Plus, there was no peace to be found in his house. Not with the Marconis crawling all over the place pounding hammers and clanging on pipes.
So, he was here. And just what did it say about his life, he wondered silently, when an afternoon at a Pop Warner game—with a kid who was suing him—was the best thing he had going?
“Where is he?” Nick asked, shoving his thoughts to the back of his brain. God knew there’d be plenty of time later to think. His gaze locked on the small herd of tiny tacklers, one squad in filthy white, the other in faded red.
“Number twenty-two. In white,” Tasha answered, her gaze, too, fixed on the game.
Nick watched Jonas. God, he looked small out there. Skinny white legs poking out of the knee-length football pants. His cleats were muddy and his white socks drooped down around his ankles. The kid’s uniform was covered in grass stains, giving witness to how many times he’d been knocked on his ass. But when the ball was snapped, Jonas took off like a shot. Zigging and zagging his way through the other team, he raced downfield, outran his blockers, then leaped up to snag a pass aimed right at him.
Nick’s heart jumped to his throat and his hands closed around his knees as if he could somehow help the kid hold on to the ball. When Jonas turned and hit the ground running for the goal line, fifty yards away, Nick’s heart pounded.
The screams and shouts of the crowd faded into the distance as he focused solely on the one small boy headed for glory. Memories skirted through Nick’s mind again in a wild rush of color and sensation. He knew just how Jonas felt when the triumphant boy spiked the ball on the ground, then turned to jump up and down with his friends.
And for a split second, Nick envied Jonas that feeling that was now lost to him forever.
Beside Nick, Tasha was on her feet, two fingers in her mouth and whistling like she was hailing a cab in New York City. Then she glanced down at Nick, eyes bright, a proud grin on her face that lit up all the dark places inside him.
“Did you see that?” she demanded.
“Yeah,” he said, standing up to get a better look at that gorgeous smile. “He’s pretty good.”
“Good?” Tasha repeated, then shook her head. “He’s terrific.”
Nick nodded and shifted his gaze to the field, where the refs were calling the game over. Jonas’s victorious team started the screaming again and bolted for the sidelines and their own private cheerleaders.
Jonas, too, yanked his helmet off and came running straight to Tasha. Nick knew the instant the boy spotted him. Jonas’s dirty, sweat-streaked features brightened as if a hundred candles were burning inside him, and he ran forward as if looking for another touchdown.
“You came!” he shouted as he slid to a stop right in front of them.
“Had to see you play,” Nick said.
“Did ya see my touchdown?”
Tasha stepped forward and smoothed the boy’s sweaty hair back from his forehead.
“I saw it.” Nick grinned. “That was a great run.”
“See? I’m just like you.”
Just like you. The words echoed in Nick’s mind and repeated over and over again like a chant. For the kid’s sake, Nick hoped not. Nick had spent most of his life devoting so much time to football … that now that he was required to find a real life, he wasn’t sure what to look for. He wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
“Are you comin’ for pizza?”
“What?”
Tasha looked from Jonas to Nick and paused before saying, “After a game, the kids and the parents go for pizza.”
“You wanna come?” Jonas asked, and hope blossomed on his face.
Nick’s gaze shifted from the boy to Tasha. He could see she was hoping he’d say, “No thanks.” And he probably should have. But instead, he heard himself say, “Why not?”
CHAPTER 9
The noise level at the Pizza Palace was enough to make grown men weep.
But Nick, Tasha thought as she watched him from across the room, seemed to be enjoying himself. Surrounded by Jonas and his friends—and a few of the boys’ fathers—he was practically holding court. He’d been the star of the show since he’d arrived and Tasha couldn’t even resent him for it. How could she, when all it took was one look at Jonas to convince her the boy had never been happier?
Jonas was soaking it all in, like a flower left out in the sun too long and then blessed with rain. He darn near glowed in the reflected admiration bouncing off Nick.
