CLAIRE PAUSED to toss another bunch of bananas into her cart, eyeing the growing mound of groceries with bemusement. Her normal trips to the grocery store were infrequent and hurried. A few frozen dinners, some fruits and vegetables, and she was on her way.
Now her cart was filled with meat, vegetables, snack food, pasta, milk and more fruit than she’d eat in two months. And she’d be back in a few days to load up again.
Nick’s appetite was both astounding and unnerving, and it didn’t seem to matter what she set in front of him. He ate an enormous breakfast and took a huge sack lunch to school. When he walked in the door after football practice, he’d devour anything edible he could find.
The night before, she’d watched as he’d eaten a container of yogurt, an apple, more cookies than she could count and two glasses of milk. Then he’d announced he was starving and asked when they were having dinner.
She glanced at her watch and pushed the cart a little faster. Nick would be home in a few minutes, and she didn’t want him returning to an empty house.
Her cell phone chirped in her purse and she reached for it, frowning. It was too late for anyone from the office to call her. Nick had her cell phone number, but he’d never used it.
“Ms. Kendall?”
She recognized Tucker Hall’s voice immediately. Her hand tightened on the phone. “Yes?”
“I need you to come and get Nick.”
His voice sounded grim and fear grabbed her by the throat. “Is something wrong?” she asked, her hand trembling on the phone. “Is Nick all right?”
“He’s fine. But you need to pick him up.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nick is fine,” he repeated. His drawl was oddly reassuring. “We’ll talk when you get here. Come to the trainer’s room.” He hung up without waiting for an answer.
Her heart pounding, her stomach tight with fear, she abandoned the cart of groceries and flew out of the store. By the time she ran into the trainer’s room, she was sick with dread.
Two treatment tables stood against one wall. A desk stood in the corner and cabinets lined the other walls. Nick was pushing a wide broom across the floor.
“Don’t kick that towel into a corner, Kendall,” Tucker said sharply. “Put it where it belongs.”
Nick flung the towel into a tall bin, but it caught on the side and fluttered there for a moment. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he nudged it into the container.
“When you finish that, you can clean out the icing buckets,” Tucker told him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, hurrying over to Nick. “Are you all right?” She grabbed his shoulders and turned him to face her, scanning him from head to toe.
To her surprise, he didn’t jerk away from her. He looked down at the floor and muttered, “I’m fine.”
Without letting him go, she turned to Tucker, who stood watching them as he methodically folded elastic bandages into tight rolls. Claire glanced at his hands as they moved quickly and competently, then looked away.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong with Nick?” she demanded.
Tucker placed another rolled bandage into a drawer. “He’s fine now,” he said. “He wasn’t so fine fifteen minutes ago.”
Her hands tightened on her nephew, and she studied him frantically. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Nick didn’t use his inhaler before practice today,” the coach said. “He had an asthma attack fifteen minutes before practice ended.”
“Nick!” Her hands tightened on his shoulders. “Are you all right now? Can you breathe?”
“I’m fine.”
There was a catch to his voice, as if he was going to cry. He turned away from her and resumed pushing the broom across the floor.
“Kendall.” Tucker’s voice was sharp. “Tell your aunt what happened.”
Nick kept his head turned away from her. “I couldn’t breathe. Coach had to stop practice early.”
“That’s right.” Tucker leaned back against the trainer’s table, his face hard. “Not only did he endanger himself, but he ended practice for the rest of the team.”
She gently turned Nick around to face her. “Why didn’t you use the inhaler?”
He slid his eyes away. “I don’t like it,” he muttered.
“What don’t you like?” she asked.
“I don’t like the way it tastes. And I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
“How does it make you feel?”
“It makes my heart race. I feel all jittery.”
“Then we should go back to the doctor, see if there’s some other kind of medicine you should be using.”
He shrugged. “I guess.” He stepped away from her and continued sweeping.
Claire watched him, feeling overwhelmed. She had no idea how to handle him, what to say or do.
“I’ve handled the team part of the problem.” Tucker said. “How you deal with Nick is up to you.”
“What do you mean, you’ve ‘handled the team part of the problem’?” she asked.
“Instead of practicing tomorrow, Nick will help Mr. Tracy clean the training room. And he’s benched for the first half of the game on Friday.” He glanced over at the boy. “I sure hope we won’t need any punts or field goals.”
Dull red swept up the back of Nick’s neck. “I’m sorry, Coach,” he mumbled without turning around.
“So is the rest of the team, Nick. They’re sorry you won’t be able to help them on Friday. They’re sorry they didn’t get to practice that last play today. Now go collect your gear.”
Nick put the broom into a small closet and slipped out the training room door. Claire gazed after him helplessly.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Tucker said as the door closed behind Nick. “He’s not the first kid who didn’t want to use his inhaler.”
She looked up at Tucker, who was standing close enough to touch. “But it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with it,” she said.
He studied her, his face softening. “It must be tough becoming an instant parent,” he said. “You seem to be doing okay so far.”
“That depends on your definition of okay,” she said wearily. “Nick and I butt heads constantly.”
A smile hovered around Tucker’s mouth. “That just means he’s a teenage boy. Some of your friends in town must have teenagers. They’ll tell you the same thing.”
