The Dragon's Revenge

by Courtney Henke

  Hogan lowered his hand to the ground. "Anytime you're ready, Dragon Lady."

  She ignored the taunt and didn't break away from his gaze. "Call It, Tai!"

  Tai called the play, and Hogan leapt for her—high. She ducked, avoiding his trunklike arms, and shoved her shoulder into his solar plexus, using her lower point of gravity to push him off balance and flat onto his back. She straightened slowly, briefly checking his stunned face for any sign of pain, and crossed her arms over her chest to hide the twinge she felt in her shoulder. "That, Mr. Hogan, is why you hit ‘em low.”

  To her immense relief he gave a short bark of laughter and dragged himself to his feet with a reluctant look of respect. "I’ll remember that."

  "Good." She smiled. "Okay, everybody. Drill's over! Take four laps and hit the showers! Four! Not three and a half!"

  When they were far enough away, she grimaced and rubbed her aching shoulder. That guy had a gut like steel, she thought. He'd be a great addition to the team, as long as the little attitude adjustment had worked.

  "Don't you think that was the least bit reckless?"

  Charly turned, gaping, as J.D. stepped from the shadows. Conflicting emotions warred in her, pleasure at seeing him and anger at his statement. Anger won, and her mouth set stubbornly. "He has to understand that I'm the coach, not him."

  "He could have killed you."

  There was subdued fury in his voice, and Charly bristled. "I can equalize with the best of 'em. And it's none of your business."

  J.D. strode to her, grasping her arms. His heart almost hadn't survived the shock of seeing her go head-to-head with that muscle-bound kid. "It is my business when I see someone baiting a rabid dog, lady! This isn't a friendly arm-wrestling match!"

  "What about your precious perspective?"

  "What about your hide?"

  "Don't tell me how to do my job!"

  He dropped her arms abruptly, and she ran back to the playing field, blowing her whistle and calling the team together again. J.D. watched her, fighting his anger. Didn't she realize what could have happened?

  He raked his hair with his hand and turned back to the building. Never had he met a woman who bounced his emotions around like a volleyball. She rattled his cool, and she prompted responses he had no intention of giving. No one, not one single person had ever done this to him before. His fear had not been objective panic over the welfare of another human being. It had been for her and her alone.

  He was falling in love with her.

  He swallowed heavily and stared at her as if she'd suddenly grown another head. He didn't want to fall in love with her! He wanted someone with whom he could share his life, not go head-to-head with on an everyday basis!

  By the time the team had left the field, J.D. had contained his tumultuous emotions. Charly strolled up to him, her hands stuffed in her back pockets, her gaze steady. "Sorry for yelling like that," she told him stiffly. "I have a rotten temper."

  "And I shouldn't have butted in."

  She grinned. "We're even again."

  "What about dinner tonight?" he heard himself ask.

  "I have to get these playbooks squared away."

  "Okay." J.D. couldn't decide whether he felt disappointed or relieved. "I have some work to do anyway."

  "On your project?"

  "No, I have a business to run." He frowned, wondering if she hung around only for the school's sake, but he really didn't want to know the answer. "I have a computer set up in my hotel."

  "Really? You can have fun with a computer, too, you know. It's not just a piece of office equipment."

  He turned to leave.

  "Hey, J.D.! See you tomorrow?"

  He nodded, then smiled. “Tomorrow."

  The next day, Saturday. Charly treated him to a tour of Cannery Row. This historic district, immortalized by John Steinbeck, had changed drastically since his day. The old packing houses had been converted into shops and restaurants, and of course, the famous aquarium. The bright sunshine of the past days was absent as the sky clouded over in typical, erratic Monterey fashion, but it didn't seem to dim her enthusiasm. She reacted to every sight as if it were the first time she'd seen it.

  They wandered the district with the masses, window-shopping, which was the only kind of shopping she could afford there, she explained solemnly. She did, however, strain her budget by purchasing one item—a kite for J.D.

  After a lunch of hot dogs and ice cream, Charly dragged him into a long, white building. Calliope music poured through the doors, and as they entered he saw why. "A carousel?" he asked doubtfully.

