Kitabı oku: «Stranger in Town», sayfa 4

“No.”

Lazarus barked, probably in response to the tension he sensed in Gabe. Then there was a long silence during which Gabe wondered how to smooth over the rejection that had just shot out of his mouth.

“But you don’t even know what I was going to ask,” she said at last. “I mean, you make so much furniture. One chair can’t be all that important to you. Or, if it is, maybe you could make me one like it.”

That took him aback. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The chair on your front porch. I was hoping you’d sell it to me.”

Gabe blinked in surprise—and felt more than a little foolish. “You want my chair?”

“If I can afford it,” she said.

Smiling at Lazarus, as if his dog could share his embarrassment, he shook his head. He had Mike to blame for his false assumption. Maybe his vanity had something to do with it, too, but it wouldn’t have been the first time a woman had asked him out. “You can have it,” he said.

“No…I wouldn’t feel good about that. I’d rather…can you name a price?”

Gabe had no idea what to charge her. He’d never sold any of his furniture before. And he didn’t need the money. He thought giving her the chair was a great idea. It could stand as a token of his goodwill, so she could go on with her life without carrying any baggage from the accident. Then, whatever happened—whether he walked or he didn’t—it would be his problem exclusively.

“It’s no big deal,” he said. “Really. I’ll drop it by tomorrow after practice.”

“Now I’m embarrassed I even asked.”

“Why?” He began scratching Lazarus again.

“Because I can’t take it unless you let me give you something in return. What if we worked out a trade?”

His hand stilled. The suggestion piqued his interest, if only to see what she might offer him. “What kind of trade?”

“I don’t know…Do I have anything you want?”

Gabe waved Lazarus away and straightened in his chair. Was he the only one whose mind was suddenly painting erotic pictures? “Give me some suggestions,” he said. Since the accident, he’d tried very hard to cram his sex drive and anything related to male/female intimacy into a single compartment in his brain, a compartment he no longer used. Yet that innocent question from Hannah had his heart pounding as he imagined her naked beneath him, his lips gliding down her flat stomach….

She seemed to realize that what she’d just said could be misinterpreted and sounded embarrassed when she scrambled to clarify. “I mean, I’m a pretty good photographer. I could do some portraits of you.”

“Of me?”

“Why not? You could use them as Christmas gifts for your folks, or put them inside Christmas cards.”

Now that he had allowed the sexy images in his mind to take shape, he was having difficulty brushing them aside. Certainly, getting his picture taken sounded like a poor substitute for what he’d been thinking. He didn’t send out Christmas cards, and he wasn’t sure he’d be spending the holidays with this folks this year. Even if he changed his mind, a portrait was about the last thing he wanted to give them. “No thanks.”

“I could photograph Lazarus.”

“Uh…” He arched a questioning eyebrow at his dog, who’d returned to his favorite corner and was yawning again, then chuckled softly. “I love Lazarus, but I’m not really the type to hang up a big photograph of my dog.”

She didn’t try to talk him into it. She immediately moved on to something else, which strengthened his suspicion that she was working hard to compensate for the “Do I have anything you want?” blunder. “Then maybe I can cook for you. You’ll be busy now that you’re coaching, right? If you like, you could swing by and pick up your dinner after practice each day, then heat it up when you’re ready to eat.”

Gabe didn’t want to be distracted from the life he’d plotted out for himself—especially by the type of images he’d just entertained. But he knew Hannah’s offer wasn’t really about a chair. Despite the years that had passed, she was still looking for some way to feel better about her part in the accident. “I guess we could try it,” he said. “I could give Kenny a ride at the same time if you like.”

Hannah quickly agreed and seemed eager to discuss the details. But Gabe knew almost instantly that he’d made a mistake. He might have given way to Mike’s pressure to take over the Spartans, but that didn’t mean he had to let other people intrude in his life.

“Gabe?” she said when the conversation began to wind down.

“What?”

“What did you think I was asking for earlier?”

“When?” He already knew the answer—when he’d given her a resounding “no” before she could even finish the question—but he hoped to buy himself some time.

