From the Start (24 page)

He stuffed his car-wrinkled clothes in his bag. “I’m not in Iowa.”

“Then where are you?”

“Chicago.”

“You’re joking.”

“What part of me telling you I’m in Chicago is funny?” Why was he being so short with Ian?

Because every time he calls, it feels like
an intrusion.

He stilled at the thought, looking back at himself in the bathroom mirror. Was that true? Had he started getting so comfortable in Maple Valley that reminders of the life he’d left behind had drifted into unwelcome territory?

“It’s not funny, it’s ridiculously coincidental, is what it is. I’ve had a few job leads for you. One in St. Louis, one in Miami, the other in Chicago.”

“Really.” Why couldn’t he muster up more interest? This is what he’d been hoping and praying for.

Except not lately.
Man, he hadn’t prayed about his career in days, maybe weeks. He’d prayed about that train pull yesterday—that it’d turn out well and encourage people he’d come to care about. He’d prayed about his book. Today, he’d prayed like crazy for that little boy in the hospital.

But not about sponsorships or speaking gigs or sportscaster jobs. The things he was supposed to be caring about.

“I was going to pursue the Miami one first, but now that I know you’re in Chicago, I say we move on it. It’s a regional sports show that’s looking for a football analyst. Called Sports Circle. Good numbers, good ratings.”

Colton dropped onto the edge of the bathtub. “Sports Circle. Chicago.”

“I know it’s not east or west coast, but it’s a good market. Frankly, I was going to call you lucky if we could snag you something in Kansas City or Minneapolis. Chicago was more than I was hoping for.”

Chicago. Wind. The Bean.
Bears, Cubs, Bulls.

His brain riffled through Windy City trivia.

Kate.

He lurched. Hard enough that he lost his balance and thumped into the still-wet tub. But the water seeping through his pants
and the fact that his legs now dangled over the tub’s rim didn’t stop the thought from completing itself.

Kate lives in Chicago.

Or, did, when she wasn’t in Maple Valley. And until she left for that Africa trip she’d told him about.

“What just happened? You fall over or something?”

Maybe realizing he might have an open door to the town where Kate lived shouldn’t make much difference. But it made all the difference.

The bathroom’s fan rattled overhead as he pulled himself up from the bathtub. “Okay, I’m interested, Ian. So what happens now?” He pulled the shower curtain over the bathtub and picked up his duffel.

“We get you an interview set up. Sooner rather than later. Maybe even tomorrow.”

His bag slid off his shoulder and thumped to the floor. “Can’t do tomorrow.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re already
in
Chicago. If there’s a God, he’s doing a good job lining up all your ducks for you.”

Except that God hadn’t brought him to Chicago for a job interview. He’d come because there was a kid in a hospital with cancer. He’d come because Kate needed him.

“This kind of thing isn’t going to come around again soon, Greene. Two of Sports Circle’s last five anchors landed at the NFL Network. One at ESPN. If this isn’t fate doing some fancy footwork, I don’t know what is.”

The sound of Kate’s movement in the kitchen clattered in—cupboards opening and a pan scraping against a burner. He’d promised to take her back to the hospital first thing in the morning. Wait with her as long as it took for Breydan to wake up.

If he wakes up.
Nobody would ever put voice to that thought, but the fear of it had to be pummeling Kate’s friends . . . and
Kate. And there was no way he was leaving her to deal with that alone.

“I’ll make the call first thing in the morning, see when they can get you in.”

“Ian, no. Not tomorrow. Not so soon.” His voice came out gravelly and firm.

Ian’s pause pulled taut, tension as clear as if he stood in the bathroom with Colton. “You know what—do what you want. Take the interview or don’t. But if you don’t, then I think it’ll be time to rethink our working relationship.”

Colton closed his eyes and leaned over the sink. Being dropped by his manager? That’d be the final death knell for his career. And something told him it wouldn’t do any good to tell Ian about little Breydan. Or Kate. Or why he needed to be here.

Ian wouldn’t understand how someone Colton had met less than a month ago could be worth missing the perfect job prospect. How could he? Colton didn’t understand it himself.

He only knew being here, with Kate, felt right. It felt right in a way nothing had since the last time he ran a ball down a field and cleared the end zone.

He realized then that the line had gone dead. So that was that. He jerked his duffel bag from the floor and dropped it over his shoulder. Looked at himself once more in the mirror. Clean and freshly shaven, only the faintest circles under his eyes hinting at last night’s lack of sleep.

And something else.
Peace.
The kind that came from making the right decision, putting someone else first.

When he emerged from the bathroom, the aroma of food wafted over him. Breakfast food. His growling stomach reminded him now how little he’d had to eat today—vending machine food and hospital coffee.

He padded across the living room, dropping his duffel bag
on the couch, and found Kate in the kitchen. She had her back to him and apparently hadn’t heard him walk up. Which gave him time to take in her appearance—brown hair tousled and damp, baggy pink flannel pants, white T-shirt.

He didn’t realize he was staring until she turned, shrieked. “Whoa, Colt.”

“Sorry.” He held up both hands. “Sorry.”

“For a big man you walk awfully quiet.” She turned back to the sizzling frying pan.

He stepped up to the stove, stomach rumbling at the sight of the food. Scrambled eggs complete with a rainbow of vegetables. French toast on a square stovetop griddle. A bowl of grapes nearby on the counter top.

“You didn’t have to go to all this work.”

He caught a whiff of her hair as she reached for a spatula. And he’d thought the food smelled good.

“Wasn’t much work at all. And besides, breakfast food is a thing with us Walkers. Family comfort food of choice. We all have our specialties.” She moved the eggs around the frying pan with a spatula. “Beckett is the pancake king. Logan can make an omelet seem like a religious experience. Raegan, she’s extra creative with fruit salads.”

