Wild Angel

Chapter 2-1

Two

When he walked through the gate, he felt it—the familiar exhilaration that sharpened his senses. Two hours later, as the fourth quarter ticked away, the thrill and nostalgia were still with him. It was strange to be sitting in the stands instead of on the field, but the brilliant glow of the stadium lights against the fading blue-green twilight was exactly the same. He tilted his head back and let his eyes drift closed. The ceaseless chatter of the crowd, the yells of the coaches and players, the shrill cries of the referees’ whistles, and the cracks of tackles filled his mind as the pungent scents of perpetually damp earth, fresh-cut grass, and the warmer fragrances of the concessions stand filled his lungs.

Would it be so bad to coach? So what if he decided not to teach after this year. Wouldn’t one more year doing what he loved be better than looking back with regret?

Ryan touched his arm, and he returned his attention to the game just in time to see one of his students—Bryce Jefferson—intercept a pass and dash down the field, agilely ducking tackles. When he crossed the goal line for the touchdown, Luke found himself cheering with the roaring crowd. The kick for the extra point was good, securing a twenty-eight-to-twenty win as the last seconds of the game dwindled away.

Luke quirked an eyebrow when he spotted Coach Wells trotting in his direction.

“Ryan, my dear, I’m very glad to see you brought Luke with you,” the head coach remarked, beaming as he turned to Luke. “What do you think?”

“Great way to start the season,” Luke replied.

When he saw Derek Jensen jogging over with Alex, Bryce Jefferson, and the quarterback Brady Paulsen on his heels, he frowned at Greg. The head coach grinned. The full-on assault is overkill.

“Why don’t you ask him again?” Ryan said. “Something tells me he might not be able to say no this time.”

“Traitor,” Luke muttered.

“Been thinking about it, has he?” Jensen remarked. “C’mon, Conner. We could really use you.”

Luke turned to Coach Wells. “I’m not saying yes, but JV or varsity?”

“Varsity, of course.”

“You already have a coach for the varsity offense. Oxhart.”

“Who wanted to retire last year.”

“The other junior class sponsors will just have to deal with you not being able to help as much until football is over,” Ryan said, beaming up at him.

“Please, Mr. Conner?” the quarterback asked.

“Yeah, come on, Luke,” Alex added. “Please?”

He met Alex’s gaze head on, and the realization of what June must’ve felt fifteen years ago hit him like a sledgehammer. Luke already had a soft spot the size of Montana for him. And the kid was already taking advantage of it. Talk about tugging on the heartstrings.

“What do you say? Coach Conner has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” Coach Wells remarked.

Luke looked from one pleading face to the next. With the excitement of the game still pulsing through him, his usual reasons for not wanting to coach seemed… pathetic.

“All right,” he said. “You win. I’ll coach.”

“Fantastic!” Greg said. “I’ll get all the coaching shirts and jackets and whatnot for you. We gotta run.”

“See you Monday. Alex, I’ll pick you up at the school in twenty minutes?”

“Yep.”

Luke stared after them all, wondering what had just happened. Interestingly, the prickle of dread was minimal, unable to compete with the brilliant glow of excitement. If nothing else, coaching would likely mean less time spent with the other junior class sponsors, which would be a blessing. He gathered the blankets he and Ryan had used as cushions and followed his companion down the stairs and around the track. He heard voices behind him, hushed with the whispery tone of conspiracy.

“That’s him?”

He glanced behind him and found his fellow science teacher Lauren Johnson walking with her shoulder pressed against her friend’s and watching him with a smirk.

“Sexy. I’ll bet Marissa was disappointed.”

“More pissed at first, but yeah.”

Curling his lip in revulsion, Luke stepped around Ryan and pushed through the crowd streaming out the gate. He was in a remarkably good mood—or had been. With Ryan following close behind, he escaped the field, then shortened his stride. He was relieved when he climbed into his Jeep. Ryan slid into the passenger side.

“Just need to make a couple of stops. Then we’ll be on our way up to the cabin,” Luke said lightly.

“I can’t wait.”

Luke let out a breath and relaxed a little as he pulled away from the football field and headed across town toward his house. Just a few more minutes, he reminded himself, and he’d be on his way home to Northstar.

“So… who’s Marissa?”

He sighed. “Heard that, did you?”

“Lauren wasn’t exactly being subtle. So, who is she?”

“A mistake I made in college.”

“How does Lauren know her?”

“They were roommates.”

“Ah. And I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Not particularly.”

He pulled into his driveway, shifted the Jeep into neutral, and set the parking brake. “Do you want to come in?”

“Sure. Oh, I didn’t know this was your house.”

“Just bought it this summer,” he replied and grabbed the blankets out of the back seat before joining her on the front steps. “Eventually, I want to buy land out in Northstar and build a cabin, but I’d have to commute.” If I keep teaching, that is, he thought, though he didn’t say it.

“The cabin would be my choice, but I really like what you’ve done with this house. I thought the gray siding would be a little dark, but when you put the white trim up, it came together. And the red door is very warm and welcoming. So much better than the plain white it used to be.”

Luke opened the door. “Thanks. Come on in, and I’ll give you a quick tour.”

