'Twas the Night

by Sandra Hill

  “You like football?” He’d never met a woman who really liked football. A lot who liked football players, but not one who really understood the game itself.

  “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?” A faint blush was beginning to color Dana’s cheeks.

  “Never watch it,” said Morey with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  Stan just stared. He was falling in love. He could see it coming, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it because George had set him up with the world’s perfect woman.

  “You like football,” he said again in spite of a mouth gone suddenly dry.

  “Well, some football, anyway,” Dana said, sinking back in her seat. This time, when her hair fell forward to hide her red cheeks, she didn’t bother to brush it back. Instead, she retrieved her mending and started working away as if a slave driver with whip were standing over her shoulder watching.

  The next to the last Barbie lay in Stan’s lap, forgotten.

  Dana liked football.

  “Lots of women like football,” said Dr. Maggie, peering around the edge of her seat three rows up. Or maybe it was Dr. Meg. Stan got them confused a lot. “Women understand the symbolism of the battlefield quite well.”

  “And besides,” added her sister, popping up from her seat, “we like those tight pants you boys wear. They’re ever so much sexier than those awful basketball uniforms.”

  “Front and back,” the first sister agreed, nodding happily. “I’ve often wondered about the protective gear you wear, though. They call them cups, don’t they? It must be very uncomfortable.”

  Not as uncomfortable as having a three-hundred-pound defensive tackle slam into your unprotected balls. Stan didn’t say it out loud. He could feel his own cheeks growing as hot and red as Dana’s.

  “He’s got cups?” Ethel Ross poked her head into the aisle. “Coffee or bra?”

  Unlike Emma Smith, who turned her hearing aid up so she’d be sure to catch every word, Ethel tended to turn her hearing aid off, too content with her own little world to worry much about what went on around her.

  Her husband, John, dragged her back and discreetly explained about the cups.

  “Really? Why, John, you never told me about that!” Ethel often, and unintentionally, compensated for her hearing loss by talking louder. “Will you show me some time?”

  Again a whispered explanation. Ethel giggled, cuddling up against him. “Well, that’s all right, then. As long as you don’t forget!”

  Fifty years of marriage, yet the two of them still billed and cooed like newly weds. Stan wasn’t sure whether that was a good advertisement for marriage, or a warning to all sensible males to beware before rushing to shove their heads through the noose.

  “That Packers game was fine,” said the colonel, strolling back from the front of the bus where he’d been talking strategy with his daughter. “But I’ve always wondered what in hell got into you in that game against the Jets in ’98. Three interceptions, two fumbles, both recovered by the Jets, once for a touchdown. Worst passing average of your whole career. And you can’t tell me that broken finger was the only reason!”

  The colonel had never been one to tolerate slipshod work. He’d retired from the Marines years ago, but somehow never lost the conviction that what the world needed was a little more discipline and a lot higher performance standards.

  “I lost twenty dollars betting on that game,” Emma called from the front of the bus.

  Stan gaped. Emma Smith bet on football?

  “Well?” barked the colonel. The man was in his seventies, but he was still so big and broad he filled the aisle. Judging from the muscles in those arms, he could bench-press two-fifty, maybe three hundred, easy.

  He would have made a good offensive lineman, Stan thought, then hastily straightened in his seat under the man’s disapproving glare.

  “It was a bad game,” Stan admitted. “That happens sometimes, and nobody really knows why.”

  “Somebody should know,” snapped the colonel.

  “Now, Colonel,” said Dr. Maggie—or maybe it was Dr. Meg. She placed her hand on his arm and smiled demurely up at him.

  The colonel actually blushed.

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on the boy,” said Dr. Meg—or maybe it was Dr. Maggie. “I’m sure he did his best. Most men do, you know, even if they do come up a little short sometimes.”

  Stan watched, fascinated, as the red on the colonel’s face deepened to a rich magenta.

