Heaven's Touch by Jillian Hart Page B

all laughing, because whatever Cadence was saying to them, she obviously was making it fun.
    She was clearly a great teacher. The kids were engaged, watching her with eagerness. She swiped at the splashes hitting her square in the face and clapped her hands for the good job they’d done.
    That’s when he straightened from the bench and marched down the aisle, moving around the bleacher benches on his crutches to avoid moms and smaller kids sitting together in various stages of contentment. He didn’t look over his shoulder as he hit the doorway to the stairs leading down to the main floor. He knew if he did look back, then everything he had said to Cadence in the shadow-filled parking lot would have blown up in smoke.
    Put the past behind him. Sure, how was he going to do that when he couldn’t stop noticing the woman she’d become? Because she’d followed her destiny, he reminded himself as he navigated the concrete stairs. She’d followed the path God had put beforeher, and that path was a world apart from the one he’d been called to follow.
    The good Lord had known what Ben had needed, and the moment he’d signed up for the physical stamina test to qualify for the pararescue jumper program—similar to the brutal week of training for SEALs—he’d been hooked. It was a perfect fit, as if all his life he’d been training for this job in the military. He was a natural outdoorsman; he could track, hunt, shoot, evade, swim, run and dive.
    After finishing the Pipeline—the series of schools in his year and a half of training—he’d been happy. He loved training. He loved his first real combat mission so much, he’d been certain he’d found his destiny.
    And had left Cadence to find hers.
    Questions troubled him, but what had happened to her life since they parted was not his business. He was here because he couldn’t say no to his sisters. Because he knew Amy’s budget was tight with making ends meet. She had to manage Westin’s medical bills, largely from the hospital stay after he’d been swept away in the river, and plan a wedding.
    He was glad to watch the kid and save her the cost of a babysitter. He’d been equally happy to pay for the lessons—not that he’d told her yet that he’d laid down his own cash.
    Ten more minutes. He’d meet Westin in the boys’ locker room, get him dressed and they’d hit a burgerplace. He’d seen a drive-in just down the street. He didn’t get a lot of bacon cheeseburgers where he’d been deployed. But the thought of food didn’t prove a good substitute for his earlier thoughts.
    The main entryway was loud with the sounds of kids hauling rolled towels, coming and going with little supervision—or so it seemed. Moms with infants and toddlers struggled to dole out enough change for the pop machine or search through their bag for some necessary item for swim class.
    The front desk was busy. A line had formed, but he didn’t pay the folks there much attention as he passed. Until he heard a snippet of conversation that seemed to rise above the background din. “I had heard Cadence Chapman would consider taking another student, and we’ve driven all the way up from Wyoming.”
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman and her daughter. She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, with braces on her slight overbite and her dark hair pulled back into a ballerina kind of bun. She was coltish and lean, and reality punched him in the gut.
    Cadence’s years of competition diving were not behind her. She was a coach now. A teacher. She’d never left the sport, even here in this rural spot on the map. Why? She’d probably retired from the fast-track life and had opted for a simpler life.
    But that still didn’t explain why she was working at the county pool, at the county’s pay scale, which he would guess was far from