Alex folded his arms. “I have so dusted.”
She raised an eyebrow. “There are dust bunnies in this house that could do battle with Godzilla.”
“I’ve never seen any dust bunnies,” he said.
“That’s because they were under the couch and behind furniture, places I don’t think you visit very often.”
“Well, there you go. I mean, who cleans under stuff and behind stuff? That’s just a little too anal-retentive for me. I’m a free and easy kind of guy,” he added, a grin breaking through his mock-defensiveness. Truthfully, it was fun to come home to a house that looked and smelled this good, especially when he hadn’t had to do any of the work. Not that he’d mind doing the work if this was how Holly liked things.
“I would’ve done this if you’d asked,” he told her. “You’re a guest. You shouldn’t have to clean.”
“Oh, I didn’t mind. I like to keep busy.” She turned back toward the kitchen. “There’s leftover chicken casserole if you want some,” she said over her shoulder, and Alex followed behind her like a homing pigeon, telling himself it was because he was hungry even though he’d had a huge sandwich at the deli on his way home.
“Mmm, smells good,” he said, looking around in amazement at his now sparkling-clean kitchen. “Wow, Holly. This must have taken hours.”
“Not really,” she said, scooping some casserole onto a plate and handing it to him. “And like I said, I was glad to have something to do. I hardly saw Will at all today. We had dinner together, but he did homework at the table and then went straight upstairs to do more. He’s got a big history test tomorrow. And…”
She hesitated, sitting down at the table. Alex sat down across from her and took a bite of casserole. “Truthfully,” she went on, “I was glad for the distraction. I filled out the insurance paperwork today and it was kind of…depressing.”
He stopped eating. “Holly, I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”
“The paperwork part wasn’t so bad. I even keep a household inventory in a safe deposit box, like the insurance companies tell you to but no one ever does. So the contents form was pretty easy to fill out…except…”
Her eyes filled with tears suddenly, which she did her best to blink back. “Sorry. But there was no place on the form for Will’s baby pictures, or the drawings he brought home from kindergarten, or the Mother’s Day card he made in third grade…or…”
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
“Sorry,” she said again, taking a deep breath. “I know the important thing is that Will and I got out safely. It’s just…everything’s gone. The paper chains he made for the Christmas tree when he was seven—” She smiled through her tears. “Every year he begs me not to put them up, but it’s not Christmas without them.” Her smile faded. “The pictures are the worst, though. I have the more recent ones on my computer at work, but not Will’s baby or toddler pictures. The ones I took before I had a digital camera. I always meant to have them scanned…but…”
“That’s rough, Holly. I’m so sorry.” He racked his brain, trying to think of some way to help. He hesitated. “Would your parents have any copies of those? Or…would Brian?”
She blinked in surprise. “To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about that. Of course they might. It couldn’t hurt to ask, right? My parents, anyway,” she amended. “I don’t enjoy talking with Brian at the best of times, and I really don’t feel like dealing with him now. He doesn’t even know about the fire yet, unless Will called him.”
“Holly, why did you—” He stopped suddenly.
Holly waited a moment. “Why did I what?” she asked finally.
Alex shook his head. “It’s not important.” Without realizing it, he’d started to stroke the back of her hand with his thumb. Now he let her hand go as casually as he could. He knew from experience that even when he was touching her to offer comfort, his libido could get carried away.
“Okay, now I’m curious. What were you going to say?”
He shrugged. “It’s just…talking about Brian made me wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“The same thing I’ve wondered ever since high school,” he admitted. “Why you ever went out with the guy. But you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
She shook her head at him, but she was smiling. “You always told me what a jerk he was.”
“Yeah, and a lot of good that did. So what was the attraction?”
She sighed. “I only figured it out after things were over between us. After my parents kicked me out and I was on my own. Dating Brian was really more about them than me. I’d always worked so hard for their love, their acceptance, and Brian was exactly the kind of boyfriend they always wanted me to have. All form and no substance, just like them.” She spoke a little bitterly, and Alex wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
“Hey, you don’t—”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind you knowing what an idiot I was—especially since you knew already. You told me the truth about Brian from the beginning, and I never listened. All I did was hate you for it.”
His heart contracted. “Holly, I—”
“It’s okay,” she said again, with a crooked smile. “I don’t hate you anymore.”
He couldn’t find anything to say to that.
“By the way,” she was saying now, “I found out something else when I was doing the forms. My insurance policy covers living expenses in the event of a loss. So Will and I could be out of here in a few days if…”
“You want to leave?” He was surprised at how much he hated the idea, even though he’d been thinking just a few hours ago about getting his sanity back once Holly and Will were gone.
She bit her lip. “It’s not that I want to leave. You’ve been so great to Will and me…but we have to be cramping your style a little.”
“What style? I don’t have a style. You’re not cramping anything. And why would you want to stay in a hotel or an apartment? You’ve got a whole house here.”
“Your house,” she reminded him. “And we are cramping your style, or at least your social life. You had a call from someone today. Just before you got home, actually.”
Damn. “Who was it?”
