Chloe was too nervous around Libby. Something was off there—more off this school year than ever. Too off for Law’s ex-wife to be the paragon of parenting she made herself out to be.
“Law is the perfect man for this job,” Kristen said, with nothing much to back up her declaration beyond instinct and every moment all these years that she’d secretly watched him from a distance. Or not so secretly, as it turned out.
She cringed at the memory of him calling her on her semi-stalker behavior. Not to mention the thrill she’d gotten from his admission that he’d been covertly watching her, too. Now she was publicly defending him in a way that he’d likely resent.
She should probably stop that.
She should stop everything that made her want to be the one Law was taking a special interest in, instead of Fin. Otherwise, one of her finest teachers, her very observant friend, and every child on the playground would catch her obsessing about an off-limits man her body was still tingling for.
“I’ve got no time to coach a new team,” Law said to Fin, remembering the way the boy’s smaller hand had shaken his firmly, demanding that Law take him seriously.
Then he’d offered up an apology for harassing Chloe that Law had said he’d need to hear before they talked about anything else. An apology Law hadn’t expected to receive—the same as he hadn’t expected Kristen’s stunned reaction to him a few minutes ago, or his to her, when he’d finally shaken her hand. She’d softened a split second before she’d been the one to pull back first.
So far, Fin had surprised him just as much. The kid had said yes to Law’s angry question about whether or not he knew how to act better on the soccer field than he did on the playground. The boy had made it sound like a four-letter word, but he’d said yes.
“I don’t care if you coach me,” Fin said now, when playing had to be pretty important to him, or he’d be off laughing it up with his buddies. “It’s no big deal.”
“Good,” Law said, pushing a little harder to see what the boy was made of, the way he’d pushed Kristen to acknowledge the attraction between them. “Because if I do coach, and if you even turn up for tryouts, I don’t put up with mouthing off or talking back or causing problems with the other players. And you sound like a kid who can’t keep quiet and out of trouble for more than five minutes at a time. If it’s no big deal to you, then I can cut you the first day and save myself some drama.”
Not that Law was going to coach.
Not that he appreciated Kristen’s expecting him to care about how his not coaching would affect someone else’s child, once she’d finished making him worry all over again about Chloe’s determination to give up on a sport she’d loved.
He’d beaten a hasty retreat from Kristen’s impassioned plea on Fin’s behalf. He’d intended to head for his truck and forget everything that spending five minutes with her had made him think and feel and doubt. But Fin had been there. And then Law had been standing next to the kid, damn it. And he was still standing there, still wanting to take the easy way out, but pinned by the boy’s angry, detached gaze.
There was something in the air around Fin. He had the edge of a hoodlum who was taking in everything that was said and done, without letting on that he cared about any of it. Even the way the other boys had moved around and away from Fin made it clear they thought he was a punk. Except he wasn’t. Law couldn’t have said exactly how he knew that, but he did.
“I don’t do tryouts,” Mr. Tough Guy grumbled.
Law actually laughed at that one. It was impossible not to like a kid who was as cocky as Law had been at the same age. “You’ll be at tryouts. And you’ll be the first to show up, if you want me to take you seriously after what I’ve seen of your lousy attitude.”
Kristen had said the boy had been orphaned three years ago, and that Chandlerville and the Dixons were the nine-year-old’s fourth attempt at settling into a foster home. Marsha and Joe were having trouble integrating him. Everyone in town knew the couple couldn’t love and care more for their court-appointed family if the kids had been their biological offspring. Yet their brand of gentleness and kindness hadn’t even made a dent.
Which made Law what, exactly, in this plan of Kristen’s—some kind of scared-straight boot camp?
He couldn’t even talk his own daughter into playing, when soccer had been their thing to do together since she was a toddler, second only to weekly pilgrimages to the zoo. But it wasn’t cool to be a jock now, she’d said, not according to her girlfriends or her mother. Not if it meant running around on a soccer field like a boy, sweaty and messy and gross, Chloe had dubbed it just that morning, when he’d tried to talk about the upcoming season again over breakfast.
For both their sakes, please help me make that happen…
“I don’t care how much of a natural Ms. Hemmings tells me you are with a ball,” Law heard himself saying. “I care what you can do on the field, with a team. And no one in Chandlerville has seen you do anything but shove people away. You don’t want to belong? Then how do you expect to run plays with other kids? You’d have to actually care about someone else to be able to execute at the level my teams play at. I’d need to see how you work on the practice field to consider adding you to my roster. Or you can keep wasting your talent and missing out on the chance to get better, just to prove some stupid point about not needing anyone.”
Law was being an ass, something he’d never let himself do in the five years he’d coached Chloe’s teams. He knew absolutely nothing about Fin, or the things the boy was dealing with. If Law never saw the kid again, he owed him better than ripping Fin a new one in the middle of recess—because Law still had the shakes from how unexpectedly hard it had been to keep his cool with Chandler’s assistant principal.
