by Brenda Novak
She was shaking as she withdrew her phone so she could access the internet. “How reliable are condoms?” she typed into Google and nibbled on her bottom lip while waiting for the links to appear. One website said that “male condoms” were “82–98 percent” effective. Another rated their effectiveness at 85 percent.
“Eighty-five,” she mumbled, feeling shell-shocked. Eighty-five meant there was still a significant chance of pregnancy. Why didn’t more people talk about the failures? Why did everyone act as though a condom was sufficient?
Her phone rang while she held it, startling her since she was already so jumpy. Amy. The call she’d missed had also come from Amy. No doubt her friend couldn’t understand why she wasn’t picking up; they’d just talked.
Closing her eyes, Ellie leaned against the headrest as she answered. “Hello?” she said, but the word came out so softly, so breathy, she wasn’t sure Amy could hear her.
Amy paused before responding. “Hello?” she said, far more stridently than before. “Ellie? Is that you?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Ellie replied, but she was holding her stomach with one hand.
“I was going to ask if you’d like me to pick up some takeout on my way over. But...you sound strange. Is something wrong?”
Ellie considered lying. She wanted to lie—to herself, too. But what good would it do to hide from the truth? She was too practical for that. If she was pregnant, a swollen belly would soon make it apparent to everyone. “Yes.”
“Did you say yes?” she squawked.
“I—I’m afraid I’m about to throw up.”
“Why? What’s wrong? Do you think you might have the flu?”
“No. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? You’re scaring me!”
“Could you bring a pregnancy test when you come?”
“A what?”
Ellie couldn’t repeat the request. She was beginning to hyperventilate, needed to focus on slowing her breathing. That’s it. Calm down. In and out. Everything will be okay...somehow.
Fortunately, Amy caught on, even though Ellie couldn’t clarify at the moment. “Holy shit! Did you say what I think you said?”
“Yeah, I did. Can you get one?”
“Of course. I’m on my way over right now.”
6
Hudson was as busy as always during football season. He had two flights a week, some longer than others depending on their schedule, regular team practices, meetings with the coaches and managers, periodic medical checkups and physical therapy to keep his body patched up so he could make it through the season. And then there was interview after interview with the sports media, photography sessions for his various endorsements—even a commercial for a new sports drink—and numerous appearances for charity. He also spent hours watching game film so he could be prepared for whatever opponent he’d face next. That didn’t leave him with a lot of free time, but he returned to Silver Springs as often as his schedule permitted, even if he could steal away only for a night and a day.
Fortunately, the doctors had adjusted Aaron’s treatment. The new chemicals weren’t as hard on his system, so he seemed okay for the time being. The more stable Aaron became, the better Hudson felt, and that seemed to be reflected in his game. Since Miami, the Devils hadn’t lost. Hudson couldn’t take all the credit. Some of his teammates had really stepped up—his front line in particular. They hadn’t allowed more than a handful of sacks in the past six weeks. But he was having a good personal season, too, and felt they might have another shot at the Super Bowl.
“So this is the new abode?”
Hudson had just let Bruiser in through the front door of his home in Silver Springs. Like Hudson and the rest of the team, for the most part Bruiser lived in LA, and he had a wife and two-year-old kid. But his wife had taken their little girl to visit her mother in New York and was gone for a few days, so Bruiser had accompanied Hudson from LA. Bruiser had expressed an interest in getting involved in the type of mentoring Hudson was doing at New Horizons, so first thing Monday morning, Hudson was taking him over to the school. They’d be addressing the student body and encouraging the boys to put in the work necessary to fulfill their dreams. He and Bruiser were even planning to show up at football practice later in the day and help the coaches by running a few drills.
“Not bad, huh?” Hudson said as he tossed his keys on the granite counter.
