by Lavada Dee
Cooper was the youngest, and Devon felt like he had been the frosting on the cake for the family. Everyone loved Cooper, hurt when he hurt, and laughed when he laughed. He ran Blackhawk Construction. Each of the brothers owned what he was into, but had the backing of the family. Devon thought about his own life. He had wanted the lodge and loved living there and managing it, but his real love had been computer application development. To be able to create something that could take on a life of its own fascinated him. Until now, that had been enough.
His father cleared his throat, reminding Devon he hadn’t answered his question. “Sorry, you asked if I thought Tyrell was going to settle down?”
“I asked if you thought he was going to settle down in Blackhawk. Knowing him, when he does hang up the warrior garb it might well be in Timbuktu.”
Devon laughed. “I hear you on that. He’s hard to read. All I know for sure is that he isn’t in the service anymore. His unit has disbanded. Will he stay in Montana? Well, that’s anyone’s guess. I’m thinking he doesn’t know himself at this point.”
His father again glanced over at him. They would be at the apartments in a few minutes and this conversation would stop. For one thing, his dad didn’t look any more comfortable talking about Tyrell than he did. That Colin was even asking these questions was a testament to how much his parents cared about them all. Giving it up, he sighed. What would it hurt to share his take on where Tyrell was at?
Deciding to lay it all out, Devon half turned in the seat. “Tyrell has changed, maybe it’s the injuries, maybe it’s that he is at a crossroad. He talked to me a little last night. That’s when he told me the guys in his unit decided from the first that they wouldn’t take any more missions after he turned thirty-five. He explained that since he would be the first to reach the magic age that it would be his birthday that would signal the end.”
“All five of them agreed?”
“Yep, said that back then, thirty-five had seemed really old.” He swallowed, undecided about just how much he wanted to say, then took a breath and plunged in. “He said that back then none of the guys thought they’d live to see thirty-five.”
Silence filled the cab of the truck as both men let the words sink in. Finally, Colin cleared his throat. “Thank you, son. I appreciate what it is costing you to share all this. It goes without saying that it won’t go any further.”
“I know, Dad. As for leasing the jet, we are talking in excess of a couple of million. Especially throwing in a copter. Maybe we should wait to see how things fall out. I can see Tyrell beefing up the search and rescue we do. And the medevac. For that we could use a bigger and newer helicopter even if Tyrell doesn’t buy into it.”
They were coming into Missoula. Devon loved this town. It was a great place to live, second only to Blackhawk. Nestled in between five mountain ranges it was often described as the “Hub of Five Valleys.” He had gone to school here, at the University of Montana. As a student, he would have loved an apartment like the ones they were renting out, but housing had been scarce and he had commuted from home instead.
His dad slowed down for the reduced speed limit. “You’re right about waiting until Tyrell is ready. I know it, but you know me. It’s hard to not take action. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye out for a copter and keep an ear tuned to what Tyrell more than likely won’t voice out loud.”
Devon laughed. “How well you know him, Dad. I’ll listen too, and if the opportunity presents itself I’ll plant a bug for him to think about.”
Chapter 3
Page paced alongside the pool while Tyrell swam laps. Had it only been a week since she’d stepped into this room and seen her patient for the first time? Or more like saw his brother for the first time. Just thinking about Devon had her swallowing and trying to get her heart to slow down. Were there really perfect people on this earth? There had to be, because this guy was serious eye candy.
There wasn’t much of a resemblance between the two brothers, except both were tall. She knew from Tyrell’s chart that he was six-foot-two, so Devon had to be right there too. Both had dark hair, though Devon’s was a couple of shades lighter. But there, the similarities stopped. Devon was put together with perfection, not a blemish, not an irregular feature. He was almost too perfect. He looked like he could step off the pages of Cosmopolitan. Furthermore, she’d bet the farm that he looked like that first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and all the in between hours of the day. In the past week she’d seen him off and on when he stopped in to see Tyrell. Good thing they were short periods because anything longer and she would be drooling. Probably like every other female that saw the guy.
Tyrell splashed water at her and told her to get her butt in the pool. “I’m not paying you to look at charts and watch from the sidelines. Besides, you look like you need to unwind with some laps.”
Darn, uptight? Did she really look that way? She walked over to the wall and laid the flip board on a bench. Taking a running start she dove into the pool without making a ripple, and came out of the water a couple of feet from Tyrell. She would work harder on hiding her attraction to her patient’s brother. For one thing, she never got personal with a client or their family, and for another, and probably the leading reason, she wasn’t about to join all the other women that were swooning over the guy. Umm, swooning? She smiled at the old fashioned word.
“Okay, big guy, lets see what you’ve got.” Page struck out for the end of the pool. Tyrell shouldn’t be able to be doing what he was, but in the week she had been working with him she’d seen an amazing recovery. In the four years since graduation, Page had never had a patient like him. His injuries should have been terminal. When he’d proven that prognosis wrong, the doctors had agreed that he would never walk. Today, he’d taken his first step in the bars. The way he was healing, she had no doubt he would make a full, albeit miraculous, recovery.
