His Most Important Win

“I’ll need to arrange inspections first,” he said. “Check for termites. Check the roof, plumbing and electrical.”

“Of course. But we can make the contract contingent on the inspections coming in satisfactorily.” She tapped a pen on the top of her portfolio. “You don’t want to lose this place by not having your name on the dotted line.”

He smiled. “How many offers have you had on this property since it was listed last year?” he said.

She shrugged. “Admittedly it’s been a slow market.”

Bryce was going to own this house. He felt it in the jangle of excited nerves in the pit of his stomach. “It’s listed at ninety thousand?”

“That’s right.”

“Write up an offer at twenty percent under that price. We’ll see what happens.”

She held out her hand. “Meet me in my office in a half hour. I’ll get the paperwork started.”

Rosalie joined her son and her mother at the produce stand midafternoon on Sunday. “When are your friends picking you up to go to the park?” she asked Danny.

He checked his watch. “They should be here any minute. I need to get my gear. Are you staying to help Grandma?”

“Yes. You go on.”

“Thanks.” He pointed to an insufficient number of small baskets of tomatoes sitting in a bin. “You need to restock. I was just getting ready to do that.”

“Sure. Looks like it’s been a good day.”

He agreed, said goodbye to Claudia and jogged away just as a Honda Civic pulled into the drive and followed him toward the house. Rosalie waved to Danny’s friend at the wheel. She took a stack of miniature bushel baskets from under the bin and started to fill them with tomatoes from a large crate. Her attention was diverted when a black pickup with sparkling chrome accessories braked in front of the stand. She immediately noticed a front bumper license plate in black and gold that said Texas Tech University, and a moment later, Bryce Benton got out of the driver’s seat.

He started to walk to Rosalie but stopped when Claudia hooted so loud a customer spilled a bag of peaches. “Bryce Benton! Oh, my stars. Get over here.”

Bryce strode around the back of the stand and gave Claudia a hug. When she finally let him loose, she placed the flat of her hand over her heart and stared up into his face. “You have gotten even better looking, if that’s possible.”

Rosalie hurried to the front to help the customer retrieve her peaches. As she worked, she couldn’t help thinking that her mother’s reaction to seeing Bryce was amazing, and not in a good way. For a time, both women, and Rosalie’s father as well, had nurtured bad feelings against Bryce every bit as strong as the ones Rosalie still seemed to cling to.

Numb with grief at the sudden, tragic death of their son, Rosalie’s parents had sought comfort in the only way they knew how—by blaming the young man whose show-off antics had resulted in the accident which took the life of his best friend. Looking back, Rosalie realized that the anger and bitterness against Bryce, rightly or wrongly, had probably been the glue that had held the Campano family together through the weeks and months of mourning.

And then Danny came along and their lives progressed according to a new purpose and pace. Rosalie continued to cry every night for her brother. Enzo Campano buried his grief so deep that Rosalie often wondered if he allowed himself to think about Ricky at all. And Claudia threw her efforts and mothering skills into making a home for her grandson.

Unlike her daughter and her husband, at some point, she’d let go of the anguish and resentment. At least she said she had. But had she ever really forgiven Bryce? Since the Campanos didn’t talk much about the incident, Rosalie had always wondered. Today, however, almost sixteen years after her son’s death, Claudia tried to convince her daughter in this grandiose gesture of welcoming Bryce home that she had.

“You’re the talk of the town, Bryce,” Claudia said. He grinned in a seemingly modest way and chatted quietly with her.

Rosalie rang up the customer’s order. When the lady got in her car and drove away, Bryce walked over. “So how’s business, Rosalie?” he said.

“It’s okay.”

The Honda sped past with Danny in the backseat. The driver honked his horn and turned onto Fox Hollow Road.

Bryce stared at the car for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “That’s right. You have a kid, don’t you? My mother told me you went to college, met a guy and had a baby.”

“That’s right.”

“A boy?”

“Yes.”

“And you moved back home with Claudia?”

“Right again.”

The car rounded a curve and disappeared. Rosalie hoped that would be the end of the conversation. Nope.

“Is your son in high school yet?” Bryce asked.

