Where Angels Tread (12 page)

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Shane said confidently. “He’s doing great.” The gray haired man snorted. “Can I help you with something?” Shane asked.

“You obviously don’t know much about basketball,” the man said smugly.

Shane opened his mouth to retort, but Heidi tugged on his arm excitedly before he could think of a good response. “Look! They’re done.” She craned her neck and watched as the coached beckoned the boys forward and into a huddle. “What do you think they’re doing?”

“I don’t know.” Shane shrugged. “Are they announcing the team today?”

Before Heidi could respond, the coach broke away from the gaggle of eager players and addressed the parents in a booming voice. “I know you’re all waiting to find out who made the team,” he called. Shane glanced around the gym; it was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. “Give me a half hour, and I’ll post my decision.” He nodded briskly and breezed out of the room, clutching his clipboard to his chest.

Heidi turned toward Shane with a wide smile; he felt his stomach flutter uncomfortably. Why, he thought in despair, did she have to be so pretty? “What do you think?” she asked. “Did he make the team?”

“I think so,” Shane said, standing up and stretching. He rubbed his lower back and winced; those bleachers weren’t as easy to sit on as they used to be, he thought. “He did as well as he could have, so I’m happy.”

“What are you doing after this?” Heidi asked so abruptly that Shane almost tripped and toppled over the lady sitting in front of him. He stared at her; was she about to ask him on a date? He hadn’t even had a chance to woo her yet, as Maribel had put it.

“Nothing, why?” He tried hard to arrange his features into a nonchalant expression, but inside his heart was pounding wildly.

“Zachary and I have a little surprise for you,” she said with a wink. “But first you’ll have to come home with me. Is that okay?”

Shane swallowed hard and nodded mutely. He would go anywhere Heidi asked him to.

“You didn’t need to go to all of this trouble,” Shane said as he stood up to clear the plates from the table. Heidi started to rise from her chair, but he held out a hand to stop her. “Please, let me. It’s the least I can do.” He winked at Zachary, who grinned back and shoveled another spoonful of celebration cake into his mouth.

After forty-five heart pounding minutes, the basketball coach had returned from his office and posted the results of the tryouts to the gym door. Heidi had been afraid to join the crowd standing on their tiptoes to read the scrap of paper, but Shane leapt down the bleachers two at a time. She watched from a distance as he pushed through the parents and players until he found Zachary. They disappeared into the crowd as she craned her neck anxiously, crossing her fingers and praying that they would emerge victorious. When she saw them next, their arms wrapped around each other and grins as big as the state of California on their faces, she could feel tears of joy spilling onto her cheeks. This, she knew, was going to be a defining moment in her son’s life.

Back at the house, Heidi and Zachary had surprised Shane with a delicious steak dinner. “But I’m not the one who made the team,” he said with a grin when he saw the lavish buffet she had spent all day preparing for him. “Shouldn’t we be having burgers or whatever Zachary’s favorite food is?”

“Trust me,” Heidi said with a laugh. “He won’t be starved for attention. I already promised him a new video game. We’re going to pick it out tomorrow.” She turned to Shane with a serious expression on her face and touched his arm lightly with her hand; her fingers tingled as they met his skin. “We wanted to do this as a small token of our appreciation. You’ve been amazing.”

Shane ducked his head and blushed. “It was nothing,” he mumbled.

Heidi gazed at him, her pulse quickening when her eyes met his. “It was more than you’ll ever know,” she whispered. She longed to stroke his soft brown hair, entwine her fingers through its subtle waves, but she clenched her hands self-consciously to stop herself. No, she thought firmly. She no longer had the right to fantasize about him, not when she had shut him down so completely.

But standing next to him, closer than they had been in weeks, was weakening her resolve. She desperately wished that Zachary would find another way to occupy himself, but she saw with a sigh that he was heaping another scoop of cake onto his plate. Heidi opened her mouth to stop him, then closed it again. It was, after all, a celebration. A little too much sugar wouldn’t hurt.

An hour later, after Zachary’s sugar rush had melted away to sleepy silence, Heidi quietly congratulated herself for her foresight. “Off to bed for you, young man,” she announced, clapping her hands together. Zachary dragged himself up from the table and wrapped his arms around her neck. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, my love.”

“Night,” he mumbled. “Goodnight, Shane.”

“Night buddy,” Shane said, fingering the stem of his wine glass. She saw his eyes roam to the clock on the wall. He opened his mouth and Heidi, fearing that he was preparing to leave, thought fast.

“Have time for one more drink?” she asked hopefully. Now that Zachary was in bed, Heidi craved a little bit of time alone with Shane. She told herself that it would be nice to relax and have an adult conversation for a change, but part of her couldn’t help but wonder if the combination of wine and alone time might just spark something between them. It wouldn’t hurt to have just a little bit of fun, she thought as she watched Shane mull over her offer. What her son didn’t know would never harm him, and maybe it could help get Shane out of her system, once and for all.

“I could stay a little longer,” he said, and her heart soared. “That is, if I’m not imposing on you.”

“Not at all.” She uncorked a new bottle of wine and filled both glasses to the brim. When Shane widened his eyes, she giggled. “It’s a celebration,” she said flirtatiously. “I never do this kind of stuff.”

“Me neither.” Shane carried his glass of wine to the couch and set it down carefully on Heidi’s coffee table. “It’s nice to loosen up every so often.”

Heidi joined him on the couch, which was so small that their knees touched. A rush of electricity surged through her body. “I would think that it’s all fun and games for you and the other officers when you’re not on duty.”

To her disappointment, Shane shifted his legs ever so slightly so that their bodies no longer touched. “It used to be, but I don’t have much time for that anymore.”

“Why not?”