Page saw Tyrell pass her in the pool, and by the time she joined him at the end, she was out of breath.
He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“How do you do it?” she panted.
“Do what? Beat you in laps?” He was grinning at her and looked like a little boy that had pulled off a trick. The man was an enigma. One minute he was bad-tempered and hurling curses. The next showing astonishing courage and strength as he battled the bars to take a few agonizing steps.
“Well, beating me for sure. I’m pretty physical and…”
“And, I’m not?” He let go of the pool ledge and treaded water. “Or is it because of my injuries?”
His eyes cautioned her not to underestimate him. “No, you’re physically strong, even wounded. I’m not sure what I was going to say, maybe that you sometimes don’t seem a mere mortal.”
This time he laughed out loud. “Mere mortal, huh? Well, I don’t know about the mortal part, but I don’t like the mere part. The word means simple or measly.”
Page pushed away from the side of the pool. “You’ve had enough. A massage and we’ll call it a day.” She swam toward the side where his wheelchair waited and he kept pace beside her. A few minutes later, he was in the chair. She knew better than to push it for him like she sometimes did with patients after a long day. She had tried it once, and he had snarled at her. It had gotten her attention enough so that she instead just walked ahead and opened the door. She hadn’t commented on his distaste for her use of the word ‘mere’ and decided to do it now. “Just for the record I didn’t use the word ‘mere’ to describe you. And at the risk of inflating your already huge ego, I don’t consider anything about you simple.”
Again he grinned. No, he wasn’t simple, he kept her on her toes. Sparring with him was exhilarating and it helped keep her mind off his brother.
It took a few minutes for Tyrell to strip out of his suit and get on the massage table. Again she held back from offering him help. His body was honed to perfection, no woman could deny his masculine beauty, but unlike Devon, he wasn’t model perfect. Old scars warred with
new ones, giving him a warrior’s image.
She placed a warm towel across his back and said, “I’m going to change out of this wet suit. Take a few minutes and relax.”
“You can change it here. I won’t look.”
Yeah, right, she didn’t think so. “I’ll be right back.”
Normally, she wouldn’t have left a patient unattended, but Tyrell wasn’t an average patient. For one thing he was almost completely independent. He didn’t want, or, she had to admit, need her help. Still, she made fast work of pulling on her sweats. When she got back to the massage room Devon was there and laughing at something Tyrell said. She paused with her hand on the door. Taking a deep breath, Page tried to slow her pulse. So far, she had been able to hide her attraction. She had noticed the looks women gave him in lodge dining room, even the waitress’s, and she’d be darned if she was going to act like every other female that looked Devon’s way. That he seemed so unaware of his appeal didn’t help either.
Finally, mentally ready, she stepped into the room. Tyrell was still on his stomach and Devon was sitting on the floor in front of the table so he could make eye contact with his brother. He looked up and their gazes locked. When he stumbled over what he was saying, she realized he wasn’t as unaffected as she thought. It seemed like he might be feeling something too, and that couldn’t be. She knew she wasn’t a beauty. At best, she could be described as cute.
His voice sounded deep. “Looks like your lady is here. I envy you brother, a massage would feel good about now.”
“You said you drove down to Missoula with Dad. That couldn’t have had you using much muscle.”
“I didn’t say I needed a massage, I said it would feel good.”
Page trickled warm oil over Tyrell’s back and began a deep, penetrating kneading of his muscles. Half-listening to Devon telling Tyrell about his day, she caught something about plans for Blackhawks air transport. She had been in Blackhawk for six months, but had grown up in Missoula, so knew the Blackhawk family was almost royalty in Western Montana. That they owned the airport didn’t surprise her.
“So you think Dad is going to propose an expansion of the air service?”
Devon had managed to engage Tyrell in a conversation, which wasn’t easy. The term “man of few words” could have been coined just for him.
Devon answered. “Blackhawk has needed more air coverage for a while. More and more people are coming in to hike and hunt, as well as cross-country ski. Just the medevac service alone is under-staffed, and last year we had an increase in search and rescue.”
“We’d have to hire pilots.”
“Yeah, we would.” Page could see that Devon liked Tyrell’s use of “we.”
The two brothers discussed the possibilities of their Dad’s idea of expansion and again Page half listened. She liked hearing the sound of Devon’s voice, of having him look over and smile every once in a while. The room was warm and fragrant with the smell of the herbs and oils she was using. The tension in Tyrell’s muscles relaxed, so Page knew he would sleep tonight. Too bad she couldn’t hope it would be the same for her. Being around Devon was making her want things she couldn’t have. Another week, with the way Tyrell was healing, and she could move back to her apartment. She didn’t normally do live-ins, but Tyrell still had to have someone around the clock or move to a rehab facility. At first, he had a male nurse. When he was ready for more extensive physical therapy it made sense to have a therapist move in to the spare suite in Tyrell’s penthouse. He fought her at first, balking at having a woman, but she had the support of his doctor, and Dr. Grant Blackhawk, who had both assured him she was the best.
“That’s it, Tyrell, you’re done for the night.” Her voice broke into the brothers’ conversation.
Devon nodded. “I’ll take it from here.”
