“Well, Logan was saying that he would like, I mean, we think it would be better if Morris could get a male coach.”
“Do you know of one?”
Trix’s expression grew hard. “I’m sure he could find one.”
Sarah’s ire rose. Silly girl. Logan’s campaign had expanded to the other parents. “Coaches aren’t something you can pick up at the local store. And basketball coaches this time of the year, are, as a rule, otherwise employed.”
Trix’s frown deepened. “You don’t need to act as if I’m simple. I’m just saying there has to be an alternative.”
“Mr. DeHaan is recuperating from a heart attack. I am the alternative.”
“Does that mean you aren’t going to step aside?” Trix ejected herself from the chair, her hands working the handle of her purse. “You’re going to keep coaching my boy?”
“Unless my uncle as principal tells me he wants to replace me with someone who can do the job better, yes.” Sarah made the comment with a confidence that came from the knowledge that in a town the size of Riverbend, one didn’t simply go out and find a new coach. Her job, until that happened, was fairly secure.
“I heard that Alton Berube, the biology teacher, used to coach basketball. Why isn’t he doing it now?”
“I don’t know.” This was the first Sarah had heard of Mr. Berube. She was surprised Uncle Morris hadn’t mentioned him or considered him.
Trix nodded, as if settling this information into her mind. “I guess we’ll have to see how things go.” She paused, then granted Sarah a condescending smile. “I’m sure you’re a really good player. In fact, I know you are. When your sister, Marilee, was dating my oldest son, she was always going on about how many points you scored and how the team depended on you.”
Sarah was surprised at the dull press of pain Marilee’s name resurrected.
“...but you know, it’s different with boys. They don’t respect a woman the same.”
“They had better,” Sarah said, picking up her cup, hoping Trix would get the hint, “or I’ll have them on the floor doing fifty push-ups.”
“Of course.” Trix waited a moment, as if to say more then, with another awkward flutter of her hand that Sarah presumed was a farewell wave, she left.
As the door shut behind her, Sarah slammed her mug back on the table, tea slopping over the edge of the mug.
What was Logan doing? Trying to undermine what precious little authority she had managed to garner the past few practices?
Was he crazy, or just plain vindictive?
“You look ticked,” Janie said, pulling out the chair across from Sarah with a screech.
“I just got some kind of weird little lecture from Trix Setterfeld.”
“Her boy plays basketball, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, but you know he would play much better if he had a male coach, you know.” Sarah yanked a handful of napkins from the dispenser and wiped up the warm tea. “She and Logan must have been discussing my various shortcomings during the last game.” She swiped the rest of the tea, then folded the soggy napkins and pushed them aside. “Which makes me wonder how many other parents he’s been pulling over onto his side.”
“Oh, don’t listen to them. Uncle Morris knew what he was doing when he asked you to coach.”
“Of course, you’re going to stand up for me. You’re a Westerveld after all.”
“Oh brother, did she say that?”
“Actually, Logan implied it, and I’m sure she thought it, too.” Sarah took a sip of tea, but the pleasure she usually found in her early morning stopover at Janie’s was ruined. “This is a great start to a great day.”
“What else is happening today?”
Nervousness replaced her anger at the thought of what faced her. “I get to have a case conference with the physiotherapist and the doctor and the speech pathologist and a host of others to talk about my father’s long-term care.”
“I thought they were going to move him to the hospital here in Riverbend.”
“They are. But we need to talk about his program and what I can expect and his long-term prognosis.”
“At least having him here will make visiting him easier.”
“That’s true.” Sarah gave her tea an extra swirl with her spoon. She’d spent most of yesterday with her father in the city, helping him with his physio, hurting for the struggle every small movement had become for him.
The nurses had praised his determination and told Sarah that, all things considered, he was doing well.
She wished she shared their optimism. It was hard to watch a man once brimming with self-
confidence, a man who pushed his way through life, unable to walk or even feed himself.
With every restricted movement he made, every slurred word he forced through uncooperative lips, she could feel his exasperation grow.
When the doctor said long, slow recovery, he had not been exaggerating.
Sarah put her spoon beside her teacup, wondering what shape her life was going to take over the next few months.
At least she had her coaching. The one bright spot in her life where she felt as if she had some modicum of control.
And Logan was trying to take even that away from her.
“So how is the team doing?”
“I just need to get Billy on board. He’s the leader and the boys look up to and follow him. If he would listen to me and do what I tell him, then things would flow a lot easier.”
The door opened, letting in a rush of cold air.
And Logan Carleton.
Sarah didn’t want to look at him right now. The sight of him made her blood boil. And race. Their last enigmatic conversation still spiraled and spun through her mind. What had he been trying to imply about her poor father?
Unfortunately he wasn’t having the same reaction to her that she had to him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him approach her table.
And stop.
She glanced up at him, disliking the advantage he had over her with his imposing height. “Good morning, Logan. What can I do for you?”
