The Rebel's Own

Chapter One





Kennedy Bailey woke up from the same nightmare she had been having for the past six years. It didn’t help that she had spent the night staring at her tormentor. Ryan Carville was now a Boston Rebel, the first-string quarterback for their local NFL team, called back home only months after he graduated from Oregon State. He had been the youngest recruit in the team’s history, thanks to a sudden injury for the team’s previous quarterback. Kennedy frowned. She wouldn’t put it past Ryan to be the cause of that injury. She had learned long ago that he looked out for himself.

“Mommy!” A loud shrill pulled her out of her trip down self-pity lane.

With a groan, she dragged herself out of bed, waiting for her overzealous and melodramatic son to come running down the hallway to drag her to the kitchen for breakfast. But the sound of little running feet thudding against the hardwood floors didn’t come, and the next call wasn’t as strong as the last one. Kennedy ran down the hallway when she heard her son’s feeble attempt at calling her once more, her heart racing as her blood pumped loudly in her ears.

When she reached her Riley’s bedroom, he was halfway out of bed. He lay back facing the ceiling, seemingly immobile apart from shakes his little body made. Kennedy rushed to his side and picked him up. Immediately his hot skin burned hers, his usually toffee skin pale. He seemed disoriented.

“Mama!” Kennedy called as she rushed out of her son’s room. It was just the three of them now. Ever since her father died, her mother had made a home with Kennedy and her son.

“What is it?” Her mother, Rebecca, appeared from the kitchen, apron on and spatula in hand. She had a smile on her face that immediately dropped when she saw the little limp body in Kennedy’s hands.

“Something’s wrong! We need to get him to a doctor,” Kennedy said as she handed her son to her mother. “Take him to the car. I’m going to grab my purse.

“You better put some shoes on, while you are in there,” Rebecca pointed out.

Kennedy looked at her son and thought about forgoing everything else and running the little boy to the hospital in her bare feet. Her hand on her chest, she forced herself to take a calming breath. It wouldn’t do her or Riley any good to panic.

“Please, please, please,” Kennedy pleaded five minutes later with her tin can of a car when it refused to start. A nervous tear escaped and rolled down her cheek when it stalled the second time. Resting her head on the steering wheel, Kennedy let out a sob. “Don’t do this to me, not today.”

“Let’s just call Kevin,” Rebecca suggested. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind picking us up.”

Kennedy hesitated but then nodded in agreement, as she dialed the number of her co-worker. For the longest time she had tried to avoid interacting with Kevin on a personal level, since it was obvious to her that he had feelings for her. Ever since her run in with Ryan Carville, Kennedy had been happy to live a life of celibacy. But if she had to risk the attentions of a man to get her son to the hospital, she would.

• • •

“What’s his name?” The doctor asked as he took her boy from her.

“Riley Ryan Bailey. He is, um… He’s, uh…” Kennedy’s mind stopped working when Riley reached for her, but the nurses moved him away. She wanted to go to his side, hold him in her arms, and kiss all the pain away.

“He is five years old,” her mother picked up, “He was fine yesterday and he hasn’t been sick before this morning.”

“And you are?” the doctor asked.

“Rebecca Bailey. I’m his grandmother.”

“You will need to sign a few papers to permit us to run a few tests on him.”

Kennedy nodded as he spoke, her eyes not leaving her son’s. Riley was everything that she knew she wasn’t: strong, determined, beautiful, and brave. She guessed he got all that from his father, along with the jet black hair and the piercing blue eyes. Those eyes are what earned him Ryan as a middle name. Sometimes she thought all that she contributed was the light tint to his skin and this weakness that she was now witnessing.

“I’m being punished,” she whispered as her heart clenched from Riley’s loud cry for her. She could sense his fear from being alone with strangers, and somehow it increased her fear of losing him.

“Why do you think so?” Her mother hugged her as she whispered into her ear.

“I kept him from his father.”

“I don’t think you would be punished from keeping Riley away from that jackass,” her mother swore.

A throat-clearing noise interrupted them. “I’m sorry. I hate to run out on you, but I’m going to have to leave for work now.”