only ever been to the Gulf of Mexico and it didn’t hold a candle to the Pacific.
Now he had a house on the beach in Malibu and when he wasn’t up here in Carmel chasing down the past, he spent a lot of time on his deck watching the ocean.
He knocked on the door, pushing his sunglasses up on his head and scanning the area. The yard was nicely maintained, probably by a service. He’d never known anyone who really spent their time off working in their yard.
The door opened and an air-conditioned breeze wafted out and surrounded him. He put a friendly smile on his face.
“Hello, there,” he said. The woman who’d answered the door was tall—at least five-seven—and had long curly black hair that framed her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were a brilliant blue that was almost the color of the waves he’d surfed at dawn. She had a tentative smile on her face and her lips were full. She had a long neck and wore a thin summer-weight sweater over a pair of khaki-colored shorts that reached midthigh.
Her legs...
They were long, tan, slim. And he had an uncomfortable flash of them wrapped around his hips before he shook his head and stuck his hand out.
He was here for answers, not a woman.
“Hunter Caruthers,” he said. “I used to play football for Coach Gainer and I wondered if he might have some time to chat with me.”
“I’m Ferrin, Coach Gainer’s daughter,” she said. “Come inside and we can talk.”
“Coach has a daughter?”
“Yeah, he does. Be warned I’m nothing like him. Can’t catch, can’t throw, and it’s rumored I’m allergic to all sports.” She led him deeper into the house to a sunny kitchen.
“All sports?”
“As far as I can tell,” she said. There was a teasing note in her voice and the slightest bit of a twang that he recognized.
As they passed the den he noticed a trophy case on one wall as well as photos of Coach Gainer with celebrities, politicians and famous alums. The one Coach had taken with Kingsley and Hunter was notably absent.
“Can I get you a drink?” she asked as she gestured to the farmhouse table in the sunny breakfast nook.
“Um... I’d like to just see Coach,” Hunter said.
As cute as she was, Hunter was here on business and flirting with the coach’s daughter had dumb written all over it.
“We have to talk first,” she said.
“Lemonade talk or whiskey?”
She gave him a smile. “Lemonade. What kind of conversations have you had that require whiskey?”
He watched her as she went and filled two glasses with lemonade. “More than you want to know.”
She handed him a glass and sat down across the table from him. “Coach had a stroke earlier this year and I’m not sure what he’d be able to say to you.”
A stroke?
“Is he okay?”
“The doctors say he will be. I’m here to help him recover and get back on track, but he doesn’t like the medicine—never mind that. He has his good days and his bad days. I just don’t know if he will talk to you or not.”
Well, hell. There were times when Hunter thought he was never going to have any peace about Stacia. Maybe that was fair. Maybe the universe was leveling things out because he hadn’t been able to protect her.
He didn’t know. Even his mom with all her faith couldn’t help him figure this one out.
“Can I try?” Hunter asked at last.
“Yes,” Ferrin said.
He finished his lemonade, but noticed she didn’t touch hers and that she kept staring at him.
Hell.
Did she recognize him?
“I don’t know all of Coach’s players. When did you play for him?”
“Ten years ago,” he said. He really didn’t want to mention Stacia until he had a chance to talk to Coach.
“Were you one of his famous players?” she asked.
“Sort of?”
“NFL, right? Quarterback?” she asked.
“No, that was my friend Kingsley. I was a wide receiver,” he said. Apparently she didn’t recognize him from the Frat House Murder scandal.
“Dad will be happy to see you. Let me take you to him,” Ferrin said, leading the way out of the kitchen. He tried to keep his eyes on the framed team portraits that lined the wall next to the curving stairs but his gaze kept skipping back to her hips. Her clothing wasn’t at all come-hither, but the way she moved drew him.
She paused at the top of the stairs. “This is your team, right?”
He leaped up the last two steps and stood next to her. Yeah, that was them. Before everything had happened. He was standing next to Clive and Kingsley. God, he looked young.
And sappy. Who smiled that big for a group photo?
A guy who thought he was going to be a big-time NFL star and thought the world was his oyster, that’s who.
“That was a long time ago.”
She didn’t respond but continued walking down the hall to the last door on the left. She opened it and gestured for him to stay in the doorway.
“Coach?” she called. “You have a visitor.”
“Who is it, sunshine?” The words were slurred and as Ferrin pushed the door open further, Hunter noticed that the strong coach he remembered was now a shell of that man.
Sunshine? Coach had never seemed the type of man to give anyone a nickname. But he was seeing a different side of him.
“Hunter. He used to play football for you,” Ferrin said.
“Hunter Caruthers?”
“Yes, sir, he wants to talk to you,” Ferrin said. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll see him.”
* * *
Ferrin went downstairs to her father’s den to work while Hunter visited with the coach. She was working on an article for a small magazine that she wrote for, but the ocean just outside the French doors distracted her. So did the man upstairs. She knew few details about Hunter but his piercing green eyes and disheveled dark hair lingered in her mind as she tried to work. Instead of typing in the Word document she had opened she was tempted to launch her internet search engine and see what she could find out about him.
But
