Heartbreaker

when she woke up every morning, he would be there? To be loved by-

'What kind of return policy does the store have?' Tommy asked, practical to the bone.

She put her hand back in her lap. 'It’s usually ten days, but Mrs. Russell is making an exception for me. She’s giving me thirty days. Do you know what she said to me? ‘Because of your sorry history with men, dear, I’ll allow you a whole month to change your mind.’'

Tommy laughed. 'My sister’s got quite a reputation in town for scaring men away.'

'Thanks to all the lies Lorna prints in the paper about me.'

'Be honest, Laurant. You do scare men, and just for the record, I think that’s just fine. It keeps the creeps from hounding you.'

Tommy glanced over his shoulder once again when he heard a commotion behind him. Then he smiled.

'That’s Frank Hamilton. He’s the high school football coach, and those other two are assistants. They’ve all been dying to meet you, Nick. Come on. Let’s say hello before they head upstairs.'

'How do they know Nick?' Laurant asked.

'The football tape the sports channel runs a couple of times a year.'

'Ah, hell,' Nick muttered. He tossed the napkin on the table and followed Tommy out of the room.

'Nick’s never going to live that game down, and he hates all the fanfare.'

'What exactly happened during the game?'

'You never saw the tape?'

She shook her head. 'No, and Tommy’s never mentioned it.'

'Nick scored the winning touchdown.'

'That’s nice.'

Noah laughed. 'There’s a little more to it than that. Nick caught the short pass, then zigzagged his way through the defense, which he was real good at doing. He could turn on a dime, and that’s why he got the nickname Cutter,' he explained. 'Anyway, his head was turned and he was looking up at the top of this cement wall. When you see the tape, you hear the announcer asking, ‘What’s number eighty-two looking at?’ That was Nick’s number,' he added. 'So then, while the one camera was focused on Nick, there was another camera searching the stands to see what had grabbed his interest, and after the game was over, they spliced those two tapes together.'

He paused to take a drink of water before continuing. 'There was this guy leaning over the cement wall. Turns out he was real drunk, and he was shouting like all the other fans, holding a beer in on hand, and a little kid in the other. He had the toddler sitting on the ledge. Can you believe how stupid that was?' he asked. 'But like I said, he was drunk.'

'Did he drop the baby?'

'He sure did, but Nick had been watching. He told me later that when he was running, he saw the man grab at the kid once, but he didn’t pull him back. He just kind of hung on to him and let him dangle half off the wall. Nick was running like there was no tomorrow at this point, and he didn’t have anyone on his tail. He scored the touchdown but kept on running as he was turning. He thought he’d stand under that wall until someone made the father remove the kid, but when he was about ten feet away, the guy lost his grip and the kid came flying down. The fall would have killed him. Nick caught him, and honest to God, it was a beautiful thing to see.'

The story astounded her. She thought of a hundred questions to ask, but Noah turned her attention when he said, 'After the game, Nick was suspended.'

'What?'

'It’s true,' he insisted. 'After the game was over, the father came into the locker room with the cameramen. He was still drunk, of course, and some of the guys told me he was loving the attention he was getting. Anyway, he wanted to thank Nick for saving his kid, but Nick came around the corner, saw him, and hauled off and decked him. He knocked him out.'

'And that’s why he was suspended.'

'Yeah, but it didn’t last. The public outcry swayed the coach, who probably really didn’t want to suspend Nick anyway. I could understand where Nick was coming from. He didn’t want to hear any excuses from the drunk.'

The waiter appeared and placed a basket of rolls between them. Noah grabbed one as he said, 'Okay, it’s your turn. You tell me something.'

'What would you like to know?'

'How come Tommy lived with Nick’s family while he was growing up?'

'My father was opening an office in Boston and had come over to set up a house, and he’d brought Tommy along so that he could get registered at school and start a new term. I was just a baby then, and I stayed with Mother. She was going to finish packing and follow Father. But then everything changed. Father was killed in a car crash, and for a while, Tommy was left in the care of the housekeeper. Mother couldn’t cope with the loss. Tommy was only supposed to stay in Boston until the school year ended, and Mother was supposed to fly over and stay with him until then, but she wasn’t stable enough to go anywhere. Grandfather told me she was drinking heavily and taking pills. Some of the pills were to help her sleep, and some were to help her wake up. She died of an overdose.'

'Suicide?'

'I think so, yes. Grandfather said it was a combination of alcohol and sleeping pills. He wanted to believe it was an accident.'

'That’s a deadly combination.'

She nodded. 'After she died, Grandfather was stuck with Tommy and me. He wanted to do the right thing, and he knew Tommy was happy in Boston. Judge Buchanan called him out of the blue and suggested that Tommy live with his family until things settled down. Nick and Tommy had become best friends, and Tommy spent most of his time with the family anyway. The judge can be very persuasive. Like Mother, Grandfather thought it would be for a little while, but then he died.'

'And Tommy got to stay where he was.'

'Yes.'

'What about you?'

She lifted her shoulders. 'I was placed in a boarding school. After I graduated from university, I went to Paris for a year to study art, then I came to the United States and took a job in Chicago. I lived there for nine months, and then I moved to Holy Oaks. Nothing razzle-dazzle about my background.'

'You were left out in the cold, weren’t you? Tommy had this big family to call his own, but you didn’t have anyone.'

'I was happy.'

'You couldn’t have been happy.'

'Here they come,' she said. 'I don’t want to talk about this any-more. All right?'

'Sure.'

Nick was chuckling as he sat down. 'What’s so funny?' Noah asked.

He looked at Laurant before he answered. 'The men in town have given Laurant a nickname.'

'Yeah? So what do they call her?' Noah asked.

'Ice Woman, or just plain Ice,' Tommy said.

All three of them laughed, but Laurant wasn’t amused. 'You’re a blabbermouth, Tommy.'

'Hey, he asked.'

She gave her brother a look that told him she was going to give him hell later. Then Nick drew her attention when he leaned close to her and whispered in her ear. 'You sure don’t kiss like ice.'

The waiter appeared to take their orders, but as soon as he left, the men took turns teasing her. Finally, when she had had enough, she took the upper hand.

'I heard Penn State is going to have a real bad football season. They lost their star quarterback.'

She hadn’t heard any such thing, of course, but that didn’t matter. As soon as she said the word football, their minds clicked into sports mode. It was as easy as getting a baby to eat candy. She leaned back in her chair and smiled complacently.

Nick and Tommy had played ball for Penn State, and Noah, as it turned out, had been a running back for Michigan State, so each one of them believed he was the authority. During dinner they argued about draft choices and pretty much ignored her. She couldn’t have been happier.

On their way out of the restaurant, a family of six called Tommy over to their table. Noah stayed with him,