Olympic Goals Read online

  Olympic Goals

  by Kathleen Y’Barbo

  2016 Kathleen Y'Barbo

  Forget Me Not Romances, a division of Winged Publications, previously published by Barbour Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the authors.

  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors’ imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  To Shirley Miller,

  an awesome sister-in-law and sister in Christ.

  Welcome to the family!

  Author’s note: The actual events surrounding the 1960 Olympic Trials in California and the Seventeenth Olympic Games in Rome have, to the best of my ability, been presented in the most accurate manner possible. Some artistic license has been taken in placing the fictional characters of Bonnie Taggart and Preston Grant and others into these events.

  Chapter 1

  April 1, 1959

  Preston Grant strolled past the broad windows of Setzer’s Main Street Drugstore and Soda Shoppe, then stopped to pick up a penny lying in his path. Without warning, the pharmacy’s door flew open with enough force to send him sprawling to the pavement. As he straightened, a pink blur flew by, leaving the loveliest fragrance of lavender in its wake.

  Her wake, he corrected, as the blur slowed a bit to reveal a feminine form with long legs and a runner’s stride. A runner? Preston shook his head to clear the cobwebs. This was no runner. A pretty shopgirl, most definitely, but not a runner.

  Yet she moved faster than any other member of the University of Massachusetts track team—all but himself, of course. As the fastest man on the UMass team this spring and an Olympic hopeful, however, he knew talent when he saw it.

  And this woman had talent.

  “Excuse me, sir!” a sweet voice called as pink high heels pounded a swift cadence on the sidewalk. “Please forgive me. I’ll offer a proper apology just as soon as I catch Mrs.—” She disappeared around the corner along with the rest of her statement.

  Dusting off his tweed trousers as he stood, Preston once again inhaled the sweet scent of lavender. Or perhaps he just imagined he did.

  The girl, however, was no figment of his imagination, for he would soon have the bruises to prove it. The thought occurred that he might be the butt of an elaborate April Fool’s Day hoax most likely perpetrated by his roommate, Tom, or possibly by one of the guys on the team.

  No, he decided as he tucked the penny into his pocket. That just wasn’t possible. The runner’s legs were too shapely to belong to one of the guys, and that voice had been far too sweet to be anything but genuinely female. The girl, whoever she was, was real.

  And this left Preston with a dilemma. Did he stay and wait for his apology or leave now and arrive at his meeting with the journalism department head on time?

  To leave would mean keeping the most important ap-pointment of his life, namely, the meeting that would decide whether his conditional acceptance into the master’s program in journalism would become permanent or not. To stay meant he would miss the appointment that could seal his academic fate, but it also meant he would meet the woman who moved like the wind and smelled like lavender—all while wearing pink high heels.

  A tough choice.

  Preston cast a quick glance at his watch, then toward the corner where the pink phantom had disappeared. Wouldn’t you know she had run in the opposite direction from the journalism building so there would be no chance of accidentally meeting her along the way?

  Again he checked his watch. He should head left on Main, back toward the campus, but perhaps just a quick jog to the right at the corner would be in order. What harm would there be in taking a look to see if perhaps she’d turned to head back this way? After all, she had offered to make an apology, and it would be terribly rude of him not to allow her to do so.

  It was the least he could do.

  He smiled. “The very least.”

  Thus, a plan was formed. He could casually canvass the general area within a two-block radius of Setzer’s and, if he hustled like the future Olympian he planned to be, still make it to his meeting with the dean just a minute or two late.

  Five at the most, if he kept his conversation with the girl to a hasty hello and a promise to phone her tonight. Surely the dean would understand.

  When he reached the corner, the woman in pink was nowhere to be found. Preston strained his neck to look beyond the bend to see if perhaps she’d gone that way. After all, there was an alley behind Setzer’s Drugstore, and she just might have returned through the back way. Preston was about to head off in that direction when a hand clamped onto his shoulder.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”

  “Tom?” Preston shook off his roommate’s grasp and straightened his shoulders as he jogged toward the alley that led behind the row of shops. “Yeah, um, the meeting. I know. I was just looking for—that is, I saw this girl in pink high heels run past and I tried to catch her, but—”

  “Really, Preston, I know you don’t have a way with the ladies like me, but a track star who can’t catch a girl in pink high heels?” Tom’s laugh echoed down the empty alley. “Oh, I get it. April Fool!”

  “You’re the April fool, pal.” Preston whirled around and stalked out of the alley toward Main. She could be walking through the same door she hit him with right this moment. Unfortunately, when he reached that door, the only person in sight was the Reverend Greene, who offered a crisp greeting before disappearing inside.

  One last glance at his watch told him he’d be five minutes late now, no matter what. Preston sighed and turned to head down Main Street, his elbow throbbing. Maybe the dean and his committee would understand his tardiness if he showed them his bruises.

  “Okay, okay. I give.” Tom fell in step beside Preston. “So tell me about this girl.”

