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Something pinged him in the back. A pebble thudded to the grass at his feet. He spun around. “Hey! Did you just hit me with a rock?”
She gave him a grin that was anything but friendly. “I figured out what’s wrong with the chair.”
He dropped the suitcases. “You did?”
“Come here and see for yourself. Unless you’re scared of a girl.”
He was scared of her all right. Allison Buchanon had the power to hurt him—or cause him to hurt himself. But intrigued by her claim, he went back to the chair.
A car chugged by the intersection going in the opposite direction. Across the street a dog barked, and down the block, some guy mowed his lawn, shooting the grassy smell all over the neighborhood. Normal activities in Gabriel’s Crossing, though there was nothing normal about him standing in Granny Pat’s yard with a Buchanon.
Man, his death wish must be worse than most.
He crossed his arms over his chest, careful not to get close enough to touch her. He didn’t need reminders of her soft skin and flowery scent. “What?”
She went into a crouch, one hand holding up the chair. Her shoes were open toed and someone had painted her toenails orange and green like tiny pumpkins.
“That piece is bent and caught on the gear. See?”
He had no choice but to crouch beside her. There it was. Her sweet scent. Honeysuckle, he thought. Exactly the same as she’d worn in high school. Sweet and clean and pure.
Jake cleared his throat and gripped the chair. He needed to get a grip, all right.
“I got it,” he said, thinking she’d leave now. She didn’t.
He reached in and straightened the metal piece with his fingers, using more effort than he’d expected. A deep rut whitened along his index finger.
“Pliers would have been easier,” she said. Then she grabbed the oversize wheels and popped open the stubborn wheelchair. “There. Ready to roll.”
Jake stepped around to take the handles. Allison climbed up on the truck bumper and started unloading Granny Pat’s belongings.
“I can get those.”
“I came to see Miss Pat.” She handed him a plastic sack of clothes. Granny had collected a dozen shopping bags filled with clothes along with her suitcases and medical supplies. Where a woman in a convalescent center acquired so much remained a puzzle. But then, women in general were a puzzle to most of the male species and Jake was no exception.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“Let her be the judge of that.”
“You know what I mean, Allison. Don’t be muleheaded.”
She hopped off the bumper, plopped a bag of plastic medical supplies into the wheelchair and went back for another. When he saw she wasn’t leaving no matter what he said, he joined her, unloading the items, much of which fit in the wheelchair.
“So, how have you been?” she asked, her tone all spunky and cute as if no bad blood ran between her brothers and him.
“Good.”
“What does that mean?”
He squinted at her over the tailgate. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“We were friends once, Jake. I believe in second chances.”
Friends? Yes, they’d been friends, but toward the end, he’d been falling in love with his best friend’s sister.
He shook off the random thought. Whatever had been budding between two teenagers was long dead and buried.
“How’s Quinn?”
He hadn’t meant to ask, hadn’t intended to open that door, but he held his breath, praying for something he couldn’t name.
“He’s the architect for Buchanon Construction now.”
“Granny Pat told me he went to Tech with Brady.” He didn’t say the other; that Quinn’s full-ride football scholarship had disappeared on a bloody October morning. “Does he ever talk about—”
“No, and I don’t want to either.” She glanced away, toward a pair of puppies galloping around the neighbor’s front yard, her eyebrows drawn together in a worried frown. “Quinn has a decent life here in Gabriel’s Crossing. Maybe the path wasn’t the one he’d expected to take, but he survived.”
Jake slowly exhaled. “That’s good. Real good.”
Quinn was okay. The accident happened long ago. Maybe Jake was no longer the hated pariah. People moved on. Everyone except him and he’d been stuck in the past so long, he didn’t know how to move off high-center. “What about you? Why aren’t you married with a house full of kids?”
He hadn’t meant to ask that either.
She shrugged. The pumpkin sweater bunched up around her white neck. “I’ve had my chances.”
He was sure she had, and he wondered why she hadn’t taken them. “Still working for your dad?”
“In the offices with Jayla.”
“Little sister grew up?”
“We all do, Jake.” She smiled a little. “I keep the books, do payroll, billing. All the fun numbers stuff.”
“Put that high school accounting award to good use, didn’t you?”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “You remember that?”
He remembered everything about her, his cheerleader and champion when life had been too difficult to live. “Hard to forget. You wore that medal around your neck for months.”
“Fun times.”
Yes, they were. Before he’d destroyed everything with one stupid decision.
“Faith’s getting married,” she said.
Faith Evans, her sidekick. The long and the short, as the guys had called them. Faith had grown to nearly six feet tall by sixth grade, and Allison had barely been tall enough to reach the gas pedal when she’d turned sixteen. “Yeah? Who’s the lucky guy?”
“They met in college. Derrick Cantelli. I’m coordinating her wedding.” She tilted back on the heels of her sandals, her warm brown eyes searching his. “Granny Pat told me you live in Stephenville now.”
“Land of the rodeo cowboys.”
“Do you like it there?”
“Sure.” He glanced away, afraid she’d read the truth in his eyes. “We better get this in the house before Granny Pat starts hollering.”
He gave the wheels a nudge with his boot.
“Unlock it,” Allison said.
“It has a lock?” He poked around and found the lever, released the device with a snap, and incredibly, the chair rolled a few inches. “How did you know that?”
“Brady had knee surgery his last year at Tech.”
