Isadora . . . and a boyfriend? Surely her father would know. And he hadn’t exactly seen a guy.
BoyNextDoor: I think she’s single.
MissFoolishHeart: And you’ve followed all my advice?
Wow, that sounded like a woman.
BoyNextDoor: Yes. To the letter. I even shaved.
MissFoolishHeart: Oh, BoyNextDoor, don’t go overboard now.
Funny, real funny.
BoyNextDoor: The thing is, she needs a friend, and I thought I might ask her on a date.
MissFoolishHeart: So she needs a date? That’s fairly arrogant.
BoyNextDoor: I didn’t mean it like that. But I met her father, and I think he’d like me to get to know her.
MissFoolishHeart: This is just getting worse. Her father? What, are you Amish? Is this an arranged marriage?
Oh, how he wanted to hear her voice, because in his head, she was laughing.
BoyNextDoor: No! Of course not. It’s just that she hasn’t had many dates recently.
MissFoolishHeart: Why?
BoyNextDoor: She’s sorta disabled.
That word didn’t seem to fit, but he couldn’t figure out another.
The cursor blinked.
MissFoolishHeart: I feel terrible. Please forgive me, BoyNextDoor. I should have taken your concerns more seriously.
Her tone caught him, made him settle back into the pillow. As if she truly cared.
BoyNextDoor: It’s no big deal. I just want to get to know her better. There’s something special about her. And I want to figure out what that is.
MissFoolishHeart: I knew there was something I liked about you. What about this girl catches your interest?
What did he like about Issy?
He had to let the cursor blink a moment. He liked the way she had rubbed Duncan’s head, as if she cared about the dog, despite his destruction to her hosta.
BoyNextDoor: She can forgive.
MissFoolishHeart: That’s a good trait.
His gaze fell on the yearbook.
BoyNextDoor: She loves her town and her neighbors.
MissFoolishHeart: So she’s friendly.
He had a feeling she liked football—after all, the way she threw that pass spoke of a girl who knew her way around a football, wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. And she loved her garden, whereas he could kill plants with a look.
BoyNextDoor: Most of all, I think she could be someone I want to know. But currently, that’s all I got.
MissFoolishHeart: That’s not much to work with. Why is this so important to you?
Why?
BoyNextDoor: Because I was given a second chance to be the kind of man I should be, and I am not a quitter. I like to finish what I start.
Like learning to walk again. And turning the town football mess into a winning team.
And proving to God that He’d made the right decision in saving Caleb’s life.
MissFoolishHeart: Be careful—she still sounds like a project.
A project. Sometimes he felt like a project. But, no. How about an . . . incentive?
BoyNextDoor: What if she’s the prize?
The cursor blinked for a long moment.
MissFoolishHeart: BoyNextDoor, you’re lucky; I just about banned you with the “she needs a date” comment. Okay, time to get creative. You could ask her to share a picnic—maybe a pizza. Or better, spaghetti. That’s easy and nonthreatening.
BoyNextDoor: I’m not sure she eats spaghetti.
MissFoolishHeart: Everyone likes spaghetti. What’s not to like? Also, most girls like it when the men in their lives show an interest in the things they like. Does she have any interests?
BoyNextDoor: She likes yard work. And exercising.
MissFoolishHeart: Perfect. Strap on your tennis shoes and go ask her to play a game of tennis. Or take a walk by the beach. Or even throw around a football.
Throw around a football?
He liked Miss Foolish Heart much more than he should. And the fact that she assumed he could do any of those activities . . .
For a moment, he tasted the days before his injury, the easy ones when someone called to him from the end of the hall, “Caleb! Let’s play some catch!”
Miss Foolish Heart saw him as whole.
And in that delicious moment, he did too.
* * *
BoyNextDoor: Thanks, MissFoolishHeart. I’ll try that.
MissFoolishHeart: Good luck, BoyNextDoor. She’s lucky to have you.
Shoot, BoyNextDoor had signed off, and watching him go, Issy tried—oh, she tried—not to hate the Girl.
What kind of girl had she become that she got jealous over unknown—and taken—voices in her discussion forum?
The entire conversation had her confused even as she picked up her grilled cheese sandwich and walked downstairs.
She heard whining at the door, opened it to find Duncan sitting on the porch, his dark shaggy tail swishing on the boards. “I’m not sure why you even bother to whine. Why don’t you just come through the cardboard?” But she let him in and fed him the last of her sandwich.
He gulped it down as if he hadn’t eaten in a decade. Then he lay on the floor, rolling over for a rub.
“And by the way, we need to talk about the destruction of my fence.” She let loose a smile at the image of her own boy next door, following his dog into her yard.
What if he’d caught her pass?
What if he hadn’t?
She rubbed a bare foot over the dog’s chest. “I have to go to work. If you promise to keep my feet warm, you can join me.”
Duncan followed her upstairs.
BoyNextDoor hadn’t returned to the forum. Probably out lacing up his running shoes. Except if the Girl was disabled, she might not be able to run, so she’d given him lousy advice . . . again.
What kind of man didn’t even notice, or care, about a woman’s disability?