  Charly shot him a silly look. "Carousel," she repeated firmly, pointing to the object in question. "Carousel horses." She indicated them too. "Ticket booth." She steered them firmly in that direction.

  J.D. studied the carousel carefully while they waited for It to stop. It was a real one, a reconditioned antique. The motor had been updated and was housed in shiny metal faced with something that looked like a small calliope. Most of the horses were missing an ear or a chip off the tail, but the colors and the music made a mesmerizing combination. He glanced over at Charly. She watched with pure delight, a childlike smile of anticipation on her lips.

  "You're going to love this," she said. The moment it stopped, she made a beeline for the white unicorn. As she climbed on she explained, "I like unicorns, too, but not as much as dragons. There's an old story I used to love. When Noah built the Ark, he just sent out a general invitation to all of the animals. They all lined up—giraffes, pigs, mice, all sorts. The last in line were the unicorns, the griffins, and the Pegasi. Somehow Noah had forgotten about them, and he hadn't built the Ark big enough. The last creature to board the Ark was the squirrel, who was just in front of the woolly mammoth."

  J.D. chuckled as he mounted a dark horse missing an ear and one emerald eye. "What would Noah have done with a bunch of . . . Pegasi? Couldn't they have flown?"

  "Practical to the end. huh?" She buckled the leather belt around her and sighed wistfully. "I always wished I could have been there to build another Ark."

  "If they would have survived, where would we get the creatures of legend?"

  She rolled her eyes. "You have no soul. Strap yourself in."

  "I will not."

  "It's the rule."

  "I'm not six years old."

  Her eyes narrowed on his mutinous expression. "If you don't. I’II—I'll sneak into your hotel room and cut your hair while you sleep."

  "You wouldn't."

  “Try me."

  He buckled the strap. "This is silly."

  "I think you need a big dose of silly, J.D. It's a surefire cure for pompousness."

  He bristled at her remark, but as the carousel began to move, soothing him with its motion, he thought of his own parents, of his staid father and fun-loving mother. Had his mother ever tried to teach his father how to have fun, he wondered. If she had, it hadn't worked. His father had merely spent more time changing Amanda into the "perfect woman."

  But perfect for whom? After her husband's death. Amanda had reverted to form, or so J.D. had thought at the time. Now he saw her actions in a different light. Why couldn't they have spent less time changing each other and more time finding similarities? Why had his father so stubbornly refused to try the things that Amanda had wanted? Though he'd obviously loved her enough to leave her his entire fortune, he'd always thought his father had looked upon Amanda as an oddity, an embarrassment at times, a liability. Or had he?

  He glanced over at Charly. Wind stirred her hair; tendrils floated behind her as their speed increased. She threw back her head, gave a cowboy yip, and swiveled toward him, laughing. At his intent stare, she nudged him with her foot.

  "Loosen up, J.D.! Weren't you ever a kid?" Purposely, she yipped again before turning back into the wind.

  He had begun this entire thing to study her in order to do battle. But he realized something very important, something he never really believed would happen.

  H
e didn't have to fight her!

  Exhilaration blossomed in his chest. Without understanding precisely why, he gave a great "Hee-yah!" and gave himself up to the feeling.

  It was, Charly told him later, an historic moment.

  Six

  Over the next few days J.D. surprised Charly with the intensity with which he leapt into every activity she suggested. Gone was the staid executive who could wipe every emotion from his face at a moment's notice. Though he seemed strangely determined at times, J.D. never hesitated again. He played video games, fed the squirrels and pigeons at Lovers' Point, laughed over the sea otters' antics. He even flew his new kite with never a trace of the awkwardness he'd shown at first. Afternoons, he accompanied her to her coaching sessions, and not once did he try to interfere or lecture her. He even bought a pair of jeans.

  She viewed his actions with suspicion at first because he still held himself curiously distant, but his mood seemed to hold, and little by little she began to relax around him.

