Rebecca Fischer pulled up her next appointment on her tablet. Her breath caught. Ben Taylor. The image of sandy brown hair and pale blue eyes flashed across her thoughts. Silly. There were probably hundreds—thousands, even—of people in the world with that name. Besides, Ben had never mentioned wanting to live in the D.C. area. And even over the course of one fleeting summer, it had been clear that Ben was going to get what he wanted.

Pushing away the ghosts of what might have been, Rebecca strolled through the sprawling therapy room, weaving between weight machines and treadmills. She crossed an expanse of floor mats where patients were stretching, some with the assistance of other physical therapists, resistance bands, and medicine balls. Conversations, grunts, groans, and the occasional whimper of pain ricocheted off the mirrored walls. She smiled as she stepped into the reception area.

“Mr. Taylor?” Rebecca’s gaze drifted over the handful of people waiting. Her heart raced as a man about her age, complete with sandy brown hair, wobbled out of a chair.

“That’s me.” Ben adjusted the position of his crutches and inched his way across the room.

Rebecca pursed her lips, evaluating his progress. He hadn’t been doing the range of motion exercises the surgeon had sent home with him. And he was babying his knee. “When was your surgery?”

“Friday.”

Three days. She nodded. Not as bad as she’d thought. “All right. Been doing your exercises?”

Ben hunched his shoulders. “Trying to.”

She held open the door into the main therapy room and gestured for him to go ahead of her. “I know it hurts. But if you want to get that full range of motion back, you’ll need to do more than try. I’ll help. I’m Rebecca, by the way. We’ll start with a focus on getting your knee extension back. For now, if you’re not here at therapy or doing your exercises, keep the immobilizer on and use your crutches. Either your surgeon or I will let you know when you can discontinue either one.”

“Okay. And the swelling?”

“It’ll go down, don’t worry. I’ll send you home with some instructions for that, as well.” Rebecca stopped in front of a straight-backed chair positioned against the wall on the far side of the mats. Pale blue eyes met hers and the moisture in her mouth evaporated. “Have a seat.”

When Ben was settled, she set his crutches out of reach and helped him remove the immobilizer. He shifted in the seat and flinched. “Now what?”

“Now we see how well you can extend your leg. I know you’ve been mostly straight in the brace, but you need to be able to get to what we call terminal knee extension, to regain your regular gait. If you want to grab the sides of the chair, that sometimes helps. Straighten your leg as far as you can.”

Grimacing, Ben lifted his leg, straightening it.

“How’d you tear your ACL?” Rebecca knelt by Ben’s leg and lifted his foot.

Ben sucked in a breath. “Uh. Football with the guys after church. My roommate played semi-pro, so he’s always trying to get a game going. I was stupid and caved.”

He hadn’t been athletic at summer camp, either. It had to be him. Did he recognize her? He wasn’t acting like it. Though it wasn’t as if she expected him to be overjoyed anyway. Not after the way she’d vanished after camp. Would he understand if she explained? “Did you at least have fun for a little while?”

“First play.”

She winced, biting back a laugh. “Oooh.”

He shrugged. “I’ve never been particularly athletic. I figured I’d get injured one way or another, but I hadn’t banked on it being this bad. At least it gets me out of having to play football again. Ever.”

“Go ahead and put your foot down. Feeling okay?”

Ben nodded.

“Ok, straighten your leg again, let’s see if we can go a little farther this time. While you do, tell me about yourself.”

“To help take my mind off the pain?”

“Yeah. Plus we’re going to spend a bit of time together while you recuperate. Just pretend I’m your hair stylist.”

“Getting my hair cut doesn’t hurt like this.” Ben ground his teeth together. “Um. Let’s see. I work for a hunger relief agency, primarily helping to allocate money and organize food drives that churches arrange throughout the year.”

Maybe not exactly what he’d been planning in college, but definitely close. “That sounds like a worthwhile job. Fulfilling. Go ahead and lower your foot.”

“It is. I like knowing that what I do makes a difference for people in countries where food isn’t as abundant as it is here.”

She nodded. Making a difference had been her dream, once. “Let’s go one more time and then we’ll do ultrasound therapy for the soft tissue, and spend some time working on that swelling. And I’ll get you some instructions to supplement what the surgeon probably sent home with you.”

“Okay.” He cocked his head to the side. “You look familiar. Have we met before?

Rebecca tossed her keys into the bowl by the front door and dropped her backpack under the small entryway table. Home. She’d moved to the townhouse in January, but nine months later, she still got a tingle when she walked through the door. Her own space. No neighbors above and below, no roommates. Just the one shared wall, since she’d managed to score an end unit, and the older lady who lived next door was a dear. Maybe it got a little loud when all her grandchildren came to visit, but that wasn’t too often, and more often than not, they invited her over anyway. Best of all? She’d done it all on her own. Mom had offered her a loan for a down payment when she’d moved out here... but it was so much better having saved up her own money rather than taking a handout.

