From the Start (18 page)

“You kidding? They’ll be all over me.”

Colton shook his head. “Nope. Bear only has eyes for Rae, and—”

Raegan sputtered. “Um . . . what?”

“And Ava’s been the interception queen all afternoon. She’ll try to predict where I’m going to throw and head there.”

Kate folded her arms. “But Seth—”

“He’s just as useless as Bear. Trust me, he won’t be watching you. You’ve got this.”

“Hurry up, Greene,” Ava’s smug voice called.

Doubt brushed a frown over Kate’s face. “If anyone runs it, it should be you, Colt.”

“Uh-uh. It’s all you. Now line up, Walkers.”

Kate sighed and took her place in front of him, Raegan off to the right. Kate leaned over for the hike. She snapped the ball, Raegan took off . . . and the play came together just as he’d described. His fingers brushed Kate’s as he handed off the football, and he saw the blend of resolve and glee curl over her as she found her opening and spurted forward. Seconds later he cheered as she flew toward the end zone and made her touchdown.

“That’s my other girl!” Another yell from Case.

Raegan hooted and punched Bear’s arm, and Seth and Ava let out twin groans. Kate was still out of breath when Colton reached her, her ponytail loosened from the run and her cheeks red.

“Told you the fake would work.” He slung one arm around her shoulder as they headed toward the house.

“Yeah, yeah, you were right.”

“I was also right about the game—admit it. You totally see the beauty of football now, yeah? It’s your new favorite sport? You’ll never miss another Super Bowl?”

The breeze embraced her laughter as she matched his pace. “I can appreciate it, okay? Good enough?”

“For now. I’ve still got a few weeks to turn you into a fanatic.” Although it felt like too short a time. Days he’d once thought might drag here in Iowa had instead raced by in their fullness.

Kate stopped, reached up to rub her eyes. “I got some dust or an eyelash or something in my eye.”

He turned to face her. “Need me to take a look?” Her hair smelled of vanilla—or maybe coconut—and she blinked.

But instead of rubbing her eye again, she dropped her hand. “Why do you love football so much, Colt?”

“I like learning plays. I like the simplicity of the objective, but the intricacy of getting there.” He shrugged, finger grazing the side of her brow as he studied her irritated eye. “Favorite was calling audibles. Those moments in a game when I’d study the field, the defense. I’d get this feeling in my gut. Last-minute change of plans. It was . . . ” He paused, his trail of thoughts suddenly off course. “Exhilarating.”

She blinked again, gaze speckled with self-conscious uncertainty. “I . . . uh . . . I think my eye’s fine.”

It was his turn to blink. “Right.” He swallowed, stepped back, realized everyone else had already gone inside, and cleared his throat, grasping for the composure he’d somehow lost in the past sixty seconds.

Logan’s sister.

Who looked way too great winded with a football tucked under her arm.

Strictly business.

He started up the porch steps, trying to ignore the awkward tension that’d dropped like precipitation, despite a cloudless sky. Seth and Ava dropped onto the loveseat in the living room when he entered, and Kate and Raegan took up opposite sides of the couch.

“Hello, Sunday afternoon nap,” Bear said as he settled into the recliner.

“No sleeping allowed.” Colton stood in front of the group. “I’ve got plans for us.” He beckoned to the pile of DVDs stacked
on the built-in shelves next to where the TV hung over the fireplace.

Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Please tell me those aren’t what I think they are.”

“I asked your dad if he had any of your movies. Turns out he has them all.” Colton grinned. “Someone make popcorn. We’re having a movie marathon.”

“Already on the popcorn,” Case said as he passed through the room toward the kitchen.

“Which one should we watch first, Rosie?”

“Rosie?” Seth draped his arm along the back of the loveseat.

“Main character in
The African Queen
. Katharine Hepburn’s first color film,” Colton explained. “Only role Humphrey Bogart ever won an Oscar for.”

Everyone stared.