“When I was asking about the chair.”

No good answer presented itself. “Oh, something else,” he said vaguely, then added a quick, “I gotta go.” He hung up before she could press him, but the memory of her voice lingered in his mind as Lazarus followed him into the house. He’d let her cook for a week or so, he decided, as he changed into his T-shirt and shorts so he could work out. Then he’d thank her, insist it was enough and get back to growing his wheatgrass.

CHAPTER FOUR

GENERALLY HANNAH DUCKED her head and tried to go unnoticed whenever anyone mentioned Gabe Holbrook. There were too many folks in town who hadn’t yet forgiven her for destroying their favorite football star. She suspected they were more upset that they could no longer bask in his reflected glory than they were about his loss. But they often shook their heads and tsked when she passed by, especially at the beginning of football season and in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

Today, the mention of Gabe’s name made Hannah as self-conscious as ever. When Trudy Johnson started talking about the new coach at the high school, Hannah cursed silently and raised the cookbook she’d brought into the hair salon. She should’ve expected the town to be buzzing with the latest news. Folks in Dundee took school sports very seriously. Here, the high school coach possessed almost as much clout as the mayor.

“I never dreamed he’d accept the position,” Trudy was saying.

“I know!” Over the top of her book, Hannah saw thirtyish Shirley Erman crane her head around even though Ashleigh Evans was trying to put perm rods in her hair. Saturdays were always busy at the beauty shop. “He’s been living like a hermit for three years,” she said. “Then, suddenly, he’s the new coach of the varsity football team? I mean, I hate that Coach Hill passed away, but I think it’s great Gabe’s willing to take over.”

Hannah agreed. In her opinion, Gabe needed to feel passionate about something again, to regain his zest for life. But she didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure she wanted to draw attention to herself and suffer through that awkward moment when the others realized that she—the person who’d ended his career—was sitting only a few feet away.

“He’ll do a good job.” Rebecca Hill was giving Trudy a short jagged cut that looked far too Vogue for a little town in Idaho, but that was the beauty of Rebecca. She was artistic and dramatic, and she followed her heart. Since marrying Mike’s brother a few years ago, she’d grown slightly more conservative, especially since the birth of their baby. But she’d never be plain or boring. And her salon reflected that. Gone was the faded candy-cane-striped wallpaper and pale pink vinyl of the beauty parlor Hannah remembered from her childhood. Now the salon was decorated in black and white and chrome, had a checkered floor, sleek, contemporary lighting, and vases filled with exotic flowers. Recently, Rebecca had even changed the name. After she’d remodeled and expanded to include facials, electrolysis, massage and aromatherapy, Hair and Now had become Shear Temptation. Located next to an old-fashioned drugstore on one side, and a redbrick bank on the other, Shear Temptation looked like a spaceship parked between two Model T’s.

“Being a good player doesn’t make someone a good coach,” a voice nearby responded.

A quick peek around her book told Hannah that Deborah Wheeler, one of Coach Blaine’s daughters, had made that comment from a seat in the waiting area closer to the front desk.

Hannah had been so absorbed in trying to go unnoticed that she hadn’t seen Deborah come in. She lowered her cookbook. “Being a good player doesn’t make someone a bad coach,” she said, rushing to Gabe’s defense in spite of herself. Now that he was venturing back into society, she wanted to make sure he received the support he deserved.

Everyone’s gaze momentarily fixed on her. She waited for someone to mention the accident but, thankfully, nobody did.

“I just want what’s good for Gabe,” Shirley said, turning back to Deborah. “If coaching will give him fresh purpose, I’m all for it.”

“Even if he’s not cut out for the job?” Deborah countered.

“Even if he doesn’t win very much,” Shirley said. “My husband might disagree, but I say we can’t expect every season to be as good as the last few. Gabe needs this.”

