Anything for Her Children

He moved quickly toward the exit, his long strides eating up the ground until he was through the gym door and in the parking lot. He unlocked the driver’s-side door of his car with his remote, looking forward to sliding inside and turning the radio way, way up. When he got home, he’d pop open a beer, put up his feet and watch Sports Center. After the train wreck today had been, he deserved to relax a little.

“Hey, wait a minute.” The tap of heels on the pavement of the parking lot followed the sound of the woman’s voice. “I’m not through talking to you.”

After casting a brief, longing look at his car, he stopped and turned. She was coming so fast, she would have slammed into him had he not put out a hand to stop her.

Beneath the coat, her shoulders felt surprisingly delicate for somebody with such fierce determination on her face. He dropped his hand, but she didn’t step back.

“Did you know there were college recruiters from Temple and Villanova in the stands tonight? Because of you, Bryan didn’t get a chance to show them what he can do.”

Grady had known about the recruiters, but in his opinion Bryan was the reason Bryan hadn’t gotten to play in front of the scouts.

“You’re wasting your time. I don’t care if you’re Bryan Charleton’s biggest fan, I’m not talking about him with you.”

“You think I’m a fan?” Her eyes, as dark as the night around them, flashed. He noticed she had the thinnest of spaces between her two front teeth.

“You’re not his mother,” Grady stated.

She stood up straighter, which still put her at eight or nine inches below Grady’s height. “Oh, yes I am.”

He took a closer look at her, noting her youngish face and smooth skin. “You can’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two.”

“I’m twenty-five,” she snapped. “Bryan’s my adopted son. And you owe me an explanation.”

He’d rather hear the story of how she’d come to adopt a teenage boy only eight years her junior, but she appeared in no mood to satisfy his curiosity.

“You’d already have had an explanation if you’d introduced yourself before you lit into me,” he said. “I’m Grady Quinlan, by the way.”

“I know your name.”

“Yet I still don’t know yours.”

For the first time since she’d approached him, she looked uneasy. “Keri Cassidy.”

He hadn’t expected to recognize the name, but he was sure he’d heard it before. He searched his mind but couldn’t place where or when.

“Well, then, Keri Cassidy, I’ll tell you what I told Bryan. I don’t care how good he is, if he cheats at school, he gets suspended.”

“What?” The early January air was cold enough that her breath came out in a frosty puff. “Bryan doesn’t cheat.”

“I say he does.”

“He doesn’t need to cheat. He’s a good student. He’s getting at least a B in every class.”

“Those aren’t necessarily the grades he deserves.”

“That’s for his teachers to decide.”

“I am one of his teachers.”

He could tell the information surprised her. Bryan must not have told her he’d had a teaching as well as a coaching change.

“Which class?” she asked.

“Nutrition and exercise. I took over Coach Cartwright’s classes. The students are required to write papers. I have information that Bryan didn’t write his.”

She angled her head, and he felt as if she was trying to see inside him. “Information? From whom?”

“From the girl who wrote the paper for him, which I understand happens in his other classes, too.”

“Did Bryan admit to this?”

“No.”

Her head shook, rustling her hair. “Then you can’t possibly know for sure it’s true.”

“I wouldn’t have suspended him if I didn’t believe it.” He stamped his feet. The temperature felt to be in the twenties and dropping. His hands were cold, and he no longer had sensation in his ears.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but he stopped her. “Go home and talk to Bryan. If you have more to discuss, I’ll be in my office after practice tomorrow. Noon.”

She seemed about ready to protest, then a squall of wind whipped across the parking lot, blowing hair into her face. She brushed the strands back. “Oh, I’ll still want to discuss it. You can count on that.”

She hurried off. Despite the cold, he stared after her, noticing the same girl he’d seen with her earlier now waited in the lighted lobby of the gym. A younger sister? Another adoptive child?

He craned his neck, expecting to see a man with them, but they were alone when they emerged from the building. Keri Cassidy put her arm around the girl, as though shielding her from the world. They headed for a dark-colored Volvo across the lot from where he was parked.

Halfway there, the girl looked up and stared at him. Keri Cassidy’s head lifted. He couldn’t see her expression or hear what she said but knew by her body language that it wasn’t good.