“What? I listen when Rosie talks.” He fingered through the DVD cases. “Whoa, Mario Lopez starred in one of your movies? The
Saved by the Bell
guy?”

“Colt—”

“Ooh, is that the one with the girl from
Full House
, too?” Raegan jumped up from the couch. “Heartline loves to cast old ’90s TV stars. Kate’s met most of them, too.”

“Guys, I really don’t want—”

“Ooh, ooh!” Raegan pulled a case from the middle of the pile. “I love this one. It takes place in Charleston. And for once, they filmed on location. It was right after Kate won her Emmy, so they spent a little more making it, and—”

Kate jumped to her feet, cutting Raegan off. “Eye’s still bothering me. I’m gonna go . . . ” Her voice dragged in time with her feet, and she disappeared from the room.

Colton pulled the DVD case from Raegan and opened it. “Charleston it is.” He popped the disc in the player, picked a
spot on the couch and sat. But when Kate still hadn’t returned by the time the opening music faded, he turned to Raegan. “What’s taking Kate so long to come back?” he whispered.

Raegan looked from the screen to Colton, bit her lip. “Uh, I’m not sure she is coming back.” Raegan’s long sigh sent her bangs fanning, and he tilted his head in question. The smell of popcorn wafted from the kitchen. “She’s embarrassed by her movies. Always has been.”

“But I thought . . . I planned this for her.” Had thought it’d be a fun way to show his appreciation for yesterday. Get the gang together to admire her stuff. Make her feel good or special or something.

Bad call, Greene.

He rose, angled between the couch and loveseat, and headed toward the second floor. He found Kate in Beckett’s bedroom. She stood next to the tabletop desk, framed picture in her hand.

“Hey, you. You disappeared.”

She’d taken out her contacts and now wore her glasses. She looked good both ways, but the glasses made her look extra writerly. Studious.

Cute.

He swallowed the thought, came up beside her, and glanced at the photo she held. “Your mom and Beckett. Is that San Diego?”

She nodded. “When each of us turned thirteen, Mom took us on a special weekend trip—just her and us. And we could pick anywhere in the continental US. Beck picked San Diego.”

“Where’d you pick?”

She set the photo back down, an imprint of dust marking its spot. “New York City. I wanted to see her foundation headquarters.”

“The one you’re going to Africa for?” She’d told him about it yesterday on their way home from Ames, in words that released
so fast she couldn’t have hidden her excitement if she’d tried. He’d fallen asleep last night trying to picture her in a little village in a dusty desert.

“Yeah. Did I tell you my mom helped start it? She wrote the grant that got it off the ground. I’ve read the thing once or twice—saved a copy of it. Pages and pages of statistics and strategic plans and case studies. It’s a masterpiece.”

“I’m gonna guess you’ve read it more than once or twice.”

“Crazy thing is, my mom never planned to be a nonprofit leader.” She turned to Colt. “Mom wanted to be a medical missionary. Went on a trip to Ethiopia in high school and decided her calling was to be a doctor and move to Africa. She was premed in college, applied to med school twice, but never got in.”

“So the foundation was Plan B.” He perched on the corner of the desk.

Kate nodded. “If she couldn’t be a doctor herself, she wanted to help make it possible for others. The foundation opens clinics and helps train locals to be doctors, nurses, and paramedics. It’s amazing to think about—this random, regular woman from Iowa, starting a foundation that now, almost forty years later, is still going strong and doing incredible work. She didn’t do it alone, of course. But still.”

The wistfulness in Kate’s voice tugged at him, understanding wedging into the space between them. What had sounded out-of-the-box to him yesterday—the idea of her up and leaving the country for three months, a short-term trip at least temporarily upending her writing career—suddenly made sense. This trip to Africa wasn’t a whim. It might’ve come out of the blue, but she’d been waiting for it, craving it.

This was her personal NFL draft. “I think you take after your mom more than you know, Kate.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“I know I only met your mom a couple times back in college. But I think maybe the way you saved a copy of that grant she wrote, well, that’s what that pile of DVD cases out in the living room would’ve been to her. And is to your dad.”

