Page 10 of The Maverick's Homecoming

No doubt her friends would step up when needed, and her folks were good people. He was sure they’d be there to help when the baby was born.

Hell.Hewould help if she’d only let him…

That thought gave him pause.

Because as it turned out, they were going to be seeing a lot of each other right here on the football field all through the season. And maybe, over time, she might reconsider the idea of the two of them becoming friends.

Yeah, she’d made it painfully clear that they would never be a couple again. But hey. If he played his cards right she just might end up deciding that she could always use a friend.

* * *

That night was the beginning of team-bonding weekend. The squad and the coaching staff slept right there at the high school. Community boosters provided meals and cots. The players and staff brought their own sleeping bags. Only Kenzie went home for the night.

But she was back first thing Saturday morning to have breakfast with the rest of them. Finn admired her team spirit. And he couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering how she was doing, hoping she really was feeling fine about having her baby on her own.

More than once, he found himself staring at her, hoping that despite everything, they might end up being friends. And kind of wanting to kick his own ass for messing up and waiting so long to reach out to her last spring.

And Kenzie wasn’t the only one Finn couldn’t stop wondering about. He also wanted to know more about Oscar Abernathy. The kid was laser-focused on his job, always ready with a water bottle whenever a player, Barrett or Finn signaled the need for one.

Oscar also seemed to know a lot about football. The boy was a fountain of football stats, which he frequently offered under his breath to no one in particular. And he seemed very…self-contained, even a bit withdrawn somehow, kind of off in his own world. He had no close friends—at least not any of the players on the team. Finn wanted to know more about him and kept meaning to quiz Barrett, but the opportunity to discuss the water boy never presented itself.

Saturday was packed with activities. Finn had no time to focus on anything but getting a head start on crafting a program that would coax the most out of every member of the team.

Late that afternoon, he praised his players before sending them off to rest and recuperate, so they would be fresh on Monday, when the work would begin all over again. After everyone had left the field, he headed home, aka the Rawlings place. It was seven miles outside of town. On twenty rolling acres, the property included a red barn, an empty horse pasture and a sparsely furnished four-thousand-square-foot house full of big rooms he never entered.

But hey. He’d been an NFL superstar once with more than one big-ass house. Since then, it was kind of a habit with him to live in a house with way more room than he was ever going to need.

That night, Finn ate leftovers and stayed up late working on his plans for future practices, then caught up on paperwork for his real-estate business.

Sunday he hit the ground running, showing houses with acreage to two clients and submitting two offers. He couldn’t help thinking that between coaching the Titans and his job selling real estate, he barely had time to eat and sleep.

But finally, Sunday evening, he got a few precious hours to himself—in his too-large, too-empty house. After a take-out dinner ofpollo asadofrom the great little Mexican restaurant in town, he did what he’d been working up the nerve to do for months now.

He called Kenzie—because, he reassured himself, he wanted to find out a little bit more about Oscar. Yeah, he could have called Barrett, but by the time he reminded himself that Barrett was the one he’d been planning to ask, he’d already hit the call button for Kenzie.

She picked up on the second ring. “Finn.”

“It’s clear from the way you just said my name that you’re not glad to hear from me.” He was grinning.

She knew it, too. “Wipe that smirk off your face.”

“Sheesh, Kenz. Fifteen years have gone by since we were together. And still, you don’t have to see my face to know that I’m smirking.”

“What do you want?”

“I love it when a woman can’t wait to get rid of me.”

“Oh, come on. I didn’t say that.”

“But you were thinking it.”

She scoffed. “So you’re calling to give me grief, is that it?”

“Nope.”

“Then what?”

“Well, first off, I want to apologize. I was abrupt at first practice the other day…about the, uh, baby, I mean. Until I spotted you on the field I had no idea you were pregnant, that you must have been pregnant that day we met up at the Grizzly.”