Hart, Catherine

by Impulsive

  "I suppose she needs a hobby, an outlet of her own," Tom conceded, not too graciously. "Living with a shrink could drive a person nuts, otherwise. What is it with Claudia, anyway? Married first to a dentist and now to a psychiatrist?"

  "Guess she has a 'thing' for doctors who work on some part of the head," Jess commented lamely.

  Jess was well aware of the crush Tom had had on her mother for years. Honoring Claudia's bereavement and the memory of his best friend, he'd waited a year after Mike Myers' death, and then proposed to her. But Claudia had declined the bank executive's offer of marriage, telling him that she did, indeed, love him, but only as a dear friend, not in any passionate way.

  Tom had pursued Claudia for the next seven years, trying to change her mind, but to no avail. Six months after Claudia had married John Derry, Tom wed another widow. Anita was bright, funny, outgoing, a thoroughly wonderful lady. Jess adored her, and so did Tom. It seemed a match made in heaven, and for a while, he and Anita had been very happy. Then, a year and a half ago, Anita had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Much to everyone's heartbreak, she'd been rapidly declining ever since.

  "How's Anita doing?" Jess asked now. "I've been meaning to stop by and visit with her, but I don't want to intrude at an inopportune time."

  Tom gave a sad sigh. "She has her good spells and her bad, but the bad seem to be winning out more often. That's why we've hired a full-time companion for her, though there will come a day when we'll have to place her in a nursing home, I suppose. It's so damned pathetic, and confusing as hell. Some days she doesn't seem to know her own name. Then, she'll turn around and relate verbatim a conversation that took place years ago. You know how she loves her music, playing her piano?"

  Jess nodded.

  Tom went on. "She could play anything, from pop to Bach. Now there are times she can't play chopsticks, let alone Chopin."

  Jess walked over and gave him a huge hug. "I'm sorry, Tommy. I'm so sorry."

  "So am I, honey-girl. So am I."

  CHAPTER 8

  Alan Crumrine did not welcome his new kicking tutor with open arms. Overall, he was sullen, sulky, and uncooperative, projecting a typically superior male attitude, despite the fact that his "teacher" was more skilled than he. After two days of this, Jess was done with being nice. She walked up to him, faced him squarely, nose-to-nose, and laid it on the line.

  "Look, Crumrine, I've had it with you. Either you want to better your kicking ability, or you don't. If you do, then I'm the person to help you. If not, you're more stupid than you look, because your teammates are sick and tired of having you lose games for them. They're busting their butts out there, and you're dragging them down. For my money, the next butt stomped into the mud is likely to be yours, and frankly I wouldn't blame them one bit. Now, are you willing to take on half a dozen hefty guards and linebackers and come out looking like a crash victim? Or are you ready to buckle down and learn something that just might save your hide from a royal beating? Think about it. It's your health, buddy."

  Prudently, Alan decided to at least give Jess the benefit of the doubt. They set to work, both skeptical of the results.

  Every day, Jess arrived dressed in ragged denim cut-offs or running shorts, an old-but-clean T-shirt, socks, soccer shoes, and wearing her short ponytail tucked through the slot at the back of her favorite red baseball cap. Not exactly stylish. In fact, with his semilong brown hair sticking out of his cap in a like fashion and their similar height, from a distance she and Alan probably looked like twins. But her old clothes served the purpose, and her hat was definitely one of a kind. On the front of it, in big white block letters, was the word "WAGARA."

  Like Ty, Alan was curious to know what it meant. Jess told him that the day he made ten field goals in a row, she'd let him in on the secret, on the condition he didn't tell Ty. In the meantime, he was free to try and guess.

  Upon spying Jess's cap, Ty renewed his own efforts to uncover its meaning. It became a ritual between them that each day began with Ty making a new, and usually outrageous, suggestion as to what the letters represented.

  "I've got it. Women And Girls, American Revolutionary Activists."

  Jess shook her head and laughed. "Pitiful attempt, James. Really pitiful. Keep trying." Her attention then returned to her recalcitrant pupil. "You, too, Crumrine. I know you can do better than that."

  She drilled the kicker hard, giving him plenty of praise when he did well, but no slack when she felt he wasn't applying himself. She pushed herself equally as hard. This kid was going to learn if it killed them both!

