by Dale Mayer
“And maybe that’s why he didn’t carry out any further plans,” Tanner said. “As much as you may not like the implication, being handicapped might have saved your life.”
Chapter 7
Wynn knew how sensitive her brother was about his condition, how determined he was to get back on his feet and to live some semblance of the life he used to have. He hated to be called “handicapped.” He refused to use the word himself. It didn’t change the fact that he was currently handicapped, but he probably figured, if he kept saying the word, defining himself as “handicapped,” the more his mind would accept it, and it would slow down his progress. She wasn’t sure she agreed with him, but, since it was his life and his rehab, and he’d made so much progress on his own now, she figured there couldn’t be any harm in continuing to do things his way.
She was a little bit worried about what Todd’s reaction would be to Tanner’s statement. What she did appreciate was the fact that Tanner spoke in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. He wasn’t judging. He wasn’t mocking. He was stating the facts. She glanced over at Todd and said, “That would be a change, wouldn’t it?”
He gave half a shrug, as if unsure how to take Tanner’s comment.
She smiled. “That’s not something we considered, but, to go along with that, you were probably wearing your glasses on our drive, right?”
Todd looked at her, puzzled.
Tanner asked, “What about his glasses?”
She smiled. “They’re heavy, thick glasses that somebody with very poor sight—or severe light sensitivity—would wear. They wrap around the side of his head and don’t let in very much light.”
Tanner nodded. “And that would go along with the intruder’s possible assumption.”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
“So you think he thought maybe I wasn’t a threat?” Todd asked. This time there was a note of anger in his voice.
Tanner gazed at him, but his gaze was flat, calm. “So prove him wrong. He probably came to the house, saw you were likely handicapped, possibly blind, and figured you were no threat. And he’s focused on Wynn now.”
Wynn nodded. “Prove to him that you are somebody to be reckoned with. That you aren’t something to be discarded like the wheelchair you’re working so hard to leave behind permanently.” Wynn held her breath. She loved the angle Tanner had taken. It was just the right note. But, since Todd didn’t know Tanner, she wasn’t sure how well this would be received from a perfect stranger. Sometimes, however, that was the best way.
Todd nodded slowly, though his gaze never left Tanner’s face. “I’m not terribly good at the self-defense thing.”
“Maybe it’s time to look at that then,” Tanner said quietly. “I don’t know where you’re at in your recovery program, but I can see you’re not back to full health and to full strength. In self-defense, any weight lifting you can do within the capabilities of where you’re at will help you.”
Todd looked down at his desk for a moment. Wynn walked to the kitchen—near the end of the first driveway and abutting the garage—to throw out the trash from their lunch and to start some coffee. The men drifted toward her, talking quietly. She was happy Tanner was the kind of person who could do that, who could reach Todd, who could speak openly yet without criticism. Todd had always been supersensitive. Having been a professional athlete like herself, their fitness was incredibly important to them. But, when you lose all that, it’s hard to get it back. It was also hard to deal with what you had left to work with. She understood because she’d been there.
In Todd’s case, he had been even more stubborn and a whole lot more unreasonable. He’d walked away from his physio a few months ago. She’d been quietly urging him to go back, but he’d been all the more resistant every time she addressed the subject. But now, as she listened to him and Tanner talk, she marveled at how easily Todd was contemplating physio again.
“You don’t have to go to the same physio,” Tanner said with enthusiasm. “Make sure you go to one who’s got experience with where you’re trying to go. They can take you to a whole new level of fitness.”
The two of them sat down at the kitchen table, heads together, discussing weight-lifting fitness programs and which parts of his body he had to really work on. She hadn’t heard so much enthusiasm out of Todd since his injury. She was both delighted and sad. Why couldn’t he be like this with her?
She understood it was something guys could talk about a lot easier with each other, and maybe Todd just needed somebody who didn’t know what he’d been through to come into this at a fresh angle. Maybe even just somebody who was a complete stranger to all of it, who made Todd feel like he wasn’t being looked at as something less than he once was, comparing this Todd to the old Todd.
She didn’t understand it all, but she was grateful.
“I tend to avoid public places these days,” Todd said.
“Understood,” Tanner said. “Or at least understandable. But you’re walking almost normally. You shouldn’t feel bad at all.”
“It’s these things.” He lifted the crutches he used to support himself.
Tanner nodded. “I hate crutches of any type, but my buddy and I were once both down with injured ankles at the same time and put on crutches for a couple weeks by the doctors. And we still had a lot of work to do with being in the navy.” He grinned. “We used to race each other up and down the stairs. Sometimes with crutches. Sometimes just hopping on our healthy foot. It was all good, until I tripped and fell flat on my face and broke my nose,” he confessed.
Wynn stared at him, trying hard not to laugh.
He glanced at her and rolled his eyes. “Go ahead and laugh. Everybody else did.”
She chuckled. “Good for you for taking it. But that must have been pretty rough.”
