Playing For Keeps

“I own a toy store now, since I retired. Bum arm.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bobby said. “I remember readin’ something about that.” He looked like he had more to say on the subject, but changed his mind when he saw Jose lug the first round of materials through the gate. “Hey—you guys need some help?”

Dale felt a prickle of annoyance. An ex-husband did not fit in with his plans. Except then Joanna said, “No, they do not. You told me you had a one-thirty appointment, remember?”

“It’s that late already?” Bobby said, checking his watch. “Damn.” He shrugged. “Don’t know why, but I can never keep track of time. Used to drive her nuts,” he ended on a chuckle, fishing his keys out of his back pocket. “Okay, I guess I’d better go.” He leaned over and bussed her on the cheek, then said, “You’ll call me when it’s time to bring the kids over, right?”

After Bobby left, Joanna stood frowning at the space where her husband had been until Dale said, “So…where you want us to put this?”

Her head whipped around, her eyes a little glassy-looking. “What? Oh. Over here.”

Still barefoot, she tromped toward the back of the yard, pointing to a spot underneath one of the tallest cottonwoods. “I don’t know if the roots might be a problem, though…”

“You got an ax?” Jose said. “We can take some of them out, it won’t hurt the tree.”

Joanna told him there was one in the shed; with a nod, Jose loped off, the dog trotting along to keep him company. Dale was about to ask her which end of the set she wanted closest to the tree when she suddenly said, “Honestly. I’m surprised he didn’t pee around the perimeter of the property.”

“Who? Jose?”

She looked at him, eyes wide. Then laughed softly. “No. Bobby.”

“Oh.” Dale shrugged. “Maybe he still has feelings for you?”

“We’ve been divorced for more than three years. I somehow doubt it.”

Her curls were bouncing in the breeze and her mouth did this cute, kinda three-cornered thing when she smiled, and because he was as territorial as the next male animal he thought about moving closer, staking his own claim. Maybe leaning one palm on the tree trunk, right over her head.

Oh, yeah, this was definitely a game to him. One of his favorites. One he hadn’t felt much like playing in a long time. And wasn’t all that sure he should be playing now.

Because, unless he was sorely mistaken, Joanna Swann played by a whole different set of rules than he was used to. If he wanted to set this one up to win—should he decide that’s what he wanted to do—he’d best remember that. So he didn’t move closer. In fact, he crouched by the pile of four-by-fours, going through the motions of checking them off on his parts list, even though he’d checked them three times before loading them into the truck. “Don’t see as time has much to do with anything.”

“Time?” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets in a way that managed to be sexy as all get-out and childlike at the same time. On closer inspection, she wasn’t near as skinny as he’d first thought, although far as he could tell underneath the sweatshirt, she didn’t have much in the way of breasts. But this was one instance where size did not matter. “Nothing,” she said. “But I sure hope you’re wrong. For his pregnant fiancée’s sake, if nothing else.”

“Oh. That puts kind of a different spin on things, huh?”

“That would be my take on it.”

“Still and all, maybe he figured he made a mistake, walking away from you.”

After a moment she said, “He didn’t walk away. I did.”

Dale looked up. That hadn’t been regret in her voice, not that he could tell. But there was something that niggled at him, anyway. “Because?”

“Because I saw no point in sticking something out that wasn’t working anymore.”

“I see.” A pause. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you got any idea why you’re telling me this?”

Her gaze met his, cool as a freshly cut lawn on a summer’s day. “None at all.” Then she tilted her head. “So you were a ball player?”

To hide his smile, Dale got up and crossed to where she wanted the set, nudging the roots with the toe of his shoe. Nice tactic she had there: if the conversation wasn’t going the way she liked, she just moved on to something else.

“Yep,” he said. “My entire adult life, up until a nasty case of pitcher’s arm ended my career a couple years back.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It happens. I…take it you’re not a fan?”

“Of sports? No. Paying a bunch of grown men millions of dollars to chase, kick, bat or otherwise torture a ball never made a whole lot of sense to me.”

“Don’t hold back now, tell me what you really think.”

She laughed. “Okay, so I’m not going to wet myself because you were a sports star.”

“So why’d you say you were sorry?”

