Hometown Hero

by Cate Cameron

  “He’s just sort of a jack-of-all-trades right now. Filling in as needed. The center’s open to kids for the first time today, so everything’s still in flux. We’ll figure things out more once it all settles down.”

  His mother raised an eyebrow. “Yes, because he must have a very versatile skill set after ten years in prison.”

  “Mom . . .”

  She stood gracefully. “I’m just telling you what people are saying. You need to be aware of it. But you don’t necessarily have to do anything about it.”

  Well, that was an easier end to the conversation than he’d expected. He walked her to the door of his office and she stretched up to kiss his cheek. “You have a good heart, Calvin. There’s nothing wrong with using it. But we need to make sure it stays balanced with your head.”

  She left then, and he stayed behind and wondered why “we” needed to make sure of anything to do with his heart or his head. Working for the family business was part of it, he supposed. He’d done his time in higher education, gotten his MBA from Columbia, so he was more than qualified for his job, on paper. And he’d spent his summers working at all different levels of the company, getting practical experience. Furniture manufacturing wasn’t glamorous, but it had kept the family comfortable for generations. And they’d diversified under his father, moving into real estate and tourist developments. The family had owned half the lakeshore by the time the area really took off as a summer destination, and they’d been selling off parcels ever since, at fairly ridiculous prices. Yes, the family was comfortable indeed.

  Maybe too comfortable. His mother wasn’t officially employed by the company, but it was a rare day she wasn’t in the office, working on whatever project had caught her attention. His father ran the place, his older brother was in line to take over; Cal mostly filled in as needed. Nothing too intense, and plenty of time for other pursuits. Most of which were social, he admitted. Some might say frivolous.

  But for the last year, the community center had been taking up a lot of his free time. He’d been happy to take advantage of his mother’s contacts when he found himself elected chair of their board. And he’d solicited corporate and private donations from his family members and their friends. So, damn it, the center was their business. Without their support he probably wouldn’t have gotten it off the ground. He couldn’t ignore them now, just because they were saying things he didn’t like.

  No, he couldn’t ignore them. But they’d only contributed money; he’d put money and a lot of heart into the place. And he wasn’t going to let them dictate how it should be run, or who should be hired.

  He quickly scanned his schedule on the computer, then grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. “Allison, I’m heading out for the afternoon. Can you call Simon and tell him I’ll meet with him sometime tomorrow?”

  He could sense her curiosity and disapproval, but he’d never let that slow him down before, so there was no reason to start worrying about it now.

  Besides, he had other responsibilities. Other concerns. He smiled to himself as he jogged down the stairs toward the parking lot. He had to balance out his heart with his head, as his mother had said. That was his number one priority.

  Five

  THE PLACE WAS crawling with kids. The daycare had been bad enough, and Zara had been happy to escape it after they’d done a quick tour of the rooms. But now, back in the main gym, all the kids who’d just gotten out of school were running around, screaming in excitement, acting like animals that had been caged for their entire lives and had finally gotten some freedom. It was bewildering and intimidating.

  At least, it was for Zara. Zane was in the middle of it all, holding a clipboard, ticking off names for—for something, God knew what, and he looked more relaxed than he had at any point in the week since she’d picked him up at the prison release center. Hell, he looked more relaxed than he had for the last decade. She was the one about to start shaking.

  “Good turnout,” a familiar voice said from over her shoulder.

  “They’re insane,” Zara said as she turned, and she was pretty sure she meant it.

  Calvin just grinned. “It’ll probably settle down once the novelty wears off. But for now? They’re pretty excited.”

  Zara tried to imagine how she would have reacted to something like this when she was a kid. She supposed it would have depended on where she was living. If she’d been in one of the apartments or the ragged townhouse, she’d have been thrilled. Somewhere to go after school instead of sitting around staring at the walls or bugging Zane. But if she’d been living in the trailers, out in the boondocks . . .

  “What about kids who take school buses home?” she asked Calvin. He gave her a blank look, and she said, “If their parents can come pick them up later, that’s great. But you said you wanted all kids to come here. You wanted to focus on the ones who need it most. What about the kids who have to go home on the bus because there’s no one to pick them up, or because their parents don’t have a car or don’t have money for gas?”

  He frowned thoughtfully, and finally said, “Damn. Yeah. We should have thought of that.” He looked out at the sea of children, now being divided up into different groups for the various activities the center had planned. “We’re flooded right now as it is. I probably won’t get a lot of support for a program to recruit even more kids. But you’re right, those guys need us. Let me think about it.”

  He was nothing like she’d remembered. Zara should have been focusing on the conversation, worrying about the kids, but at least half of her brain was trying to figure out Calvin Montgomery. He’d always treated her like a nuisance. A tag-along brat. Four years younger was a whole different world when you were a kid. And she guessed she’d assumed he’d still be treating her that way.

  But he wasn’t. He’d heard her concern, and appreciated it. He was treating her with respect. And the respect was for what she could do with her brain, not with her body. It was throwing her off a little, but she liked it.

  He’d grown up. And he was treating her like she’d grown up, too.

