Power Play (Kimball Falls Fury #3)

Prologue

Charm

My mother caught the loose strand of hair before I reached the front door.

“Charmagne, hold still.”

Her heels clicked across the marble foyer while I tightened my grip on my drill bag and watched the grandfather clock slide another minute closer to seven.

Coach had warned us that anyone late to Saturday rehearsal would run stairs before practice, and I was already one correction away from crying in front of the entire team.

“I fixed it twice,” I said as she stepped behind me.

“And it came loose twice.”

Her fingers moved through the curls near my temple, separating and smoothing them until every strand disappeared beneath the white ribbon tied around my ponytail. She worked carefully, without pulling, her attention fixed on my reflection in the tall mirror beside the staircase.

The uniform had looked better in my bedroom.

Under the foyer chandelier, the navy skirt seemed shorter, the white shell tighter, and the strip of bare skin above my waistband much more noticeable. I resisted the urge to tug the fabric down. My mother noticed nervous hands almost as quickly as she noticed crooked seams.

“There.” She pressed her palm lightly over the top of my head. “That’s much cleaner.”

“Thank you.”

Her gaze lowered to my face, and the faint crease between her brows returned. She reached into the pocket of her cardigan, removed a folded tissue, and touched it beneath my cheekbone.

“Your blush is brighter than it was upstairs.”

“It’s the same blush.”

“The light is different down here.”

She passed me the tissue, and I dabbed at both cheeks while she watched. Pink dust stained the white paper.

“I thought the color looked pretty.”

“It is pretty, sweetheart. It simply competes with the uniform.”

The correction arrived inside a smile so gentle that objecting would’ve made me look unreasonable.

My mother never told me I looked bad. She adjusted, softened, suggested, and refined until the thing she disliked disappeared, then praised me for understanding.

I folded the tissue around the evidence and tucked it into my bag.

My father’s voice carried from his study, followed by the lower murmur of another man responding through the speakerphone.

He’d been working since before sunrise, shifting between conversations with New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles while the Michigan office waited for Monday morning.

Harlen Financial Investments and Holdings began with my grandfather and expanded beneath my father until its name appeared on glass towers in every major city where wealthy people needed someone wealthier to tell them what to do with their money.

We moved to Kimball Falls when I was twelve so he could open the Detroit office. The arrangement was supposed to last one year.

Charlie died before that year ended.

My brother’s grave was six miles from our house, and my father never spoke about moving again. Kimball Falls stopped being a temporary assignment and became the place where my parents preserved the last version of our family that still contained him.

The study door opened. My father emerged with his phone pressed to his ear and paused when he saw me beside my mother. His attention moved over my uniform, hair, shoes, and bag in one swift inspection.

“Practice?”

“Yes.”

“You reviewed for Monday’s algebra quiz?”

“I studied last night.”

“How long?”

My mother’s fingers settled against my shoulder as though she could keep the conversation pleasant by touching me. “Lance, she needs to leave.”

“I’m asking a question.”

“Two hours,” I said.

His expression remained thoughtful. “Your last quiz suggested you needed three.”

“I’ll study again tonight.”

He nodded before returning to the call, but he covered the microphone as he passed. “Charlie never waited until the night before an exam, sweetheart. You need to apply yourself if you want to find success.”

The words landed quietly, without anger. My father didn’t need to yell. Disappointment in his voice could follow me for days.

He kissed the top of my head and continued toward the dining room while discussing market exposure with someone whose name I recognized from a framed photograph in his office.

My mother watched him leave, then adjusted the strap of my bag where it crossed my shoulder.

“He only wants to see you succeed.”

“I know.”

“You’re all we have now, Charmagne.”

She said it softly enough to sound like love. It was love. That made the weight of it harder to put down.

I swallowed the pressure gathering in my throat and reached for the door.

“Wait.” Her gaze dropped toward my skirt. “Did the uniform feel this snug during the fitting?”

My hand froze on the brass handle. “I think it fits.”

“It pulls across your hips when you stand that way.”

“I’m standing normally.”

“You have your weight on one leg.” She touched the side of my waist and encouraged me to square my body toward the mirror. “You inherited my curves, sweetheart. There’s nothing wrong with them, but certain cuts require more consideration and more discipline on your end.”

