She bolted.

  “Fifteen-point-six seconds,” I said, impressed. I jotted the time down in my notes and jogged back to the starting line, while Echo caught her breath and readied herself for the next heat.

  Her next four times on the 100 meters were 14.9, 15.3, 14.7, and 14.2 seconds.

  “I’ll want to see if we can get that time down a bit if we move indoors where it’s warmer, but those are better than I thought they would be,” I said as Echo took a break for a drink.

  “For the record,” she said, panting, “my favorite race to run is the half mile…I can maybe shave…a second or two…from those…but I doubt I’ll be able to get down…to ten or eleven…and unless I have a shot at one of those…I don’t stand a chance in the 100 meter at the Olympics…I might qualify…but I won’t win.”

  “Like I said. I know. You haven’t got the goods for that. If I can’t shave at least three seconds off your time—” I started to say, but Echo turned before I could finish. Someone was approaching the track where we were working.

  “Gramps?” She didn’t sound happy about the unscheduled interruption. Still, she jogged over to the man and gave him a hug. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your parents mentioned that you were starting your training, and I thought I’d stop by and watch for a bit. Been through it myself, remember, though it was half a lifetime ago now,” he said.

  I stood back, watching the scene, and attempted to evaluate Rory Coulter in the flesh, to separate him from the legend and family empire he’d created. So far, I wasn’t succeeding.

  Rory Coulter and the Olympic games were inextricably linked, despite the fact that he hadn’t won a single race he’d competed in, but it was where he’d met and fallen in love with his wife. And given the lengths they’d gone to in order to be together, him helping her defect from Russia just weeks later, no one remembered that particular detail. Athletically speaking, he was better known for his football career. And, of course, Legacy Sports was as strong as ever, under the leadership of his only son, Brent.

  His careers had made him famous and wealthy. His son and grandchildren promised to continue his proud legacy.

  “Gramps, this is Cole Jackson,” Echo said, waving me over to meet the man properly. “Cole, this is my grandfather, Rory Coulter.”

  The old man didn’t smile. “Jackson, eh? Not familiar with your work,” Rory said as he shook my hand. “You seem awfully young.”

  “Gramps,” Echo scolded.

  “I’m fairly new to the coaching game,” I explained. “I ran a bit in college but had a few tough injuries. Went to school for sports psychology, nutrition, health, and science. The usual litany for coaching these days. Had some success with Junior Olympics, high school, and college athletes.”

  Rory nodded along, but was clearly unimpressed with my credentials.

  “I’m running a few heats now on some of the different distances to help give Cole an idea of what I can do, and where I’m strongest,” Echo redirected the conversation to the task at hand. “We’re working to decide which events I have the best chance at, so we can focus more on training specifically for those.”

  “That’s what I was hoping to talk to you about,” Rory said and I watched something flicker in Echo’s eyes that I could have sworn was a flash of panic.

  Interesting.

  “What is it?” she asked. I thought I could almost hear the slight strain in her voice as well, and I narrowed my eyes, watching her more closely.

  “Echo should enter the marathon,” Rory said bluntly.

  “The marathon!” Echo’s mouth hung open in disbelief, with perhaps a bit of outrage. She rounded on her grandfather, inserting herself between me and the old man. “At the Olympics? I don’t have a chance of winning that. Between the Kenyan seventeen-year-old, and the Eritrean forty-year-old, and that UK chick who ran Boston when pregnant and still placed, I’ll never make it. They take years of training to run competitively. I’ve only got a few months before qualifiers.”

  “You’ve run marathons before,” Rory reminded her, dismissing her concern. “Being able to run that far, period, is half the battle. You can and do regularly. It won’t take much training at all to shave your time down on it.”

  “Marathons are exhausting,” she sputtered. “I doubt I’d be able to train for any other event.”

  I could hear the panic rising in Echo’s voice at the thought of months of work and training going to waste.

