She realized she was staring at him.
She realized she couldn’t stop.
“You needed a favor?” he asked in his smoky, bartender’s tone.
“I…um…” She got a grip on the gooey-at-the-knees tremble in her voice. “I hear through the grapevine that you play soccer, Mr. Beaumont—pickup games in the park—and that you’re one of the best.”
“You’ve heard?” His measured stare demanded the truth she’d glossed over.
“Okay, I’ve watched you play myself.”
“I know.” He nodded and crossed his arms again. “I’ve noticed you, too. While I scrimmage with the guys, and you run by several times with your girlfriend, and we both try to look like we’re not looking at each other.”
Evidently she wasn’t the only one who didn’t back away from a challenge. And wasn’t that a sweet little snag in her stick-to-business plan?
“You’re hard to miss when you’re playing, Mr. Beaumont.” She’d marveled at his effortless talent and the pleasure he took in the game. It was a seductive world for her, the love and competitive rush of sport, any sport, any playing field. Basketball might be her preference, but nothing was more magnificent to her than an athlete who could charm his particular discipline into doing his bidding. And every Sunday she’d had the chance, it had become a habit to watch Law do just that, while most of the rest of their town was at church or sleeping in.
He chuckled. “You don’t exactly blend into the scenery yourself, Ms. Hemmings, while you keep close to the trees, like I won’t know you’re there.”
His nearly nonexistent smile seemed more for himself than her. It startled her, how much she wanted to see his expression soften into something more genuine.
“I just thought I should get it out of the way,” he added, “that I’ve wondered if you’ve felt the same…whatever for me that I have for you. We’ve kept our distance from each other, and that’s fine. We don’t have to talk about it—we probably shouldn’t, all things considered. But it would just be too…weird, right? To finally be here, together, and to pretend this hasn’t been going on.”
Kristen, the starting center on her NCAA championship basketball team, felt absolutely defenseless. In the face of his brutal honesty, her thoughts, her rationalizations, and her carefully reasoned-through expectations for their meeting were no-shows. She found herself gaping at Law like a schoolgirl with her first crush and no idea how to handle herself.
To finally be here, together, and to pretend this hasn’t been going on…
She’d had no idea. Or she hadn’t wanted to know. It would be so much easier if he’d been oblivious to the pull between them. She’d assumed he’d been too caught up in his own problems to even know she existed. Instead, he’d felt something, too, and he’d shut that something off as firmly as she had. He’d been doing what he had to for his family and himself, while she’d done the same for her job and her own well-being.
Only, now…
What the hell was she supposed to do now that she knew, and he didn’t seem to care one way or the other?
“What does this have to do with Chloe?” he asked, unaffected by…them—or at least giving a better imitation of it than she could.
“This?”
“Soccer? Sundays?”
She shook her head, trying to jar something sensible loose. “Brian Perry,” she came up with.
Law’s smile was back. “This is about Brian?”
“No, it’s about Chloe. Well, not really. At least not just about Chloe…”
Damn it. She was flustered, and he seemed to be enjoying it. His smugness should have been a turnoff. Instead, it made her like him even more, how deftly he seemed to recognize and accept the insecure her who had made a sudden, mortifying reappearance.
“I hear your daughter’s become one of our local soccer all-stars,” she clarified, “since your family moved here.” And word was that no one around was better than Law at teaching kids how to love the sport the same way he did.
“Chloe’s a natural talent.” His eyes brightened to a nearly aquamarine blue. If it hadn’t been her favorite color her whole life, it certainly would be from now on.
“I see.” Kristen was seeing—and liking far too much.
She preferred her men clean-cut, tailored, and conservative, and so incapable of surprising her that she could practically choreograph their dates before a guy picked her up. How could someone in wrinkled jeans and a ratty metal-band T-shirt, who’d clearly just rolled out of bed, be getting to her this way?
“You see what?” He shot her another unfathomable glance, full of intelligence and wit that she found perversely charming.
“I see that you don’t want to take credit for what Chloe’s achieved, or that she’s being scouted by several of Atlanta’s top traveling teams. But Brian’s a friend of mine. He’s watched you working with your daughter in the park in the afternoons while he coaches his football team. He says you’re the best there is.”
“At what?”
“Coaching.” The reason Kristen was putting them both through this.
She was talking to a man who had hands-off stamped all over him, from his rumpled, just-long-enough-to-show-he-didn’t-give-a-damn brown hair, down to his biker boots that were authentically scuffed from years of use. She wanted to run her hands all over him. But she was in the market for a coach, not a crush, which made it time to get their conversation back on track.
“I’m asking you to reconsider coaching a local youth soccer team again this winter season,” she said. “I’ve heard you’ve already told the league coordinator you couldn’t.”
“You hear a lot.”
His voice had hardened. The playfulness went out of his stance. They were back to hostile. She’d struck a nerve, as she’d expected she might.
“I know parents,” she said, “who are disappointed you won’t be working with their kids.”