Vague. Vague. Keep your answers vague. Divert attention away from Danny. “Starts this year,” she said, returning to the task of packing tomato boxes. Bryce didn’t take the hint and move away, so she looked up at him, swallowed an involuntary sigh, and said, “You’re surrounded by fruits and vegetables at your house, Bryce, so you’re obviously not here to shop.”

He smiled. “Not today.”

“Then …?”

He leaned a hip against the stand. “Campanos does business with Benton Farms, and I’m grateful for your years of support. Would you believe it’s customer appreciation day?”

Right. She rearranged tomatoes to fit more boxes in the bin. “Not unless this magnanimous event just started today.”

“As a matter of fact, it did.”

She huffed. “And exactly how many Benton customers have you visited so far to show your appreciation?”

The grin broadened. “You’re the first.”

She frowned at him and continued working, though on some deeper emotional level she was aware of his every move. “As you can see, I’m busy. If you want to go appreciate someone else, feel free.”

“I stopped by for another reason, too,” he said.

“And that would be?”

He stood straight and looked down the road. “You and I are going to be neighbors.”

Her hand stilled. She clutched her fists at her sides. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m about to become a home owner. I put a bid in for a place down the road, about halfway between your house and the old gristmill.”

Her mind scrambled to come up with a location. Houses were separated by acres of land on Fox Hollow Road. There were no close neighbors in the traditional sense. The only property she knew of that was for sale was the old Harbin place. Surely he didn’t mean the homestead that was less than a mile away.

“I just left the Harbin property,” he said. “I’ve made an offer.”

She could only stare, reining in her first impulse to shout at him that he had no right. That she didn’t want him living so near. That she didn’t need to be thinking about him driving past her house every day, invading the space in her heart that once had been filled with him. Instead, after a few moments she found her voice. “That place has been vacant for quite a while.”

“I know. It needs some work. Have you ever driven back there to see the house?”

She had once or twice, when she was a kid. But she couldn’t tell him right now what the house even looked like. “My dad knew old Mr. Clive,” she said. “And he sometimes drove produce out to Wyatt Harbin when he was in town. I don’t remember much about the place. The people who stayed there kept to themselves.”

Light animated Bryce’s eyes. “It’s a great place, Rosalie. Got real potential. I can’t wait to start fixing it up.”

It wasn’t enough that she was going to work with Bryce at the high school. Now they were going to be neighbors. In a spread-out, rural community the size of Whistler Creek, why hadn’t he found a house miles away on one of the other country roads?

She realized he was talking and forced herself to tune in.

“… a done deal yet. The family will have to accept the offer….” He stopped, stared at her. “But I really want that house, Rosalie. I’ll start to feel more like a part of the community once I’ve moved in.” He waited for a reaction from her and when he didn’t get one he said, “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

At the risk of choking she said, “Congratulations, Bryce.” She almost said, Once again you’ll get everything you want, but instead said the words she knew her eavesdropping mother would be waiting for. “I hope you’re happy in the new place.”

He smiled. “Since we’ll be living so close, maybe you’ll bring me a cup of sugar if I need to borrow it.”

That was the last straw. In spite of Claudia’s listening to every word, Rosalie said, “Look around you, Bryce. Nothing but fields and barns and open space. This isn’t Wisteria Lane for heaven’s sake. We don’t meet in the mornings for coffee and in the afternoons for margaritas.”

She spared a glance in her mother’s direction and immediately felt the sting of her heated gaze. Well, sorry, Ma.

“I’m kind of disappointed to hear that, Rosalie,” Bryce said. “I was hoping we could put the past behind us.”

Rosalie let out a long breath and with it, some of the anger trapped in her chest. “Bryce, I hope you become the best football coach this town has ever known. And I hope you get as much out of this job as you can. I really do. But as far as you and I are concerned, the past will always be an issue. It won’t go away. It shaped us, made us who we are.” And I won’t let your coming back to town change the woman I’ve become now. I can’t.

He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her an intense stare. “Rosalie, Ricky was the best friend I ever had,” he said so only she could hear. “You were the second-best until one day you became so much more. I can’t forget that. I don’t want to forget it.”

“Then you’ll have to live with it any way you can. That’s what I’ve had to do.”

