21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (103 page)

Ezekiel Minninnewah Crane grew up in Freewill. He knew every person who lived there, whether born within the small community or migrated into it—as so many had. He knew the land, met his wife there. Married her. Raised a family and buried her. One by one, his children fled the confines of the sedate pace of life for bigger cities and faster careers.

All except Georgia. While she wasn’t his daughter, she’d reversed the migration trend and fled the confines of the city to settle in her grandparents’ home. Once upon a time, she’d loved Freewill. She loved to spend her summers with her favorite set of grandparents, embracing their traditional values and soaking up the fun. She couldn’t put her finger on when the joy turned into obligation, or when obligation became a chokehold on her future, but there she was.

And her grandfather had snuck out.
Again
.

Tossing her keys on the side table, she walked through the house and checked each room. She wouldn’t find him, but better to be systematic in case he merely napped.

Not that the seventy-five-year-old cardiac arrest survivor would nap even if good for him. He’d spent three months in the hospital following two bypass surgeries for his ailing heart. His surgeon cautioned him to take it easy in the months following his scare.

But does he listen?
Not that she could tell. She’d turned down several lucrative job offers in the last year because he needed someone close at hand to look after him. He disagreed with the three home nurses hired to look after him, disappearing on them regularly. Georgia fired them for incompetence, but she had to wonder—if she turned her back for five minutes, her grandfather wandered off.

Letting herself out of the house, she checked the street. She couldn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t gone down to have a cup of coffee with Widow Jones or to play cards with Pete Simpson, the retired social studies teacher who’d relocated to Freewill a couple of years ago. The two men became fast friends during the Native American Heritage Festival and often engaged in enthusiastic arguments about how the oral tradition her grandfather maintained differed from American textbooks.

Resigned to a search pattern, she pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the contacts. She could knock on doors and call at the same time. Her grandfather had to be somewhere. She checked her watch. He was due for his medication so she had a little over an hour to find him. Pivoting on her heel, she jogged up the steps and through the front door, grabbed his extra bottle of pills.

An hour later, her already bad mood soured further. He wasn’t at the Sunrise Café or the Watering Hole. No one at Jensen’s Grocery or Hometown Bakery had seen him and the livestock store owner mentioned he’d been by a lot earlier in the day, but—sorry ma’am—no one had seen him since.

Her feet hurt and her temper unraveled a little more each time someone suggested she call his cell phone. Her grandfather didn’t have a cell phone. Didn’t believe in collars, leashes, or fences. He called cell phones fences, a fact he pointed out regularly whenever hers rang.

Which admittedly had been less and less as she fell out of touch with friends in Jackson Hole, and farther away in Seattle. She’d had a promising career in Seattle. The heel on her shoe snapped as she crossed the street, and she nearly ended up on her ass in the gutter. If not for A.J. Turner and his girlfriend, Sheri, crossing the street at the same time, she might have.

A.J. caught her arm and kept her upright. Her face warmed and she tried to straighten before humiliation overwhelmed her, but her ankle twisted and she did go down.

“Hang on.” A.J. didn’t let her go, and Sheri intervened to remove the offending shoe. They steadied her and Georgia sighed.

“Thank you. Sorry. I didn’t mean to crash into you.” She’d known A.J. growing up through a very circuitous route. He’d dated her sister in high school. Despite returning from the Marines a few months before, he didn’t spend much time in town anywhere—except the library.

“That sucks.” Sheri grimaced at the state of her shoes. Another big city transplant, the brunette didn’t ask why the heck Georgia bothered with heels in a place where boots, sneakers and sandals were commonplace.

“Why the hell are you wearing stilts, Cricket?” A.J. wasn’t opposed to commenting on them.

Sliding off her remaining shoe, Georgia stooped to pick them up and sighed. “No one calls me that anymore, A.J., and I’d prefer if we let dead nicknames stay dead.”

“Good to know, Cricket.” His slow smile completely dismissed her irritation.

Sheri thumped his arm. “Be nice. She’s having a bad day.” Looping her arm through Georgia’s, the librarian drew her over to the sidewalk. Good ol’ boy A.J. followed along like a silent sentinel. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m trying to track down my grandfather. He’s wandered off without his meds.” Her humiliation was complete. She’d broken her heels, lost her grandfather, and now had to rely on an outsider for help.

