Counting on Starlight Read online

  “Well, come on over, we’re about ready to have some dessert.” He clapped the young man on the shoulders.

  “He came to see me.” Maddie gave Liann a triumphant look and raced for the front door. “Be right back, y’all.”

  Liann felt unsettled in the pit of her stomach. Jake Tucker thought he could handle Maddie just fine while she finished school. Maybe last year had been smooth for the Tuckers. But Liann had the feeling that he hadn’t ever tried to corral a teenage girl when boys entered the mix. School started Monday, and with it, a whole new world and Maddie a year older.

  “You ready for the game Friday night, Tim?” Jake and Tim stopped close to where Liann gathered up the color guard equipment. She figured practice was over for the night, what with the young football player showing up.

  “Yep, we’re going to crush the Dawgs.” Tim smacked his fist on one hand. “I’m ready. I know that much.”

  “I assume you’ve applied to colleges already?” Jake asked Tim.

  Tim opened his mouth, but the front door banged open. “Hey! Just had to freshen up. Ms. Rivers and I were practicing after supper.” Maddie stood on the edge of the porch, leaning on one of the supporting poles. Her dark ash brown hair was sleek and straight, a sky blue hairband holding it back. In the space of barely two minutes, she’d also changed into some dark blue capris and a white blouse with a wide ruffled neckline.

  “Hi, Maddie.” Tim wiped his palms on his pants legs.

  “Hi there.” Maddie sauntered down to ground level. “Tim, this is Ms. Rivers. She’s my coach. I can’t wait until opening game. I just wish you could see us perform.”

  “Probably can’t.” The boy glanced at Jake then relaxed. “We’ll be celebrating being ahead at halftime.”

  “That’s the way to think about it,” Jake said. “You two are working very hard this season. I’m proud of both of you.”

  Maddie beamed, and Tim returned the look. Oh, boy. Liann would definitely pray for Jake, then warn him. He was going to have his hands full this fall.

  #

  Jake stepped out onto the turf of Yellowjacket Stadium. The stadium’s lights glowed, even though sunset was still more than an hour away. Time for kickoff in thirty minutes.

  There was nothing like the first home game of the season. The atmosphere crackled with energy as the metal bleachers filled with fans wearing yellow shirts. Restaurants in Starlight might as well shut down during the football game, because the crowd gathered here tonight. The familiar, heady rush of Texas football hit Jake as he scanned the turf stretching one hundred yards in the other direction. And a twinge of nerves too. Somewhere in the stands sat a coaching representative from Kansas Tech.

  “You about ready?” Coach Blann, twenty-five years his elder, had been a fixture in Yellowjackets football for nearly two decades.

  “Yes, sir.” The boys were back in the locker room, whooping it up, tying their cleats, straightening their pads, and waiting for their pep talk and a quick prayer before heading onto the field. They’d enter with a cloud of smoke and the crack of a cannon.

  “We’re going to have a great season. Best ever.” Blann's gaze roamed the bleachers.

  “I’m ready for us to stomp on some Dawgs tonight,” Jake said. He didn’t think about losing, or falling back. Every play sealed up nice and neat, every pass caught. No one would sack Tim Rollins, either. The kid was by far the best quarterback they’d had in recent years and was up for his final season. If he kept improving, one day they might even watch him on the NFL.

  “Listen, Tucker.” Blann strode along the sideline to the nearest of three long yellow plastic benches where the team sat when they weren’t striving to gain yardage. “I haven’t made any official announcement yet, but I turned in my paperwork to the district this week. This will officially be my last season.”

  “We’ll miss you, sir. You’ve made some great contributions to this organization.”

  “I wanted to let you know that I’m recommending that the superintendent and school board appoint you as my replacement. There’ll be red tape and proper paperwork to file, but you’re my top pick. They’ll bat around some names for show, but in the end, I want the job to go to you. You’ve earned it. You’ve been a mentor to these boys, and I know they’ll respond to you.” Blann held up his hand. “I know Kansas is here tonight, and I’m mighty proud of that. But I can’t think of anyone else to be head coach of the ’Jackets.”