  Jess taught him her warm-up exercises, which meant the pair of them took a lot of flack from the other guys on the team. At least at first—until Danvers decided they could all benefit from more dexterity. Soon the entire team, Ty included, was on the field at the beginning of each practice, prancing around like a bunch of burly, bilious munchkins. It was a sight to behold!

  When it came to the mechanics of Alan's kicking, Jess found that he had a tendency to kick to the right. To compensate, the ball was angled to the left, which seemed to do the trick for the time being. Eventually, Jess hoped that Alan would be able to straighten it out, because his holder wouldn't always have time to tilt the ball.

  Other problems were dealt with differently, and Jess wasn't always congenial when Alan failed to heed her advice. "How many times do I have to tell you? If you hit the ball too high, it's going to roll. You've got to get your toes under it. Now do it again, correctly this time!"

  And—"Alan, you're not following through with your kick like I showed you. You've got to follow through or the ball is not going to have the proper momentum."

  Or—"You're wasting valuable seconds, not to mention energy, by pulling your foot back so far before swinging it forward for the kick. Your opponents are going to have you flat on your back before you know what hit you." She demonstrated, for the thousandth time, the proper method. "Snap, place, step, kick. One, two, three, kick. Got that? Now you do it. Get some rhythm going."

  "I'm a kicker, not a dancer," Alan complained.

  "More's the pity," she retorted. "Now, either get your act together, or I'm going to suggest dance lessons for you at Arthur Murray's!"

  She'd only worked with Alan for five days, two since he'd begun to cooperate, when the team headed to Indianapolis for their final preseason game against the Colts. Alan had improved minimally, and Jess wasn't holding out much hope as yet. However, as his new coach, she more or less had to go along, if only to bolster his morale and lend last-minute advice. Additionally, she would gather more material for her article, and would have a free front-row seat on the team bench. All in all, she figured it was a pretty good deal.

  Rather than fly such a short distance, the team manager had rented buses for the drive to Indianapolis. Some of the guys opted to go in their own cars, as did Ty. His ex-wife and son lived there, and he intended to spend some extra time with the child. Everyone naturally assumed Jess would be traveling with Ty. Not that she minded. She hadn't been looking forward to a cramped three-hour bus ride, listening to off-color jokes and off-key singing. Nor had she wanted to drive the distance herself, or get stuck riding with the cheerleading squad.

  To accommodate Ty's desire to spend as much of the weekend with his son as possible, he and Jess were driving over on Saturday, hours ahead of most of the team. When Ty stopped by early that morning, Jess was set to go, her bag packed and stowed in the trunk of his car, which she was still driving as per their wager.

  She answered the door to find Ty decked out in well-worn jeans and a cobalt blue shirt, a color that made his intriguing indigo eyes seem all the more mesmerizing. Perhaps that was why the lyrics of an old song popped immediately into her mind, and why a fiery tongue of desire skipped up her spine at the mere sight of him. Yes, the handsome devil knocking at her door did, indeed, have blue eyes and blue jeans! Not to mention shaggy sun-blond hair that simply begged a woman to run her fingers through it. Now, if he started whisperin
g sweet nothings, she was going to flip out!

  "Ready?" he asked. "I'm really looking forward to this. Something tells me we're going to have a devil of a good time this weekend."

  At his words, Jess's eyes went wide and her mouth dry. His phrasing was close enough to the lyrics in that song, that it was downright eerie! As if he'd read her mind, or somehow had the very same tune running through his brain. She shook her head. No, that was impossible—wasn't it? If not, she was a goner for sure, because this man was tempting enough, without their subconscious minds trying to get in on the act and weaken her already flagging resistance to him. He was Seduction with a capital S, or to coin another expression, "to-die-for," and Jess knew she was teetering on the edge of disaster, one step away from falling for him like the proverbial rock.

  "Hey! Are you okay?" he questioned with concern. "You look a little pale, like you've seen a ghost or something."

  "Or something," she murmured, trying to get her senses back under control before she made an absolute fool of herself. "It's nothing, really," she assured him. "Let's get going."

