Unbreak My Heart (Strawberry Inn Book #4)

Chapter 5

DALTON

I might be in my forties now, but I’ve always been a fit guy and I pride myself on taking care of my body. Before my accident, I would run at least two miles a day, usually five. I lift weights daily and I eat well. I don’t drink too much and I’ve never touched a cigarette or done drugs. Okay, so maybe I did a little weed in college, but who didn’t? Not to mention, I’m in constant training for my job. Hell, I can scale up ten flights of stairs with full equipment on in less time than some of the guys fifteen years younger than me.

None of that matter anymore because after two weeks of physical therapy, my entire body aches in a way that it never has. Even the muscles that Elizabeth doesn’t have me working, hurt. I thought it was hard getting up in the morning with just a messed up knee, but it was nothing compared to getting out of bed after a physical therapy session. I’m meeting her three times a week and by the time I recover from the previous session, I have another one to go to. I’m a stubborn son of a bitch and won’t admit that she was right, but she was fucking right.

My body might hurt like hell, but I knew what we were doing was making a difference. I was able to move around the house without my crutches and noticed that even getting up off the couch wasn’t as hard as it used to be. Minus the body aches in muscles I didn’t know existed. She still insisted that sixteen weeks was a better deadline, but I missed my work and I needed to push forward to get back to it. 

More than anything, I was looking forward to driving again. It sucked that I had to depend on other people to get my daughter to and from school and I couldn’t even go grocery shopping on my own. My friends were amazing and I’d be repaying them for years, but I wanted to feel independent again. Just as I was starting to feel bad for myself, the front door opened and Katie skipped in with Blair on her heels carrying her daughter, Esme.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Katie was jumping up and down with excitement, hardly able to contain herself.

“Katie! Katie!” I mock back. Katie stops and puts her hands on her hips, staring at me. Blair starts to laugh and ends up getting a glare from my little girl as well.

“Not funny!”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” I open my arms and Katie runs over so I can hug her. I miss her like crazy when she’s at school, probably because these days I don’t have much else going on when she’s not around. “Did you have a good day today?”

“I did!” She exclaims. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“My best friend from school is playing on the playground, can we go play too?”

“Your best friend?” I look at Blair for clarification. 

“I’ve never seen the girl before today, Katie said she’s kind of new to the school, but they are super best friends,” she grinned. “I told her that we needed to come to check in with you before we went down there to play.”

“Oh, you were going to go down there?”

Blair shrugged, “I thought it might be easier for you if I took her down there. Plus, Ms. Esme loves to play in the sand.” 

Esme started to squeal when she heard her name, she was getting so big and I forgot how much fun they were at the age when they were learning about the world around them. Esme and Indie (Harrison and Angela’s daughter) were both close in age. I hadn’t been around babies since Katie was a baby herself, but it was cool to have both my close friends come to me with parenting questions every now and then. Not that I was a parenting expert, but I knew a few tips and tricks.