Deborah had a thin, angular face. Now she pursed her lips as though it tried her patience to deal with folks obviously less educated than herself. She taught Honors English at the high school and acted as if she knew everything. Some of the ladies in town made fun of her, but she had her admirers. “Gabe doesn’t need this job,” she said. “He made millions while he was playing football. And anyway, no one should get a coaching position out of pity.”

Hannah opened her mouth to say that with a record like Gabe’s he’d hardly landed the job on pity, but Rebecca answered before she could. “Pity has nothing to do with it! Gabe’s well-qualified.”

Deborah shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand?” Hannah asked.

“Think about it.” She set her magazine on the table. “Making Gabe head coach places him in a position where he has everything to lose and nothing to gain. He doesn’t need the money from the job—”

“This isn’t about money,” Rebecca interrupted.

“—and if the team wins, so what? We’ve won plenty of times in the past without him.” She tilted her head at a jaunty angle. “But let’s look at what happens if the Spartans have a bad season. Now there’s a story. Poor, crippled Gabe Holbrook takes on his old high school team, a team with a winning season nearly twenty years in a row,” she was careful to emphasize, “only to watch them lose again and again. Which could happen. He’s an untried entity. So my question is this—do we really want to risk seeing Gabe fall any farther off his pedestal? The accident nearly destroyed him. What’s he going to do if he fails at this?”

Hannah suspected Deborah was actually more afraid Gabe would succeed. “He won’t fail,” she said.

Deborah folded her arms across her nearly flat chest. “You don’t know that.”

“I, for one, am proud of him for trying,” Shirley said. “People who won’t attempt something for fear of failing, cripple themselves. At least Gabe’s not doing that. His handicap was caused by an outside source.”

Deborah’s eyes seemed to slice right through Hannah. “You should know all about that, right, Hannah?”

Hannah clenched her jaw. Deborah certainly wasn’t perfect. She’d had an affair with the band teacher at Dundee High four years ago, which had caused a small scandal and broken up two marriages. From what Hannah had heard, Deborah had regretted her actions almost immediately and tried to win her husband back, but he’d refused to reconcile. Hannah knew she could point to that mistake and say, “Everyone lives with some regret, Deborah.”

But what was the point? Deborah hadn’t stripped a man of his ability to walk. Hannah’s sin was far worse, and the guilt she felt wouldn’t allow her to defend herself. If only she hadn’t tried to pass on that curve….

Rebecca spoke up. “That was beneath even you, Deborah.”

“This isn’t about the past,” Shirley added in a conciliatory tone. “It’s about the future. We, as a community, need to stand behind Gabe.”

“Why?” Deborah cried, jumping to her feet. “Why is he any different from the rest of us? If I got in a car accident and was put in a wheelchair, do you think this community would do anything for me? No! Because I’m not some hotshot football player. Just because he can throw a ball eighty yards doesn’t make him any better than anyone else,” she said and stormed out.

Hannah turned to watch Deborah flounce down the street toward her car. Shirley joined her at the window. “I heard she wanted Gabe,” she mused. “But I didn’t believe it until now.”

“Do you think he rejected her?” Ashleigh asked. Still unmarried, Ashleigh generally kept tabs on every available man in town and sounded put out that something might have occurred that she didn’t know about.

Trudy rolled her eyes. “Ya think?”

Shirley ignored Trudy’s sarcasm. “He must have.”

Hannah set the cookbook on the seat next to her. “Deborah was in my graduating class. She had a crush on him way back then, but so did a lot of girls.”

“I bet he’s never even looked at her,” Shirley said. “Probably the only thing that made her think she finally had a chance with him was that wheelchair. Otherwise, he’d be so out of reach it’d be like crying for the moon.”

Hannah wasn’t sure that rejection was the reason for Deborah’s sniping. Probably had more to do with her father not getting the position as head coach. But Hannah could certainly understand why Blaine’s daughter might find Gabe attractive. There probably wasn’t a woman in town who hadn’t fantasized about him. He was strong, talented, intelligent and handsome. Really handsome.

Remembering the look in his eyes yesterday, that brief flash of something powerful and erotic, gave Hannah the same fluttery expectation she felt on a roller coaster as it climbed the highest hill.

