by Lynn Shurr
“Naturally. Kevin has beautiful children.” Again, Stevie gazed wistfully at Kristen Riley.
“You would have thought Connor would forget about you, a girl he met only once, but he told me after he went to LSU that he looked for you. You weren’t in the student directory. He asked Kevin for your address and phone number. Kevin claimed he had thrown it away. Later, he found Kevin’s old address book, but new girls were living in your apartment. They didn’t know where you had gone.”
“Italy. I was studying in Italy. I barely came home to get my diploma, then went right back.
Marcello waited for me.”
“I think Connor tried to find you through the alumni association, too, but your home address was no longer any good.”
“My father passed away a few months after I returned from Italy. Heart attack. He was a big sports fan. He would have loved to see the work I’m doing now. Mom moved to Houston to be near my married sister and her grandchildren. She never bothered forwarding alumni mail to me. I guess the alums lost track.”
“I’m not pretending Connor spent his life pining for you. There have been other women, probably many of them. My son is a professional football player. Some girls want to do the whole team I’m told. Some are fixated on special players or positions like quarterbacks. Connor is young, rich and good-looking. I don’t ask about his women. But, I approved whole-heartedly of this year of celibacy. He needs to settle down with someone nice.”
“Spoken like a mother,” Stevie laughed.
“I will tell you he hasn’t brought any of the others home to meet his family. When he called me after that game where you were injured, he said,
‘Mom, I’ve found Stephanie Dowd,’ the first words out of his mouth.”
“I’m Stevie now, Stevie Dowd, sports photographer. Not Stephanie Dowd, naive college girl. I keep telling Connor that.”
“You are a beautiful, independent, talented young woman who doesn’t need a man to tell her anything.” Mrs. Riley took Stevie’s hand. “But don’t let that keep you from believing someone could love you at first sight or love you forever—no matter how many men or women have been between you.”
“Not even a brother?”
“Not even a brother.” Mrs. Riley smiled.
Footsteps thumped up the stairs. A head of dark curls poked through the doorway. Katie Riley said,
“Granny, cab’s here. Granddad says let’s get moving before Colby wets his pants again.” Kristen Riley laughed. “I am being summoned.
Won’t you come with us?”
“Really, I’d like to pass. I promise I’ll spend the day with the family tomorrow.”
“If you’re sure.”
The downstairs noise increased with multiple door slammings and Merrilee’s voice inquiring if Kevin had the diaper bag and Cammie’s baby doll.
“Hurry up, Kris,” Keith Riley shouted up the stairs. “Let’s get this circus on the road.” Kristen Riley moved out of the room to join her family and left Stevie with the solitude to think.
****
Stevie wandered down to the kitchen to check out the contents of the refrigerator, which was stocked for a family traveling with small children. It held a gallon of whole milk, a quart of orange juice, two six-packs of juice boxes, grape jelly, sandwich fixings, and an entire flat of enormous cinnamon buns obviously destined for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Grocery bags on the counter contained peanut butter, canned soup, a carrier of microbrewery bottled beer and a plastic sack of white bread.
Stevie heated a can of chicken soup containing pasta shaped like little stars and made half a ham sandwich on white. She threw on a denim jacket, then poured orange juice into a plastic cup.
Balancing her meal on an upscale plastic plate with a pattern of sunflowers, she went outside to watch the early sunset over the bay. An inviting bench sat positioned near the water for that exact purpose.
She ate her simple meal as the sky turned that deep pre-darkness blue and Venus, bright and low in the sky, appeared as if by magic. Sea birds settled for the night on the surface of the bay, and all was still and calm for minutes before night fell.
She heard the heavy tread on the boardwalk and knew by the sound of his footsteps that Connor had arrived. Bad enough she recognized his stride and worse for her that her heart beat faster. Stevie held herself back from calling out to him as he pounded on the door.
“Anybody home! It’s Uncle Connor,” he announced expecting to hear small children race for the door. She sighed before she could stop herself.
