Taking Heart: Men on a Mission Book 3 Read online

  “Oh my gohhhhssshhh!” My mom squeals. “Shhh,” Nancy whispers. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see heads at adjacent tables turning towards us, with gasps and murmurs of “Oh, look!”

  Kyle opens a tiny velvet box, revealing a sparkling ring. “Will you marry me?”

  A hush falls over my family and the surrounding tables.

  My eyes fill with tears and my mouth opens and closes. My head fills with the sound of my own rushing blood as my face crumples and the tears fall.

  For one heartbeat, then two, I’m frozen. I can’t speak, can’t breathe, can’t see anything but Kyle’s handsome face and shining eyes.

  Hands going to my mouth, I nod: Yes!

  Kyle’s soft, relieved chuckle, full of emotion, serves to release me, and I gasp it out loud: “Yes!”

  Everyone around us erupts into whoops, cheers and congratulations as I throw myself forward into Kyle’s waiting arms.

  Epilogue

  Twenty-Five Years Later

  Mom’s sitting in the shade under the giant oak tree, her eyes closed, her face peacefully composed. A colorful crocheted blanket is wrapped around her shoulders, one of many made by our daughter Louise.

  Wisps of Mom’s soft, silky white hair float around her face, dancing this way and that in the warm summer breeze.

  Today, we’re having a memorial get-together for my father, who passed away last year on this date.

  Just like he’d have wanted, we’re here not to mourn, but to celebrate his long life and all the people who exist and live now…because he did.

  And occasions like this always make me think back over my life. Maybe I do mourn, a little, but mostly, I count my blessings as well.

  * * *

  Conceived in that delicious, unforgettable burst of passion of our very first time in Kyle’s office, the arrival of our twin daughters, Layla and Louise, now twenty-four, changed the course of our lives forever.

  Actually, first of all, their impending arrival made my mother’s long-ago prediction come true. We did get married before the year was out.

  A quick, but lovely wedding on a beach in the Bahamas, all of us in attendance, with my burgeoning belly preceeding me down the sandy aisle.

  Still makes me smile to remember: All of our then-small family gathered in a circle around us as Kyle and I stood under the bower, with a local band playing joyfully on steel drums.

  I remember how my mother and Nancy danced so ecstatically together that day, with gleeful and goofy abandon.

  And secondly, becoming a mother to twins at the age of twenty-one kicked me into full maternal mode.

  Messy, exhausting and all-consuming as it was, I loved being a mother so much, I never looked back.

  I did go on to get my graphics design degree, and I did start my own business. But I ran it out of our house, taking jobs as time allowed.

  Because my main job and passion and love, the one I was born for, turned out to be raising these kids.

  Our next one didn’t come along for another four years. Nolan, now twenty years old and today, away in training in the Air Force, came along just as we finally got the girls toilet-trained.

  Garrett, now eighteen, the happiest baby I’ve ever known, arrived two years after Nolan. A muscle-head but a gentle giant, he’s going to college in the fall, taking graphic design, like his Mom.

  Christopher, now sixteen, is somewhere in the house, probably on his iPal talking to his latest girlfriend.

  That kid is the spitting image of his father and knows how handsome he is. He’s going into tech too, as a back-up in case his dream of hitting a big gold vein on our property here in Muskoka doesn’t quite pan out.

  Our youngest was a welcome surprise. Only ten years old, Nicole is the peacemaker of the family. A reading, writing, math and science prodigy, she doesn’t know if she wants to be a famous author or a scientist, or both.

  She’s a scary-smart kid, that’s all I know. She’ll probably end up doing all that and more.

  Aunt Nancy, Kyle’s Moneypenny, passed away peacefully in her sleep five years ago.

  But first, she and Don did end up getting married and had twenty good years together…the time of their lives, in fact.

  Sigh.

  I miss my father. I miss my Aunt Nancy.

  We all do.

  But here we are, this happy family, gathered to remember the past and celebrate the future…together.

  * * *

  The sound of the door opening brings me back from my reverie.

  It’s Nicole. She comes out of the house, one hand carefully holding a mug. She steps out and holds the door for her big sister, Layla.

