Almost Heaven

by Jillian Hart

  More at ease, she followed him and dug in her shorts pocket for her keys. “So, how did you handle your grandmother?”

  “I informed her that if I could find a nice girl, then I would marry her. The problem is finding a woman who’s interested in me.”

  “Sure, I can see why that’s a problem.” Dependable man, handsome and fit and went out of his way to help others. She locked up and tested the lock—sometimes it was tricky.

  “Once she saw it from a prospective bride’s viewpoint, she stopped bothering me. She wouldn’t want to inflict any nice girl with a husband like me.”

  “There’s more to life than having a ring on your hand, that’s for sure.”

  Was it a lie if you wanted to mean what you said, even if it wasn’t the truth? Kendra wondered as she loped down the steps and crossed the street.

  “Sure,” he agreed, keeping stride with her.

  Was it marriage she was against, or the fear of trusting a man that much?

  They’d reached his cruiser. “You should be safe to drive home.”

  “Thanks again, Cameron. You have a good evening.” She strode around the back of the trailer, jingling her keys in the palm of her hand as she went, blond hair blowing in a long silken ponytail behind her.

  Cameron bit into a cookie as he waited by his cruiser to make sure she got on her way all right. Chocolate broke apart in his mouth, as rich as cake and made richer with sweet chunks of milk chocolate.

  It almost soothed away his disappointment as Kendra’s truck engine rolled over with an easy hum. Taillights winked on and the right blinkers flashed. She eased out into the empty street leaving only tire marks and a hint of dust in the air.

  That didn’t bode too well, man. She was sure quick to get rid of him. Not that he’d come across as an intelligent future customer. No, he’d yakked on about his re-election when what he should have done was ask her about the boarding fees at her stable.

  Seeking refuge inside the car, he started the engine and flicked the air-conditioning on high. Not even the second chocolate cookie made him feel better.

  Maybe some things weren’t meant to be. And if they were, then wouldn’t the Lord present him with another chance?

  He was upset, and it wasn’t only about the questions he didn’t ask Kendra. He’d fibbed when she’d asked how he’d handled his grandmother’s desire for him to marry. His nana was a fine woman, a real lady, and she worried about him being alone.

  The truth was, he’d lost his heart when he buried his wife. He’d lived in darkness ever since her passing. His grieving was done, but the loneliness remained.

  He’d loved being married. If he could find a woman that filled him up like sunlight, that made him alive again, well, wouldn’t that be something? Did true love happen twice in a lifetime?

  He’d leave that answer up to the Lord. In the meantime, his workday was done. There was nothing else to do but go home. He would face the lonely house and the silent kitchen as he did every night and make a tuna-fish sandwich for supper while he listened to the world news.

  Alone.

  Alone. Finally. Kendra collapsed on her secondhand couch and let the window unit pummel her with blessed, cold air. Her fat tabby cat meowed a weak protest from the top of the cushion, but his demand for more treats was the last one in a long list.

  She’d done everything. The new horses were in the paddock, the stalls in the stables were cleaned, the horses fed and watered, the trailer hosed out. She’d returned messages, paid a few bills and checked on a pregnant mare.

  The cat’s meow was louder.

  “Pounce, can you wait two minutes? Just two? I don’t think I can move.”

  Meow.

  “The treats are on the other end table. I can’t reach them from here.”

  Apparently tired of her excuses, the twenty-pound orange tabby leaped off the top of the cushion and onto Kendra’s stomach.

  “Okay, I’ll get the treats.” Laughing, she rubbed the cat’s head, as he purred. The shrill ring of the phone had her reaching for the cordless handset tossed in the mess on the coffee table. “This had better be good.”

  “Ooh, it is!” It was her littlest sister Michelle, trembling with excitement. Not that Michelle was all that little now that she was grown-up and married. “We’re all on our way to the hospital. Karen was admitted about thirty minutes ago.”

