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Shelby kneeled beside him again and set the water on the floor. She pulled a bottle of ibuprofen out of her bag, uncapped it, and shook out several pills. “Take all four.” She dumped them into his hand.
He popped them all in his mouth and chewed the bitter pills so they’d work faster. Then, with Shelby helping him hold up his head, he took a gulp of water and swallowed.
She gently laid his head back on the floor. “Okay. Let me get Eliza settled. Then I’m going to turn you over and get to work on those muscles.”
“I can’t wait.” His tone told her how much he wasnotlooking forward to this, even if she would have her hands on him.
Shelby pulled out a plastic container from her bag. “Eliza, come have dinner.” She took the lid off and set the sectioned dish on the floor in front of Eliza, who dug into the cut-up grapes, cheese cubes, shredded chicken,and diced cucumbers. Shelby opened a snack bag filled with broken breadsticks.
Eliza stuffed her hand in the bag, grabbed one, and chomped into it.
“She loves those.” To Eliza, she said, “Eat the chicken and other stuff first. Don’t fill up on the breadsticks.”
Eliza stared at her mom and bit into another one.
Shelby rolled her eyes and tried to hide a grin. She took the breadstick from Eliza’s hand and replaced it with a chunk of chicken.
Eliza scrunched her lips in disapproval, then ate the meat.
Shelby glanced at him. “Stay put.”
Where would he go? He couldn’t move a single muscle without setting off an explosion of pain through his back.
Shelby rushed out of the room, then back in a moment later carrying the pillows from his bed. She laid them right beside him. “Okay, I’m going to help you roll over onto the pillows, so you’ll have some cushion under you while I work on your back and you can rest your head on something soft.”
He appreciated the thought, but the pillows weren’t going to help with the pain he was about to experience. No way around it. He raised his arm over his head and rolled onto the pillows, biting back the cuss words he wanted to spew as the wash of pain hit every cell in his body and every muscle tensed against it, making things worse.
Shelby leaned over him and put her lips to his ear. “Easy, Chase. Breathe.” Her hand gently rubbed up and down his back along his spine where the muscles hurt the worst. “Breathe,” she whispered.
He tried. First in pants, then slower, until he could take in a long breath as he relaxed into the pillows that stretched from his head down his torso to between his thighs.
Shelby stopped rubbing his back and went to his feet. She tugged at the laces on his work boot and pried one off, then the other. She moved up to his waist, gripped his shirt, and worked it up his back to his shoulders.
He closed his eyes against another wave of pain.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not you,” he tried to assure her, but it took a hell of a lot of effort to even speak through the pain. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing and listening to Shelby move beside him.
And then her warm hands pressed into his lower back. She’d used some kind of oil that allowed her hands to glide over his skin. She pressed her thumbs deep into the tight muscles, then smoothed them along the knots.
It hurt like hell, then felt better all at once as her magic fingers worked over his skin, pressing out the tense muscles. She started soft and slow, from his lower back up to his shoulders, then back down again, increasing the pressure.
He fell into a trancelike state of relaxation as the tension eased and the pain dulled.
She didn’t seem to mind rubbing her hands over the puckered scars, though it gave him pause when she did. He didn’t want her to be repelled by them. Her hands and touch didn’t reveal that. Still, he wondered what she thought of the ravages his body had been through and the marks left on him from a war he’d never wanted to fight even as he did his duty.
“How are you doing, Chase?”
“Still alive,” he assured her. “Better,” he admitted, knowing he should have asked for her help in the first place. She had the experience and know-how to ease his pain and help him get back his strength and mobility.
“Great.” She pressed the heels of her hands into his lower back and rubbed them up to his shoulders along his spine. The muscles had finally let loose, and her hands moving over him felt so good now. “When you can move again, I’m going to give you instructions on some stretching and strength training you can do so this won’t happen anymore.”
“’Kay.” That’s about all he could manage as she gently moved his arm, then worked on his shoulder where he’d been shot.
“And you’re going to do them every day until I say you can stop.”
“’Kay,” he readily agreed, holding his breath when she found a particularly tender spot. “Ow.”
