Page 6 of Under the Lights
“If nothing comes up.” She let Coach kiss her cheek, then waved to her mom. “I’ll call you when I get a chance.”
“Nice to see you again, Kelly,” Chase said.
She faced him, fixing on her “work” smile. “You, too. We really appreciate you coming back, and Coach can give you my cell number if you don’t have it. If you need anything, just call.”
“And somebody will tell me what I’m supposed to be doing?”
“You’re a couple of days early so, for now, just relax and make yourself at home.”
She got out of there before any of them got the idea to twist her arm into eating her share of the pie Mrs. Sanders had sent.
The rest of her shift was quiet, which was good. A call after regular business hours usually meant the teens were up to no good, or a domestic situation had gone bad.
The downside was how much time her mind had to wander, and the way it kept wandering to Chase Sanders. Until the idea for the fund-raiser had come to her, she hadn’t really thought about him in years. But she’d thought about him in high school. A lot.
She’d been around the team all the time, helping Coach however she could—being water girl or equipment manager or keeping stats—despite his desire that she shake her pom-poms for the Eagles. Once the nurses had confirmed his wife hadn’t given birth to a future quarterback, Coach gave his newborn daughter the most cheerleader-like name he could think of.
Kelly wasn’t the pom-pom type, though, so she’d divided her time between the library and hanging around the fringes of the team. Since Chase never seemed to notice her, she’d pretended to dislike him so nobody would ever guess how she felt about him. As far as she knew, nobody had ever figured it out, except her closest friends.
She was a lot older and wiser now, and no longer the type to fall for a pretty face and cheesy lines. She’d done it once, falling for a guy who was a lot like Chase Sanders, and the crashing and burning of her marriage had taught her a thing or two about relationships. Think first, then think again, andthenconsider sexual chemistry.
So far, only one of the guys had gotten past thinking first, and that one didn’t get past the thinking again. Even if her body waxed nostalgic about her long-ago yearnings for Chase, she had no doubt any lingering attraction wouldn’t survive a liberal dose of logic.
—
Walking into Coach’s house took Chase back fourteen years to his senior year of high school.
The décor had changed. Rich cream-colored paint had replaced the floral wallpaper, and the furniture was different, even if no longer new. The picture of Kelly in her police uniform, standing between Coach and her mother at what appeared to be some kind of graduation, was definitely a new addition. Just as it had been tonight, her blond hair was in one of those fancy braids that ended below her collar, and her legs still went on forever. Since she wasn’t wearing the boob-smashing vest in the picture, he could see she’d blossomed a little in that department while he’d been ignoring her, too.
But the warm, welcoming feel of the McDonnell home wasn’t new, enveloping him just as it had the first time Coach dragged teen Chase home with him.
Since he was carrying a pie, it made sense for him to follow Mrs. McDonnell into the kitchen, and that’s where the memories really reared up in his mind. The old, sturdy oak table was still there. He couldn’t even count the number of hours he’d spent at that table, doing his homework. Whenever he got confused and frustrated, Coach or Mrs. McDonnell would pull out the chair next to his and talk him through the problem, no matter how long it took. Sometimes Kelly would come downstairs when she was done with her own homework and help him, though not often. He always suspected the McDonnells knew his academic struggles would be more embarrassing with her around to watch.
He had no idea how he would have turned out if not for the two people currently dishing up his mother’s pie. He wouldn’t have gone to college, that was for damn sure. Maybe he never would have left Stewart Mills, and his sister would never have visited him on campus and fallen in love—and pregnancy—with a local boy, which had led to his parents’ move and the entire family ending up in New Jersey.
His life may be in chaos, but it beat a dead-end job in a dead-end town.
“We turned the guest room into Coach’s office years ago,” Mrs. McDonnell was saying. “I hope you won’t mind staying in Kelly’s old room.”
“Of course not.” He really hoped Kelly hadn’t been a frilly and pink kind of girl. Spooning with stuffed unicorns wasn’t his thing.
“I was going to turn it into a craft room—”
“You mean a room with your own TV,” Coach interrupted.
“But before I made up my mind, Kelly was going through the divorce, and she moved back in for a while.”
So Kelly had been married? He wasn’t sure why that piqued his interest, but he was smart enough not to ask any questions about it. Looking like he was trying to hook up with Coach’s daughter would be even worse than running a stop sign, as far as being welcomed back went.
“How are your parents?” Coach asked as they pulled out chairs to sit in front of the pie slices his wife set on the table.
“Good.” He flailed around in his head, trying to come up with more to say. “They’re good.”
“And your sister?” Mrs. McDonnell added. “Kathleen, right?”
“Kathy’s good, too. She and her husband own a secondhand furniture store and have three daughters.”
“No kids for you yet?”