He started to say something but stopped when two cars pulled into the lot. Excited passengers spilled out of the doors and headed to the stand. Bryce gave her one last look, filled with sadness and longing. “I’ll see you around, Rosie-girl,” he said, calling her by a former pet name. “But it’s all just a damn shame.”

“That we can agree on,” she said.

He said goodbye to Claudia, got in his truck and drove off. And Rosalie began greeting customers. Anything to avoid the censure in her mother’s eyes and an old longing that was trying to squeeze its way into her heart.

Chapter Four

Live with it any way you can.

Those words spoken by Rosalie at the Campano produce stand yesterday continued to haunt Bryce as he dressed in shorts and a T-shirt for his first official visit to Whistler Creek High School’s athletic building. Without giving his mother a chance to discuss the real estate deal he’d entered into Sunday afternoon, he gave her a peck on her cheek, poured himself a mug of coffee and dashed out the door to his truck. He didn’t feel up to another argument this morning.

“What is it exactly that Rosalie expects of me?” he said aloud as he drove down the wide country road bordered by estate homes and green patches of rich, fertile farmland.

Obviously nothing, you thickheaded dolt!

The truck’s air-conditioning blasted him over the rim of the mug as he took a swig of steaming coffee. “And why the hell can’t you leave it at that?” he added, setting the cup into the drink holder.

Of course, he knew the answer to that question. Once Rosalie had mattered to him more than any other person he’d ever known. She and Ricky had been his constant companions for years. And then, one brilliant spring day at the end of their senior year in high school, he’d realized he was crazy in love with Rosie. Nothing in his life so far had equaled the pure, sweet jubilation, nor packed the emotional wallop, of that moment.

Thinking back now, it seemed to Bryce that Rosalie had come to the same conclusion as he had at the exact same minute in time on the momentous morning one day after their senior prom. Neither of their dates had made it to the ritual breakfast, this year hosted at the Benton home on Little River Road. Rosalie’s date, nursing a headache from too much booze the night before, had gone to church at his parents’ insistence. Bryce’s date, the girl he’d been with since his junior year, had slept in, refusing to even pick up the phone when he’d called that morning to rouse her.

Suddenly finding themselves stag at a date affair, and totally comfortable with each other, Bryce and Rosalie had wandered into the peach orchard with two wineglasses, a pitcher of fresh orange juice and a chilled bottle of champagne Bryce had pilfered from his father’s wine cellar. They’d laughed at the pop of the cork and jumped back as the frothing liquid had poured from the bottle, sending sparkles of golden wine over Rosalie’s flowered sundress.

Bryce made the mimosas a little strong, handed Rosalie a glass and suggested they wrap their arms in a traditional romantic toast. All fun and games, right? They’d sipped and smiled at each other as if they were Hollywood romance legends. Rosalie had batted those long black lashes that every girl in high school had envied, and Bryce leaned in to give her a kiss on her cheek. That’s what he’d intended. Only the force of some crazy cosmic collision seemed to take control of his body and he’d claimed her lips. To this day he didn’t know why. He only knew that when their mouths touched, hers soft as the peach-scented breeze that morning, his greedy and seeking, nothing had ever been the same.

Bryce navigated the moderate traffic of downtown Whistler Creek to the high school and parked in the lot reserved for teachers. Only one other car was there, a gray SUV with a faculty sticker on the windshield. He took cartons from the back of his truck, loaded them onto a two-wheeled cart and walked past the high school. Taking the track around the football field, he came to the freestanding athletic center where his office was located. The building had been dedicated ten years earlier, thanks to public tax dollars, corporate donations and too many bake sales to count.

Dexter Canfield had given Bryce a key to the facility, so he unlocked the door and went inside. The smells of sweat and socks and the indefinable scent of masculine dreams greeted him as he walked down a short hallway decorated with commemorative bricks inscribed with contributor names. Bryce stopped long enough to read the name Benton Farms in the short list of $5,000 benefactors. He entered the first office on the right where the name plaque on the door already said “Coach Benton.”