Bruiser frowned as he took in the wooden floors, the high ceilings, the wainscoting and the ceiling fan in the expansive living room of the ranch house. Hudson hadn’t bought the most expensive property in the area, but homes in the Ojai Valley weren’t cheap, especially when they sat on chunks of land the size of this one. He needed the space to protect his privacy. He’d spent nearly $9.5 million for this fifteen-acre, 10,663 square-foot, four-bedroom, five-bath home with its accompanying view of the surrounding Topatopa Mountains.
“You could afford a lot better,” Bruiser teased.
Hudson winked. “I love it here. You will, too. That’s why I’ve asked the real estate agent who sold me this to show you some properties while you’re in town.”
Bruiser put down his duffel bag. “You went to the trouble, did you?”
Hudson slapped his broad back. “I did, brother. We’re meeting her tomorrow.”
Bruiser fingered the Fu Manchu mustache he’d grown this season; he’d said he wouldn’t shave it off until they won the Super Bowl. “Not sure my wife’s gonna be willing to move out here. I told you that.”
“We’ll see,” he responded as if he wasn’t worried in the least.
His friend’s eyebrows rose. “You think you can convince her?”
“I do. Jacqueline’s a real softy. Once she meets some of the boys and realizes what a difference you could make in their lives, she’ll be all for spending the off-season here, at least for the next couple of years, until you have another baby or Brianne starts school.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged, relenting as easily as ever. Hudson had never met a nicer guy—not that he’d ever want to take Bruiser on when Bruiser was mad. Hudson had seen his friend pushed to that point only once, when a player from the opposing team nearly broke Hudson’s leg with a late hit. Bruiser went after the dude, and it was all the refs could do to pull him off. From that day forward, everyone in the NFL knew that no one messed with Hudson if Bruiser was around to guard him. Hudson was Bruiser’s quarterback, the man he defended, and he took that seriously. That was part of the reason they were doing so well this season. Hudson had been safe in the pocket, and that had resulted in a high percentage of completions.
“So...you got a beer?” Bruiser asked.
Maggie, the housekeeper Hudson had hired when he bought the house, kept the place clean and well-stocked. She lived in the guesthouse at the back corner of the property and made sure the gardeners did their job and the house was ready whenever Hudson decided to come home. Once he arrived, she stayed in her own place unless he was there for an extended visit and needed help with meals or laundry. He paid her a monthly salary whether she did much work at the main house or not, so she didn’t mind that he preferred his privacy to having her wait on him. “I’ve got a fridge filled with Bud Light, Heineken, Sam Adams, you name it,” he said. “Want to play a game of pool after we grab a cold one?”
“Only if you’re ready to get your ass kicked.”
Hudson grinned. He and Bruiser had never played before. Bruiser hadn’t been on the team that long. They’d just grown close very quickly. And Hudson didn’t have a table at his LA house. “Any chance you’d be willing to put your money where your mouth is?”
He could see Bruiser contemplating the possibilities. “Come on,” Hudson said. “You’re a betting man.”
“Yeah, but I’d never bet against you,” Bruiser finally grumbled, his expression leery.
“Too bad. I suck at pool,” Hudson said and proved it by losing twice in a row.
“Shit,” Bruiser drawled. “I should’ve taken that bet. I could be fleecing you right now.”
Hudson rested his pool cue on the ground. “I’ll give you another chance. We could play a third game. Put a thousand bucks on it.”
Bruiser seemed tempted, then narrowed his eyes. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? Forget it. You’re not sharking me.”
Once Hudson started laughing, he almost couldn’t stop—especially when Bruiser beat him a third time. “You weren’t sharking me,” his friend complained. “You do suck at pool. You’re just damn good at mind games!”
Hudson cocked his head. “We could bet on a fourth match...”
“You little shit!” Although it took some effort, and they were both breathing heavily from the exertion of wrestling by the time it was over, Bruiser eventually managed to heft Hudson over one massive shoulder and carry him through the open doors of the game room to the patio beyond, where he proceeded to throw him in the pool.
