by Hart, Taylor
“Good.”
“Go on.”
He grinned. “The day arrived when Princess Callie became Queen Callie, and she taught her people to love and to care about each other. She taught them beautiful lessons about what it was like to care for other people. So instead of warring with each other, they laid down their weapons and began to get to know each other and get along.”
“That’s it?”
“Should there be more?”
Opening her mouth in a large yawn, she turned on her side. “No, I like it.” She gave him a half grin. “Thanks for the best night ever.”
He grinned back at her. “No, thank you.”
It felt like she was asleep instantly. He sat there with his hand over hers. It was strange to him that he’d changed so much in one day, that he actually felt different. At this moment, he understood why Sam had belted him last night when he’d been such a jerk about coming here.
Getting up, he softly put his hand on her head for a second. Warmth rushed through him. He didn’t know how much he could do, but he swore to himself that he would do anything he could to help this little girl.
When he walked out of Callie’s room, Ana was sitting on the couch. Her blond hair was curled around her face. She looked marvelous and tired.
He felt himself get more nervous, and then doubted completely that he’d be able to make her agree to his crazy plan. It was nice that Ana wasn’t upset like yesterday. She didn’t look angry or like she wanted to rip his head off, so that was a good sign.
She gave him a quizzical look. “I assume the date went well?”
“Oh.” He hadn’t even thought about the fact she would want a report. “It was great. Nice. Callie sure knows her mind.”
Ana relaxed and smiled. “Yes, she does. Did she ask you about your wife?”
She asked it in an embarrassed tone, so Brooks didn’t get defensive. He nodded. “Yeah.”
Ana shook her head back and forth. “That girl, she … she really does keep tabs on you. She thinks she’s going to take a whole-foods cooking class because of all of your posts on Twitter.”
This made him smile. “My agent told me to post stuff, and that’s all I could think to post.”
At this, she cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, I’ve noticed your image isn’t something you’re too concerned about. Refusing interviews, avoiding talking to the reporters after the game …”
Of course she would know everything that Callie knew. He smiled. “You have been paying attention.”
Ana shrugged. “I’m in PR. That’s my business. But ...” She hesitated. “With Callie, I can’t help but pay attention to the amazing Brooks Stone.”
He was taken aback by the way she said amazing, not sarcastically but also not like she really meant it. It left him actually liking this woman. “I guess I haven’t been in a talking mood this past year.”
Her face went sober. “I am truly sorry about your wife.”
“Thank you.” There was nothing else to say.
She checked her phone. “What did you need to talk about?”
“Man, you’re obsessed with that.” He nodded to the phone.
Her lips went into a straight line. “I’m waiting to hear about something.”
Then it dawned on him. “From the P.I.?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were the wrong ones.
Her face went red, and she looked back at the door before whirling back to him. “H-how?”
“Callie’s been checking your phone.” He blurted it out and instantly wanted to fix it. “I’m sorry. She told me you didn’t know.”
Her grip tightened on the phone, and with her other hand, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “What else did she tell you?”
He saw she was poised for another fight, and that was the last thing he wanted. “Did you know she thinks I can help you find her father?”
She took in a long breath and shook her head as her face turned sad. “I know.”
Guilt rushed through him. “I-I didn’t realize … everything.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Listen, I’ve made some calls, and—”
A derisive laugh came out of her. “Made some calls. Right. Because you’re a ‘professional football player.’” She marked the air quotes. “You made some calls. Well, Mr. Football, tell me, please: have those calls helped you locate Callie’s father?”
“No,” he said simply.
“Exactly.” She stuck her chin out. “Exactly. And she thinks that you coming here was a sign from God.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. She swiped at them like they were traitors. “I have had three different P.I.’s that I can’t afford looking for him. That …” She bit off the last part of the sentence and looked down. “What kind of a man changes his phone number and doesn’t keep in contact with his daughter, who has stage four bone cancer?”
Clearly, she wasn’t looking for an answer. He didn’t have one. All he knew was that he wished he did. Instead, he said, “I booked two tickets to Santa Monica for tomorrow morning. Tiffany Chance has been searching, and she scheduled an appointment for the best P.I. in that area.”
Snapping up her head, Ana gave him an incredulous look. “What?”
“Tiffany agreed to come and spend the next two days here at the hospital with Callie.” He nodded. “Callie said she really liked Tiffany, and she’s not touring at the moment. So I’ll meet you at the airport in the morning, and we’ll fly to Santa Monica and find him. We’ll get the signature. Then we’ll get you guys to Brazil.”
If Brooks hadn’t been the one to see the look on Ana’s face, he wouldn’t believe a woman could look simultaneously shocked and nauseous. Her hand went to her stomach. “Wait. I can’t believe this.”
He cleared his throat and continued. “I’ve thought about it. I don’t know why I’m the one God told Callie could help her, and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but the truth is I haven’t cared a fig about anything for a long time … and I want to try to help. But you have to realize something about me. Once I decide to get the ball down the field, you just have to get out of the way.”
