Playing For Keeps

“But, Mom, what am I going to dooooo? This is due tomorrow!”

“I. Am. On. The. Phone. I will take care of it later. Everybody out.”

The boys trooped into the family room to watch TV; Dulcy thumped back down to her room, wailing about how much her life sucked. Joanna—who at the moment could relate more to her daughter’s lament far more than she’d ever let on—sighed and held the phone back up to her ear.

“I’m sorry. Who is this again?”

“Dale McConnaughy, ma’am. From Playing for Keeps? Just calling to confirm that we’re delivering that play set to your house tomorrow afternoon?”

The boys began arguing about something in the other room, Dulcy cranked up her music again and the dog began to hack up something in the middle of the kitchen floor. And suddenly, because clearly she was closer to losing it than she thought, all she wanted to do was to wrap herself up in that Bourbony Southern accent and never come out again. Because, see, this was the one thing that had changed during the past two weeks.

Whether Joanna liked it or not.

Long-buried images came roaring to the surface of her desexitized brain, of hot bodies and cool sheets and endless orgasms. Preferably hers. Not that she’d ever had endless orgasms, but a girl can dream.

“Ms. Swann? Is everything all right?”

“What? Oh, yes…Sorry. I was…distracted,” she said, her gaze wandering over to the cupboard where she kept the baking stuff. For the past week, in those scant milliseconds when she wasn’t worrying about a kid or a roof or her work or her ex, and sometimes even when she was, thoughts of Dale McConnaughy had stormed her brain like a bargain hunter at K mart the morning after Thanksgiving. She didn’t understand it, she sure as hell didn’t like it, and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing she could do about it. Other than taking the edge off the pain with chocolate. Which was why she was now yanking open her cupboard door, letting out a small sigh of gratitude that she hadn’t been hallucinating the package of chocolate chips. She’d make cookies. Warm, gooey cookies packed chock full of hundreds of little orgasms for the taste buds.

One learned to adapt.

“So…we’re on for tomorrow?”

Joanna ripped open the bag and tilted it to her upended mouth. Cookies, hell. Who had time for foreplay?

“Yes,” she managed to get out around a mouthful of squished chocolate. Maybe not quite as satisfying as when combined with butter and brown sugar and…nuts, but sometimes, you just can’t wait for the, um, full package. “Their…party is at five, so as long as it’s…up by then, that should be fine.”

She stuffed more chips into her mouth.

“No problem.” A pause. “Uh, ma’am? You sure you’re okay? You sound kind of funny.”

“What? Me? No, I’m fine,” she said, and he said okay as though he wasn’t really sure and then they hung up—just as something crashed in the other room.

Joanna knocked back another handful of chips, thought about Dale’s long, slender hands and orgasms for another twenty seconds or so, then went to clean up the dog’s little present.

Chapter 3

Although Dale knew there were some pretty highfalutin homes in Corrales, a small, horsey community flanking the western edge of the Rio Grande on the fringes of Albuquerque proper, he still hadn’t been sure what to expect from the address he’d been given. The mother clearly had money, but he got the feeling Joanna was one of those types determined to make it on her own if it killed her. So when Jose steered the store truck down the dirt road leading to the house, and the spreads kept getting bigger and bigger, he began to wonder just what the heck was going on here.

Especially when the house itself came into view. Like a large, odd-shaped bug hugging the landscape, the traditional earth-toned adobe, with its flat roof and portal stretching across most of the front, looked to be one of those that had been added on to as the mood struck over the years. The property took up a good three or four acres, he guessed, with an open horse shelter and paddock off to one side. Mature, drooping cottonwoods, their leaves mostly yellow this time of year, and gnarled, dusty green olive trees sheltered the house; a dozen or so terra-cotta pots in various sizes, spilling over with assorted late-season flowers, had been plunked in no particular order along the meandering stone walk between the driveway and the front door. And there were cats everywhere, three or four of which were now lazily making their way toward the truck like they had nothing better to do.

Except for the muffled barking of a dog inside the house, it was dead quiet. Peaceful. And had he been somebody else, Dale might have thought the place looked real inviting.

In a life filled to the gills with crazy doings, this had to be one of the craziest. When Charley had called in sick this morning, Dale could’ve gotten someone else to fill in. No reason for him to go getting it in his head that a little exercise and fresh air on this beautiful fall day was just what he needed. Except he knew damn well fresh air and exercise had nothing to do with it.

