Daredevil’s Run
Kathleen Creighton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Copyright

Kathleen Creighton has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today she says she is interested in everything—art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.

This book is for DAVE and TIM…the two sweet, wonderful guys who have dedicated themselves to making my daughters’ lives happy (a task requiring more than a small measure of patience, empathy, and of course, love). How on earth did my girls get so lucky?

A SPECIAL THANK YOU…To Dawn, my firstborn (who calls to my mind words from The Sound of Music: “Somewhere…I must have done something good…”) and to the other wonderful people at Kern River Outfitters in Wofford Heights, California—Dwight Pascoe, his wife, Trudy, whitewater photographer Bob Walker—for making it possible for me to ride the river without once getting my feet wet.

Prologue

Part 1

It started the way it always did, with the dream of waking up in the darkness, of being afraid, terrified. Heart racing, pounding, sweating and shaking, wanting to cry but knowing he was too big to cry. He didn’t want to be a baby, did he?

He didn’t cry, he didn’t. But his chest and throat hurt as if he did.

Then the noise. Terrible noises—things crashing, breaking, thumps and bangs, voices yelling…screaming. A man’s voice yelling. A woman’s voice screaming.

There were other voices, too, small frightened voices—not his!—whimpering, “Mommy…”

And finally…finally the other voice, the one he’d been waiting for, praying for, soft as a breath blowing warm past his ear. “Shh…It’s okay…it’s gonna be okay. I won’t let him hurt you. Nobody’s gonna hurt you. You’re safe now. It’s okay.”

He felt safe then, and warm, and when the loudest noises came, he crouched down in the warm darkness and waited for the crashing and banging and screaming and yelling to stop and the lights to turn on, so bright they hurt his eyes. So bright he woke up.

“Wade—Wade—”

Mattie’s voice. Mattie was standing beside his bed, poking him, shaking his arm.

“Wake up, Wade. Wake…up!”

“I am awake. Stop poking me.” He glared up at his brother’s face, just a dark blob in the darkness of their room, and scrubbed furiously at his eyes. “What’s the matter? What did you wake me up for?”

“You were crying.”

“Was not.”

“Yes, you were. I heard you. Did you have a bad dream, Wade?”

“Maybe. So what?” He was the older brother, after all. “Big deal. It was only a dream. Go back to sleep, Mattie.”

Mattie’s shadow didn’t move, just went on standing there beside Wade’s bed. A small voice said, “I can’t. I’m all awake now, too. Can I get in bed with you, Wade?”

Wade let out an exaggerated breath, but the truth was, he didn’t mind. “Okay…but you better not kick me this time, or I’m pushin’ you on the floor.”

He scooted over and Matt lifted the edge of the blankets and crawled in beside him. For a few minutes Wade lay still, listening to his brother’s uneven breathing, feeling the warmth of his body drive away the last lingering chill of nightmare.

After a while, he heard a whisper.

“Was it the pounding dream, Wade?”

Wade’s voice felt gravelly as he answered, “Yeah.”

“And…did he come?”

“Did who come?”

“You know who. The angel. The boy angel.”

After a pause, Wade said on a long breath, “Yeah…”

“I knew it,” Mattie said, wriggling down into the pillow with a yawn. “He always comes when you need him….”

A moment later his breathing became a soft snore, and a moment after that, Wade, too, was asleep.

Part 2

Wade dialed the phone from his hospital bed. He closed his eyes as he counted the rings, but it didn’t help to shut out the image of his brother the way he’d last seen him, making his way slowly and awkwardly through his apartment in his wheelchair.

The rings stopped after only two, surprising him. Always before when he’d called, it had taken at least six rings for Matt to get to the phone.

“Man,” he said, “that was fast.”

“Cell phone,” his brother said. “Who’s this?”

“It’s me—Wade. How are you, buddy?”

“Hey…Wade. Wow—been a while.”

“Yeah.” He gritted his teeth against a double whammy of pain waves, one from his leg, suspended in a sling and swathed in surgical dressings, the other in his heart. Pure guilt, that one. “Listen, about that—”

“Forget it, bro. It’s cool. I understand. So…how you been? Bad guys keepin’ you busy?”

Wade laughed—tried to do it without moving anything that might hurt. “Yeah, well…I guess I’ve been better. But hey—that’s not why I called. I’ve got somebody here who wants to talk to you.” He paused. “You sitting down?”

“Oh, yeah, funny. Very funny. So who is it? Hey, don’t tell me. You got married?”

Wade looked at the woman standing beside his bed, reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly. “Not quite,” he said in a voice gone raspy with emotions he knew better than to try and hide. “Not yet. Soon though. We want you to be there. And I promise you, man, you’re gonna love her. No—this is…” He paused, looked up at the other faces bending over him, and muttered half to himself, “Jeez, I didn’t think this was going to be so hard. Uh…Mattie? Remember those nightmares I used to have? I told you about ‘em, remember? There was this voice—you said it was—”

“An angel. Sure, I remember. I was a kid—what can I say. So? What about it?”

Wade took a deep breath and grinned up at the man standing poised, his face a mask of suspense that didn’t come close to hiding his emotions, either.

“Well, little brother…guess what? He’s real. And here he is. In person.” His voice broke, and he barely got the rest of it out as he handed the phone over to Cory. “Mattie, say hello to our Angel. The brother you didn’t know you had.”

Chapter 1

Alex Penny gave a start when the front door to the offices of Penny Tours, located in the tiny town of Wofford Heights, California, opened to admit a stranger. Almost nobody used the front door, since most people wanting to make reservations did so by telephone or online, and when they showed up in person, they would have been directed to the Rafting Center farther along and on the other side of the highway. Guides and drivers coming in from the equipment yard and warehouse used the back door.

Once in a great while, though, someone did wander in looking for information on available tours, or maybe directions to the Rafting Center, so she gave the visitor an automatic smile and was well into her customary speech. “Hi. If you’re looking for the Rafting Center, it’s about a block down on…” Then the man’s face came into full focus.

Behind rimless glasses, the stranger’s eyes were a dark and penetrating blue, but it was his smile that made her heart give a kick she wasn’t prepared for.

“I think I’m in the right place. I’m looking for Alex. Are you…?”

“That would be me.” She could hear her own voice, hear that it was even more hoarse than her normally froggy croak, and she cleared her throat as she clicked the save button and pushed back from the computer.

“We spoke on the phone. I’m—”

“Yeah, you’d be Matt’s brother. Cory, right?” She was on her feet, hand extended, the expected words—she hoped—on her lips. But her mouth was on autopilot and her heart in overdrive, because her brain had temporarily disengaged, having gotten hung up, for the moment, on that smile.

Mattie’s smile.

“Cory Pearson. I hope I haven’t come at a bad time. You did say afternoons were usually best.”

“No…no, this is, uh…fine. Can I get you anything? Water? Coke?”

“Water’s fine. Thanks…”

Ridiculously glad to have a specific job to do, Alex darted into the kitchen alcove, opened the refrigerator and took out two bottles of water. She turned to find that the stranger—who was no stranger at all, it seemed—had followed her.

