Charming the Firefighter (12 page)

Drew nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“No more lies, no getting into trouble anywhere, not at home or at school. There are no three strikes with me. You get two, and only two, chances. You’ve already used up one.” He fixed a long, hard stare on Drew, wanting the kid to realize exactly how serious he was about this two-strikes rule. “First thing you need to do when you get to practice tomorrow is apologize to the rest of the team and the other coaches. Then you need to spend the next month proving you’re willing to work hard to make it up to them, and to me, and to prove to your mother you deserve this chance.”

“So I can play? I’m on the team?”

Leo wasn’t sure this wasn’t a huge mistake, but the kid had obviously already been through a lot.

Besides, everyone deserved a second chance.

He nodded and stood. “I’ll see about clearing things with the athletic director, but yeah, you’re back on the team.”

Drew stuck out his hand. “Thank you, Coach. You won’t regret it.”

Leo shook the kid’s hand. “Make sure I don’t.”

Drew turned to Penelope. “Can I get my phone? Call Luke and tell him?”

“Sure.” She still looked shell-shocked as she retrieved the cell phone and handed it to Drew.

“Thanks. I’ll do the dishes when I’m done.”

And he was gone, showing some of that impressive speed of his by disappearing before either Leo or Penelope could comment.

“I don’t know whether to be angry at you for getting him so excited about football,” Penelope said, “or grateful. That boy has never, not once in his life, volunteered to help with the dishes.”

Leo stuck his hands in his pockets. “My mom always said kids may not be excited about helping out but they need to do so just the same. She didn’t wait for us to volunteer. She simply told us what to do and expected it to get done.”

“Unfortunately,” Penelope said, sounding snooty and superior, “that doesn’t work with every child.”

He didn’t point out that she wouldn’t know if she didn’t try—it wasn’t his business whether Drew did chores around the house and helped his mother.

“I’ll walk you out,” she continued.

He followed her to the door, stopped when she opened it. “You okay?” he asked.

“No. I’m terrified something’s going to happen to him.”

“You can’t protect him from everything.” If parents could do that, he wouldn’t have seen as many accidents as he had, wouldn’t have had to see the grief and unmentionable loss on Samantha’s parents’ faces the night she died. “Football isn’t without risk and it is a very rough sport. Then again, life isn’t without risk.”

She laughed, though the sound held no humor. “Yes, I’m well versed in that truth.”

He remembered what Drew had said about being sick. Saw how overprotective Penelope was. There must have been something bigger in their past than Leo realized. “Do you mind me asking? About Drew’s illness?”

Her lips thinned. “Leukemia.”

Leo’s head snapped back as if he’d been slapped. That explained Drew’s response when Leo had said life wasn’t fair. Christ, the poor kid. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded and crossed her arms. “He got through it. He wasn’t supposed to. At first, the doctors gave him only a thirty percent chance of surviving five years. Yet he somehow pulled through and proved them all wrong.” She leaned against the doorjamb looking tired and vulnerable. “He was first diagnosed when he was eight. We went through three years of treatments and fears.”

“That when you and your husband started having problems?”

“No, we were on decent footing until Andrew was thirteen. In the end, it was too much for us both. My husband...my
ex
-husband...has a demanding job and wasn’t around the way he could have been until it all got to be too much. Though we separated, we tried working things out for over a year. Until Todd told me he’d found someone else and wanted a divorce. After that, he began to spend less and less time with Andrew. When the divorce was final, it seemed like a good time for Andrew and me to make a new start.”

She paused, staring sightlessly at the floor, as though caught in memory. “I thought he’d outgrow the anger and resentment he has for me. He blames me for the divorce, for tearing him away from his life in California. I thought things were getting better because I’d stuck the course,” she said quietly, finally lifting her gaze to his. “Now I guess any improvement is all thanks to you and some sport where boys run full speed into each other and try to break as many of their opponents’ bones as possible.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Leo said. “Maybe what he needed, what he
needs,
is something constructive to do with his time. He is really good at football and he has pride in the sport and his ability. And I promise, I’ll do my best to keep him safe.”

It wasn’t a promise he made lightly, because he knew how difficult promises like that were to keep.

“I appreciate it,” she said sincerely, although there was something in her expression that said she knew there was only so much Leo could control. And other than keeping Drew on the bench all the time, he couldn’t guarantee anything.

She sighed and brushed back a loose strand of hair. His fingers twitched to do it for her. He curled them into his palm.

“You can’t protect him,” she said.

“Neither can you.”

She snorted. “I know. He resents that I try. I don’t understand. When he was little, he always turned to me to make things right.”

