Sloan Sullivan knew it was going to be a bad day the minute his boss told him he was going to have to lend a hand. And not just for today. But for a whole month.
It wasn’t that Sloan already felt as if he lent a hand—several hands, in fact—at the Atlanta, Georgia law firm where he had been a partner for years. But, too, this month simply wasn’t looking to be a good month to schedule in something like lending a hand. He had back-to-back appointments and professional functions out the proverbial wazoo throughout February. And March was pretty booked, too.
In fact, as he sat at the big table bisecting the boardroom of Parmentier, Barnaby, Shepperton and Ganz, flipping frantically through his organizer, Sloan couldn’t find a single opening for lending a hand until spring. And even then, he was going to have to pencil in lending a hand, because that was coming up on the Masters Tournament, and he always went over to Augusta for a few days, because there were always parties to attend, so he might very realistically have to make an erasure and postpone lending a hand until sometime during the summer instead.
To be perfectly honest, Sloan just didn’t have time to lend a hand, regardless of the season. He was much too busy with other things—mostly work. An estate attorney’s work just never seemed to be done.
He ran restless fingers through his dark hair and glanced up from his organizer, only to find his silver-haired boss gazing expectantly back at him from the other end of the massive, smoked glass table. “I’m sorry, Edgar,” he said to Edgar Parmentier, the senior partner of Parmentier, Barnaby, Shepperton and Ganz. “But this really isn’t a good time for me. Normally, I’d jump at the chance to lend a hand. You know that. But I just can’t find the time right now. Surely, you understand.”
But Edgar only glared at him with that gimlet-eyed stare that always made Sloan want to run for the nearest, well gimlet—shaken, not stirred. “What I know and understand, Sloan,” he said, “is that you’d just as soon pretend that everyone in the world lives the same way you do—pampered, privileged and prosperous. You don’t want to lend a hand, because then you’ll have to admit that not everyone’s life is as cushy as yours is.”
“That isn’t it at all,” Sloan objected. Even if, maybe, he couldn’t quite disagree with his boss. He really didn’t like to think about things like poverty and indigence and disadvantage and people who needed a hand. Hey, who did?
“That’s exactly it,” Edgar insisted. “You Sullivans have lived in your ivory tower—or, at the very least, in your stately manor—for too long. It’s time at least one of you saw how the real world lives. Come on, man,” he further jeered. “Show some backbone. This will be good for you.”
Sloan told himself to object to his employer’s assessment of his family—of himself—then realized that, in all honesty, he couldn’t. He was pampered, privileged and prosperous. He’d grown up being pampered, privileged and prosperous. And he liked being pampered, privileged and prosperous, too. The Sullivans were one of Atlanta’s most illustrious families and had been for generations. And Sloan had no intention of giving up his pampered, privileged and prosperous lifestyle anytime soon.
So, in fact, there was no reason for him to object to Edgar’s words. Somehow, though, he wasn’t comfortable with his boss’s evaluation of him. It made him sound so shallow. And hey, there must be some depth to his character. Right? He’d come this far, after all.
Sloan shook the thought off. “But, Edgar—” he began again.
“It’s always a good time for doing good deeds, Sloan,” his boss cut him off. “And the Lend a Hand Month council has scores of excellent causes lined up this year. Pick one.”
The older man dipped his head toward a brown felt fedora turned upside down at the center of the table. Inside were more than two dozen folded slips of paper, each recorded with some kind of month-long good deed that needed doing, and for which Edgar Parmentier had volunteered one of his employees—with or without that employee’s go-ahead. So far, four of the eight partners at PBS and G had chosen from the hat. Whatever good deeds were left after the partners’ meeting would be divvied up among the associates and office workers of the law firm. Come February, five days hence, PBS and G would be well represented among the do-gooders. Whether its employees liked it or not.
Of course, the vast majority of employees didn’t mind lending a hand at all. And Sloan wouldn’t, either, if it just came at a better time. But he had things to do next month. Lots of things. Lots of really important things. Tennis dates with Bambi Winston. The Farringdons’ annual open house. Babs and Leonard Bayard’s cocktail party. It was a never-ending series of social obligations. And work, too, he reminded himself. Why, setting up the Maury and Antoinette MacCorkindale estate alone was going to take weeks.
