Willowleaf Lane (25 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A
MAZING
,
HOW
A
man’s situation could change in the blink of an eye.

Three days after Mike Broderick’s shocking exclusive interview with Dina Hidalgo hit the media like a flash grenade, Spence’s phone rang yet again as he was driving home from the recreation center.

He turned down the blaring rock music that helped him decompress after a day at work. “Yeah, Pete,” he said to his agent.

What now?
he almost said, but refrained.

“I predicted it. Didn’t I predict it? Am I good or am I good?”

Pete sounded gleeful, which Spence considered fairly ironic. Four days ago, the guy had barely wanted to take Spence’s calls.

“We’re on the brink of a bidding war, son,” he went on. “When the Pioneers heard Boston had talked to you about signing on with their coaching staff, they upped the ante. Started laying on all this guilt about how you’re a local hero. They created you. The town loves you. They owe you and want to make it right. Blah, blah, blah. I’m still waiting to hear from Atlanta but right now you can basically pick your poison.”

Though Mike hadn’t given all the specifics while laying out everything he had done, with his wife by his side, he
had
singled out Spence and offered him a tearful, but highly effective, on-air apology. He had expressed regrets for letting Spence take the blame for something of which he had been innocent.

Spence wondered if Kris had forced it out of him. He hadn’t spoken with her since the benefit, after one quick confrontation before she and Mike hurried back to Portland, when she had cried and hugged Spence and yelled at him for spending even a minute trying to protect her. His ears still hurt.

In the time it had taken for the capricious media to grab hold of the story and sports fans to begin responding, Spence had gone from pariah to a hotly sought-after commodity.

He couldn’t believe it had all happened so quickly. Charlotte had been exactly right. Everything in his world had changed.

He still didn’t quite know what to do with it.

“You’re going to have to choose, and soon,” Pete said.

He gazed out the windshield at the quiet streets of Hope’s Crossing, the tidy houses, the well-kept lawns. He waved at Maura Lange, out pushing a stroller and walking a tiny little puff of a dog. She waved back and smiled at him.

Yes, some people had been warmer to him since the news broke but some, like Dermot and Katherine and Charlotte’s friends, had been kind to him all along.

“Slow down, Pete. I told you, I haven’t decided what I want to do yet.”

“You can go where you want. The world is your oyster, and all that shit. But if you sit around with your thumb up your ass, you could miss this chance and end up stuck there in Snoozeville.”

“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who told me I didn’t have any other options left for gainful employment except to come back to Hope’s Crossing.”

“Different time, different circumstance, man. You’ve got options now.”

He had options. Did he want to take one of them? He desperately needed advice from somebody who didn’t stand to make a profit from whatever he decided.

The person he automatically would have turned to was Charlotte. She had become his closest friend in the time he had been back home, someone whose judgment he trusted implicitly, but she seemed to have made herself scarce the past few days. He had tried to track her down at her house and her store but one of the employees had told him she had gone to stay in Denver for a few days.

He wondered if she was avoiding him and was more than a little disconcerted at how that idea hurt.

As if he conjured her up with his thoughts, when he turned onto Willowleaf Lane, he suddenly spied a very familiar figure mowing the lawn of a house that most definitely wasn’t hers.

What in the world? He hit the brakes.

“I’ve got to go, Pete.”

“Wait. What do you want me to tell Portland?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he answered and disconnected the call.

Charlotte was wearing shorts and a Colorado State T-shirt. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked like a coed herself. When she spotted him, she turned off the mower and waited for him to walk across the grass toward her.

“You didn’t tell me you were starting up a new lawn-mowing business.”

“Ha. Very funny. The Walkers had a baby that was a month premature and has been in the NICU in Denver ever since. I stopped to visit them while I was there, and figured I would take care of this. That way Scott doesn’t have to worry about it when they come home this week. I’m just about done.”

If Spence left, he would miss that about Hope’s Crossing—people stepping up to help whenever they could.

“Let me finish for you. It will take me all of five minutes.”

She took in his Oxford shirt and slacks. “You’re not exactly dressed for mowing the lawn.”

“Humor me. I’ve been on the phone all day. I need to do something physical.”

Without waiting for an answer, he took hold of the mower, started it up and took off, leaving her looking after him with a disgruntled expression.

How long had it been since he had mowed a lawn? He couldn’t remember. That had been another of his jobs when he was a kid, mowing everybody’s lawn who would pay him. He had vowed never to touch a mower again but right now he couldn’t think of anywhere he would rather be than here on a lovely August Colorado evening surrounded by the intoxicating smell of fresh-cut grass.

When he returned the mower to the spot where he had left Charlotte, he found her kneeling down in front of a flower garden deadheading some daisies.

“There you go,” he said.

She rose. “It wasn’t necessary but thanks, I guess.”

“Where do I put the mower?”

“They keep it in a shed in the backyard.”

She headed in that direction, trowel in hand, and he followed after her with the lawn mower. The Walker’s baby obviously wasn’t their first. The backyard had a redwood swing set and a sandbox filled with toys. It was a pleasant space with trees perfect for climbing. The shed even had a little window box filled with flowers.

“How was Denver?” he asked.

She sent him a quick look. “Good. I needed a few things for the store and had to order more paper supplies. It’s always easier to do it in person. Peyton stopped into the store this afternoon just as I got back. She looked great. She was excited for school to start. How’s she doing?”

“She seems happier than she has in months.”

She was starting to hang out with Macy Bradford and a few other girls; she wasn’t complaining about going to therapy three times a week, and she was eating better. He thought she already looked much healthier, with better color and definitely more energy.

“I’m so glad her treatment plan is working.” Charlotte brushed a little flying bug away from her face. “She told me you’re getting all kinds of coaching offers, ever since Mike Broderick’s interview.”