Colton snuck a grape from the bowl. “Does your dad have a specialty?”

“Mini quiches.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not even. Seriously, you should see him line mini muffin tins with Pillsbury dough.” She giggled. First laugh he’d heard from her all day.

“And what’s your specialty, Rosie?”

She wrinkled her nose at his use of her nickname, then slid her spatula underneath a piece of French toast. “This right
here. Might just look like any old French toast. But I’ll tell you my secret if you want.”

“I want.”

“I smash up some Captain Crunch and add it to the batter.” She pointed out the empty cereal box sticking up from the trash bin.

“Genius.”

She waved her spatula like a wand. “I’m no Julia Child, but I do have my strengths.”

While she dipped additional pieces of bread into batter, he glanced around the smallish kitchen. White cupboards and stainless-steel appliances against bold blue walls. A peninsula counter jutted from one wall, the open space above it looking into the living room, where beige furniture faced a corner fireplace.

It was a comfortable home, clean and uncluttered, but not without touches of Kate. The hanging shelf in the hallway with a line of books about classic films. An antique typewriter on a slim table edged against the entryway wall. And a smattering of family photos throughout the first floor.

When he turned back to the stove, he caught Kate watching him. “What?”

“My kitchen seems so much smaller with you standing in it.”

Funny, when he’d been thinking how much bigger his world felt with her in it.

“I can’t believe you hung around the hospital the entire day.”

“I was exactly where I wanted to be. Besides, I had some good reading material.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, just a sec.” He strolled back to the living room and pulled the book from his duffel bag. “A little something I picked up from the Maple Valley Public Library.”

She turned from the stove, mouth forming into an O as soon as she saw the cover. “Oh, Colt, no.”

“What? It’s this great book by this famous author I know.”

“Please tell me you aren’t really reading it.”

The French toast on the griddle sizzled behind her. “I’m a hundred pages in. I like it.”

“It’s overbearing and pretentious.” She’d always dreamt of writing a book—her once-romantic bent revealing itself in the love stories she scribbled in notebooks as a teenager. College, however, had convinced her she needed to up her literary game. Write something high-minded and lyrically decadent.

Which might not have been a bad thing if the story had come even close to connecting with readers. If it had sounded even a bit like her own voice.

“I like it.”

“It barely sold three hundred copies, and the few reviews it managed to get weren’t flattering.”

He laid the book on the counter. “All right, so it reads a little heavy. But I still see touches of you in it. I did wonder one thing, though.” He opened the book to the beginning—the dedication page. Two simple words:
To Gil.

Kate eyed first the book, then him. “He was a university professor and a co-writer for a while. We were . . . close.”

Close like how he was close to Logan?

Or close like how he’d been to Lilah?

And, wow, this was the first time he’d thought of Lilah in he didn’t even know how long.

She turned back to the stove, pushed eggs around the frying pan. “Things didn’t end so great between us. I gave up this amazing communications internship opportunity in DC to stay in Chicago and help him with a TV movie script he was writing. That’s how I ended up falling into writing for Heartline.” She moved to the griddle, struggled to slide her spatula under a piece of bread that had sat too long. “But I got a big honk
ing surprise the day I found out he’d been married the whole time I knew him.”

Colton came up beside her, gently took the spatula from her, and took over with the French toast. “He sounds like an idiot to me.”

There was a wry edge to her laughter. “I think I deserve the title, too, though. I mean, I gave up DC for a guy who really hadn’t made any firm commitment to me. Yes, he helped me get a book published—and at a very young age. I wanted to get it done before my mom passed. She died before it released, but at least she got to read the final version.” She rushed through the explanation, an effort at holding emotion at bay.

“I think it was all that time working on the book with Gil during my senior year plus the pain of Mom’s death right after graduation that just completely clouded my common sense when it came to him. So I followed him to Chicago. But how dense does a person have to be not to realize there might be a reason he always wanted to meet at my place, never took me anywhere we might run into mutual acquaintances?”

He flipped over the piece of toast, one side nearly black. “You’re not dense, Kate.”

“Well, anyway, I thought he was a thing of the past. But he’s been trying to get back in touch with me lately.”

Colton pointed the spatula at her. “Don’t do it.”

“You sound like my brother.”

Yeah, well, he didn’t feel like her brother. She smiled up at him, strands of still-damp hair framing her face.

“So I was thinking we’d eat in front of the TV,” she said, a catch in her voice that matched the pulsing of his own nerves.

“Monday night football?”

She rolled her eyes and pulled the spatula out of his hands. “I was thinking an old movie. You are woefully uneducated when it comes to the classics.”

He didn’t care what Ian said. He was right where he was supposed to be.

Kate awoke to the faintest rhythm thumping from somewhere. And the warmest, most comfortable nest of pillows and blankets she’d ever experienced. Like a cocoon, this bed, if only she had any sense of where she actually was.

She opened one eye, then the other and peeked over the blanket pulled up to her neck.

Wait . . .

That wasn’t a blanket.

And this wasn’t her bed.

And that rhythm . . .

She felt her eyes bug but swallowed her gasp before it could squeak out. That was a heartbeat under what she’d thought was a pillow.
Colton . . .
And it was his arm wrapped around her like a comforter. His legs stretched out in front of him, propped on her coffee table beside their empty plates from last night.

Her own legs were tucked underneath her. She was curled up in a ball next to him. And wearing his hoodie.

Slowly, like a blurry Polaroid coming into focus, scenes from last night drifted in. Dinner of French toast and scrambled eggs in front of the TV, black-and-white movie they’d hardly paid attention to. The glow of her electric fireplace. The scrapbook Colton had found on the shelf underneath the coffee table—full of childhood photos and memories she recounted as they flipped through the pages.