“But, Edgar—” he tried again.
“Choose,” Edgar commanded, jabbing a stubby finger at the fedora.
With a frustrated sigh, Sloan reached into the hat and drew out a slip of paper. So far, the good deeds chosen had been anything but appealing. Dennis Robertson was going to be spending each of his February weekends painting the interior of a nursing home. Fred Schwartz would be serving baloney and beans at a local food shelter during half of his lunch hours. Lauren Riordan would be reading books to preschoolers at a nearby women’s shelter during her lunch hours. And Anita Spinelli was going to spend her next four weekends putting together food baskets for the underprivileged.
Sloan held his breath as he unfolded his piece of paper to see what inconvenient blow fate had dealt him. Would he be singing rondos to a group of Cub Scouts? Baking cookies for a church bazaar? Walking dogs for the elderly? What? He unfolded the scrap of paper…and was surprised to see that he was actually halfway suited to the job he would be required to do—and only two evenings a week, at that.
Halfway being the operative word here. Because although the basketball coach part was familiar enough, the rural Georgia high school part was not.
Still, it appeared that the Fighting Razorbacks of Stonewall Jackson High School in Wisteria, Georgia—roughly forty-five minutes from Atlanta—needed an assistant coach for the next month, because their regular one had been laid up by a hunting accident. Sloan, of course, had never actually coached basketball before, but he’d had the honor of warming the bench for Vanderbilt. And, of course, he’d played basketball in high school—very well, too. In fact, as starting center, he’d taken the Fighting Ptarmigans of Penrose Academy right to the state championship twenty years ago. Well, the state championship for tony private schools, at any rate. Still, if he’d won one for the Ptarmigans, he could certainly do the same for the Razorbacks.
Then, for some reason, the image of a razorback having a ptarmigan for lunch erupted in his brain. How strange…
Immediately, Sloan shook off that thought, too. They were high school students he’d be coaching, he reminded himself. It would only be two nights a week. And only for a month. How tough could this assignment be?
It wasn’t until Sloan parked his Jaguar roadster outside the gymnasium at Jackson High School that he began to regret his final words after drawing this assignment from a hat. He’d never visited rural Wisteria before, and hadn’t realized just how rural Wisteria was. Jackson High School, for instance, was one of only two in the entire town. And this one, he couldn’t help but notice as he’d driven over them, was definitely on the wrong side of the tracks.
He knew it was the wrong side of the tracks, because on the other side, Wisteria had been very picturesque, filled with white frame houses and tidy yards and old-fashioned mom-and-pop type shops. There had even been an ice-cream parlor on one corner of the downtown—and how quaint to think of the business district as “downtown,” Sloan thought again—not to mention a town square which was really a square, and which, during the warmer months, was no doubt green and lush and landscaped to perfection. This side of Wisteria, on the other hand, was…
Not.
Not picturesque. Not filled with white frame houses and tidy yards and old-fashioned mom-and-pop type shops. Not quaint. There were no ice-cream parlors, and nothing that had the potential to be green or lush or landscaped in any way. What he had seen lots of on this side of Wisteria were auto parts stores—which were more part than auto, truth be told—junkyards, trailer parks and what appeared to be illegal dumping grounds. Oh, and of course, Stonewall Jackson High School, whose gym was a massive, looming, bleak structure that couldn’t possibly keep out the rain, or last beyond the next big gust of wind.
It stood apart from the school, which seemed to be in no better shape than the gym, truth be told, all of it squatting amidst the biggest gravel parking lot Sloan had ever seen in his life. Then again, much of the gravel didn’t appear to be parking lot. It just appeared to be…gravel.
The small gray stones crunched beneath his two-hundred-dollar sneakers when he stepped out of the car, and the damp February breeze brought with it the oily stink of a paper mill that must lie on the outskirts of town. Strangely, he hadn’t noticed the smell on the other side of the tracks. But here…
Sloan did his best to breathe shallowly.
A sign above the main entrance to the gym hung a bit listlessly on one side, and many of its plastic letters were missing. Still, Sloan was able to get the gist of ad Razo ba ks Eat Their Y ung! Go Te m! Not that he necessarily wanted to get the gist of it. But he did anyway.
