Back in Service Read online

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Matty’s relief was humble and real, no triumph in her tone. “He’s house-sitting at a friend’s condo. I’ll give you the address and his cell. Thank you so much.”

  “Sure.” Kendra sighed, feeling both noble and trapped. Lena would have a fit when she told her.

  “Um. There is just one more thing.”

  Uh-oh. “What’s that?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t tell Jameson that I’m behind this. Even though he and I are close, he’s...a little sensitive when it comes to family right now.”

  “Meaning he wants all of you out of his face even if you’re trying to help.”

  “That would be it exactly.”

  Pretty classic depression symptom. Though if Matty’s description of Jameson as the outcast was correct, he could also be protecting himself from the rest of the family’s judgment.

  Damn. This was almost intriguing. “Okay. I won’t mention you. But I’m not sure he’ll buy that six years after our graduation I suddenly want to catch up.”

  “Tell him you’re part of a new program the Air Force is trying out for soldiers on medical leave. Or that his commanding officer or surgeon heard of you through some doctor you work with here. Something that leaves him no choice.”

  Clearly Matty had thought this through. “So I should lie while I try to gain his trust?”

  “Oof.” Matty whistled silently. “Do you have to put it that way?”

  “Can’t you get your commander or some general to write a fake letter?”

  “Not me.” Matty laughed lightly. “I’m not in the Air Force. I’m an actress.”

  Kendra brought her car to an abrupt halt at an intersection before she realized there was no stop sign; luckily there was no one behind her. “You’re an actress.”

  “Between jobs I sell real estate, but right now I’m in a musical called Backspace at the Pasadena Playhouse. I have a small part, but it’s a job.” The pride in her voice was unmistakable.

  “It’s an impressive job.” Well, how about that. Her parents must have nearly dropped dead. A canker on the Cartwright family tree! And now Jameson injured and out of his training program? A regular crumbling dynasty. “I’ll come up with something.”

  “Thank you, Kendra. Please stay in touch. And send the bill to me. How much do you charge, by the way?”

  Kendra told her.

  “What? You’re kidding.”

  Kendra was used to surprise and had the explanation for her bargain-basement rates ready. “I want my services available to as many people as possible. I’m not in this to get rich. I like working with people, and I don’t want to be limited by fees so high that my clients are thinking every second has to count triple for me to be worth their while.”

  Happily, money was no problem. Great-Grandpa Lonergan had made a fortune in banking in the early twentieth century, and Kendra’s ever-cautious parents had had plenty of life insurance on top of that. She would never have to work, though she knew she’d always choose to.

  “How about I throw in two tickets to my show?”

  “You’re on.” Kendra pulled into her driveway on Via Rincon and parked outside the garage, gazing affectionately at the white stucco house with the red-tile roof her grandparents had built into the side of the hill.

  “You know, what you do is really remarkable.”

  “Thanks.” Kendra shrugged. It didn’t feel remarkable. It was her business, and like any business it could be frustrating, boring, annoying, but overall more deeply satisfying than anything she could imagine doing. For many clients who’d experienced loss, grief and loneliness had become so much of who they were, they didn’t want to let it go. Proving they still had plenty of life to live and plenty to offer others was about as good as it got.

  She took down Jameson’s number, punched off the phone and climbed down from the car. Jameson Cartwright, for God’s sake. One of the last people she’d ever imagined seeing willingly again, let alone in a situation where he needed her help.

  Following the curving brick path from the driveway, she passed her dad’s Meyer lemon tree, heavy with still-green fruit, and the jasmine bush bought by her mom, planted clumsily by Kendra and her brother, Duncan. It would burst into fragrant white blossoms in February. She let herself into the house and headed through the small dining room to the spacious kitchen, her mom’s pride and joy. Dropping her bag on the hardwood floor, Kendra dialed her best friend’s cell. If anyone would enjoy this story, it was Lena.

  “Hey, Kendra, what’s up, Byron giving you trouble?”

