“More so than the City Treasurer was.” He turned around to knock on the wood of the cabinets. “If they screw up, I’ll threaten to fail them. That should keep everyone in line.”
Gray patted Dawn on the arm of her autumn leaf covered cardigan. “My mom will help, too. As a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you needed any part-time help around here. She loves talking to people, and can make change at the speed of light.”
“That’s enough of a reference for me.”
“See?” Joel pulled Dawn into his arms. Piper still got a jolt watching them do that, but it was less of a surprised jolt now. More of a wow, look what love can do jolt. It also made her grope sideways for Ward’s hand as Joel continued. “Everything’s working out. We don’t even have to ask for help in the journal.”
“God, that wasn’t your backup plan, was it?” Gray rarely bothered to conceal the fact he thought their town journal was utterly crazypants. The fact that he’d proposed to Ella in it in no way lessened his ever-present shock that people put their secrets out there for the whole world to discuss. Piper rarely asked for help in it. She didn’t want to give the impression that she couldn’t handle her own life. But she did enjoy commenting on everyone else’s entries.
Dawn bestowed the same half patient, half how-can-you-be-so-dumb look on Gray she gave every time he dissed the journal. Which was often. “Of course it was. The mailbox journal brought us together. It keeps everyone in our town close. Our openness with one another is what makes Seneca Lake so special.”
Ward’s grip on Piper’s hand tightened to the point of knuckle-crushing pain. Then he let go. Started to walk away, made it all of two steps before pulling her back in front of him and burying his face in the crook of her neck. Piper in no way objected to his lips moving across her skin. She just wished she’d been in on whatever conversation in his head prompted the abrupt move.
Joel and Dawn made it look so easy. As if their love could surmount any obstacle in their way. Actually as if their love made any and every obstacle unimportant. Was that the trick? Was that how you knew you were with the right person? When nothing else mattered but them? Because as much as Piper loved Ward, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to stop caring about how the rest of the world saw them. Did that mean he wasn’t the right one? Or did it mean there was something wrong with her?
Chapter Fifteen
The air stunk of old sweat, wood polish and whatever grease they used to keep the bleachers sliding in and out with barely more than a good shove. Ward sucked in a deep breath. Then another. It used to be one of his favorite smells in the world. Right behind the mix of fresh-cut grass and chalk on a football field and Piper’s tuberose perfume. Not that he had a clue what a tuberose even looked like. She’d told him that was the base of the scent that always jackknifed an erection out of him, so it made the list.
A gym didn’t smell like perfume. But the smell was all mixed up with some of his best memories. Hanging with the guys. The shudder of the bleachers and the floor as people stomped when he sank a three-pointer. Watching the cheerleaders’ skirts flip up as they somersaulted in the air. Feeling like anything was possible. Yeah, that’s what the gym smelled like—possibilities. On top of that impossible-to-ignore foundation of decades of sweat.
The unmistakable, papery swish of pom-poms rustled in the hallway behind him. Probably one of his favorite sounds, too. Ward shut the door out to the gym and turned to see his three best friends looking as though they’d popped out of a time machine. The tight sweaters with SLHS across the front. Blue pleated skirts that flared out to show a white layer when they twirled. Classic Oxfords. And all three of them with high ponytails sporting big-ass blue-and-white bows.
God. Ward had first gotten a grope over a cheerleader’s sweater when he was a freshman. Got under one by the time he hit his sophomore year. Yeah, those uniforms brought back a ton of memories. The best ones, though, all involved the redhead currently posing for him, poms at her hips, with a wide-ass grin.
Ward let out a long, low whistle. “Babe, you look amazing.”
“I do, don’t I?” She spun on one foot, flaring out her skirt, giggling wildly. Ward loved it when Piper just let go like that. When she stopped worrying about doing the right thing and the appropriate thing and what people might think. When she just let herself be.
