Chapter One
Kathryn’s flesh tingled, her tummy tightened, and her heart made a mad dash to leap from her chest. Her fingers, seemingly of their own accord, pushed the numbers to replay the message she had just heard.
“I’m calling for Mr. or Mrs. Abbott. My name is Brett Falcone, and it looks like Maya’s going to be on my soccer team. Practice will start next Monday at six o’clock…”
Kathryn let the words fade.
Brett Falcone.
His voice had deepened just a little, but it was him—the man from her past she thought she’d never see again. Yet that glimmer of hope, that flicker of desire, had always burned within her heart.
She hadn’t known he was still in town. Of course, she’d only been back a few months. After her divorce from Danny, she’d moved back to her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Danny still lived in Cleveland, close enough that Maya could see him on the weekends.
Twenty years ago, Kathryn had left Columbus and vowed never to return. She’d met Danny in California ten years later. Five years later, when he’d gotten a job offer in Cleveland, she’d agreed to return to Ohio. Cleveland was far enough away from Columbus that she didn’t have to think about her former life of heartbreak and humiliation.
When her marriage had crumbled, though, Columbus had seemed like the place to pick up the pieces. Sometimes, she’d said to herself, you just want to go home.
Home.
Amazing how, even after twenty years of telling herself she’d never set foot in Columbus again, it still felt like home. The townhome she’d rented had grown on her, and she enjoyed her pediatric practice at a local clinic. She’d even made a few friends, though she hadn’t contacted anyone from her high school days. She couldn’t.
Brett Falcone. For twenty years she’d tried to erase him from her memory. For twenty years she’d been unsuccessful.
What could she do? Call the county sports association and ask that Maya be put on a different team? Maybe. She couldn’t withdraw Maya from soccer. She was only four, and she was excited about her first chance to play a team sport. Kathryn couldn’t take that away from her daughter.
She checked her watch quickly. Four-thirty. Her mother was picking Maya up at the sitter’s and taking her for the night. Danny would pick her up tomorrow morning and take her for the rest of the weekend. Kathryn had nowhere to go. Though it was Friday, someone would likely still be at the sports registration office until five. She shuffled the papers on her desk until she found the copy of Maya’s registration and keyed in the number.
“Tri-County sports.”
“Yes, hello. This is Kathryn Abbott. My daughter is registered for Pee Wee soccer, and I was wondering if there were any chance we could change her to a different team.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. All the teams are full. We didn’t have as many volunteers for coaching, so there aren’t any open slots. Unless you’d like to coach a team?”
Kathryn arched her brows. Avoiding Brett Falcone might be worth learning soccer. Unfortunately, Kathryn had no athletic talent whatsoever. The sheer unfairness of all this! Brett Falcone would be a great coach. He was a natural athlete, great at soccer and football. But his first love had been baseball.
“Ma’am?”
Kathryn jolted back to reality. “I’m sorry. No, I can’t coach, though I wish I could. I know nothing about soccer, about any sports. I really want my daughter to learn. To do what I never had the talent to do.”
Geez, she was babbling. The teenybopper on the other end of the line didn’t care about her lack of sports experience.
“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“I understand. Thank you for your time.”
Kathryn set the phone back on the cradle.
Brett Falcone.
The Italian Stallion.
How he’d lived up to that name.
Kathryn poured herself a glass of iced tea and sat down in her recliner. She took a long sip of the crisp beverage, letting it float over her tongue and coat her throat. Then another. She needed to cool off. Just the name Brett Falcone had made her entire body blaze like an inferno.