The wind gusted again, this time carrying a few snowflakes. Grady became aware that he hadn’t moved since she left his side. He fought to keep his chin up as he walked through the wind-whipped parking lot to his car.

After what he’d been through at Carolina State, he should be used to people thinking the worst about him. But somehow, he wasn’t.

CHAPTER TWO

K ERI FOUND B RYAN LYING on his bed, his earphones blotting out all noise except the songs on his MP3 player.

She knocked on the open door, but he didn’t sit up until she stepped into his field of vision. His eyes were no longer red, but a few balled-up tissues littered the floor near the wastebasket. He wore a Springhill High basketball T-shirt and team sweatpants.

She didn’t yet have all the facts, but her heart already ached for him. She hesitated, unsure of how to proceed, which wasn’t usually the way she felt around Bryan. It was how she always felt when dealing with Rose.

“Springhill lost by six,” she finally told him.

Bryan indicated the sleek black cell phone beside him on the bed. “I know. Hubie text messaged. He told me about the college scouts.”

Keri nodded. The verification seemed to make him feel worse. He hung his head, his expression dejected. Keri had never seen Bryan like this before.

If not for basketball, Keri might have worried that the easygoing Bryan would let life pass him by. But on court, he turned into a fierce competitor.

“Can I sit down?” she asked.

He moved over, making room for her on the extralong bed she’d special-ordered so his feet wouldn’t hang over the end.

His bedroom couldn’t have been more different from Rose’s. Everything had a place, from the neat rows of books on his bookshelf to the stacks of CDs behind his bed. He’d replaced the posters of NBA stars that used to adorn his walls with an assortment of excellent photographs he’d taken himself, but left in place shelves crowded with basketball trophies.

“I talked to Coach Quinlan after the game,” Keri said.

Bryan let out a harsh sound, making it very clear what he thought of his basketball coach. Keri was still making up her mind. Aside from his height, the coach hadn’t looked the way she’d expected him to. With short brown hair that sprang back from his forehead in thick waves, high cheekbones and clear hazel eyes, he resembled a grown-up version of the All-American boy. But she had enough sense not to judge the caliber of a man by the strength of his good looks.

“I didn’t know Coach Quinlan was one of your teachers,” she continued.

“Lucky me,” Bryan muttered under his breath, his sarcasm heavy and uncharacteristic.

“He said he suspended you because someone else wrote the paper you turned in.”

Bryan spun toward her, his dark eyes wide. He looked so much like his mother at that moment that Keri’s breath caught. “And you believe I’d do something like that?”

She didn’t. Rose hadn’t been far off when she’d remarked that Bryan didn’t drive Keri crazy. In the three years since she’d become their guardian and later their adoptive mother, Keri had few complaints. Oh, Bryan sometimes forgot to phone and let her know where he was. And he’d arrived home after curfew more than once. But overall, he was a very good kid.

“I didn’t say I believed it,” Keri said slowly, “but I would like to hear your side of the story.”

“I wrote my own paper. That’s my side.”

“Then why does Coach Quinlan think someone else wrote it?”

“Because Becky Harding is mad I didn’t ask her to the Snowball Dance.”

“Becky Harding?” Keri tried to remember if he’d mentioned the girl before but couldn’t place her name. So many girls congregated around Bryan that Keri couldn’t even recall the name of the tall, willowy blonde he’d taken to the dance. “Who’s she?”

“Some cheerleader who has a thing for me. We hung out a couple of times, sure, but she made too much of it.”

“So this Becky Harding, she told Coach Quinlan she wrote your paper?”

“Yeah, but she can’t prove it. It wasn’t handwritten or anything.”

“So why didn’t you offer to show him the saved document on your computer?”

“Becky told him she sent it to me electronically, then erased it.”

Bryan had given the impression he’d just found out about the suspension when he showed up at the house before game time, but he seemed to know an awful lot about the details.

“Bryan, when did Coach Quinlan suspend you?” Keri asked.

He answered her immediately. “At school today.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Because the charges are bogus. I thought Coach would realize that and let me play. I just don’t get him.” Bryan made a noise and shook his head. “Must be on some kind of power trip.”

Keri tried to make sense of that. “But if the story’s not true, what motive would he have to suspend his best player?”

