Cross Country Chaos Read online

  Cross Country Chaos

  Divorced mom Kelly Alexander wants her younger son, Denny, who is in a wheelchair due to spina bifida, to participate in sports. Kelly finds out about the Junior National Disability Games, but they're in Spokane, Washington, a continent away from her Florida home. She's clueless about what to do next.

  Mart Rawlings is a single, handsome wheelchair athlete who volunteers to coach Denny and helps him qualify--and falls hard for Kelly. But past heartache over her cheating ex fuels Kelly's reluctance to get personally involved with him.

  Kelly must survive a grueling cross country drive to Nationals with her sons and mother, but more importantly, can she make herself take a chance on love?

  Cross Country Chaos is a funny, passionate, and at times cringingly honest story of healing broken hearts, rebuilding trust, finding love in unexpected places, and realizing sometimes the greatest disability is between a person's ears, not their body.

  Sensuality Rating:SENSUAL

  Genre: Chick Lit/Hen Lit/Contemporary

  Length: 100,000 words

  Cross Country Chaos

  Lesli Richardson

  ROMANCE

  www.BookStrand.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to one LEGAL copy for your own personal use. It is ILLEGAL to send your copy to anyone else. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. When you no longer want this book, it must be deleted from your computer.

  A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE

  IMPRINT: Romance

  CROSS COUNTRY CHAOS

  Copyright © 2009 by Lesli Richardson

  E-book ISBN: 1-60601-282-7

  First E-book Publication: February 2009

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2009 by Siren-BookStrand, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  This one’s for The Boo.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  While this is a work of fiction, the medical conditions, terminology, depictions of people with disabilities, adaptive sports, and related situations are realistic and based on fact. Sometimes attitude is the greatest disability.

  The people and events in this novel are fictitious. I am the mother of a wheelchair athlete with spina bifida, and I did take a cross country drive with my son in a Honda Element from Florida to Spokane. Fortunately, the similarities to my life and Kelly’s end there. My son is lucky that not only is my ex-husband an active co-parent in his life, he’s the one who got him into adaptive sports in the first place, and has put in countless hours tirelessly helping out with youth adaptive sports.

  Unfortunately, there are many “Kellys” out there, women who find their partners bail on them and their disabled child when the going gets tough. I’ve met plenty of them over the years.

  If you’d like more information on youth adaptive sports, you can visit the links section of my website at: http://www.leslirichardson.com

  CROSS COUNTRY CHAOS

  LESLI RICHARDSON

  Copyright © 2009

  Chapter One

  Kelly forced herself to relax her grip on the phone. “What do you mean you’re not taking the boys camping?” She tried to keep her voice level, but it wasn’t easy. Talking to David always taxed her patience.

  “Look, I have to go to this…conference. I won’t have any other time to take them this summer.” From the way he hesitated, she knew he was lying.

  “I’ll bet Bernice is going with you to your ‘conference,’ isn’t she?”

  “You know her name is Beatrice.”

  “Whatever. So you’ll take a trip with your girlfriend, but not with your sons?”

  “Kelly, how am I supposed to take Denny camping? Paulie, yes. But Denny?”

  “Maybe if you spent more time with them, you’d see how easy it is to take Denny camping. He can get around just as well as Paulie.”

  “In a wheelchair? Kelly—”

  “You know what, David? Never mind. You weren’t here for the boys when we were married, so why should I expect you to be here for them now?” Kelly slammed the receiver down hard enough to shake the table and fought the urge to scream.

  A noise startled her, and she spun around. Paulie stood in the living room doorway. How much had he heard?

  “Hi, honey.”

  “Dad canceled the trip, didn’t he?”

  She sighed and nodded.

  “Denny’ll be upset,” he said. At twelve, he was wise beyond his years.

  She hugged him. “We’ll do something,” she promised.

  Kelly had thought the divorce would be harder on Paulie because he was older, but she was wrong. Denny took it harder because he didn’t have as many bad memories. He experienced “super dad” every other weekend—when “super dad” wasn’t busy “working.”

  Paulie, however, remembered more of the bad times than his little brother. Like his dad staying away for whole weekends on “business trips.” And he was the one who stumbled across David’s secret email account and showed it to her.

  “Mom, can you take us camping?”

  “Well, I haven’t done anything more rustic than a Holiday Inn since I was a kid, but we’ll figure something out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  Denny had snuck up on them. At eight, he was feisty and wanted to do everything his big brother did, even from his wheelchair.

  “Dad canceled on us.”

  Fighting his tears, Denny looked at the floor. Giving, in he sobbed. “I knew he wouldn’t do it. I knew it.”

  They both went to Denny and hugged him.

  “Mom said she’ll take us, Squirt.”

  “Really?”

  Kelly wiped his tears. Not sure how, but knowing she couldn’t disappoint them, she said, “Really.”