“He’s not a little kid anymore. He’s a teenager quickly growing into an adult. He’s already been through so much. You both have. Maybe you need to give yourselves some credit.”

“I like to think I do.”

“You want him to respect you? It’s a two-way street, and part of that is respecting his choices, his thoughts and feelings, his wants and what he needs, even when you don’t agree with them.”

“That’s the problem,” she whispered. “I don’t know what he wants or needs. Not anymore. And if I don’t know, how can I make sure he gets it?”

“I’m not a parent so I might be way off base, but it seems to me it’s not your job to make sure he gets everything he wants. Instead, you help him cope when he doesn’t. Help him figure out what’s best for him. I know you’re worried about him playing football, and I get why. His idea about you coming to practices is a good one. You’re welcome anytime, and if you have any questions or concerns whatsoever, let me know.”

He stepped forward, partly because he wanted to be near enough to get a whiff of her subtle floral scent and partly because he liked how nervous she got when he got too close. “You’re a good mom. Maybe you need to worry less about things that are out of your control. Seems to me both you and Drew could use something to focus on other than his illness and worrying he’ll get sick again.”

She smiled, and it was as if he’d been smacked upside the head. “That’s a great idea,” she said, and he loved her dry tone. “I’ll take up crocheting and I’m sure all my worries will disappear.”

He grinned. “Actually, I was thinking of something else.”

“Cross-stitch?”

He was intrigued by Penelope more so now than ever. She was obviously a devoted mother and an intelligent, capable woman, but it was the glimpses of fire and passion that she’d shown that really got to him. The way she had laid into him yesterday at the field was not what he’d expect from such a normally cool customer.

“Go out with me,” he heard himself say and immediately wished the words back. She’d already shot him down, and he wasn’t a glutton for punishment. But he needed to ask one more time. “We’ll have dinner, maybe a drink or two. We’ll talk and enjoy each other’s company and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find yourself going a few hours without those worries.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

P
ENELOPE
WAS
TEMPTED
—more tempted than any woman in her right mind should be. Then again, she
was
a woman and Leo was leaning toward her, his eyes dark and intense, his mouth curved up. It was impossible to act indifferent. To pretend her hormones weren’t screaming at her to take a walk outside her comfort zone. Yet she’d never been ruled by her body or by her heart.

She used her head.

“As flattering as it is that you’re still interested in dating me,” she said, gripping the door tightly, “I don’t think it’s wise. Especially now that Andrew is playing football for you.”

It was better to keep personal and professional relationships separate, and Leo was now firmly in the professional category—at least where her son was concerned.

His grin widened, and she had absolutely no idea what she’d said or done that was so amusing. “Anyone ever tell you that you think too much?”

She blinked. “No.”

There was no such thing as thinking too much for her parents. Intellectuals, they prided themselves on their intelligence. On their children’s intelligence. Todd had often said he’d been attracted to her mind, to how organized she was. How focused.

Until he’d decided she hadn’t been focused enough on him, that all she ever thought about, cared about was their son.

All Andrew ever said was that she worried too much. Nagged too much. Hovered too much.

To the point that some days she felt she couldn’t do anything right.

“Maybe,” Leo said, “it would help if you had something to take your mind off your problems and all those thoughts zinging around in your head.”

His voice was low and husky, his eyes heavy-lidded. Her blood heated; her throat dried. With the dusk behind him, the only light illuminating his features was from the porch, which cast his face in shadows, making the angles appear sharper, his expression somehow predatory and dangerous.

A tingle of awareness climbed her spine, telling her she needed to retreat. Push him away. That this—being close to him with her son upstairs, with the twilight somehow making it seem as though they were the only two people in the world—was a mistake.

She stepped back. “My thoughts are just fine, thank you.”

He chuckled, and Penelope knew he was undeterred. She wasn’t sure whether to be flattered, excited or terrified when he moved closer, forcing her to press against the door, her back against the solid wood. “I don’t want you to stop thinking,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth for one heart-stopping second. “Just maybe...focus on something else besides Drew and your worries.” She watched, mesmerized, as Leo lifted a strand of hair at her temple and rubbed it between his fingers, his eyes on the motion. “Isn’t it about time you focused on yourself? On your wants? Your needs?”

Oh. My.

She told herself she was going inside, this very minute, to end this madness before it went completely out of control. Then he lowered his head and she froze. Stopped blinking, stopped breathing. Her eyes wide, her body ready, she waited, helpless, for his kiss. Only to have him shift direction and brush his lips against her cheek.