Her smile faded into a faint blush. “Because…I can imagine how hard it must have been for you to give up something you loved. Assuming you did.”

It was the weirdest thing. With most women, he had no trouble keeping track of whether he was making points or not. Not with this one. Damn, it was unnerving, the way she managed to be aloof and sympathetic at the same time.

“Yeah. I loved it.” Although not for the reasons she probably thought. The real motives behind his playing, for his determination to win at that game, too, weren’t any of her business. Or anyone else’s.

Jose and the dog finally returned with the ax. After telling them to come get her in the studio if they had any questions, Joanna called the dog and carefully picked her way back to the house in her bare feet. Dale noticed there were two little dusty butt-cheek impressions on the bottom of the long white sweatshirt, a detail that fueled his imagination. Behind him, Jose chuckled.

“Shut up,” Dale muttered. Jose just laughed harder.

Could Joanna help it that her worktable sat at the perfect angle to see across the yard? Or that the play set really only worked in that spot? And was it her fault that stuffing Santa bodies didn’t exactly require her entire concentration? She would have been looking out the window anyway, right? And it certainly wasn’t her fault that Dale McConnaughy had taken off his shirt.

Or that he liked to wear his jeans slung low on his hips.

She was an artist, after all. Her perusal of Dale Mc-Connaughy’s naked torso was no different than all those life drawing classes she took. Muscles and sinews and shoulders.

Oh, my.

On the floor beside her, stretched out in a patch of dusty sunlight, Chester twitched, dreaming. One of the cats, who was just passing, smacked Chester’s nose on general principles; the dog jerked awake, looked accusingly at Joanna, then crashed his head back on the floor with a beleaguered sigh. Joanna chuckled, then looked out the window again and gave a beleaguered sigh of her own.

Maybe Dale McConnaughy represented everything Joanna didn’t want or need, but he was one fine specimen of human male. And Joanna was one fine specimen of pathetically horny female. That she should feel a twitch in her hoo-hah every time she looked at the guy was hardly a surprise.

What was a surprise was that, for all Dale Mc-Connaughy’s come-to-papa charm—yeah, yeah, she wasn’t totally out of the loop—she’d bet her butt that charm was a cover for something that went far deeper. Oh, she had no doubt he was out for only one thing, but unlike most guys who saw sexual conquests as some sort of Holy Grail, she had the distinct feeling Dale McConnaughy used them because his real Holy Grail was out of his reach.

Which was certainly a presumptuous conclusion for her to have reached after—what?—two five-minute conversations. But she remembered vividly, from her stint as a part-time art teacher before the twins were born, seeing that particular expression in this or that student’s eyes. The look that said, “I’m fine, don’t dig, don’t ask, don’t make me think about things I don’t want to think about.” A look that asserted itself at unguarded moments, when buried or ignored pain dimmed even the brightest smile. After a dozen times of asking the kids’ teachers what was up, and getting answers she didn’t want to hear, she no longer questioned if she was seeing what she thought she was. She knew.

But reaching out, however subtly, to a nine-year-old was far different than reaching out to a grown man who would, in all probability, completely misinterpret her motives. Which, considering the way her nerve endings were shouting, “Hallelujah, I am reborn, sister!” would be a completely understandable misinterpretation on his part.

So she wouldn’t reach out.

At all.

Ever.

“Hey, honey!”

Joanna jumped a foot, then turned to see her best friend, Karleen Almquist, click-clacking her way across the room in a pair of high-heeled ankle boots and designer jeans that could practically fit Dulcy. Karleen was not, and had never been, into the natural look. Karleen, bless her, not only believed comparing her to a Barbie doll was a compliment, but a reputation worthy of keeping intact at all costs…as long as she could pass those costs on to the Spouse of the Week.

They’d been best friends forever, although nobody, including Joanna and Karleen, could quite figure out why. Habit, most likely. And an ability to accept each other for who they were. But they’d been there for each other from the do-you-think-he-likes-me? middle school squealies to the breakups of their respective marriages, although Karleen’s track record in that department was running three to one over Joanna’s. The only good thing to come out of the last marriage—according to Karleen—was that, this time, she got the house. A house less than a half mile from Joanna’s. So Karleen, who had turned an avocation into a career as a personal shopper for dozens of time-crunched professional women in town, popped over nearly every day, even if only for a quick cup of coffee. A nice diversion, frankly, since Joanna’s work kept her more housebound than the kids ever had.

