No.
Lucas watched her doze, torn between the mercy of letting her dream of far better times and the absolute fact that if she didn’t eat, drink, move, breathe, she’d succeed in what she’d recently told her pastor and her grandson: “I’m okay with leaving this earthly world.” Lucas couldn’t let that happen even if his grandmother’s advance medical directive, her legal living will, required he honor her wishes regarding life support. She’d beaten the pneumonia that brought her to the hospital this time, and the therapists said she still had enough physical strength to regain some mobility, as long as she mustered the will to take nourishment.
“Here’s that water,” the technician said, setting a pitcher beside the food tray. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about that kidding around earlier. It wasn’t professional.”
“No harm done . . . Edward,” Lucas told him after glancing at his ID badge. “I appreciate the help all of you give my grandmother.”
“Pretty special lady, huh?”
“The most.”
“If you need to get going, I can help feed her tonight,” Edward offered. “I know she’s on Wanda’s list, but I don’t mind. I have the time.” He shrugged. “And after all that joking around, I’m probably on her list too. Wanda Clay’s ever-growing—” The young man’s gaze came to rest on the Bible on the bedside table, and he appeared to swallow his intended word. “Her hit list.”
Lucas smiled. His grandmother’s powerful influence for good. Even in sleep. “Thanks, but I can stay tonight. Things look pretty decent out on the streets.”
“You’re a cop, right?”
“Evidence tech—CSI,” Lucas added, using the TV term everyone recognized.
“Cool.”
“Sometimes. Mostly it’s like being a Molly Maid. With gloves, tweezers, and a camera. Not as exciting as TV.”
“Still sounds cool to me.” The tech moved the dinner tray closer. He pointed to the tepid mound of boiled rice. “I guess I can see how someone might think that thing was a bug.”
Lucas inspected the offensive olive. “You think it’s supposed to be a garnish?”
“Yeah.” Edward smiled. “Some bored dietary assistant getting her cutesy on.”
“It’s not like I’m sous-chef at Avant or Puesto,” Aimee Curran told her cousin, citing top-ten local restaurants. She tucked a tendril of light-auburn hair behind an ear and sighed. “Or that I even get much of a chance to be food-creative here. But . . .” She raised her voice over the mix of staff and visitor chatter in the San Diego Hope hospital cafeteria so that Taylor Cabot could hear. “At least working in a dietary department will look good on my application to the culinary institute.”
“You’re serious about it. I can see it in your eyes,” Taylor observed, mercifully offering no reference to Aimee’s failed and costly past career paths. Nursing, right up to the moment she panicked, then passed out and hit the floor during a surgery rotation, followed by early childhood education that . . . just didn’t fit. “Aunt Miranda would love it, of course.” Taylor slid an extra package of saltines into the pocket of her ER scrub top. “She was such an awesome cook.”
“She was.” Aimee’s mother had been a school nurse, but her kitchen was her beating heart. “Apron time” with her only daughter had meant the world to her. And to Aimee.
“If I win the Vegan Valentine Bake-Off, it will be enough money to pay for the culinary institute,” Aimee explained. “I can’t qualify for more student loans. So this is it.”
“I didn’t know you’d gone vegan.”
“I haven’t. Not even close, though Mom taught me to respect organic and local foods. It’s just that there won’t be so many entries in a vegan contest. It’s a calculated risk. And I need to win, Taylor.” Aimee’s pulse quickened. “It’s my last chance to honor my mother with a choice I’m making for my life—my whole life. I’ve got to do that. I can’t bear it if I don’t.”
“I think . . .” Taylor’s voice was warm, gentle. “I think that your mother would be proud of you, regardless.”
“I know. But it just seems that everyone else has found their calling, you know? You’ve got your career in the ER. My brother’s starting medical school up in Portland, and Dad’s found Nancy.” Aimee smiled, so very happy for him. “Now they’ve adopted those two little rascals from Haiti . . .” Her eyes met Taylor’s. “The contest is being held on Valentine’s Day.”
“Your birthday. And also . . .”
“Ten years from the day Mom passed away.” Aimee sighed. “I’m going to be twenty-six, Taylor. It’s high time I got myself together and moved on.”
“I understand that.”
“I know you do.” Taylor’s husband, a Sacramento firefighter, had been killed in an accident almost three years ago. Taking a job in San Diego was part of Taylor’s plan to move on.
“So what are you going to wow those bake-off judges with?” Taylor asked after carefully tapping the meal’s calorie count into her cell phone. The old familiar spark of fun warmed her eyes. “Some sort of soybean cheesecake?”
“Not a tofu fan,” Aimee admitted, her nose wrinkling. “I thought I’d go through Mom’s old recipe tin and adapt something—you know, ban the chickens and cows, but keep the sugar.”
“And all the love. Aunt Miranda was all about ‘stirring in the love.’ I think I asked my mom once if you could buy that at Walmart in a five-pound sack like flour.”