“She said her name was Amber. I let the machine pick up, so you can listen to the message yourself.” Her cheeks turned pink. “I had the impression she wanted to come see you. For an, um, overnight.”
He leaned across the table for emphasis. “Listen to me, Holly. I’m not seeing anyone right now, and I don’t plan to see anyone in the near future. Amber and I broke up more than a year ago. Maybe she was looking for a hookup, but I’m not. Okay? You and Will aren’t cramping my style. And I’d like you to stay here.” He pulled back a little. “If you want to, that is.”
“I want to,” she said. “I mean…if you’re sure….”
Relief flooded through him. “I’m sure.”
A smile spread across her face. “Okay, then, we’ll stay. Until you get tired of us, that is.”
Until he got tired of them? Holly and Will had been here two days, and already he could hardly imagine the house without them.
And Holly even looked beautiful under fluorescent kitchen lights.
She covered a yawn with her hand and rose to her feet. “It’s getting late—I guess I should say good-night.”
She went upstairs to her room and his mind flashed to the memory he’d tried to repress all day—the image of her lying in bed, drenched in moonlight, murmuring his name in her sleep.
He waited until he heard her bedroom door close before he went upstairs himself.
He could tell that the hallway and bathroom had been part of her cleaning spree, but when he opened the door to his bedroom, it was obvious she hadn’t been in there. It felt a little depressing, stale and dusty and unloved.
The way his whole house would feel once she left.
It was a cool October evening, perfect football weather, and Holly sat
in the stands next to Tom Washington’s parents. She’d thought about Alex a fair amount last night and during work today, but for the last hour and a half she hadn’t thought about him at all, even though he was right below her, clearly visible on the sidelines.
She was too busy thinking about the game.
The score was tied. There were three minutes to go in the fourth quarter, second down and eight with Weston on their own thirty-five yard line. For the twentieth time that night Holly jumped to her feet in outrage. “Did you see that?” she said to David and Angela Washington, waving her hand toward the field. “How could the ref miss that call? Pass interference! That should be a fifteen-yard penalty and an automatic first down.”
“Not only that,” Angela said, and if looks could kill there was one referee who would have been good and dead. “They roughed the passer, too. Charlie’s still down.”
It was true. A sudden hush fell over the crowd, home fans and visitors alike, as Weston’s trainer trotted out onto the field to look at the Wildcats’ starting quarterback, Charlie Mazillo, who was lying on his side clutching his left leg.
“Oh, no,” David Washington said. “I think it’s his knee.”
Whatever it was, it had obviously ended the game for Charlie. He had to be helped off the field, leaning on his coach and his trainer, to a round of obligatory applause from the stands.
“Those bullies,” Holly said furiously. “I can’t believe they’ve been getting away with this kind of crap all night. My God, these are high school kids.”
Angela shook her head. “Yes, but this is Ohio, and we play our football for blood.”
“Alex doesn’t,” Holly said, her voice positive. “He plays to win, but he doesn’t play dirty.”
David sighed. “Alex is rare. He’s a coach who plays the game the right way and can still maintain a winning record. Most of them can’t manage that.”
“And to think I was starting to like this game. Maybe I had the right idea all along.”
“Hey,” Angela said suddenly, looking down at the sidelines. “Coach is sending Will out there.”
Holly gripped the other woman’s hand in sudden panic. Her baby boy, going out on that field to face that gang of thugs?
Angela patted her on the back. “Don’t worry. Will’s tough, and he’s smart. He can handle it.”
“What do you mean he can handle it? He’s fifteen years old. Charlie’s a senior and he couldn’t handle it.”
“The referees will call a cleaner game after this. They’ll have to.”
“Oh, sure they will,” Holly muttered, watching Will trot out to the huddle. Even from up here she could tell he was panicking, too. This wasn’t a series or two in a game they already had sewn up. This was three minutes to go in a tie game, a game they’d only kept tied by the incredible play of their starting quarterback, who’d just been injured by a vicious hit from the Steeltown defense.
Will wasn’t ready for this. Holly could read the uncertainty in his posture. It wasn’t fair, she thought wildly. It was too much pressure to put on a fifteen-year-old boy.
Then he handed the ball off to Tom, who ran for twelve yards and a first down, and while David and Angela cheered for their son Holly breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it would be okay. She no longer even cared about winning the game. She just wanted Will to get through this without getting hurt, and without making any huge mistakes that would torture him for the rest of—
She groaned and closed her eyes briefly. Will had just gotten sacked, and although he scrambled to his feet right away, obviously unhurt, she could tell he was rattled. The very next play he was called for intentional grounding, and in a flash of insight she knew he was afraid to pass the ball, afraid to touch the ball, afraid to have the game resting on his shoulders.
Alex called a time-out and Holly wondered what he would say. Will was probably hoping his coach would call another rushing play, and another and another, but then Tom would be the focus of the punishment the Steelers were handing out, and, anyway it wouldn’t work. You had to balance your running attack with your passing attack if you wanted to have success—and that meant you needed a quarterback who believed in himself.
