Guarding Sophie

by Julie Brannagh

  He didn’t know how to cook. A chef visited his former house to cook meals for him during the season; there were approximately a hundred restaurants within a five-block radius of his condo in Bellevue, so he could manage to feed himself during the off-season. Learning to cook was never a priority for him. He realized there were a few restaurants in Noel, but he’d like to find some ready-made stuff so he could get his ass back home and do a few other things he’d been putting off, such as contacting his family to let them know he was fine. He’d rather avoid the argument he knew would ensue when he told them he wanted to be on his own for a while. His “friends” would flip out when they found out their money spigot was cut off, they’d call his family and insist something was wrong, and all hell would break loose unless he made the calls.

  Only an egotistical ass would wear sunglasses inside, but now he understood why celebrities did it. He was like every douchey pro athlete he’d ever seen interviewed while wearing sunglasses. He grabbed a grocery cart out of the nest and nabbed a few things in the produce section—fruits, vegetables, and some of the ready-made juices. He owned a juicer. He didn’t know how to use it, either. Four bucks for a little bottle of juice wasn’t cheap, but he’d survive. He headed toward the deli area for some more ready-made food and came to a halt in the middle of the aisle as he glanced around the check stand area. He looked, and then he stared.

  It couldn’t be her. And it couldn’t be anyone else, either.

  He hadn’t seen her for almost ten years, but he’d never forgotten her. The high school cheerleader outfit with the short skirt was gone. Her flyaway cinnamon-colored hair was contained in a long, thick braid that hung over one shoulder. Her nose was still dusted with freckles, and he saw her glance up from her work as one of the customers passing by her with a cart called out, “Hi, Sophie!”

  “Hi yourself,” she said. He’d never forget that voice, either: warm, with a trace of a smile. She kept dragging items over the scanner while she made small talk with the customer in front of her.

  She hadn’t seen him yet, but she was about to. What the hell was she doing here in the first place? She was engaged to another guy on the football team five minutes after they graduated from high school. He still hated the guy. He and Sophie were pretty good friends in those days. He was a football star, and she was a cheerleader. He’d been to her parents’ house several times for get-togethers. They knew the same people, went to the same parties, and Kyle had been too shy to ask her out for three years and seven months. He thought the prom was his big chance.

  He’d seen some of the other guys at school making idiots of themselves with a huge “promposal.” He wasn’t about to ask her over the school’s intercom system or string up a banner in the AP English class they were both in. He’d like to do the asking face-to-face and with a bit of privacy. As a result, he bought her a bouquet of soft pink roses, made an extra effort with his (wavy, shoulder-length, and unruly) hair, and put on the clothes he’d asked his mom to pick out for him that morning.

  He’d waited for Sophie’s electric blue Volkswagen Bug to pull into the high school parking lot. There was a cement bench under a tree a few hundred feet away; this might be a great place to talk with her for a few minutes if she accepted his invitation.

  His palms were sweaty. His heart was already racing. He’d wanted a date with her for so long. Out of all the girls he knew, she was the only one he wanted to go to the prom with. That is, if he had the courage to ask her in the first place.

  “If,” he muttered to himself. “Not if. When. Think positive. She’ll say ‘yes.’ ”

  She got out of the car, and he met her on the sidewalk in front of the school gym. She wasn’t hurrying along as she usually did. She wasn’t smiling at him like usual, either. Something was wrong.

  “Hey, Sophie.”

  “Hey,” she said. She glanced at the flowers, glanced up at him, and he thought he saw sadness on her face. Maybe he imagined things. They were going to be late to class if he didn’t speak up now.

  He pulled in a huge breath and blurted out, “Will you go to the prom with me?”

  His heart sank as he watched tears rising in her eyes. She stared at the sidewalk they stood on and clasped her hands in front of her. He saw her take a huge gulp of air.

  “You’re a day late,” she said. “Danny asked me yesterday.” She looked into his eyes again. “I wanted to go with you so badly, and I thought you weren’t going to ask, and I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could.”

