He couldn’t blame her. Not after the way he’d left. Not considering the thread of family loyalty that wove the Walkers together.
But once he’d explained his reason for coming back, his plans for this house, each member of the family had come to embrace his vision. Not only that, they’d helped him make it happen. Were helping him still. At that moment, Case was at a city council meeting to find out how the council was going to vote on Colton’s zoning request.
“Hello. Earth to Colton.”
He blinked. “Tell Kate. Right. I’ll get on that right now.” Or not.
And clearly Raegan wasn’t buying. “She’s going to find out eventually. You asked us to keep it on the down low, and we won’t tell her, but we’re not the only people she keeps in touch with. She talks to Megan at least once a week.”
“If she finds out, she finds out. I’m not trying to keep a long-term secret here, Rae.” He just . . . He hated the thought of intruding on Kate’s life again. Would he love it if she showed back up in town—somehow forgot about all the hurt he’d caused her, the way he’d just left her in that hospital—and jumped into his open arms?
Sure.
But with everything that’d happened, the months of silence, he couldn’t expect that. Besides, what had she said that night when he brought her here on a date?
“I’m just not sure there’s anything for me in Maple Valley.”
The heady smell of the varnish Seth and Ava were using carried through the room.
“On the Rocks.”
He glanced down at Raegan. “Huh?”
“We’ll go with On the Rocks. It’ll look good with the woodwork.”
So she was letting it drop. Good.
“Hola, people. Your friendly neighborhood reporter is here.”
He turned to see Amelia Bentley traipsing into the room. She stopped in front of Colton. “After weeks of rumors, I had to come see for myself what you’re up to here.”
“Chasing a story?”
She laughed. “Something like that. And I found that guy on my way.” She pointed over her shoulder to a man standing in the archway between the living room and dining room. Metro suit. Faux hawk.
“Don’t recognize him.”
She shrugged. “Neither do I, but he was at Coffee Coffee looking for you when I stopped in. I need to chat with Raegan for a second, and you should go figure out who Mr. Cosmopolitan is, but afterward, how about a little interview?”
“Sure thing.”
“Really? No argument?”
Not at all. It’s about time the rest of the community knew what he had planned for the old house. Hopefully, they’d welcome him and his new dream. It’d taken a couple months of thinking. Praying. But he’d finally done what Norah suggested. Pinpointed where what he had to give met what someone else needed.
And as soon as the seed of an idea had dropped into his mind, it’d developed roots, taking hold of his passion in a way nothing had since football.
Well, save the woman he still couldn’t stop thinking about.
The stranger in the doorway moved forward and held out a hand. Couldn’t be older than twenty-four or twenty-five. “Either you’re Colton Greene or you’re an amazingly accurate hologram.”
Colton accepted the handshake. “Real thing, not hologram. I don’t know you, do I?”
The man shook his head. “Not yet, but I have high hopes. Everett Corgin. Sports agent. Full disclosure: I’m new. I’m a junior agent with Glass & Drury, and neither Glass nor Drury know I’m here.”
Colton rubbed the dust from his hands—leftover from helping Bear with the sanding, hoping the movement hid his skepticism. “If you’re scouting for a client, I’m sorry to tell you, you’ve wasted a trip. But hey, we’re getting dinner here in a bit. Since you came all this way, feel free to join us.”
“You aren’t even going to hear me out? I did spend six hundred dollars on a plane ticket and another couple hundred on a car rental.”
Colton stifled an impatient sigh. “You have to know I’m not playing anymore. Can’t.”
“I know that.” Everett pulled off his suit jacket and draped it over his arm. Apparently he didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.
“I do have a lot of work to do—”
“Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”
Fine. “All right. Let’s go in the dining room. It’s quieter there.”
They backed into the dining room—just as stripped of furniture as the living room but with a fresh coat of paint on the walls. The room faced the house’s sprawling back lawn, which edged up to a cornfield mantled by white snow that sparkled under moonlight.