That sigh summoned him to the bench. For a big man, he crossed the boards quickly, raised her hair in his hands and kissed the nape of her neck. She shivered.
“Chilly out here.” He slid up against her on the bench and hooked an arm around her shoulders.
“Where’s the gang?” Ordinary words, but he looked at Stevie as if she had hung that evening star in the sky. “Gone for fish and chips. I wasn’t very hungry. I had a long flight. Too tired to go out.” Stevie feared she looked back at Connor in the same way. She turned her head toward the water.
“Coach let us out for awhile, but we have a curfew just like college. All meals to be taken together, building team togetherness, you know the drill.”
“More likely keeping all of you out of bars and away from bad women.”
“If I know Joe Dean, a few minutes are all he needs to find bad women, but I hear he gave game tickets to that model, Amber, and told her to bring a friend. I think they are shacked up at the same hotel as the team, so he won’t have to go looking and can save his energy for the game.”
“What about you? Are you saving your energy for the game?”
“What do you think?
Connor opened her coat and slid his hands under her T-shirt and up her torso to do a quick release on her front-hooked bra. His cool fingers slid over her warm, smooth breasts. He moved in for a kiss. His tongue delved deep into her mouth. Chaos erupted.
Small children sprinted down the deck, spotted their uncle and charged over to the bench. Stevie took a kick in the stomach from a small sneaker as Cameron climbed up on Connor’s lap. Collin attacked from behind trying to scale the broad shoulders while Katherine took a lady-like seat on the bench and snuggled into her uncle’s side. Colby nearly toddled into the water, but Connor stretched out his long legs and scissored him back to safety.
Cammie had a complaint. “You feel all hard and lumpy, Uncle Connor.”
“Yeah, I probably do.” He stood up, children dropping off of him like ripe fruit from a very tall tree. He did a few toe touches and stretched a couple of times. Pulling Stevie into the group, Connor headed back toward where the rest of the family stood chuckling over the scene.
Cammie squealed to her grandmother, “Uncle Connor was kissing that lady.” The more observant Katherine added, “He had his hands under her shirt.”
Kevin Riley stepped in. “It isn’t nice to tattle.
Let’s get inside before someone ends up in the water.
We brought dessert home, remember?” Merrilee held up a sack holding pints of hand-packed ice cream. The children swarmed around the queen bee and followed her into the house. The senior Rileys, still laughing, went with them. A porch light snapped on exposing Connor’s face as deep red. Stevie knew her own must be tinged pink.
“You owe me for the rescue, bro. If you ever have kids, remember the lure of ice cream.” Kevin shot his brother an envious smile as he went to join the crowd.
“Shall we go in?” Connor offered Stevie his arm.
“Looks like I’ll have plenty of energy for the game.”
“Wait a minute.” She bent forward and re-snapped her bra, pulled her T-shirt down and ran fingers through her messy hair. “Okay, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” They went inside for ice cream.
****
“We brought you a flavor called chocolate mousse, Stevie.” Mrs. Riley handed her a pint and a plastic spoon. “Connor says you love chocolate mo
usse.”
“Thanks, very thoughtful,” Stevie answered, knowing she pinked up again. She gave the laughing Connor a narrow-eyed stare.
“Plain chocolate for Collin. Katie and Cammie, you share the burgundy cherry, and a scoop of vanilla with sprinkles for my big boy, Colby,” Merrilee counted out as she sat Colby on a Seattle phone book to boost him to table height. “A hot fudge sundae for Mommy since I’m eating for two,” she pointed out needlessly.
“Here, Con, you can share my mint chip,” Kevin offered. “You still crazy about mint chip, too, Stevie?”
Connor tensed slightly as his brother sat a dish with a scoop from his carton in front of him. Merrilee handed her husband a paper napkin. “Wipe Colby’s face for me, darling,” she interposed.