The kind of man she’d like to know.
The sun had already sunk out of sight, dusk scuttling around the yard. She switched off her porch light and looked out the window, then checked the lock on the front door before climbing the stairs.
Her neighbor’s light glowed into the yard.
She can forgive.
Those words lingered, nudged her. Forgive. Had she forgiven her neighbor? For . . . what? Annoying her? Not cutting his grass?
Invading her world and making her stare at her vacancies? Her limitations?
She stopped on the stairs, her hand on the rail.
Ever since he’d moved to town, careened into her life, something had unhinged inside her. As if her world had slipped just a little out of her control.
He reminded her of her town, her people. Her father.
Her loss.
Caleb reminded her of all the ways she let them down. All the ways she was locked inside her fear, all the ways she’d failed.
She sat on the stairs, staring out the transom of her door. The narrow strip revealed the Millers’ house across the street and the far edge of the library. Beyond that, the view captured the spire of the lighthouse at the point, the glow over the dark expanse of the lake. But her world seemed, suddenly, about that size—a peek out her door, the edges cut off, only glimpses remaining into the real world.
Oh, God, how did I get here? The coach’s crazy daughter, afraid of the world?
She pressed the meat of her hands into her eyes and heard Rachelle’s voice. Maybe you shouldn’t strive to be the woman you left behind, but the one who is out ahead. . . . I’d bet if you stop trying so hard to hold her back, to keep her safe, she might just surprise you.
Oh, she had her doubts. Just imagine her, out on a date. She’d end up under the table in the fetal position. Sorry, but can you take me home?
Nope, nope, nope.
Caleb only made that wound ache, too.
He made her want to fall in love. Or at least make a friend.
She still sounds like she’s a project.
Had she really writ
ten that? Could she be ruder? But it had bothered her, BoyNextDoor’s fascination with his Girl. He seemed to know so little about her. She was friendly? Hardly an intriguing attribute on which to base an attraction.
She’d nearly written that, nearly flirted with him, nearly tried to get him to forget about this Girl and perhaps stay on the forum and talk to her . . . and then . . .
What if she’s the prize?
Issy buried her face in her knees. See, that was what made the BoyNextDoor so . . . devastating.
He was the perfect catch.
But she’d never be the prize. Not for BoyNextDoor, not for Caleb, not for anyone.
11
All these years, Seb had believed that Lucy’s family rolled in the dough.
He smirked at his own pun, but really, looking at her chart of accounts, he shouldn’t be laughing.
Lucy hung on to World’s Best Donuts by a thin . . . well, scrap. And with his very meager business skills, he couldn’t figure a way to get her out of her financial mess.
It didn’t help that she leaned over the Formica table, watching him scratch out numbers, her eyes on his work as if he might do magic. “Okay, Seb. Give it to me straight.”
Outside, gulls dive-bombed the shore, searching for leftovers from the Saturday picnickers. A toddler in a saggy diaper stood at the edge of the water, letting the waves run over her sandals. She jumped back, then scampered up to her parents. A larger man with cropped curly hair swung her over his head.
“Just so I get this right, your parents didn’t actually own the building.”
“No, they rented it. Our family had a fifty-year lease, and it ran out four years ago. So I bought the building.”
“Which is why you’re having trouble making payments.”
“Yeah. The building alone I could handle. The taxes on the shoreline property . . .” She shook her head. “That’s why I need to move more donuts.”
He hid another smile. Everything she said over the past three days had elicited a sort of crazy smile. Even at practice, he found himself grinning.
It made for ineffective drills. Good thing Bam and the gang showed up to whip his boys into shape.
Sort of. They certainly weren’t the championship team. Michaels could hardly keep the ball out of the snap, let alone hand it off. And Samson never ended up in the right place, let alone grabbing his sophomore quarterback’s end-over-ends.
Seb banked on Coach’s magic plays to save the day. If they could get two, even three down . . .
“Seb?”
Oops. He did that too, with her. Drifted off to a happier time, when he could still hear the cheers. “I was thinking about football practice.”
“How’s it going?”
“Okay. Bam and DJ are out there every day after work. And the guys like hearing about Coach Presley.”
“You should go up and see him sometime.”
Seb blinked at her. “Go . . . Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Why not? He needs visitors. I try and visit a couple times a month. I’m sort of a physical link for him and Issy. I know he’d love to see you.”
“No, I don’t think he would.” He looked away from the confusion on her face. “I didn’t live up to his hopes for me.”
“Oh, Seb, c’mon. You blew out your shoulder. That was hardly your fault.”
“I quit, Lucy.” He let the words simply burst out, fast and hard.
She grew still across from him. “What?”
“I . . . walked away. After my injury, I sat the bench for half the year. Then at preseason practice, my coach told me that I wasn’t going to start junior year, that the sophomore quarterback behind me had outplayed my position, jockeyed me out of starting. I lost my temper. I turned into my old man and just walked off the field.”
“You gave up your scholarship.”
“Yeah. Dumbest thing I ever did. And wouldn’t you know it, Coach Presley got wind of it and called me.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that I could get back in the game if I wanted to. That the man with heart could accomplish anything. But I didn’t have heart. I had anger. And fear, I guess.”
