his mother rattled on until he tuned her out. He gritted his teeth as she wheeled him inside the New Horizons Institute, the world-renowned physical therapy center intended to transition him back into his life. His life. He snorted. Paralyzed on his left side from the waist down with minimum feeling in his right leg, he failed to see the reasons for trying to change either his condition or his attitude about it by coming to this place. Transitional facility. Just another word for hell as far as he was concerned. He squeezed the arm on the wheelchair. The fact that he, a decorated officer in the US , Corps, needed to learn “basic life skills” as they called it, fueled his anger. “Hi, I’m Becky Shane-McGill, your new physical therapist. Welcome, Colonel.” Black hair spiked from her head at odd spurts as if she had recently had a breakdown of some sort and emerald eyes snapped with too much cheer for his current attitude.Her name rattled his nerves, reminded him of a redheaded journalist who had saved his life and stolen his heart in a desert a world away. Hope Shane.