  One day they entered the school's parking lot to find Hogan standing in front of the main wall, drawing in charcoal. "Graffiti?" J.D. asked Charly as they met on the sidewalk.

  She shook her head. "Get ready for the shock of your life," she whispered.

  They walked closer, and J.D. realized that Hogan— the erstwhile bane of Charly's existence—was sketching a mural! What was even more astonishing was that the artwork was excellent.

  Scenes from Rucker's turbulent history were spread before him. He saw the violence of a gang war, broken and bleeding bodies lying on the ground, the coming of David Bakker, baseball bat in hand as he faced the hostile student body. And in the last panel, teenagers and teachers alike were working to tear down the shacks he had seen.

  "Hardly Utopia," Charly said. "But we're trying."

  Though color was absent, J.D. could feel the power behind the drawing. And It moved him more than words ever could. "It's incredible."

  "It was something."

  Her soft words startled him. He had almost forgotten that she had lived through some of those events. He turned to find the familiar hidden pain and wisdom shining clearly in her eyes, but now something overlaid it.

  Pride.

  His throat tight, he caressed her cheek with his fingertip. She turned to him, her brows raised. His mouth lowered to hers.

  "Hey, Ms. C!"

  She jerked back and spun away from him. "Hey, Hogan! This is fantastic!"

  "Wonderful!"

  Hogan shrugged at their praise and shifted on his feet. "I don't know if they'll let me do the blood, though."

  "Sure they will," said Charly. "Blood and gore is this school's middle name. Now get into your gear. You have an offensive line to stop."

  "Yes, ma'am, Dragon Lady, ma'am!" He gave her a mocking salute with his pencil and swaggered away.

  "Everybody's a comedian," she muttered, then followed.

  J.D. stood before the mural for a minute, then searched his memory for a name. When he came up with it, he smiled and made a mental note to call his friend at the San Francisco Art Institute from the pay phone. Hogan deserved a chance, all right.

  The next day Charly arrived at practice slightly ahead of J.D. and nearly dropped her teeth when she found a well-dressed woman studying the mural from every angle. Hogan stood away from it and greeted her with scarcely concealed excitement.

  "She's a dean at some fancy art college!" he whispered. "And she said this shows real potential!"

  "Of course it does! It's one of the best things I've seen in years." Charly glanced at the woman, who strolled over to Hogan, gave him her card, and told him to call her when it was finished. "We just might have a scholarship with your name on it," she told him.

  As her sleek Corvette pulled out of the parking lot, J.D.'s Mercedes slid to the curb. Hogan frowned at the car. "What's wrong?" Charly asked. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime!"

  "I just—" He cleared his throat. "I never thought this would happen. I mean, I'm not into ethnic art or anything. Just stuff."

  "Your stuff is your ticket, Hogan. Don't blow it because of some image you think you have to project, okay?"

  "I’ll think about It," he muttered, and walked off.

  Charly sighed. Men could be so difficult sometimes. She jumped when she felt a touch on her shoulder and glanced behind to find J.D. "Did you hear that?" she asked in exasperation.

  He nodded. "Don't worry. The door's open. That's all you can do."

  He strode on ahead to the playing field, and Charly began to follow. Then she stopped, staring at his back.

  He couldn't have heard everything! J. D. Smith had interfered again! she realized.

  Charly's indignation warred with her common sense. But the fact that he hadn't blown his own horn weighed heavily in his favor. Eventually, gratitude overcame her anger. Yes, he had butted in again, but he had done it with no thought of accolades. In his usual, quiet way he had simply done it. This was the kind of paperwork she could appreciate. And he deserved better than her treatment of him over the last few days.

  Later that afternoon she left J.D. on the beach studiously building sand castles, because she'd decided to let him in on an old family tradition. When she returned, he glanced up. "Everything okay?" he asked.

  She nodded. "That's a great. . . castle?"

  "Hey, this is a work of art!"

  His exaggerated affront earned him a giggle from her.

