She served the tea and pound cake, and sat down across from him, clasping her hands on the table. He looked at those tiny hands, remembering the bright yellow rubber gloves she’d had on the day he moved in and recalling one of the rare times he hadn’t avoided her touch. He’d had the flu. Sitting on the edge of his bed, she’d laid her palm against his forehead, testing it for fever. Her hand had been soft and cool, and to this day he remembered how good it had felt against his burning skin. To her it had been an instinctual thing to do, but until then, Griff hadn’t known that was what moms did when children complained of feeling sick.

Ellie and Coach had never had children. The reason for that was never explained to him, and even as a teenager he’d had the sensitivity not to ask. Maybe her childlessness had factored into her welcoming that surly and sarcastic boy into her home.

She hadn’t smothered him with motherly affection, which she’d sensed, correctly, that he would have rejected. But with the merest signal from him, she made herself available. She would lend an ear if he wanted to talk through a problem. In a thousand small and subtle ways she had demonstrated the maternal tenderness she obviously felt for him. He could see it in her eyes now.

“It’s good to see you, Ellie. Good to be here.”

“I’m so glad you came. Did you get my letters?”

“Yes, and I appreciated them. More than you know.”

“Why didn’t you write back?”

“I couldn’t find the words. I-” He shrugged helplessly. “I just couldn’t, Ellie. And I didn’t want to cause a rift between Coach and you. He didn’t know you wrote to me, did he?”

She sat up straighter and said smartly, “It’s not up to him what I do or don’t do. I make up my own mind about things.”

Griff smiled. “I know you do, but I also know you support Coach. The two of you are a team.”

She had the grace not to argue that.

“I knew how pissed he was,” Griff said. “He tried to warn me against setting myself up for a big fall. I didn’t listen.”

He distinctly remembered the day that their steadily declining relationship was finally severed. Coach had been waiting for him at his car after practice. The Cowboys’ coaching staff knew Coach Miller well, knew how influential he’d been on their starting quarterback, and always welcomed seeing him.

Griff didn’t. Their conversations had grown increasingly contentious. Coach had no quarrel with his performance on the football field, but he didn’t approve of much else, such as the rate at which Griff went through money.

Griff wanted to know the point of having it if you couldn’t spend it. “You’d be wise to put aside some for a rainy day,” Coach told him. Griff ignored the advice.

Coach also disapproved of the pace of his life. He cautioned Griff against burning the candle at both ends, particularly during the off-season, when he got sloppy with his workouts and kept late hours in the glossy nightclubs of Dallas and Miami, where he’d bought a beachfront condo.

“Discipline got you where you are,” Coach said. “You’ll sink fast if you don’t maintain that discipline. In fact, it should be more rigid now than before.”

Yeah, yeah, Griff thought. He figured Coach’s dissatisfaction was based on jealousy. He no longer had control over the decisions Griff made or the way he lived his life, and that rankled the older man. While Griff appreciated everything Coach had done for him, he was old school in his thinking. His strict lessons no longer applied. Coach had got him where he was, but now that he was here, it was time to cut the apron strings.

Griff began distancing himself. Their visits became less frequent. He rarely returned his mentor’s phone calls. So he wasn’t happy to see Coach that day he ambushed Griff at his car. With his typical tactlessness, Coach came straight to the point. “I’m worried about your new associates.”

“‘New associates’?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Griff.”

He could only have been talking about the Vista boys, and Griff wondered how Coach knew about them. But then, he’d rarely been able to sneak something past the man. Coach’s vigilance had been a pain in the butt when Griff was a teenager. It was a bigger pain now that he was a grown-up. “You’re the one always harping on me to make friends. I’ve made some friends. Now you don’t like them.”

“I don’t like you getting too friendly with these guys.”

“Why? What’s wrong with them?”

“In my view, they’re a little too shiny.”

Griff guffawed. “‘Shiny’?”

“Slick. Slippery. I don’t trust them. You should check them out.”

“I don’t snoop on my friends.” Looking Coach straight in the eye, he said what he hoped would end the discussion. “I don’t go poking my nose into other people’s business.”

Coach didn’t take the hint. “Make an exception. Do some snooping.”

“What for?”

“See what they’re really about. How do they pay for those fancy limos and chauffeurs?”

“They’re businessmen.”

“What’s their business?”

“A tin mine in South America.”

“Tin mine, my ass. No miner I ever knew needed a bodyguard.”

Griff had heard enough. “Look, I don’t care how they pay for the limos. I like the limos and the chauffeurs, not to mention the private jets and the pussy they get me free for the asking. So why don’t you go away and leave me the hell alone? Okay?”

Coach did just that. It was the last conversation they’d had.

Griff looked at Ellie now and shook his head sadly. “I thought I was smarter than him. Smarter than everybody. When I got caught, Coach denounced me. I didn’t blame him. I understood why he washed his hands of me.”

“You broke his heart.”

He gave her a sharp look. She nodded and repeated solemnly, “You broke his heart, Griff.” Then she laughed lightly. “Of course, he was pissed, too.”

“Yeah, well, it’s probably just as well he’s not here. If he was, I doubt I’d have been invited in for cake.”

“Honestly, I doubt it, too.”

“I knew I took a chance by coming.”

“Why did you? I’m delighted. But why did you come?”

He left the table and moved to the counter. He took a black-eyed pea from the brown paper sack, held the pod between his thumbs and split it open, then shook the peas into the stainless steel bowl. He tossed the empty pod back into the sack.

“I keep hurting people, and I don’t want to.”

“Then stop doing it.”

“I don’t mean to. I just do.”

“How?”

“Just by being me, Ellie. Just by being me.” He turned and rested his hips against the counter, crossed his ankles, folded his arms over his chest, and studied the toes of his boots. They needed another shine. “I’m destructive. It seems to be the curse of my life.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

His head came up, and he looked across at her.

“Stop crying in your beer and tell me what’s going on. Who’s been hurt?”

“An acquaintance. She was hurt bad on account of me. No other reason, just because of her association with me.”

“I’m sorry for that, but it doesn’t sound like it was your fault.”

“Feels like it was. It goes back to…” He gestured as though saying, back then. “There’s this guy. Ever since my release, he’s been right here,” he said, holding his palm inches from his nose. “He’s got it in for me, and he’s not going to go away until I’m dust under his heel.”

Griff had kept one eye on his rearview mirror the whole time he’d been driving here. He’d taken a circuitous route, too, doubling back several times, to make certain he wasn’t being tailed by either Rodarte or somebody Rodarte had hired to follow him.

Of course Rodarte would know where the Millers lived. If he’d wanted to get to Griff by harming them, he would have done so. Griff supposed Rodarte didn’t consider Coach as vulnerable as Marcia. The idea of coming up against Coach might even scare him. And it should.