style="font-size:15px;"> “Darn good thing,” he heard her mutter in a barely audible voice.
Before he could respond, she started the van and roared out of the parking lot, obviously ignoring the thirty-miles-per-hour speed-limit sign. He glanced at her, but she concentrated on the road ahead. He admired a good driver, and she was that. He looked at the speedometer. The van had a hundred and fifty thousand plus miles on it, and she was going over the speed limit. Both said something about her.
He felt an immediate kinship. Interest sparked in him, the first since the accident that doomed his military career. He definitely wanted to know more about her. Particularly whether she was already taken. Not that he was interested in any long-term involvement. He sure as hell didn’t have anything to offer a woman. Struggling for conversation—strange as it usually came easier—he asked, “Are you the Langford in Langford Animal Practice?”
She shrugged. “I’m not Langford, but I do own the vet practice or at least the small part that’s paid off. I bought it from Tom Langford and never changed the name on the van. Never really saw a good reason to do it. I’m Stephanie Phillips.”
“Dr. Phillips?”
“No one calls me that. It’s just Stephanie.” Her tone seemed to cut off any other questions.
He took a deep breath and shifted restlessly. He ached to take her place at the wheel. Just as everything in him ached to reach for the controls of a chopper. Ached to be in the house he shared with other chopper pilots on the base or even a tent in Afghanistan. Sitting in a passenger seat, dependent on a driver—even an interesting woman—was his idea of hell.
He stared out at the plains spread out in front of him. Arid desert.
The blurb he had read online called this area of Colorado high desert. To him, it resembled parts of Iraq and Afghanistan. So did the heat.
“Is it always this warm?” he asked.
“This is a bit unusual. It’s usually in the low nineties in July and then starts going down. This year, it’s hanging around. It’s a bit cooler in Covenant Falls. We’re higher, altitudewise, from here, and the town is nestled next to the mountains.” Her tone was cool. It had lost something since he’d said she was pretty.
He shifted uncomfortably in the seat and stared ahead. He had been doing that a lot since leaving the hospital. The journey to Pueblo from Denver had been agonizingly long, or maybe it had just seemed that way. He had been a passenger on a plane, in a car and on a long-distance bus. Brutal. He yearned for his seat in a chopper, in controlling a complex machine that both protected and destroyed. He had been doing both for most of his adult life. Flying was his life. His identity. At gut level, being a pilot was who he was. Who he had been since he was seventeen.
Now he might never fly again. Or even drive a car. Worse, he didn’t have a goal for the first time in his life. A driving force. A purpose.
Stop it!
He was a fighter. Always had been. Since he was eight years old and his stepmother decided she didn’t want him in her house any longer, he’d looked ahead, determined to plot his own path.
“You’ll like the cabin,” Stephanie said, interrupting his thoughts. “Josh did a great job in rehabbing it.”
“I’m not sure how long I’m staying.”
She turned to him and gave him a wry smile. “Neither did Josh when he came. Covenant Falls can get to you.”
“Have you lived there long?”
“Five years, but even if I’d lived there twenty years, I would still be a newcomer. You should know that everyone is rather curious about new residents, and gossip spreads faster than a sky full of locusts.”
Her cell phone rang. The thunderous tone was the theme music from the movie The Magnificent Seven.
She glanced down at it, then steered to the side of the road and stopped the car. Quick questions. Something to do with a cow. When she hung up, she turned to him. “A short detour,” she said.
“Something wrong?”
“An ailing heifer. She’s not far from here. Shouldn’t take more than an hour. Okay?”
“Fine,” he said. He didn’t really have much choice. He was hitching a ride, after all. He was at the driver’s mercy. But he had to ask: “The Magnificent Seven? That’s an interesting ringtone.”
She shrugged.
“Dr. Phillips to the rescue?”
“Stephanie,” she reminded him.
“I beg your pardon,” he replied with a quick grin.
She frowned. “That’s not why I have it. I just like the tune. It’s hard to ignore. Very effective in cutting off conversations.”
Wry humor. It intrigued him. “You like cutting off conversations?”
“Inane ones, yes.”
Well, she had put him in his place. Neatly. Maybe Covenant Falls wouldn’t be as dull as he’d thought it would be. That prick of interest was expanding.
He tried another tactic. “What’s wrong with the cow?” he asked.
She shrugged. “A rancher says one of his heifers isn’t eating, which could mean a number of troubles. All bad. Like I said, the ranch isn’t far from here.”
It was an obvious though unspoken question.
Clint settled back. “I have nothing pressing in mind.”
“Good.” She turned back to the road. “I’ll call Josh and tell him we’ll be late. He’s going to meet us at the cabin to give you the keys and probably tell you the best way to piss off the town. He did a great job when he first came to Covenant Falls.”
Clint grinned. “Are you saying diplomacy is not one of his virtues?”
“You could say that, but he’s learning. Too bad.” There was amusement in her voice again. He was discovering she didn’t go out of her way to be diplomatic, either. He liked that. No bullshit. No false sympathy or concern.
He tried to remember exactly what Dr. Payne had said about the cabin and its owner.
The psychologist hadn’t been very forthcoming about the cabin or his new landlord, although he’d been good at prying into Clint’s life. Dr. Payne’s first visit had been to introduce himself and say he was available. The second had been two weeks before Clint’s discharge. He’d asked about his future plans, and the fact was, Clint had none.
He closed his eyes and thought of their meeting.
“No family?” the shrink had asked, and Clint suspected the man knew he’d had no visitors.
“No,” he said, but his records proved otherwise.
“No support system?”
“I
