One Night with a Quarterback (20 page)

Tabitha took one small step forward. “Please do not misunderstand me. My daughters are everything to me. And I have serious reservations about whether your influence is a good thing for them. Do not make me regret letting my husband lead me in this.” With that, she turned on her heel and walked out, leaving nothing but a whiff of Chanel scent in her wake.

“So . . . that went well.” She grinned at Irene, but the girl wasn't in the smiling mood. “You sure you have to do homework? Mellie and I would love company.”

Irene hesitated, rubbing her upper arm for a moment, then shook her head. “The paper's a big one. I need to get it done.”

“Sure. Of course. Need any help?”

Irene shook her head again, then left without saying another word. Cassie heard her run up the stairs, then her door close.

“Well, okay then. That went well, too.” She clapped her hands together and headed back toward the family room, thrilled at the idea of spending time with Mellie unguarded. “Mellie, we've got some serious choices to make.
Legally Blonde
marathon, or Jane Austin film festival?”

* * *

Two and a half hours later, nearly comatose with a good third of a large pizza sitting in her belly, Cassie wriggled on the couch. “Stop, you're pushing me off.”

Mellie laughed and nearly unseated them both. They were lying with their heads on either side of the couch watching as John Willoughby swept Marianne Dashwood into his arms in the rain. “Sorry. It's just so romantic.” She draped one arm out to the side with dramatic flair. “‘May I have your permission to ascertain if there are any breaks?' Swoon.”

Cassie resisted spoiling the fact that John Willoughby was not, in fact, the man for Marianne. “Don't expect guys at school to use lines like this. And if they do, run. They're just stealing movie quotes. Pick a guy with his own material.”

Mellie turned again, pushing Cassie closer to the edge. “Thanks for staying home.”

“You're welcome. But, do you guys always have someone home with you? I mean, you're fourteen, and Irene's sixteen. Isn't that old enough to stay home alone? Most kids are babysitting for toddlers at that age.”

Mellie rolled her eyes and messed with her ponytail. The blonde tuffs of hair sticking out everywhere made Cassie smile. “Mom worries about us, like, all the time. It's hard to breath around it. Like, suffocating or something. You know?”

She did know, and understood Ken and Tabitha were lucky to have two girls whose major rebellion had been wearing shorts and a tank top to the mall. “You'll get your freedom, don't worry. Once you hit college, you'll be overwhelmed with choices and the ability to make them. It's cool and frightening all at the same time.”

“What's it like, living entirely on your own? You've got an apartment back in Georgia, right? Or a house?”

“Apartment. Sometimes it's great. Other times, it's lonely. When I feel like that, I make Anya—my best friend—come over. Or I swing by my mom's for dinner. She's always making more food than she can eat herself. Habit, she says.”

“That's nice.” Mellie smiled a little. “Do you get along with your mom?”

“We do now. There were some rough teenage years, but most teens have that.” She took a deep breath. “Your mom loves you, Mellie. She's just a worrier by nature, I think. It overwhelms her, and she responds by holding tighter to you two. But it's out of love.”

“Doesn't make it any easier to breathe,” Mellie mumbled. But she seemed to accept the answer, and turned to watch the Colonel gaze at Marianne longingly.

Cassie's phone beeped with a text, and she decidedly ignored it. But then it beeped again. And again. Either someone was being rude, or someone needed her. She felt down around the floor for the phone she'd dropped, then checked the display. “Why is your sister texting me from upstairs?”

“Because she's lazy,” was Mellie's automatic response, not taking her eyes from the screen. “If she wants pizza, she has to come down and get it herself.”

“Agreed,” Cassie said, then unlocked her phone's screen.

Cassie? I need help.

She sat up, moved on to the next two texts.

Please answer. Please.

Please please please answer.

As she read the last text, one more appeared.

I'm so sorry. Please.

She jumped up, jostling Mellie on the couch with a shriek, and ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time. When she reached Irene's bedroom, she knocked once, then went in without waiting for a response.

Empty.

Shit. Bathroom? She checked, but the hall bathroom was open, showing an empty room.

“Irene?” she called, but nobody answered. Jogging back downstairs, she did a quick search of the house. Then checked the backyard, though in her gut, she knew that would be pointless. “Shit. Irene!”

Nothing.

Mellie walked to her, soda in hand. “What happened?”

“Your sister's gone,” Cassie said flatly. “And I'm going to murder her.” She texted back a quick,
Where are you?

The response was almost immediate, as if she'd been waiting for the question and had the answer already typed out to send.

Bar on Casey Drive.

Then . . .