  “I—I’m honored.” Jake couldn’t say anything else. He’d be the youngest head coach in the history of Starlight football. This year he planned to keep the State championship in his sights, and he wouldn’t let the team forget it, either.

  “So, think about it. Before you start packing for Kansas and that junior assistant coach position you want.” Blann turned and faced back toward the cinder block structure at the end of the field that housed the locker rooms. “Those boys look up to you. They’ll listen to you without giving you much grief. You’re a symbol of hope to them, that they can put those skills they learn out here on the field to good use in their lives. Boys like Rollins, the world would say are a lost cause. Everybody knows his dad spends more time at the local watering hole than being a father.”

  “I don’t consider him a lost cause. He’s a hard worker, and he’ll be ten times the man his father is someday.” Jake nodded. “Thank you, Coach.” The other night, he’d been glad to see Tim stop by the house. Even if the boy was using it as an excuse to see Maddie, it was yet another chance for Jake to be a positive influence on him. But... Jake wasn’t going to consider staying in Starlight. He wasn’t going to tell Blann that, just yet. And at least when he left, it wouldn't be a surprise.

  The band was starting to file in and arrive, and he spotted Maddie and Liann with the color guard squad. Liann wore simple black track pants topped by a Yellowjackets shirt, but Maddie wore her full costume—white leggings covered with a simple, flowing yellow skirt. Just like Belle’s in the movie, Maddie had said.

  One of the drummers on the line started beating on a bass drum, and the sound set the Yellowjackets fans into a frenzy, humming on their kazoos. The sound almost made Jake laugh every time he heard it—an incessant buzzing that mingled with the cheers. He figured that was as threatening as a Yellowjacket could sound. Considering they were playing the Copperas Cove Bulldawgs tonight, they needed all the buzz they could get.

  Maddie waved at him from across the field and tugged on Liann’s arm. Liann gave a single wave then turned her focus back to directing the girls, pointing to where they should place their equipment.

  The memory of Saturday night had followed Jake all through the week. Part of him wanted to ask Liann out on a real date, but he knew it wouldn’t be fair to her. Plus, she’d been engaged very recently. He wasn’t about to be her consolation prize. So here they were. Also, there was the Kansas Tech recruiter in the stands, holding binoculars.

  Now the cheerleaders ran the length of the home side, waving and doing their back flips. Jake had warned the boys not to be distracted by the girls in black and yellow. They were there to focus on the game. Tonight was for winning, not finding a girlfriend. The game would help them better themselves. When those on either squad started intermingling, distractions could cost them games. Too many games could cost someone their future. Every decision could have lifelong consequences.

  Blann had crossed to where the trainers were setting up the water stations for the home team and was bawling somebody out for something. He respected Blann, but sometimes the man was overly picky. He said he was old school, but Jake didn’t like how he talked about women as if they weren’t quite equal to men. That didn’t set right with Jake. Maddie had told him once that Coach Blann had yelled at her for putting the water cooler on the wrong end of the bench.

  Jake knew if he were head coach around here, things would change. Not the standard of excellence that Blann promoted, but the politics of athletics. Jake wouldn’t play that kind of game. He sucked in a deep breath,
blew it out, then looked at his watch. Time to head back to the locker room.

  He left the field, crossed a small expanse of lawn, and entered the long narrow building. Shouts and locker doors slamming masked the sounds of someone’s iPod.

  Jake whistled through his fingers and banged on the nearest locker with his fist. “Listen up, y’all!” The voices fell silent, and someone turned off the music. “We’re about ready to go. The Dawgs are tough, but they haven’t felt the Yellowjackets sting!” The boys roared in response. Jake felt the eyes of the kings of Starlight’s gridiron on him.

  Coach Blann stepped forward. “Boys, let’s take a knee b’fore we head out.”

  The boys in their black and yellow jerseys each sank to the floor on one knee, their helmets clutched in one hand.

  “Let’s bow our heads.”

  Jake felt the hush sweep through the locker room. Sure, they prayed before the games. It was tradition. It was Texas football. He didn’t know what all the boys believed, but he always prayed they sensed God’s presence in that room, that Someone much bigger than them took joy in their sportsmanship.

