On the Fly (6 page)

I unloaded two
of the dozen boxes from my trunk and stacked them
one on top of the other. Then I tested their weight. It wasn’t too
bad. These boxes mainly had Tuck’s and Maddie’s clothes and some
pillows, so nothing too heavy. I could add another box, but then I
wouldn’t be able to see where I was going very well. This was one
of the many disadvantages I’d come to accept as simply part of
being short.

Still, I’d rather make fewer trips and
be done with it sooner. I pulled another box out, set it on the top
of my stack, and closed the trunk.

At least we didn’t have too many
things in boxes. I’d sold or donated most of our furniture and
household goods back in Carrollton before we left because I hadn’t
known how long it would be before we could get a place to live. It
made more sense to do that and start fresh than to try to haul
everything halfway across the country and find somewhere to store
it in the meanwhile.

My plan for today was to get all of
our belongings out of the hotel room and into the condo while the
kids were at school. Yesterday, I had gone to a warehouse furniture
store and bought the barest of necessities. They’d delivered it
this morning, so we could realistically get checked out of the
hotel and move in all the way today…if I could hurry.

I picked up the boxes, wrapping my
hands beneath the bottom box, and twisted my torso until I could
see where I was going if I did a sideways crab-walk. It wasn’t the
most comfortable way to move, but I could manage.

When I got to the door to the condo
building, I bumped into the handicap button with my hip so it would
open the doors for me. That little bump altered my center of
balance, though, and the top box fell to the floor.

Of course it did.

I set the other two down, picked up
the fallen box, and resituated it at the top. By the time I’d
rearranged the boxes and picked them up again, the door had
closed.

Being more careful this time, I tried
to push the handicap button again. The door wouldn’t open. I angled
my hip a little more, trying to push the button more firmly, but
still nothing happened. Damn it.

Now would be a really great time for
someone else to come by, but I had no such luck. There wasn’t a
soul in sight. I couldn’t really expect people to be around in the
middle of a workday. That was hoping for too much.

I set the boxes down and pushed the
button with my hand. The door opened. I picked up the stack again,
but the middle box shifted in a perilous manner as I straightened
my body. I tried to hurry through the open door anyway, but the
second I took a step all three boxes went flying.

“
Shit,” I muttered beneath
my breath. I’d barely picked up the first box by the time the doors
closed again. Then I couldn’t stop myself from laughing
hysterically. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“
No, I’m totally serious,”
an unfamiliar male voice with a decidedly Canadian accent answered.
It was the
O
sound
in
totally
—long,
drawn out, but kind of hard—like nothing you’d expect to hear in
Texas. But I wasn’t in Texas anymore. People here in Portland
sounded a lot more like Canadians than they did Texans, making me
stick out like lump of charcoal in the middle of a pile of
diamonds.

I jumped at the unexpected
interruption and dropped my box again, then turned around to see a
big, young guy walking toward me in the parking lot. He was well
over six feet tall, and he had slightly wild, overgrown light-brown
hair sticking out of a Portland Storm baseball cap. Even though it
was in the thirties out, he was in an untucked T-shirt and jeans
with no coat, and he was a little sweaty, like he’d just been
working out.

The sixteen-year-old version of me
would have succumbed to his physical charms and fallen into bed
with him in a heartbeat.

The twenty-five-year-old version of me
had learned the hard way that good looks didn’t necessarily make
for a good person.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, and
amazingly, he blushed. It brought out dimples in his cheeks. Yeah,
I definitely would have done anything he wanted, back before I knew
better than to fall for a pretty face without seeing what was
inside.

“
Sorry,” he said. Again
with that drawn-out Canadian
O
sound. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Can I help you
with those?” He came over and grinned once he got a better look at
me. “You’re Rachel Shaw, aren’t you? Soupy told me about
you.”

“
Soupy?” I found myself
asking, kind of numb as he deftly stacked my boxes.

“
Sorry,” he said again.
“Brenden Campbell. The boys all call him Soupy…you know, Campbell’s
Soup?” He picked up the stack, all three boxes, and the top one
barely came to his chin. “I’m Jamie Babcock. How about you push the
buttons and get the doors? I’ll do the heavy lifting.” He said that
last part with a wink.

I had just been wishing for someone to
be around in the middle of the day to help me with doors, hadn’t I?
And here he was. An answer to a prayer, not that I believed God
answered prayers. Not anymore. But that didn’t change the fact that
Jamie Babcock was ready and willing to carry a few boxes upstairs
to my new apartment. I should be grateful, not instantaneously
suspicious.

“
Okay. Thanks,” I finally
said, nodding. I held the door open for him, and he went through.
The thought that Brenden Campbell, a stranger who I’d only known
long enough to shoot down his attempts to get me to date him—well,
long enough for that and to make me feel tingles of awareness
because he’d been flirting with me—had mentioned me to one of his
teammates was unnerving. When we got onto the elevator, I couldn’t
stop myself from asking, “What exactly did he tell you about
me?”

