you know him,” Henry said, shrugging his shoulders in that devil-may-care manner all boys had.
“But you didn’t. Pick up your glove and get in the house. You have some reading to do before we register you for school tomorrow.” Her words were firm but there was a softness in her manner, in the way she patted the boy’s shoulder.
“But, Mom, I—”
“No arguing, Henry.”
A mulish expression crossed his face. “Fine. But I don’t want to be called Henry. From now on, I’m Hank.”
Aggravation set in on Rayne’s face. He’d seen it every day on the face of his own mother. “Hank?”
“Yes,” the boy said, disappearing behind the fence. “I want to be Hank. I hate being Henry. That’s a nerdy name.”
Rayne closed her eyes. Then opened them again. She looked at Brent. “I’m sure this is your doing?”
Brent shrugged and thought about crawling under the porch. “Sorry.”
Her response was to laser him with her normally warm gaze.
“Nice to see you, Rayne,” he said.
She stared at him for almost a full minute before speaking. “Stay away from my son.”
She turned and tugged the gate closed behind her.
And that was it.
That was how he became reacquainted with the only girl he’d ever loved.
CHAPTER TWO
RAYNE SLAMMED THE GATE and stood a moment, trying to stop her insides from quivering.
Brent Hamilton had always done that to her. She’d been eleven when it had first happened. She’d spied him doing push-ups from over the fence. It was the first time she’d even noticed a boy’s muscles, and she’d stared for about ten minutes before he’d caught sight of her sprawled in the tree watching him. She’d scrambled down and disappeared, much too embarrassed to confront the boy who’d been her friend from the day she’d climbed out of her parents’ VW van, tripped up the front steps of her aunt’s house and noticed a boy throwing acorns at wind chimes.
Brent was still a good-looking son of a bitch with a rippling body and overtly masculine aura. But the emphasis should be on the son-of-a-bitch part.
She wasn’t a silly little girl, so she willed her shaking legs to obey and marched toward the peeling porch.
Henry stood there, arms crossed, brow wrinkled. He opened his mouth. “Mom, I want—”
“Don’t start, Henry. You violated a big rule, buster. Haven’t we talked about this before? You climbed into a stranger’s backyard.”
“I didn’t think anyone was home. Besides, you know him. You said so,” her son said, kicking the rail, causing the rooster planter to teeter.
“Stop before you make the planter fall. It’s my starter of cilantro,” she said, climbing the steps. She peeked into the pot. The sprouts had given birth to the fan shapes that would become the flavorful herb. “And it doesn’t matter that I know the neighbor. You don’t, and to do what you did is dangerous.”
“You said this town is safe. That I could run around and play and stuff. Can I go back and throw ball with him? Please?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, surprised her normally cautious son would want to go. It was the baseball that pulled him. But she didn’t want Brent messing around with her son. Brent was a lot of things. Charming. Egotistical. Unreliable. Things she didn’t want Henry to glean from a man who’d once had the town wrapped round his golden arm, and who would no doubt do the same with her impressionable son. “Every place has dangers. From now on, you consult me before you leave this yard. Got it?”
He made a face. “Okay, but can I go throw? Please. Please. Please.”
“Did you hear me?” She shook her head in wonder. Were all males born with selective hearing? “No. Now up to tackle that reading. I want you to make a good impression tomorrow.”
“I hate that dumb book. It’s about stupid cats and mice. You know I don’t want to read that stuff.” He kicked at the rail again. The planter tottered. She caught it with one hand.
She gave him the evil eye. He immediately stepped away from the rail and dumped his glove on the pew that sat to one side of the porch. “The book I bought for you is on the accelerated reader list. It’s a Caldecott book. They’re always good.”
Henry shrugged and tugged open the door of the bed-and-breakfast. “I don’t see how a book about mice can win awards. Everyone knows mice can’t really talk. It’s absurd.”
He disappeared into the house before she could say anything else. And he’d left his glove again. He kept forgetting they were not at home. They were at an inn and he couldn’t leave his things lying about.
Rayne placed her hands over her face and blew out her breath. Then she picked up the glove and sank onto the old wooden pew. Round one for the day. She could only guess what round two held.
She’d give her life for her son. She loved him with a passion that rivaled all others, but the boy was as alien to her as a Moroccan desert. Foreign. Exotic. And she didn’t speak the language.
He’d been that way since he’d turned nine months old and said his first word. Had it been mama or dada? No. It had been ball.
And thus it had begun.
The boy’s obsession with sports was epic.
And ever since he’d learned to throw, run, hit and kick, he’d reminded her of the boy who’d grown up next door to her aunt. The boy who’d climbed trees with her, studied stars with her, shared his dreams with her. He was near about the spitting image of Brent.
But Brent was not his father.
Rayne hadn’t even seen her childhood crush in over fifteen years. Not since the day she’d shaken the dust of Oak Stand from her sandals and headed for a new life and a new dream in New York. She’d locked up the memory of Brent and told herself not to think of him. But her heart hadn’t been good at following her head’s directive. She still thought about him at the oddest times. Such as when a baby bird fell out of its nest at the house in Austin. Or when Henry had hit his first grand slam. Or when she lay lonely in her bed staring out at a harvest moon.
She’d always been drawn to Brent Hamilton.
Even on the day she’d kissed Phillip Albright in front of the preacher and all their friends, she’d been half in love with the boy who had once sung Elvis songs to her while twisting her hair around his forefinger. She supposed it had been horribly unfair to Phillip to harbor tender feelings for a boy who’d never been hers to begin with, but she suspected Phillip didn’t mind. Their marriage had never been a head-over-heels, can’t-keep-our-hands-off-of-each-other kind of thing. More of a mutual respect, burning desire to succeed, quiet love and amiable friendship kind of thing.
Maybe