“Ooooh, I like this one,” Karleen now said, running a finger down the front of a Santa in an ivory velvet robe on which Joanna had hand painted an ivy design, stitching on tiny red beads here and there for the berries. Then she looked out the window and gasped.

“Holy crap,” she breathed, as artfully plucked sandy brows disappeared underneath artfully scraggly bangs that had been dark brown and lethally stiff in high school. “Is that real?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Joanna said, deadpan. “He only has his shirt off.”

“More’s the pity.” Then she smacked Joanna in the arm. “You’ve got all that right out your window and you didn’t even call me? What kind of friend are you?”

“Hey. My eye candy. Go find your own. And don’t drool on the velvet.”

“So who is he?”

“Guy who owns the toy store where we got the play set.”

“Does this toy store owner have a name?”

“Dale McConnaughy.”

“The baseball player?” Karleen squeaked.

“Apparently so. And apparently this means a lot more to you than it does to me.”

“You bet your ass it means something. He made All-Stars five years running, voted MVP the last year he played, pitched at least twenty no-hitters during his career—”

“Since when do you know so much about baseball?”

“Since Jasper.”

Husband Number Two.

“And if I never see another game again,” Karleen said, “it will be too soon. But I do remember not feeling too put out if the Braves were playing and Dale McConnaughy was pitching. The camera used to zoom in for closeups of his face, and those eyes…” She sighed, her own eyes glazing over. “And you know how baseball players grab their crotches?”

“I really don’t want to go there, Kar.”

“Sure you do. I mean…” She leaned on the table, her silicone-enhanced breasts immobile beneath her chenille sweater, and lowered her voice. “Took more than a single tug to rearrange himself, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, Lord,” Joanna said.

“What?”

“You sound hornier than I am.”

Karleen pouted. “It’s been three months!”

“There are worse things.”

“Name one.”

“Starving to death.”

“Honey, I haven’t eaten a full meal since 1983. Food, I can live without.” She spared another glance outside, then brightened. “Hey—sure looks to me like those boys are thirsty, don’t you think?”

“No, they’re fine. They brought their own water.”

“I cannot believe you’re that dense.”

Joanna threaded a needle, biting off the thread with her teeth. “I’m not—what the hell are you doing?” she yelped as Karleen snatched the needle out of her hand, then dragged Joanna off the stool and out of the studio. Chester roused himself and followed, just in case all this activity had something to do with food.

“Either jump-starting your pathetic love life,” Karleen said, once in the kitchen, “or saving mine from an ignominious death.” She yanked open Joanna’s refrigerator door.

“I do not need my love life jump-started—”

“Good. You’ve got tea,” Karleen said, hauling a plastic pitcher off the top shelf. “And don’t be ridiculous, of course you do.”

“Not today, I don’t. I’ve got a party to give later, remember?”

The tea poured into a pair of plastic tumblers, Karleen gave her a bemused look. “You’ve never heard of multitasking? So what d’you have they could munch on? Cookies or cake or something?” She threw open another cabinet and grimaced at the array of Little Debbie boxes. “What kind of domestic goddess are you, anyway?”

“The kind that doesn’t have time to bake. Kar, I really don’t think—”

“That’s right, sweetie,” she said, arranging a selection of the goodies on a plate. “You just sit back and let little old Karleen do the thinking for once, ’kay?”

“The last time I let you do the thinking for both of us, I ended up grounded for a month.”

“Which is the number one perk of being a grown-up, honey. Nobody’s gonna ground you this time.” The cups balanced on the plate with the treats, she elbowed open the patio door leading out back, then turned and did the famous Karleen Almquist I-dare-you smile and said in the famous Karleen Almquist wispy little what-me?-get-you-in-trouble? voice, “You coming? Or you conceding this one to me?”

Joanna told herself she was only following so she’d be sure to get her plate and tumblers back.

“Hey, boss. Looks like we got company.”

