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It was all he could do to acknowledge her with a nod. He swallowed. “Very nice.”
“Tonight will be fun,” she assured him. “We’re going to attend the game and cheer on our team with half the town, and then Saturday night we’ll meet up for the dance.”
The tension between his shoulder blades dissipated and Cade relaxed. He could do this. Hope needed him, and he wouldn’t disappoint her.
—
By the time they arrived at the football field, it was hard to find a vacant parking spot. This game was a big deal. Oceanside was playing against their strongest rival, the Montesano Bulldogs. The Oceanside Eagles remained undefeated. Although it was early in the season, the Eagles were expected to go all the way to the state finals. The previous year, both the football and baseball teams had been awarded the championship for Washington State’s A classification. With the school’s population around three hundred, they played against other schools with a larger student count from which to pull talent.
Much of the credit went to the coach, Wade Simmons. As far as Oceanside was concerned, the man walked on water. Cade didn’t blame them. Coach inspired and encouraged his team with a strong work ethic. Nearly every afternoon if Cade passed the high school, he noticed the team running drills and scrimmages on the field. Coach was strict but fair, and Oceanside loved him for the way he’d shaped the young men on and off the field.
Hope wrapped her arm around Cade’s elbow as they approached the field, her eyes filled with excitement. “Willa’s here,” she announced. “She’s with her husband and Dr. Annie, too.”
Cade knew Willa but hadn’t met Sean O’Malley, her husband. He was some hot shot photographer whose photos were often featured in National Geographic. Seemed funny a successful professional like Sean would choose to live in a little town like Oceanside. To each his own.
Cade hadn’t needed any medical attention outside of what he got from the VA hospital and the physical therapist he worked with in Aberdeen, so he wasn’t familiar with Dr. Annie. He knew her husband, Keaton, from the animal shelter. As he recalled, it was Keaton who’d delivered Shadow to the facility. Since Cade had been volunteering at the shelter, Keaton had stopped by several times. The man was large and intimidating at first glance, until Cade had been around him awhile. He was big-chested, close to seven feet, he’d guess, with hands nearly twice the size of a normal person’s, and it seemed his heart for helping others matched his size.
Hope waved to Willa, who immediately invited them to join her and Sean. Naturally, they sat more than halfway up the bleachers. Cade tensed right away, knowing the climb would be awkward.
Instead of rushing forward, Hope remained patiently at his side, taking one step at a time with him, as if he were the one helping her up the stairs.
She paused halfway up when she spied one of her students. “Hi, Spencer,” she said.
The kid looked up and then glanced away. As crowded as the stands were, there was plenty of space left on both sides of Spencer. It was as if he were being given the cold shoulder by his schoolmates. Clearly no one wanted to sit next to him.
“Where’s Callie?” Hope asked. “Shouldn’t she be with you?”
Several other students stared in his direction. “She’s on the dance team,” Spencer explained.
“Right,” Hope said, as if she should have remembered that bit of information.
Once they were seated and friendly introductions were made with Willa and her husband, Cade asked about Spencer.
“He’s the young man I mentioned. Scott Pender’s girlfriend is the one Spencer is escorting to homecoming.”
“Not his former girlfriend?” Cade asked.
Hope hesitated. “I’m not sure. They seem off and on, so I have to assume this is an off time.”
If not, that could mean trouble at the dance, Cade mused.
Although he didn’t know Spencer personally, Cade was sympathetic. “You mentioned him before, but not by name. He’s the one who finagled the deal with Callie, right?”
“Right. She had some computer problem she wanted him to resolve.”
Cade wanted the facts straight in his mind. “Which Spencer agreed to do if she became his date for homecoming?”
“Exactly.”
He could only imagine what the girl had wanted, and suspected Hope did, too. “Do you know what it was she asked of him?”
Hope’s arm that remained wrapped around his tightened. “That’s the problem, he hasn’t told me. Spencer always manages to change the subject. I’m afraid he’s gotten himself tangled up in something over his head.”
Cade let that settle in, wondering what the poor kid had agreed to do for this girl all because he’d lost his head over a pretty face. From what Hope said, it sounded as if Callie couldn’t care less about Spencer or the consequences from her former boyfriend.
“I’m concerned,” Hope added. “At this point, though, there’s nothing I can do.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
