California Dreaming: Four Contemporary Romances (116 page)

Little doodad! This thing?
All of a sudden the world went red.

“Neither.” She popped the necklace over her head. “It’s not for sale. I’m keeping it.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes in puzzlement. Then he did something Neyland would not have believed had she not seen it herself. He dropped his eyes to the case and pointed to
Daisy,
the white gold filigree and camphor glass bracelet that she’d splurged and bought a few precious diamond chips for.

“How about that one, then?” He didn’t care one bit what he bought. He was simply on an errand to soothe his guilt and get a woman off his back.

“No, Gabe.” Neyland was proud of how strong she sounded. “You don’t understand. None of my jewelry is for sale to you.” And she meant it—not
Daisy,
Elizabeth,
Victoria,
Aphrodite,
and especially not
Annabelle.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

“You’ve always done this,” Neyland said. “You did it to my cousin, Hope, when y’all were in high school. Except it was some silver plated bracelet you bought at Belk. I remember.”

“Is that what this is about? Hope and I were sixteen. You were what? Ten? Twelve? People break up all the time. What’s wrong with being nice about it?”

“It’s not nice. It’s a bribe to keep from being badmouthed. You broke Hope’s heart.”

“Did I? Well, if that’s true, she’s over it. We’re Facebook friends. The last time the team was in Charlotte handing the Panthers their ass, she came to the game. We had dinner.”

“Please tell me this is not for her!”

“It seems to me if you’re so concerned for Hope, you’d know she and I have not taken up together. She brought a date that day.”

She had no defense. Truth was, Neyland hadn’t talked to her cousin since Hope had been in Beauford for Christmas. She had no idea who, if anybody, Hope was dating.

“Look, you have merchandise,” Gabe said. “I need merchandise. I need it today. Just sell me a damned piece of jewelry!”

She folded her arms over her chest. “No. Go to the mall at Cool Springs.
Annabelle
is not going to be on GabesKissoffJewels.com.”

He showed no surprise. In fact, he looked a little proud. So he knew about the website some of his former women had put together.

Then he started to laugh.
“
Annabelle
? You
name
this stuff?”

“Yeah? Well, if you’d name the passes you’re supposed to catch, maybe you would have caught that one in the last Super Bowl and your team could’ve been the first in history to win three straight.”

That came out of her mouth before she could stop it. He turned white and she felt a little shame.

Gabe pocketed his credit card. “Okay. Fine. Keep
Annabelle
and all her weird sisters. I’m going over to the school to see your dad.”

And, of course, her dad would be there—even on a Saturday morning in April. Long live football, the Beauford Blue Devils, and the University of Tennessee Volunteers. Neyland understood that well; after all, she and the Vol stadium shared the common distinction of having been named for the greatest coach in the history of UT, General Robert Reese Neyland. Though they didn’t always understand each other, Neyland loved her father—adored him—but she would never forgive him for saddling her with that name.

“Why are you going to see Daddy? Are you going to tattle on me?”

“What are you? Five? No, I heard there was some damage to the football stadium from the storm last night. I’m going to see how bad and if there’s anything I can do to help Coach—something I doubt you’ve done.”

So he got the last word after all.

• • •

Gabe got in his Mercedes, put the top down, and headed toward Beauford High School.

What in the ever-loving hell was that all about? Was Neyland MacKenzie completely off her rocker—naming inanimate objects and then refusing to sell them? Emory was always preaching about how important it was to support the artisans, and that’s what he’d been trying to do.

That, and it was handier than driving into Nashville.

But Gabe liked a woman who knew her way around some nice designer clothes and a makeup counter, as Neyland clearly did. Not that he would have explored that even if she hadn’t been crazy-acting. Dating Coach’s niece back in high school had been about as dangerous as he was willing to get—and that was saying a lot for a man who liked to jump out of planes and climb mountains. But damn, Neyland MacKenzie was a looker, and she had a fire about her that could consume a man if he let it. To Gabe’s surprise, apparently his penis hadn’t gotten the memo that Neyland was off limits, because it shouted at him, “Go back and get her!” and began to rise in preparation for the impending encounter.

Not allowed. Best to think of the trouble she was causing him by refusing to sell him jewelry. It was going to take the better part of two hours, round trip, to go to the mall and have something sent to Courtney.

