Holding Holly (Love and Football Series) (8 page)

He glanced at the digital clock on her phone. Eleven oh one in the morning; his teammates would be in the weight room, and he needed to man up and call the coach. He punched in the number to the team’s front office.

“Seattle Sharks,” the receptionist said. “How can I direct your call?”

“Hi, Molly,” he said. “It’s Derrick Collins. May I talk to Coach Stewart?”

“Of course,” she said. “One moment, please.”

His coach answered on the third ring. “Collins, where the hell are you?”

“I’m in Noel,” Derrick said. “I will get out of here as fast as I can. I know there will be fines.”

His normally calm, collected coach was breathing fire.

“Damn right there will be fines, and I’m going to yell at you too. What the fuck? You know we’re playing Denver on Sunday. Get your ass back here, son. Would you mind explaining to me exactly why you decided to cross the pass during the season? Did you not watch the weather report? We need you here.” The coach pulled in a huge breath. “I should bench you.”

“And I would deserve it. I will be back as soon as I can get out of here. I promise.”

“Did you just say you deserved to be benched for this one? I must be hearing things. You’d better have a damn good reason why you did this.” Maybe it was Derrick’s imagination, but the coach seemed to be running out of steam.

“I do. While we’re on the phone, Coach, I’m working on a little project for some deserving kids in Noel. I wonder if you’d help me out.”

“I’ll help you out when you get back here, Collins.”

“Got it.”

“Keep me updated,” the coach said.

“I’ll do that.” Derrick smiled a little. “Thanks, Coach.”

He heard a burst of laughter before the coach hung up. All he had to do now was figure out how he was getting home, and how he was going to see Holly again.

T
HE STORM FINALLY
blew itself out a couple of hours later. Holly could hear the TV on low volume in the living room while Grandma and Derrick tried to figure out what the situation was at the pass. So far, almost a foot of snow had fallen in Noel, and plows were still clearing off the passes back to Seattle. At least the avalanches had stopped.

Holly sat at the kitchen table, handwriting responses to the Santa letters while she added the accounting of girls and boys to Derrick’s shopping list, which was getting pretty long and even more expensive.

Derrick walked into the kitchen seconds later and put her phone down in front of her on the table. “I didn’t want to forget to give this back,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said.

“By the way, I paid the unlimited talk and text fee at your cell provider. I didn’t want you to have to pay for all the minutes I racked up this morning.” He let out a sigh. “Lots and lots of talking. I think I’m exhausted now.” He dropped into the chair across from her.

“Derrick, you didn’t have to do that,” she scolded. “This all is costing you so much money . . .”

“I have a few dollars in the bank, girl. Don’t worry about it.”

“But you’re already paying for the big party and food and gifts. Didn’t you say the coach is mad and he’s going to fine you, too? You didn’t come over here to spend thousands.”

He sat up a bit in his chair and reached out to take her hand. “That’s right. I came over here to have dinner with you, and I want to have dinner with you again. How are we going to work this?”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“It looks like driving across the pass and I don’t quite get along. I found out there’s a municipal airport five miles from here. Would you be willing to fly to my place if they brought you back the same night?”

“Derrick, that’s . . . I . . . it’s just wintertime. When the road is cleared off and de-iced, it’s not so bad. I promise. That’s not it, though,” she said. “I can drive to see you if that’s what you’re worried about. Mostly, though, it’s figuring out when this will happen.” She let out a sigh. “I work all the time. When I’m not working, I’m at home with Grandma. When she’s better, it’ll be different, but then I’ll be back in school, and I have homework, and”—she couldn’t look into his eyes—“I don’t know how I can make this work.”

He didn’t let go of her hand. “So, it’s not me. It’s the fact that you’re trying to do it all at once.”

“I’ll be out of school in June, and then I have to find a job.”

He moved closer to her. “A job, huh?”

“I want to stay in Seattle, but nursing jobs can be tough to find. I—”

He reached up to put gentle fingertips over her lips.

“I’ll help you work it all out. I promise I will.”