Evidently, the Razorbacks meant business, he thought as he zipped his hooded sweatshirt over his sweatpants and Vanderbilt T-shirt to ward off the chill. Then again, Sloan had been brought up to date on the team by the Jackson High principal before coming to Wisteria. The kids were indeed poised for the regional championship, and they were definitely kicking butt. Even this late in the season, they were still undefeated, and had royally trounced a couple of schools everyone had considered shoo-ins for the regional, perhaps even the state, title.
Then again, according to the sign, they did eat their young, Sloan reflected wryly. That showed a real flair for offense. He began to suspect that he had grossly underestimated just how demanding this volunteer position was going to be.
His suspicions were only reinforced when he pushed open the gymnasium doors and strode through the decrepit lobby to the cavernous—and likewise decrepit—gym itself. The bleachers were empty, which surprised him, even if the team was only practicing right now. Generally, when a team was doing as well as the Razorbacks were, there were always fans in the stands to encourage them and cheer them on, even at practice. Parents, too, often showed up to watch. Yet the Razorbacks didn’t seem to have any visible means of support.
Oh, wait, yes they did, Sloan realized belatedly. Because a large group of girls stood on the other side of the gym, chatting. Cheerleaders, probably, he thought, seeing as how most of them were wearing shorts, and a few were in sweats. Or they may be girlfriends of the team members. It was nice that so many of them to be here, showing support for their menfolk.
And just where were the menfolk? Sloan wondered, scanning the gym again. There wasn’t a single team member in sight.
Then the shrill cry of a whistle alerted him to the fact that the team was indeed, as kids said nowadays, “In da house.” At least, Sloan thought that was what kids said nowadays. He did have VH-1, after all. Even if he didn’t watch anything except “House of Style.” At any rate, even after that long, piercing shriek came to an end, no team appeared. Only the girls on the other side of the gym ran to the center of the room, presumably, he thought, to create some kind of pyramid for the boys to run through.
But no boys appeared. No, the only thing Sloan saw with the scattering of the girls that he hadn’t noticed before was what turned out to be the source of the whistle—a woman who was striding toward the middle of the group of girls. Who, incidentally, he also noted, had yet to climb atop each other and form a pyramid for the boys. The woman caught sight of Sloan just as he caught sight of her, and after saying something to a couple of the girls he couldn’t hear, she smiled, lifted a hand in greeting, and began to jog toward him.
She was tall, he noticed, easily five-ten or -eleven, slim, but curvy, with small, round breasts and short, dark hair. She had a basketball tucked under one arm and was dressed almost identically to Sloan, though where his sweats were navy blue, hers were gray. And the T-shirt she wore indicated she’d attended Clemson.
As she drew nearer to him, Sloan noticed that she was about his age—late thirties—with clear gray eyes, touches of silver and auburn in her hair, and a spray of freckles over her nose and cheekbones. Her mouth was good, full and smiling, and her smile was good, too, broad and uninhibited. She wore not a bit of makeup, but somehow, she didn’t really need it. She was wholesome and healthy-looking, and Sloan was surprised to discover that he found her attractive. Usually, he didn’t go for wholesome and healthy-looking. Usually, he went for flashy and luscious-looking.
“You must be Mr. Sullivan,” she said as she halted before him, extending her hand.
He nodded and accepted her hand automatically, and he noticed right away that it wasn’t like most women’s hands. No, this one was large and rawboned and callused, with fingernails clipped short, and completely devoid of jewelry.
“Yes, I’m here for the Lend a Hand thing,” he said as he let her hand drop. “I’m looking for Coach Carmichael. Do you know where he is?”
Her smile fell some, and she eyed him curiously for a moment. Then she fisted the hand that wasn’t holding the basketball on her—surprisingly curvy—hip and smiled again, her gaze never once veering from his. “I’m Naomi Carmichael,” she told him. “Coach Carmichael. And I can’t thank you enough for taking time out of your busy schedule to help us out this month.”
Sloan narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re Coach Carmichael?” he asked, confused. “Us?” he asked further, even more confused.
“Yeah, us,” she said. Then she gestured over one shoulder with her thumb, toward the group of girls who were eyeing him with open curiosity. “The Lady Razorbacks,” she said further. “Thanks for volunteering to be our assistant coach for the next month. We really do appreciate it.”