“Really? Because I’m thinking you can’t even get off the ground.”
He stared at Dan, blinking. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you have a bum leg, and the entire team knows it. You’ve been limping around for a week. What happened—old football injury?”
“I can get off the ground.” In fact, to prove it, he crossed his good leg over his residual leg, rolled over, and pushed up. Smooth.
Without even a hop.
He held out his hand, and Dan tossed him a ball.
“And just so you know, I have been thinking about a trick play. But I’m not sure they’re ready.”
“I am.” Dan came over to the line. “Show me.”
Great, he had another Ryan on his hands. But he could hardly back down now.
Especially with Coach Brewster in the bleachers.
Caleb had seen him as the team dispersed.
Now he debated: if he showed his hand, Seb might duplicate it. But didn’t he have an entire Presley playbook of trick plays? He hardly needed Caleb’s.
“Okay, I’ve been working on something. It’s sort of a reverse flea-flicker or a double pass . . . I call it the Rough Rider. The QB takes the hike with the wide receiver in motion, who stops short of the line of scrimmage. The QB then laterals it to the wide receiver, drawing the defenders over. Meanwhile the QB runs a hook pattern and is hopefully wide open to get the pass from the wide receiver.”
“Let’s run it.”
Let’s run it.
Okay, it didn’t have to be fast and hard. And he could catch just about anything, even if he’d been a running back.
“Fine. I’ll take the snap; you go in motion.” Caleb lined up, called it, and Dan set off behind him. He took two steps back, turned, and pitched the ball to Dan.
He didn’t wait for Dan to catch it but followed the imaginary fullback blocking for him down the field.
For a second, he saw himself young and whole, heard the crowd, tasted the sweet adrenaline of a well-executed play.
Then, he turned on his prosthetic leg to hook inside.
He’d blame it on the rain transforming the freshly mowed lawn into a sheet of ice. Or perhaps that he had worn spikes to catch his footing. Whatever the reason, it all happened in a flash. He planted his leg, turned, but his prosthesis didn’t.
His good leg slipped and he went down, tearing the suction away from his prosthesis and twisting it under his jeans.
If he’d had two good legs, the injury might render him a cripple, the way his leg seemed to twist ninety degrees at the knee socket. For Caleb, it just meant he would have to lie there, his knee wrenched nearly out of joint, and explain why he wasn’t screaming in pain.
Even though he wanted to. Because as the football sailed past him, as Dan ran over to him and Seb rose from the stands, Caleb knew . . .
His double life had come to an end.
* * *
Seb looked like a dog left out in the rain.
Lucy looked up as the door jangled, watched him walk in, past the counter, and slide into a curved Formica booth seat.
The rain drenched him to the bone, his curly dark hair in ringlets, his Windbreaker slicked to his body. Even his shoes left a trail along the black-and-white linoleum.
Folding his hands on the table, he hung his head as if he’d lost his best friend.
But she didn’t have time to slide into the booth across from him, find his eyes, and ask the question. Not with a lineup of customers finishing off the last of her daily production. She’d been deliberately staying open later, hoping she might sell another hundred or two donuts, staying until she’d peddled the very last crumb.
“I’d like a powdered sugar cake donut, and two—”
“Chocolate glazed. Absolutely, Mrs. Howard.” Lucy pulled out the wax paper and scooped up the donuts, dropping them into the bag.
Seb had peeled off his jacket, now hung it on the edge of the table to dry.
“Hello, Jerry, what can I get you?” She smiled at the mayor, although she still couldn’t get over his rather callous response to her predicament. See if she voted for him in November. He might want to consider his campaign donuts before he started shutting her down.
“I want that last skizzle, please.”
She dumped it into a bag, glad that it had sat under the glass for a while. A hot skizzle could make her mouth water from ten feet. A skizzle after an hour crunched in her mouth and shattered in her hand. She hoped Jerry found it in pieces on his pressed black jeans.
“Hey there, Lucy.” Tall, thin Bree, with her finished nails and smoky eyes, that bleached hair. Where she put her donut-hole-a-day habit baffled Lucy because the woman probably painted on those jeans.
Lucy handed over the bag with the lone donut hole. Bree winked at her and dropped the eighty cents into her hand.
“Next?” A tourist—Lucy smiled as the woman cleaned her out of plain cake donuts.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Bree sit opposite Seb. He looked up but said nothing.
Lucy took the tourist’s money.
See, Bree, he’s not interested.
But Bree opened her bag, dumping her donut hole onto the table, then leaned close to him to say something.
He smiled.
“Can I buy a donut?”
She glanced at the customer. Oh, the hotel owner from across the street. “Sure, Anthony, what would you like?”
“That last glazed knot.”
She dumped it into the bag for him.
Bree was touching Seb’s arm.
“And those last two bismarks?”
She glanced at Anthony. “What?”
He had kind blue eyes, and they even followed her gaze into the eatery. “I’d like the last two bismarks, too.”
Right. She found another bag, dropped those in.
“Can you put it on my account?”
And if Lucy wasn’t mistaken, the girl was leaning—
“Lucy?”