“Nice Lab,” he remarked, gazing at the large slumbering form sprawled on the floor, taking up most of the space between the fridge and the small sink and counter.

“That’s Annie.” Alex stepped over the dog to hand one of the bottles to her visitor. The other she cracked open for herself. “She was Matt’s, actually. She’s pretty old, now. Mostly just sleeps. So—” she took a gulp and waved the bottle at the empty office “—you said you wanted to—”

Before she could finish it, the back door opened a crack and a voice called through it. “Hey, Alex, Booker T just called. The Las Colinas group’s on its way in. I’m heading over to the center, unless you want—”

“I’m kinda busy right now, Eve.”

The door opened wider, and Eve Francis, one of the river guides who sometimes doubled as office staff, stuck her head through the opening. Her blond hair was caught up in its usual style—messy ponytail with wisps flying around—and sticking to her face, which, since she’d been working all morning in the warehouse, was red-flushed and sweaty. And she still managed to look disgustingly gorgeous. Partly, Alex was sure, because of the smile that lit up her face when she saw they had a visitor.

“Oh—hey!” She turned the smile, full wattage, on Cory Pearson. “I didn’t see you come in. Welcome to Penny Tours.” The smile didn’t dim as she switched it to Alex. “I’ll take care of him, if you want to go. Those guys were kind of your babes, I know.”

Cory looked a question at Alex and had his mouth open to spit it out, but she waved it aside before he could say the words. “No—no, it’s okay. You can take it. This is something I need to, uh…” She paused to take a breath. “Eve, this is Matt’s brother. Matt Callahan, my, uh…”

Eve’s smile went out like a light. “Oh yeah! Matt—your old partner—right. So…well. Okay, I guess you…” She cocked her head to give Cory a long look, eyes glittering with curiosity and something Alex couldn’t define, then shrugged. “Hey, I’m gone. See you later.” Her head vanished and the door thunked closed.

“Look,” Cory said, “if you need to go take care of something, I can wait.”

Alex waved a hand at the chair she’d vacated and settled her own backside onto the edge of her desk. “No, it’s just that…well, the kids from Las Colinas Academy are kind of a special bunch, is all. Teenagers. They’re all mentally disabled.”

As he took the relinquished chair, the visitor’s eyes lit up with a new kind of interest, and Alex remembered what Matt’s brother Wade had told her—that their longlost and recently found older brother was a journalist. A reporter, and a fairly famous one at that. “You take disabled people down the river rapids?”

“Oh yeah, sure. We take all kinds—physical and mental disabilities both. These people come every year. Have a ball, too—you should see ‘em. But hey, Eve can take care of things. She’s a guide—also a friend. She won’t mind.”

She drank the last of the water in the bottle, then looked around for a place to put it. Finally she set it on the desk with great care, as if she’d never done such a thing before. After that there was no place else to put her eyes that wasn’t Matt’s brother Cory. And since he looked way too much like Matt, she went on staring at the bottle. The silence stretched.

Which they both broke at the same time.

“You said you wanted to—”

“I guess Wade told you I—”

Cory’s face broke into Mattie’s smile as he gestured for Alex to go first.

So she did, in a voice gone gruff and edgy again. “Yeah, so…Wade said you got separated from him and Matt when you were little, or something?”

“I did.” Cory still smiled, though there was a deep sadness in his eyes now, and Alex remembered the way Matt used to smile like that, sometimes, in a way that made her heart ache. That last day…“How much did Matt tell you about his childhood?”

She shrugged and shifted the empty water bottle from one spot to another on her desktop. “Just that he was adopted—he and Wade—when they were little. He told me he had a happy childhood, though. Said his adoptive parents were great—older, but nice. Good people. I don’t think he even remembers anything before that.”

Cory nodded. “Wade didn’t, either. Actually, I was hoping you could tell me—”

“So, what happened?” She broke in on the question, hoping to stall it. “How did you guys get separated?”

He smiled again, wryly, and his eyes told Alex he was onto her tactic and okay with it—for now. “Wasn’t just us ‘guys,’ actually. We have two sisters, too. Twins. They were toddlers at the time.” He hitched a shoulder apologetically. “Haven’t had any luck finding them, yet.”

Alex glared fiercely down at her hand and the empty bottle, daring the burn in her eyes and the ache in her throat to produce tears. She won that battle but didn’t trust her voice, and finally just shook her head.

“Our father was a good man, before Vietnam changed him,” Cory said softly into the silence. “I was born before he left, old enough to remember how he was then. I remember his gentleness, and the way he liked to tell me stories. Then he was gone. And he never came back. Some stranger came in his place. Wade and Matt were born after that, and then the twins. But Dad never told them stories. He’d drink instead. And he’d have flashbacks. At those times, Mom would lock us kids in the bedroom and tell me to look out for them—keep them safe. Then she’d try to talk Dad back from whatever hell he’d gone to. She took…a lot from him, to keep him from hurting us, or himself.”

He drew a hand across his face, and the movement caught Alex’s gaze like a magnet and held it fast so she couldn’t look away even though she wanted to.

“Then…one night I guess she couldn’t bring him back. He tried to break down the door to the bedroom where us kids were hiding. I don’t know exactly what happened, but…anyway, that night he shot her, and then himself.”

“God…” The whispered word slipped from her before she could stop it.

“We were taken away to some sort of shelter—a group home. I don’t remember much about it. Then we were divided up among several foster homes. I kept running away from mine, trying to keep in touch with the others. I was considered a disruptive influence, I guess, because nobody would let me see them. Eventually, I landed in juvenile detention. While I was there, Wade and Matt and the twins got adopted by two different sets of parents. I got out when I was eighteen, of course, but nobody would tell me where they were. Nobody would tell me anything. Which was probably a good thing, I suppose, in retrospect. I was angry enough, I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d been able to find the little ones. Kidnapped ‘em maybe. Something stupid, I’m sure.”

“So…how did you find them? I mean, after so long—that had to be, what, twenty-five years ago?”

“Well, it hasn’t been easy. I have my own resources, but we didn’t make any real headway until we hired a P.I. who specializes in this kind of thing—reuniting adoptees with biological parents. A man named Holt Kincaid. He’s the one that made this happen. He found Wade first. Up in Portland. And Wade put us in touch—”

“With Matt.” She folded her arms across her middle and frowned at him, concentrating on keeping all traces of emotion out of her voice. “So…have you seen him?” How is he? How does he look? Does he still have the smile, now that he can’t walk? Can’t climb, can’t do any of the things we both loved to do.

“Matt, you mean? I’ve talked to him,” Cory said. “On the phone, a couple of times. I’m on my way to meet him now. But I wanted to…” He shifted abruptly, leaned forward and propped his forearms on his knees, hands clasped between them, head bowed in what seemed almost an attitude of prayer. After a moment he cleared his throat and looked up at her. “I wanted to talk to you first,” he said carefully. “I need to know what I’m in for.”

