From the Start

by Melissa Tagg

  Colton accepted the handshake. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Landon, thanks for giving the tour. Much appreciated.”

  The intern picked up on the dismissal in Harving’s tone. “Cool to meet you, Greene. Uh . . .” He glanced at Harving. “Can I get an autograph before you leave?”

  “Sure. I’ll stop at the front desk before I head out.”

  Landon retreated, leaving Colton and Harving alone in the main studio. Glass windows along one wall peeked in on dark offices, and quiet permeated the space.

  “Midday is always the slowest around here,” Harving said.

  “I appreciate you fitting me in so last minute.”

  “Yes. Well.”

  Okay, Colton wasn’t imagining things, was he? Harving seemed about as interested in this interview as a restless kid in an art museum.

  “Let’s sit,” the man finally said, motioning to the cushioned swivel chairs behind the anchor desk. When they were seated, he laced his fingers together atop the desk. “Why do you want to be a sports analyst, Colton?”

  “Well, I love the game of football, Mr. Harving, and—”

  “Jerome.”

  “Jerome. And I believe I have the experience at all three levels—high school, college, professional—to be able to talk about it intelligently and add value to the conversation.” It was a canned answer, courtesy of Ian’s email. But it was the truth. If Colton could talk about anything, it was football.

  As long as he could get over the stare of the camera.

  Jerome seemed to study him for a few moments. And then, “I’m going to level with you, Greene. We’ve done a slew of interviews, and I was literally a few minutes away from calling our lead candidate to offer him the job when your manager called. He’s got the looks, the appeal, and the talent to fill Carlton Jenning’s shoes.”

  So was there a point to this interview? “I understand—”

  “But you’ve got one thing he doesn’t. Name recognition. I wasn’t sure that was enough to go back to ground zero, but I’m smart enough to listen to a studio head when he gives a direct order.”

  Not one for subtlety, apparently. Colton was here because the studio head wanted him here. Not this producer. No matter. “Well, like I said, I appreciate the opportunity.”

  Jerome glanced around the room. “I already know the facts about you. I know you don’t have much experience with this kind of thing, save a pregame appearance last week in Iowa.”

  Colton had to work not to wince. Had Jerome seen that?

  “We could spend an hour talking personalities and vision for the show and yada yada, but I haven’t had lunch yet, and at the end of the day, none of the rest of that stuff matters anyway. What I really need to know is if you’re any good in front of the camera. Unfortunately, your manager didn’t have anything in the way of audition tapes.”

  Right, because he hadn’t filmed any audition tapes. Because he’d spent the past weeks repairing a depot and writing with Kate and sinking into life in a town that had begun to feel like home.

  Which was crazy. He didn’t belong in Iowa, did he?

  “We’re going to have you do a test read right now. I’ve got a guy to run the camera.” Jerome pointed. “Over there’s the teleprompter. I’m going to head back to Sound. The lights will turn on in a sec, and whenever you’re ready, start reading.”

  Oh wow, this was more than he’d expected. Focus. Don’t think about the camera. Just read the words and talk.

  The lights suddenly flashed on, beaming straight into his eyes.

  He blinked.

  And then the words on the teleprompter started moving. Just read.

  “Today’s schedule includes a fiery matchup between two of Chicagoland’s historic rivals . . .”

  The light—it was making his head throb. And the words on the screen—he couldn’t keep up. Worse, the camera seemed to glare at him.

  “Keep going, Colton.” Jerome’s voice sounded from somewhere behind the brightness. “You’re doing fine.”

  “You’re doing great, Colt. You’re a star. Let me take your picture.” The voice from his past jutted into his focus.

  A flash of light. The squeal of metal on metal. Another voice floating in the background. Arguing.

  They flashed like snapshots through his mind, somehow vivid and blurry at once.

  And jarring, leading him right up to the edge of memories that had been so very out of reach for so very long, and—

  “Colton.”

