at Mike hopefully.
“No guarantees about starting or anything else,” Mike warned gruffly. He didn’t care how naturally gifted a kid was. That went for Will and everyone else. “Whatever you get on this team, you earn. And you haven’t earned anything yet. Got it?”
Will nodded and, to his credit, kept his composure despite Mike’s underlying message that this was not going to be easy. Will was not just going to be “given” a slot as starting quarterback on Mike’s team.
“You’re also going to need a physical before I can let you on the team,” Mike said, turning away from the disappointment in the kid’s eyes. Obviously he had expected to be praised for his performance on the field. In fact, had probably been used to that in Dallas. “Assistant Coach Barkley will take you inside the field house and get you the forms. You can come back when you’ve gotten them filled out, and not before.”
WILL KNEW IF HE WANTED to get a football physical fast, he’d have to arrange it himself. He could hardly ask his dad to do it, he was so preoccupied and out of touch with what was going on with the rest of the family he might as well have been on a different planet.
Of course, it hadn’t always been that way, with him and his brothers left to fend for themselves for practically everything. When his mom was alive all any of them had ever had to do with a problem was go to her. She’d be on the phone and two minutes later everything was all fixed. Didn’t matter what it was, Mom had known what to say and do to take care of it.
That had changed when she’d gotten sick, of course. But even when she was really suffering there at the end, she’d call the shots, while his dad stood around, helpless to do anything except comfort her physically and fly in more specialists.
On the domestic front, his Dad hadn’t a clue. And thanks to the succession of ridiculously bad and bossy housekeepers, he still didn’t. Will knew the reason why his dad wanted those idiotic ladies there. It made it easier for him to go off to work and forget all about the rest of them, the way he always had before Mom died.
Only it wasn’t like before, Will thought as he turned his Jeep Wrangler into the hospital parking lot. Life was hell. Home was worse. The best he could do was try to make this year as bearable as possible by finding a girlfriend and playing football. Then go to college and never look back. Maybe never even come back.
JACKSON MCCABE was waiting for Will, as promised, in his office at the hospital. Young, handsome, successful and newly—happily—married, Jackson was everything Will wanted to be when he grew up. “Thanks for doing this for me, Jackson.” Will handed over the forms. “I know it’s a Saturday morning and you’re a surgeon not a family doc, but I really need this physical right away. Otherwise, I can’t show up for practice Monday morning with the rest of the team.”
“Not a problem.” Jackson gave Will a look that let him know he understood how chaotic life had been for him and his brothers since their mom had died and that he didn’t mind the last-minute call one bit. He ushered Will onto the scale. “What are second cousins for, anyway? Besides—” Jackson shifted the metal weights on the bar until it hung perfectly in balance at one hundred and eighty seven. “I know what a stickler Coach Marten is for the rules.”
“That’s right.” Will stood perfectly still while Jackson measured his height. “You used to play on the L.H.S. football team, too, didn’t you?”
“A couple years after your dad.” Jackson paused to jot down Will’s weight and height on the form. “I sure did.”
Appreciating the way Jackson treated him—as a man instead of a kid—Will walked with Jackson into the adjacent exam room. Figuring Jackson was enough of a straight-talker to tell him the truth, he asked, “What did you think about Coach Marten?”
Jackson checked out Will’s ears and throat. “He’s an excellent coach. Tough. Demanding. A little blustery at times, but don’t let that worry you. His bark’s worse than his bite, if you know what I mean. By the time you finish playing on his team, you’ll know the sport inside and out. And probably a lot more about yourself, as well.”
Will watched as Jackson jotted down some notes on the paper, then fit a blood pressure cuff around Will’s arm. “What do you mean?”
Jackson took Will’s blood pressure. “This is going to sound like one of those really hokey sports metaphors, but it’s true.” Jackson paused to look Will straight in the eye. “Coach Marten doesn’t just teach you about football—he also teaches you about honesty, integrity, responsibility and commitment. Playing on his team changes a guy—for the better. If you let it.”
Funny, Will thought. Jackson, never a guy to wax eloquent about anything, was speaking almost reverently about Coach Marten. His dad hadn’t mentioned any of this. In fact, his dad hadn’t looked all that happy about the prospect of Will playing on Coach Marten’s team. Though, as usual, he’d done nothing to discourage that or any other extracurricular activity his kids wanted to pursue.
Puzzled, Will slipped off his T-shirt so Jackson could listen to his heart and lungs. He breathed in and out as directed. Something was going on here that they weren’t telling him, just like when his mom had died. Damn it all, if they were deliberately keeping something from him again, he was going to be pissed.
He looked at Jackson curiously. “Did Coach Marten and my dad get along?”
Jackson tensed slightly as he unhooked the stethoscope from his ears. “Why would you ask that?”
Gut instinct. Something was off here. Will just wasn’t sure what. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, doing his best to put all the little signs together to come up with something. “Usually when I do something around here that my dad or mom did when they were a kid, people get all nostalgic or something. Coach didn’t.”
Jackson sat on a stool. Suddenly he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Maybe he just wanted you to feel like you were there under your own steam, not as a relation to anyone else,” Jackson finally said.
And maybe, Will thought, the bitterness that had been with him since his mother’s death rising up inside him once again, there was something else they weren’t telling him. Something he had every right to know.
KATE SPENT SATURDAY afternoon conducting two back-to-back grief groups and the evening juggling her schedule and calling her associates at the hospital to let them know she would be taking her accumulated time off to deal with a personal emergency. She waited until Sunday afternoon to tell her parents where they would be able to reach her, starting that evening. Her mom hadn’t said much when they spoke on the phone. But fifteen minutes later, both her parents were on the doorstep of her apartment, which was located on the second floor of a big white Victorian that had been converted into four separate dwellings, each with its own outside entrance.
Kate’s mom, a homemaker with gray-blond hair and pale blue eyes, had obviously been baking. She still wore her blue denim chef’s apron over her coordinating shorts set. Kate’s dad, wearing a burnt-orange Laramie High School knit shirt, shorts and coach’s cap, had a roll of antacids in his hand. A big bear of a man, he was known for his blunt speech, admirably strong character and often brutal honesty. He was also still extremely protective of “his little girl.” Part of it was that he didn’t want anything to happen to Kate. He’d already lost a son and he didn’t want to lose his one remaining child. The other part was his protectiveness of women in general. He just wasn’t sure members of the fairer sex should be out on their own, without a man to watch over them. Hence, he couldn’t wait for Kate to marry her