“I had a whole speech worked up,” Everett said as he halted in the center of the room. “But seeing as how you’re busy and there’s nowhere to sit and—”
“Sorry about that. There’s a guy named Lenny, owns a woodshop in town, and he’s making a table for me. It’s going to be worth the wait, I think.”
The guy—Everett, had he said?—only nodded uncertainly. “Like I said, I had a speech, but basically what it boils down to is this: You’re not washed up.”
Colton couldn’t help a grin. “Uh . . . thanks?”
“You might think you are—”
“Used to. But I’ve had a perspective shift lately.”
“—and Ian Muller might’ve thought so. But I disagree. He was so far off, it’s not even funny.”
Colton folded his arms. “Ian Muller is one of the best agents in the business.” They’d mended their fences before Colton left LA. Colton had met up with him back in December, apologized for the way things ended, thanked the man for all his years of support. Thankfully, he’d had a chance to patch things up with Lilah, too.
“But I’ve got something Ian doesn’t.”
There was no hiding his skepticism any longer. “What’s that?”
“Youth. And more time than Ian and his overflowing client list will ever have.” Everett smoothed back his gelled hair. “No disrespect, but Ian was doing everything backward. Probably told you to stay out of the limelight, right? What does that do other than get people to forget about you? You should be out doing commercials, traveling the interview circuit, going to fundraisers and galas and whatnot. And whatever happened to that book you were doing?”
Webster walked in then. “Got everybody’s order but yours, Colt. We’re ordering from the Mandarin. What do you want?”
“Kung Pao chicken. You want anything, Everett? This Scottish guy—weird, I know—runs the Mandarin. Best Chinese you’ll ever have. I promise.”
Everett only shook his head, traces of irritation in the move.
“Thanks, Webster. Let me know before you leave to pick it up. I’ve got cash.” He turned back to Everett. “I really appreciate you coming all this way. But honestly, I’m done with that kind of public life.”
“But why? I know you’re not Michael Jordan on a Wheaties box—”
“Thanks for pointing that out.”
“—but you could still be something. Your career could still go somewhere.”
Colton glanced over the man’s shoulders to the living room—the people painting and sanding and varnishing. Someone had started music, and the upbeat rhythm of a southern rock song drifted through the house. “It is going somewhere. It’s going exactly where it’s supposed to.”
Everett must have heard it then—the resolve in Colton’s voice—because he only nodded, resignation in his long exhale. “Well, then. Guess I’ll head back to the airport.”
“Unless you want to stick around and help us paint.”
The man looked down at his suit.
“Right. Well, have a safe trip. And sorry I couldn’t make it worth your while.”
He saw the guy to the door, then reentered the living room. Amelia found him the second he walked in. “Interview time. I’ve caught hints of what you’re up to, but not the full story. You’re not just fixing up this house for yourself—that’s for sure.”
“
Oh no. If I just wanted a place to live, I wouldn’t have picked a place with four bathrooms. All of which need to be gutted and redone. Hope you’ve got your tape recorder handy.”
Amelia held it up. “Always.”
And then Raegan’s voice piped in. “Just so you know, Colton, Kate subscribes to the Maple Valley News.”
“You have to let me shop it, Kate. It’s the best thing you’ve ever written.”
Marcus’s voice rose above the hum of an early February wind gusting over the sidewalk leading up to the Willis Tower entrance. Kate held on to one of Breydan’s mittened hands, mimicking his stance—neck craned and eyes on the tower’s stretched-out grasp for the sky, stomach close to somersaulting at the thought of riding its elevator all the way up.
But Breydan had insisted. And since it was not only his birthday but also the one-month anniversary of the day the doctor said the word they’d all been waiting for—remission—she’d have taken an elevator to the moon if he asked.
“Let me send it to a few editors.”
