Last Chance Hero (21 page)

She took a deep breath. “He asked me if playing three or four more football games during your senior year in high school was really going to make the difference between your going to medical school or doing something else with your life. After thinking about it, I have to say no, or at least, it doesn't have to. What do you think? We're talking about a month here. Do you think you can play and still make your A's?”

“Yes.” His answer came immediately. “Yes, I can. I know I can.”

Jess leaned back and folded her arms. “Then it's your decision, Gabe. You know what you can do. And from what I've seen since we first talked, it's pretty much anything you set your mind to. But
you still need to wait at least a week before you go back to practice. Are we clear on that?”

“We're clear.”

Gabe picked up his pencil and went back to his books. Within moments, his concentration appeared as deep as if she had never spoken. Jess watched him for a moment before quietly letting herself out of the office. No problems there. She could help him with his college applications, perhaps, and she did know about scholarships and loans, but now that Gabe knew what was required to get those scholarships, she had no doubt that he would come through.

Friday was a shirtsleeve day: warm, sunny, and spicy with the scent of chile, even though the harvest was over. Whether it was the mellow warmth of the day or the anticipation of spending an evening out with friends—even if it was at a football game—Jess found she was singing to herself and glancing at her watch almost as much as Eva looked at hers.

Even though the sun had gone down by the time she drove into her own driveway, the warmth of the day still lingered just beneath the cool breeze that gusted through the trees on her street and ruffled her hair when she got out of her car. Checking her watch yet again, Jess trotted into the house and down the hall to her room, where she started digging around in her closet. She had fifteen minutes to get ready before Ray and Lainie came to pick her up, and this beautiful day didn't fool her one bit. She was going to dress warm.

She was sitting on a front porch chair with one foot tucked up when Ray's pickup slowed to a stop in front of her house.

“Did you see the sunset tonight?” Lainie scooted over to the
middle of the seat to make room for Jess. “It was absolutely breathtaking. I've been here for over two years now and I cannot get used to them. I don't think Ray even sees them anymore.”

“You cut me to the quick, woman.” Ray turned onto Main Street and headed south, where the glow of stadium lights lit the sky. “I paint landscapes, in case you hadn't noticed. And you might find a sunset or two among them, if you look real carefully.”

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot.” Lainie didn't sound the slightest bit embarrassed. “I guess you have to look at them to paint them, don't you? But what I mean is, do you ever just sit and take it all in? Just let all those rich colors feed your soul?”

“Nah. I just throw a little red paint on, a little yellow and pink. It all pretty much looks the same.”

Lainie nudged Jess. “I think I'd better quit while I'm ahead.”

“Too late. The last you were ahead was when you said the sunset tonight was pretty. It's pretty much been all downhill from then.” Ray kept his eyes on the road.

“Oh, but you're not going to be mad, are you?” Lainie leaned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him. “I'm too cute to be mad at, and besides, I'm the mother of your child.”

Ray glanced down at her. “Boy, you play rough, don't you? You think just because you're cute and you're going to be a mother, I can't be mad?”

“That's right.” She looked up at him and batted her eyes.

“Well, I guess you have a point.”

He turned past a bronze statue of a snarling puma mounted on a six-foot pedestal and a marquee announcing the dates of homecoming and drove down a long asphalt driveway, toward the banks of lights that towered over the school and the stadium behind it. The dirt parking lot was already nearly full, but Ray found a spot to park, and the three of them, with Ray in the lead, headed into the stadium.

Jess stopped and stared. No wonder everyone always sounded surprised when she said she wasn't going to the game. The stands were filled. Jess had no idea there were that many people in Last Chance and that every last one of them would be at the game.

“I don't know how Chris and Sarah will ever find us.” Jess couldn't take her eyes off the crowd. The population sign on the edge of town said seven hundred something, but there were way more than that in the stands. “I guess they can call from the parking lot and one of us can go get them.”

“Oh, they'll know where to look.” Ray took Lainie's arm as they began to climb the stands. “It's like church; everyone has their own spot. And the Cooleys have been sitting about a third of the way up on the scoreboard forty since before my time.”

“Scoreboard forty?” Jess muttered under her breath to Lainie.

“The forty yard line. See the white markings? And on the side of the fifty that has the scoreboard. See? That's the scoreboard, so we sit about a third of the way up right here.”

Jess followed them both up the concrete steps to the row a third of the way up that was indeed empty, or nearly so, as if it had been awaiting their arrival.

“Oh my goodness! Look who's here!” Lainie entered the row and threw her arms around a tall blond man standing next to Kaitlyn. “When did you get in?”

