A Different Kind of Valentine

by K. J. Dahlen

  "He said that Ian died in his place that night." Bethany shrugged her shoulders. "He wanted me to know he wouldn’t forget the sacrifice Ian made for him. I told him Ian wouldn’t have died in vain if Nick lived straight. He promised me he would and I have to believe he will. He’s working with Kyle now. He’s going to be all right. He’s going to be just like your friend Scott. Kyle will keep his eye on him. I think the fact that Ian believed in him gave Nick the push he needed to really make a difference." She shrugged. "Who knows, maybe Nick will make a difference in someone else’s life."

  "Sort of paying it forward to help someone else?" Colton hinted.

  "Yeah, something like that." Bethany sighed. "I hope so anyway."

  "What’s happened to Travis and Grayson?"

  "Travis is in the isolation wing of jail waiting trial for first degree murder and drug trafficking. The DEA doesn’t want him talking to anyone. They will keep him safe enough to stand trial. They put police officers and other law enforcement personnel in isolation to protect them against reprisals from other inmates. Grayson is still in jail too. He will face federal charges as well." Bethany chuckled softly. "I’m afraid your Grayson found out that being a bully outside prison wasn’t the same as being one inside the joint. He went head to head with a real bully and found out that a smart mouth isn’t what its cracked up to be."

  "What happened? I would have thought the same rules applied to Grayson."

  Bethany shook her head. "Grayson didn’t want isolation. He insisted on being in the general population. I don’t know, maybe he thought he could get someone to follow him but it didn’t work out that way. Let’s just say he smarted off to the wrong person--he was taught a lesson he won’t soon forget. He found out that without his gang of bad boys, he was nothing but a little fish in a much bigger pond. I doubt he’ll make that mistake again." She chuckled. "He ended up crying like a baby. It’s not really all that funny, but when I think of how he bullied his way around here, I have to believe God has a funny sense of humor. Grayson is on the other end of the stick now."

  Colton nodded. "Maybe there’s hope for him yet." He paused. "Maybe this is the wrong time to bring it up, but I hope you’re going to hang around this time. I don’t think I could watch you drive away again."

  Bethany thought for a long moment then said, "If you’ll have me, I’d like stay. I’ve had time to think about what I want from life. I don’t want to end up like my brother. I want a home and a family, not a lonely grave with a handful of people at my funeral. Ian should have had a whole lot more before he died, but he died doing what he loved. He died making a difference. Maybe I’m selfish, but I want more than he had. I want the whole works. I want love and a man to make a life with, a family. I want it all and I want it with you!" She paused, blushing. "After a display like this, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me."

  "Why is that?" Colton asked his words ragged.

  Bethany blushed. "I love you. You showed me a world I could live in for the rest of my life. You have so much to teach me about life and love and I want to learn. You have compassion for people less fortunate than yourself, a loyalty to your friends and you aren’t afraid of doing the right thing even when it puts everything you hold dear on the line. I want you and everything that comes with you, if you’ll have me."

  Colton snuggled under the blankets with her. "I can live with that." He hated to ask but he had to know. "What about your job?"

  Bethany sighed. "I love my work. It’s a noble profession. It’s one that needs good people to do it but . . ."

  "But what?" Colton asked with his heart in his throat.

  "But I don’t want to see the heartbreak anymore," he told him. "When Ian died a part of me died in that alley with him. I’ve buried two very good people who didn’t deserve to die. It breaks my heart to know that they had to die that way. I loved them both but I don’t know if I can go through that kind of loss again."

  Colton hugged her close to him. He knew what heartache she was talking about. "Stay here with me and you’ll be part of my world from here on."

  "For how long?" Bethany wondered. Her question was important. She was willing to go all the way, and she prayed he was too.

  "How about forever?" Colton asked. "I’ve never known a woman like you. I had no idea how my life would change the day I met you. You turned my life upside down in no time. I can’t imagine living without you in it." Even as he spoke the words, he felt the embers of passion stirring inside him again. He moved closer as her eyes got big. She smiled a radiant smile.

  "Forever sounds like heaven to me," he whispered as their lips met.

  The Prize

  C.L. Kraemer

  The buzzing. What was that buzzing? It was near. Loud, irritating, continuous. Daniel Wilkes thrust his arm out and smashed his hand down on the radio alarm. Ahhh! Quiet. He began to slip into the nether land of warm dreamless sleep. It started again. That buzzing. Daniel roused himself from his cocoon of warm blankets. He'd have to get up. Leaning over, he shut the radio alarm off, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and yawned. Maybe he could call in sick today. There wasn't anything really important on his calendar. No, no, he couldn't. He'd have to go in today like every other day of the year because his particular expertise was pivotal to the running of his department.

