Holding Out for a Hero (7 page)

The two octaves her voice had risen screeched through his brain and Jake reached for his temples. “Ella. Do you think you could keep it down?”

Ella blinked. “Oh my God!” she said again and reached up to whip his glasses off. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like hell. “You’re hung over!”

“Ella,” he winced, grappling his glasses back and pushing them into place.

“How could you?” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “What kind of example are you setting for these kids?”

“They won’t know.”

Ella snorted. “You smell like a collision between a brewery, a cigar shop and a cheap perfume factory.”

“Hey,” Pete protested.

Ella ignored him. “Half these kids have grown up in households destroyed by alcohol. Trust me—they’ll know. Shit, Jake.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think I’d have to give you a code of conduct. I mean really—”

“Shh,” Jake interrupted, placing two fingers against her mouth. His head felt like it was going to explode and her low, angry whisper was throwing petrol at the fuse.

Ella’s diatribe stuttered to a halt. He was late and hung over and stank. God knew what he’d been up to or who he’d been with to get in such a state. She was mad as hell. But he was here and her heart did a funny triple beat at the press of his fingers into her lips.

Even hung over as he was, Jake felt the transient pulse of awareness as the softness of her mouth and the sigh of her breath against his fingertips streaked straight to his groin. He wanted to press harder, use his finger to smear the gloss from her mouth. It just wasn’t the time or the place.

He rubbed his temple again. “Just go and introduce me, Ella.”

It took a good few seconds for Ella to snap out of the haze. She turned and walked away from him.

“Okay, everyone.” She raised her voice to hush the few murmurs that hadn’t stopped as she’d approached them. “I’m sure to many of you, he will need no introduction, but I’d like you all to meet Jake Prince.”

She turned slightly, and Jake took the cue, smiling and waving beside her.

“Jake apologises for being late, he’s … been unwell and dragged himself out of his sick bed to make this first session.”

Jake grimaced at the paltry claps and cheers, realizing that his star-footballer rep alone would not be enough to win these kids over. They were obviously doing it tough and his tardiness had ruined any idolizing he’d come to expect as his due. Today he definitely had feet of clay.

Ella stepped aside and Jake was up. Unfortunately he just didn’t have the patience for niceties today. So he was late. So they were pissed at him. He had a whole season to win their respect. Today was not the time for pleasantries. Today just had to be endured.

“Can I have—” Jake stopped as the effort to raise his voice caused a stabbing pain at the back of his head. He continued, his voice quieter, “Only the students interested in joining the team over at the goalpost.”

There were a few moments of shuffling and low murmurs before a couple of boys peeled hesitantly off followed by more and then more. Jake nodded. “The rest of you want to watch on the sidelines, you’re most welcome. We’ll be here every afternoon at three.”

Jake headed toward the boys who were waiting for him at the goalpost, Pete trailing behind. Every step reverberated through his head, kicking his headache up another notch. If he stood very still for the next hour maybe his head would still be on his shoulders by the end of it.

Ella blinked, staring after his departing back with its very interesting landmarks—broad shoulders, tapered waist, buns of steel. That was it? No team building, no rah-rah speech? No talk of honor and glory and mateship or whatever else dumbass excuses footballers used to forgive their appalling behavior.

She hurried to catch up to him, arriving in time to hear his first words. Maybe they’d be slightly more inspirational.

“We need seventeen guys,” Jake announced to the assembled boys. He turned to Pete. “How many here?” The realm of counting was beyond him.

“Forty.”

Jake nodded, the action jarring through his temples and he wondered again how the hell he got roped into this. He spotted Cameron among the hopefuls and glanced at Ella standing nearby. Hell.

“Right. This week is the selection process. Pete here,” Jake slapped Pete’s back, “is going to put you through your paces and next Monday I’ll announce the team.”

Pete looked at Jake with startled eyes and turned his back to the assembled students. “Er, Jake?” he asked quietly.

“You know what to do,” Jake assured calmly. “You’ve been to every Heroes’ training session since you were twelve years old.”

Pete took a moment to absorb his boss’s comments. He did know the grueling training schedule backward. He nodded. “Okay.”

