Elliott wasn’t coming.
That fact had become obvious ten minutes ago, but her stupid heart had maintained its steady beat. The way he’d kissed her last night…people didn’t just give kisses like that willy-nilly, did they? Not men like Elliott. That moment outside the Tates’ house had been a force of nature, but it was eroding under the landslide of minutes that continued to tick past, the podium empty at the front of the massive auditorium.
Usually, the event was only alumni and their guests, but since Elliott had signed on to make a speech, not to mention the buzz created by the online fund-raiser, ticket sales had gone sky high. Bodies were packed in like sardines against the wall, camera phones at the ready. One of Peggy’s fellow ex-cheerleaders was happily acting the host and stalling like a champ, razzing the dean, who sat in the front row absorbing the attention like a sponge. But there was a definite impatience sweeping the room, murmurings beginning to float on the air, and suddenly it seemed as though every member of the alumni committee was staring at Peggy and tapping their wrists.
Last time Elliott had shattered her heart, she’d screamed and broken things and generally launched the fight of the century. This time, it was a very pronounced, but very quiet, shattering. Like someone had laid a towel over her heart and slowly ground their heel down on it, so no one would hear the cracks forming.
As if Belmont and Sage had some kind of Peggy Alarm, they caught her eye as they entered through the back of the auditorium. And they just looked at her. Waiting. Not showing her any sympathy, because they knew her well enough. Knew any kind of coddling would be equivalent to throwing her out of a moving vehicle. But she could see that Belmont was holding the Suburban keys, even if he wasn’t being obvious about it. They were inside his curled hand, resting against his thigh.
Peggy glanced back at the podium one more time, wishing she were twenty-two again, so she could storm up there and kick it over onto its side. Scream epithets into the microphone and walk out with her chin up. But she could see those actions now for what they would be—what they had been those years ago—fear. But she wasn’t scared anymore. Elliott had deserted her again and she stood there, whole and confident. A Clarkson. Her mother’s daughter. The mediator, the bombshell, the liar. And she was fucking good with that.
But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a smoking crater in the dead center of her chest that would take a long time to repair. Maybe longer than last time.
After whispering a sorry to the alumni organizer to her right, Peggy began to skirt her way through the packed house, apologizing as she stepped on people’s toes—grief was making her clumsy. She kept her attention focused on Belmont and Sage, because really, there was no more comforting sight on the planet, and she was almost there…almost there…
“Good evening.”
Elliott’s voice halted Peggy in her tracks. Gooseflesh rose on every inch of her skin, her mouth falling open in shock. But she didn’t turn around. Couldn’t turn to look at him and still keep walking toward the door. It had to be one or the other, didn’t it? How could she see him standing there and walk out? How?
You could hear a pin drop in the auditorium as Elliott adjusted the microphone, creating a squeal of feedback. “Sorry,” he said, his voice gravel-like. “I don’t use these things too often. Usually I just yell.”
“And we listen!” one of his players called from a table. The rippling of laughter in the crowd moved through Peggy’s middle. Amazing that she could be proud of him for opening with a joke when her heart was hanging in limbo.
Peggy couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder as Elliott tweaked his collar and removed a piece of paper from his pocket. The silence grew thick as he stared down at whatever was written in his notes, eventually shoving them back where they came from. “I love a woman,” Elliott leaned forward and said into the microphone. “I…love a woman.”
A tingling started in the top of her head and rioted down, making her nerve endings pulse. If there had been a free chair nearby, she would have fallen into it, but there was nothing but her trembling legs to hold her up. So she just stood there, like a newborn deer, while the crowd whispered, their heads swiveling around to find the unknown woman the Kingmaker referred to.
“These lights are so damn bright, I can’t tell if she’s here. Or if she left me again.” Elliott narrowed his eyes, his frustration that he couldn’t find her in the audience evident, but her hand wouldn’t lift to wave, her vocal cords wouldn’t do their job. Maybe she didn’t want to let him know at all, because he might stop talking and she desperately needed to hear every word.
“I earned this uncertainty, though,” Elliott continued. “So I’m going to live with it and hope she’s somewhere out there hearing me.” Peggy rotated to face the stage fully, not daring to take a breath. “I wrote a speech about seizing the moment and making sure you let your loved ones know how you feel, but all that just makes me sound like a hypocrite. And I won’t be a hypocrite on top of a fool.” He tapped a fist on the podium, appearing deep in thought. “A fool is the kind of man who pushes away someone who makes him laugh. Makes him think. Makes him want to try harder and love harder and live harder. Live at all. That’s what Peggy Clarkson did for me. Twice in my life. Twice more than I earned. And this heart she woke up inside me loves her. It’ll beat for her until it stops altogether.”