  Preston laughed and gave his roommate a side look. “Let’s just say my first impression was a memorable one.”

  So memorable, in fact, that Preston had neither the attention span nor the interest for a lengthy meeting with the thesis committee. He managed to satisfy the dean’s questions and finish the interview in record time without having to show them his injured elbow, but when he returned to Setzer’s, the store was dark and the door locked tight. The only vision in pink was the advertisement for stomach ailment medication prominently displayed in the pharmacy window.

  ~

  The next two days were filled with morning classes and midday practices at the track, followed by afternoons working his part-time job as an assistant copy editor at the local paper. Although his intentions were good, he never managed to get to the pharmacy before the shop closed. A few times on his walks between the track and his dorm, he thought he might have caught sight—or, rather, the lavender scent—of the woman in pink, but without a clear image of her face, he couldn’t be sure.

  By the morning of the third day, he’d become so desperate, he even followed a lavender-scented coed with a blond ponytail to a dorm near the commons. When he noticed her staring at him out of a second-floor window on his trek to the cafeteria, he braved a wave. To his surprise, the coed waved back.

  Rather than suffer through the beef stroganoff advertised as the lunch special at the cafeteria, Preston decided to skip the meal and race over to Setzer’s for a soda and possibly an apology from a pretty girl. Unfortunately, he got neither, as the girl was nowhere in sig
ht and the line at the soda fountain was longer than he expected. As Preston walked back to campus, his stomach growling and his mind churning, he began to wonder if he would ever come face-to-face with the woman in pink.

  “Hi,” a decidedly feminine voice called as a blur in blue- and-white polka dots rushed past. Preston stopped short and turned to watch a blond ponytail disappear inside Setzer’s. For a moment he debated chasing the ponytail—and its owner—into the drugstore based on the highly unlikely possibility this girl might be the girl.

  If he followed the girl instead of logic, he would miss a practice, which would cause him to miss this weekend’s meet, coach’s rules. Even so, he debated a moment before turning his back on Setzer’s and heading for the track. Along the way, a plan began to formulate. Perhaps there was a way to meet the woman who plagued his thoughts and still make all his obligations.

  That evening at four-thirty, Preston pushed away from his desk at the Chronicle and strode toward the editor’s office. His boss, a family man with seven daughters, listened to Preston’s tale of woe with a smile. He handed him his weekly paycheck, then sent him off a half hour before quitting time to find the vision in pink—or whatever color she wore today—before the drugstore closed.

  Preston arrived at the sidewalk in front of Setzer’s at precisely fifteen minutes until five. His hand shook as he reached for the shiny brass handle on the door, the same handle that had left its mark on him a few days earlier.

  “Okay, here goes nothing,” he whispered as he yanked on the handle and stepped inside.

  The strong scent of antiseptic assailed him—nothing like the lavender he wished for. And then he saw her.

  Behind the counter, ringing up an order of baby aspirins for a young mother, stood the vision in pink—only today she wore yellow, the color of sunshine. At least he thought it was the same girl, although she did bear a strong resemblance to the pony-tailed coed from the dorm. Perhaps that was where he recognized her from.

  The only way to know for sure was to either watch her run or get close enough to check her for the scent of lavender. Neither option seemed likely at the moment.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  His gaze locked with hers, and his voice disappeared. So did his brain.

  Managing to garner enough coordination to shake his head, Preston retreated to the foot products aisle to rethink his plan. Perhaps his original idea of storming the counter and making a joke out of demanding an apology from the woman who had bowled him down wasn’t quite the tack he should take in this instance.

  “Are you shopping or sightseeing, young man?”

  Preston whirled around to see Mr. Setzer glaring at him from his perch at the far end of the counter. “Shopping, sir,” he said as he turned to grab a red plastic basket from the stack at the end of the aisle.

  The clock behind Mr. Setzer’s head read five minutes before five when Preston wandered up to the counter to wait in line behind Pastor Greene. Without a clear plan, he’d run out of time. He looked down at the basket and counted half a dozen items he would never use and another dozen he had duplicates of at home. Contemplation of a quick trip down the aisles to return the items to their rightful places on the shelves was interrupted by Pastor Greene.

  “Why don’t you go ahead of me, son? I’m still making my mind up about these throat lozenges.”

  “Oh, yes, um, thanks,” Preston said as he hefted the basket onto the counter, then dove to catch a roll of antacid tablets before they hit the floor. As he tossed them back into the basket, he braved a look at the girl behind the counter.

  All doubt vanished. It definitely was her.

  She reached for a pair of yellow rubber gloves sitting atop the basket, then froze. “Hey, I know you,” she said as she pointed the gloves in his direction.

  “Oh, really?”

  “You’re the guy from the other day.” The prettiest shade of pink, very much like the color she wore at their first meeting, rose in her cheeks as she resumed unloading the basket onto the counter. “I believe I owe you an apology.”