  Ty held out his hand for his keys. "I'll drive, if you don't mind, especially since we're taking my car."

  She turned the keys over to him. "Okay, but you owe me an extra two days to make up the difference."

  He chuckled. "Oh, so you like my gas-hog after all, huh?"

  "As long as you're footing the fuel bill, I do."

  "Do you want to go for broke and put the top down?" he suggested. "Or are you afraid of getting your hair all messed up?"

  "As if anyone would be able to tell the difference," she retorted. "Besides, I've been driving like that all week."

  They arrived in Indianapolis too early to check into their hotel. The rooms reserved for the team would not be free and cleaned until mid-afternoon. Instead, Ty drove directly to his ex-wife's house, to pick up his son.

  "Josh is going to love meeting you," he predicted. "His school doesn't have a football team for his age group, but they do have a soccer team." Here, he shrugged. "Guess they think the kids are less likely to get hurt. Anyway, he'll be starting kindergarten in a few days and is considering joining the soccer team if his chicken-livered mom will let him. If you could give him a few pointers, sort of give him a leg up on the other players, you'll be his friend for life."

  "I'd be glad to, but I wouldn't want to encourage him at something his mother is dead set against, either."

  Ty gave her a conspiratorial wink. "Oh, she'll come around in the end. Josh can talk anybody into just about anything. Barb's just not very sports oriented, that's all."

  Jess's brow rose. "You're kidding! I thought, being the former Mrs. T.D., she'd really be into the game."

  Ty shook his head. "Nope. That was all for show, until she had me hooked. Oh, she liked all the extra attention, and the big bucks and all they'd buy her, but football itself? No way. She's more into tennis lessons, so she can wear those cute little outfits. And a smidgeon of golf, because she and Dave—that's her new hubby, the one she ditched me for—belong to the country club. But I'll bet she hasn't played more than a few dozen holes in the past three years. She's probably too busy with other games, like musical beds."

  "Oh, so that's why the two of you divorced," Jess guessed. "She was playing around on you? With Dave?"

  "And any number of others. Her main criterion was a fat wallet, and mine was getting too flat to suit her."

  "What does her present husband do for a living?"

  "He's a corporate attorney, but he was so smitten with Barb that he offered to handle her divorce from me, free of charge. For her, of course. Me, they took to the cleaners."

  Jess's lips pursed. "Ouch! Tough break. But, if Barb wasn't into sports, how did you meet her?"

  "At a bar," he admitted ruefully. "In Detroit. I played for the Lions back then, and was pretty tough stuff, or so I thought. Evidently, so did she, at the time. Or maybe we were both so damned drunk that first night that anyone would have looked good to us. To make a long story short, we dated hot and heavy for several weeks, and the next thing I knew, she was pitching a fit, demanding that we get married. She'd goofed up on her pills, and we were going to have a baby. Josh was born eight months later."

  "I take it she went with you when you signed on with the Colts, and that's how she and Dave became acquainted?"

  Ty nodded. "That was also the year I broke my leg, and sat out the entire season. The following year, I injured it again, and my future with the Colts, or any other pro team for that matter, was looking pretty dim. Needless to say, being married to a broken-down, washed-up jock was not Barb's cup of tea. She didn't hang around to see if things would improve."

  "Are you sorry?" Jess asked hesitantly.

  "For a long while, I was. Not because of Barb so much— the glow wore off the romance long before the divorce, almost before the wedding. But being away from Josh was difficult for me, and for him. I really love that little guy, and it hurt not to be able to be a full-time dad. It still does, but Josh is bigger now, and starting to understand. He knows I love him and miss him. I just wish we could spend more time together."

  Ty wheeled the Trans Am onto a long, curving driveway that led to an impressive brick house. "This is it," he told her. "The twelve-acre estate of Barb and Dave Savoy, Esquire. Complete with sixteen rooms, swimming pool, tennis court, maid's quarters, and one Joshua James."

  "Don't they have any other children?"

  "Not yet. It seems old Dave, esquire or not, is shooting a lot of blanks. Scads of cash, but short on... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yeah." He snapped his fingers. "Paisleys! Anyway, unless they get awfully lucky, there won't be any Davie Jr. to carry on the family name or tradition in law. Also, as it stands now, Josh isn't the least bit interested in following in his stepfather's footsteps."