Page felt her heart leap when he took the towel she was wiping her hands on. How could one man be so devastatingly beautiful? And, how could she be so pathetic? For heaven’s sake, just a smile and she was ready to melt.
Not only was Tyrell’s body healing, but his attitude was improving. A week ago, she could hardly get him to say a thing. He still wasn’t into a lot of small talk, but now he at least made it clear what he wanted without snapping and snarling about everything from food, to weather, to the therapy itself.
Her day done, Page was more than ready to call an end to it. Tyrell had given her the lock combination to the penthouse and she let herself in. The suite was designed with two masters and she loved hers. It was big enough to have a king bed and sitting area. There was also access to the balcony with a lake view. After this it was going to be hard to go back to the small studio apartment she had in town.
She kicked off her flip-flops and headed straight for the shower. Page knew from the past week’s experience that Devon and Tyrell would have a beer, or two, or three, and watch a ball game together for a few hours. She envied them and felt familiar loneliness creep over her. She had grown up alone, and most of the time shrugged it off. She knew that with even a hint of where she came from she would have searched for a fragment of a family, but she hadn’t been given up for adoption so there wasn’t that thread to start with. And even though adoption laws had changed with records being more open it wouldn’t help in her case.
Maybe it was just as well. Some families were worse than none at all and she had a feeling that would be the case for her. For one thing, she had been three when someone—her mother, father, or who knew—dropped her off outside a church without even a note pinned to her sweater. If it hadn’t been Sunday, she might not have been found for a while. She remembered loud voices and fear, and being hungry. Page didn’t remember a soft motherly person, and bet there hadn’t been one.
She pushed the thoughts away and pulled on the sweats she slept in. With just a good book, she would be back in a happy place.
Page was just getting into the story when Devon knocked and hollered through the door. “Hey Page, Tyrell and I are going to order some room service. Want to come out and join us?”
Did she? It was almost eleven o’clock. When she heard herself answer in the affirmative, she couldn’t believe it. Coming out of the bedroom she asked, “So what are you two having?”
Devon gave her that sexy smile she had been trying not to look at. “Cheeseburgers and fries. Bad, huh?”
“Yeah it is, but what the heck? It’s good to live a little.”
Tyrell laughed out loud. “Hell, I love a woman that doesn’t pick at her food.”
Page chuckled. “Let’s see how much you love one when she works your rear, and hers, off tomorrow.”
Devon placed the order and joined the conversation. “I’m glad that doesn’t include me. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t mind you…”
“Don’t even think it.” Tyrell glared across the table at him. “Page belongs to me.” He looked over and caught Page’s look. No fool, he amended his comment. “Well, she belongs to me during working hours.”
Tyrell was in an unusually mellow mood. He could get himself in and out of the wheelchair now, and Page wouldn’t be surprised to see him graduating to a walker soon. He also seemed to be in a talkative mood, which was again unusual. He turned to Page. “You haven’t been in Blackhawk long, right? You said it’s good to live a little, so what do you do when you’re not hanging out with wounded men?”
Ignoring the reference to her personal life she said, “I source out from a service in Missoula. It works with area hospitals.”
Room service was fast and Devon answered the door. In a few minutes, the three were happily chowing down on the forbidden food that tasted better because of it. Devon picked up the thread of conversation. “So, you usually work in a facility?”
“Yes, this is the first time I’ve done home service. It’s not the norm.”
“I’ll bet, especially not doing the live-in route.”
Page got up and walked back into her room for one of the sodas she favored. When she got back she said, “You guys
have quite a set up here. Anyone would want to live in if it was like this. Room service, maid service, how much better can it get?”
Devon laughed. “You haven’t seen our brothers’ places. Coop or Grant wouldn’t trade what they have for anything.”
“Yeah, but they’re married and you’re not even close.” Tyrell chimed in.
“You’ve been gone for a few years, so how do you know I’m not close?”
“Come on, bro. There isn’t a woman around that you’d think was perfect enough.”
Devon faked a wince. “You’re going to give Page the wrong idea.” He turned toward her. “I’m not shallow or vain about outward beauty. I…”
“You don’t have to be.” Tyrell shot back.
Page was glad they were diverted from her. That no more questions were coming her way. She didn’t like to talk about her background, where she came from, or in her case where she hadn’t. Finishing her cheeseburger, she gathered up the wrapping and headed into the kitchen. She could hear the brothers as they continued their kidding argument.
“What do you mean I don’t have to be? When have you ever seen me use my looks to get a woman?”
Tyrell laughed. “Come on, bro, it isn’t something you have to do. It’s just something you have.”
Devon held up his hands. When he looked up his gaze caught Page’s. “So Page, what do you think? You think I’m hung up on a woman’s outward appearance? That I don’t think there’s any woman out there ‘perfect’ enough?”
Wow, how did she answer this one? For the past week, she’d been thinking about how different she was from what she thought Devon would want or expect in a woman.
She shook her head and turned toward her room. “Oh no, I’m not going to touch this with a ten-foot pole.” Safe at her door she turned back. “See you two in the morning. Oh, and if I see a perfect woman around I’ll be sure to let you both know.”