  “She’s having the baby?” Excitement must have reenergized her, because Kendra found the will to stand up, carrying Pounce as she crossed the room. “Did you need a ride or is your hubby there?”

  “Brody’s locking up right now… Oops, I gotta go. He’s dragging me to the front door.” Michelle was laughing. “See you at the hospital!”

  Another niece or nephew to welcome into their family! Kendra tossed the phone onto the cushions to worry about later. She was going to be an aunt—again. She had to hurry. She had to drive. She needed caffeine. Good thing she’d made a pitcher of sun tea yesterday.

  A swift brush along her ankles reminded her of her primary mission. The cat led the way to the treat bag and his demanding meow left no doubt. He was annoyed with her.

  “I know, that phone was more important than you. I’m sorry, buddy.” She gave him an extra treat, rubbed his head while he purred gratefully and made the long journey of about seven steps into the small galley kitchen.

  Okay, so she hadn’t done all her chores today. Bypassing the counter of dirty dishes, she rummaged through the back of the cupboard until she found a clean cup, dumped some sugar in for good measure and went in search of her keys.

  Where were they? The cat was no help, as he was settling on his cushion in front of the air conditioner and couldn’t be bothered with lowly human dilemmas.

  “Found ’em!” On the floor beneath her tennies. “Bye, Pounce!”

  The cat managed a disdainful frown, which Kendra took to mean he’d miss her.

  Twilight was creeping into the long shadows as she started her truck, but that didn’t provide any relief from the heat. No. At least she wasn’t towing a trailer, so she punched up the air-conditioning. The sinking sun blazed bright orange and magenta in her rear and side-view mirrors, tailing her as she headed to Bozeman.

  The sun had set in a lavender hush by the time she pulled into the hospital parking lot, found an available space as close to the front doors as she could manage and climbed out into the coming darkness.

  “Kendra, is that you?” A man’s voice rumbled behind her.

  Her keys tumbled through her fingers and crashed to the pavement at her feet. She recognized his deep, warm baritone instantly. Smooth move, Kendra. “Cameron. What are you doing here?”

  “Startling you. Here, let me.” He knelt and retrieved her keys.

  It was gentlemanly of him. If he hadn’t spoken first, she might not have realized it was him right off. She was used to seeing him in his navy-blue uniform. Tonight he wore a simple T-shirt and jeans, belted at his lean hips, and scuffed boots.

  He straightened to his full six feet and held her key ring on the wide palm of his hand. “I’ve come to your rescue again.”

  “I guess. If you hadn’t come along when you did, I’d have been in a real dilemma, being unable to pick up my own keys.”

  “See? Glad I could be of service.”

  “And just what are you doing here anyway? Following me?”

  “You’d have noticed in your rearview if I had. Nope, my pager went off halfway through my supper. Big wreck on the highway.”

  She’d taken the back road to Bozeman, not the highway. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “A tire blew out, and the driver was injured. It was the father of a family on their summer vacation.”

  “Will he be all right?”

  “Broke his leg. He’ll be spending the night in the hospital, so I told him I’d make sure his wife and kids get settled into a hotel room. During tourist season, you don’t know the strings I had to pull for that one.”

  “That was decent of y
ou.”

  “Yeah? Well, I try not to be such a bad guy, considering I wear a badge and give people tickets.”

  “I’ve heard you cops have unfair quotas to fill.”

  “Pressure of being a cop.” His smile broke wide, showing a row of straight even white teeth and a hint of a dimple. “Why do I have the pleasure of running into you on this fine evening?”

  “I’m about to become an aunt again.”

  “Congratulations.” He fell in step beside her. “That’s hard work, becoming an aunt.”

  “Yeah, I have it much harder than Karen. I have to shop in the gift store. I have to sit and wait in those uncomfortable chairs.”

