Free Project Detour (Castle View Book 3) by Lynn Cahoon

x-rays.” The doctor stood to leave. “All in all, I’m impressed with your healing. You must be doing something right. Unless you hear different from me tomorrow, I’m going to release you to be able to sit in your wheelchair for up to four hours a day. If you get sore or tired, reduce the time.”
    “So I could go back to work half days?” Brad tamped down the hope easing through his words.
    Roberts shook his head. “Nope. You’re off for another four weeks. But you could leave the house for a short visit to your mom or maybe that big cat exhibit. My grandson makes us take him every time he comes up from Boise. He especially loves those sisters.”
    Great, he could visit the mangy cats. Abbie would love seeing him there, groveling for something to do, anything to distract him. “We’ll see.”
    Brad watched as the doctor left his room but instead of turning left toward the front door, he turned right toward the kitchen. And Destiny. She’d probably get the same set of instructions, so he couldn’t fudge the rules. Well, he didn’t care. It was his body; he could do what he wanted. He could almost hear his mom’s tsk at that statement. If she were here, she’d tell him to follow doctor’s orders. And he might. At least for today.
    He put the bed upward and then gently swung his legs over the side. The wheelchair was parked next to the bed, the brakes unlocked. He swung it closer, then used a bar he’d used during his exercise session to set the brakes. Turning a bit, he used the bed to support his weight like he had used Destiny. If he could get out of bed with the doctor’s permission, that was what he was going to do.
    He found Destiny sitting at the table, finishing her lunch. She jerked when she saw him, then smiled. “I should have known you’d be up as soon as the doctor said it was possible.”
    “I don’t lounge around in bed when I’m healthy, why should I now?” He pointed to her plate. “You got any more of that?”
    “Tons. I was waiting until after the doctor left. You want lunch here or in the dining room?” She stood and moved a chair so he could get closer to the table.
    He wheeled to the cabinet and got out a fork. “I’ll eat in here with you.” He nodded to the oven. “Can you dish me up some?”
    “Sure.” She grabbed a bowl, filled it with the still-warm pasta and set a bottle of soda next to his place along with a couple of breadsticks and a green salad with ranch dressing on the side. They made a good pair, he thought as he wheeled back to the table.
    She sat and pulled apart a bread stick. “I wish I knew how to cook.”
    “You mean bake. Bread sticks are baked.” He took a big bite of the pasta. As usual, with any of Maggie’s dishes, this was amazing.
    “No, I mean cook. I can’t make anything, bread or not.” She dipped the stick into the marinara and as she took the appetizer into her mouth, Brad almost choked on the bite of pasta he’d just taken. She wiped a drop of the red sauce off her lips when she’d finished. “I adore bread.”
    His mind dipped into the gutter. And his body was racing along with it. He needed to change the subject. “You can make spaghetti, right? Anyone can boil water.”
    “Geez, thanks for making me feel totally incompetent.” She didn’t look at him, but instead stood to put her bowl in the sink and run water into it. “But no. I can’t cook. I can’t bake. I can make sandwiches, but I’ve never gone past buying deli lunch meat or premade tuna salad.”
    “Didn’t your mom teach you this?”
    Sandy Castle had made it clear to all her children that they would be able to cook at least something they could live on before they left for college. When Maggie started excelling in the kitchen, Brad paid her to handle his dinner chores once a month. Two weeks in to the arrangement, his mom had gotten wise and busted the contract. But he had learned to make a mean spaghetti junior year. And by the time he’d moved out on his