by Nora Roberts
“Not what I said. Swing from the shoulders,” he told Keenan. Coop might have been grouchy, but he wasn’t stupid. “There are plenty of terrific female athletes. Keep your eye on the ball, kid.” He kept one hand around Keenan’s and lightly tossed the ball up in the air with the other. The bat connected with a hollow thud.
“I hit it! I hit it really, really hard!”
“Major league stuff.” Coop slid his eyes back up to Zoe’s. “I thought you were making pancakes.”
“I was— I am.” She blew out a breath. “I guess you’re taking over.”
“Well, I don’t know diddly about pancakes, and you don’t know squat about baseball. Why don’t we both do what we know?”
“Like it’s a big deal to hit a stupid ball with a stupid bat,” she muttered as she strode to the back door.
“You can’t do it.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes narrowed, turned. “I certainly can.”
“Yeah, right. Okay, Keenan, let’s try it again.”
“I believe it’s my turn.” Challenge in her every movement, Zoe slipped the bat from her son’s hands.
“Are you going to hit it, Mama? Are you?”
“You bet I am.” She held out a hand for the ball Coop was holding. She tossed it up, swung and batted the ball to the chain-link fence bordering the side yard. Keenan let out a cheer and raced to retrieve it.
Coop sniffed, smiled. “Not bad, for a girl. But anybody can hit a fungo.”
“Keenan’s too young for anything but a plastic ball.”
“No, a fungo’s when you toss it up yourself and hit it.”
“Oh.”
“I’m gonna throw it, Coop. You catch.”
“Sure, zip it in here.”
It took Keenan three tries, running in closer each time, to send the ball anywhere near Coop.
“I suppose you don’t think I could hit it if you threw it at me. . . .” Zoe began.
“Pitch it to you,” Coop said patiently. “I would pitch it to you.”
“All right, pitch it to me, then.” She raised the bat.
“Fine, but you might want to turn a little more to the side. That’s it,” he said, backing away. “Zoe, you’re holding the bat like you’re going to use it to hammer a nail. Okay, here it comes.”
He tossed the ball soft and underhand, but she still had to grit her teeth to keep herself from jerking away. Because her pride and her son’s respect for women were at stake, she swung hard. No one was more stunned than Zoe when she connected. Coop snatched the ball an instant before it could smash his nose.
“Well.” Zoe handed the bat back to a wide-eyed Keenan, dusted her hands. “I’ll go see about those pancakes.”
“She hit it really hard,” Keenan said admiringly.
“Yeah.” Coop watched the back door swing shut behind her. “Your mother’s really . . . something, kid.”
“Will you pitch to me, Coop? Will you?”
“Sure. But let’s work on that stance, huh? You gotta look like a ballplayer.”
When Zoe finished flipping the last pancake on the stack, she looked out the window and saw her son swing the bat. The ball didn’t go far, but Coop made a pretense of a diving catch, missing, while Keenan danced gleefully in place.
“Too hot to handle,” Coop claimed, and Keenan jumped on top of him. “Hey, there’s no tackling in baseball. Football’s out of season.” He scooped the wriggling boy up and held him upside down. Somewhere along the line, his sour mood had vanished.
* * *
It became a habit to spend time with the boy. Nothing planned, just playing a little catch in the yard or showing Keenan how to dunk baskets in the apartment. It wasn’t as though he were attached to the kid, Coop assured himself. But when he had some free time and the boy wanted to hang around, what was the harm? Maybe it was sort of nice to see those big eyes all full of hero worship. And maybe it wasn’t so much of a hardship to listen to that rollicking belly laugh Keenan burst into when something struck his fancy.
If the boy sometimes came along with the bonus of his mother, it wasn’t exactly a hardship.
The fact was, he had seen a great deal more of Keenan than Zoe since the night of the thunderstorm. She was friendly enough, but she’d been careful—or so it seemed to Coop—not to be alone with him.
That was something he was going to fix, he decided as he shut down his computer.
