by Hope Ramsay
Her stomach dropped three inches, but she couldn’t look away. “I… uh… don’t know how to play pool.”
His grin widened. “Of course you don’t. Would you like to learn?”
That brought her up short. Was he trying to lead her astray so he would have leverage over her? After all, the guy had already taught her how to swear, pass on the right, and survive a bar fight. Now there was a seductive thought.
“Sure. I’m game,” she found herself saying.
He stood up. “Okay, then, let’s get you a cue stick.”
She pushed back from the table and followed him toward the front of the building and the pool table.
Tulane pulled a couple of cue sticks down from a rack on the wall.
“Uh, do they have any short ones?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Honey, this isn’t like some things, where length matters. A cue stick comes in just one size.” He handed her a stick that was almost as tall as she was.
“Oh.” She wondered what things he might be thinking about. He said “things,” and her mind moved directly to the gutter.
He pulled down a triangular frame, then started pulling balls out from under the table and placing them on the green felt top. “Now,” he said, investing his voice with a certain professorial manner, “the balls come in two kinds, solids and stripes. That’s important.”
He collected the balls into the triangle and arranged them. “This is called racking the balls.”
“Sounds painful.”
“I’m shocked. Where did a nice girl like you learn such things?”
“From you.”
His smile broadened. “I reckon you did. I reckon I have some talent in this teaching department.” He paused a moment as he positioned the triangle over a little white dot in the middle of the table and then removed the frame.
“Now, normally we’d flip to see who gets the chance to break, but I’m going to let you have the honors. We’ll chalk it up to you being a pool virgin and me being an experienced teacher, okay?”
He picked up a white ball and held it up. “This is a cue ball. It’s the only one you’re allowed to hit with your stick. It’s also the one you don’t want to put in any pockets.”
“Uh-huh.”
He placed it over the white dot at the end of the table opposite the group of balls. “Okay. Now, take a position at the end of the table and line up your stick with the cue ball.”
She moved to the end of the table and leaned over the table like she’d seen people do in the movies. The posture felt awkward. “Like this?”
He stood at the other end of the table, his gaze dipping down and then back up. One of his dimples made a sudden, wicked appearance. A little flush of excitement inched down her spine. He was getting a bird’s-eye view of her bra. It was new. She had bought it on a whim because it pushed up her assets and did things for her cleavage. Tulane appeared to have noticed.
He hesitated, obviously enjoying the view, and then he cleared his throat. “Uh, well, no.”
She straightened up. “No? What am I doing wrong?”
He headed around the table in her direction. “Uh, just about everything.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. Look here, I want you to stand with your legs perpendicular to the table and your feet about shoulder-width apart. Balance your weight on both feet.”
She did as she was told. “Like this?”
“Uh, well…” He moved around the table until he was standing behind her. In the next instant, he grabbed her by the hips and positioned her body at the edge of the table. The palms of his hands felt unbelievably warm through the fabric of her pants. He let go. Disappointment settled into her stomach.
“Like that,” he said, and his breath feathered across her cheek.
“Okay, what’s next?” she asked, her voice sounding unusually husky.
“Are you right-or left-handed?”
“Right.”
He leaned forward and grabbed her right hand and placed it way back on the stick, near its butt end. His motion had the effect of bringing the front of his body into contact with the back of hers. She was overwhelmed with his citrus scent, and the rounded contours of his thighs, and other bits of his equipment pressed up against the cleft in her bottom. Her heart slammed against her rib cage.
He backed up. “Okay,” he said, his voice sounding a little pinched. “Put your left hand palm down on the table about seven inches from the cue ball.”
She bent over, with Tulane right behind her. The man had to have a really good view of her bottom. She didn’t want to think about all that wide expanse of behind, and panty lines, too.
“Okay, now, lift your thumb and lay the shaft of the cue in the crease between your thumb and the side of your hand.”
Goodness. Her entire nervous system went a little haywire the minute he said the word “shaft.”
