Читать книгу Stranger in Town - Brenda Novak - Страница 7

August, nearly three years later

GABRIEL HOLBROOK FROWNED as he saw Mike Hill get out of his SUV and walk through the dappled sunshine toward the cabin. He’d known Mike would be paying him a visit. He’d been expecting it for more than a week, ever since he’d heard the Hill family’s sad news and attended the funeral. But he still wasn’t prepared. What was he going to say?

Mike’s knock sounded—as solid, decisive and determined as Mike himself.

Lazarus, Gabe’s Alaskan malamute, dashed expectantly to the door.

With a sigh, Gabe let the blind fall back into place at the front window and wheeled himself across the living room. It wasn’t as if he could pretend he wasn’t home. Mike knew, since the accident three years ago, Gabe hardly went anywhere.

At least Mike hadn’t brought his wife. Gabe wasn’t ready to deal with Lucky….

As always, the heavy pile of the carpet made it difficult to maneuver. Turning too soon, he accidentally clipped the corner of the kitchen table. Because he’d made that table out of metal and hadn’t yet finished off the edges, it cut his shoulder. Irritated that his preoccupation had caused him to be careless, he cursed, and Lazarus whined as he opened the door.

Mike’s somber expression turned to concern as soon as he saw Gabe’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just a scratch.” He moved back and whistled for Lazarus to do the same. “You wanna come in?”

Tall and lean, with close-clipped brown hair and hazel eyes, Mike doffed his cowboy hat and stepped inside. “How’d you cut yourself?”

Gabe glanced at his biceps. He’d been lifting weights when he heard Mike’s car pull into the drive. Had he been wearing anything more significant than a muscle shirt, he probably wouldn’t have been hurt. “It’s the damn carpet,” he said with a shrug.

“So why don’t you tear it out and put in a hardwood floor? Make life a little easier?”

Because Gabe permitted only the most necessary concessions to his handicap. Special allowances made him feel weak, feeble…useless. Besides, he wasn’t planning to be in a wheelchair much longer. He was going to walk again.

He didn’t say so, though. He knew Mike would only give him a patronizing smile. No one believed him.

Absently petting his dog, a gift from a guy he used to play football with, given to him as a puppy just after the accident, Gabe curved his lips into the good ol’ boy smile he used to deflect certain questions. “You kiddin’? It’s real wool. Cost me a fortune.”

His hayseed charm didn’t work as well on Mike as it did on other people. The way Mike’s eyebrows lifted indicated he knew Gabe had sidestepped the real issue. “You can afford it.”

Gabe wasn’t particularly eager to bring Mike to the reason for his visit. But neither did he want his friend to start harassing him like he had for the past year. When are you going to quit holing up in that cabin of yours and get back to the business of living?

Gabe couldn’t exactly call what he was doing living. It certainly wasn’t life as he’d always known it. He avoided people, even his family, and attended few events. But he was meditating, training, growing his own food and working. Mike just didn’t understand. Mike hadn’t lost his ability to walk, and with it his life’s dream, right before the play-offs. He hadn’t been forced to sit back and watch his team lose the Super Bowl because their starting quarterback had nearly severed his spinal cord. The site of the injury was Gabe’s lower back, which meant he could do more than a lot of paraplegics, but it was still something the doctors couldn’t fix. They pointed to stem cell research as a possibility for the future, but Gabe couldn’t count on anything so uncertain and far away. He had to take matters into his own hands, overcome the effects of the accident with hard work and positive thinking. That’s how he’d always handled everything else.

“I’m sure you didn’t come all the way out here just to talk about my carpet,” he said.

Mike fidgeted with his hat, bending the rim and sliding it through his curled fingers in a circular motion. “No.”

Again, their eyes met and Gabe had the uncomfortable feeling that Mike was about to ask for something he couldn’t give. But they’d been friends too long. Gabe couldn’t see any way to avoid hearing Mike out.