He grabbed a couple of miniature race cars, some of the flotsam and jetsam of boyhood that Keenan had left in his apartment. If Coop knew Zoe as he thought he was beginning to, the toys would be an easier entry than a bouquet of long-stemmed roses.
Jiggling the cars in his hand, he strode down the steps to knock on her kitchen door.
In the laundry room, Zoe slammed down the lid on the washer. “Who is it?”
“It’s Coop.”
She hesitated, started the machine. “Come on in. I’ll be right out.” She hefted a basket of clean laundry, as much out of defense as out of necessity, and went into the kitchen.
God, he looked good. She had really, really tried not to dwell on how good the man looked. So damn male, she thought; the rangy, athletic body, the muscles, the dark, untidy hair, and those wonderful pale green eyes. She wished her heart wouldn’t always stutter when he aimed one of his cocky grins in her direction.
“Hi.” She plopped the basket on the kitchen table and immediately began busying her hands folding socks.
“Hi.” The kitchen was cluttered, as always. She really needed someone to help her organize, he thought. God, she smelled fantastic. “Keenan left these upstairs.” Coop set the cars on the table. “I thought he might be looking for them.”
“Thanks.”
“So where is he?”
“In school.”
“Oh, right.” Coop knew Keenan’s schedule as well as he knew yesterday’s box scores. “You just get in from the flower shop?”
“Mmm-hmm . . . Business is picking up. We’ve got a couple of weddings. Actually, I could work full-time for the next three weeks, but it just doesn’t fit Keenan’s schedule.”
“What do you mean?” Idly he plucked a shirt from the basket.
“Well, the spring weddings. The arrangements take a lot of extra hands, so Fred asked if I could put in full days for a while.”
“So, that’s good, right?”
“The school Keenan goes to is really more of a preschool than day care. It doesn’t stay open after three. And I have the car pool next week, anyway. Plus, I promised to take him and some of the other kids swimming at the community center on Friday. He’s really looking forward to it.”
“Yeah, he mentioned it.” About twenty times, Coop recalled.
“I don’t want to let him down.”
“So, I’ll do it.”
She looked back up, socks dangling from her hands. “What?”
He couldn’t believe he’d said that. He stared at her for another moment, then shrugged. “I said I’d do it. It’s no big deal. He can hang with me when he gets home from school.”
She tilted her head. “Don’t you have a job?”
“That’s what I call it, since they pay me.” He smiled, finding the idea went down easily. “I do most of my writing here, and he could tag along when I go in to the paper or on an interview. He’d probably get a kick out of it.”
“I’m sure he would.” She narrowed her eyes. Why couldn’t she get a handle on J. Cooper McKinnon? “But why would you?”
He wasn’t sure he had the answer to that, so he punted. “Why not? He’s not that much of a pest.”
With a laugh, she went back to her laundry. “Maybe he’s not, but you forgot the car pool.”
“I can drive. What’s the big deal about hauling a bunch of kids to school and back?”
“I can’t begin to tell you,” she murmured. It was, perhaps, something every adult should experience for himself. “And the swimming.”
“I was captain of the swim team in college. All
state.”
She glanced up at that. “I thought you played baseball. Uh, Keenan mentioned it.”
“Yeah, I did. Two hundred and twelve RBIs my last season. I played basketball, too, averaged forty-two points a game.” He was bragging, Coop realized. Like some gawky teenager trying to impress the head cheerleader. He frowned down at the little cars, began to slide one over the table.
“Keenan says you make great engine noises.”
“Yeah, it’s a talent.”
He’d embarrassed himself, Zoe realized, and she wanted to hug him. “Tell you what. Why don’t we take it a day at a time? If you decide you can’t handle it—”
His eyes flashed up at that. “I think I can handle one scrawny kid and a few of his pals.”
“Okay. If you decide you don’t want to handle it, no hard feelings.”
“Fine. When do you want to start?”
“Tomorrow would be great.”
