by Lucy Gilmore
“I haven’t felt anything like that since Reggie had Mia. It’s the most alive I’ve ever been.”
“Cole—” she began, but the sound of the front door clicking open stopped her. Which was probably for the best, because she didn’t know what she would have said. That he came to life every time he touched a football? That she came to life every time he touched her?
“Knock-knock!” came a singsong voice. “Are you two decent? I rang the doorbell, but no one answered.”
“We’re in the kitchen,” Hailey called back, her voice unsteady. When Regina appeared behind the dog gate, she added, “I turned the doorbell off so it wouldn’t wake the puppies while they’re sleeping.”
“No need to tell me.” Regina leaned forward and dropped a light kiss on her brother’s cheek. “I used to disconnect every electronic device I owned when Mia was a baby. I’d have fought a duel to the death to protect her sleep—and mine. What smells so good?”
For the second time, Hailey found herself flustered by the question. “It’s just a sweet potato and chicken thing I threw into the slow cooker.” She cast an apologetic look at Cole and added, “There’s a quinoa and kale salad in the fridge to go with it. I hope you don’t mind, but I had your nutritionist send over a copy of your diet and calorie guidelines. He was very helpful.”
Cole blinked down at her. “You emailed Piers?”
“Technically, I called him, but yes. He thought I was just some crazy stalker at first, but we got to talking about your mom, and I convinced him I’m the real deal.” She paused and added, “Well, he might still think I’m a crazy stalker, but even he had to admit that I could hardly try to kill you with kale.”
Regina laughed. “You say that now, but you should have seen his face the first time Mom served it to him. He was—what?—sixteen at the time. He told us it looked like something that food eats.”
“Oh no.” Hailey had been so careful to stick to the caloric and ingredient guidelines that she’d forgotten to ask about his personal tastes. “You don’t like it?”
“I love it,” Cole said firmly.
“Do you?” Regina asked, an arch lift to her brow. “Do you really?”
“It’s my favorite thing.”
He spoke with such resolve that Hailey knew it for a lie. But it was a polite lie, and one he seemed determined to uphold as they sat at the table to eat. It was an interesting dynamic, what with Cole holding a napping Rufus in the crook of his arm, Philip panting anxiously at his feet, and a framed Lumberjacks jersey mounted above Regina’s head, but Hailey had no one to blame for it but herself. She’d wanted to do this on her own terms, even if her terms were unorthodox and slightly pathetic.
It helped that Cole must have warned Regina ahead of time what to expect inside the house. Other than a slightly lifted brow at the decor, she hadn’t said anything about it.
“By the way, that Penny woman sent me a list of the two puppy teams you guys picked,” Regina said between mouthfuls of the kale—which she, at least, seemed to appreciate. “We should get some good press out of it, but I’m curious about what happens next.”
“Filming, mostly,” Hailey replied. “The crew is going to start putting up the set next week, and then we’ll introduce the puppies a few at a time until we’re ready to start. It takes us a while to get enough footage. Puppies rarely do what they’re told.”
“Football players are the same,” Regina said, dimpling at her brother. “And preschoolers, come to think of it. Cole and Mia have a lot in common.”
Cole pointed his fork at his sister. “The joke’s on you. Mia is the best person in the whole world.”
“Mia throws tantrums when I make her wear shoes that match.”
“She’s a woman who knows her own mind. I can respect that.”
Hailey sat back and watched as the two siblings continued their conversation, which was half argument and half love letter to the child they both adored. She doubted they had any idea how much it revealed, how deeply it showed the bond between them. These two had grown up side by side and, now that they were functioning adults, chose to continue that relationship by working together every day of their lives.
“What?” Cole demanded when he realized Hailey had stopped eating to watch them. “Why are you looking at us like that?”
She shook her head. There was no way she could explain that their relationship—so effortless, so natural, so real—was everything she’d ever wanted and nothing she would have an opportunity to know.
Cole looked as though he was going to demand an explanation, but both his and Regina’s phones chimed at the same time. Since Cole was still balancing Rufus, Regina got to hers first.
“Oh shit.” Regina cast a stricken glance at her brother.
“What?” He pushed back in his chair, jolting both the table and the puppy. “What happened? Is it Mia?”
“No. It’s Dad.” Regina held her phone up so Cole could read the message. It took him a moment to absorb the contents, his eyes moving anxiously back and forth across the screen. It was as though he needed to read it a few times before he was able to believe what he was seeing.
“I knew this was going to happen,” Regina muttered. “I knew he wasn’t taking care of himself.”
Hailey rose to her feet at once. She might not know much about having siblings, but she knew that look of shock and self-reproach.
“Let me take Rufus,” she said as she lifted the puppy from Cole’s arms. Although Rufus was quick to whimper his protest, Cole didn’t appear to notice. “You guys probably want to get going.”
Regina transferred her look of anxiety to Hailey. “I’m so sorry to do this. Everything has been so lovely and delicious, but…” She gulped. “It’s our dad. He’s—”
Hailey mentally crossed her fingers and called on all the fake powers of luck that she’d been granted, but it was no use.
