“Malachi,” we crooned in unison.
He pointed to the players lining back up on the line of scrimmage. “How’s your girl doing?”
“The better question is, how is Nicole doing?” Jocelyn’s laughing eyes found mine.
Malachi tugged Jocelyn in front of him, hooked his arms around her waist, and rested his chin on top of the silk headwrap tied artfully around her crown. “A bit different from chess, huh?”
Like a stroll in the park versus an alpine assent. Only one had given me heart attacks. When the other team had gotten past the guys who were blocking for Sierra, it had taken all my restraint not to go all mama bear on them. Especially when they’d slammed my baby girl into the ground. Only the fact that Sierra had bounced back up, and Drew was a doctor and seemed unconcerned, kept me from racing her to the emergency room to get checked out for a concussion.
My mom would have loved to preen about that.
“She’s trouncing them about as well as she did you in chess,” Betsy mocked.
Malachi’s nose nuzzled Jocelyn’s hair. Long distance relationship meant they made every second they were together count. “Good for her,” he said. He suddenly lifted his head and looked around. “Where’s Amanda?”
Jocelyn groaned. “Don’t get them started on that again.”
Betsy tugged on the hem of herSpeak to me at your own riskT-shirt. “Seems like she’s back to her old ways.”
His mouth pulled into a frown. “What old ways are those?”
“She used to be a bit of a…” Molly searched for the right description.
“A flake,” Betsy supplied.
Molly cringed. “We’d make plans, but she’d end up canceling all the time. She’s been doing a lot better about not—”
“Flaking,” Betsy interjected again.
Molly gave her the side eye. “Anyway, she was supposed to be here, but texted us at the last minute that something had come up.”
“That’s too bad.” Malachi’s gaze swung to the field. Instead of relaxing back into Jocelyn, he stood taller.
On alert, I found Sierra and fixated on her. “What is it?”
“I just saw the time clock. This is the last play to score points. She’s going to have to pass it long if they have any chance of winning the game.”
Sierra pulled her arm back and let the ball fly, spiraling like a knife cutting through the air. My breath suspended. A kid in the same blue jersey as Sierra jumped up and pulled the ball out of the sky, landing in the end zone. The ref held up his arms, signaling a touchdown. The second ref blew his whistle to end the game. Our section of spectators erupted in cheers.
I stuck my thumb and forefinger in my mouth and blew a piercing whistle. Drew ran onto the field and lifted Sierra high before settling her on his shoulders, both of them pumping their fists into the air.
The wave of adrenaline I rode came crashing down, knocking the breath out of my lungs before pulling me back into depths I wasn’t prepared for. Somehow, the filter I’d viewed Drew through had been peeled back from my eyes, and I was left wading through the confusion this new vision of him presented.
14
Drew
Ireplaced the stethoscope around my neck and offered the little girl on the exam table a reassuring smile before turning to her worried mother.
“The good news is that chest pain in children is usually caused by a benign or self-limited illness. There can be inflammation between the breastbone and ribs, or even a root cause of something like stress or anxiety.”
Mrs. Turner nodded, listening closely to my every word.
“Just to rule out a few other things, I’m going to order a set of chest x-rays and an echocardiogram. I’ll have a hospital attendant escort you to radiology then cardiology.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you, Dr. Bauer.”
I wagged my finger at Annabelle Turner. “You stop giving your mama a panic attack. She’s supposed to have at least five more years of peace before you give her gray hairs.”