“Have a seat.” He motioned to the couch, which was about the only piece of furniture in the cabin Gabe hadn’t made. Working with wood—and recently experimenting with other materials like metal—gave him purpose beyond his therapy. But spending so much time at it made for an odd collection of furnishings. Not that he particularly cared. Very few people came to visit. His old football buddies used to call and want to drop by, but he’d turned them away so consistently that most eventually gave up. They didn’t like seeing the league’s MVP reduced to half a man, and Gabe hated how uncomfortable they felt in his presence. He couldn’t help resenting their pity.

“What’s with the table?” Mike asked as Gabe wheeled over and grabbed a paper towel to wipe the blood off his arm.

Gabe considered the piece he was currently creating. Eight feet by six feet, it was made in mission style, but the sheen of the metal and the large rivets gave it a very urban feel. Gabe had seen something similar in a magazine once. “I’m branching out.”

“It’s unusual, but…nice. In a creative sort of way.”

Gabe chuckled at Mike’s diplomacy. He missed the old days when they’d been close. Before the NFL. Before the accident. Before Mike had married Lucky.

“We’ll see how it turns out.” Pushing himself back into the living room, he studied his friend’s face. He could tell by the lines of fatigue around Mike’s eyes and mouth that the past ten days had been hard on him. It was nothing more than Gabe had expected. Coach Hill’s heart attack had come out of nowhere.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” he said, and meant it. Coach Hill had been like a second father to him. Because Gabe had skipped both fifth and eighth grade, he’d been two years younger than the other boys in his class, which put him at a disadvantage athletically. It was Coach Hill who recognized his talent and refused to let the other coaches cut him from the team when he went out for football his freshman year. It was Coach Hill who dared to start him as a senior. Without Mike’s father’s influence, Gabe never would have played for UCLA, which was where he really matured and began to excel.

A muscle flexed in Mike’s cheek, revealing his deep emotion. “Thanks for coming to the funeral. It was the first most folks have seen of you in a long time.”

Gabe didn’t respond to Mike’s subtle jab. He was too busy wondering how he’d feel if it had been his dad who died. He’d barely spoken to his father since last year, when Senator Garth Holbrook had ruined his bid for Congress by announcing something he’d managed to keep secret for twenty-four years….

“I’ve been busy,” he said, yanking his thoughts away from that dark moment. “So…what can I do for you?”

“I think you know why I’m here.”

Gabe combed his fingers through his hair, which fell in layered waves almost to his shoulders. He rarely bothered to have it cut anymore—having it cut required a trip into town, a trip that wasn’t rewarded with food or the prospect of seeing a football game. “And I think you know what kind of answer you’re going to get.”

“It’d be good for you, Gabe.”

Gabe scowled. Everyone thought they knew what he needed. “Don’t tell me what’s good for me, Mike.”

“Then do it for the town. The season starts in two weeks. The school board’s frantic, wondering who they’re going to hire as a replacement. I know they’d go with you in a heartbeat, if only you’d take the job.”

“I don’t want the job.” If he wanted to work, he had plenty of other opportunities. Someone from ESPN called him nearly every month, begging him to co-host NFL Sunday Countdown. But he couldn’t settle for less than the brass ring—the Super Bowl ring he’d been denied. He couldn’t let anything get in the way of his focus, least of all coaching a small high-school football team. “Why can’t one of your father’s assistants take over?”

“Who? Owens?”

“No. His arthritis is getting too bad.”

“So you’re suggesting Melvin Blaine?”

Gabe squared his jaw at the challenge in Mike’s voice. “I guess I am, if there’s no one else.”

“That’s who the board will probably choose if you don’t step up. But you played for Dundee High, Gabe. You remember Blaine’s temper. I don’t want him to have any more power over those boys than he already has. My father wouldn’t have wanted that, either.”

“But I’ve never coached before!”

Mike set his hat next to him and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “No one knows football better than you do.”

“There’s more to the job than knowing the game. Coaching is about…getting a bunch of individuals to play as a team. It’s about…inspiration.”

“You can inspire. Hell, most of those boys worship you already. You’re a local hero.”

Gabe felt a headache coming on and began to rub his temples. “They worship what I used to be.”

“You’re still the same man.”