He shrugged. “It was all in good fun. Competition with support makes all the difference in your life. It makes you reach for things you didn’t think you could do.” He glanced from one sibling to the other. “You guys know all about that. There’s no way having both siblings in professional sports, the same sport at that, didn’t command a certain amount of a competitive spirit.”
Todd laughed. “So true. For me especially. The last thing I wanted was for my kid sister to come out and smack me down in place rankings.”
“Like I’d do that,” she scoffed. “It also helped that we were two different sexes, so we never competed against each other. We did mixed doubles and teams together. It was all fun though.”
They sat here, drinking coffee, their conversation more about things in general, mostly about their lifestyles.
Wynn said, “It wasn’t a normal lifestyle, that’s for sure. Our grandparents didn’t agree with us doing competitive sports but were happy to see us happy and let us do our thing.”
“As long as we didn’t return to them broken and injured,” Todd interrupted. “Hence why we’re living where we are while I recover.”
“And while I was injured before,” Wynn reminded him, “you looked after me. Just because your recovery is taking longer than any we’ve had up until now doesn’t mean I’m bothered by it.”
“No, I’m bothered by it,” Todd said. “But Tanner’s right. I have come a long way. I tend to forget to look back to those early days after the accident, so I can see how far I’ve traveled. I still look in the mirror and see where I was before my accident and think how far I have yet to go.”
Tanner nodded. “I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong. I think that’s human nature. We forget to appreciate what we’ve already accomplished. We’re too busy counting our failures.”
“Speaking about failures, you guys do realize I just got fired today.”
“You’ll find something else,” Todd said comfortably. “Or don’t. Help me work on the designs, sell privately, set up the website like we always talked about, go into business for ourselves.”
“The whole point of me getting a job,” she said in exasperation, “was because we didn’t have
enough money to do that otherwise, remember?”
He nodded. “But we could also move out of town, change locations to something cheaper, and potentially we’d do just fine anyway.”
“No money coming in is scary,” she snapped. “The bills just don’t stop. We’ve got all the gear the school never paid me for, remember?”
“So we build them into paragliders and sell them on our own website with our own logo. I mean, we do have a hell of a name.”
“True, and you did get good money for the last couple gliders you custom-built.” She remained thoughtful. “We wouldn’t have to sell very many in a month to cover our cost of living.”
“See? You can do the bookkeeping and the office stuff now, and I can do a bunch of the marketing and PR stuff. Between us, we’ve got it handled. I hate paperwork.”
She made a face at him. “And I hate marketing. But both are necessary evils. We already determined which one of us was better at which.”
“You know how I am with paperwork. As far as I’m concerned, the round filing cabinet is where it all belongs.”
She chuckled. “I hear you. The trouble is, the government doesn’t agree. Still, we can’t pull any wages. We’d be pulling only expenses for now.”
“You’re still hot in the industry. I’m still getting endorsements,” he said. “We can drag this out for a while. And I think, if we started building our own gear, maybe get into a clothing line, we’d do really well.”
“A clothing line? Have you been thinking about that for a while, or did that just pop up?”
“We’d start with something like sports apparel. Not necessarily wind suits, although I can’t see anything wrong with starting with those,” he said with a quirky grin. “But hoodies and jackets—lightweight, heavyweight, rain-weight, all that stuff—but with our own logo, our own badge. You know? Like Summers and Summers did.”
“Sure, but remember they went broke,” she said drily.
“They did, and they deserved to. They drank and drugged their way through whatever they intended to do anyway. They dropped their business, which had been doing extremely well, right down a deep hole and followed in after it.”
She had to admit that was a fair assessment. She caught Tanner studying her intently. She frowned. “What’s that look for?”
“Nothing, just an interesting concept. I think going into business for yourself would be a good idea for you two.” He glanced around. “Do you own this place, or is it leased?”
“It’s leased. I have a flat of my own in San Diego,” Todd said. “But it wasn’t wheelchair friendly. So it’s rented out for a decent amount that’s covering the flat’s mortgage. She has one as well.”
“Sure, but mine is in New York,” she said with a laugh. “For whatever reason, I bought a place a long time ago when the money first started rolling in.”
“Both locations are pretty pricey real estate,” Tanner said. “Sell them both and buy a place a little bit out of town, and you’d probably do just fine with the leftover money.”
The two looked at each other and shrugged. “It’s possible,” she said cautiously. “But those are also our bolt-holes. They’re the only things we have in life.”
“No,” Tanner said gently. “You have each other. And that’s worth a hell of a lot more. You also have this business you’ve already invested a ton in, not just money but blood, sweat and tears. It sounds like it’s time to make it or break it. You’ve lost your job, Wynn, but you still have a lot of connections in the industry. Contact them and move forward. Forget about the school you just worked for. Be their competition. You’ll take over in no time.”
Todd laughed. “I really like the way you think.” He got up, stumbled to the coffeepot, carefully brought it back, set it on the table and refilled their cups. “I think he’s right though. It’s time we did this on our own. Full-time.”
She sagged back in her chair and muttered, “I think so too. But that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable doing it.”