She jerked. Barely refrained from pressing her fingertips to her cheek where it still felt warm from his mouth. That chaste kiss had definitely made her lose focus—the brush of his lips on her skin had been electric. His fault. It had to be. She’d never responded to a man in such a way before.

“Have coffee with me,” he murmured, his tone husky. “Just as friends.”

That brought her out of her reverie. “Friends?”

He straightened, gave her that lethal grin. “You look like you could use a friend.”

God, was she that pathetic? That easy to read? “I don’t have friends,” she blurted, feeling inept and silly.

His eyebrows shot up. “Everyone has friends.”

“I mean...of course I’ve had friends.” The rare, cherished companionship of another woman. Never a man. And she sounded like a complete idiot. “But not since I got married. Not since I had Andrew.”

Not since he’d become sick. All of her attention and energy went into his well-being, into getting him healthy.

Leo straightened. “Then I’d say it’s time you changed that. Come to practice Thursday and after, we’ll grab a bite to eat. Drew can join us.”

She didn’t know what to say. She knew what she should say. She should thank him politely and refuse his offer. But she could use a friend, and she was often on her own. She was lonely. And here a gorgeous, charming man wanted to spend time with her.

In this, at least, she could say yes to him. She could be his friend. She smiled and realized it felt odd, as if she hadn’t done it in much too long. “Okay. Yes. That sounds fun.”

He winked and headed down the porch stairs. “See you then.”

She was already looking forward to it.

* * *

A
NDREW
QUIETLY
SHUT
the back door. Not that his mom would hear him or care that he was outside. She might wonder what he was doing on the deck when it was this late and so cold out. If she asked, he’d just tell her he’d needed some fresh air. He’d bring up his time in the hospital, remind her of how desperate he used to get to be outside, if even only for a few minutes.

She’d back off then, stop asking him so many questions.

He wasn’t mad about it. For once, he didn’t feel pissed. He’d gotten his way, after all, was back on the team and his mom was on board. For now. That could change, he knew, but he’d do everything he could to make sure she let him play football.

A light went on in the house next door, in one of the upper rooms, and his breath caught in his lungs. A shadow went by. Was it Gracie? Not that he cared, he assured himself. She was too nerdy for him. She wasn’t even close to being as pretty as Kennedy or Estelle.

The shadow walked by the window again and stopped, and the curtain opened. He quickly grabbed his guitar and bent his head over it like he was concentrating on the chords when, in truth, he knew them all by heart and rarely had to look at his hands. He stopped strumming, his heart racing, then chanced a glance up again.

Gracie. She waved. He nodded and began to play, messed up a set of chords, and started over.

When he looked up again, she was gone. His shoulders lowered in disappointment. Not that he wanted to see her or anything. He’d come out here for the air and to play guitar, even though his strumming sounded harsh and discordant.

He looked at the window again. Dark. His room was on the other side of the house so he couldn’t see her room from it. Not that he wanted to spy on her or anything creepy like that. Though in all the movies and TV shows the neighbors—if they were boy/girl—always had bedrooms facing each other. They would come and go into each other’s houses, usually through their bedroom windows.

Weird.

He played, his fingers clumsy and cold. He hadn’t picked up his guitar in months, had stopped when he’d started playing football, started being friends with Luke and Kennedy. Yet for some reason, he felt like playing tonight. He’d missed it.

His phone buzzed. A message from Kennedy, a friendly, chatty one, nothing flirtatious. Nothing suggesting she wanted to be anything other than friends.

“I didn’t know you played.”

He froze and glanced at Gracie. Her hair was pulled back and she wore tight bright blue yoga pants and a huge tie-dye T-shirt that made her chest look even bigger.

He set the phone aside. Cleared his throat. “A little.”

“Cool.” She sat on the deck step, tucked her feet under her and smiled at him. “It’s nice. Hearing you play. Much better than my brother banging on his drums. I told Molly it was a mistake to get him a drum set. She should have made him stick with the trumpet. At least it was small enough I could hide it. He’d look for days before he’d find it.”

“You hid your brother’s trumpet? Did you get in trouble?”

“Not really. My parents don’t believe in punishing us unless it’s for something major like grand theft auto or murder.”

He couldn’t imagine not getting into trouble. Yeah, it was a relatively new thing—when he had been a kid, he’d never gotten yelled at or grounded. Probably because he’d been such a kiss-ass, always trying to keep his parents happy, to make up for worrying them by getting sick, taking up so much of their time and attention.

Though he liked to believe it was his mom’s fault for leaving his dad, Andrew knew
he
was the real reason they had gotten divorced.