Jess hadn't seen Kaitlyn until Lainie spoke, since she had been walking behind Lainie and Ray, but even without an introduction, she was willing to take a wild guess and say that this was Steven.

“And why didn't you tell us you were coming?” Ray reached across Lainie to hug his brother.

“Taking your questions in order. I got in around noon, and I didn't say anything because I wanted to see Kaitlyn for a little while before anyone knew I was home.”

“And me. You wanted to see me too.” The little girl sitting on the other side of Kaitlyn, who Jess remembered as Olivia, got up and traded places with her mother, placing herself between Steven and Kaitlyn.

“Yes, I wanted to see Livvy too.” Steven lifted her so she could stand on the seat and put his arm around her, giving her a squeeze.

Steven had been flicking his glance toward Jess all the time they had been talking, and after they all sat down again, Jess reached across Ray and Lainie to offer her hand. “Hi, I'm Jess MacLeod.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Jess. I was just so surprised to see Steven that I forgot my manners. Steven, this is our new doctor, Jess MacLeod. She has an office right there on Main Street. And Jess, this is Steven, Ray's brother and Kaitlyn's . . .” While Lainie hesitated, clearly looking for a word, Kaitlyn casually extended her left hand. “Fiancé?” Lainie grabbed her hand. “You're engaged? When did this happen?”

“This afternoon.” Kaitlyn's face was shining. “We went for a long drive, and Steven stopped at a spot that overlooks the whole valley, and then he pulled the ring box out of his pocket.”

“Congratulations, bro.” Ray leaned across Lainie to shake his brother's hand. “I couldn't be happier for you. And Kaitlyn, I owe you a kiss. Maybe at halftime.”

“And then what?” Clearly, Lainie was not ready to let the story end.

“Well, then we went and picked Livvy up from school.”

“And then he asked me if he could be my dad.” Olivia picked up the story. “And I said yes, and he gave me this necklace.” She leaned over so Lainie could see the little gold heart with the tiny diamond in its center.

“Oh my goodness, you're going to make me cry.” Lainie gave Steven another hug. “Have you told Gran?”

“No, I thought we'd surprise her.”

“But she does know you're in town?”

“No, that's going to be a surprise too.”

“For Pete's sake, Steven, Gran's nearly ninety years old. She can only take so many more shocks.” Lainie bumped his shoulder. “At least call and tell her you're in town and that you and Kaitlyn want to come by and see her.”

“But that will spoil the surprise. She'll probably guess.”

“Of course she will,” Kaitlyn put her hand on his arm and smiled at him. “But think of how much pleasure she'll have waiting for us to come. That's not so bad, is it?”

“Maybe not.” Steven smiled back at her.

Lainie and Ray exchanged glances, and Lainie shrugged.

Watching everything unfold from her place on the end, Jess couldn't help feel the outsider she was. But when the crowd around her erupted in a deafening roar, she looked to the field where a team wearing black and gold and led by a kid in a puma costume took the field. Following behind was Gabe, wearing his letterman's jacket and walking with a dark-haired man not much taller than Gabe. Bringing up the rear was Andy, wearing a dark sports jacket and a tie and carrying a clipboard. And even though she had promised herself to concentrate on the game and not the coach, Jess found her attention drawn again and again to the man with the clipboard who paced the sideline.

S
o, do you understand what's going on?”

By the time everybody got settled and seated and the attention had turned from Kaitlyn and Steven's engagement to the game on the field, Jess was sitting next to Lainie on the end.

“Nope, not really.” Lainie propped her feet up on the back edge of the bleacher in front of her. “My high school years, brief as they were, didn't include pep rallies and football games. The first football game I ever saw, I was sitting right where I am now. To tell the truth, I don't know a whole lot more now than I did then. And that's okay with me. It just takes a few hours, it makes Ray happy, and at least I get to sit down.”

Jess looked back at the field. Yep, they were all running into each other and falling down. “I was hoping by watching a game, I could learn something about it, but it's not happening.”

“Wait till Sarah and Chris get here, and make sure Sarah sits by you. She could write a book. Meanwhile, I can give you the basics, if you want.”

“Sure. Anything would help.”

“Okay. See the guys in black and gold? They're our team, and we cheer for them. When they get the football past all those guys in red and gray and clear to the end of the field, we score. They
post the score up there on the scoreboard so you can keep track of who's ahead.”

“I've got that part down. It's the middle part I don't get. If everyone's just running around bumping into each other, how do you know when to cheer?”

