The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

As he pulled to a halt in front of the house, he could see the recent addition to the structure. The paint wasn’t quite a match; the owner apparently had declined to paint the whole house. Decking had also been added around the house, including a wheelchair ramp. That ramp, along with the flaming van, stumped Cooper. He couldn’t begin to guess what sort of job Emma would have here.

He unfolded himself out of his rental, smoothed his hair back with his hands, and walked through the gate. But before he could make it up the walk, a man stepped out onto the porch. He wore a sweat-stained garden hat on his head and slowly came down the steps to meet Cooper, eyeing him warily. “Can I help you?” he asked gruffly, his blue eyes shining out from skin creased by mountain sun.

“I sure hope so,” Cooper said amicably. “I’m looking for Emma Tyler. Is she here today?”

The man squinted at Cooper. “She’s in trouble?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that,” Cooper said with a chuckle. “Not that I am aware. I just have a message to deliver.”

The man considered that for a moment, then offered his hand. “Bob Kendrick,” he said. “Emma’s inside with my son, Leo.”

Judging by the man’s age, his son was likely somewhere in his twenties or early thirties. Was Emma hanging out with some mountain guy? Was that what was going on here? That didn’t seem her type, but then again, what did he know? Cooper supposed nothing about her would surprise him now.

“Come on, I’ll show you in,” Bob Kendrick said.





FOUR

I don’t have a lot of time to fill you in on how Emma Tyler became vice president of Leo Kendrick Operations, because I’m, like, superbusy.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking, because Dad looks at me like that, too—like I’m a guy with Motor Neuron Disease who is sipping food from a straw, that’s what I’m so busy doing. And that is totally true. But I’m also busy getting ready to go see the Broncos play the Patriots next week in Denver. That requires a lot of high-level thinking and planning for a guy without use of his limbs.

I’m Leo Kendrick, and it’s true that I have MND, and it’s also true that this football game is like the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It wouldn’t have happened at all had I not come at this like the certified genius that I am. That’s no lie, just ask Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist who also has MND—anyone who has this disease is probably a genius. To wit: First, I had to convince the Methodist ladies to take me on as this year’s charity case. Check. Then, I had to convince them to get me tickets to the game at Mile High Stadium, which they managed, believe it or not, because someone from Pine River knew someone. Check. Better still, they knew someone important and managed to get me into a skybox. I think that’s because I said something like, what is the point of going all that way in a chair if you can’t get into a skybox, and fortunately, everyone agreed about that. Check, check, and checkmate.

So I scored the tickets for me and my friend Dante, who gets his chemo at the same boring hospital where my doctors sit around playing tiddlywinks, but then I suddenly realized that the family van—a former bread delivery truck—was not going to carry my ass all the way to Denver, no sir. So I suggested to the Methodists that they might want to have an auction to raise money to get me a van, and they did, but they didn’t raise enough, so Libby Tyler stepped in and put together this 5k race to benefit yours truly, and the next thing you know, I am the proud owner of a sweet van, man. It’s like a military machine—they roll me into that thing like a nuclear warhead and lock me down.

But you know what I learned? There’s no such thing as true glory without someone coming around to bitch about it. I’m serious as a heart attack right now. Believe it or not, some people actually complained that it wasn’t “fair” that I got the van when I’m not exactly a certified charity, and my dad and brother agreed. My dad and my brother are just too proud sometimes, you know what I’m saying? I’m trying to think of something funny to say about it, but honestly, after all my hard work, it totally pissed me off. So I said to myself, okay, Leo, what does a genius do? A genius arranges everything with a real charity to make sure this van will be donated to people with MND and other assorted jelly-legged diseases when I’m gone.