“Run them into the ground,” Jake murmured.

Pete smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“So that’s it?” Ella demanded, falling in beside him as Pete rallied the troops.

Jake grimaced. “Yup.”

“What? No pep talk? No encouraging words from a rugby league great?”

“Nope.”

Ella glared at him. “As much as I enjoy monosyllabic conversations, would you care to elaborate on your game plan here?”

Jake folded his arms. “I’ve got to cut forty to seventeen.”

She waited for him to elaborate a bit more. “And? Is there some sort of criteria for that?”

“Run their asses off for an hour and keep the ones still standing at the end of each day.”

Ella blinked. “That doesn’t seem very technical. Is this strategy from the hung-over school of coaching? The half-assed, I’ve-got-a-shocking-headache-don’t-bother-me school of thought? I mean, don’t you need kids with specific skills?”

Jake shook his head and almost groaned out loud at the pain behind his eyes and in his temples. Her sarcastic commentary was magnifying it tenfold. “Skills can be taught, practiced. Stamina is paramount.”

“But aren’t—”

Jake cursed under his breath as he massaged his temples. “Ella. Please shut up.”

Ella glared at him. “Hey, it’s not my fault you’re hung over. I’m just trying to help—”

“Ella,” he interrupted again. “If you want to help you’ll go find me something, anything, to ease the sledgehammer pounding in my brain.”

“I thought footballers could hold their booze?”

“It’s been a lot of years since I mainlined Tequila.” He grimaced.

Ella shook her head. “What on earth possessed you, Jake? Did coming here today scare you that much?”

Jake gritted his teeth at her insight. He’d deliberately gone out last night with the express purpose of getting trashed enough to forget about this hare-brained scheme he’d agreed to. Sure, it had been under the guise of a poker game but deep down he hadn’t wanted to be alone in his apartment with nothing but thoughts of today.

“Yes.” He didn’t know why it did, it just did. Whether it was Ella or returning to football or the ghosts of two years ago or even further back to Huntley—he didn’t know.

Ella blinked, surprised by his admission.

He must be hung over.

Being around Jake scared the hell out of her too. He was everything she’d turned her back on when she’d run from Huntley. Everything she’d been determined to never have anything to do with again, determined to forget. He was the only one who really knew her. Knew all about her. Her mother, the smears, the humiliations, her loneliness, her isolation.

Not even Rosie knew her as well as Jake. And here she was arm to arm with him. The one person from Huntley, from her past, who knew all her dirty little secrets.

She looked at him for a long moment hating that she couldn’t see his eyes behind the tint of his glasses, itching to remove them from his face. The fact he could see her but she couldn’t see him made her feel vulnerable. And she’d left vulnerable behind in Huntley.

“I’ll go get some Panadol.”

Jake watched her walk away, her hips swaying in her long brown skirt, her ponytail swinging. She’d worn her hair in a ponytail back in high school too and he felt a familiar urge to pull the band out and let it fall free like it had been at the Crown when she’d hauled him upstairs to room seven and bonked his brains out.

She was wearing a cream shirt of thin cotton that sat wide on her shoulders and through which he suddenly realized he could see her bra strap. God damn! He
must
be hung over to the point of near death to have missed that when she was closer and facing him! He made a mental note to check out the front view when she returned.

He turned his attention to the field in time to see a couple of boys run into each other, too busy checking out their hottie principal than watching where they were going, and he smiled for the first time since waking up with a splitting headache in a strange woman’s bed. He wished there’d been a teacher of Ella’s caliber when he’d been in high school—he may have enjoyed it more. He may have made a bit more of an effort to attend.

*

Ella returned ten minutes later and watched Jake as he tracked her progress across the field.

“Nice blouse,” he commented as she passed him two tablets and a bottle of water.

Ella looked down at one of her favorite shirts. It was peasant style and fairly modest by today’s standards but she found herself blushing anyway. She looked at him and watched as he gave a half grin that died an ugly death as a wince.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Thought you were hung over?”

“Hung over, Ella. Not dead.”