Just that quick, the elephant was back in the room. “I watched him play on TV a few times. He was good.”
But not as good as Quinn. No one in the state had been as good at football as Quinn Buchanon. Quinn, with the golden arm that had turned to blood.
He gave the wheelchair a shove and rolled toward the front door.
* * *
He’d gone quiet on her again. When Allison thought they’d moved past that awkward stage, past his determination to be the rude, don’t-care cowboy, he had clammed up again. Between his reluctance and her brothers’ animosity, she wondered why she kept trying.
But she knew why. Though she was a Buchanon with every cell in her body, her brothers were wrong to hold a grudge. Anger would not restore Quinn’s arm to normal. Anger would not regain his chance at an NFL career. All bitterness had ever done was make them miserable.
Like now. If they knew she was here, her brothers would have a fit. Just as they would have a fit if they’d known about the other thing. They’d have done something crazy.
But she was as drawn to Jake Hamilton today as she had been in high school. He was her buddy, her first love, and foolish though she might be, she yearned to help him, to be his friend again, to repay a debt of love and loyalty.
If he’d revealed her secret nine years ago, maybe her family wouldn’t despise Jake so much. But he’d kept silent because she had begged him to. And he’d suffered for his loyalty.
He could walk off and leave her in the yard every time she visited, but she wouldn’t stop trying. He meant too much to her.
If that was pathetic, so be it.
Grabbing a small black suitcase Jake had left behind, she followed him into the house. Her stomach sank like a brick in a pond when she spotted Miss Pat in the big blue corduroy recliner. The once vital, high-energy woman had shriveled to child-size in the months since her hip surgery. She looked a hundred instead of in her early seventies.
“Hi, Miss Pat.”
“Look here, Ralph, it’s little Allison. Isn’t she pretty as a picture?”
Ralph? Who was Ralph? She looked to Jake for help but he’d moved around behind his grandmother and simply shook his head at her. Allison got the message and didn’t press the subject.
She pulled a worn leather ottoman close to the recliner and plopped down. “How you feeling, Miss Pat? Can I do anything for you?”
“You sure can, sweetie. I am useless as a newborn.” Her strong voice didn’t match her body. “Get my purse over there on the table where Jacob stuck it, and then find my Sudoku book in all that mess of sacks.”
“I can do that.” Allison hopped up, amused but pleased that Miss Pat’s personality hadn’t faded like her body, a good sign she had the grit to stage a fourth quarter comeback. “Would you like for me to unpack and put everything away? I’d be pleased to do it.”
“Now, there’s a fine idea. See, Jacob.” She tilted her head back to gaze up at her grandson. “Your grandpa said something would turn up and here she is. Allison will help get this place in order. Won’t you, Allison?”
“Well, sure I will, if that’s what you need.”
“Good. This house needs a cleaning from top to bottom.”
“I can do that.” Never mind that her brothers would go ballistic to know she was in the Hamilton house with Jake. She was here for Miss Pat. Helping a friend was the Buchanon way. And yes, she admitted, she wanted to get to know Jake again. He was a memory that wouldn’t go away. “I can’t tonight, but I’ll come by tomorrow after work. How’s that sound?”
“She’s a jewel, isn’t she, Jacob? Just like in high school when she was sweet on you.”
Jake looked as if he’d swallowed a bug. Allison’s face heated, but she grinned. Miss Pat never minced words.
“Come on, Jacob,” she said, teasing him about the seldom-used name. “Help me find that puzzle book.”
Reluctantly, and with his expression shuttered, he started crinkling plastic sacks. Allison fetched the handbag, handed it off to Miss Pat and joined Jake in the hunt for that all-important puzzle book.
Each time she looked up, their eyes met. Every bit as quickly, one of them would look away. She was acutely aware of his masculine presence, his cowboy swagger, his manly, outdoors scent. Aware in a way that disturbed her thinking.
She found the thick Sudoku pad in the bottom of an ugly brown plastic washbasin.
“Here’s your puzzle book, Miss Pat. Need a pencil?”
“Got one in my purse.” Miss Pat had already extracted a cell phone and was scrolling the contacts. “No, Ralph, it’s not time for my meds.”
Jake glanced at a square wall clock hanging next to an outdated calendar, a sad reminder that no one had lived here for several months. “Another hour, Granny.”
“That’s what I told Ralph. I’ve got to text Mae at the prison and let her know I survived the ride home.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Carson Convalescence was not a prison.”
“A lot you’d know about it.” Using an index finger, she tapped a message on the phone’s keyboard. “Ah, there we go. Poor Mae. Stuck in that prison through Christmas.”
With a resigned shake of his head, Jake grabbed two suitcases and lugged them through a doorway. Allison followed with an armful of crinkling Walmart sacks.
“Do you know where everything goes?” she asked.
“No.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Allison opened the closet and took out some empty hangers and then started unpacking the mishmash of belongings.
Jake edged around her, looking uncertain and a little thunderous. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?” He paused in hanging up a dress to stare at her across Miss Pat’s dusty dresser.
Every nerve ending reacted to that green gaze, but Allison refused to let her jumbled feelings show. “Because Ralph said I would.”
He grinned. Finally. He had a killer grin beneath olive eyes that had driven more than one girl to doodle his name on the edge of her spiral notebook. Including Allison. But that was in high school. That was before the insanity of a football-focused town had heaped so much condemnation and hurt onto a teenage boy that he’d run away with the rodeo.
