Free Skin in the Game by Jackie Barbosa Page B

Besides, he was probably already back in Texas by now. Why would he hang around Harper Falls any longer than necessary? He hadn’t been back in sixteen years, so it didn’t seem likely he had any sentimental attachment to the place.
    But none of that logic had stopped her heart from fluttering every time a phone rang—or vibrated—for the past two days.
    The vibrations stopped…then started up again.
    Angie took a deep breath, fished the phone from her pocket, and glanced at the display.
    Rachel. Not Cade. Of course not.
    Although she was already running late to practice, Angie knew if she didn’t answer the phone, her friend would keep calling until she did.
    A few students still wandered the halls, their voices echoing in the corridors, so Angie hurried through the double doors that led out to the ramp up to the field before pushing the talk button.
    “Hey, Rach,” she said quickly, “what’s up? I’m late for practice.”
    “What’s up?” Rachel demanded. “Didn’t you get my messages?”
    “What messages?” Angie’s stomach pinched with instant anxiety. Was something wrong with her father? Had Harvey taken a turn for the worse? Damn it, she shouldn’t have ignored the phone all day. She should have checked her messages at lunch, at least. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
    “The three I left since this morning. But never mind. I just thought you’d like to know that I got a phone call from Cade Reynolds this morning.”
    “What?” Angie stopped halfway up the ramp, her mind racing. It was a coincidence. It had to be. There was no way Cade could possibly know that she and Rachel were friends. In fact, there was no way Cade could know Rachel at all. “What about?”
    “He said he was worried about Harvey. Asked if I could arrange for an in-home caregiver for him. Apparently, Harvey’s been eating nothing but take-out and hasn’t cleaned the kitchen since he got home from the hospital. I guess Cade got my phone number from Harvey’s fridge and figured I’d know who to call.”
    Angie breathed a slow, deep sigh of relief and started walking again. She could hear the excited voices of her players as she neared the top of the ramp and wondered what the ruckus was about. Probably Donnelly dissing her for being late.
    “And this was critical for me to know because…?”
    “Because I sent Donna Halstedt over to Harvey’s about an hour later and guess who was there?”
    Of course, Angie didn’t have to guess. She knew. “Cade.”
    So he was still here in town. So what? It didn’t mean anything. He’d stayed to visit Harvey, not because he was trying to track her down like some latter-day Cinderella.
    “Uh huh,” Rachel confirmed. “But that’s not all.”
    Angie had just reached the top of the ramp and could now see the members of her team clustered in a large semi-circle on the opposite side of the playing field, their backs to her. They had quieted, and their attention was fixed on someone or something she couldn’t see from her vantage point. It was not, however, her assistant coach, Chuck Donnelly, because he stood off to one side, arms crossed over his chest, watching whoever or whatever was monopolizing her players.
    What the hell?
    “Did you hear me, Ange? There’s more.”
    “Yeah,” Angie answered absentmindedly as she broke into a jog.
    She narrowed her eyes, trying to peer through the mass of padded and uniformed bodies to see what the boys were focused on.
    “Angie, where are you now?”
    “On the field. And something weird’s going on. I’m going to have to call you back later.”
    She pulled the phone away from her ear, ready to hang up, but Rachel’s urgent voice stopped her.
    “No, wait! I know what’s going on. It’s why I called. I wanted you to be prepared.”
    Angie came to a halt in the middle of the grassy field, about twenty feet from the crowd.
    “Prepared for what?”
    At that precise moment, the source of the team’s excitement stood up. Every ounce of blood