There were times she wanted him herself.

But even if he could forgive her, she doubted he’d ever be able to forget what she’d cost him.

SHOVING HIS EMPTY plate away, Kenny shifted uncomfortably in the booth at Jerry’s Diner and told Brent to eat the rest of his hash browns. Their dad had finally rolled out of bed at eleven-thirty, so they were having more of an early lunch than a late breakfast. But missing breakfast wasn’t anything unusual when they stayed with Russ. This Sunday morning had gone pretty much like all the others—except that Kenny had dragged himself out of bed the moment Brent had gotten up to watch cartoons. Kenny hadn’t intervened when his little brother helped himself to a candy bar first thing, but no way was he going to allow Brent to get hold of another porn video.

Brent pushed his potatoes around on his plate. “I’m stuffed,” he complained. “I can’t eat another bite.”

Looking immediately to their father, who’d recently started growing a goatee to compensate for his thinning hair, Kenny said, “He’s done. Can we go?”

Russ hooked an arm over the back of the booth and waved for the waitress to come round with the coffee. “Of course not. Coach Blaine hasn’t arrived yet.”

Kenny wasn’t sure if Blaine would show. Kenny couldn’t see a man like him having much to do with Russ, even if they both wanted to see Gabe Holbrook give up the job he’d just taken.

“He should’ve been here half an hour ago,” Kenny said. “Something must’ve come up.”

“We’re in no hurry. We can wait.”

His father was never in any hurry. But Kenny didn’t want to wait. He didn’t really want to see Blaine. Growing anxious, he started bouncing his knee.

His father scowled at the movement. “Jeez you’ve got a lot of energy. Has your mother ever had you tested for ADHD?”

Russ had only recently learned of ADHD—and instantly decided he had it. He saw symptoms in everyone else, too, and was quick to suggest medication. Left to him, more than half the town would be on Ritalin.

“I don’t have ADHD, Dad.”

“Coulda fooled me.” He added cream to his coffee. “You fidget more than Brent does.”

That was an exaggeration if Kenny had ever heard one. Brent was pouring sugar onto the table right now. His father had to take the sugar dispenser away from him in order to sweeten his coffee, but he handed it back as soon as he was done. Russ let Brent do just about anything.

“Don’t you care that he’s making a mess?” Kenny asked, irritated that his father didn’t act more like…well, a father.

Russ shrugged. “I don’t have to clean it up.”

“Someone does.”

His father grimaced. “You’re sounding more like your mother every day, you know that?”

Russ accused him of that a lot, probably because Kenny couldn’t come up with a good answer.

“Anyway, he probably has ADHD, too,” his father said, jerking his head toward Brent.

Ignoring them both, Brent squeezed ketchup all over the sugar volcano he was building on the table. The mess bugged Kenny enough that he would have stopped his brother, but after what his father had said, he couldn’t—not without sounding more like Hannah than ever. “He doesn’t have ADHD, Dad. People with ADHD have trouble focusing.”

“I know,” his father replied, nodding emphatically. “I’ve been struggling with it since I was a kid.”

Kenny wished he could believe that. But it sounded like another convenient excuse—the latest in a long line of excuses. “Brent focuses fine. And so do I.”

His father leaned forward. “Then, why don’t you focus on having a cup of coffee and quit bitching at me for a damn minute?”

Kenny wasn’t particularly sensitive to bad language. He could swear with the best of them. But he didn’t understand why their father had to cuss so much in front of Brent.

He shot a quick glance at his little brother to see if Brent had marked it, and knew he had when Brent shot him a mischievous grin. “Dad—” Kenny started, but fell silent when Russ’s eyebrows clashed, making a solid slash of brown above his golden eyes.

“What now?”

Kenny stared down at his plate. “Never mind.” It wasn’t any use asking Russ to quit with the bad language. His father would only do it more, or say that he and Brent needed to come live with him before their mother turned them into complete pussies.