  "I suppose he wants to be a quarterback like his dad?"

  "No, he wants to drive in the Indy 500." Ty laughed. "I knew I should never have taken the little snot to this year's race."

  Josh was waiting and raring to go. Ty had scarcely shut the engine off when the front door flew open and three and a half feet of gangly kindergartner came dashing down the sidewalk, dragging an overstuffed duffel bag with him.

  "Hi, Dad!" he yelled excitedly. "Guess what? I lost my front toof yesterday!" The wide gap in his smile was evidence of that.

  Ty leapt from the car and swept his son into his arms just as the boy started to trip on his untied shoelace.

  "Hey, sport! If you want to keep your remaining teeth for a while, you'd better tie those shoes," Ty informed him, enveloping Josh in a huge bear hug.

  "If I've told him that once, I've said it twenty times in the last half hour. He's absolutely impossible on the days he knows you're coming!"

  Still in her seat, Jess turned to see Barb Savoy sauntering down the walk toward Ty. Her initial thought was that the name suited the woman. Ty's ex resembled nothing less than a walking, talking Barbie doll, complete with wavy blond hair and a face so flawless it looked as if it had just been peeled from a toy mold. Moreover, dressed in an immaculate white tennis outfit, she was slim, trim, and tanned. Jess would have bet her last dollar that "Barbie" was a perfect 36-24-36. The sum of which made Jess feel all the more like a dowdy freak.

  "We'll take care of it, won't we, son?" Ty said in response to Barb's opening comment.

  "Uh huh," Josh agreed, bobbing his blond head. Then he spied Jess. "Who's that?"

  "That's Jess. She's going with us today."

  Without waiting for Ty to introduce them, Barb walked up to the car and put out one expertly manicured hand. "I'm Barb, Josh's mother."

  Jess shook her hand, only now wishing she'd thought to file and shape her own nails. They were clean, as usual, but heaven knew when they had last seen a coat of nail enamel. "Jess Myers. Pleased to meet you."

  "Are you... uh... are you..." Barb appeared to be at a loss for words, something Jess would bet didn't happen often.

  "Yes,
Barb," Ty put in, guessing what his ex was trying to say. "Jess and I are dating. Do you have a problem with that? Not that it matters, you understand."

  Barb's smile was trite. "Why, not at all, Tyler. I was simply wondering. However, since you brought it up, I would hate to hear from Josh that there is any monkey business going on between the two of you while he is present."

  "Holy—" Ty bit off the last half of his angry expletive, for his son's sake. "I can safely assure you that there will be no 'monkey business,' as you put it, in front of Josh. Jess and I aren't into such antics. Unlike you and Dave, apparently, we have better things to do than swing from trees, suck bananas, and pick lice off of each other."

  "You..." Barb sputtered. "You are an uncouth barbarian. God alone knows what I ever saw in you."

  Ty lowered Josh into the backseat of the car and began fastening the child's seat belt. "The same thing that attracted you to Dave. My income bracket."

  Barb stalked off without saying goodbye to any of them. Her parting words were, "Have Josh back here tomorrow night by nine o'clock sharp, and not a minute later, or there will be hell to pay."

  "Mommy said a bad word," Josh declared with wide indigo eyes, a perfect match for Ty's.

  "Yeah," Ty replied with a forced smile. "Mommy must have been watching The Wizard of Oz again, huh? That wicked witch is her all-time favorite character."

  They had gone several blocks, with Josh and Ty exchanging information about their respective lives since they had last gotten together, when Ty suddenly turned to Jess. "You're awfully quiet over there. What's up?"

  Jess said the first thing on her mind, actually the thought that had been consuming her for the last ten minutes. "Your... Barb is very beautiful. I can see why you were attracted to her."

  "Oh, yeah. She's a real piece of art," Ty mused drolly. "But, in all honesty, I've got to say she's improved over the past three years. Primarily thanks to Dave's bank account. Otherwise, she could never have afforded the nose job, the breast reduction, the tummy tuck, and those special beauty treatments at an exclusive spa. And she's stopped letting her roots grow out before getting them touched up at the salon."