Our Finest Hour (The Time Series Book 1)

by Jennifer Millikin

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, Astrid.” Lucia speaks up. “Where in the world are Grace and those little munchkins of hers?”

  With a lot of irritation and hand flapping, Astrid (if I ever had to pick a name for someone with a face as pinched as hers, Astrid would be it) explains that her daughter and their family are in Washington DC for the weekend.

  Some of my irritation dissipates. Obviously her questions were really meant for her own daughter. I was just the lucky recipient.

  I jump a little when my knee is squeezed under the table. I look to the hand, then up to the person it’s attached to.

  Lauren offers a small, lopsided smile.

  “I’m OK,” I say quietly. In a normal voice, I ask her about work. I don't want to talk about my absentee mother or the fielding of insensitive questions.

  We spend the next ten minutes talking about three difficult children in her class, until a dessert tower is placed on our table. Claire's eye's gleam, making Lauren laugh.

  “Just like Isaac,” she says, grinning.

  I nod and chuckle. Isaac's excitement over sweets is cute. The way his mouth forms a small ‘o’ and then he says, “Ohhhh”. Chocolate is his favorite, so I guess the stereotype is wrong. Men can love chocolate too.

  Lauren grabs a cupcake from the bottom tier and extends it across me to Claire. “Did I guess correctly?” She asks her.

  Claire nods vigorously, reaching out. She licks some frosting off the top.

  “Mmmm,” she smacks her lips.

  I peel the wrapper off for her and help her eat it one-handed. Lucia sneaks her another when she thinks I'm not looking and they giggle together. When Lucia catches my gaze, she winks and laughs. I return the smile, but my insides feel like jelly. Claire has a loving, doting grandmother, a fun aunt, and a mother who loves her with ferocity. She’s beyond lucky, and she doesn't even know it.

  After a closing speech from someone else on the committee, including a very obvious call-to-action, the brunch is over.

  And me? I am so done too.

  I want to go home.

  The thought doesn’t put me at ease, though, because when I think about home, I realize I’ve pictured Isaac’s place. Not my dad’s house.

  And I’ve put Isaac right in the middle of the picture.

  Four months ago, if somebody had told me this would be happening to me, I would have laughed in his face.

  Daughter? I don’t have any kids.

  Girlfriend? Her name is Jenna.

  Job? It just so happens I’m being considered for something in Boston.

  Fast forward to now. Completely different answers.

  I wouldn’t say Aubrey and I are dating. She’s too skittish for that. When our hours are up, we leave each other alone. Every day since the night I took her out almost two weeks ago, we’ve spent an hour together. It’s the reason for her nickname.

  “Hey, Sixty,” I say when she walks into the kitchen.

  She smirks and sits at the table with her coffee. “Hello, Doctor Cowboy.”

  I think she really liked discovering my soft spot for country twang. She hasn’t let me forget it since.

  “Good morning, Claire Bear. Are you excited for today?” Aubrey tickles Claire’s side.

  “Yes,” Claire says through her giggles.

  I come from the kitchen with Claire’s scrambled eggs. “Today is a big day.” I wink at her and set the plate in front of her. She digs in. It’s going to be different to see her with two working arms. I’ve only seen her arm once, when I was performing surgery on it. At the time I didn’t know she was mine. If I’d known, would I have stared at her arm a little harder, knowing that it would be a few months before I could see it again? Would I have been able to do the surgery at all?

  A thought comes to me. “What do you say we celebrate?” I’m looking at Aubrey.

  “Ice cream!” Claire yells. The child definitely has my affinity for sweets.

  “Actually,” I say, “I was thinking of a weekend trip. Somewhere wooded. A little cooler. We can do an easy hike, and Claire can use both her arms to explore. What do you think?” My eyes haven’t left Aubrey.

  Just a moment ago, she was so excited for Claire. Now she looks guarded. Wary.

  “I want to go to the woods and hike.” Claire’s grinning. “Please, Mom?”

  Aubrey hesitates. I point to her coffee cup. She looks down at the words on it and does a quick eye-roll.

  I mouth the words to her. I Mom So Hard.

