He slipped the remote from her hand and turned up the volume, signaling that at least from his point of view, this particular conversation had come to a close.
The coldness she heard in his voice broke her heart. If his grandmother had been his only blood relative, that meant Murphy was the closest thing to family he had right now. That was such a precious thing to lose, and Cole didn’t even realize it.
“GINNY, I’m telling you the job could be yours if only you’d apply for it.”
Rhonda sat at the table in the tiny kitchen at the bank, flipping through the morning paper and chastising Ginny at the same time.
“Rhonda!” Ginny whispered. “It’s a trainee position. Ruby is hardly going to give it to me. Not with Susan around.”
“Susan has nothing on you.”
“Oh, please.”
“I’m not kidding. You’re smarter than Susan. You’re more efficient than Susan. You’re nicer than Susan.”
“And Susan will be getting the job.”
Rhonda huffed with disgust. “Do you really want Susan lording that over you from now on? Or would you rather be lording it over her?”
“I don’t want to lord anything over anybody. And why aren’t you applying for the job?”
“Me? With a panty-hose job? No way. I’m staying right there behind the counter where I can go naked from the waist down if I want to. You, on the other hand, wear panty hose whether you have to or not. Now go after it.”
Ginny wanted the job. That wasn’t the question. She’d never wanted anything so badly in her life. But she didn’t stand a chance, so why try? And since she’d be going to college soon anyway, what did it really matter in the long run?
“Darn,” Rhonda said, stabbing her finger at the sports page. “I can’t believe the Cowboys lost by only two points.”
“It was that turnover in the fourth quarter,” Ginny said. “They lost great field position.”
Rhonda looked at her with astonishment. “I didn’t know you were a football fan.”
“I’m not. Or at least I wasn’t. But Cole loves it. We watch football all the time. And you know, it’s actually fairly interesting, once you know who all the players are.”
“You know, Earl and I have been talking about getting tickets to a Cowboys home game. Why don’t you two come along?”
Ginny stared at her. “All the way to Dallas?”
“Yeah. A road trip would be lots of fun.”
A football game? In person?
“Maybe,” she said. “Just tell me when you’re planning to go, and I’ll talk to Cole.”
“Why don’t we go this Sunday? The team’s in town.”
Ginny felt a tingle of excitement. Cole had said he’d once considered getting season tickets, so surely he’d want to go, wouldn’t he?
11
COLE HADN’T BEEN too sure about making the two and a half hour trip into Dallas to see a Cowboys game. But Ginny’s face had lit up when she’d asked him about it, so he didn’t figure he could say no, particularly when he was the one who’d gotten her interested in the game in the first place.
Right now Ginny sat in the passenger seat of his Porsche, with Rhonda and Earl tucked into the tiny back seat. He’d warned them about the size of it, but Rhonda said his car would still be more fun than their Buick. Rhonda was a big-haired Texas girl with a twang that could have curdled milk. Her husband, Earl, was a corresponding Texas boy with a crew cut and a can of Skoal in his hip pocket, who talked loud and laughed hard, the kind of guy you felt as if you’d known forever even though you’d just met him.
As they headed down the state highway toward I-20, Ginny turned to Earl and Rhonda. “Is it a tight squeeze back there?”
“Oh, heck no,” Rhonda said. “I’ve had sex in back seats smaller than this.”
Earl turned to Rhonda with a perplexed expression. “You have?”
“Sure, honey. Now, don’t go searching those memory banks of yours, because it wasn’t with you.”
“Oh.” Earl shrugged. “Which is not to say we couldn’t try it sometime.”
Rhonda gave him a sly smile. “Think Cole might have something to say about that?”
“Our car, Rhonda.”
“The Buick? What’s the fun in that? It’s twice the size of our bed.”
“But at least the springs don’t squeak.”
Rhonda mulled that over for a moment. “True.” She grinned. “Okay, honey, it’s a date.”
Ginny blushed a little, but still she laughed. And even though Cole would have sworn his two passengers would drive him nuts within half an hour, sooner or later their banter had him laughing right along with everyone else.
Rhonda scooted up and tapped Cole on the shoulder. “Did Virginia tell you about the job she’s going to apply for?”
Ginny gave her a warning stare. “Rhonda—”
“It’s a loan officer trainee position. Virginia’s perfect for the job, but if she doesn’t apply for it, it’s going to go to Susan Barker. But Virginia’s smarter than Susan, she’s nicer to the customers, but she won’t tell Ruby she wants it.”
“Rhonda—”
“Cole. Tell her to do it. Tomorrow’s the last day to apply. She wants the job. She just won’t say so.”
“Is that true, Ginny?”
“I’m really not qualified—”
“It’s a trainee job!” Rhonda said. “There are no qualifications, except to be smart and to learn fast. And if Susan Barker gets it, I swear I’m burning that bank down.”
“Hmm,” Cole said. “Ginny and I will have to have a talk about that.”
Ginny gave Rhonda a look of admonishment. “Thanks, Rhonda.”