  Her soft pink mouth quivered. She’d hurried away from him without another word.

  He’d thought there would be thousands of women in college; maybe it was best to not get so wrapped up in only one. Surely he’d forget Sophie as he’d forgotten the combination to his locker at school. It seemed to pop into his mind at random moments, and so did she. Obviously, he’d made a mistake. He’d tried looking her up when he went home after the season over the years, but she seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, or at least out of Cocoa Beach.

  “We hardly see her, either,” Sophie’s mom assured him when he ran into her one day at the local gas station in Cocoa Beach. “I’ll let her know you’re home. Does she have your number?”

  “Probably not,” he said. He wrote his cell number on the back of the receipt he dug out of the pump. “Please ask her to call me.”

  “Of course I will,” Mrs. Hayes said. “I can’t believe you’re not married yet.”

  “Not yet,” he said. He didn’t think it was a great idea to tell Mrs. Hayes he’d never quite forgotten her daughter over the years.

  Half an hour after spotting Sophie at one of the store’s check stands, he had a cartful. The ready-made section in the deli had a surprisingly large selection. He wasn’t a big fan of salads containing Jell-O, but there were plenty of other tasty-looking items to choose from. He remembered his mom always telling him to stay out of the grocery store when he was hungry. Well, it was too damn late for that. He took a pound of fifteen different items, bagged a couple of rotisserie chickens, and headed for the meat department. He had a brand-new gas grill back at his place. Grilling wasn’t hard. Grilling was in every guy’s DNA. As a result, he bought some steaks and some ground beef. He also went a little (well, a lot) overboard in the frozen foods aisle. So he had an ice cream habit. He rearranged everything in the cart to grab another couple of six-packs of beer and approached the register.

  Sophie didn’t glance up. She was making change for one of her coworkers.

  “I have another couple of bundles of ones, but here’s what I can spare,” she told the older woman. “If we need more, we can call Mitch.”

  “He’s in the back listening to the Mariners game.”

  He heard Sophie’s soft laugh. Ten years had passed, and that laugh still made him smile. “He’s always in a better mood when they win.”

  “Isn’t everyone in a better mood when they win?” the other woman asked. She gave Kyle a nod. “Looks like you have a customer.”

  Sophie shut her cash drawer and glanced up at Kyle. “How are you today?”

  She reached out for the front of his cart to pull it closer, stared at him for a few seconds, and froze. She seemed to struggle for words.

  “Kyle? Kyle Carlson, from Cocoa Beach High School? Is that you?”

  He thought he’d hidden his identity so well. He evidently sucked at disguises. He was somewhat pleased, however—at least she’d remembered him.

  “It’s me,” he said. “How are you doing, Sophie?”

  “What on earth are you doing here?” she said. She must have remembered she was at work; she guided the cart into her check stand and began to pull items out of it. “I thought you got drafted by Philadelphia.”

  Philadelphia had traded Kyle to Seattle before he’d played one down for them. It might have had something to do with the fact Seattle offered a king’s ransom of draft picks and another player to them in exchange after their starting wide receiver tore an ACL i
n training camp. Anyone who didn’t watch sports, though, probably thought he was still standing on top of the Rocky steps in Philadelphia, eating a cheesesteak and checking his phone.

  He glanced down at her hands. She didn’t wear a ring.

  “I thought you married Danny. Weren’t you engaged?”

  “That didn’t last long,” she said. She was still grabbing the ready-made food cartons out of his cart. “You must be having a party or something tonight.”

  “I was a little hungry.”

  She grinned up at him. “Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to go grocery shopping when you’re hungry?”

  “Probably,” he said. Another employee bagged up his items while a line formed behind him. She probably didn’t have a lot of time for chitchat, but he really wanted to talk with her some more. “Want to get a coffee later? We can catch up a little,” he blurted out.

  “With you?” She looked startled.