“To prove he’s a hard-ass,” Bryan retorted.

Keri slanted him a look rich with disapproval.

“Sorry,” Bryan said quickly. “I meant he’s one of those tough guys who won’t change his mind no matter what.”

“And you think he’s made up his mind about you?”

“He believed Becky Harding, didn’t he?”

“Did you tell him your side?”

“Hell, y—I mean, yes, ma’am. But he wouldn’t listen. He has this chip on his shoulder, like he has something to prove.”

“What can he possibly prove without his best player on the floor?”

“That he’s such a good coach he can win with anybody in the lineup.”

The logic seemed skewed to Keri, but then she couldn’t relate to the Grady Quinlans of the world. “I’ll talk to him again tomorrow after practice.”

Bryan didn’t say anything for a few moments. “How ’bout if I ask Mr. Marco to be there, too?”

At the name of the school’s athletic director, Keri felt her muscles tense. “I didn’t realize you and Mr. Marco had that close of a relationship.”

“Me, neither,” Bryan said. “But he told me at the beginning of the season to come to him if I needed anything. He even gave me his cell number.”

“I don’t think—”

“Please, Keri,” Bryan pleaded, leaning closer to her. She smelled the body spray he’d started to use when he noticed girls noticing him. “Mr. Marco will be on our side.”

She hesitated, but Bryan gazed at her so beseechingly that in the end there was only one answer she could give. “Okay.”

She tried to return Bryan’s grateful smile, but her mind was already preoccupied with tomorrow’s meeting. She couldn’t say which of the two men she looked less forward to dealing with.

Grady Quinlan, the basketball coach who thought he had the right to ruin Bryan’s future. Or Tony Marco, the man to whom Keri might have pledged her own future if he hadn’t unexpectedly broken their engagement.

H ANDS LOCKED BEHIND HIS back, Grady watched the Springhill High players finish the last of the line sprints that usually signaled the end of practice.

The more free throws they missed during the two hours of practice, the more they ran.

Bryan Charleton, the best free-throw shooter on the team, usually loudly urged his teammates to follow his example as he sank shot after shot.

Bryan hadn’t shown up for practice today.

The soles of basketball shoes squeaked over the court, then silenced, the only sounds the harsh inhales and exhales as the players fought to get their breathing to return to normal. Some of the boys bent at the waist, sweat trickling down their faces and dripping to the floor. Others, their arms folded above their heads so their elbows angled outward, started to file toward the locker room.

“Not so fast.” Grady’s voice rang out in the gym. “Give me one more. Hubie and Sam, touch every line this time or we’ll do it again.”

Groans drowned out the heavy breathing.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hubie groused.

“Make that two more,” Grady said. “Anybody got anything else to say?”

Nobody did. Eleven of the twelve members of the Springhill High varsity lined up shoulder to shoulder on the baseline, some of them red-faced, all of them damp with perspiration. Grady ignored the internal voice that told him to give the kids a break.

Coaches used to refer to the drill they were about to repeat as “suicides” before the term was deemed politically incorrect. The players were required to sprint to the near foul line, the half-court line, the far foul line and the far baseline, bending to touch each line in turn before returning to their starting place.

This time every player touched every line, although a couple of the boys looked ready to collapse when they finished.

“We’ve got tomorrow off so I’ll see you Monday,” Grady said, then left the court before another team member had a chance to say something Grady would have to make him regret.

Only then did he notice Keri Cassidy, who lingered near the door that led to the athletic offices.

She’d dressed more her age today, in blue jeans and a quilted blue jacket, her hair falling to her shoulders in loose waves. She appeared to be wearing little or no makeup, a fresh-faced look he found appealing.

“Did you have to be so hard on them?” she asked when he was close enough that she didn’t have to shout.

She might not look like a mom, but she sure sounded like one.

He considered telling her that, contrary to popular opinion, he didn’t enjoy being the bad guy. That he’d embraced the roll for the good of the young men on his team.

But she wouldn’t understand, not if she’d come here to defend Bryan Charleton.

“Yeah,” he said, and walked past her to the door. He held it open, nodding across the wide hallway to his office.

“We can talk there.”

