From the Start (3 page)

What if he won Lilah back right now, in front of the cameras and everything?

If he could just find the right words.

“So you
do
credit your performance in that game to your high-profile break—”

“I credit my performance to a bad pass.” He avoided looking at Ian. Instead made eye contact with the nosy reporter who he just might thank if this turned out well. “As for Lilah, she’s . . . she’s an amazing woman.”

She really was. In addition to her political activities, she still directed Colton’s foundation—not that they’d gotten very far turning the foundation into anything worthwhile. He’d mostly started it last year because that’s what other athletes did. But if anyone could make something of it, Lilah could.

“Even after all these months, I . . . I still . . .”
I still love her.
The words stalled in his throat, hazy uncertainty fogging over him.
Say it, Colt. Make the grand gesture.

Why couldn’t he get the words out?

And then that same reporter. “Well, have you talked to her since her engagement?”

A thudding silence dropped like an anvil.

“To Ray Bannem. The governor’s reelection campaign manager. Have you spoken with her since the news broke last night?”

Another camera flash.

“I . . . have not.”

Lilah? Engaged?

To someone else.

Hadn’t his world already tilted enough?

Congratulate her. Say
you wish her the best. Smile. Don’t let them
see . . .

But all he could do was stand, empty water bottle tipping and rolling down the table.

“I believe we’re done here.”

2

K
ate probably would’ve lost this game regardless. But with Frederick Langston’s words ping-ponging around in her brain, her demise was a certainty.

“I know it’s a crazy thing to ask. A
long shot. And an expensive one at that. But after
I got your letter—”

“Stay on the road, Katie.”

Breydan’s laughter bounced into her thoughts, and she angled her Wii remote, eyes latched on the TV in the eight-year-old’s bedroom. “I’m trying.”

On the flat screen, Breydan’s car whizzed past the finish line. He dropped his controller, lifting skinny arms into the air. “First place.” The futon they sat on barely shifted at Breydan’s movement.

“Every stinkin’ time.” And then, just like it had for the past four races, the game cut her off before she had a chance to finish the course. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to buy my own Wii, practice in my free time, and next time, I’m so gonna win.” Or at least steer well enough to complete the race.

“It’s not my fault I’m good at Mario Kart and you’re not.”

“Why, you . . .” She reached out as if to tickle him, then instead leaned in for a side hug. He tried to wriggle away, feigned
an annoyed protest, but then—just like she knew he would—gave in and let her squeeze.

When she finally released him, Breydan looked up at her, brown eyes brimming with playfulness despite the circles of purple underneath. “Another race?”

His bald scalp and tiny frame might have been his standout features to anyone else, but to Kate, it was still Breydan’s gap-toothed smile that captured her heart without fail. She reached for her remote. “Another race, for sure.”

And not only because she’d lose to Breydan a hundred times if it made him happy, but also because she’d heard an unfamiliar male voice drifting from the kitchen when she arrived at Marcus and Hailey’s.

They thought they were so sneaky, didn’t they? Another blind date. And a surprise one, at that. At least she’d been able to escape up to Breydan’s bedroom before Hailey had a chance to whisk her into the kitchen to meet their latest scrounged-up Prince Charming.

And here she’d been hoping to snag some alone time with Hail. Advice. She needed advice way more than she needed a man. Because while she’d been praying for an open window, in one short phone call with Frederick Langston, God had gone and blown the walls off her house.

And she had no idea what to do.

“You ready to go, Brey?” Hailey appeared in the doorway of Breydan’s bedroom. “Your ride’s going to be here any minute. All packed?”

Breydan stood and walked to the twin bed nudged up to the opposite wall, its football-patterned comforter matching the rest of the room’s décor—football-shaped lamp on an end table, framed posters. “Katie doesn’t want me to go.” He picked up his backpack.

Kate rose, palmed his head as if it were a basketball. “Oh, I’ll get over it and forgive you, B-man. This once.”

Breydan’s focus flitted from Kate to his bag and back to her. “It’s just . . . Luke is the only friend whose house I ever get to go to ’cause he’s sick too, so his bedroom is all sterile and stuff. But I don’t have to go.”

“Don’t be silly, mister. Go to your sleepover.”

He dropped his bag and barreled into her for another hug—the full thing this time, bony arms extending around her waist. “Thanks, Katie.”

“Count yourself lucky,” Hailey said, picking up her son’s bag and shaking reddish bangs from her forehead. “Anyone else calls her Katie and they get clobbered.”

“I’m special.” Breydan said the smug words into her stomach, squeezed again, and then backed up.

“Oh wait. Can’t believe I almost forgot.” Kate reached for the messenger bag she’d plopped on the futon and pulled out a blue-and-orange jersey.

“No way. Peyton Manning?”

“Of course. You did say he’s your favorite, right?” Wouldn’t surprise her if she’d gotten it wrong. Football was a language she didn’t speak. But for Breydan, she’d do anything—including sitting through a game that made about as much sense to her as Swahili.

Breydan was pulling the jersey over his T-shirt when a honk sounded from outside. “That’s my ride. Thanks for the jersey, Katie. Luke’s gonna be so jealous.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder and raced from the room, the sound of footsteps thumping down the stairs tracking his movement.

Hailey stuck her head into the hallway. “Don’t forget to say bye to Dad on the way out.” She turned back to Kate. “I think dinner’s almost ready.”

Kate narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You guys will never give up, will you?”

Hailey flipped straight hair over her shoulder, then bent down to pick up one of Breydan’s abandoned plastic footballs. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kate folded her arms. “I know an ambush when I see one. Or in this case, hear it.” And even if she hadn’t already heard the man’s voice, there’d been the soft lilt of jazz music trickling through the first floor. The fancy setup of the dining room table. Both Hailey and Marcus in nice clothes.

