And when they'd made love. That had been the rush of a lifetime.
Now all the fun was gone. He'd gotten more thrills riding a bike at the campground with Molly at his side than he was getting going ninety-eight in a Ferrari Spider.
Sweat trickled under his arms. If he blew a tire right now, he'd never see her again, never have a chance to tell her she'd been right about him all along. He was exactly as afraid as she'd said.
He'd fallen in love with her.
Just like that the empty spaces inside him filled up, and he took his foot off the accelerator. As he sagged back in the seat, he felt as if his chest had caved in. Lilly had tried to tell him and so had Jane Bonner, but he hadn't let himself listen. Molly was right. He'd secretly believed he couldn't measure up as a person in the same way he measured up as a player, so he hadn't tried. But he was way too old to keep living his life underneath leftover shadows.
He slipped into the right lane. For the first time in months he felt calm. She'd told him she loved him, and now he knew exactly what that meant. He also understood what he had to do. And this time he intended to do it right.
Half an hour later he rang the Calebows' doorbell. Andrew answered wearing jeans and an orange inner tube. "Kevin! Do you want to go swimming with me?"
"Sorry, buddy, can't do it today." Kevin slipped past him. "I need to see your mom and dad."
"I don't know where Dad is, but Mom's in her office."
"Thanks." He ruffled Andrew's hair and made his way through the house to the office in the back. The door was open, but he knocked just the same. "Phoebe?"
She turned and stared at him.
"Sorry for barging in like this, but I need to talk to you."
"Oh?" She kicked back in her chair and extended her chorus-girl legs-longer than Molly's but not nearly as enticing. She wore white shorts and pink plastic sandals printed with purple dinosaurs. Despite that, she looked more formidable than God, and when it came to the world of the Stars, she was just as powerful.
"It's about Molly."
For a moment, he thought he saw speculation in her expression. "What about her?"
He stepped into the room and waited for an invitation to sit down. It didn't come.
There was no way to ease into this, and no reason he should. "I want to marry her. For real. And I want your blessing."
He didn't get the smile he expected. "Why the change of heart?"
"Because I love her, and I want to be part of her life forever."
"I see."
She had a perfect poker face. Maybe she didn't know the way Molly felt about him. It would have been just like Molly to try to protect him by hiding her feelings from her sister. "She loves me."
Phoebe didn't look impressed.
He tried again. "I'm fairly sure she's going to be happy about this."
"Oh, I'm sure she will be. At first anyway."
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. "What do you mean by that?"
She rose from the desk, looking much tougher than someone wearing plastic dinosaur sandals should. "You know we want a real marriage for Molly."
"So do I. That's why I'm here."
"A husband who'll put her first."
"That's what she's going to get."
"The tiger's changing his stripes awfully quickly."
He didn't pretend not to know what she meant. "I'll admit it's taken me a while to figure out that my life needs to be about more than playing football, but falling in love with Molly has readjusted my viewpoint."
Her expression of cool skepticism as she came around the side of the desk wasn't encouraging. "What about the future? Everyone knows how you feel about the team. You once told Dan that you'd like to coach after you retire as a player, and he got the idea you eventually want to move into the front office. Do you still feel that way?"
He wasn't going to lie. "Putting the game into perspective doesn't mean I want to throw it away."
"No, I don't imagine it does." She crossed her arms. "Let's be honest-is it Molly you want or is it the Stars?"
Everything inside him went still. "I hope you don't mean what I think you do."
"Marrying into the family on a permanent basis seems like an efficient way to make sure you eventually get to the front office."
The chill that crept through him went all the way to his bones. "I said I wanted your blessing. I didn't say I needed it." He began to walk away, only to have Phoebe's next words slap him from behind.
"If you go near her again, you can kiss the Stars goodbye."
He turned, not believing what he heard.
Her eyes were cold and determined. "I mean it, Kevin. My sister's been hurt enough, and I won't let you use her to fulfill your long-term plans. Stay away from her. You can have the team or you can have Molly, but you can't have both."
Chapter 26
Daphne was in a very bad mood. It followed her around while she baked her favorite oatmeal-strawberry cookies, and it stuck to her side when she talked to Murphy Mouse, who'd moved into the woods a few weeks before. Even the big pile of shiny new coins jingling in her pink backpack didn't make her feel better. She wanted to run to Melissa's house for cheering up, but Melissa was planning a trip to Paris with her new friend, Leo the Bullfrog. Most of all Daphne was in a very bad mood because she missed Benny. He made her angry sometimes, but he was still her best friend. Except she wasn't his best friend anymore. Daphne loved Benny, but Benny didn't love her. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the strap from her electric guitar. His new school started today, and he'd be having so much fun that he wouldn't even think about her. He'd be thinking about touchdowns instead, and all the girl rabbits who'd be hanging out by the fence wearing tube tops and trying to entice him with foreign phrases and puffy lips and bouncy breasts. Girls who didn't understand him like she did, who were impressed with his fame and money and green eyes, and didn't know that he loved cats and needed entertaining sometimes and didn't hate poodles nearly as much as he thought, and that he liked to sleep cuddled around her with his hand-
Molly ripped the paper from her yellow pad. This was supposed to be Daphne's Bad Mood, not Daphne Does Dallas. She gazed out across Bobolink Meadow and wondered how some parts of her life could be so happy and some parts so sad.
The sweatshirt she'd spread in the grass had bunched under her bare legs. It was Kevin's. As she straightened it, she tried to concentrate on the happy parts of her life.
Thanks to her new contract, she was financially secure for the first time since she'd given away her money, and she was bursting with ideas for new books. The campground and B &B were filled to capacity, and the more responsibility she gave Amy and Troy, the more they were able to handle.
Their feelings toward the place had become as proprietary as her own, and they'd asked her to consider converting the attic into an apartment where they could live year-round. They wanted to keep the B &B open all winter for cross-country skiing and snowmobile enthusiasts, as well as city people who simply felt like enjoying winter in the country. Molly had decided to let them do it. When Kevin had been searching for someone to run the campground full-time, he'd overlooked the obvious.
She hated how much she missed him. He probably didn't even think about her. She knew now that was his loss. She'd offered him her most precious possession, and instead of holding on tight, he'd thrown it away.
She snatched up her writing pad. If she couldn't work on Daphne's Bad Mood, she could at least make a list of groceries for Troy to pick up in town. Amy was baking her new specialty for tea-dirt cupcakes, which were chocolate cup-cakes topped with green coconut frosting and Gummi Worms. Molly was going to miss Lilly's help with the guests, although not nearly as much as she'd miss her companionship. Her mood lifted a little as she thought about how happy Lilly and Leo the Bullfrog were.