Read Online One Track Mind by Bethany Campbell - Free Book Online Page A

Charlotte. A kid from here got in touch with me. A basketball player.”
    She looked at him in surprise. “Roman McCandless? You worked with Roman McCandless?”
    McCandless was the most famous person ever to come out of Halesboro. He was six feet ten inches tall, and some said the best small forward in decades. He was a great player, and Halesboro had renamed a street for him.
    Kane allowed himself a crooked grin. “My first client. My agency was going to sell him short. Literally. I told him,‘Don’t sign. it. You can do better.’ He said, ‘Can you help me?’ And, all of a sudden, I was an agent.”
    “And one client led to another?”
    “North Carolina produces good roundball players. I got a reputation for treating them right. Then a NASCAR driver asked me to represent him. I branched out.”
    “I don’t think anybody here ever knew that you and Roman worked together,” she mused.
    “It’s only in the movies that people know the names of sports agents,” Kane said. “Besides, Rome’s family left here. They went to Florida. They’ve both passed on now.”
    “I’m sorry to hear it,” she said. “But you have NASCAR connections, too? Who?”
    “The best known’s probably Kent Grosso.”
    “Kent Grosso?” she cried. “The 2007 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion?”
    “And Dean Grosso,” he added.
    “The 2008 champion?” she asked in disbelief.
    “Yeah. Those wins helped pay for the sports car.”
    “The sports car,” she said, with a little frown. “I think I ought to talk to you about that. I mean, isn’t it sort of—”
    “Over the top? Yeah. That’s why I like it. What? You think it’s ostentatious?”
    “Actually, the word that came to mind is gauche. But ostentatious will do.”
    He gave a harsh sigh of frustration. “You’re still sassy. Life hasn’t knocked that out of you.”
    She wasn’t so sure. She said nothing.
    Clara came to the booth and thudded down two tall glasses of tea, then left.
    Kane stared at his but didn’t touch it. He said, “I heard about your mother. I’m sorry.”
    She took a deep, painful breath. Her mother had died of a heart attack ten years after Kane left town. There’d been no warning—none. That morning Kitty Simmons had played two sets of tennis. She came home, changed her clothes, satdown in the living room with the newspaper and died, her pen in hand, the newspaper crossword puzzle half-finished.
    “It happened fast,” Lori said. “The doctor said she didn’t suffer. I’m just sorry nobody was with her. I don’t know what happened to your mother after she left here. Is she all right?”
    “Brenda? I’ve got no idea where she is or how she is,” he said coldly.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be,” he said.
    “You could hire someone to find her, couldn’t you?”
    “Why would I want to?”
    Lori nodded and stared at the table top. He’d told her of the fights they had. The vicious things she’d say, her threats.
    “Your little sister?” she asked.
    “Stacy? Doing well. Very well. We’re in touch.” He paused. “And I read about your brother. In Afghanistan. Sorry.”
    She gave him a sharp look. Her brother’s friends had held Kane while A.J. battered and bloodied his face for seeing Lori. He’d helped drive Kane out of Halesboro. How could Kane feel any sympathy for A.J.?
    Again Kane showed the old, uncanny ability to read her thoughts. He said, “I’m sorry for you. War’s hell.”
    “Yes, but he didn’t die in combat,” she said, her jaw tightening. “It was an accident. A stupid accident. A road collision with another armored vehicle. It never should have happened. But Daddy took it hard, and he was already ailing.”
    “So Clyde told me.”
    “A.J. was supposed to take over the speedway,” she said. “Then he was gone. Daddy asked me to do it. But I wasn’t trained for it like A.J. was.”
    “You were teaching,” he said, and she wondered how he knew.
    “Right. Trying to make high school kids like