“Just thought I would say hi.” His puzzled tone gave Sarah pause.
“Well. Hi.” She wasn’t in any mood to engage in chitchat with him right now.
He waited a moment, as if to give her a chance to say something else. She simply looked up at him, her gaze unwavering.
But as he was about to turn away, she changed her mind about the chitchat. “I just had a little talk with Trix Setterfeld,” she said with an airy tone, as if that particular conversation hadn’t grated like sand on an open wound. “She seems to agree with you.”
Logan frowned.
“About my coaching,” Sarah prompted.
Then, to her dismay, Logan sat down. “What did she say?”
I should have said nothing, Sarah thought. She didn’t want to be sitting at a tiny table, knees almost touching, with Logan Carleton. He created too many odd feelings that she resented yet couldn’t extinguish.
“She also seemed to think the boys would do better under a male coach.”
“She’s entitled to her opinion.”
“Is it her opinion or did you happen to plant the idea in her head?”
Logan sighed and rested his folded hands on the little table. His fingernails were short. The hairs on the back of his hands darker than she remembered. A faint scar curved from his thumb across the back of his hand. He had cut himself while he was carving a wooden duck when he was thirteen.
Sarah pulled herself up short, making a detour away from memory lane.
“Trix just happens to agree with me, Sarah.” His dark eyes and deep voice combined to ignite an old stirring in her heart.
“Well, you’re both wrong. And I’m fairly sure this Berube cha
racter isn’t going to get better performance from these boys.”
“They lost their previous game against a team they have always beaten.”
“That was a different team, Logan. I checked the stats. Half of that team is new boys and one third of our team is new boys. It’s a completely different dynamic and you can’t compare.”
“But the boys do and they’re getting disheartened.”
That much Logan didn’t have to tell her. Sarah was responsible for part of that disheartened feeling. After the last game, she’d put them on double drills, extended the practice. Brought them back to the basics, something they were all lacking in, rookies and seasoned players.
Mr. DeHaan may have been a good coach, but he hadn’t gotten these boys working to their potential.
“And I’m sure Billy and his friends expend more energy complaining about the boring drills than actually doing the boring drills.” Sarah gave him a quick smile as if to say, See, I have a sense of humor.
But the effort was lost on Logan. “You know I’m not the only parent concerned.”
“Maybe not, but it seems you’re the one spearheading the ‘get rid of Sarah Westerveld’ movement.”
Logan shrugged. “My priority is my brother.”
“It may come as a huge shock to you, Logan Carleton, but so is mine. I have as much riding on this team winning as they do. My reputation, my standing in this community. The fact that the man who asked me to coach happens to share my last name. And the fact that I didn’t even get to finish my senior year of basketball, thanks to a lousy, ill-timed injury just before Christmas.”
Just before my father made me break up with you.
Just before Marilee...
She stopped her thoughts right there.
Logan sighed and ran his hand through his hair, rearranging the thick waves. “Well, I guess time will tell what happens, won’t it?” he said, giving her a rueful grin.
“I might surprise you, Logan Carleton.” She wasn’t going to be taken in by that smile. She’d seen him use it whenever he needed something. Extra service from a waitress (which always made her jealous), a favor from a friend, a few minutes to goof around between classes and basketball practice when he was in town picking up parts for his father.
It still gave her that silly flutter. But, thankfully, she wasn’t the same young and impressionable girl.
He pushed himself away from the table, paused a moment as if he wanted to say something more, but left.
Sarah waited until he had ordered his coffee, left the shop and climbed back in his old, dented pickup truck angle-parked in front of the store. His father’s old truck. The same one he had driven when they were going out.
Only when she saw the plume of exhaust trailing in the wake of the truck, did she let herself relax.
Too many conflicting emotions, she thought. She had to get herself under control. Logan wasn’t going to take this away from her.
Chapter Seven
“We need to talk about your playing.” Sarah rested one foot on the bench beside her supposed star player. Practice was over for the day, but she had made Billy stay behind.
“I scored twenty-six points this game.”
“You could have scored more. More important, you could have made your teammates score more, play better. I know you’re not playing up to your potential, and your big brother seems to think it’s because of me, because you can’t respect me. But I suspect there’s more to the equation than simple male chauvinism.”
For the moment, with him sitting on the bench and her standing over him, she had the height advantage. “So what is it going to take to motivate you?”
Billy concentrated on the basketball he bounced between his feet.
Sarah bit back a sigh of frustration. This last practice had been a dismal affair, with Billy just going through the motions. She wanted to shake him.
Instead, she chose a worse weapon. A player-to-coach chat after practice. And she had chatted. Oh, how she had chatted.
But, finally, after all her talk about his potential, his talents, his gifts, she saw her words had all fallen on deaf ears. She had tried to appeal to his innate sense of sportsmanship, his youth and opportunities.