Ana stood and steadied herself by leaning on the wall. “I … I don’t think I can leave her.”
Brooks turned for the elevator. “The tickets are for eight a.m. I’ll see you tomorrow at the airport at six-thirty. We’re flying Delta.”
Chapter 9
Ana Given waited in the area next to the Delta ticket counter. Insane. That’s what she was. Leaving her sick daughter. Going with Brooks Stone to try and track down her ex-husband. It still put her on edge that Brooks wanted to go with her. Didn’t he have to get back to Florida? He’d been someone Callie had followed on every social media outlet. Someone who Callie had rattled on and on about and made boards on Pinterest for. Someone who hadn’t been real, not until he’d entered their lives two days ago.
After Brooks had walked away, she’d spent an hour on the phone with Tiffany Chance, arguing about whether she should go or not. Tiffany had reassured Ana that it was okay for her to leave Callie. Then Tiffany had said the one thing that would convince her to go: “I know you have your doubts, but if God really sent Brooks to Callie, who are you to question that?”
Nervously, she bit her bottom lip, knowing that if her mother were still alive, she would have chastised her for it and told her to quit that, because it inevitably brought on a slew of cold sores.
But her mother wasn’t alive.
The reminder still stabbed into her heart sometimes. Her mother had been the rock in her life. Even when Ken had left her, telling her that marriage and family hadn’t been the life for him, she’d been okay, because her mother had been there. They’d moved into her mother’s house for the next six years. Every time she’d almost been ready to move out, her mother had found a new way to keep them with her, but in a good way, and a tender way. Her mother had been a professor, and she’d taken Callie with her to work a lot when she was a baby and a little girl. Her mother had
supported Ana through college and then supported her starting a public relations firm.
Trying to focus her thoughts, she wondered why Brooks Stone was doing this. As far as she knew, he wasn’t doing it for the reasons she would have advised her clients to do something like this—publicity. She had seen the photos he’d posted to Instagram, but she also knew Callie had wanted pictures with him on their date. As far as what she knew about Brooks, he’d been pretty much a hermit this past year, taking his wife’s death hard.
She wondered how it would feel to mourn a spouse like that.
Her mind flashed to the day, sitting in the doctor’s office with Callie, that they’d gotten the news. Bone cancer. That had been the hardest day of her life.
She closed her eyes and fought off the urge to give into her emotions. She’d learned over the past year that giving in only resulted in raw eyes and a pit of emotion that made her want to sleep.
But there was no sleeping for her. Not when Callie was fighting for her life.
Her mother had already passed by then, and there’d been so many nights she’d cried by herself in her bed, wishing her mother was there to help her through this, to help her make decisions. Ken, who had never been any help, still wasn’t there. He’d sent a couple hundred dollars for the mounting medical bills. The bills that were now piled on top of her student loans. The bills that she had discovered the insurance barely touched.
It wasn’t until she met Katie Young and Tiffany Chance a month ago that things began to change.
Just the other day, she’d gone into the billing office at Primary Children’s to make a payment, and they’d told her that her account had been cleared.
Thinking about it, a tear spilled down her cheek. Cleared? She’d been confused. They’d told her that she would never owe another payment to them. A private donor had taken over Callie’s medical bills.
She’d immediately thought of Katie and Tiffany, but when she’d asked them about it, they had acted genuinely shocked.
Deep down, she knew it had to be them. She also knew that no matter what her pride told her, she needed to just accept it. Having a chance to keep her head above water with the bills for Callie was the one thing giving her hope.
For Brazil. For alternative treatment for Callie.
“Hey.”
Jerked out of her thoughts, Ana gripped the handle of her bag. “H-hey.” It would be a lie to say that Brooks Stone didn’t make all of her senses come alive. She’d have to be blind not to notice his six-one frame, defined muscles, messy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. Not to mention the smell that lingered around him, all cool and fresh. It had to be some kind of aftershave.
Brooks squinted at her. “Everything okay?”
She stood straighter and wondered what he was seeing on her face. She hadn’t cried much. A tear or two. She’d begun wearing waterproof mascara, so she knew her little tear session wouldn’t have given her away. “Fine.”
“Great.” He nodded to the counter. “Let’s get our tickets.”
Half an hour later, they both sat in front of the gate, awkwardly sitting next to each other. Apparently both of them were following some unspoken rule about not talking.
Looking around at the people sitting next to them, she tried not to think about the fact that she was leaving her baby for the next two days. It felt strange being out in public and away from the hospital. It was like coming out of a bubble.
She wondered why people at the airport didn’t smile. Weren’t some of them headed off to sunny vacations? Airports should be happy places. They were gateways to new places and new adventures. But no one was smiling. Paradoxically, at the hospital, kids smiled all the time. For many people in Callie’s ward, they would never have a chance to go on another sunny vacation, but they still smiled.
She sighed and shook her head. She had to focus on something else. Opening up her laptop, she was relieved she could delve into the latest PR nightmare she was managing for a small business in Salt Lake City.
“Are you working?” Brooks asked.
