Three cups of coffee, two muffins and a few minutes washing dishes later, Chase stood in the middle of the living room and wondered what he was supposed to do all day. Kelly had made it pretty clear nothing was needed from him until tomorrow morning, but he wasn’t used to sitting around watching television while the sun was shining.
He would have given Coach a hand if he’d gotten up early enough. Unlike many high school coaches, Coach wasn’t a school staffer who happened to know enough about a sport to coach it. He’d owned his own plumbing business for as long as Chase could remember, and Mrs. McDonnell worked in his office. When the community had begun making noise about starting a football team, they’d asked Walt McDonnell to coach because he’d played in college back in the day, and nobody else had that kind of practical experience.
Chase was a builder, not a plumber, but he could lug tools and hand over wrenches as well as any guy. He’d missed the boat, though, so he was going to have to amuse himself until the afternoon, at least.
He decided to cruise around and reacquaint himself with the town, keeping an eye out for unexpected stop signs. Besides the For Sale signs and the depressing bank auction signs, Chase saw a lot of empty storefronts along Main Street, and it seemed like every building in town needed a fresh coat of paint.
He’d turned off Main Street, planning to loop around to the public parking area and go for a walk, when he hit the brakes so hard the tires chirped, and stared at the sign. Decker’s Wreckers. It couldn’t be. But who else would slap that name on a business?
He turned in to the lot, trying to remember what name used to be on the old brick garage, but it eluded him. Parking between two tow trucks that weren’t in much better shape than the garage, he got out and went into the office. Nobody came to greet him, so he poked his head into the garage area. Two legs like tree trunks stuck out from under a pickup.
“Hey,” Chase said.
The creeper wheels squealed in protest as the rest of the man emerged, and Chase grinned. Paul “Deck” Decker had been a big guy in high school, but years, a lot of good eating and probably more than his fair share of beer had added quite a bit of girth. If he wanted to slide under a car, the car would have to be on a lift.
“Hey, Deck.”
Deck pushed himself to his feet and wiped his hand on his pants before extending it. “Sanders. No shit. Heard you were coming back.”
“Rumor is we’re going to wipe up the field with some young rookies. Couldn’t let you have all the fun.”
“When Kelly asked me to play, I almost laughed her out of my office. I haven’t played in years.”
“None of us have. At least you just have to stand there and hit people. I’m the goddamn running back. Last time I ran anywhere, my truck popped out of gear and started rolling. Took off after it and got maybe seven or eight yards before I said ‘fuck it’ and let it hit a tree.”
Deck shook his head. “When I laughed at her, Kelly reminded me Coach didn’t laugh when he sat down with Ma and helped her fill out all of those government forms so my little brothers and sisters could get free hot lunches at school.”
“She plays hardball, that’s for damn sure.”
“Knows which buttons to push.” Deck shrugged. “I’d have given in anyway. I live here and it’s Coach, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Plus I’ve got boys who are eleven and nine, and they’ve been counting the years until they can be Eagles like their old man. What else are they going to do when they’re teenagers? Cruise the back roads, drinking?”
Chase figured pointing out they’d had their share of doing just that despite being Eagles was a bit of nostalgia he’d keep to himself. “I guess Officer McDonnell will keep them in line, huh? Never would have guessed Kelly would grow up to be a cop.”
“I don’t think anybody did. She went off to college and got married, I guess. Somewhere in there she became a cop, then she got divorced and moved back. Got a job with our police department.”
Interesting. And maybe a little disappointing. If her marriage and divorce had happened away from Stewart Mills, there was a good chance only her parents and best girlfriends knew the whole story, and he couldn’t very well ask them. Not that it was important, really. Just mild curiosity about Coach’s daughter.
“So what’s going on in your life?” Deck asked him. “Things must be good if you can take off a couple of weeks to come back.”
Or so bad it didn’t matter what he did. “Making do, I guess. How ’bout you?”
“Things are tight. People are trying to squeak a few more miles out of their tires and stretching between oil changes. Turning the radio up and ignoring the knocks and bangs.”