  “What event are you most comfortable with?” I asked Echo.

  “The half mile,” Echo responded quickly. “It’s the one I’ve always had the most success with. High school through college. If I have a particularly good day and some of the other runners have bad ones, I might finish near the top on a few other events. Maybe the quarter, but the half mile has always been my race. I can even do decently with the mile, but come on. The marathon?”

  “But the marathon is the most difficult,” Rory continued, clearly arguing for what he wanted her to do. “To excel in that race is to show what you’re made of.”

  “Marathons are more difficult,” I agreed. I heard the long intake of breath from Echo that sounded like someone gearing up to argue a point. The angry part of me wanted to make her do it because I was pissed. But I wasn’t an asshole. I was her coach.

  Personal feelings aside, I meant to do a good job as her coach, and so her best interests needed to be at heart. Besides, I wanted to win. It was idiotic to focus so much of our efforts on a race she had little chance of winning. And if this was my big chance to make a name for himself as an Olympic coach, I wasn’t about to blow it on Rory Coulter’s whim.

  “There are more opportunities for injury both during the race and in training,” I said. “It’s not a race I can gauge Echo’s timing on today, but perhaps a treadmill run next week will give me a better idea of whether it’s a race she should consider entering.”

  I could feel Echo staring daggers at me, but my attention was focused on Rory.

  Rory looked appeased if not completely satisfied.

  “You’re the coach,” I conceded. “But I don’t think that a run on a treadmill would be a completely accurate gauge of Echo’s abilities. I know a marathon is a lot to train for if you’re not sure you want to commit,” I admitted, turning to Echo and disregarding me. “But you’re already registered to run the marathon in Boston. I’ll make a few calls to the folks over there and see if they can get you bumped from the general pool to the competitive field. If you decide not to make it one of your events, there’s still plenty of time to train up in the others. It isn’t as though the endurance would be a bad thing to have.”

  Echo glanced at me, and I gave her a subtle and, I hoped, reassuring nod. It was encouraging that she preferred to defer to me rather than cave to her grandfather or dig her heels in herself. She sighed but nodded her consent. “If the marathon committee will switch me, I’ll do my best to run Boston competitively.”

  Rory’s face broke into a grin. “Good. Now, with that settled, get back to running those heats. I want to see how you do on the 800 meters, since that’s the one you’re so keen on.”

  “Actually, the 800 meters is one we’re going to hold off on until after lunch,” I explained, taking back control over the training session. “Doing the sprints first, because of the chill. It’s supposed to warm up a little bit later this afternoon, so the longer lengths won’t be as uncomfortable for Echo. We’ll probably stretch taking the longest lengths’ times over the course of a few days.”

  Rory’s grin vanished as soon as I had said the word, ‘Actually.’

  “Gramps, why don’t you have a seat. You can cheer me on,” Echo suggested quickly.

  If I thought Echo’s death glares were chilly, I was unprepared for Rory Coulter’s stare.

  I could feel the iciness of the old man’s eyes watching and judging me, and part of me took perverse pleasure in being able to unsettle someone like Rory Coulter. It’s your funeral.

  I was still angry about the situation with Echo, and the gnawing betrayal was still painfully fresh. But watching the way the old man had swooped in on our training session uninvited, trying to take over and push her into a race she clearly didn’t want, made me feel sorry for her. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to protect her.

  “Let’s start on the two hundred,” I said. I needed to focus on the job and not the urge to cover her body with mine and shield her from anything that might hurt her. Neither of us could afford wasting time on pity, not if we were going to get her in top form for the qualifiers over the course of the next few months.

  By her own admission, she hadn’t run competitively since graduating college last year. “When we’re through with these heats, we can break for lunch, and you can find a way to keep your grandfather from disrupting our afternoon session. I don’t want any distractions while you’re training, got it?”

  “I’ll find a way to get him to go home,” she promised.

