by Lisa Childs
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. It was a long time ago.”
“But you’re still hurting over it.” He could almost feel her pain, like that dull throb left over from the concussion. “Talk to me about it.”
She turned on him now, anger chasing the vulnerability from her deep green eyes. “Why? Are you so bored being back in Trout Creek that even I seem interesting to you?”
Her defensiveness almost made him step back from her. “I am interested in you, Priscilla. I want to know more about you, about your life.” He wanted to know everything.
But before he could convince her to confide in him, she glanced at the window. “Someone’s coming.”
Even though it wasn’t late, not even nine according to the clock on her mantel, it was pitch-black outside. Headlights glowed through the darkness as a car headed down the gravel driveway toward her cabin. Brooks recognized the rumble of the powerful engine. “Dad better not have let Ryan drive the Mustang.”
Priscilla’s eyes widened in horror as she glanced from his bare chest to the shirt she wore. She ran into her bedroom, opening the door a moment later to toss his shirt out. He turned to catch a glimpse of her delectable naked body, but she’d closed the door too fast.
And he wasn’t quick enough to pull on his shirt before someone pounded at the door. Through the sheer curtain, Brooks recognized his father’s burly build. With a jerk of his head he gestured for his dad to open the door.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, irritated that the old man had interrupted his conversation with Priscilla. When would his dad realize that Brooks wasn’t a kid anymore?
“Tracking you down,” he replied, his voice sharp. “Don’t you answer your damn phone?”
Brooks flinched. “I left it in the Jeep.” He hadn’t thought he’d be in Priscilla’s house long. Had figured he’d just pick up Faith and go. “Are the boys okay?”
His dad nodded. “Yeah. But you got company back at the house.”
“Faith’s mother?” he asked with a surge of relief and dread. While he wanted his daughter to have a mom, he didn’t want to lose the baby. “I was sure she’d come back.”
Rex shook his head. “Hopefully she won’t come around now. There’s a whole damn pack of reporters outside the house.”
Brooks cursed. “Thanks for the warning.”
“I came for more than the warning,” his dad continued. “I’m going to take the baby over to Myrtle’s house. Those damn vultures don’t need to learn about her.”
Brooks chuckled at his dad’s naiveté. “If they’ve been in Trout Creek five minutes, I’m sure they know all about the baby left on my doorstep.”
Rex shook his head. “You never did appreciate this town, son. We protect our own. Nobody’s going to tell anybody about Faith.”
Brooks glanced down at the baby’s perfect little face. She was awake and staring up at him with those big, serious eyes of hers. “Maybe they should. Maybe it’ll bring her mother back.”
His dad laughed now, as if Brooks was the naive one. “And how many other women will claim to be her mother just to get their hooks into you?” He glanced at Brooks’s bare chest and raised a bushy brow. “Or has someone already done that?”
Brooks shook his head. It wasn’t any of his father’s business what he and Priscilla had done. “Faith threw up on my shirt again,” he lied.
Too smart to fall for the story, Rex picked up the shirt Priscilla had tossed out the bedroom door. “Well, you better get dressed and get home. Let ’em see you’re alive and well, and maybe they’ll leave us the hell alone.”
When he’d first gone pro, Brooks had loved the attention of the media, but it had gotten old fast. The best part of playing for the city league had been that most of the sportscasters had lost interest in him. Like Wes’s dad, they’d written him off as a has-been. But all it took was a little scandal to provoke a media frenzy. The little scandal wriggled in his arms. Even more than the cell-phone footage of the fight, the press would have a field day when they found out he didn’t know the identity of his baby’s mother.
“Let me help you get Faith ready to go to Myrtle’s,” he said. Adept now at snaps and tabs, he quickly changed the baby and fastened her into her car seat. “She’s probably hungry,” he warned. Having been trapped in a car with her when she wanted a bottle, he didn’t envy his father right now.
“Those reporters are hungry, too,” Rex reminded him as he headed for the door with the carrier and diaper bag.