Alex pushed away from the desk, scooped up the water bottle and went to drop it into the recycling bin that stood beside the door to the warehouse. “What can I tell you?” she said without turning. “I haven’t seen him since he left rehab.”

“I mean, about the accident. You were with him when it happened.”

She shrugged. “We were rock climbing, he fell, broke his back, now he’s paralyzed. That’s about it.”

“Come on.” The smile in his voice made it a gentle rebuke. “That much I got from Wade.”

She spun back to him, firing questions in a breathless rush, again hoping maybe with the sheer volume of them she might hold him off a little longer. “How is Wade, by the way? I didn’t even ask you—he told me he got shot? What’s up with that? And he said he’s getting married? Man, that’s just…I didn’t think Wade would ever settle down. I don’t think cops do too well with relationships. So I’m really surprised. What’s she like? Have you met her?”

“I have,” Cory said, while his eyes regarded her steadily from behind the rimless lenses in a way that made her feel he could see inside her head. And knew how desperately she was trying to avoid this—talking about Matt. Thinking about Matt. “Tierney’s…something special.” He paused, then added with a secret little smile, “I think she and Wade will do well together.”

“What about you?” She tilted her head back, still smiling at him, though his steady eyes told her it wasn’t fooling him one bit. “Are you married?”

And she watched his face light up in a way that altered his whole being. It reminded her of watching a film of a land blooming from winter into spring in fastforward. “Yes, I am. My wife’s name is Sam—Samantha. She’s the reason for all this, you know. The reason I decided to start looking for the little ones.”

“Wow,” Alex said, her own smile hanging in there, resolute and meaningless. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

“Several, actually.”

Cory studied the young woman facing him with arms folded and smile firmly in place, barricades she struggled valiantly to maintain. She wasn’t tall, he’d noted, but looked wiry and fit, with long, thick dark hair worn in a single braid. Not beautiful, but definitely attractive. Her skin was a warm golden brown, with a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks that gave her face a poignancy she probably wasn’t aware of and would have hated if she’d known. Beyond any doubt, her eyes were her best feature, hazel fringed with thick black lashes. They had a brave and haunted look now, and he felt a deep sympathy for her, along with an aching sense of familiarity.

I know what you’re doing, Alex Penny. I know because it’s what I used to do. Ask the questions to keep from having to answer any. Concentrate on someone else’s story to avoid having to tell your own.

He said gently, “I’d gotten very good at burying everything that had happened to me…the loss of my family. That, along with the anger. Fortunately, I’d learned to channel that anger into writing, and I think I took to writing about—and reporting on—wars because on some level I was trying to understand what had happened to my dad. But I never let myself think about my brothers and sisters. That was an emotional minefield I didn’t cross—didn’t even want to try. Sam changed all that. But not before I almost lost her, trying to keep my secrets.”

There was a silence, one that seemed longer than it was. Then she let out a breath and unfolded her arms, and although she remained distant from him, she relaxed enough to lean against the wall. “Okay, so what do you want to know?”

“How did it happen? How did my brother fall?”

“I don’t know.” She slapped that back at him, defensive again, chin thrust out. “The rigging failed. That’s all I know. Believe me, if I—”

“I’m not blaming you for what happened,” Cory said quietly.

“Well, swell, that makes one of us!” Her eyes seemed to shimmer, but with anger, not tears. Then she lowered her lashes to hide them, and after a moment went on in a wooden voice, as if reciting something she’d committed to memory long ago.

“We were going to expand the business—offer combination adventures, rafting and rock climbing. We’d already checked out several climbs—this one wasn’t any more difficult than some of the others we’d done. We were almost to the top. I was ahead of Matt. I heard him shout—not a scream, like he was scared, just…a shout. There was some scraping, the sound of rocks falling. I looked back, and Matt was lying on a ledge about halfway down. I knew he was hurt. I thought, you know…I was afraid he was dead.

“When I got to him, he was conscious, and I was just so glad he was alive. I didn’t even think about anything else. But he had this scared look on his face. Like…he knew. He told me he couldn’t move, and I kept telling him not to move. I made sure he wasn’t bleeding anywhere—well, except for some cuts and scrapes—and I went for help. They got him out with a helicopter. They were good, those guys—they handled him like he was made of glass. They did everything they could—”

“I’m sure they—and you—did everything you could.”

Her freckles stood out almost in relief against her golden skin, and he wished he knew her well enough to go to her and offer more comfort than the words she’d probably already heard too many times before.

“So…” And he hesitated, the journalist in him struggling against the compassionate man he was and the brother he was only just learning to be, trying to put the question he had to ask in the least hurtful way he could. “After my brother got out of the hospital, and had been through rehab, whose decision was it for him to stay in Los Angeles?”

“His, of course.” Again, she swatted the words back at him, as the hurt she’d so far been able to hide spasmed across her face like summer lightning. “He…broke things off with me. Told me it was—quote—better for both of us. I wanted him to come back, stay and run the business with me. I tried to convince him. I told him it didn’t matter—” She broke off, looking appalled, probably because she’d said so much, and to a total stranger.

“I wonder why,” Cory said, keeping his voice dispassionate—the reporter’s voice. “You told me you take physically disabled people on the river. It doesn’t seem as though being in a wheelchair should have kept him from continuing on with you in the business, if he’d wanted to.”

“Yeah, well…that’s the point, isn’t it?” Her voice was quiet, and rigid with controlled anger. “Evidently, he didn’t.”

Cory studied her thoughtfully and didn’t reply. There were so many things he could have said…asked about. Things like his brother’s pride, and hers, and whether she’d ever told Matt how she felt about him. Whether she’d ever asked him to stay—actually said the words. It was obvious to Cory, who’d spent a good part of his life ferreting out the feelings behind the words people employed to hide them, that Alex Penny’s feelings for his brother ran deep. The kind of anger and pain he’d seen in those golden eyes of hers didn’t come from nothing. There’d been something more between those two than a business partnership—a lot more. In Alex’s case, at least, the feelings were still there.

And he’d be willing to bet she’d deny it with her last breath.

He looked at his watch and rose, smiling apologetically. “Wow, look at the time. I’ve taken up more of yours than I intended to. I’d figured on being halfway to L.A. by now.”

“You’d have hit rush hour traffic,” Alex said stiffly. “Probably better this way.”

“Yeah, maybe. Well—” He held out his hand. “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”

“No problem,” she said as she took his hand and shook it—a quick, hard grip.

“It’s been a big help. I think I understand a little better what I’m dealing with now.”

“Glad one of us does.” She said it with a smile, but her voice had the funny little rasp to it that told him she was keeping a tight grip on emotions she didn’t intend to share.

They exchanged the usual goodbyes and thank-yous and Cory left the offices of Penny Tours feeling lighter of heart and of mind than when he’d arrived, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.

After Matt’s brother had gone, Alex made her way to her desk and lowered herself carefully into the chair he’d just vacated. She felt shaky and weak in the knees—a fact that both frustrated and infuriated her.

