His Most Important Win

Rosalie recalled that stressful meeting at the Benton home nearly sixteen years ago. Claudia Campano had briefly argued in favor of letting Bryce know about Rosalie’s pregnancy, but she had quickly capitulated to everyone else’s desires.

Rosalie picked up a slice of bread from a basket at the center of the table and began shredding it. “I wish I were as confident as you, Mom. But in the back of my mind I picture Bryce coming face-to-face with Danny, and just, well, knowing. Like this cosmic bond will connect the two of them.”

Claudia took the mutilated bread from Rosalie’s hand. “That’s not going to happen, honey. We’ve always been careful. Growing up, Danny never questioned your story about his father.”

“That’s because Poppa was still alive and he was the only father Danny ever needed. He was better to Danny than anyone else could have been.” Rosalie clasped her hands on top of the table. “I never told you, Mom, but last year, a few months after Poppa died, Danny asked me about his real father.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I kept up the pretense I’d established before—that his father and I only knew each other a short time.” That was a lie. She’d known Bryce all her life. “That we were only together one time.” That was the truth. “That his father was not ready to assume the responsibility of a baby.” That was the truth. “And I told Danny again that I loved him from the moment I knew he existed, and you and Poppa loved him as if he were your own, too.”

Claudia nodded. “And was Danny satisfied?”

“I guess. I appeased him by promising that later, if he wanted to try and find his father, I would help him do that. Of course, I hoped that he would never ask.”

“And he hasn’t,” Claudia said. “Just because Bryce is back in town doesn’t have to mean anything. The physical resemblance is almost nonexistent. Danny need never know.” Her eyes widened as her lips turned up in a strange sort of smile. “Unless you decide to tell him.”

“What? Mom, I can’t see that as a possibility.” Rosalie pressed her finger against the bridge of her nose where a headache was just beginning to form. “I wish I didn’t have this feeling of foreboding, like something terrible is going to happen.”

“Give this some time, Rosalie. Bryce will settle in. You’ll continue with your life—your teaching and your volunteer duties. I’ve always believed that things just work out for the best—eventually.” She touched Rosalie’s cheek. “Now, go. Get ready to meet your friends. You need to get your mind on something else.”

Rosalie stood, pushed her chair under the table. “I don’t think I’m going to be good company.” She headed toward the living room but turned around when her mother said her name. “Something else, Mom?”

“Did you talk to him, honey?”

“No. After the meeting he came toward me in the parking lot. I panicked, got in my car and drove away.” She bit her bottom lip. She’d never admit that certain instincts, long suppressed, had almost caused her to wait for him to reach her. “I wasn’t ready to face him,” she said. “I don’t think I ever will be.”

Claudia nodded. “Time will tell.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? It’s been more than fifteen years. And tonight I learned that all time has told me is that I still react to Bryce Benton.”

Trying to put Bryce out of her mind, she went down the hallway toward her room, the cozy, familiar, rosy space that had been her private sanctum all her life. On the way, she stopped at another door, put her hand on the knob and took a deep breath. Her brother’s old room, which was now Danny’s. For three months after Ricky had died, Rosalie hadn’t been able to even look inside this space. Her father, in his attempt to heal his family, had eventually gone in and packed up many of the items Ricky had treasured. He hadn’t asked the women of his family to help.

But there had been practical matters to consider. A family had to move on. A baby was coming. They’d ordered a crib and other essentials. This room was needed for the future of the Campano family.

Rosalie turned the knob and opened the door. Although other mementos of Ricky existed in the house—in her mother’s room and the living room—the only reminder of Ricky in this space now was a photo of him in his Wildcat uniform. Danny had insisted on keeping the photo of his “Uncle Ricardo,” whom he’d never met, on that hutch above his desk.

Rosalie walked into the room and picked up the photo, which was both comfortingly familiar and achingly sad. She smiled at the image of her “second half,” the other part of her. With his football helmet tucked against his side, his shoulders unnaturally wide and strong under the padding, his dark hair military short as if he’d prepared for the battle on the football field, Ricky was the picture of invincible confidence.