  “There must be an unspoken but ironclad law in hospital administration that states they can only allocate funds for the most uncomfortable chairs on the planet. They would have to buy them on purpose. There’s no way they could find those chairs by chance.”

  “There’s an administrator somewhere in this building who has better job security because of it.”

  The lobby was quiet this time of evening. To Kendra’s surprise Cameron stayed by her side as they wound their way to the elevators. He punched the Up button.

  An uncomfortable silence stretched between them while they both watched the lit numbers move up and not down in their direction.

  What did she say now? She was horrible at making small talk.

  A janitor rolled his cart into sight and ambled to the far corner of the lobby. He began washing windows.

  Cameron broke the silence. “Did you get your horses all tucked in for the night?”

  “Yep.”

  “That had to be tough. They can’t be used to being cooped up in a trailer.”

  “No, but I’ve worked with a lot of horses over the years. I sweet-talked them.”

  Cam could see it in his mind as the doors parted and he followed Kendra inside the elevator. Her gentle words and gentle hands, her quiet ways that told those frightened animals only good things were going to happen to them while they were in her care.

  See? He’d asked the Lord for another chance and this was it. He had Kendra alone. Trapped, as it were, in the elevator with him. Folks probably asked her advice all the time.

  So just do it. He punched the floor button and leaned against the wall. The car zipped upward, reminding him he had only so much time. “Say, how much does it cost if someone wanted to board a horse at your place?”

  Her pretty eyes widened. Had he surprised her that much? She unzipped her good-size purse and started digging through the contents. “It depends. I think I have a price list in here. There are different rates depending on the level of care you want and size stall, feeding plans, training and exercising, that kind of thing.”

  Her hair was unbound, and it was full of light, falling to cover her face as she rummaged past a worn leather wallet and a glasses case. He took his time looking his fill, while she was busy and wouldn’t notice him gawking at her.

  She was prettiest this close, he decided. He could see the scatter of light freckles across her nose and cheeks, probably brought out by the summer sun, on skin golden brown and as smooth as satin.

  “Here it is.”

  He jerked his gaze to the floor at her scuffed white sneakers, as if he hadn’t been looking anywhere else.

  The rattle of paper drew his attention. He straightened up, all business. It was hard holding back his emotions, but he was a disciplined man with a plan. He admired the cut of her hands, slender and suntanned, callused from her work, with neat short nails painted a shimmering pink.

  It dawned on him that she was waiting for him to take the neat brochure. “Uh, thanks.”

  “I didn’t know you had a horse.”

  He opened the trifolded lavender paper and stared at numbers that made no sense. His brain couldn’t seem to work right. He couldn’t believe what he was about to do. Don’t back out now, man.

  He cleared the nerves from his throat before he spoke. “I don’t. Yet.”

  Now there was a dazzling show of his mastery of the language.

  She didn’t seem to notice. If she did, then she managed to keep her pity for his sorry conversational skills to a minimum. Her voice was as warm as her smile. “You can ask me if you have any questions.”

  “Or I could just pull you over the next time you drive through town.”

  “Aren’t you funny? Abusing your power as an authority figure.” She teased him in return—she couldn’t help it—as the doors opened to the maternity wing. “Have a good night, Cameron.”

  “You, too. Congratulations on becoming an aunt again.”

  He was gone; the doors slid shut before she could answer, leaving her alone. The chug and chink of the elevators echoed in the quiet. She turned around, eyes down because she knew what was ahead of her.

  The viewing window of the nursery where newborns slept tucked tight in their blankets and beds, their dear button faces either relaxed in slumber or screwed up in misery as they cried. A nurse was lifting one tiny unhappy baby into her arms as Kendra passed by.

  Don’t look. Keep moving.

  Her feet refused to work, leaving her trapped in front of the window. It hurt to look. It hurt not to look. She admired the tiny babies, their perfectly formed miniature hands, their sweet faces, and envied their lucky parents.