She still wore her smile—she always wore her smile. “Huh?”
“Can I put it on my account?”
“Yes. Of course.” She tapped it into her computer. “Thanks, Anthony.”
No one stood behind him.
Bree nodded now, listening intently to something Seb should be telling her.
That’s it. They were closed. Lucy slid the remaining trays of donuts out of the case and began carrying them into the back. She hoped Issy was hungry.
“I got it from here, Bree, thanks.” She stood over her with a wet cloth, then made a point of swiping at the table where Bree had spilled glaze.
Bree looked at Seb, back at Lucy. “Uh . . .”
“We’re closed. See you tomorrow.” Lucy still wore the smile, but Bree shouldn’t be deceived.
She got up. Lucy didn’t even watch her go. She slid into the booth. “You don’t look so hot. What happened?”
“With Bree? Aw, I was just telling her that she looked great and that she should come to the game on Friday.”
She looked great? Lucy stared after her. Bree had exited and stood outside on the porch, lifting her hand, her blonde hair glorious despite the gloomy day. “She looks like she did when she graduated.” Cute. Every teenage boy’s dream.
Seb Brewster’s dream.
Seb gave her a smile. “But she’s not you, Lucy. I never thought about her after . . . well, after that night you saw us together.”
And just like that, the coil in her stomach vanished. See, Seb wanted her, not a fling. “Okay. So why do you look like you’ve lost the big game?”
Seb’s smile dimmed. “I’m not going to get this coaching job. I know it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the new coach. He . . . well, he’s disabled.”
“What?” She’d seen Coach Knight. Sure, he had scars, but he looked capable enough. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t be sure, but from where I stood in the stands, it looks
like he’s got a prosthetic leg.”
“You’re kidding me.”
Seb shook his head. “I saw him fall. Right there, on the field. He went out for a pass, landed on his backside.”
“That could happen to anyone—you know that.”
“His leg came off.”
All the air blew out of her. “His leg came off?”
“Not all the way. But it twisted, and when the reverend helped him up, it sort of dangled, and he couldn’t walk on it.” Seb closed his eyes. “This is a nightmare.”
“Do you think the school board knows?”
“I don’t know—but I can’t tell them. It would just sound . . . petty. Desperate.”
“But can he even do the job? It’s not like he’s teaching computer science. He has to be out there running and showing them plays and—”
“Guys with prosthetics can do that. They have all sorts of advances today. And before he fell, he ran just fine. Maybe with a little limp—”
“I’ve seen his limp. I thought he must have pulled a muscle.”
“Probably everyone does.”
“Don’t you think the school board should know?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t be the one to say anything. Besides, when they find out . . .” He sighed. “You should have seen him, Lucy. He was out there, working his way to his feet, and nearly wouldn’t let Dan help him. Can you imagine what it takes to be a guy out on the field, missing a leg?”
“Wow.” Did Issy know?
Seb pressed his hands through his wet hair. Leaned back. Stared at the waves now angry upon the shore. The downpour had stopped. Lucy wanted to take his hand—
“Am I a good man, Lucy?” He looked at her then. Frowned. “I want to be a good man.”
“You . . . you are. You are a good man, Seb.”
“What makes a good man?”
“I think it’s who he is, right? His choices.”
He pulled out a napkin and wiped the moisture from the table.
She took his hand. “I do know this: being a good man has nothing to do with how many touchdowns you score. But maybe, rather, how you play the game.”
He looked up and made a face at her.
“That did sound a little cliché, didn’t it? But let’s remember I’ve been making donuts all day. My brain is a little doughy.”
He laughed, shook his head. “Lucy, you always know how to make me smile.”
She ran her thumb over his. “What was that thing Coach always used to say? About teamwork?”
“He told us that we needed to be men built for others. Not just for ourselves.”
She lifted her shoulder.
“I can’t fight a crippled guy. What does that make me?” He didn’t meet her eyes.
“Seb, you didn’t know he was handicapped—because he didn’t tell anyone. He clearly doesn’t want people to know. Which means, he wants you to fight him, fairly. Not with pity. Maybe it makes you a good man to honor him with a good game. You’re just going to have to outplay him.”
“Knight just got back up.” Seb looked at her. “I don’t get back up. I stay down like my old man. I stay down and crawl away.”
“No, you did stay down. But now you’re back, and you’re getting your footing.”
He sighed. “Yes.” He reached out to her, the strangest look in his eyes.
She leaned into his cold hand on her cheek. “Are you the Sebanator or aren’t you?”
“I don’t know who I am, Lucy.”
“Then maybe it’s time you found out.”
14
Issy simply didn’t recognize herself.
Not only had she applied makeup—for the second time in less than a week—but she wore jeans rolled up at the ankles, a pair of Sketchers, and a white blouse, crisp and fresh like she might be waiting for someone to come home.
Which, of course, she was.
But she didn’t want to look obvious, so over the top of her garb she threw on one of her father’s blue dress shirts, now turned into a gardening shirt.
She’d decided to weed the front rose beds. Even though she’d weeded a week ago. Or less. But weeding was easier when the earth was softer, after a good rain.
Right.