She touched the tip of her finger to the letters of his jersey. She’d been so proud of him, the Wildcats star quarterback, recipient of a scholarship to Florida State University. Even now, looking at his cocky smile, her heart melted.

“I miss you,” she said to the quiet room. She still felt his presence in every square foot of the Campano house, but especially here. Could anything really separate twins? Not time. Not even death.

Setting the photo back on the shelf, she looked around at the things that identified her Danny. A baseball bat signed by Alex Rodriquez. A weathered mitt he’d outgrown after three seasons of Little League. Pictures of his heroes on the walls—current Atlanta Braves, legendary New York Yankees. A photo of Danny in his junior varsity baseball uniform. Soon that would be replaced by his freshman picture in a varsity uniform when he would take the mound as the Wildcats newest star pitcher.

By Danny’s third birthday, Rosalie had known he would be an athlete. He’d had the passion, the determination and the skinned knees to prove it. When, at a very young age, he had picked up a football he’d found in the park, her heart had seemed to stop beating for several long, painful seconds until she’d taken it from his hands. That very day she brought him to the sporting goods store and introduced him to every other sport. He’d settled on baseball and she’d encouraged him through all his years.

She’d never been sorry she’d pushed him in that direction. Once, when he had mentioned trying out for the football team, she had discouraged him, saying his talents lay on the diamond, not the gridiron. He’d accepted her advice, and he’d thrived. He’d proven himself. Most important, she’d been able to watch his progress from the bleachers without fearing that the next moment, the next play, could alter his life forever. She couldn’t go through that again. Much like she couldn’t face Bryce Benton.

She closed the door to Danny’s room and went to shower and dress. She’d make it an early night so she could do as her mother suggested and be at Benton Farms first thing the next morning. While Bryce and most of the world slept in, she’d pick up her order and be gone.

Benton Farms was located five miles outside of Whistler Creek on a two-lane road that wound through rolling hills, green pastures and what real estate agents called some of the best farmland in America. At 6:50 a.m., after pulling on jeans and an old T-shirt and fastening her unruly hair in a clip, Rosalie sipped coffee from a thermal mug as she chugged along the sparsely populated route in the old pickup Claudia had purchased for her produce business.

Over the years Rosalie had managed to maintain a working relationship with the Bentons despite the heartache their son had brought into her life. And she’d been grateful Danny had inherited the dark eyes and olive complexion of the Campanos and not the lighter skin tones and fair hair of the Bentons. No one in town had ever suspected that the onetime childhood friends, Rosie and Bryce, had ever conceived a child. And Rosalie had further protected her son’s identity by slightly modifying his birth records.

Today she planned to be first in line to drive through the wholesale distribution section of Benton’s corporate sales area which opened to local buyers at 7:00 a.m. Rising before dawn hadn’t been a problem. After coming home from dinner with friends, Rosalie had slept restlessly. Finally she’d kept one eyelid raised to her window, watching for the first hint of a pink sunrise on the eastern horizon.

Her mind raced with the possible ramifications of last evening’s odd turn of events. Why had Bryce sacrificed his climb up the university coaching ladder? Did he miss his hometown that much? Did he feel an obligation to his parents? Had the divorce she’d heard about set him back emotionally so that his return to Whistler Creek was as much a healing exercise as anything else? Rosalie could almost understand that explanation. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else herself.

But Bryce, at least the young man she’d known and fancied herself in love with, had always displayed enough confidence to combat any of life’s trials. Surely he could handle news of his father’s declining health, the breakup of a marriage. After all, he’d recovered easily enough from the death of his best friend.

