Five hours later, Shay was still getting over the shock of seeing her twin standing in her doorway. Julianne had departed shortly after Teryn arrived, saying she needed to get back to Owen. The two sisters finished the small amount of packing relatively quickly. Shay's belongings fit into five small boxes. Everything else she was leaving to Goodwill.

"Don't you have to cheer this weekend?" Shay asked.

"It's an away game." Teryn peeled the pepperoni off her slice of pizza.

"But what about work?"

Teryn dabbled in modeling and she made some appearance money as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, but not enough to support her. To make ends meet, she worked as a receptionist for a celebrity dentist in Dallas while she was putting herself through hygienist school.

"Lordy, Shay, what's with the twenty questions? I do get vacation days, you know." She poured herself a Diet c.o.ke.

"It's just that I thought you'd rather spend your vacation doing something other than a three-day road trip with me."

"I've never been on a road trip with you. It might be fun."

Shay doubted three days in her cramped Corolla with her sister would be fun. The two girls had seen each other rarely these past seven years. After graduating high school early at seventeen, Shay had taken her swim scholarship and finished undergraduate school and earning her master's degree in four years. During that time, Teryn had been homecoming queen, prom queen, and fifth runner-up for Miss Texas. While Shay was slaving away in graduate school, trying to help Mama, Teryn had been parading around in short-shorts and pom-poms enjoying the good life.

Now, she'd suddenly shown up here in Baltimore in an act of supposed sisterly love. Shay wasn't buying a word of it.

"Who paid for your plane ticket?"

Teryn jumped up from the small card table, tossing her half-eaten dinner into the trash.

"Jesus, Shay! Am I so incapable that I can't even afford a plane ticket? Or do you think I batted my eyelashes and shook my girls in front of some sugar daddy and he gave me the plane fare?"

"That's not what I meant." Except it was and a twinge of guilt began to unfurl in Shay's belly.

"I don't know why I bother. You're just as bad as Meemaw."

Those were fighting words. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me." Teryn marched over to the door, where her overnight bag was. "All my life, do you know what I've had to listen to? Why can't you be as smart as your sister? G.o.d gave your sister all the common sense and you the b.o.o.bs. You're not going to amount to anything other than a rich man's trophy wife, while your sister is going to be the CEO of a company someday. No one ever gives me credit for having a single thought in my head that's my own because of your big egghead!" She jabbed a toothbrush at Shay. "Thanks to you, I'm just a dumb, washed-up beauty queen. At twenty-four! While you're a PhD. You open your mouth to speak and people actually listen instead of staring at your b.o.o.bs!"

Astonished, Shay contemplated what her sister said as Teryn charged into the bathroom and vigorously brushed her teeth. Apparently, their Meemaw hadn't discriminated in her narcissism. But that wasn't Shay's fault.

"Hey," she yelled at her sister over the electric toothbrush. "Don't you dare blame me for the things she said to you! She was doing the exact same thing to me, you know. G.o.d gave your sister all the beauty, and when he got to you, there was nothing left but ugly. It's a good thing you have a brain, because otherwise we'd have to put a bag over your big head."

Tears were streaming down her face now. Teryn spit into the sink before turning to pull Shay into her arms, the two of them gulping in sobs.

"I hated when everybody made a fuss over me and they ignored you. I swear it. I did," Teryn cried. "But I was young and felt so inferior to you, that I . . . I didn't know how to stop it."

They slid down the wall to the floor where they sat holding each other.

"Do you think Mama knew how she treated us?" Teryn asked when their sobs had subsided somewhat.

"I think Mama was in a fog for so long. She was all alone after Daddy's accident and betrayal. There were medical bills and legal bills, not to mention child support. And she had no one to help her. What choice did she have but to leave us in Meemaw's care? She had to make a success of the salon."

"She should have divorced Daddy."

Shay looked at her sister in stunned silence. Teryn had always been Daddy's girl.

"I know," Teryn said. "She can't divorce him while he's incapacitated. But still, I hate what he did to our family. And we have a brother out there who's living large, while our Mama works her fingers to the bone. I swear I'm never going to give a man that kind of power over me."

"What do you mean by that?"

Teryn shrugged her shoulders. "You can't get hurt if you don't ever give a man your heart."

Shay's own heart clenched. She knew all too well what kind of trauma a woman could suffer when she gave a man her heart. Something must have shown in her eyes because Teryn pulled her in close again.

"Oh, baby, you fell in love with him, didn't you?"

She didn't bother denying it, instead letting the tears fall on her twin's shoulder.

"When I saw pictures of the two of you, he looked at you as if he felt the same way. And that was most definitely not pretending. h.e.l.l's bells, in most of the pictures he looked at you as if he were going to gobble you up. But not in the same way men look at me. It was almost . . . almost as if he couldn't believe how lucky he was to have you."

