by Liz Talley
Darin was teasing. And there was truth in his words, too. Grant, an orphan at seventeen, had given his brother some rough nights.
“Anyway, can I go for a walk?”
Grant studied the other man, thrilled, and a bit cautious, too. Darin almost never left his sight—by choice. If being in therapy, being at the Stand, was going to have this kind of effect on him, the grueling hours were worth every single minute.
Reaching for another pile of brush, he scooped it up between his hands and stood. “Show me which direction you want to go.”
“Over there.” Darin pointed. With his right hand.
“I’m not looking at your right hand, bro.”
Frowning, the older man turned his left side toward the direction he’d been pointing. His tongue rolled inward while the rest of his body remained still. Grant stood, holding the brush. One minute. Two. Sweat beaded on Darin’s upper lip. The injured man’s brow was creased and his gaze trained on his left arm. He took a couple of deep breaths.
And the arm moved. Just like that. Not much. An inch at most. But...
Throwing the brush up in the air, Grant said, “You did it!” and rushed over to grab Darin’s arms. “You did it, bro!”
Darin smiled, but looked off to the distance. “Can I go for my walk now?” he asked, seemingly more harried than happy.
“Of course. No farther than the park, though, okay?”
“Just the park,” Darin said, his voice lifting a bit as he strode off.
And Grant wondered if this was what it felt like when a man sent his kid off for his first campout without him.
* * *
HER CONCUSSION PATIENT was progressing nicely. Not even a headache to speak of. Lynn had a call just before she’d left the office on Monday saying that the woman had attended her first group counseling session and, it was discovered, was an incredible seamstress. She was already at work stitching up some tank-style summer dresses from patterns and fabric that had been donated to the Stand.
Missy, the twenty-seven weeks pregnant resident whose husband had thought a wedding ring gave him the right to take his panic and frustration out on his wife’s body, was doing better, as well. No more signs of spotting. And an examination showed that everything was as it should be. She’d released Missy to normal activity and was eager to get home to Kara. It had been a long day.
She heard the squeal and recognized her daughter’s voice before she saw them. Maddie was sliding down the slide at the park with Kara settled securely between her knees. The playground had been designed for the underage residents at the Stand, most of whom were there with their mothers, many of whom had suffered physical abuse as well as the trauma of living in a fear-based home. “Again!” The curly-haired charmer clapped when they reached the bottom.
Just as Lynn was about to approach, to put an end to the day’s fun and get her little one home for her bath and a quick story before bed, she noticed the man who appeared from the other side of the slide.
“I’ll take her over to you again,” the voice said, a strange combination of masculine capability and little-boy tone. Darin Bishop. The man held Maddie’s hand with his good one, and walked her to the back of the slide. He waited while Maddie climbed the steps and sat. Then he stood with his hands an inch from Kara as she climbed up to where Maddie could reach her.
Ducking behind a tree, Lynn watched for another couple of seconds. She could go back to her house, meet Maddie there as planned.
“You should count.” Darin’s voice carried easily. “One...two...three...go!”
“One...two...three...go!” Maddie repeated, and Kara squealed.
The same sound that had attracted Lynn’s attention in the first place. She wasn’t needed here. Which left her with a rare few moments to herself.
Heading toward her bungalow about a block away across perfectly manicured grounds, Lynn walked the sidewalk that trailed through the grounds, saying hello as she passed a couple of residents, waving to a mother and her two children who’d checked in the week before and thanking the fates that had allowed her to meet a man like Brandon—one who was still kind and protective, even after they were no longer a couple.
Her sister, Katie, her aunt Evelyn, who’d been killed by an abusive husband before Lynn had been born...they hadn’t been so lucky.
And they were the reason Lynn had originally begun volunteering at the Stand. Dr. Zimmer had told her about the place after she’d taken personal leave to fly to Denver and help her mom and dad move Katie’s things out of the five-bedroom home her sister had owned with her ex-husband.
Brandon had been the exact opposite of her brother-in-law. Instead of looking to Lynn for what she could do for him, he’d given her everything that he could give. He’d given her Kara. And the chance to go to grad school and get her certified midwife certificate so she could spend her life exactly as she wanted to spend it—giving to others.
It wasn’t his fault that she’d lost her sexual allure where he was concerned....
“Hey! I was beginning to wonder if you’d left the planet!”
Spinning around, her heart beating a rapid tattoo, Lynn faced the man she’d been trying not to think about. She’d been succeeding, too.
Sort of.
“Grant!” she said, waiting for him to catch up to her. “I just saw Darin over at the park. I wondered where you were.” Or rather, had avoided letting herself wonder by focusing on what mattered. Kara. Their good luck. Their lives.