  Stan blinked and wondered if he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. On the other side of the aisle, Morey snickered, then covered the sound with a fake cough. Dana still had her head bent over her work, but Stan could see her smile despite the curtain of gold that hid her face.

  “Hrumph,” said the colonel. “Humph!” He glanced at the ladies batting their eyes at him from either side of the aisle, swallowed, then executed a smart about-face and retreated up the aisle at double time.

  The twins looked at each other and giggled. The one on the left—Stan was almost positive it was Dr. Maggie—slid out of her seat and set off after him. There was a determined set to her narrow shoulders that didn’t bode well for the colonel’s peace of mind.

  “Those two gotta do something about their hair,” said Maudeen. She was standing in the aisle behind them, hands propped on her hips, staring disapprovingly at Dr. Maggie’s carefully marcelled pink hair. Her own bright purple hair seemed to glow in the overhead lights of the bus. “I keep telling ’em and telling ’em, but they never listen.”

  She glanced at Dana and her eyes lit up. “Now, you, honey—you I could do something with! How about a blue streak, say, starting at the top and working all the way down to the end? Or maybe three streaks, red, white, and blue? I could braid it special, if you like, maybe even tie in some little silver bells for Christmas?” she added hopefully.

  Dana laughed and shook her head, making all that silk shimmer. “I wouldn’t have the nerve.”

  Maudeen sighed. “I didn’t think so, but if you ever change your mind . . . ”

  “You’ll be the first person I call,” Dana assured her.

  How come she never smiles at me like that? Stan wondered. He’d finished cleaning the last two dolls but hadn’t put them in the bag. With his luck, if Maudeen knew he was done she’d bring him two dozen more. He’d had about all the naked Barbies he could take for one day.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad if he could have had a little naked Dana, too, but that didn’t look any too likely. How did you make love to an icicle?

  Fortunately, Maudeen had other plans. “Morey? I got some work for you.”

  Morey the perpetual optimist ran his hands over his hair to make sure everything was slicked into place, snapped his suspenders for good luck, then meekly followed her to the back of the bus where Reba and Callie were deep in discussion on something or other. Slick and JD were lurking two rows farther back trying to look as if they were watching the scenery and not the women, but any fool could see what—or, rather, who—really had their attention.

  Stan sighed and slumped back in his seat. The only good thing about the whole damn mess was that Slick and JD didn’t seem to be doing any better than he was. When it came to women, their pass completion stats were as deep in the toilet as his.

  Slick, usually the smoothest guy in the lower forty-eight states, had been following Reba around like a love-sick puppy. The sexy star of the Blue Angels didn’t look like the kind of guy who flew supersonic jets for a living. He looked . . . pathetic. Handsome, but pathetic.

  Occasionally Reba took pity on him and patted him on the head when she walked down the aisle, but she was so busy keeping this Santa Brigade organized that half the time it seemed she didn’t even know he existed. Or didn’t want to know, which came to the same thing.

  If it hadn’t been for the occasional gleam Stan had seen in her eye when she looked at Slick—always when she thought Slick wasn’t looking—he might have wondered if the world had tu
rned upside down. Reba had been crazy about Slick when they were kids.

  Unlike Dana, Stan thought morosely, who was not crazy about him at all.

  Because he couldn’t help himself, he glanced over at her. She didn’t look up from her work—mending doll’s underpants, he couldn’t help noting.

  Stan grimaced. The way things were going, the only underwear he was going to see in the next few days was his and a bunch of recycled Barbies’ and Baby Snookums’.

  JD wasn’t doing any better. Half the time he was quarreling with Callie, the other half he was scowling at her, which meant he had it bad, poor bastard. So bad, he hadn’t worked up the nerve to make a pass even though he and Callie were sharing a hotel room.

  He could be sure about that, Stan thought glumly, because JD was still in possession of all his eyes, ears, and other essential body parts. If he’d tried to step out of line, that little firebrand he’d kidnapped would have done some serious damage even if she was half JD’s size.