“Ahem.” Casey all but dislodged a hairball she cleared her throat so hard. “What about us?”
Ward gave Casey the up-and-down ogle she clearly expected. To be polite. “Every bit as hot as I remember. It’s a miracle that forest of yours hasn’t burned down around you.”
“That’s more like it.” She circled her poms right beneath his nose. He batted them away like they were a cat toy. It was a routine they’d gone through hundreds of times. Half of those times for luck, the other half because Casey loved to annoy him.
Ella did a walkover backbend. Upside down, she said, “Gray almost didn’t let me leave the house. I think he’s going to make me pull this out of the closet more than once every ten years.”
They looked happy enough. Still, Ward felt like an idiot himself. Felt twice as bad they’d been dragged into what promised to be his public humiliation. He had to check. “So you guys don’t mind that Coach Fowler arm-twisted you into doing this?”
“Of course not,” Piper proclaimed.
Casey stuck one arm straight up in the air. Locked her foot onto her other knee. “First of all, you’re going to be honored. Therefore, there’s no place we’d rather be than at your side.”
“Or at your butt. The view’s better from back there.” Ella barely got all the words out through her fit of giggles.
Damn. Instead of mothballs, had they kept their uniforms in laughing gas all this time? Or did they just regress the moment the old school colors went on? Either way, they cracked Ward up.
“Secondly, I kind of love doing all this again.” Slowly, carefully, Casey slid into a full split. Then she thrust both her arms up in the air and shook her poms wildly.
“We had a great time being on the cheer squad. It’s a treat to relive it for one night.” Piper did a roundoff. Wobbled a little on the landing, caught her balance and then jumped up again in delight.
“Especially while we’re still young enough to fit into these uniforms without Spanx. Or corsets.” More giggles from Ella.
Ward hated to be the one to dilute their fun, but they needed to be drenched in icy cold reality. “You know this is a train wreck waiting to happen.”
“Don’t worry,” Piper said with the same calming tone he’d heard her use on overtired toddlers. “We’re not going to do a real routine. Just a couple of high kicks and flips. We’ll be safe.”
Sticking out her tongue, Casey chided, “Shame on you for not having faith in us, though. We do yoga. We’re still limber. See, if you were having sex with Piper, you’d know that.”
“For God’s sake, I wasn’t slamming you guys. Or your ability to twist into pretzels. This whole ceremony honoring me—that’s the train wreck in the making.” So glad they’d made him spell it out. Wasn’t one of the perks to having female best friends supposed to be their sensitivity and intuition?
Ward touched one corner of the trophy case. Absently bent to touch the bottom one before he caught himself. Replaying his old good-luck routine wouldn’t make any difference. It only worked on basketball games, not on the strong chance that part of the crowd in the bleachers might throw something when he walked onto the gym floor.
“Oh. That.” Ella dismissed it with a rustle of her pom-poms. “Train wreck might be a tad strong. I don’t think we’re talking epic humiliation. It won’t merit more than half a paragraph in the newspaper write-up of tonight. Just maybe a couple of boos. Or a couple of squishy tomatoes splatting on you.”
Not helpful. Hell, he could get that kind of trash-talking semi-
support from the guys. Because he needed all the help he could get, Ward gave in to superstition. Paced to the opposite end of the trophy case and touched each corner. Today’s page on his calendar came to mind. When he’d read it this morning, he’d crumpled it up and three-pointed it into the trash can. But the words stuck with him.
In a low murmur, Ward said, “‘You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood...back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame.’”
“Depressing. Pessimistic, too. Who said that downer of a quote?”
“Thomas Wolfe. In some book I’ve never heard of.” Ward trailed his hand along the glass, stopping at the gold cup he’d helped the team bring home from the state championship his senior year. God, that had been a good night. The whole bus ride home he’d held Piper with his left arm and the trophy with his right. The memory wouldn’t give him a loan, though. It wouldn’t give him money to pay off his sister and her greedy boyfriend. “But it fits tonight, doesn’t it?”
