came, sometimes they stayed at home. Sometimes Eli’s pager would go off and the game would be called. Sometimes Ben’s daughter Olivia would get tired and want to go home. But mostly they managed to finish their games.
The one constant was that Ben and Eli consistently played on opposing teams. It was a vague throwback to when they were young and constantly in competition with each other. Growing up had eased the competition, but hadn’t erased it.
Eli unbuttoned his shirt and wiped the sweat from his forehead with one end, squinting up at the sky, hazed over with humidity and heat. If he’d known it was going to be this warm, he wouldn’t have worn blue jeans.
“Hey, Doc, I’m watchin’ you.” Ben grinned at Eli and nodded. “I know you have a plan.”
Eli crouched down, resting his hands on his knees. “You do that, Ben. Don’t think we’re not counting on that.”
“You’re workin’ me, Eli. Playin’ me.”
“Now, Ben. Don’t be so mistrustful. Do what you think is right.” He leaned a little closer. “Use the force, Luke.”
Alex called out the play, and Eli could see doubt clouding Ben’s face as Alex glanced down the line away from Eli. As he did, Eli broke away, and Ben took the bait and veered away from him. Eli turned, and Alex spun in a different direction and snapped the ball directly to Eli, who caught it against his chest, cradling it like a child, grinning at Ben’s shout of disappointment.
Eli ran past the stroller that marked off the goal line, and spun around, holding up the ball in a gesture of victory. Ben was coming at him, vengeance in his eyes.
With a laugh, Eli swung left to avoid his brother. He looked up and, too late, saw Rachel Noble coming directly at him. She had veered off the walking path, a soft leather briefcase slung over her shoulder, cell phone clamped to one ear, a sheaf of papers in her free hand.
They would have collided, but at the last possible moment, Eli dropped his football and caught her by the shoulders to steady her and catch his balance. Her papers fell out of her hands and her briefcase slid down her shoulder as she came to an abrupt halt, teetering. She almost dropped her cell phone, as well, but it bobbled in her hands and she managed to hang on.
“What are you—?” She yanked the strap of her briefcase up her shoulder, but it stopped when it hit his hand.
“Are you crazy?” She looked down at her papers. Hitched her strap up again. Hit his hand again.
Then looked up at him.
As her hazel eyes met his, anger snapping in their depths, he felt it again. A light flutter, somewhere in the region of his heart. He had experienced it when he pulled up beside her at the stop sign and she had looked over at him. And felt it again at her parents’ place when he and Charles had come into the kitchen and he realized the beautiful woman he’d been openly flirting with, moments before, was his patient’s sister. Daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Chestnut Grove.
She wore another suit today. This one was olive green with a white shirt. Tidy. Together. With a hint of uptight. He wondered what she would look like in blue jeans, with her hair down.
She blinked once, and to his surprise, the anger seeped out of her eyes. If she hadn’t looked down, he could have seen what replaced it.
“Excuse me, please,” she mumbled, pulling back against his hands.
He had forgotten he was still holding her. He released her, reluctantly.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you.” His apology sounded halfhearted even to him. “I was just trying to avoid Ben here.” He glanced back over his shoulder at his brother, who had kept his distance but was watching the two of them with avid interest.
“That’s okay. I was off the path.” She was about to bend down to pick up her papers.
“Here. I’ll do that.” He gathered them up, but as he handed them to her he belatedly saw the dark smudge marks his fingers had left on the white sheets.
As she tried to brush them off, he realized he had left the same marks on her suit coat. “Sorry about that,” he said, pointing to the faint marks of four fingers on her upper arms. “I’ll pay for the cleaning.”
“Please, don’t worry.” She gave him a quick smile that revived that flutter again. “It was my fault.”
Eli rubbed the back of his neck, aware that his unbuttoned shirt hung open. He lowered his arms, tucking his hands in the front pockets of his blue jeans. He angled his chin toward her papers, feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious. “Do you work every day of the week?”
Rachel frowned up at him. “I do what needs to be done. My work is very important.” Her voice took on a chill that made him take a step away.
“Of course.” Brilliant, Cavanaugh. You won the football game, but here and now you’re officially a loser.
“Well, I’ll see you around, I guess.”
“I guess.” She gave him a polite smile, and with that she became again the aloof woman that had sat across from him at Charles and Beatrice Noble’s table.
“You still there, Rachel?” A man’s tinny voice called out from the cell phone she still held. And without another glance at him, Rachel continued her interrupted phone conversation.
“I was at LaReese’s place and thought I’d slip across the park to Bernie McNamara,” she was saying. She glanced up at Eli, and for a moment he felt it again. A subtle connection.
Then she turned and started walking away, still talking. Still working.
He must have imagined it.
As Eli watched her go, Ben came up beside him. “Very nice, Eli. But I thought your life plan didn’t include women for at least another year.”
“Two years,” Eli corrected, bending over to retrieve the football. “And even then the plan doesn’t include spoiled, haughty women.” Eli grinned at his brother and handed him the ball. “My life plan is firmly intact.”
“Pay down your loan, buy a house, the right car, and then look for someone to share your neat, orderly life.” Ben tapped Eli on the chest with a football, his expression turning serious. “Beware of plans, my brother. They have a way of flipping you midstream.”
Eli didn’t reply to that. He knew his brother was talking about the pain he and his daughter Olivia suffered when Ben lost his wife, Julia, to cancer.
Eli knew from personal experience that life didn’t always cooperate. At one time he had a girlfriend and other plans. But the girlfriend’s parents were leery of the question mark hanging over Eli’s life. Eli had been adopted at age six by the Cavanaughs and the only thing he knew about his natural parents were their names, Darlene and Zeke Fulton. The last memory he had of them was a car spinning out of control, a horrifying crash and then his own life turned topsy-turvy. When the girlfriend’s parents convinced her to break up with Eli, he was determined that the only way he would enter another relationship was if his own life was in order. So he made a plan and stuck to it.
But as he followed his brother back to the game, Eli threw a glance over his shoulder.