Chapter Eight

T
WO DAYS LATER
, Holly was alone in Caffeine Addiction at eight
AM
. Business had picked up since the passes reopened, but she wondered why things weren’t jumping as usual. Maybe everyone in Noel had decided they could live without caffeine.

“Yeah, right,” she muttered to herself.

She wiped the counter down for the third time in an hour and tried not to stare at the clock. She enjoyed her job, but being busy meant the hours would pass faster. She, Grandma, and Derrick had joined forces to find Michael, and had struck out with every option they had tried. The elementary school principal thought he might be in junior high, but with no siblings’ names to go on, they couldn’t possibly identify his family. The junior high principal cited confidentiality concerns, but told them there were seven Michaels at his school. All seven had siblings.

Santa Claus told Holly’s grandma he’d do his best to ask around town and see what he could come up with. With the Noel Merchants’ Association’s help, they’d plastered the town with flyers advertising next week’s party. If Michael and his family were in town, they couldn’t miss it.

Derrick had hired one of the pizza guys to drive Derrick home from Noel in his Escalade when the pass finally opened up the night before last. He’d also paid for a helicopter pilot to fly the pizza guy back to Noel with a bagful of autographed Sharks swag for his trouble.

He’d called Holly when he got home, he’d called her last night, and he said he’d call her when practice was over for the day. It was a good thing she had unlimited minutes on her phone right now. Besides status reports on next week’s Santa party, they were asking each other the questions they should have asked on their first date. They talked for hours.

Derrick was quite a storyteller. He made her laugh while he told her anecdotes about growing up with his little brother, Trevon, in a small town in Alabama. Their family wasn’t rich, either, and his grandma and parents worked hard to make sure Derrick and his brother had a roof over their heads, food to eat, and clothes on their backs. He told her how much it meant to him that he could make sure the people he loved were taken care of now.

During those hours of conversation, Holly forgot her shyness while she talked and laughed with him. Derrick coaxed her life story out of her, too, as well as asking her what she hoped for in the future. It was hard to believe she felt such a bond with a man after just a week. She fought the nagging fear that real life might never measure up to their sweetly blossoming relationship.

He was the life of the party; she’d rather hide in a corner. She was careful with expressing her feelings. He wore his heart on his sleeve. She scrimped and saved. He’d never have to worry about money again. His encouragement and his interest in her proved to be contagious, though.

“You know that song,” he’d said to her last night. “ ‘Started at the bottom, and now we’re here’? The only one that can stop you from helping yourself to the things you want in life is you, boo.”

“Boo?” she said. She’d heard the nickname before, but she loved hearing it from him.

“My girl. My sweetie. You,” he said. She dropped the phone when she hugged herself from sheer happiness.

Derrick also teased her incessantly about their second date, which probably wasn’t happening for at least another couple of weeks. He had a game, which her work schedule didn’t allow her to even watch. They’d both be at the Santa party, but she would be working for the caterer that night instead of visiting with Derrick.

“I’ll get my happy ass over there,” Derrick said. “When the party’s over, I’ll take you out for a soda and hold your hand a little before I go back home.” His voice dropped. “I might steal a kiss or two. How’s that?”

“Perfect.” She sighed.

She was so distracted with daydreaming about Derrick that she didn’t notice a woman walking into the coffee shop until she was standing in front of the counter. Holly jumped a little.

“Good morning,” Holly said. “What can I get for you?”

The woman appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, with dark hair and dark eyes. Her expression was wary. A worn scarf was wrapped around her head to keep out the cold. The sleeves on her oversized coat were frayed slightly. She clasped work-worn hands on the counter in front of her. She licked her lips nervously.

“Nothing right now,” the woman said. Holly saw her eyes slide to the glass case full of pastries, but she forced herself to look away. “Are you hiring? I’d like to fill out an application, please.”

Holly knew they weren’t hiring, but there were blank applications under the counter all the time. The woman fidgeted nervously. There were dark circles under her eyes too. She forced her eyes off of the pastries in the case one more time. The hair stood up on the back of Holly’s neck as the realization hit her: This woman was hungry, and she hadn’t eaten for a while. She needed a job, but first she needed something to eat.