Her cell phone rang. She dragged it out of her pocket and crossed the living room to the kitchen as she answered. “Hey, Mom. How’d you know I was just thinking about you?”

Her mother’s laugh made her smile. “Mothers know these things. Plus, it’s Monday and you just got home from work, so you knew I’d be calling.”

Rebecca took a bottle of sparkling mineral water out of the fridge and twisted off the top. “There’s that, too. How are things at home?”

“Oh, you know your father. He’s absorbed in editing his latest book and planning a big speaking tour around its launch. They’ve asked him to be the keynote at four regional youth rallies this spring as well.”

“He must be in heaven.” Rebecca took a long drink of water. Why did it still bother her? Especially now, when the illustrations he used were completely made up?

“Pretty close to it. The first one is in D.C.” Her mom’s voice lifted at the end, asking an unspoken question.

Rebecca placed her hand over the phone’s speaker and huffed out a breath. It had to happen sooner or later. “You know I’d love you to stay here. I have plenty of room.”

“Oh. No, that’s not it. We’ll stay at the hotel they’re using for the convention. But... do you think you could squeeze out some time to come down...”

“And let people ogle the bad-girl-turned-good?” Rebecca set the water down on her coffee table. “Mom... I’ll come take you sightseeing, have dinner, we can hang out, whatever. But please... please don’t ask me to be the poster-child again.”

“Ah, Becky, I’m sorry. I promised your father I’d ask. But I also warned him that I didn’t think you’d agree.”

“How’d he take that?”

“About as well as you’d expect. He’ll get over it.”

Probably use it to fabricate some new story about her misspent life. “You sure?”

“Of course. You haven’t appeared with him since you left for college. Honestly, I’m not sure why he thought you would just because we were going to be in your new hometown. I think, maybe it’s his way of trying to reconnect with you.”

Rebecca scoffed. “He has my phone number.”

Her mother sighed. “I know, Becky. And you have his. I hate being caught in the middle between you two.”

“Mom...”

“Don’t get me wrong, I understand why you did what you did. I think, in his heart, he does too, now. But it’s too late to undo the damage without ruining all the good he’s done—and continues to do. Which isn’t fair to you. I’m sorry, Becky.”

Heaviness settled on her chest. Had she done the right thing?

“Let’s put that aside and talk about something more pleasant. How did your date on Friday go?”

Rebecca gave a mirthless laugh. “I thought you wanted to talk about something more pleasant?”

“No second date in the works, then?”

“He might think so, but no.” Ben’s face flashed into her thoughts and her heartbeat accelerated. She cleared her throat. “Mom... do you remember when I worked at the camp in Colorado Springs for the summer?”

“Of course. Right after your freshman year of college. That’s when you got the bright idea to change your name and step away from the notoriety your Dad was forcing on you. Why?”

Rebecca reached for the bottle and took a long swallow of the fizzy water. “Did I ever mention Ben?”

“Hmm. I don’t think so. Why?”

She hadn’t told her mom about him? She told her mother everything. Now. It hadn’t always been that way. “Ben Taylor was the counselor for our brother cabin, so he and I ended up doing a lot together over the course of the summer. Even when we had time off, we gravitated toward one another.”

“You had feelings for him. I can hear it in your voice. What happened?”

Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut. “I never told him who I was. That summer at camp, I was just Marie Fischer. Not Becky MacDonald, infamous daughter of the famous pastor-turned-parenting-expert.”

“I didn’t realize you used your middle name in addition to my maiden name.”

“I wanted a clean break, with no way for anyone to connect me to bad-girl-Becky.”

“Oh, sweetheart. No one called you that.”

Rebecca gave a sardonic laugh. “Mom. They still do. Every time Dad’s in the press there’s the big ‘where is she now’ debate about me. Last one had me tucked away in rehab in Switzerland.”

“They didn’t.”

She shook her head. Mom was Dad’s biggest supporter, but she stayed out of his business entirely too well. “They did. I think that was about the time you were in Ghana supervising the opening of the new orphanage. I still don’t understand how you manage to keep Dad from writing his name across everything the foundation does.”

“Give your father a bit of credit, Bec. I know the two of you have your differences, but you know he’s a good man.”

Rebecca winced at the steel in her mom’s voice. “All right, you’re right. Sorry. I just wish...”

“I know, honey. Me too. I should have stepped in sooner.”

That would’ve been nice. But at this point there was little point in playing the what-if game. And, all things considered, Rebecca had made a good life for herself. One where Becky MacDonald had no place and cast no shadow.

Her mother cleared her throat. “So...Ben?”

“He’s my newest physical therapy patient.”