by Rachel Lee
Her gaze flicked over his face. “Then that’s good enough for me.” Her usual sassy bravado returned as she patted his T-shirt, damp from sweat. “Thanks for the run...and the kiss.”
That got his attention. “Hey, you started it.”
She shook her head, a puff of air replacing an outright laugh. “After the headache of today’s track meet, I guess I needed to let off some steam.”
“I know a boatload of better ways to let off steam.” But not with little Jocelyn Howard, the girl next door, idiot.
She laughed outright and turned to walk home. “I’m sure you do,” she said without looking back. “Maybe sometime you can show me, but we both reek right now.”
That got a smile out of him. He stayed standing by the pine tree, watching her saunter back to her house and thinking about what had just happened, starting with that innocent comfort kiss.
After she went inside he dropped back his head, rolled his shoulders and thought how much lighter he felt.
He saw the curtain flutter at the corner of his living room window. Mom had most likely seen the whole kissing business and hadn’t wanted to break up anything. Aw, cripes, now he’d never hear the end of it.
He glanced at his watch. Damn! It was way past his father’s bedtime and he’d probably be champing at the bit to go to sleep.
With a sigh, Lucas pushed off the tree and headed for the front door, one lingering thought in his brain.
Not bad, for a first kiss.
* * *
Lucas had spent Friday afternoon helping erect booths while Jocelyn directed the pep squad on the decorations at Whispering Oaks High School. They’d both been so busy they’d hardly had a chance to talk to one another, and it was probably best. All that opening up the other night had been exhausting. He’d spent the past decade surrounded by men. Communication wasn’t high on the list of their skills, at least for most of them.
From what Lucas had observed, Jocelyn had everything under control, even when outside vendors started showing up and squabbling over prime property for the best foot-traffic flow.
He’d forced Jocelyn to go home with him around 4 p.m. to clean up and get ready for the evening. She’d thanked him for the millionth time for all of his help when they parted paths at her driveway. He’d waved her off, acting blasé, yet admitting a certain sense of pride in his part of the fund-raiser. When he’d gotten out of the shower and wandered to the kitchen for some iced tea a half hour later, he glanced next door to her driveway and noticed her car was already gone. Typical. She gave a hundred-and-twenty percent.
An hour later, Mom and Dad were dressed and ready to go. In honor of the sixties theme, Lucas opted for the timeless look of threadbare jeans and a ripped T-shirt. Despite others claiming it thirty years later, the sixties had pioneered the grunge look and he’d wear it with pride. His mother had a whole other look going on, one he tried not to snicker over. Something more in tune with the cast of Hair. Or maybe a band of gypsies? Somewhere, she’d dug up dangling peacock-feather earrings, probably from one of her fourth-grade craft projects, and a slinky, silk, knock-your-eyes-out purple blouse over her heavily patched vintage jeans. Even her brightly colored cast matched.
His dad wore a loud print neon orange and brown dashiki shirt, having to settle for sweatpants with one leg cut off to accommodate the hip-to-ankle cast, and a bright red neckerchief tied around his forehead. The man looked happy and ridiculous. Lucas wondered if this was how some of his older aunts and uncles had actually dressed during that era because his parents were mere toddlers when the Beatles had first invaded the United States.
Lucas had arranged to borrow the Howards’ beat-up old van to transport his parents to the Friday-night fund-raiser. Because it took so dang long to get his dad out of the van and set him up in his electric wheelchair, the event was well under way when they got there. Though Dad was making good progress walking with crutches on their daily physical therapy sessions, it was much easier to use the wheelchair for public outings.
Grace Slick reverberated off the stereo speakers singing about a rabbit as they entered the high school multipurpose-recreation room. Incense burned at one booth, with a healthy line of students waiting to purchase some for themselves. Peace signs got flashed way too often amid noisy conversations. The tie-dye booth seemed to be a huge success judging by the long line, second only to the make-your-own-peace-beads stand. In the opposite corner, the timeless snack food of hamburgers, fries, soda and pizza also proved to be a hit at the never-out-of-style diner booth.