He led her through the living room. His television sat in the corner to the left of the door, the couch sat on the right wall with a long, narrow coffee table in front of it, and there was a recliner against the far wall with a small end table to its right beside the woodstove. His desk stood under the window on the left wall, facing west. Facing Northstar.

They walked back through the opening between the living room and what could barely be called a hallway. His bedroom was on the right, facing the front of the house. The bathroom was through the middle door at the end of the “hall,” and Alex’s room was through the door to the left. The kitchen was straight back from the living room and spacious enough to accommodate his table. Everything inside the house was clean and functional but dated and overwhelmingly white, though he planned to remedy that during the coming cold months.

“It’s nice,” Ryan remarked. She peeked through the window on the back door. “Is that… a work shop?”

“A small one, yes.”

“Hmm. You are a very intriguing man, Luke.”

He ducked into his bedroom, dropped the blankets on his bed, and returned to the living room to grab his school bag off his desk. They were only three days into the new school year, and he already had a stack of papers to grade. He checked to make sure he’d turned everything off and was ready to head out the door when he turned to find Ryan standing in front of the couch, gazing at his high school football jerseys, which hung on the wall above it.

“Your name was Montana before June and Ben married? You’d think I would have noticed that from the team photos at the high school or the newspaper articles I’ve seen about you guys.”

He joined her in front of the couch, perplexed. She certainly seemed to know a lot about his high school football team—as much as anyone who’d cheered them on. When his eyes locked on his jerseys, panic clawed at him, driving his curiosity out of his mind. What had he done?

“I feel like I’ve been railroaded,” he remarked quietly.

Ryan abruptly turned to face him. “I’m sorry, Luke. I should’ve kept my mouth shut and minded my own business.”

Frowning, he prodded the conflicting emotions and tried to find the words to express what he felt. There was annoyance, a little fear, and a surprisingly strong thread of anticipation. He thought there might be a hint of gratitude mixed in, too.

“I shouldn’t feel like that because Coach Wells has always supported me.” Frustration wormed its way through the myriad of other emotions, and he stopped to reorganize his thoughts.

“You can always tell Coach Wells on Monday that you changed your mind.”

That she hoped he wouldn’t was clear in the disappointed droop of her shoulders.

Unable to wrangle his disoriented emotions, he shooed her out the door, more anxious than ever to get out of Devyn.

He could change his mind, but he knew he wouldn’t because he loved the sport and was relieved to have finally said yes to Coach Wells. That was worth a lot.

She really should have done a little more thinking before she’d opened her mouth to Coach Wells, Ryan thought, trying to quell the gnawing guilt. Over the past few days, she had learned more about Luke than she had in the four years they’d worked together, but his comments at his house drove home that she still didn’t know him much at all.

He hadn’t said more than a few words since they’d left his house, and with Alex asleep in the back seat of the Jeep and the radio turned down, she was keenly aware of his silence. She shouldn’t have done that to him because, friend or not, it wasn’t her place to force his decisions.

“I really am sorry,” she murmured.

“Don’t be,” Luke replied. “It is what it is, and maybe I just needed a push.”

“Still, it’s none of my business.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But maybe so. Anyhow, don’t worry about it. I can fret about Monday on Monday.”

What did that mean, maybe so? Ryan shook her head and decided she’d follow Luke’s advice and leave it alone until later. At any rate, it was difficult to worry on such a breathtaking night. The forested foothills stood black against the peaks, which glowed a silvery blue beneath the waning gibbous moon, and the sky was a stunning, rich blue velvet flooded with glittering stars.

Shifting her gaze back to Luke, she was relieved to see that a faint smile had replaced the anxiety. He drove with his elbow propped on the windowsill and one hand resting on the steering wheel with comfortable confidence while the other hand lightly gripped the gearshift. She was fascinated by how the soft glow of the headlights and dash meters played with the cool moonlight over his features. Why were the smooth lines of his face so familiar, like they’d been the best of friends since childhood instead of polite acquaintances for only a handful of years?

Luke turned off the main highway onto the Northstar Scenic Byway, and the growing smile that further gentled his features triggered a spark of longing and desire Ryan hadn’t experienced in a long time. Maybe Shane hadn’t damaged her so thoroughly after all.

“Do you come up here every weekend?” she asked.

“Pretty much.”

After a few miles, he turned right onto a dirt road, and the dust kicked up by the Jeep glowed eerily red in the taillights. They passed a darkened convenience store with a sign proclaiming, “If you forgot it, Ma’s got it!”, and a little past that, he turned right again. The road curved back to the north, winding through sagebrush before diving into the woods and forking. Luke took the unmarked road to the left, and Ryan saw that the other fork led to the Sawtooth Lake Trailhead.

“Is that the trail we’re hiking tomorrow?”

“Yep. We’re on Wellman Creek Road now, so only about three more miles to the cabin.”

“It’s starting to feel like we were heading into the wilds. No wonder you love it up here.”

“There’s a lot to love.”

As Luke navigated the rough dirt road, Ryan found herself thinking about how incredible it must be to live in a place like this. She’s spent most of her childhood within the city limits of Missoula, but her fondest memories were of her grandparents’ acreage near Potomac. Their property sat in the bowl of the valley and was much more open, but she’d known such freedom there.