Forward Passes (Seattle Lumberjacks)

by Jami Davenport

“I heard about your Uncle Artie. I’m sorry. He was a great guy and a big supporter of the athletic program at WSU. So Twin Cedars is yours now? It’s a beautiful place.”

  His coach’s knowledge of Twin Cedars threw Tyler off his game. He couldn’t come up with a response.

  “So tell me how well you know my girl. You’re not dating her, are you?” Coach raised one eyebrow and leaned forward, staring Tyler down, as if the man had a right to ask about his daughter.

  “Worried?” Tyler shot back, knowing his reputation made him any father’s worst nightmare.

  “Wouldn’t you be if you were a father?”

  “Damn, I’d never let my daughter near anyone like me.” Tyler chuckled and the ice between them cracked a little.

  “Yeah. Are you going to be charged with a DUI?”

  “Hell no. I wasn’t drunk, and before you ask, no, I wasn’t fu—frigging in rehab either. Drugs and alcohol are not on my extensive list of vices.”

  “Good to hear.” Gerloch sighed, as he folded and unfolded the bar napkin. “I hoped—prayed, actually—if I ever ran into Vinnie she’d hear me out. Maybe agree to give me a second chance.” His expression softened, grew tender. “She looks good. She’s happy with you.”

  Tyler said nothing, but guilt gnawed at his gut. What made him any better than her dad? He’d desert her, too, once he returned to his life on the mainland. He wasn’t any good at real relationships because the last true fairy tale couple died with his father.

  “I’m betting you’ve gotten an earful about me from Vinnie and her grandmother, too.”

  “Good guess.”

  “Not a guess. The woman hates the air I breathe.”

  “That’s an accurate statement.”

  “She never liked me when I was married to her daughter, made my life hell with all her interfering. She despised me once I got a divorce. So you’ve heard her stories, which explains it all.”

  “Don’t you want to defend yourself?” Tyler popped a pretzel in his mouth and chewed. Despite it being stale and tasting like crap, he stuffed his mouth full of a few more.

  “I gave up on that long ago. The woman is a master manipulator. Doesn’t matter what I say, people believe her. She even turned my own family against me. I’ve heard all sorts of crap she’s spread about me, and there’s plenty I’m guessing I haven’t heard.”

  “Then hit me with your side of the story.” Tyler slouched in his seat and propped his feet on a nearby chair.

  “Do you think it’s a coincidence my daughter just happens to live next door to your family legacy?” Coach fidgeted with his coaster. Tyler couldn’t recall ever seeing Coach fidgeting. Pacing the sidelines with pent-up energy, yeah, but fidgeting? Never.

  “More like family albatross. But yeah, it did occur to me how strange fate is.”

  “Not fate exactly unless fate’s name is Art.” Coach tore a piece of the corner of the cardboard coaster then ripped it into even smaller pieces. Fidgeting, again.

  Tyler sat up, dropped his feet to the floor. He signaled for another beer and leaned his elbows on the table. “You knew Uncle Art?”

  “I was born and raised on that island on the very property next door to Twin Cedars. I graduated from high school on the island. My family’s old homestead burnt down years ago though. I was a high school football standout, your grandfather and uncle helped me get a scholarship. When my pro career didn’t pan out, I coached a high school on the mainland. By then your grandfather had died.”

  “I never knew my grandfather. He was at odds with my dad so we never met.” Regret seeped into Tyler’s voice, and he fought to keep his tone neutral. This was not about him.

  “I know. That’s tragic.” Coach now bent and re-bent what was left of the coaster.

  Tyler pushed his own coaster across the table to Gerloch. “This from a man who abandoned his daughter?”

  “That’s tragic, too.” Coach rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. “Artie played a large role in my career. He and your grandfather were big Cougar fans and convinced the current coach at WSU to give me a chance. I took the assistant coaching job a few years before you went there. I worked my way up to head coach by the time you attended.” Now all four corners of the coaster were torn. A little pile of coaster guts littered the table. Coach reached for Tyler’s coaster.

  “I didn’t know about that connection.”