“I don’t have a lot of friends in town,” she said stiffly. “I lost contact with them when I moved away.”
“Really?” He tilted his head as he watched her. “That surprises me. I took you for the social type.”
“Why is that?” she asked, her voice cool. But she was surprised at his perception. She was social when she was home in Chicago.
He held her gaze silently, his eyes heating as he watched her. An answering response trembled inside her and she finally looked away.
“I’ll take Nick home,” she said, feeling awkward as a teenager herself. “I’m sorry he disrupted your practice.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, holding her gaze. “I don’t think it’ll happen again.”
“Thank you,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll talk to him tonight.”
“Good.” He straightened from the training table, and suddenly he was in front of her. She’d never seen a man as big as Tucker move so fluidly. Or so fast.
Her heart tripped in her chest, then began to pound.
“Is Nick going to the team pasta party on Thursday?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Her mouth was suddenly dry. “He hasn’t said anything about a party.”
“The guys have a pasta party the night before every game.” He smiled, and her heart fluttered. “A different parent hosts it every week. It’s great for team bonding. See if you can get him to go.”
“How is he doing?” she asked impulsively. “Is he making friends on the team?”
Tucker turned his head toward the door, and she heard footsteps approaching. Nick had collected his gear.
“Let’s have dinner together on Thursday and we can talk about it,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at 6:30.”
Before she could answer, Nick pulled the door open. The mesh bag that held his equipment was slung over his shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said.
She looked at Tucker. She should refuse, she told herself, but didn’t know how without sounding churlish. She’d asked him about Nick, after all. The twinkle in Tucker’s eyes told her that he recognized her dilemma.
“See you later, Kendall,” he said, his voice easy. “You too, Ms. Kendall.”
His mouth curled into a grin as he turned away, and Claire stared at him for a moment. They were going to discuss Nick, she told herself firmly. It was a parent-teacher conference.
It was not a date.
NICK THREW HIS BAG of gear into the back seat and slid into the car without looking at his aunt. He jammed the seat belt together and stared out the windshield, determined not to blubber like a baby in front of her.
“I’m sorry this happened,” she said softly. “Can we talk about why you did it?”
Oh, man, he hated when she used that quiet voice on him. He pressed his lips together as his eyes tingled. Why couldn’t she yell at him like his mother had?
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know why you didn’t use your inhaler?”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and he squirmed in the seat. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much, do you?” she said with a sigh.
He braced himself for the yelling. But she pressed her lips together and waited.
“No.” He was ashamed of the short, surly answer, but he banished the feeling. She didn’t want to be stuck in this Podunk town, he reminded himself. The sooner she figured out that he didn’t need her, the better.
She didn’t say anything for the rest of the short trip home. When he got into the house, he headed for the stairs and the safety of his room.
“Nick,” she said. “Come back down to the kitchen.”
He stopped on the stairs but didn’t look back at her. His hand tightened on his bag of gear.
“I want to talk to you, Nick.”
“I don’t feel like talking right now.”
“I don’t care.”
She was standing at the bottom of the stairs now, and he slowly turned around. He knew that voice. That was the same voice his mom used when he was in trouble.
“Fine,” he said, dropping the gear deliberately on the stairs. She looked at it but didn’t say anything.
She had a glass of milk and a carton of cookies on the table, and his stomach reminded him how long it had been since he’d eaten. He threw himself into a chair and looked away from the cookies.
She sat down across from him and took a cookie, then pushed the box toward him. “How about a cookie, Nick?”
“Fine,” he muttered. He ate one cookie and was reaching for the next before he caught himself. But she wasn’t looking at the damn cookies. She was looking at him, with disappointment on her face.
He shoved another cookie into his mouth and slouched lower on the seat.
“I remember hearing Coach Hall tell you the rule about using your inhaler,” she said. “So why didn’t you?”
“I told you. It makes me jittery. And it tastes like sh—it tastes bad.” He flicked a tiny piece of chocolate chip onto the floor.
She frowned. “I thought football was important to you. I thought you wanted to be on the team.”
“It is. I do,” he muttered. She was making him feel stupid. She was doing it on purpose, he told himself as he fanned the embers of his temper.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I’m just trying to understand why you did it. Can’t you tell me that?”
He shoved the chair back and heard it crash to the floor. “Because I did, okay? I didn’t want to use the f—the inhaler, okay?” Tears burned in his eyes. “Just forget it.” He moved away from the table, caught his leg on the chair and stumbled.
He kicked the chair out of his way. He hated his stupid hip, hated that he limped. Hated that he couldn’t do anything about it. But he was in charge of his inhaler.
She looked at him steadily. “Are you going to do it again?”
“I guess not,” he muttered.
“All right.”
She watched him for a moment, and he squirmed. “Can I go now?”
She nodded. “I think you’ve been punished enough,” she said softly.
He wanted to storm out of the room, slam his bedroom door behind him. But something in her eyes stopped him. She looked sad, he realized. Sad for him?
He pushed the thought away. Of course not. How could you feel sad for someone you were stuck with? And she was stuck with him. He didn’t care how much she said she wanted to stay with him. How much she said she wasn’t going anywhere without him.
Sooner or later, she’d leave.
That’s what everyone did.