  He remembered a moment during his senior year when an ordinary game turned into one that changed his life and firmly cemented his childhood faith. Over the years, he'd found himself the new kid in school. When he bowed his head as the captain prayed, back then he felt God's presence, and knew God was with him in Starlight. Everything would be okay. The memory made his throat catch even now as they waited for Coach Blann to pray. God, with him in Starlight... But that didn’t mean he was supposed to stay, because God was in Kansas too.

  The boys rose up after the student-led prayer and started clapping each other’s backs and fastening helmets.

  “Coach Tucker, talk to us.” Coach Blann looked at him. The clock was ticking closer to seven-thirty and kickoff.

  Jake cleared his throat. “This is our first game of the season, but you play like it’s your last game. You seniors are looking ahead to graduation. You’re not graduating tonight. Some of you are thinking of that girl who’ll be waiting for you after the game. You’re not getting married tonight. You’re not cleaning your room or mowing your lawn. Tonight’s not about homework, or the television show you’re missing. Tonight, you are Yellowjackets. If you were to walk off the field tonight, and never go back on, what are you going to leave behind you?” The hum from the overhead lights accented his words. The undertones of the bass drums outside and the faint roar from the stands drifted through the windows near the ceiling. “Be all in tonight. Be here tonight. Be the kind of player that those younger boys out there should be watching.” He nodded at Coach Blann.

  “Let’s go sting some Dawgs!” Blann growled.

  Jake had more flickers of memory from more than ten years ago, going out there in the same uniform. The years had flown, and Coach Blann had turned from his coach into his colleague. Jake and Coach Blann and the rest of the staff followed the team to the waiting area.

  The cheers and screams rose up as the team waited inside the inflated black-and-yellow striped tunnel, with a paper barrier blocking them from the field ahead.

  “And now let’s call this fall’s team out onto the field—the Starrrrlight Yellowjacketssss!” The team tore through the paper barrier and spilled out of the tunnel. Jake brought up the rear with the rest of the coaching staff and trainers as they ran the gauntlet of cheerleaders and the performance dance troupe, the Honeybees.

  He blocked everything else out—the buzz of the kazoos, the clicking of the telephoto lenses, the band playing the “Anthem to Starlight” that everyone knew by heart. Even the knowledge that Liann sat with her squad in the bleachers next to the band. Tonight was for Tim and the rest of the boys of Starlight.

  Then came the national anthem and the school's anthem to Starlight. He couldn’t believe he’d been in those boys’ cleats not so long ago. So much had changed for him since then, but the surroundings remained the same.

  A Kansas Tech ball cap at the edge of the stands caught his eyes. “C’mon boys,” he said to no one in particular. “Let’s show ’em what we’ve got.”

  Chapter 8

  “People are staring,” Liann said as she and Aunt Chin Mae walked into The Pit for breakfast on Saturday morning.

  “Of course they stare. You do something that no one has done in many years.” Her aunt smiled as she waved across the restaurant to an older woman with copper-red hair, sitting in a booth. “Even though the Yellowjackets lose to those Dawgs last night, we hold our heads high because of the band show. The Starlight band just as good as the Pride of Cove, who always wins the Central Texas marching contest.”

  Liann studied the faces in the room to see if anyone looked familiar. Starlight’s barbecue hot spot opened for down-home country breakfasts. Liann was sure she’d need to work out double time to keep her arteries from clogging if she ate here too often. Framed autographed photographs of celebrities lined the wall behind the register. Elvis Presley was one of them, wearing an Army uniform from the time he was stationed nearby at what was once Camp Hood.

  She yawned. She’d never forget last night. The band and color guard’s halftime performance had shoved the crowd into a cheering frenzy that carried into the second half, but the excitement was not enough to spur the Yellowjackets on to a win. She and the girls, however, had flown on a giddy enthusiasm as a result of their role in the halftime show. Maddie had been brilliant with her rifle skills, even though she dropped her flag once during the opening movement.

  Last night’s loss had to have hurt Jake. Liann scanned the booths and tables. Maybe he stayed home to figure out what went wrong. But if he were here, she’d tell him not to blame himself. Sometimes, you just had a bad night.

