Anything—anything at all—but the sinking realization that the more time he spent among the modern world, the more dangerously close he was to becoming his father.
Chapter Three
Gretchen loved it when Marcia called in sick—which, as the mother of two young children who stuck their faces and hands into every germy orifice known to mankind, was fairly often. With just her CPR and lifeguard certifications, Gretchen wasn’t qualified to teach water aerobics, and there was a good chance these poor old ladies were going to get out of the water and break their hips after this workout, but she liked getting down from the lifeguard stand and actually doing something for a change.
The day shift left ample time for self-reflection. Blowing her bright yellow whistle at the homeschooled kids running too much in the play area only entertained her for the first hour or so. After that, she had to compartmentalize her shift into carefully timed intervals in order to make it through and still manage to keep people alive. Quadrants of the pool, minutes of the hour, activities to fill her days—maybe these tiny increments didn’t add up to much in the grand scheme of things, but they were all she had to work with.
Besides, she was good at that part, at building a whole life from tiny scraps of nothing. She was a walking testament to what a lack of hard work and determination could accomplish.
“Okay, ladies, now twirl.” The six women in the class lifted their hands and attempted water pirouettes. They were none of them very graceful, but the wide smiles and laughter took precedence over any pretense at form. How many people remembered how much fun it was to pretend to be a water ballerina anytime past the age of five?
They played that way for the rest of the forty-five minute class, splashing and dancing and once, when a particularly animated Mrs. Ludovic attempted to lift her partner, straining their backs.
As class came to an end, Gretchen pulled herself out of the pool. Water aerobics were held in the therapeutic pool, where the balmy ninety-five-degree water helped ease aching bones and joints. Even though the rest of the indoor aquatic center was heated, the temperatures weren’t a match for the womblike pool. Gretchen shivered and toweled off, fighting the urge to dive back in and simply float on her back for hours.
“Are you free to talk?”
Gretchen’s eyes flew open and she turned in the direction of the gravelly male voice. Getting accosted on the job was a standard part of being a lifeguard—working in a swimming suit opened a woman to scrutiny and unsolicited attention in ways that a power suit never did.
But then she realized that the man approaching her wasn’t a teenager hiding an awkward boner or an old man who missed his wife and simply wanted someone to talk to.
“Jared?” She pulled her towel up and secured it at her hips. She cast a quick glance around the pool to see that only Mrs. Ludovic remained and was giving her a hearty thumbs-up as she headed into the changing room. The rest of the pool area was empty.
With time on her side, Gretchen shifted into a smile and leaned on one leg. “Well, what do you know? You found me out.”
Her first impulse at seeing Jared was one of unquestionable toe-curling pleasure. Whether by asking around or simply racking his brain, he’d finally realized who she was and tracked her down. She might look tough, what with her tattoos and her bruises and her admittedly juvenile attitude, but her girly parts weren’t immune to this kind of attention.
Who was she kidding? Her girly parts loved this kind of attention.
Unfortunately, her second impulse—which occurred after a brief glance at Jared’s glowering face—didn’t tingle quite as agreeably in her extremities. In fact, all tingles came to an abrupt end.
In the clear light of day with nary a cold, clinical text message to boost her spirits, it was obvious Jared regretted the impulse to ask her out. Daylight had a way of bringing reality crashing to the ground, which was why Gretchen considered herself a creature of the night. In the shadows, anything was possible.
“Can you, ah, put something on?” he asked, looking pointedly at the ceiling. “I think I might have made a mistake last night.”
Gretchen made a quick survey of herself. The bright white rec-center-issued one-piece swimsuits with full coverage to the neck were modest when considered from a purely fabric standpoint, but they had absolutely no padding. Her boobs were nothing to brag about—on her OkCupid subscription, she had what they liked to call an athletic build—but flimsy white fabric had a way of enhancing a lady’s assets. Any abrupt change in temperature was announced clearly and erectly to the entire pool area.
Since Jared was obviously uncomfortable with her nipples, athletic though they might be, she left them there. He’d come to her—it wasn’t as if she’d strolled into New Leaf, lifted her shirt and asked him to give his professional opinion.
“I seem to have left my muumuu in the break room,” she said dryly. “What’s up? Car break down outside? Need a jack?”
He coughed, his face growing red, and continued his refusal to look at her—either in the face or anywhere else. He’d somehow transformed from a curmudgeonly, cocky bastard overnight into...well, if it wasn’t the creepiest thought in the world, she’d say he turned into her father.
“About yesterday,” he said.
Oh, come on. Jared was a grown man, a professional, a hero. And he couldn’t even say he’d changed his mind about going on a date with her without blushing?
“Second thoughts?” she offered, taking it easy on him. He looked like he needed it more than she did. “Don’t sweat it. You were caught up in a moment of misplaced chivalry, what with my bruises and everything. I get it. I bet all those Happily Ever Afters are littered with princes who regret the day they slayed the dragon and carried the princess home to Mama.”
Extending a hand, she added, “Friends?”