Brooks followed and opened the door for him. But his father paused at the threshold, his eyes dark with concern. “Faith isn’t the only gal you have to worry about protecting, you know.”
It was his father’s tone more than the cool night breeze that chilled Brooks. The old man knew that Priscilla had come home to Trout Creek just as wounded as his son had. Maybe more, because Brooks’s wounds were only physical.
“I’ll be careful,” he promised.
His dad walked out with a grin and a parting shot. “I guess that concussion did knock some sense into you. That’s the first time you’ve ever told me that.”
Probably because Brooks had known better than to make promises he couldn’t keep. He closed the door behind the old man and called to Priscilla, “You can come out now.”
PRISCILLA PRESSED her hands to her hot face. She had dressed in jeans and a heavy sweatshirt, but still felt naked and exposed. Through the thin walls in the tiny cabin, she’d overheard their conversation. What if the reporters had followed the sheriff to her house? What if everyone in Trout Creek—in the country—learned that she was notorious playboy Brooks Hoover’s latest conquest?
She could kiss her chance of taking over as principal goodbye. Even knowing that, she wanted to kiss Brooks goodbye; she wanted to feel his lips on hers one last time.
A fist knocked at her bedroom door before it creaked open. “Priscilla? Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Of course. But you’d better go.” Before the reporters tracked him down at her house.
Frustration etched deep furrows in his forehead. “I’d rather stay here. With you.”
“You have to leave,” she reminded him, glad now that his dad had interrupted them. Brooks wanted to talk about her past, about her marriage, about her ex, and she had no doubt he would extract every painful detail from her. He’d already intuited more about her than any man—anyone—had since her divorce. She couldn’t allow him to get closer, not when she knew for certain she would lose him.
He pushed open the door all the way and stepped into her bedroom. “I don’t want to leave before we have a chance to talk.”
She smiled. “You’d just rather talk to me than reporters.”
He crossed the room to join her at the window, reaching out to run his fingertips along her jaw. “I wouldn’t talk. I’d listen.”
Her breath caught with surprise and pleasure at both his offer and his seductive touch.
“I think you listen to everyone else, but no one ever listens to you,” he said, proving to her once again that he was more than a sexy body. He was smart and perceptive, and she felt vulnerable with him staring into her eyes.
“Maybe I have nothing to say,” she pointed out, her breath coming shallow and fast.
He grinned. “You have plenty to say. You just don’t want to.”
“I have one thing to say.” It was the only thing she could say without giving him any more of herself. “We had fun. That’s all it was. All that it can be.”
ALL THAT IT CAN BE.
She was right. He knew she was, but still it rankled. Usually he was the one who said those words, who posted the boundaries of a relationship.
Until now. Until Priscilla Andrews.
Everyone else expected too much of him, especially his dad. And now his brothers. He stared at their faces on the television screen.
“My brother’s great,” Brad told the sportscaster who held a mike to him. “He could play, but he cam
e back to coach our hockey team to its first division win since he played for Trout Creek High himself.”
Behind Brad, Ryan pumped his fist in the air. “Yeah!”
No, Brooks inwardly groaned. Under his inept leadership, the team would be lucky to win one game, let alone the tier or division finals.
“Our regular coach, his old high school coach, had a stroke, so Brooks agreed to take over.” Brad continued the spin. Maybe instead of an athlete, the kid should become a politician or a sports agent.
Brooks snorted. But he hadn’t when the camera panned to him earlier. On the television screen now, he merely smiled and acknowledged, “I’m lucky to be able to coach them.”
Especially since his new boss hadn’t wanted him for the job. She’d been right that he wasn’t qualified for the position. Except for playing hockey, he wasn’t qualified for much of anything.
“How serious was your brain injury?” a reporter asked.
He winked at the camera. “Not serious enough to justify you all coming up to Trout Creek. I’m fine. Really. I’ll be playing next season, and the coach will love me, since I’ll have a new appreciation for how hard his job is.”