Ella felt that funny pull down low again and couldn’t drag her eyes away from him. She didn’t need to remove his glasses to know he was staring at her—she could feel it.

“Jake! Jake!”

Ella turned around at the excited squeal, pleased for the distraction. The relief soon changed to surprise as fifteen-year-old Miranda Jones hurled herself at Jake, clinging to his neck and jumping up and down, chattering excitedly about the team and the comp. Funny, she’d never pictured Miranda Jones as the hero worship type. She’d taught Miranda math in eighth grade. She was a nice kid, well bought up, smart and motivated. Ella frowned as the hug continued. It was hardly appropriate behaviour for a school girl with an adult male and she was annoyed that Jake didn’t get that there were some things you just didn’t do in a school yard.

Although to give him his due, he did seem to be trying to settle the girl, if only to stop the incessant squealing that must be playing havoc with his headache. Ella allowed herself an evil grin, hoping the noise was a particularly virulent form of torture.

“That’s enough, Miranda.”

Ella turned to see a woman about her age approaching. She was blond and redefined petite. Ella felt like an Amazon next to the diminutive proportions of the newcomer. Ella searched her memory banks. This was Trish Jones, Miranda’s mother. The similarities between the two were amazing. Miranda was a tiny blond, like her mother, and cute as a button with a perky smile and a personality to match.

“Hello, Jake.”

Jake set aside Miranda. “Trish.” He smiled and kissed her on the cheek before wrapping her up in a hug.

“Oh God, Jake,” Trish said pulling away. “You stink. Are you hung over?”

“Mum!”

Ella laughed at the look of horror on the teenager’s face. Even Jake managed to crack a smile.

“Trish Jones,” the woman said, turning to Ella and holding out her hand. “I think we’ve met once before.”

Ella shook the proffered hand. Miranda’s mother had an easy smile and an open, friendly face. “Yes, we have. At a parent–teacher night. Ella Lucas.”

“Don’t mind Miranda. Jake and I go way back—she’s known him since she was born. She was so excited when she rang me at lunch time to tell me she had to come back to school straight after her dentist’s appointment to watch Cameron try out and that Jake was going to be here.”

Ella blinked. Cameron?
Her
Cameron? Could this be the Miranda from the phone the other night? Mature, articulate, Miranda Jones? The straight-A student?

Ella didn’t get a chance to process the information before Jake butted in. “This is Hanniford High?” He looked at Ella, frowning. “You never said you were principal of Hanniford.”

Ella shrugged. “You never asked. I assumed you knew. You got here, didn’t you?”

Yeah. Thanks to Pete. Great. Jake’s headache, already at screaming point due to Miranda’s excited chatter, wound a little tighter. Now there was no way to back out of this dumb plan. God, why oh why did Trish have to send Miranda here? He’d offered to pay for her to go to the best girl’s school in Brisbane. But no, Trish had wanted her daughter to stay grounded. Now he not only had to do this for Ella but there was no way he could sit back and let anyone shut down Miranda’s school.

“This is a great thing you’re doing, Jake. Really amazing,” Trish said. “Haven’t I been saying you should coach?”

Ella returned her attention to the field, curious as hell but not wanting to intrude on a private conversation. Just what was Jake’s relationship with Trish Jones?

She forced herself to concentrate on Pete putting the students through their paces, searching for Cam, praying he wasn’t among the boys who had already fallen by the wayside. He was beefy, all muscle, built like a tank—not for speed but endurance. And, thankfully, he hadn’t faltered.

Trish laughed and Ella found her attention drawn back to them as she watched surreptitiously. The woman was standing quite close to Jake still and his hand at her waist confirmed their casual intimacy.

Had they been lovers? Were they still? Miranda leaned in then and said something Ella couldn’t quite catch but all three of them laughed like they’d been doing it for years. Even Jake. They looked like a family.

And suddenly Ella felt like she was back in Huntley. Standing on the outside looking in.

The following Monday there was a knock on Ella’s door after lunch. “Come in,” she said. She held up her hand as she quickly finished the paragraph she was reading. She looked up, her smile faltering as she saw her brother standing in her doorway.

