Brenna watched as Garrett solemnly shook hands with each of the youngsters as she settled for a warm smile. They seemed like well-behaved children. Perhaps Susan and Robert were luckier than she’d realized.
“You and Dad sure went to school with a lot of people,” exclaimed the younger boy.
At that they all burst out laughing and started across the open field toward the shelterhouse.
“Dad, can I have some money for a soft drink? Please?” Rob’s plea was quickly echoed by his two younger siblings.
“All right, you can each have two dollars to spend, but it has to last for the whole day,” he warned them as he fished in his back pocket for his wallet.
“We’re having to ask everyone to pay for their own soft drinks and beer, I’m afraid,” Susan expounded as they watched the children take off at a run toward the concession stands. “Unfortunately, the committee’s budget just wouldn’t extend that far. We did talk several of the local grocery stores into donating food for the picnic, and one of the women’s groups volunteered to bake cookies for the cookie-decorating booth.”
“And don’t forget that one whole day this week you spent making potato salad,” her husband interjected.
Susan quickly dismissed that with a wave of her hand and went on. “We’ve arranged for a magician to perform this afternoon for the children. And for the adults, too,” she added with a chuckle.
“Well, I’m genuinely impressed,” Garrett replied. “I certainly never expected anything this elaborate. It’s more like a county fair than a picnic.”
“We wanted to make this weekend as special as we could,” Susan said, warming to his praise. “And it’s only natural that most of the work has been done by graduates still living in the area.” Then she turned and motioned to her husband. “I see Rhonda is organizing the three-legged race. We did promise the kids we’d take part in it.”
“Okay, honey.” He nodded. “Why don’t you and Garrett come along and watch us make fools out of ourselves?” Robert suggested as he walked alongside Brenna.
“I think it sounds like fun,” she said and then went on with enthusiasm, “Of course, I won’t know who to cheer for if you’re all going to be entered in the race.”
They were quickly joined by the younger Whitfields, who were trying to devise a way to divide two parents and the three of them into equal teams. It was Garrett who finally stepped in with a solution to their predicament.
“I think Rob and I could make an unbeatable team, if he’s willing to give it a shot,” he proposed, watching for the boy’s reaction.
The child’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Gee, Mr. Forsyte, that’d be neat!”
The tall, dark man went down on his haunches in front of the boy. “If we’re going to be teammates, then I think you’d better call me Garrett. That is, if it’s all right with your parents.” He looked up at the Whitfields for their permission.
“Oh, I think we can make an exception in this case,” Robert said, giving his consent. “But you two better watch out! Jason and I plan to give you a run for your money.”
Garrett turned to her as he removed his sunglasses. “Would you mind holding these for me, honey? I have a feeling it’s going to get a little rough out there.” Then he flashed Brenna a broad smile and headed for the starting line with his eager partner in tow.
“Good luck!” she called after them all, but it was one man’s tall form she followed with eager eyes as they wound their way through the crowd.
Brenna had to admit she was genuinely touched by Garrett’s offer to take part in the race. She watched him now talking to the boy as he secured the rope around their legs. It could be seen at a glance that the child was bursting with pride at having this adult as his teammate for the event. She was pleased and surprised to find Garrett handling himself so well with a ten-year-old when he had no children of his own—at least none that he’d seen fit to mention, she reminded herself. It was more than likely that a man in his position spent very little time with children. He’d obviously acquired a number of skills over the years, including the ability to get along well with people, no matter what their age or interests.
Then she spotted Rhonda Wells standing in front of the motley assortment of parents and children as if this were nothing less than the Olympics themselves. A hush fell over the crowd as she raised the red flag in her hand. Then the signal was given and the race began.
“C’mon, Rob! Garrett!” Brenna found herself cheering along with the rest of the enthusiastic crowd on the sidelines.
The shouts of encouragement were all in good fun, but it was soon apparent that Garrett and young Rob had planned their strategy well. With only an occasional mishap, they were the first team to make it across the finish line, with Robert and Jason coming in a close second.
They were still out of breath, their faces beaming, when they rejoined her to show off their prize ribbons. Susan and Lynn were sporting “honorable mentions” for simply participating in the race. Even Garrett was proudly wearing his first-place ribbon pinned to the front of his shirt.
“How about a cold drink to celebrate? My treat,” he added, encompassing them all in the offer. “Robert, would you and Susan prefer a beer or a soft drink?” There ensued a few moments of noisy confusion as he sorted out their order. “All right,” he commanded, calling the group to attention, “I want to make sure I’ve got this right—that’s two beers, four colas and one Seven-Up.” He threw an easy smile in Brenna’s direction.
“Even those serve who simply stand on the sidelines and cheer,” she paraphrased, plunking her bottom down on the bench of a picnic table nearby.
“And you do it so well, honey,” he drawled, boldy assessing her slender form. Waving aside any offers of help, he swung around and stalked off.
“Garrett sure has turned out to be one heck of a nice man, hasn’t he?” Susan commented once he’d left for the concession stands. “It’s a wonder some woman hasn’t snapped him up by now.” She gave Brenna a meaningful look.