“It’s bullshit,” Casey proclaimed.
His quotes usually made her at least snort, if not laugh. “Hey, you’re the one who gave me the quote-a-day calendar. If it’s on there, it must be famous. And if it’s famous, it must be true.”
“You did come back home to us, though.” She elbowed him in the ribs. Hard. “We’re your family, you big dummy.”
Piper’s shoes squeaked on the linoleum as she slowly walked down the hallway to him. “I thought Lakeside was your passion. I thought you loved your distillery.”
“You know I do. Same as you and your winery.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if you can’t recapture the dreams you had the last time you stood here in that letterman jacket.” She patted the stiff white letters SL that covered the left side of his chest. “They were the right dreams for then. That absolutely doesn’t mean that they were the right dreams for always.”
He didn’t buy it. “Right. Like every man out in that gym wouldn’t give his left nut to play ball for a single day with a professional team.”
“Would you change your life, Ward?” Piper pressed closer, tipping her head back to stare him down. “Would you honestly rather be living in a hotel six months a year? Making money hand over fist but holding your breath every game that you won’t get hurt and end your career early? Counting the days until you’re too old to keep playing, and then having to figure out how to start over from scratch? Worst of all, not having the three of us around?”
He’d never thought about it like that. As a kid, you dreamed of going pro. Period. The reality of how hard a life that would be never entered into it. And once he’d ruined his chance at living that dream, Ward stopped thinking about it. What was the use in dwelling in the past—or in a future you could never have?
The past twenty days with Piper had given him exactly that—the future he’d been positive would never come true. And yeah, it was better than any stupid fantasy he’d cooked up over the years. This moment proved it. This very moment, with Piper challenging him to own up to his happiness. That took courage. It showed her concern for him. Made him realize she wasn’t afraid to piss him off in the short term if it would make him feel better in the long term. That concern was better than all these trophies put together.
Ward framed Piper’s face with his hands and kissed her. A slow, deep kiss of thanks for making him stop moping. “You know what? I wouldn’t change a damn thing. I made a life without you guys around once. It was good, but it wasn’t great. You hit the nail on the head, Casey. You guys are my home.”
He just hoped they all still felt that way after this thing with his sister and the wind farm shook out. Not that he had any clue how or what would happen. Thinking about it all week had gotten him nowhere. Scratch that. It gave him a headache for two days. Also cost him a case of empty bottles he’d dropped while distracted with trying to come up with a solution.
“Don’t you forget it,” Ella sassed. She punctuated it with a kick that snapped her foot over her head. Ward caught it and spun her in a circle until she squealed. “Cut it out.”
He dropped her foot. “Wanted to be sure I had your attention. Because even family’s got its line in the sand. You all need to stop weighing in on my sex life. I’ve never hooked up by committee vote before. I’m sure as hell not starting at age twenty-nine.”
Piper’s hand shot up. “I kind of want a vote.”
Fat chance. “You don’t get one. Not on when I make the big move. Your response to it is up to you. But nobody’s penciling me in on a calendar like a dentist appointment.”
“Why not? You end up getting drilled at both.” Ella flopped to the floor, she was laughing so hard. The others joined in. Ward had to admit she’d nailed the joke. Not that he’d crack a smile and let her know.
Piper twitched the front of her skirt like a can-can dancer. It gave him a tantalizing glimpse of her blue chonies. “You don’t get the fancy lingerie unless you give me advance notice.”
“I don’t care about that stuff.” Not entirely true. The thought of Piper’s pale skin covered in black lace was, in fact, an image he’d be revisiting tonight. When he didn’t have to fight back an erection in front of Ella and Casey. He wouldn’t kick her out of bed for sexy underwear. But he sure didn’t need her to wear it to want her in his bed. “The only fancy thing I need is you.”