With her free hand, Kate held the top of her coat closed, Chicago cold burrowing through her and gaze still tilted upward. “I need to polish it first. I’ve barely proofread the thing.”
“So polish it.” Marcus rubbed his hands together, blowing into them. “But don’t for a second think I’m going to let you get away with hiding it. I’m serious about it being your best.”
“Lay off her, honey,” Hailey said from Breydan’s opposite side. “Didn’t you promise no business today?”
“Yeah, no business today.” Breydan broke free and hurried toward the building’s glass-heavy entrance, bright blue letters spelling Skydeck overhead. So hard to believe a few months ago he’d been lying in a hospital bed, pallor the color of the sidewalk underneath her winter boots, fighting for his life.
Breydan was still small, peach-fuzz hair and bony frame telltale signs of all his body had been through in the past year. But the joy he’d somehow never lost showed through even more now. And the excitement in his eyes reached into the still-tender corners of her heart like a soothing balm.
Breydan waved them through the entrance and plopped into place in the line for elevator tickets. The lobby looked exactly like she remembered—cordoned-off lines, brightly colored walls and posters displaying facts about the structure, built-in monitors offering trivia while visitors waited.
“He’s right, you know.”
Kate turned to Hailey as Marcus caught up with Breydan. “About?”
“About the novel being the best thing you’ve written.”
I know it is. She couldn’t say it out loud. It’d sound cocky and boastful. But it was good. Just a simple love story, really, but it’d flowed like nothing she’d ever written. She’d taken cues from Dad—from all his talk of romance and his and Mom’s journey—and it’d just poured from her.
It was funny . . . after years of wishing to write something besides romance, she’d come back to it with a new vigor. She’d refallen in love with love.
And each time the voice of her past hissed its way in—tried to tell her this was just another wishy-washy story about fake people living fake lives who didn’t really matter—she’d reread the last scene she’d written. Or scroll back to the beginning and read her first chapter. Or dream about the ending she couldn’t wait to give her characters, the way their journeys would change them . . . and just might change the reader.
And somewhere in the process, she began to believe in her own story.
“You’re okay with me having read it, aren’t you? Marcus didn’t think you’d mind.”
She and Hailey waited off to the side as Marcus bought tickets. “No, of course not.” She pulled off her gloves, one finger at a time. “You don’t think it turned out overly sappy or sentimental?”
“Not at all, but it is romantic. Incredibly so. The tension, I could totally feel it. I laughed and cried and had to stay up half the night reading.” She loosened her scarf. “It’s your heart on the page.”
“You just said every single thing writers want to hear.”
“It has a different feel than your screenplays, too. Maybe it’s because it’s a book, not a script, but . . . it’s like you finally figured out what you wanted to say and you didn’t hold back. You said it. Something’s changed in your writing, Kate.”
Because something had changed in Kate. She still wasn’t entirely sure what. So much about her life was up in the air right now. She’d done a little freelance writing here and there. Frederick Langston had thrown a couple articles her way for the James Foundation newsletter. Not the same as a trip to Africa, but at least she was involved.
But other than that, her days had mainly been filled up with physical therapy and writing her book. The only reason she’d even been able to afford the past couple months’ mortgage payments had been the check she received in the mail back in November. From Colton.
She’d thought about sending it back. He didn’t owe her. It’s not like he’d forced her to spend that month working on his book. She hadn’t finished it. It wasn’t getting published.
But sending it back would’ve felt too much like a final good-bye. Man, I miss him. Missed him and wondered about him. Wondered what might’ve happened if everything hadn’t fallen apart in one miserable day.
“Come on, Katie.”
She reached for Breydan’s hand. “Lead the way.”
Within minutes they’d boarded an elevator and begun the initial ascent. The elevator stopped at the tenth floor, and they followed a maze of corridors to another elevator for the final stretch.
And then they were released onto the Skydeck, the bright white of a winter sun gulping up the space that circled around the elevators. Breydan immediately ran to a window.