Heat climbed beneath the neckline of my uniform. I stared at my reflection and tried to see the girl my mother saw instead of the one who’d spent all week practicing in that skirt without thinking about her hips.

The fabric looked tighter now.

I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t noticed it upstairs. The waistband curved around a body that had seemed normal ten minutes earlier. Once my mother identified the problem, it became impossible to see anything else.

“The team breakfast is after rehearsal,” she continued. “Choose the fruit and eggs rather than the pancakes. You’ll feel lighter during the afternoon session.”

“I have algebra review between rehearsals.”

“Then you’ll want to stay focused. Heavy food will make you sluggish.”

I nodded because Coach’s warning kept repeating inside my head and because arguing would only make me later.

My mother kissed my cheek. “You look beautiful.”

The praise should’ve erased the correction. Instead, it taught me that beautiful could disappear if I stood incorrectly, chose pancakes, or let the wrong strand of hair escape.

I thanked her before stepping outside.

By the time I reached school, I had fourteen minutes to cross campus, change my shoes, put away my bag, and make it onto the gym floor. I spent six of those minutes searching the back seat for my algebra notebook before remembering I’d left it open on my desk.

The realization followed me into rehearsal and settled behind every count. My father would receive the grade notification if I did poorly on the quiz. I needed to borrow paper for the review. Charlie wouldn’t have forgotten his notebook, and my mother had been right about the skirt.

Coach clapped her hands once. “From the transition. Full energy this time.”

Music filled the gym, sharp and bright against the squeak of shoes over polished wood. I took my position between my friend Ashley and a sophomore named Paige, squared my shoulders, and fixed my smile.

“Five, six, seven, eight.”

My arms reached the first position, my right foot crossed behind my left, and we turned together as our skirts flared around our thighs. I caught the next count before another thought pushed through it.

The notebook was on my desk. My father would know I forgot it. The skirt pulled across my hips when I turned. I needed paper. I needed to study. I needed to remember the next step.

Ashley’s shoulder clipped mine when I missed the direction change.

“Charm,” Coach called over the music.

I corrected too late and stepped into Paige’s path. The formation broke around me, three girls stumbling before Coach stopped the track. Silence rushed into the gym, and every face seemed to turn toward me at once.

“Everyone reset,” Coach said.

The other girls returned to their marks while I forced my breathing to remain even. Coach walked toward me with her clipboard held against her chest.

“You knew that transition yesterday.”

“I know.”

“Then why were you watching Ashley instead of trusting the count?”

“I lost it for a second.”

“You keep losing it for a second, and every second costs the whole line.” Her voice remained calm, which made the disappointment worse. “You have the ability, Charm. I need the focus.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I need more than an apology. Take five minutes, get some water, and come back ready.”

I nodded and walked toward the locker room before the tears pressing behind my eyes could escape beneath the gym lights.

The bathroom beside the lockers was empty. I shut myself inside the last stall, lowered the lid, and sat with my elbows resting on my knees. My hands trembled around the edge of my skirt as I tried to slow everything happening inside my head.

The choreography continued behind my thoughts. Algebra sat beside it. My mother’s fingers pressed against my hip again while my father’s voice reminded me that Charlie always studied early. Coach’s disappointment joined them until every correction began speaking at once.

My chest tightened. I drew in a breath that stopped before it reached the bottom of my lungs, then tried again with the same result. Heat gathered beneath my uniform while the bathroom seemed to become smaller around me.

Charlie had also been sixteen when his car crossed the center line on an icy road.

Death made him brilliant at everything.

His unfinished homework never appeared in the framed photographs lining our hallway. His bad grades, messy bedroom, and arguments with our parents had been polished out of the story until my brother became a standard no living person could reach.

He would never forget a notebook again. He would never miss a transition, disappoint my father, gain weight, choose the wrong college, or become anything less than the perfect son they remembered.

I pressed a tissue beneath my eyes before the mascara could run. My fingers shook hard enough that the paper scratched my skin.

The bathroom door opened.

“Charm?”

Ashley’s shoes appeared beneath the stall divider.

“I’m fine.”

“You walked in here looking like you were about to throw up.”