“Damn you, Matt,” she said aloud.

As if she’d heard the name, or—which was more likely, since she was practically deaf—sensed something, the dog Annie came padding across the room to thrust her white muzzle under Alex’s hand. After receiving her expected ear fondle and neck hug, the old Lab collapsed with a groan at Alex’s feet and went instantly back to sleep.

That was where they both were some time later when Eve returned from the Rafting Center.

She opened the back door a crack and peeked through it, then, seeing Alex was alone, came to claim the chair at the empty desk next to hers. She slouched into it and spun it around with a noisy creak to face Alex.

“Hey,” she said, with a poorly suppressed grin. “Your visitor take off?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, rousing herself. “So, how’d it go with the Las Colinas kids?”

“Great. Everybody had a ball, as usual.” The grin blossomed. “Bobby got dunked.”

“No way.”

“Oh yeah, way. Twice, actually—he’d just managed to climb back in the boat when he went over again. The kids loved it. Randy got some great footage.”

“Nice.” Alex produced a grin in return, though her heart wasn’t in it.

In the silence that followed, Eve rotated her chair back and forth with that annoying creaking sound, and finally said, “So, the dude with the glasses. You said he’s Matt’s brother? Sure didn’t look like a cop.”

“Cop? Oh, no, no, different brother.” Alex waved a hand dismissively, hoping Eve would take the hint from that and leave it alone. The last thing she felt like doing was explaining Matt Callahan’s family to Eve. The last person she wanted to talk about in any way was Matt Callahan.

He was the last person she wanted to think about, too, and she knew she was going to do that whether she wanted to or not, as well.

“So, what did he want with you? I thought you and that guy were finished.”

Alex scrubbed her burning eyes with the hand she’d used to try to fend off the question. “We were—we are. It’s not—it’s nothing to do with me, actually. He just…had some questions about Matt. About the accident, and…stuff like that.”

“That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Why ask you? Why not just ask his brother?”

“It’s not that simple. He doesn’t really know Matt. He hasn’t seen him since they were little kids. Look, it’s a long story, okay? And I don’t really feel like talking about it right now.”

And instantly she thought, Damn, why did you do that? You know Eve’s going to have her feelings hurt.

And yes, now she was looking like a kicked puppy. Which she really didn’t deserve.

“Sorry,” Alex said gruffly. “Hey, you know me. I just…really don’t want to talk about it. Okay? I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise.”

“Well, you better,” Eve said sternly, then grinned as she levered herself out of the chair. “Hey, the guides are getting together at The Corral to toast Bobby’s double dunking. You coming?”

“I…dunno. I have a killer headache and a bunch of paperwork to do here before I can call it a day. You go on. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Okay.” Eve paused at the door to look back at her, head tilted. “Hey, Alex.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s not thinking about coming back, is he? Your ex? I mean, you’re not thinking about taking him back?”

Alex gave a short hard bark of a laugh. “Oh, hell no.”

“Well, good. Because the guy ran out on you, right? I mean, I remember how it was. It was pretty rough around here for a while.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Alex said with a flip of her hand, as if she were swatting at a fly. “Matt Callahan and I are ancient history.”

Eve hesitated, then nodded. She gave the door frame a slap. “Okay. See you later. I’ll save you a cold one.”

For a few minutes after she’d gone, Alex sat without moving. Then, slowly, she swiveled to the desk and reached for the phone. Picked it up. Held it for a long time, then put it back in its cradle without dialing the number she still remembered, even after five years.

Just as she remembered the words they’d spoken to each other then. Words she didn’t want to remember. Words that made her cringe to remember.

“Ah, jeez, Matt. Don’t do this.”

“Do what? It’s not like I’m asking you to run off and get married tomorrow. Just talk about it. Why’s that so hard? We’ve been doing this—whatever it is we’re doing—for five years. Don’t you think it’s about time?”

“Doing what? What’ve we been doing? Seems to me we’ve been fighting for five years! So now you want to get married?”

“Yeah, and what is it we fight about? I’ll tell you what we fight about—we start to get close, and you get scared, so you do something to screw it up.”

“I don’t! That’s bull—”

“Sure you do. Every damn time things start to get really good for us. Just because your mother messed up your head—”

“Don’t you dare blame my mother for this!”

“Why not? She’s managed to convince you every man’s a jerk like your father, leaving her cold when he found out she was pregnant. Well, I’m not your father, okay? I’m not a jerk. We’ve been working together, sleeping together—hell, we’ve been best friends—for five years, you should know that by now. We’ve got a good thing going. Or it could be good, if you’d quit trying to ruin it. It’s no big secret how I feel about you, I tell you often enough. So, now I’m asking you.” He paused to give her a hard, burning look. “Do you love me?”

Do I love you? The question was a white-hot fire burning inside her head. Somewhere inside the fire was the answer she feared even more than she feared losing Matt. The answer she couldn’t bring herself to grab hold of or even look at, as if, like some mythical curse it would sear her eyes blind, or turn her to stone.

“It’s…complicated,” she mumbled, her face stiff with pain.

“I don’t see what’s so complicated about it. You either do, or you don’t.”

She’d turned away, then. But she remembered Matt’s face…tight-lipped, stubborn as only he could be. And his hands…their movements jerky and hurried as he packed his climbing gear.

Cory heard the ruckus before he saw it, as soon as he entered the foyer of the rec center. He was able to follow the sounds of mayhem to their source, the indoor basketball arena, where, from an open doorway, the noise pulsed and billowed like a heavy curtain in a high wind. He braced himself and paused there to assess the likelihood that carnage either had already ensued within or was about to. He’d been in battle zones, live ammo firefights less noisy and less violent.

What he saw inside that huge room confirmed it: people here were trying to kill each other.

What it reminded him of was an epic movie battle scene set in medieval times. War cries and shrieks of pain and rage echoing above the thunder of horses’ hooves and the clash of steel swords on armor plating and chain mail. Except these battle chargers were made of titanium, not flesh and bone, and carried their riders on wheels instead of hooves.

Out on the gleaming honey-gold hardwood floor, four wheelchairs were engaged in a no-holds-barred duel for possession of what appeared to be a regulationsize volleyball. Now the ball rose above the fray in a tall arc, to be plucked from the air by a long brown arm and tucked between drawn-up knees and leaning chest. The four chairs swiveled, drew apart amid cries of “Here here here!” and “Get ‘im, get the—” and “No you ain’t, mother—” then smashed together again more violently than before.

Cory’s fascination carried him into the room, where he found a spot in the shadow of a bank of bleacher seats from which to watch the mayhem. Now that he could see it more clearly, the contest on the court seemed less like a battle between medieval knights and more like a grudge match being settled via amusement park bumper cars—though the canted wheels on the low-slung chairs did resemble warriors’ shields, even down to the dents and dings. The occupants of the wheelchairs—four young males of assorted ethnicities—all wore expressions of murderous intent, but the chairs moved clumsily, slowly, and their clashes produced more noise than effect.