Watching Jonas with the man he thought of as a father was enough to break Tasha’s heart. The little boy was so excited and so … proud. For the first time ever, Jonas had been one of the guys after the game. He, too, had had a ‘father’ there for him. And though Tasha was pleased for him, she was worried, too. This was all going to end, badly, one way or another. Either Nick would prove to be his father and take Jonas from Tasha … or Nick wasn’t his father and Jonas would lose him. Or worse yet, Social Services would catch on to the truth about Mimi and throw the boy back into the system, and he would lose Tasha and Nick.
How would Jonas stand it? How would he hold up after having his heart broken? And how could Tasha possibly stand by and watch it happen?
There was so much hanging in the balance, she thought, her stomach twisting into knots of anxiety and good old-fashioned fear. Too much for her to relax her guard.
“He’s much more handsome in person, isn’t he?”
“Hmm?” Tasha tore her gaze away from Jonas to look at Betty Wilkes, one of the team mothers. Betty always looked harried, from her mismatched socks to the gray roots of her blond hair. “Who?”
“Pssh!” The woman playfully slapped at Tasha’s shoulder. “Nick, that’s who.”
“Oh.” Of course. Who else would they be talking about? The kids’ moms were just as fascinated by Nick as their husbands.
“I mean, I used to watch him play,” Betty said, “not like I had any choice, my husband never misses a Saints game, but…” She took a deep breath and let it slide out in a slow rush of approval. “In person, he’s so…” She waved her hands, shook her head, and tried to find a word to describe him. When she couldn’t, she gave it up and just sighed.
“That about covers it,” Tasha agreed, letting her gaze slide back to the tall, broad-shouldered man with the wide smile. Even from a distance, she felt the heat of his gaze when he turned his head to look right at her. She sucked in a gulp of air.
“Well…” Betty said, leaning in close, “have something you’d like to share with the class?”
Well, at least she knew she wasn’t crazy. There really was something going on here between her and Nick. Now why didn’t that knowledge make her feel any better?
“No,” Tasha said tightly. She didn’t have anything she wanted to talk to Betty about. However, she could see herself spilling her guts to Molly in the morning. Chewing at her bottom lip, Tasha slid off the bench seat, leaving Betty hanging in the gossip wind, so to speak.
But she’d recover. At the moment, all Tasha wanted was a little space. Not easy to find in the madness that was the Pizza Palace. Between the screaming kids, the beeps and shrieks of the video games, and the pipedin music bouncing off the neon orange walls, the place was every kid’s dream—and every adult’s nightmare.
Almost every adult, she amended silently as she watched Nick playing to the crowd. Kids and their parents and even a few of the teenage waiters circled Nick like planets orbiting the sun. As she watched, he turned slowly in place, giving each of them a little brief eye contact, and she wondered if he actually practiced the move. Without even trying, he had every one of those people thinking they were the center of Nick’s attention.
He was smooth. And good-looking enough to be declared bad for a woman’s health. And charming. And … Nick dropped one hand onto Jonas’s shoulder and the boy leaned into him. Tasha sighed and her heart ached. Even in a crowd, the man had remembered why he was there. By drawing Jonas into his circle, he’d made the boy a part of it all. And Jonas was cle
arly loving it.
How could she fight to protect Jonas from something he wanted so badly?
She shifted her gaze to Nick and caught him watching her. One corner of his mouth lifted into a small private smile that reached across the room and curled up into a warm knot at the pit of her stomach. She found herself smiling back until she realized he’d done it again. He’d made her feel like the center of his attention, too.
No doubt about it. A man with that much personal power was a man to keep a wary eye on.
* * *
“That was so cool,” Jonas said as he rushed into the house and tossed his shoulder pads onto the staircase. Turning back around, he looked at Nick, his face beaming. “The guys really liked you. I could tell.”
Tasha scooped up the mail from the floor, where it had fallen through the slot in the front door, then moved past the two of them. Nick watched her as she carried the envelopes and circulars into the dining room. She’d been damn quiet since leaving the pizza joint. Made him wonder why. And that made him wonder why the hell he cared. His gaze still on her, he said, “I had a good time, too, Jonas.”