More questions followed as the reporters tried to work up a scandal. But when he downplayed the fight as an accident, they lost interest. Sick of seeing his own face on TV, Brooks clicked the off button on the remote.
Brad had wedged himself between Brooks and Ryan on the family room couch. “So how bad were you hurt? Dad wouldn’t let us go with him to see you.”
“Yeah, he had Myrtle babysitting us like she’s watching your kid tonight,” Ryan grumbled.
But Myrtle wasn’t babysitting alone tonight; his dad was still over there, leaving Brooks to figure out how much his brothers should know. “I was in a coma, just not as long as they claim.”
“Do you have brain damage?” Brad asked.
He shook his head. “No. Just a concussion.”
“So, Ryan, you’re the only Hoover with brain damage,” Brad teased.
Ryan wrapped his beefy arm around his younger brother’s neck. “You’re going to have brain damage when I’m done with you.”
Brad wriggled around, bumping into Brooks as he tried to free himself. “Then who’ll do your homework?”
Ryan immediately loosened his grasp when Brooks groaned. Both brothers stared at him.
“You okay?” Brad asked.
“No, I’m worried. You guys are cheating?”
“I wouldn’t call it cheating.” Brad, the future politician, assumed the spokesperson role again.
“Ms. Andrews will and she’ll suspend you both for it—from the school and the team.”
Brad’s dark eyes widened. “She won’t! Dad’ll talk to Principal Drover.”
Brooks shook his head. “No. Dad needs to stop cleaning up after us and protecting us.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “I was hurt bad,” he admitted. “There’s some concern that another head injury could cause permanent brain damage.”
Brad gasped, and his dark eyes welled with tears.
“You won’t be able to play anymore?” Ryan asked.
Dread tied knots in Brooks’s stomach. He couldn’t imagine not playing. “I have to go back to a neurologist and the team doctor to get cleared before I can get reinstated. But I’m sure they were just overreacting in the hospital.” After three days in a coma, he’d been pretty out of it when he’d awakened—too out of it to remember everything he’d been told about his medical condition. “I’m sure I’ll play again.”
It was his whole life. All he had ever wanted. Now he wasn’t sure what he wanted—besides more time alone with Priscilla.
“But you can’t play,” Brad said, his voice cracking with emotion. “You shouldn’t risk becoming a vegetable.”
Brooks was moved by the boys’ reactions to his close scrape. For most of their lives he’d been gone, more stranger than brother to them, but still they cared about him. And he cared about them more than he’d realized—too much to let them make the mistakes he had.
“Hockey is all I know,” he admitted. “But I still don’t know enough to be a coach. I shouldn’t have this job. And if I can’t play again, I’m not qualified for any job.”
“But you can still be our coach,” Brad insisted.
Brooks shook his head. “If Coach Cook wants his job back, it’s his.”
“Talk about veg—”
“Ryan!” Brooks stopped his brother from finishing the rude remark.
“But he’s old,” Brad pointed out. “He’s going to want to retire. You can stay as coach.”
Brooks shook his head. “Not if the team sucks this year.”
“But Miss Priss can’t fire you because we suck.”
“Stop calling her that,” he said, automatically defending her. As he’d learned just a couple of hours ago, there was nothing prissy about Priscilla. “And she won’t have to,” he added. “If I can’t turn you guys into a halfway decent team, I’ll quit. It wouldn’t be fair to you and the other kids if I blow your shot at getting an athletic scholarship. Scouts don’t look at losing teams.”
His youngest brother sighed. “We didn’t have a shot before you. We know there are no guarantees.”
“You can’t count on being an athlete,” Brooks agreed. “You need an education, too. You have to have a career plan in place.”
Brad laughed. “You sound just like Miss Pr—Miss Andrews.”
Ryan snorted with disgust. “She got to you.”
Brooks was afraid that she had. But instead of admitting it, he changed the subject. “It’s late, guys. You better hit the sack.”
