From the Start (16 page)

“What are you—”

He hoisted her up. “We need to get you to the ER.”

“It’s not that bad, Colt.”

She could feel his breath on her forehead. “You’re the one who was talking about tetanus earlier. You need to get a shot.”

“You don’t have to carry me.”

He ignored her and kept walking, arms snug around her, the warmth of his chest heating through her. And he thought she’d blushed earlier.

“I ruined our picnic.” First her prying questions. Now this.

“You didn’t ruin a thing.” He dipped into the ditch, then climbed up to the road, stopping at the car. “Hey.”

That one word came out raspy and serious, and she lifted her head to meet his eyes. The stormy gray had disappeared, leaving an oceany blue green. “Yeah?”

“Does it really bother you when I call you Rosie?”

Not even a tiny a bit.
“You paid a hundred and twenty bucks for a meal you still haven’t gotten to eat. You climbed up a corncrib. You told me I look like my mom. You just carried me to the car. You can call me anything you want, Colton Greene.”

7

C
olton had three minutes to make an impression that may or may not pave the way for his future career as a TV sports analyst.

A career he hadn’t realized was on the horizon until Ian’s frenzied phone call.

He laced his fingers together to keep himself from fidgeting as activity buzzed around him. A lone cameraman fiddling with a lens. A lawn away, Iowa State University’s Jack Trice Stadium rattling with the sound of fans filling the bleachers for the ISU vs. Iowa game. A heady wind carrying the aroma of tailgaters’ barbeques.

And a woman with a press badge whisking past him, but not before brushing his cheeks with some kind of powder. Ian hadn’t told him this gig required makeup.

“How far away are you from
Ames and how quickly can you get there?”

He’d barely roused from sleep enough to answer Ian’s call this morning, let alone provide a geographic update. But somehow, within thirty minutes of receiving the news that Ian had landed him a quickie interview with an ESPN affiliate before today’s game, he’d been on his way—a borrowed tie around his neck, an old suit jacket of Logan’s pinching his shoulders,
Case’s warning to be careful of deer running across the road in his head.

And Kate in the passenger seat.

She waved at him now from behind a cameraman. Her denim jacket was unbuttoned to reveal a green-and-blue-plaid shirt and a yellow scarf around her neck. He still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up coming along. Only that she’d followed him around the house, one room to the next, as he hurried to get going.

“I didn’t know you wanted to be a sports analyst.”

“Not sure I do. But my manager thinks it’s
a good idea. That’s what a lot of retired
players end up doing.”

“Do you like talking in
front of a camera?”

Not at all.
“I like talking football.”

Eventually she’d wound up in the truck with him and they hadn’t stopped talking the entire forty-five-minute drive to Ames. They’d laughed about last night, that trip to the ER, how the tetanus shot had hurt worse than the nail had. It was as if this morning had become an extension of the evening before—the late night out on the porch, finally eating that picnic meal she’d packed, conversation flowing as naturally as the sunrise they’d almost stayed up to see.

It’d been a good night. One of the best he could remember in his recent past. Made all the better by the fact that she’d never turned back to the topic of his parents, the accident.

“You ready for this?” Link Porter, anchor for the cable sports affiliate, plopped into the canvas chair next to Colton.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Colton propped his feet on the bar running along the base of his chair. At least there was only one camera for the short pregame segment—that would be better than the flock of reporters he used to face off with during postgame media appearances. He’d never grown entirely comfortable
with the stare of cameras. But this is what athletes did when their playing days came to a close, right?

It’s the closest he’d get to the life he used to know.

“Nippy one today.” Link rubbed his hands together. The former Tigers tight end, retired now for twenty-plus years, wore his signature lime-green tie and a practiced smile that displayed bleach-white teeth. His silver-blond hair was gelled to a near wax. “I don’t know why anyone would willingly choose to live in the Midwest, cold as it gets.”

Colton watched as Kate jutted her hands back into the pockets of her jacket, hopping in place against the chill of the afternoon. She’d insisted on watching the interview rather than finding her way to the fifty-yard-line seats they’d been given. Sunshine poured like liquid light over a crystal blue sky. “Oh, I don’t think it’s so bad here.”

“Wait ’til the first blizzard. You’ll wish you could eat your own words.”

Though Link’s affiliation with the Tigers had ended two decades before Colton had come on the scene, he’d met the man a few times over the years. He’d waffled between admiring him for managing to hold on to his celebrity and wondering if the spotlight felt as good on such a different stage.

“Can I ask you something, Link? This sports-show hosting thing—you like it?”

“I’ve been doing it for twenty-some years, haven’t I?”

“Was the transition hard, going from playing to watching and talking?”

A faint streak of condescension colored Link’s laughter. “You kidding? I was nearly forty when I retired. My body was ready for the break.”

That was the difference, then. Link had played until he was ready to quit. Colton’s end date had pounced too early.

A guy whose press badge said
Maury
rounded the camera and adjusted his headphones. “All right, gentlemen, we’re on in ten.”

Colton’s feet fumbled over the bar under his chair and hit the ground.

Link shifted to face him. “Look, son, if you’re nervous, don’t be. Gonna be over before you realize it’s started.”

Easy for him to say. For Link, this was just a routine pregame spot. No biggie.

For Colton, it was the first real break he’d had in months.

