by Beth K. Vogt
If it was all about location, location, location, Kendall Haynes made a wise choice purchasing this building. She had an incredible view of Pikes Peak. Griffin watched the setting sun turn the mountain range into a black backdrop rimmed in a golden glow. As far as he was concerned, Colorado’s sunsets had no rival. Since moving to the Springs, he hadn’t seen the same one twice.
Kendall’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Did you get the fuel pump fixed?”
“Yep.”
“So your Jeep’s running smoothly again.”
“Not exactly.”
He wasn’t surprised to hear her give a knowing chuckle. Since she was a Jeep girl, she understood how temperamental the things were.
“So what’s the problem now?” She shifted, coming a bit closer. What perfume was she wearing? And why didn’t she smell like a hospital or something . . . medicinal?
“Started hearing a clicking noise up front—driver’s side.”
“Hhhhm. Wheel bearing? Maybe the brake caliper?”
Whoa. A woman who talked mechanics. Not that it was cute. Or appealing. It was just different.
“Could be the universal joint.”
He knew Jeeps, too.
“True. So, you investigating?”
“That’s what Saturday is for.”
They stood in silence, both staring at the Peak. She broke the silence flowing out into the cold night air first.
“So . . .”
“So?”
“If you need any help, I’m available.” Kendall stuttered over her next words. “I-I mean, I love working on Jeeps. I’ve got a closet full of my dad’s tools—always happy to put them to good use.”
Was Kendall Haynes trying to take care of him, too? First his brother, now him. But then again, she admitted to being a Jeep girl. And she’d rebuilt her CJ5 with her dad—so she knew Jeeps inside and out, and probably backward and forward. Griffin shoved her offer aside. How difficult would fixing a universal joint be? Half an hour, max. He could handle it.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve got it covered.”
“Well, good.” She shrugged, pulling the collar of her lab coat up around her neck.
“Thanks anyway.”
“Anytime.”
He could almost feel the temperature dropping degree by degree as they stood in silence, waiting for Ian and Sully to return. Maybe that stopwatch wasn’t such a bad idea. When he caught the faint sound of his brother’s laughter intertwined with a dog’s raucous barking, Griffin pulled his keys from his pant pocket.
“Sounds like it’s time to go.”
“Don’t forget the prescriptions—”
He patted his wallet. “Got ’em.”
“Good. And the peak flow meter—”
“Pocket.”
“You’re set, then.” She stepped forward as Sully skidded to a stop in front of them, tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his doggy grin. “If you have any questions—”
“I’ll call the office.”
“Right.” She took the leash from Ian. “Come on, dog. Time for dinner. Thanks for walking him, Ian.”
Ian bent down and scratched behind Sully’s ears. “Anytime. He’s a great dog.”
Walking backward, the woman dragged the goldendoodle toward the building. “He’s sixty-five pounds of stubbornness.”
As he followed Ian around to the front of the office to where his Jeep was parked, Griffin swallowed a laugh. Kendall probably didn’t weigh a whole lot more than her dog. And they were both strong-willed.
Perfect match.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Griffin searched the Y’s cardio room and found Doug already logging miles on one of the exercise bikes in the back. The man might be a good twenty years older than him and retired from the air force, but he worked out as if he still needed to pass an annual fitness test. Even in the gym, Doug carried himself with the attitude of someone in command—although he now indulged in a close-cropped beard, something his military career never permitted. Walking along the perimeter of the room, he made his way over to Doug and selected a cycle beside him, adjusted the seat, and climbed on. The sound of people exercising—the rhythmic thud of feet pounding on treadmills, the steady whir of the motorized stepper—melded together with the odor of sweat.
Working out. Nothing like it.
“Good to see you.” Doug nodded in his direction, his legs pumping at a steady rate.
“You, too, sir.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Drop the ‘sir.’ I haven’t been your Academy sponsor in, well, do we really want to say how long it’s been?”
“Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been sixteen years.” Griffin cranked up the tension on the bike.
“Time has a way of going a lot faster than we think—and things have a way of not going according to our plans.”
“You got that right.” Griffin’s life proved that. The past was littered with choices he’d thought were the right ones that somehow went wrong.
“Pick up your pace and tell me what you’re thinking, son.” Doug took the white towel wrapped around his neck and swiped at a line of sweat trickling down his forehead into his full beard.
Griffin leaned forward and increased his rotations. “Same stuff—and then some.”
“Ian still giving you problems?”
“Yes. First he loses Mom and Dad. Then, because I’m stationed here, I take him away from all his friends. Who can blame the kid?” Griffin gripped the handles as if the bike might careen off its stationary path and into the line of treadmills in front of him. “And then I find out he’s been hiding the fact that he has asthma and is severely allergic to avocados and a bunch of other stuff. He almost died on me.”
His words caused Doug to slow down. “What happened?”
Griffin related the events at On the Border, the image of Ian’s blue lips, his body racked with coughs still rattling him like a bad altimeter reading. “I should have known.”
“How? No one told you—”
“Really? My mom never mentioned Ian’s allergies? Or did I just not listen? I never took the time to get to know my little brother . . . and now I’m his guardian.” Griffin snorted. “Some guardian. I almost killed him.”
