. "It's a family matter. My sister's in some kind of trouble. All you need to know is that I'm not taking anything that's going to make me sleep. I won't object to a local painkiller, though."

Steven Horowitz laughed in disgust. "If I give you that, your knee won't hurt. And if your knee doesn't hurt, you're going to be up running laps, doing G.o.d knows what kind of damage. No. No way."

Frisco leaned forward, lowering his voice, wishing Mia weren't listening, hating himself for having to admit his weaknesses. "Steve, you know I wouldn't ask for it if I weren't in serious pain, I need it, man. I can't risk taking the stuff that will knock me out."

The doctor's eyes were a flat, pale blue, but for a brief moment, Frisco saw a flare of warmth and compa.s.sion behind the customary chill. Steve shook his head. "I'm going to regret doing this. I know I'm going to regret doing this." He scribbled something on his pad. "I'm going to give you something to bring down the swelling, too. Go easy with it." He glared at Frisco. "In return, you have to promise me you won't get out of this wheelchair for two weeks."

Frisco shook his head. "I can't promise that," he said. "In fact, I'd rather die than stay in this chair for a minute longer than I have to."

Dr. Horowitz turned to Mia. "His knee has already been permanently damaged. It's something of a miracle that he can even walk at all. There's nothing he can do to make his knee any better, but he could make things worse. Will you please try to make him understand--"

"We're just friends," she interrupted. "I can't make him do anything."

"Crutches," Frisco said. "I'll use crutches, but no chair, all right?"

He didn't look at Mia. But he couldn't stop thinking about the way her eyes had looked filled with tears, and the way that had made him feel. She was wrong. She was dead wrong. She didn't know it, but she had the power to d.a.m.n well make him do anything.

Maybe even fall in love with her.

Mia pulled the car up near the emergency room entrance. She could see Frisco through the windows of the brightly lit lobby, talking to the navy doctor. The doctor handed Frisco a bag, and then the two men shook hands. The doctor vanished quickly down the hallway, while Frisco moved slowly on his crutches toward the automatic door.

It slid open with a whoosh, and then he was outside, looking around.

Mia opened the car door and stood up. "Over here." She saw his surprise. This wasn't her car. This thing was about twice the size of her little subcompact--he wouldn't have any trouble fitting inside it. "I traded cars with a friend for a few days," she explained.

He didn't say a word. He just put the bag the doctor had given him into the middle of the wide bench seat and slid his crutches into the back. He climbed in carefully, lowering himself down and using both hands to lift his injured leg into the car.

She got in next to him, started the powerful engine and pulled out of the driveway. She glanced at Frisco. "How's your knee doing?"

"Fine," he said tersely.

"Do you really think Dwayne's going to come back?"

"Yep."

Mia waited for him to elucidate, but he didn't continue. He obviously wasn't in a talkative mood. Not that he ever was, of course. But somehow the fairly easygoing candidness of their previous few conversations had vanished.

She knew his knee was anything but fine. She knew it hurt him badly--and that the fact that he'd been unable to defeat his attacker hurt him even more.

She knew that his injured knee and his inability to walk without a cane made him feel like less of a man. It was idiotic. A man was made up of so much more than a pair of strong legs and an athletic body.

It was idiotic, but she understood. Suddenly she understood that the list she'd seen on Frisco's refrigerator of all the things he couldn't do wasn't simply pessimistic whining, as she'd first thought. It was a recipe. It was specific directions for a magical spell that would make Frisco a man again.

Jump, run, skydive, swim, stretch, bend, extend...

Until he could do all those things and more, he wasn't going to feel like a man.

Until he could do all those things again... But he wasn't going to. That Navy doctor had said he wasn't going to get any better. This was it. Frisco had come as far as he could--and the fact that he could walk at all was something of a miracle at that.

Mia pulled the car into the condominium parking lot and parked. Frisco didn't wait for her to help him out of the car. Of course not. Real men didn't need help.

Her heart ached for him as she watched him pull out his crutches from the back seat. He grimly positioned them under his arms, and carrying the bag that the doctor had given him, swung toward the courtyard.

She followed more slowly.

Jump, run, skydive, swim, stretch, bend, extend...

It wasn't going to happen. Dr. Horowitz knew it. Mia knew it. And she suspected that deep inside, Frisco knew it, too.

She followed him into the courtyard and could barely stand to watch as he pulled himself painfully up the stairs.

He was wrong. He was wrong about it all. Moving onto the ground floor wouldn't make him less of a man. Admitting that he had physical limitations--that there were things he could no longer do--that wouldn't make him less of a man, either.

But relentlessly questing after the impossible, making goals that were unattainable, setting himself up only for failure--that would wear him down and burn him out. It would take away the last of his warmth and spark, leaving him bitter and angry and cold and incomplete. Leaving him less of a man.

Chapter 10.

Frisco sat in the living room, cleaning his gun.

When Sharon's charming ex-boyfriend Dwayne had pulled out his knife this afternoon, Frisco had felt, for the first time in a while, the noticeable lack of a side arm.

Of course, carrying a weapon meant concealing that weapon. Although he was fully licensed to carry whatever he d.a.m.n well pleased, he couldn't exactly wear a gun in a belt holster, like a cop or an old West gunslinger. And wearing a shoulder holster meant he'd have to wear a jacket over it, at least out in public. And--it was a chain reaction--if he wore a jacket, he'd have to wear long pants. Even he couldn't wear a jacket with shorts.

Of course, he could always do what Blue McCoy did. Blue was the Alpha Squad's XO-Executive Officer and second in command of the SEAL unit. Blue rarely wore anything other than cutoffs and an old worn-out, loose olive-drab fatigue shirt with the sleeves removed. And he always wore one of the guns he carried in a shoulder holster underneath his shirt, the smooth leather directly against his skin.

Frisco's knee twinged, and he glanced at the clock. It was nearly 0300. Three o'clock in the morning.

Steve Horowitz had given him a number of little vials filled with a potent local pain reliever similar to novocaine. It wasn't yet time for another injection, but it was getting close. Frisco had given himself an injection at close to nine o'clock, after Mia had driven him home from the hospital.

Mia...

Frisco shook his head, determined to think about anything but Mia, separated from him by only a few thin walls, her hair spread across her pillow, wearing only a tantalisingly thin cotton nightgown. Her beautiful soft lips parted slightly in sleep....