Rhonda sat back in her seat with a smug grin. “You’re welcome.” Then her eyebrows flew up. “Wait a minute. Did I hear Cole call you Ginny?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, I like that a whole lot better than Virginia.” She smiled. “Ginny it is.”
WHEN THEY ENTERED Texas Stadium, Ginny simply could not believe her eyes.
“I’ve never seen so many people in one place before,” she told Cole. “Everybody in the city of Dallas must be here!”
“Not quite, sweetheart. But it looks like a good portion of them, doesn’t it?”
They found their seats, which were pretty good ones on the thirty-yard line. It was cool without being cold, and the light sweater Ginny wore was just enough to keep her cozily warm. The whole stadium seemed to be in motion, with people milling around, cheering at pregame activity and running up and down the stairs for hot dogs and sodas and a variety of other junk food guaranteed to stop up your arteries. It was one thing to watch a game on television. It was another thing entirely to see it in person, and she couldn’t stop smiling.
Ginny leaned over and whispered to Cole. “Thanks for coming.”
“You really didn’t have to twist my arm to come to a football game.”
“Thanks just the same.”
She smiled at him and he smiled back, and she knew for a fact that this was going to be one of the best afternoons of her life.
They cheered themselves hoarse through the first half, at which point the Cowboys were up by only a field goal. As the teams headed for their respective locker rooms, Earl and Rhonda offered to get sodas for everybody. After they disappeared down the steps, Cole turned to Ginny.
“The job Rhonda was talking about,” he said. “Apply for it.”
“Cole—”
“Stop hiding your head in the sand around that place. You’re better than you think you are. Don’t you dare let somebody else have a job that ought to be yours.”
“You know our situation. I wouldn’t be keeping the job long.”
“That’s not the point. You’ve spent your whole life being afraid of things. It’s time you stopped that. If you’re the best candidate for that job, tell your supervisor so, and don’t take no for an answer.”
Ginny stared at Cole with surprise. He had a way of spelling things
out in simple, direct terms until they didn’t seem so scary, after all. All at once she had the same feeling she’d had the night they’d talked about her mother—the feeling that her life didn’t have to stay the same as it had always been. She could grow. She could do better. She could have more, if only she made the decision to go after it.
“Okay,” she told him, feeling a surge of self-confidence. “Maybe I will.”
“Of course you will,” Cole said, as if the issue had already been decided. “Now, tell me what you think is wrong with the Cowboys’ offense today.”
“I don’t know. Maybe the three-hundred-pound guys on the other team’s defensive line are kind of getting in their way.”
Cole laughed. “Yeah, that just might have something to do with it.”
“Why, Cole McCallum! Long time no see!”
Cole looked up to see a woman standing beside him, with long, dark hair, excessive makeup and generous breasts tucked inside a too-tight T-shirt. He had the feeling he ought to know who she was, but her name escaped him.
“Janet Lupinsky,” she said, smiling seductively. “Surely you remember me, don’t you?”
He thought he did. Maybe. Vaguely. “Sure, Janet,” he said, giving her a generic smile in return. “How are you?”
“Better now,” she said, purring and plunking herself into the empty seat beside him. “Why, I had no idea we’d be running into each other. Can you believe the luck?”
Yeah, Cole thought. Lucky me.
“Hey, I heard about the arson thing,” she said with an expression of mock sympathy. “Too bad. Hear you got off, though.” She sidled closer to him. “How would you like to get off again?”
Cole raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“After the game,” she replied, “we can find ourselves a nice little hotel room and let whatever comes…come. It’d be kind of like old times.”
“Sorry, I can’t do that.”
“Why, sure you can, sugar. In fact,” she said, easing closer still, “you can do it better than just about any man I know.”
“Sorry, Janet. I’m a married man.”
She drew back with a look of total shock. “Cole McCallum? Married?” She laughed. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Never been more serious.”
“Well,” she said, turning her seductive smile on, “don’t let a little thing like that stop you. After all, what your wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“It will if she’s sitting right next to him,” Ginny said.
The woman froze, then slowly turned her gaze in Ginny’s direction, her face filled with flagrant disbelief.
“You? You’re his wife?”
She held out her hand and gave Janet a great big smile. “Ginny McCallum. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The woman shook her hand dumbly. She stared back and forth between them for a full five seconds, blinking as if she couldn’t possibly comprehend what her eyes were telling her.
“Can I give you a little advice, Janet?” Ginny said.
“Uh, what?”
Ginny rested her palm on Cole’s thigh, leaned across him and motioned the woman closer. “If a man says he’s married and there’s a woman sitting right next to him…well, next time you might want to make that mental leap and kind of put the two things together. Okay, Janet?”
Cole couldn’t believe it. Had those words actually come out of Ginny’s mouth?
She continued to smile sweetly, while Janet looked a little bit nauseated. Finally she mumbled something that sounded like an apology and slunk away.
“I’m sorry about that, Ginny,” Cole said. “She’s just some bimbo I knew once.”
“Forget it. It’s no big deal.”
“She’s got a lot of nerve to sit there and say all those things right in front of you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I mean it. Don’t listen to anything a woman like that says. She’s nothing but a—”
“Cole, will you hush? The wave’s coming!”
