Free Wait for Me / Trust in Me by Samantha Chase Page B

he hated having anyone help him; it reminded him that he wasn’t the man he used to be.
    â€œLucas?” she said, snapping him out of his reverie.
    â€œIce,” he mumbled and sat back on the sofa, lifting his leg up onto the coffee table. In no time at all, Emma was beside him and rolling up the leg of the flannel pajama pants he had thrown on earlier. All Lucas wanted to do was push her away but he just didn’t have the strength to.
    He flinched when she placed the ice pack on his scarred and swollen knee, refusing to look at her. Lucas didn’t want to see the pity in her eyes. There was the sound of Emma’s feet walking across the room and he heard her moving around in the kitchen before coming back offering him water and ibuprofen.
    â€œDo you have anything stronger?” He shook his head. “Okay, then. What do you usually do when this happens?”
    â€œWho said this ever happened before?” Lucas knew he was sounding like a belligerent child, but couldn’t summon the energy to care.
    â€œI’m trying to help you,” she said wearily. “This is all my fault, and I’m trying to do what I can to help you. Can you please just cooperate?”
    â€œReally? Like you cooperated last night?”
    â€œDid you not wake me up every two hours? And didn’t I answer all of your stupid questions each time?”
    â€œStupid ques… Look, I know how to handle a concussion, Emma; you don’t know the first thing about a knee injury!”
    â€œSo teach me! For crying out loud, Lucas, we’ve got nothing else to do here! You refused to let me even speak to the tow truck driver about leaving, so you’re stuck with me for the weekend. Now either let me help you or deal with the fact that I’m going to sit here and nag you all afternoon.” She sounded pretty smug and she knew that she had left him no choice.
    â€œFine,” he sneered. “Normally when this happens I take the OTC stuff and ice it for a while. I do my best to stay off it and by the next day I’m usually better. Satisfied?”
    â€œHardly. What does your physical therapist have to say about this? Why is this still happening? I thought you had the surgeries to repair the injury?”
    â€œThat’s none of your damn business.” Lucas so did not want to have this discussion. He’d avoided talking to anyone about this and he certainly didn’t want to talk to Emma about it. How did he explain that he’d elected out of the last two surgeries because even though the problem would have been repaired, he still wasn’t going to play football ever again? Rather than continue to go under the knife, Lucas had simply given up and decided to live with the limp and the pain as a reminder that he couldn’t go back.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what the therapist thinks or says; sometimes injuries just don’t heal.”
    Emma looked at him suspiciously. “I would think that you would have gone for a second or maybe third, fourth, and fifth opinion to get yourself better.”
    â€œWho says I didn’t?”
    â€œDid you?” she challenged.
    â€œChrist, Emma, what do you want from me?”
    â€œI want to understand why you choose to live such an isolated life! I want to know why with all of your money and connections that your knee isn’t healed and that you don’t seem to care! I want to know why you seem to have just given up on life!” Her tirade ended on a near shout. She opened her mouth to speak only to have Lucas cut her off.
    â€œYou want to know why, Emma? Is that it? Well, let me tell you, sweetheart, it isn’t pretty.”
    â€œLucas, I…”
    â€œNo, you wanted to know, well, here it is. When I hurt my knee I was having my best season ever. I had endorsement deals and was making more money than I’d ever dreamed of. I thought life couldn’t get any better, and then I messed up my knee. I