“Yes, it is a wonder,” she echoed noncommittally, turning her attention to a rousing game of badminton going on close by. No harm done, but if there was one thing she didn’t need, it was an old friend casting herself in the role of matchmaker.
Garrett came back a few minutes later, carefully balancing their soft drinks and cold beer in the lid of a cardboard box. “Here we go,” he cheerfully announced, sliding onto the narrow bench beside Brenna.
The children responded with a polite chorus of thank you’s as they gulped down their drinks and dashed off again.
“Perpetual motion,” she mused with a lazy smile, stretching her legs out under the picnic table alongside Garrett’s. “If we could bottle some of that energy and sell it, we’d all be rich.”
“It takes more energy than I have sometimes to keep up with the three of them,” Susan conceded with a maternal sigh.
“I’m still recuperating from that darned three-legged race,” Garrett remarked, rubbing the back of one shoulder where a telltale grass stain had smudged his shirt.
They all looked up as Rob came running to them, his young face flushed with excitement. “Here, Dad!” The boy quickly emptied his pockets, dumping loose change and crumpled dollar bills on the picnic table in front of Robert Whitfield.
“What’s this all about?” his father asked, puzzled by the boy’s action.
“We don’t need any money,” Rob explained, tripping over the words in his excitement. “The lady told us the drinks are free now. Some ’nonymous donor paid for everybody.”
“An anonymous donor?” Robert repeated, attempting to make some sense of what his son was telling him. “Are you sure about that?”
“Sure I’m sure, Dad. Just ask Miss Wells. She’s the one who told us.” He squirmed, impatient to be off again.
“Well, can you beat that?” Robert said, shaking his head. “Whoever the crazy fool is, I hope he knows it’s going to cost him a small fortune.” He took a final swig
of his beer and stood up. “It’s time I tried my hand at a game of horseshoes. Care to join me, Garrett?”
“Maybe later, Robert I think I’ll just sit here and nurse this beer awhile longer,” he commented in a lazy drawl.
“Well, I think it’s absolutely wonderful!” Susan exclaimed. “Not to mention generous.” Excusing herself, she determinedly got to her feet. “I’ll see you two later. I believe I’ll go have a little chat with Rhonda Wells.”
Once they were alone Brenna turned to the man beside her, noting that his expression gave nothing away. “That was a very generous thing to do,” she told him in a quiet voice.
“Lady, I don’t have the foggiest notion what you’re talking about,” he drawled, taking a sip of his beer.
Inching closer, she smiled. “Oh, you don’t, do you? Well, I happen to think that you do.” She leaned toward him then, lightly pressing her lips to the stern line of his jaw.
With surprising alacrity, Garrett’s arm shot out to encircle her waist. “What was that for?” he demanded softly, pulling her closer still. “Not that I was ever one to look a gift horse in the mouth, mind you.”
Brenna tried her darnedest to act casual. “It was just my way of saying thank you.”
“In that case, would you mind thanking me again?” he asked with a sudden and very dangerous grin. “Only, properly this time.”
Giving him a little shove, Brenna backed off. “I should have known you’d try to take advantage of the situation.” She clicked her tongue disapprovingly, her face turning a delicious shade of pink. “Now promise me you’ll behave the rest of the day, Garrett.”
“My dear Mrs. Richards, I promise—” he paused to lend emphasis to what he was saying, “—that before this day is over, you and I will be in the sack together.”
“What!”
The man got to his feet, pulling her after him. “In fact, now is as good a time as any.”
4
You might at least have told me it was going to be a gunnysack,” Brenna insisted testily, half laughing and half angry.
Garrett looked down at her with a faintly mischievous smile. “What? And deprive me of the pleasure of seeing you blush again?”
He really shouldn’t tease her, but she was so damned attractive when she got that look of feminine outrage on her face, that lightning bolt of anger flashing in her green eyes—and they were green, no matter how much she might argue to the contrary. Then there was the way her bottom lip pursed in the faintest hint of a pout. There were a hundred little things about her that fascinated him.
She’d been right last night when she told him he didn’t know the first thing about her … Well, he knew the first thing or two. She was a beautiful woman with an undeniable streak of passion in that lovely body of hers. But there was so much about her he didn’t know. Of course, finding out was going to be half the fun.
He watched as she planted her hands on the curve of her slender hips and looked up at him with an amused challenge in her eyes. “Well, teammate, what’s our strategy to be in this race?”
“It’s very simple, really,” he started to explain, holding the coarse burlap sack in front of him. “We both get in the sack, hold it up around our waists, and then hop or whatever from here to the finish line.” He pointed to two stakes planted in the ground some fifty yards away.
“That’s it? That’s our winning strategy?” She hooted.
“Sarcasm will get us nowhere, Brenna. It’s going to take team effort and a keen sense of balance and coordination on both our parts to make this work. It’s a lot easier said than done, you know.”
“What I don’t know is why I let you talk me into doing these dam fool crazy things in the first place,” she grumbled, climbing into the sack.