Kristen had struck a nerve, too many of them. She’d gotten straight to the heart of things, smacking him with too much all at once that no one else in town would have dared to confront him about: Chloe getting worse, not better; Libby’s being determined to drag their daughter into the middle of their problems, and him not doing enough to make her stop; Kristen looking and sounding and feeling like the antithesis of his screwed-up life, when all she’d done was ask him to reach out a hand to help a troubled kid. That, and she’d made Law want to be the good man she seemed so determined to believe he was.
And maybe that expectation had been what he’d run from the most.
What had she said about believing Law wasn’t the kind of man to give up? He sighed, making himself refocus on the boy.
“I’m betting you care a lot more than you’ve let people around here know,” he said, “about soccer and a bunch of other things. Right?”
Fin shrugged.
“If you care about things,” Law tried again, “you should do everything you can to keep them in your life.” The way he was doing everything he could to keep Chloe. “If you do get the chance to play, you should play. Don’t let being cool to your friends, or not wanting people to know how you’re feeling, keep you from doing what you’re good at. Don’t do that to yourself, or the life you could make work here.”
Fin blinked up at him, his eyes suddenly wide and bright and shiny.
A lump rose in Law’s throat. Kristen’s plan settled deeper. He felt an unwanted connection to her and this parentless boy. He looked over and caught the hopeful, flustered smile on her face, and remembered how good it had felt to know he’d rattled her composure for those few moments.
Damn it.
He was going to regret this.
“I could coach you,” he said, reminding himself that there was technically still no team to coach. And if there were, would Fin even want to play after how badly Law had handled this? “Or you could keep picking things up as you go and never learn any more than you can teach yourself. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”
It really didn’t. Unless…
Something Kr
isten said finally registered.
“You’ll have to get my daughter to agree to play with us,” he said. “Since you two are classmates, that shouldn’t be so hard to do. Right? If I coach, team tryouts wouldn’t start until after the holidays. But I’d want to work with you in the park before then, to get an idea where your skills are and to catch you up with everyone else. But again, that would depend on Chloe.”
Fin smiled. “You’d…you’d play with me before the season starts?”
He was suddenly all lit up, this sullen kid—the way Chloe used to look on Christmas morning, opening presents from Santa that Law had spent half the night assembling and wrapping after she’d fallen asleep.
“Really?” Fin asked.
Law nodded, feeling petty and incapable of smiling back.
Fin looked blown away by the idea that anyone would spend time helping him get better at what he loved best. While Law had pretty much been angling to use the boy to keep Chloe from giving up on her soccer. Now he was seeing what Kristen must have from the start: a kid who might be willing to clean up his act if it meant getting the chance to play—assuming he had a coach who didn’t have his head stuck up his ass, obsessing about his own problems.
“We’d be practicing at odd times,” Law heard himself saying, “whenever I’m not at work. When we do get to the park in the afternoons, you’d be working your butt off until you’re ready to hook up with the rest of the team. But I was serious.” Law might be more willing now, but that didn’t make his one condition for coaching any less of a deal breaker. “You’re going to have to talk Chloe into playing, or I’m out. Whatever free time I have, it’s hers. And she’s telling me she’s done with soccer.”
Fin’s smile faded. “I don’t play with girls.”
He’d practically spit the words out.
Law grunted. “That’s probably a good thing.”
He watched the kid do his own quick glance around. Fin and Chloe made eye contact before Fin dragged his gaze back to Law.
Law pointed across the playground. “Wherever we’ve lived, that girl has played on every team I’ve coached since she was barely out of diapers: boys or girls, whichever team’s the best for her age group. And she’s always been the MVP. Underestimate her once we get started, and she’ll embarrass you every time. Ms. Hemmings wants me to take on one of the park’s winter ten-and-under teams. Mostly so you’ll have something to do with your time besides blowing your sweet deal with the Dixons. But you’re probably right. Why bother? Especially when the only way you get to play is by talking Chloe into showing up you and the other boys, until our team wins the city championships in the spring.”
“No way is she a better player than me.”
“I guess you’ll have to decide how badly you want to prove that.”
“I don’t got to prove nothin’.” Fin sneered up at Law. But he glanced at Chloe again, too, and then he kicked some more at the dirt at his feet.
“No, you don’t.” Law was being an ass again, pushing the way he was. It was none of his business what this boy did with his life.
Law had made his own share of mistakes—back when having nothing to prove had been his personal mantra. “But you do need to stop giving things up,” he said, feeling the coach inside him fully engage. “You don’t have to give up everything you really want, Fin, just because it’s scaring you to want it.”
“What?” Fin’s forehead wrinkled.
He peered up at Law as if he were crazy. And maybe Law was, giving advice to anyone about going for what they wanted most, when he was the king of letting dreams go—every one, except for his daughter’s happiness. That was the one dream he’d never given up on.