  “I don’t think he knows how to make trouble.” She helped herself to a can of lemon-flavored sparkling water from the stainless-steel refrigerator and pushed through the sliding glass door out onto the deck overlooking their pool, which overlooked their terraced hill lush with her mom’s rather overgrown gardens, which overlooked Redondo Beach and beyond that Los Angeles, the Pacific and the Santa Monica Mountains. “It’s a different kind of dog giving me trouble. Remember Jameson Cartwright?”

  “Yes. Ew. Don’t tell me he got in touch with you.”

  “Sister Matty called me. Jameson was injured on his first day of Air Force training last month.” She dragged out a chair from the iron table set her parents had bought soon after they were married and turned it toward the view.

  “Last month? What’s he been doing all this time? I thought everyone in his family ran to the Air Force as soon as they got out of diapers.”

  “Nope.” Kendra sank into the chair and propped her feet up on the railing. “He took two years off to run around Europe. Spain in particular.”

  “Two years? No kidding. So what did Matty want?”

  “She wants me to work with him.”

  “You’re kidding! That obnoxious, bullying... How come? What happened?”

  Kendra started smiling before she even opened her mouth. “He’s depressed because he tore up his knee at Keesler Air Force Base. Tripping over a cat.”

  Lena gasped, then her shriek of laughter nearly burst Kendra’s eardrum. “Oh, my God! Another Cartwright hero!”

  “I know.” She was giggling again, guiltily this time.

  “Brought down by a pussy!” Lena snorted and chuckled a few more times. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t be laughing. I’m sure it’s hell for him. No more Mr. Tough Guy, no more hot uniforms and cool planes. Now who is he?”

  “Exactly.” Kendra tipped her head back to enjoy the eucalyptus-smelling breeze. “Matty said he’s seriously depressed.”

  “Ugh, I bet. So she wants you to fix up his ego and send him back into battle?”

  “Yup.” Kendra waited a beat. “Maybe with a squirrel next time.”

  Another shriek.

  Kendra laughed with her. Yes, it was horrible to make fun of someone in physical and emotional pain, but Jameson and his twin brothers...it was sort of inevitable. Reap what you sow, Cartwrights. “One interesting fact. Matty never went into the military. She’s a working actress. I almost got the impression she had some depth.”

  “No way.”

  “What’s more, she implied Jameson might have some, too.”

  “You have to admit, he wasn’t as bad as Mark and Hayden.”

  “Not saying much.”

  “True. I’ve told you his dad was a piece of work. We’d hear shouting over there all the time. I don’t know if he drank or what, but he had a hell of a temper.”

  “I remember.” Not surprising. Most people who grew up bullies had a first-class role model at home. “I said I’d talk to him.”

  “Of course you did.” Lena sighed. “You can’t resist trying to fix everyone. I’m not sure this guy deserves you, though.”

  “I said I’d talk to him. Then I get to decide what to do. I’m curious, to be honest. Don’t tell
me you’re not. You were madly in love with him.”

  “Only for a few weeks! Besides, everyone was madly in love with Jameson. He was a jerk, but he was a major hottie.”

  “Not to me.” Kendra shuddered. She liked men whose strength lay in kindness and caring, not muscles and manipulation. Lena had married Paul, a slender, dark-haired fellow lawyer—complete opposite of her plump blond energy—who was gentle, brilliant, funny and the nicest man on the planet. Kendra wanted one of those.

  “When are you going to talk to him?”

  “When I can stomach it. His sister wants me to make it seem like I’m on official business and leave her out of it.”

  “Smart. If my brother thought I was trying to force him into counseling, he’d refuse on principle.”

  “Uh-huh. And honestly, I think he’s probably mortified. I mean, really, a cat?”

  “Oof.” Lena started giggling again. “I know, I’m terrible. If it was anyone else it wouldn’t be so funny. Call me the second you finish talking to him, okay?”