He strummed a series of chords. “Must be nice,” he said. “Not having to worry about getting into trouble for anything.”

She laughed, a surprisingly deep, husky sound, so different from the high-pitched giggles of most of the girls their age. “Believe me, there’s plenty about being their daughter that makes up for not getting into trouble.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like them popping out a kid—and in the case of the twins, two of them—every two years like clockwork. Or Molly making a scene in the grocery store because they don’t carry organic kale...or making us kale chips and thinking it’s some sort of treat.”

“Your family is so weird.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, but she didn’t look offended. “I guess. Though I prefer to think of us as unique. We don’t follow the crowd and I like that. Sometimes being different doesn’t mean you’re weird or a freak. Sometimes it just means you’re different.”

“I heard your brother practicing his drums,” Andrew said, wanting to change the subject. “You’re right. He sucks.”

She shivered and hugged her arms around herself. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll eventually get bored and move on to something new. Hopefully something that doesn’t make the dogs freak out so much.”

“You have more than Sauron?”

“We have three. Sauron, Mickey and Bear—who’s actually the smallest.”

“They don’t like music?”

“They’re scared of loud noises, especially Sauron. The drums, fireworks, things like that.”

He strummed some more, then set down the pick and began plucking out a song with his fingers. “My mom says dogs are too much work.”

“She’s right, but they’re, like, part of our family so I can’t imagine not having them. I mean, the kids are a lot of work, too, but that doesn’t stop my parents from having more.”

Maybe that’s why his parents hadn’t had any more kids. Because he was too much work, especially after he got sick. He played a song, a popular dance tune.

Gracie grinned. “I like that song better your way. Makes it sound less frantic than the original version.”

Pleasure suffused him, but he pushed it aside. It didn’t matter to him what she thought or what she liked. Still, he found himself playing another song, enjoying sitting out in the cool night with her. She did look chilled and he should offer her his sweatshirt, but he didn’t want to give her the wrong idea, didn’t want her to think he was into her or anything, though he was pretty sure she had a thing for him.

It made him feel good, knowing a girl had a crush on him, even if it was dorky Gracie from next door.

“My mom is letting me stay on the football team,” he told her, wanting to celebrate with someone, telling himself it was because she was available even though he could easily tell Kennedy. But for some reason, he didn’t feel like texting Kennedy tonight. Didn’t want to have some stupid, useless conversation about nothing. Or, worse, about how Luke had promised once he’d quit the hockey team last year that they’d spend more time together but now he was all into football and back to ignoring her.

It was so much work, trying to think of things of say, topics to discuss that didn’t make him sound like a loser. He worried about every word, how she would take it, how it made him look.

He didn’t have those worries with Gracie. Probably because he didn’t want to sleep with her.

“Yeah?” Gracie asked. “That’s nice.”

“Nice? I thought you’d be more excited.”

“I don’t understand your fascination with the sport, to be honest. It seems like a bunch of guys running and bumping into each other, trying to get some ball. And is it even a ball? I mean, it’s not round. Think about it.”

He did, then realized he actually was thinking about whether a football qualified as a ball and shook his head to clear it. “There’s more to it than just running into the other team. There’s skill in calling and running the plays. There’s athleticism in avoiding a tackle. And there’s being smart about the game. Take Peyton Manning, for instance. He’s always studying the strategy, always learning and improving. It’s as much mental as it is physical.”

She was staring at him, and his face warmed. He sounded like an idiot. “Wow,” she said. “It’s cool that you’re so into it. I didn’t mean any disrespect or anything. I’m all for everyone having their own thing, marching to the beat of their own drum, you know?”

He nodded, relieved that she got it. “Anyway, I like playing. It’s fun.”

“Then that should be a good enough reason to keep doing it, don’t you think? Most people don’t concern themselves with what’s fun or what feels good to them. They’re too worried about how they come across, what other people think of them.”

“Is that how you feel?” he heard himself ask. “Like others are judging you?”

She laughed. “I know they are. I get it all the time. People comment on how I dress, how my family lives.”

“You could always, you know, pick out different clothes.”

“I could,” she said slowly. “But why should I? I’m not trying to prove anything or be different for the sake of being different. I’m being myself. People are either going to like you or not. You can’t spend too much time worrying about which one it’s going to be. Besides, I know plenty of people who dress the so-called right way, act how they think they should, say and do what others are saying and doing, and they still aren’t accepted, not really.”

That was his fear. That his friends would see behind his facade and he’d no longer be accepted.

“I think life’s a little easier when you’re part of the group,” he said. “I’ve been on the outside, been different, and being accepted, normal, is much better.”