Observing him more closely, she could feel tension returning to her muscles. Switching the ball to her right hand, she bounced it slowly. No fan she’d ever met had a memory like that, at least when it came to women’s basketball. But it would be easy enough to dig through old stats. Watch old footage to get enough details to strike up a conversation.
But for what possible reason?
“Who are you?” she asked bluntly.
He looked surprised. Then, oddly, hurt. A moment later he shrugged and thrust out his hand. “Jerry Muller. Northeast High? We graduated the same year. Well, actually I was a year ahead but was a few credits short. Ended up graduating with your class. That’s probably why you don’t remember me.”
She crossed to give his hand a shake. “That must be it.” That and the fact she’d graduated in a class of over eight hundred.
He smoothed back his thinning brown hair. “I didn’t even know you still lived in Philadelphia. Kind of lost track of you after your knee injury your senior year at Penn State.”
Jerry Muller seemed to have kept pretty close tabs on her for someone whose existence she’d been ignorant of until ten minutes ago.
“I don’t.” Although she’d been born and raised in the city, nothing about Philly had ever felt like home to her. She pointed at her mother’s house. “My mom still lives here.”
He looked poleaxed. She wondered if he were really that good an actor. Normal people didn’t have her innate suspicion of strangers. But then, she hadn’t been normal since she was five.
“Your mother is Hannah? Hannah . . .” He seemed to be waiting for her to supply the last name. When she didn’t, he came up with it on his own. “Hannah Blanchette.” He jerked a thumb at the house next to the drive. “This is my mom’s house. Eleanor Dobson?”
Her defenses lowered a fraction. She’d met the woman only once, but her mother was still heartbroken over her friend’s death. “I’m sorry about your loss.”
“Yeah.” His face fell a little as his gaze lingered on the house. “I only had time to stay long enough in February to make the funeral arrangements. I had a film in production and had to get back. This is the first chance I’ve had to return. Just got in last night. I need to get the house cleaned out so I can put it on the market, but . . . it’s harder than I expected. Going through her things, I mean.”
“I can imagine.” She could, too well. There had been two occasions in the past when she’d feared she’d be doing the same for Hannah. Twice when her latest scumbag husband had nearly beaten the woman to death. After the last time, she’d made sure the man would never harm her mother again. Having her eventually die of old age would be a blessing, after the death she’d barely been delivered from.
But this man wouldn’t understand that. Few would.
“I’ve been using the hoop occasionally.” She gestured toward the battered rim. “Didn’t realize anyone would be around. I won’t bother you again.”
His smile was back. He waved away her response. “No problem. I just wanted to see who was out here. Never expected it to be you, though.” He shook his head. “Chandler the Handler, Big Ten Player of the Year, in my driveway. Wow.”
Embarrassed, she began making her escape. “Thanks for the use of the hoop. Maybe I’ll see you again before you leave.”
His face lit up like a kid’s at Christmas. “That’d be great. I’d like that.”
As she turned to walk swiftly to her mother’s house, it occurred to her that snippets of her past had a way of ambushing her when she least expected it. Basketball was all that had saved her at one time. But she doubted she could go anywhere else in the state and be recognized as a former NCAA all-star athlete.
As memories went, that one seemed harmless, if distant. And she wondered as she walked back into the house when that part of her life had begun to seem so very far away.
“I’m sorry, Nate. Tucker isn’t here.”
A splinter of ice-cold fear pierced his heart. Nate stared hard at Debbie Lipsky’s freckled face and prayed he’d misheard her. “Not here?”
“Kristin came for him about an hour ago.” She looked uncertain. Debbie had been babysitting Tuck for three years. She knew some of the backstory about his mother. “She usually does