“You get them in the long run, though, when they push it too far and need a wrecker.”
“True enough. And I do the roadside assistance calls for the tourists passing through, which is what’s kept us in the black for the last couple of years. Barely, but we’ve got a roof over our heads and food on the table, so I’m doing better than some.”
“You really think this fund-raiser will work? Sounds like even if people wanted to give money, there’s not much to give.”
“If anybody can save the Eagles, it’s Kelly and Jen and Gretchen. If those three women got it in their heads to take over the world, we’d all be in trouble. Plus, they’ve got some of the stuff planned out so the tourists will stop and chip in. The big yard sale and the tollbooths and stuff.”
“As long as there’s no kissing booth,” Chase said, but even as the words came out of his mouth, he wondered how much he’d cough up if Officer McDonnell were selling off kisses.
“There was talk of one,” Deck said. “Guess the high school kids were all for it, but Edna Beecher said it was prostitution, and if she saw anybody offering intimate favors in exchange for money, as she put it, she’d call the FBI.”
“Edna Beecher? Shit, she was old as dirt as far back as I can remember. Threatened to call the FBI on my old man, too, because he carried a .38 in the car.”
“If she called them half as often as she threatened to, they’d have taken her out by now.”
Both men laughed, and Chase shook his head as he thought of all the times Edna Beecher—often called the Wicked Witch of Stewart Mills when people were absolutely sure she wasn’t nearby—had given him what for growing up. The thing about Edna, though, was that while she wasn’t shy about giving her opinion or laying into anybody she thought was doing wrong, she was generally a decent woman who cared about the town. She was simply more cranky than most.
“You marry a local?” Chase asked, not wanting to think about Edna Beecher anymore.
“Cheryl Hayes.”
Hearing the name resurrected a memory of a quiet brunette who usually had her face buried in a book. “Seriously?”
Deck laughed. “You’ve gotta watch the quiet ones. They sneak up on you while you’re not even looking. How about you? Married?”
“Nope. Came close, but we went our separate ways last month.”
“Sorry to hear it. It’s nice to have a woman to hold your hand during the hard times.”
Since Chase had a woman who’d kicked him in the emotional balls when times got hard, he wondered if he should have spent more time in the library and less time at bars back when he’d been looking. “And you’ve got just the two boys?”
“Yup. They’re usually hanging around with me during the summer, learning to turn wrenches, but Cheryl’s got them helping her make meatballs for the spaghetti dinner benefit. Good thing we’ve got a freezer in the basement, because she’s made enough freaking meatballs to keep the town alive if the Apocalypse comes.”
“When it comes to an all-you-can-eat benefit dinner, I can pack away the meatballs. Whatever she’s made, she should double it.”
Deck laughed, then looked up at the old-fashioned clock hanging askew
on the back wall of the garage. “I’d best get back to work. Promised I’d have this junk done today.”
Chase shook his hand again, slapping him on the other shoulder. “Good to see you again, Deck. No doubt I’ll see you around all the events. We might even have to practice a little.”
Deck snorted. “Like that’ll help.”
Once he was back in the truck, with no idea where to drive next, Chase put it in drive and waited for a Stewart Mills PD cruiser to go by before pulling out. He couldn’t really see the driver, but he could tell by the general build it wasn’t Kelly.
Officer McDonnell, he mused, allowing his mind to wander briefly to an image of her slapping handcuffs on him and giving him a very thorough pat down.
Very briefly, though. The more he allowed his Officer McDonnell fantasy to grow, the more he was going to think about Kelly, who needed very much not to star in his fantasies. She was Coach’s daughter, and Chase was there on a mission, which was to help the man save his job. Then he’d go back to New Jersey and start putting his life back together.
—
Kelly put the finishing touches on the tollbooth sandwich-board sign and then pushed herself to her feet so she could stretch her back. If she never saw blue, white and gold paint again, it would be too soon. As soon as Gretchen finished the matching sign and Jen wrapped up the massive yard sale signs, they could wash the brushes and call it a night.