He wasn’t the same at all. The accident had cost him more than his ability to play ball. It had stripped him of his identity. He wasn’t even sure what was important to him anymore. He’d thought it was his family, until he’d learned about his father’s deception. He had to find his way back to the man he used to be. Coaching would only get in the way. “It’d be a huge undertaking. Every coach’s style is different and with only two weeks to get ready for the first game—”

“You could handle it.”

Maybe he could. But he refused to let himself be distracted. He had to hang on to who he used to be since he didn’t know who he was now. And there was another problem….

“Won’t Kenny Price be playing on varsity this year?”

At last, Mike began to look a little uncomfortable. “He doesn’t have to. He’s only a sophomore.”

“But he’s good.” Gabe knew how good because he’d seen him play. Since he’d lost the ability to walk, it was always a bittersweet experience to visit the stadium, but he hadn’t been able to stay away. When football season rolled around, he drove into town to watch both the junior varsity and varsity games. Besides an occasional trip to the grocery store, it was one of the few places Gabe still bothered to go.

“I know you’ve got to feel strange toward his mother. If you don’t think you can live with having him on your team, it’s no big deal,” Mike insisted. “Let him play JV another year.”

Strange didn’t begin to describe how Gabe felt toward Hannah Price. But even at sixteen, Kenny was a better quarterback than senior Jonathon Greer or junior Buck Weaver. “I wouldn’t play a kid based on his age. I’d go by talent. And from what I’ve seen, keeping Kenny on JV wouldn’t be fair to him or the team.”

“Gabe, unless you take over as coach, Melvin Blaine’s going to get the job.”

If he could turn down a multimillion-dollar contract with ESPN, he could certainly reject this opportunity, he told himself. “So maybe it’s a throwaway year. Replace Blaine after the season’s over, when the board is able to find someone better suited to the job.”

Mike looked at him as if he had to be crazy. “A throwaway year? You think that’s fair to the boys? Would you have wanted to bust your ass for a team with no promise?”

Gabe was far too competitive for that, and Mike knew it.

“Besides, it won’t be that easy to replace Blaine,” Mike went on. “If he gets in, he’ll stay until he does something stupid. Something like he did to you. You really want to give him that opportunity?”

Gabe continued to rub his temples but said nothing.

“Come on, it’s only for one season.”

Wadding up the paper towel he’d used to wipe the blood from his arm, Gabe banked it off the wall, into the kitchen wastebasket. “I loved your dad, Mike. I owe him a lot. But—”

“Then do it for him, Gabe.”

Shit… The memories Gabe had been fighting finally intruded, and he pictured Coach Hill asking to meet with him at the beginning of his junior year, just after he’d been caught ditching school. Because he was so much younger than the other guys, he’d been trying to prove himself, which at that age meant drinking and being careless about grades and rules in general. He’d never dreamed Coach Hill would notice or care about a fifteen-year-old junior. Until Duane Steggo blew out his knee a month later, Gabe hadn’t even been on varsity.

But Coach Hill did more than notice. Late one afternoon, he called him in and sat him down in an otherwise empty locker room. Then they had the talk. Coach Hill explained that there were two kinds of men: strong men, who remained true to their internal compasses regardless of all else; and weak men who were easily misled and wound up cheating themselves of all they could be. He’d told Gabe he only wanted strong men on his team, and asked which kind of man Gabe wanted to be. That’s when Gabe quit worrying about fitting in and decided to put his energy toward being the best—at everything—and wound up graduating with a 4.0 grade point average and a football scholarship to UCLA.

He wasn’t sure he would’ve turned around without Coach Hill. His own father had tried to motivate him in many ways. But somehow it was Coach Hill who’d made the difference.

“Gabe?” Mike pressed.

Gabe scrubbed a hand over his face, then frowned when Lazarus laid his snout in Gabe’s lap and stared up at him as though pleading Mike’s case.

Maybe Gabe could turn down a national sports show but, given what Coach Hill had meant to him—what Mike meant to him—he couldn’t turn down his best friend or his old alma mater. “Fine,” he said at last. “But tell the school board to find a replacement for me as soon as possible because one year’s the most they’re gonna get.”