Shane hesitated, and Heidi saw something dark flash behind his eyes. “I was in an accident a few years ago and, well, it changed me. I went into a funk for a long time, and I’m just now starting to come out of it.” He took a long sip of his wine; Heidi was mesmerized by the way it stained his lips slightly purple.

“What kind of accident?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from his face.

“A car crash. I was the driver.”

Heidi’s blood ran cold. What a coincidence, she thought, that they were connected by tragedy. “That’s how my husband was killed.”

Shane stared hard at her, then covered his hand with hers. “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

“It’s okay,” Heidi said, waving her hand. “Actually, it’s not okay, but it was a long time ago. Not something I really want to think about tonight.”

Shane nodded as if he understood, which, she realized with a jolt, he probably did. He cleared his throat, then gave her hand a squeeze and released it. “Do you have any family around here?”

“No,” Heidi said. “I grew up in Santa Ynez as an only child and moved back here after college to raise Zachary around my parents. They died one after the other when he was just a toddler. We’re basically alone now. I have a couple of friends at work, but the friends I had before the accident drifted away.” She tilted her glass slightly, entranced at the way the light hit the liquid. “I think they were a little afraid to be around me,” she admitted. “Like my tragedy could somehow rub off on them.”

“Believe me,” Shane said, “I get that. I lost a lot of friends after my accident, and I’m just now starting to come out of my shell again. Helped along by several years of therapy.” He laughed hollowly. “But I’m fortunate enough to have a big, loving family to lean on.” He paused uncertainly, as though worried he would upset her.

“It’s okay,” Heidi said. “I always wished for a bigger family, so it’s nice to hear about what it’s like for other people. How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“There are eight of us. Four boys and four girls.”

Heidi was shocked, lost in unpleasant thoughts of what it must feel like to give birth eight separate times. The pain of labor was something that she would never forget. She and John used to talk about having more children, someday. It was one of the things that hurt most about his death; how Heidi wished now that someday had come a lot sooner. “Your mother must be a saint.”

Shane grinned. “It’s kind of funny, actually. She just always wanted an even number of boys and girls, and it didn’t work out that way until there were eight of us. I shudder to think what would have happened if the eighth baby had been a boy.”

Heidi smiled wistfully, and the two of them lapsed into comfortable silence broken only occasionally by the distant creaking sound of Zachary’s bed. Heidi leaned her head against the back of the couch and gazed up at the ceiling. It felt good, she thought, sitting here with Shane. Actually, it felt better than good. It was like she was in the process of waking up from a deep sleep that began the day she had been forced to say goodbye to John.

She listened to the sound of Shane’s breath rise and fall, and imagined what it would be like to lay her head on his chest and hear the steady, soothing beat of his heart. Heidi gazed at Shane from the corner of her eye; he looked deeply relaxed, his eyes half-closed alluringly and his lips parted slightly. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to gently run her finger along the bottom of his lip.

Shifting her body slightly to the left, she inched her head along the back of the couch until it was resting against Shane’s shoulder. She felt a sharp intake of breath, and knew that she had taken him by surprise. Heidi rose her head up to meet Shane’s gaze, certain that this was the moment that they had been leading up to since the first day she laid eyes on him.

But when she leaned in and began to pucker her lips, she felt Shane recoil slightly. When she opened her eyes, she found him staring at her with a startling mixture of disappointment and annoyance on his face. Carefully, he set down his wine glass and gently disentangled himself from her body. As she watched in disbelief, he rose from the couch, and after one last longing look, headed for the front door.

“It’s time for me to go.”

Shane breathed a sigh of relief when he reached his car, scrambling inside and locking the door firmly behind him before he lost what little willpower he had left. That, he thought, was a close call. At any other time he would have jumped at the chance to kiss Heidi, but after his conversation with Maribel he knew that it was far more important for him to wait for the right moment. And tonight wasn’t the right time, no matter how much he wanted it to be. The last thing he wanted was for something to happen, only to have Heidi bitterly regret it later.

When they kissed, Shane wanted it to be the start of something great.

Heidi’s eyes popped open as the sunlight peeking through the curtains played across her face. She sat up quickly, but immediately regretted it. “Damn it,” she said out loud, massaging her temples. It felt like her entire head was about to split open at any moment.

She stared around the room with bleary eyes, the events of the previous night slowly working their way through her brain. There had been wine, that much she remembered. Some came before Shane had left so abruptly, but most of it Heidi drank afterwards, the sting of his rejection burning her stomach like acid. Not for the first time, she felt like a fool in Shane’s presence. What kind of hold did that man have over her?

A clattering sound in the kitchen roused her from the bed, and she found Zachary standing over the frying pan mixing what appeared to be an entire canister of salt into a slightly burned pile of scrambled eggs. “I made breakfast,” he said sheepishly.

Heidi pulled her son into a tight hug, breathing in the scent of his shampoo. “Thank you. It smells wonderful.” She glanced at the clock and groaned. “I overslept. The bus is supposed to be here in five minutes.” Her voice softened when she caught of whiff of eggs in the air. “You know what? Let’s eat breakfast together. I’ll drive you in on my way to work.” Zachary grinned at her and shoveled a pile of eggs onto her plate, then watched anxiously as she took her first bite. “Delicious,” she said, and meant it.

Zachary gobbled down his eggs in less time than it took Heidi to pour herself a glass of water, then kept her company while she swallowed a couple of ibuprofen. “Are you sick?”

“No, just tired.” Heidi wasn’t about to go into the effects of overindulging in alcohol with her ten year old son, although she was perfectly aware that the time for that particular conversation wasn’t too far away. She had already endured an excruciating discussion with him just last year on the birds and the bees, her forehead slick with sweat as he listened with bugged-out eyes. It was one of those moments when Heidi acutely felt the absence of a man in her life. She would have gladly passed that task on to someone else.