  His job as a computer repair technician was very important. He was one of the few people everyone was glad to see. When people called Daniel it was usually because their computer had stopped working in the middle of a very important report, or at month-end in the accounting department or crunching together a sales presentation for a new client. He'd come to their office, work his magic using his vast knowledge, and leave the hero. Rumors of downsizing in other areas of the company had processed through the company pipeline, but Daniel knew the upper management wouldn't touch the computer division, especially the repair department. They were the glue that kept the company together.

  He wasn't so sure the new kid, Frank, was going to make it though. All he'd done since he’d shown up in the cubicle opposite Daniel was play computer games. Yeah, maybe he'd set up the company’s updated new email system. Oh, and he'd set up an Internet website for the company, but site building was level one, social-networking-time-off stuff. Daniel’s expertise was crucial, expertise the bosses on the seventeenth floor trusted to be scrupulous. After their last conversation, Daniel suspected Frank might be downsized along with the secretarial department.

  ~ * ~

  "Hey, Daniel."

  Daniel rolled his eyes at the sound of Frank’s voice. "What?"

  "Did you hear Becky in data entry was let go?"

  "Yeah, so what? What’s that got to do with us? They won’t touch us computer geeks. I have the word of the vice president in marketing. Our department has saved his behind more than once when his computer crashed. He told me on the QT we weren’t going to be touched in the shake up. So don’t worry and stop listening to the coffee room gossip."

  Daniel shook his head and started to walk away.

  "Don’t be so sure," Frank called after him. "I heard they’re gonna get rid of somebody in our department."

  Last hired, first fired. Daniel shook his head. Poor Frank.

  ~ * ~

  Daniel took his shower, dressed then sat at the table in the kitchen nook. He really liked his townhouse. He was lucky his grandparents had thought so highly of him they’d arranged for him to inherit the place. He still snickered at the raucous scene during the family dinner when Gram announced they were moving from the old homestead.

  His mother had exploded in anger.

  "What! You’re going to sell! But mom… the property is supposed to be ours!"

  Daniel could tell the barely civil dinner conversation was going to wind into a whining tirade from the nasal tone of his mother’s retort.

  "How could you possibly do this to us? We counted on you giving us the house!" Red faced, she stomped away from the dinner table, snatched her purse, and slammed th
e door on her way out. His father was still sitting at the table, staring in disbelief, mouth gaping, at his in-laws.

  Daniel had fought hard to keep from laughing aloud. He couldn’t begin to count the nights he’d listened to his parents lavishly planning how they would redesign the "dated" house they considered theirs. Working to achieve the same goal never entered their mind. It was simple. What was Gram and Gramps was theirs by birthright. End of discussion.

  Apparently not so.

  Daniel had heard Grandpa and Grandma Wilkes discuss selling the huge home in which they’d raised their large family for three years before they put the house on the market. With a portion of the proceeds from the home’s sale, they took the trip of a lifetime to Europe. Grandpa hadn't been there since the Second World War--"The Big One" as he always called it--and he wanted to see it once without having to watch for Panzers and ducking the Luftwaffe.

  "Be nice to see what them German folks really look like. Heard them frauleins are pretty good lookin’; almost as good lookin’ as my Nita," Grandad would chuckle as Daniel’s grandma would shake her head and walk away.

  "Incorrigible. That’s what you are, Alvin Wilkes, just incorrigible."

  They had left in May and returned the following September tanned, glowing, and fairly fluent in German. In the cab on the way home from the airport, they passed the construction site of new town homes inside the west edge of the city.

  "Driver, stop." Al leaned forward and touched the man on the shoulder.

  He paid the man to wait, and by the time Al and Nita Wilkes climbed back into the cab, they were the proud owners of a soon-to-be-finished town home in the city’s newest trendy neighborhood. They retrieved their furniture from storage, moved into the townhouse, and set out to car shop.

  Daniel’s grandmother had spotted the maroon beauty on the car lot when they’d taken the cab from the airport.

  "Alvin, that’s what I want." She pointed out the new 2000 Thunderbird to her husband.

  "You got your trip to Europe; I want to drive around town in style and that car," she pointed at the Ford as they passed the lot, "is the kind of style I want."

  That’s when Daniel's parents quit speaking to them. Grandpa passed away and neither Daniel's mom nor dad attended the funeral.

  He’d come to play a vital role in his grandmother's life. After Grandad died, her health deteriorated and she never quite regained her former zest for life. Daniel made sure she got to all her doctor appointments, did her grocery shopping, helped her to clean the townhouse, and kept the Ford in good running condition.

