attitude pricked at her sense of fair play, that was all. When she looked through the window again, he was following Doyle out the back hallway to the three bays where the Turning Point ambulance and engines were parked.
“The view’s better from this side, buddy,” she muttered as he turned his back to her. It was a silly, defensive retort, but one she realized was halfway true.
Without the intensity of those amber eyes to make her feel like a specimen beneath a microscope, she could relax and enjoy the scenery. From this vantage point, she could almost envision the laid-back surfer dude she’d expected to meet and share a few laughs with. Almost.
Laid-back didn’t fit Nate Kellison. Not in any way, shape or form. Like his sparsity of words, there was something tightly controlled about the way he moved. His dark blue shirt clung to the rolling flex of his shoulders and his tapering back. Even lower, his glutes bunched and released beneath the drape of his uniform slacks, creating a taut, lean silhouette.
But something was off.
Before he disappeared around the corner, she lowered her gaze past the squared-off hips, the powerful thighs, and spied a subtle unevenness to his gait. The glitch in his body’s disciplined perfection was nearly undetectable. But it was there.
Surprising.
Curious.
All that muscle and control, and the man walked with a limp.
Wounded.
“Oh, no.” That chink in his armor humanized him. Stoic and grumpy she could handle. She could even get used to those all-seeing eyes. She could ignore his perfect tush and forgive his California roots.
But if he was in pain, she was in trouble.
Stray puppy syndrome, her father called it. Orphaned pets. Abandoned fathers. Wounded men. She was a sucker for them every damn time.
Jolene clenched her fists as the familiar emotion sparked inside her. No, she warned herself. Don’t do it. But despite his less than friendly response to her, Nate Kellison’s secrets were already tugging at more than her curiosity. How had he hurt himself? When did it happen? Was he in pain right now?
Thankfully a loud eruption of male laughter diverted her attention and gave her an excuse to squelch that dangerous rise of compassion.
Jolene shifted her focus, grateful for the distraction.
Micky Flynn, the tall, flirtatious pilot, doffed her a salute and a handsome smile. Grinning, Jolene waved in return and watched him turn back to the new female volunteers. Unlike the ultra-intense Kellison, Micky was easy for most women to lust after. With his handsome face and daredevil personality, he was a natural-born lady-killer. But Micky and Jolene had never been more than friends. Maybe that was because she was the boss’s daughter, a co-worker. Or maybe she was just too tied to the land to have much in common with a man who loved the sky.
She was all about home. Stability. Community. Taking care of her ranch. Taking care of her friends. Taking care of her family.
No matter how small that family might be.
Jolene flattened her hand against the blossoming curve of her belly and tried to picture the precious little boy growing inside her. Joaquin Angel, Jr., was a tiny miracle of modern science and answered prayers.
The science hadn’t saved her husband, and the prayers had changed over the past few months. But she loved her little guy. He was hers alone now. And she cherished pending motherhood in a way her own mother never had.
One of those tender, butterfly flutters stirred beneath the press of her hand. At five months, he was still too small to deliver a real kick, but she could feel him shift inside her. An intuitive connection bonded them already. He’d know what it was like to grow up with only one parent, the way she had. He’d also know what it was like to have that one parent love him more than life itself.
The way she had.
Little Joaquin would never be abandoned. Not by choice. Not by fate. “I’ll always be here for you, sweetie,” she crooned, stroking her belly as if she could caress the baby himself. “Grandpa, too.”
Jolene looked up, intent on finding her father, to tell him she loved him with one of their coded winks.
Though he was engaged in a conversation with Dr. Sherwood, he winked right back and she smiled. His steady reassurance grounded her in a way that nothing else ever had. She was proud of him. Still handsome at fifty with those piercing blue eyes and easy smile, he had a friendly confidence about him that commanded respect, as evidenced by the way Dr. Sherwood nodded her head, then quickly crossed to the supply shelves to do his bidding.
Her father pointed to Jolene and then the outside door, marching his fingers through the air in imitation of someone walking. Subtle hint. Not.
Jolene shook her head and mouthed, “No way.”
He shrugged and moved to the podium at the end of the room, where he picked up the latest printout from the weather bureau. He was such a worrier. A frown creased his brow as he pored over the stats, and she wished there wasn’t a crowd or phone lines to monitor so she could run in and give him a hug.
Jolene knew her father carried the same sadness inside him that she did. A part of him would always love the beautiful woman who’d left them twenty years ago for the bright lights of Hollywood. Of course, April Kannon had never become a star like the L.A. talent agent she’d left with had promised. But she’d found two more husbands willing to provide her with the glitz and glamour and excitement she’d never found in tiny, remote Turning Point.
Mitch Kannon had been a rock when Jolene’s mother had abandoned them. He’d been there for Jolene’s first period, her first driving lesson, her first broken heart when she’d realized boys didn’t date plain, skinny girls who could outrun and outride them.
He’d held her when she announced she was marrying her best friend—when she told him Joaquin was dying of cancer and that she’d agreed to be artificially inseminated with his sperm to create a child whose bone marrow could save his life. Her father was by her side the day Joaquin lost his battle with cancer, the morning she buried him.
How could she not be here for him now that he needed her?
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Mitch Kannon’s booming bass voice rattled the glass. He rapped his knuckles against the podium to get everyone’s attention. “If we could get started. It’s already a few minutes past eight, and I have a feeling we’re going to have a long day. First, I want to brief you on the current weather forecast. Then we’ll review procedure, what we can and should expect as far as casualties, and then I’ll get you to your assignments.”
Nate Kellison reentered with Doyle Brown, but hung back, opting to perch on the corner of a counter near the back of the room while Doyle took a seat in a chair closer to the podium.
There Nate sat, watching again. Friendly enough to get the job done, but not Texas friendly.
“What’s your story, California?” Jolene whispered the rhetorical words to the glass.
What was he doing? Evaluating the acoustics of the room? Looking for a chair beside a pretty woman he could get friendly with? She wondered if it was arrogance or professionalism or something more personal that pushed him