She grinned even as her head fogged. The elevator hadn’t bothered her nearly as much as she’d expected, but now, with only glass separating her from the sky’s embrace and the Chicago skyline so, soooo far below, the muscles in her legs threatened to give out.
“You all right?” Marcus’s smirk hovered between teasing and concern.
“I’m fine, smarty-pants.”
“Braving your fear of heights. You’re a good surrogate aunt, Kate.”
Marcus joined Breydan at the window then, and Kate turned from the view to Hailey. “You don’t have to stay back here with me.”
“Oh, I’m not staying back here. I’m the support system that’s going to get you to the window.”
“Uh-uh. I promised to come up here. Not to go stand by the glass and lose my breakfast. Besides, I don’t need to look out. I already know you can see Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan from here.” She could recite tower trivia all day.
“That’s a fact, Kate. Not the same thing as experiencing the view.”
“You know all the facts of what makes a good romance, Kate. You don’t let yourself live it.”
Dad’s words.
“Come on, just take a peek.”
Hesitance weighing her steps, she let Hailey pull her to the front of the crowd. They stopped in front of a lanky window, and the second Kate felt the cool glass reaching for her, she backed away and closed her eyes. She could hear the click of Breydan’s camera as he snapped photos.
“Open your eyes, Kate.”
She forced them open, ignored the clenching in her stomach . . . and just looked. The Chicago skyline spread in smudges of gray and brown, winter white draping behind and in and around. And the clouds—it was as if she could reach forward to touch them. Even on the foggiest day, God’s artistry breathed with life.
Breathless wonder dabbed away her fear.
“So what do you hear from Colton these days?”
Her gaze snapped to Hailey. “Uh, I thought we were admiring the view.”
“I figure if I can get you to the window, then I can get you to talk about Colton.”
“You figured wrong.” She might think about him way, way more than the months of silence warranted. But if Raegan hadn?
??t been able to get anywhere with the subject during her couple weeks staying with Kate, Hailey certainly wasn’t going to.
“Oh, come on. You need to talk about it. Otherwise, he’ll become another Gil and—”
Kate’s laughter bordered on caustic. “Not a chance. Colton is nothing like Gil.”
“So talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I know Logan’s seen him a few times. He told me at Christmas Colton’s been busy with restarting his foundation. But other than that, I know nothing.”
Hailey tilted her head, eyes turned back to the view. “Huh. I wonder how he’s working with his foundation from Maple Valley. Maybe that’s the kind of thing you can do from anywhere.”
“Wait, what?” Kate turned to face her friend. “Colton’s not in Maple Valley.”
“Uh, yes he is. Breydan just got a package from him this week. Autographs of a bunch of old teammates and a really nice letter. And it was definitely postmarked from Maple Valley.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t understand.” If Colton was back in Iowa, wouldn’t someone have told her?
“Come on, Kate. Come see me stand on the glass deck.” Breydan pulled on her arm.
“You’re a brave kid, B.” She followed him across the room to where the glass deck jutted out from the building, watched him step onto the glass deck and play to the camera and pose like Superman.
“Maybe I’m crazy,” Hailey said beside her, “but if the guy is back in your hometown, it must mean something.”
“I have no idea what.”
Breydan barreled toward her. “Your turn, Katie.”
“Ha, good one. No thanks.” Although, it had to feel a little exhilarating, didn’t it, standing on the glass?
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be scared. If I can do it, you can.”
“I like floors I can see, Breydan.”
“Pleeease.” He turned exaggerated puppy-dog eyes on her. “You know you want to.”
Did she?
“Be the girl who takes the risk and goes after what she wants.” Hailey had said that. Months ago, back when Breydan was in the hospital.
She took a breath, closed her eyes, felt Breydan push her forward. Then she opened her eyes and stepped onto the glass. But the view, the ledge, the fear she should’ve felt . . . none of it even registered.