“Yeah. I’m disappointed, too.” He sounded downright furious.
“I think it’s absolutely vital that you pull a new team together for kids your daughter’s age,” she pressed. “And I think it’s imperative that we make certain Chloe’s on board with the idea.”
“You think it’s absolutely vital, do you?”
“I think you will, too, once you hear me out.”
“And why would I do that?”
Chloe and her friends were heading away from the swings and toward the water fountain by the side door to the school. Law tracked her movements, tuning Kristen out, distant once more as if he no longer cared that she existed.
“Among other reasons,” Kristen said, “coaching would give you another season with Chloe. And I understand her mother’s got her convinced not to play anymore. I think that’s a mistake, for a child her age who’s been through as much recent change as Chloe has.”
Law’s attention whiplashed back; then he returned to watching his daughter and her friends.
“According to my ex,” he said, “girls Chloe’s age shouldn’t be forced to play sports just to make their parents happy. And why else would Chloe keep doing something as filthy and potentially dangerous as soccer, when she’s a lock to be on the cheerleading squad with her new friends?”
“Because of you.” Kristen should keep out of his never-ending conflict with Libby, but what a load of bull. “The way I see it, spending time with you would be a hell of a reason for any kid to want to keep playing.”
He grunted, and then shook his head.
“You really are a crazy optimist,” he surprised her by muttering, “just like they say.” His eyebrows bunched together as several boys in Chloe’s class cut in front of her and her girlfriends when it was their turn at the fountain. “My daughter isn’t my biggest fan at the moment, or any moment these days when I try to talk with her about soccer or anything much but where she wants to eat dinner.
Libby’s putting enough pressure on her. Chloe’s snobby friends are wanting her to be as mad over boys and makeup and clothes as they are—and friends seem to be what’s most important to her now. Until things calm down over my divorce, I’ve pretty much given up on getting my daughter to make up her own mind about anything.”
“That’s funny,” Kristen said, when it wasn’t funny at all. “You’ve never struck me as the giving-up type.”
He tensed—all six-foot-five and over two hundred solid pounds of him. She followed his gaze.
The activity unfolding on the other side of the playground was teeming with the potential for adolescent conflict. The boys were splashing water at the girls, one of them in particular refusing to let Chloe have a drink. So far, Kristen wasn’t seeing anything that would warrant staff intervention. She was thankful when Law seemed to come to the same conclusion. Chloe wouldn’t want a scene just because a kid in her class had once again made her the focus of his unhappiness at being at Chandler.
It wasn’t that Fin Robinson was a bully, even though he was grinning as he teased her and laughed along with his buddies and even Chloe’s girlfriends now. Kristen didn’t like the crowd he’d chosen to emulate a month ago, when he’d landed at Chandler Elementary. She didn’t approve of his increasingly disruptive behavior since he’d joined his new foster family. But a sensitive kid emerged from inside Fin every now and then, despite the hardened shell he’d built between himself and the world.
She saw a child still wanting to find his place, desperately hoping to belong. When she looked at Fin, she saw a need for direction, before the path he was toying with stopped being about willful rebellion and morphed into something more problematic and permanent. Not that he was interested in anything Kristen or his foster mom, Marsha Dixon, or his teachers had to say about the better life they could help him claim.
So…she’d decided a rough-and-tumble, equally detached man might be a better role model.
A man who obviously loved and cherished his daughter. A man who’d been working himself to death and isolating himself from practically everyone in town since his divorce, trying to secure some peace with his ex-wife. An overwhelmed man she was asking to take on even more responsibility. Fin could learn so much from the discipline and focused intensity and teamwork that playing a game like soccer and working with a coach like Law could give him.
“You said ‘reasons’?” Law asked, checking his watch. “What are they?”
“What?”
He slid her another sideways stare. Two seconds later, his attention was back on the playground. She could have sworn she’d felt him in her mind, his thoughts probing and tumbling through her disordered reasoning.
“You said ‘among other reasons,’ ” he repeated.
“Yes…” That glance, just that one moment of connection, and every thought in her head except the ones obsessed with him was a complete muddle.
What was wrong with her?
“Whatever they are, they must be pretty important,” he said, “for you to get me out of bed and down here to tell me that whatever I do or don’t do with my daughter is somehow any of your business.”
“The matter I wanted to discuss is very important.” And Kristen was totally f-ing this up. His mood was taking a definite nosedive toward uncooperative. “And the fact is, Chloe’s only one of the kids I think your coaching would help. The other one…She’s spending a lot of time with one of our newest students, not all of it good, which is too bad, because…”
Kristen rambled when she was overstressed or intimidated. She hadn’t rambled since she was a teenager. But she liked the feel of Law holding her feet to the fire. She liked him, period, a whole lot more than she could afford to. She’d be happy to stand there all day, verbally sparring with the man, searching for a way beneath his control, the way he’d effortlessly rattled hers. And instead, she needed to do what she’d asked him to school to do, and then get Law the hell away from her again.