With a chuckle that came from deep within his chest, Garrett followed, pressing the length of his body along hers from shoulder to thigh. He drew in a sharp breath when he felt her wiggle back against him, trying to adjust to the confining position she found herself in. Hell, maybe this hadn’t been such a brilliant idea, after all. It was certainly going to test his endurance, not to mention the limits of his self-control.
“Now bring up the slack!” he barked, pulling the coarse burlap up around their waists.
“There’s no need for you to shout,” she reminded him tersely. “I’m not exactly the length of a football field away. Are you sure this is the way it’s done?” Garrett could feel her tense against him as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
“If you don’t believe me, just look around you,” he pointed out nonchalantly. Thank God, there were a dozen other couples in a dozen burlap bags in exactly the same position at the starring line. Apparently, there weren’t too many ways of doing this, he thought, relieved.
Brenna turned her profile to him. “Shouldn’t we practice hopping in this thing once or twice?”
Garrett shook his head, inadvertently snagging her hair in the top button of his shirt. He took one hand from around her waist and reached up to free the dark, silky strand, holding it between his fingers for a moment before brushing it back into place. “Don’t worry, honey,” he assured her, his voice huskier than he would have liked. “You’ll get the hang of it once we start. It’s more important to save our strength for the race.”
“Well, I wish they’d hurry up and start. It’s getting hot in here,” she complained, her firm little bottom stirring restlessly against him.
That it was! But Garrett knew it had little to do with the warm June day or the coarse burlap grating against his skin through the material of his shirt If the race didn’t start pretty soon, things were really going to heat up. And he hadn’t counted on making that kind of fool of himself.
“There’s Rhonda and her red flag, thank God,” he muttered in her ear. “Now remember, we have to pace ourselves and move together,” he prompted, tightening his hold on her.
“I still think we should have tried a practice hop or two,” Brenna was telling him as the flag dropped.
Then the race was on.
It wasn’t much of a race as races go. It had none of the speed or grace of the Indianapolis 500, none of the intensity or endurance required of a marathon. If anything, it soon resembled a human demolition derby. There was entirely too much laughing on the part of the contestants, for one thing. And then there were the occasional grunts and groans as arms and legs became entangled and bodies hit the soft grass in tandem.
“You’re doing just fine, honey!” Garrett shouted to her as they bunny-hopped down the course, halfway to the finish line.
“What?” Brenna turned her head for an instant, trying to catch his instructions amid the cheers and shouts from the sidelines.
And that was when it happened. They both saw it coming and realized there was nothing they could do to stop it. The outcome seemed inevitable as Brenna missed her footing and tripped. They went down with a heavy thud, Garrett clumsily landing right on top of her.
“Uh!” The force of the fall brought a grunt from them both. They lay there a minute without moving, absorbing the unfamiliar impact of solid ground and colliding bodies.
“For God’s sake,” Brenna sputtered at last, rolling over, her mouth full of grass, “what were you shouting at me?”
“I… ah …” Garrett huffed, fighting to get the air back into his lungs. “I was trying to tell you that you were doing just fine.”
“Well, now’s a fine time to tell me!” she retorted hotly. Then she looked up at him and burst into a long, rollicking laugh. “I’d say it was a bit premature on your part, wouldn’t you?”
Garrett gazed down at her with a lopsided smile. “It was all my fault, anyway. I shouldn’t have distracted you by shouting like that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Brenna agreed, her voice growing softer. “You realize we’ll never finish the race now.”
“Who gives a damn about the race?” he growled, suddenly aware of the pliant female form imprisoned beneath him.
His eyes
dropped to the front of her blouse where the soft material strained against her breasts. Her breath was coming in short, fast little pants that only served to accentuate their enticing form. Her face was flushed an enchanting shade of pink, the dark hair a mass of wild tangles. Garrett felt her unknowingly, provocatively arch into him. For just a moment he yielded to the temptation, gently grinding his hips into hers.
“You must weigh a ton!” she shot at him, giving his shoulders a shove.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he drawled, but he could feel himself beginning to respond to the lure of her body and quickly rolled away. “I think we’d better get up before we make a spectacle of ourselves.”
“I thought we’d already done that,” she retorted mockingly.
“Up we go,” he said rather too cheerfully, offering her his hand.
“Ohhh …” Brenna groaned, massaging her hip as she struggled to her feet. “I tried to tell you I was never very good at games.”
“Oh, you’re good all right, lady,” he muttered to himself, but when he turned to her his face and voice were normal again. “What do you say to a nice cold beer?”
“I’d say it’s the best idea you’ve had all day.” She grimaced, hobbling along beside him as they headed back to the picnic area.
“I saw you two in the sack race. How’d it go?” Susan inquired as they approached.
“Well, we didn’t win any prizes,” Garrett told her, revealing a heretofore unknown talent for understatement.
“Win any prizes!” Brenna snorted, gingerly easing herself down onto the hard bench. “We didn’t even finish.”
“It wasn’t a total loss,” he admonished, slanting a meaningful look down at her. “I seem to have worked up quite an appetite.”
“Splendid! We’ll be serving lunch in a minute,” Susan blithely went on. “Robert’s out there somewhere rounding up the kids now.”
Only This Night (Silhouette Reissued) Page 6