“Never mind.” He had to get the hell out of there. He raked a hand through his hair, cursing himself for answering the phone that morning when Kristen had called. “Just apologize to Chloe. See if you can get her on board. If you can, you might want to think about not pushing her around at school in front of her friends. You’re just giving her more of a reason to kick you all over the soccer field once we get started.” Once we get started. “I’ll be in touch with the Dixons by the end of the week and let them know if the team’s a go. You’ll either have gotten your act together by then and decided you want to work with Chloe and me before regular practice starts the first week in February, or you’re out.”
Law almost hoped the kid did bail. Which pretty much made him the unreliable loser Libby had made him out to be during their divorce. And wasn’t he? Hadn’t he single-handedly, one by one, made the choices that had led his family to their breaking point?
The bell rang, followed by the unholy uproar of kids sprinting from every direction toward the school’s side entrance, dividing into disorderly lines as their teachers appeared from wherever they’d escaped during recess.
He caught another glimpse of Chloe, but his daughter’s head was down. She was trailing behind a group of trendily dressed girls who were staring at him and then back at Chloe. Kristen Hemmings was walking toward him with one of the teachers, looking like she wanted to talk again. He nodded at her and took off across the school yard, like the bad-news boy he’d once been.
He wasn’t giving her another chance to get so close he couldn’t think straight. Kristen had him remembering what it was like to want something more, something better than the way his life had bottomed out. Something as good as standing next to her had felt. She’d gotten to him. No one got to him. Not for years.
No matter how much they’d stared at each other in the park and around town, she was so not his type. At least, not the type he’d once been drawn to.
Back in the day, Libby had been wild and hell-on-wheels and a little dangerous. She’d been brazenly thrill-seeking and out of control and unpredictable, just like him. Kristen, by comparison, was a pulled-together, professional lady who wore conservative work suits in colors that made him think of mouthwatering ice-cream flavors like peach, pistachio, strawberry, and blueberry. Even when he caught glimpses of her jogging around the park on Sunday mornings, not a single strand of her beautiful golden hair was ever out of place. He’d never seen the first wrinkle in her workout clothes.
Yet she’d all but shivered at his touch. For a moment, he’d felt her melting closer to him, fighting to hide her reaction—at the same time that she’d stared down his initial rudeness and like a champ pitched her plan for Fin. And she’d known enough about shadow lives like his and Fin’s to decide Law would be a good match for coaching the boy.
She’d somehow ferreted out how much he still wanted to work with kids. Being on a soccer field, whether he was coaching or playing, made him feel alive. Like he did when he had his daughter with him. Like he’d once felt when he’d held his guitar in his hands.
Kristen…with her lethally long legs and curvy figure and brains to back up all the good looks a man needed, to know he’d always need to look more…One conversation with her in three years, and she’d ripped him wide open, until he’d been feeling Fin’s confusion and isolation, and he’d been offering to help. The strands of music playing in his head took a bluesy turn as he considered the newest contradictions and mysteries he’d discovered about Chandler’s soon-to-be principal.
He rounded the building and caught sight of his truck parked out in front. He made himself slow his stride and not sprint away from the school. Barely.
School.
He buried his hands in his pockets and kept walking, stewing over his own disastrous academic experiences.
From the cradle, Lawrence Thacker Beaumont had been bred and raised to follow in his successful litigator father’s footsteps. His stubborn refusal to blindly walk that path, the way his older brother had, had disappointed their family at every turn—until his parents had ultimately turned on him. They’d never understood that school hadn’t been for him, no matter how smart he was. They’d never tried to understand him, the way he
was hell-bent on figuring out what his own child needed. He jerked open the creaking door of his ancient Ford and hauled himself inside.
Kristen Hemmings was the kind of trouble he shouldn’t be tangling with. The lady had guts, though. He’d give her that.
Regardless of his reputation, she’d somehow known that if he saw Fin firsthand, he wouldn’t be able to turn away. She had him thinking how good it would feel, drilling with Fin and Chloe several nights a week, figuring out what Fin had in him, and how Law and Chloe might bring out even more. He’d just been played by a skilled tactician.
And he’d admire her for it, if he weren’t still swamped by the confusing impulses to either shake her for meddling, or kiss her senseless until she was as desperate as he was to find out how they’d fit together. He wanted to know how her mind worked. He wanted to know why she was so committed to helping Fin and Chloe and all the other kids in school. He wanted to know her, period.
His cell phone rang, piercing the truck’s silence and the ache building at the base of his skull. He checked the display and winced. He wrapped his free hand around the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. He thumbed the line open.
“Libby?”
“That didn’t take long.”
“What?” Law sighed, because he already knew. A part of him had been expecting this warped conversation to happen, just not this quickly.
“What are you doing at school, Law?”
“Was it one of the secretaries in the office who called you? Or do you have kids on your payroll now?”
Libby’s demand for a divorce last January had started as a threat, he was certain of it. She hadn’t wanted him gone as much as she’d wanted whatever he’d said no to. He didn’t even remember what they’d been arguing about when she’d made her ultimatum for him to give in, or they were over. He just remembered it being the end—his final line in the sand. They’d put each other and their daughter through enough.
Love on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 4