It raged through the trees and whooshed beneath the truck. He signaled a left turn just as an oncoming car signaled a right turn into the same driveway. “Looks like you have company, sir.”
The word sir made the old man smile. “I could use a bit of company now and again, but my missus won’t be happy about bein’ surprised. She likes the house just so when company comes by. That whole ‘cleanliness bein’ next to Godliness’ thing, you know. That’s a woman thing, I expect.”
Jax wouldn’t know. He’d been steering clear of God, family and women and anything that smacked of commitment or caring or real emotion. Surface stuff he could handle since leaving Iraq. Anything deeper than that sent him on to the next job. The next task. The next neighborhood. Offering his help but never his heart. He pulled to a stop as a middle-aged woman exited the car next to him. The insignia on her door indicated she was from a local home health care agency.
She looked from the old man to him, then the flattened barn and let out a low whistle. “What’s happened here, Cleve? Where’s Libby?” She included both men in the question as the wind helped push them toward the house.
Jax lifted his shoulders. “Don’t know. I found him walking down the road alone as the barn blew apart. I’m Jax McClaren.”
“Carol Mortimer, from the home health service in Wenatchee. Folks call me Mortie. Come on, my friend, I can’t be taking your pulse or blood pressure out here, now can I?”
Her question seemed to confuse the old man further.
She took hold of one of his arms. Jax took the other, and together they tried to guide him into the side door of the house.
He had other ideas. “I promised I’d keep a lookout,” he told them, and for a thin fellow, when he dug his heels into the soft valley soil, he dug hard.
“We can help,” said the woman softly. “It’s Mortie, Cleve. You remember me, don’t you? Where’s Libby? Did she have to go out?”
“Please don’t tell me that someone would leave this gentleman on his own.” That hiked Jax’s blood pressure to new levels.
The wind slammed them. He was just about to lift the elderly fellow into his arms and carry him into the house when a car pulled into the driveway.
It slid to a quick stop and a woman jumped out. The raging wind wrapped her longish sweater around her, and her light brown ponytail whipped back and forth, but it was her face that caught Jax’s attention.
Despair, mixed with a generous serving of worry and determination darkened her blue eyes. Despite that, she was still beautiful like one of those inspirational movie heroines his grandma used to watch.
She ran forward and got right in front of the older man. “Gramps, I think that wind’s a little too strong for any more spraying today, don’t you?”
The old fellow stopped. Stared. Then he blinked as if he’d just come out of a dark movie theater into the light.
The wind pummeled him.
Wide-eyed, he hurried forward of his own volition now. “What are we doin’ out in this?” he shouted as he hustled up the side steps and into the house. “Libby, you know better than to run the tractor in a storm like this, don’t you?”
The young woman went right along with his new train of thought. “I do. And I’m pretty sure you taught me to dress properly before going out in gale-force winds.”
The old fellow was quick to defend his choice of attire. “Well, I was in a hurry, you know.”
The woman—Libby—held the old-timer’s gaze but she offered him a pretty smile, lightly teasing. “Do tell.”
“I was on the lookout for something.”
A quick look of regret flattened her features, but she reengaged the smile swiftly. “Yes, you were. I asked you to watch for CeeCee’s bus while I was spraying the orchard. But that doesn’t come until later.”
“So I didn’t miss anything?” He posed the question quickly, as if worried he might have messed up. “I knew it was important, but I might have dozed off in my chair…”
The home health woman brought him a fleecy pair of pajama pants and helped him into them.
“And there was a wicked crash and I woke up and knew I was on the lookout for something, but for what?”
Libby looked around in confusion. “A crash?” She scanned the room and the kitchen beyond.
She went pale. Her eyes went wide. She stared out the back window at a monster-size pile of broken sticks and bricks and huffed out a slow, sad breath. “The barn.”
Jax hated to bring more bad news, but he’d already spotted her grandfather outside when the barn went down. So something else had awakened the elderly gentleman. He crossed to the side door, opened it and stepped outside.
A swirl of gravel dust stirred old memories he’d shoved aside. Haboobs. The Iraqi desert sandstorms. Troops hunkered down.
That was then.
This is now.
Determined, he walked to the back of the house. And there it was. A second barn, much smaller, but just as flat. Would the house be next?
The house blocked the wind, allowing him time to give it a quick once-over. Where the barns lay in splintered pieces, the house stood firm and square. It was old, maybe the original structure, even, and craftsmen knew how to put a solid building together back then. No, the house looked solid, if worn.
He drew a breath and walked back inside. The home health nurse was brewing tea in the small kitchen. She raised her brows as he entered. “Bad?”
“Yes.”
“Both barns?”
What could he say to make this better? Nothing. He nodded.
“But no one died. Or got hurt,” the nurse added as the old man’s granddaughter came through the connecting doorway. “It could have been worse.”
He turned toward Libby. “Someone could have been hurt. Or killed.” He looked toward the living room beyond. “He was walking along the road in his skivvies, dazed and confused because he was all alone.”
Her gaze narrowed. The smile he’d found engaging disappeared. “And who are you, exactly?”
“Jax McClaren. I was driving by when I spotted him. And the barn.”
“Mr. McClaren…” Carol Mortimer began.
He included the nurse in his look. “When someone is that sick, should they be left alone?”
The nurse made a face. “Some patients are fine on their own for an hour or two. It depends on what stage they’re in. In this case, Cleve’s been fine for short periods. But seems like we might need to revisit our thinking if he gets riled that easily.”
“Having a barn destroyed seventy feet from the nearest window isn’t an everyday occurrence.” Libby folded her arms and faced him. “We need to remember we’re not dealing with a small child but a grown man who thinks he’s okay, and some of the time he is. And there’s still work to be done because this is a working farm. Mortie—” she moved closer to the home health nurse “—you understand. He doesn’t want to go someplace else. It would kill him. Grandma said that time and again. He was born on this place and he’s made his wishes clear often enough. He was born here and wants to die the same way. How can I deny him that after all he’s done for me?”
“But what if Mr. McClaren hadn’t come along when he did?” asked Mortie. “What if Cleve had wandered until a branch hit him? Or an airborne missile from someone’s roof or barn speared him?”
“What choice do I have?” The young woman splayed her hands. “He wants to be on the farm. It’s his one link to reality,