Cole’s eyes drifted up to Bernice, who looked less impressed by his presence than she had been a moment before.

“Hand slipped,” he murmured

“It happens,” she said coolly. “Lot on your plate right now, I know. So I’ll just get y’all’s order and leave you be.”

Savannah thanked her. “And you might tell Don Paul to stop craning his neck our way. He’s liable to strain it.”

Bernice winked. “Not to worry. I’ll keep those boys occupied. Now what’ll it be?”

Savannah ordered French toast. Cole, steak and eggs.

When Bernice walked away, Cole lit a Winston and stared off. Savannah asked if he’d care to share what he was thinking about.

“You know what I’m thinking about. And until you’re ready to tell me what I need to know, I’m just gonna keep on thinking in silence.”

Now it was she who pounded the table. “Okay, Logan. You want to hear the Hickham family sob story? You want to know why my dad won’t coach your stupid game? Fine. He’s still blaming himself for an accident that happened two years ago. You happy now?”

Cole blew a stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth. “Not yet.”

Their eyes met. “All right. I’ll tell you.” She jabbed a fork across the table. “But this stays right here, you got it? Not a word leaves this booth.”

“You really think I got anyone to tell?”

She looked off and took a deep breath. “My father won three state championships in four years at my former high school in South Carolina.”

“No shit. Everyone knows that—”

“You want to hear this, or not?”

He flicked an ash into the tray and motioned for her to continue.

“It was a big school. Very affluent. More than three thousand students. Almost bigger than the whole town of Killington. Dad was well on his way to becoming the winningest coach in state history.”

“And?”

“And then someone died.”

“Who?”

She didn’t answer.

He said, “Are you talking about your mother?”

“No. My mother had died two years before.”

“So who was it?”

“He was one of my dad’s star players. A sophomore. A defensive standout named Tommy Beck.”

Cole crushed out the cigarette. “What happened?”

Her eyes fell to the tabletop. “Tommy had some kind of heart defect, although no one knew about it until afterwards. The autopsy said it was congenital, something he was born with. They said it was like a time bomb, could have gone off at any moment from infancy to old age. Whatever it was, his heart stopped one afternoon on the practice field, four days after Tommy’s seventeenth birthday. He was dead before he hit the turf.”

Cole let her words settle on him. “And your father blames himself for this?”