Stranger in Town (Dundee, Idaho #5)(19)
Author: Brenda Novak

“Get your swimsuit,” Patti told him. “You can go home with me in a few minutes.”

Brent hesitated. “Do you think we could go after lunch?”

“Why? Is your schedule so busy that you can’t squeeze me in?”

“My schedule?” he repeated, obviously surprised by the adult-like question.

She chuckled. “What are you doing this morning?”

“I’m gonna help my mom make dinner for Coach Holbrook.”

Patti’s head jerked up. “Coach Holbrook?”

Hannah put the bottle of wine she’d bought for one of Gabe’s dinners in her rack. “Haven’t you heard? Gabe’s taking over for Coach Hill.”

Patti blinked. “Gabe, the football star turned recluse?”

“He’s not really a recluse.”

“He barely leaves his cabin.”

“He’s coming to town every day for practice.”

“No kidding.” Her brow creased thoughtfully. “Can he get around well enough in that wheelchair?”

“I guess so.”

Patti pulled a crusty loaf of sourdough bread and a tub of cheese spread out of a grocery sack and stared down at them. “Wine. Sourdough bread. Fancy cheese. Looks like you’ve got something romantic going on.”

“No, nothing like that.” Hannah dug through another sack to avoid Patti’s probing gaze.

“How’d this come about?” Patti asked.

“He makes furniture.”

“I’ve heard.”

“There’s a chair I want,” Hannah said. “So I offered to trade him some meals for it.”

“Really.” Patti said the word with a heavy emphasis on the first syllable.

Hannah buried her head in yet another sack. “It’ll make a good prop for my pictures.”

“And how’d you see this chair in the first place?”

Remembering her trip to Gabe’s cabin and her initial glimpse of him rolling toward her, freshly showered, the white of his shirt stark against the golden-bronze of his skin, his eyes the aquamarine of a Caribbean sea, Hannah felt a nervous excitement and whirled to put some frozen corn in the freezer. “I drove out to his cabin to tell him Coach Blaine isn’t happy about being nudged out of the coaching position he’s coveted for so many years.”

Patti slowly folded an empty sack. “You drove all the way out there just for that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because Gabe had to have expected as much. Blaine’s been waiting for a chance to be head coach since we were in the sixth grade. The Spartans are everything to him.”

“I know, but Gabe has a lot on his mind. I wasn’t sure he considered Blaine when he took the job. This is the first time since the accident that he’s shown an interest in anything—at least that I know of. I didn’t want him to be disillusioned on his first day.”

Patti set a few more grocery items on the counter. “Okay…So, how’d he treat you?”

“Mom, where does this go?” Brent held a sack of rice in the crook of his arms, like a baby.

“In the pantry, bottom shelf.” She put the salad makings into the produce drawer and returned to her conversation with Patti. “He was nice. Gabe’s always nice,” she said. But she knew that wasn’t strictly true, at least not anymore. Gabe’s parents had been in the public eye forever—his father was currently serving in the state senate and his mother led the charge for every charitable cause in Dundee. They’d raised their two children, especially their son, to be unfailingly polite and that hadn’t changed with his fame. It had taken the accident to make him standoffish and morose.

“What about Kenny?” Patti shoved the sack she’d already folded under the sink with the others. “Is he happy about this development?”

Hannah blocked out the distress she’d seen in her son’s face when he first gave her the news. “He’ll live with it.”

“Do you think Gabe will be as supportive of Kenny as Coach Hill was?”

Hannah couldn’t help wondering if Patti blamed her entirely for what had happened to Gabe, or whether she held her brother at least partially responsible. Hannah wanted to believe that Patti, of all people, would consider the mitigating circumstances. “I don’t know,” she said. “But we’d be facing the same question no matter who took over for Coach Hill, right?”

Brent tapped her on the arm. “Mom, can I have some yogurt?”

Hannah nodded as Patti pulled tomatoes from one of the remaining sacks and headed around the kitchen’s small island to the fridge. “Not necessarily. Blaine, or even Owens, would be much more familiar with Kenny’s abilities.”

“If they can spot Kenny’s talent, Gabe will be able to see it, too,” Hannah said, filling the basket on her kitchen table with apples.

Patti turned to face her, one hand still on the refrigerator door. “I think maybe you’re being just a little too trusting, Hannah. I’m sorry for Gabe, but I can’t say I’m happy about having him coach Kenny. It’s only natural that he’d resent you, and—”

“He wouldn’t hold what I did against Kenny.”

“Don’t let all that mysterious charisma of his fool you. He’s not a saint.”

“I know, but—”

“He already got in the way of Russ and a career in the NFL. I don’t want him to ruin Kenny’s future as well.”

Gabe had gotten in Russ’s way? Hannah almost laughed out loud as she imagined her ex-husband’s thickening middle and the way he used to lie on the couch for hours in front of the television when he should’ve been out looking for a job. A man had to have drive and ambition to get ahead in professional sports. At the very least, he needed to stay in shape. It wasn’t a year after she’d married Russ that she realized he had very little motivation and would happily stay at home indefinitely while she worked to pay the rent.

His talk about football was just that—talk. “Russ didn’t really try for a football career,” she pointed out.

“Because Coach Hill decided he preferred Gabe and gave him all the playing time. That demoralized Russ before he ever had a chance.”

Hannah stopped unpacking. “Coach Hill was a good coach, Patti. I don’t think he based his decisions on personal bias.”

“At that age, Gabe was no better than Russ.”