Dad had ceaselessly bragged all week how, according to Jocelyn, the decorating committee of students had planned the whole setup and done a marvelous job. Lucas knew her input and guidance had had a lot to do with it. Dad may have lined everything up, but Jocelyn organized the event down to the love-in atmosphere and too-cool-for-school ambiance.
In a nutshell, she’d nailed the sixties.
Someone had set up a “Guitar Master” booth exclusively playing Jimi Hendrix songs. Another booth offered Beatles karaoke sing-offs. The competing sounds could turn a person’s stomach—or set off a PTSD moment—but Lucas let the happy students’ faces keep him focused on why he was here.
Candle making, psychedelic black light paint spinning and face painting rounded out the event with something for virtually everyone.
With the help of some of his father’s devoted students, who insisted on signing the coach’s cast, Lucas left his mother to push his father around the multipurpose center and wandered around, taking everything in.
Lucas chuckled when he saw it and couldn’t resist a go at a larger-than-life-size Jim Morrison cutout. He bought ten tickets and successfully tossed a beanbag through a hole in Jim’s crotch while “Light My Fire” played in the background. The lanky kid from track, Brian, challenged him to a match. Each time either one of them made the shot through the crotch hole, Jim growled the infamous “Fire!” In the spirit of the night, Lucas let Brian win.
Across the room he spied Jocelyn, who’d gone for a flower-child look by wearing a flowing and colorful-patterned skirt and a bright orange tank top covered in layers of peace beads. Her hair hung loose and free beneath a wreath of baby’s breath. She’d already had a flower painted on her cheek and a rainbow on her deltoid, and the effect took him by surprise. Wow. He dug it, from her huge hoop earrings right on down to the flower-power flip-flops. Going barefoot was prohibited at school.
She saw him and waved but immediately got pulled in another direction by a group of students. He killed some time at the paintball booth, creating gun-powered art on a huge canvas beside Brandon, the kid with the dislocated pinkie. Because he was the one pulling the trigger, the sound didn’t bother him. Pop, pop, pop. Not bad for a guy who’d flunked out of art class.
Everyone seemed to be having a blast, and after Lucas scarfed down a burger, Jocelyn approached.
Wilson Pickett was waiting ’til the midnight hour, and Jocelyn grabbed Lucas’s hand. “Dance with me?”
“I don’t dance.” He’d never been much good at it, and what he had known had endured a slow death from neglect.
She pointed to the dance floor with kids flailing themselves all over the place in no particular rhythm. Then he saw his mother gyrating some sort of sixties East Indian-influenced psychedelic movements in front of his dad’s wheelchair, and his father doing the same kind of hand movements, and Lucas got shamed into accepting her invitation.
Feeling like a stiff oaf as the music changed and Janis Joplin screamed and squealed her way through a song, he let Jocelyn take the lead. She deserved to cut loose after all the stress she’d been under. This was her night, her success. Lucas went for understated and cool with his movements, which proved to be almost standing still with a few wrist flicks. Jocelyn looked far, far better as she danced, hot little flower child that she was. When a Van Morrison song came on he admitted that he could get used to watching his brown-eyed girl. La la la...la ti dah.
The silliness of the event eventually wore
off on him, and he didn’t even protest when Jocelyn talked him into getting a third eye painted on his forehead. Next, they took a picture together behind cutouts of supersized hippie characters. He won her a bouquet of potted pansies at the strobe-light ring-toss challenge, and moving from booth to booth they poked fun at all the crazy stuff the sixties had ushered in. They laughed. A lot. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let go and enjoyed himself so much.
Now that he was hyped up on soda and a good mood, when she dragged him out on the dance floor again, this time for some Motown sounds, he finally cut loose and really danced, not caring what anyone thought about his strictly white-guy moves. Jocelyn kept up with him and his arm flapping as a sad excuse for dancing, move for move. Did they do hip bumps in the sixties? He didn’t care. All he knew was that it was fun to bang against her hips. It brought to mind another kind of hip banging, and, well, he jumped around the dance floor in order to get past that image.
