Page 1 of Under the Lights
01
With his business partner off to who-knew-where with the money he’d drained from their accounts, and his girlfriend currently stripping their apartment of any sign she’d ever lived there, the last thing Chase Sanders wanted to do was answer the damn phone.
It was only nine in the morning and he’d already fielded a call from their lumber supplier, wanting to know why their check had bounced. That was followed up by a call from his girlfriend’s new boyfriend, wanting to hash out who owned the television before the guy carried it out to his truck.
Formergirlfriend, he corrected himself as the phone kept ringing. Maybe he’d hit the shitty-day jackpot and it was his doctor calling to tell him he might have contracted some horrible disease. Probably from his girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—and her new boyfriend.
At the fifth ring he glanced at the caller ID, and the area code snapped him out of his funk—603. And the prefix numbers were from his hometown. Why the hell was anybody calling him from Stewart Mills, New Hampshire?
He tempted fate and picked up the phone. “S and P Builders.”
“Chase Sanders, please,” said a woman whose voice he didn’t recognize, not that he would expect to after fourteen years away. Her tone was warm, and maybe a little sexy, but he braced himself for bad news because that was just how his luck was running at the moment.
“This is Chase.”
“My name is Kelly McDonnell.” The last name landed a sucker punch to his gut. “You probably don’t remember me, but—”
“Don’t.” Chase was struck by a terrible certainty she was going to tell him Coach—her father—had passed away, and he didn’t want to hear it. He had to make her stop talking.
“I’m sorry. Don’t what?” She sounded confused, not that he could blame her.
He could deal with Rina reacting to the increase in penny-pinching by finding herself a new guy who wasn’t losing his business. He could deal with Seth Poole reacting to the decline in the construction industry by pinching the few pennies they had left and running. But he absolutely couldn’t deal with hearing Coach McDonnell was dead. Not today.
“Hello?” she said. “Are you still there?”
What an ass he was. This call couldn’t be easy for the man’s daughter. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
“But you said ‘don’t.’”
“I was talking to my dog.” Not that he had a dog. Rina didn’t like dog hair and had refused to budge, even when he’d told her some of those froufrou ankle-biter breeds didn’t shed.
“I’m Coach McDonnell’s daughter and I’m calling to talk to you about a very special fund-raising festival we have planned for the summer.”
Fund-raising festival. “So Coach isn’t dead?”
“What?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“Why would you think that?” Her voice was still sexy, but it wasn’t warm anymore.
“You’re calling me, out of the blue, after fourteen years. I thought you were going to ask me to be a pallbearer or something.”
“You’ve been gone fourteen years, but you think I’d ask you to carry my father’s casket? If he was dead, of course. Which he’s not.”
“You wouldn’t ask me to be a pallbearer, but you’ll ask me for money?” Not that he had any to give.
“No.” He heard her exasperated breath over the phone line. “Can we start over?”
“Sure.” Wasn’t like the conversation could go any worse.
Chase tried to remember what Coach’s daughter looked like. She’d been a sophomore during his senior year, so he probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to her if she hadn’t always been around because of her dad. Thick, straight blond hair. Not much in the way of a rack, but she’d had killer legs. That was about all he remembered. Oh, and that she hadn’t liked him much, for some reason.
“Things are bad in Stewart Mills,” Kelly said. He wasn’t surprised. Things were bad all over and New Jersey certainly wasn’t a picnic at the moment. “The school budget’s been whittled down to bare bones and they cut the football team.”
He waited a few seconds, but she didn’t tell him why she called to tell him that. “And you want me to... what, exactly?”
Over the line, he heard her take a deep breath. “I want you to come home.”