His words caused the woman wearing a COLORADO: THE OTHER RECTANGLE STATE T-shirt on the cycle to his left to look at him with raised eyebrows.
“Griffin, wallowing in guilt will get you nowhere.” Doug leaned over and grasped his shoulder, his gaze direct yet compassionate. “You’ve made mistakes. Learn from them and move on.”
Easier said than done. He had enough consequences looming ahead of him for years to come. And he had two years to do right by Ian before the kid turned eighteen and walked out the door and never saw him again. He needed to call Mrs. Jamison again and see if she and her husband had made a decision about taking Ian.
Doug’s voice intruded on his thoughts. “Don’t believe everything you’re thinking.”
“What? Is that in the Bible somewhere?” Griffin respected how Doug, the man who guided him from confusion and hopelessness to God, always spoke truth grounded in Scripture.
“Yes and no. It’s my updated way of saying something Paul said in Philippians. It boils down to ‘Don’t believe everything you’re thinking.’ ”
“Ian barely speaks to me. The only time we had any sort of a decent time together was the night we hung out with Kendall Haynes and her dog—”
“Who?”
Griffin held up his hand to stall the Are you dating? question. “Dr. Kendall Haynes, the woman at the restaurant when Ian had the allergic reaction. She also helped me out one night when my Jeep broke down on the side of I-25. She let Ian walk her dog one night after his appointment. She feels sorry for him—that’s it.”
“You seem to have an awful lot of run-ins with this Dr. Haynes. Is she single or married?”
“Most definitely single—and I’m not surprised, or the least bit interested.”
Doug�
�s shout of laughter bracketed his eyes with lines and tugged a smile across Griffin’s face.
“Not your type, eh?”
“She reminds me of Tracey. Opinionated. All about her career.” Griffin sat up, rotating his shoulders to ease the tension from his back. “She may be five feet tall, but she has a Patton-sized personality. I’m not surprised she drives a Jeep—just surprised she doesn’t have a driver.”
“You sure she’s not interested in you?”
Now it was Griffin’s turn to laugh. “Unless you’re talking about her being interested in verbal sparring, most definitely not. Believe me, her focus is Ian. She lost her dad when she was a teenager, too, so she understands how he feels.”
The two biked sided by side for a few minutes. When the world began to tilt to the left, Griffin sat up straight. When would he have one day without vertigo pushing his brain off balance?
“Ian’s not the only one who’s missing your mom and dad, Griffin. You’re grieving, too.”
Griffin mulled over his friend’s words, staring straight ahead, his hands resting on his thighs, his T-shirt damp against his back. “That doesn’t make any sense. I mean, yes, I’m sad. I even admitted as much to Ian. How could I not be? I loved my parents. But I’m thirty-eight years old. I left home at eighteen to go to the Academy. Got married at twenty-two. I’ve been on my own for years. I’m handling this.”
Griffin knew Doug watched him but refused to make eye contact with the older—and much wiser—man.
“All true. But you still lost your parents in an unexpected, tragic accident. It’s normal to be sad about it. If you don’t grieve, you’re not allowing Ian to grieve.”
Was that true? What had Kendall Haynes called him—Strong and Silent? There was nothing wrong with that . . . it was just who he was. Not a talker. But was his not talking hurting Ian?
“You want to help your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have to choose to have a relationship with him.”
There was that word: relationship. Another thing he failed at. So long as relationship meant no expectations on either side, he was good.
“I’m not the best at relationships, Doug. You know that.”
“What do you call this?”
“What do you mean?”
Doug motioned back and forth between the two of them. “You and me.”
Huh? What kind of question is this?
“We get together. We talk. Work out. You listen. I talk. You give me advice. We pray together. Um . . . we’re friends.”
“Took you . . . long enough . . . to say it.” Doug’s words came out in between little huffs of breath as he upped the tension on his bike and stood up in the pedals. “Not gonna get . . . all ‘bromance’ on you. That’s what they call it . . . right?”
“I have no idea.”
“We’re friends. We spend time together . . . we talk. That, son . . . is a relationship. Do the same thing with Ian.”
“He barely says hello to me.”
“You used to . . . call me ‘sir.’ ”
“I still call you ‘sir.’ ”
“Rarely. Takes time . . . but things change. Put the effort into it.” Doug cycled in silence for a few moments before easing back on the tension and sitting again. “What’s on the agenda tonight?”
“Ian’s studying. I’m getting dinner on the way home.”
“What are you getting?”
“It’s Friday, so that means burgers and fries.” Griffin ignored the burn in his legs, forcing himself to pedal faster.
“You eat . . . standing in the kitchen and Ian eats at the table while he studies.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Change it up. Make dinner tonight.”
Griffin glanced at the clock positioned on the front wall of the cardio room, above the bank of TV monitors. Almost seven. Then again, even if Ian snacked on a predinner bowl of cereal, he would be ready for something decent.
Griffin ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. “I don’t have a cookbook.”
“Excuses, Colonel?” Doug snapped his towel at him. “You have a grill?”