  “Hiking and nature exploration sound like the perfect way to start using that arm again.” She smiles at Claire “If you’re finished, please go get your backpack. It’s almost time to leave.”

  Claire runs toward her room. Aubrey turns her worried eyes on me.

  “Is this a good idea?”

  Knowing Aubrey, she’s drawing up a risk analysis in her head. She’s back to being careful Aubrey, but last night…

  “Is it a good idea to skip breakfast?” I challenge her. I’ve discovered she needs it. The challenge, I mean. She’s competitive. Challenging her to something is the most effective way of getting her to open up.

  “Typically, no.” She narrows her eyes. “Why?”

  “You worked up an appetite last night, Sixty. I thought you’d be hungry this morning.” I take Claire’s empty plate and walk away, laughing to myself.

  Claire returns, backpack dragging behind her.

  Aubrey swoops it onto her shoulder. “We’ll see you in a couple hours.” Claire marches in front of Aubrey, so she can’t see her mother when she sticks her tongue out at me.

  I say goodbye to Claire and watch them leave. I feel like celebrating. Not only did I get Aubrey to agree to a weekend away, but I won something else too. One more brick removed from Aubrey’s wall. Another chink in her armor. She’s a beautiful bronze statue covered in cement, and I’m the guy with the hammer and chisel, breaking apart the heavy burdens laid upon her.

  I love seeing Aubrey like this.

  She has her hair piled on top of her head in a messy ball, and on her face is the most carefree smile I’ve ever seen. After ninety minutes of driving, she put her bare feet up on the dash. Red-polished toenails wiggling, she’d asked if I minded.

  I told her no. What I kept to myself was the fact that everything about her, including her cute feet, was making it harder to concentrate. But, seeing as how my whole life is in my truck right now, I focused on the road.

  Claire fell asleep after a bathroom break fifteen minutes ago, her head slumped against the side of her car seat. She has her left arm bent across her body, as if it’s still in a cast.

  Aubrey looks back at her. “Do you think she’s comfortable?”

  I shrug. “Comfortable enough to fall asleep.”

  “But her arm…” Aubrey bites her lip. I think about telling her to stop.

  She faces front. “That skin was so gross.”

  Perfect. The switch to that subject is exactly what I need right now.

  “I should have warned you. Sorry.” I don’t think of it as gross anymore. Aubrey, however… She was shocked when the cast came off.

  “What’s that?” She’d asked with alarmed eyes, pointing at the dead skin covering Claire’s arm.

  I felt bad. Normally I tell my patients ahead of time, but I keep forgetting Claire and Aubrey are my patients.

  Aubrey shudders lightly, as if she’s remembering with me. “It’s OK. It’s common sense. Anyway, I brought the vitamin E oil. She’s been trying to scratch it.”

  I open my mouth, but Aubrey holds up a hand. “I know, Doctor Cowboy. Don’t let her scratch it.” She laughs and settles back into her seat. I shake my head.

  “Tell me more about the day I went to the brunch with your mom. I just can’t picture my dad hanging out with your dad.” She makes a sound like a disbelieving exhale.

  “It was…good. Interesting.” I tap my fingers on the wheel, thinking of the day my dad and I met John for lunch.

  “You s
aid that already.” Aubrey reminds me.

  “That’s about all there is to it. Your dad was quiet. My dad attempted to talk about sports. Your dad made no attempt to talk about sports. I remembered they both like animals, even though one of them prefers to hunt them, and finally they had something to talk about.”

  Aubrey sighs. “They could not be more different.”

  I nod, but inside I know the truth. Those two men are more alike than anybody knows.

  “Your mom and Lauren aren’t at odds, by the way.” She says it off-handedly while she stares out her window.

  “No?” The last time I saw Lauren she was angry. Hurt. And she had a right to be. Everything she knew was upended, just like it was for me. Of course, it was worse for me because it was about me. “Well, good.” I sneak a quick glance at Aubrey. Her head’s tipped back while she yawns.

  “Go to sleep,” I tell her.

  “I just might,” she says, yawning again, but bigger this time.

