Seeing Daylight by Tanya Hanson Page A

thanks.”
    As she hung up the phone, curiosity churned. She could hear his uneven footfalls up the steps outside her door, his left leg dragging. A great deal of modern technology, screws and titanium held his bones upright, and he’d been on Pastor Hale’s prayer list for months. After his accident, she’d wanted to visit him as friends do when an old chum comes home again, but then Nick’s death had upended her own life and she hadn’t made it.
    When he came through the door, her heart didn’t hammer in the slightest. Oh, he was handsome all right. Tight jeans, well-loved boots with spanking new heels peeking from the hem. Black Stetson and sun-squinted eyes. All cowpoke and then some. But not the breathlessness of beholding Brayton.
    She always dressed for success at the office, her version of Vogue consisting of her favorite well-fitting black jeans, white blouse and its pearl studs complemented by a turquoise scarf draped around neck and chest. The butter-soft brown leather of her boots climbed up her calves like a man’s soft touch.
    Whew . Where had that come from? Because she had worn them knowing Brayton would like them? She forced professionalism into every pore.
    “Come on in.” She smiled, peacock-feather chandelier earrings dusting her cheeks as she moved from her desk. Jace’s grin seemed to preclude anything high drama. And with their history, she had no compunction at all about sharing one of the waiting room sofas with him rather than peering from behind her desk.
    “So what can I do for you, Jace?” She shook his hand then waved hers over the sofa. “Please, take a seat.”
    He didn’t answer or sit down right away. Instead, he balanced his hat on his fingers and turned his head every which way. The ragged but fashionable edges of his dark blond hair scattered over his shoulders and well, she couldn’t deny liking the sight. “Nice place.”
    “Thanks.” Looking around with him kept her reaction grounded. Two of Grim-Gram’s oils decorated opposite walls, one a delicious Western red-rock landscape you wanted to take a trail ride through, the other a portrait of Chief Joseph that had garnered her grandmother a blue ribbon at the county fair amateur art competition the year she’d died.
    Jace headed toward a burlwood sofa table set with a dozen framed photographs.
    “Nice picture.”
    She knew which photo he meant. The family portrait. Her and Nick’s family. Pain swam in her head. Her favorite Christmas present that year of Nick’s deployment, Scott had Photoshopped a picture of her holding Matty with a headshot of Nick in full dress uniform. The result was nothing short of astonishing. The casual onlooker would never know the picture of the three of them had been manipulated, hadn’t been taken at the same time, same place.
    “A good man. A hero.”
    She nodded, blinking back tears. Fingers tightened around the fringe of a sofa pillow. “That he was.”
    “You must miss him.”
    Good at reading people, Rachel reckoned Jace might be feeling out her burgeoning readiness to date again. “I do. But let’s talk about you. What brings you here? Would you like coffee? It won’t take but a sec to brew up a pot.”
    Jace moved aside the cluster of pillows and settled on the couch facing her.
    “Nope. I plan a stop at the Coffee Corral after this. Thanks, though.”
    Rachel tried to un-tense a tad against another collection of pillows. “How are you doing, Jace. Physically, I mean.”
    His sigh was long, and the look of dismay on his face cut to the bone. “I’ll be having physical therapy for a long time. Maybe my whole life.” His cheekbones reddened. “But mentally I’m just, well, not in a good place. I’ll never ride again. My rodeo career gone, just like that.”
    Her heart pounded just hearing the words. She knew all about split-second instances that ruined a life. Ruined lives .
    Ruined faith itself. Well, Esther might have found the truth in three days’ time, but Rachel