Like he said. Crazy.

Wasn’t like the signals he’d sent out to Joanna Swann the other day had been exactly reciprocated. Even if they had been, she didn’t seem the type, he didn’t think, inclined to mess around just for the fun of it. Which was all Dale was inclined to do. And she had kids, to boot. Messing around and kids did not mix. Oh, he got a real kick out of talking to ’em and watching them play, the way their imaginations took flight from the simplest things. Yeah, kids were great. Long as they were somebody else’s.

So, all in all, it was a damn fool thing, that he was here. Except it’d been a dog’s age since some gal had riled up his curiosity exactly the way Joanna Swann did. Why, he couldn’t quite figure out, although it was refreshing, her not knowing who he was. Or maybe it was because she didn’t seem that all-fired concerned about how she looked, which set her apart right there from most of the women he’d known over the past little while. He just liked what he saw, was all. And whether it made sense or not, he wanted to get to know her better, at least before making a conscious decision about whether or not she was a lost cause.

He almost flinched when Joanna stuck her head out the front door and hollered that they should drive around to the back, which they did, parking on the dirt driveway that separated the stable/paddock from a parklike area that passed for a backyard. More cats—or maybe it was the same ones, Dale couldn’t tell—swarmed them when they got out of the truck, joined by a fuzzy, medium-size brown-and-white mutt who acted like they’d just come home from the wars.

Dale waded through the furry bodies toward Joanna, now standing on her back patio. She was wearing worn jeans and a white, floppy sweatshirt, but even though it was kinda chilly out, she was barefoot. He wondered if the flagstone was cold on her feet. Which got him to wondering about other things he shouldn’t.

The cats, having already lost interest, drifted off. The dog, on the other hand, was amusing himself by trying to shove a slobbered-up old tennis ball into Dale’s hand. Joanna said, “Leave the man alone, Chester,” but more like she figured that’s what she should say than if she actually expected the dog to obey. Which he didn’t.

Dale wrestled the ball out of the dog’s mouth and lobbed it clear to the back of the yard. It felt good, throwing again. Even if he couldn’t do it over and over the way he used to.

“I didn’t expect you to bring out the set yourself,” Joanna said. Dale turned, somewhat disappointed to note that her expression wasn’t nearly as hospitable as the dog’s had been.

“Somebody got sick. I’m filling in.”

“Oh.” She swiped at a couple of loose curls that were fluttering around her face, the rest of her hair being stuck up on top of her head with a pencil rammed through it, of all things. “You can just leave the store like that?”

She sounded kind of annoyed, for some reason. “It’s my store. I can pretty much do whatever I want. But since you seem so concerned—” he turned and motioned to Jose to go ahead and start unloading the truck, then turned back to Joanna “—I’ve got a couple part-timers minding the place…”

His not-quite-full-out-flirting grin faltered slightly when a man a few years younger than Dale, shorter but more sturdily built—like a pit bull, Dale thought—came out of the house to stand behind Joanna. Despite sharp features that should have made him intimidating, the grin that split the man’s features as he approached Dale, his hand outstretched, told a whole ’nother story.

“Bobby Alvarez,” he said, his words tinged with that slight Spanish accent Dale had come to realize often clung even to Hispanics whose families had been in the area for generations. The grin widened. “Otherwise known as ‘the ex.’”

Since this fact did not seem to particularly perturb Bobby, Dale figured he needn’t let it bother him any, either. So he returned the grin, and the handshake. “Dale Mc-Connaughy,” he said, bracing himself for the reaction. Not that there always was one these days. But it happened often enough, especially with a mug that had adorned a million Wheaties boxes not all that long ago.

“Dale McConnaughy? Damn, I thought you looked familiar! Hey, babe—” he turned to Joanna “—you know who this is?”

“Yes, Bobby. Dale McConnaughy. We’ve already met.”

“No, I mean, do you know who this is? Atlanta Braves? Pitched a shutout in the last game of the World Series against the Yankees a few years ago?” He let out a whoop of laughter, then took Dale’s hand again and pumped it for all it was worth. “Man, I cannot tell you what an honor this is!” Then he frowned. “But what the hell are you doing setting up kids’ swing sets?”

“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?”