Once again I am posting with the help of a good friend and beta, Jago-ji. She has the innate ability to ferret out all of my weak plot lines—an invaluable trait. And then she does all of the regular stuff too, like correcting my grammar, spelling and typos. Thank you for your help, my friend!

As always, I use them for fun and not for profit.

A/N: I'll be posting daily, straight through to the very end...but now it's time to begin!

Chapter 1

He looked at his reflection in the mirror. Apart from the silver ponytail banded low at his nape, he didn't look much different than he ever had. It was a fine example of how looks could be deceiving. He'd experienced pain many times in his life. And now, when the pain was as bad as it had ever been, the mirror told him he was successful in his attempt to keep it hidden. Another challenge conquered.

It was a sobering thought that his condition qualified him to be in this retirement home on a permanent basis rather than just a temporary visitor to their rehab floor. The broken ribs, high on his left side, had resulted in a large bruised area extending from his armpit halfway across his upper back. He couldn't use a crutch per doctor's order and instead was relegated to maneuvering with a walker, because he couldn't put weight on the surgically repaired compound fracture of his tibia and fibula. The doctor was surprised he was able to ambulate at all with the external fixation rods sticking out of his leg, making him look like some lab-created Frankenstein monster, but Ranger was determined. It was temporary, he kept telling himself. He would heal and get back to some semblance of normal life.

Normal life. He'd never had a normal life, so how the hell was he supposed to get back to it? He'd had hope once, but that hope had ended the day a hit and run driver had taken the lives of Joe and Stephanie Morelli, and that of their infant child.

He always knew that no matter what her feelings for him, she'd pick Joe, and he'd been okay with that. Joe could give her a good life, and Ranger knew he would never make that commitment. Their relationship had changed by mutual agreement. He wouldn't bed another man's wife, and he knew that was a line Stephanie wouldn't cross. But he'd still be a part of her life. He'd watch her family grow as he grew RangeMan. He'd still be there for her if she needed him.

But then some fucking anonymous hit and run driver ended it all. Ranger had kept his feelings tucked deep inside and only Tank knew the extent of his real and unending grief. His hair had turned silver almost overnight, and he'd buzzed his head to keep the comments at bay. And he'd continued to put one foot in front of the other, because he knew no other way. The assignments that funded RangeMan kept coming and he kept saying yes. It didn't matter that he wasn't supposed to return from most of them. Karma was screwing with him, because time after time he came home, uninjured, with an infusion of cash for RangeMan.

Finally, as he neared his sixtieth birthday, he'd sold RangeMan. The company was being absorbed into a well-known nationwide security firm, and Ranger and his original staff were millionaires, many times over. His men deserved it, and most of them were ecstatic. Most being everyone but Tank, who had opposed the sale. Tank was like him. They were old men without a life plan. RangeMan had been their lives. Ranger was optimistic, even if Tank was not. He'd find something else to occupy his existence, and when he did, he'd bring Tank with him.

He'd let his hair grow, no longer concerned with maintaining a corporate appearance, and he began slowly to reimagine his life. His skill set was unique, acquired during a lifetime of anonymous service to his country. He knew he could use those skills to carve out a new niche for himself…and for Tank. Tank had been a constant in his life since his early days in the military, and neither man had any desire to work independent of one another.

His immediate plans had been derailed by the freak accident that had left him broken, physically. He'd been broken mentally for a much longer time. At least these injuries would heal. By the time he'd been ready to be released from the hospital, he had a new dilemma. He was homeless. The sale of RangeMan had necessitated he find a new place to live, and he'd been in the middle of that when disaster had struck.

He had weeks, or possibly months, of recovery ahead of him and it had seemed the simplest thing was to take temporary residence in the exclusive retirement community. The reality of the place was not as good as it had seemed on paper. He was a loner and demanded privacy. His first discovery was that privacy was nonexistent in community living.

He grimaced as he heard the knock on his door. It was unlocked which went against a lifetime of training and practice, but it was the norm for this place. He called out a terse, "Come in," which at least gave the appearance he had some control. He knew better. As long as he was in this place with metal rods sticking through the skin of his lower leg, he was not in control. He planned to recover quickly, and then get out.

The woman was young, but she approached him with confidence, not deterred by the grisly sight of his leg. "Mr. Mañoso?" she asked as she held out her hand. "I'm Cally Edelman. I'm your physical therapist."

He accepted her proffered hand and shook it briefly. "I was under the impression that my therapy wouldn't begin for another week," he said.

"That's right," Cally said. "But you still have significant swelling in your leg and I am going to be doing some massage to help with that this week. Are you still having a lot of pain?"

"No." Whether he was or wasn't, he wouldn't bend to it. The sooner the therapy started the sooner it would be over, and he'd be out of this place.

"Do you mind if I look a little closer at your leg?" she asked.

