“I can’t,” she said. Her to-do list whirled in her brain. She needed to buy a dress for the reception at the Garden Club, and another, more formal one for the banquet. She needed to demonstrate appropriate spring behavior to her students, not spring fever. The last thing she needed to do was get involved with Jamie again. He was leaving in twenty-six days, and if she’d learned anything from a decade of shuttling between European teams, dating athletes, it was that long-distance relationships didn’t work. In the end, he’d leave. She couldn’t afford to have Jamie Hawthorn break her heart.
She bent over and picked up her ball, and used the movement to put more distance between them. “See you around, Hawthorn,” she said.
“Count on it, Stannard.” His low laughter followed her into the night.
Chapter Three
The school corridor buzzed with the energy of over a hundred high school kids released from their classes to attend an optional assembly. Charlie tucked her clipboard to her hip as she moved with the flow of students past the lunchroom toward the gym. The normal between-class chatter was a notch faster and higher. She paused by a circle of students in the science hallway to snag one of her star juniors, Grace Allen, her boyfriend, Bryce, and her best friend, Olivia, a six-foot-two-inch girl with no athletic ability whatsoever. Olivia was taller than ninety percent of the girls playing basketball in the state, and literally couldn’t dribble a basketball. Charlie could have wept when she first saw her; she hadn’t seen such bad hand-eye coordination outside of the basketball fundamentals class she taught at the Y on weekends. Grace, four inches shorter, firmly muscled, and maintaining a solid-B average, had a shot at a scholarship to a lower-ranked Division I school, if she could keep her grades and her game up through her senior year.
“Hi, Coach,” Grace said.
“Come on, Grace,” Charlie said. “You, too, Olivia. And you, Bryce.”
“I’m going to the library to study,” Bryce objected.
Seniors technically had open campus, so the odds of Bryce ending up in the library, not in his car smoking something carcinogenic and/or illegal, were slim to none. “This will be far more interesting than study hall. Let’s go.”
It was a little harsh. Normally she did her best not to embarrass her players or intrude on their personal lives. She had no authority there, and she wanted the girls to respect her, follow her example, not to fear or resent her. But Bryce and Grace had been joined at the hip since the season ended, and as far as Charlie knew, Bryce had no plans beyond graduation. Grace fell in beside Charlie, Olivia and Bryce at their heels. They were the last people to enter the gym, which meant they ended up sitting on the very first bleacher, right in front of the row of chairs for the principal, junior ROTC members, and Jamie.
He was wearing a camouflage uniform, the pants tucked into boots laced to his calves, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to just below his elbows. Stunned by the transformation from Jamie Hawthorn, scrappy basketball player, to Petty Officer James Hawthorn, United States Navy SEAL, Charlie had to feel for the bleacher to sit down or risk dumping herself inelegantly onto the gym floor.
He was in the middle of a conversation with Principal Belmeister, listening attentively, nodding, feet braced, face serious, demonstrating respect for authority for the two hundred watching eyes. Charlie took the opportunity to look around. The assembly, the reception at the Garden Club, and the banquet itself were mandatory for her players; they knew her well enough to raise their hands when her gaze skimmed the crowd for a headcount. All present and accounted for.
When she turned back around, Jamie was looking right at her. Before she could stop herself, she lifted her fingers in a little, unobtrusive wave. He smiled at her, nothing big or showy, but there was a private knowing in it that sent an electric charge along her nerves. It was a smile from before, a fast flash almost too quick to register if you weren’t looking for it, his way of letting her know he’d seen her, was looking for her, couldn’t wait to see her on the court.
“Do you know him?” Grace asked.
“Yes,” Charlie said, composed. “We each played on championship teams.”
“Oh, right,” Grace said. Her tone walked the line between respectful and teasing, staying just on the side of respectful. Charlie knew better than to respond, opting instead to flip through the papers secured to her clipboard, catching up on a teacher’s never-ending paperwork.
Bryce sprawled out on the bleacher, leaning his elbows back onto the seat behind him, making two girls roll their eyes and scoot closer together. Grace smacked him, but he didn’t straighten his posture, remaining deliberately casual through Principal Belmeister’s introduction. Then Jamie stepped up to the podium.
“I’d like to thank Principal Belmeister for having me here today,” he said. “It’s a real honor to come back to the place that made me who I am today.”
You could have heard a pin drop in the gym. No one expected a Navy SEAL to stand in a high school gymnasium and say that place made him who he was.
“What do you think goes on in the military?”
A few hands went up. “Defending our freedom.” “Peace-keeping missions.” “Border patrol.” “Taking bin Laden down.” The last one came from some smart aleck in the back row, prompting laughter.