The office had been cleaned out in preparation for his takeover. Someone had spackled over reminders of the previous occupant’s certificates and photos. Fresh beige paint covered the walls. The large metal desk in the center of the room was free of clutter, and Bryce found the drawers empty. He set his cartons on top of the desk and began taking out his belongings and stacking files and documents in some sort of manageable order.

He would hang his diplomas and framed recognitions on the wall behind the desk. Research materials and empty file folders waiting for paperwork on players went into the plain gray file cabinet. He spread his playbooks and coaching charts on top of the desk, sat in the utilitarian metal chair and flipped through the material, deciding which formations would work for a coach starting up with a new team.

After a couple hours, he took a break to simply appreciate being where he’d always wanted to end up. He stared out a wide window that overlooked the field where, in a short time, he’d teach a bunch of raw players to become productive team members. One adult wearing shorts and a polo shirt stood on the sideline while two teens practiced pitching and catching a baseball in the center of the practice area.

Bryce spread his hands on the desktop and watched the interplay between the man and the boys. The man was obviously coaching. Bryce understood the connection between a coach and his players. He understood what each meant to the other, how each player individually was a vital link to the success of the whole. How parents and family and friends contributed to what happened on the field.

He imagined Bucky Lowell in this office and figured he probably had had pictures of his family on this desk, images that comforted and supported him. Bryce had no pictures to put here, no wife or children to think of while he made decisions that affected so many lives and dreams. Audrey had taken his dream of kids away from him.

He sighed. Maybe, if the house deal went through, he’d get a dog, a photogenic one. And maybe, if he got really lucky, he’d marry again and have those couple of kids he’d always wanted. And then quite unexpectedly, an image of Rosalie came to his mind, the way she looked now—grown up but still with a youthful sultriness that took his breath despite the sadness of the past in her eyes. He shook his head. “Don’t even go there, Bryce,” he said. “The woman has made her attitude about you perfectly clear.”

He left his office and wandered onto the practice field where the informal baseball session was still going on. The adult waved him over and stuck out his hand when Bryce approached. “Coach Benton,” the man said. “Welcome to Whistler Creek. Or, welcome back I should say.”

Bryce shook hands. “Thanks. It’s been a long time.”

“I’m Ted Fanning, baseball coach,” the man said. “This will be my third year on the faculty.”

“Nice to meet you.” Bryce shielded his eyes and looked at the boys on the field. “I guess those are a couple of your stars?”

“That’s right.” He pointed. “Watch that pitcher. He’ll knock your socks off.”

Bryce observed the kid wind up and let loose with a curveball that seemed good enough to have been computer generated. “Wow. The kid’s good.”

“You bet he is.” Coach Fanning cupped his hands around his mouth. “Let’s see a fastball, Danny!”

The boy obliged and Bryce whistled in appreciation. “Damn. That pitch had to be nearly eighty miles an hour.”

Fanning grinned. “I’ve clocked him at eighty-two. And how about that accuracy? The catcher barely has to move his arm. And the best thing is, I don’t have to worry about the kid’s dedication. Here it is, off-season, and he practically begs me for extra practice time.”

Bryce continued to watch the phenom pitcher with mounting admiration. “How old is he?”

“Hard to believe, but he’s only going to be a freshman this year.” Again the grin. “I’ll have him four more years. A coach’s dream.”

Yeah, and definite quarterback material. Bryce couldn’t help fantasizing about seeing the kid in a football practice jersey. He’d already determined that the quarterback spot on the Wildcats would be up for grabs at the end of the current season. And he had no good prospect coming up the ranks. Unless …

“Ah, tell me something, Coach,” he said.

“Sure thing.”

“Do you think this kid might be interested in playing football along with baseball?”

Fanning’s smile faded. “You’re not thinking of taking my player, are you?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Bryce said. “Just thought maybe he could do both.”

Fanning scratched his head. “You’re seeing him in a quarterback spot, aren’t you?”

“He’s got the arm for it.”

Fanning thought a moment. “The seasons don’t overlap. And he’s certainly dedicated enough to go through additional training….”

Bryce sensed a “but” on the tip of Fanning’s tongue. He waited. “So what is it? You don’t want to share him?”

“I don’t want a football injury affecting his pitching arm. And …”

“And what?” Bryce said.