Again the white ball arced into the air, to be retrieved by a lanky black kid wearing a Dodgers baseball cap—backward, of course. After tucking the ball into his lap, the kid hunched protectively over it and slapped at the wheels of his chair with hands wearing gloves with the fingers cut off, pumping as hard as he could for the far end of the court. The other three chairs massed in frantic pursuit. One, manned by a stocky boy of an indeterminate racial mix, seemed to be angling to cut off the possessor of the ball, before it was smashed viciously from the side by another pursuer. Over they went, toppling forward almost in slow motion, chair and occupant together, spilling the latter facedown onto the court. Above him, the chair’s wheels spun ineffectively, like the futilely waving appendages of a half-squashed beetle.

Cory lunged forward and was about to dash onto the court to render assistance when his arm was caught and held in a grip of incredible strength.

“Leave him be. They got him down there, they’ll get him up.”

The reflexive jerk of his head toward the speaker was off target by a couple of feet. Adjusting his gaze downward, he felt a jolt of recognition that made his breath catch, though the face was one he’d seen only as a very small child’s. It only reminded him of one he’d last seen nearly thirty years before, and since then only in his dreams.

You have our mother’s eyes.

He didn’t say that aloud but smiled wryly at the broad-shouldered young man beside him and nodded toward the knot of wheelchairs now gathering around the fallen one out on the court. “You sure they won’t just kill him? They sure seemed to be trying to a minute ago.”

“Nah—he’s safe. He’s not who they’re mad at.” The young man reached across his body and the wirerimmed wheel of his chair to offer his cropped-gloved hand. “Hi, I’m Matt.”

Cory put his hand in the warm, hard grip and felt emotions expand and shiver inside his chest. He fought to keep them out of his voice as he replied, “I’m Cory. We spoke on the phone. I’m your—” He had to grab for a breath anyway.

So Matt finished it for him. “My Guardian Angel. My bro. Yeah, I know.”

Chapter 2

He’d seen him come in, of course he had.

He’d thought he was prepared for this. Should have been. Hell, he’d talked to the guy on the phone two or three times since the day Wade had called him from the hospital to tell him the Angel he’d always thought was a figment of his childhood imagination was real.

“You look like Wade,” he said, feeling like he needed to unclog his throat. “A little bit—around the eyes.”

“Well, we both got the blue ones, I guess.”

This brother’s eyes were darker than Wade’s, Matt noticed. And looked like they’d seen a whole lot more of what was bad in the world. Which was saying something, considering Wade was a homicide cop.

“Yeah? Whose did I get?”

“Mom’s. You got Mom’s eyes.”

About then, Matt realized he was still holding his brother’s hand, and evidently it occurred to Cory about the same time. There was a mutual rush of breath, and he got his arms up about the same time Cory’s arms came around him.

Matt had gotten over being shy about showing emotions five years ago, so he shouldn’t be ashamed to be tearing up now. And he wasn’t.

He could hear some hoots and whistles coming from the court, though, so after some throat-clearings and coughs and a backslap or two, he and Cory let go of each other. Dee-Jon, Frankie and Ray had gotten Vincent picked up off the floor, and all four were churning across the floor toward them, along with Dog and Wayans in their regular chairs, moving in from the far sidelines.

“Woo hoo, look at Teach, I think he got him a girlfriend!”

“Hey, Teach, I didn’t know you was—”

“Yo, Teach, who the ugly bi—”

At which point Matt held up his hand and put on his fierce-coach look and hollered, “Whoa, guys—I won’t have any of that trash talk about my brother.”

By this time he and Cory were surrounded, and the exclamations came at him from all sides.

“Brother!”

“He yo brothah?”

“Hey, you told us your bro was a cop. He don’t look like no cop.”

“Yeah, he look like a wuss.”

Matt glanced up at Cory to see how he was taking this, but Cory was grinning, so he did, too. “Nah, this is my other brother. He’s a reporter.”

“You got a othah brothah? How come you never—”

“Reporter—like on CNN?”

“How come I never seen you on TV?”

“Yeah, Dee-Jon, like you watch the news.”

Cory waited for the chorus to die down, then said, “I’m the other kind of reporter. A journalist—you know, a writer.”

The kids didn’t have too much to say about that. The chairs rocked and swiveled a little bit, and some heads nodded. Shoulders shrugged.

“Huh. A writer…”

“A writer—okay, that’s cool.”

“He’s been in more war zones than you guys have,” Matt said, which got the kids going again.

Dee-Jon shot his chin up. “Yeah? You ever been shot?”

“I have, actually,” Cory said.

Obviously thrown a little bit by that, Dee-Jon hesitated, then said, “Yeah, well, I have, too. That’s what put me in this chair. I was just walkin’ down the street, doin’ ma’ thing, not botherin’ nobody, know what I’m sayin’? And this car comes cruisin’, and this dude starts in shootin’—like, eh-eh-eh-eh—an’ next thing I know I’m down on the sidewalk lookin’ up at the sky, and I don’t feel nothin’. Still don’t. But, hey, I can still satisfy my woman, don’t think I can’t.”

That brought a whole barrage of hoots and comments, most of them in the kind of language Matt had pretty much gotten used to and given up trying to ban entirely. He wasn’t sure about how his big brother was taking it, though.

But Cory hadn’t batted an eye, just started asking questions, asking the kids how they’d gotten hurt, what had happened to them that put them in the chairs. In about ten seconds he had them all pulled in close around him, and was listening while each one told his story, sometimes yelling over the other eager voices, sometimes almost whispering in a respectful silence.

Ray, describing how his dad liked to beat up on him and throw him up against a wall when he was crazy drunk, and one day missed the wall and threw him through a third-floor apartment window instead.

And Dog, admitting how he’d been living up to his nickname hotdogging it on his dirt bike out on the Mojave Desert, showing off for his friends the day he’d flipped over and broken his neck. “I was stupid,” Dog said with a shrug. “Now I gots to pay.”

Wayans wasn’t stupid, just unlucky, having been born with spina bifida. And Vincent hadn’t had much to do with the automobile accident that had injured him, either, just happened to be in the wrong intersection at the exact time when a corporate lawyer on his way home from entertaining a client at a Beverly Hills nightclub failed to notice the light was red.

Frankie tried to get away with his favorite story about getting attacked by a shark, but the others shouted him down, so he had to admit he’d gotten his injury skateboarding illegally in the Los Angeles River’s concrete bed.

Matt hung back and watched his brother, the way the kids responded to him, the way he listened, not with sugary sympathy, but with his complete attention, interest that was focused and genuine, and that made people want to open up and spill things they wouldn’t normally think about telling a stranger. He could see what had made his brother a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, although the whole war-correspondent thing was still hard for him to grasp. He’d been prepared to like this newfound long-lost brother—particularly since he’d had those dreamlike memories of him protecting him from the bad scary stuff of his nightmares. What he hadn’t expected to feel was respect. Maybe even awe.