  His chin tilted up. "Observe the drawbridge, perfectly symmetrical, I might add, and the—"

  As she dragged him, protesting, away from the battlements, she refused to give into the worst case of nervous jitters she'd ever had, mainly because she couldn't figure out why she was so nervous. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that he hadn't tried to reignite that spark of sensuality between them. Of course not!

  As they topped a rise in the sand she gestured downward.

  "Voilà," said Charly. "A picnic and a sunset."

  J.D. shot her a curious look but said nothing as they walked to the plaid blanket and settled down.

  Charly pulled out beer, apples, and ham sandwiches from the cooler and slid him a paper plate. "It's not Chardonnay and Brie, Mr. Smith, but it's food.”

  "I don't understand."

  She bit into a piece of celery and held it in her teeth as she talked. "When I was little," she said as she scooped him up a monster portion of potato salad, "my mother used to bring my brother and me out to watch the sunset. We had to eat dinner, she said, so why not enjoy it."

  "She sounds like a remarkable woman."

  "Oh, that she was. She had the most amazing capacity for making even average things extraordinary.”

  He glanced at her quizzically as he opened his beer. "I thought you were going to treat me like everyone else. This seems too . . . special."

  "Don't get any ideas. This is just one of the ways I relax, one of the simple things. Honestly."

  He winced. "You're not going to let me forget that, are you?”

  She eyed him askance. "Do you want me to?"

  "Yes!"

  Surprised at his vehemence, she chewed a mouthful of celery. He really meant it. "Okay, J.D. It's forgotten."

  "Good."

  His gaze roamed over her, and she didn't know whether to be upset or relieved. Quickly, she loaded up his plate. "Anyway, Mom used to do things like this all the time. She wrote notes for our lunch boxes—telling us she loved us, you know. She drew faces in the cinnamon sugar in our morning toast or made little animals out of marshmallows and raisins and toothpicks." She shrugged. "Little things."

  "They sound like big things to me."

  "Yeah." She began to fix her own plate. That was all part of her life before her father had left, before her mother had faded into a wraith who'd never had time for her children, only her misery. She hadn't spoken of it to anyone else in such a long time, and it felt good to do so now. "What about you? Didn't your mother ever do stuff like that?"

  He shrugge
d. "My mother is hardly the norm."

  "Oh, come on. There had to be something you remember."

  His eyes grew distant for a moment. "There was one time. She took my sisters and me to the circus. I guess my father went along with it because it was something children did. But she took it one step further, as usual." He chuckled. "She managed to get us backstage afterward, to meet all the performers. I was ready to run away from home and become a clown. My father was furious."

  She smiled. "The perfect profession. How old were you?"

  "Six." He shook his head. "I haven't thought of that in years."

  She shook herself mentally and finished her plate. "Sorry. I didn't mean to rattle on like that."

  "Don't." he said softly. "Don't ever apologize for being yourself. You're an amazing woman. Charly Czerniowski."

  Stunned, she stared at him. The intensity in his voice was reflected in his green eyes, and it warmed her in places she thought she'd forgotten about. She could get used to him, she realized suddenly. She could get used to his strength, his surprising laughter, and especially that look. It made her feel fragile, special, cherished.

  She swallowed convulsively and dropped her gaze. "I'm surprised you can say the whole name with a straight face."

  He didn't laugh in answer. "I haven't stopped wanting you," he whispered.

  Her heart lunged against her chest. "You hide it well." Sarcasm tinged her voice.

  "Would you rather I fling myself on top of you right now? Tore your clothes off in wild passion?"

  She gulped, and her treacherous mind screamed, Yes! "Of course not, J.D. That's not what I meant." When she felt his touch on her hand, she jumped and held her breath, but he withdrew immediately.

  "Who hurt you, Charly?" he asked gently.

  She laughed mirthlessly. "Typical male reaction. A woman doesn't respond the way he wants, and he assumes it's because she's been scarred forever by another man."

  He wasn't daunted by her forbidding tone. "Were you?"

  She flung her head up, fury spitting from her eyes. "No. There are a few women in this world who are able to breathe without a man. Our hearts keep beating, our blood keeps pumping, our lives go on."