  The voice yanked him from the precipice, and he blinked, hard. Realized he breathed as if winded and clenched his fingers at the edge of the anchor desk. He saw the white of his knuckles, felt the jolt of reality.

  The studio lights blinked off.

  “Is something wrong?” Jerome Harving, speaking from behind the camera, disapproval heavy in his voice.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry.” He stood, sharp pain shooting up his knee and reaching toward his chest. “Can I . . . can I have one moment?”

  Somehow his feet carried him away from the desk and out to the hallway, having no clue whether Jerome okayed the exit. He slumped against the wall in the hallway, heaving for breath. What was that?

  Another breath.

  Even in its fogginess, it was a fuller, clearer flashback than he’d experienced in years, similar to the kind that had pinned him in therapists’ chairs and sent him home with indistinguishable nightmares as a kid. But why now?

  The camera.

  Think. He closed his eyes, allowed the flashback to replay. “You’re doing great, Colt. You’re a star. Let me take your picture.”

  Not Mom’s voice. Not Dad’s . . .

  The trill of his cell phone cut in, and like a man drowning, he grappled for the saving distraction. “Colton Greene.”

  He was aware of the studio door opening, Jerome stepping out.

  “Colton, it’s Coach. I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but Laura Clancy thought you might be able to help. Webster Hawks has been missing for seventeen hours.”

  “Webster’s . . . missing?” Shock snapped him from the daze of his flashback.

  “He didn’t come home last night. They’ve been looking ever since. Police are involved now. I thought maybe he might’ve reached out to you.”

  Colton’s mouth went dry. “I haven’t heard from him.”

  As Leo’s silence expanded, dread rippled through Colton.

  It didn’t make sense—not after how well Webster had been doing the past week. They’d practiced together three, four times. Coach had even been talking about letting him play as a receiver at the homecoming game this week. Why would Web take off now?

  Harving tapped his foot. “Greene, we’ve got limited time here.”

  “Coach, if you hear anything, let me know, all right? I’m in Chicago, but I can hit the road now.”

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “I want to.” He’d catch a flight or something, never mind Harving’s glare. He hung up. “I’m sorry, Jerome, but I’ve got to leave. Can we reschedule this?”

  “I’ve already put my lead candidate on hold. I need someone in that anchor’s chair in two weeks. I don’t have time to reschedule.” The man’s chin jutted. “If you walk out on this interview, the door closes.”

  Colton took a breath. “Consider it closed, then.”

  “I saved the best for last.” Kate leaned over Breydan’s bedside, canvas bag in her lap now nearly empty of all the items she’d picked up on her way to the hospital. Sports magazines. Deck of cards. A board game Kate was hoping Breydan didn’t already have.

  And the football. She held it up so Breydan could see it from his prone position on the bed. “Now I didn’t get this at the store. This comes all the way from Iowa. Signed by Colton Greene himself.”

  The man she’d kissed this morning. Oh, she could wring her own neck. What had she been thinking?

  Okay, she hadn’t been thinking. She’d been caught up in the moment, that’s all. The
flurry of helping Colton get out the door to that interview. Like a mom getting a kid ready for school.

  Right, like there was anything maternal about that kiss.

  “I can’t believe it.” Breydan’s soft voice drew her back.

  Watching his white lips struggle to form a smile was enough to sting her heart, and if she wasn’t careful, the pools of liquid forming in her eyes would escape. She tucked the ball between Breydan’s arm and his body, trying not to notice his skin-and-bones condition. Failing.

  “He . . . was . . .” Breydan licked his lips and tried again. “He was really here?” He traced the laces of the football with one finger.

  “He was. He had to leave, but he really wanted to talk to you. He told me to tell you—to promise you, actually—that one day when you’re feeling better, he’s going to play catch with you with this very football.”

  “He’s awesome.”

  You don’t even know. “He certainly is, Brey.”

