Almost Heaven

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 you.”

“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.”