  “Uh, yeah. When are you off for the day?” Kyle said.

  “About two.” She bit her lower lip. “But I—”

  He swiped his credit card through the reader to pay for the groceries. Three hundred bucks? He must have lost his mind. She handed him the register tape and the receipt to sign.

  “I’ll come back and meet you here,” he said. “See you at two.”

  He’d pushed the cart to his car before he realized she’d never said yes.

  SOPHIE GLANCED AT the electronic clock on her cash register. One forty-five. She’d been so busy she hadn’t gotten the chance to ask her boss if she could duck out a few minutes early, just this once, and now there was no escape.

  Maybe Kyle was still putting his groceries away. He must have been having a hell of a party, or maybe his family was visiting. “Oh, God, no,” she muttered to herself. It wasn’t like she spent a lot of time with his parents when she and Kyle were in high school, but they might recognize her.

  She should have changed her name. She should have moved to Alaska or something, anywhere she wasn’t going to see people from her past. She could move anywhere on the planet, though, and it still might not help. She tried to stifle her racing thoughts as she tidied up around her work area. She was far enough away from Cocoa Beach (and hopefully, hidden her tracks well enough) that Peter wasn’t going to find her without a superhuman effort. She would be safe. She—

  A deep, slightly amused male voice interrupted her considerations.

  “Are you done here for the day? Let’s go grab a coffee,” Kyle said.

  “I have to count my till. Plus, I’m not sure this is a great idea.”

  “Why not?” He grinned at her. “I’d love to find out what you’ve been doing for the past ten years. Plus, I don’t mind waiting while you wrap up.” His voice dropped. “Maybe I should go see what the old people are doing back there.”

  The group of seniors had expanded over the entire section of tables and chairs by the Starbucks. It also appeared a card game had broken out. The guy scheduled to work from two until the store closed at eleven PM walked up with his till.

  “Hey, Sophie,” he said. “How’d it go?”

  “Fine. I’ll clear out of here so you can start,” she said. She glanced up at Kyle. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  She counted her till as quickly as humanly possible and clocked out. Her boss initialed the paperwork and said, “Looks like you have a date.”

  “Just coffee with a guy I went to school with.”

  “Good for you,” Mitch said. He knew about her situation too. She’d explained the bare minimum after she was hired. He told her he still wanted her to work there. When she wasn’t embarrassed by the fact everyone seemed to know her business, she was a little relieved.

  Now all she had to do was tell Kyle she probably shouldn’t have coffee with him. And ask him not to tell anyone back home he’d seen her.

  Chapter Three

  SOPHIE EMERGED FROM what Kyle imagined was the store manager’s office. She wasn’t smiling. She looked like she was calculating her ability to run out of the store without his seeing her. They hadn’t seen each other in ten years, but he always thought they were friends.

  She stopped at the table he was sitting at in the coffee area and folded her arms across her chest. “Kyle, I’m not sure we should get together right now.”

  Her body language was telling him she wasn’t sure they should get together ever, but he’d work on one thing at a time.

  “You must have something else to do today,” he said.

  “Well, yeah.” She looked down at her feet and bit her lower lip. “You know how it is.”

  He got to his feet. “Maybe another day, then. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “I—you don’t have to do that. I’m fine,” she said.

  “I have to go out there anyway.” He softened his words with a smile. She finally met his eyes, and he watched the expressions flit across her face: Distress. Nervousness. Resignation. Something bad had happened to her. She wasn’t the carefree, effervescent girl he knew in high school anymore.

  “I walked to work.”

  “Well, maybe I could walk you home.”

  He knew the meaning of the word no. He also knew he didn’t want to coerce her into anything she didn’t want. Those who didn’t gently persist didn’t get, however, and he didn’t want to spend another ten years wondering what the hell he did wrong.

  “Thank you for the offer, but really, I’m okay.”

