What a Girl Wants. Amy Vastine

weather history, Hurricane Nadine raged and whipped across the water. It maxed out at wind speeds of eighty-five miles per hour. No one in Abilene would ever know about it because all they cared about were Travis Lockwood’s thoughts on the Dallas Cowboys’ preseason.

      The lights were low in the newsroom when Summer finally dared to show her face. All the producers and writers had gone home for the night. Ken’s office was lit up behind drawn shades. He was likely congratulating himself with a glass of his secret whiskey he only broke out on special occasions. Still feeling defeated, Summer shut down her computer and picked up her bag and umbrella.

      “You heading home?”

      She jumped. Travis was leaning against the wall across from the elevators, somehow still managing to look as if he just stepped off the pages of GQ.

      “It’s about that time, I guess.” She fiddled with her umbrella, spinning it on its pointy tip.

      “You really can tell when it’s going to rain? Even when the computers say differently?”

      “What do computers really know?” Summer shot back. “Sometimes I think people have forgotten how to trust those feelings we all get. That tickle on the back of your neck right before something bad happens. The knot in your gut when something’s not right. The way your heart tells you to stay or go.”

      The elevator arrived and the doors opened. Travis pushed off the wall and followed Summer inside. “Hearts can be fickle. Hard to trust,” he said. His eyes stayed focused on the numbers above the door as they lit up.

      “True.” Summer’s heart had played a trick or two on her before. “But usually we aren’t listening close enough.”

      Travis nodded. That storm inside him had done some damage, that much was clear.

      “So, was reporting about sports all you imagined it would be?” she asked as they reached the bottom floor. The doors opened and they made their way to the exit.

      “I thought those who can’t play can at least talk about it. Turns out it’s harder than people like you make it look.”

      “You did fine,” she said, to be polite.

      “I was terrible.”

      Summer couldn’t argue with his self-assessment. She almost felt bad for him until he held open the door for her and took note of the very dry parking lot.

      “I don’t know, Weather Girl. I think you might be losing your touch.”

      Summer couldn’t hold back her grin as the thunder rumbled overhead. She opened her big red umbrella and stepped outside. The skies let go, raindrops sending tiny dust clouds into the air where they hit the pavement. “What was that?” she asked. She cupped her ear with her free hand. “I can’t hear you over the rain and thunder.”

      “Aren’t you going to offer to walk me to my car?” he shouted as she slowly backed away.

      “I think you might be losing your touch, Lady-killer.” She picked up the pace. “Good night!”

      It wasn’t a tornado, but watching Travis Lockwood get soaked to the bone as he ran to his fancy black sports car kind of made Summer’s day.

      CHAPTER TWO

      TRAVIS WAS HALFWAY out the door for his morning run when his phone rang. It was his mother, and he knew better than to ignore the call.

      “Hey, Mom. Did you watch last night?”

      “Did I watch last night? Of course I did! You were so great.” Her definition of “great” must have been skewed by motherly devotion. “Your aunt Kelly called me right away to say you looked so handsome. And I just got off the phone with your brother. He thought you did super. Well, except he disagrees with your opinion of the Cowboys’ defense, but you know Conner. He’s decided the Texans are the only team in the state worth watching this year.”

      “What did Dad have to say?” Travis feared the answer but asked anyway. His father’s opinion was never affected by silly emotion.

      His mother paused. Not a good sign. “You know your father. He was so tired last night and was asleep before the news came on. I recorded it, though. I’ll make sure he watches.”

      His dad hadn’t even bothered to watch. Travis was used to hearing his father’s long list of things he needed to work on before the next game, but complete apathy was something he hadn’t expected. Postgame criticism never hurt this badly. Was this what he had to look forward to? Disappointment masked as indifference?

      Travis was having a hard enough time dealing with his own disappointment. His football career was over before it had truly had a chance to begin. One and a half seasons; that was all he got before a Chicago Bears linebacker sacked him and reinjured his shoulder. Playing football was all he knew. Since he was six years old, Travis had worked endless hours to be the best quarterback to come out of Texas. His father had been his coach until he was twelve. Then his parents hired the first private quarterback coach. The expectations were high and the pressure increased exponentially over time. Outside of football, his dad apparently had no expectations of him.

      “Listen, Mom. I was about to head out for a run before work. I’ll call you in a couple of days, all right?”

      “Sounds good. Don’t worry about your dad, honey. Training camp started and he’s in mourning, I guess. But he’ll come around. You’ll see. We love you, Travis. You know that.”

      “I know. Love you, too. Gotta run.” He hung up and pushed his earbuds in, turning up the music good and loud. Travis never doubted his mother’s love. The woman had doted on him his entire life regardless of how he did on the field. His father’s love always felt more conditional. When the doctors informed them Travis’s shoulder injury was career-ending, he had seen the look on his father’s face. All the work, all the time, all the money he’d put into Travis was wasted. All his father’s hopes and dreams died that day.

      Mourning. His dad was mourning more than training camp.

      Travis tried to clear his mind as he ran. He welcomed the burn in his legs and the ache in his chest as he hit the six-mile mark. The air was still a little thick from the rain last night, though there was no sign of it on the pavement. Travis shook his head at the memory of the girl with the red umbrella running to her car. Summer Raines. That girl was unusual, to say the least.

      Women loved Travis. Back in high school and college, they lined up to get nothing more than a minute of his time.And his year and a half in the NFL? He could have dated a different woman every week.

      He didn’t do that, though. He had one girlfriend in high school, went out with a couple of girls in college and found himself a pretty lady who wanted to marry him during his first year with the Dolphins. But Brooke went running for the hills as soon as she found out Travis Lockwood wasn’t going to be the next Dan Marino.

      Fickle hearts. Stupid, fickle hearts.

      Losing his career was tough. Losing faith in the person he thought was his true love was devastating. Travis’s life had been on a nice, straight path, then all of a sudden it took a very sharp right. Then a left, before he spun out. Now he didn’t know which direction he was headed. He was alone and unsure if that was the way it should be. After Brooke took his ring and stomped on his heart, trust would never come easily to him again.

      Six months after his last football game, Travis picked up the pieces of his broken heart and his busted shoulder and returned to Sweetwater to start over. He was still loved throughout West Central Texas even if he couldn’t play ball anymore. Everybody knew who he was and still thought he was worth something. Ken Collins thought he was worth something. He called Travis up and asked if he wanted to use that communications degree he’d earned. Sportscasting wasn’t Travis’s dream job, but hell, neither was football. Football had simply been his only option. When he couldn’t play anymore, reporting on it seemed like a decent alternative— at least until Travis could figure out what he really wanted to do with his life.