“Hey, guys,” he said, breaking into the chorus of questions now being fired at Cory from all sides, “you want to know about my brother, go home and do an Internet search on Cory Pearson. That’s P-E-A-R-S-O-N for you semiliterates. Now get out of here so he and I can spend some time together. We’ve got a lot to catch up on. Go on, hit the showers.”

The response was predictable.

“Ah, man.”

“Hey, it’s early—how come we gotta quit now?”

“Yeah, I wanna hit something.”

“You can’t hit nothin’—you a wussy.”

“I’m ‘a show you wussy—you hit like a little girl.”

The noise drifted off across the court as the six kids headed for the locker room. Matt and Cory followed, slowly.

“I see what you meant when you said it’s not each other they’re mad at. That game they were playing—it’s what they call Murderball, right?”

“Officially,” Matt said, pausing to scoop up the forgotten volleyball, “it’s called quad rugby. It’s been an official sport of the Paralympics since…I think, Atlanta.”

Cory nodded. “I’ve done some reading up on it. The rules allow them to do just about anything they can to the chairs, right? But they can’t go after the occupant. Whoever thought up that game was a genius. Gives them a chance to beat up on the thing they hate most and can’t live without. One thing, though. Doesn’t the ‘quad’ stand for—”

“Quadriplegic—yeah, it does. And most people think the same thing, which is that quads can’t move their arms, but that’s not true. There’s a whole range of motion, depending on where the SCI occurred.”

Cory glanced at him. “But you’re not—”

“No—I’m a para-T-11, to be exact.” He grinned lopsidedly up at his brother. “That’s how we refer to ourselves. These kids are mostly paras, too. Dee-Jon is the only one who’s a quad, and he’d like to try out for the U.S. Paralympic team someday. No, when I started this program, it was supposed to be wheelchair basketball. But the kids had other ideas. They were so rough on the chairs, I finally quit fighting it and went looking for some sponsorship so we could get some rugby chairs. You might have noticed, they’re built a little differently than regular chairs, even the sports models.” He slapped the canted wheel of his own chair.

Cory grinned. “I noticed. Also noticed you’re short a couple.”

“We’re working on it. Those suckers cost a couple thousand apiece. We got lucky right off the bat, because the guy that hit Vincent got his law firm to cough up the cost of the first two. The U.S. Quad Rugby Team gave us one. And…you know, it’s taken us a couple of years to get the other three, but we’ll get there. Eventually.”

“I might be able to help with that,” Cory said, so offhandedly Matt wasn’t sure he’d heard him for a moment.

Then, when he was sure, he didn’t know what to say. He bounced the volleyball once and coughed and finally said, “That’d be cool, man. Really. Thanks.” He looked over at his brother, but Cory wasn’t looking at him. Carefully not looking at him. His profile gave nothing away.

“No problem.”

They’d reached the gymnasium door. Matt swiveled his chair about halfway to facing his brother and said, “I’ve got to supervise these guys, but I’ll be free in an hour or so, if you want to…uh, I don’t know. Like…hang out?”

Okay, he’d been hanging out with teenagers too long.

Cory grinned as if he’d had the same thought, and in the spirit of the moment, said, “Okay, cool. I’ll be here.”

Matt nodded and went wheeling into the hallway, leaving his brother standing in the doorway. Halfway to the locker rooms, from which he could hear the usual racket and hair-curling language as his team got themselves and each other into the showers, he paused and looked back. The doorway was empty.

So. He was alone. Nobody to see him when he let his head fall back and exhaled at the ceiling, not sure whether he felt like laughing or crying. What he wanted to do, he supposed, was both. So instead he smiled to himself, like a little kid with a new bike. Shook his head, whooshed out more air, scrubbed his hands over his face, smiled again. Sniffed, wiped his eyes and muttered some swear words he’d never let the kids hear him use.

After a few minutes, when he had himself under control again, he swiveled and wheeled himself on down to the locker room.

Matt slid a dripping medium-rare hamburger patty onto Cory’s plate and said, “Don’t be shy, bro. Dig in.”

“Looks great,” his brother said, helping himself to slices of tomato and onion.

But behind the rimless glasses, his eyes held shadows. He hadn’t said much, either, the whole time Matt had been fixing the burgers, just watched everything he did with that quiet focus that seemed to be his natural way. Now, with food on the table, and nobody with any particular reason to say anything, silence fell. It didn’t seem like a comfortable silence.

Matt doctored up his burger the way he liked it, took a bite, chewed and swallowed, then said, super-casually, “Hey, man. I hope you’re not blaming yourself, or anything like that.”

Cory put down his burger, and one corner of his mouth went up as he glanced over at Matt. “For what part?”

“What part? For losing track of us—Wade and me and…the little girls. Waiting so long to try to find us. What the hell did you think I meant? This?” He hit the rim of the wheel and threw him a look. “Why would you be blaming yourself for this?”

Cory shrugged and picked up his burger. Put it down again and stared at it as if it had turned bad on him all of a sudden. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Okay, wait.” Matt couldn’t believe this guy. He huffed out a laugh. “You’re not thinking you could have changed what happened to me. If you’d been here. That’s crap. That’s just…Look here, okay? I probably would have found some other way to screw up my life. It’s just the way I am. You’ve got no way of knowing this, but I’ve always been a daredevil, taking chances I shouldn’t, even when I knew better. You being around wouldn’t have changed that.”

Cory gave him an appraising look, and the light was back in his eyes, as if he’d put the guilt away, for now. “A chance-taker, huh? That why you chose to teach in an inner-city school?”

Matt snorted. “Hadn’t thought about it quite like that, but…yeah, maybe. Probably.”

“Wade told me he was surprised—that’s an understatement, by the way—when you decided to become a teacher. He said you weren’t ever much for school…being indoors. Said you reminded him of Tom Sawyer. You’d always rather be outdoors, mixed up in some sort of adventure. And by the way, he blames you for any and all trouble you two got into when you were kids.”

Matt laughed silently, nodding while he chewed. “He would.”

“You did get through college, though. That’s something.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s a good thing I did…as it turns out. Gave me something to fall back on, career wise. Not that I’m any great shakes as an academic, you understand. I started out teaching phys ed, substitute teaching now and then. Now I teach ninth grade social studies in addition to the PE. Seems to be working out okay. It’s a challenge, though, I grant you, going up against the gang influence—drugs, the whole culture of violence. I like it, though—and you’re right, maybe because it’s a challenge. Like…maybe I had something to prove to myself. Maybe.”

Cory said mildly, “Seems like you could have done that just as well by going back to your old job.”

“Hey,” Matt said, letting himself back away from the table. “Forgot the beer. Can I get you one?”

“Sure.”

He could feel those dark blue eyes boring into him as he made his way to the fridge, got out two cold ones and came back to the table. His brother didn’t push, though. Just waited, as Matt was discovering was his natural way.

Matt slid one of the cans across to Cory and popped open the other. Took a drink, then figured there was no use avoiding the subject. He should have known it would come up, and was going to come up again, his brother being who he was.

