lived in different states. He and Devon had liked it that way.
In his last year at UT, his touchdown passes led the nation and he’d been picked up by Miami in the first round of the drafts. The summer after graduating from UT, he’d gone off to the Dolphins’ training camp while Devon had stayed in Austin to have Tiffany. After Tiffany was born, the two packed up and moved to Florida.
For the next three years, they’d been happy living in Florida. Devon had loved Florida, and he’d thought she’d loved him, too. But after three years with the Dolphins, Zach was traded to the Broncos. He was thrilled to be out from under Dan Marino’s long shadow, but Devon had hated living in Denver. After six months, she’d packed up Tiffany and moved back to the small Texas town where she’d been raised. Back to being a big fish in a small pond, and he’d discover that she loved being the wife of Zach Zemaitis more than she’d loved him.
For seven years they’d lived a life that suited them. She in Texas. He in Denver. He loved playing ball for the Broncos and figured he had a good five years until he retired, but that all changed one November 18 in a game against Kansas City. He didn’t remember much about that day except waking up in the hospital and getting the news that his career was over.
During his ten years in the NFL, he’d sustained eight concussions. And those were only the ones serious enough to report. After a series of scans and tests, he was told that one more concussion would likely kill him. He’d been forced to retire at the height of his career. At the age of thirty-two.
He might have fallen into a deep depression if he hadn’t been offered a sweet job with ESPN. While at UT, he’d managed to get his degree in communications and had been in negotiations with the sports network when his wife had been killed and his life took a complete one-eighty.
Zach slowed the Escalade and turned toward the river. It had been his intention to pack up Tiffany and move her with him, but the day of Devon’s funeral, he’d realized he couldn’t move her away from her friends and the only home she’d ever known. As he’d sat in the pew staring at his wife in her coffin, he’d felt his life change. With each tear his daughter had shed into the lapels of his suit,
Before Devon died, he’d been able to tell himself Tiffany was better off living in Texas with her momma. God knew that if Devon wasn’t happy, then no one was happy, and Devon seemed to be happy only living in Cedar Creek. But sitting in church that day, all the lies he told himself fell away, and for the first time in a long time, he put the wants, needs, and desires of his child first.
Zach turned into a gated community and hit three numbers on a keypad clipped to his visor. During the day, the gates were opened to allow workers and visitors easy access, but they closed at eight P.M. each night. The gate lifted and closed behind him, and he drove past the Cattail Creek clubhouse and driving range. On his left, a Mediterranean-style villa glowed an eerie white in the dark Texas night. He turned right at the clubhouse and moved past a French modern that looked like three houses piled on top of each other, a Victorian with turrets, and into the long drive of a ten-thousand-square-footTuscan-Plantation-style house. The garage door opened as he drove past the portico, and he parked inside next to a twenty-four-foot Sea Ray.
Devon had built the house shortly after she’d moved back to Cedar Creek, and while the home was beautiful, it reflected little of Zach’s personal style. He liked things roomy, but ten thousand square feet with a guesthouse, and maid’s quarters across the yard from the pool, was excessive. Too big for three people, one of whom only lived there occasionally.
During its construction, he’d asked Devon why she wanted to build a huge Tuscan Plantation house in the middle of Texas. She’d looked at him and said as serious as a heart attack, “For the same reason I drive a Mercedes and have a five-carat diamond ring. Because I can.” Which pretty much summed up his dead wife and was one of the many differences that had driven them apart. Just because people let you get away with being an ass didn’t make it right. It was something he’d learned and Devon hadn’t.
Zach grabbed the EZ-MART bag on the seat beside him and headed across part of the courtyard and into the house. As he walked past the laundry and storage rooms, the thud of shitty hip-hop music assaulted his ears from the sound system built into the house. He moved into a small room where every aspect of the house could be controlled, and he turned the system off. After living in the house full-time for three years now, he’d mastered most of the gadgets, buttons, and switches.