  She walked to the grocery store entrance. He followed a short distance behind. She stopped, stared up at him for a minute or so, and seemed to come to some kind of decision. He wondered what had happened between her happiness at seeing him a couple of hours ago, and the fact she didn’t seem like she wanted to talk with him at all now.

  “I heard cruising on Main Street is a thing around here. Wanna ride?”

  She bit her lip again and shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  He’d always been a bit shy around women and her especially. He’d learned a few things since high school, though.

  “Did I do or say something that bothered you, Sophie? I didn’t mean to. I’ve wondered how you were doing a few times since we graduated. I hoped we could spend a little time catching up. If you don’t want to, I understand.”

  “No. Of course not. I—I—well, I haven’t been dating lately, and I—” She looked at her shoes for a few seconds and glanced up at him again. “Actually, I’d like to talk with you too. I like it here a lot, but it’s nice to see someone from back home.”

  He gave her a nod. “Okay, then. That’s great.”

  The “whoosh” of relief swept through him as he gestured toward his car. She hopped into the passenger seat of his crossover like she’d been doing it for years. He’d known a few other women who struggled with it, or needed assistance. Not Sophie.

  “Where to?” he said as she snapped her seat belt on.

  “Caffeine Addiction is pretty good. Have you been there yet?”

  “I haven’t been anywhere yet,” he said. “Maybe you could tell me a few of your favorite places here.”

  “I thought you lived here,” she said.

  “For the past two days,” he said, and he saw the smile he remembered so well move across her face.

  “I haven’t been here very long, either,” she said. “I might not be the best at showing you around.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said.

  He’d seen the coffee shop’s sign as he drove to the grocery store earlier. At least he knew where it was.

  Five minutes later, he parked his car outside Caffeine Addiction. A couple of people were seated at small tables in the back of the shop, hunched over their laptops. It looked like any other independent coffee shop, with one notable difference. Well, besides the holiday music that rang out in every business in town. He’d never heard a reggae version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” before.

  A tall, dark-haired young guy he recogn
ized glanced up from wiping the stainless steel bar counter and called out, “Welcome to Caffeine Addiction. What can I get started for you?” Michael’s eyes widened with surprise. “Kyle. What the heck are you doing here?”

  Michael was familiar to anyone who’d played for the Sharks in the past couple of years. After Kyle’s teammate Derrick Collins learned Michael’s family needed a bit of extra help at the holidays, Derrick put on a holiday party for the children of Noel. He also made sure Michael’s mom found a job, and there was a lavish Christmas celebration for Michael’s family. As a result of Derrick’s generosity, Michael had attended several of the Sharks’ football camps over the past two seasons. He’d also stayed at Tom Reed’s house while he helped out at the team’s training camp each summer. The guys on the team treated him like their kid brother.

  Kyle moved forward and stuck out his fist to bump Michael’s. “Michael. How are you doing? I heard you’ve committed to Oregon. Good job, buddy. It’s not Miami, but it’ll do.” Michael let out a laugh as Kyle nodded toward Sophie. “This is Sophie. I went to school with her. We thought we’d stop by for something to drink.”

  She reached out to fist-bump Michael as well, and he grinned at her.

  “Nice meeting you, Sophie. What would you like?”

  “I’d love an iced tea, if you have it, please.” She reached into her purse to grab her wallet, and Kyle had his cash out before her hand emerged.

  “Uh-uh. It’s on me,” he said. “I’ll take an iced tea too. So, Michael, when did you become a workin’ man?”

  “I’m making some extra money to take my girlfriend to the senior prom.” Michael busied himself pouring two iced teas.

  “Proms are crazy expensive,” Kyle said. Michael acknowledged this with a nod. “You let us know if you need anything. You still have Collins’s number in your cell?”

  “Yeah. He already told me he was going to kick my butt because I wouldn’t let him rent a limo for us.” Color crept over Michael’s cheekbones. “Things at our house are a lot better now thanks to him. He doesn’t need to pay for stuff anymore. I can handle it.”