  “I promise.” She hung up and sat still for a moment, remembering Jameson in grade school, bringing up his wide, smug smile from her memory bank, that weird nervous snickering he did when taunting her, looking back at his hulking older brothers for validation and support.

  In elementary school he’d tripped her in the halls, put worms in her lunch, glue in her hair. In middle school he’d spread rumors that she had mysterious rashes, that she was dating a cousin, that she’d had an abortion in eighth grade, that she was being medicated for a mental illness. In their freshman year of high school he’d asked her to the school dance as a joke—pretending he wanted to date the fatty, ha-ha-ha. Then without lifting a finger, he’d denied her the class presidency she’d worked so hard for.

  Why was she even considering helping this guy?

  Because she, at least, was a grown-up now. Because he was hurting. Because helping people in pain was her job. Because Kendra knew depression, knew how it could sap your ability to get out of bed in the morning, how the idea of having to live the rest of your life seemed an impossibility, how feeling anything but crushing pain seemed a distant dream, sometimes not even worth going after. Didn’t matter what caused the pain, the very fact of its existence meant conquering it should be imperative.

  After she’d emerged from the worst of her own grief with the support and help of an amazing therapist Lena had dragged her to, Kendra had decided she wanted to help people out of that same darkness.

  For her program, she used the techniques that had helped her the most, starting slow and simple—getting out of the house and back in touch with nature, then gradually resuming favorite hobbies and activities and introducing new ones that had no memories attached. And along with that, listening, compassion and a friendly shoulder—repeat as needed.

  Could she offer those things to Jameson Cartwright in good faith? She’d need to make sure she didn’t just want to prove he hadn’t won. To show him how in spite of him and people like him, she’d emerged with self-esteem intact. To parade her slender self, no longer in thick-framed glasses or drab don’t-look-at-me clothes. To show him she had the strength to survive worse than anything he’d ever dreamed of dishing out, a tragedy that put his stupid pranks and arrogance into stunning perspective. To be able to confront him in a situation in which, finally, she held all the power.

  Kendra would need to check her baggage and her ego at his door. If she couldn’t be genuine in her approach, she’d do neither of them any good.

  A red-tailed hawk circled lazily over a fir tree growing partway down the hill, its uppermost needles at eye level where she sat. The bird landed on the treetop, folded its feathers and stood fierce and proud, branch rebounding gently under him.

  When Kendra was in elementary school, she’d found a baby hawk on the fire road below their house—how old had she been, seven? Eight? The creature had broken its wing and lay helpless to move, to fly, terrified of the sudden vulnerability.

  In spite of his feeble attempts to peck her eyes out, she’d gotten the creature to the house; her mother had helped her transport it to the Humane Society. Kendra had visited often while the hawk healed, naming it Spirit. The staff had invited her to come along when they rereleased Spirit into the wild. She’d watched him soar into the sky and had felt the deep joy that comes from helping a fellow creature heal.

  Kendra had thought of that bird often as she’d struggled through the first year after the crash that left her without family except for the much-older brother she’d never had much in common with who lived abroad. And she’d thought about Spirit when she’d decided on her career path, and when she met people made helpless by grief, and when she was first trying to help people who wanted nothing more than to peck her eyes out. Because she knew something they couldn’t grasp yet. That there would be a moment when she could rerelease them into the wilds of a renewed life and watch them soar.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Jameson.

  2

  WE LIVE IN fame or go down in flame. The line from the Air Force song played endlessly in Jameson’s head. Torture. As if he needed more.

  He was stretched out on his buddy Mike’s sofa, staring out the window, sick to death of watching TV. Yeah, he’d gone down in flame. Because this sure wasn’t fame, and it could only marginally be called living.