  Dana, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t have to resort to physical violence to defend her virtue. She could freeze him and all his essential body parts just by looking at him.

  Only a besotted fool would risk it.

  With sudden decision, Stan tossed the two remaining Barbies into the bag with the rest of them, then awkwardly shoved to his feet. He didn’t need his cane to get across the aisle or to plop down into the seat Morey had vacated a couple of minutes earlier.

  Dana looked up with surprise and a little thrill of terror as Stan settled into the seat beside her.

  She’d been wanting him to do just that, of course, which is why she hadn’t set her sewing there the minute Morey had walked away. The last time she’d set it there, she’d instantly regretted it, but she hadn’t been able to figure out a way to retrieve her error without making it look as though she were throwing herself at him.

  He cleared his throat and leaned toward her. “How’s the sewing coming?”

  “Fine.”

  “Need some help?”

  She hesitated. “No. Thank you,” she added a moment later, almost as an afterthought. Being this close to him did something to her brain and all those body functions she’d always taken for granted, like breathing and keeping her heart beating.

  He leaned closer still. Was that aftershave, or men’s cologne? The spicy, subtle scent of him teased her senses and made her want to lean into him and breathe deep. Real deep.

  Which would make him notice her chest, which would be a good thing since he didn’t seem to be noticing her at all. Well, not much, anyway. She’d seen him glance over at her a few times these past couple of hours, but he generally seemed to be scowling when he did, which was unsettling. Safe, but unsettling.

  Still, she really wished he’d notice her chest.

  It was the only thing about her men ever paid attention to. They took one look at her long, skinny body and her funny, round face, and her long, long, straight-as-string hair, and then they never bothered looking again because all they stared at was her chest.

  As far as she could tell, Stan hadn’t noticed much of anything at all. Or maybe he was always this grumpy. Maybe it was just the pain of his shoulder and leg. That would be enough to make anyone grumpy, especially if the injuries had cost them their career and their future. But that didn’t stop her from wishing that he’d pay just a little bit more attention to her, and that she hadn’t blockaded the seat like she had because then he would have sat down beside her a long time ago.

  Dana frowned at the ruffly pair of pantaloons in her hands. If he’d sat down beside her earlier, then he’d have discovered just how dull and uninteresting a person she was all that much sooner, and he’d have forgotten about her chest because he was bored with all the rest, and then—

  “Was it something I said?”

  His question brought her head up with a snap.

  He had the most beautiful eyes—that clear, clear green with short, thick, dark-brown lashes and—

  “Something you said?” she said, dragging her attention back to the conversation.

  “Or do you just not like football players?”

  She could feel her cheeks start to heat. “I don’t understand.”

  He reached out a hand and tucked her hair behind her ear and she stopped breathing again.

  “I just wondered—”

  She didn’t get a chance to find out what because at that moment the bus rounded a curve and came to a sudden, heart-stopping, sliding halt.

  Stan threw out his hand to keep her from falling forward. Her breasts smashed into his arm before she got a hand out to brace herself against the seat in front of her. At the impact, he gave a little grunt of pain and let his arm drop.

  “You okay?” she said, torn between worry for him and the unsettling, slightly breathless feeling that that brief, violent contact had started in her.

  “Yeah,” he said, grimacing and rubbing his shoulder. “You?”

  “Fine. Thanks.” Because she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to resist rubbing his shoulder, too, she angled up out of her seat to see what was going on ahead. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, but it looks like we’re going to find out.”

  The cries of alarm and babble of exclamations swirling around them was almost buried under the sound of everyone rushing to the front of the bus to see what was going on.

  “Snow slide!” someone called cheerfully from up front. “It’s blocked the road.”

  The babble got louder. Nothing like a disaster to brighten everyone’s day.

  Through it all, Dana could hear the colonel barking orders and Reba’s calm, confident voice bringing order to the confusion. Which wasn’t surprising, since the only thing that seemed to fluster her, as far as Dana could tell, was the extraordinarily handsome Navy pilot who followed her around like a dog on a leash.