At Jose’s heads up, Dale squinted over the yellow plastic slide he was bolting into place to see a pleasantly bosomy blonde in high-heeled boots mincing across the lawn toward them, having a devil of a time hanging on to that plate in her hands. Joanna followed, looking none too pleased about whatever was going on. When the women were still several feet away, one of the cats—Dale had long since given up trying to figure out how many there were—decided now would be a good time to launch himself against the blonde’s ankles.

“For God’s sake, Jo,” the blonde said, wobbling for a second, the plate in a death grip, “call it off!”

Jo let out a single sharp “Git!” and the thing booked it. For about two seconds. But long enough for Blondie to scoot the rest of the way across the yard, grinning that careful way women did who were deathly afraid of wrinkles.

“Thought you boys might like some tea and a snack,” she said, then seemed to realize there really wasn’t any place to set down the plate. Jose took it from her; her hand shot out toward Dale as if sprung from prison. “Karleen Almquist,” she cooed. “Joanna’s best friend.”

“I told her you’d brought your own water,” Joanna, who clearly did not worry about laugh lines and such, put in. And Dale made a snap decision to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity.

“Ah, but nothin’ beats a tall glass of ice-cold tea,” he said, taking one of the tumblers and turning his smile on Karleen, who was doing her damnedest not to look awestruck. He knew it wasn’t fair, or right, to judge a person by appearances, but how many women like her had he run into over the course of the past several years? Pretty women who deep down didn’t trust that they really were, who never really believed their God-given attributes were sufficient unto themselves, who measured success by whether or not men found them attractive.

Women who seemed to forget that the flower never had to chase the bee.

Deliberately, Dale let his gaze sidle over to Joanna for a moment—who, as far as flowers went, was probably more like a Venus’s-flytrap—before returning it to her friend. “Thank you, Karleen,” he said, taking great pains not to cross the thin line between being polite and flirting, trusting that Karleen would know the difference. And that Joanna, who was discussing the play set with Jose, wouldn’t.

Of course, since she didn’t seem the least bit interested in what was going on, it would appear he was wasting his efforts. A realization that annoyed him far more than it should have. So he inched a hair closer to flirting with Karleen, resurrecting one or two old lines he used to be able to count on to make a gal laugh, all the while keeping one eye on Joanna. And Karleen did indeed giggle when she was supposed to, although not in quite as airheaded a manner as he might have expected, and her smile really was very nice and her eyes really were very pretty and her perfume wasn’t the kind that could knock a man over. So, all in all, he should have been enjoying himself.

Except the longer Dale stood there, drinking his tea and eating the little cakes and chatting up this pretty woman he didn’t want to be chatting up while the flat-chested, haywire-haired woman he did want to chat up seemed hell-bent on ignoring him, the more annoyed he got. By the time Joanna turned to him and asked how much longer he thought they’d be, he was startled to find himself next door to mad.

Not that he had any right to be. After all, he was just playin’ around.

“What do you think, Jose?” he said. “Another half hour, maybe?”

The older man nodded his agreement. “Good,” Joanna said. “I’ll call Bobby, let him know when to bring back the kids.” Then she took their empty tea glasses, stacking them inside each other, said, “Let’s not keep the guys from their work,” to Karleen, and started back toward the house, giving the blonde no choice but to call, “Nice to meet you!” over her shoulder as she went.

Leaving Dale feeling like he’d just been issued a challenge.

One he had absolutely no business accepting.

Chapter 4

“You are hopeless!” Karleen said the minute they were back inside. “Would another couple of minutes have killed you?”

Joanna shoved the patio door shut and marched her little overwrought self across the kitchen. “I never said I was playing along. Beside, I’ve got a party to set up,” she said, yanking out bags of Bob the Builder plates and cups she’d stashed in the cupboard where she kept the extraneous kitchen crap she’d accumulated over the years. “I’ve got no time to waste standing around watching the man slobber all over you. Especially as I’ve seen that act before.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What? That I’ve never seen men drool over you? Not that it bothers me, I’m certainly used to it after all these years—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Karleen grabbed a package of plates from her and attacked the plastic wrapping like a lion gutting a wildebeest. “Whose benefit did you think that was for? It wasn’t my attention he was trying to get, you idiot!”