“You were only able to do that because I let you,” Hudson called out, laughing and wiping the water from his face as he surfaced.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m getting another beer.” With a careless gesture, Bruiser went back inside. But he returned with a towel as well as two beers and sat on a nearby chair while Hudson dried off.
“It’s nice out here,” Bruiser said, gazing at the gold and lavender hues of the fading sun. “I could get used to this.”
“Quiet, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Glad we have a bye this week. I like getting away from the city, especially midseason, when we’re so busy. Sometimes, with all the traffic and the noise—everyone blathering on about their opinions, the phone ringing and the TV rattling the walls—it feels as if I can’t hear myself think. But this...this is almost as though we put LA on pause.”
Hudson dropped onto a lounge chair not far away. With an average high of eighty degrees in October, the weather was fairly mild in Silver Springs. But the temperature was dropping as night came on, and he was wet. Trying to conserve his body heat, he rubbed his head vigorously to dry his hair. He didn’t want to catch a cold, but he also didn’t want to go in. He, too, was enjoying sitting outdoors and watching the sunset. “You’re not getting tired of the game, are you?” he asked.
“I could never get tired of the game,” Bruiser replied. “But all the stuff that goes with it? Yeah. And I don’t have to do half the shit you do. Don’t know how you keep your sanity.”
After wrapping the towel around his shoulders, Hudson popped the top off the beer Bruiser had brought out for him. “Other than New Horizons, work’s all I’ve got. I prefer to stay busy.”
Bruiser rested his elbows on his spread knees. “Any word from that private detective you hired a few weeks ago?”
Hudson wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this, wasn’t sure why he’d ever confided in Bruiser about it. He was so conflicted about the whole thing, he hadn’t told anyone else, and it’d taken him years to make the decision. He’d been hoping Bruiser would talk him out of it, he supposed, show him how useless it was. But his friend hadn’t even tried. He’d been as hopeful as Hudson was sometimes tempted to be—and quietly supportive, like always.
“Not yet,” Hudson said. “I might call him off, to be honest. Drop the whole thing.”
“Why? You searched and searched the internet for the ideal guy. He has all those great reviews on his website, right? What can it hurt to let him do his job? See what he finds?”
“Chances are he won’t find anything. The police never could.”
“Then you’ll have to live with the past, but at least you tried.”
“What if it goes the other way? What if he solves it, comes up with an answer?”
Leaning back, Bruiser crossed his ankles. “You don’t have to act on the information unless you choose to.”
Hudson took a long pull on his beer. “Will I be able to stop myself? Sometimes it’s safer not to know.”
“The reality can’t be any worse than what you’re imagining.”
“Who says? It could be like Pandora’s box—better not to open it.” That was what had kept him from searching before. “Even if I track down whoever abandoned me, what will I say? ‘Thanks for nothing’? And because of my fame—and money—how will I know they’re being sincere if they say they’d like to be part of my life? I’m at the peak of my career. Almost everyone wants a piece of me.” But not always for the right reasons. That was why he missed the woman he’d met at Envy. He’d tried dating since but had been disappointed by his options. The brief flashes of attraction he’d experienced had been with women who hadn’t come off as half as honest.
Bruiser’s dark eyes blazed. “You have plenty to offer without the money and without the fame,” he said as if he was angry Hudson would suggest otherwise.
“Maybe so. But we’re talking about someone who left me to die under a hedge. What do you expect that type of person will want? Help paying the bills? A new car? Or connecting on a meaningful level?”
“Listen, I’m the last guy who’d ever want to see you get hurt.”
Hudson grimaced. “I’m not saying I could get hurt, exactly.”
“Oh, cut the macho bullshit,” Bruiser said, waving him off. “It’s me you’re talking to. What you’re after could be devastating, and I know it. That’s what you’re afraid of. Well, it’s my job to protect you, and that doesn’t disappear once we’re off the field. You’re like a brother to me. But you need to know what this PI might be able to tell you. You’ve needed to know for a long time—maybe always—to answer all the questions in your mind and put your issues to rest.”
