by Jillian Hart
Had it been a month since she’d e-mailed him with her news? She’d been excited to be engaged. His sister. The one who didn’t trust men. She must have found a trustworthy one—or one she thought was an upstanding kind of guy.
We’ll have to see about that. He reached for the sugar canister. “Where is he? Is he on the grill?”
“No, Heath’s getting some paperwork straightened out. He’s a doctor, but he has to pass the state qualifications. Do you want the huckleberry pancake platter?”
His favorite. He knew he really was here, because home was where they knew you, and loved you anyway. “Sure.”
“Comin’ right up, brother dear.” She padded her way up the aisle, light on her feet, pausing to refill cups and chat with the regulars.
An odd time warp overtook him. It was as if nothing had changed in all the years he’d been gone. Since he was a little guy no taller than the tables, he’d done time in this diner. The white tile floor was the same, the big drafty front windows were the same, the worn red Formica tabletops, too. The same families and customers had been frequenting this diner for two generations.
The years seemed to slip away until he felt like the kid he used to be grumbling over the hot grill, angry that his fate in life was to have been born in a family that owned a diner. Not a health club or a yacht or a recording studio in Los Angeles, but a dull little restaurant in the middle of Nowhere, Montana.
It wasn’t shame he felt. It wasn’t sadness at the lost boy he’d been. But his vision doubled, as if he’d taken a blow to the head. Regrets washed through him like acid rain, eating at his core. He’d come a long way from the angry, rebellious boy he’d been.
In the air force he knew who he was. Master Sergeant McKaslin, squad leader, a pararescuer who’d been on every continent on this planet—except Antarctica.
He’d rescued downed pilots and injured soldiers from live combat and hostage situations and delivered lifesaving medical care. From deserts and jungles and hot zones all around the globe. He knew who he was in his uniform.
But here, in this town he’d grown up in, he was a stranger. He was not the same Ben McKaslin who’d left at eighteen. That’s why every rare visit home was tough. How am I going to make it six more weeks?
“Ben? Is that you?” A familiar voice rose among the din of the diner behind him.
Paige. His throat ached at the sight of the woman who’d been both big sister and step-in mom when he’d needed it most. He hated to think where he’d be without her guidance long ago. Or maybe her guidance had come more out of her desperation, since he hadn’t been the easiest teenage boy to deal with.
She hadn’t changed much. She’d let her hair grow past her shoulders, although this morning it was swept back out of the way. Her arms were around him before he could register the finer lines that had cut into her face. Tiny ones around her dark eyes and around the corners of her mouth.
Time. It was passing. Paige was a handful of years older than he was. And although she was somehow lovelier than ever, it reminded him that they were all getting older. He’d done the right thing in coming home.
He’d given the ten-second allotment for acts of affection and he stiffened, drawing back, though he couldn’t deny he liked being fussed over by his sisters. “I’m a Special Forces soldier. I don’t do hugs.”
“Suffer anyway. They train you for receiving torture, right?” She gave him an extra squeeze, which was supposedly more torture, he figured, before releasing him. Happiness crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Oh, you look good. What’s with the crutches? You weren’t tough enough to take a bullet without getting hurt?”
“I could take grenade shrapnel and a claymore that didn’t go off good enough, but I wasn’t impervious to a bullet.”
“Aren’t you always saying that you’re about as sensitive and soft as a ton of iron? I just wish you didn’t have to come home hurt, but it is good to have you here, little brother.” The look in her eyes said a whole lot more.
He didn’t know what to say. He loved his sisters, but he didn’t feel comfortable saying so. He didn’t feel comfortable with a lot of things.
Amy brought his pancake platter, stacked high with an egg, hash browns and sausage links. His stomach growled. This morning’s swim had honed his appetite, so he bowed his head for grace and then grabbed the syrup, content to eat so he wouldn’t have to talk.