“I don’t know what our hiring situation is,” Holly said, “but let me get you an application. Why don’t you have a seat at the counter while you fill it out?”

“I can go sit at a table or something—”

“That won’t be necessary. Really. I’d like the company.” Holly reached beneath the counter to grab a blank application and a pen. “Let me get you a glass of water. Do you like coffee?”

She saw the momentary flash of fear and desperation that crossed the woman’s face. Her shoulders slumped. She probably didn’t have any money in her pocket. Holly could put enough in the till to cover a coffee and a breakfast sandwich, if the woman would accept it.

She wondered how many other applications the woman had filled out in Noel, and if anyone else had noticed the fact things weren’t going well for her.

“I . . . it’s good, but I don’t need any right now.”

“There’s a special this morning. Everyone who comes in to fill out an application gets a good breakfast.” Holly reached out to briefly touch one of the woman’s trembling hands. “It’s on the house.”

The woman’s head bowed. She picked up the pen and the application and glanced at Holly again. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. What would you like?”

Holly made the woman a double-shot latte. She assembled two breakfast sandwiches, wrapping one up to go. She put some cut fruit on the plate too. She wasn’t in the business of handing out her boss’s food with no charge, but she knew he would have done the same thing. Holly crouched beneath the counter to grab the ten dollar bill out of her wallet. She’d put it in the till when the woman wasn’t looking.

The woman was still working on the application when Holly set the plate and coffee cup down in front of her. “Time for breakfast,” Holly said.

“Why are you doing this for me?” the woman said.

“You’ll pass it on to someone else who needs it when you can,” Holly said. She wiped down the countertop again. “Do you know how to work an espresso machine?”

The woman shook her head a little.

“It’s not that hard,” Holly encouraged.

The woman took a long, appreciative sniff of the coffee and brought the cup to her lips to sip delicately. She wanted to make it last. “I’m a fast learner,” the woman said.

Holly gave her a nod and reached across the counter to shake her hand. “I’m Holly, by the way.”

“I’m Stephanie,” the woman said. “Thank you for the coffee and the breakfast. It’s delicious.”

Holly did a little more cleaning and stocked the condiments bar while she covertly checked Stephanie out. There was black duct tape holding the sole of one of her snow boots on. She was clean and presentable, but it looked like she really, really needed a job. Stephanie also cut her breakfast sandwich in half, wrapped the other half in a napkin, and slid it into her pocket. No wonder she was hungry; she was sharing the food Holly gave her with someone else, it looked like.

Holly strolled back behind the counter again to glance over the finished application and stick the extra wrapped breakfast sandwich in a bag. She added a couple of pastries for the hell of it. There was enough in the tip jar to cover that amount. She plunked herself down on the bar stool behind Caffeine Addiction’s counter.

“Is there anything else I can get for you, Stephanie?”

“No, thank you. Thank you again for the breakfast and the coffee. If you need a resume or something besides what I wrote down, I can get that to you.” Stephanie rose from the stool she’d been sitting on, and Holly said, “Wait.”

Stephanie turned back to her.

“I-I need to ask you a question,” Holly said. “You have people at home who are hungry, too, don’t you?”

Stephanie folded her lips and bowed her head again. “I just need a job. If I could find a job, I think we’d be okay. I . . . I got laid off, I haven’t been able to find another job, and I’ve applied everywhere.” She let out a sigh. “I know you didn’t ask for this today, but I have to tell someone. My husband left us. My unemployment is running out. I don’t know how I’m going to find the money to give my kids a Christmas, let alone how I’m going to pay next month’s bills.” Her mouth trembled. She looked into Holly’s eyes. “I’m so sorry to dump on you.”

“How many kids do you have?”

“Three. Michael’s fourteen. He’s my rock.” It was all Holly could do not to punch the air with excitement as Stephanie spoke. “He’s had to take care of my younger son and daughter so many times while I interviewed or filled out applications, and he never complains. He’s a growing boy. He needs good nourishing food; he’s outgrowing his clothes”—tears rose in her eyes, and she silently fought them back—“Ethan’s my seven-year-old, and Chloe is my baby. She’s four.”