The Best of Us

©2012 by Ursula Gorman

Published by TreasureLine Publishing

All rights reserved

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author or publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

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The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, to factual events or to businesses is coincidental and unintentional. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

Acknowledgments

This has been quite an experience to write…the story line changed more times than I care to count. That makes me even more grateful to those that I’ve bounced ideas off of and have endured the endless chatter and plot changes right along with me! First, to my sister Leatha West; she has been a lifesaver. Her help with editing and plot consistency has helped make ‘
The Best of Us
’, the best it can be! Thanks to Pat Garrison, who was my first Beta reader and my most often utilized sounding board! Her excitement in hearing how the story progressed helped keep me on track! I have enjoyed her feedback immensely! Thanks to Jessy Sharif, another Beta reader whose input helped tweak the final product.

Thank you to fellow author Darlene Shortridge, author of
Until Forever
. Your encouragement, advice, and especially your friendship, is valued and appreciated!

Special thanks to my family, who always encourage me. My husband Tim has always believed in me. My daughter Beth is my biggest fan and her enthusiasm is contagious! My son Shane, who isn’t old enough to read my stories just yet, is always reminding me that imagination is a valuable asset and should be honed and explored! My parents, Keith and Ruth Hill, and my brother and sister-in-law, Alan and Suzanne Hill, for always encouraging me! I love you all!

Most importantly, thanks to God for giving me an outlet for all the ideas bouncing around in my head! By His grace…

Prologue

Senior Year…

She wasn’t expecting the attack that came from her blind spot so when the impact came she was completely unprepared. As the almost two hundred pound weight landed on top of her, all the air was knocked out of her body. Her head hit the ground with a solid thump.

She could hear voices but she couldn’t make out what they were saying, they sounded like they were in an empty room, far away. She opened her eyes to look at the train that had hit her. She would have said something but she still hadn’t gotten her wind back yet.

He was looking down at her grinning like an idiot. Slowly the smile faded and was replaced by a look of concern as he realized he had hit her pretty hard.

“
DOG PILE!!!!” Was what she heard as the ringing in her ears started to subside.

“
If I’m gonna die, I would rather be taken by surprise.” She thought.

He moved so that his body was running the same length of hers. He had a knee on each side of her legs and his elbows were on either side of her shoulders, creating a bridge of sorts over her.

“
Hold on.” He said as a blur of bodies came running and jumping on top of them. He had leveraged himself up off of her to be able to take some of the weight of the added bodies piling on top of them.

She had closed her eyes when she heard the yell indicating that things were about to get worse. But he had managed to keep most of the weight off of her. She cautiously opened her eyes and was looking up at her best friends face. She was on the very top of the pile, smiling.

“
Hey Carly, what’cha doing down there?” Jenna asked, then winked at Carly.

“
Get off guys; I think I hit Carly too hard.” Daniel said, albeit with a strained voice, after all, he was supporting three people on his back.

Everyone sobered and got off Daniel. There was a look of concern on everyone’s face. Carly laid there on a gorgeous spring day, with the most beautiful blue sky above her, when suddenly all she could see was four almost identical faces looking down at her.

“
Carly, are you alright?” Harm asked

“
Come on Carly, talk to us.” Carter said squatting beside her.

Carly looked at Daniel, “You’re an idiot.” Carly said in the same tone you would tell someone what the time was.

“
Oh good, see, she’s not hurt.” Daniel said, reaching down and helping her up.

“
That hurt, you Neanderthal!” Carly said with venom as she hit Daniel in the chest, which was a wasted effort for all the reaction he showed.

“
Hey, we were playing football and you were staring off into space. It’s your own fault!” Daniel said in his own defense.

“
Yeah? First off, we are playing flag football which means no tackling and second, WE ARE ON THE SAME TEAM!!!” Carly finished in a yell, and then winced at the pain in her head.

All three of the guys busted out laughing and Jenna couldn’t help but join in. Carly glared at the four siblings and if her head hadn’t been hurting so much she probably would have joined in too. Instead she turned and walked back to the cooler to get some ice for her head.

“
Come on Carly, it was all in good fun!” Daniel said to her retreating back.

Jenna followed Carly to the ice chest, “You okay?” Jenna was a little worried; Carly wasn’t one to hold a grudge, especially against Daniel.

“
I’m fine, just knocked the back of my head a bit.” Carly sat in one of the lawn chairs they had brought to the park with them.

“
You know that if you don’t pay attention, one of the boys will do something…” Jenna let the comment trail off. They had both been recipients of the boy’s pranks from time to time and they constantly had to be on their toes around them.

“
Yeah, I know. But if I’m not mistaken, the dog pile call was yelled by a female Wayne sibling…unless one of your brothers is still going through puberty, I’m guessing it was you.”

Jenna tried for an innocent look but couldn’t pull it off. Instead she shrugged and gave Carly a sly smile, “I was just trying to help.”

Carly rolled her eyes, “Give it up.” Carly had been in love with Daniel since just about forever. Jenna had known about Carly’s feelings since day one but only occasionally teased Carly about it; apparently this was one of those days.

“
Look, he was lying there, you were lying there…” Again, Jenna let the comment hang.

“
So you think that dog piling us would somehow, what, make Daniel realize how much he secretly loves me and we would hook up? Get a grip Jenna.”

“
Of course not, but it couldn’t hurt.”

“
You weren’t the one on the bottom.” Carly said without heat.

“
Come on Daniel…” Jenna begged her brother. “She needs you!”

Daniel knew he couldn’t win, he had never been able to refuse his baby sister, but this time she was asking too much. “I am not, and I repeat, am not taking anyone to a prom…I did that already and didn’t enjoy it then. What on this earth makes you think I would want to torture myself like that again?”

“
Daniel,” Jenna started but Daniel talked right over her.

“
I’m not doing it! Come on Jenna, get real. I have two left feet and, I. Don’t. Dance.” He said the last three words as if they were each there own sentence.

“
She is going to miss her own senior prom...”

“
Why me? What about Harm?” Harmon was the oldest of the four siblings and was still single as all the Wayne children were.

“
He’s too old for her Daniel! Anyway, he’s doing his recertification for jumping and he can’t miss it.” Harm was a smoke jumper in Montana but had been on extended leave since he busted his knee on his last jump. They were all worried that he wouldn’t be able to jump again. For Harm that was like taking his oxygen away, he needed jumping, it was in his blood. No one was saying anything out loud, but they were all praying Harm’s knee would heal and he’d be able to continue doing the job he was born to do, jumping into forest fires!

Daniel knew not to try to argue about getting Harm to help, if he were going for recertification, nothing would stand in his way. Not even his baby sister.

“…
don’t you agree?” Daniel realized his thoughts had wandered when he didn’t know what Jenna had just said. He was trying to figure out how to answer her question. He knew he could get himself into trouble if he answered it wrong. Jenna also wouldn’t let him hear the end of it if she knew he hadn’t been paying attention.

“
Jenna…” Daniel felt that was safe, just let it hang.

“
Daniel, I won’t go without her and then neither of us will be at our own senior prom.” After a brief pause she added, “And it’ll be your fault!”

“
You’re kidding, right? You know that’s unfair. Why does it have to be me? Carter is closer to your ages, why don’t you ask him?” Carter was the youngest brother and just over a year older then Jenna and Carly.