Mountain Challenge (Mont Blanc Rescue #9)

Chapter 24

24

Ry

“ H ow about this?” Dr. Barrett pulled on Ry’s arm, putting pressure on the shoulder joint. “How’s the pain?”

“Three out of ten,” Ry answered, honestly. He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t about to lie to his doctor—no matter how badly he needed the man’s signature on that piece of paper.

The doctor smiled, looking pleased. “Good. If you’d told me that didn’t hurt, I would have known you were lying.”

Three more weeks had gone by. Three weeks that could be measured in physical therapy and gentle stretches, but also in dinners and walks and time spent with Isla. As much as he’d hated being off work, he’d loved every moment spent together.

He looked down at his watch. He wondered if she was already on her way back from Lyon. Her best friend, Laura, was coming over for a long weekend, and Isla had gone down to the airport to pick her up. Ry would be meeting with the two women for dinner later today. Isla had assured him Laura wanted to meet him, and hell, he wanted to meet her as well. He wanted to meet anyone who meant anything to Isla.

He sighed. He was so far gone, even his friends weren’t ribbing him for it. They seemed to understand, intuitively, that everything he’d ever thought or said about relationships was … not wrong , so much as just not applicable . The truth of it was, he didn’t just love spending time with Isla. He loved her .

He hadn’t told her yet. Not because he was in any way unsure, but because she still seemed skittish at times, and he didn’t want to scare her. She’d told him about Roland, her ex-husband, but he was sure there was a lot more to the story than the Cliff Notes version he’d heard.

The doctor pulled on his arm—backwards, this time. “What do you think, Doctor?” Ry tried not to let his anxiety show, but the truth was, he needed to go back to his team. End of March was one of the busiest, most dangerous time of the year in these mountains—when the snow was still deep enough to make skiers overconfident, and quickly changing weather conditions could catch people unawares. That, together with rising temperatures that increased the risk of avalanches, falling ice and falling rock, kept the PGHM busy all through spring.

“It’s looking good. You’ve lost some muscle mass, which is understandable, but I’m happy to see the joint is stable.”

Ry couldn’t help himself. “Does that mean I can go back to work?”

The doctor raised his eyes. “I want to say yes, Ry. I know you’ve been waiting to go back. But I don’t want you forcing the shoulder just yet.“

“I’ll take it easy, doctor. I promise.” Ry knew his team would be happy to take up the slack until he was back to one hundred percent.

The doctor sighed. “Okay. But I want you back here for a check-up at the end of the week, and you need to continue the physical therapy sessions. I won’t sign the papers unless you commit to doing that.”

Ry laughed. He would have committed to a lot more than that. He felt like kissing the doctor, but made do with a strong handshake.

“Thank you, doctor. You won’t regret this.”

“Make sure I don’t. I have other patients to treat, you know?”