She jolted at the sound of his voice, but then settled back. “Yes.” She refocused on the shoe store where one of the workers had tried to prevent someone from stealing and tackled them as they walked out the door. Unfortunately, it turned out the person in the long coat was an old lady who wasn’t stealing. Now they were battling bad press.
“Looks like quite the situation,” Brooks said, clearly reading the screen over her shoulder.
Turning to him and purposely ignoring the cool mint smell, she gave a small smile. “I really do appreciate what you’re doing for my daughter, but I have to get some work done, okay?”As she turned back to it, she realized that she had no idea how she would fix this problem.
“Red herring.”
She didn’t know if she’d heard him correctly. “What?”
Ripping open a protein bar, he took a bite. “Red herring. If a hunter wants to get the scent of an animal away from a trained dog, he runs a red herring across the scent, and it confuses the animal.” He let out a scoff. “You’re not going to make people forget about the old lady, but you can put out something else. Something that puts a good light on the company. The owner could give the lady free shoes for life, or he could help someone. Proactive press.” He flashed a grin.
In all reality, those were great ideas, but she was still stuck on the fact that he knew so much about how she could do her job.
“What? You don’t think I’ve been lectured enough by my PR people?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I might not do what they say, but I do pay attention.”
Completely disarmed, she laughed. He was so stoic on camera that she never imagined he’d be this animated in person. Hesitating, she began putting together an email based on exactly what Brooks said. She recommended that the shoe store owner offer the lady free shoes for life. She knew this would make the lady, who lived on a fixed income, extremely happy, and it would show goodwill. She smiled. “I think you just solved a problem for me, Mr. Stone.”
He took another bite of his protein bar. “You might tell my PR team that.”
Knowing he must be a PR nightmare, she let out another light laugh. Then she put in a couple of notes on the things that Brooks had said before shutting her computer. She pulled out a magazine, not looking at him.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?”’
“No.” Yes, but she wouldn’t tell him that.
“Yeah, I do.” He looked away from her, finishing off the bar and crumpling up the wrapper.
“No, you don’t.” She denied it in a quiet whisper.
Crossing his legs, he leaned back. “Okay.”
Looking around, she noticed that other people were looking at them. Him. Taking notice, she felt herself blush. She’d never liked being in the limelight, not even as a kid. He didn’t seem to notice the attention.
They both sat there, continuing to say nothing. Finally, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “Going to Santa Monica to help me hunt down a man I despise.”
Swiveling to face her, he cocked an eyebrow. “Do you despise him?”
She shrugged. “No. Yes. I mean … I definitely have choice words for the kind of father he is.”
After a couple of seconds, Brooks said, “Tell me about him.”
Chapter 10
Brooks wasn’t sure if Ana would tell him. But after what felt like forever, her story started spilling out of her.
“I met Ken when I was seventeen on the ski lifts in Park City. He was a ski instructor and a charmer. My friends and I thought it was fun to flirt with him. I had a season pass that winter and probably went up ten times before Ken and I were texting back and forth constantly. I turned eighteen in March and graduated in May. We were married, much to the horror of my mother, that July. I was already two months pregnant with Callie by then.” She shrugged and didn’t look at him.
Brooks gently put his hand on her forearm
. “It’s okay.”
Giving him a confused look, she tugged her hand away.
He felt like a complete idiot. Why had he put his hand on hers? He wasn’t that guy. He wasn’t touchy-feely.
When she continued talking, he felt himself breathe again. “He stayed that first year, promising that he would save a little more money and then start college. He still worked his job at the ski resort. It didn’t take long before he was getting ‘snowed in.’ He’d also started doing some UFC fighting, so he was gone a lot. I knew his being gone so much was more than just working and training to fight, but my pride wouldn’t let me admit it.”
“He fights?” Brooks knew it was stupid, but he so longed to get this guy in the cage. It would give him a chance to take out all the frustration he felt about Ken abandoning his family.
“He used to.” Ana shrugged. “I don’t know how much, or even if, he does it anymore. Before people started showing up at the house asking for money, I didn’t realize fighting was connected to drugs. He was fighting to pay for them.” She shook her head. “I was so stupid. I didn’t realize what bad news Ken was until our house was ransacked.” She snorted. “I showed up before they were done, and the thug said to me, ‘Lady, you can get hurt or you can wait outside. But if you call the cops before we leave, you’ll get hurt. Maybe not tonight, but you will.’”
Brooks found that it was easy to listen to Ana. Her story not only inspired him, but it also made him gain an appreciation for her protectiveness of Callie. She’d been on the front lines fighting a battle for her daughter. She had to be fierce and in charge. He found something else weaving its way through him; it was an emotion he didn’t recognize, but it felt warm and good. “I’m sorry.”
“Boarding flight two-nineteen for Los Angeles.”
Brooks couldn’t believe an hour had passed so quickly. She picked up her bag, and they went to board the plane. “Time flies by with you,” he said.
Flashing him a grin, she winked at him. “Good thing I’m interesting, because you have another two hours sitting next to me.”