  “Thanks,” she said quietly.

  He looked a bit startled. “For what?”

  “For helping Zane.” For helping her, too, but she didn’t think she was going to go quite that far. Instead she nodded her chin toward her brother, who was distributing basketballs to a pack of kids who looked like they were junior high age. “He’s loving this. And he’s good at it.”

  “But you aren’t,” he said quietly. “You’re standing over here on the sidelines.”

  “They said they didn’t have a job for me right away! They said I could just watch and get a feel for things!”

  He held up his hands in quick surrender. “I meant you aren’t loving it, not that you aren’t good at it. I just—I was feeling a bit guilty for dragging you into all this. You don’t seem all that comfortable with it.”

  “Comfortable?” She shrugged. “I’m a big girl. A little discomfort isn’t going to hurt me.”

  “You’re actually smaller than I thought,” he said, and then looked embarrassed, as if he hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. But he clearly realized he couldn’t leave them hanging there without an explanation. “Not such a big girl, I mean. From seeing you fight, I expected something different. Well, I know the stats . . . Five foot six, a hundred and thirty-five pounds. But you seem bigger when you fight. You seem bigger from a distance.”

  She had no idea how to take that. Was it demeaning? Was he calling her puny? It didn’t really seem that way, but—what the hell? “That’s my fighting weight,” she said. “I’m actually heavier than that now. From any distance.” She briefly thought about mentioning that she wore a compression bra with a chest protector during her bouts, but she couldn’t think of any reason that having more obvious breasts would make her seem smaller. And she didn’t want to give any Montgomery more reasons to think she was uncouth,
so she probably shouldn’t start talking about her boobs. She needed to get this conversation back on track, and then get away from it entirely. “So I’m fine, Zane’s great, and the country kids will be in here soon. Everything’s good. Right?”

  “Seems like,” he agreed cautiously.

  “Okay. The office said there’d be loads of registration forms to sort through today, so I’ll go help with that. See ya.”

  And that was that. She wasn’t sure why talking to Calvin made her uncomfortable, but it did. Probably because he knew too much about her, or at least her history, and she didn’t know a damn thing about him. She couldn’t say what made him tick, what he cared about, who he cared about. Did he have a girlfriend? Or a wife even?

  She had no idea, and that was fine, she reminded herself. He was none of her business. She was in Lake Sullivan for Zane, and maybe a bit for herself. Calvin Montgomery wasn’t important.

  But damn, the man looked good in a suit. She’d never really been with someone so polished, but it was kind of intriguing to think about it. Fun to imagine all the different ways she could muss him up . . .

  No. Bad thought. Bad.

  She scolded herself as she headed for the office. She’d keep busy, and he’d go away, and everything would be fine. That was her plan, and she was known for following through on her plans.

  * * *

  “IT’S kind of hard to enjoy my beer with my sister staring at me like she’s about to tear me apart,” Zane said, and Cal glanced at the life-size cardboard cutout across from their booth at Woody’s, the town’s only bar. Cardboard Zara was dressed for a fight, with gloves on her hands and a fierce glare on her face. Cal tried to focus on her face, and not look at the rock-hard abs displayed just below her tight sports bra.

  “We could switch tables, but there’s a poster of her over there, and there, and that huge one by the door. And you’d better brace yourself, because Hugh said he’s been trying to get her to come by in person, and if she does, I’m sure he’ll take a lot more pictures and splash them up all over the place.”

  Zane sat still for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. “She did good for herself, huh?”

  “She did,” Cal agreed. It certainly wasn’t what he’d been thinking of ten years earlier when he’d tracked down her aunt in Queens and told her Zara needed somewhere to live. She could have stayed in Vermont if she’d gone into foster care, but he’d been convinced that she needed a fresh start. She’d needed to get the hell away from Lake Sullivan, where everyone thought they knew her just because they knew about her parents, and knew about Zane. He’d been convinced she could be more than another lost soul, if she just got the chance.

  But his imaginings had involved the smart, pretty girl going to college and finding a nice office job somewhere. Apparently he wasn’t quite the master manipulator he’d imagined himself at twenty, judging by how far reality was from his plans. Which was a damn good thing, his thirty-year-old brain reminded him.

  “This concussion stuff,” Zane said thoughtfully. “How serious is that?”

  Cal frowned. “Well, I don’t know exactly. I’ve heard rumors, and I talked to the head guy at the organization about it, when I was trying to set all this up. But I haven’t seen doctors’ reports or anything. You haven’t asked her?”

  “Not really.” Zane made a frustrated face. “Not at all. It’s kind of weird between us. I mean, you and me? Things have changed, yeah, but not that much. You’re still the rich golden boy, I’m still the poor screwup.” He didn’t give Cal a chance to object to the characterization. “But Zara? I used to be her hero. Sure, she was an idiot for thinking that, but whatever, she did. I looked after her, looked out for her, backed her up when she got into whatever stupid trouble she could find. That’s how we got along, you know?”

  “And now you feel like she’s looking after you?”