“Now slide the stick back and forth in the crease. It should slide smoothly and evenly.”
She did it. “Ah. It’s pretty smooth,” she said, her voice squeaky.
“Good. You’ve made an excellent bridge.”
“Bridge?”
“That’s what they call that little crease there where you’ve got the stick.”
“Oh. Okay.” Thank goodness they didn’t call it something salacious, otherwise she might turn into ash right on the spot.
“Okay, honey, the trick to making a good shot is to slide the stick back and forth in the slot a couple of times and then, when you’re ready, you pull back and strike the cue ball at its center. You got that?”
“Uh-huh.” She managed not to strangle on the words. It occurred to her that slot was a whole lot more salacious than bridge.
“Let ’er rip,” he said.
She did as instructed, striking the cue ball solidly. It rolled over the felt and smacked the other group of balls with enough force to scatter them in all four directions. One of the colored balls dropped with a thud into a corner pocket.
“Good break,” Tulane said. He pulled the six ball from beneath the table and held it up for her to see.
An intense flush of pride washed through her and must have shown on her face, because Tulane gave her a brilliant smile.
He nodded, his eyes dancing with merriment. “Since you sank a ball with your break, you get to go again. And since you pocketed a solid, your objective now is to get all the solid balls into the pockets, except for the eight ball. That comes later.” He went on to briefly outline the rest of the rules of the game.
She missed her next shot, and most of the rest of them, too. It came as no surprise that Tulane won the game. She would have been disappointed in him if he had let her win. Still, he purposely missed shots so she could have a chance to play. And somehow that seemed to underscore the fact that for a big, bad, good ol’ boy, Tulane was actually quite sensitive. She was terrible at this game, but Tulane didn’t seem to notice.
When the game was over, she realized the members of the No. 57 Ford team were drinking beer and lounging around on barstools, watching intently. She wondered what they might be thinking.
Tulane grinned at the crew. “Anyone else up for a game?”
Ken stood up. “Sure.”
“I was hoping to goad you into it.” There was an odd, tense look on Tulane’s face. “Best three out of five?”
Ken nodded coolly. “What are the stakes?”
Tulane dug in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a messy wad of bills. He counted them. “Twenty-five?”
Ken shook his head. “That all?”
Tulane shrugged. “Didn’t get to the bank. You ought to spot me a few, just to be neighborly.”
“Not on your life. Okay. Twenty-five.” Ken dug into his chinos and pulled out a money clip. He pulled out a crisp twenty and a five. They laid their money on a table nearby, pinning it down with Tulane’s beer.
Tulane and Kenny’s games were not exactly friendly. There was something of the playground in the way they
circled one another, like a couple of thirteen-year-olds trying to figure out who was the top boy on the field.
Sarah sat down on a high stool at the bar and ordered another Coke. Lori came down and sat beside her.
Ken won the coin toss and broke first. “Oops,” Lori whispered.
Sarah turned toward her. “Oops?”
“Not good for Tulane,” Lori said.
Ken proceeded to run the table. Tulane didn’t even get a shot. The engineer played like a machine. He didn’t seem worried, and he never missed.
Tulane broke the second game. He also ran the table, but he took a lot longer setting up his shots. Tulane had to work hard to keep up with Ken.
In the end, Ken won the twenty-five dollars in five games. He sauntered over to where she and Lori sat and leaned on his cue. He paused, as if expecting Sarah to make obeisance to him, as if he were the victor of a joust, and she the lady who was supposed to hand out laurel wreaths to the victors.
It was pretty arrogant of him. She didn’t think skill at playing pool meant much in the great scheme of things.
“Do you regularly beat Tulane?” she found herself asking.
He smiled as if this question was precisely the one he wanted her to ask. “Well, I probably have a few games up on him.” He was trying to sound humble. He failed.
Lori snorted. “Honey, Tulane and Ken play pool all the time. It’s become a regular spectator sport. I’d say Kenny has a slight edge, though.”
Ken shrugged. “I can’t help it if the guy insists. I’m not hustling him.”
