Anything for Her(19)

And he liked Allie Wright. He liked her enough that it scared the shit out of him considering how little he knew about her.

* * *

AFTER A TRIP to the grocery store on Tuesday, Nolan was driving past the high school on the way home when he noticed the football team practicing. Some boys were sprinting between cones, others negotiating a row of tires lying on their sides. Half a dozen were taking turns plowing into the blocking tackle. A kicker was setting up for a field goal or extra point try.

Nolan saw that Sean, slumped in the passenger seat, was looking that way, too.

“You’ve got the size,” Nolan commented. “Too bad you didn’t try out for the team.”

Sean’s head snapped back around, as if he didn’t want to admit he had been interested. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Sure it does.” Nolan mulled it over. With no experience raising a kid, it hadn’t occurred to him when Sean first came that they needed to be looking into things like that. Football practice had probably started in August, before school opened. “Won’t be too long until basketball starts.”

“I’m not that good.”

“I doubt many freshmen are that good.”

“I wouldn’t be able to ride the bus home.”

“You know I’d make time to pick you up,” Nolan said mildly.

The kid’s shrug was just this side of disagreeable.

“You interested at all?”

Obviously conflicted, Sean took his time answering. “Maybe.”

“I could put up a hoop above the garage door. You could practice shooting.”

“Really?” Something like hope shone in Sean’s gray eyes. “That would be cool. If they’re not too expensive.”

Nolan didn’t care how much basketball hoops cost. He wished he’d thought of putting one up sooner. Sean needed to get involved in some activities if he was to make friends. Sports made sense, given that he was tall for his age. He needed a physical outlet for his restlessness, too.

“The concrete pad in front of the garage is flat.” When he bought the house, the driveway had been gravel, but Nolan had had it paved leading both to the garage and the workshop. He wasn’t about to have a valuable slice of granite or—God forbid—a finished piece break when he hit a pothole in his truck. He nodded. “Should be ideal. We’ll do it.”

“Cool!” Sean declared.

Good thing, Nolan reflected, that he had an equable temperament himself. Could be the last foster parents hadn’t known teenagers’ emotions were all over the map, especially one who’d suffered as much loss as Sean had. Ebullience to angry sullenness could happen between one heartbeat and the next. The couple might have gone into it with good intentions but been battered by all the ups and downs.

If anything had tried Nolan’s patience, it was the bureaucracy of getting approved as a foster parent. The frustrating part was that everyone knew Sean had no other even half-decent possibilities.

For Sean, Nolan hadn’t had any trouble staying patient.

So far, he reminded himself.

He glanced sidelong. “You haven’t said whether you liked Allie.” On Sunday, after they took her home and admired the beginnings she’d made on the quilt, Sean had been rather quiet. Nolan hadn’t wanted to push it.

“She’s okay,” he said now. “I can see why you like her,” he added, more grudgingly. “She’s really little, though.”

Nolan grunted agreement. Even Sean had towered over her.

The boy continued to ponder. “She moves different than most people. Like...like she’s thinking about where she puts her feet or the way she turns her head. You know?”

“Yeah.” Nolan hadn’t thought of it that way, but there was a deliberate quality in her every movement. It made her extra graceful, but he didn’t like the idea of that word: deliberate. As if she was posing, trying to create an effect.

The strange thing was he’d swear she didn’t give a whole lot of thought to her appearance. She wore little makeup, wasn’t constantly flipping the ends of her hair the way some women did, listened with gravity when he or Sean talked and didn’t jump to regain center stage.

No, he decided—the graceful lines she formed with every lift of her hand, every step or tip of her head, they were just her. Beautiful.

He relaxed. You’re paranoid, he told himself, and knew it was true. He had good reason, though. He’d grown up with a master—or should he say, a mistress?—of presenting a pretty facade to hide an uglier reality. His very own mother.