  His finger stopped moving along the surface of the football, and he closed his eyes. Less than a minute later his hand dropped to the sheet. Sleeping. Good.

  “God, please.” The whispered prayer had become a mantra in the past couple of days. They seemed to be the only two words she could muster.

  And maybe that was okay. She’d tried elaborate prayers with Mom in the beginning, somehow convinced the right words might make the difference.

  But no. It seemed God didn’t work that way.

  She wasn’t really sure how God worked.

  Her desperate prayers were more habit than heartfelt. Church had become routine. If she was honest with herself, her faith had stalled right alongside her writing these past years.

  Elbows on the edge of the bed, Kate leaned her forehead into her hands, fingers combing through the hair she hadn’t bothered to fuss with today.

  “Kate?”

  She lifted her head as Marcus stepped into the room, bringing the smell of coffee with him. He pulled a chair next to hers and handed her a tall, covered cup. “Hailey found a coffee shop about half a block away.”

  The hot liquid warmed her hands through the paper cup. “You guys didn’t have to bring me any.” But, oh, how glad she was that they did. Saved from the hospital sludge.

  “And you didn’t have to drive seven hours to be here.”

  “I wanted to. You guys are like family. You know that, Marcus.”

  His gaze drifted to his sleeping son, worry like a stormy current in his eyes.

  What could she say to encourage him? “The doctor seemed more optimistic when he was in here earlier, don’t you think?”

  Marcus’s nod was nearly void of conviction. “I’m losing hope, Kate.”

  She set her coffee cup on the bedside table and turned to him. “He’s going to make it through this. The doctor said—”

  “I know he has a solid chance of making it through this episode. But he’s only nine.” Marcus’s eyes welled. “He has decades of checkups and possibilities of reoccurrence in front of him. And at any time, the dumbest sickness or infection or, man, a medication, could take him down again.”

  He raked both hands through his hair, dark circles around his eyes matching the mental fatigue clinging to his every word. “If I could trade places with him, I would. I’d do it in a second.”

  She’d heard Dad whisper the same words once. She’d been home on college break, up late studying—not so much because she needed to but because that night Mom and Dad had sat all four siblings down to tell them the news. Mom’s remission had ended. The cancer was back.

  And this time, it was much, much worse.

  She’d thought the rest of the family was sleeping when she’d wandered to the kitchen for a glass of water. But on her way back to her bedroom, she’d heard Mom and Dad’s soft words as she passed their room. Through the slit in the door, she’d seen Dad holding Mom.

  “I wish we could trade places, Flor. It should be my turn. It should be me.”

  “It shouldn’t be either of us, hon. We should have four or five more decades together—”

  “Whoa, five decades? You were planning to live past one hundred, then?”

  They’d laughed. How had they been able to laugh?

  “But even if I only get five more weeks with you—”

  “Don’t say that, Flor. I can’t even handle—”

  “—or five days, it’s not the length of time I want to focus on. It’s the with you part. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Which I realize may be the most cliché statement ever—our writer daughter would find some better way to put it—but there it is. You. Are. The. Best.”

  Kate had padded the rest of the way down the hallway then, wondering how in the world a person’s heart could feel so full while broken into so many pieces.

  Marcus sighed now, palms on his knees, eyes still locked on his son. “Sorry, I . . . I guess I just needed to say the words. Admit to at least one person that I’m past the point of . . . of courage or hopefulness. I can barely even pray.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  Why couldn’t she find the words to comfort her friend? Why couldn’t she be like Colton had been last night, saying just enough to quiet the tempest inside her?

  “You know, Marcus, I think . . . I think it’s not wrong to ache or feel hopeless. Your beautiful, amazing son is in a hospital room fighting for his life. What parent wouldn’t feel emptied of hope at a time like this?” She tasted the salt of her own tears. “But there are people who are hoping for you, holding you and Hailey up. Let us do that. Let us hope for Breydan’s tomorrow and next week and next year. You just focus on him right now. On being his dad who loves him right here in this moment. ”

  Tears trekked down Marcus’s cheeks, landing on his collar, on Kate’s hands as she covered his.