The waitress came around, but Kenny refused coffee. While she filled his father’s cup, he glanced at the other tables, and froze when he spotted Josh and Rebecca Hill seated in the far corner with Booker and Katie Robinson. Like his brother Mike, Josh was a good friend of Gabe Holbrook’s, and Booker owned the only automotive repair shop in town, so he probably serviced Gabe’s truck. Which meant, if Coach Blaine showed up and Kenny sat talking with him for any length of time, Coach Holbrook would probably hear about it. Because his father and Blaine acted as though they had some problem with Holbrook, Kenny didn’t want that. His mother had told him to give Holbrook his loyalty and, despite his worries about getting to play, he wanted to. Maybe Hannah had put Gabe Holbrook in a wheelchair, but the coach was still a man who could command respect regardless of what the accident had cost him.

Keeping his eye on the clock, Kenny forced himself to sit still for another five minutes. Then he appealed to his father once again. “Blaine’s late, Dad. I don’t think he’s coming. Can we go? Please?”

His father glared at him. Then, muttering, “I’ll bet my ass you do have ADHD,” he finally tossed twenty bucks on the table.

Briefly, Kenny wondered how his father had twenty bucks for breakfast when he couldn’t pay his child support this month—he’d heard his parents arguing over it just last week. But he didn’t want to think about any of the stuff that made him angry. He’d learned early on when it came to his father he had only two choices—he could cut Russ out of his life, or he could put up with him. There was no other alternative, and therefore no way to win. It was important to take his father moment by moment.

At least they were leaving the diner now. At least Kenny wouldn’t have to face Coach Holbrook at practice on Monday knowing—

“Sorry I’m late.” Coach Blaine loomed over them before they could even stand all the way.

Swallowing a groan, Kenny flopped back into his seat. Russ did the same as Blaine slid into the booth next to him, wearing a muscle shirt and a pair of jogging shorts. Although Blaine was probably in his fifties, he was a stickler for physical fitness. Today he was sweating badly enough that Kenny knew he hadn’t been late for any reason other than a morning jog. Obviously Blaine didn’t think this meeting was important.

“I’m glad you could come, Coach,” Russ said eagerly.

Blaine waved for the waitress to bring him coffee. “What’d you want to talk to me about?”

Russ blinked as if surprised by the question. “I’m concerned, of course. Aren’t you?”

“About what?”

Most folks in town didn’t take his father too seriously. Blaine was clearly one of them.

“What do you think?” Russ replied. “The recent changes at the high school. I mean, you’ve given that team thirty years of your life. You can’t tell me you’re happy to be overlooked now that Coach Hill has passed on.”

A tightening around Blaine’s lips proved that he wasn’t happy about it at all. “They say it’s only for one year.”

“Well, if I know Gabe, he’ll decide to stay. What else is he gonna do now that he’s in that chair? And, if he does decide to stay, who in this town is gonna tell him no?”

Wiping away the perspiration rolling from his temple, Blaine attempted a shrug, but it didn’t come off as casual as he’d probably intended. “He won’t stay.”

“How do you know?” Kenny was unable to hold the question back.

Blaine seemed in no hurry to answer. The waitress had arrived with his coffee, and he waited for her to move away. “We probably have the weakest team we’ve had in over a decade. And now we’ve got a head coach with absolutely no experience.” His spoon clinked as he stirred cream into his coffee. “Add to that the fact that we’re all used to the Spartans coming out on top, and we’ll see how excited everyone is when we start losing our games.”

Kenny heard the eagerness in Blaine’s voice. “You want us to lose?”

“It has nothing to do with what I want,” he said shortly. “It’s what’s going to happen.”

If Kenny had his guess, it was exactly what Blaine wanted.

“You seem pretty sure of it,” Russ said.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be so sure if Gabe would listen to me. But I called him just this morning to tell him how things are normally run.”

“And?” Russ prompted.

“He said not to worry about the past. He’ll be making some changes.” Blaine grimaced at the sugar, ketchup and water mess Brent had created on the table. Grabbing the sugar container, he sweetened his coffee, then set it well outside Brent’s reach. “Coaching isn’t as easy as Gabe seems to think.”