Jared wasn’t sure which of the two emotions beat stronger in his chest—relief or disappointment. He’d been half afraid Gretchen would turn his discomfiture into a public circus, calling him out as a cradle-snatcher and a jerk for all the world to see. The other half of him feared, well, this. So far from making an impression on her, he was like a free ticket to see a band no one had heard of. Easy come, easy go.
He took her hand, careful not to let his gaze stray anywhere other than her face. The task was more difficult than he’d imagined. At the café, he’d only ever seen the swirled patterns and vibrant colors on her forearms. He could see now that the tattoos extended all the way up to her shoulders and disappeared into the straps of her swimsuit, with one winding tendril of a vine escaping to lick up the side of her neck.
He clamped a tight fist. He would not touch that vine. He would not trace the path to find its origin.
On her face, at least, he could take a detached medical interest in what he saw. The swelling along her brow had gone down quite a bit, leaving a dark purple ring that shone with extra blue under the fluorescent lights of the pool area. Her lip glistened where she’d put some kind of tincture on the cut, but other than those minor marks, she looked none the worse for wear.
Professional concern took over for a moment, and he glanced up at the pool’s lighting. They should probably look at installing some of those incandescent bulbs in the exam room—the harsh blue light had a way of magnifying the lines and wrinkles of age, helping to pinpoint tiny areas of improvement...
Wait—lines and wrinkles of age? He leaned closer, peering at the unmarked side of her face, where a gentle crow’s nest lifted from the corner of her eye.
Gretchen let out a soft, irritated huff. “Making another examination before you go? Don’t worry about it—I can barely feel the bruise. That whole sleeping-with-my-head-propped-up thing really worked. Thanks for the tip.”
“You have wrinkles.”
The wrinkles deepened as she frowned. “Gee. Thanks for noticing. I saw you have a
scar on your lower lip, but you’ll notice I refrained from mentioning it.”
“You’re old.” He examined her with renewed interest. Slight rhytids under the eyes and around the mouth. Nasolabial folds showed some signs of sagging. Unable to help himself, he lifted a hand to the corner of her unhurt eye and pushed slightly upward on the skin there. Her elasticity was beginning to degrade.
She swatted at him before he could do any more. “Holy crap, Jared. I get the point. I’m an ugly old hag. I never suspected you of having an excess of manners, but now you’re just being cruel. A tip—when you dump a lady, you’re supposed to do it with compliments. Here, I’ll show you.” Adjusting her posture so that her shoulders appeared wide and her stance bowlegged—did he really look like that?—she lowered her voice to a grumble. “Gretchen, you’re amazing and beautiful and seem like a lot of fun, but I’m a superior specimen of manhood and can’t possibly go out with you tomorrow. I’ll be much too busy volunteering at the children’s hospital. See you around.”
“I don’t sound like that,” he protested.
“I know. You’re much less articulate.”
Come to think of it...she was pretty articulate for someone her age. “Just how old are you?”
Gretchen threw up her hands. “I quit. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go curl myself up in a ball somewhere and die. It’s apparently all that’s left to me at my advanced age.” She turned on her heel and marched toward the lifeguard stand near the center of the pool area. With each forceful step, her towel sank lower and lower until it slipped off her hips entirely, leaving him with a clear view of her ass in the tiny white swimsuit. High and firm and set above a pair of tight, chiseled thighs, that ass was crafted of perfect musculature resulting from hours of regular roller skating and not the excessive bounciness of youth.
He’d never been so happy to see a woman’s toned, non-youthful derriere in his life. He could have squeezed it.
His attention, though rapt, didn’t remain on her glutes for long. Mid-thigh on both legs, Gretchen bore even more tattoos. These were giant bows tied tight, the tops of an invisible pair of stockings on a high-class call girl. And that wasn’t even the worst—dear God, the best—part. All along her right leg, extending from her ankle and wrapping around to the front of her thigh, wound a long, scaly serpent. The tail started at the base of her fibula. He couldn’t tell where the head ended.
But, oh, he could imagine it.
His mouth went dry. How could they possibly let a woman looking like that out, half-dressed, in a public place frequented by children? She might as well have had S-E-X stamped across her ass. As she placed one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, he realized there did seem to be some kind of quote peeking out the bottom of her suit.
In that moment, he would have given his entire life savings to know what it said.
“Wait. That came out all wrong. I just—I thought maybe you were young. Too young,” he added quickly.
“Too young for what?” she asked, halfway up the ladder as she cast a look over her shoulder at him.
He could just make out an r-e in rolling script before realizing he was pretty much eye-level with her ass and making no attempt to conceal that it had his complete and undivided attention.
“For me,” he admitted, forcing himself to meet her eyes. They laughed at him, those eyes. Gretchen knew exactly what he was doing and, instead of kneeing him in the groin for being a complete brute—which would be totally reasonable, given the circumstances—she was laughing at him.
This woman’s bullshit radar was impeccable, and she had it trained directly on him.
“When my friend mentioned you were the barista from Java Rocket and a lifeguard, I had this sudden vision of you last night, tiny and beaten, and I thought...”