Aimee smiled. “The first phase is tomorrow. I’ve got to pass that. The bake-off finals will be televised. Professional kitchen, top-grade tools . . . ticking time clock.” She grimaced. “Nothing like pressure. But at least the hospital dietary kitchen gives me a chance to handle more equipment than I have at my apartment and practice my chopping and slicing techniques.” She shook her head. “Mostly when nobody’s looking, since the biggest part of my job is tray delivery. But I’ve been known to add a few artistic, signature Aimee touches and—”
“Hey, Curran!”
Aimee turned and saw a familiar young man in scrubs cruising toward them. Beard, husky build. That rehab tech, Edward.
“Hey there,” he said, plunking a hand on the edge of their table. He grinned at Aimee, raised a brow. “Was it you?”
“Was what me?”
“That cutesy olive on Mrs. Marchal’s rice.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Aimee told him, afraid she did. Why was he making a big deal out of—?
“A black olive, cut up like some kind of decoration? I think someone got pictures of it.”
“Really?” She hesitated. Was he flattering her? Or . . .
“Wanda thought it was a cockroach. She screamed like a banshee and fell down on her—”
“What?” Aimee’s heart stalled. No . . . This had to be a bad joke.
“Anyway,” he said, waving at a passing student nurse, “Wanda’s probably gunning for your department. Thought you should know.” He winked, smacked his hand on the table. “But thank ’em for me, would ya? Highlight of my day.”
Aimee closed her eyes as he sauntered away. Please . . .
“Aimee?” Taylor leaned over the table, touched her hand. “You okay?”
“I . . .” She met her cousin’s gaze and groaned.
“Oh, dear.” Taylor winced. “A ‘signature Aimee touch’?”
“It was a daisy. I snipped all those little black petals really carefully. I didn’t even know whose tray it was. But I thought it was sort of cheery.” Another thought made her breath catch. “Wanda’s pretty old. Do you think she got hurt? Broke a hip or—?”
“I doubt it,” Taylor interrupted, her expression reassuring. “But I do think you should go over there and explain. Apologize to this Wanda. And to the patient, too, if she was upset by it.”
“Oh, great. I just thought of something else.” Aimee squeezed her eyes shut again. “I think Mrs. Marchal’s grandson works for the police department. Can this get any worse?”
1
“YOU TOOK YOUR RINGS
OFF.”
“I . . . did.” Taylor Cabot glanced at her hand resting on the weathered boardwalk railing and found the small indent on her third finger. She refused to accept her stomach’s reflexive quiver. Her younger cousin Aimee Curran was right: the wedding band and engagement ring had finally come off, after migrating from her left to right hand in a painfully slow march through grief—like a turtle navigating broken glass. But two days ago she’d soaped her finger, twisted the rings off, and tucked them back into their original Grebitus & Sons box—along with a creased and well-worn love poem. The only poetry her firefighter husband ever attempted in his too-short life. “My life . . . my wife . . . I love you more . . .”
Taylor drew a deep breath of salty-cool March air, grateful there was no fresh stab of pain. Almost three years after the horrific accident that snuffed Greg’s life, his death was a scar, not a tender scab now. All as it should be. She swept aside a breeze-tossed strand of her coppery hair and met her cousin’s gaze. “It was time.”
Aimee’s eyes, nearly the exact Curran green as her own, held Taylor’s for a moment. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks. I’m . . .” Taylor raised her voice over the lively thrum from the busy boardwalk and beach below: music, loudspeakers, carnival rides, childish squeals, and the amazing syncopated flap-flutter of hundreds upon hundreds of colorful and wildly fanciful kites surfing the sea breeze—the Kiwanis Club’s annual kite festival in its full glory. She smiled, new certainty buoying her as well. “I’m kind of proud of myself, actually.”
“You should be.” Aimee returned her smile. “And I’m selfish enough to think that moving back home was a big part of that.”
“It was.”
In fact, it was at the top of the survival list Taylor had drafted—edited, rewritten, lain awake night after night getting straight in her head and in her heart—during the last edgy, anxious months in Sacramento. Those long months she’d been so frustrated with herself, uncomfortably angry, and so completely sick of being a widow, an unwilling member of a select club no one ever wanted to belong to. Moving away had seemed like a good way to move on. It had been a tough decision, finally made easier when she was asked out on her first new-widow date—by the husband of a close friend. When Taylor’s skin stopped crawling, and after she’d hurled her cell phone against the kitchen wall, she sat down and drafted her list.
She hadn’t shared it with anyone, but accomplishing every last item, regardless of how difficult, had become Taylor’s biggest goal. She was determined to move on, step by shaky step.
Transfer to a nursing position at San Diego Hope ER
Start jogging again
Lose the Krispy Kremes—and fifteen pounds
Find a good vet for Hooper
Take off wedding rings
Go through the last of Greg’s things
And—
“So . . .” Aimee’s brows rose a fraction. “Did the gorgeous Dr. Halston have anything to do with the timing?”
“Timing?”
“Taking off your rings. You know, that you’ve been seeing him?”
“Not exactly . . . maybe,” Taylor conceded, unable to deny the confusing mix of feelings the surgeon managed to inspire. If you asked anyone at San Diego Hope hospital, they’d say Taylor Cabot and Rob Halston were a couple. Typical grapevine speculation. And not true. Though, lately, each step forward in Taylor’s life did seem to be headed closer and closer to—“It’s really more of a friendship thing.”
