Naomi inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly, wondering how much she should say about her past to this man she had just met, this man she would only know temporarily, even if they would be working closely together over the next four weeks. Finally, though, she heard herself telling him, “Our marriage had been rocky for a while. Then, one night, Sam decided not to come home. He served me with divorce papers shortly thereafter. I signed them without hesitation, because I knew it was pointless to try to get him back. Frankly, at that point, I didn’t want him back. Evelyn, Katie and Ginny helped me a lot with Sophie after she was born, and the five of us have been a very tight-knit group ever since. The last I heard, Sam was living in Atlanta, where he had been doing most of his work, anyway. I don’t hear from him. Ever. End of story.”
Sloan Sullivan seemed not to know what to say in response to so matter-of-fact a tale about the decline of an American family. Finally, though, he smiled halfheartedly and told her, “You don’t have to call me Mr. Sullivan, you know. Call me Sloan. We are going to be working together, after all.”
Naomi smiled sadly, but with heartfelt gratitude. “Thanks,” she said, hoping he knew her appreciation was for a lot more than just the first-name basis thing. Then her smile grew happier. “And you,” she added, “can call me Coach.”
He laughed at that. “Will do. Coach.”
The tension seemed to ebb after that, but they still didn’t talk all that much about basketball. Instead, Naomi found herself answering questions. About how long she had been coaching—four years. About what had brought her to coaching in the first place—she had loved playing center for her high school and college teams. And about how she managed to juggle coaching, teaching and raising four daughters—not especially well, quite frankly, seeing as how she was organizationally challenged.
What was even stranger, though, was that Naomi didn’t mind answering all of Sloan’s questions. Normally, she was wary around men. Not just because of the difficult years with her ex-husband, but because, growing up, she’d always been taller than the rest of the boys, lanky and not particularly feminine. As a result, she’d intimidated most of the boys she’d known, and none had ever been interested in her. She hadn’t dated much, hadn’t had a real boyfriend until college. She had been a virgin on her wedding night, and she hadn’t been with anyone since her ex-husband.
She just wasn’t comfortable around men, unless they were talking about sports with her. Which, of course, she and Sloan were. But they were also touching on the personal, and that was something Naomi always strove to avoid with the opposite sex.
With Sloan, though… For some reason, she just didn’t mind speaking frankly about such things. She didn’t mind talking about herself or her past. Maybe because she knew that, with him being the kind of man he was, there was no way he’d ever be interested in her. So, in a sense, she was simply making friends with him. And hey, who couldn’t use a friend now and then, right?
“What about you?” she finally said, when she began to grow tired of talking about herself.
He seemed surprised by the change of subject. “What about me?” he echoed.
“Are you married?” she asked bluntly. “Have any kids?”
He shook his head vehemently. “No. I’ve never been married. Never had the time,” he added with an embarrassed smile. “And I can’t honestly see myself with children. I’m not good with kids. Especially young ones.”
Naomi found his response strange. Not only had Sloan interacted surprisingly well with all the girls at practice that evening, but she’d also seen how good he’d been with Sophie earlier. He’d seemed very comfortable in his association with her, had been in no way condescending or anxious or reserved, the way people without children so frequently were around kids—preschoolers especially. Still, she didn’t call him on it. He must have his reasons for feeling the way he did. However erroneous those feelings might be.
“My work takes up a good part of my life,” he told her. “I really don’t have time for a family.”
“You might be surprised how much time you could take from your work and still get things done,” she said pointedly. “You just have to choose your priorities and put those first.”
He nodded. “I agree completely. And I’ve made my work my first priority.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “At least you’re honest with yourself. And others. A lot of men…” She stopped herself before saying anything more. She really didn’t want to sound bitter. She wasn’t bitter, she assured herself. Just…wary. That was all.
“A lot of men what?” Sloan asked.
She shrugged, but there was nothing casual in the gesture. “A lot of men make their work their first priority, but swear that it’s really their family that comes first,” she finally said. “Then they delude themselves into thinking that, because they’re good providers in the financial arena, then they must be good fathers, and that’s all that’s important, and everything is fine, and it doesn’t matter that they’re never home, and never have anything to do with their families at all, and that they’ve actually assigned their family to last place instead of first.”
Sloan said nothing for a moment, then, very softly, he asked, “Is that what happened in your marriage?”
Naomi told herself to change the subject again, that this was something that was not only none of his business, but also something she had no desire to discuss—with Sloan or anyone. Then she realized she was the one who’d started it, the one who’d brought it up in the first place, and that, too, seemed very unlike her.
In spite of all of her misgivings, though, and for some strange reason she didn’t want to ponder at the moment, she heard herself telling him, “Maybe. My husband was a general contractor, and that meant he worked long hours, late hours, weekend hours. Even when he was home, he always seemed to be holed up in the office on the phone. We hardly ever saw him. He was never here—physically or emotionally. There were times when I found myself thinking he took on more work specifically because he didn’t want to come home.”