But his sisters hovered over him, keeping a close eye to whatever he needed. A few diners, friends of the family, stopped to say hello. Some had loved ones in the Middle East. Some just wanted to say they were glad he was home safely.
It should have been nice. It was nice. But he was no hero. Just a man who did his job…and hadn’t done it well enough. His leg ached, his future stretched out ahead of him like a big bleak question mark and worst of all, he couldn’t forget Cadence.
Seeing her again had opened up too many doors in his heart and in his past. It took all his effort to close them tight. He was happy for her and her gold medals. Her fame and glory. Her achievement in her life. He hoped she had everything she wanted. She was a good person and she deserved her success.
The food seemed tasteless, but he kept on eating. He battled to bury the past, and took the local paper Amy offered him on her way down the aisle. The past was over and done with. There wasn’t a power anywhere that could change it.
So why did his thoughts keep returning to his morning swim and the woman on guard duty? He’d watched her dive to near perfection over and over again on the grainy little set in the dorm on base. She’d moved like a ballerina, twisted like a gymnast and competed with the poise of a confident, world-class athlete.
He’d watched later as her lovely face, the one he knew so well he could draw it from memory, had filled the TV screen. Tears had shone on her face when she’d sung the national anthem, a gold disk around her neck.
You got what you wanted, he’d thought. He’d stopped watching after her first medal, on the ten-meter platform.
All this time, he’d done his level best not to think of her. He’d been fiercely in love with her once, when he wasn’t good enough to kiss the ground at her feet. He’d been nothing but trouble back then, a disaster waiting to happen, and he knew it. Pushing her away then had been the right decision.
She’d gone on to glory and dreams, and he’d found his niche in life, carrying an M-203 and fast roping from helicopters. It was for the best. And that’s the way it would stay.
“Ben?” Amy caught his attention, holding on to a tall man. “I want you to meet my fiancé, Heath Murdock. I know you two are going to really get along.”
Ben blinked. He took in his baby sister’s beaming smile, how she lit up inside when she looked at the quiet man, who had a spine-straight, feet-braced-apart stance that shouted “military.” So this was Heath? Reserving judgment, Ben wondered how any man on this planet could be good enough for Amy.
She seemed oblivious to the dark frown he was giving both her and her betrothed, and kept talking. “Heath used to be in the marines.”
“Once a marine, always a marine,” the stoic stranger commented. He held out his hand. “Good to meet you, Ben.”
“You, too.” And if you hurt my sister, I’ll make you sorry. He couldn’t help being protective. Lord knew he hadn’t been around when Amy had really needed him before, when her life had taken a painful turn. He shook Heath’s hand, liking the fact that he had a solid shake and a good hard stare. Only time would tell about this stranger.
Amy seemed to be pretty sure, judging by the adoration that seemed to radiate from her. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes from Heath. The front door opened, a gust of hot wind swept in and she went to greet the newcomers, but her gaze kept returning to the man in the aisle.
Ben recognized the sweetness of Rachel’s voice and then the pounding footsteps of a little boy run-walking down the aisle.
Amy’s son shouted, “Uncle Ben! Uncle Ben!”
Amy called out, reminding him to wa
lk.
Ben’s throat filled. The last time he’d been home, Westin had been a little guy. Here he was, bigger and older and with the long-limbed energy of a seven-year-old. His cowlick stuck straight up, and he was out of breath, wheezing a little. The boy had inherited Ben’s childhood asthma, but he looked as if he was doing well.
“Uncle Ben! Are you comin’ to my game? I’m gonna hit the ball and everything!”
“Uh, sure, buddy.”
Time. It was changing this place and these people. His sisters were older. His nephew was older. Regret tugged hard in his chest, leaving Ben unable to speak as his nephew climbed onto the bench seat on the other side of the booth.
His heart gave a little twist. The tyke looked so much like Ben at that age it was like staring at the little boy he’d been before his parents’ car crash. Before his world had fractured into a zillion pieces, never to be made right again.