“Okay.” That was settled. Now, he thought, it was on to other business. “How about dinner?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Um . . . sure. We’re just going to have chicken. I’ll probably fry it.”
“No.” He stepped closer. She stepped back. “I mean, why don’t we have dinner? Out. You and me.”
“Oh, well . . .” Good answer, she thought foolishly. Very succinct. She took another step in retreat. “I have to work tonight.”
“Tomorrow.”
“I don’t really go out.”
“I’ve noticed. What are you backing away from, Zoe?”
“You.” Annoyed with herself, she held up a hand. And found it pressed against his chest. “I don’t want to date anyone. Start anything. I have very good reasons.”
“You’ll have to tell me about them sometime.” He reached up, combed a hand through her hair and loosened the band that held it back.
“You’re not going to kiss me again.”
“Sure I am.” He touched his lips to hers to prove it. His eyes remained open as he drew her lower lip into his mouth, as he used his tongue, his teeth, to tease and seduce. “You’ve got an incredible mouth.”
She couldn’t get her breath. Even as she gasped for it, her vision dimmed. It was all she wanted. It seemed her life depended on keeping her lips against his. This wasn’t fair, she thought dimly as she began to sink into the glory of sensation. Too long, she told herself. Surely she was reacting this way only because it had been so terribly long since she’d allowed herself to feel only as a woman.
She was melting against him like wax. He hadn’t known how painfully erotic it would be to feel that long, lean body go fluid. He’d only meant to kiss her, to test them both, but his hands were already reaching, stroking, exploring.
His touch, those hard, callused hands against her bare skin, all but brought her to her knees.
“I have to think.”
“Think later.” He pressed his mouth to her throat.
Oh, it was glorious, glorious to ache again. But she knew too well what came from soothing that ache. “Coop, we can’t do this.”
“Yes, we can. I’ll show you.”
With a laugh that came out half moan, she turned her head away. “My head’s spinning. You have to stop. God, do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
“I haven’t even started. Come upstairs, come upstairs with me, Zoe. I want to feel you under me. I want to feel myself inside you.”
“I want to.” She trembled, the needs exploding inside her like firebombs. “Coop, I need to think first. I have to think. I haven’t been with anyone in five years.”
His mouth stopped its desperate journey over her throat. Slowly he drew back to look at her. Her eyes were clouded, and her mouth was swollen and ripe. “No one?”
“No.” She swallowed and prayed for her system to level before she gave in to the urge to rip off his clothes and cut loose. “Since before Keenan was born. I feel like all those needs dried up—like old leaves. You’ve set a match to them, and I don’t know how to handle it.”
“The kid’s father,” Coop said carefully. “You’re still in love with him.”
“No.” She might have laughed at that, if she weren’t so shaken. “He has nothing to do with it. Well, of course he does, but . . . I have to sit down.” She walked unsteadily to a chair. “I knew this was going to happen. I think I knew it the first time I saw you. There’s been no one, because I didn’t want anyone. Because Keenan was all that mattered to me. I have plans.” That came out as an accusation, and her eyes darkened. “Damn it, I have plans. I want to go back to school. I want to have my own flower shop one day.” Her voice began to catch, alarming him.
“Zoe—”
But she barreled right over him. “And everything was going along fine. I got the house. I wanted him to have a house, and a yard, and neighbors. Everyone said I was crazy, that I’d never be able to do it, that I’d be sorry I’d given everything up to raise a child on my own. But I’m not sorry. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. And I’ve done a good job. Keenan’s happy, and he’s bright and funny and wonderful. We have a good life, and I know I can make it even better. I haven’t needed anyone. And . . . Oh, God, I’m in love with you.”
The hand he’d lifted awkwardly to pat her head froze. “What?”
“Oh, what a mess. What a mess.” She plucked a tiny sock out of the laundry basket and wiped her eyes. “Maybe it’s just hormones. It could be, you know. But I walked in and you were sleeping with him on the couch. It was so sweet. Then you were kissing me and everything went crazy. Then you’re out in the yard looking so smug and male, showing Keenan how to hit that silly ball. And you’re eating pancakes and looking at me. I can hardly breathe when you’re looking at me.”