“Tiffany,” he called out as he moved into the kitchen and set the groceries on the honey-colored marble counter. He heard footsteps running down the terra-cotta stairs a few seconds before his daughter appeared. Her long blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a blue T-shirt and flannel pants. Tiffany’s arms and legs were long and thin, and she had yet to grow into her wide mouth and big green eyes. When she did, there was little doubt she’d be as beautiful as her mother.
A girl with dark brown hair and startling blue eyes followed in Tiffany’s wake.
“Did you get the Coke cola?” his daughter asked as she tore into the bag.
Zach didn’t feel the need to answer because his daughter pulled the six-pack from the sack and headed to the stainless-steel refrigerator. “Sugar, you need to introduce your friend.”
“Oh, yeah.” Tiffany grabbed two cans of cola and shut the refrigerator. “Kendra, this is my daddy.” She moved to the other girl and handed her a Coke. “Daddy, this is Kendra. She’s new to my school.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kendra,” he said as he opened a cupboard and put away the box of Corn Flakes. “Where are you from?”
“Fort Worth.”
“Are you a Cowboys fan?”
“No, sir. I don’t watch football.” She popped the top on her Coke and took a drink. “My daddy used to take me to see my grandmomma in South Carolina, and we’d go to Darlington sometimes.”
“Ah, you’re a NASCAR fan.”
She shrugged and looked about the kitchen. “It was kinda boring.”
“Can you believe she doesn’t like football?” Tiffany asked as she grabbed the bag of chips. “I’ve never known anyone who doesn’t like ball.”
“I used to play on my school’s soccer team.” Kendra returned her gaze to Zach. “It’s kinda the same.”
Tiffany gasped, and Zach laughed. “Don’t say that too loud around here,” he said, and changed the subject to save her from uttering any more unforgivable faux pas. “What brings you to Cedar Creek?”
“My momma used to live here. She and my daddy are getting a divorce, so we moved here for a while.”
Kendra didn’t offer more, and Zach didn’t pry.
“Come on.” Tiffany opened the chips as she walked past her friend. “Let’s go watch a movie.”
“I’m going to bed, so keep it down. And try to get to sleep at a reasonable hour.” Zach spoke to the girls’ backs as they headed down the stairs to what his wife had called the “theater room,” which was more like a big family room with a seventy-two-inch high-definition TV.
Zach left the kitchen light on, but turned the others off as he moved through the house. In the living room, the leather sofas, chairs, and wooden end tables had been pushed to one side. Tiffany had obviously been practicing her dance routines, which also explained the loud music when he’d first arrived. Unlike her mother, Tiffany was not a cheerleader. Instead, she much preferred her school’s dance team. She’d inherited coordination and timing from both parents, but her fierce competition came directly from him. People had accused Devon of being competitive, but she hadn’t been so much competitive as she’d been territorial.
He moved past the entry and down a short hall to his bedroom. The house had been built with his and hers walk-in closets, but Zach had never cared about clothes. He had a few nice suits, but he preferred hundred-percent cotton, and as a result, his closet was fairly empty. Until a year ago, when he’d finally convinced Tiffany that it was time to donate her mother’s clothes to the Junior League, Devon’s clothing had filled her closet and half of his.
The soles of Zach’s shoes sank into the thick beige carpeting as he moved across the room to a set of dresser drawers. The headboard of his king-size bed rested between two large windows covered in green-and-blue-striped drapery. Once he’d decided to move into the house, he’d had his bedroom furniture shipped from his condo in Denver, and he’d replaced the pastel colors Devon had favored with bolder, more masculine prints. The bedroom was the only room in the house that reflected Zach’s tastes, and it was one of a very few rooms in the house he could walk into without seeing photographs of his dead wife.
Zach stripped down to his boxers, remembered that Tiffany had a guest, and pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants. His daughter wasn’t ready to put away Devon’s pictures, and while having Devon’s green eyes watching him from one end of the house to the other was kind of weird, Tiffany found comfort in the images.
Zach set his watch on a maple chest of drawers. During the ten years he’d played pro ball, he’d thrown close to
