Love on a Deadline Read Online Free PDF Page A

opportunity to watch Ethan.
    â€œYou’re welcome to join us.” Ethan’s smile had grown wider, and with a jolt of horror, Mac realized she was guilty of doing it again.
    â€œIt’s almost nine.” She cast a pointed look at the clock on the fireplace mantel. “I’m sure Coach is tired after the first day of practice.”
    â€œCoach is fine,” her dad grumbled. “And I don’t need two kids ganging up on me, making sure I get enough sleep and eat all my vegetables.”
    â€œYou’re helping me out.” Ethan didn’t appear the least bit insulted that Coach had just referred to him as a kid. “I’m a rookie doctor—I need the practice. No pun intended.”
    Mac refused to smile, knowing it would only encourage him. “I thought that news was strictly off the record.”
    â€œI made an exception for your dad.” Ethan stretched out his legs, looking way too comfortable for Mac’s peace of mind. “He’s going to be my first official patient. Isn’t that right, Coach?”
    Coach’s gaze slid back to the television. “I’ll try to work it around the practice schedule.”
    A statement, Mac thought wryly, that pretty much summed up her entire childhood.
    When the trees turned scarlet and bronze in the fall, the town of Red Leaf turned blue and gold, the windows of every storefront on Main Street proudly displaying the school colors. Following a Red Leaf tradition that predated Mac’s years at high school, before every home game the players and cheerleaders would ride to the field on the back of a flatbed truck decorated with crepe paper streamers.
    The cheerleaders wore the players’ letter jackets over their uniforms, and Mac would hear them arguing in the locker room over whose turn it was to wear Ethan’s. Kristen Ballard usually won because she and Ethan were a matched set in terms of looks and popularity.
    It didn’t seem to matter that Mac had spent hours making posters and the miniature papier-mâché footballs that hung from the tailgate. Even when Coach was the driver, she’d never been invited to sit with the team.
    The one time Mac had scraped up the courage to scramble onto the back of the float, Hollis had stared at Mac like she was a stain on her cheerleading sweater and then coolly informed her that there wasn’t any room.
    It wasn’t the first time Hollis had snubbed Mac, but she’d never done it in front of a group of people. People who hadn’t come to Mac’s defense or made room.
    At least Ethan hadn’t been there to witness her slink back to the front of the truck and take her place next to Coach in the passenger seat . . .
    â€œHave a seat, sweetheart.” Her dad set the bowl of popcorn next to a bottle of root beer on the coffee table, freeing up a space on the couch. “This is going to bring back a lot of memories.”
    That was what Mac was afraid of.
    â€œI—”
    A cheer erupted from the television and drowned out the excuse she’d been frantically trying to come up with. Mac glanced at the screen just in time to see the camera zoom in on the cheerleaders, who wore short blue skirts and sweaters as white as their smiles.
    Hollis stood at the top of the pyramid, of course, directly under the floodlight. On the scoreboard behind her, the numbers under the home and opposing team were the same.
    Dread trickled down Mac’s spine. “Which game are you watching?”
    â€œHomecoming 2005. Lumberjacks versus the Lions.” Coach chuckled. “Never going to forget that game.”
    Unfortunately, neither would she.
    The camera panned the players sitting on the bench and then paused on a familiar face.
    Her face.
    â€œIs there another root beer?” Mac pitched her voice above the cheerleaders’ screams. Desperate measures and all that.
    â€œOn the coffee table—help yourself.” Her dad pointed at the