Good. Thoughts of Courtney settled that lead pipe right down.

This breakup hadn’t been as bad as some. Since he’d dropped that ball in the end zone in the last thirty seconds of the Super Bowl last January, she hadn’t been as keen on him. That was okay. Being with Courtney hadn’t been bad; it just hadn’t been good. When she’d starting making noise about wanting to come with him on this trip to Beauford, Gabe had put the relationship out of its misery. He suspected Courtney’s distress had been more about being denied the opportunity to rub elbows with the music folks who would be at Jackson’s wedding than anything else. That, and maybe she’d figured the more distraught she seemed, the bigger the kiss-off gift would be.

That was fine; she’d earned it. He could be hard to handle, and he had the money. He really didn’t care if she let herself be photographed for that website wearing her kiss-off jewelry.

He pulled behind the school, parked beside the field house, and got out of the car like he’d done a thousand times when he was kid. The field house looked okay, as did the bleachers on the south side. But the north bleachers—the home side—had completely caved in. No doubt the concession area beneath would also be damaged. Coach MacKenzie had taught Gabe and his teammates from the first time they’d stepped foot on that field that this was their house and it was to be respected and loved. It hurt to see his house in shambles.

Damned tornado season. There hadn’t been an actual funnel cloud, but straight-line winds could be as bad. There was a swarm of boys with garbage bags picking up debris. They’d chosen to wear their jerseys to clean up their house. Gabe walked onto the field, found a garbage bag, and joined them.

The team greeted him but were too subdued to be very jovial about it. When he’d been home last summer, Gabe had spent a lot of time working out with these boys, so he was old hat with them, something that he found oddly restful and reassuring. According to one of the assistant coaches, Coach MacKenzie was at an emergency school board meeting.

They all worked steadily for two hours, with Gabe pausing once to order fifty pizzas.

Finally, QB-One Lance Owens called out, “Hey, there’s Coach Mac!”

En masse, Coach MacKenzie’s players stood, put down their garbage bags, and removed their ball caps.

“Gentlemen,” Coach MacKenzie said to his team. “No one asked you to come here today, but here you are. I won’t forget it.”

He still looked good—solid and athletic. There was a little salt with the pepper but not much. Neyland had his chestnut hair and brown eyes, but it looked better on her.

Too good.

Just then, the pizza arrived. Coach MacKenzie almost smiled when he met Gabe’s eyes. “I might have known since you’re here, food would follow.”

“Two hours is a long time for a man to go without eating.” Gabe stepped forward to shake Coach’s hand, but they ended up in one of those shoulder-patting half-hugs.

“Gentlemen,” Coach called out. “Grab some shade, eat your food, and be sure to hydrate. I’m going to do a little catching up with your pizza benefactor. I’ll be back in an hour, and we’ll finish what you started.”

Gabe snatched one of the pizzas and two waters from the cooler. “Pepperoni all right with you?”

“Sounds good,” Coach said. “Don’t tell Vanessa. She’d have me eating tofu pizza if she could.”

Gabe followed Coach into the field house, through the locker room, to Coach’s office.

Gabe let himself down in the same green metal chair that had been in front of Coach’s desk for as long Gabe could remember. “I still can’t sit in this chair without being scared shitless of what’s fixing to befall me.” The wall behind Coach was filled with pictures of players who had drifted through this stadium, including one of Gabe with his Heisman Trophy and another in his San Antonio Wrangler uniform.

Coach helped himself to pizza and propped his feet on the desk. “It wasn’t that bad. I sometimes called you in to compliment you. And it must have done you some good. Here you are, picking up trash, nastying up your fancy, sissy-boy clothes.”

“You don’t like my shorts? They’re Tennessee Vol orange. I wore them just for you.”

That got a half-smile out of Coach. He loved the University of Tennessee, had played center there in the seventies. After graduating, he’d been drafted in the seventh round by the Buffalo Bills, though he was cut after the preseason. Then he’d come back to where he’d played his own high school ball to coach.

“I’ll get you a pair if you want them,” Gabe said.

“I think I’ll pass. But I appreciate your loyalty.”

“I’ve been in town a week. I meant to get down to see you sooner,” Gabe said.