“Why do we have to go to bed? Dad’s not home yet,” Brad pointed out.
“Because you need your sleep,” Brooks replied.
“We might actually get some tonight since Dad’s leaving the kid at Myrtle’s,” Ryan said. “Too bad she couldn’t stay there all the time.”
Brad sighed. “Yeah, it’s nice and quiet here.”
Rubbing his throbbing forehead, Brooks murmured, “It is?”
“What are you going to do about her?” Ryan asked. “Her mom isn’t coming back any more than our mom’s coming back.”
“So I keep her.”
“But how?” Ryan asked. “If you really want to go back to playing, you’ll have to leave Trout Creek. And she can’t stay with us.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Their dad had raised enough kids on his own. “I guess I’ll have to get a nanny for her.”
“And drag them on the road with you?” Brad asked. “A baby going from city to city?”
The throbbing in his forehead increased in intensity. “I didn’t really think it through,” he admitted. He’d only just realized how empty the house felt with her gone.
“Have you thought about giving her up for adoption?” Brad asked.
“What?” His brother’s question shocked Brooks. “You think that’s okay?”
Ryan shrugged his broad shoulders. “Yeah. She’s so little she won’t remember you.”
“I don’t remember Mom at all,” Brad said.
“Neither do I,” Ryan agreed, “and I was about two. The baby would probably be happier with someone else, anyway.”
“You don’t think she’s happy?” Brooks asked. If she wasn’t—if he couldn’t take care of her, he might have to consider giving her up.
“Do you?” Ryan looked skeptical. “She cries all the time.”
“Newborns cry.” He’d been reading books and talking to Myrtle and the school nurse, Trudy. “It doesn’t mean she’s not happy.”
Ryan didn’t seem convinced. “Maybe not. But she’d probably be happier with someone who really wants her. You could find her a good home.”
“I could,” he agreed. “And I will if I decide she’d be better off with someone else. But first I have to find her mother.” But he couldn’t remember the names of women he’d dated nearly a year ago. Hell, he could barely remember the names of the ones he’d date
d weeks ago.
But he knew there was one woman he wouldn’t be able to forget, even when he left Trout Creek. Priscilla…
Chapter Twelve
“I can’t believe you’re letting me drive all the way to the city,” Maureen said as she pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. “You don’t even like riding with me to school.”
“That’s because you drive too fast.”
But apparently her sister wasn’t the only one in their family who moved too quickly. What had she been thinking, to make love with Brooks?
Of course, the answer was she hadn’t been thinking.
“I can drive after I make a call,” she said as she dug inside her purse for a business card.
“Who are you calling?”
“I’m returning a call.” Margaret Everly had left a message on Priscilla’s machine that she needed to speak with her, probably about the way the media had descended on Trout Creek and particularly on the Hoover household. But Trout Creek had closed ranks on the outsiders to protect Faith. No one was talking about the baby left on his doorstep.
“Brooks?” Maureen asked. “Did he call you?”
“No,” she replied. He hadn’t called her since that night they’d made love. Actually, he’d never called her before that, except to discuss the hockey team. And she hadn’t expected him to start calling just because they’d had sex. She’d grown up listening to girls whine about Brooks never calling. And she’d felt all smug and superior because she hadn’t been interested in him.
Then.
Now she couldn’t stop thinking about him, couldn’t stop thinking about all those wonderful things he’d said to her. About her being special. Beautiful. About how he’d wanted to listen to her.
But how could he listen if they never talked?
Fingers snapped in front of her face. “You okay?” Maureen asked.
Priscilla nodded.
“It’ll get better.”
She flinched, remembering when her sister had last made that claim to her—after they’d buried Courtney.
“Well, not from Stan’s perspective,” Maureen continued, amending her statement. “He’s going to miss the money from having those reporters filling up the lodge. They all checked out this morning. I think they got sick of hearing how great and wonderful Brooks Hoover is.”