Except that wasn’t exactly right, was it. There was landing in Iowa and meeting Kate and knowing he’d found the perfect writer for his book. There was the fact that he’d spent the past five days helping Case Walker out at the depot—actually doing something worthwhile, contributing. There was the inkling of hope forming inside him since coming to this so-called flyover state. An inkling that hinted this past year, what he’d considered a slew of endings, might also contain a surprising beginning.

“Ten. Nine. Eight.” Maury began the countdown.

“Oh, I almost forgot to ask. Do I look at you or the camera as I talk?”

“Seven. Six. Five.”

Link spoke through an unmoving grin. “Both.”

“Three. Two.”

“But how—”

Maury dropped his arm.

“Good afternoon, folks, Link Porter here, getting pumped for what’s looking to be a hot game on a cold day in Iowa. I’ve got Colton Greene with me, former quarterback for the LA Tigers and also an alum of one of the schools readying to battle it out on the field today. Good to have you with us, Colt.”

“Good to be here, Link.” There, he’d made it through his first line.

“Now, I’m not going to bother asking you who you’re rooting for today, considering you played all four years of your college career as a Hawkeye. Started for three years, All-American as a junior and senior. Should be fairly obvious where your heart is today.”

Colton rubbed his palms on his dark jeans. Shoot, could the camera see that? “Fairly obvious, yes, but we’re in Cyclone territory, so I’m probably better off not flaunting my loyalties.”

Link’s chuckle could’ve come straight from a laugh track. “Well said. Let’s talk on-field strategy. If you’re Coach Hardy, what are you saying to the Hawks right now?’

Colton looked to the camera. This is where instinct should take over. Where he should forget the monitor and tiny lapel mic stuck to his collar.

But instead, nerves he’d refused to give in to earlier chose this moment to march over his practiced bit.
Coach Hardy . . . talk
about ISU’s defense . . . point out Iowa’s penchant for
running the ball.
They’d gone over this before the taping.

“If I’m Coach Hardy, I’m . . . I’m probably talking defense, telling my quarterback . . . um, my quarterback . . .”

“Starting QB is Bobby Emmanuel,” Link cut in. “Senior whose sixty-four-yard pass cinched the deal against Kansas State last Saturday. Did you see that game, Colton?”

“Uh, no. I didn’t.”

Link’s smile never wavered, but impatience flashed in his eyes. “Back to defense. We’ve only seen this ISU team a few times so far this season, but they defend well against spread offense. Do you think we can say the same for the Hawks?”

Sunlight glared against the camera’s glass lens. Colton blinked. Felt his stomach churn. “I do, Link.”

He was blowing this, the few words that attempted to rise up his throat meeting with the taste of sour anxiety before they could make it out.

“Focus on the faces.”
Ian’s voice, from the dozens of press conferences he’d sat through.

But his manager’s advice didn’t work as well here. Not when the face he was supposed to be looking at belonged to a seasoned professional who probably regretted agreeing to Colton’s involvement in this segment. But then, as Link said something about the team’s standings this early in the season, Colton caught sight of Kate in his peripheral vision.

Only for a second, but long enough to take in the encouragement in her expression.

“—which is why I’m convinced, despite their similar records going into this game, we might see ISU easily rise to the top today.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Link.”

Link could barely veil his disapproval. “No?”

“The Hawkeyes have had two wins coming into today, yes, but neither were the blowout we all expected. I think today they have something to prove, and they could surprise us in a big way.”

Two whole sentences and not a single stutter. Relief slid in—but not enough to erase the pummeling embarrassment of his blunders.

Seconds later Maury signaled, the red light on the camera dimmed, and Link leaned back in his chair as he accepted a thermos of coffee from a passing crew member. “Well, that’s that.”

Maury’s expression held even less approval than Link’s.

Colton pulled the wired mic from his shirt and handed it to the woman standing in front of him. Same one who’d awkwardly strung the wire up his shirt in the first place. The cameraman was already pulling down his equipment.

“So, uh, we’re good?”

Link downed a swig of coffee. “We’re good. Enjoy the game.”

That really was that. “Well, thanks. Maybe I’ll see ya again sometime.”

Neither Link nor Maury hid their doubt. And all the hope he’d placed in this three-minute segment released, like water from a bullet-hole-strewn bucket. He shook Link’s hand, then found Kate waiting where she’d been the whole time.

There was too much perk in her smile, too much bounce in her “Great job.”

“I can’t remember which of the Ten Commandments says not to lie, but I’m pretty sure you just broke it.”

Kate looped her arm through his, leading him away from the site of his humiliation. “Nuh-uh. You really did good. Especially there at the end.”

Only
there at the end. Ian had said he’d stream the interview, was probably back in LA sitting stone-faced in front of his flat-screen.

“Come on, let’s go find our seats and watch the game, and you can tell me why I should care about this game.”

“It’s the biggest rivalry in your state. That’s why you should care.”

“I actually meant the game of football in general.”

“Why are you trying to hurt me?”

Laughter danced in her eyes.

“You’re going to watch the whole game, Rosie, and by the end, you’ll love it. Or at least appreciate it. I’m going to make sure of that.” And maybe, in the process, he could forget about the embarrassment of the past three minutes—and the fact that he may have just blown his future.

Again.