They planned to put the tollbooth signs on the yellow line in the center of town, just before the stop sign, and hoped passing drivers would drop donations into football helmets being held out by the players. Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons would yield the most traffic from out of town, and those were generally the people with a little extra cash to spend. The cheerleaders had done it a few years before to raise money for new uniforms and it had been a big success, but things were a lot different then, financially.
“I happened to drive by Deck’s place today,” Gretchen said, her voice emerging from behind her sandwich board. “Saw Chase Sanders leaving.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I think he’s even hotter now than when we were in high school.”
Kelly didn’t think that. She knew it. Like Albert’s homemade dandelion wine, Chase had gotten more delicious and a lot more potent with age.
Jen stood up from behind a yard sale sign and sighed. “Very take-charge kind of guy, based on how he acted with Hunter at the meeting.”
Gretchen nodded. “I bet a take-charge kind of guy is just what Kelly needs. A guy who won’t put up with that authoritative cop crap and will take her up against the wall if he damn well feels like it.”
Even as she shook her head, Kelly felt her cheeks flame and made busy cleaning her brushes so her friends wouldn’t see her reaction. She’d never been taken up against a wall, but she’d always thought it sounded hot as hell. “Authoritative cop crap?”
“You’re very bossy,” Jen said. “So you need a guy who’s even bossier than you in bed.”
“I’m bossy because you heathens would be racing all over town, breaking laws left and right, if I wasn’t. I swear, I get no respect.”
Gretchen put her hand over her heart and tried to look solemn, though she mostly failed. “I respect you, Officer McDonnell. Honest.”
Of course, hearing those words made Kelly think of the way Chase had said Officer McDonnell in that deep, sexy way, and her face got hot all over again.
Men did seem to be intimidated by her—or the uniform and the gun, at least—and, with her ex-husband and the very few guys since her divorce, that seemed to hold true in the bedroom. Even with the uniform dumped in the clothes hamper and the gun in the lockbox, men always seemed to hold back a little, letting her be the boss. She didn’t like being the boss.
Remembering the hard look and the stern tone Chase had used to put Hunter in his place, Kelly shivered. He didn’t seem at all intimidated by the badge or the gun, and something about the way he looked at her made her suspect he’d have no trouble taking control between the sheets.
“You know I don’t get involved with locals,” she reminded her friends. “Getting you people to take me seriously is hard enough without people whispering about my sex life.”
“Or Edna calling the FBI to tell them you’re corrupt,” Gretchen said.
“But,” Jen added, “Chase isn’t a local anymore.”
“Close enough. He’s from Stewart Mills, he’s back in Stewart Mills and, oh yeah, he’s staying with my parents.”
Jen grinned. “Just makes him easier to find.”
Kelly rolled her eyes and started cleaning up in earnest, hoping to signal the conversation was over. Her friends really had no room to talk, since they both slept alone as often as Kelly did. None of the guys in town lived up to Jen’s lofty Prince Charming standards, and working herself to exhaustion keeping the family farm in the black while caring for her grandmother didn’t leave Gretchen much time for a social life.
Her cell rang and Kelly sighed when the station’s number showed on the caller ID screen. Sometimes it was tempting to pretend she hadn’t heard it ring or that she’d been out of service, but she never did. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Carla.” As if she wouldn’t recognize the second-shift dispatcher’s voice. “You still in uniform?”
“Nope. We’re painting signs, plus my uniform’s not exactly comfortable, so I changed after my shift. What’s up?”
“Some trouble at the Conrad residence. Neighbor called in a domestic dispute that’s escalating. Officer Clark is assisting on a motor vehicle accident up by the town line and can’t give me an ETA.”
“I can run home, change and head out there. Even if Dylan left the scene now, I’d still beat him.”
After taking some good-natured ribbing from Jen and Gretchen for sticking them with the cleanup, Kelly swung by her apartment and suited up before heading to the Conrads’ home.