  * * * *

  Patty knew how to cut to the chase. “So what’s the louse’s excuse this time?” She ran a hand through her hair, which magically rebounded.

  “‘Conference.’ But Bernice gets to go.”

  “Beatrice,” Patty corrected, eyeing Kelly over the top of her sunglasses.

  “Whatever.”

  Kelly envied Patty’s naturally sandy blonde hair. She wore it in a pixie cut that was apparently immune to the ravages of Florida humidity. Unlike her own shoulder-length, auburn rat’s nest.

  They were stretched out in lounges by the side of the North Port YMCA pool, watching Denny, Paulie, and Patty’s son, Ben, taking lessons with the rest of the swim team. Ben was a year younger than Paulie, but they were good friends.

  They watched the boys work up and down the pool, Denny in his own lane next to the other kids. The instructor started the able-bodied kids, then gave Denny instructions, often sitting on Denny’s wheelchair by the side of the pool while he coached him.

  “You’re really going to take them camping?”

  “I told them I would.”<
br />
  “Your idea of roughing it is a Motel 6 without WiFi. How are you going to camp?”

  “I was a Girl Scout. I camped.”

  “You hate camping. You break out in hives if you can’t shave your legs every morning.”

  Patty was right, but Kelly wouldn’t disappoint her boys. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Oh, I want to show you something.” Patty dug through her tote bag and produced a magazine. “A friend of mine gave it to me. Take a look at this.” She handed Kelly the magazine, one page dog-eared. Junior National Disability Games in Spokane, WA This Year.

  “What’s this?”

  “Just read it.”

  The magazine, Sports N’ Spokes, covered competitive adaptive sports. The article was about the Junior Nationals being held in Spokane and briefly detailed the history and events—swimming, track, field, and weightlifting, among others—and listed a website.

  “What’s this have to do with Denny?”

  “You are really thick, you know that? Go talk to Coach and see if he can get you some information. It’s only March. The article says the registration deadline is in June. You still have time to enter Denny.”

  “I don’t know, Patty.”

  “You said you wanted Denny to be a normal kid, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Do it.”

  “I don’t know anything about adaptive sports.”

  “You didn’t know anything about raising a kid with spina bifida, but you’re doing a damned good job.”

  Kelly glanced through the rest of the magazine. There were few children in their small community with disabilities, and none at Denny’s school. She’d heard about adaptive sports for kids, but there weren’t any local programs. This would be good for Denny. He’d always wanted to compete like Paulie.

  When Coach Greg gave the kids a ten-minute break, Kelly walked over to talk. He glanced at the article and asked one of the lifeguards to keep an eye on the kids.

  In his office, they located the website. He found the information. “Kelly, we should look into this. I don’t know exactly what Denny’s classification would be, but looking at most of the times for his age group, he can easily swim these.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, look here.” He pointed. “Hold on a second.” He called someone and asked them to come to his office. A moment later, one of the staff physical therapists entered. “Jenny, take a look at this.”

  Jenny read the information over his shoulder. “For Denny?”

  “Yeah. What do you think?”

  She reached over and opened a new browser window and went to a different site, looked something up, then returned to the Nationals site. “I think he’d be in this group here—” she pointed, “but I never did classification, so I can’t be sure. If it’s like the adults, then this—” she pointed again, “I know is CP, this is amps, and this whole grouping here is where Denny would fit in, somewhere. I’d have to make some calls.”

  “Could you?”

  “Sure, but it’s too late this afternoon. I’ll do it in the morning.”

  “I need to get back on deck anyway. Listen, Kelly, can you get here about thirty minutes early tomorrow? Then we can go over this some more.”

  “Yeah. Do me a favor, please don’t say anything to the boys about this yet.”

  He looked a little curious but nodded. “Okay, sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  Kelly was quiet the rest of the evening. Even the boys noticed. Paulie waited until his little brother went to take a bath to talk to Kelly.

  “What’s up, Mom?”

  “Nothing, honey.”

  He looked at her.

  “Okay, Paulie, you can go now.”

  He walked away, glancing back at her. Kelly knew he worried about Denny. They had their normal squabbles, but since the divorce, Paulie had taken on more than a brotherly role, as if he felt personally responsible for triggering the events. Perhaps trying to make up for their father paying more attention to him than Denny. She’d tried to talk to Paulie about it, but he clammed up every time.

  After the boys went to bed, Kelly retrieved the magazine from her purse. A Google search for racing wheelchairs gave her a dizzying amount of information.

  And nearly choked her with prices. Racing chairs were expensive. At least Denny could swim competitively.

  Even if she could twist David’s arm to pay for at least half of a race chair, she didn’t know how she could afford it. She made enough money as a freelance writer that alimony and child support covered many extras for the boys. She wasn’t in a situation where she could plop down a few thousand dollars on a racing wheelchair.