  “Good, ’cause if you don’t, I will. Now, take your mark, and I’ll see you at the other end.” I tucked my clipboard under my arm and jogged off, leaving her to limber up.

  12

  Echo

  I had survived. Well, sort of. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t killed Cole yet. Or vice versa. The last two weeks had been hell. I squirmed as Cole stared at me with his judgey eyes when I took a long sip from my steaming mug of hot chocolate.

  “Nice of you to show up, Echo.”

  “Sorry. There was crazy traffic on the 5 south. An accident on Poinsettia.”

  “You realize my time is important, right? Not all of us were born with a platinum spoon, so our time is money.”

  I glowered at him. I would have something to say, but he was right. I’d totally overslept. I hadn’t been able to sleep well in days and it was catching up to me. “You done now?”

  “Just about. What is that you’re drinking?”

  Damn. He was in a hell of a mood today. I shrugged. “Hot chocolate. I need the dairy,” I muttered after swallowing.

  “You need to drink more of the protein supplement shakes that I put on your diet plan,” he lectured. “You’re tearing down and building up muscle with your runs and the exercises you’ve been doing. That thing you’re drinking is made with milk and has loads of sugars.”

  “It’s also delicious,” I said with a smart-ass grin. “I’ve been trying to follow your breakfast diet that you laid out, but it doesn’t have as much dairy as I’m used to and it’s been giving me headaches.”

  “So take an aspirin.”

  “No.” I said firmly. “I don’t know why, but I’ve never had headaches like this before. Look, I get what you’re trying to do,” I added quickly, before I had to hear another lecture about protein and carbohydrates, and how and why the body broke things down the way it did and how it all affected my running. “But, I know that over the last two weeks, when I’ve picked up hot chocolate on my way in, the headaches haven’t even started.”

  His brows rose. “You’ve been having these drinks on your ride in for the last two weeks?” he asked, the fury evident in his pinched expression. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t consider it an issue, since they clearly didn’t have a negative effect on my running.” Okay, so it was immature, but I enjoyed the way he clenched his jaw when he couldn’t refute my argument for doing something my own way. “Of course, it could be you that’s giving me headaches. Today’s just the first day I didn’t finish the drink in the car on the ride over. By the way, Jen was talking about popping in and having a watch. And don’t worry—she won’t be nearly as disruptive as Gramps.” Training had taken up so much time lately that I hadn’t been able to have any personal time, and after two weeks in close proximity to Cole, I desperately needed a break with someone who didn’t want or need anything from me. Someone to whom I could honestly talk. Or else I was going to explode.

  At least Cole had kept it professional. Even if I had a hard time with him trying to bust my ass.

  Cole gave me a tight smile. “Just finish it up and get ready for your session,” he instructed. “You’re on the treadmill again, today. I want a controlled environment, and I couldn’t get that indoor track again. Apparently one of the local private schools has it on permanent reserve for their spring track and field teams starting with their spring break. I want to see how you do on the half marathon.”

  “Yes, sir,” I saluted him.

  He headed for our private training room. With the weight of the Coulter name to back him up, the facility had been more agreeable to his commandeering pieces of their equipment from the main gym to “keep their sessions from disrupting the other patrons’ enjoyment of the amenities.” Before he disappeared through the door he called out once more. “And Echo, I hope you’re getting to bed at a decent hour. Your times have been improving, but…you look tired. You can’t hide the bags under your eyes like you did that hickey.”

  Asshole. I glowered at his back. He was right. But did he have to bring up the damn hickey?

  I was exhausted, and training was only a fraction of what was draining me. And regardless of how I felt physically, I had to admit that his methods, with a few minor tweaks, were working.

  I was more confident in my reaction time at the start of a sprint than I had been two months ago, and even after a long run I was less achy.

  No, what was exhausting me was going along with my parents’ efforts to keep everyone else in the dark about Dad. It had been a few weeks since he first started going for tests, and there were still no answers. None for me, at least. The doctors had to have ruled a few things out by now, but my parents weren’t sharing what the outcome was, or when they planned to give up the charade and come clean to the rest of the family.