  “Artie didn’t want you to know. He never missed one of your home games. Flew over those mountains from the San Juans for every game.”

  “Why didn’t he contact me? My dad died before my freshman year. I was pretty messed up. I could’ve used someone.” Tyler tried to make sense of his family dynamics and come to terms with the situation. Maybe his family did have a chink in their perfect armor.

  “I tried to convince him, but he was funny like that. He pushed me to recruit you. Not that I wouldn’t have anyway. Every college coach in the nation was salivating at the chance to sign you.” Coach attacked the second coaster, murdering it with his bare hands.

  “When you recruited me, you played on my family loyalty, how a long line of Harris’s had been Cougars.”

  “Sure I did. Art gave me the information I needed to have one up on the other schools. Of course, it helped that your dad was an alumni there, too.”

  “Yeah, Dad really pushed me to attended Wazzu.” All the locals called Washington State University by the nickname of Wazzu. At one time the new president of the university attempted to ban the usage of the nickname because it wasn’t complementary. After a backlash, he conceded and gave it his blessing.

  “I’m sorry your dad and grandfather didn’t get to see you play. They’d have loved that.” Coach looked up and caught Tyler staring at the pile of coaster pieces on the table. He shoved them out of the way. But his fidgeting didn’t stop, pretty soon he swirled the beer in his glass around and around.

  Time to steer this conversation away from Tyler’s family and back to Gerloch’s family. “How did your ex’s mother end up with your family’s homestead?”

  “She didn’t.” Coach seemed confused. He tipped the beer up to his lips and took a good swig.

  “What do you mean she didn’t?”

  “Not for lack of trying. Lavender’s mom knew how much I loved that place, which is exactly why she went after it in the divorce.” At the mention of his ex, Coach’s face turned hard, like it did when his team couldn’t score in the red zone.

  “But it’s Doris’s.”

  “If it was hers, it would’ve been sold by now. She knows that I pay all the bills. She doesn’t pay a damn thing.”

  “But Lavender pays her rent.”

  Gerloch shook his head and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Damn. That bitch never ceases to amaze me. She has no right to collect rent on that property. It’s mine, not hers. When we divorced, I put it in trust for the kids.”

  Tyler didn’t know whom to believe, but he knew how to find out. Once he got back to the island, he’d research Coach’s claims. “Go ahead, tell me your side of the story. I’ve heard the ex’s.”

  Coach stared over Tyler’s head, silent for a long moment. Finally, he drew in a breath and blew it out. He picked up a wine list and bent the corners. “What’s to tell? It’s an old story. I’m the bastard according to Doris, never paid child support—which is bullshit—never contacted the kids—bullshit again—had a problem with alcoholism and drugs, which is why her daughter divorced me—more bullshit. We divorced because she refused to move across the state. Not to mention we fought like cats and dogs and could hardly stand each other. I tried to stay in touch with the kids. After their mom died, they begged to stay with their grandparents for the summer. Then Doris and Larry filed court papers for full custody. Our battle over the kids was destroying them. She made their lives miserable whenever I tried to see them. Tore them in two, claimed they were disloyal. No matter how I looked at it, it was a lose–lose for them and me.”

  Tyler signaled the waitress for a dr
ink. “I wouldn’t have let that woman win. I’d have fought her with every penny I had.”

  “Easy for you to say. As long as I was in the picture, Doris put the kids through hell. They were already reeling from their mother’s death. I didn’t want to pull them out of school and away from all their friends to move them across the state. I always sent birthday and Christmas cards and presents, called several times, but Doris claimed the kids didn’t want to talk to me. Several years ago, I received a letter from Lavender telling me to go to hell, essentially.”

  Tyler absorbed his coach’s story, feeling more confused than ever. He wanted one person to blame for this mess, but right now, he faulted all three of them.