I'm sorry. Please come get me.

“Yup. I'm going to murder your sister.” Mellie's eyes widened, and she clutched her soda bottle so tight it crackled under her fingers. “Not really. You know I'm being sarcastic, right?”

Mellie nodded, and kept nodding like a dashboard bobblehead.

“I need you to do me a favor. This is part of that whole growing up thing. You've got to stay here, and keep your cell phone by your side. Do not leave this house for
anything
. Got it?”

Mellie kept nodding.

“Phone. Show it to me.”

She pulled it out of her jeans pocket, handed it to Cassie.

Cassie took it and inputted Trey's number, saving it only as “T.” “If I don't call or text you in the next thirty minutes with an update, you call this number and tell him Cassie needs help. Got it?”

Once more, Mellie nodded. Cassie gripped her shoulders. “There's no reason to worry, okay? Everything is fine. Your sister just has horrible timing to break out the teenage rebellion act.”

“She's in big trouble, isn't she?” Mellie asked with a whisper, her eyes tearing up.

“Not yet,” Cassie said, hoping it was true. “Not if I can help it. But you have to do your part. Keep the doors locked.”

“What if Mom and Dad come home?”

“You tell them the truth. Don't lie.” She thought for a moment. “But text me if you see them coming up the drive.”

She started to argue, but Cassie hugged her. “I'm a big girl, Mellie. I can handle the fallout.” She hoped. Then she let go, darted out the side door and toward the pool house. Collecting her purse and car keys, she sent another text to Irene, asking the bar's name. Then she told her to stay put, keep quiet, and she'd be there as soon as she could.

Forcing herself to drive the normal speed limit was one of the hardest things she'd ever done.

Trey finished another set of weights and waited for Josiah's help to rack them. The impromptu workout at a dump of a gym where the other hard bodies focused on their workouts and not one another wasn't doing much to keep his mind off Cassie. But it was a hell of a way to punish himself for his lack of self-control in the mental department.

“I'm not even writing that set down,” Josiah said, leaning over the bar. “That was total crap.”

“You do better.”

“Pretty sure a third grader could do better.”

Trey agreed, in theory. But the principle and pride demanded he push Josiah's arm off the bar.

Trey's phone rang where it sat on the ground with his towel and water bottle. He checked the display, saw it was Cassie, and fought a momentary battle on whether to answer or not.

“Trey, come on.” His friend's voice was pleading. “I know you like her, but can we not just get through a workout first?”

Like her? No, like was such a pale, insubstantial word. He loved her, no doubt about it. But even love didn't mean he had to jump every time she phoned. He hit the decline call button and stood. “Your set. How much you want on it?”

The phone buzzed with a text, but he didn't check. Stuffing the phone in his cargo shorts pocket, he added additional weight for Josiah and spotted him a set of fifteen bench presses. In his pocket, the phone buzzed nonstop.

As they racked the bar, Josiah looked disgusted. “Just text her and tell her you'll call later. I can't listen to your pants vibrate the rest of the night.”

“Sorry if it makes you horny.” He darted out of punching range and checked his phone. Seven texts in a row, and two missed calls. He opened the last text, meaning to just use the reply function to send a quick note, when he actually read the message.

Emergency.

That was all. Scrolling quickly through the rest of the messages, they all said something similar. Call her now. She needed him. She was scared. Please call back.

Fucking damn it. She was panicking and he'd sent her call to fucking voicemail. At Josiah's questioning glance, he held up a hand and dialed her number. She answered, breathing heavily.

“Cassie, what's wrong?” The urgency in his voice must have signaled to Josiah it was more serious than “I miss you, snuggle bunny.” He rushed over to stand and listen.

“It's Irene,” she said, choking on the words. “I was babysitting the girls—”

“Babysitting? They're teenagers.”

“Not important,” she snapped. “I was babysitting and Irene was upstairs and then she wasn't and she snuck out and I don't know how she did it but she managed to get downtown and she says she's at a bar on Casey Drive, but she didn't say what bar and she's not answering her phone now.”

Irene couldn't be even eighteen. No way she should be at a bar. And Casey Drive wasn't the nicest part of town, either. “Okay, so are you at the house? Where are you?”

“I'm parked on E Street because I can't
find
Casey Drive. My GPS keeps telling me to turn the wrong way down one-way streets, and then I think I've found it but it's not right. And I don't know which bar . . .” She hiccupped, and he could all but taste the fear she was battling down. “I don't know what to do. And I can't call Ken . . . not yet. And she's not answering her phone!”

