Free Family for Keeps & Sadie's Hero by Margaret Daley Page A

wanted to be a nurse. How about you? Did you always want to play football?”
    “I love the game. I got paid well for doing something I enjoyed. Can’t beat that.”
    “Then why did you quit?”
    A shadow fell across his face. Tess felt the tension in his arm. He had taboo subjects just as she did.
    “My heart went out of the game. When I first started, I told myself I would quit while I was on top, so I did.”
    “What happened?”
    For a long, breath-held moment Mac didn’t say anything. The stark expression on his face conveyed the struggle he was having concerning what to tell her. She knew what it was like to have a past that haunted you. She reached out to place her hand on his arm to impart her support. He spoke in a low, barely audible voice.
    “We were in the playoffs, and the score was tight. My wife went into labor early. No one told me until the game was over. By the time I got there, she was in surgery. I never got to say goodbye. I was too late.”
    “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, knowing how inadequate those words really were. Beneath her hand his arm muscles bunched.
    “I just couldn’t play football after that.”
    “No one told you?”
    “The game wasn’t here in Denver, but that hour would have made a difference. The coach didn’t realize that.”
    “I know how important it is to say goodbye. When you can’t, you feel there’s unfinished business between you.”
    His gaze swung to hers. “Have you lost someone close? Not been able to say goodbye?”
    “Yes, my father had a heart attack. He was fine one day. The next he was gone. My mother pined away and died within a year. They were so much in love she just didn’t want to go on without him.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Eighteen. My parents were older when they finally had me. They had tried to have children for years. I was a surprise, because they had given up. I think by the time I came along I was an intrusion.” The second Tess said the last sentence she wanted to snatch it back. She had never voiced that thought to another human being. She hadn’t allowed herself to think it because the implication hurt.
    He brought her close to him, his hand massaging her arm. Silence reigned in the hospital room, only the occasional sounds from the hallway intruding. Tess laid her head on his shoulder and thought about what she had told him. In a short time he had learned more about her than most people she’d known for years knew. That in itself should warn her to stay as far away from the man as possible. Before long she would be telling him about Kevin and reliving those painful memories when all she wanted to do was forget and maybe in the process forgive herself.
    In the dim light Mac shifted on the couch, stretching his long legs in front of him. The feel of him next to her comforted her. Tess nestled closer to him, her eyelids drooping as the exhaustion she’d held at bay took over and sleep descended.

     
    The scent of sandalwood washed over Tess, teasing her senses. Then she noticed that her body ached. Her face was pressed into something hard, angular. Her eyes snapped open to bright sunlight streaming through the slits in the blinds and forming stripes across the linoleum floor and the hospital bed that held Johnny.
    Blinking, she straightened, her actions awakening the man next to her on the beige love seat. Her heartbeat began to race as his sleepy look took her in. She resisted the urge to brush a wayward lock of hair that had fallen onto his forehead. Much too intimate a gesture when she was trying desperately to keep this man at arm’s length. One side of his mouth hitched up in a lopsided grin.
    “Good morning, Tess.”
    The way he caressed her name caused her heart to beat even faster. She drew in a shallow breath, then a deeper one while she struggled to stand and put some space between them. She plowed her fingers through her hair and said, “I hadn’t intended to fall asleep.”
    “You were tired.” Mac leaned