  Aunt Chin Mae led her over to the redheaded lady. “Azalea, I got Ms. Sleepy-Do to join us.”

  “Hey, it’s been a long week.” Liann laughed.

  “Hi, I’m Azalea Bush,” the redhead said. “You’ve met my husband Herb already.”

  “Liann Rivers.”

  “So you’re the sweet young lady I’ve been hearing all about.” Azalea smiled warmly, her blue eyes sparkling. “We hope you love Starlight and plan to stay here a long time.”

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here. At least for this fall.”

  “She dumped her fiancé.” Aunt Chin Mae clucked her tongue. “Just in time, too. So she come here, and I’m glad. She has a new boyfriend now.”

  Liann shook her head. “No, not exactly.” Not if he was chasing a dream of coaching a Big Twelve team—a dream that would take him away from Starlight.

  “Anyway, you ought to meet Tamarind Brown.” Azalea glanced across the room. “Tam! Hey, come meet someone.”

  A lanky brunette with long curly hair and light, cinnamon-toned skin said a few words to one table’s occupants then ambled toward them. “Hey, Aunt Zalea.”

  “Tamarind, this is Liann Rivers, Chin Mae’s niece.” Azalea gestured to Liann. “She teaches at the high school. Just moved here.”

  “Well, I’m really glad to meet you.” Tamarind’s green eyes were vivid in her tawny face. “I heard that was an awesome halftime show last night. Wish I hadn’t missed it.”

  “Thanks. And it’s nice to meet you, too.”

  “Tam!” A voice called from the kitchen.

  “Hang on,” Tamarind called over her shoulder. “I need to run. You two want coffee?”

  Liann nodded. “Sounds great to me.”

  “I’ll send some over.” Tamarind sped off toward the kitchen, Azalea watching her.

  “Sweet, sweet girl.” Azalea sighed. “We need to find someone for her, especially after what happened with Billy. But she’s so gun-shy. She’s a good girl, too. Goes to church and knows her Jesus. Doesn’t go hitting the nightclubs looking for a soldier.”

  “What happened with Billy?” The words flew from Liann’s mouth. Here she sat, with two of the town’s biddies, and she was letting them assimilate her into their problem-solving club.r />
  “Oh... Let’s just say it wasn’t meant to be between them. I know she wanted it to be, though.” Another sigh from Azalea.

  “She’s going away soon,” said Aunt Chin Mae. “Culinary school. I think she’s going to come back here and buy The Pit. Her parents are helping her.”

  “Good for her,” said Azalea.

  “Coffees?” A waitress stopped at the table with two steaming mugs.

  “Right here.” Aunt Chin Mae tapped the table in front of her, and the waitress set the mugs down. “Now, Liann. What about you? Did you work things out with Jake?”

  Liann found the cream and doctored her coffee. “No.... But there’s nothing to work out, really. I do like him, but he has his goals, and I have mine. I don’t think they’re the same.”

  “Give it time, Hon,” Azalea said, patting her hand. “Those Tucker boys make up their mind, and there’s nothing changing it except an act of God. So let God do His thing.”

  “That sounds great to me. I’m going to keep busy with work.” She had the feeling if she sat here long enough, the two older women would figure out the rest of her life for her too. Sweet ladies. But she’d had enough of other people thinking they knew what was best for her.

  “Who’s that?” Azalea stared toward The Pit’s entryway. “He definitely ain’t from around here.”

  Liann and Aunt Chin Mae looked in the direction of Azalea’s stare. A male figure, backlit by the sun. He lifted an arm to his face, pulling off a pair of sunglasses. Matt? Liann ducked lower onto the cushioned seat, trying to use her aunt’s body to block his view of her.

  #

  Jake cast the fishing line into the center of the river, and the loose line drifted on the breeze. He had enough shade here from the late morning sun. His visit with Liann to the river last Saturday reminded him of how much he enjoyed fishing. A man could do a lot of thinking while waiting for a bite. Or no thinking at all.

  The Kansas coaching scout never made it down to the field, and Jake’s phone didn’t ring, either. Of course, last night’s loss still dug into him, and that pain and aggravation overshadowed any disappointment over what didn’t happen with the scout.