  At least Mike had his back, letting him stay at his place so Jameson wouldn’t have to crawl to Mom and Dad. As if his humiliation wasn’t complete enough, moving back home would have about killed him. He’d met Mike at Maxwell during basic officer training, and in one of those stranger-than-fiction coincidences realized he was living in Jameson’s hometown with his wife, Pat, who was with her new-mom sister in Reno. Mike had been assigned to train at Keesler in computer communications at the same time as Jameson, and offered his place after Jameson’s accident. Couldn’t have worked out better.

  His cell rang. Again. He didn’t look at it. He hadn’t looked at it last time or the time before that. It was Dad or Mom or Matty or one of his brothers or a friend. They’d make stilted conversation, Matty and Mom oozing sympathetic cheer, his male relatives masking their contempt with endless advice about how to recover faster than he was, friends who didn’t know expressing shock, Air Force friends going on about all the training he was missing.

  He laughed bitterly, throat tight, painful weight in his chest, gazing at the sky. Look out there. No clouds. No birds. No planes. A vast nothing, stretching out over the sea. Perfect metaphor for his days since the accident. Over a month of this limbo, first medical leave, now personal. November 4 today, the accident had happened in early September, then surgery, rehabilitation—felt like forever. And it would be if he was one of the unlucky few who didn’t recover post-surgery stability in his knee. The Air Force couldn’t use a man who couldn’t pass their physical test.

  He’d done everything right, everything a Cartwright was supposed to do except want to be a flier. He’d majored in computer engineering at Chicago University, a career field in good demand in the Air Force. He’d excelled in his ROTC training, breezed through basic officer training, in both cases earning the friendship and respect of his fellow officers and commanders. His father and brothers were finally looking up to him, in spite of him being the first Cartwright nonpilot. He was on top, poised to continue at Keesler. He’d ace that, too. What could go wrong?

  Everything.

  He hadn’t seen the damn cat, but he’d sure heard it and felt it. He’d gone down, twisting to one side rather than crush the little bastard, and had torn his ACL—his anterior cruciate ligament, to be precise—clean off the bone, and also damaged his cartilage. Badly. One second in time, a moment he’d take back and redo a hundred different ways if only he could. But, as Dad liked to say, life gave you no do-overs. You had to get everything very right the very first time.

 
; The door buzzer rang, making him jump and curse the intrusion and the surprise. He’d been in town a few days and hadn’t seen anyone. Only his family knew he was back, and he’d made it clear he wasn’t ready for visits from any of them. This must be one of Mike’s friends who didn’t know Mike was training at Keesler. Where Jameson was supposed to be. Working hard, moving forward.

  Two months of stagnation. Many, many more months to come.

  He hauled himself off the couch, thinking a shower and shave were a good idea sometime this month—maybe for Thanksgiving—adjusted his knee brace, and limped through the living room and dining area to the front door, where he pressed the intercom.

  “Yeah?”

  “Lieutenant Cartwright?” A woman’s voice.

  He stiffened instinctively. Lieutenant? Oh, man. He should not be caught by Air Force personnel looking like such a mess. Why hadn’t they called first?

  He hadn’t been answering his phone.

  Crap.

  But how had she found him? He’d given out his parents’ address here in town.

  Dad. Doggone it.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This is Kendra Lonergan.”

  Jameson did a double take. Kendra Lonergan? From high school? She was in the Air Force? He couldn’t imagine it. There must be more than one Kendra Lonergan in the world. “How can I help you, ma’am?”

  “Just checking in. I’ve been sent by Major Kornish.”

  His orthopedist at Keesler had sent someone here?

  “Yes, ma’am.” He pushed the buzzer so she could enter the building and hobbled into the bathroom, where he splashed water on his face, combed his dirty hair, cringing at the coarse stubble on his face, and reapplied deodorant, ashamed of how he’d let himself go. That done, he hesitated in the doorway, wondering if he could make it into the bedroom for a clean shirt before she got to his door. He was still slow moving, slower than he thought he should be by now, and didn’t want to keep her waiting.

  Jameson glanced down. Oh, man. Food stains. Clean shirt was a good idea.