Tulane shrugged. “Just passing the time and building up team spirit.” He turned around and placed his cue stick in the rack.
Sarah knew darn well that Tulane didn’t play with Kenny just to pass the time. Tulane didn’t like Kenny Lewicki. And Ken didn’t have much respect for Tulane. That game had been all about testosterone. But for some reason, Tulane chose not to fight Kenny. He chose to compete against him in a venue where Kenny had the edge.
Maybe it wasn’t about testosterone at all. Maybe Tulane was just trying to get Kenny on his side, because the two of them didn’t seem to be the best of teammates. The two men couldn’t have been more different if they tried.
At that moment, Tulane reached into his jeans and pulled out another wad of bills that belied his earlier comment about not making it to the bank. “ ’Course, I never bet more than I can afford to lose.” He winked at Sarah. “Honey, that’s one of those rules that you need to remember if you ever decide to take up hustling pool for a living.”
He pulled out three hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Lori. “Dinner’s on me. It’s the least I can do, considering how lousy I drove on Sunday. Now, if ya’ll don’t mind, my back is still killing me. That turn-two wall was kind of hard when I smacked it on Sunday.”
He gave a little farewell wave to the crew, then turned and walked out the door, giving Sarah a great view of his Wrangler-clad behind.
CHAPTER
7
Deidre Montgomery lined up several documents on her desk. At the far right was the memo Sarah had sent a few days ago about Racer Rabbit and Tulane Rhodes’s marketing appeal. Beside it stood a pile of research reports also authored by Sarah.
Next to that pile stood the famous Cuppa Java memo bearing Steve Phelps’s name. Steve had used this memo to catch the attention of the chairman of the Board. Its brilliant plan for marketing a new line of gourmet coffeemakers had contributed significantly to National Brands’ first-quarter results. And that, in turn, had made Steve Phelps a danger to Deidre’s career.
At the end of the line of memos sat the famous pink car memo, also bearing Steve Phelps’s name. Deidre had found this memo on her desk last January. It outlined a silly plan for putting a bunny on the hood of a NASCAR Sprint Cup car.
Deidre turned to Sheila Dvorak, the senior director of marketing and her right-hand assistant and enforcer. “So, what’s your take?”
Sheila smiled. “My take is that every single one of these memos was written by the same person. So the main question is: How the hell did someone with Sarah’s talent end up in research?”
“Beats me. But I’ll take the rap,” Deidre said. “I guess I was too preoccupied with Steve Phelps’s little games to actually notice Sarah. She has a way of fading into the background.”
Sheila nodded, but her helmet of frosted and sprayed hair stayed stationary. “Now I understand why the staff is whining about Sarah being detailed to Ferguson Racing. You think she’s been writing everyone’s memos?”
“No,” Deidre said, leaning back and steepling her fingers. “I think she’s been helping people, which is her job. But Steve went one step further—he put his name on the Cuppa Java memo, but Sarah wrote it. I’d stake my life on it. But why would she write a memo for Steve when she hasn’t done that for anyone else?”
Sheila rolled her eyes. “You don’t really want me to answer that question. It was rhetorical, right? I’ll bet the guy saw it on her desk and stole it. That would be consistent with his usual mode of operation.”
Deidre leaned forward and picked up the original pink car memo bearing Steve’s name. “So this was supposed to be her revenge?”
Sheila smiled like a fox. “Yeah, it’s pretty pathetic. But this is sweet little Sarah we’re talking about. And besides, you took the bait. Her revenge might have worked, too, but Steve sent Sarah to South Carolina and you got talked into letting her stay there. That, and the fact that Tulane Rhodes looks adorable in pink.”