He blushed again. “Just that you’re
going to work for Jim, take Martha’s position when she retires.”
Somehow, he managed to pull one hand out from under the boxes to
brush his hair back behind his ear. “Oh, and that you’re a real
pretty redhead with kids moving in across the hall from us. He said
to look out for you while he’s gone.”

The elevator stopped at our floor. I
hurried off ahead of him because I didn’t want him to see how
flustered I was. Why on earth would Brenden Campbell care if anyone
was looking out for me? And he thought I was pretty? I’d never
believed I was pretty. The whole short-redhead-with-freckles thing
had always made me feel awkward, not pretty.

I unlocked my door, and Jamie followed
me inside.

“
Where should I put these?”
he asked, his head on a swivel as he took in the massive state of
disarray before him.

The delivery guys who’d brought my
furniture this morning had just dropped it all off. They hadn’t
helped me put any of it together or set it where it belonged. I’d
only managed to deal with the beds before heading to the hotel for
our boxes, and that had been more than enough to leave me too
exhausted to do any of the rest. I still wasn’t sure how I had
found the energy to load my trunk full of boxes.

There was too much in the way for me
to send him down the hall to Tuck’s room with the stack he was
holding. “Just set them over there by the bar in the kitchen,” I
said.

At least going that way, he wasn’t
likely to kill himself by tripping over something he couldn’t see.
The last thing I needed was for one of the Storm’s players to get
injured while helping me before I even started my new
job.

He set the boxes down where I’d
directed.

When he straightened up, I said,
“Thanks so much for helping me.”

“
Sure, no
problem.”

I was all ready to usher him out the
door, but his eyes were wandering through the maze of boxes and
un-put-together furniture. “Why don’t we tackle the sofa next?” he
said. “You need somewhere to sit.”

I really wasn’t prepared to let him
help me with more than what he had already. Even that had been more
help than I’d wanted. I shook my head. “You really don’t have to do
that. I can—”

“
I don’t mind,” he
interrupted. “I don’t have anything I have to do. We’ve already
finished practice, and there’s no game today so nothing I’m on the
schedule for. Razor was going to come over and play video games
this afternoon, but he can help, too.”

“
That’s really not
necessary,” I said feebly, but he’d already pulled his cell phone
from his pocket and was most likely texting this Razor, whoever
Razor was.

He slid the phone back into the pocket
of his jeans. Then he smiled at me, bringing his dimples out again.
“Come on. Let’s get started.” Before I could object again, he’d
turned the sofa on its side and was ripping at the plastic sheeting
surrounding it. “Do you have a box cutter?” he asked over his
shoulder.

I grabbed it off the kitchen counter
and handed it to him. Less than twenty minutes later, he’d
unwrapped my sofa and chairs, and we’d put the legs on them so they
could be used. Now I had an even bigger mess than before, with all
the plastic and cardboard strewn across the living room
floor.

My stomach growled, and he grinned at
me.

“
I’m starving, too. We
should take a break for lunch. Razor will be here
anytime.”

I should really buy his
lunch
, I thought. That was only fair,
considering all he was doing for me. “Where do you want to go?” I
asked him. “My treat.” At least I could afford it, after the
signing bonus Mr. Sutter had given me.

“
Honestly, we could just
stay here. I’ve got PB and J.”

I couldn’t let him eat a peanut butter
sandwich after helping me so much. Especially not after what
Brenden had said to me about Jamie’s cooking ability. “I haven’t
bought much yet, mainly just some kid food to get by until we’re
settled. Would you rather have a hot dog and some mac and
cheese?”

You would have thought I’d
just hung the moon, based on the look he gave me. “Are you serious?
I would
love
a hot
dog and mac and cheese. I’ll go take the garbage down if you’ll
start on that.”

He was only halfway finished hauling
out all the cardboard and plastic when he came back up with another
young guy. This one—Ray Chambers, the guy Jamie called Razor—could
have passed for a Rob Lowe lookalike, at least in Rob Lowe’s
earlier years. Good thing I was making more hot dogs and mac and
cheese than I’d thought I would need. The two of them finished
cleaning up together while I cooked.

We ate on paper plates while sitting
cross-legged on the empty dining room floor.

They stayed with me the rest of the
afternoon, helping me to put together tables and arrange furniture,
unload the rest of the boxes from my car, and even to unpack a few
things, right up until I had to leave to go pick my kids up from
school. The whole time they laughed and joked around with each
other, never once acting like there was anything they’d rather be
doing.

Despite my overprotective motherly
instincts, I liked them. It probably wasn’t smart of me. I needed
to be wary, to guard my kids against predators and not trust anyone
who seemed friendly and likeable on the surface. Jason had been
friendly and likeable, too.

I didn’t trust myself anymore to know
who was safe and who wasn’t. Could you ever really know?