“We’ve only had one practice,” Kenny said, wondering how Blaine could already be so convinced of their failure. Sure, they didn’t have the strongest team. Several of their best players had graduated last spring. But Kenny was still hopeful they could pull off a winning season.

“It’s Holbrook’s attitude,” Blaine explained. “He isn’t willing to learn from those who’ve been doing this far longer than he has.”

“So what do we do?” Russ asked.

“We wait, I guess. When the Spartans begin to lose, the school board will eventually step in and beg me to take over.” His long nose disappeared in his cup while he drank.

“I was going to ask you to look out for Kenny,” Russ said. “You know how Gabe must feel toward Hannah. I don’t want to let him take his resentment out on my boy.”

Blaine’s eyes flicked over Kenny’s face. He obviously wanted to say something, but he hesitated.

Kenny leaned closer. “What is it?”

“For God’s sake, if you think that might happen, use your heads.”

“How?” Russ asked.

“I’ll say it one more time. The more games we lose, the quicker Gabe will find himself back at his cabin, where he belongs.”

“Where he belongs?” Kenny echoed.

“He sure as hell doesn’t belong on the sidelines with me. And neither does that damn dog of his.”

“But will you take care of those who stick by you?” Russ asked.

Blaine wouldn’t look at him, but his words were decisive enough. “Of course.”

Kenny wasn’t sure he understood this exchange—wasn’t sure he wanted to understand it. He frowned as Blaine said, “Stay in touch,” and left without bothering to pay for his coffee.

Russ said nothing, and suddenly the clack of dishes, the tingle of silverware, the voice of the waitresses calling to the cooks and the hum of conversation at the crowded booths surrounding them seemed unnaturally loud to Kenny. At last, with a sigh, his father stood. “Well, you heard him.”

“I heard him say we were going to lose,” Kenny said glumly.

Russ lowered his voice. “I heard him say you’d better make sure of it.”

Kenny backed up as though he’d just encountered poison. “You can’t really expect me to do that?”

His father glanced furtively around, then shuttled him outside. Brent was still lingering in the booth, tearing up strips of napkin—but at this point, Kenny didn’t much care about the lack of parental intervention.

“It’s better to lose a few games in the beginning than to give up the entire season, and maybe next year as well,” Russ said, when the door closed behind them.

Kenny squinted against the sudden brightness of the sun. “But I can’t do less than my best!”

“I’m sure you won’t be alone. Blaine has two nephews and a second cousin on the team.”

Kenny knew that. The twins had necks almost as thick as Kenny’s waist and were part of the offensive line. Their cousin, with a much lighter build, was the kicker. “You’re saying Blaine and some of the guys are going to sabotage our games?”

“What do you think Blaine was talking about?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t do that,” Kenny said, shaking his head emphatically. “I’d let everyone down. I’d—”

“Do you want to play in the NFL someday?” his father snapped.

Kenny was so shocked at what his father had suggested, that he paid no mind to Tiffany Wheeler, who honked as she drove by. “You know I do.”

“Then you have to think past three or four games. Gabe won’t want to see you succeed. He’s never liked me, and you know what your mother did. Blaine’s our only hope. He’ll probably be taking over soon—next year if not this year. You scratch his back, he’ll scratch yours.”

The bell jingled over the door as Brent finally joined them, his shirt smeared with ketchup.

“But we haven’t given Coach Holbrook a chance,” Kenny replied.

Russ’s movements were jerky as he opened the door of the Jeep for Brent. “Coach Hill didn’t give me much of a chance when he handed my position to Gabe.”

Kenny remained rooted to the cracking blacktop. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

His father climbed behind the wheel. “Gabe’s already had his share of lucky breaks.”

“And unlucky ones,” Brent piped up, out of nowhere.

Sometimes Brent surprised Kenny. He was getting so big, catching on to more and more. But it was their father who surprised Kenny the most. “That’s life,” Russ said and waved for Kenny to get in.