Suddenly, everyone around them jumped to their feet with a roar that had to be rattling the windows at Elizabeth's house. Lainie leaned in so Jess could hear her. “That's how you know when to cheer.”

“But what happened?”

Lainie leaned to her other side to ask Ray, “What happened?”

“Interception.”

Lainie leaned back. “Interception.”

Jess opened her mouth to ask what that was but closed it again. What was the point? Lainie would just ask Ray, and he was trying to watch the game. If they kept that up very long, he was bound to get annoyed eventually, even if he was too polite to show it. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the small pad and pencil she always carried and flipped to a clean page. She wrote “Interception” at the top.

When the crowd went wild again a few minutes later, Jess had no trouble figuring out what had happened. One of the boys wearing black and gold had the football and had somehow gotten around all the boys wearing red and gray and was running for the goal line as fast as he could go, with everybody else chasing him down the field. When he crossed the goal line, Jess found she was screaming just like everyone else and looking around for strangers to exchange high fives with.

While Jess was watching the first score of the game going up on the Last Chance side of the scoreboard, someone kicked the ball over the goalpost, and another point got added to the score. It now stood 7–0, Last Chance.

She turned to Lainie. “What was that?”

“The extra point. After they make a touchdown, they get to try to kick it over the goalpost for an extra point.”

“Why do they do that?”

Lainie shrugged, and Jess got out her little pad and wrote “Extra point” under “Interception.”

By the time the halftime whistle blew, the score stood 21–3, and Jess's list had grown to include punt, fair catch, and field goal. As the team trotted off the field, followed by the coaches, and the marching band marched on to the quick beat of the drum, Jess tucked her list in her bag. Lainie had assured her that Ray would be happy to answer any question she had during halftime, but she always learned best from books, and anyway, if they ever got back on speaking terms, she'd like to ask Andy. She had either mocked his vocation or dismissed it as trivial almost from the day they had met, and except for the Gabe issue, he had just let it roll off his back. She still didn't get football, but, even if they'd never be more than friends, she wanted him to know that she was sorry she had so summarily dismissed it.

“Here you are. Did you save us any room?” Sarah, followed by Chris, came up the steps. “That's some score. I hope the second half is as exciting.”

“You don't know the half of it.” Lainie leaned back to give Sarah and Chris a better view of Steven and Kaitlyn. “Look who turned up. Show them your hand, Kaitlyn.”

Kaitlyn extended her hand again, and Sarah smiled. “It really is gorgeous. I didn't know you had that kind of taste, Steven.”

It took a second for the truth to dawn on Lainie. “You already knew! When did you find out?”

“They stopped in the Dip 'n' Dine on their way here to tell Chris. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. So I got to hear about it too.” Sarah blew a little kiss down the row to Kaitlyn.

“I had to share my happy news with my brother as soon as possible. I couldn't just spring it on him at a football game.”

Ray glared at Steven. “You sure didn't have any problem with that.”

Steven held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I'm just doing what you said I should do when you gave me all that advice before I left for the academy. You said, ‘If it comes to that, just keep your mouth shut and do whatever she wants. All you really need to do to keep the peace is put on a tie and show up.'”

“Seriously?”
Lainie was the one who spoke, but Sarah and Kaitlyn both turned to stare at Ray too. Even Jess was curious as to what Ray would say about that.

“Wait a minute, don't get mad at Ray. I was just paraphrasing.” Steven couldn't have looked more innocent. “What he really said was, ‘Your lovely bride deserves to have the wedding of her dreams, and it is your job to move heaven and earth, if need be, to see that everything happens just the way she wants it.' That's pretty much what you said, right, bro?”

Jess had only met Ray a few times, but if he had ever in his life said anything remotely like this, Jess was immensely sorry she hadn't been there to hear it.

Ray just shook his head. “You are on your own on this one, Steven. You have us both dug in so deep we'll never see daylight again.”

“While you all are sorting this out, I think Olivia and I will make another visit to the restroom, and we might stop at the concession stand on our way back. Anyone want anything?” Kaitlyn took Olivia's hand and edged past everyone on their way to the aisle.

Ray winced when Olivia squeezed by him. He watched them head down the stairs before turning to Steven. “I think we need to move things around a little bit. You and Kaitlyn and Livvy need to sit on the end. I know it's got to be hard for a little kid to sit still
very long, but she must have made four trips during the first half, and she managed to step on both my feet every time she went by, going and coming.”

“When did your toes get so sensitive? She probably doesn't weigh fifty pounds.” Steven bristled at the very implication of criticism of Livvy.