  “I respected Lavender’s wishes even though it broke my heart. I haven’t talked to her for years until tonight. My son—her brother—Andy, called me a few years ago, and we met. We talked. He went away for a while. Then he came back. He’d done the research and confronted his grandmother on her lies. When he chose to reconcile with me, Doris wrote him off and convinced Vinnie to do the same. Andy misses his sister and grandmother, but I can’t talk sense into Doris. Her love is conditional. You’re either with her or you’re not. A relationship with me, the enemy, means betrayal and exile.”

  Closing his eyes for a moment, Coach leaned his head against the wall of the booth. Finally, he opened them and continued. “Then there’s my daughter. Do you have any clue how it feels to be excluded from every facet of your child’s life? I was specifically told not to attend her high school graduation. That’s a memory I’ll never get back. My own sister took sides and has nothing to do with Andy or me.”

  “That’s crazy. What grandparent wouldn’t want a child to have contact with a parent?”

  “My new wife, Sarah, and I have asked ourselves that a hundred times. We’re attending counseling as a family with Andy. There’s no cure for what’s wrong with Doris. It even has a label, actually several, and it’s affected children of divorce for decades. But in the end the results are the same, the child is alienated from one parent, usually the non-custodial parent, and made to feel guilty and disloyal if they want a relationship with that parent. It’s really a form of brainwashing. It can even go so far as to alter the child’s memories of that parent.”

  “Are you serious?” Tyler couldn’t imagine such a thing.

  “Yeah, unfortunately, I’m very serious. It’s way too common with children of divorce. The person doing the alienating honestly believes they’re in the right. They’re on a mission to do what they believe is best for the child, which makes it even more difficult to treat.”

  “Damn.” Tyler’s head spun with conflicting reactions. He needed time to weigh what his coach was telling him. He didn’t have any experience with divorce in his perfect family, but he sure as hell knew how much it hurt to lose a parent.

  “Look, I gave up a long time ago trying to convince anyone that this black and white situation is really gray. It’s not to say I wasn’t faultless in this screwed-up mess. I let my ex mother-in-law get to me. I gave up. I went away. I’d like to say I did it for the kids, but I did it for my own sanity, too. I didn’t fight for them like I could have, maybe should have. I don’t know if it would’ve changed anything or made their lives more unbearable. I suspect things would’ve ended up the same. I’d have still gone away so they could have some sense of peace in their lives.”

  Tyler scratched his pounding head, tried to fit all the pieces together to get to the real truth. “Vinnie misses you. I know she does.”

  “Tyler, be careful. Don’t get in the middle of this. You won’t win with Doris. Her hold is too strong. Let it be.” Now the menu was missing corners.

  “I can’t.” Tyler stared into his coach’s stricken eyes. He saw how difficult this had been for him. “I still don’t completely understand why you gave up and went away. Why you didn’t fight.”

  “Because it hurt too much to try. Doris didn’t make it easy for me, but I chose to walk away. That’s on me.”

  “Her grandmother is so convincing.”

  “Andy filled me in on some of her stories. Judging by how he continues to keep me somewhat at arm’s length, I’d say he’s still uncertain who’s telling the truth.”

  “Damn.”

  “Tyler, form your own opinions. All of this state’s court records are online. Check it out for yourself. Run a background check on me. A bad ass like me should have domestic violence charges and DUIs, not to mention some kind of criminal record.”

  “I’ll do that.” Tyler shook his head as he stared at the now shredded menu.

  “Will you do one last thing for me?” Coach squirmed a bit in his chair, so unlike the confident man Tyler knew and once idolized.

  “I might.” No way in hell would he commit to anything yet.

  “Tell my daughter I love her.”

  Picking up the tab, Coach walked out, leaving Tyler to sort out fact from fiction.

  * * * * *

  Tyler’s floatplane touched down at 11:58. He half expected the Brothers to be standing on the runway with watches, hoping he’d screw up. They weren’t.

  Pausing on the large front porch of Twin Cedars, Tyler craned his neck to see Lavender’s house through the trees. The lights were out. He missed her. Too much. And they’d only been apart for a few hours. He fought the urge to go to her.

  Not tonight, because for once it wasn’t about him. He’d give her the space she’d requested. Besides, he had work to do.