It still wasn’t right. His appetite gone, he shoved the plate aside and opted for the full cup of coffee. Across the table, Westin rocked back and forth, barely containing boyish energy.
For Ben, the memory of his childhood broke apart and time fell back into sync again. He heard pots clatter from the direction of the kitchen. The ca-ching of the old cash register. The busy chatter of voices as families gathered together for a Saturday-morning meal.
He was the only one who hadn’t changed. The only one who’d remained the same. It was as if life were passing by and he hadn’t been part of it.
And never would be.
The coffee tasted acrid on his tongue, even after he added more sugar. Then again, maybe that was just life, bitter instead of sweet.
“Do I have to drag you outta here?” Peggy Jennings called from the office door, her voice echoing in the near silence of the lapping pool waters. “I mean it. I’ve got a rope.”
“Sure you do.” Cadence ignored her friend and mentor to concentrate on the teenage girl perched on the edge of the springboard.
Ashley Higgs was a swim team member with hopes of a college scholarship in athletics—not easy to get for those sports outside the big three of football, basketball and baseball.
Since Cadence knew what it was like to work so hard and hope so earnestly, she ended the hour-long session as she always did. “This is the last dive of the day. We worked on some hard stuff, but this one is for fun. Just enjoy.”
Ashley huffed a breath, lost in concentration. Fun wasn’t so easy. Cadence knew about that, too. Not when everything seemed to be at stake. She backed down the deck, keeping one eye on the girl as she went. The farther away she was, the more likely the student would dive for the love of it. For the sheer joy.
Not today, apparently. Tired from her hard work, Ashley sprang from the board. Once airborne, she wobbled a little too much, didn’t keep arch in her back and hit the water with a splash that sent droplets onto the deck. Ashley broke the surface and flew up the ladder, shaking her head, going over in her mind everything that was wrong with that dive.
“Is your family going up to your lake cabin for the rest of the weekend?” Cadence waited, trying to distract the girl. For there was more to life than finding fault with a less than perfect dive, and more to life than diving.
“Yeah. Dad brought the boat up last weekend and wants to go on this lame boat ride.” Ashley, the teenager she was, rolled her eyes. “But I’m gonna stay and work on my dives. My uncle cleared beneath the dock—there were some rocks and stuff—and so now it’s safe to dive. I’m gonna practice until I can do a back dive pike as perfect as you did in the Olympics, Cadence.”
“That was one dive that was right at just the right moment. Besides, in a few years you’ll be off at college and away from home all the time. You might want to think about that lame boat ride. You can have fun and still find time to practice, you know.”
Ashley rolled her eyes again in that way teenagers had of saying “I know.” “Thanks for everything and stuff. I’ll have that dive nailed by Monday. I promise!” Ashley hurried off, snagged the towel from the bench and slipped past Peggy at the door.
Peggy’s huge key ring jangled. “Hurry. We’re gonna be late for the game, and you heard me promise to drag our star pitcher to the field on time.”
“Do we have a game today?” Cadence bit the side of her mouth to keep from smiling and watched as Peggy’s jaw dropped.
“How could you forget? This is the big game. Against those uptown city pool girls. The ones who trounced us last year because you forgot about the game.” Peggy locked the door behind them and followed Cadence through the dim office. “You didn’t really forget, did you? Not this time. Not with our relief pitcher in San Diego on vacation.”
“I didn’t forget.” Cadence checked the lockers and the cabinets. She then stole her things from the top of a file cabinet and locked the private office up tight. “And I’m not officially late. Yet. Can we get to the field in four minutes and forty-two seconds?”
“No sweat, but you have to let me fix your hair. You aren’t gonna attract a nice, decent man with your hair looking like a gopher’s taken up residence in it.”
“My hair isn’t that bad.” Bad-hair days were an occupational hazard of working at a swimming pool. Between lessons and swim team and private lessons and guard duty, there wasn’t much of a chance to comb out wet hair after every dunking.