  Layla’s carrying a tray weighed down with chicken breasts, legs and wings, marinaded overnight in her own blend of minced onion, garlic, lemon juice and, what she calls a “pinch of secret spices.”

  Squinting into the sunlight, Layla sets the tray next to the grill and shades her eyes with her hand. “When’s Dad and Garrett supposed to be back with Gramps, Mom? Dinner will be about half an hour, tops.”

  Garrett went with Kyle to help fetch eighty-five year-old Don, who relies on one of RS&T’s WheelieBot chairs to get around now. He needs help getting in and out of it though, which is why Kyle took Garrett with him.

  Naturally, we made sure Don has the latest Personal Care Bot to lift him so that he can be independent at home, but those are too bulky to fit into anything but the largest patient transport vehicles.

  Technology has made great strides but even today, in the year 2044…it still has its limits.

  At sixty years old now, Kyle’s still in great shape. Silver-haired, buff and still as handsome as ever, he finally understood that he’s not Superman when he hurt his back a few years ago. And now, he wisely accepts aid when it’s offered.

  And Garrett, who’s already as tall and strong as Kyle, always offers.

  “Can you hold off putting the chicken on for a sec, Layla? I’ll message your dad and see what the hold up is.”

  “Sure,” Layla replies. The barbeque tongs slip out of her hand and clatter to the ground. Bending to pick them up, she grunts as she stands up again.

  “God, sometimes I can’t believe this is really only one baby,” she says. Heavily pregnant with her first child, she’s due any day now.

  “You want some help?” I offer.

  “Naw,” she says. “Thanks Mom. I’m gonna go rinse these tongs and grab a cold VitaPop. You want anything?”

  “No thanks, honey.”

  “Should I wake her up?” Nicole, having walked carefully all the way to our spot under the tree with my mother’s cup of peppermint tea, stops by my side. “Her tea will get cold.”

  “I’m awake,” Mom says, her eyes still closed. Her voice is as frail as her body, and she’s forgetful these days. But at eighty-three years old, she still gets around okay and seems to feel pretty good most days.

  Now, she opens her eyes and smiles. “When you get to be my age, you fall asleep as soon as your butt hits a chair. But you wake up just as quick, too.”

  Nicole smiles and hands the hot tea to her grandmother, carefully turning the mug so that Mom can grasp the handle with her gnarled fingers.

  “How’s your hands today, Gramma?”

  “So-so, Nicky, so-so,” Mom replies. “But better than yesterday. They don’t hurt so much when it’s warm and sunny.”

  Taking the seat next to my mother, I pull out my iPal and speak into it. “iPal, call Kyle. Quote: Dinner in thirty minutes. Please advise ETA. Send.” An electronic boop sounds the familiar signal that the message was received.

  “Those things still freak me out,” Mom says, shaking her head. “Whaddaya call how they work again?”

  “ITT. It stands for Instantaneous Transmission Technology.”

  “Good heavens. What’s next? Time travel? Transporters, like Star Trek?” She cackles. “I barely got used to texting and emailing, and now all this.” She takes a shaky sip of tea. “But I bet Nancy would have had t
he latest model.”

  I scoot my chair closer to my mother’s, gently pat her arm, then let my hand rest there.

  “She did have one of the first,” I remind her. “RS&T patented the tech and gave her one of the first prototypes. She always had the first of every new model when they came out. Remember? She was the first beta-tester for ITT.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember now. She was so excited about it! She tried to explain it, but you know I’m not good with that stuff.”

  “That’s okay, Mom. You’re good in every way that counts.”

  She beams at me. “Such a good kid, you always were. If my hands weren’t so bad, I’d smoosh your beautiful face. My baby.”

  “I know what a prototype is,” Nicole says, plunking herself down at our feet, falling bonelessly cross-legged as only the young can do. “Aunt Nancy told me. She told me how ITT works, too. I can explain it to you if you want, Gramma.”

  “That’d be like tossing pearls before swine, Nicky,” Mom says ruefully.