She had nothing left.
Billy fidgeted, still turning the ball over in his hands. Sarah could hear the tick of the clock on the gym wall, the muted cries of kids in the hallway. She had at least another hour before she was going to visit her father. Now that her father was in the Riverbend hospital, she had time.
Acres of time.
“I’m not going anywhere, Billy. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what is happening in your head. Because until you do, I will ride you and I will phone your brother and tell on you and I think we both know that he can make your life even more unpleasant than I can.”
She waited as her threat sank in.
Billy bounced the ball once. Then again. “Why should I tell you anything?” He threw the words out like a challenge.
“You don’t have to. But then, I don’t have to play you.”
Billy’s eyes flipped up to her. “Why would you do that?”
“If you’re just going to sleepwalk out there, I’d sooner give the chance to someone who’s hungry and eager to play.”
Billy turned the ball around in his hands but still wouldn’t look at her.
“Hey, Billy. You coming?”
Sarah looked up to see a young girl hovering in the doorway of the gym. Long brown hair, soft brown eyes and a secretive smile—all directed toward the young man on the bench.
As Billy’s attention flitted from the girl with her clingy jeans and cropped jacket, to Sarah, guilt splashed all over his red face.
And suddenly things fell into place.
“He’ll be with you in a moment, okay?” Sarah flashed the girl a quick smile.
Billy nodded, and the girl waggled her fingers at him, then left.
Sarah waited until she presumed she was out of earshot. “So. Is she part of the problem?”
“We’re just friends.”
“That line doesn’t work for movie stars, and it’s not playing too well with me, either.”
Billy didn’t confirm or deny. Instead, his desperate gaze locked on hers. “Don’t tell Logan, okay? He’ll throw a fit.” Billy’s pleading look, the surprising note of vulnerability in his voice, gave Sarah pause.
And it hearkened back to another high school student pleading with another adult about another relationship.
Only then it had been her, pleading with her uncle Morris after he came upon her and Logan kissing in the gym after a practice. Logan had just issued her an ultimatum. He was getting tired of hiding and skulking. He wanted everyone to know they were dating, that they were serious.
They had fought and Sarah had pleaded with him to stick to their plan. To keep things quiet until they were both attending college. She wasn’t strong enough to brave her father’s anger if he found out about them. Then, away from Riverbend and her father, they could do what they wanted. But Uncle Morris had found them and, out of respect for her father, told Frank.
Sarah took her foot off the bench and sat down beside Billy. She had learned the hard way that secrets will come out and the longer they were held down, the more potent they became. “Why does this matter so much? Why can’t you tell him?”
Billy shook his head. “I can’t tell him. I’ve got my reasons.”
Sarah leaned her elbows on her knees, staring at the opposite wall. Banners denoting various championship teams hung in tidy rows. Her name was on a number of them. Three zone championships and a number of regional championships. Basketball was supposed to have been her ticket out of Riverbend, but the day of the game when the scouts were to be there, she had sprained her ankle and hadn’t pl
ayed. So she didn’t get a scholarship for that first year of college.
And she remembered too well, the feeling of powerlessness as her father opportunistically made his ultimatum—break up with Logan or he wasn’t going to pay for her first year of college—and she had absolutely no choice but to fall in with it.
His father’s plot only worked because of Sarah’s injury. But Sarah had her own plans. She was going to lay low, follow the curfew he imposed as a result, let her father think he won, then, as soon as her father thought all was well, she was going to see Logan and explain what had happened. Tell him that she loved him. Only him. Surely he would understand. He would know that she did what she did only to fool her father into thinking she was, in fact, an obedient daughter. She could have sent him a message but she was afraid of any misunderstanding. She wanted to explain to him face-to-face.
But they never had the chance to meet him face-to-face.
Because Marilee, who had always gotten everything she ever wanted, plus many of the things that Sarah desired, had left a note on Sarah’s bed taunting her with the information that she was meeting up with Logan.
And that night, Marilee had died.
“You’re a big boy, Billy. If Logan doesn’t want you to have a girlfriend, that’s his problem. Not yours.”
“He thinks if I get a girlfriend here I won’t focus on college.” Billy bounced the ball again. “I’m not so sure I want to go to school.”
“What else could you do?”
Billy shrugged. “My friend Derek knows a guy who’s a welder. He needs an apprentice.”
“That’s your decision, then. But you also need to tell Logan that you want to make your own decisions about your life. I know we didn’t have that chance.”
“What do you mean we?”
Sarah shot him a puzzled glance.
“You said we didn’t have that chance.”
“I meant, he. He didn’t have that chance.”
“But you said we. I know what I heard.” Billy leaned back against the wall, tossing the basketball from hand to hand, watching her. “You and my brother used to go out, didn’t you?”
A Family-Style Christmas and Yuletide Homecoming Page 24