An object shoved at the back of her knees. She prayed it was a chair as she fell into it, encountering the familiar, elusive squeeze of Belmont’s hand on her shoulder before it was gone. Emotion gathered in her throat and refused to be swallowed or cleared away. Through the shimmering cloak of tears in her eyes, she absently registered the looks in her direction, coming from several ex-cheerleaders…and Kyler. Kyler was right there, smiling knowingly at a nearby table, but the time it took to notice those things was too long. She needed Elliott.
“I’ve made some mistakes. With my family. With my Peggy.” His possessive way of referring to her earned an ocean of sighs from the women in the room. And an inner one from her, too. “They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. So I’m not going to continue as I have been. I’m not going to ask the woman I need in my life to make changes without giving her anything in return. I need her to know I’m real. That I know what’s important, and I’m going to fight to make her happy. Harder than I’ve ever fought to win a football game. Harder than I fought to push her away.”
Peggy knew Elliott better than anyone in the room, so she saw the next part coming. Felt it quaking in her stomach as she rose to her feet, shaking her head, unable to allow it. But he barreled right through her silent pleas.
“I’ll be taking a leave of absence next season.” Elliott’s expression didn’t change as the room’s energy skyrocketed from merely captivated to total shock…and in some cases horrified panic. Cell phones were yanked out of purses, fingers moving in a blur over their keypads, people shouted questions from their tables, and the dean looked like he was going to get sick right there on the floor. “I have a daughter I don’t know well enough, and someday, she’ll stop caring one way or another. Then there’s the matter of the woman I love.” He made a gruff sound. “I need to build her happiness into my life and keep it there permanently. I’d trade away every game, every championship, to make that happen. So if she’s here—”
“I’m here.”
The words tore through her restraint and burst out of her mouth on a shout, earning her the attention of every eye in the auditorium. Except for Elliott, because he clearly couldn’t find her through the damn spotlight. Although the confirmation that she hadn’t left had him staggering backward, away from the podium, before he lunged forward again. “Baby, I can’t see you,” he rasped into the microphone. “Let me see you.”
Peggy took two steps toward the stage, her heart somewhere up in the clouds, but there was a click in time, audible only to her. A changing from before to after that had her turning around to find Belmont and Sage. But they were no longer standing at the entrance. They were gone. And there was a huge part of her that wanted to run after them, climb into the Suburban, and live in their comfort forever. A much larger portion of her needed Elliott. Beyond words or reason. She’d needed him for so long, and he finally realized he needed her, too. “You’ll be all right,” she whispered to Belmont and Sage, wherever they were. “You have each other.”
And then Peggy turned and weaved her way through the now-standing crowd toward Elliott. A slow clapping started, gaining speed the closer she got to the stage until it sounded like a thunderstorm, bursting in the air around her. Peggy knew the moment she became visible to Elliott because his big chest heaved, the tension in his shoulders falling away. She’d only made it halfway up the stairs when Elliott reached down and hauled her up the remaining way, right into his arms.
“I still loved you when I got here,” Peggy breathed into his neck. “I love you now. Forever.”
His hold tightened, and this time, when he started reciting a prayer, his heart was in the right place. Knocking against hers in double time. “Enough to marry me, Peggy?” He stepped back and searched her face with eyes full of relief, adoration, and the remnants of possible loss. Then he fell to his knees and removed a ring box from his pants pocket, offering it up to her as the audience whistled and applauded, cell phones flashing.
“Is that why you were late?” She half laughed, half sobbed.
His nod was solemn. “I wasn’t showing up here without every single thing you deserve. Marry me, Peggy. Marry…us.”
Alice. He meant Alice, too. She wouldn’t be marrying just the man. She would be joining a family. She’d be a stepmother. Before Cincinnati, the idea of it might have terrified her, but now she wanted the chance so bad, she couldn’t imagine ever having driven away. From either of them. “Does she want me?”
Elliott’s face was carved with gravity. “Yes.”
Peggy’s legs turned to jelly and she went down to the ground, kneeling in front of Elliott…and holding out her finger. “A year off, huh?” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”
He slid the ring onto her finger and crushed her into his embrace, laying a kiss full of promise on her mouth. “We’re going to make up for the last three and plan the next thirty.”
“Sounds good to me, Coach,” she breathed. “That was one amazing speech.”
Elliott lifted her into his arms and carried her off the stage. “Get used to them.”