The Saint

CHAPTER TWO

Two years later

KIERAN MCCLINTOCK RUBBED the stinging red spot just above his swim trunks where the latest water balloon had landed and wondered if his reflexes might be getting a little slow. That made eight hits already, and it wasn’t even noon. He couldn’t seem to duck, dodge or jump out of the way fast enough.

The darn things hurt, too. High-school boys really threw some heat these days. He scowled at the one who had just nailed him in the gut.

“Ingrate,” he called as the boy chuckled and scooted away.

“Golly, Coach, I’ll bet that smarts.” Suddenly a female voice purred in his ear, and a soft female hand rested over his. “Need any help with that?”

“Hi, Linda.” Kieran didn’t need to look up to know whose hand it was. No one but Linda Tremel would dream of rubbing the football coach’s wet, naked stomach in public. He moved her fingers away. “Thanks, but I’ll live.”

Linda pouted, but otherwise she took the rejection in stride. She was quite used to being rejected by Kieran—she was his neighbor. Since her divorce, she’d been programmed to bait her hooks automatically whenever she saw any man. She didn’t really expect him to bite.

She adjusted her large straw sun hat to a prettier angle and surveyed the chaos in front of them, where Heyday High’s annual Junior-Senior Send-off was in full swing. About a hundred students and their families were slip-sliding on water toys, hobbling in three-legged races and gnawing on cold fried chicken legs and deviled eggs.

She sighed and fanned herself with her paper napkin. Summer had come in swinging this year. The temperature was already in the nineties.

“I’d take off my cover-up, but I’m not sure these hormonal young boys could control themselves,” she said. “It’s bad enough that you’ve got every female under fifty salivating over your six-pack, stud. Think you should toss a shirt on and put them out of their misery?”

Kieran didn’t respond. Linda always talked like that. In fact, she never talked about anything but sex. Kieran suspected that might mean she wasn’t really all that interested in it. Protesting too much, as they said.

Besides, he saw a couple of his best players huddled over by the ice chest, and he could imagine what they were plotting. The next water balloon was probably going to be filled with Gatorade. He could only hope they had one of the other teachers in mind for this one.

All the faculty, right up to the principal, were here today. Even the school volunteers had showed up—like Linda. The Send-off was the highlight of the school year. Each May, just before the start of final exams, the junior class hosted a water party for the outgoing seniors. It had been a Heyday tradition for at least fifty years.

Heyday was big on tradition. Kieran’s father, who had, until his death less than two months ago, owned most of Heyday, had always said that tradition was what the little town had instead of culture, prominence, wealth or wisdom.

“So, I hear you’ve got another superstar coming along next season, Coach. You know the one.” Linda tilted her head. “What’s his name? Nice muscles. Bedroom eyes.”

“Bedroom eyes?” Kieran looked at her. “I have no idea who you’re talking about, but you’d better watch it, Linda. These boys are underage.”

“Well, he does have sexy eyes.” She grinned from under the wide brim of her hat. “I can’t help noticing, can I? Oh, what is his name? The boy everyone is saying could be the new Steve Strickland. Eddie-something.”

“Eddie Mackey?” Kieran wondered where Linda had heard about Eddie. “He’s good, but he’s not on the team yet. He’s not sure he wants to play.”

“Oh, you can talk him into it. You can talk anybody into anything. Steve Strickland didn’t want to play at first, either, and look how good he turned out to be.”

Kieran tossed his empty Gatorade bottle into the recycling bin. “Of course Steve wanted to play,” he said. He hoped he didn’t sound defensive. “Where did you hear that he didn’t want to play?”

“I don’t remember…” Linda chewed on her lower lip. “Oh, that’s right. It was his sister who didn’t want him to play. That’s what I heard. They say Claire hated the idea of Steve playing football. I never understood why. Was she afraid he’d get hurt or something?”

That was stupid, even for Linda. Instantly, she realized her mistake and drew in a deep breath. “I mean—you know. In a game. Like getting tackled or something. Naturally, no one could have imagined he’d end up—”

“No.” Kieran popped open another drink and downed half of it in one gulp. It really was hot out here. “No one could have imagined that.”

“Where is she now, do you know?”

Kieran squinted into the sunlight, trying to see if the people barbecuing hot dogs needed any help. “Who?”

“Claire. Do you know if she’s still in Richmond?”

“No.”

Linda flicked him with her napkin. “Be specific,” she said. “Do you mean no, she’s not in Richmond, or no, you don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“You haven’t seen her since—”

“No.”

“Do you think she’s still angry? Do you think she still blames you for—”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll bet she doesn’t.” Linda unbuttoned her top two buttons, exposing as much cleavage as possible, and began fanning herself again. “I mean, how could she? It didn’t make any sense to start with. I mean, you didn’t force the kid to drive seventy miles an hour down Poplar Hill, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

According to Claire, though, that was just a cop-out. He had put too much pressure on the players, she’d said, her voice filled with tears and fury. He had expected them to do the impossible, and, because they had loved him, they’d tried to deliver.

At least that’s what she told him the night she called and asked him not to come to the funeral.

“See? You didn’t have a thing to do with it. Claire Strickland just went a little crazy, that’s all. She wasn’t thinking straight, and she needed someone to blame.”

Kieran did not want to have this conversation. Especially not with Linda Tremel, who didn’t have an ounce of imagination. She could never understand how, when Kieran had held Claire in his arms and told her Steve was dead, it had been like holding a ghost. She had seemed completely empty, as insubstantial as smoke. He had thought, for a minute, that she might just float away forever.

He scanned the crowd, desperately seeking a savior. But being with Linda Tremel was like acquiring leprosy—even your best friends wouldn’t venture near enough to save you.

Finally he caught Principal Winston Vogler’s eye. The elderly man was too softhearted to resist a plea for help. Kieran felt a little guilty as Winston came over, smiling politely at Linda. But only a little.

“Hey there, Ms. Tremel. Howdy, Coach.” Principal Vogler patted Kieran on the back and gave Linda a kiss on the cheek. “It’s a terrific day for the Send-off, don’t you think? The weather always cooperates with Heyday High.”

Linda opened another button. Winston was almost seventy years old—he’d been a contemporary of Kieran’s father—but he was a male, and that apparently was Linda’s only requirement.

“Well,” she drawled, borrowing Kieran’s Gatorade and rubbing its cool plastic sides against her collarbone, “it’s pretty hot.”

Kieran couldn’t help cringing for her. She hadn’t been like this before Austin Tremel divorced her last year. Back when she had first landed Austin, the rich boy from the right side of the tracks who was supposed to make all her dreams come true, she had spent every moment trying to be worthy of him. Trying to remake herself into the perfect lawyer’s wife.

It must have hurt pretty bad when he dumped her. She’d spent the past year trying to prove to herself that she was desirable. Austin had a new lover—had probably acquired her long before the divorce—so Linda obviously wasn’t going to be happy until she had one, as well. Or two, or three. However many it took to show Austin she didn’t miss him.

Winston was watching the three-legged zebra race, which involved bags painted with black and white stripes. “Do you think,” he asked suddenly, “that any of these kids even know why they’re called the Fighting Zebras at Heyday High?”

“Heck, no,” Linda said.

Kieran knew that was probably true. Many of Heyday’s younger citizens had no idea that the city got its name because a trainer for a little nomadic circus got drunk one night and left the animal cages unlocked.