by Diane Nelson
Jack’s fingers were magic as he unraveled the strands.
“I’m going to leave some in,” he tapped on my skull, not quite at the dome, “just enough to give me something to—” He abruptly stopped and took a shallow breath.
“Um, to what?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing was something. I wanted closure. Call me a girl. Was he about to say ‘something I can run my hands through’?
Please let it be that.
Instead he pulled me close, arms embracing me, head resting lightly on top of mine. Reflex had me fingering the rings.
“There’s five of us.” I tensed, then realized he was picking up where he’d left off before we’d found the pond. “Cade ’n me are the only boys. He didn’t want nothing to do with ranching so he took off when he was seventeen. Didn’t hear for a while but it worked out.”
“How so.”
“Him and the youngest, Agnes, both ended up in the military. Cade in the Army, Aggie in the Navy. Both done some tours and are out now. Got jobs. Married. Couple kids each.”
That sounded nice. Normal. I said as much.
“What about the others?” meaning his sisters.
“Anne and Astride,” he choked on a laugh and continued, “Mom was determined to use the letter ‘A’ until she got her some boys.”
“So, shouldn’t you and your brother have names beginning with ‘B’?”
“Yeah, you’d think but the granddaddy’s had a word first, I’m guessing. I’m named after mom’s father, Cade after my dad’s oldest brother.”
“Did anyone stay on the ranch?”
“Funny thing was, Cade moved back, along with Agnes. Astride and her family live close and help out. We tend to like big families where we come from.”
Jack’s thumbs circled the fleshy bits nestled on his arms. The movement did little to distract me from concentrating on the hard length of his erection pressing solidly on my lower back.
“So, you went military too,” I could feel his chin nodding against my scalp, “and then college and now here?” I was worming my way to the real questions. The ones that would pull the rug from under my feet, metaphorically speaking.
“I met Racine at Virginia Tech. I was still a grad student. She played forward. We, uh, got on good.”
That seemed like an odd way to put it. There was no way to see his face but tension in his upper body was a dead giveaway. Everything around us stilled, his thumbs, his breathing, even the air settled in a dome of silence over top of us.
Jack’s voice seemed to echo down a long tunnel. “Racine got pregnant. She didn’t tell me until it was too late. It was the end of her career. Almost the end of mine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Racine’s … black.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. You have to understand, back then they just paid lip service to interracial marriages, especially in the south. Anyway, I did the right thing. Went against both our families’ wishes. We had my girls, I got work, made enough to support us doing a job I loved.”
A long silence followed. What came next would be painful. I liked this man … a lot. There was no need for him to air his grief.
Apparently Jack Ryan thought differently.
“We came up here but Racine never fit in. She hated it here. She’d escaped a small town in Tupelo. This wasn’t what she wanted.”
“Jack…”
“She left, just up and left. Packed a bag. Walked out the door. Didn’t even call for somebody to look in on the girls. They were five at the time. Neighbor lady called me at the gym. Heard the girls crying in the apartment.”
I husked, “Oh Jack, I’m so sorry.”
I wanted to turn around, hold him, comfort him but he refused to release me. His chin settled on my left shoulder, the words muffled.
“I sent them to live with Annie, my oldest sister. There was no way for me to care for them. Not with traveling, coaching. The hours are killers.” I nodded understanding. “I did what I thought was right.”
Before I could process what I’d learned, Jack scrambled to his feet. I followed suit, both of us swaying from the effort.
He leaned in and cupped my face in his huge hands. I swallowed once, twice … waiting. I thought he might kiss me. Instead he whispered, “Thank you,” and took my hand, leading me back to the house.
The steam from the heated water in the hot tub rose like a silver veil in the approaching twilight. I’d lost track of time.
The excuses came quickly.
Thank you for a pleasant afternoon.
I need to get home now.
I have to get ready for tomorrow…
I’m sure you have things to do.
“Stay, Jes. Just a little longer. You need to soak, otherwise you won’t be able to move tomorrow.”
While I watched, dumbfounded, the man stripped, laid his glasses on the table, and climbed into the super-heated water with a sigh. And for an instant I wondered if everything he’d confided in me had been a ploy, a ruse to relax me and to bring me to this point. Softened, suppled, sympathetic.
“I won’t touch you. Not unless you want me to. I promise.”
Biting my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, I wallowed in my misgivings. Then I made a decision. An adult decision.
“Turn around.”
Jack stared, confused.
“Turn. Around.”
“Oh, yeah.” He put his back to me and I clearly heard, “Fucking rules,” but there was a hint of laughter in the tone.
With trembling hands, wishing I had Kathy Bates’ big brass ones, I undressed and climbed into the glorious heat, taking a seat as far away as I could from a completely naked, gorgeous man.
He was humming again.
…forty-five bottles of beer…
Chapter 7: Turnabout
Hisses and gurgles aside, the advancing dusk painted the deck and the woods in shades of mellow and a welcome hush. It was as if I’d been, up to that point in time, living with a brass band, all discordant notes, bleating and blaring in that necessary warm-up before the concert began.