“The mountains, you mean. The river.” There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

“I had a talk with your former partner,” his brother said quietly.

Matt took another swallow of beer. Not that it helped wash down the knot in his throat. “Yeah? How’s she doing? The rafting business going well?”

Cory’s half smile and steady gaze told Matt he wasn’t fooled. “Seems to be. Although Alex…maybe not so well.”

The kick under his ribs caught him by surprise, made him check with his beer halfway to his lips. He coughed to cover it, set the beer down and said carefully, “What do you mean?”

“She’s pretty angry with you, you know. And hurt. Doesn’t understand why you broke things off with her.”

Matt leaned back in his chair and steadied his hands on the wheels. Emotions he’d learned to control threatened to break loose, something he didn’t want, not now, not with the brother he was trying so hard to impress watching him like a hawk. He huffed out a laugh he hoped didn’t sound bitter. “That doesn’t surprise me. I wouldn’t expect her to understand.” He added, as an afterthought, “Don’t expect you to, either.”

“I’m pretty good at understanding,” Cory said.

There was a moment when Matt thought he wouldn’t answer, when he swiveled away from the table. Then for some reason he came back.

“Okay,” he said, then paused while he thought about how to start. “Look. All during rehab they tell you the hardest part of getting your life back is facing up to what you were before. Like, as long as you’re in the hospital, in rehab, you’re in this completely different world, and you’re surrounded by others in the same boat you’re in, or worse off than you. You look forward to going home, that’s what you’re working toward, the light at the end of the tunnel. And then when you finally get there, instead of being this great thing, it’s like bam, everything hits you at once. Everywhere you look you see stuff that was part of your old life, stuff you can’t do anymore. That’s hard.” And how’s that for understatement?

Cory nodded. “I can see how it would be. So you tried to avoid that part altogether. By not going back to the life you had before.”

“Yeah, I did,” Matt said, quietly defiant. “Do you blame me?”

“I’m not into blaming anybody—” Cory’s smile flashed “—except maybe myself.”

“And I told you not to do that. I mean it. I’m okay with my life. I mean, hell no, I’m not okay with being in a wheelchair, but I’ve accepted it. What else can I do? Look, I went through all the stages—first, you’re just numb, then you’re in denial. You tell yourself you’re going to get over this, you’re going to get well, you’re going to walk again. When you realize you’re not, you hit bottom. There’s rage, despair, bitterness—some people never make it past that. Some people choose to end it right there. I don’t know why I managed to get through it, but I did, and I’m glad I did. I’ve got a job doing something important. At least, I think it is. I think maybe I can make a difference in some kids’ lives, and that keeps me going, getting up every morning.”

“I think so, too. I hate to sound like a big brother, but I’m proud of you.” Cory coughed and took a swallow of beer—a ploy Matt was familiar with, had used himself a time or two—then frowned at the can in his hand. “But there’s more to life than a career. Trust me—this I know from personal experience.”

It was an opportunity, and Matt jumped on it with great relief. Leaned forward, grinning, and said, “Speaking of which, I haven’t heard about yours, yet. You’re married, I know that much. Your wife’s name is Samantha, right? So, tell me about her.”

This time his brother’s smile was different, somehow, as if somebody had lit a whole bunch of candles behind it. “You’ll meet her yourself, soon enough. She’s flying out tomorrow.”

“No kidding? Hey, that’s great. No kids, though, I’m guessing?”

The candlepower went just a shade dimmer. “Not yet. Sam’s been busy with her career—she’s a pilot, did Wade tell you?—and then we’ve both been occupied with this search. Still two missing, you know. The twins—the little girls are out there, somewhere. We’re not ready to give up just yet.”

He took off his glasses, frowned at them, then shifted those deep, dark, see-everything eyes back to Matt. “What about you? You broke things off with Alex, so…what now? Do you have anybody special in your life? Do you plan to get married someday, have kids of your own? I’m assuming everything’s…”

Matt jumped in with a cough and a hurried, “Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine. Works just…fine. You know….” And after an awkward pause, “I’d like to find somebody, sure.” From out of the past a pair of hazel eyes fringed with black swam into his mind and gazed at him accusingly. You found her, you idiot. And you were too stupid to know it.

His consciousness protested. Hey, I wasn’t the stupid one.

You could have changed her mind if you’d tried hard enough.

I would have. I meant to. I thought I had time….

Cory’s voice broke into his inner debate. “You and Alex…”

“Whatever we were,” Matt said evenly, “it’s history.”

“That’s…not the impression I got from her.”

Matt jerked away from the table, needing a physical outlet for the anger that spasmed through him. “Look—you don’t…You have to know her.” He gave a short, hard laugh as he wheeled into the kitchen and lobbed his empty beer can into the sink, liking the clatter it made. “She’s got some issues, believe me.”

His brother’s mild tone told him he wasn’t impressed by the display. “So, tell me about her.”

Sam’s “Hey…” was mumbled and sleepy, and Cory closed his eyes in contrition.

“I woke you. I’m sorry. I didn’t think about the time difference.”

“No…no, ‘sokay.” He could hear rustlings, and for a moment, knowing she preferred to sleep nude, enjoyed the mental picture of his wife getting herself propped up on pillows and the sheet pulled up across her breasts. “Tell me. You’ve seen him? Talked to him?”

“Just came from having dinner with him. He fixed us hamburgers.”

“Umm. Yum.”

“Sam, I wish you could have seen him. He coaches a bunch of teenagers with SCIs. Have you ever heard of ‘Murderball’?”

“I have, actually. Well, gee, Pearse, what did you expect? He’s your brother. So, how is he? I mean, you know, about…”

“Being paralyzed? He seems to have adjusted very well. Ask me how it was seeing him like that.”

“Okay.”

“In a word, awful. I kept thinking I could have changed things if I’d…you know. That he wouldn’t be in that chair if I’d been there for him.”

“Pearse—”

“I know, I know. He already told me what he thought of that notion. There is something I’d like to do for him though. This is something I think I might be able to fix.” And maybe it’ll help with these guilt feelings…

“Okay, tell me. Can I help?”

“I think so, yes. You’re still coming tomorrow, right?”

“Right. Hitched a ride with the U.S. Navy. Leaving at O-six hundred. You’re picking me up at Edwards, right?”

“You bet.” Cory let out a breath. “I’m going to take Matt back to the mountains, Sam. He’s adjusted okay in most ways, but…he’d never admit it, but I think he’s lonely. He’d like someone—a wife, kids—but I don’t think he’s ever going to be able to find anyone as long as he’s got this unresolved thing for Alex Penny. His expartner. I’m positive he’s still got feelings for her, and it’s a big hurting empty inside him.”

He listened to some more rustlings, and then, “Darlin’, I know you want to help your brother, but meddlin’ in his love life? I don’t know about that…Do you think taking him back to the life he used to have is such a good idea? Seems like that could be pretty hard.”