  She uses the remainder of the drive to take a nap. Every once in a while, I peek at her from the corner of my eye. Her lips are parted, her arms crossed at her waist.

  Five years ago, I was immediately attracted to her. Physically, yes, but also mentally. She was smart. The pain in me reached out to the pain in her. That night she was like a mirror, reflecting exactly what I was feeling on the inside.

  Maybe it’s time to tell her my ugly truth. The real reason I was at the bar that night.

  The problem is that my ugly truth does not belong to only me.

  I can’t be totally honest with Aubrey until I get the green light from her.

  It’s possible this is the cutest town I’ve ever been to. Although that might not be saying much. I’m not exactly well-traveled. My dad likes to stick to the surrounding geography.

  Sugar Creek, Arizona. Population… I don’t know. Not much, I’m guessing, based on the quaint main street. There are off-shoots, streets that lead away and have some businesses on them. The businesses look like homes, though. We haven’t stepped from the truck yet, but I’m certain there’s an unhurried pace in this town. What could there possibly be to rush to? Or from?

  Isaac props a piece of paper on the steering wheel. There are only four directions on it, and he’s glanced down at it so many times he probably has it memorized. The directions scrawled on paper is old-school, but that’s because the place we’re going to doesn’t have an address.

  Yep, that’s right. The Lost Place. Literally. That’s the name of the cabin. It has a name, but not an address.

  I balked when Isaac told me. How will help get to us if we don’t have an address to give?

  Are you planning on needing help? Isaac asked.

  That’s when I told him what an emergency is, as defined by my profession. A state of need for help or relief, created by an unexpected event, requiring immediate action.

  Isaac laughed and reminded me he is an emergency responder.

  I could've kept going and told him about all the emergencies he is not the best fit for responding to. Instead, I shut my mouth. Because he was excited. Because he was smiling, and his eyes were smiling too. And in three days, it’s very unlikely that anything could go wrong.

  Now that I see the little town, I feel better. It looks like something from a pop-up book, a small expanse of brick buildings and sidewalks, storefronts with hand-painted signs. No traces of the desert we’ve left behind. It’s all pine and green leaves.

  I glance at the paper on the steering wheel and look up just in time to spot the final direction. “There’s the bakery she mentioned.” I point as we come upon it. Mrs. Iams, the owner of the cabin, said we’d know where to turn once we saw the bakery. I peer closer at the quaint store window. It’s painted with a coffee cup, steam rising from it, and a blueberry muffin.

  Isaac follows the direction of my finger. “Mrs. Iams said we have to go there. And to get there early, because apparently these blueberry muffins are to die for, and they sell out every day.”

  I don’t tell him how much I hate blueberry muffins. No need to ruin the mood.

  We roll until we find the next left. Isaac takes it and follows the road until the only structure in the area comes into view.

  The wildflowers are the first thing I notice. Lemon yellows, hot pinks, royal purples—they all shoot out from the grass that surrounds the cabin. Swinging from a post is a wooden sign. The Lost Place. Maybe that is what you would tell 9-1-1 if you had to call them.

  I turn around to Claire. “Wake up, baby.” I say, my voice coaxing.

  She blinks, her eyes heavy, and looks outside. “We’re here!” she yells.

  Isaac laughs and gets out of the truck. I follow, opening the backdoor to get Claire. Behind me I hear clang of the tailgate as it’s lowered. As I unlatch Claire, I look back through the rear window. Isaac leans forward, his hips pressed to the edge of the tailgate, reaching for our bags. Suddenly my throat is dry. Memories of two nights ago flood me. His hands, his mouth, his caresses on my hot skin. And then when he left my room, he’d whispered, “Good night, Sixty.” I fell asleep smiling.

  “Mommy, come on.” Claire’s complaint brings me back to the present.

  “Sorry, sorry. Mommy was daydreaming.” I finish unbuckling her and tap her on the nose.