“Well, it’s all working out all right, though,” Deidre said as she picked up Sarah’s newest memo. It suggested that National Brands keep Tulane in the pink car for the entirety of this racing season, while the company negotiated a licensing deal with Penny Farthing Productions, the owners of the Racer Rabbit cartoon character. Sarah had outlined all the parameters of an acceptable deal, as well as the organizational structure for a car seat safety program. Her theory on keeping Tulane in the pink car was pretty simple—a good ol’ boy in a pink car was news, and Tulane was sexy enough to make the rounds of nonsports talk shows, promoting Cottontail Disposable Diapers as he went.
Deidre had specifically told her not to write these memos, but now, studying them and realizing their competence, Deidre was happy Sarah had decided not to follow the rules.
She wasn’t going to underestimate Sarah again.
Deidre waved the new memo around. “I’m going to bury Steve Phelps with this.”
Sheila stared down her long nose. “Deidre, that’s not entirely fair to Sarah, is it?”
Deidre shrugged. “Sarah’s a big girl. It’s obvious she knows how to play dirty, even though she looks like an angel. Besides, I’m thinking she wants my help in getting rid of Steve. That’s why she put the first memo on my desk and sent me this one, even though I told her not to write any more memos.”
Deidre leaned forward. “I want you to get the media people on this right away. I want Tulane Rhodes on any talk shows you can book for the next couple of weeks. Get the art department to start working up concepts for a new paint job—tell them to watch Racer Rabbit for ideas.”
“Are you certain Tulane Rhodes is the right man for this Racer Rabbit thing? I mean, we still don’t know why he’s hot to trot on car seats. That bio of his is bogus, and in case you’ve forgotten, Sarah hasn’t provided the dossier you asked for. It’s almost like she’s dodging you.”
“You think she’s covering for him?”
“Maybe. I just have this feeling she’s up to something,” Sheila said.
“Well, we’ve got some time. We can’t make any driver changes until next racing season. In the meantime, Sarah’s got a point about Rhodes’s sex appeal. Putting a bad boy with a reputation in a pink bunny suit is news, Sheila. And it’s selling diapers like mad.”
Sheila nodded and chuckled. “Who would have thought?”
“You know, it’s a rare thing when you get to do well by doing good.”
“If you
count stealing Sarah’s ideas as doing good.”
Deidre shrugged. “Can’t be helped. We need Sarah where she is, out of the way in the boonies of South Carolina.”
Tulane dropped the green flag and the contestants hopped to it, changing their babies like a pack of demented fools. He was standing under another big tent at another Value Mart shopping center somewhere in South Carolina. He had lost track of where, exactly. The last few weeks had started to blur in his mind.
Having a sponsor liaison had not fixed much in Tulane’s life. In fact, National Brands was driving him crazy. They had arranged for him to appear on a half-dozen talk shows. He’d had to talk about how it felt to be riding around in a pink car wearing a pink driver’s suit.
Right, like National Brands wanted him to say one of the words the FCC had banned on national television.
The attention was embarrassing. It was bad enough being a thirty-year-old rookie, when all the other new drivers were in their teens or twenties. But to have guys snicker behind his back just steamed him.
Jim told him to be patient. But Jim didn’t have to put on a pink bunny suit week in and week out. It wouldn’t be so bad if his team were winning races. But they weren’t. Heck, they weren’t even finishing races. Morale was lower than low. And the whole sponsor thing had become one huge, never-ending distraction.
Of course, Sarah was a distraction that Tulane didn’t mind all that much. He was having a good laugh teaching the little Pilgrim stuff she didn’t know about. Take poker, for instance. Sarah wasn’t good at it, but she had this uncanny ability to bluff that had more to do with her not knowing that a pair of deuces was a bad hand than with any ability to lie, cheat, or deceive.
He had been thinking that it was time to casually raise the stakes by suggesting they gamble for pieces of clothing instead of pennies or matches.
Naw, he couldn’t do a thing like that. Getting Sarah naked would be a stupid and dangerous thing to do, even if it would be a lot of fun. Besides, she had unsnarled a lot of complications in his life, even if she hadn’t gotten him out of a pink suit. She’d gone through all the sponsorship crap that had come his way and had made a number of shrewd and lucrative suggestions.