Amid the chaos, the diminutive principal, Cynthia Saroyan, older but even shorter than when he’d been a student here—if that were possible—took to the stage. Droning on in four-inch spike heels and an anachronistic business suit. Her announcements and thanks went on and on and on, nearly sucking the joy out of the room. Finally, she reminded everyone that the fund-raiser helped support the sports programs and then lifted a piece of paper. “Tonight we’ve already raised $15,000!”
Before he could fully process the total, Jocelyn jumped into his arms. Her body felt light, sturdy and wonderful, and it fit him well. He held her in place by hoisting her hips while a whole other scenario played out in his mind.
With her arms around his neck, her scream practically took out his hearing. When she pulled back long enough to grin at him—a beautiful grin that made him focus on her excellent mouth—he couldn’t help himself and moved in for a victory kiss. Their mouths smashed together with enough momentum to knock teeth, but her sweetly padded lips softened the blow. Her arms tightened around his neck and he circled one arm around her waist, pushing her belly closer to his—then followed through on a wild and crazy lip lock that rolled through his center all the way down to his toes.
She kissed like she ran, intensely and purposefully, and he kissed her back to match her vigor. She angled her head and started a whole new warm and melting approach. His lips parted. She touched the tip of his tongue with hers, and he was instantly ready to take things to the next level.
Completely lost in their kiss, with every centimeter of his body participating and his nerve endings lighting up with neon bingo signs, the loud cheers and hoots and hollers broke his concentration. The invasive sounds pulled him out of the moment and placed his feet firmly back on the floor of the multipurpose room. He cracked open one eye and saw a circle of students closing in, and he immediately terminated the kiss, easing Jocelyn down so her feet could touch the floor. What the hell had he been thinking? Life was confusing enough now without throwing in a necking session with the girl next door...in front of a good portion of the student body.
Hell, he knew exactly what he’d been thinking as they kissed, and those thoughts were X-rated and nowhere near appropriate for a high school gym.
Jocelyn looked disoriented at first, but she quickly recovered, though she first passed him a sexy “wow” glance that seemed to promise to pick up where they left off later. He was definitely down for that. She clapped along with everyone else, so he joined in. Like several of the students, Jocelyn shot her fist in the air and yelled. “Woo hoo!”
Lucas faded into the crowd while she dealt with all of the congratulations and back slapping, giving himself a chance to process what in the hell had just happened. He’d felt that kiss like a hot rolling wave all through his body and he was damn sure Jocelyn had been as turned on as he was. If the students hadn’t dragged her away with their cheering and excitement, he might have suggested they sneak off to a quiet place, and who knew what might have happened then?
In typical sixties vernacular, their kiss had blown his mind, and he’d never ever be able to look at Jocelyn as the sweet little girl next door again.
Chapter Six
“I’m sick of practicing with these crutches.” Saturday morning, Kieran Grady looked glum and showed all the signs of restlessness—lack of concentration, irritability, absolutely no interest in trying—during his daily physical therapy workout.
Lucas faced him in the family room, hands on his hips. “You heard what the doctor said. You’re stuck with the leg cast for another two weeks at least, so you may as well figure out how to use these special crutches.” He held a regular crutch in one hand and the specially made crutch with an armrest extending from the top for his casted arm in the other. “Look, I know it’s tough having your arm in a cast, too, but it’s not impossible to do this.”
“Easy for you to say.” His father didn’t look convinced, not by a long shot, but there was a tiny spark of interest in his eyes. Maybe Lucas was making some headway—he just had to find the right angle to lure in his father.
“Two more weeks, Dad, and that cast will come off.”
“And then what—walk with a limp the rest of my life?”
Lucas understood why his dad was in a foul mood. The loss of his Harley, his broken bones and his inability to coach the track team had been tough on him, and the road to recovery seemed long.
Lucas was glad to help out, especially because he still didn’t have a clue what he wanted to do next with his life. Any excuse to continue putting off “finding himself” worked for him.