"You'll need to, if you're the therapist." He sounded brusque, even to himself. He shot her a look to see if she'd been put off by his demeanor, and what he saw surprised him. She was checking him out, her eyes slowly taking in his muscled forearms. He saw her eyes flicker to his chest and slowly trail down his abdomen to his legs, showing beneath the athletic shorts that were now his daily wear. He was used to women looking at him appraisingly, and sometimes he returned their interest. He hadn't been expecting it from his therapist. She was young, and attractive, but he wasn't interested. He decided to be direct. He could be intimidating, and he thought this might be the time. He waited until her eyes had finished her tour.

"Like what you see?" he challenged. He waited for her response and then he'd let her know he wasn't interested. Her response was unexpected.

"I do," she said. "What I see explains a lot." She pulled out a chair from the small dinette table and carried it across the room to the sofa where he was sitting. His walker was pushed to the side but still within his reach. He couldn't do without the damn thing. He watched her casual movements and decided she must be used to dealing with surly characters as his lack of hospitality didn't seem to be bothering her at all.

"I wondered why Dr. Jones used external fixation rods on you. Now I know," Cally said. She pulled a small tablet out of the pocket of her white lab coat and swiped the screen. "Here is your latest x-ray," she told him and turned the screen toward him.

He grimaced as he looked at the screws that anchored rods into the pieces of bone in his lower leg. The rods extended through the skin and made an external framework that rendered his lower leg immobile. "It looks pretty bad to me," he said. "Dr. Jones indicated that it was a bad fracture and that this…" he pointed at the contraption, "this was my best chance of healing quickly without loss of bone length. Mobility is important to me. My work is…" He paused only a moment before he finished. "My work is physical." The truth was he no longer had any work.

"I can see that," Cally said. "You're in great shape. I was surprised Doc chose this for you because of your age. Now I can see why he opted for this method of fracture immobilization. It's not typically something we see here, because it's not a method typically used with the elderly population."

"I am not elderly!" he growled. She laughed at him.

"You are," she countered, her grin widening. "The facts are irrefutable. You are sixty years old and in a senior rehab facility. If you weren't old, you wouldn't be here."

Ranger wondered for a moment if her callous words were an attempt to strike back at him for his less than polite words to her. But she didn't seem upset at all.

"There's chronological age and then there is biological age," Cally continued. "And I think that while on paper you're, uh, shall we say mature, you are in such great shape that biologically you are a much younger man. It's going to make my job much easier."

"What exactly is your job?" Ranger asked her.

"My job is to aid in your recovery. You're going to be here for three, maybe four months and during that time I had planned to slowly build an exercise program that would facilitate healing, but now I can see I have more work cut out for me. I can tell you are used to exercise on a regular basis and I'm going to work out a routine for you so that you don't lose muscle mass. I mean, what good is a healed leg if the rest of you has atrophied?"

Ranger began to listen with interest. If he could work out the uninjured area of his body on a regular basis, the time here would go by much faster.

"I'll have to check with your doctor regarding your rib fractures, but I'm betting we can get you on the weight machine pretty soon. For now though, you're going to have to put up with me massaging your leg. I know it's tender, but massage will reduce the swelling and this time next week you'll be coming down to the gym daily. How's that sound?"

"It sounds good," Ranger said. He thought about apologizing for his earlier curtness but decided against it. It hadn't seemed to bother this girl. He watched as she raised his leg and rested it on the chair and then sat on the floor. The touch of her hands was firm, but not painful. She had long tapered fingers, and he could feel the strength in them. She was concentrating on her job, and he took time to study her.

She had been checking him out, but not on a personal level, he realized. She'd been professional from the beginning. She was young. Younger than his own daughter by maybe eight or ten years. And she had the long lean body of an athlete. She was tall, and not overly muscular, but he could tell she worked out on a regular basis. Her hair was black and straight and was pulled into a no-fuss ponytail.

She looked up at him and their eyes met directly for the first time. His breath caught. She immediately lessened the pressure of her hands. "I'm sorry," she said. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," he uttered softly. He offered no explanation for his sudden uneven breathing. Instead, he forced himself to take slow deep breaths and maintain a calm presence. Her eyes were bright blue. He'd seen eyes that color before, but they were just a memory now. Could she be a relative? One of Steph's nieces? No. She was too young for that and other than the eye color, she bore no resemblance to Stephanie. The sudden ache in his gut was intense and he moaned softly.

"I am hurting you," she said. "I'll give it a rest for today. I'll come back tomorrow, and we'll try this again." She rose effortlessly and carefully lowered his leg back to the floor. She returned the chair to the table.

"It was nice meeting you, Mr. Mañoso," she said. "I look forward to helping you."

"I'm Carlos," he said.

"Carlos, then," she said. "I'll talk to your doctor and be back tomorrow with a plan of action." She smiled and gave him a little finger wave as she left his apartment, and he sat in stunned disbelief. It had been a very long time since a beautiful blue-eyed young woman had given him a finger wave.