promoting goodwill through their fellowship. Travis was surrounded by very nice people. Very nice people who wanted to talk to the fallen hero of West Central Texas. Each time he lifted his fork to his mouth, he was thwarted by another question.
“What channel do you work for again?” a woman with silver hair asked from across the table.
“He’s over at Channel 6 with Rachel Crow and that weather girl who always knows when it’s going to rain,” Mr. Harper replied, allowing Travis to indulge in his first bite of the chicken that had been cooling on his plate.
“Oh, Summer Raines.” The woman smiled. “I love her.”
“You have to tell us,” another gentleman in a dark blue blazer said, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “Is it true she has magic powers? Can she really predict when it’s going to rain, or is it a gimmick?”
Travis’s mouth was full of some of the best mashed potatoes he’d had in a long time. He swallowed them quickly as all eyes turned on him. It was strange to talk about something other than his football past—or lack of a football future. Summer Raines had offered him a reprieve, and she wasn’t even here. “Well, I haven’t been working there long enough to be sure, but I don’t think it’s magic. She’s just real good at her job.”
“Rumor is she’s a witch,” one of the younger women at the table whispered. “That’s why she’s so connected with nature. Wicca, they call it.”
Travis snorted. Were these people serious? Travis didn’t know the woman well, but she sure wasn’t a witch. “I don’t think she’s a witch. She takes the weather seriously. Spends a lot of time looking at things online. Maps and radars, you know. Weather stuff.” He had no idea what he was talking about. The other diners stared as though they could tell.
“She’s the only one I trust. She’s always right,” the gray-haired woman said, breaking the silence.
The man beside her agreed. “Never been wrong in all the time I’ve watched.”
Travis was impressed. He drank some iced tea and finished his lunch while the table continued to discuss the storms Summer had predicted. The weather girl was quite the legend in her own right. If he could learn from her, Travis might be able to pull this sportscasting thing off.
* * *
THE NEWSROOM WAS quieter today. Yesterday everyone had bombarded Travis with their memories of games they had watched him play over the years. One of the producers had been following Travis’s career since he was in Pee Wee. Today, people were still friendly, but not as in-his-face. There was only one face he wanted to get in front of, and she was already at her desk, on her computer.
“Good afternoon, Weather Girl.”
Her annoyance at that nickname was obvious. Her naturally pink cheeks flushed red and made him smile. She hated him and he loved it.
“Mr. Lockwood, good to see you were able to dry off after last night,” she quipped.
Travis’s laugh was deep. How he’d missed laughing for real and not for show. “I plan on telling Ken it’s entirely your fault if I catch a cold.”
“I don’t control the weather, I just predict it.” She turned her attention back to her monitor. Her soft-looking curls fell down like a curtain, shielding her face from him. He wanted to reach out and push them behind her ear so he could see those cheeks, those eyes. Her eyes really were amazing. They were big and blue like the Texas sky.
He sat on the edge of her desk. She flipped her hair off her shoulder and side-eyed him, saying nothing. He picked up the framed photo of a young couple and a curly-haired, little girl in front of something that looked like a souped-up tank. She snatched it out of his hands and set it back in its place. “Is there something you need? Maybe you’re looking to unload thirty seconds from your segment? Or are you just here to bother me?”
“I was the special guest at the Abilene Rotary Club’s luncheon today. They think you have magic powers. Said you’ve never been wrong about when it’s going to rain.” He left out the part where they wondered if she was a witch.
“No magic powers,” she said, trying to look disinterested.
“That’s what I said. I told them it was nothing but luck, and odds were you’d get it wrong one of these days.”
Summer stopped what she was doing and turned her whole body in his direction. “Did you, now?”
Finally, he had her full attention. He smiled. Most ladies loved the dimples, but they only seemed to fuel Summer’s fire. “I mean, if it’s not magic, what else could it be?”
“You were a football player before this, correct?”
He liked how she had to ask, as if she wasn’t completely sure. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Does that not require any intuition at all? Or do you just learn how to play and that’s it? Anybody with any athletic ability can do it?”
Again, she made him laugh. “Anyone can play. But to be good, you need to read more than a playbook.”
“Exactly,” she said with a smile and a wave of her hand. “I read more than the radar. I can’t explain how it works, I just feel it. I’m sure there are things you can’t teach someone about football. They just know it or they don’t.”
“Well, that’s probably true. My mom swears I was born wearing a helmet. I probably know more about football than I want to.” That was the truth. He had slept, eaten, drunk and breathed football his entire life. “Anytime you want to learn something about the game, I’d be happy to teach you.”
She froze, her pretty pink lips parted. He’d hit the nerve he was looking for. Football held about as much of her interest as watching paint dry held his. She turned forward and shook her head. “I don’t want to learn about football.”
“Maybe you could teach me about predicting the rain, then?” Travis knew all about defensive strategy. She could block his pass all afternoon, but he wasn’t going to stop trying for that touchdown.
She shook her head again. “You don’t want to hear about weather forecasting.”
“I do. I swear.”
“Go away, Mr. Lockwood.”
“You’re leaving me no choice,” he warned. “I’m gonna have to tell everyone at the Rotary Club it’s magic.”
Summer dropped her face into her hands and groaned in frustration. She was too much fun. It took so little to get her riled up. Sitting back up, she swiveled her chair in his direction and narrowed her eyes. “What do you want to know? That it dates back to 650 B.C.? Or how the Babylonians tried to make guesses based on things like cloud formations and other atmospheric phenomena?” He saw something in her eyes flicker. She truly lived for this stuff. “I mean, can you imagine? How accurate could they have been back then? If they did ever get it right, I think those people were simply more in tune with nature. Genetically, as a species, we—”
She stopped and snapped her mouth shut. Travis was entranced; he wanted her to continue. To have someone actually talk to him about something other than what he did when he was in a uniform was refreshing. “What? We what?”