“I know this kid’s mother, and I don’t think she’d be in favor of him playing football. She thinks it’s dangerous.”

Bryce didn’t see that as a big problem. He’d persuaded reluctant parents into getting over football phobias before. “I’d talk to her,” he said.

“You could try, but she’s also a stickler for grades.”

“Is the kid smart enough to handle the load of schoolwork and two sports?”

“I suppose, but this mom is a special case.” Fanning’s expression became wary. “She’s going to be a hard sell, and I ought to know. I’m kind of dating her.”

He announced the end of the practice session and Bryce kept his sights on the pitcher as the boys crossed the field. “Never hurts to ask though, does it?” he said to Ted.

“Go ahead. Talk to him.”

Fanning put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Nice workout, fellas. By the way, this is Whistler Creek’s new football coach, boys. Coach Benton.”

The teen who’d been catching Danny’s pitches said hi and excused himself to head for the showers. Danny remained. He wiped his palm on his shorts and shook hands with Bryce. He was tall, only a couple inches shorter than Bryce. Definitely tall enough to fit the bill as QB. And there could still be a growth spurt in his future.

“I’ve heard about you,” Danny said.

“And I’ve been watching you,” Bryce said. “Good pitching style you’ve developed there.”

Danny kicked a clod of dirt with his cleat. “Thanks.”

Fanning looked from one to the other. “As a matter of fact, Danny, Coach here was wondering if you might be interested in playing for the football team.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Well, we’ve been kicking the idea around,” Bryce said. “There would have to be tryouts….”

The instantaneous enthusiasm faded from the boy’s eyes. “I don’t know how my mom would like the idea. Her brother …”

Danny paused, and a fifteen-year-old pain coiled in Bryce’s gut. “Who is your mother, Danny?”

“She teaches at the high school,” he said. “You … ah, you know her. Miss Campano, the English teacher.”

Bryce could only gawk at Danny as if the kid had suddenly sprouted a second head. “You’re Rosalie’s son?” he repeated needlessly.

“Yeah.”

Damn. Bryce’s goal of nabbing the ideal quarterback suddenly didn’t even seem a remote possibility. Of course Rosie wouldn’t want her kid playing football. Of course she wouldn’t want him playing for Bryce.

He walked Fanning a few steps away from Danny and spoke so only the coach could hear. “Do you know my connection to Rosalie’s brother?” he asked.

“I’ve heard, but I don’t want to get in the middle of this.” Fanning rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “History can sure come back to bite you in the ass, can’t it, Coach?”

Bryce realized he must look witless. He tried to smile at Danny Campano. “Nice meeting you, Danny,” he said. “I’ll see you around.”

As he walked back to the athletic center, Bryce wondered how fortune could be so fickle. Show him a shining future star and then snuff it out behind a giant rain cloud. But what bothered him just as much was why he kept thinking about what Fanning had said about Rosalie. “I ought to know. I’m kind of dating her.”

When Rosalie pulled into the high school lot, she immediately noticed the familiar tricked-out black pickup parked under the shade of an old oak tree.

“Great,” she muttered to herself and chose a spot several spaces away. She backed in, turned off her engine and looked at her watch. A little before noon. If Danny was on time, a rarity when he was practicing, she’d see him sprinting across the practice field in just a few minutes. Hopefully they would be on their way home before Bryce returned to his truck.

Unfortunately the male figure she saw moments later wasn’t Danny. Even from a distance, Rosalie recognized the features of the man who had been her childhood friend, her teenage companion and her eventual heartthrob. She lowered her sunglasses and stared, allowing herself the guilty pleasure of enjoying the natural grace of his walk, the confident swagger in his step. She smirked to herself. The man was still just too darned sexy for his own good.

She couldn’t look at Bryce without remembering that morning after the prom and the scent of peaches mingling with his crisp, clean aftershave. She couldn’t look at him without recalling the first mind-blowing kiss in the orchard, the first time his hands teased tingles of pleasure out of her eager young body. The first time he … She squeezed her eyes shut. As always, the most tender memory of all was obliterated by the image of her brother unconscious on the ground, the sound of her own sobs and the cry of anguish from Bryce’s lips.