That was me. Stretching. Licking my lips. Palming the ball, a quick dribble. Gauging distance. Getting on my game face.
It used to be nothing but net. Now it was ‘poised to launch’. The problem was … launch where?
The man sitting across from me, the man staring at me with questions and no small amount of curiosity, offered a way to begin my own personal symphony of one.
I didn’t know why. Perhaps I should have cared. Worried even.
He, and a woman who’d never, ever, had my best interests at heart, held purse strings and paperwork that gave me leave to jump off the cliff. Or to make the slam dunk.
Tonia I got, I really did. There was nothing that couldn’t be bought and paid for, including me … and my daughter. She’d bought Robert’s partnership, backed his run during the election, financed Loretta’s education, made judicial—and wasn’t that just the most appropriate term—contributions to smooth the way for everyone and everything that mattered to her and her precious reputation.
Robert’s coming election? Snap. A messy divorce? Snap. No problem too big, no person too small.
I smiled. I’d like to think I’d graduated out of the ‘small’ to ‘major thorn in the side of’ category.
When it came to Tonia, I lived to irritate.
Coach Ryan raised an eyebrow and scooted one seat closer.
I am the iceberg, see me bob.
With the light slanting through the trees my floating parts weren’t quite so obvious in the dimming light. I crouched further down into the foam and bubbles, stretching my legs to brace against the opposite platform, my chin kissed with effervescent heat.
It was glorious.
He touched my shoulder and said, “Your turn.”
“Why? You already have a complete dossier on me, don’t you?” There was resentment there I forgot to mask. Looking away quickly just emphasized my
discomfort.
The hand caressed my upper arm, squeezing gently. Assuring me.
But of what?
What’s in it for you? Other than your job and a chance to make head coach somewhere down the line. Or snag a better offer at a bigger University, a bigger stage. Maybe get to the Big Dance, maybe go pro.
Tonia’s checkbook held so many possibilities it staggered the imagination.
But there was no need to go the extra step. No reason for the fifty large and fuck her routine he seemed bent on pursuing.
The bubbles weren’t the only thing hissing.
“Come here.”
He pulled me close, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, hips and thighs slipping sweetly skin-to-skin and away as the turbulence bobbled us apart and together. A waltz in three four time.
Wanting to cross my fingers and hex him away was juvenile … and prudent. Even if I’d been free, and the damn rings made sure I remembered my vows, there was the little matter of haste and dangerous flirting in one-night-stand territory.
Physically my body screamed full speed ahead. Mentally I was fifteen years old, eager and unprepared. The forty-two year old said ‘yeah right, when pigs fly.’ Two out of three said ‘go for it.’
He whispered in my ear, “I like those odds.”
Shit shit shit!
Why me?
Of all the gin joints, in all the world, why did you walk into mine?
Because she paid him to.
Simple.
“Mr. Ryan…”
He chuckled. “That’s not going to work.”
“Wha—?”
“Pulling the boss card, darlin’.”
My toes lost their footing on the opposite bench, leaving me to bob upwards like a cork. Cellulite and a generous body mass index made for buoyancy and loss of contact with the seat. He used that to maneuver me onto his thigh, just the one.
Now I had his arm around my shoulder, bunched muscle under my ass and…
Crap. That wasn’t a gun. And yes, he was very glad to see me.
Whining, “Jack…” I managed to wriggle myself into even more of a situation.
I knew this because he gasped, or purred, or growled … or something expressing extreme pleasure in the moment.
Or maybe that was me.
Somehow that mass of muscle I now straddled gyrated sinfully, deliciously, as he gripped my hips, pressing me down onto his hardened flesh. Neck braced against his broad shoulder, my back arched in wanton disregard for posture.
We were playing a game, a very physical game. Not one I completely understood. With an outcome I’d only dreamed about, never achieved. Not with Robert.
It lurked, the big tah-dah, the release, the descent into emotional commitment and girlie yearnings.
Bigger than.
Better than.
Be the role model. The perfect wife. The companion, never the lover.
I wasn’t pretty enough, thin enough, outgoing enough to qualify as arm candy. But damn it, I was respectable. Dependable. That was my singular caché.
And the last thing I wanted to be with Jack Ryan.
But the price of freedom is never free. I didn’t understand these rules, if they even existed. With nothing to lose, suddenly everything mattered.
I slid off his lap and moved away, a single indentation in the fiberglass tub cradling my butt, another one his.
We might as well have been on different planets.
He sighed. I recognized frustration. Disappointment.
Turning his torso, his knee nudged my thigh but I resisted moving. To do so would lose me points. And respect.
Placing a finger on my chin, he drew my face around to look at him. Unless he propped my eyelids open with toothpicks, I wasn’t about to engage in a staring match with eyes that could sink ships.
“I’m sorry, Jes. I’m moving too fast, aren’t I?”
Mumbling, “Sort of,” I risked a quick peek.
He was staring at my breasts. And licking his lips.
Now that was empowering.
And dangerous.