Lucy slid her hand over his, held it. He looked at her small hand and didn’t know if he had the right to close his around it.
“What were you afraid of?” she said softly.
“I don’t know. Maybe sitting the bench. Maybe working harder than I ever had and not playing another second of football. Maybe letting myself down.”
“So instead of failing, you quit.”
“I sat there during the first home game, in my dorm room, and just kept reliving all those jobs my dad lost or quit, all those times I listened to my mother and father fighting, how many times she threatened to leave, until she finally did.” He took a breath. “I kept remembering how many times he crawled home, so sloshed out of his head that he didn’t even recognize me, and I knew that just like him, I had flushed my life. Knew that I had destroyed any hope of playing pro ball.”
He sighed, waited for her to let go. But she didn’t. In fact, she squeezed his hand. “But you’re back. You’re not a quitter. You got your degree, and you’re here.”
He was here. Yes.
She drew in a breath. “Seb . . . why did you come back?”
Why had he come back? He’d fought it for years, really, until he got his diploma. Until he’d heard about Coach’s accident. Until he lost his job as a clerk in a sports store and read over the Internet about the math job opening. Then something clicked inside, something that tasted of redemption.
Something that he’d known he should have done all along.
“I thought that since it all started here, I might be able to go back to the beginning, to reset my life. Get it on the right track.”
She met his gaze, and for a second, he saw her wide eyes as he woke to her staring at him, his arms around Bree in the backseat of his Pontiac. Words escaped him—then and now.
But she rescued him like she always did.
“That’s why you want to coach.”
She was smiling, and it felt like forgiveness.
“Yes. I guess a part of me thinks that if I can get the team back on track, maybe get them to a championship, then . . .”
“You’ll be the town hero again.” Her words emerged gentle, almost . . . kind.
“Is that terrible?”
“I think it’s honest. And maybe you wouldn’t be a man if you didn’t want victory again.”
Her kindness could truly stop his heart in his chest. He swallowed, tried to smile.
But he couldn’t because the look she gave him had not a hint of pity or disgust. Not a twinge of regret or even pain. Just . . . a smile.
His mouth opened without his permission. “I thought of you all the time after I left Deep Haven.”
Her smile vanished. Biting her lip, she looked away. “Oh.”
He reached out to take her hand. “I . . . Did I ever say that I was sorry?”
She looked at his hand holding hers. “Probably. But thank you anyway.” She drew in a long breath. “It’s no big deal.”
No big deal? It felt like a big deal. The hurt on her face had tunneled inside him, found him every time he took a girl back to his dorm room, reminded him that he was a jerk.
“I am sorry, Lucy, for hurting you. And I’m going to figure out a way to get your shop back in the black. I promise you, you’re not going to lose it.”
“And you’re going to land the coaching job, Seb. I believe in you.” She looked up then with that smile, and everything dropped away. There was just Lucy, the sunshine in her eyes, and he couldn’t stop himself.
He leaned forward, now really holding her hand, and kissed her.
She didn’t move at first, not at all, and he froze, stuck in that position, over the table.
Feeling like an idiot.
Then she wove her hand around his neck and kissed him back. Sweetly, with the taste of sugar and coffee on her lips. Lucy. How
he remembered her touch, her taste. Nothing had ever been so right as when he’d been her guy.
Maybe this time he could do it right.
* * *
Caleb Knight stood in the yard, spraying his glorious white stallion with a garden hose.
The magnificent truck had endured an entire three days without a wash, and Issy definitely saw a smudge around a rear wheel panel. Oh no.
Issy ran past Caleb, averting her eyes, but not quick enough to miss his long-sleeved black shirt outlining his football physique as he sprayed the truck’s roof, then aimed the hose at Duncan. The dog veered away from tailing her on her run to lunge at and bite the water. She paused her iPod in time to hear Caleb laughing.
He had a solid, deep, and reverberating laugh, one that tremored her insides.
Next time around, she’d say hello. She started her music again, turned at the end of the sidewalk, and ran up the block. Seven times around; she had one more to go. Eight times around the block equaled two miles—her father had clocked it back in high school. Eight times around, nineteen minutes of freedom. And if she didn’t say hello this time around, she might go two more.
He couldn’t have waited until after her run to wash his car?
She rounded the corner, ran along the next block, parallel to her house, passing Lucy’s.
She could always make a quick escape through their backyards.
Say hello; say hello.
Lucy’s front yard could use some cleaning up, the bed weeded, the roses cut back, the lawn mowed. But Lucy barely saw it in the light of day, poor girl.
Issy turned at the next street, headed south. Funny that she hadn’t seen Lucy for two days—although she’d left donuts on the front porch like some sort of May Day basket and a scribbled note that said, I’ll call.
But she hadn’t. And Saturdays were always her most chaotic. Poor woman was probably working overtime; otherwise she would have stopped by long before this.
Coach Knight had the chamois out, rubbing down his gallant steed, as she turned back onto their street. He glanced up as she passed him and stopped to take her pulse while running in place at her walk.
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