Tobias: Book One of the Cantrell Brothers Series

Chapter Two

“Okay, Sammy. Could you lift your arm up over your head so that it points to the ceiling for me, please?” Jane asked the ten-year-old boy who was lying on the bed in front of her.

He obliged and raised his arm, fingers pointing to the ceiling. She silently counted to ten in her head and waited to see if his arm would start shaking again. He had broken his collarbone three months ago and was still having trouble with everyday activities. She got to three sets of ten by the time his arm started trembling.

“Great job,” she congratulated him after she set his arm down, “you made it a whole twenty seconds more than last time. You should be ready for strength training in no time.”

She continued helping him with his arm's mobility until her computer beeped to signal that she had another appointment. After Sammy's last stretches, she printed him out a few pictures of which stretches he was to do and then led him back down to the waiting area's hallway.

After going back to the Rehab Center and checking her computer for the next patient, she walked back to the waiting area. The waiting area was standard. Having not gone under the renovatoins, it stil possessed its same, old dark blue chairs that were placed against the walls. They had added an additional television in two corners and there were some magazines lying around, but other than that, the waiting room was probably the dullest part of the building.

“Tobias Cantrell?” she called into the room.

A tall man stood up and immediately caught her attention. He had a body built like a god. Thickly layered muscles covered every inch of his body. Wearing a plain, black t-shirt, wide shoulders narrowed down a defined waist to slim but toned hips. Faded and hole-covered, his jeans were slung low and led down to dark brown, steel-toed boots.

With closely cropped brown hair, his face wasn't model gorgeous, but rather a ruggedness to it that only added to his attractiveness and animal-like magnetism. He had a sharp jawline and high cheekbones with just a faint outline of five o'clock shadow even though it was so late in the day. His face wasn't one that some women would consider handsome, but to her, would keep increasing his appeal as he aged. There was just an air about him that had chills racking her spine and goosebumps making her hair almost seem as if it was standing on end.

Her observation took place for about one millisecond before she snapped to her senses. This was her patient. She had to act professional. Like always.

“Hi, I'm Jane Reynolds," she greeted as he walked down the hall with her, an obvious limp in his step. She told him to sit down on the edge of one of the padded table and began typing away on her laptop after she sat down on one of the stools. “Before we start, what is your date of birth?”

“January twenty-second, 1985,” his response was gruff with just a hint of a Southern accent to it, his voice a low timbre that caused a wave of hot desire to pool in her belly.

“Alright, so which leg is it?” she asked as she began pulling up all of his records. 

“The left one.”

Her eyes skimmed through it for a few seconds to learn a little more about him. At twenty-eight, he didn't have any allergies, had broken his humerus bone about four years ago, and just been given the okay to stop using crutches for a shattered hip.

“How exactly did you break your hip?”

“I was working at a site for this factory about a month and a half ago, and somebody dropped a wrench from about eight stories up. I was lying on my back to adjust one of the steel pipes, so I didn't see it until it landed on me.”

“Where did the wrench land?”

He placed his hand a little bit to the inside of his hip bone and in between his hip flexor. “Right about here.”