AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hope bit her lip, wondering what she was supposed to do to help. He obviously wasn’t happy to see her, and a part of her couldn’t help feeling a little disappointment.
That’s not why she’d come back. He wasn’t why she’d come back, though she’d be a liar if she said the thought of running into her old flame hadn’t crossed her mind. But that’s exactly what Daniel was to her—what he had to be. Ancient history.
They’d had a chance to live the American dream that they’d always imagined, but instead of walking away from that car crash stronger, they’d been broken completely. Even if she wanted to magically bounce back from that, it was too late.
Maybe if he’d returned her calls after he came to visit her in the hospital…
But the time for maybes was long gone.
She was here to finally do what she’d promised her parents and set up John’s trust. As much as she’d wanted to avoid coming back into town, avoid driving down Interstate 10 again and seeing the spot where their car went off the road, it was time.
Not a moment too soon, if the intervention Jules had mentioned breezily was something the Rodriguez family was actually planning. She didn’t know if Daniel was really that badly off or if his parents and aunts and uncles and cousins had gotten together and riled themselves up into making it a thing.
She had to do something, she just didn’t know what. She couldn’t leave town again without at least trying to help him work through things—and getting his family off his back. She promised herself that right then and there.
“Whatever you’re thinking, knock that shit off right now, darling.”
The sound of his old nickname for her settling in the air between them temporarily shocked her into saying something she never would have otherwise. “I do what I want.”
He turned to face her fully, brows lowered. It should have looked ridiculous with that tiny puppy bounding around him, into his lap and back out again, but something inside her quivered as a result of being pinned down by that expression. She couldn’t quite tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing, though. Daniel leaned in, so close she wasn’t sure of the heat she felt was coming from his body or the summer night around them. “That line never worked on me.”
“It never worked on anyone.” For one eternal second they were back there, in the world before.
Then he shook his head like he was waking from a dream. “I’m glad you’re setting this thing up for John. It’s football based?”
“Yeah.” Her brother had gotten a full ride to the University of Texas when he graduated high school, and he’d been in his junior year of college, back home for the holidays, when the wreck took his life. So much potential, snuffed out in the space of a minute. The familiar ache settled in her chest, but it wasn’t as strong or present as it had been this afternoon.
When she’d woken up in that hospital bed and realized her brother hadn’t survived, she’d vowed to herself that she’d do whatever it took to make sure the gap created by John’s death was filled. It’d been an irrational promise, but she’d stuck with it. Every time physical therapy brought her to the brink of despair, she fought it off because John never would have given up. And then she’d finished college with honors because that’s what John had been on his way to doing.
She had no interest in being a lawyer—and she wasn’t particularly good at arguing her point when strong emotions were involved—so she’d gone into the private sector, helping people and companies with too much money on their hands set up foundations and scholarships to help people who could actually use that money. Most of them were doing it for the tax write-off, but their motivation didn’t matter—what they were doing did.
But those foundations and scholarships weren’t personal. This one was. This felt like the final accumulation of what she’d been working toward—giving other kids from Devil’s Falls a chance to follow the same path John had been on—to succeed where his life was cut short. “Football based, and they have to have the same kind of grades he did. There are other factors, too, but ultimately it’ll be up to the discretion of the town council.”
He gave a short nod. “It’s good that you’re doing this.”
Funny, but he didn’t sound particularly happy about it. Then again, he hadn’t sounded happy from the moment she’d walked through that door. She took a deep breath. It was time to talk about that forbidden subject, the one that lay like a pulsing wound between them. Maybe getting it all out in the open would help him. “Danny—”
He pushed to his feet. “As fun as this has been, I’ve got to go.”