Her cousin’s lips quirked ever so slightly. “Always a good place to start.”
“I guess.” Taylor tried her best for a casual shrug. “I’m not sure I’m ready for anything more than that. Not quite yet.”
It was the last item on her checklist: Fall in love again.
“I’m sorry.” Aimee touched her arm. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. It’s just so good to see you looking happier. More hopeful.”
“I know.” Taylor smiled at her cousin. “And I am. Really . . .”
Her gaze swept the vista beyond the railing, a long stretch of beach and tranquil green ocean dotted with palm trees and pastel clusters of beachfront bungalows. The sun shone on red clay roofs of far grander homes on the cliffs above. Today’s cloudless blue sky boasted a joyful rainbow of kites. Like hope . . . on a Southern California breeze. It was starting to feel that way now. Hopeful. She was back home, part of a skilled, tight-knit ER team at the same hospital where her favorite cousin worked in the dietary department. It wasn’t perfect; Taylor didn’t expect that. But it did seem promising, as if peace and healing were really possible. A new beginning. No more painful detours after unimaginable tragedy.
“Look.” Aimee jabbed her finger toward the distance. “See? Between the big purple dragon and the SpongeBob that keeps going into a spin. It’s a plane. I’m surprised they let the pilot fly in that close with all that’s going on here. Maybe it belongs to a news team.”
“Don’t think so,” Taylor said, locating the small plane. “There’s a privately owned airstrip a few miles from here. Greg had a pilot friend who got permission to use it a couple of times when we flew in to visit the folks . . .” She hesitated, prepared for a pang, but the memory came painlessly: Greg sitting beside his buddy at the controls of the rented plane, then turning back to grin at Taylor with boyish excitement on his handsome face—so full of life. The sun glittering like diamonds on the surface of the sea, that breathtaking view of Coronado Island from high above, and the roller-coaster dip in her stomach when the plane tilted into a turn . . .
“He’ll probably be directed to another approach,” Taylor guessed, buoyed once again by the certainty that removing her rings had been good timing. Not because of what might or might not be on the horizon with Rob Halston, or even that the rings had been looming large on her checklist, but because she really was past the worst now. She thought of what she’d just said to her cousin, that the pilot would be directed to another approach. Maybe Taylor was being redirected too. A giddy laugh rose. She tapped her cousin’s shoulder. “You know what we need?”
“Kettle corn?”
“No way. I’ve only logged 11,000 steps today.” Taylor touched her activity-tracking bracelet. “It won’t work in my calorie budget.”
“That evil thing.” Aimee groaned. “I keep telling you: Curran women are born to be curvy. You’re coming dangerously close to losing your membership.” She feigned a childish pout. “Okay, what else do we need?”
“Kites!” Taylor pointed down the crowded boardwalk. “Just past the face-painting booth, there’s a tent where we can make our own. All different kinds of options: diamond kites, rollers, deltas, sleds. Crazy colors and even glitter. C’mon, we haven’t flown one together since we were Girl Scouts.”
“Wait, hold on.” Aimee squinted, staring toward the ocean. “That plane . . . I swear its wing just skimmed the water. Some kind of air show? But it seems too reckless even for that.”
“Where?” Taylor turned to look at the same moment the crowd around them exploded with shouts.
“What’s he doing?” someone yelled.
“Oh no, that plane’s in trouble!”
“Pull up, dude!” a young man yelled. “Stop clowning—”
“There . . . ,” a women offered with breathless relief. “He’s back up in the air again and turning toward—”
No.
Taylor’s heart stuttered as the small plane banked erratically, dropped far too close to the water again, then hurtled, out of control, across the sand, and—
She grabbed her cousin’s arm. “He’s coming right at us!”
“Look out,” someone screamed. “He’s gonna hit the boardwalk! Run; get away from here!”
There was a tidal wave of screams, drowned by a deafening engine roar. Then a horrifying overhead shadow, a rush of wind that nearly knocked Taylor to her knees, the acrid and eye-watering scent of airplane fuel—and finally a thunderous, earth-jolting crash.
“Aimee!”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
HEARTFELT APPRECIATION TO:
Literary agent Natasha Kern—you are a blessing, always.
The incredible Tyndale House publishing team, especially editors Jan Stob, Sarah Mason, and Erin Smith—it’s a joy to work with you.
Critique partner and author Nancy Herriman—I’m so grateful for you.
My Sacramento resources:
Chaplain Mindi Russell, executive director of Law Enforcement Chaplaincy, and David Vincent, director of US Crisis Care—for the hope you bring to so many and for your gracious help with this story.
Detective Brian Meux, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department—for your generous and invaluable assistance with the law enforcement components of this story.
Any inaccuracies, or changes to accommodate fictional portrayals, are mine alone.
Daughter Brooklynn, trail name Landmark—your knowledge of and appreciation for Yosemite National Park put my characters (and readers) “right there.”
JoAnn Shiley—for your gracious gift of time in helping me capture the hopeful theme of this story: trusting God.
By Your Side Page 30