Somewhere along the line, his mind had gone blank. “I think I missed a step.”
“No, you didn’t.” She sniffled and struggled to get herself under control. “I’ve just taken too many. It’s my fault. You’ve been nice to Keenan, and you’ve been honest with me.” She sighed, dropped the damp sock in her lap. “Believe me, I know my emotions are my responsibility.” Because he was still staring at her, like a man who’d just had the friendly family dog lunge for his throat, she smiled. “I’m sorry, Coop. I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you. I didn’t even know it was all bottled up.”
This time he took a step back. “Zoe, I like the kid. Who wouldn’t? And I’m attracted to you. But—”
“There’s no need to explain.” Steady now, she rose. “Really, there isn’t. I don’t expect anything from you, and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. But I feel a lot better.” And, oddly enough, she did. “When I go to bed with you, we’ll understand each other.”
“When you—”
“I think we both know that’s going to happen,” she said calmly. “We both want it to, and it’s smarter to face that than to live with all this tension. Keenan’s been wanting to spend the night with a friend of his. I’ll arrange it.” She laughed a little at Coop’s expression. “It’s a little hard to be spontaneous with a four-year-old around. I hope you don’t mind planning out a night together.”
“No, I mean, I don’t— God, Zoe.”
“If you’d rather not, or if you want some time to decide, that’s all right.”
He studied her face, felt that same greedy tug, and a flare of something entirely different. Entirely new. “No, I want you. Whenever.”
“How about Monday night?”
“I’ve got a twilight doubleheader on Monday.” He couldn’t believe he was standing here planning out a wild night of love like a dentist’s appointment.
“Ah . . . Wednesday?”
He nodded. “Wednesday’s good for me. Do you want to go out somewhere?”
It was sweet, she thought, really sweet of him to ask. “It’s not necessary.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “I don’t need flowers and candlelight. I’ll come upstairs after Keenan’s settled.”
“Good. Fine. I . . . better get back t
o work.”
“Do you still want to have Keenan tomorrow?”
“Yeah, no problem. Tell him to come on up.” Coop backed toward the door as Zoe began folding laundry again. “I guess I’ll see you.”
She listened to him walk up the steps. He was certainly a mistake, she told herself. But she’d made others. Life got too mundane when you avoided all the wrong turns.
Chapter 7
“He shoots, he scores!” Coop made appropriate crowd noises as Keenan dunked the basket.
“I can do it again! I can, okay?” From his perch on Coop’s shoulders, Keenan swung his sneakered feet.
“Okay, you’ve drawn the foul.” Coop scooped the palm-sized ball up and passed it into Keenan’s eager hands. “It’s game point, kid, ten seconds to play. This free throw is all or nothing. Got it?”
“Got it!”
“A hush falls over the crowd as Fleming steps up to the line. He’s played the game of his life tonight, but it all comes down to this one shot. He eyes the basket. You eyeing the basket?”
“Eyeing it,” Keenan said, with his tongue caught between his teeth.
“He sets . . . and shoots.” Coop winced as the little rubber ball circled the rim, then watched through squinted eyes as it tipped in and dropped through the net.
“And the crowd goes wild!” Coop danced around the sofa while Keenan hooted and clapped on his shoulders. When he dumped the boy on the cushions of the sofa, Keenan let go with one of the rolling belly laughs that always made Coop grin. “You’re a natural.”
“You shoot it, Coop! You!”
Obliging, Coop executed a quick turnaround jump shot. This wasn’t such a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon, he decided. And it helped keep his mind off how he was going to spend the rainy night ahead.
It was Wednesday.
“Okay, time out. I’ve got to finish up my piece on the track meet.”
“Are we going to go to the paper again? It’s neat there.”
“Not today. I’m going to fax it in when it’s done. You watch some tube.” Coop hit the remote, then handed it over.