“If you’re committed to physical therapy, you’ll stand a good chance of getting back to your old self.”
“My old self is old, too! I’m fifty-five. Track and field requires a fit coach, not a slug. Truth is, I’ll never be like I used to be.”
“Never say never. Isn’t that what you used to tell me?”
For all his effort, Lucas received an exasperated harrumph from his dad.
His younger sister, Lark, was finishing up her first year in medical school and had called home just this morning saying she was coming for a visit in a few weeks. Lark had become the light of her dad’s eyes soon after she was born, especially after he realized Lucas had no intention of fulfilling all those educational plans he’d made for him. She’d been Kieran’s little blond-haired, blue-eyed angel all her life. Compared to his sisters, Lucas was definitely the odd man out.
No way would Dad want Lark to see him like this—weak and cranky and unable to walk by himself. Yet Dad wasn’t trying at all today, and it was up to Lucas to motivate him. Hmm, something seemed reversed in this equation. Maybe this was how frustrated his dad had felt back when Lucas was in high school and slacking off at just about everything...except for auto shop.
“Look, I know it was hard to see Mom get her cast off yesterday, but her break wasn’t nearly as bad as yours. You’ve got rods and plates in there.” He pointed to his father’s left leg. “The ortho doc promises you’ll lose this in another couple of weeks, just in time for when Lark comes home.” He glimpsed a spark of inspiration in his father’s eyes just before it fizzled. “Listen, I’ve got a plan.”
Kieran cast a skeptical blue gaze. Lucas had seen that same blue-eyed look a gazillion times from Lark whenever he’d tried to talk her into something she knew wasn’t a good idea. Like the time he’d tried to convince her to do a cannonball into the duck pond on the golf course two blocks over. Lucas had had a lot of sketchy plans growing up.
“How about a change in scenery?” he said. “Let’s move this session outdoors.”
By the tilt of Kieran’s head, Lucas knew his idea had some merit.
“I’m sick of the house and the backyard. How about you?”
“To death,” Kieran said with a concurring nod.
“Then let’s take this show on the road. We’ll go out front and you can amaze your neighbors with your prowess.”
“What if I fall on my keister?”
“I’ll pick you up. Bette
r yet, I won’t let you get that far.”
After a moment’s hesitation and a flinty steel-blue stare, Kieran said, “It wouldn’t hurt to get some neighborhood support. They probably all think I died or something. Let’s go show ’em what I’m made of.”
Ten minutes later, Lucas had to use every patient cell in his body to counter the insecurity radiating off his father. “You’ve got it, Dad. Concentrate. First move the crutches, then swing your good leg.”
“It’s so damn awkward.”
“I know the cast messes this up a bit, but don’t be afraid to put weight on that armrest. It’s supposed to distribute the weight evenly. And don’t put weight on your armpit on the other side. Use your good hand to hold you up.”
“Since when did you become such an expert?”
“I’m a medic, remember?” He’d been a medic for eight years, but to his father the only ones serious about the medical profession were Anne and Lark.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kieran said.
Lucas kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt whatever his father planned to say.
“Maybe I should think about throwing in the rag with coaching track. It’s such a big responsibility. I’m tired of it. Maybe it’s time to let someone else take over and I can just be one of the assistant coaches. Not having to run the show. You know?”
“That’s your call, Dad. You know what’s best, but maybe think about it some more.”
“Think? That’s all I’ve been doing, lately.”
From the corner of his gaze, Lucas noticed the movement of a certain lithe and sexy body in the yard next door, and his frustration and concentration dissolved. Jocelyn appeared out front preparing for her daily jog, lunging and stretching first one leg and then the other. Next she pulled each ankle up to her hamstrings, then hugged her knee to her chest. Lucas wouldn’t mind having her hug his head to her chest, either. He wished he could call out and go with her, but...
“See, now, this is where I get tripped up,” Kieran said.
Seeing his father’s lagging upper-body strength, he made a mental note to have him work with heavier weights on his good arm. “Don’t overcompensate by leaning into your strong side. Try to distribute your weight evenly.”