  She’s in no mood for playfulness. She pushes against me, urging me out of the truck. I back out, keeping my hand on the door so she can climb down safely. Once her feet hit the ground, she’s off. In mere seconds she’s on her knees at the base of a pine tree, pawing through pinecones and brush. Watching her use both arms fills me happiness, enough to not care that by the end of the weekend, she’ll have dirt so far underneath her fingernails I’ll have no hope of digging it out.

  Isaac comes from the cabin, drawing my attention away from Claire. He strides to where I stand at the back of the truck. Just when I think he’s going to reach for me, he slides his arms past me and pulls on the handle of an ice chest. It makes a dull scraping sound as it slides on the truck bed.

  “The ice chest was a good idea,” he says, opening it and reaching in. He produces two bottles of beer and the dishtowel I used to wrap the bottle opener.

  “When you said there was a kitchen, I thought it made sense to have food to go in the kitchen.” I smirk. Isaac hadn’t thought that far ahead, and when I suggested the ice chest he was confused. Leave everything to the girl who has spent more than her fair share of time hunting, camping, and scouting, I’d said. I didn’t know what this place had for grocery stores, and now I’m glad I insisted on the cooler. It’s a damn good thing I put steaks in a bag to marinate. I highly doubt Isaac planned to spend the first night of our celebratory weekend foraging for food.

  Isaac laughs as he takes the tops off the beers. “I still can’t believe you went hunting with your dad.”

  I grimace. “Not my favorite memories. It wasn’t my thing, but there wasn’t a lot he could do. No sitter, no second parent, and …” I shrug, “Aubrey goes hunting.”

  “I bet he has some good stories.”

  I shake my head. “Not gonna happen. And don’t even think of asking.”

  Isaac tips his beer against mine. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Sixty.”

  A shiver runs down me. I love that he has a nickname for me. Sixty… sixty whole minutes when I get to be open and free.

  We sip, watching Claire, until she calls Isaac over and asks him to help her spell out her name in pinecones.

  “You have to start with a C,” she intones as he approaches, her eyes serious.

  “Thanks for telling me.” He bends down and begins gathering pinecones. “I was going to use a Z.”

  “Da-ddy.” Claire gives him an admonishing look.

  While they do that, I go inside. The place seems bigger inside than it did from the outside. It smells like the wood it’s made out of, but there’s another smell. Dust? Not bad, but not great either. To clear it out, I open the back doors. My eyebrows raise in surprise at the sound of running
water. I follow it, down the three steps and out twenty feet until I’m at the edge of an embankment. Just a few yards out, a steady stream runs past. I sit, enjoying the fluidity of sound and the peace the water creates, until Claire calls for me.

  Before I go back in, I pause on the top step and listen for the watery lyrics. Now the name of this place is starting to make sense. In the middle of nowhere lies a dwelling with no address, and a creek that sings.

  If I wanted to get lost, this would be the place.

  I’m back out at the stream. The second I woke up my first thought was of coming out here to experience it in the morning hours. The smell of water and dirt, of bark and leaves, for some reason, it calls to me. Maybe it’s because I live in a desert. Something about the lack of natural water in my everyday life makes me want to be near the flow, and the nature that inevitably goes with it.

  “I can’t believe she’s still asleep.” Isaac’s voice reaches me from across the space between the cabin and the embankment I’m sitting on. On slow and steady feet he walks to me, two coffee mugs in his grip.

  He settles beside me and extends a mug, the steam swirling up into the air. I take it with a grateful smile and wrap my hands around it, letting the warmth sink into my hands. It’s practically summer, but the mountains haven’t received the memo.

  Taking a sip, I say “I snuck out of our room on tiptoe. She needs her rest after staying up so late last night.”

  “You don’t have to sleep with her, you know.” Isaac rubs his shoulder against mine.

  My heel pushes into the wet-looking pebbles that start just beyond where we’re sitting. “Isaac—”

  “I’m just saying.” He stares out at the water and sips from his mug.

  It would be so easy to stay with him. To sleep, our arms intertwined, our legs tangled. To wake up to the stubble that appears on his chin every morning. Would he kiss me awake?

  We finish our coffee without saying anything more. It’s not uncomfortable, our silence, but it’s not without tension. I know what Isaac wants. I just can’t give it to him.