  Luckily, Fox was too focused on hockey, Gage was stressing about college acceptance letters and scholarship offers coming in, and Bryce and Dax were too preoccupied with Tami and Asha respectively to bother me about whether or not Dad was feeling like himself.

  If nothing else, training with a goal in mind gave me an outlet for the frustration and stress. I had taken Jen’s ideas to heart about the doors that would open to me in more fields, including the possibility of branching into fashion right after the Games.

  Later, when I ran on the treadmill, I would be running towards dreams of my own. Not my family’s.

  Cole

  * * *

  I watched Echo’s form closely as she ran on the treadmill, and I managed to only get distracted once or twice. Which was an improvement. She was keeping a good pace and making good time, but I would be more comfortable with her progress when I timed her again.

  The diet had been working, despite the cheating. And I could tell she’d been doing the breathing and visualization exercises I’d recommended. She wasn’t taking as long to cool down and return to a resting heart rate after the distance runs.

  I hated to say it, but she was pretty amazing. And shit, she was good. Very good. My confidence in her ability to not just qualify respectably, but possibly medal, grew every day. I pushed her, and while she occasionally pushed back, I was pleased to see that she pushed herself as well. She was self-driven. And a fighter. Much as I might like to take credit for it, her ability to do that was something that couldn’t be taught. It was just who she was.

  I felt a gentle tap on my arm and spun to find Jen standing beside me. There was no way to tell how long ago she’d slipped into the private training room. Echo was in her zone and either hadn’t noticed her friend’s appearance, or ignored it.

  “I got here a bit earlier than I thought I would,” Jen said quietly and apologetically. “I hope it’s not distracting to have me in here. If it is, I can slip over to the restaurant and wait for Echo there.”

  “Stay. She only has about two miles left of this run. Shouldn’t take her longer than fifteen minutes, if she keeps up at this rate,” I remarked.

  “Which she will,” Jen said, as a matter of course. She removed her jacket, and took a seat on a low padded table we used to stretch out Echo’s cramps.

  “Hmm,” I grunted in response. I had met Jen two or three times since that first night at the bar. That night, she’d introduced herself as Emmalee. She didn’t mention it now, and neither did I. I’d rather forget the whole thing. Would you?

  “Listen Cole, about that night.”

  Apparently, thinking about it had brought it to the forefront. I shook my head. “Forget it.”

  She sighed. “You want to blame someone, blame me. Echo didn’t plan on that night, and she’s just as stressed about it as you are.”

  I shrugged. “Who’s stressed? Not me.”

  “Okay. Good. It’s nice to meet you, officially.”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  Once she finished, Echo hopped off the treadmill and paced a bit, pausing to bounce on her toes every now and then like she was ready to keep going.

  “You ready for lunch?” Jen asked. “You must’ve worked up an appetite.”

  “I’m going to head over to the locker room and clean up a bit first,” Echo informed us. “I’ll meet the two of you up there though, yeah?”

  “You should have your girls’ time together.” No way I was having girl-chat with these two. And the last thing I wanted was to be stuck at a table alone with Jen while we waited for Echo.

  “Are you sure?” Echo asked with a furrow in her brow. “You’re more than welcome to join us.”

  “I’m good,” I insisted. Echo headed to the locker room, and I grabbed a pair of ten-pound dumbbells and began doing squats. While I was here, I might as well get a workout in. I didn’t realize that Jen stayed behind when Echo left, until she spoke and I jumped.

  “She really liked you, you know.”

  “Fuck,” I said, whipping around.

  “That night, going out like that, it was my idea, not Echo’s,” Jen explained. “She was having a tough time of it with her parents, and I thought she should do something for herself. She didn’t know who you were, and pretending to be someone else… I think you should know that it wasn’t anything personal.”