Alex was talking to Will by the sideline. Holly took a deep breath and let it out. She felt calmer suddenly, seeing them together. Alex would say the right things. Will trusted him. Will nodded at whatever his coach was saying, and Alex slapped him on the back. Then all the players came together for the team grip.
“Go Wildcats!” they said with one voice, and then they were running back out on the field.
The opposing teams lined up to face each other. The crowd noise made it impossible to hear but she could see Will behind center, looking right and left as he called the play, crisp confidence in his bearing as he took the snap and backpedaled in the pocket.
And the offensive line held as three wide receivers headed down the field. Will kept his head up, reading the defense, and freezing the safety in the middle of the field with a pump fake. Then he let the ball fly. And watched it sail downfield in a perfect spiral, right into the arms of the intended receiver, who gathered it in gleefully and scampered across the goal line for a touchdown.
They missed the extra point but nobody cared. By the time the Wildcats lined up to kick the ball off, there was still so much pandemonium in the stands that Holly couldn’t hear her own voice as she shouted, pounding David and Angela on the back and arms and any place she could reach, and herself being pounded.
The wind had been knocked out of the Steelers and they couldn’t do a thing with the ball. They turned it over on downs and then the Wildcats just held on grimly, running a series of safe, clock-killing plays until time ran out and the visiting crowd swept out on the field, carrying Holly with them, and she was so proud and happy and there was such joyful madness all around her that she didn’t register that Alex had swept her up into his arms until he was spinning her around fast enough to make her dizzy.
“We did it!” he said, as if hardly able to believe it himself. He let her slide back to the ground but kept his arms around her, smiling down into her eyes, and she was so happy, and Alex was so happy, and her hands were still resting on his shoulders as she looked up at him. All of these things together made it seem perfectly natural to rise up on her toes and give him a quick kiss on the lips.
Later, when Holly was trying to analyze the incident rationally, she told herself that she had just meant it as a brief, friendly kiss, something celebratory stemming out of overflowing emotion and the general joy and craziness that was erupting all around them.
If so, that’s not what it turned into.
Holly started to step back, but Alex’s arms tightened almost convulsively around her waist, pulling her sharply against him. She gasped, and he let her go, but only so he could thrust his fingers into her hair and pull her to him for another kiss, parting her lips ruthlessly with his tongue and plundering her mouth, the taste of him sweeter and fiercer than anything she’d ever known.
In one instant Holly’s entire world was reduced to this man, his hard body like steel against hers, her breasts crushed against his chest, his fingers tangled in her hair and his mouth bruising hers. She snaked her arms around his neck and pulled him even closer, opening herself to him completely, her tongue meeting his in a glorious, feverish tangle.
The sound of a trumpet blaring in her ear was like a bucket of cold water. Holly jumped and stumbled back a few steps with her hand to her heart.
It was the Weston High marching band, milling around chaotically as they prepared to lead a victory dance to the parking lot, and in the time it took to recover from the shock, Holly was reflecting that they’d probably saved her from seducing their coach in the middle of a football field surrounded by teenagers, their parents and several newspaper reporters.
Wouldn’t that have made a nice front page photo for the Weston Herald.
Holly took a breath and looked around. In the general pandemonium it didn’t look as i
f anyone had even noticed their little interlude, which couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds, and Will, thank goodness, was nowhere in sight.
She couldn’t look at Alex. She put a hand up to her mouth, which she knew was swollen with the most incredible kiss she’d ever experienced, and wondered if she could possibly get away with just, you know, walking away as if nothing had—
“Holly,” Alex said, grabbing her arm, and she risked a look at him. Whatever expression she’d expected to see on his face, it wasn’t this. He looked worried. Not blasted with lust like her, or even just dazed by the suddenness of it all, but simply worried.
“Please don’t be mad,” he said, his voice sounding concerned, and all Holly could do was blink at him. “I didn’t mean—it was just—” He floundered around for a while longer before Holly finally found her voice.
“The heat of the moment,” she said, thinking that made as much sense as anything else. Whatever it had been, it obviously wasn’t going to happen again, if Alex’s current effort to backtrack was any indication, so the only thing to do was put this behind them with as little embarrassment and disruption to their friendship as possible.
“Right,” he said, sounding relieved, and Holly felt a wave of depression. How could he be so relieved that they’d never be doing that again? Was she really that bad a kisser?
It wasn’t her fault, she thought defensively. It wasn’t as if she’d had a ton of practice. Not like he’d obviously had. God, the way that man could kiss… Holly’s eyes fluttered closed at the memory and she had to bite her lip to keep from making a sound she was very much afraid would have been a moan.
“I’ve got to find Will,” she said, clinging to something familiar.
“Will. Right. He was incredible tonight, Holly. A natural. It took real courage to do what he did tonight.”
Courage. Something she knew nothing about, or she’d be throwing her arms around Alex instead of standing here like a half-wit. So what if she was a bad kisser. She could ask him to teach her, couldn’t she?
Winning the Right Brother Page 10