And why had he approached her in the parking lot yesterday? Did he suspect the truth about her quick getaway—that she’d seen him and was avoiding a face-to-face meeting? She’d tried to appear casual, spontaneous, as if she hadn’t noticed him. She hoped he’d believed that a sudden thought had occurred to her and she’d naturally and without ulterior motive gotten into her car and sped away. And if not, did he suspect the other, more devastating truth, that facing him, dredging up memories, both good and bad, possibly initiating new ones, was the last thing she needed in her life?

Thankful that the electric gates had been parted a few minutes early, Rosalie drove onto Benton property and headed a quarter mile down the road toward the steel buildings that housed the wholesale division of Benton Farms. As she pulled up next to the overstuffed bins of vegetables, she noticed that she was the first local produce dealer to arrive. The usual farmhands, wearing the trademark green Benton Farms polo shirts, waved at her as they always did. She knew each of them would be willing to help her choose her stock and load it into the back of the truck.

She climbed out of the driver’s seat and spoke to Juan Gonzalez. He’d been hired by Roland Benton to work under her father’s direction when Enzo Campano had supervised the wholesale area. Rosalie had known him since she was a little girl.

“Juan, I need red peppers today and ten bushels of corn. Maybe eight pounds of Vidalia onions.” She handed him her list.

“I get you set up in no time, Miss Rosalie.” He began loading cartons while she walked among the bins of rich, ripe crops recently harvested on Benton land.

She picked up a tomato and was deciding if this particular one was overripe when a hand settled lightly on her shoulder and a familiar voice spoke into her ear. “Hello, Rosalie. Been a long time.”

She jerked as if his fingers had delivered an electric shock to her nervous system, whirled around and dropped the tomato on the pavement. It exploded into a pulpy mass, which immediately attracted a number of tiny winged insects. Rosalie swallowed and looked up into clear blue eyes that had haunted her teenaged dreams. She swore under her breath. What the hell was Bryce doing out here at the crack of dawn? Her voice came out dry and tinny sounding when she frowned down at the mess by her sneaker. “Sorry about that,” she said.

Dressed in the same Benton Farms shirt as the other employees, Bryce grabbed a paper towel from a nearby dispenser and bent over to scoop up the mess. “No problem.” He swept his other hand over the loaded cartons of tomatoes. “As you can see, we have a few others.”

He tossed the soggy towel into a trash can and wiped his hand on his jeans. If he’d planned to shake hands with her, he changed his mind. Thank goodness. Rosalie didn’t need to test her reaction to another touch.

“I saw you last night at the high school,” he said.

She blinked a couple times, trying to blur the image of Bryce’s face that seemed determined to burn itself into her retina. Last night he’d worn a ball cap low over his forehead, and he’d been at the other side of the room. Today his features were clear, undiluted by shadow and the play of artificial light. And she would have known him anywhere. Just as she remembered, the corner of his mouth quirked up in an odd half grin. His eyes, nearly the rich color of blueberries, narrowed under thick, brown lashes. Strands of his hair, longer than she would have thought he’d like and darker blond than she recalled, fell to the arch of his slightly darker eyebrows.

He continued to pin her with a disturbingly intense gaze as the grin broadened. “Rosalie? You okay?”

Of course he would ask that. She’d been standing for several awkward moments hoping her senses would return along with enough intelligible words so she wouldn’t sound like an idiot. She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. What had he said? Something about seeing her at the high school. Hunching one shoulder with feigned indifference, she said, “I was there. Canfield wanted all the faculty to witness …”

She stopped, knowing she was about to finish the sentence with a biting example of sarcasm.

“… the spectacle?” Bryce filled in for her.

“I wasn’t going to say that.” Sure she wasn’t. That was the exact word that had popped into her mind.

He chuckled. “Well, that’s what it was. Only an appearance by the Wildcat marching band could have been worse.”

“Obviously your return is viewed as a miracle by some people around here. Who better to take over for Bucky than a hometown football hero?” A shudder rippled down Rosalie’s spine. She really hadn’t meant to sound so unkind. A better plan would be to appear totally indifferent to Bryce.

“I guess we’ll see about that,” he said.