She waited for Peggy to pass through the outer office door, and they finished their routine of locking and setting alarms and waiting for Ashley to finish changing and leave. Hurrying out into the parking lot, Cadence caught her reflection in her sedan’s windshield.
Nope, definitely not the best hair day, she thought as she wrestled with her door lock. When the stubborn door opened, she tossed her bag onto the backseat.
Still, she thought on the drive over, it wasn’t as if she was going to catch a husband on the baseball diamond in an all-women league. After so much time being single, she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk her heart again. Her attempts at romance had ended disastrously—both of them.
I’m happy alone, she decided with absolute certainty as she slipped into one of the last available parking spots along the street. Peggy meant well, but she’d been happily married for over thirty-five years. Not everyone fell in love with their high school sweetheart, married and lived happily ever after.
And speaking of her high school sweetheart, there he was. Down on his knees, Ben McKaslin looked like everything good and decent and awesome in a man as he talked with a little boy somewhere around six or seven. The child was his spitting image. From the high cheekbones and straight blade of a nose to his full mouth to the small dimple cut into a rock-hard chin. Ben’s son? He had to be.
The little boy’s face had yet to find the hard-edged look that Ben’s had, but he was going to grow up as handsome as his dad. The shock of seeing them together made her glad she couldn’t be seen.
Somehow in all these years she’d never pictured Ben settling down, marrying a nice woman and raising children.
But he had. Maybe he’d found the best in himself after all.
“Cadence! Over this way!” Across the street and down a way, there was Peggy with her hand over her eyes to shade them, cracking gum and motioning in the opposite direction on the city of Bozeman’s huge, multipurpose park.
The baseball diamonds seemed to wink beneath the full force of the afternoon sun, but it was simply the sunlight reflecting off the chain link barrier fencing. The crack of a ball against a bat, the rising cheers, the groan of agony as a runner was called out mixed with the wonderful sounds of the busy ballpark. These reminded Cadence, as always, of why she was here—friends, the love of sports. What better way was there to spend an afternoon?
She glanced over her shoulder to see Ben McKaslin with his son on his shoulders. Cute as a button and alight with happiness, the boy held on tight to the top of Ben’s head.
Good. She was glad for him. But a hard sword of hurt sliced her through the midsection. The past and what co
uld have been was right there. Once she’d dreamed of being Ben’s wife. Of being happy together. Of holding their baby son in her arms.
It was never your future, she reminded herself. If it had been, then God would have made it possible. The dream of a happy life with Ben had been simply her wish. Another one that had fallen like a star to the earth, incinerating as it fell.
“Hurry! The game’s gonna start, and you haven’t warmed up that arm of yours,” Peggy said, grabbing her by the elbow.
Somehow Cadence moved forward, one foot in front of the other. It was as if too many dreams had burned up. She found it hard to walk through the families milling around or cheering on their loved ones playing in a game. Of all the roads not taken and of all the paths God had decided were not for her, this was the most arduous one.
Loneliness filled her, but it wasn’t truly loneliness at all. It was emptiness in her heart where she’d stored up all her love for a husband and family one day.
When it went too long unused, love must disappear as surely as dreams, leaving nothing in its place.
Chapter Five
“Uncle Ben, did you see how far I hit the ball?” Westin skipped, leading the way through the busy maze of T-ball games and the clusters of spectators that went along with each game. “It went way far. And fast. Like the speed of light.”
Ben laughed. “I saw it, buddy. You did great.”
“I know.” Westin skipped just a few steps ahead, tossing a softball up in the air and catching it.
Overconfident little tyke, Ben thought, unable to keep from caring about the kid a little bit more.
“You’re great with him,” Rachel commented from his side. “Being with him makes you want one, doesn’t it?”
“Not really.” Liar, his conscience mocked him. But that was his story and he was sticking to it. “It’s hard to do your job and know your family’s waiting at home—while you’re deployed most of the year—waiting to be informed of your death.”