“No, I’ve gone over to chocolate mousse. This is too much for me.” Stevie pried a lump of chocolate ice cream out of her carton with the plastic spoon and dumped it in Connor’s dish.
Mr. and Mrs. Riley shared a container of jamoca almond fudge, but they put it down to suggest a game of Pictionary. The teams divided up with Kevin, Merrilee, their two oldest children, and Keith Riley on one side, Kris Riley, Connor, Stevie, and the two youngest children on the other. The grandparents suggested simple drawings to the children though Colby’s were always a scribble. He contributed by acting out various animals, and all overlooked the cheating. The brothers, as if trying to prove something, competed ferociously with Kevin and Merrilee being the big winners. The smallest children, allowed up long after their bedtime, fell asleep on the couch, and the evening was declared to be at an end.
“Yeah, I don’t want to get fined for staying out too late on game night,” Connor claimed. “Wait for my cab with me, Stevie. I need a good luck kiss.”
“Yuck,” said Collin on his way up the stairs after giving his uncle a good luck hug.
With Connor’s big arm sheltering her from the damp, Stevie strolled up to the street. “Sorry we lost at Pictionary. There’s no beating a married couple when we’ve only known each other a few months,” she apologized.
“This game didn’t matter. It’s the one tomorrow that counts,” Connor said, shrugging it off even though losing to his brother and his wife clearly rankled a little.
“There was a lot going on back there. Merrilee hates me and Kevin keeps making allusions to our not so torrid past. Do you think he cheats on her and that’s why she’s so insecure?”
“I don’t know. Maybe when he travels. Merrilee believes he’s never forgiven her for cheating on him in college. She’s real jealous. I remember Kevin coming home the night they made up. He was still seeing you at the time. He told me you were the girl of his dreams, but Merrilee would do anything, and I do mean anything, to get him back. His exact words.
She failed to mention she had stopped taking her birth control pills. Old Kev fell right into the trap.”
“But all those children?”
“Every time she thinks he’s cheating, she comes up pregnant. She says she has rediscovered her Catholicism, but I think it’s her way of controlling Kevin.”
“Just so you know, I’m not Catholic, and I’m not about to have five kids or get pregnant by accident.”
“I’m not Catholic, either. Mom raised us Lutheran. Dad didn’t care. Any number of kids you want to have is fine with me.”
“Connor, what did I just say about our being together only a few months? Hell, we’ve only been intimate a few weeks.”
“Stevie, I want you to stay with me out at the lake. This season is over tomorrow one way or the other. I know you usually run to stay in shape. We could run together.”
“Like I could keep up with you, famous wide receiver.”
“I’d slow down for you, or run my laps and sprints, then come back around for you. Whatever.
We could take the sailboat out or do some water skiing when the weather gets warmer. Do you like to fish? I have a cabin cruiser at the marina. We can do some deep sea fishing and sleep over out on the Gulf.”
“Connor, I have a career. I have a living to earn,” she answered letting some exasperation come into her voice.
“Fine. I have plenty of land. We can build you a studio near the house. We’re both on the road a lot.
I’ll bet I could get you a permanent assignment with the Sinners.”
“Great, I need a man to do that for me. Talent counts for nothing. They’d say Stevie Dowd got the job because she’s Connor Riley’s mistress.”
“Wife. I want them to say Stevie Dowd is Connor Riley’s wife—and a great photographer. Stay with me. Give us a chance, Stevie. I know what I want.
You just need a little more time to see this was meant to be.”
“Oh, Connor.” How could she not love this man?
Stevie cupped her hands around his thick neck and pulled his head down for a kiss that maybe made the cabbie wish he had a camera so he could sell the shot to the tabloids—golden boy, Connor Riley, with some babe, kissing under a streetlight on the eve of the Super Bowl. Some babe. She twined her fingers in his long, blond curls. His great receiver hands cupped tight around her butt. Not so much as a centimeter of air between them, they were that close together.
The cabbie gave two light taps on his horn. The couple did not seem to hear. He laid on a louder blast. They sprang apart.