Ella sighed and shut her eyes. “Oh, Cam, what have you done now?” she asked. Normally she received a phone call as a bit of a heads up before one of Cam’s teachers sent him down to see her.

“Bloody hell, Ella. Nothing. Just forget it.”

Cam turned away and Ella wished a sharp knife had been handy to cut her tongue out. She stood and called out to him, “No, wait,” and was pleased to see his hand still and the door not bang shut with the full force of teenage outrage. He was seeking her out? Voluntarily? Her pulse picked up at the thought.

“I’m sorry, Cam. Please come and sit down.”

Cameron glared at her and the chair and then back at her before sullenly acquiescing, slumping himself down with as much surliness as was possible.

“You wanted to see me about something?”

Cameron nodded and she waited patiently for him to start. He sat staring morosely at the ground, his mop of overgrown hair obscuring his eyes from her gaze. Ella detested the latest shaggy-hair fashion the male students were sporting. Her mind wandered to Jake’s uber-short spiky do and she wished she had the power to line all the boys up and shear their bushy noggins in one sitting.

“Cam?”

“Do you know who Jake’s chosen yet?” The question was fired at her with his usual hostile edge, as though everything bad in the world was her fault.

“No.”

Cameron snorted. “What, he hasn’t even given you a peek at the list?”

Ella ignored his belligerent tone. “No.”

“But you’re the principal. Surely he has to check with you about it?”

She’d not spoken to Jake all week. She’d seen him a couple of times when she’d gone to the oval to check on progress but had deliberately kept away from him, including avoiding the pub on Friday night. He was here in her school performing a necessary evil and she was grateful, but she was acutely aware of her attraction to him and she was damned if she was going to put herself in the path of that truck.

“No, he doesn’t. He’s the expert. It’s his team. We’ll all know in a couple of hours,” she said.

“Has he hinted at all, maybe, that I’m in?”

Ella heard the desperation in his voice. She’d never seen Cameron so gung-ho about something. So motivated. He seemed to live life with a permanent scowl and this interest was heartening. “I haven’t spoken to him all week.”

She regarded the boy/man who just wouldn’t let her in. He was so big, already a foot taller than her and growing out of his shoes at a rate of knots. “You really want this, don’t you, Cam?”

Cameron looked up from the floor. “Yes, I do.”

Ella swallowed as emotion welled in her throat. This was only the second time in two years he’d looked her straight in the eye. The other time had been after their mother’s funeral, when he had told her he hated Rachel, despite the tears streaming down his face. She’d tried to reach out, to gloss over what their mother was but he’d just turned away.

“Well, you’ve trained hard. You’ve stayed standing. I think you’re in for a good chance.”

Cameron shook his head. “But what if I don’t? Can’t you … can’t you use your influence with him?”

Ella felt a prickle at the base of her spine. “My influence?”

Cameron looked at the ground again. “You know him from Huntley. And … I see the way he looks at you. Maybe a … favor might help convince him.”

Ella felt time whir to a halt around her. A pain built in her chest, making it impossible to breathe, like he’d picked up a knife and rammed it straight through her heart.

“You want me to use sex to get you in the team?”

Ella felt as if she was watching the scene from a great height. She couldn’t believe how calm she sounded, how composed she looked, when her heart was breaking.

He shrugged. “It worked for Rachel.”

His words fell like stones into the silence and Ella drew in a shaky breath. It was like he truly didn’t know that he’d insulted her more deeply than she’d ever been before. “I hope you’re not comparing, Cam.”

“Oh no, what, me?” He snorted. “Compare the saintly Ella to Rachel? No, no, no, I wouldn’t dare.”

Ella dragged in a swift breath at the pure scorn in his voice. There was a whole minefield of emotions behind his words, stuff from Huntley that he never talked about no matter what she tried to get him to open up. “I’m not the enemy, Cam.”

“Then prove it.” He was looking her in the eye again. Talking about stuff he had no idea about. Speaking with the confidence of youth—fifteen going on fifty.