  “Huh?” Nicole looks at her Gramma in bafflement, one corner of her lip rising comically.

  “Honey, you sure it was Aunt Nancy who told you how it works?” Nicole never lies, but maybe she’s mistaken. “You were only five when she passed,” I remind her.

  “Yep. It was her. She told me ITT is jello that eats puuuure energy! From the air!” She holds her hands up, palms facing upwards. “She said the air is full of energy, all around us, and an old guy called Nicolai Tesla, from, like, a hunnerd years ago? He figured it out.”

  She plucks a long blade of grass from the ground and puts the fresh end into her mouth, looking up at me matter-of-factly.

  “I’m named after him,” she continues, “right Mom?”

  “Right,” I reply.

  “Nancy said Daddy showed her how ITT jello works, and she told me, but I’m not allowed to tell. It’s reeeealllly simple though.”

  Mom and I look at each other.

  “Well I’ll be darned,” Mom says. “Out of the mouths of babes, huh?”

  “I don’t even understand how it works,” I tell her. “Not exactly. Maybe you can explain it to me, too?” I say to Nicole.

  “I’m not allowed. You could ask Daddy, though, he’ll tell you.”

  “Trust me, he’s tried,” I laugh. “I’m a mother and a graphic designer. Not a scientist like you and your Dad.”

  Now the door to the house opens again, and Layla comes back out, followed by Louise and Chris, and Louise’s husband Mitchell.

  Chris is holding Stephanie, Louise’s daughter and our first grandchild.

  Not quite a year old, Steph’s wearing one of her mom’s gaily crocheted sun hats, cocked at a jaunty angle. One chubby fist has a hold of poor Chris’ beard. He’s been trying so hard to grow a manly beard, but it’s still a little straggly.

  “Ow,” he says, and Stephanie throws her head back and laughs. “Oh, you like that, huh? Ow!” More bubbly baby laughter.

  It’s so infectious, we all laugh too, even Christopher. Now, the baby grabs his beard with both fists and yanks. “YOW!,” he yells, “that made my eyes water! Okay, that’s enough. Here, Lou, take your monster-spawn, please.”

  “Come here, you little terror, you,” Louise says, taking the giggling baby from her brother. “Chris, I warned you. If you always let her do whatever she wants, one of these days she’s gonna do what you don’t want.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I know. But she’s so…funny.”

  “That bald patch in your beard is pretty funny, too,” she teases. She plucks something from her daughters hand. “Look! Here’s some of your beard hairs!”

  “Let me see!” Nicole jumps up and runs over to the baby. “Oh my God, she got a lot of them!”

  Chris rubs his chin ruefully. “I can tell. Hey, I’m hungry. When’s dinner?”

  Layla turns the grill on and begins cleaning it with the brush. “I’m putting it on right now. What’d Dad say, Mom?”

  “He hasn’t replied yet…” But I stop, hearing the sound of Kyle’s vehicle pulling into the driveway.

  In a few moments, Kyle comes through the back gate. He stands aside and holds it for Don, who’s riding in his WheelieBot chair with both hands on the joysticks.

  The six wheels on the chair can handle almost any terrain, their independent drive train sensors feeding information to the central computer. Hover-boost gyro tech helps keep the chair upright and rolling smoothly over the grass, making lines in the sod but not tearing it up.

  “Hello, fam,” Don calls out. “I hope dinner’s ready, I’m starving!”

  Layla’s husband Jim strolls through the gate behind them. “Me too,” he says. “Hi honey,” he says to Layla, heading over to her for a kiss.

  Garrett comes through the back gate next. Stephanie spots him and squeals, holding her arms out. He strides over, takes her hat off her head and sets it on top of his own. “Unky Gare’s got your hat,” he sing-songs. Stephanie’s eyes get wide, then she reaches up and takes it back, giggling.

  Kyle spots me and makes a beeline straight to me.

  “Hi sweet Heart,” he says, bending to plant a juicy one on my lips.

  “Hi babe,” I say. “Did you know Nancy told Nicole how…”

  “Oh my God!”