  When Gram made the decision to go into a nursing home because she’d nearly set the kitchen on fire with her forgetfulness, she asked Daniel to come live in the townhouse. She and Grandpa had paid it off with the profit they'd made on the sale of the big house. She willingly signed the title of the Thunderbird to Daniel when she moved into the assisted living center. The car had less than 20,000 miles on the odometer and was as breathtakingly beautiful as the day she drove the new vehicle from the lot.

  Even so, Daniel had sacrificed to get where he was. He'd given up his personal life to cater to Gram but truth be told, he loved her dearly, definitely more than the woman claiming to be his mother. He often shook his head at how different two beings with nearly the same genes could be. But he couldn’t get Gram to stop pushing him to marry. Visitation days always seemed to have the same theme between them.

  "Daniel, when are you going to find a nice girl and settle down? I’d love to see great grandbabies before I die?"

  "Now, Gram, if I have a wife and kids, I won’t be able to help you as much as I do. You wouldn’t want me to have to stop visiting, would you?"

  He’d watch his gran sigh, shake her head, and smile weakly at him.

  "No hon," she’d pat his hand. "I really enjoy having you here. Maybe after I’m gone you’ll find someone special."

  "Grandma! Don’t say that." Daniel would frown and grasp her hand. "You’re not going to die. Now stop it!"

  The last time he visited, the nurse at the front desk stopped him.

  "Mr. Wilkes?"

  "Yes?"

  "I need to speak to you regarding the notices we’ve sent to your parents about your grandmother’s expenses."

  Daniel frowned. "Expenses?"

  "Yes sir. The home is… uh… increasing the cost for your grandmother’s living arrangement and medical expenses. She’s requiring more direct attention as her prognosis deteriorates. The problem is we keep getting the mail back unopened. Do you have their correct address or know who we can speak with on the subject of this matter?"

  Daniel sighed as he withdrew his wallet from his trousers.

  "My parents don’t live in town anymore and haven’t acknowledged my grandmother in several years. Her lawyer is handling her finances. Here is his name and number. He should be able to help you."

  He frowned. Will this affect me? Naw. Gram has made a provision I’ll be able to stay in the house as long as I want. Right?

  ~ * ~

  Daniel smelled the burning toast as the smoke alarm went off. He opened the sliding patio door to let in some fresh air and was greeted by an icy blast. He dashed to the shrieking smoke alarm. Opening the front, he disconnected the battery.

  "Blasted thing. Never works when it should and works every time you don't need it."

  He grumbled as he took the blackened bread and dropped it into the rubbish can. He realized he was running late and wouldn't have time to eat.

  "Man, this is turning out to be a bad day. I sure hope Nadine in accounting doesn't have one of her 'It's-Your-Fault-This-Accounting-System-Doesn't-Work' days." He blew out an exasperated sigh between his lips. "That's all I need."

  He grabbed his overcoat and briefcase on his way out the door.

  He locked the door and, pointing the garage door opener at the garage, walked down the pathway. He reached the driveway before he realized the garage door wasn't open. Swearing under his breath, he pointed the opener again and clicked. Nothing. He stomped up to the townhouse. He heard the metallic rumbling of the garage opening next door.

  He turned as a sleek red sports car gracefully slid out. Daniel stood transfixed. This was why he was sacrificing his social life. It was the most beautiful piece of machinery he'd ever seen. The mercurial lines moved the eye from the double horse insignia on the front over the barely waist-high roof into the aerodynamically designed tail end. The air wavered around the exhaust pipe emitting guttural hints of the power contained under the hood. The driver gave the engine gas and shot backward into the street. Shifting from reverse to drive and giving the engine more gas, the car noisily left skid marks on the quiet residential street.

  Daniel trudged inside. He rummaged through the catchall drawer in the entry desk and found fresh batteries. Once the dead batteries had been replaced, the garage opener worked fine. He climbed into the older Thunderbird, lumbered down the driveway, and into the street. He toyed with the idea of leaving skid marks but changed his mind when he noticed a patrol car in the rear view mirror. This morning hadn't been a roaring success so far, no sense in getting a ticket. He was going to be late as it was.

  Daniel pulled into the parking lot at work, stepped out, and locked the car. He looked at his watch. He was only ten minutes late. Considering this was the second time in all his years of employment, they'd probably forgive him ten minutes. He flashed his badge at the guard in the lobby and pushed the button on the elevator. Rocketing to his floor, he was walking down the hallway to his office fifteen seconds later. Inside, he hung up his overcoat and placed his briefcase on his desk. He hadn't yet popped open the latches when Frank came flying through the door of their shared office.

  "You'd better get in gear. We were supposed to be in a meeting ten minutes ago in the conference room with the division manager of Information Services. Something big is coming down from corporate headquarters."