And she, in her oldest jeans and barely enough makeup to count. Lovely.

“Sending Breydan away, though? That was low.”

Hailey tossed the football into a toy-filled net hanging in one corner of the room. “Hey, for the record, we didn’t invite Rhett until
after
Breydan got asked to the sleepover.”

Rhett, huh.
“So many
Gone with the Wind
references just went through my head I don’t even know which one to pick. I should just leave.”

Hailey shrugged, striped sundress swaying around her ankles as she continued picking up Breydan’s room. “Fine with me. Means more garlic breadsticks and baked ziti with sundried tomato pesto for the rest of us.”

Kate froze in the doorway, blinking to adjust to the hallway’s dim lighting.

“Gotcha, didn’t I?” Hailey laughed.

Turning around, Kate grimaced. “You don’t play fair, Laramie.”

Hailey stopped in front of her, freckled cheeks spreading with her grin. “It’s simply a matter of knowing one’s opponent. I happen to know you eat lettuce straight from a bag most days. And by ‘straight from,’ I mean you don’t even bother with a plate. Just pour the dressing in the bag and stick a fork in.”

“That’s called efficiency.” And a good way to avoid dishes.

Hailey nudged her out the door. “It’s called desperation. Besides, Marcus vouches for this guy.”

She moved toward the staircase, slid one palm along its polished banister as she made her way down. “Marcus is my agent, not my matchmaker.”

“We could’ve had you married eight times over by now if you weren’t so stubborn.” Hailey’s words punched the air behind her. “It’s been six years since Gil, Kate. You gotta move on one of these days. Don’t you think—”

Hailey cut off as Kate stilled at the bottom of the steps, icy hurt sharpening through her. She caught sight of herself in the mirrored entryway hutch—brunette hair trickling from a messy bun. “That’s not fair, bringing up Gil. You know what that does to me.”

Dredged up a knotty mess of emotions—that’s what. Seriously, a therapist could have a field day exhuming her graveyard of Gil-related memories.

In the mirror, she saw Hailey drop onto a stair and sigh. “You write romance for a living. Don’t you ever want to take a chance on finding your own?”

Kate looked toward the living room, where sunset spilled through tall windows and stained the opposite wall in reds and oranges. Mom used to say the fiery sunsets were her favorite.

“Go write something important.”

She couldn’t think of Mom without thinking of her words. Eight years hadn’t done anything to diminish their pull. If only she’d found some way to live them out.

Now—maybe, finally—she had, thanks to Frederick Langston. That is, if she could conjure up the funds. It meant putting scriptwriting on the back burner for a while. That and the half-dozen half-written sophomore novels wasting away on her computer.

She lowered to the stair beside Hailey. “It’s not romance I’m looking for.”

“Isn’t there even a little piece of you—”

“Nope.” Gil had rubbed the sheen off that once-sparkly possibility, left only rusty disinterest in its place. “Hail, I got this call the other day. When I was on set with Marcus. From the development director at the James Foundation.”

Hailey shifted on the stair. “That’s the foundation your mom helped start, right?”

“Not just helped. She wrote the grant application and made the presentation that got them five hundred thousand in federal seed dollars.” She’d named the foundation after the verse in James in the Bible—the one about taking care of widows and orphans.

The Italian aroma wafting from the kitchen pulled a hungry growl from Kate’s stomach. She’d done her best to support the foundation. Even in the lean months—when she’d burned through her last advance and had to beg for extra hours at the Willis—she’d managed to continue sending small checks.

Because of Mom. Because she believed in the foundation’s work. Because it made her feel a part of something.

“So why’d he call you?”

“They need a writer. For three months. In Africa.”

Three months traveling through six countries, documenting the nonprofit’s work building health centers and training medical professionals, with special emphasis on pediatrics in communities with orphanages. At the end of it, she’d help write an extended annual report that would be packaged for donors as part of the foundation’s forty-year anniversary.

“We had a federal grant to cover
the project but it got yanked away,”
Frederick Langston had explained
. “But then I received your letter.”

The one she’d written on a whim on a day when she’d been missing Mom. A letter simply to thank the foundation for carrying on the work Flora Walker had begun, asking if there was anything she could do to help—freelance writing, perhaps.
Something important, something that matters.

Mr. Langston had answered her letter in a bigger way than she’d ever imagined. Called it a sign and offered to change her life—at least for three months. But something told her three months would be enough. Because it was a beginning—a first step toward fulfilling her promise to Mom.

The one reality still tethering her hopes to the ground? Money.

“Africa. Whoa.”

“I know. The really exciting thing is, Frederick said I would have time to work on my own interviews and writing while I’m there too. My head’s spinning with book ideas. Gritty, real-life kind of stuff. I’d come home with so much material.”

The whole thing felt weighty and important and . . . and everything her current life of writing romance wasn’t.

“I’m sensing a
but
.”

“They can’t pay me. They’d cover my lodging, but that’s it.” No income for three months. Expensive plane tickets. Meals. And a mortgage and car payment and health insurance that wouldn’t stop just because she’d left the country. She’d have to give up her job at the Willis Tower, too.

“You can’t let money be what holds you back.”

“I spent almost all my savings buying my house. And I haven’t sold a script in over a year.”

Hailey stood. “Okay, new game plan. I’m going to go back to the kitchen and let your date off gently. Then, over dinner, you and Marcus and I will come up with a way to get you some money. If we all put our heads together, we can come up with something.”