  Zane sighed. “Feel like it? I know it. I’m living in the house she rented, driving her damn car, working at a job I wouldn’t have gotten without her, borrowing cash from her . . . she gave me a credit card, for Christ’s sake. It’s like I’m her kid. She’s looking out for me now. And the scary thing is, she’s doing it a hell of a lot better than I ever managed with her.”

  “She’s older than you were,” Cal pointed out. “You were still a kid yourself when you were trying to take care of her. And you did a great job. You’re the one who put her in a place where she could be as successful as she’s been.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Zane thought for a moment. “Maybe I helped. I hope I did. But that’s not what we’re talking about. The point is, however it happened, she’s a totally different person now. She’s not my baby sister, and I’m sure as hell not her hero.”

  “She’s still your baby sister,” Cal said quietly. “She always will be. And you being her hero? Maybe you’re not. Maybe she doesn’t need one anymore.”

  “Because she’s one herself,” Zane said with a look at the cutout. “As long as this concussion thing doesn’t get in her way.”

  “She’s the three-time MMA champion. She’s never lost a pro or amateur fight. She’s blazed a trail, and she’s shut up a hell of a lot of people who said women didn’t belong in the sport.” Cal shrugged. “Even if she never fought again, she’d still be a hero. A legend.”

  “I don’t think she’d agree with you about that.”

  “Well, maybe we need to make her agree.”

  “When’s the last time anyone made Zara do anything?” Zane finished his beer and shook his head. “She’s a big girl now. She makes her own decisions.”

  “Have you seen the stats on concussions? Do you know how serious they can be, especially repeated ones?”

  “You think she’s in bad enough shape that we could have her declared mentally incompetent and take over her decision making?” Zane barely paused before saying, “No? Me neither. So it doesn’t matter what I’ve seen or what I know. It’s Zara’s decision, not mine.”

  Apparently Zane was having less trouble adjusting to Zara’s new status as an independent adult than Cal was. “Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly. “But you could persuade her, couldn’t you?” Zane looked at him skeptically, so Cal tried, “You could at least make sure she has access to all the relevant information. Right?”

  “Yeah, I’ll teach her to Google things. Oh, wait, she already knows how to do that. She’s the one who showed me.”

  “So you’re just going to sit back and let her do something stupid?”

  “Jesus, Cal, how is this any of your business? Did I miss something when I was away? Why are you so worried about Zara?”

  “I’m just . . .” What? What the hell was he thinking? “I’m trying to figure out why you aren’t worried about it.”

  “I guess I’m just a shitty, don’t-give-a-damn brother. Is that what you’re thinking?” There was a definite family resemblance between Zane’s glare and the expression on the face of the cardboard cutout.

  “No! Absolutely not.” Cal wished this whole conversation would just go away. His intentions had been good, but his execution obviously sucked. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I just—she’s a good kid. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  “You’re not hearing me, and you’re not seeing her. She’s not a kid, Cal. Not even close.”

  No, she wasn’t. Damn it. He wondered why he kept trying to see her that way.

  Maybe because the alternative was to see her as a woman, strong and beautiful and desirable. And intimidating, and with too much baggage between them, and with a complete lack of interest in him as anything other than someone who might help her brother.

  Yeah, it’d be a hell of lot easier to go back to seeing her as a bratty tagalong kid. But he wasn’t sure he’d be able to.

  Six

  ZARA STOOD IN the little room beside the main gym, staring at the newly installed equipment. For the first time since
she’d come back to Lake Sullivan, she almost felt at home. Free weights, punching bags, mats, protective equipment for sparring . . . It would have been perfect if only the gear had been a bit more ragged and if there’d been a bunch of sweaty, swearing men working out all around her.

  Instead, she was surrounded by members of the center’s board of directors, headed by Calvin Montgomery. “It was a generous donation,” he was telling the others. “In addition to their cash support.”

  Yeah, Terry had come through. Zara wasn’t sure just why he was pushing this so hard. She supposed it wasn’t much money, really, compared to what the company was making. But it was a lot for a town like Lake Sullivan.

  One of the directors, an older man with a comb-over, leaned forward and poked at the heavy bag with one finger. “Seems like good quality,” he said grudgingly. “I’m just not sure what use we’ll have for it.”

  “It’s a fast-growing sport,” Calvin said calmly. “And we’ve got a world-class athlete working for us. We want to set up classes—Maxine will take the lead on the children’s classes, with Zara there to assist, and they’ll reverse that structure for adult classes.”

  “And you’re going to be around long enough to follow through on that?” the older man asked Zara skeptically. It was the first time any of them had addressed her since they came in the door.

  “No promises,” she said. She was tempted to leave it at that, but this was Calvin’s baby, and he’d been good to Zane. She owed him, at least a little. “But there’s a guy down in Burlington who’s interested in driving up and doing classes here, if you need him. So the equipment won’t be wasted.”

  The board members nodded carefully, and a few more of them stepped forward and started investigating the equipment. One of them, a middle-aged woman with a permanently concerned expression, said, “And what will these classes be about? Self-defense, or—”