She could hear the yelling as soon as she got out of her car, and she hoped yelling was as far as they’d gone. Her knock was firm and loud—her “cop knock” as Jen called it—and she knew they heard her, because the shouting stopped.
She knocked a second time and did some yelling of her own. “Stewart Mills PD. Open the door, please.”
When Peter Conrad swung the door open, she could see his flush of anger, but she was happy not to smell alcohol. It had been a bit of a scandal when Doreen left him two years ago because of his drinking, and he’d quit to get his family back. Hopefully the strain wasn’t threatening his sobriety.
“It’s just an argument,” he said. “It got loud, but it’s just an argument.”
“I’m glad to hear it’s not more than that. I’ll just say hi to Doreen and then be on my way.”
“She’s pretty upset. I think she locked herself in the bathroom.”
Kelly kept her expression neutral. “Arguments will do that. I’m going to tell it to you straight, Pete. I’m not leaving until I’ve seen Doreen, so you may as well let me in.”
“The kids are in their rooms with their earbud things in, so they don’t know what’s going on.”
She didn’t bother telling Pete he was fooling himself. Kids couldn’t block out their parents’ relationship straining at the seams and getting ready to blow. “I need to talk to Doreen, Pete.”
He let her in and she looked around while Pete yelled to Doreen to come out of the bathroom. There was no evidence their argument had turned violent. Nothing overturned or out of place. No crooked pictures on the wall or knocked-over knickknacks.
Pete sank onto the couch and dropped his head into his hands and, a few seconds later, the bathroom door opened. Doreen’s eyes were red and puffy, but she only looked tired instead of scared.
Kelly talked to her in a low voice in the kitchen and, after a few minutes, she was certain Pete had been telling the truth. It was an argument
, if a particularly ugly and loud one. Doreen was discouraged, but she wasn’t afraid of her husband. Since there had never been a hint of violence in Pete before and her gut told her Doreen had been forthcoming, Kelly decided not to upset the kids further by interviewing them. They were both in the elementary school, so they knew who she was, but she hadn’t had as much interaction with the younger kids as with the middle and high school students.
“If your neighbors heard you and were worried enough to call the police, imagine how the kids feel,” she told Doreen, and the other woman’s eyes filled with tears. “If you and Pete need some help communicating, call Jen Cooper.”
“The school guidance counselor?”
“She can’t give you marriage counseling, but it’s within her job description to help your kids feel secure and happy in their home. She can help.”
Doreen took the card Kelly handed her, then Kelly said her good-byes to Pete. “I hope I won’t be back anytime soon.”
He nodded and Kelly walked back to her truck. Seeing good people she’d known her entire life struggle broke her heart, and it had been a long day. And tomorrow she’d be up at the butt-crack of dawn, as her dad had so eloquently put it, and she’d be seeing Chase.
She threw the truck into gear and headed back toward her apartment. She’d be seeing a lot of Chase in the near future and she had to be on top of her game. Stewart Mills badly needed a win, and she wasn’t going to let old teenage fantasies—or new, very adult ones—make things messy with the Eagles running back.
04
Even with a thermos of hot coffee prepared for him by Mrs. McDonnell, Chase wasn’t particularly enjoying the butt-crack of dawn. And it wasn’t made any more pleasant by the addition of sullen teenagers.
He’d made so many trips between the Walker farm and the town square, he was pretty sure he could make the drive with his eyes closed now. But he didn’t try because he’d probably nod off and wreck his truck. Or run a stop sign.
At least Kelly wasn’t on duty, so he wouldn’t make an ass of himself coughing up cheesy lines trying to charm his way out of a ticket again. He’d caught a few glimpses of her as she moved around the large, grassy square, helping to organize the donations set out on tables and quilts. She was wearing white shorts that made her legs look long and lean and overall perfect for wrapping around his hips. But she was also wearing a blue Eagles T-shirt and a blue and gold ball cap, which were hard-to-miss reminders that she was Coach’s daughter, in the unlikely event he was tempted to forget for a few minutes that Kelly McDonnell was off-limits to him.
Under the Lights Page 4