For the tiniest sliver of a second, something totally insane and irrational—hope, maybe?—shoved aside the annoyance that was even more insane and irrational. “You know, you really need to start eating more. I hear the brain’s the first thing to go.”

Karleen grinned. “Somebody’s pi-issed.”

“I’d have to care to be pissed. Since I don’t—” she ripped open one of the other packages of plates and slammed them onto the counter “—I’m not. And wipe that smirk off your face.”

“Jo, Jo, Jo…don’t you know that flirting with one woman in order to make the other one jealous is the oldest trick in the book? How many of these suckers you want opened?”

“All of them. Okay…just for the sake of argument, let’s say that’s what he was doing—”

“Aha!”

“That was hardly worth an aha. Especially as I was about to point out this oh-so-mature behavior would attract me why?”

“Because he’s hot, he’s giving out all the right signals—”

“To you,” Joanna pointed out, unwrapping napkins.

“—and you’re deprived. And I told you, the flirting with me business was just a ruse. Since you had your back to him the entire time, you couldn’t see that he kept looking over to see if you were reacting.”

Joanna jerked up her head, which earned her one of Karleen’s smug smiles. Okay, so she felt about twelve, but she felt…kinda tingly, too. Alive. Like maybe there was something to look forward to.

Damn.

“Sounds like a perfect fit to me,” Karleen said, which effectively blew the tingly feeling all to hell.

“And in case you’ve forgotten—are there boxes of candles in one of those bags?—I was married to a man whose idea of a formal social event is a keg party. Why on earth would I be even remotely interested in somebody who would use one woman to get another one? Let alone someone who spent a good chunk of his life spitting, throwing a ball and adjusting his package? Activities, by the way, I don’t find particularly endearing in males over the age of three.”

“Never mind how incredible he looks without his shirt.”

“Yeah, well, if memory serves, Bobby looks pretty damn good without his shirt, too.” Joanna pulled the first of the two cakes Bobby’d dropped off earlier—one chocolate, one vanilla—from the bottom of the fridge and set it on the bar. “Trust me. After a while, it’s not enough. Even you know that.”

Marginally deflated, Karleen climbed up onto one of the stools flanking the bar and slit open a package of candles with one lethal hot-to-trot red nail. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. You care how these go on the cakes?”

“Not a bit. And I know I’m right. On this, at least. Next time—if there is a next time—I’d really like a man, you know? Not an overgrown boy.”

“Aha.”

“What now?”

Karleen waved a peppermint-striped candle at her. “You know what your problem is? You see every guy you date as potential husband material.”

Joanna gave her a look.

“Okay, so I’m being theoretical. But I’m just saying, should the earth shift on its axis and you ever do date again, you’ve gotta go through at least one gap guy before you can even begin to think in terms of wedding bells.”

“A gap guy.”

“Sure. You know. Someone to bridge the gap between husbands.”

“I take it we’re talking about sex here?”

“Honey, I’m always talking about sex. Not that it’s a bad thing if they can hold up their side of the conversation, as well as other things, for more than five minutes at a time. But it’s not crucial.”

Joanna laughed. “You’re nuts.”

“No, I’m perfectly serious. Think of it like…a sherbet to cleanse your palate between courses.”

“You mean, something fruity?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Be serious.”

“Hey. You’re the one comparing men to sherbet.”

“Something light,” Karleen said, delicately inserting a candle into the frosting. “Insubstantial. A little tart, maybe, but nothing that’ll ruin your appetite for the real thing. Listen, honey, I may not be any good at marriage, but I am an expert at surviving the wasteland between them. Hell, in three years? I’d’ve gone through three or four by now. Raspberry, lemon, pineapple…”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“I take plenty of vitamins. Why do you think God invented pool boys?”

Joanna sighed. Notwithstanding that tingling business a few minutes ago, so Dale was good-looking. And, okay, he seemed like a nice guy. And maybe it had been a dog’s age since one of those had crossed her path. Still…

“I don’t know, Kar…” She moved on to making hamburger patties for the grill, kneeing aside the hopeful dog as she idly mused that, after three years, she still hadn’t gotten used to not having to take off her wedding ring so it wouldn’t get mucked up. “Someone to just…tide me over?”