The evening, filled with the early sounds of crickets, the low slant of the sun over the rooftops, the smells of a hickory grill or maybe a nearby fire, held the nostalgia of her youth. She half expected her father to drive up in his SUV and wave to her from his window as he pulled in after practice.
Your father loves you.
She wasn’t sure why Caleb had said that, but something about it could prick tears in her eyes, even two days later.
As she straightened up to consider her paltry pile of weeds, she blew through the tightening of her chest. She had made steps, hadn’t she? like having the football team over this week? That counted as a step toward freedom, toward her father, right?
I’m proud of you, honey. Her father’s words today, when she’d told him about Caleb, about the barbecue. She hadn’t mentioned Caleb’s offer to bring her to visit him.
On the porch steps, Duncan rose and began to bark. She glanced over her shoulder, then turned back to her bed of flowers as Caleb drove up.
The car door slammed. “Hey! Isadora!”
She smiled a second before she looked over. She liked his using her full name.
He must have showered at school because he didn’t look like a man fresh from a workout. No, he wore a white long-sleeved baseball shirt with black arms that did a devastating job of enhancing his physique. That and his requisite baseball hat, and he held white restaurant bags in both hands.
“There’s a new Thai place in town.” He gestured with his head. “Come over to my porch for dinner?”
She leaned back, pressed herself to a stand. Glanced past him. “Your porch?”
He nodded, a kind smile on his face. “Bring Roger with you.”
Duncan had come off the porch to stand beside her. His porch. She could see it from her place, and twenty steps would bring her home. “Okay.”
“I’ll get silverware and meet you in ten.”
Ten agonizing minutes to consider his porch. See, it was one thing to run a route around the block, cocooned inside her earbuds. But this involved her walking to his place.
Sitting on his steps.
But he knew about her . . . struggles.
What if BoyNextDoor had the same trouble with his girl? Not that she was Caleb’s girl, but for argument’s sake, did Boy have to coax Girl out of her world, into his?
Or had he gone in after her?
And really, she shouldn’t be thinking of BoyNextDoor on her date with Caleb.
She wouldn’t.
Going inside, she unbuttoned her father’s garden shirt and hung it on the hook in the kitchen closet. She stopped by the sink and scrubbed her hands clean, then dried them.
Her hair . . . well, maybe she should get Bree in for a house call to trim her split ends. She couldn’t do much else with the dark mop her mother bequeathed her.
Standing in the kitchen for another five minutes, she searched for the tightening of her chest. Nothing.
Huh. Maybe Rachelle was right. Maybe she should stop expecting herself to panic.
After ten minutes to the second, she opened the door, walked down the steps, across the lawn, over the driveway, and into Caleb’s yard.
He’d spread out a picnic on his porch, seated against the column of his steps with one leg straight, the other pulled up. True man style, he’d grabbed a towel from the bathroom for a tablecloth and set out a couple of white paper plates.
“I didn’t know if you wanted chopsticks or a fork.” He held out both.
“Did you know that in most of Thailand, they use forks, not chopsticks?” She took the fork and sat on the step. “Did you really say Thai food?”
He nodded, opening a white container. “Pad Thai with chicken.”
She fished out a noodly mix of chicken, egg, bean sprouts, a
nd peanuts. “This looks delicious.”
“And here’s green chicken curry.”
“Really?”
“Don’t forget the sticky rice.” He handed over another container.
“Where did you find this?”
Caleb had opted for chopsticks and was shoveling noodles into his mouth. “I think it’s the old taco place. I saw sombreros painted on the window.”
“That went out of business two years ago. Before that, it was an Italian place. And before that, a burger joint.”
“Wow. You know your town.”
She smiled. “I actually wrote an essay about it my senior year in high school.”
“Really? I want to read it.”
The way he said it, with a sweetness in his grin, she could probably stay here on the porch all night without a twinge of fear.
“Oh, I promise it’s riveting. Absolutely compelling. Like the part about the logging truck taking out the fish shack at the end of the hill—high-action stuff. As was the flooding of Main Street in ’87. My father actually got out our canoe and paddled to the donut shop. Had to get his donuts, you know.”
Caleb laughed. “So I guess you could probably tell me why the T-shirt shop has a bar and stools in it?”
“Used to be a soda fountain.”
“And the large, uninhabited monstrosity in the middle of Main Street?”
“The old theater. Last showing, The Sound of Music, late 1970s.”
“And is Honeymoon Bluff really . . . you know, Honeymoon Bluff?”
She put down her fork and reached for a bottle of water. “I’ll never tell.”
“C’mon. You can tell me.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, and the look nearly made water come out her nose.
“No, I mean—I am telling you. I never went there.” She wiped her mouth, reached for the chopsticks.
“Never?”
“Nope, I . . . well, I never dated in high school.”
“What? Are you kidding me?” He put his plate down and the genuine surprise sent a curl of heat through her.
“No. I made a rule not to date football players.”
He frowned.
“My dad was the coach—I couldn’t date anyone on his team.”
“Whatever. But what about the geeks? You know, the soccer players. Or the theater kids.”
My Foolish Heart Page 19