Chapter 2
Nobody knew where they’d come from or who they were.
—Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Boxcar Children
Clint Garrett stood on the patio of the house he’d designed himself and gazed at the moonlight shimmering on the peaceful
Wisconsin lake. He was alone. Exactly what he needed. Here, the big-city bustle of his public life in Chicago was only a memory.
No one could stop him for a selfie and tell him how great he was. For the next three weeks, until the middle of July when
training camp started, he didn’t have to listen to any of the noise that buzzed around him, and he didn’t have to meet anyone’s
expectations except his own.
Except, that was the problem. He was failing himself.
Until last season, he’d never let the mental hardships of the game get to him, but now, at thirty-four, the pressure had him in a grip as tight as a boa constrictor’s.
A grip that kept making him mentally replay every mistake he’d made last season—throwing late, staring down receivers, misreading coverage—rookie mistakes.
Which was why he needed to be here. This was his place to rebuild, renew, and get mentally strong again.
He had three weeks of solitude to get hold of himself and remember the player he’d always been.
He went inside and switched off the lights from the high-tech control panel set into the wall. Moonlight flooded the heart
of the house, the great room with its multi-levels, angles, and waterfall of windows that eliminated the boundary between
indoors and out. The house was his burrow, his sanctuary, his monastery. In this haven of soaring windows, warm wood, and
open spaces, he could be part of the lake, the meadows, the woods. Only here could he find the peace he needed to become himself
again.
It was nearly two in the morning, and he climbed the closest of the home’s floating staircases to the catwalk meandering this
way and that around the second-floor guest rooms to his bedroom, where he undressed in the moonlight. Nobody was shoving a
microphone in his face or pressing him to invest in their start-up. No one wanted him to show up at their party or was bragging
about their ten-year-old’s throwing arm. With the lake before him, the meadow and woods behind him, he slipped into bed. After
a day filled with grueling workouts and hours of manual labor, he was asleep in minutes.
The blare of a stadium air horn jolted him awake. Disoriented, he shot up from his pillow and jumped out of bed in the darkness,
banging his shin on the hard edge of the platform. When the noise sounded again, he realized it wasn’t an air horn at all
but the unfamiliar peal of the doorbell, which hardly ever rang.
The bell rang a third and fourth time. Outside, the sky held the barest hint of dawn, and he realized he’d only been asleep a few hours.
Cursing, he yanked on his discarded shorts and stalked into the open corridor, where the reclaimed cherrywood floor was cold under his bare feet.
He headed for the staircase at the front of the house, a sculpture of glass and wood.
When he reached the foyer at the bottom, he threw open the door to the late June night and stepped onto his stone and wood portico.
A man who looked like Danny DeVito stood at the bottom of the flagstone steps. He cocked his head toward the black Escalade
SUV limousine in the driveway. “She’s all yours.”
Clint swept his hand over his face. “You’ve got the wrong house.”
“I wrote the address right here before she passed out.” The guy handed Clint a piece of paper with Clint’s address scrawled
on it and headed back to the limo. “You gotta wake up now, Miss.”
An empty champagne bottle rolled out of the rear car door and landed unbroken in the cobblestone driveway. A few seconds passed
before a long, barefoot leg emerged from the voluminous skirt of a blue evening gown.
Clint stared in horror as a second leg appeared, this one with a foot clad in a barely there silver stiletto that planted
itself by the champagne bottle. Next came more of the skirt, followed by a head of blond hair that drooped in a messy tangle
from what had been some kind of bun.
Clint couldn’t make sense of the stupefying scene unfolding in front of him.
Enormous—and completely unnecessary—black-framed sunglasses partially camouflaged her face.
She grabbed the limo door to steady herself.
Danny DeVito retrieved an evening purse and the missing stiletto, then freed the skirt so he could shut the rear door.
He extended a credit card reader toward her. “That’ll be $280 without a tip.”
As she fumbled in her evening bag, Clint recovered from his paralysis and shot down the steps. “Stop right there. I don’t
know who you are, but you don’t belong here, and you need to leave.”
Manicured fingernails reached for the sunglasses and lowered them to the tip of her nose. Peering over the top, she said,
“Clint, it’s Dancy.”
“Dancy?” Clint was thunderstruck.
She handed her credit card to the driver.