  She stayed in the room for a few more minutes, a few more whispered words and tears. Waited until Marcus moved to sit in the chair closest to his son’s bed.

  Her footsteps tapped against the floor as she left the room, giving Marcus space and time alone with Breydan. Emotion hiked through her, and she slumped against the wall outside the room.

  Please, God.

  And then a voice. “Kate? Katie Walker?”

  Her gaze jerked up.

  Gil.

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Case. It had to have been a huge interruption in your evening.”

  The passenger seat window of Case’s Ford truck was cold against Colton’s knuckles. He leaned his head against the headrest, greasy hamburger and fries not settling so well in his stomach. Probably due to the ridiculousness of the last forty-eight hours—a seven-hour drive, a night without sleep, a day nabbing restless naps in a hospital waiting room, followed by a too-short night, a frustrating interview, and then a last-minute flight.

  But heading back to Iowa had been the right choice.

  Case Walker shook his head and dropped a wadded-up wrapper in the fast-food bag between their seats. “If it was an interruption, it was a good one. Ever since the tornado, my life has been taken over by depot repairs and constant work. Felt good to ditch the Valley for a few hours.”

  Colton had nabbed a spot on a plane leaving Chicago for Des Moines around five-thirty p.m. He’d figured he’d just rent a car in Des Moines and drive back to Maple Valley. But he’d texted Kate about his plan, and she must have alerted Case, who had insisted on meeting him at the airport.

  Now it was just past eight and they weren’t far from town. They’d driven through a McDonald’s at the last small town when Colton’s growling stomach had given away his hunger.

  “Well, all the same, I really appreciate the ride. Part of me isn’t sure why I felt the need to race home.”

  Especially now. They’d still been in the Des Moines airport’s parking lot when the call came from Coach. Webster had finally shown up. Apparently he’d gotten in a fight, didn’t want to show up at the Clancys’ with a black eye. But after a night slee
ping in temperatures that felt more like late than early autumn, he’d decided to come home instead of spending another night in the elements.

  Outside Colton’s window, a combine with beaming front lights moved across a field in the distance. Moonlit shadows wove in and out of rows of corn waiting to be harvested.

  “Wish I knew why Web chose now to get in a fight and disappear and scare his foster parents half to death. I know how tough it is constantly adjusting to a new foster family.” He shifted in his seat, seat belt lancing into his chest. “But he seems to fit in real good with the Clancys. And on the field, I’m telling you, Case, he’s something else. A little inconsistent at the moment, but when he’s on, he’s on.”

  Case pulled off the highway and onto the blacktop that would eventually lead into Maple Valley. Another fifteen miles or so to home.

  Home. When had Maple Valley taken on that description for him? It was only supposed to be a temporary stopover. Like a rest stop at the side of an interstate, where you got out of your car, stretched your legs, grabbed a coffee. But eventually the time came to slide back into the car and move on.

  He propped one elbow on the passenger door’s armrest, cool night frosting through the window. The contents in his stomach continued to rumble. “Then again, maybe it makes complete sense that Webster would pick now to act up. Look at me—my game was peaking when I basically self-sabotaged.”

  Case glanced over, sloping moonlight highlighting the lines on his face and the thoughtfulness in his eyes. “Do you remember much about your injury?”

  “Quite a bit actually. Which is amazing considering how hard I got hit.” And considering his having no memory of the other traumatic moment in his life.

  Every now and then dreams still carried him back to the game. To the seconds right before the throw. If he closed his eyes even now, he could still see it all unfold.

  He’d known even as the ball left his hands, it couldn’t hope to reach its target. It wobbled in the air, and as the sea of players parted, his focus landed on the defender who seemed to appear from nowhere.