Shay sobbed harder as her sister stroked her hair.

"And that idiot was lucky to have you," Teryn went on to say. "Because you are smart and beautiful." She pushed back to an arm's length. "Well, not at the moment. Right now you look horrible. But we're gonna fix that in a jiffy. When I get through with you, we're going to parade you around Baltimore and make that boy sorry he pretended anything."

Shay pushed to her feet, stabbing at the tears on her face. "We're leaving, remember. I have to get home and get ready for my new job."

Teryn got to her feet behind her. "That's another thing. How come you get to play martyr and rescue Mama? No one asked me to help."

She turned to see Teryn with her hands on her hips, genuinely angry.

Baffled, Shay tried to make her words not sound harsh. "You're still establishing your career. How can you help?"

"I've been offered a quarter of a million dollars to pose for Playboy," Teryn said swiftly, looking everywhere in the room but at Shay.

"Teryn!" Shay hissed. "You can't do that!"

"Who says? Apparently that's all I'm good for. I'll get kicked off the squad for sure, but I'm pretty much aging out anyway. Thanks to that blogger, I have a little notoriety. Why shouldn't I make a little money to help Mama?"

"Because you don't want to, that's why," Shay argued.

"Do you want to work in a prison?"

The room was quiet for a moment as they both stared at one another, the enormity of the decision weighing on them. There was no way Shay was going to let her sister pose for Playboy. Mama would be humiliated. But Teryn very much wanted to be a part of the solution and Shay didn't want to shatter the fragile bond they were reforming.

"Remember how we used to decide who got the last Popsicle in the box or the last cookie?" Shay asked.

"You wanna flip a coin?" Teryn's face was incredulous.

Shay smiled as she thought of those days gone by. "Yeah. We'll flip for it. It's the fairest way."

Teryn sighed as she reached for her purse. "I guess so. But one flip. Winner gets to be the martyr."

"Deal. But not here. We'll do it under the magnolia tree behind the house, just like always."

"You wanna wait until we get home?" Teryn asked.

"Yep. That way we can enjoy the road trip."

Her sister broke out into a wide grin. "I'm in."

They dug in to the pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream they'd bought earlier at Santoni's as they caught up on their lives. Teryn had a vast circle of friends in Dallas and she was excited to have Shay be a part of it. Thanks to her time with Brody-and Julianne's tutoring-Shay didn't feel apprehensive at all about joining in. Perhaps going home to Texas wouldn't be so bad after all. Later that night as the twins crawled into bed, their hands automatically linked together as they had for so many years when they'd slept together as girls, and Shay finally believed she'd survive life after Brody.

Brody's house had been infested. By his own family. His mother had insisted on monitoring his condition and nothing short of a nuclear holocaust was going to stop her. Gwen and Ashley had descended upon him with the intent of decorating his house for the holidays.

"Really, n.o.body sees this place but me," he told them over breakfast-a meal his mother was closely supervising. "Why do you have to go to all this trouble of putting up this junk?"

"So you'll have some Christmas spirit, Mr. Grinch," Gwen said as she hung a heavily scented wreath on the mantel.

"I don't need any Christmas spirit. I just need my house back," Brody grumbled. Secretly, however, he was relieved to have other people around distracting him. Bridgett had gone back to Boston, her pretrial work complete. His home was quiet without her popping in unexpectedly all the time. And without Shannon.

There was nothing left of her in his house any longer. Her smell was gone from his pillow. Her spreadsheets no longer littered his kitchen table. There weren't any containers with Post-it Notes in the fridge any longer. It was almost as if she'd never been there. Until he went to bed at night; then the memories crowded into the room with him so that he couldn't sleep.

"Try not to get carried away, ladies," he warned. "You are all quick to fly down here to put this c.r.a.p up, but I always get stuck with taking it down."

"Go to practice, Brody, and leave us to our fun," his mother said. "And make sure you keep an eye on your sugar."

Brody didn't need to keep an eye on his d.a.m.n sugar levels because everyone else in the world was too busy doing it for him. He barely got through an hour of practice before someone-Nate, the team physician, one of the coaching staff-was checking his readings. h.e.l.l, even Jay McMa.n.u.s, the Blaze owner's G.o.dson, was having him monitored.

"It'll all blow over after a few games, Brody," Roscoe told him as they walked from the practice field to the training center. "Just let them rea.s.sure themselves that you're not going to keel over on the field. It'll make the contract extension talks go more smoothly if they feel like they have some control over the situation."

"Control over the situation or control over me?"

Roscoe chuckled ominously. "Right now, the two are one in the same. If you want to play football, you'll deal with it."