“Yes.”

She gave him a searching look. “You don’t sound very happy about it. I should think you would be ecstatic. You’ve got options now beyond Hope’s Crossing. This is everything you wanted, isn’t it? To clear your name and return to the game you love?”

“A month ago, I would have agreed with you.”

“But now?”

He studied her there in a patch of afternoon sunlight, bright and sweet, kind and lovely. A little wren flew into a gourd-shaped feeder hanging from a tree just behind her. He watched both it and Charlotte while that seductive peace—that sense of contented
rightness
he always found with her—curled through him.

“There are things here I’m not sure I want to do without anymore,” he murmured.

“Like...what?” Her shoulders tightened and he thought he saw something that looked like panic flit through her eyes.

He wanted to say
her.
She was the most important thing he didn’t want to leave. The word hovered inside him but something, perhaps her sudden fine-edged tension, convinced him the time wasn’t quite right for that sort of admission.

He mentally shifted gears. “How can I walk away now, before A Warrior’s Hope has even had its first session?”

She seemed to relax a little. “I suppose it would be a little like making a birthday cake, frosting it to perfection and then throwing it away before you even have a taste.”

“Exactly. I want to see that first group of soldiers casting out a fishing line, hiking up the Woodrose Mountain trail, waterskiing on the reservoir.”

“Understandable.”

“And Peyton. She’s finally starting to settle in here. What kind of father would just yank her right out again? Even if we go back to Portland, she would have to leave behind people she’s started to care about. The therapy is working well and she likes her therapist. I hate the idea of moving somewhere else and having to start all that over again.”

“Tough choices, all the way around.”

“On the other hand, this is everything I hoped would happen. If I stay here and live quietly in Hope’s Crossing, will people still think there was some truth to the accusations?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“You’re not helping, Charlotte. I’m trying to make a decision here. What should I do?”

A mountain-scented breeze washed through the backyard, playing with the ends of her hair. She tucked a loose strand back behind her ear. “Why do you need my opinion?”

“I trust you. I...”
Care about you,
he almost said. The words caught in his throat.

“You’ve been a good friend to me. Possibly the best friend I’ve had since I’ve come back to Hope’s Crossing. You believed in me even when, by all rights, you should have thought me an even bigger bastard than the rest of the world.”

The little bird had been joined by a few friends. Charlotte shifted her attention to the feeder, but not before he caught an expression on her features that looked almost...wretched.

“I can’t help you make this decision, Spencer,” she said quietly. “I guess you have to weigh your options and figure out what’s best for you and for Peyton.”

“Why not? I want to hear your opinion. What do you think I should do?”

She didn’t answer and he took a chance and stepped forward, brushing another of those errant strands away. “What you think matters to me, Charlotte.
You
matter to me.”

And then, because he couldn’t help himself, because it had been far too long, because his chest ached with the need for it, he kissed her.

At the soft, immeasurably tender kiss, a whole host of terrifying emotions welled up inside him, so big he didn’t know what to do with them.

She caught her breath, the sound a little ragged amid the twittering of the birds and the wind rustling the leaves of the tree overhead, then she kissed him back fiercely, her hands clutching his shirt almost desperately.

At the taste of her, the intoxicating scent of her, fire scorched through him, wild and hungry. He didn’t care that he was standing in a stranger’s backyard, he wanted to lower her to the grass, to kiss her until they were both senseless from it and ease into the warm, sweet welcome of her—

Abruptly, she wrenched out of his arms and stepped back so quickly she nearly stumbled. She was breathing hard, her hands trembling and her color high. She wrapped her arms around her waist, a clear signal that prevented him from reaching for her again.

“Okay,” she said, her voice shaky, thin. “You want my opinion. Here it is. I think you should take one of the offers and go.”

Pain sliced at him, raw and sharp. “Really? After that kiss?”

“
Especially
after that kiss.” She turned away, her attention on the little birds now tossing seeds onto the ground for their fellows. “You broke my heart once, Spence. Before I ever even really knew what love was, you shattered me. I don’t think I’ll survive if...if I let you do it to me again.”

He had been such an ass to her, but how could she give so much power to a cocky nineteen-year-old kid who should have known better?

“Why are you so certain I’m going to break your heart?” he demanded. “I hope you know by now I’m not that jerk anymore.”

“I know. And you weren’t a jerk. Not really. You were only being honest. But I’m not the fat, awkward girl in glasses correcting your English papers. I...I need more from you than your friendship and a few kisses when you feel like it.”

“I can give you more. I care about you, Charlotte. I think...no, I
know
I’m falling in love with you.”

He loved her. The truth of it washed over him like a healing rain. He loved Charlotte Caine. She was funny, she was sweet, she was lovely. She made him want to be better.

He wanted her to fall back into his arms, to kiss him and bring that precious sense of peace. Instead, she only stared at him, her eyes huge in her face, and said nothing for a long, long time.

His words hung out there like beach towels on the line, flapping hard in a brisk wind.

“I’m not sure that’s enough,” she finally whispered.

* * *

W
HAT
WAS
WRONG
with her? This was everything she wanted. Spence was standing in front of her, telling her he was falling in love with her.
She
should be doing cartwheels across the lawn.

Fear kept her feet rooted firmly in the grass, though. How could she trust what he said? She had been hurt so many times before.

“What do you mean, it’s not enough? What more do you need from me?”

She had no answer for him and hated herself for her cowardice.

The hard truth was, she didn’t believe him. He said he was falling for her and, while some part of her wanted to burst with joy that he would even
think
the words, she just couldn’t comprehend how it could be possible.

He couldn’t really love her. He might think he did, but that was only because she had been kind to him since he’d come to Hope’s Crossing when few others had accepted him. She had helped him with A Warrior’s Hope and, she wanted to think, with Peyton.