For at least the tenth time that day, people leaped out of their seats and threw their arms in the air, doing their part to send an undulating wave of bodies in motion all the way around the stadium. Ginny leaped up right along with them. He stared at her with disbelief. Was this the same woman who ran from her own shadow only a few months ago?
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” he said, as she sat down.
“Of course I did. There’s nothing like a really good wave to get your blood rushing.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ginny twisted her mouth with disgust. “She deserved it. I don’t like women who go after married men.”
He smiled. “Especially when you’re married to the man she’s going after?”
Her face fell. “Don’t tease me, Cole.”
“I’m not teasing you, sweetheart. Believe me. I like a woman who stands up for herself.” Cole slipped his arm along the top of her chair behind her back and leaned in closer to her. “I like it a lot.”
He couldn’t help it. Watching Ginny put that woman in her place did something to him that he just couldn’t describe. And as he looked at her now, something seemed to come alive between them, something new and different that had never been there before.
He dropped his hand to her shoulder and pulled her gently toward him. She yielded to the pressure, moving closer. He brought his other hand up, touching her cheek with his fingertips. She didn’t look away, she didn’t blush, she didn’t remind him of any rule she’d made that he was in the process of breaking. Instead she put her hand against his shoulder, then slid it slowly to his neck, where her fingertips met his bare skin.
“You’re really something special, Ginny. Don’t you ever settle for less than you deserve, do you hear me?”
He lowered his mouth toward hers. The crowd roared suddenly at something going on down on the field, but Cole scarcely heard it. It was as if all the sights and sounds around him had blurred into nothingness, and all he knew on this earth was Ginny’s thumb moving softly against his neck and his lips hovering only an inch away from hers.
“Newlyweds. Look at ’em, Rhonda. It’s downright nauseating!”
Ginny pulled away suddenly, and Cole looked around to see Rhonda give Earl an elbow to the ribs for his rowdy comment. Then Rhonda turned to Ginny. “He’ll be looking to get nauseating himself before the day’s out, believe me.”
Earl rolled his eyes and plopped down beside Rhonda, then doled out the sodas. After a moment, Cole reached over and took Ginny’s hand in his. He held it through most of the rest of the game, with a little squeeze here and there to remind her of their unfinished business. She never pulled away, and every once in a while she’d look over, their eyes would meet, and he’d know that they were thinking the same thing.
Rhonda prattled on at Ginny, something about the Coldwater Booster Club she was a member of. They did things such as running the concession stand at games and having bake sales to raise money for the sports teams at the high school. Since Ginny liked football, Rhonda asked her if maybe she’d like to come along sometime and help out. It was fun, she said, since mostly it was the moms of the athletes and the female alumni of Coldwater High who participated, and they did as much yakking as they did working. Ginny smiled and said that she would love to join them, but Cole could tell her mind really was somewhere else.
By the time the game was over and they left the stadium, Cole was so consumed with getting home that he couldn’t have stated the final score if his life depended on it. He had no idea how far this would go. He only knew that for the first time in his life he didn’t want sex just for the sake of sex. The woman he wanted to make love to wasn’t some nebulous beauty queen with a gorgeous but generic body whose name he wouldn’t even remember in the morning.
She was beside him right now. And her name was Ginny.
AS COLE and Ginny drove through the darkened gates of the ranch, her heart raced with anticipation. Ever since th
ey’d dropped Rhonda and Earl off at their house, neither she nor Cole had said a word, and the silence was deafening.
For all her protesting in the past, she wanted desperately to feel his lips against hers again, his arms embracing her and see that look in his eyes that said he wanted her. The sensation was so powerful she almost couldn’t contain it. Almost every night after he’d gone to sleep, she stared at him, imagining what it would be like to reach across the short distance that separated them and touch his cheek, stroke his shoulder until he woke up, then tell him how foolish she’d been, and that of course she wanted him to make love to her.
But that was fantasy. Tonight was reality.
Until a few months ago, the monotony of her life had dulled her senses to the point where she’d rarely felt anything. Then she’d met Cole, and he’d yanked her emotions from one end of the spectrum to the other. He made her think about things in ways she’d never thought about them before, made her feel things she’d never felt before, whether anger or fear…or sexual attraction. But no matter how much she wanted him, she knew in her heart that making love with Cole would be just about the most dangerous thing she could possibly do.
They came into the kitchen, and Ginny quickly turned on the overhead light, which cast a bright, comforting glow around the room. She set her purse on the counter.
Cole came up beside her. She could practically feel the heat radiating from his body, and the tiny trace of comfort she’d felt evaporated.
“It’s late,” she said. “I’m tired. I—I guess I’ll go get ready for bed.”
Bed. Oh, Lord—that was the last place she needed to be with Cole.
She slipped away from him, grabbed a pair of pajamas from the dresser in the bedroom, then headed for the bathroom, where she flipped on the light and closed the door behind her.
How was she ever going to go into that bedroom and sleep with him tonight? She sensed that the moment she lay down beside him he would pull her into his arms, and she wanted it so much. But she also knew the possible consequences, and she wasn’t anywhere near ready to face those.
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