“Can’t you just call him on his cell phone?” Like every other normal person, Sheri’s first idea was
call him
.

“Nope.” A.J. drawled. “Old Man Crane doesn’t believe in cell phones.”

“Oh.” Sheri scrunched her nose and stuck her tongue out at A.J.. “A lot like you, then.”

“Hey, I have a cell phone.”

“You just never turn it on.” The warm, natural and relaxed banter between them sent a stab of envy right through Georgia’s breast. She wanted a relationship like theirs, but who the hell would she ever meet in Freewill? Especially when the sleepy little town was the last place she wanted to settle.

“That part’s true.” A.J. grinned, his entire focus on Sheri, and Georgia felt as faded as the sidewalk pavement. “As for your granddad, Cricket, he’s at the ranch—or he was a couple of hours ago. He was out walking.”

Her blood boiled all over again. A.J.’s ranch sat a good ten miles outside of Freewill. Her grandfather didn’t drive. He’d managed to get around most of his life on two legs and didn’t see the point keeping a car after he retired from full-time work—which meant he’d walked those ten miles.

He must have left right after she went out to run errands.

“Did he look okay?” She was going to kill him. The batty old fool took too many risks with his health.

“Looked fine to me. Feel free to head out there, if you like.” A.J. frowned. “Unless you think something’s really wrong and I can go right now.”

“No.” If she sent A.J. Turner to fetch her grandfather, one of two things was certain to happen. The old man would be fine, but furious at her, and he’d give A.J. an earful about her overprotective vapors. Or he’d convince A.J. to never tell her if he showed up out there again. Neither was an acceptable outcome.

“Thank you, but I can go. I’ll just run back and get my car.”
And change my shoes, maybe take some aspirin
. “You really sure you don’t mind if I drive out there?”

“Not at all. We’re going to the movies and a proper dinner. Sheri has a cell, if you need us.” They paused long enough to give her the number and Georgia waved them on. The last thing she needed to do was spoil anyone else’s day just because hers had been ruined.

She might be overprotective and her grandfather didn’t like it when she
fussed
, but his first surgery happened after it had taken over two hours for someone to find him after his heart attack. He could have died. Time was muscle during a cardiac episode.

The doctor’s words repeated in her head over and over.
Time is muscle
. The longer it took for someone to find him, the greater his chances of not surviving. Her bare feet were sore after she jogged home and changed into a pair of loose sneakers. The drive to A.J.’s took forever, and she scanned the fields and woods on either side of the road on the off chance her grandfather had already headed home.

By the time she arrived at the ranch, her foul temper took a backseat to genuine worry. She checked the house, the barn, and walked in circles around the paddocks. He wasn’t there.

Her heart in her throat, she checked her phone—maybe someone had called or texted to say he went home, but the cell remained silent and blank. She turned around when she heard a faint sound and stared as her grandfather walked toward her, a bronze-red god at his side.

The men spoke to each other and didn’t seem aware of her at all.

Grandfather is fine
.

Relief hit first and staggered her. Squaring her shoulders, she marched toward them, her temper resurrected. She didn’t know his new friend, or why they were together, but she planned to give them both a piece of her mind.

Her grandfather’s companion glanced up, noticed her, and for the second time that day the world wobbled—only it wasn’t a broken heel, but the potential to break her heart that rocked her world.

***

The beautiful woman marched straight for them and all the blood in Greg’s body shot south. He’d spent most of his time on the ranch or at Mike’s Place. The women he knew were therapists, Marines, sailors—or A.J.’s girlfriend. This lady, with her mane of midnight black hair, sun-kissed skin, and soft pink lips, reminded him of all he’d been missing, a sprite of nature given living, breathing form.

“I’m sorry, son,” Crane muttered and picked up his pace. “Georgia….”

“Don’t you ‘Georgia’ me.” The beautiful sprite turned into a fire-breathing dragon, right down to the heat flaming in her eyes. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy, Grandpa. This—?” She waved her arms toward the ranch and included Greg in her sweep. “Is the complete opposite of taking it easy.”