Hudson challenged him with a pointed glance. “My issues?”
Unrepentant, Bruiser grinned. “Yeah. You’ve got more than a few.”
“That makes me feel better. Thanks.”
At the unmistakable sarcasm, Bruiser lifted his beer. “You can always count on me to be honest.”
“Now might be a good time to tell you I could’ve kicked your ass at billiards in at least three of those games. A guy doesn’t own a table without being able to play.”
Cursing and laughing at the same time, Bruiser shook his head. “I knew it. Least I didn’t fall for your act.”
Hudson tipped his drink in his friend’s direction. “No, you didn’t.”
“Asshole.”
“Back to the private detective,” Hudson said. “Think of the media circus if he does find my mother and word leaks out. How will I cope with that, in addition to everything else? The media’s already all up in my business. They bring my background into every damn article. I saw one recently with my photo and the caption, ‘The star quarterback who might never have been, if not for the pizza delivery boy who heard him crying.’” He stared down at the bottle he held. “Hell, I’ve had people coming out of the woodwork for years, claiming to be my long-lost relatives. I believed a few of them, too, but they never checked out. If I keep on pushing for answers, I’ll be asking for more of the same.”
“So? You’re a celebrity, dude. You’re going to deal with that. You need to know what happened that day.”
Hudson used his left hand to comb some of the tangles out of his hair, which wasn’t easy because of the chlorine. “Why do I need to know? That’s what I keep asking myself. Why can’t I leave it alone?”
“Curiosity? Closure? Only natural you’d want answers. Even if you fire this guy, I predict you’ll hire him again—or someone else.”
Whoever had left Hudson on the day of his birth obviously didn’t want him. But somewhere, deep down, he was hoping there’d been a mistake. That he hadn’t been thrown away as casually as it seemed. That his mother, and maybe his father, had been searching for him his whole life an
d somehow missed the media coverage of his background. That he had grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and maybe even siblings out there somewhere who hadn’t been involved in the decision.
Question was, why had it happened? It must’ve been intentional. How could anyone leave a baby to die by mistake?
Because Hudson couldn’t answer that, he was tempted to call off the investigator. The only thing that made him hope there might be more to the story, something to pursue, was the area in which he’d been found. Bel Air wasn’t known for drugs or crime or abandoned babies. Part of the Platinum Triangle that included Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, where the infamous Playboy mansion had recently sold for $100 million, it was a residential area that contained some of the most luxurious homes in Southern California. With large green privacy hedges surrounding most of the estates, only three roads leading in, and no sidewalks, there wasn’t a lot of traffic. Had some spoiled rich girl gotten pregnant, hidden the fact from her parents, delivered in the bathroom and left the baby in that hedge for the gardeners or someone else to find in the morning?
That was the most likely explanation. But if so, whoever the girl was, she couldn’t be related to any of the people living in the houses closest to where he’d been discovered, wrapped in a threadbare blanket. Thirty-two years ago, the mansion behind the hedge belonged to an eighty-year-old couple with one adult child who had a family but lived and worked in China. A lesbian couple owned the next closest house. They had a teenage son, but he managed to convince the police that he didn’t know about any pregnant girl or newborn baby. The property across the street, kitty-corner, belonged to a divorced director who hadn’t even been home at the time. His place had been closed up while he was on location, filming a movie in Alaska.
Hudson had a copy of the police file. He’d requested it soon after he entered the NFL. No one in the neighborhood had been able to offer a single clue as to who might’ve abandoned a baby at Hudson and King. That was why he’d been taken to Maryvale, Los Angeles’s oldest children’s charity, and farmed out to a foster home, his first of many—until he’d eventually been sent to New Horizons Boys Ranch. That was where he’d spent the final three years of his adolescence, before he was recruited to play for UCLA and started his football career.
