The Heaven Trilogy by Ted Dekker Read Free Book Online

every few months.”
    Kent turned to Spencer. “You should’ve seen her, Spencer. Miss Hotshot with her tennis scholarship trying to take on a runner. She might have been able to place the ball where she wanted, but I ran her into the ground. She wouldn’t stop. And I knew she was getting tired after the fourth set, because I could barely stand up and she was over there wobbling on her feet. I’d never seen anybody so competitive.” He glanced at Gloria. Some color had come back into her face.
    “Until she puked.”
    “Gross, Dad!”
    “Don’t look at me. Look at your mother.”
    Gloria just smiled. “Don’t forget to tell him who won, dear.”
    “Yes, your mother did whip me good that day—before she puked, that is. I think I fell in love with her then, while she was bent over by the far net post.”
    “Gross!” Spencer giggled.
    “Fell in love, ha! As I remember it, you were head over heels for some other thing in a skirt at the time.”
    “Perhaps. But it all began between us then.”
    “Well, it took you long enough to come around. We didn’t even date until you were out of school.”
    “Yes, and look at where we are today, dear.” He stood, slid his dish into the sink, and returned to kiss her on the cheek. Her skin was warm. “I think it was worth the wait, don’t you?”
    She smiled. “If you insist.”
    Twenty minutes later, Kent stood by the front door and saluted them, packed bags in hand. “Okay, you guys have the itinerary, right? I’ll see you at five o’clock tomorrow night. We have a plane to catch at six. And remember to pack the camera, Honey. This is one trip that’s going down in Anthony family history.”
    Gloria walked to him, still wrapped in her pink bathrobe. “You take care of yourself, my prince,” she said and kissed him gently on the cheek. “I love you.” For a moment he looked into those sparkling hazel eyes and smiled.
    He bent and kissed her forehead. “And I love you. More than you could possibly know, Sweetheart.”
    “See you, Dad,” Spencer said sheepishly. He walked over and put a flimsy arm around his father’s waist.
    Kent ruffled his hair. “See you, Chief. You take care of Mommy, you hear?” He kissed him on the forehead.
    “I will.”
    He left them standing at the door, his son under his wife’s arm. There was a connection between those two he could never entirely grasp. A knowing glint in their eyes that sapped his power, made him blink. It had been painfully obvious yesterday around the dinner table. But he had just made them rich; it was to be expected, he supposed. They kept exchanging glances, and when he’d finally asked them about it, they’d just shrugged.
    Man, he loved them.
    The flight from Denver International to Miami was an eventful one. At least for Kent Anthony it was eventful, if for no other reason than because every waking moment had become eventful. He had become a new man. And now in the DC-9 cabin, even his peers recognized him in a new light. Five others from Niponbank’s Denver branch were making the belated trip to Florida for the conference. He’d meandered about the aisle, talking to all of them. And all of them had looked at him with a twinkle in their eyes. A glint of jealousy, perhaps. Or a spark of hope for their own careers. Someday, if I’m so lucky, I will be in your shoes, Kent, they would be thinking. Of course, there was always the possibility that the glint was actually light—a reflection from the oval windows lining the fuselage.
    His boss, Markus Borst, sat three rows up with his shiny bald spot poking just above the seat like an island of sand in a black sea. Borst had worn a toupee over that bald spot all last year, discarding it only after the underhanded comments had driven him to hide for long days with a DO NOT DISTURB sign on his closed door. What the superior did behind that door, Kent could not fathom. He was certainly not breaking records for coordinating software design, as his title