“He had a heart attack.” Cole blinked, his gaze not focused on anything at all. “They’re taking him to the hospital now.”
“Then you’ll want to meet him there.” Hailey spoke with a calm authority she was far from feeling. She knew all too well the overwhelming sensations that were filling them right now, the disbelief that this could be real life. She’d gotten a similar call while studying for an economics test in her University of Washington dorm room during freshman year, and the only thing that had gotten her out the door had been her roommate’s steady voice walking her through the steps needed to board the correct bus. “You can leave Philip with me. He’s getting along well with Bess, so he won’t be any trouble for a night or two. We’ll have a sleepover. Mia—?”
“Is with her nanny.” Regina was the first to recover. She reached out and gripped Hailey’s hand with so much strength that Hailey felt her fingers crack. “But thank you for thinking of her.”
“Of course.”
Cole still bore the dazed look of a man who’d been hit with a surprise sack and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get up again, but as Regina grabbed her purse and started nudging him toward the door, he regained a hold on himself.
“Thank you for today, Hailey. All of it—the puppy draft and the food and the…” He waved his hand over her in a vague, slightly feminine-shaped gesture. “You know.”
She didn’t, actually, but she recognized his comment for what it was—the bewildered outburst of a man who’d just felt his world turn upside down.
“Go,” she said as she placed a hand on his back and gave him a gentle push. The ripple of his muscles underneath her touch was undeniable. So was his tension. “Philip and I will be here when—and if—you’re ready to resume our project. Don’t worry about us.”
They didn’t. As Hailey saw them out the front door, the pair of them walking side by side down the short walkway to Regina’s car, they didn’t once look back or remember her existence.
Which was onl
y to be expected, really. She wasn’t their friend, and she wasn’t a member of their family; at this juncture, she barely even qualified as an acquaintance. Philip joined her at the screen door, dropping his football as he watched his beloved master go.
Hailey put her free hand on his head, but it didn’t seem to bring him much comfort. “I know, little buddy,” she said. “But you and I are on our own, I’m afraid. Well, you and me and Rufus.”
That didn’t do much to boost the pit bull’s mood, either. Nor, if she was being honest, did Rufus take as much comfort from her arms as he had from Cole’s.
“All I need is for Bess to start howling that she misses him, and this whole house will have reached maximum absurdity,” she said. “We’ve known him less than two weeks, you guys. Don’t start acting like fools. He was never going to be ours to keep.”
Hailey didn’t wait to watch them drive away, but it didn’t seem to matter. As she shut the door and turned to face the ruins of their quarterback-friendly dinner, she only felt worse. She should probably start cleaning up, but she suddenly felt the full weight of the long day.
“The sleepover starts right now,” she said as she sank into her couch and basked in the two warm bodies pressed in her arms and against her side. They weren’t human bodies, but they were puppy bodies, and—as Mia would be the first to point out—a reasonable alternative.
Almost.
Chapter 11
“The next person who walks in here looking like he’s attending my funeral is getting a swift kick to the head.”
Regina turned to the nurse who’d appeared in the doorway with an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, he said the same thing to the last three doctors who came in. And one of them has been a friend of the family for over twenty years.”
The nurse must have been accustomed to irascible old men making feeble threats from their hospital beds, because all he did was chuckle and make his way inside, his head bent over the chart in his hand. “If you can manage to reach my head from your current position, then I’ll start the discharge papers myself. How’s that?”
The nurse’s cheerful voice did little to improve their dad’s mood. “Get a little closer, and we’ll see what I can do.”
“I’m not falling for that one so easily. This isn’t my first rodeo.” The nurse checked as soon as he looked up and noticed Cole standing over his father’s bedside. He blinked and swallowed and said the inevitable. “Holy shit. You’re Cole Bennett.”
Cole resisted the urge to deny this claim and stuck out his hand instead, taking note of the man’s name tag as he did. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ah, Kenny, is it? You have my permission to treat this bitter old man the same way you would any patient who doesn’t do what he’s told. I hear restraints are an option.”
As Cole had hoped, this remark helped the nurse regain some of his composure. Kenny laughed slightly and managed, “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be no trouble once we get him comfortable.”
Cole grimaced. “I’m not.”
Of the two of them, Cole ended up being correct. His dad didn’t go so far as to physically assault the nurse, but he grumbled and complained and otherwise made it difficult for the man to do his job. It would have been embarrassing if Cole and Regina hadn’t already had a lifetime in which to accustom themselves to it. Julian Bennett wasn’t a man who took the act of lying down, well, lying down.
“What a lovely young man,” their mom said as soon as the nurse left them with promises that yet another specialist would be by to see them in a few hours. She smoothed the blankets over her husband’s legs. “How are you feeling, dear?”
“Hungry,” came the prompt reply. “What does a man have to do to get a cheeseburger around here?”