  He walked in the door of his chilly mansion. Coug sat on the arm of his leather chair and bitched his head off. After he took care of the opinionated cat, Tyler called his mother and got her out of bed. Groggy as she was, she listened to the entire sordid story about Lavender’s family dysfunction. Her advice was simple. Follow your heart. Do what you think is right but be prepared to live with the consequences.

  Tyler conference-called his sisters next. He wasn’t surprised to find out they were still up at this ungodly hour. He explained the situation to them, minus the part about Coach’s daughter being not just his neighbor but his lover.

  Unearthing dirt and getting to the truth happened to be a hobby of theirs. Being two of the nosiest women he’d ever known with type triple-A personalities, they were on it like an all-pro defensive end on a rookie quarterback.

  Instead of going to bed, Tyler did his own research. He found the county website for property information and typed in his coach’s name in the search field. Brian Gerloch owned 142 Twin Cedar Lane. Not Vinnie’s grandmother. Not her grandfather. But her father. He’d caught Doris Mead in an out-and-out lie. He suspected one of many.

  Tyler rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. Four a.m. Shit. Yet he couldn’t stop, not now.

  Searching online he uncovered summaries of court records, no details. He ran a few background checks on Gerloch and came up with nothing. No protection orders, no records of domestic violence, no DUI’s, no drug charges, nothing that substantiated Doris’s claims. If she lied about legal issues easily proven false, what else would she lie about?

  His sisters with their connections would get to the bottom of it. His job would be to figure out what to do with the information once he received it. Any way he looked at it, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  A sick feeling took root and grew in the pit of his stomach. This may not end well for Lavender or him.

  Several hours and no sleep later, he had lots of questions and no answers.

  Chapter 24

  Protecting the Blind Side

  When it came to Tyler Harris, Lavender embraced dishonesty—with herself.

  For example, she didn’t perk up when she heard his deep, teasing voice. And certainly, she would never crane her neck to get a glimpse of his to-die-for body. Nor, did she live for matching wits with him. Last of all, she’d never lay awake at night wondering where he was. Yup, definitely a first-class liar and a lousy one.

  That very morning her grandmother invaded her privacy and spent the better par
t of the next few hours raging at her about jocks, how foolish Lavender was to fall for one—which Lavender denied—and hadn’t she learned any lessons from her mother. Then Doris delivered the ultimatum: Dump the football player or find another place to live. I’m doing this for your own good because I love you and don’t want to see you hurt. I know you’ll do the right thing. The implication hung heavy between grandmother and granddaughter. I’ll disown you if you don’t do as I say—just like she had Andy.

  Lavender didn’t want to do the right thing, not yet. Nor did she want to lose her grandmother. After all, Doris and Larry were the only family she had left. Once Tyler headed back to the mainland, the problem would solve itself. Until then she’d keep her gram in the dark.

  Lavender glanced up when the bar door opened. She’d been doing a lot of that all afternoon and evening. Tyler walked through the door, looking as male and gorgeous as ever in his usual faded jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, and well-worn, long-sleeved T-shirt. Her heart caught in her throat and took up residence. She breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been MIA since last night’s disaster at the awards banquet.

  Last night when Lavender had caught a seat on a floatplane just as it was about to leave Lake Union, she recognized the pilot as the same one from the night before. He recognized her. His knowing smiling indicated he’d seen more of her than she’d hoped, which only added to her misery, as fate plotted against her. The older lady sitting next to her chattered non-stop about knitting and cooking all the way back. Lavender smiled and nodded through her pain, not hearing a word the woman said.

  All she’d wanted to do was curl in a little ball and cry herself sick until she’d run dry of tears and fallen asleep. A few hours later, she did just that, except for the sleep part. Then her grandmother disrupted her pity party. She cringed to think how crazed Doris would have been if she’d know about Lavender’s brief encounter with Brian Gerloch.

  By the time Tyler parked his fine ass on his favorite bar stool, Lavender was dragging. She poured a beer and slid it across to him. He thanked her. His steady gaze held hers as he worked his jaw, a sure sign something was on his mind.