Paradise for a Sinner by Lynn Shurr

before they started along the paved drive. The boy complained about so very little, almost as if he feared making any sort of trouble would get him thrown out of Lorena Ranch. He only griped about the crutches to her. As Teddy toiled slowly along, her mind wandered to yesterday’s physical therapy session and to Adam Malala.
    Joe had done her a big favor by visiting the home gym when she guided the child through his upper body strengthening exercises after Teddy completed his homework. He squeezed the boy’s biceps and assured him he noticed an increase in size. Teddy’s face lit with the praise. Of course, the triplets, who had little homework, tagged along and somewhat ruined the moment by showing their daddy what they could do. Even Lorena wanted her arm muscles approved, and Mack made everyone count his pushups. Still, Teddy’s glow over his purported father’s compliment did not fade. Just those few words made her job easier.
    Adam Malala did not, though the fault didn’t rest with him. He helped her get Teddy ready for bed every night. Usually they stood by the elevator talking softly while Nell visited briefly with the children at the end of the hall. He stood so close his body heat made sweat trickle between her shoulder blades, but never came as close to kissing her as he had that single time on the first night she arrived.
    Instead, he lavished her with flowery compliments. Her eyes were like the green of sea waves sparkling in the sunlight. Her hair, and he twined a curl around his index finger, as soft as the down on an ocean bird’s breast. She would have liked to sink her hands into his curly mane and initiate a kiss, but somehow she never had the nerve. Why did he move so slowly, so cautiously with her, a divorced woman who needed and wanted a demonstration of her attractiveness?
    Adam always came to the gym while she worked with Teddy. He wore long sweatpants and a hoodie as he ran on the treadmill. Sometimes, he stripped off his top when Joe spotted him in weightlifting. As the perspiration beaded on his chest, she felt the desire to lick it off, laving the valley between his pecs and rounding his dark nipples with her tongue. Joe flashed a wicked smile her way as if he could read every decadent word of the novel in her mind. Teddy, noticing her distraction, began to fudge on his reps. “Ten, twelve, fifteen.” She’d gotten her attention back where it should be and made him start over with his count.
    Today, Teddy poked along setting his feet firmly each time. He had feeling in his thighs, but not his lower legs. Still with exercise and massage, he might stimulate his nerves to grow. He stopped so suddenly Winnie nearly bumped into him with the wheelchair. “What’s that noise?”
    “That racket? Bulldozers. They’ve been getting the lot ready for the beach all day. Frankly, I was enjoying the silence when they took a break.”
    Teddy’s pace quickened. He moved so fast his feet flopped carelessly, and Winnie feared he would fall. The boy turned on the side path toward the pool and kept chugging along as eager to see the big machines in action as he would have been to meet the ice cream truck. The other boys, large and small, were already lined up along the chain-link fence around the pool: Joe and Adam, Dean and Tommy, Mack and Trinity. They watched in rapt attention as the big shovel of the bulldozer pushed small, uprooted trees toward a far corner of the lot. Teddy leaned up against the fence at the end of the line.
    Joe greeted him cordially. “Have a good day at school, Teddy?”
    “Same as always.” He shrugged his small shoulders.
    “You sound like all the rest of the kids. See that pile of brush the bulldozer is making? I’m thinking we should have a bonfire.”
    “That would be cool.”
    “You bet it would.”
    Failing to find the big machinery fascinating, Winnie joined the girls at a poolside table where Brinsley stood at rigid attention seeming very out of place in his dark