“You called for a cab, Mr. Riley? You are Connor Riley of the Sinners, right?”
“That’s me. You sure give quick service.”
“I been here five minutes already waiting for you to say your good-byes.”
“Sorry. I’m a big tipper, could you wait another minute?”
“Since I’m such a big Sinners fan, sure. Do you think you could autograph a receipt—for my kids?”
“Sure thing. Stevie?” Connor turned to find her starting back to the rented house.
From a distance of a few feet, she answered him.
“Connor, I’ve lived with two men. It doesn’t work for me. They all end up lying and cheating on me or walking out or disappointing me in some way or another. I think I should go back to my own place and start working again. I’d like to keep seeing you.
Then maybe…who knows?”
“I don’t lie and I don’t cheat. I’d rather die than disappoint you. Believe it.”
Connor Riley got into his ride and slammed the door. Stevie Dowd watched him go until the cab turned the corner and shot up the hill toward the heart of the city.
Chapter Ten
A long, long day led up to game time. As Stevie promised, she passed that time with Connor’s family. They embarked on a harbor tour taking them out through the locks to the rougher waters of Elliot Bay. Colby threw up his giant breakfast cinnamon bun and milk on his father’s shoes and was rushed to a tiny restroom on the ship for a cleanup.
Making the best of things, Stevie took some nice panoramas of the surrounding snow-capped mountains and the Seattle skyline from the water, touristy and unexciting, but it passed the time.
When the clouds covered the scenery, she shot the wind-blown Riley family standing on the bow of the ship and did some cute kid photos she thought Mrs.
Riley would cherish.
The group filled an elevator to the top of the Space Needle after a long wait in line with others in town for the game. A guide reprimanded the children for racing around and around the circular space. After half an hour, they came down and headed for the Pike Street Market where the tourists were so thick the Rileys formed a human chain and walked sideways to get down the aisles.
After another long wait at a restaurant, the adults ate bread bowls of clam chowder and the kids scarfed burgers and fries. Mutual exhaustion forced them back to the rental house for afternoon naps all around.
While the house lay still, Stevie quietly checked over her cameras and supplies, stocked her vest and pulled out a black Sinner’s T-shirt with the red devil on the sleeve. Going braless was more comfortable when wearing the photographer’s vest and she debated which way to go with her
self. What were the odds she would be sacked again? None if she stayed where she belonged. The dark shirt should provide some insurance if her vest came off. Braless it was going to be. She’d take the odds she would never appear in Sports Illustrated again in a sweat-soaked, white top.
Stevie shrugged on the black shirt. She pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail and topped it with her Sinner’s cap. She wore black jeans and good running shoes. Double checking her credentials, she went quietly to the phone, called a cab and made her escape to Seahawk Stadium.
****
Pre-game insanity already raved by the time Stevie arrived. She took a few backstage candids of the aging grunge rockers, Seattle’s finest contributors to contemporary music, who would be doing the pre-game show. The group was still for the most part grungy. A photographer never knew what would have value in the years to come and snapping them passed the time until the game. The halftime show had been hyped as patriotic and inspirational, the networks not wanting to take any chances with past snafus. And not half as interesting to film, Stevie thought.
She dined lightly on a classic hot dog and diet drink while watching the opening acts. In the quiet interval while the stages were being moved and the smoke from the pyrotechnics cleared, she walked the length of the field and checked the lighting, searched out the best vantage points. She was jogging back towards the fifty-yard line when she heard the call from a row of excellent seats. “Stefania, Stefania! It is me, your Marcello!
Crowd noise covered her groan. Marcello had flown out of her life half a dozen years ago. Why did he have to reappear now? She turned toward the stands. There he stood in all his dark-eyed Italian glory, dressed, she guessed, in what he thought was appropriate attire for an American football game: black leather pants, a black silk shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest, and a brilliant red scarf that would have made any other man look gay—but not Marcello.
