Helpless

Lindsey knew what “more” really meant. There’s no way he’ll break up with me now, she thought. Not when he sees this. The sweater came off. One carefully placed arm across her chest to conceal her breasts.

Sent.

Received.

“Nice. How about more?”

“I don’t think so, Tanner.”

“No worries. Look, I’ll call you tomorrow, if I can.”

If! He said “if.”

“Hold on,” Lindsey said.

She kept her arm on the bed in the next picture. Nothing left to the imagination this time, she thought after sending it.

“Nice,” Tanner said.

Lindsey frowned. He sounded less enthused. My chest is too flat, she lamented. She knew that her best features were her legs, long and toned, and her butt. She slipped out of her jeans. Next, off came her underwear. She wanted there to be no doubt. Lindsey stood in front of her full-length mirror. She turned her body sideways so Tanner would be able to see enough, but not everything.

Click.

Sent.

“Wow! Wow. I mean, whoa. You’re so freakin’ hot. Dammit, Lin. That’s what I’m talking about. I’m totally in love with you. Do you know that? I’m the luckiest guy. Give me more!”

“Tanner, I’m not sure—”

“Prom’s coming up,” Tanner said.

She understood perfectly well his implied threat. It could be next week, or even prom day, that Tanner would suddenly decide not to go. But she wasn’t going to let that happen. Lindsey went back over to her bed, lay down on it, and closed her eyes. With one hand she caressed her body; with the other she held the camera so that Tanner would see everything going on. Everything. Her breathing grew shallower. Her heart beat faster. She fantasized about kissing Tanner in the back of the limo. Pressing her body against his. She touched herself as she thought of him.

She sent him more pictures but deleted the ones she didn’t like.

“This is for you, Tanner. Just you.”

“No doubt. Can I tell you something?”

“Yes.”

Lindsey slid under the duvet, hiding her nakedness from herself.

“This has been the most amazing night of my life.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Those pictures. Promise me you’ll never show them to anybody. I’d die if you did. Promise me, Tanner.”

“I promise, Lin. I promise.”

Chapter 2

Shilo, New Hampshire, late August

“I’ve got ball!”

Jill Hawkins closed in to apply pressure on her opponent. It didn’t matter that Jill played striker for the Shilo Wildcats girls’ varsity soccer team. Being the player closest to the ball goal side made Jill her team’s first defender. Jill’s teammates, each of whom wore the same colored orange mesh practice jersey, sprinted into position to get compact behind the ball. The girls moved as a team and kept their opponent from pressing the ball forward.

Jill covered her gap at precisely the right time, and Lindsey Wells couldn’t play the angled ball she had wanted. Lindsey faked left, but Jill wasn’t fooled. Jill made a perfectly timed tackle and was dribbling the ball downfield before Lindsey even knew what had happened.

“That’s how you attack the ball!” Jill’s father, the girls’ varsity soccer coach for the past ten years, shouted as he followed his daughter’s progress down the sidelines. “Well played, Jill! Well played!”

Jill Hawkins lifted her head and flashed her father a bright smile. Tom stopped running and choked back his emotions. An outsider wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual in the exchange between father and daughter. But Tom knew not to read too much into Jill’s beaming face. Despite the warmth of her expression, he suspected their frigid relationship was no closer to thawing.

Battles.

Tom Hawkins understood from personal experience that soccer was a game of battles. He had been an all- American soccer player for the Shilo Wildcats boys’ varsity soccer team. He also understood that soccer was a lot like life. Both were just a series of battles, each constrained by a time limit—a whistle to end one, and death the other.

At forty-three, despite a full head of dark hair, blue eyes that still reminded people of a husky, the same waist size from high school, and a muscular physique visible even through his Windbreaker, Tom Hawkins had essentially arrived at the halftime of his life. He had spent the last ten years teaching the girls to battle until the final whistle blew. He would do the same. It was why Tom had fought so hard to win back his daughter.

Tom blew his coach’s whistle to signal it was time to practice set pieces. In soccer, corner kicks often decided who got the championship trophy. Coaches picked the drills, but it was the captains who ran them. Team captains Chloe Adamson and Megan McAndrews got the girls into action.

“Hey, orange, ball does not get past us!” Hawkins demanded of the girls with the pinnies on.

“Up, out, and far!” somebody yelled.

The girl’s kick came at Tom low to the ground and did not travel nearly far enough.

“Nice try, Becky!” Lindsey Wells exclaimed.

“No, Lindsey,” Tom scolded her. “It’s not a nice try! That stunk, and you know it.”

Tom’s expression darkened. The girls nearest to him looked at the ground and kicked at the dirt with the toes of their cleats. They understood perfectly well why their coach had snapped at Lindsey the way he did. They had been taught to pound their teammates on the pitch. Outwork every player on the field. There were rules against Bobby Talk (talking about boys). Phrases like “Nice try” and “I’m sorry” were treated with the same disdain as curse words.

Tom had coached both boys and girls at the high school level, so he knew the inherent difference in their style of play. His first priority as coach for the Shilo girls’ squad was not to accept those differences, but to change them. He began his coaching tenure by asking the girls as a group, “Why are you here?” Not a single player volunteered an answer. Tom prodded until at last one shaky hand rose and a girl meekly replied, “Because I have good foot skills.” Just as Tom had expected, the other girls soon chimed in and offered supporting evidence of their teammate’s brave claim.

“No, you have great foot skills!” one said, before then offering several examples.

Boys got their confidence from bravado. Girls seemed to get it from their teammates. Good, because it showed a respect for the team. Bad, because they tended to be less selfish players. They’d look to pass before they’d look to shoot.

“Play like you’re six years old again,” Tom often instructed. “Remember? My ball! Mine!”

Transforming his players into instinctive, selfish, smart winners depended on his ability to enhance their individual resourcefulness, while teaching them how to work effectively as a team. He applied many of the techniques he’d learned from his time with the Naval Special Warfare Command. Tom often quoted one of his favorite SOCOM mottos: “Alone I am lethal. As a team I dominate.”

Tom might have gone on to become a collegiate all-American soccer player if not for the career day event organized by the faculty of Shilo High School. At that event, a young Tom Hawkins had stopped by a metal folding