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I turned back to him.

"What kind of a lover would I be?"

"A good lover. You're still capable of having children, you know. It's a little more involved, but it can happen. I have a client in fact, a woman in her twenties, who recently gave birth. I've been helping her regain her strength. She has a lovely little girl."

"Really?"

"Absolutely," he said. "Didn't your doctors discuss all this with you?"

"No," I said.

"They should have."

He looked up sharply at the sound of an automobile coming up the drive.

"Someone's here." he said.

"Help me up," I asked him and he did so.

"It's Aunt Victoria," I said when she stepped out of

her car. She started for the house and then caught sight of us. "You'd better get me back." I said. "She's bringing news about my mother."

"Right."

He helped me into the wheelchair and then started to wheel me back to the house. Victoria waited at the ramp. As we approached, she stepped toward us.

"What sort of therapy can you conduct out there?" she demanded of Austin before I could introduce them.

"It's important she gets a good dose of fresh air every day," he said.

"Mrs. Bogart could wheel her about for fresh air. It seems a high price to pay a therapist for menial work."

"We do exercises out here, too. Aunt Victoria. And I wheel myself about most of the time. Anyway, why don't we leave my therapy up to the physical therapist. okay? More important, how's my mother?"

"I don't intend to conduct a conversation about that out here with a stranger present," she said. "Wheel her back to her room." she ordered Austin and went to the front door.

"Sorry," he whispered in my ear. 'Imagine what would have happened if she had come a few moments earlier."

The thought of that set my heart racing and brought heat to my face.

In my room. Austin picked up his bag and told me he would be back the same time tomorrow.

"I hope I didn't make any new trouble for you."

"Don't worry about it." I told him, but he left with a deep look of concern on his face.

I impatiently waited for Aunt Victoria for nearly fifteen minutes after Austin left. Finally, I heard her distinctive heels coming down the hallway.

"I'm gone for a few days and all hell breaks loose at the office," she moaned as she came into my room. "I swear it's getting more and more difficult to find competent people. Just getting someone who can answer the phone properly is a major task these days. I spend more and more time applying Band Aids on unnecessary complications."

She caught her breath and gazed around.

"Where is your therapist?" she asked, pronouncing the word therapist as if it was a profanity.

"He's gone. I think you frightened him off," I said. She raised her eyebrows.

"Maybe he should be frightened off. It's common knowledge these days that you are an heiress. Rain. Did you ever think of that? Here you are living in this mansion with this magnificent property, too. You've got to be careful. Fortune hunters will be coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of you in your weak condition."