“Just finished my first round of the grounds,” he said, facing her on the sidewalk as he motioned toward the trailer in the grass, barely visible through the island of trees just behind him. “I’ve got to haul that stuff to the dump still tonight, but was waiting for Darin to show up. He went for a walk.”
“He’s over at the park,” she said. “With Maddie and Kara. I can take you there....”
“I know where the park is,” Grant said, grinning at her. “I spent two days this week getting to know it intimately.”
Was that innuendo intentional? “Of course,” she said, choosing to avoid any possible flirtation. “I’m sorry, I... I’ve been busy,” she improvised. Busy avoiding him.
“It’s certainly busy around here,” he said, his gloves in one hand tapping against his leg. “I had no idea.”
“Most people don’t.” Lynn glanced around them, looking for escape.
“If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to tell you about an idea I had for the Garden of Renewal.”
Maddie and Kara were still playing, enjoying themselves, thinking she’d be with her patients a while longer. Even if they went back to the house, Maddie would stay with Kara until Lynn got home. And if it was past her bedtime, she’d call to make sure someone else was with them. Maddie didn’t spend the night unsupervised. Meanwhile, Grant was talking about removing the gazebo from the Garden of Renewal and replacing it with benches interspersed throughout the three-acre haven of beautiful growth.
“That way women can have alone time if they need to find renewal from within, or have more personal one-on-one conversations if they’re there with someone else.”
She stared at him. He’d only been there a week. And he understood.
“I never liked the gazebo,” she said. But it had been donated. And there before she’d arrived.
“I think it would be put to better use in the park area,” he said. “That’s a more public gathering place. Unless I’ve misunderstood. But the garden area, it seems to be more of a place to find peace, quiet. Not to gather socially.”
“That’s right.”
He started toward the area visible across the grassy commons. She walked with him—and noticed the perusal he gave her. Which she then told herself she’d imagined.
She spent the next five minutes listening as he talked about a large rock fountain i
n the center of the garden in place of the gazebo. About flowering shrubs and blooms that would appear at different times throughout the year, giving the garden a sense of new life year-round. Endings and new beginnings, no matter what time of year it was.
She was trying not to think about a new beginning for herself. With him in the picture somewhere.
“What?” He was smiling at her again, but it was a more personal smile.
“What, what?”
“I don’t know. You just looked like you had something to say.”
They weren’t talking about flowers. And she wasn’t imagining anything.
“I appreciate what you’re doing here,” she said, opting for what she knew to be true, not hoping for what couldn’t be. “You’ve captured the essence of what we’re trying to create and devised a plan that would bring it to life much better than anything we’ve accomplished so far.”
He paused, watched her for a moment and then said, “It’s my business.”
“Our agreement only requires you to keep up the premises, not enhance it.”
“Do you always only give what’s expected of you? What you’re required to give?”
They weren’t talking about landscaping. Or jobs.
“Of course not.”
“I didn’t think so.” His expression serious, he moved farther into the garden, with occasional glances back toward where they’d come.
“You can go get him,” Lynn said, understanding the burden of being solely responsible for the welfare of another human being—the senses that had to be tuned in every hour of every day, whether you were physically with that person or not.
Grant shook his head. “No, as much as I’d like to, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“For the first time in longer than I can remember, Darin reached out for freedom today. It makes me nervous, but from what I’m told, he has to form some kind of life for himself or risk falling into a depression that could eventually kill him.”
And she only had to watch over Kara while she grew up and could take responsibility for herself....
“He moved his arm a little bit ago.” Grant’s tone reminded her of Brandon when he’d called her in between her university classes to tell her he’d seen Kara take her first step. “He’s only had six days of therapy and already there’s improvement.”
“That’s great!” she said, meaning it. “I expected it to take a couple of weeks, at least, before there was any noticeable change.”
“Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t much. Just an inch or so. But I saw it with my own eyes. He moved his arm.”
“I’m not surprised, Grant,” she said when he started to sound defensive. “Darin’s determined. And the damage the surgery did was to a portion of the brain that is retrainable, as you know. I’m just surprised at the speed with which we’ve seen progress!”
“That’s my brother for you. Once he’s made his mind up about something, there’s no going back.”
The way he was looking at her seemed to be sending some kind of personal message—beyond the perfectly circumspect conversation they were having. Had Grant made up his mind about something, too?
Something to do with her?
And him?
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I REMEMBER WHEN Darin decided he was going to play ball for the high school team.” Grant was heading for the middle of the garden, and Lynn kept pace beside him, trying to follow his conversation while she recovered her breath and wondered if she’d imagined the double meaning behind his words. “He’d been a star in Little League. I’d gone to all his games. But his high school...they had guys playing for them that were expected to go straight to Triple-A. That didn’t stop Darin, though. He wasn’t just going to play ball, he was going to play first base. I didn’t doubt him for a second.”
“You two were close growing up.” She had herself fully back in control.