“I heard about Nickolai Glazov. How is he?”

“Fine.” Gabe took another piece of pizza. “He’s been in the hospital all week because he was running a little fever. But they’re letting him go today.”

“The paper said he’d be out a few weeks but ought to be able get in on the playoffs.”

“Yeah. So you’ve been to a school board meeting? What’s the word on the stadium?”

“We’ll get to that. I want to hear about you.”

Gabe had seen Coach when he’d been here for Christmas, but not since. “Well, you saw how it went in January … ”

The whole world had. But what the whole world didn’t know was
why
he’d dropped an easy, perfect pass that would have made NFL history.

It had been twenty years since that summer night when Gabe had stood helpless with his twin Rafe and Jackson, and watched the vacation beach house burn with their parents trapped inside. He’d trained himself to never think of his mother standing on the balcony crying with two-year-old Camille in her arms.

“Catch your sister, darling,” she’d called to Gabe. “You have to catch her. You can do it!” And she’d believed that—believed it because, even at ten, he’d been tall and his athletic ability uncanny. Catching came easy to him, but not that night. Thank God his mother had run back into the house before she saw Camille fall to her death at Gabe’s feet.

Growing up, whenever that memory had threatened to seep into his soul, whenever he’d remembered how Camille’s silky hair had felt when it’d brushed the back of his hand after the fabric of her little nightgown had slipped through his fingers, Gabe had distracted himself. He’d trained and practiced until he was the best, until he could be sure he would always catch what was thrown at him. The irony was that his sin had made him into one of the best wide receivers in the nation. He seldom missed, and never when it counted.

That is, until last January. He didn’t expect he’d ever know why, when he’d looked up and reached, the ball had disappeared and Camille had appeared in its place.

When he’d looked down to see only a dead ball instead of his dead sister, it had been impossible to get very distressed over a lost football game, even one that would have given the Wranglers their third consecutive Super Bowl victory.

Unfortunately, the rest of Texas hadn’t felt that way, and the ESPN commentators seemed to have no end of opinions on the matter. So, to escape, he’d met up with his twin, and they’d gone skiing, Rocky Mountain ice climbing, deep-sea fishing, and skydiving. When Rafe left to go back on the circuit, Gabe had hidden out at Jackson’s Aspen house until it was time to come to Beauford. He’d invited Courtney and let her bring whomever she wanted along, because his rule was the more the merrier. But for once, no amount of
more
or
merry
had kept him from remembering how jealous he’d been of his little sister and his twin.

No one knew why the baby had taken to Rafe, but the two of them had bonded, and Camille had been able to tell Gabe and Rafe apart when no one else, except their mother, could. Everyone except Gabe thought it was charming and funny; Gabe had found no humor in sharing his twin. They’d always had each other, while Jackson and their youngest brother Beau were especially close. But after Camille had gotten old enough to look around and fall in love with Rafe, Gabe had felt alone.

And maybe that’s why he’d let her fall. And maybe he’d let that football slip through his hands because he didn’t deserve a third Super Bowl ring.

“Sorry, son,” the god of football said with his Texas drawl. “Only two rings for boys who kill their sister out of jealousy.”

His contract was up, and regardless of what had happened, his overall record couldn’t be ignored. The Wranglers wanted him back to the tune of an additional fifteen million for three years, but he hadn’t signed.

And though he hadn’t told anyone, even his long-suffering agent, he might not.

“Yeah, Gabe.” Coach brought him back to the Beauford Blue Devils’ field house office. “That was rough. But you can’t win every game.”

Gabe laughed and was thankful for the opportunity. “That’s not what you used to say to us out there in that locker room.”

“That’s not what I say to them now, but it’s true. Your parents would have been proud of you.”

Yeah, Coach. They’d be especially proud of how I as good as killed their baby.

A little frown crossed Coach’s face as it always did at the mention of James and Laura Beauford. Gabe’s mother and Vanessa MacKenzie had gone to Harpeth Academy together and, as teenagers, had attended Aunt Amelia’s charm school. Coach and James Beauford had grown up together and had met their future wives when Aunt Amelia had pressed them into service for the dance she always had at the end of the charm school. Gabe and his brothers had attended their fair share of those dances, too, but no marriages had come out it.