She twisted, fell limply backward across his body. Ward’s arms shot out to catch her. “Look at that.” Piper blinked up at him, her eyes as dark green as the leaves in her vineyard after a storm. “You melted me. Eight little words and my knees turned to jelly.”
Ward loved any excuse to hold Piper. What he didn’t love was her recklessness. “Your brain turned to jelly, babe. What if I hadn’t caught you?”
“Don’t be silly. Even during our most strained years, one thing was a constant.” She reached up to place her hand over his heart. “I knew you’d always be there for me.”
Guess he had gotten through to her. Good thing, since there were only ten days left in their experiment.
Casey crowded her hip against Ward’s. “Just like we’ll always be here for you. Without the sexual overtones of Piper’s statement, of course.”
“These pom-poms will make a super-effective shield against anything they might throw at you.”
He stood Piper back up on her feet. “You’re a one-trick pony with that throwing stuff. Do you know something?”
“No. Of course not. But I did just watch a documentary on a tomato-throwing festival in Italy, and now I kind of want to see it.”
“Then have Gray take you to Italy for your honeymoon. Don’t wish it on my already crappy night.”
A long, loud drum roll from the marching band’s snare section interrupted their conversation. Ward stared at the door leading to the gym. This was it. Time to face the music. Or, if Ella was right, the tomatoes. This being wine country, Ward just hoped they didn’t throw grapes. If those tiny suckers weren’t ripe, they’d sting if they pegged him in the face.
He turned off the lights and opened the door. The girls fell into a tight semicircle crowded up behind him. Coach Fowler was in the spotlight, at a podium. The bleachers were packed. Homecoming in a town this small turned into an SRO event fast. One side of the gym held students. The football team, all suited up, were in the front row. Ward remembered exactly how the Homecoming pep rally went. The band played everyone in. Boring speeches by old guys who used to be on the team, then the cheerleaders...
Shit. Conveniently, that part had slipped his mind until now. It was too late to ask the other guests what they planned to say, because they’d lined up on the opposite side of the gym. Ward yanked his jacket into place and tuned in to Coach Fowler’s intro.
“It is my great honor to introduce a man who excelled at this school. A man who broke records and set new ones every season. A man who le
ttered in three sports, led both the basketball and football team to the state championships, and graduated with a full ride to college in his pocket. Those distinctions alone would be enough reason to spotlight him tonight. But he didn’t stop there. Life threw obstacles in his way, yet he broke through them. When an injury permanently sidelined him, this man found a new calling. Followed a new path. Something all our athletes need to think about and be prepared to emulate.”
A loud groan from the adult side of the bleachers. “God, not Cantrell.”
Coach Fowler froze. One of his index cards slipped from his hand.
“I’m not applauding for that loser Cantrell.” It was a different voice that shouted this time. Slurred. Loud. Sounded a lot like the guys who took a swing at him last spring. Bunch of guys who graduated with him. They never made anything of themselves. Never found good jobs or steady work at all. Drank way too much. They all kept their feet planted in the so-called glory days of high school. And had never forgiven Ward for bringing shame to the school.
“Shut up, Chuck.”
Whoa. What? Ward strained to see in the darkness who had spoken.
“Yeah, get over it already,” yelled somebody else.
You could’ve knocked Ward over with a feather. He grabbed the doorframe for support. Because he’d been braced and ready for insults. Practiced, even, in ignoring them. To hear the opposite caught him off guard.
“Cantrell sucks.” But this slam was much quieter. It only echoed through the room because it was so quiet Ward could hear the faint rustle of the girls’ poms even though they stood stock still.
Coach Fowler cleared his throat right into the microphone. “If I could ask the audience to be quiet, I’d like to continue with the program.”
“Ward’s a good guy.” Ed and Archie, the owners of the liquor store—and the softball team Ward helped out with—thumped their way down the bleachers to join Fowler at the podium. Archie yanked the mic up to his mouth.
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