“I'm coming. Josiah and I are coming. We know where that is. Just . . . keep trying. Turn the GPS off and on again, see if it gives you a new route. But don't get out of the car until we get there.” It would take them at least twenty minutes, maybe longer depending on traffic. “Slow the breathing down, honey. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

She let out a little choked sob, as if she'd tried and couldn't make it happen.

“It's okay, it's okay.” He grabbed the bag Josiah thrust at him, trusting his friend had gathered all their things, and followed him out. “Is your phone on speaker?”

“Yes. I was pulled over when I texted you, but then I tried again to find it and now I'm just going in circles I think.”

“Hold tight. We're coming.” He didn't bother saying good-bye, just followed his friend to Josiah's hybrid SUV and hopped in the passenger seat. When push came to shove, Josiah was the cooler head, and would be the more effective driver. “Thanks man.”

“Not a problem.” He backed out of the parking spot and drove onto the main road. “Sorry about earlier. I feel like an ass now, telling you to ignore her.”

“I would have done it anyway, but yeah. I know.” He rubbed a hand down his face, taking some cold sweat with him. Lifting the hem of his T-shirt, he dried his face and neck the best he could. “She's terrified.”

“She's smart,” Josiah corrected. “And she's letting fear block her mind from firing on all cylinders. If she can just calm down for a few minutes, she'll be okay.”

Trey let his head fall back and closed his eyes. “She'll take the fall for it. Watch. Anything Coach and his wife throw at Irene, she'll step in front of.”

“She's a good big sis. She loves her family.”

“Yeah, she does.” The longer he was with her, the more he wanted to be a part of the ones she considered family. “I'm gonna try Stephen. If he's closer to downtown, he might get there before us.” He texted his friend, and was thankful when his friend texted back he was in that general area and would head right over. Trey asked to him to keep an eye on both Cassie and her sister until he arrived.

“Thank you, Stephen,” he muttered and dropped his phone in the cup holder.

“What was he doing down in that area? Not much around there but tattoo places and bars.” Josiah made a sharp turn, still controlled but a little edgier than he normally might make.

“I don't know. He was able to text in complete sentences and with no errors. I'm hoping that means he was just closer to the area than we were. But either way, I'll take it.”

* * *

Cassie, having disobeyed Trey's order to stay in the car by asking a gas station clerk for directions, pulled up to the second of two supposed bars on Casey Drive.

Please, God, let this be the one.

She locked the car and headed toward the front bar door, stopping short when she saw a huddled figure sitting next to the front step. She was impossible to miss, sticking out like a slightly wilted rose among the weeds. In her shorts, one of Cassie's tank tops she must have hidden from her mother, and flip-flops, with her head on her knees and arms around her legs, she looked so young. So impossibly innocent and scared.

Also impossible to miss was the large man sitting on the porch next to her. He was talking, though she couldn't hear what he was saying. Acting like it was no big deal to be just chatting with a teenager on the front step of a bar, leaning back on his elbows like a man who had nowhere else to be.
Stephen.
She breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Irene.”

Her sister's head snapped up, wide-eyed and tear-stained. Mascara clumped her eyelashes and streaked down her cheeks. “Cassie?” She jumped down and, to Cassie's shock, threw her arms around her in a desperate hug.

Not willing to let the moment pass, Cassie hugged her back. “Thank God you're okay.”

“I'm sorry,” her sister sobbed into her neck. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“Okay.” She was being harder on herself than Cassie ever could have been. “Okay.
Shh
. You didn't drive here, did you?”

“N-no.”

“How did you get here?”

“A boy from school picked me up. I walked out to the road to meet him.” She shuddered. “I thought he wanted to take me out, but he just wanted to see if I could get him and his friends into the bar using Dad's name.”

“Little shithead,” Cassie muttered, and had Irene choking on another sob. “Sorry.” She rubbed her sister's back. “Here. Go sit in my car while I talk to Stephen. Okay? Lock the doors, and do
not
get out. No matter what. Okay? You can turn it on and get the AC going.”

She nodded, wiping at a trailing tear with her wrist. She took the keys Cassie offered and walked to the car, about thirty yards away in the tiny parking lot.

With a sigh, and about thirty pounds of stress melting off her shoulders, she went to sit next to Stephen. “Thanks.”

He knocked shoulders with her. “No problem.”

He smelled a little like beer, but she wasn't sure if that was actually him, or just the booze-soaked porch. The thing was probably permanently stained with the scent of barley and hops. “How long have you been here?”

“About ten minutes.” At her questioning look, he said, “Trey called. I was closer than he was, so I hopped over to see if I could help.”