She cleared her throat and looked him in the eye—at least, she would have been looking him in the eye, if he weren’t ignoring her again.
“The other child,” she said, “the one who might benefit the most from your coaching, is why I tried to get Chloe to join us. Convincing him to accept your help isn’t the only problem, I’m afraid. I don’t think your daughter’s going to be terribly fond of the idea.”
That got his attention. She nodded toward Fin. Law gave the scene by the water fountain more of his attention, zeroing in on the boy who was giving Chloe the hardest time. Law shook his head.
“You’re kidding me,” he said. He took a step away from her, looking genuinely ready to bolt this time.
“Yeah. That would be your newest all-star player. If you can find a way to make him stop hating the world and everyone in it.” Chloe and her friends turned away from the fountain and Fin, who was still laughing at her. Kristen sighed. “Don’t ask me why I’m sure it’s a good fit, but I am. The boy I’d be asking you to build a team around and give one-on-one attention to, if that’s what it takes, is probably the last person on earth your daughter would want to be teammates with—assuming you can get her to play for another season. And I really think you should. Please, for both their sakes, help me make that happen.”
Now
“I didn’t mean to make Chloe cry,” I say to the lady.
She’s from Children and Family Services. She gets to decide where I live next, and what I’m supposed to think family means next, once I have to leave Chandlerville. Someone else but me always gets to decide.
So why are we talking about three months ago? Why doesn’t she just tell me I have to go, and then pass me off to the next person who will one day pass me off to someone else, too?
“You must not have liked Chloe very much, Fin,” the CFS lady says, “at least not when you first started going to school at Chandler. The school’s reports to the county say you two were fighting from almost your first day in her class.”
The lady’s name is Mrs. Sewel, and she’s nice enough, I guess. Nicer than a lot of the government people I’ve had to talk to since my mom stopped being my mom, and there was no one left to care about me but strangers. Mrs. Sewel is smiling while she talks. She does that all the time, even when she’s telling me things she doesn’t know, about people she doesn’t understand.
“Chloe was always with her mean-girl friends back then,” I say. I finally understand why Chloe was like that. But at first, I thought she was a total pain.
“Mean girls?”
“Brooke and Summer. The ones who laughed at me and her both that day, and the next day and a lot of days after that. They’re always laughing at someone, like they’re so much better than everybody else. I thought Chloe was like them, so I was mean to her for a while, like at the water fountain that day at recess.”
“Maybe Brooke and Summer were treating you like that,” Mrs. Sewel says, “because you were new to Chandler.”
“They were being girls.”
And girls are just mean—a lot meaner than boys. Especially when I’m somewhere new, and everyone knows I don’t have any parents and don’t belong. Boys will rag on you, but they mostly come around when they see you’re cool. But some girls…they just want everyone but them to feel bad. And I usually don’t care, so I’m just as mean back.
Only, the last three months have changed that. I really do care, even when I tell people like Mrs. Sewel I don’t. Especially about Chloe. I care about her most of all—because she was never mean, not really. She’s just mixed up, like me, because her mother is totally screwed up, the same as mine was.
“Chloe’s still a girl,” Mrs. Sewel says. “It sounds like you two have been getting along better.”
I nod.
Me and Chloe are the closest to friends I’ve ever felt. Not that it matters. I’ve messed up my chance in Chandlerville, like I’ve messed up everywh
ere else, and nothing’s going to change that. Nothing ever does. But I’d do it all again if I had to. Because that’s what friends do for each other, no matter how much helping someone gets you into trouble.
I don’t know what else Mrs. Sewel wants me to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
She sighs. “I need you to tell me more about that day at recess, Fin. I need you to tell me what you think and feel about everything that’s happened since then—especially about last night’s Valentine’s party. I want to help you, but I can’t unless you start talking.”
Help me?
She makes it sound so simple, like I’m really going to have a say. She sounds like Ms. Hemmings and Mr. Beaumont, telling me I can make it here. And my foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Dixon, before they brought me in this morning. She sounds so sure. And when adults sound that way—when they make me want to believe, too—it makes me madder than anything else.
“Why?!” I yell at Mrs. Sewel. “What good does talking about things ever do?”
I’m not going to cry.
But my eyes are seeing all fuzzy, and they’re probably shiny—and I hate that. I hate all of it, especially how much I want things to really be okay this time, the way Mrs. Sewel is making it sound like it still can be. I want to stay with the Dixons. I want to keep being Chloe’s friend. I want to make sure she’s okay after Ms. Hemmings took her home this morning. I want to go back to school on Monday and stay in Chandlerville with the Dixons for always and play soccer on Mr. Beaumont’s team…more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
“We need to figure this out,” Mrs. Sewel says.
“Figure out what?” I ask. “There’s nothing to figure out. There’s just me, doing whatever you tell me to do. Kids like me do what people like you say. Nothing’s changed. I’ve been in the system since I was six, and nothing’s going to change that. My coked-out mom’s gone. There’s nobody else. Nobody cares where you send me next.”
Love on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 2