  “Are you going to get up?” Dana asked when Stan didn’t move.

  “In a minute.” His gaze was fixed on her with an intensity that took her breath away.

  With everyone at the front of the bus, crowding each other in their hurry to get off and inspect the snow slide, Dana had the oddest feeling that they were suddenly alone. Really alone, just the two of them and this sudden heat between them that couldn’t be her imagination only.

  “I—I think we’d better go see if they need any help,” Dana said. She was having a hard time getting the words out because her brain didn’t seem to be able to think about anything except how close he was and that spicy aftershave and how inviting his mouth looked and—

  “You are so beautiful.”

  He said it so low that for a minute she wasn’t sure she’d really heard it, and then she couldn’t hear anything except a roaring in her ears because he’d closed the gap between them and kissed her.

  It wasn’t a hot kiss. Well, not too hot. Still this side of blistering, anyway. And it didn’t really last that long. A year or so, maybe. Just long enough for her lungs to start screaming for air and her pulse rate to rocket to dangerous levels, but that was okay because her brain had stopped working while the rest of her body started screaming for more and in the resultant confusion she couldn’t do anything but moan and lean into him and wordlessly ask for more.

  She wasn’t sure which of them broke off first. They were both flushed and breathing hard, even though nothing except their lips had touched.

  The kiss had surprised her, but the stunned look on Stan’s face confused her completely. She wasn’t much of a kisser, of course, and he couldn’t have expected much, but it definitely wasn’t disappointment that had him looking so flustered. And that flustered her, because she wanted to think it might be because he’d really liked kissing her, which was stupid and ridiculous . . . and . . . wonderful.

  Even though she knew she shouldn’t, that it was dangerous to give him an inch, she could feel the ice she’d set between them beginning to thaw.

  “Uh,” he said, and took a deep breath, then licked his l
ips nervously. “Maybe we’d better go see what’s going on out there.”

  That was definitely the safer thing to do, but for a moment, there, she didn’t want to try safe at all.

  And then he grinned and she’d swear the sun came out even if the rest of the world thought it was still hiding behind thick gray snow clouds.

  He was awkward getting out of the seat, but he wasn’t at all awkward when he grabbed her coat off the overhead rack and held it while she slipped her arms in the sleeves. And this time when he followed her down the aisle, she could still hear the way his cane knocked against the seats, but all she could think about was the way his lips felt when they were pressed against hers.

  The icy air and the falling snow were welcomingly chilly against her hot cheeks when she stepped off the bus. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice they were late joining the party. Everyone’s attention was fixed on the mountain of snow that had slid off the steep hillside, burying the road under a ton of white that was going to take a big snowplow to move.

  Betty Morgan, NASCAR racer and bus driver extraordinaire, was already lining up the plows. While the Brigade poked at the snow and exclaimed and fretted over whether they’d make their next show in time, Betty was on her cell phone calling in favors. Dana could hear her clearly, even over the chatter.

  “Joe? Betty Morgan here. How ya’ doin’? . . . Good, good. Listen, I got a problem here . . . Yeah, I know the roads are closed. That’s why I need your help.”

  “Maxie? Hi! Betty Morgan here. How are you and the family? No kidding? Six, already! That’s great! Hey, I need some help . . . ”

  She’d hardly hung up on the last call when a monster truck with a huge snow plow on the front came roaring up the road behind them. The driver, a beefy, bald-headed guy named Frank who sported an eagle tattooed on his forehead, climbed down from the cab, readjusted his substantial beer belly, and strolled over to inspect the problem.

  “Got yourself a little problem, here, Betty,” he said after a moment’s judicious consideration.

  “That’s why I called you,” said Betty, beaming up at him. “Joe’s bringing his backhoe and Red Dog’s coming with his plow, but I knew we couldn’t do it without you.”