She tried to let out a sarcastic laugh, but he cut her off with a raised hand. “I’m serious. You can write them off if you want, be your own harshest critic. But they’re pieces of you. They’re something you created, and that gives them value.” He dipped his head toward her. “Plus, from what I hear, they’re pretty great stories.”

“They’re
love
stories, Colton.”

“I like love. Most people I know kinda do.” He pushed off from the desk, only inches between them. “But if you really, really don’t want us to watch any of your movies, I’ll go put a stop to it right now. I’ll insist on watching the Patriots-Broncos game.”

Kate’s gaze wavered behind her glasses, hesitancy waltzing with what might be appreciation. She lowered her arms and tucked her hands into the pouch of her hoodie. “That game’ll be a blowout. With both Martin and Christoff out, the Pats will get slammed.”

He felt his jaw slacken.

“What?” Kate’s glasses slipped down her nose as she glanced at Colton and smiled. “I listen when you talk, too.” She started for the door. “Raegan’s right. The Charleston one is the best. I hope that’s the one you chose.”

He followed her from the room.

Logan’s sister. Strictly business.

8

O
h, Kate, thank goodness you’re here.”

Raegan’s panicked voice was the first thing to greet Kate as she stepped out of her car. She’d parked halfway down the block from the coffee shop, having arrived downtown at her sister’s beckoning. The shadow of storefronts reached over her and across the street, piles of sandbags lay strewn at the river’s edge.

“Whoa, we’re sandbagging already? We’re that worried about a flood?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this.” Bangles jiggled and clinked at Raegan’s wrist as she pointed down the block, toward the line of people stretching from the coffee shop entrance. She could feel the fidgety tension even from here.

“Is there an impending coffee shortage I don’t know about? Is this like a bank run back during the Great Depression? Like in
It’s a Wonderful Life
?” And what did Raegan expect her to do about it?

“Don’t joke, Kate. It’s not pretty.” Raegan tugged on her arm and pulled her to the sidewalk. “Maple Valley only retains its quaint charm so long as all its citizens are properly caffeinated. Without it we’re the queen’s court in
Alice in Wonderland.
Everything gets very ‘off with your head.’”

“Dramatic much?”

By now they’d reached Coffee Coffee’s entrance, the disgruntled crowd riddled with scowls. Raegan pushed her toward the door.

“We can’t butt in line, Rae.”

“We’re not butting in line. You’re going to go help man the counter. You’ve done the barista thing before.”

“But I—”

“Please. For the sake of our entire community’s sanity. Help us.”

The smell of coffee and something pumpkin greeted her as Raegan shoved her through the door. The line that ended outside reached to the front counter inside. One lone woman ran the cash register, hair slipping free from her braids and frazzled expression matching her frantic movements.

“That’s Amelia Bentley. She works for the newspaper but picks up a few hours here, too.”

“Why’s she working alone?”

“Apparently Megan went home sick.”

Megan, the angry emo girl? Kate sighed and unzipped her jacket. “Fine, I’ll help for a while. But only for a while.” Because she was supposed to be writing the opening chapter—chapters, if she was lucky—of Colton’s book today. She had to come up with something to send his manager soon.

She slipped behind the counter and found an apron hanging over a peg. “Help is here.”

The woman behind the cash register punched at its keys. “You don’t how much of a lifesaver you are. I was about to curl up in a ball and cry.”

Thirty-five minutes later, the line of customers had finally dwindled to its end. Kate sighed and slumped against the back wall. “For a minute there, I thought we were going to have a riot on our hands. Especially when we ran out of pumpkin bread.” The customers had emptied the glass display case.

And if Kate never made another mocha in her life, it’d be too soon.

Amelia untied the apron at her waist, then held out a hand. “Time for proper introductions. I’m Amelia. I work at the paper. And sometimes here. Though if Megan ever leaves me alone again, I’m turning in my resignation.”