“I’m fine. Georgia, this is—”

“I don’t care who
this
is.” She exhaled a hard breath and looked at Greg. “No offense. I’m sure you’re very nice. I know you served, and we’re grateful. But this is my grandfather you’re dragging all over hell and beyond, not one of your Marines.”

“Georgia Crane.” Icy astonishment froze the older man’s tone and he scowled.

“No. You’re an hour late. You didn’t tell me where you were going. You didn’t leave a note. I’ve looked for you everywhere. If I hadn’t run into A.J., I wouldn’t know where you were now.” She held up a bottle and shook it. “You’re supposed to take this, on schedule, three times a day. You can’t skip.”

Anger tightened the lines around her eyes and her mouth had a hard, pinched look. Greg hadn’t encouraged the older man to take a long walk, but he hadn’t discouraged him either.

“It was good to meet you, Greg.” Crane turned away from his granddaughter pointedly and offered his hand. Greg shook it. “Don’t forget to keep listening.”

“I won’t. You two all right to get back to town?” He didn’t doubt for an instant the little firecracker could handle it, but in her current frame of mind, they might need a mediator.

“We’re fine.” The older man didn’t seem hurried. “Georgia, this is Greg Rainwater.”

“Mr. Rainwater.” So tightly wound up, she said his name like a dismissal.

“Miss Crane,” he replied, echoing her prim tone.

“Grandpa, come on. You need your meds and probably something to eat with them. We can pick up sandwiches on the way.” She may as well have acted like Greg didn’t exist, but since the pair seemed likely to engage in an argument at any moment, he left it alone.

After loading her grandfather in the car and walking around to the passenger side, she set her fierce gaze on him again. It raked him from head to toe before she gave him a grudging nod, although her expression didn’t ease one iota.

Greg stared a long time after the car disappeared into the distance. And he listened.

If only he could be certain what he listened for.

***

The slam of a truck door jerked him out of sleep. His chest burned with every breath he took and sweat soaked his sheets. It didn’t matter how many months passed; the nightmares hadn’t stopped. His legs hurt. Rubbing his thigh, he pushed a thumb into the top of a hard knot. Cramps seized his overtired muscles and added to his agony.

Teeth clenched, he refused to scream. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he flattened his bare feet to the cool wood floor. It helped, but only a little. He’d undergone months of physical therapy after the surgeons deemed him fit enough, but muscle atrophy was a bitch.

Force of will got him to his feet, and he staggered toward the bathroom, using the wall and dresser for support. He had pain meds the doctors prescribed, but he’d tired of living under their fog. Back and forth he paced until his rebellious muscles calmed.

If only the wind could help with the pain.

Greg braced the post for A.J. He’d finished most of the interior on the barn, but they decided to add a new run-in to one of the larger pastures for horses not in the breeding stock. A.J. explained his reasons, but Greg knew motorcycles and cars, not animals. Sink a post? That he could do. A week in Wyoming and the foggy haze separating him from the world dissipated some.

“Sheri’s coming out tonight.” A.J. grunted as he packed the hole. They’d sunk the post three feet deep and used a bare amount of cement to hold it in place. The rest would be done naturally.

“I’ll get lost.” Greg didn’t need a map drawn out for him. The bunkhouse had another two to three days of work on it, but the weather outdoors was nice enough. He didn’t mind grabbing a sleeping bag and camping out. Even the cooler nights were a welcome respite.

“You don’t have to get lost, just…give us a few hours.” The man grinned and surveyed their work. “Okay, let it go.”

Greg released the post and retreated a step. They both waited to see if it would lean. Even the slightest tilt and they’d have to repack it. They needed all four posts to be rock steady when they added the roof or it would prove an exercise in futility.

“Oorah.” They exhaled in unison when the post remained ramrod straight.

“One down, three to go.” A.J. glanced at his watch. “We can call it after that. Probably be time for Old Man Crane to show up.”

“Sounds good.” They worked well together, but that came from years of service in the field. It helped that neither felt the urge to fill in the silence with empty chatter. They only spoke when they had something to say. “I may work on the bunkhouse later.” If he were busy, then he wouldn’t feel compelled to follow the old man on his wanderings as he had every single day for a week.