  She went to bed and lay awake thinking about it before falling asleep.

  * * * *

  The next afternoon, after the bus brought the boys home, Kelly drove them straight to the Y. She sent them out to the pool and met Greg in his office.

  He called Jenny, who quickly joined them. “I’ve worked with adult disabled swimmers,” she said, “but I never worked with track, field, or juniors.”

  Greg chimed in. “A friend of mine is a road racer. I’ll give him a call, see if he can get me more info.”

  “How much is this going to cost?” Kelly asked. “I looked up race chairs last night, and those are out of my price range.”

  “For the swimming, just the cost of registration, and the trip,” Greg said. “He could probably do field, too.”

  Jenny handed Kelly a sheaf of papers. “I called a friend who works for the ShrinersHospital up in Tampa. She emailed me a bunch of stuff. I think Denny will be in one of these three classes.” She pointed to some circled information on the page that made absolutely no sense to Kelly. “If so, Greg says Denny can easily swim those times.”

  “And there’s a meet here in two weeks that’s sanctioned. I called the organization that runs the Junior Nationals. They said as long as a registered official will certify Denny’s times, they’ll accept them in lieu of him going to a qualification meet.”

  “But Denny can’t swim against able-bodied kids.”

  “He won’t. He’ll swim against the clock. We’ll have him in a heat with other kids, but he’ll be swimming to beat a time.”

  This was too much information coming too fast. “What are we doing?” Kelly asked.

  Jenny laughed. “We’re going to enter Denny in Nationals!”

  Kelly, overwhelmed with the information, stuffed the papers into her purse. Patty had saved her a lounge. Kelly told her about the conversation in the office.

  “I wondered about the pow-wow.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you should do it. Paulie has baseball and basketball and Pop Warner. This would be good for Den. You know he’ll love it.”

  “How am I going to afford it?”

  “Ask your mom.”

  Kelly glared at her.

  Patty returned to her book to escape Kelly’s withering stare. “It was just a suggestion.”

  “I’m not asking my family for a handout.” Yes, her mother could afford it. No, she wasn’t going to beg for money. She’d made it on her own this long. She’d figure it out. Somehow.

  Kelly didn’t speak much during practice, trying to get her head around the logistics. She’d have to come up with money to fly them from Florida to Spokane. Rent a van, hotel—she didn’t even know how to register him.

  At the break Greg showed her a stopwatch. “That’s Denny’s time for a twenty-five meter freestyle.” He pulled a paper from his pocket. “Those are the fastest possible times we think he actually has to swim to qualify.” Denny’s time was fifteen seconds faster than the fastest time, and twenty-five seconds faster than the slowest.

  Kelly always felt a twinge of sadness at Paulie’s games. Denny loved watching his big brother compete and had said more than once he wished he could, too. Kelly wondered how much of that was his desire to compete or the desire to get David’s attention. What games David did at
tend, he never failed to put on his “super dad” act.

  Maybe this was Denny’s chance to shine for a change.

  “How do I enter him in the swim meet?”

  Chapter Two

  On the way home, Kelly didn’t tell the boys about Nationals. She didn’t want to get their hopes up too soon. She did tell them about the swim meet. Paulie didn’t swim competitively, he took lessons to do something fun with Denny. He was all for his little brother competing.

  “Hey, I get to cheer you on, Squirt.” He ruffled his little brother’s hair.

  Denny pulled away and tried to straighten his hair. “Don’t call me Squirt. Mom, if I win, can I splash Paulie?”

  She didn’t want to tell him about the qualifying times. “You’ll win regardless, honey. You’ll be the only one swimming in your class even though other kids will swim in the same race. You just have to swim against the clock. You can’t lose unless you drown. All you have to do is swim your very fastest.”

  “Cool!”

  Kelly pulled into the driveway and helped Paulie unload Denny’s chair from the back of their Element. Kelly spied Paulie’s bike propped against the side of the garage. He always rode slow enough so Denny could keep up. She knew about hand-pedal bikes and hoped to coerce David into paying for one this summer.

  But what if Denny had a race chair?

  * * * *

  The boys were at school Friday morning when her phone rang.

  “Kelly? It’s Greg. Can you have the boys at NorthPortHigh School tomorrow morning at seven?”

  “Why?”

  “They’re hosting a 5K, and a friend of mine will be there. I want Denny to meet him.”

  “Okay. What time was that…?”

  The boys grumbled about the early wake-up, but Kelly got them conscious and loaded in the car and made it to the high school on time. Greg emerged from the crowd and helped unload Denny’s chair.

  His appearance surprised Denny. “Coach! What are you doing here?”

  “There’s someone I want you to meet, buddy. Follow me.” Denny took off after him.

  Paulie looked at his mom. “What’s going on?”