“Top of the line.”
“Put on a coat and grill some steaks. People grill year-round in Colorado. Make baked potatoes. Voilà! Dinner. Throw in some conversation and you, my friend, have the start of a relationship with your brother. Repeat as needed.”
Grill, huh? He could do that. He might even enjoy doing that.
The gray hairs mingled in with Doug’s brown hair must be a sign of wisdom, just like the Bible said. The two men biked in silence before Doug eased the tension on his bike.
With his next question, Doug brought up the topic always lurking in the back of Griffin’s mind. “Have you heard anything from the medical board?”
“I’m due for my reassessment examination by a neurologist and a flight surgeon the end of May.”
“How’s the vertigo?”
“Fine.”
“But you’re still having episodes, right?”
“Nothing worth mentioning.”
The two men cycled for another two laps on their virtual racetracks.
“So how did that whole ‘not worth mentioning’ approach work out for you the first time?” Doug’s question came at him like a Stealth fighter—quiet, but lethal.
Bull’s-eye.
“You know the answer to that question.” Griffin slowed his pace, stretching his arms over his head.
“Yes, and so do you. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”
“That’s always my plan—not to make the same mistake twice. But I also need to get my flying status back.”
“Not if you’re not healthy.”
“I will be.”
He had to be.
When he walked into the house forty-five minutes later, Ian was stretched out asleep on the couch, a textbook on his chest. Griffin remembered many a study session at the Academy that turned into a nap. He’d let Ian snooze while he prepped the steaks and baked potatoes, then wake his brother up right before he threw the steaks on the grill. Maybe by then he’d think of something to talk about.
“I apologize for being late again, Heath.” Kendall faced away from him as he helped her slip on her paprika-colored wool coat. The man knew how to treat a woman with quiet respect.
“I’m a doctor, too. If anyone understands about a clinic running late, it’s me.” He stepped outside her back door, waiting while she locked up, and then walked beside her downstairs, his hand on the small of her back. “Besides, it gave me a chance to catch up on emails.”
The touch of the cool night air began to ease some of the tension from Kendall’s temples. She’d caught only glimpses of the outside while she sat in her office writing notes and then dashed to her loft to change for dinner. Sully sulked in his corner, not at all pleased at a quick walk around back.
“Let’s look on the bright side.” Kendall finished buttoning her coat. “We avoided the first rush of people for dinner at P. F. Chang’s.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about eating out in the Springs, there’s always a wait on Friday nights.” Heath guided her to his black Hummer.
Oh. Sounded like she wasn’t the first woman going out on a date with Dr. Heath Parker. Which was fine. Absolutely fine.
“Or so I’ve been told.” He used the keyless entry to unlock the car, once again opening the door for her and waiting while she settled herself in the passenger seat.
Kendall watched him walk around to the driver’s side. In a casual pair of slacks and a dark brown leather jacket over a cream-colored turtleneck sweater, Heath looked confident yet relaxed. And who knew a guy with her dad’s old-fashioned manners still existed? She waited while he settled into the driver’s seat before resuming their conversation.
“How’s house hunting going?”
“Nothing so far.” Heath turned the car toward the Shops at Briargate. “Supposedly it’s still a buyer’s market, but my Realtor
hasn’t shown me anything I’ve fallen in love with. It’s the Goldilocks syndrome: This one’s too big. This one’s too small. I know the saying, ‘It only takes one,’ but I haven’t found my ‘just right’ one yet.”
“It must get old, living out of your suitcase.”
“I’ve traveled so much the last five years that I’m used to it. I think the real adjustment is going to be when I have more than a few shirts and a couple pairs of pants hanging in a closet, much less a house full of furniture.”
“How long were you overseas?”
“Five years.” Heath adjusted the heat and then turned the radio on low so that a soft melody underscored their conversation. “Before that I was finishing up my master’s in public health and tropical medicine at Tulane.”
“Do you like being stateside?”
“Yep. There are definite advantages to being here in the Springs.” The allusion to a compliment, coupled with the way Heath tossed a grin her way, warmed Kendall. The man was easy to like.
Heath turned the conversation to small talk all the way to the restaurant, entertaining her with stories of life in Africa. The wait for a table was minimal, and before long they sat in a booth ladling bits of savory chicken into lettuce leaves and waiting for their main courses.
“I wonder—oh, never mind.” Heath focused his attention on folding a lettuce leaf over the filling he’d scooped inside.
Kendall swallowed the bite of appetizer. “What is it, Heath?”
“I don’t want to impose, but I could use your help with something.”
“Well, ask. I’ll let you know if I can’t help you.”
“I’m considering raising funds for the organization by selling some products from Kenya. Things made by women—mostly single moms. Jewelry. Baskets. That kind of thing.” He motioned for her to help herself to some more shredded chicken. “I need to have several boxes of sample items shipped here. Three, maybe four boxes. I’m actively house hunting and I’m not certain how long I’ll be at the hotel. I’m not sure when the boxes will arrive—you know what overseas mail can be like. I’d hate to have the boxes get lost because I’m moving around. Would you mind if I had them shipped to your office?”