by Kyra Jacobs
Because he’d be on that team, he felt it in his gut.
“So, tell me about yourself, Ms. Shaw.”
She arched a brow over the rim of her coffee mug. “Tell you what?”
“You know, where you grew up, the school you went to. That kind of stuff.”
“Oh.” She set her mug down, cupping it with both hands. “Well, I grew up a few hours west of here. Attica, Indiana—ever heard of it? Yeah, neither has anyone else. Not too different from here, really. Older homes, surrounded by farms and a few factories here and there. I was the only child to two overbearing parents and couldn’t wait to leave home. So I did, the first chance I got.”
“Boyfriend?”
She smirked, still not meeting his gaze. “No, my cousin Lauren. She needed someone to share an apartment with after she’d been accepted at Indiana’s Fort Wayne campus. I hadn’t applied anywhere but Purdue, since it was practically in my backyard, but followed her over here anyway.”
“Bet your folks loved that.”
“Oh, yeah. Loved it so much they didn’t speak to me again until Tyler was born. Got an earful then, too, like they’d been saving up or something.” She blushed and glanced up. “Anyway, that’s my story. What about yours?”
Scott frowned. What kind of parents would disown their kid like that? His dad might never have been around, but at least they were always on speaking terms.
“Hold up. So your parents didn’t talk to you for how long?”
“Six years.” She turned her attention back to the mug between her hands.
“But they’re better now that you’ve got Tyler, right?”
“If by better you mean sending a card with twenty bucks in it for his birthday each year, then yes.”
“And when your husband passed?”
“Flowers with a brief ‘sorry for your loss’ note attached.”
Sorry for your loss? What kind of parents did that? His dad might not have won any awards for best supporting father over the years, but even he would have altered his busy schedule to make time for a family funeral.
Scott shook his head.
“Damn, that’s cold.”
Felicity shrugged. “What can I say? They’re masters at holding a grudge.”
“So how did—”
A muffled song erupted across the booth. Felicity dug into her purse and retrieved her cell phone.
“Ha, it’s your agent. You wanna tell him how it went?”
J.B. must have listened to the interview online—not surprising, given how long it’d taken to come to fruition. That pain in the rear had been after him for months to do one.
“As if he doesn’t already know.” He took her offered phone and answered the call. “Yes, I survived, and no, I’m not running for the border.” Yet.
“Attaboy!” said J.B. “See? It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Scott. I bet you even had fun, though you’ll never admit it.”
So true. “J.B., you have an unusual definition of fun.”
“Quit whining, you big baby. You got your name out there without having to wear makeup or eat any poisoned yogurt.”
“For the record? You made me eat the yogurt.” He scratched at a ghost itch on the back of his neck. That TV ad had been his first…and his last.
“Oh, whatever. The hives went away, didn’t they?”
Scott pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed an agent, and J.B. was one of the best. Still, the idea of decking him did have a certain appeal to it.
A soft hand brushed against his. Scott glanced up to find Felicity extracting her phone from his grasp. “Before you break it,” she whispered. “Hi, J.B. Yes, our boy did very well at the studio. Getting there? Oh, it took a little doing. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
A devilish smirk tugged at those perfect pink lips, and Scott reached for his glass of ice water again.
Not helping…
“Yep, we’re headed to the school next. Shoot, we’re going to have to eat fast; it is getting late. Yes, I’ll give you an update later. Thanks, you, too.”
She hung up just as the food was arriving. At her prodding, they ate quickly, and Felicity grew quiet. He wondered if she was thinking about her past, and he felt bad about bringing it up. All too soon, they were back on the road, heading to his next appointment.
This one, unfortunately, wasn’t a radio interview—it was in front of a live audience. School-age kids or not, the idea of him getting up in front of a group had his anxiety building. Scott replayed their lunch conversation in his head as the miles passed, desperate for a distraction.
He found it odd Felicity had talked about her parents, her move east, but nothing about her late husband—how they’d met, if they’d been in love, how long they’d been together before Tyler came along. Maybe they hadn’t been? Maybe the kid had been an oops? Maybe not?
“You ready for round two?” she asked, turning off the highway and onto Sparrow Street.
At the end of the block stood an aging but majestic brick building, one he’d spent countless hours in as a kid…and the last place he expected to be. Panic wove its icy claws around his spine.
“I thought you said we were going to the middle school?”
“This is the middle school.” She cast him a curious glance. “Hasn’t it always been?”
He shook his head, unable to form another word as they drew closer still. The plantings dotted along the campus perimeter looked different, newer perhaps, but the school itself remained a timeless presence among the town’s aging bungalows. For all the happy memories he’d built there in grades K through six, his last few months at Quail Hollow Elementary had cast a black cloud over them all. It wasn’t until Felicity pulled into the lot that he realized he hadn’t been back since the second to last week of sixth grade. Memories slammed into him of that final trip out the school’s front doors, Edna holding his hand, leading him to the car and telling him it would be okay, that they’d make it in time.
But they hadn’t.