Cole and Regina shared a look of exasperation. They’d arrived at the hospital prepared to find their father unconscious, in surgery, or—as their deepest fears wanted them to believe—dead. Their relief at finding him already in bed and recovering from what the doctors called “a minor attack” had been quickly replaced by…this. He looked pale and frail and much older than they’d ever seen him.
He was also seriously starting to piss them off.
“You can’t have cheese,” Regina said, her voice sharp. “Or burgers. Or mayonnaise or the spicy jalapeños you like on top. And don’t even get us started on the beer you’d be sure to demand to wash it all down.”
“That’s right,” Cole said, both verbally and physically backing his sister up. From the way their dad was glowering up at them, it looked as though his sister might be the one in danger of that kick to the head. “From now on, it’s nothing but kale as far as the eye can see.”
“Kale?” his dad demanded. “What the hell am I supposed to do with kale?”
Cole laughed. He imagined his dad would take the same approach he did with the stuff, which revolved mostly around throwing it into the nearest garbage. Unless, of course, it was being served by a woman who’d taken the time to hunt down his nutritional guidelines and painstakingly prepared a meal she knew would fit in with them.
Not even Julian Bennett at his most belligerent could refuse it after that. His son certainly couldn’t.
He could feel Regina looking at him, the same amusement in her expression that had been there at Hailey’s house, but he ignored her. He didn’t have to explain himself. It was only kale.
“We should probably figure out who’s going to stay with Dad tonight,” Cole said with a meaningful glance at his sister. Their mother would most likely demand the first shift, but she looked exhausted, as well she might. Getting their father into an ambulance in this mood couldn’t have been an easy task. “You’ll have to work your magic tomorrow and get me out of this week’s game, Reg, but—”
“The devil she will!”
“Cole, love, you don’t mean that.”
“I’m not going to do any such thing.”
Of the three responses, Regina’s was the most alarming—and not just because she was Cole’s manager and therefore the one in a position to actually do something. She spoke with the calm, damnable authority of an older sister who believed herself wise, infallible, and always, always right.
“Mom and I will work something out between us,” Regina said, still in that same tone. “You’re going home and going straight to bed. You have to be up and at practice at six.”
“Are you kidding me?” Cole asked. He could hardly believe he was being forced to say the words out loud. “I’m not going to play football while Dad’s lying in a hospital bed.”
“It wasn’t even a real heart attack,” his dad said as he struggled into a sitting position. He made it only halfway before Regina and their mom shoved him back down again. He accepted this with a meekness that said more about his current condition than all the charts and blipping monitors could. “You heard the doctor. It was a partial blockage, that’s all. I’ll be back on my feet in a week.”
“The doctor said you can get discharged from the hospital in a week, barring any additional complications,” he countered. “That’s not the same thing.”
“I’m fine.”
“You could have died.”
“I’m fine.”
He wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot, and not—if the doctor was to be believed—unless he drastically changed his way of life. Apparently, the chances of a repeat and more catastrophic attack were high in this sort of situation.
Cole knew better than to push the issue, however. For as long as he could remember, he’d been taught that Bennett men didn’t show weakness or acknowledge pain. It was a large part of the reason his mom kept that scrapbook of his high school injuries: not for sympathy or for posterity but as proof.
Proof that a Bennett didn’t let things like physical pain get in the way of success. Proof that results were more important than all the things that had to be sacrificed to get there. W
hat was a personal life when football was on the line? What were feelings when there were reps to get in?
“You guys can’t be serious,” he said, his gaze skimming from face to face, his entire family staring at him with the same stony resolve. “You’re kicking me out?”
His mom rose and put a hand on his arm. The exhaustion that had lined her face was still there, but it was matched by a determination he knew better than to fight. “There’s not much for you to do here, and you know it. The doctors have everything under control, and your father will rest better if he knows you’re focused on the game against Texas.”
“You know their spread defense always throws you off,” his dad said.
Cole made one last effort. He turned to his sister, who should have been the one person in the room most on his side. “Reggie, you don’t mean it.”
“You’ll only be in the way here.” She smiled in an attempt to show she meant no harm, but the damage had already been done. “Go do what you do best, Brother dear. Win. Make it to the divisional championship. Give him something to live for. You’ll only be a distraction if you linger around here. I’ve seen six nurses tiptoe past the door in the last two minutes alone.”
There was nothing Cole could say or do after that to convince his family to let him do his part. It was no use telling them that he wasn’t likely to get any sleep after a scare like this one or that he wasn’t going to be any good at practice if he was worrying about his dad the whole time. As a collective, they’d already decided the role he would play. He was the football star, the hero, the son whose only value was the glory he brought to the family name.
And that, if they had anything to say about it, was all he’d ever be.
* * *
“Cole!”
Hailey peeked through the narrow opening in the door, her chain in place against the late-night visitor who’d seen fit to stop by just as the clock chimed one in the morning. It would take a daring intruder to break into a house that often had several large, angry dogs living under its roof, but she knew better than to take chances. A single woman living alone was open to all kinds of dangers.