Nate didn't let up the entire road trip to Miami, following Brody around like a mad scientist collecting his urine and drops of blood. Not for the first time, Brody cursed his former trainer for his big mouth. The other night, when Bridgett had forced him to finally put the pieces together, Brody had been numb. He'd spent twelve hours thinking he was betrayed by another lover, only to find out it was his friend. And Erik hadn't even sold him out for money. It was just another reason why Brody couldn't trust anyone with his secrets. His future looked lonely, but it beat the alternative.

Fortunately, the weather in Florida was a lot more hospitable than it had been in Denver. Brody snagged two touchdowns and DeShawn ran for over a hundred yards to carry the Blaze past the Dolphins. The flight back to Baltimore was festive with Christmas carols and talk of the playoffs.

Devlin took the seat beside Brody, a groan escaping his lips as he eased into the seat.

"You gonna make it through the season, old man?" Brody teased. The quarterback had taken a few punishing licks today when one of the offensive lineman had gone down.

"Yeah, I'll be just fine if you can remember to block when you're told to."

Brody shot his teammate his killer grin. "Dude, I caught what you threw to me-even the wobbly ones-and I didn't miss a single block." It was true. His game had been on fire this afternoon.

"None of my pa.s.ses were wobbly, dumba.s.s. Anything that came into your hands less than perfect was tipped at the line."

"Whatever you say, old man." Brody had enormous respect for Shane Devlin and he'd be truly sorry to see the quarterback hang up his spikes. But he knew that day was coming and he couldn't resist teasing his friend when he could.

"Hey, that little boy, Maddox. Do you have his address?" Devlin asked.

"Sure. Why?"

"I promised him an autographed jersey. He wanted it to send to his father for Christmas. I totally forgot about it with the baby coming early. I want to get it to him so his mom can send it out. Hopefully, it will get there in time."

Brody felt a little miffed that Maddox hadn't asked him for a jersey. He'd already sent b.a.l.l.s and Blaze caps to the boy's father's unit. But Devlin had been the Super Bowl MVP. If anything, Brody should feel a little guilty about how he treated the boy the night of Shannon's party.

"Just give it to me. I'll take it to him," he heard himself saying.

Devlin stared him down, but Brody wasn't some rookie receiver.

"Dude, you don't trust me to take a kid a stinking jersey?"

"It's not the kid or the jersey I'm worried about. It's whether or not I trust you to do it without messing with his neighbor again."

Brody blew out a breath. "Shannon and I are fine."

It was Devlin who blew out the breath now. "Look, Brody, don't make my mistake-"

"Jeez, Devlin, I didn't know you made mistakes," Brody said trying to fend off another lecture.

"Stop being a wisea.s.s and listen to what I have to tell you. I was so caught up in thinking about my football career that I nearly lost Carly-twice; the second time to some joker's bullet. If there's something there between you and Shay, don't throw it away because of a d.a.m.n game. Or, worse, your stupid pride."

"Like I've told you and everyone else, there's nothing between Shannon and me." His teeth nearly ground to dust in his head as he said it. "Now, do you want me to take Maddox the jersey or not?"

Devlin shook his head with a disgusted sigh. "Sure, Brody. Take the jersey. Just don't trip and fall with those thick blinders on." He clicked on his iPad and focused his eyes on the screen.

It was Monday afternoon before Brody made it to Shannon's apartment complex. A hodgepodge of Christmas lights decorated the railings outside the various apartments, already lit up as dusk fell. He knocked on the door of Maddox's apartment and the boy pulled the door open.

"What have I told you about opening the door to strangers?" Brody chastised the boy. It was a familiar refrain between the two, but today, instead of cheering in excitement at the sight of him, the boy's eyes were wary.

"Brody!" Jackie's greeting was more cheerful as she came out of the small kitchenette, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. "What are you doing here?"

He lifted the two shopping bags. "Christmas gifts. Although one was a special request to be sent to Afghanistan, so I hope it's not too late. Devlin got a little wrapped up in his new baby and he's behind in getting it to you."

Maddox inched toward the bag and peered in. "Whoa! Is that the jersey?"

"Signed by the MVP himself."

"Oh, Brody. That's so sweet. Tony will be thrilled. But Maddox will be able to give it to him in person." Jackie's face lit up in delight. "He's coming home on Christmas Eve."

"Hey, that's terrific. I bet you're excited to see your dad again, huh, Maddox."

"Yep. And we're moving to Texas. So we're going to see Shay." The boy's chin went up a notch as if to say "up yours." Brody would have laughed at the kid's bravado if he wasn't feeling a touch of jealousy. Crouching down on his knees, he looked Maddox in the eye and smiled. "I'm glad, little dude. Because that will make her happy. And it will make me happy knowing you'll be there taking care of her."

The boy's chest puffed out. "Whatcha got in the other bag?"

"Oh, that. It's just something I thought you'd like."