“I knew you would,” the boy crowed. “And you’ll go to the next game, too, huh?”
Nick smiled. His gaze shifted to the little boy and basked in the warmth radiating from the kid’s grin. Hell, it had been a pretty good night. He’d been worried about the whole spending time with Jonas thing, but it had really been fun. Talking to the boy’s teammates and their parents about football. Reliving a few of his more memorable moments. Nick rocked back on his heels and shoved both hands into his back pockets. He’d been worried for nothing. It was easy doing the father thing.
Not that he was a father or anything.
Tasha dropped her purse onto the dining room table and Nick looked over at her as she flipped through the mail. He saw her pause over a postcard, her fingertips tracing whatever glossy picture was there; then she dropped it onto the stack and turned around to meet his gaze. Her green eyes carried a solid punch even from across the room, and he wondered what she was thinking. Usually her expression left him no doubt at all about where her brain was.
Tasha wasn’t like most other women he knew. She didn’t play mind games. Didn’t pretend to be fascinated by him or football. Didn’t discreetly laugh or muffle a yawn. She yelled when she wanted to, challenged him whenever she thought he was stepping over a line she’d drawn in the sand, and she flashed that amazing smile of hers when she was happy.
With her, what you saw was what you got. Until tonight. Now there were shadows haunting her brilliant green eyes. Secrets hidden behind that nervous chewing of her lip. And damned if he didn’t want to know what they were.
“Jonas,” she said, ripping her gaze from Nick’s in order to confront the still chattering boy. He looked at her as she said, “It’s time for you to take a shower.”
“But we were still talkin’,” Jonas said.
“Jonas,” Tasha said firmly, though her voice was tinged with fatigue, “it’s been a long day. You’re tired and sweaty. Say good night and go upstairs.”
He wanted to argue, Nick could see it in the kid’s face. And he flashed back to his own childhood when he and Paul would put up a last-ditch effort at gaining a few extra minutes. But they’d never won those battles and apparently Jonas didn’t, either. Being a bright kid, he saved his breath and caved early.
“Okay, but—” He looked up at Nick. “Are you gonna be here when I get out?”
Tempting thought. A little extra one-on-one time with Tasha and maybe he’d be able to coax that truce into something a little friendlier. But even as he thought about it, he glanced at her expression. No welcome there. Just those intriguing shadows.
“No,” he said, shifting a look at Jonas. “I’d better go.”
“But you’ll come back, right?”
Jesus, how did anybody stand a chance against those big brown eyes? The kid packed so much hope and expectation into a single glance that his feelings were stripped bare. And Nick felt a flicker of unease. How could anyone live up to what this boy wanted, dreamed of having? Him, least of all. Had he really just thought this thing was easy? “I—”
“Jonas,” Tasha cut into the conversation before Nick could either agree to return or dodge the question. He was so busy being grateful for the rescue that he didn’t know what he might have said. Maybe it was best for everyone that way.
“Go take a shower.”
“Aw.…” Shoulders slumped in exaggerated defeat, the boy turned and headed for the stairs. He paused to pick up his pads and sling them over his shoulder. Then, drooping with every step, he slouched up the stairs like a man headed to the gallows. When he hit the top of the staircase, though, he stopped and looked down at Nick.
“I almost forgot. Can you get me some more of those pictures?” he asked.
“Pictures?”
“Yeah.” Jonas grinned. “Like the other ones you sent me, with you catching a pass, and you signed ’em, too, so you have to sign the new ones, too, ’kay?”
Signed pictures? “When did I send you pictures?”
Jonas leaned over the banister, dangling his shoulder pads by one dirty strap hooked around his index finger. “I wrote letters to you and you sent ’em.”
Fan letters. Signed pictures. It took a second or two, but things clicked in. “Did you send your letters to the stadium?”
“Uh-huh.”
