She struggled to her feet, determined the job hunt would have to come later. First things first—a hot shower so that she could move, a trip to the gym to work the kinks out, and then a job.
The hot shower helped, but still, she could barely get her gym clothes on and was still walking funny, holding her head at an odd angle, which is why she didn’t see Mr. Valicielo standing at the foot of her fallen elm tree until it was too late. At the precise moment she was inching her way into her car (first one leg, then the careful lowering of the body, then the white-knuckled grip of the steering wheel as she dragged the other leg inside), she heard him shout her name.
“Great,” she muttered, and quickly fired up her VW and recklessly backed out of the drive, seeing as how she could not turn her head.
“Rachel!”
“Damndamndamndamndamn,” she muttered as the back of her car bottomed out when she reached the street. She turned the steering wheel as fast as she could, whimpering in pain, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Valicielo running on short, stocky legs down the drive. At the end of it, he threw his rake at the back of her car, but could only heave it about three feet.
Rachel shot down Slater toward Laurel, and as she hurtled onto Laurel, she struggled to turn around to see where Mr. Valicielo was. But her reflexes were off, as the slightest movement of her head sent a shooting pain down her side, and she was, therefore, a little slow straightening around again.
She saw the jogger at the very last second and swerved to the right to avoid hitting him. With every muscle screaming at that unpredicted movement, she flew around the jogger and away from Mr. Valicielo.
And as she drove down Laurel, her muscles momentarily under control, she thought she was really going to have to have her head checked, because she barely had a glimpse of the jogger and still thought that he looked just like Flynn.
Man, this guy was turning up everywhere.
At the gym, Lori at the desk was rubbing lotion onto her overly developed Popeye biceps when Rachel struggled to the desk to sign in. She nodded knowingly as Rachel winced when she picked up the pen. “Overdid it, huh?”
Rachel nodded slowly and painfully.
“Better warm up this time,” Lori chided her. “You can’t just jump in with both feet after a whole year, and remember, it’s not like you were in such great shape even then.”
“Thanks. Thanks for your help,” Rachel said, and tried to give her a look, but Lori had already gone back to her can of spinach, so she just hobbled on.
Her first stop was the stationary bike. She did a slow, easy, fiat-line ride, and as her body began to loosen up, she pondered what in the hell she was going to do about that damn tree . . . until she realized she’d been thinking about the tree and Mr. Valicielo for almost forty-five minutes.
But hey, her legs actually felt a little stronger! She walked around in a circle for a moment to make sure they weren’t going to buckle or anything, and convinced they weren’t, she headed for the weight bench.
She was beginning to feel her cheerful self again, and was even achieving some weird endorphin high that caused her to actually contemplate an aerobics class. That might jump-start the ol’ metabolism, maybe burn off that huge honking brownie she’d eaten last night.
She headed up front to check out the class schedules, mopping her face and neck with a towel, still trying to catch her breath after doing four sets of power squats. She rounded the corner, squinted at the front desk. Lori was leaning all the way across, smiling like a goon at some guy, flexing her biceps—
Wait. Wait just a damn minute—that could not be him! What the hell was going on? What sort of freaky cosmic disturbance was rearranging her reality? She hadn’t had time to check her horoscope this morning, but she was pretty sure it didn’t say some British guy would keep popping up like a jack-in-the-box everywhere she went.
But it was him, all right, having a lovely little chat with Lori. And then he turned slightly to pick up his gym bag and saw Rachel at the exact moment she realized she was staring at him. He opened his mouth; she turned abruptly—
“Rachel?”
Crap. This was really just too much. It was all Dagne’s doing, she was certain. She’d probably screwed up the spell so this guy was only going to see her when she was in some humiliating circumstance, like sweating. Or stuffing brownies into her face.
“Rachel!” he said, smiling.
She tried not to look at the clingy gym pants he was wearing, but he was the kind of man who was hard to ignore in that regard. “Oh. Hi, Flynn.”
“You’re popping up all over, aren’t you,” he said, in spite of the fact that he was doing all the popping.
Man, he was built—she could make out a broad chest beneath his T-shirt. He was trim, but muscular. “I’m a member,” she said, and folded her arms, wincing a little as she silently thanked herself for choosing to wear these ridiculously shorty shorts that showcased her blubbery legs. And to add insult to injury, he was looking at them.