Sloan seemed to be genuinely puzzled by the comment. “Why wouldn’t he want to come home to such a beautiful family?”
Naomi smiled indulgently at his remark. She and the girls weren’t unattractive, she knew. But neither were any of them, save perhaps Katie, anything remotely resembling “beautiful.” Her daughters were handsome. Striking. Had classic good looks. But even Naomi knew better than to consider them “beautiful.” Beautiful suggested flowing blond locks, lush, womanly curves, and dainty, fragile dispositions. Her daughters, to a girl, were tall, dark, slender and strong. And as for Naomi, well… There were days when she didn’t even feel strong anymore.
Still, she felt obligated to respond to Sloan’s question. “If you must know,” she began, “I don’t think Sam was ever comfortable in the company of so many females.”
“What?” Sloan asked, sounding honestly incredulous. “How can a man feel uncomfortable around women? That makes no sense.”
Oh, he would feel that way, she thought. A man like Sloan could no doubt charm the socks—and more—off of any woman he chose. He seemed the epitome of the term ladies’ man.
“Sam was a real man’s man,” Naomi said. “Very athletic, very car-oriented, fascinated with heavy machinery, that kind of thing. If the girls and I ever needed to go shopping, we’d drop him in the Sears tool department and know we could come back three hours later, and he’d still be happily browsing, or buying, or just talking metal shop with the guys.”
Although Naomi didn’t tell Sloan, she also knew that Sam’s manly manliness was what had caused him to marry her in the first place. She was, in essence, one of the guys—therefore, he could always be comfortable with her, when he considered the majority of women to be alien creatures. But as the years went by, and he gradually found himself saddled with three daughters in addition to a wife, he’d begun to feel as if he were drowning in estrogen. He’d simply stopped feeling comfortable in his own home. And
then, when Naomi had gotten pregnant that fourth time—unexpectedly—Sam had begun to fear that another pair of X chromosomes would be invading his turf. So he had left. All of them.
“He just wasn’t comfortable around so many women,” Naomi abbreviated. “And he spent as little time at home as possible as a result.”
“But Sophie,” Sloan objected again. “Surely, if he’d known you were pregnant with her, he wouldn’t have—”
“Sam knew about Sophie,” Naomi said quietly. “When I told him I was expecting again—it came as something of a surprise to both of us—he asked me to terminate the pregnancy. I refused. But the possibility of having another daughter, to him, was—” Naomi inhaled deeply and released it slowly, hoping the bitterness would leave with it “—unacceptable,” she finally finished. “So he took off.”
Sloan studied her in silence for a moment, then, “Oh,” he said, very softly.
Naomi nodded. “Yeah. Oh,” she agreed. “Now you know why I really don’t like to talk about Sam in front of Sophie.”
An awkward moment of silence ensued, until the clock on the mantelpiece began to chime. One, two, three, Naomi counted mentally. Four, five six… On and on it went, until twelve chimes had sounded.
“Good God, is that the time?” Sloan asked, glancing first at the clock, then down at his watch. “Midnight? But how can it already be midnight? I feel like I just got here.”
Chapter 5
Naomi was no less surprised by the hour than he, though she didn’t feel as if Sloan had just gotten there. No, in many ways, it seemed as if eons had passed since she’d said hello to him earlier that evening, because it had felt so comfortable having him here in her home. She felt as if she’d had him here on a number of occasions already, and that the two of them were simply indulging in a regular, weekly ritual.
Funny, that, she couldn’t help thinking. Normally, she didn’t warm up to people so quickly. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d entertained anyone in her home with whom she had felt such an immediate sense of kinship. Certainly she’d never discussed the details of her marriage with someone she’d known such a short time. With Sloan, however, talking about her past—talking about so many things—hadn’t felt awkward at all.
“Gosh, I am really sorry,” she said, rising from the chair where she had parked herself for what she now realized had been hours. They’d finished their coffee long ago, and neither had expressed a desire for more. Their conversation, however, had obviously flowed quite freely. “I didn’t mean to keep you so late.”
“It isn’t your fault,” he replied, mimicking her gesture, pushing himself to standing. “I had no idea it was nearing midnight. When did that happen?”
Although it was true that the girls had all come in to say their good-nights a while ago, Naomi hadn’t noted the time then, nor had she marked its passage since. And neither, evidently, had Sloan. Honestly, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d lost track of the hour this way, but they’d been talking so companionably—and it had been so nice to talk to someone her own age for a change, she couldn’t help thinking further—that she just hadn’t been paying attention.
“You have a long drive back to Atlanta,” she observed. Not that she was willing to offer him an alternative, mind you. She was just making an observation, that was all.
“It’s not a problem,” he assured her mildly. “I’ve had late drives home before.”
Oh, she’d just bet he had—much later than this one, no doubt. She’d wager Sloan had women all over the metro Atlanta area, and that most of his women kept him in their homes well past midnight. Not that she considered herself one of Sloan’s women, of course. But she’d bet good money that most of the women he spent the evening with turned out to be women he spent the night with. And probably not a single one of them was sharing her roof with four other females besides. Not unless there was some pret-ty kinky stuff going on. Stuff that Naomi would just as soon not ponder, thank you very much.
