Chapter 4

Mr. Black walked me out of the hospital. He was dismissing his friends to other, important work. My comment to him about maybe needing all them and more if Brooke was real upset with me.

"Brooke, is that your wife or girlfriend" he asked?"

"Beats me, she started out in my gym, then she started running some classes, she showed up at the ranch and moved in, so you tell me, I started out trying to date her sister, then... !"

"Yep! We may need those guys and more? If I may ask, is that 'other' girl that was at the hospital a wife or girlfriend too?"

"I think she was who I was trying to rescue, I just don't remember her looking like that though!"

"Your car is at the Dallas warehouse, I'll drive you back. Where are we going to, your home or the warehouse?"

"Let me make a call, see if Brooke is still talking to me?"

Several calls around went un-answered or to voice mail, even the Sat numbers.

"No answer. Do you of any recruiter around hiring or do I need to go to France to join the Foreign Legion, looks like I'm going to be a 'Forgotten Man' at least as far as Brooke is concerned. Oh! Wait a sec. One group already turned me down, that's how this all started to go downhill when I went to tell Paige they had booted me ... She was, I thought, my girlfriend, however, being number 99 on her list just wasn't what I was expecting. Hell I may be just exaggerating, I could have been just number 78. You married Mr. Black?"

"Bite you tongue, I watch over you for 3 days and now you curse me."

I guessed that he had strong feelings or scars about that, maybe both.

While we drove back to Dallas, I tried the numbers again with the same results. I called my friend in Plano to thank him for everything he had done. He merely said that was what a friend did. He was right about that too. In the future there would be opportunity to pay back my debt to him and to Mr. Black, but that was later on.