By the time they’d reached the hospital, his mom had already passed. He could still hear his own cry of agony at the discovery, him pleading for it not to be true, for someone to wake her up one last time so she could tell him she loved him. So he could tell her goodbye. The suffocating ache in his chest had taken years on the soccer field to dull. And now, with just one look at the place he’d been instead of where he’d needed to be, the pain of loss broadsided him anew.
Scott slammed the passenger door open and gave up his lunch.
…
Felicity followed Tyler up Lauren’s front walk that evening, more than ready for some downtime. Between playing chauffeur to Scott all day and an emotional return trip to the eye doctor’s afterward for Tyler, her encouragement reserves were beyond spent. Nothing a nice long soak in that claw foot tub wouldn’t fix. Unfortunately, Edna had pounced on her the minute she dropped Sir Puke-a-Lot back home, asking for a ride to and from bingo tonight. With as gracious as the woman had been to let them stay at her place, how could Felicity refuse?
So when her cousin texted earlier with an invite to come over and chill in between, it’d been a no-brainer. Tyler could go off and play with his cousin Sam—a blessed distraction from the new glasses he insisted made him look like a nerd—and she could get in some girl time. The tub would still be there when she got back.
Lauren’s family lived in a modest, pale green two-story a few blocks from downtown Quail Hollow, their yard dappled with shade from the mature trees growing all around them. Like most homes on her side of the street, its concrete walkway stretched from curb to covered porch, and an aging sidewalk cut lengthwise through the front edge of their lawn. The driveway ran between homes, leading to a detached garage set farther back on their narrow but deep lot. Fans of the outdoors, this time most days Lauren and her kids would be outside doing one thing or another. Today, that something involved sidewalk chalk and giant pink and yellow smiley fac
es.
Lauren looked up as they approached, a broad smile lighting up her face. “Well, hello there, handsome!”
“Hi,” grumbled Tyler, who continued on toward the house without another look back.
Ellaina, Lauren’s youngest, abandoned her artwork and sprang to greet Felicity. “Aunt Fee!”
Such a delight, that four-year-old, always prancing around on her tiptoes and giving the best hugs. She dashed past Mr. Grumpy Pants and gave Felicity an extra tight squeeze.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Aunt Fee needed that. Thinking Tyler might need one, too.”
Her niece of sorts gave a nod and half skipped, half pranced her way inside, most likely to chase down Tyler and administer a dose of cousinly hugs to him as well. Lauren rose and wiped her hands together, the movement creating a small plume of chalk dust. “It went well, I see?”
Felicity blew out a sigh. “‘Well’ might be stretching it.”
“They look adorable on him.”
“That’s what I said, which was apparently the wrong thing to say. He’s convinced he’s going to get picked on for looking like a dork.”
“Kids can be cruel, but he’s got a great teacher. She’ll keep them in line.” Lauren tipped her head toward the front door. “Thirsty?”
“Yes.”
“Vodka?”
“Just a splash. And I love you.”
Lauren laughed and led the way inside. “So, how’d it go?”
“Oh, you know. Eighty thousand tiny adjustments to get them sitting on his nose just right. I’d hoped he’d get John’s twenty-twenty vision, but unfortunately, he inherited my bad genes.”
Felicity eased onto a bar stool along Lauren’s recently remodeled kitchen counter. They’d done such a nice job in here, with the painted white wood and black marble-looking granite countertops. She ran a hand along its surface, green with envy.
“I meant with Scott.”
“Oh.” She laughed as Ellaina reappeared and wiggled up into her lap. “Well, you were right—he’d planned to give me the run around again today. But I took your advice and beat him to the punch. Managed to get him to that radio interview this morning, and the middle school was thrilled to have him come speak to their seventh- and eighth-grade gym classes. Thanks again for the assist on that one.”
“No problem. Did he fight you on any of it?”
“Only at first, then he switched to stalling. I swear, he came up with more excuses to avoid the radio interview than Tyler does at bedtime on the weekends. But this afternoon he was…different.”
“How so?”
The image of him in her Chevy returned, of the moments just before he left the school that horrid gift in the parking lot. He hadn’t been nervous, not with his eyes wide, body frozen, and pulse pounding in his neck. No, she’d seen that look before in her own reflection enough times to know it wasn’t nerves.
It was fear.
“I don’t know. Like being there brought back bad memories or something. Come to think of it, he made it sound like that building hadn’t always been the middle school.”
“Oh, it wasn’t. They built a new elementary school a few years ago down the road. That freed up space to move two grades out of what used to be the junior-senior high.”
“Makes sense.” Felicity ran her fingers through Ellaina’s long, blond hair, as her “niece” seemed content to cuddle for the moment. “I wonder what happened to him? Think he was bullied or something?”
“Beats me. I could always ask Michael, see if he knows. They were a couple years apart, I think, but you know. Small towns talk.”
Yeah, they did. It was a big reason they left Markle, Indiana after John passed. She couldn’t walk to the mailbox without feeling like someone was watching and whispering. So far, the forty-minute drive seemed buffer enough to leave the gossip behind. Quail Hollow had been welcoming, but would that change if they knew the truth?
“It’s not a big deal. I mean, if he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”
Lauren slid a glass of adult lemonade across the counter then raised her own. “Sounds to me like someone’s feeling slighted he hasn’t already.”