“Can I help you clean up?” he asked, surprising her. First of all, men didn’t usually offer to do something like that, and second, he had a long drive home. Why would he want to make his departure later than it already was?
She shook her head. “There’s not much left. The girls took care of most of it. You go on.”
For one scant, strange moment, neither of them moved or spoke, as if they weren’t quite sure what they were supposed to say or do. Sloan just stood in front of the couch, where he’d been sitting, and Naomi just stood in front of the chair she’d occupied herself. And in that scant, strange moment, she was overcome by the oddest sensation that something was supposed to happen, that one of them was supposed to do something very specific—she had no idea what. And then the moment was gone, and she was extending her hand toward the front door, in a silent indication that he should use it.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you again on Thursday,” she said, suddenly feeling awkward and nervous for no reason she could name. “Maybe next time we can get to that strategizing we somehow never got to tonight.”
“We didn’t, did we?” he said, seeming as perplexed by the realization as she. “Thursday then, for sure.”
“You can stay for dinner again, if you’d like,” Naomi heard herself offer, even though she’d never formed the invitation consciously in her head.
“I would like that,” he said, surprising her yet again. “I’d like it a lot.”
Naomi nodded once. “Fine. I promise not to keep you as late next time.”
He started to say something else, went so far as to open his mouth to form the words. But he must have had second thoughts, because he closed it again before uttering a sound. He took a few steps toward the front door, then stopped and turned around to look at her. Naomi had started to follow him, but had been looking down at her feet instead of at him, and therefore wasn’t paying attention when he came to a halt. Not until she ran right into him, anyway. Not until she felt his hands on her upper arms, steadying her to keep her from stumbling backward.
Hastily, she glanced up, only to find him gazing down at her, and she was overcome by the realization that never in her life had any man ever looked down at her this way. Never had she had to actually tip her head backward to meet a man’s eye. But Sloan Sullivan was a large enough specimen that he made Naomi feel almost pint-size in relation. It was an unsettling feeling, acknowledging that a man was so much bigger than she was. But, strangely, it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant one.
No, not unpleasant at all.
“I—I—I…I’m sorry,” she stammered, confused by the keen heat that spilled through her midsection at the way he towered over her. “I, ah, I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
She thought he would release her then, but he didn’t right away. Instead, he only hesitated a little, loosening his grip on her some, but not quite letting go. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Naomi nodded, not sure she trusted herself to say anything more. By now, the heat that had spread through her abdomen was moving outward, seeping into every extremity, pooling deep in her belly, warming parts of her that hadn’t felt warm for a very long time. Too long a time. Way too long a time.
“I’m fine,” she finally managed to reply. And she hoped he didn’t notice how weak and quiet her voice suddenly sounded.
For another brief moment, he continued to hold her, and then—almost reluctantly, it seemed—he released her. He took another few steps toward the front door—moving backward this time, so that he could continue to look at her—and said, “Let’s definitely talk basketball Thursday night. You could fill me in on the year thus far, the girls’ strengths and weaknesses, that kind of thing. I feel like I’m coming in to this thing so cold.”
That’s funny, Naomi thought. I’m feeling kind of warm myself.
Aloud, though, she only said, “Um, fine. That would be, ah, fine. You’re right. There’s a lot we need to go over.”
He nodded, but said nothing more, only
kept walking backward until his backside hit the front door. Still looking at Naomi, he reached behind himself for the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door. But he seemed reluctant to step through it, seemed as if there were still something very important he wanted to tell her.
But all he did was lift a hand in farewell and then tell her, “Good night. See you Thursday.”
“Good night,” Naomi replied automatically. And before she could stop herself, she added, “Be careful driving home.”
She had no idea why she tagged that final admonition onto her goodbye the way she did. It was the kind of thing she usually would have said to her daughters. Be careful. Because she cared about what happened to them, obviously.
But, then, why wouldn’t she care about Sloan, too? she asked herself. It was only natural. He was a nice man. Not to mention her temporary assistant coach. She needed him. At least for the next month. Of course she cared.
Nevertheless, as she, too, raised her hand in farewell and watched Sloan smile, repeat his good-night, and pass through the front door, closing it behind himself, Naomi knew her caring stemmed from a lot more than anything basketball related. And that, she decided, couldn’t possibly be a good thing.
Could it?
That, Sloan thought as he backed his car out of Naomi Carmichael’s driveway and into the street, was a very odd encounter. And for a variety of reasons, too, he couldn’t help thinking further as he maneuvered his way back through her neighborhood and “downtown”—oh, that really was a quaint way to think of it—Wisteria, toward the state road that had brought him here to begin with. Once he left the outskirts of town completely, he was swallowed by the darkness, the black ribbon of two-lane highway bisecting the even blacker night. Clouds obscured whatever light might have shone from the moon and stars, and the headlights of his roadster illuminated nothing but more darkness up ahead.
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 20