“Oh, yeah. He admitted that. He said it was the reason he chose not to go back. But I think there’s more to him not going back than not wanting to face his old life. He’s got more guts than that.” He paused. “I think he’d have gone back if she’d asked him to.”

“Well, why didn’t she? Maybe she doesn’t have the same feelings he does.”

“That’s just it—I think she does. Sam, she’s still hurt and angry after five years. That doesn’t come from nothing.”

“True.” He heard a swallowed yawn. “Then why? Is she just proud? Stubborn? What?”

“Mmm, I don’t know. Some, maybe. But Matt told me some things about her that might help to explain why she didn’t ask him to stay. Apparently she grew up in a trailer park in a little town on the Mojave Desert. Single mom, father deserted her mother as soon as he found out she was pregnant. Mom was bitter but tough, and raised her daughter to fend for herself, be self-sufficient, not depend on anybody but herself, and especially not a man. She died of cancer about the time Alex met Matt.”

“Oh boy.”

“Yeah. Add to that the fact that Matt’s got his pride, too, and he’s trying to prove to himself he can make it on his own, doesn’t want pity, doesn’t want charity, so the only way he’s going to stay on the river is if his partner convinces him she really wants and needs him.”

“Which goes against the whole mind-set she was raised with. So, how do we go about fixing this?”

“I told you. We’re going to take him back to the river. I want to book us a rafting trip—you, me and Matt. They do trips with all sorts of disabled people, so I know it’s doable. Then, once we get him there, we let nature take its course. I’ll butt out, I promise.”

“Okay,” Sam said, softly laughing, obviously not believing that for a minute. “That’s fine…but how do you intend to convince this little brother of yours to go along with your plan? From the sound of things, he’s got a mind of his own.”

“I’ll put it to him in the one way he won’t be able to refuse,” Cory said, letting his smile into his voice. “He’s a bit of a daredevil. So, I plan to dare him.”

“No way,” Alex said. “Not in a million years. Out of the question.”

“You go, girl,” Eve said, clinking beer bottles with her across the remains of their burgers and fries.

“That’s what I’m gonna tell him, too. First thing tomorrow.” Alex took a chug from the bottle, then lowered it and demanded of Booker T, who was gazing at her from under his beetling white eyebrows and shaking his head, “What? You don’t think I won’t? Eve’s right. Why in the hell should I let my paraplegic ex-partner book a tour with me when he friggin’ deserted me? Didn’t even have the guts to come back here and help me run this damn outfit? Who needs that? Who needs him?”

This time Eve’s “Hear! Hear!” was echoed enthusiastically by Bobby and Ken and a couple of the other river guides who were obviously a beer or two up on the rest of the crew. Randy, the photographer, who had his mouth full, gave a thumbs-up gesture. Linda, Booker T’s wife, who also manned the Rafting Center’s store and was too kind and sweet to say a bad word against anybody, just smiled and shook her head. Booker T scraped back his chair and stood up.

“We got boatin’ to do tomorrow, people,” he announced to a chorus of boos, which he ignored. “Time to be headin’ on home. C’mon, sweet pea.” He pulled out Linda’s chair for her and offered her a hand with a gesture like an old-time gentleman, which he did sort of resemble with his sweeping handlebar mustache with its waxed and curled-up ends. Then he gestured at Alex. “You, too, baby doll. Morning comes early.”

“Ah, hell, Booker T, we’re just getting warmed up. The night is young!” And as far as Alex was concerned, home was the last place she wanted to be. Home was quiet, and empty. She wanted music and noise and a few more beers. Hopefully enough to block out the memories.

Evidently Booker T could read her mind, because he shook his head and said, “Come on—we’ll drop you off home,” as he took her by the shoulders and guided her up out of her chair. His touch was gentle, and although Alex could have resisted it, she didn’t. It was a mystery to her why, but Booker T was the only human being on the planet she’d let boss her around like that.

So, she laughed and hollered her goodbyes and Booker T hooked one arm around her waist and the other around Linda’s, and he danced them both out the door of The Corral with a Texas Two-Step to the Billy Ray Cyrus song that was playing on the jukebox. By the time they got to the parking lot, they were all singing along with Billy Ray at the top of their lungs, having a good time. Alex thought it would be a fun idea to ride in the back of Booker T’s king cab Chevy truck and keep right on singing all the way—the whole half mile—to her house, but Booker T somehow managed to maneuver her into the backseat instead, where she had to sit on some coiled-up rope and leather gloves and a bunch of other stuff she couldn’t even begin to guess the nature of.

Booker T slammed the door on her complaining and got into the driver’s seat while Linda climbed in beside him. He started up the truck and pulled out of the parking lot, and Alex scooted forward and put her folded arms on the back of his seat.

“Booker T?”

“Yeah, baby doll?”

“I’m tellin’ him tomorrow. I mean it. No way am I booking Matt Callahan for a tour. Huh-uh.”

“And why’s that?”

“Well…hell, isn’t it obvious? I mean, he’s a—”

“Cripple?”

The word stabbed into Alex like a thorn, and she sucked in a shocked breath because she’d never thought Booker T would say such a thing. Something so mean. But it’s what you were thinking.

I was not!

“No! You know it’s not—shoot, we take disabled people on the river all the time, you know we do.”

“Well, then?”

“Jeez, Booker T, he wants to go on the Forks. That’s a class V. He can’t—”

“He’s done it before, dozens of times.”

“Not in five years, he hasn’t!”

Booker T pulled up in front of Alex’s little house, set among the granite boulders and bull pines with the privacy and isolation she normally loved. He cut off the motor, and in the silence said quietly, “That’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it? The fact he’s been gone five years. What are you afraid of, Alex? That he can’t do it, or that he still can?”

Still can…make my heart hammer and my skin hot? Still can…make me want him?

She sucked in another breath—an angry one, this time—and whooshed it out along with, “No, that’s not—Look, I’m not afraid, okay? That’s just stupid.” I’m not afraid. I’m not.

“Okay, you’re not afraid. So, why not book his trip?” He opened his door and got out, then opened hers for her and held out his hand to help her down. “You’re not chicken, are you, baby doll?”

She could see the snaggletoothed smile lurking underneath that mustache. Damn him.

“Damn you, Booker T.” She let him walk her to her door and open it for her and turn on the lights, then paused in the doorway to give him a sideways look. “You know you’re the only person on God’s green earth that gets to call me ‘baby doll.’ You know that, don’t you?”

“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with you,” Booker T said as he started off down the pine needle-strewn walk, heading back to his pickup.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Hey, Booker T—” She stomped her foot and started after him, and he paused with one hand on the truck’s door handle to turn back to her.

“You never got to be any lovin’ daddy’s little girl,” he said, then yanked open the door, climbed in and drove away.

He left Alex standing there with tears smarting her eyes, cussing out loud and ashamed at herself because she’d just remembered. Booker T and Linda’s only daughter, Sherry Ann, had died in a car accident when she was just seventeen.

But she still wasn’t booking Matt Callahan and his brother on a trip down the Forks of the Kern. No way, José.

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