“Yeah.”
“That’s kind of unusual, given your age difference.” They’d reached the gazebo and were standing inside of it. Out of the setting sun. Glad that she’d brought her sweater with her, Lynn rubbed her arms to stave off the chill of the February evening air.
She tried not to notice the way Grant Bishop’s jeans fit thighs that were proportioned perfectly enough to be etched in stone and gawked at for eternity.
Or to be aware of the fact that they were in the private gazebo all alone.
“Our father was an officer with the LAPD, killed in the line of duty when I was eight,” Grant said, and somehow they were sitting together on a bench of one of the three wooden picnic tables set in the gazebo. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, his work gloves on his thigh, as he sat with his back to the table, facing the direction of the park across the commons. She was facing out, as well, with several inches between them.
“Darin was fourteen at the time. Somewhere along the way someone told him he was the man of the house, and he took his responsibility seriously.”
“Was this before or after his resolve to try out for high school baseball?”
She could see the writing on the wall. Darin giving up his dreams to care for his little brother...and after Darin’s accident, Grant returning the favor for the rest of his life.
“Dad was killed the summer before Darin started high school.”
“So he didn’t have a chance to make the team?”
“He made the team. As a freshman. And by the time he was a junior he was starting at first. I’m telling you, my brother has what it takes to get it done.”
Considering the Bishop brothers’ current circumstances, the near–hero worship choked her up.
“You’re a lot like him.” Softly, she told him what she was thinking. His gaze met hers again. And held. Long enough for her to read the appreciation in his eyes.
Her comment had been personal.
But so was the connection between them.
And while she wasn’t married anymore, she wasn’t any more open to a romantic relationship between them than she’d been four years before.
Everyone had their gift to give the world, their own particular difference to make. Hers was here. With these women. And raising Kara.
Their life was unusual. And didn’t leave room for another personal partnership.
“I’m not like him,” Grant was saying, while Lynn, suffering from a heavy dose of sexual attraction, busily disavowed herself of a relationship he hadn’t offered. “He was able to do it all and stay kind and considerate. I get irritable just keeping up my half.”
“He had help. Your mother was there to help shoulder the responsibility of raising you. And, based on normal childhood development, you got more independent every year, too.”
He was facing a life sentence without parole. Not that she’d ever tell him so. He didn’t need her reminding him of the burden he’d undertaken.
But as a medical professional, she was completely aware of it. And knew all about the stresses common to family members of terminally ill or injured patients.
She admired those family members so much—admired their ability to face the burden that had been given to their loved one—and consequently to them.
Grant was shaking his head.
“Our mother died of a rare form of leukemia when I was a junior in high school. Grant was married by then, and he and Shelley took me in and not only gave me a home, they helped put me through college.”
Her heart caught again. “I’m sorry. I had no idea....”
She felt as if she had to do something. To help somehow. More than just as a facilitator of Darin’s therapy at The Lemonade Stand.
Except that his problems weren’t hers.
With his elbows leaning on his knees, Grant’s gaze was pointed out toward the direction they’d co
me—across the grassy expanse. She had a feeling that the second his brother appeared, he’d be up and out of there, shooting across the yard like a torpedo.
“You know, through all of that, I can only remember my brother losing his temper twice.”
Curious, she glanced at him. “When?”
“The first time was the one time I came home drunk. He half carried me to the bathroom and stood there while I threw up. He handed me an aspirin and stood over me while I drank it down. And then he put me to bed, all without saying a word or offering an ounce of sympathy. The next morning, in a very cold voice he let me know that he was not going to ask his wife to live with a young man who was so selfish, immature and weak as to lose control of himself to that extent. That’s all he said, but I knew he’d given me warning. If I ever came home drunk again, I would have to find another place to live.”
A bit extreme, maybe. For a first drinking experience.
And yet...
“I’m guessing you never came home drunk again.”
“More to the point, I never got drunk again. At least, not until I was of age and in my own living room.”
Which made her wonder when and why he’d done that. What had driven him to the point, as an adult, to sit in his own home and drink himself into a stupor?
Just with the little she knew of him, she could pinpoint a time or two that could prompt such an act.
“When was the second time you saw him angry?”
“When Shelley was fired from her job as a paralegal for filing a written complaint against one of the attorneys in the firm for sexual impropriety.” He stood up. “We should head back. I don’t want him confused if he gets back and I’m not there.”
“He can’t leave the grounds. Not without going through the main hallway, and the staff know to redirect him.”
“I’m not worried about him getting lost,” Grant said. “Darin wears his phone on his belt at all times. I’m the first speed dial, and also a speed dial picture on his front screen. He knows to call it if he needs me.” They were walking at a brisker pace now. “But if I’m not there he could get confused, which makes him feel...less than whole. Which depresses him.”