Grabbing his hat, Mike stood and clasped Gabe’s hand. “Thanks, buddy. I knew I could count on you.” He strode to the door but hesitated there. Predictably, his visit wasn’t over yet. “Don’t suppose you’d consider coming to my house and letting Lucky make you dinner in the next week or two,” he said.

Gabe clenched his jaw. Mike extended an invitation like this almost every time they saw each other. But Gabe couldn’t really hold it against him. Mike loved Lucky. Of course he’d try to get her whatever she wanted, and ever since Gabe’s father had taken that paternity test, it was no secret that she was eager to become friends with the family she’d so recently discovered.

“Maybe sometime,” he said.

Mike sighed. “The old ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you,’ huh?”

“You got me to coach. Be happy with that.”

“I am happy with that.”

From his friend’s sudden smile, Gabe suspected Mike was secretly congratulating himself despite the failed dinner invitation. He’d just handpicked his father’s successor and dragged Gabe back into society at the same time.

But coaching was a concession Gabe had to make. He owed Coach Hill. And he hated Melvin Blaine.

“MOM, WHERE ARE YOU?” The front door slammed shut behind Hannah Price’s oldest son, and his footfalls landed heavy on the stairs as he took them two or three at once. “Mom!”

A chill of apprehension swept down Hannah’s spine at the distress in the sixteen-year-old’s voice. It had already been a rough week. What was wrong now?

“In my office,” she called and set aside the frame she’d been examining. One of the manufacturers she’d been working with for the past several months was starting to send her substandard material. She had to put a stop to it—but that could wait.

Kenny charged into the room wearing gym shorts, a cut-off T-shirt that was soaked with sweat, and a pair of muddy cleats. He’d obviously come straight from practice, but she didn’t scold him for tracking mud into the house. She was too worried about the pained expression on his face.

“What’s the matter?”

He slumped onto the step stool Hannah used to reach her office supplies on the top shelves of the closet, and for probably the hundredth time this summer, Hannah realized just how tall he was getting. He’d been stocky as a young child—like Brent, her seven-year-old, who’d come as a complete surprise long after she’d decided not to have another kid. But over the past few years Kenny’s baby fat had melted away. With his thick brown hair and brown eyes, he looked so much like her he sometimes resented it. Too many people told him he was almost as pretty as his mother.

“Why did Coach Hill have to die?” he asked, sounding more like the little boy he used to be than the man he was becoming.

She smiled sadly at him. “You’re missing him, huh?”

The news of Larry Hill’s passing had moved her son to tears even though he considered himself too old for crying. And he hadn’t been alone. The entire football team had wept through the funeral. Hannah was grieving, too. As a single mother, she was especially grateful to Dundee’s football coach for taking an interest in Kenny and for being such a good role model. Especially because owning her own business—a photography studio, which she ran out of her renovated garage and spare bedroom—meant she couldn’t always be available to her son.

“The guys are saying I won’t get to play this season,” he said.

She shoved some of the files she had stacked on the floor to the side so she could scoot her chair closer to him. She was tempted to go into her “don’t worry, it’s just a game” speech, but didn’t. Russ, her ex-husband and Kenny’s father, cared more about Kenny’s football career than Kenny did. Five minutes with him would wipe out all her attempts to bring football into perspective. It always did. “Of course you’ll get to play. You started every game last year.”

“That was JV, Mom. Coach Blaine called me up to varsity yesterday. And now that Coach Hill is gone—”

“Whoa.” She squeezed one of the overlarge hands dangling between his knees. If Kenny ever grew into his hands and feet, he’d be a very tall man indeed. “Whoever they find to replace him will recognize your talent.”

“They’ve already found someone,” he said glumly.

“Who?”

“Gabriel Holbrook.”

Hannah jerked back at the name. “What?”

“You heard me.” Kenny blinked rapidly, as if he was close to tears again, and she could understand why. In her mind, she heard the collision that still haunted her dreams, felt that weightless, ominous tumbling….