He was a good man, and he had good friends. “Well, I owe you.” With a shuddering breath, she let her head fall into her hands in a moment of weakness. “God. She could have been hurt. Did I do this? Did I screw this up? Did I break something in this family to cause this? Did I make them rebel?”

Stephen put one arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a side hug, squeezing a little. “Nah. Teenagers are idiots. All of them, even the smart ones. From what I can tell, she's been a pretty straight arrow up to now. She was due for a little mutiny.”

She gave a watery chuckle. “I guess.” She shifted closer to him when someone exited the bar and walked down the front steps, brushing by them.

“Hey, look.” The drunken man, pivoting on his heel with a slight wobble, grinned with beer-glassy eyes. “You're the Pro-jigal Daughter.”

Cassie assumed he meant prodigal, but wasn't about to correct him. Instead, she ignored his stare and focused on Stephen. “Thanks again. Do you need a ride anywhere?”

He scowled. “Why? I'm good.”

She hesitated, and was about to ask if he would wait for Trey before leaving, when the man slurred again from in front of them. “An' you're a Bobcat, aren't you? Yeah, big guy. You.”

Stephen's head raised and he shot the man a malicious look. One that would have had Cassie running for cover. “Piss off.”

She scooted close to Stephen again as another man passed by so he wouldn't touch her. Then she looked up and saw the first man taking a picture of them together. Immediately, she knew how it looked. She was all but plastered to Stephen's side to make room for the passersby, and his arm was around her shoulder.

Well, damn.

Nothing to do but avoid giving them more ammo. “Trey mentioned he was coming. Can you wait for him? I don't want Irene here any longer than necessary. I'd rather take her home now.”

“Yeah, sure, that's—dude.” Stephen stood abruptly. “Stop with the camera shit.”

“What?” The moron, and his buddy who had followed him out, seemed oblivious to the anger glittering in Stephen's eyes. “The Bobcats blogs are going to love this. What happened, your daddy set you up with one of his players? Couldn't get a date yourself?”

“Fuck off,” Stephen growled, and lunged for the phone.

“Stephen, no.” She stood, but wasn't sure what to do. Getting in the way seemed like a recipe for pain. But Stephen's anger seemed to have stepped over the cliff of reason, never to return. Calm discussion wasn't going to work. But one more try couldn't hurt. “Please, Stephen!”

But the smaller man was already swinging. He connected with Stephen's jaw, sending him back half a foot. And the game was on. Stephen launched himself at the other man, knocking him to the ground with a superb tackle.

Well, there was a reason he made a million a year to do that.

“Irene!” she yelled. Even from across the lot, she could see her sister's scared face, her eyes wide, watching. “Irene, go! Go home, now!” When her sister hesitated, she screamed, “Go!” Irene slammed the driver's side door shut.

The man's friend joined the fray, and it was two against one. Sober, he might have been okay. But Cassie could see his reactions were slow, his movements jerky. The beer she'd smelled had been from him, after all. And as one man grappled with him, the other landed blow after blow, unprotected, on Stephen's face and upper body. Eventually, he'd be knocked unconscious, or worse.

She braced herself and did her best to imitate Stephen's tackle, taking the other man down with a shoulder to his side. They landed together on the pavement just as she heard tires squeal.

From her peripheral vision, she caught Irene driving away in her car.

Good. Go home. Get out of here before this gets worse.

She jumped up, hoping to get out of the way, but the man she'd knocked over tangled his legs with hers and tripped her. She landed flat on her ass with him leaning over her. Her head rang from the impact to the concrete. Tires squealed again, and she closed her eyes and prayed Irene hadn't come back.

Just as the man's arm cocked back for a blow, he was gone. She stared straight up into a streetlight and had to close her eyes or be blinded. But after another few moments, she turned her head to the side.

And saw Trey fighting the man who'd come close to punching her, kicking his ass like an avenging angel.

Or demon, the way his fists were flying.

She'd take it.

At the sound of shouts, she glanced around and saw other patrons filing out of the bar to watch the parking lot excitement.

“Shit,” a voice behind her muttered, just before she was picked up by the armpits and set on her feet. “Can you walk?”

She nodded, then turned to see Josiah standing behind her. “Go help them.”

“They've got it covered.” He pushed her toward an SUV. His, she assumed. After another few moments of scuffling, Trey—pushing a staggering Stephen—headed for them. Trey loaded Stephen in the front passenger seat before climbing into the back with her.

“Hospital, now,” he ordered. Josiah seemed to take the order in stride and maneuvered out of the parking lot.