Tanner chuckled. “Doing the right thing is never easy, and doing the hard thing is often the best way forward, especially because it’s hard. If you wanted to play it safe all your life, you would never have gone into this sport.”
She looked at him and smiled. “You’re so right.”
*
Tanner was fascinated by his further insights into the brother-and-sister duo. He’d done a little research before he had showed up at the school earlier this morning. He found out how well the two were known in their own field. “With your names, you could launch all kinds of things. I think you’d be a big success in no time.”
“Maybe,” Todd said cheerfully. “But I’d be happy with a chance to continue doing our research and keeping us afloat.”
“You may be happy with that. I’m not. I want more for us,” Wynn said. “We have a lot of potential. Tanner’s right. It’s just scary taking that first jump off a cliff.”
“And you know how it feels time and time again,” Tanner reminded her. He smiled. “I’ve never seen anybody quite so eager to take that first jump. So what’s holding you back right now?”
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyebrows raised as if she hadn’t considered that. And then a slow smile dawned across her face. “Nothing, I guess. I still have to deal with whoever sabotaged my equipment though.”
“True and that could mean he’s coming back here, now that your Jeep is here too.”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t mean he knows where I currently live.”
Tanner hopped to his feet. “One thing we should do is make sure you don’t have a tracker on your car.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” She frowned at Todd, who got up and followed Tanner out.
But Todd got what Tanner was worried about. “Good Lord, Wynn. You can’t lead this guy to Elizabeth’s apartment.”
“But he doesn’t want Elizabeth,” she said.
“But that doesn’t mean he’ll leave her alive,” Tanner said gently, standing at the kitchen door leading to the garage. “So you need to change locations, and you need to change it fast.”
“I don’t have any other place to live.”
“Come back here,” Todd urged. “This is your home.”
“I suspect,” Tanner said, “if this guy isn’t someone directly related to the school and already in the know, that he’ll be following the media. If there isn’t any mention of your accidental death, and he sees your Jeep running around town again, he’ll try again sometime in the next week or two. Even if he works at the school and saw the cops converge there earlier today, he may at least lie low for a week or two. But with these four incidences in what? Two months?”
“Three,” Todd said.
“Three months’ time? He seems to be escalating,” Tanner said, looking directly at Wynn for emphasis.
She shook her head. “I don’t like this. What the hell does he want?”
“If it isn’t the same guy in the vehicle you passed on that back road, it muddies this up,” Tanner said. “That brings us right back to the fact it could be professional jealousy or any other number of crazy ideas. You sure you don’t have an ex-boyfriend who was pissed off or upset when you broke up with him?”
“I told you, no.” Her tone was short. “It makes no sense that anybody would be after me.”
“And yet, do you think that’s what this is all about, or do you really think your gear was accidentally sabotaged?”
She glared at him. “Okay, so there was nothing accidental about it.”
He nodded. “Exactly. And, therefore, you have to find out the reason behind it. It can’t be that hard.”
“Well, it’s not that easy either,” she snapped. “It’s not like somebody jumped up and said, ‘Oh, damn, you’re not dead. I’ll have to try again.’”
Tanner chuckled. “No, it’s never that easy. But eventually you’ll get to the bottom of it. While you’re thinking more on that angle, in the meantime, you have to stay safe, and y
ou have to make sure you don’t put anybody else in harm’s way.”
She glanced around at their home, at the garages and their workshop. “He obviously knows about this place, if he’s the guy who broke in weeks ago.”
“So maybe move back in here with Todd again, make sure you’ve got a good security system in place, especially addressing the ways the intruder got inside the last time, and a guard dog wouldn’t be a bad idea either,” he said thoughtfully. “Or do you know anybody else you can move in here with you for a bit?”
She glared at him. “Why would I want more people here? Todd doesn’t like company as it is.”
“Granted, with the police notified, they should be making more drives by this place, which is something at least. But I was thinking about a bodyguard or somebody who would be a deterrent for our would-be assassin.”
Todd said quietly, “It’s not a bad idea, even though I don’t like having people around.”
“It’s big enough.” She was thoughtful. “But how much of a deterrent will another person be? If this asshat lights this place on fire, it’s not like he’s worried about whoever else is inside.” She shook her head. “We’ll think about our options.” Her tone of voice said the matter was closed. “We have lots to think about anyway.”
Tanner opened the rear kitchen door, leaving it ajar as he headed to her Jeep.
From the kitchen, in her line of sight, she could see Tanner at her Jeep, running his hands over it. “How can you even find anything like that?” she asked him.
He shot her a look. “Remember the unit you took up for training?”
“Oh, right.” She felt stupid.
With her and Todd both watching, Tanner went over the entire Jeep. He nodded and said, “You’re clear.” He watched the relief wash across her face.
“See? All for naught,” she said cheerfully.
“Not really,” Tanner said. “Since you no longer work at the school, it just means they’ll center in on accessing this place again.” Tanner walked around the set of large garages that sprawled along the back of the house that they used as a garage and a workshop. “How long have you guys lived here?”