Jess smiled to herself at how protective Steven was of his little family. It looked like Kaitlyn and her daughter were in good hands. And from everything Kaitlyn had told her, they had it coming.

By the time Kaitlyn and Livvy came back, Steven had moved them to the end of the bleacher, though he was still glowering a bit.

“Well, this is smart.” Kaitlyn kissed his cheek. “I don't know why we didn't do this earlier. Thanks for thinking of it.”

“Well, no point in you having to climb all over everybody.” Steven slid his arm around her shoulders.

Lainie and Ray exchanged glances, and Lainie grinned as the Last Chance Pumas took the field again while the crowd cheered.

The second half of the game was as satisfying as the first, if not quite as exciting. Each team scored another touchdown with its extra point, and when the final whistle blew, the score was 28–10, Last Chance.

As they all made their way down the steps of the stands, Steven grabbed Ray's shoulder.

“Look, down there at the bottom, just now walking in front of the first bleacher at the thirty yard line. Who is that?”

Ray looked. “I don't know. Some old guy. I don't know that I've ever seen him before.”

“Something about him . . .” Steven's eyes narrowed in an effort to focus better. “If I didn't know better, I'd swear that was Andy's dad.”

Ray looked again. “Nah, can't be. If he was back, someone
would have said something. Besides, that old boy looks about ten, fifteen years older than Andy's dad would be.”

Steven gave another hard look before shrugging and looking away. “I guess, but I don't know, something about him . . .”

So that's Andy's
dad.
Jess, on the stadium stair just above Steven, said nothing. This was Andy's business, and if he wanted to say his dad was back in town, he would. She watched the old man shuffle along, one hand deep in the pocket of his denim jacket, the other lightly running along the top rail of the fence that separated stands from field, and couldn't help wondering if Andy knew his dad had finally come to a game.

“You don't have to tell me who won the game. I've been listening to those horns honk for the last fifteen minutes.” Elizabeth opened the front door before they reached the porch. “Come in. Steven and Kaitlyn, you come over and give me a big hug and tell what all this mystery is about.”

Olivia ran past them all and tackled Elizabeth with a hug around the waist.

“Careful!” The adults all spoke in unison, but Olivia didn't even seem to notice.

“Look!” She held up her locket for Elizabeth's inspection. “Steven asked me if he could be my dad, and I said yes, and he gave me this.”

“My goodness, Livvy, I do believe that is the most beautiful necklace I've ever seen. So this is the reason your mom said you wouldn't be coming over this afternoon!” She looked up and over Olivia's head, and tears had already begun to find their way down her lined face. She reached in her pocket for a handkerchief. “I had a feeling, of course, that you were going to bring me this happy
news when you called earlier. I just had no idea that it was going to affect me this way. Livvy, honey, help me get to my chair before I trip over the cat again or something. I'm not seeing real well right now.”

With Livvy on one side, complaining that she could help Elizabeth all by herself, and Steven on the other, they helped her back to her recliner. When they got her settled, Steven knelt at her side.

“What's up, Gran? I expected a few happy tears, maybe, but folks usually smile when they're crying happy tears, and you're carrying on like someone burned your house down and ran off with the dog, or the cat, in this case. What's wrong?”

“Wrong? How can you possibly think anything's wrong? I'm as happy this minute as I've ever been in my life.” Elizabeth took a deep breath and swiped at her nose with her handkerchief before resting her hand on his arm. “You know, honey, I pretty much talk to the Lord all day long. The first thing I do every morning is to thank the Lord for waking me, and I'm still talking to him when I turn out the light at night. Then there are other things that come up that need special attention, like someone getting sick or going on a trip. But in my long life, there have been a few—surprisingly just a few—things that I have taken before the throne of God and left them there, so brokenhearted that I had to let the Holy Spirit do my praying for me. We almost lost the ranch in the early days, due to drought and the bottom falling out of the cattle market, and we almost lost your Uncle Joe Jr. to pneumonia when he was about six months old. In both cases, the Lord gave me what I prayed for.” She paused to draw a shaky breath. “But there were other times, like when I prayed for your mama to get well, and for your Uncle Jerry, who you never knew, to come home safe from Vietnam, when I had to accept that what I was asking for wasn't part of his plan. And I have been at peace with the way God answered my prayers all this time. But there was one thing left, and that was you. Oh,
honey. The hours I've spent praying for you, I'm surprised the carpet where I've knelt by my bed isn't worn through. If you added them all together, I imagine it would be years.”