“The guys are right, aren’t they?” he added, head and shoulders drooping. “He’s gonna hate my guts.”

“Of course he won’t hate you,” she said, but in her heart she wasn’t sure. How would Gabe feel toward her son? Would he really want to see Kenny excel at a sport he could no longer play because of her?

Kenny kicked a brightly colored ball she used when photographing babies. It hit the wall with a sharp smack. “I wish that accident never happened.”

If only she could turn back the calendar…. Hannah had regretted leaving the house that night every minute of her life since.

Her son looked at her imploringly. “Maybe it wasn’t totally your fault. Maybe he was driving too fast and—”

“No, it was me.” Of course, she wouldn’t have been on the road, driving like a maniac if not for Russ and the panic she’d felt for her children’s safety. But Hannah knew it wouldn’t do any good to point that out. She was the one who’d hit Gabe head-on as he was coming home for the Christmas holidays. With a tragedy like that, reasons and explanations didn’t help.

Kenny shoved the hair out of his troubled eyes. “I’ve heard what everyone else has to say about the accident. But you never talk about it. What happened, Mom?”

Hannah shook her head. She couldn’t give him the details. The repercussions of that night made her too heartsick. She’d grown up knowing Gabe. He’d been larger than life, talented, charismatic, the guy who had it all.

In the space of a heartbeat, she’d changed everything. The new Gabe hid a world of hurt behind his blue eyes, kept to himself and rarely ventured into public. But he was still strikingly handsome. Besides eyes that seemed deeper than the ocean, he had wavy black hair, a lean, chiseled face and a rock-hard body. “The guy I know wouldn’t hold what I did against you.”

“How can he help it?” Kenny asked. “He can’t even walk because of you.” Drawing up his knees, he rested his chin on his arms. “Did you ever apologize to him?”

“Of course.”

“Did he accept it?”

“I think so,” she said, but she couldn’t be too confident about that, either. The face Gabe showed the world these days, if he showed himself at all, seemed like some sort of mask. She didn’t know what was going on underneath it. When she tried to tell him how sorry she was, he either acted as though he wasn’t interested enough to listen. Or he gave her a gorgeous smile and told her it was fate.

His generous attitude only made her feel worse. As late as a few months ago, after they’d bumped into each other at Finley’s Grocery on one of his rare appearances in town, he’d even sent her a brief note telling her to stop apologizing, that there wasn’t any need to think of him again.

She didn’t want to think of him. But guilt made that impossible. Besides, they lived in too small a town for her to avoid mention of him. She was quite aware that she was now better known for ruining the career and the life of Dundee’s only hero than she was for her photography.

“I don’t think Coach Blaine’s any happier than I am about Gabe taking over as head coach,” Kenny said.

“Why not?”

“He thought he was getting the job.”

“Did he say something about it at practice today?”

“Nothing to the whole team. But his face went red when Mike Hill showed up to make the announcement. And I heard him mumble to Coach Owens that if they think a crippled, washed-up football player can coach better than he can, they’ve got another think coming.”

Hannah pressed a hand to her chest. “He called Gabe a crippled, washed-up football player?”

“Yeah.”

A hard knot lodged in Hannah’s stomach. She’d already done enough to make Gabe’s life miserable. She didn’t want her son involved in the drama at the high school. “Kenny?”

He was still wearing a sullen expression when he glanced up at her.

“You give Coach Holbrook everything you’ve got, you hear me? You play hard. You do what he says. And you don’t complain.”

“What if he benches me because I’m related to you?”

“Regardless.”

“But Mom—”

“He’s head coach, Kenny. He should have your loyalty, your respect and your support.”

“What about Coach Blaine?”

“What about him? You never liked him much before now.”

“He’s okay to certain players.”

“He has his favorites, and he has his scapegoats. Just because you might have become one of his favorites doesn’t mean I like his methods. Stay away from him as much as possible,” she said, but as her son stood to leave, she had no idea whether or not he’d listen to her. Especially considering that Russ had lost his starting position to Gabe in high school and was likely to give Kenny conflicting advice.