  Everyone turns to look. It’s Layla, standing stock still, looking at the ground at her feet.

  With huge eyes, she looks at me, then at her husband. “Holy shit! It’s…I think my water just broke!”

  The End

  13

  Bonus: Jacked Chapter One

  Jack

  Seven-fifty-three a.m.

  Sun’s been up for a few hours now. When things get into full swing here next week, I’ll be up before dawn for sure. But right now, I can still sleep in.

  After climbing down the ladder from my loft bed, I step outside into the cool morning air.

  The night creatures in the forest are all tucked away in their nests now…the lucky ones, with a full belly.

  There are lots of things with teeth and claws in the bush here, four hours north of Toronto.

  The full contingent of crew has yet to arrive, but the noise and activity over the last two days since the first few of us got here would have scared the big predators off by now.

  The thought hits me that I’m probably the biggest mammal in the vicinity. It’s safe enough, sure, but it still makes me a little sad.

  Naked except for my boxers, I’m standing on the rough plank deck outside the foreman’s cabin, my home and office for the season.

  The rest of the camp buildings are a ways down the thickly-treed hill behind the cabin.

  This much-needed privacy is a perk of the job, and the view doesn’t hurt, either.

  Up here, the cabin on the ridge overlooks the valley below, trees showing the pale green of their springtime foliage.

  It’s a clear view, all the way to the horizon.

  Just below the cabin, a small plateau holds a swimming pond, fed by an underground spring.

  The early morning sun paints a band of gold across the surface of the pond, highlighting a cloud of gnats hovering over the water.

  As I watch, a big dragonfly darts in and out of the cloud of smaller insects. The sun’s reflection off its wings makes it look like a fiery, living spark as it flies off with its morning snack.

  Deep breath… ahhh, that clean, fresh air…then I stand up straight and do some shoulder shrugs.

  Ow.

  Still some aches in my traps, pecs and arms. A few squats and lunges make me wince too. Yep, stiffened up overnight.

  No matter how fit and hard you think you are, out here, the bush is harder and it’ll kick your ass if you’re not careful.

  With no machinery or laborers on site yet, yesterday, me and Calvin, my second-in-command, hand-hauled a dozen seasoned, twenty-foot logs to the bucking area, dragging them with tongs on a chain like an old-fashioned mule team.

  With us being the mules.

  Then we w
restled all the plywood off the windows on the buildings, stored them away and opened windows to air the buildings out. Next we set up all the mess tables so Sven, the cook who’s getting up in years, wouldn’t have to.

  The rest of the day was spent cutting and stacking firewood for all the camp buildings against the sometimes-cool, damp and rainy summer nights up here.

  Yeah. Still feeling it today.

  The work involved just in opening the camp and getting it set up for the season is already showing me where I got soft over the winter, deadlifts or no deadlifts.

  Doesn’t matter how sore I get. The fact is, the camp boss is responsible for everything. And that means he has to make sure everything gets done even if he has to do it himself.

  When I was a kid, I always thought being the boss meant you had it easy.

  Boy, was I wrong.

  I drop to the deck and do sixty one-handed push-ups per side.

  Ow yeah that hurts. Damn.

  Stand up and stretch, and do a bunch more shoulder-shrugs, butterflies and stretches, my eyes on the red lights of a cell tower blinking away on the high ridge of the valley.

  It’s the newest one of a row that follows the line of the main road, servicing this area and points further north.

  Hydro lines on poles snake alongside the cell towers, a set of them branching off to come up the road that leads to this camp.

  And hydro’s not the only amenity out here.

  Claude Becker, the landowner, obviously plans to reap the resources here for some time to come. Infamous for money-making for the sake of it, he’s had many clashes with the local government and conservation authorities over his rough-shod contempt for the land and the creatures on it.

  This land is full of millions of dollars of old-growth hardwood alone. If there are any minerals worth extracting here…well, old Claude wants those, too.

  Not that what Claude Becker does is any of my business.

  Besides, I’ve had to make an uneasy peace with it because harvesting lumber is how I make my living. My employer, Cooper Timber Company, has the logging contract out here for the next three seasons.