Gretchen leaped nimbly down from the lifeguard stand and fell into a burst of laughter. Now that Jared had stopped examining her wrinkles under the harsh pool lights, it was easier to forgive him for his outburst. Honestly, no one looked good in this room. Gretchen had seen enough of people to feel no shame when it came to her own flaws. Ill-fitting swimsuits with untamed pubic hair creeping out the seams had a way of equalizing people.
Of course, that didn’t mean it was very nice of a potential date to bring those flaws to her attention.
“You thought I was sixteen, didn’t you, you dirty old pervert?” She put her hands on her hips.
“Well, I had the decency to assume you were at least twenty.”
She waited.
“Okay, I pretty much made a pact with the devil that he could have my soul as long as you were out of your teens. Since I’d guess now that you can’t be a day under thirty, I suppose that means I’m doomed to an eternity in flames.”
“If you don’t stop calling me old, you’re going to be doomed to a lot more than that.”
He grinned, and she realized there was one exception to the everyone-looks-like-crap-in-pool-lights rule. The deep lines etched onto Jared’s face gave him character in ways a woman’s wrinkles never could. And the smile? It was good. Boyish and playful, it seemed a rare glimpse into the person beyond the doctorly façade.
“I’m right, aren’t I? So what is it? Thirty-three? Thirty-four?”
“I’m thirty-one, asshole. And I happen to think I’m remarkably fit.”
He tilted his head. “Huh. It must be the excessive trauma that’s prematurely aging you. Or sun. Did you tan a lot in your twenties?”
“It’s a really good thing you already canceled our date, Dr. Fine. What with wheeling me out in my chair and changing my colostomy bag, it probably wouldn’t have been much fun anyway.”
“Hey.” He grabbed her hand. “I’d still very much like to see you again. There’s nothing stopping us from going out now.”
Dammit—he was doing it again, flipping back and forth between playful boy and serious man, flipping any of her self-respecting abilities to withstand him along with it.
“Oh, you know,” she countered. “Nothing except the fact that you’ve come to my place of work without invitation, insulted me to my face and ogled me in a bathing suit.”
He at least had the decency to look sheepish and run a hand along the back of his neck. “You have nice...tattoos.”
All the locations on her body where tattoos lingered—and there were a lot—flushed with interest. “And you must have the worst bedside manner of any doctor to pass his exams. Is that how you drum up all your clients? Point out their flaws and then dangle a fancy dinner in front of their face?”
“No. I tell them they’re beautiful. Every woman ought to hear that at least once a day.”
This would have been an ideal opportunity for the man to drop a compliment or two—particularly those relating to beauty—but he remained silent. She couldn’t tell if his lips were sealed out of a desire to drive her crazy or because she’d really put him off with her grotesque, aged face. Either way, she wasn’t having any of it.
“You know what?” She jabbed a finger in his chest. “We’re going out. In the most public place possible. I’m putting on my best schoolgirl outfit and carrying a lollipop.”
“I’d deserve it.”
“And I’ll cry if you don’t buy me a pony.”
“You can have anything you want.”
She had to laugh. Driving her crazy was unquestionably his motivation here. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, that I’d go out with you after all this.”
“Daddy issues would be my guess.”
She slugged him on the arm. “You’re seriously disturbed, you know that?”
“Ow.” He grabbed his biceps. “Be careful. That’s my surgery arm.” But there was no mistaking the fact that he seemed to swell with pride at each new insult.
What an odd man. What a fascinating man.
Then, more c
oncerned, he asked, “So...we’re still on? For tomorrow night?”
She threw her hands up helplessly. “If you insist.”
“I do.” With an inborn arrogance, he straightened his shoulders and looked her squarely in the eye. “You won’t regret it. The talk of Pleasant Park is I’m quite a catch.”
She snorted, but then he flashed another one of those smiles that was composed of equal parts conceit and chagrin. He had to know—this effect he had on women, this effect he had on her in particular. He had to know that if there was one thing she couldn’t resist, it was the challenge of an egotistical man who stood poised for a huge, tumultuous fall.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Gretchen. Be sure and take care of that face.”
She opened and closed her mouth, striving to think of a clever retort, but the vision of his backside in a pair of form-fitting black slacks as he sauntered out left her unable to do much more than breathe.
She knew, in those annoying places where common sense reigned supreme, that he was playing with her, amusing himself, fixated on the rough exterior she showed the world and not the real person hiding behind it. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened, and a more rational woman might even use this opportunity to reevaluate her life choices and renew that OkCupid subscription.
But when had anyone ever accused her of acting rationally?
That delicious backside currently moving out the door saved children. And puppies. She might be a master of the hip whip on the roller derby floor, but there was no way she could outpace that man in the real world.
She doubted anyone could.
Chapter Four
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Jared pulled the phone away from his ear, certain he was about to feel the sharp side of Gretchen’s tongue once again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d treated a human being to this much of his bad behavior in such a short amount of time.
The Derby Girl Page 4