  Preston’s confidence rose, and he squared his shoulders and smiled at the vision in yellow. “How about you deliver that apology over dinner, Miss Sunshine?”

  She averted her eyes but returned his smile. “I’d like that very much. By the way, my name is Bonnie.”

  Chapter 2

  March 24, 1960

  Bonnie Taggart stood at the edge of the University of Massachusetts track and watched the love of her life clear the last hurdle to sprint for the finish line. Clicking a stopwatch, she shouted out the time, his best yet. Preston Grant acknowledged her with a wave and a smile, then turned toward the bleachers to grab the towel he’d left hanging on the rail.

  How she loved to watch Preston on the track. He was a natural—a future Olympic champion, for sure—while she, well, she was nothing but an accidental competitor at best. Somewhere this past year between deciding to subtly chase the handsome journalism graduate student and actually catching him, Bonnie had learned that she, too, had been gifted with the ability to run.

  Just last week, when she’d become distracted by thoughts of her upcoming math test, she’d actually come a little too close to beating him on their morning sprint from the steps of her dorm to the university track. If the truth were known, she could have tried a bit harder and actually arrived at the finish line before him, but why in the world would she want to do that? Merely spending time with Preston had been her goal. If she beat him, he might find someone else to train with for the Olympics.

  The Olympics. She shuddered at the thought. Pretend-ing interest in the goal of making the Olympic track-and-field team had given her plenty of time with Preston, but what if she actually achieved the goal of earning a spot on the 440-relay team?

  Surely the Lord had meant to give the gift of speed and endurance to someone more suited to the blessing. No more unlikely a woman ever graced a track than Bonnie Lou Taggart. Forget the Olympics. All she wanted to succeed in was being the best wife to Preston she could and, if God allowed, the best mother to his children. Of course, she would use the elementary education degree she hoped to receive at the end of the year to teach until the wedding, or possibly until the babies came.

  First she had to receive a proposal, however, and Preston was too distracted to consider anything besides track and field right now. After Rome, perhaps, but not now.

  Bonnie sighed. She’d been guilty of moments of distraction, as well, most of them directly related to her part in the upcoming Olympic Trials. If only she could tell Preston the truth regarding her fears.

  But loving Preston meant loving the Olympics, for the Olympic Games had been a part of Grant family lore since before the turn of the century. From his grandma Sophia and grandfather Henri to his parents, Jamie and Dameon, there had been no doubt about the meaning of the ancient competition to the family. Soon Preston would take his place in that lineage, the first to actually compete in the games.

  And bless his heart, he intended for her to participate, as well.

  Moments later, the object of her thoughts trotted over, sweating despite the persistent chill in the springtime air. The towel lay draped over one broad shoulder, and his short, sandy brown hair ruffled in the breeze. As he neared, Bonnie’s heart did its usual flip-flop.

  How she would love spending the rest of her life waking up next to him. God could not have blessed her more if He’d given her the sun and the moon and all the stars.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he whispered as he wrapped an arm around her waist and turned to lead her away from the track. “How did the makeup test go?”

  Bonnie shrugged and snuggled into his embrace, ignoring the damp towel sharing space between them. “Oh, fine, I suppose, but I missed our morning run terribly.”

  Actually, she’d missed him terribly, not the run.

  Preston chuckled. “You only skipped the original test because you were with me.”

  She looked up into brown eye
s flecked with gold and returned his smile. Ever since Preston had taken an interest in coaching her, he’d insisted she participate in every track- and-field event within a day’s drive of the school. “I know, but I hardly count spending the day at a university track meet as time spent together. When you weren’t running hurdles, you were on the sidelines watching me.”

  While she adored the time spent driving alone to and from the meets, the actual contest always left her a bit disconcerted. She won far more times than she lost when she raced alone, and her 440 team was unbeaten this year. Those victories were certainly worth celebrating.

  Still, all the wins in the world would not add up to one marriage proposal from Preston Grant. “Sunshine, you’re go-ing to give Wilma Rudolph some stiff competition as the fastest female runner in Rome,” he loved to proclaim.

  “Miss Rudolph can have the whole thing with my blessing,” she longed to say in response, although she knew she never would.

  Preston removed his hand from her waist and entwined her fingers with his. Again she returned his smile as they walked along in companionable silence.

  What’s taking him so long to propose?

  His graduation was just a few months away, and if Bonnie hadn’t cut her class load back drastically to facilitate her track events, she would be finished as well. Now it would take until next year to receive her degree, but to her mind, the time had been well spent—with Preston.

  Preston had certainly talked all around the subject of marriage in the months since last fall when they’d realized the seriousness of their relationship. Just a week ago, he had expressed an interest in what she intended to do after graduation, then indicated concern when she told him of her plans to take a teaching job at the elementary school where she currently did her student teaching.

  No wife of his would work once the children began arriving, he’d stated firmly. What he hadn’t been firm about was just exactly when he intended to make her his wife.