“You, um, said you wouldn’t touch me.”
Looking genuinely surprised, he muttered, “You are a beautiful woman, Jessamine Cavanaugh.” And before I could make an arch reply, he stated coyly, “I lied.” The same way Tom Sawyer lied. Without malice.
Coach Jack Ryan did it on the deck, in the hot tub, with artful prevarication.
Ready to forgive, but not forget, I held my ring finger and the bondage under his nose and tapped it.
“Ninety days.”
“Eighty-five.”
My eyebrows shot to the skies. I liked a man who was good at math.
Before I could stop myself, I let slip, “Tomorrow it will be eighty-four.”
“I guess that means I should take you home.” He didn’t look too happy with that prospect. “Stay here. I’ll bring some towels and a robe.”
With that he stood, towering over me, water sluicing off his body in a torrent.
No, I am not that big a person.
I looked.
And then he was gone.
When he returned he laid some towels and an old fleece robe on the table, mumbled something about being in the bathroom and left me with my dignity mostly intact. Drying off, I confronted the choices offered: slip on my nylon workout outfit and wait by the door for my ride home, or … or slip the robe on and see what transpired.
Jack poked his head out the sliding glass door and asked, “You hungry?”
“Starved.”
Me and the old tatty fleece robe padded into the kitchen to see what the man had in mind.
Other than that…other thing.
“Uh, looks like eggs. That okay with you?”
If a man can count and cook … he had me at hello. There was no denying I had developed a strong case of like for Coach Ryan.
We sat and chowed down the evening breakfast, talking basketball, the pitfalls of recruiting, bringing along the players, how to teach sportsmanship, staying off the gnarly topics. Being just guys. And colleagues.
Eventually I started to yawn, Jack cleaned away the dishes and suggested he ought to get me home before my daughter and Chazz called out the cavalry.
I dressed and finally stood by the door.
Jack scooped the truck keys out of a dish and loomed near enough to be a second skin. I suspected what was coming.
“I want to kiss you, Jes. Will you let me?”
The right answer was no because if he did, I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to stave off the inevitable next question. Or even wait for him to ask it.
Jes Cavanaugh was needy. In lust. And possibly falling in love.
That seemed a huge step past ‘like’.
He never gave me time to ponder the issue. Palming my face he lowered his mouth to mine, tenderly brushing my lips. It was chaste, friendly.
And then it wasn’t.
Moaning, he pressed me against the door, his chest crushing me as he assaulted my mouth, his tongue demanding entrance, sweeping away any resistance with sure, sensuous strokes. It left me faint and breathless, my heartbeat thready.
He hissed, “Christ Almighty, I want you.”
That made two of us and the Halleluiah Chorus singing backup. The only noises I made were simple gasps and moans.
He didn’t seem to mind.
When it appeared I might pass out from lack of air, Jack said, “I better get you home before I do something we’ll both regret.”
I had a half hour to mull that over as he drove me slowly, reluctantly, back to town. When he wasn’t shifting, he held my left hand, his thumb doing sinful, sensual things to the palm. Suggestive things. Things that I translated to other body parts.
For the second day in a row, he pulled in front of the apartment building. The harsh glow from the halogen streetlights and the fluorescent glare spilling out of the entrance to the building did little to mask the hunger in his eyes.
Shutting the door I leaned in t
he window and said, “You’re wrong, you know.”
“About what?”
“Splitting infinitives.”
“Uh…”
“I happened to like the dangly bits.”
When I turned away I was pretty sure he was blushing.
****
Etty left a light on for me but her bedroom door was closed and I heard the rasp of snores. Deep manly snores.
Good. Chazz had stayed over. I really needed to find my own place. And soon. Their hearts were in the right place, giving me refuge, but even I knew I was overstaying my welcome. I had the means … and now I had an excuse.
I went about the task of making up the bed, my thoughts both scattered and intensely focused.
A shower might have been a good idea but the aromas from the hot tub, the bite of bromine and Jack’s musky male scent combined to tantalize my nose, like a fine bouquet that lingers in still humid air. That wasn’t all that lingered. Bits and bobs of flesh remained painfully engorged, expectant in a manner totally alien to me. Skin stretched over too tight muscles, nerve endings like shards of glass broken into jagged pieces sent jabs of sensation along every slip of flesh he’d touched.
My tongue moistened my upper lip, then retreated, the memory of his assault brutalizing my resolve.
I pulled at the rings, no longer sure that I needed to play by rules that had forsaken me. The one slipped off—the half carat in platinum relinquishing ownership with reluctance. I set it on the end table, my oath halfway surrendered. I’d … it had given me leave to misbehave. Symbolically. That might be enough for a man like Jack Ryan.
It wasn’t enough for me.
****
Chazz chugged his orange juice and listened to whoever was issuing instructions on the other end of the line.
I giggled at my old-fashioned notions of landlines.
Clicking the cell shut, Chazz said, “Coach wants for me to take you to the admin building, get you registered and then you can meet with Coach Bryant and set up a schedule with him.”
