Eventually, a middle-aged woman I didn’t recognize poked her head into the small, well-lit waiting room. “Bonnie Jensen?”
I stood quickly—too quickly. My pen went flying off the clipboard and onto the floor.
Jack leaned down and retrieved it for me, soft-looking black leather stretched taut across his back.
As he extended his arm and held out the pen to me, something rebellious whispered in my mind. Probably the same antagonistic voice that had me arguing with him about self-flagellation muffins on the third-base line.
Suddenly, my mouth was saying, “Am I allowed to thank you for that?”
Tiny lines crinkled near his eyes, fanning out to his temples as he grinned. His hazel eyes contrasted with the golden rim of his reading glasses. They looked nearly green in the fluorescent overhead lighting. “Sure. Knock yourself out.”
I grasped the other end of the pen and said pointedly, “Thank you, Jack.”
He didn’t let go when I tugged. Instead, his smile widened. “You’re welcome, Clyde.”
We watched each other for a long moment, and those somersaults in my stomach resumed their floor routine.
Then an impatient voice called from the doorway, “Whenever you’re ready, Ms. Jensen.”
Whatever had come over me abruptly fled. I dropped my gaze, and Jack finally released the pen. Without looking back, I hustled after the sheriff’s office employee, mumbling out an apology for making her wait.
When I finished up twenty minutes later and left the station, I made my way directly to my car and didn’t let myself look for a shiny black motorcycle, or even the possibility of it.
five
JACK
Cursing, I hoisted the mesh bag of soccer balls out of the back of my truck. While my motorcycle was my preferred mode of transportation, I had the truck for bad weather, cold winter months, and hauling things for the restaurant or my grandmother.
I would have much rather been somewhere—anywhere—on my bike right about now, but apparently I had anobligation to the community. Or at least, that was what local busybody and Kirby Falls multiple committee chair and president of everyfuckingthing, Eloise Carter, had told me recently.
When the old crone had dropped by Magnolia last Friday morning, she’d informed me of my new position as head coach of the Brookline U9 girls’ soccer club. Apparently, that seemingly innocent form on little Jamie Santiago’s clipboard had been legally binding, and I definitely should have read through it.
I’d inadvertently agreed to coach the little schemer and her friends when I’d said Magnolia would sponsor the team and provide the funds for their jerseys this season.
No amount of arguing or cajoling had swayed Eloise Carter. That woman was a force. I’d thought I was stubborn.Jesus.
So I’d gotten the last-minute background check she’d arranged for me and bumped into Bonnie in the process, which had been an interesting encounter. Good to know she was still off-balance around me, and that my strange inclination to push her buttons hadn’t gone anywhere either. During our squabble over the pen, there’d been a moment when a spark had ignited in her eyes, and her words took on a razor-sharp edge. I’d liked it—getting such a reaction out of her. And I thought she might have liked it, too.
But now I was outside of Kirby Falls Elementary School at 2:45 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, as instructed, for our first team practice. The grass field was wide, and there was a goal at either end. It seemed too big for a bunch of eight-year-olds to traverse, especially playing in a seven-on-seven game.
Yes, I’d had to email the Parks and Rec Department coordinator for a list of rules for the fall league. I’d never watched a soccer game in my life, much less knew how to instruct players.
I heard the bell ring over the outdoor speaker as I was setting up orange cones. Last night, I’d attempted some online research to find soccer drills and activities for kids their age. But I was sort of hoping the girls would just know what to do, and I could, more or less, babysit for the once-a-week, hour-long after-school practice.
The first two children who joined me on the field were not on my roster. Two little boys gleefully tossed their backpacks to the ground and started dribbling near the opposite goal.
The taller of the two noticed me and jogged over with the shorter one following close on his heels.
“Is it alright if we use the other half of the field?” the boy with shaggy dark brown hair asked. He looked like he was around the same age as the kid who’d tricked me into this whole thing, but his mouth was a little too big for his face, like it’d had a growth spurt before the rest of him had caught up.
“Sure,” I said. I didn’t know what I was going to do with half of a field, much less the whole thing.
“I’m Jacob,” the tall boy offered. His attention drifted to the tattoos on my forearms.
I casually pulled my sleeves down from where I’d shoved them earlier while loading the truck.
“I’m Charlie,” the shorter one piped up.