“You know,” she said quietly, disappointment and hurt warring for top billing inside her, “it’s been a lot of years since a boy made me feel so cheap. I guess you Huntley guys know how to do that really well.”

Ella took no pleasure from the stain that spread across her brother’s cheeks as her rebuke hit its mark and he looked to the ground again. She hoped he was ashamed, that he felt as dirty about making his comment as she did being on the receiving end.

“I know you think that I owe you, Cam. That I left you behind in Huntley and didn’t care about you. Even though you know I wasn’t aware of your existence.”

Cameron snorted. “All you had to do was pick up the phone and call her, Ella.”

Ella swallowed, the deep-seated guilt she’d always felt about cutting herself off from Rachel, from Huntley, returning. The underlying ache she heard in his sneered reprimand stuck like barbs in her flesh. He was right. If only she’d made the effort, maybe there wouldn’t be this great gulf yawning between them now.

“I think you know that I’m sorry about that.”

She looked at the set of Cameron’s jaw, the bitterness glittering in his gaze. He’d never given her an inch and it looked like he wasn’t about to start.

Cameron shrugged. “Forget it. Just forget it,” he said. “I did alright without you for thirteen years and I don’t need your help now.”

Ella watched as his chest puffed out, looking like the boy of two years ago who’d told her he didn’t need a sister—he didn’t need anyone. To go back to Brisbane and leave him alone. It hurt that after all this time he still felt the need to hide behind that façade. To pretend he didn’t need her. But for once she wasn’t going to be guilted in to backing down. What he’d said was unacceptable.

“I think you’re wrong. I think you do need me. But just for the record, I’m not going to assuage my guilt by getting you something you haven’t earned. And you can hate me for that if you want, that’s fine, but it’s just not the way I operate. You need to achieve things on your own merit.”

She reached across the desk to touch his hand and felt his rejection as a body blow when he snatched it away before she made contact.

“Have a little faith in your abilities, Cam.”

Cameron rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m sure that works out real well in Ella land but in the real world, things aren’t always so dandy. Thanks,” he said, pushing up out of his chair. “Thanks for nothing, sis,” he threw over his shoulder as he yanked the door open.

Ella braced herself for the bang as Cameron made his disgruntled exit. He didn’t disappoint, the window rattling at the force.

She sat for a moment, her elbows on the table, her head in her hands, her whole body shaking at the confrontation. She felt ill and for a moment wondered if she was going to lose her lunch as his suggestion that she do a Rachel to secure a spot on the team for him appalled and sickened her all over again.

“Can I come in?”

Ella looked up, startled, to see Jake standing in the doorway. “Oh,” she said, her brain momentarily freezing, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

Jake frowned. “I noticed Cam leaving here pretty steamed,” he said, shutting the door and sauntering toward her. “Are you okay?”

Ella gave a half laugh and rubbed the back of her neck. “Not really, no.”

Jake perched on her desk. “Did you argue?”

Ella looked at him, the muscles in his denim-encased thigh moving interestingly in her peripheral vision as his leg swung at the knee. He was wearing another T-shirt that fit snugly over his nicely tanned and rounded biceps. His jaw was clean shaven and somehow just as tempting to touch as when it was covered in stubble. His green eyes were looking down at her with a frankness and intensity that was compelling.

They knew her, those eyes.

“We didn’t yell at each other, if that’s what you mean.”

“But he upset you,” Jake persisted “What did he say?”

Ella felt absurdly like bursting into tears and wished Rosie was here. She blinked hard, not wanting to cry in front of him. She focused on the swing of his knee, finding it hard to even look at him as Cam’s words made her feel dirty all over again.

“He suggested that I sleep with you to secure a place for him on the team.”

She looked at him then, Cam’s implication hurting so much that not even the potential embarrassment could stop her from seeking solace in his gaze. “After all, that’s what Rachel would have done. Like mother, like daughter, right?”

Jake felt his fists curl around the clipboard he held in his hands as a thin slither of rage wound its way around his gut. Cameron Lucas needed a damn good kick up the backside. And he was just the man to do it.

Cam was going to be sorry he ever wanted
on
the team.

“You’re nothing like her, Ella.”