Clint finally recovered enough to speak. “Dancy, what are you doing here?”
She winced. “Not so loud.” Pushing her sunglasses back in place, she gestured toward her gown. “The batteries ran out.”
Whatever that meant.
The driver returned her card and made his way to the other side of the limo.
“Wait!” Clint dashed toward him.
The driver sent him a sympathetic glance, climbed in the car, and wheeled out of the driveway.
Skirt rustling, Darcy teetered awkwardly on one shoe past Clint, trailing the scent of alcohol and a perfume that smelled
of brimstone.
“Don’t take another step!” he exclaimed.
Ignoring him, she wobbled up the porch steps. At the top, she looked back at the champagne bottle lying on its side in the
driveway. “Is that empty?”
“Yes. And before you—”
“Tragic.”
“Dancy!”
“Later. Much . . . later.” She stumbled into his house.
He was a man trained for quick responses, but he stood frozen, trying to comprehend what was happening. The woman he hadn’t
seen in nearly twenty years—the woman he hadn’t ever wanted to see again—had deposited herself on his doorstep.
Pulling himself together, he hurried up the stairs and into the house only to discover she’d disappeared. Where had she gone
and what was she doing here?
A muffled snore disturbed the quiet. He followed the sound to his favorite couch, where the woman who’d been his first love
lay sound asleep in a crush of blue evening gown.
He was a nice guy everywhere but on the field, and if she had been anyone else, he would have found a blanket to lay over
her. But old grudges died hard, and she could freeze to death for all he cared. He stalked back upstairs, furious that he’d
never gated his property, and even more furious that he’d have to wait until she’d slept it off before he could throw her
out.
He tried to fall back asleep, but his sanctuary had been invaded, and at five o’clock he gave up and went for a long run.
As the miles slipped past, he remembered with a combination of disgust and embarrassment how completely his sixteen-year-old
self had fallen in love with seventeen-year-old Dancy Flynn, not only the most beautiful girl in their high school, but the
most beautiful girl any of them had ever seen. He hadn’t expected her to notice him, but she had, and for eight months they’d
been inseparable. Right up until she’d cheated on him and broken his naive teenage heart.
The sun was fully up, and an empty couch met him when he returned from his run.
He doubted she’d left, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to look for her, so he went upstairs to shower and put on his summer uniform—shorts and a well-worn Chicago Stars T-shirt.
He began tidying his bedroom, something he did every day.
Leaving his bed unmade felt like a desecration of the space he’d created.
Reclaimed cherry slats covered one wall of his bedroom, giving the illusion that he was sleeping in a tree house. The light
streaming from the window wall fell on the upholstered headboard and duvet, both the soft green of an olive grove. He’d worked
with a fine furniture maker to get exactly the bed he wanted, the same way he’d collaborated with the architect on the design
of the house. Here, unlike in Chicago, he could build things and fix things. Here, if he made a mistake, he was the only one
to suffer the consequences. No team depended on him, no sponsors, no fans.
He left the bedroom and headed toward the floating staircase leading to the back of the house. Bright morning light poured
through the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran both in front of and behind the long center island that made up most of the
galley kitchen. Dancy sat at the counter, her ball gown enveloping the barstool, her sunglasses firmly in place to shield
her from the sunshine.
“Coffee,” she muttered, in her husky voice. “I’m begging you.” The diamonds on her finger, on her wrists, and at her ears
caught the sunlight as she tunneled her hand into her mess of a former hairdo, leaving long blond strands tumbling over her
forearms.
He stopped inside the door, ice in his veins, fire in his words. “What are you doing here?”
She rested her elbows on the counter. “I need a place,” she said. “Only for a day or two.”
“This isn’t that place.” He spit out the words as if they were bullets. It felt good.
She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. Technically, she was still beautiful. The same violet-blue eyes, straight nose,
and that incredible wide mouth. But her beauty left him cold. Smears of black mascara shadowed her eyes, and whatever lipstick
she’d been wearing had long ago worn off. She was too pale, the cords in her neck too pronounced, and the hollows beneath
her cheekbones too deep. Nothing about her appealed to him. The most beautiful girl in their high school, and the female half
of one of Hollywood’s most famous power couples, had lost her sparkle. He wasn’t proud of himself for feeling a grim satisfaction.