  How was it possible to feel happy and sad at the same moment? Happy for the precious new babies and sad because she would never have one of her own.

  How could she? She wasn’t ever going to date. Never going to marry. Never trust a man that much.

  There would be no babies for her.

  The grief struck her as it always did like a boxer’s blow to her sternum. It was her choice, her decision. She couldn’t complain. She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself, but when would this consuming longing end?

  She turned away before the ache within her could crescendo. Before regret and loss could swallow her whole.

  Her sisters were waiting beyond those imposing double doors. Why were her feet dragging? What was holding her back?

  It was hard to face how different her life was, from what she’d always thought it would be. That’s what. She’d wanted to be a wife and a mother. A horse-woman, yes, but, oh, to be truly and deeply loved by a good man. To have her own children to love and nurture. What could be more important than that?

  Don’t think about what might have been. She closed her eyes, hoped the Lord would help her find the strength to face her family behind those doors without feeling sorrow over the what-ifs in her life. As hard as it was to see what she might have had, she was truly happy for her sisters and their families. To the depth of her soul.

  It wasn’t as if she was alone. She was an aunt; she would always have children in her life. She would count the wonderful blessings the Lord had given her.

  Not dwell on the ones missing.

  She squared her shoulders, forced every piece of grief from her heart. She was ready. Behind that door were her sisters and their husbands and their children. Her warm extended family she loved with all her being.

  She refused to feel sad, not tonight. Not when there was so much to celebrate. So much to be grateful for.

  Cameron couldn’t stop thinking about the brochure he’d folded and tucked into his shirt pocket. His mind was half on it all during the time he made sure Mr. Anderson had what he needed for the night. Those prices were reasonable. Better than what he’d expected.

  I can do this. Excitement zoomed through him as he gave Anderson the number of the hotel his family was staying at. Optimism gave him extra zing as he punched the elevator call button and waited for an empty car in the quiet hush of the corridor.

  Money had been tight for a long time, what with Debra’s medical costs and funeral expenses, and selling their house, he’d had to come up with the cash to pay for the closing. He’d worried that buying a horse might be a much more expensive proposition than he could afford, now that his finances were evening out.

 
The elevator doors opened, the empty car waiting to take him downstairs. He hit the Lobby button and pulled out the brochure as the elevator descended, clicking off the floors.

  It had been a long, hard road taking care of Deb, not as hard as the road she walked with her illness. It nearly killed him having to say goodbye to her. Faith saw him through that tough time and after. He’d only been existing, not living. How did a man live with only half of a heart?

  Memories tugged him back in time, when he and Deb were newlyweds. Their budget was tight. It had to be. She was finishing up her legal-assistant course at the technical college while he was hoofing it through the academy. Part-time jobs kept them in a small one-bedroom apartment not far from the campus in Bozeman. They had to work to make ends meet, but Deb had made it fun. She was so easy to laugh with. They laughed all the time.

  He missed that. He missed the dreams they would talk about over doing the dishes by hand in the cramped kitchen. Deb wanted a sprawling house just out of town, so she could see trees instead of neighbors.

  He’d wanted enough land to graze a horse or two on. She’d liked that idea, and wove more dreams of how it would be when times were better, riding their horses in their fields. What a great life they were going to have. Together.

  Grief weighed down his soul.

  The elevator inched to a halt and the doors whispered open. The outside world beyond the long wall of lobby windows was dark, and he hated the thought of going out in it.

  She’d been gone four years, and the pain of heading home to an empty house still ate at him.

  Is that going to change anytime soon, Lord?

  Then he saw Kendra through a glass partition in the far wall. The overhead light haloed her golden hair and caressed her creamy complexion. She wore a simple T-shirt and her denim shorts, nothing pretty or fancy or extraordinary, and she looked so lovely.

  He supposed it was loneliness that made him look. He missed a woman’s presence in his life. The softness and gentleness, the little bottles all over the bathroom counter… He missed all of it.