That explained it. Any letters sent to the players via the football stadium were automatically forwarded to the players’ PR people. Since his second season with the Saints, Nick had used a secretary his business manager had hired. The secretary and whoever she hired answered the letters, signed the photos, and kept the fans happy. Nick never saw the letters himself. Like most of the other players, he’d been too busy practicing and playing the game to have time to deal with letters.
And to tell the truth, it had never bothered him before. He hadn’t given a single thought to the people writing to him. Celebrities got fan mail. That was just part of the job. And celebrities hired people to answer the mail. Also part of the job. So why, all of a sudden, was Nick feeling like a shit for not knowing that this kid, who might be his son, had written to him and gotten a generic reply along with a forged signature on a photograph?
He pulled his hands from his pockets and folded his arms across his chest. Looking up at Jonas, he said, “I’ll get you some more.”
The kid lit up like a Christmas tree and Nick told himself he shouldn’t feel bad if the boy didn’t mind. But it didn’t seem to help.
When Jonas was out of sight, Nick pushed thoughts of fan mail and photos out of his mind and turned toward Tasha. He felt her withdraw even before she took a cautious step backward. Her gaze lifted to his and he wished again he knew what she was thinking. Strange, though, he couldn’t remember ever worrying before about a woman’s thoughts. He’d been too busy admiring their hair, their eyes, their mouths. But Tasha … for some damn reason, he could admire the package while still wanting to know what was inside.
How new and intriguing was that?
“Thanks for coming,” she said, though he saw how much it cost her.
“Wasn’t easy, was it?”
“What?”
“Thanking me for being here when you really want me gone?”
She blew out a breath, reached up, and yanked the rubber band off her ponytail. Instantly her hair tumbled down to her shoulders in a thick, rich mass that made his hands itch to touch it. “Look, it’s nothing personal.…”
“You know,” he said softly, “I’d rather it was.” He didn’t understand it himself. But damned if he wanted to be lumped in with every other male she’d chase from the door. Hell, if she was going to hate him, he at least wanted that hatred to be specific to him. And if that wasn’t twisted, he didn’t know what was.
“What are you talking about?”
“Damned if I know,” he muttered, and kept his arms folded tight across his chest, to keep f
rom reaching out for her. Hell, knowing her, she’d probably take his hand off at the elbow if he tried it.
Truce or no truce.
“I appreciate what you did for Jonas tonight, but—”
“Who was the postcard from?”
She stopped. “What?”
“The postcard you were looking at. Who sent it?”
Her gaze shifted from his, then back again. “Mimi.”
“Yeah? Where is she?”
Tasha sucked in a breath and released it in a rush. “Paris.”
Nick nodded, even though he wasn’t buying it. There was something else, he thought. Something she wasn’t saying. “Paris is beautiful. You ever been there?”
She laughed, short and sharp. “No.”
“You should go,” he said, and in his mind he was already seeing her there at the little café he knew on the Champ de Mars. His imagination painted a clear vision of the two of them, tucked behind a small glass-topped brass table. They would sit and sip wine and watch the incredibly fast-paced French traffic roar past. They would chuckle at the tourists and sniff at strangers as the locals did. And much later, when the summer sun was setting, late into the night, they would stroll along the champ to the Eiffel Tower. There they’d stand in the encroaching darkness and watch as the tiny white lights on the tower blinked into life.
“Sure,” she said, shaking her head and dispelling the images in his mind. “I’ll put that right onto my ‘to do’ list.”
Nick glanced around the interior of the house, noting again the age of the place. Shabby but clean, old but cared for. Okay, there wasn’t much money here. But Mimi had managed it, hadn’t she? He looked at Tasha again. Maybe she didn’t see trips to Paris in her future, but she should, he thought. Everyone should see those things. Whether they did them or not, it was important to at least dream about them.
But he had the distinct feeling that Tasha Flynn was too rooted to the hardscrabble reality of life to let her dreams run wild.
“So Mimi does Paris while you stay here and take care of Jonas and everything else?”
Loving You Page 11