The office was the same one Fuzz Cartwright had used for the twenty-two years he’d been head basketball coach at Springhill. Grady watched Keri’s eyes travel over the interior walls—painted gold, of course—that Cartwright had decorated with photos of district championship teams and Coach of the Year plaques.

“Have a seat.” Grady indicated one of two chairs across from the worn wood desk. He sat behind the desk. His usual style was considerably less formal, but he had a strong feeling that Keri Cassidy was about to challenge his authority.

Deciding it was to his advantage to get in the first word, he asked, “Any idea why Bryan wasn’t at practice?”

“Because you suspended him.” She seemed to think the answer was obvious.

“He’s part of the team. He’s supposed to come to practice.”

“Did you tell him that?” He wouldn’t call the narrow-eyed way she regarded him a glare, exactly, but it was close. Grady seldom noted eye color but her eyes were green. “Because how’s a kid who’s never been suspended before supposed to know the rules?”

“Everybody knows the rules.”

“I don’t. Bryan obviously doesn’t.”

Grady wasn’t ready to concede that Bryan’s absence had been innocent, but this line of conversation wasn’t getting them anywhere. “What did Bryan say when you asked him about the paper?”

“He says he—”

Three short raps on the frame of the open door interrupted her reply. His cousin Tony entered the office as though he’d been invited. In chinos, a long-sleeved black polo shirt the color of his hair and a fresh shave, he looked far better than he did most Saturday mornings. He turned to Keri with an apologetic shrug. “Sorry I’m late.”

Grady addressed Keri, not hiding his surprise. “You asked Tony to be here?”

“Bryan asked,” Keri replied, eyes on Grady instead of Tony.

Tony sat down, inching his chair marginally closer to Keri’s. “I’m happy to help you anytime I can, Keri.”

Two against one, Grady thought. His cousin had already made it known how he felt about the suspension. Grady’s eyes fell on his cousin’s hand, resting on the arm of Keri’s chair. But how did Tony feel about Keri?

“K—” Grady stopped himself from using her first name, realized he didn’t know whether or not she was married and glanced at the ring finger of her left hand. Bare. “Ms. Cassidy was about to tell me what Bryan said about cheating.”

“He said he didn’t cheat.” Her reply was immediate, her tone sharp.

No surprise there.

“He said the girl who accused him has a grudge against him.” She firmed her chin. “And I believe him.”

“I think the issue is why Grady believes the girl,” Tony said, as if his was the voice of reason. When his cousin confronted him about this very issue before last night’s game, Grady got the distinct impression Tony didn’t care why Grady believed Bryan was guilty. Or even if Bryan was guilty.

“The girl told me what Web sites she used as source material,” Grady said.

“That’s it?” Keri asked, expressive eyes wide and disbelieving. “That’s all the proof you have?”

“That’s not all.” He leveled her with the stare that caused his players to flinch. She didn’t move a muscle. “I asked Bryan questions about what was in the paper, and he couldn’t answer.”

“Now, I don’t want to take sides here,” Tony said, “but isn’t it possible Bryan didn’t retain the information? The paper was about nutrition, right? I can’t even remember the five food groups.”

Grady crossed his arms over his chest. “You didn’t just write a paper about them.”

“True. But you haven’t been teaching at Springhill long. I know the personalities better than you do.”

Unswayed, Grady said nothing.

“C’mon, man,” Tony said. “I’m telling you Bryan’s all right. You and me go back far enough that you can trust my judgment.”

Keri turned her head to gaze at Tony, the first time she’d looked directly at him since he entered the office. “You knew Coach Quinlan before he started teaching at the school?”

“Remember I told you I had a cousin who played college ball?” Tony phrased the question as though he’d told Keri a lot of things. As though they had the type of relationship where they shared confidences. “Grady’s that cousin.”

“Isn’t there some rule against hiring a relative?”

“Not that I know of,” Tony said. “Even if there was, this is a special case. We needed somebody fast after Coach Cartwright had the heart attack. We’re lucky Grady was available.”

It sounded to Grady as though Tony was trying to justify his decision. The knowledge rankled, but not as much as the disapproval would once the relationship between Grady and the athletic director got out. Grady wondered if Keri Cassidy would be the one to spread the word.

