that he might never recover had haunted both brothers.
It hadn’t helped that after her burial, the demands of Nate’s career had forced him to leave his desolate father. Having just returned from another long deployment with NATO forces, he’d been told to report to Edwards Air Force Base in California to get checked out in the MATV jet.
A couple of the guys had flown there in their Vipers to act as bandits. For several weeks, they did tactical fighting before he was sent to Holland. When he was on the ground there, he’d concentrated on his studies of Dutch for the exchange pilot program. Throughout that period there’d been little time to devote to his father’s mental state.
Rick had left the day after Nate for Phoenix, Arizona, the U.S. headquarters for Mayada auto manufacturing, based in Kyoto, Japan. On the professional Formula I racing circuit for the Japanese, he’d accumulated an impressive number of wins around the world.
The heavy demands on his time meant he’d found it as difficult as Nate to keep in close touch with their dad.
Through sporadic, unsatisfactory phone calls to him and to each other, it became clear to both of them that their father wasn’t doing well. Without the woman who’d been his life’s partner in every conceivable way, he’d changed dramatically from the man he’d once been. Even the business they’d run together had started to fail.
Before her death, their father had always displayed an indomitable will, or so Nate had thought. There were Olympic medals and world championship medals for alpine skiing events hanging on the wall in the den. They provided evidence of their parents’ remarkable talents and shared zest for life.
To Nate’s chagrin, her untimely passing had sent their father into a sharp decline. The fear that he might remain in a permanent state of mourning had alarmed Nate enough to cut short his flying career and come home.
On his own, Rick had made the same decision. No one could bring their mother back, but they could try to bring a little happiness to their father’s life. Not only that, Rick had chosen to give up his racing career in order to help salvage their parents’ business, with its inevitable highs and lows.
Nate rubbed his face. He badly needed a shave. Rick looked like he could use one, too.
“Okay.” He nudged his brother’s shoulder. “Let’s have it.” They’d left Colorado Springs and were headed for Copper Mountain on Highway 9. The road was one continuous ribbon of black ice, but Nate never worried when Rick was at the wheel. “I’m assuming Natalie didn’t take the news well. How soon will she be joining you?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t invite her along.”
He turned in his brother’s direction. “Why not? I thought you two were destined for something serious.”
“So did I at first. There’s a strong attraction between us, but—”
“But it never did feel right,” Nate finished the thought.
“No. What about you and Kari?”
“She’d never be happy in the U.S. It just wouldn’t have worked for us.”
“It’s the ‘feel right’ part neither of us has found yet,” Rick muttered.
Nate glanced at him, nodding. “We’re quite a pair, you know that?”
He expected some sort of response from his brother, but nothing was forthcoming. “Rick? You’ve kept me in suspense long enough.”
His brother’s solemn gaze swerved to him. “It’s Dad. When was the last time you talked to him?”
“Two weeks ago, before our wing was deployed on a mission. We didn’t return until yesterday.”
“What was he like on the phone?”
“Preoccupied more than anything.”
“At least you talked to him. After my race last Wednesday, I called him from England. There was no answer so I called the ski shop. Jim said he’d gone to Denver and wouldn’t be back for the rest of the week.”
“What’s in Denver?”
“I asked him the same question. He claimed to have no idea. I sensed he was being evasive about something.”
Jim Springmeyer had worked for their parents ten years. “That means he was covering for him. Not a good sign,” Nate said. “In Dad’s frame of mind—”
Rick broke in. “Since I couldn’t reach you, I decided to fly home from London early. I thought I’d give him a surprise.”
Nate’s patience had run out. “And?”
A strange sound escaped Rick. “I’m afraid I’m the one who got the surprise. You could say I received the shock of my life.” His voice was unsteady.
“You’re not about to tell me he’s turned to drinking—” The facetious comment wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. It disturbed him that he couldn’t get his brother to lighten up a little more.
Rick shook his head. “Sorry. You’re not even close.”
Nate’s chest tightened. “Just spit it out!”
“When I walked through the house, I found our father in the kitchen. He wasn’t alone….”
Nate noticed his brother’s strong grip on the steering wheel. His knuckles had gone white from the pressure.
“Rick—”
“He had this woman in a clinch by the sink.”
A clinch? What?
Nate blinked.
“They were so far gone, they never saw or heard me. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to tiptoe back to the living room before calling out to Dad that I was home.”
The picture those words conjured up plunged Nate into a different realm of pain than he’d ever experienced before. The kind only a parent can inflict on his child.
“This soon after Mother?” he whispered.
“It gets worse. After dad brought her into the living room and introduced us, he announced that they’re engaged to be married. They’d gone to Denver to pick out her ring.”
Nate felt like he’d gone into an inverted dive and had waited too late to pull out of it.
“Dad said he was glad I’d decided to come home for a surprise visit because that saved him having to phone me with the news.”
“If this woman is someone Mom and Dad knew before the accident, I don’t wa—”
“Noooo. She’s a Texan who came to Colorado a month ago because of a friend’s wedding reception. Apparently she’s never been on a pair of skis. While she was shopping for sunglasses in the ski shop, Dad challenged her to get out on the slopes and try it. He gave her a few lessons, and things went from there.”
At fifty-three,
