Jo closed the door without a click and pressed her back against the knob. “Want me to keep him out?” Her pale lips angled with mischief. Despite the full look of her figure, thanks to her baggy hardware store uniform, she was no match for TJ’s strength. Only his stubbornness.
“My brother seeing me isn’t the problem,” Maddie reminded her. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand, and found cause for remaining calm. “Lane shouldn’t be here for another twelve minutes. If I can just—”
The faint sound of an engine drove through the thought and parked on her words. Had he shown up early? She raced to the window, where she swatted away her childhood drapes. She threw the pane upward and craned her neck. Around the abandoned remains of her father’s Ford, she made out a wedge of the street. No sign of Lane’s car. She still had time.
“Hey, Rapunzel,” Jo said. “You haven’t turned batty enough to scale walls for a fella, have you?”
Maddie shushed her, interrupted by creaks of footfalls on the staircase. “You have to do it,” she decided.
“Do what?”
Warn Lane, Maddie was about to say, but realized she needed to talk to him herself, in order to set plans to meet later that night. Come tomorrow, he’d be on a train back to Stanford.
She amended her reply. “You’ve got to distract TJ for me.”
Jo let out a sharp laugh. Pushing out her chest, she tossed back stragglers from her ash-brown ponytail. “What, with all my stylish locks and hefty bosom?” Then she muttered, “Although, based on his past girlfriends, I suppose that’s all it would take.”
“No, I mean—you both love baseball. Chat about that.”
Jo raised a brow at her.
“Please,” Maddie begged. “You came by to help me get ready, didn’t you? So, help me.”
“Why not just tell him and get it over with?”
“Because you know how he feels about my dating.” A distraction from her future, he called it. The same theory he applied to his own career.
“Maddie. This isn’t just about any guy.”
“I know, I know, and I’ll come clean. But not yet.”
A knuckle-rap sounded on her door. “You in there?”
She sang out, “Hold on a minute,” and met Jo’s eyes. “Please.”
Jo hesitated before releasing a sigh that said Maddie would owe her one. A big one.
“I’ll come right back,” Maddie promised, “once I head Lane off down the block.”
After a grumble, Jo pasted on a smile, wide enough for a dentist’s exam, and flung open the door. “TJ,” she exclaimed, “how ’bout that streak of DiMaggio’s, huh?”
Behind his umber bangs, his forehead creased in puzzlement. “Uh, yeah. That was . . . somethin’.” His hand hung from a loop of his cuffed jeans. Nearly four years of wash and wear had frayed the patch on his USC Baseball sweatshirt. Its vibrancy had long ago faded, just like TJ’s.
Diverting from Jo’s unsubtle approach, Maddie asked him, “Didn’t you have to work tonight?”
“I was supposed to, but Jimmy needed to switch shifts this weekend.” His cobalt gaze suddenly narrowed and gripped hers. “You going somewhere special?”
“What?” She softly cleared her throat before thinking to glance down at her flared navy dress, her matching strappy heels. She recalled the pin curls in her auburn, shoulder-length do. The ensemble didn’t spell out a casual trip to a picture show.
Jo swiftly interjected, “There’s a new hot jazz band playing at the Dunbar. They say Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday might even be there. I’m dragging Maddie along. A keen study in music. You know, for her big audition.”
“I thought you were practicing tonight,” he said to Maddie.
“I am—I will. After we get back.”
“You two going alone?”
“We’ll be fine.” As everything would be, if he’d let up long enough.
“All right,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll just grab a bite in the kitchen then come along.”
Maddie stifled a gasp. “No, really. You don’t have to.”
“At the Dunbar? Oh yeah I do.”
Criminy. Was he going to hold her hand as they crossed the street to reach the bus stop too?
“TJ, this is ridiculous. I’m nineteen years old. Dad used to let us go out all the—”
He lashed back with a fistful of words. “Well, Dad’s gone, and I’m not him. You don’t like the deal, you can stay home.”
Stunned, Maddie stared at him. He’d spoken the word gone as though their father had died along with their mother.
Jo waved her hands, shooing away the tension. “So it’s settled. We’ll all go together.” Maddie widened her eyes as Jo continued, “And hey, while he’s eating, you’ll have time to drop off your neighbor’s letter. The one the postman delivered by accident.”
The letter . . . ?
Confusion quickly gave way to disappointment. Maddie now had an excuse to sneak out, but only to cancel rather than delay her date with Lane. She hated the prospect of missing one of his rare visits from school.
On the upside, in two weeks he would be back for winter break, offering more opportunities for quality time together.
“Fine, then,” she snipped at her brother. “Come if you want.”
What other choice did she have?
While Jo bombarded TJ with questions about the World Series, Maddie strode down the hall. Her urge to sprint mounted as she recalled the time. She made it as far as the bottom step when the doorbell rang.
Oh, God.
“I’ll get it!” She rushed to the entry. Hoping to prevent the disaster from worsening, she opened the door only halfway. Yet at the greeting of Lane’s perfect white smile, all her worries evaporated like mist. The warm glow of the portico light caressed his short black hair and olive skin. Shadows swooped softly from his high cheekbones. His almond-shaped eyes, inherited from his Japanese ancestors, shone with the same deep brown that had reached out and captured her heart the first time he’d held her last spring, an innocent embrace that had spiraled into more.
“Hi, Maddie,” he said, and handed her a bouquet of lavender lilies. Their aroma was divine, nearly hypnotic, just like his voice.
But then footsteps on the stairs behind her sobered her senses.
“You have to go,” was all she got out before TJ called to him.
“Tomo!” It was the nickname he’d given Lane Moritomo when they were kids. “You didn’t tell me you were coming home.”
The startle in Lane’s eyes deftly vanished as his best friend approached.
Maddie edged herself aside. Her heart thudded in the drum of her chest as she watched Lane greet him with a swift hug. A genuine grin lit TJ’s face, a rare glimpse of the brother she missed.
“I’m only in till tomorrow,” Lane told him. “Then it’s straight back for classes.” Though several inches shorter than TJ, he emitted a power in his presence, highlighted by his tailored black suit.
“Term’s almost over,” TJ remarked. “What brought you back?”
“There