“Uh, no.” Felicity took a sip to test the waters—not too bad a burn—then took a longer drink. Was she feeling slighted that he’d puked out her car then clammed up about why? Really, it wasn’t any of her business. After losing her husband to a freak opioid overdose, she of all people could respect that. But still…they’d spent another two hours together after that. Surely, he could have given her something.
But you haven’t given him anything, either.
She wanted to ignore her conscience on that one, but it was true. Scott had been working up to asking about John over lunch—his body language had given him away. Thankfully, J.B. had called and saved her from having to give him an answer. If she wasn’t ready to share her skeletons, she had no excuse for feeling bothered that he hadn’t shared his.
Only, she did. And that troubled her even more.
By the time she and Tyler collected Mrs. Gillie and made it back to her cozy farmhouse that night, her son was out cold in the back seat. Felicity watched to make sure Edna got inside all right, then gently scooped Tyler up. He frowned at the jostling, then wrapped his arms around her neck and dozed back off. The smell of sweaty little boy assaulted her senses, but she didn’t mind. It wouldn’t be long before he was too big to carry. Smelly or not, he was her baby, and she planned to take advantage of his cuddles for as long as possible. She mounted the stairs, careful not to wake him again, and rounded the corner to find Scott on his crutches coming toward them. He moved aside, brows tugged together.
“He okay?”
“Yeah, just tuckered out.”
Scott nodded, watching them go. Silently, she hoped he would head downstairs so she could get that bath she’d been craving all evening. There, alone amid the bubbles, she could get her priorities straight. Priorities that did not include good-looking soccer players she secretly wished would kiss her again.
Mental palm-to-forehead moment. Hard to get priorities straight when her libido was threatening sabotage.
She slipped into Tyler’s dark room, inched her way toward his bed, and felt around for the top edge of his comforter.
“Here.” A soft clink sounded behind her, and she turned to spy Scott in profile, setting his crutches against the wall. He hobbled past her and peeled the bedding back in one smooth motion. Like she should have expected anything less.
“Thanks,” she whispered, again mentally wishing him away. Again, it didn’t work. He stepped back but remained nearby as she got Tyler tucked in. Usually, she and her son would share a few minutes side by side on the bed, making up silly stories or sharing events from their day to help him wind down. Tonight, there was no need. She swept her son’s bangs aside, planted a kiss on his forehead, and slipped the new glasses from his little nose.
“How’d it go at the eye doctor?”
Not wanting to wake Tyler, she set the glasses on his nightstand, then caught Scott by the arm and tugged him gently toward the hall. He was warm, warmer than she’d expected, and far more solid than he looked. Oops, there went her ridiculous libido again, calling every nerve ending to red alert.
Newsflash, libido. Nothing is going to happen. Stand down. I repeat, stand down.
He paused at the door to grab his crutches, and Felicity gladly released him. Well, mostly gladly. Sort of.
They made their way into the hall, and he repeated his question.
“Fine,” she said, pulling the door shut behind them. “It’s just going to take some getting used to.”
Scott smirked in the dim lighting. “I remember picking up my first pair. I cried like a baby.”
“You wear contacts?”
“Used to. Had laser surgery done in college.”
A shiver rattled her. “No thanks. For as tired as I get of messing with mine, I don’t think I could do that.”
Scott shrugged. “It’s not as bad as you�
��d think.”
She highly doubted that but kept the opinion to herself. Quiet descended on the hallway, the only discernible sound that of a TV somewhere downstairs. Scott made no move to retreat, and the awareness of him standing close by grew with each passing second. Felicity glanced toward the bathroom, longing to escape before she did something stupid…like tackle him right here in the hall.
“I wanted to apologize about earlier,” he said.
That explained why he was still here. She shrugged. “No need. Sorry if I pushed you too hard on our first day.”
“It had nothing to do with you. I just…didn’t realize that’s where we were headed.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He took a hesitant step closer, and her pulse quickened. God, she wanted him to kiss her again.
“Or not,” she whispered.
He leaned closer still, his gaze scanning her face…and settling on her lips. “Maybe another time.”
Warmth spread through her body as though it was waking from a long winter’s nap. She knew she shouldn’t want this, knew he’d be gone soon and there was no future with the man, but something about that made this chemistry between them that much safer. He reached to tuck a few stray strands of hair behind her ear, his touch electrifying. It was all she could to do stay still. But if anyone was going to make the first move, it had to be him. She wouldn’t jeopardize her job, not for him or anyone.
Scott set his crutches against the wall and hooked his fingers into the tops of her front jeans pockets, pulling her to him.
“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.”
Felicity felt the air leave her lungs as his nose skimmed along her cheek. “Me, either.”
“Thinking I’ll go crazy if I can’t have another.”
Her knees went weak. “We can’t have that.”
“No?”
His lips pressed into the hollow beneath her ear, and a shiver rattled her from head to toe. She let her eyelids fall shut in anticipation, heart hammering in her chest as Scott kissed his way along her jawline. Each press of his lips was slow and deliberate. Felicity slid her hands around his waist, needing stability.