His soft rebuttal was more powerful than an outraged rejection and Ella swallowed hard. She was ashamed to admit there’d been a time when she’d wanted to be exactly like Rachel. When she’d been little and her mother had just been this beautiful creature with yellow-blond hair and a laugh that could light up a room.

“I know that, Jake. You know it. But does he? I mean, half of the boys back home thought I was tarred with the same brush, didn’t they?”

“They were jerks. And Cam’s just yanking your chain.”

Ella nodded, pleased to hear Jake’s quick dismissal of the boys who had contributed to her Huntley hell. “But why wouldn’t he think that, growing up in Huntley under Rachel’s roof? Why wouldn’t he think that all women use their bodies for favors?”

“He knows right from wrong, Ella. You shouldn’t cut him so much slack.”

Where had she heard that before? “You sound like Daisy.”

She knew he was right, they were both right, but a large part of her sympathized with the kid. Cam was exactly what she’d wanted to be all those years in Huntley: tough and not afraid to take anyone’s crap. Just like Jake. Instead, she’d been meek and mild and let Huntley treat her with disdain. Maybe part of her just didn’t want to break through the shell around Cameron because she recognized it for what it was—a way to protect himself from the disappointments of the world.

Jake grinned. “I like Daisy.”

Ella knew full well that the feeling had been one hundred percent mutual. The phone on her desk rang and she was pleased for the reprieve from his laughing green eyes.

“Yes, Bernie?”

“I have Gwen for you.”

Ella nodded, asking her administrative assistant to put Cameron’s biology teacher through. “Hi, Gwen.”

“Hi, Ella. Have you finished with Cameron?”

“Yes. About ten minutes ago. Hasn’t he returned to class?”

“No.”

Ella appreciated the gentleness of the reply. Unfortunately it didn’t make the situation any better. “Okay, thanks Gwen. Write him up.”

Jake watched as Ella replaced the receiver. She looked utterly defeated. He’d seen that look before, a long time ago, and couldn’t bear to see it again. “Cam taking some time out?”

Ella snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”

She stood, her impotence with the situation making her suddenly restless. She went to the window and watched a city train waiting at the station over the road. She’d like nothing more than to walk out the gates, get on the train and never come back.

“Does he wag very much?”

Ella placed her forehead against the glass. “Cam’s truancy record puts yours to shame.”

Jake whistled. “Impressive.”

“Oh, he’s really talented.”

Her quiet sarcasm cut through his attempt to lighten the mood. She had her back to him, her shoulders slumped. He took a moment to admire the way the floaty hem of her black skirt fluttered around her calves. His gaze dropped to her sensible black pumps and he found himself picturing how much sexier she’d look in a pair of killer high heels.

She turned to face him. “Is he on the list?”

He eased himself off her desk and walked toward her, extending the clipboard. “Rest easy, you don’t have to sleep with me.”

She took it from him and he leaned his hip against the window sill while she ran a finger down the names. Her grip tightened on the clipboard and her finger stilled when she spotted “Cameron Lucas” neatly printed among the seventeen names.

“Oh God,” she said, looking up at him. “This list is a veritable who’s who of the truancy brigade.”

But that didn’t matter right now. Cameron was on it and that was all that mattered. She shut her eyes as relief flooded her system. She hadn’t realised how tense she’d been about this damn list until this moment. She took a deep breath and looked at him, a question hovering on her lips despite the rapturous bubble of overwhelming gratitude she was floating in. She hated to ask, but knew she had to. “Are you doing this as a favor to me?”

Jake didn’t hesitate for a second. “Every kid on that list deserves their spot.”

Ella’s teeth dug in to her bottom lip as tears stung her eyes and she looked down quickly, the names blurring before her. She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Ella?” When she didn’t answer he gently lifted her chin with his thumb and forefinger.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s been—he just doesn’t have any confidence in himself … but he’s smart, you know?” She swiped at a tear that managed to avoid her rapid blinking and spill over. “All his teachers say so, he just doesn’t apply himself … he’s too angry—with me and Rachel, and I know how much he wanted this …”