“Where’d you play?” Keri asked.

Grady didn’t usually avoid direct questions, but since the scandal he preferred not to talk about Carolina State.

“I didn’t play. I sat the bench and watched.”

“Perfect training for a coach,” Tony interjected.

“A good coach knows as much about his players as he does basketball,” Keri said. “Did you know Bryan lost his mother in a car accident? Playing basketball got him through it. It’s his dream to play in college.”

Grady hadn’t known about Bryan’s mother, but he’d only been coach of the Springhill varsity for a little more than two weeks. In truth, he had as many questions about how Keri had ended up adopting Bryan as he did about Bryan. Steeling himself against the plea in her eyes to go easier on her child, he said, “Then he shouldn’t have cheated on that paper.”

She opened her mouth, probably to leap again to Bryan’s defense, but Tony spoke first.

“We seem to have reached an impasse,” Tony said. “But since the team needs Bryan as much as Bryan needs the team, why don’t we compromise? Grady, how about letting Bryan play if he turns in another paper?”

“If Bryan doesn’t turn in another paper—handwritten, so I know he did the work himself—he’ll flunk the class,” Grady said.

Keri edged forward in her seat. “What about the suspension? Is it indefinite?”

“He turns in the paper, he can play in the game this coming Friday. That was my plan all along.”

“Friday? What about Tuesday?” Keri asked. Springhill typically played twice a week, and the Cougars’ next game was at home Tuesday night.

“Friday,” Grady repeated. “I want to impress upon him how serious the offense is.”

“You can’t even be sure he cheated!”

“I’m sure.” He clenched his jaw. “And I’m not going to discuss it anymore. I’ve made up my mind.”

Her face flushed. “But you—”

“You heard the man, Keri,” Tony interrupted. “Take it from me. When Grady digs in his feet, there’s nothing that’ll unearth him.”

In other words, Grady thought, Tony didn’t agree with him, either. Too bad. Tony had entrusted Grady to do what was right. Standing firm on Bryan’s punishment was right.

Tony got to his feet and smoothed down the front of his chinos. “You’ll tell Bryan what we decided. Right, Keri?”

She waited a few sullen beats before she replied, “Right.”

“Then let me walk you to your car,” Tony offered.

Keri sat rigidly in the chair, saying nothing. Grady supposed he could attribute her stiff posture to simmering anger toward him, but he didn’t think that was the only reason.

After a lengthy pause, Keri stood up and preceded Tony out of the office. Tony touched her on the shoulder as she passed by. Had Grady not been watching carefully, he would have missed Keri subtly shrugging off Tony’s hand.

Something was going on between Keri and his cousin, he concluded. And he was curious to know what it was.

K ERI LEFT THE COACH’S office, barely conscious of placing one foot in front of the other, her mind on the thing she most wanted to say to the almighty Coach Grady Quinlan.

You’re an ass for not believing Bryan. Bryan had been through so much—he and Rose—surely he’d never lie about something like this.

“That went okay,” Tony said.

“Which part?” Keri retorted. “When he called Bryan a liar? Or when he said Bryan couldn’t play in the game Tuesday?”

“Look at it this way. It’s not a district game, so it won’t hurt our play-off chances.” Tony didn’t need to explain that only games against district opponents counted in the standings. “And it’s only one more game.”

“A game your cousin could let Bryan play if he chose.”

“True,” Tony said. “I see you’re not a fan of Grady’s.”

“I don’t imagine he has many of those. Arrogance isn’t an attractive trait.”

“He’s not so bad.”

“He’s worse,” Keri muttered.

“I’m surprised you didn’t tell him that. You’ve never been one to hold back your opinions.” He made the observations casually, as though he knew her inside and out. The way he had three years ago.

Before he’d dumped her.

They were nearly to the door leading to the parking lot. She stopped. “I don’t need you to walk me to my car, Tony.”

“I know that.” He smiled at her in the way that used to set her heart racing. “But I want to. You’ve said more to me in the past five minutes than you have in the past few years.”

That wasn’t exactly true. Springhill had a population of fifteen thousand, small enough that town residents ran into one another from time to time. Especially when the basketball player living in the house of one of the residents starred at the school where the other person served as athletic director.