by JoAnn Ross
“I suppose he would,” she said carefully. “If we were to get married. Which I'm not planning to do with anyone anytime soon.”
“Okay.” He shrugged thin shoulders beneath the league baseball jersey he was so proud of. Unsurprisingly, when they'd gone to the tryouts this afternoon, he hadn't earned a spot in the starting lineup, but the coach had assured him he wouldn't be spending the summer on the bench, either. Thanks to Jack.
He scooped another scoop of cookie dough from the bowl with his finger. “Jack's a lot of fun, but if you got married to him, he'd become my dad, then maybe he wouldn't hang out with me or talk about baseball and stuff anymore. Or come to any of my games like he says he promised to do.”
Failure rose to grab her by the throat. She'd married a man she'd come to realize she hadn't loved, in a foolish attempt to get over the one she did, and in doing so had set a series of events into play that ultimately had hurt her child.
“Oh, sweetie.” Needing to touch him, to reassure him, Dani smoothed down his cowlick with fingers that weren't nearly as steady as she would have liked. “You don't have to worry. If Jack told you he'd come to some of your games, he will. You can count on him to keep his word.”
The roar of the GTO's engine had them both looking up. “He's here!”
Practically knocking the chair over in his enthusiasm, Matt jumped down from the table and raced out of the kitchen as Jack pulled into the drive. Wiping her hands on the white chef's apron she'd donned over the T-shirt and jeans she'd worn to the tryouts today, wondering if she still had any lipstick on, and suspecting she didn't, Dani followed her son out the door.
“Hey, Jack,” Matt shouted, “look!” He thrust out his chest with masculine pride, showing off the pinstriped jersey. “I made the team.”
“I never had a single doubt in the world you would,” Jack said, with a wink toward Dani, who was surreptitiously tucking the hair that had escaped her braid behind her ears. “Didn't I tell you that you're a natural?”
“I'm not in the starting lineup. But Coach Pitre says that it's important to be able to come off the bench, too.”
“It surely is. It takes a real talent to rev up your engines on a moment's notice.”
“Yeah, that's the same thing Coach Pitre said. We're the Blue Bayou Panthers. Did you know that black panthers used to live around here?”
“Seems I heard somethin' about that. Though I never saw one myself.”
“That's 'cause they're all extinct now, but it's still a cool name for a team, don't you think?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Mr. Egan, who owns the barbershop, is our sponsor. We're gonna have team pictures made and everything. And we're going to go away to a special camp so we can work on fundamentals and start feeling like a real team.”
“Imagine that. This calls for a celebration. Why don't you and your mom and I go out to the Cajun Café, have ourselves a nice dinner, then take in a movie down at the Emporium. I saw on the marquee that Gone in 60 Seconds is playin' tonight. And it's not the remake, but the original one from 'seventy-four.”
“Really?” Matt turned to Dani, eyes bright and begging. “Can we, Mom?”
“I've already made spaghetti sauce.” It might not be anything as mouthwatering as the Cajun fare Jack could whip up from whatever ingredients he had on hand, but it was nourishing and something Matt would eat every night of the week if she let him.
“It'll keep,” Jack said. “You can serve it up tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, Mom, it'll keep,” Matt repeated. “We can have it tomorrow.”
Excitement blazed on his face. Dani knew she'd end up feeling like the Wicked Witch of the West if she denied him this special night out.
“Isn't that the movie about stealing cars?”
“Yeah. Remember I wanted to rent it.”
“I also seem to remember that it's rated PG-13, and I told you I thought it set a bad example.”
“Geez, Mom. It's not like I'm gonna go out and become a car thief or anything dumb like that. It's just a makebelieve story about this guy who gives up a life of crime but has to steal a bunch of cars to save his brother's life. There's this neato police chase at the end where they wreck ninety-three cars!”
“Stealing and wrecking cars,” Dani murmured. “How encouraging.”
“It's just a movie, Danielle,” Jack said. “And the seventy-four version's bound to be tamer than the remake. If it'll make you feel better about things, I'll explain about the downside of drivin' cars that don't belong to you.”
“You don't have to do that.” Still, car theft was a serious matter. It had certainly gotten Jack in trouble. So why were her lips curving even as she fought to keep them firm?
“I suppose this is a special occasion.” She could feel herself caving in. “After all, while I couldn't swear to it, I do believe you're the first baseball player in our family. It seems that's something to celebrate.”
“Yes!” Matt pumped a small fist into the air.
“We'd better quick take her up on the offer before she changes her mind, sport,” Jack suggested. “You got someone you'd like to take along?”
Matt's small brow furrowed. “You mean like a friend?”
“I mean exactly like a friend.”
“There's Danny Pitre. He's the coach's son and the best player on the team. I traded him my Dodge Viper GTS for his DeTomaso Pantera at lunch recess yesterday.”
“Why don't you go give him a call? I'll wait out here with your maman.”
“ 'Kay!” He ran into the house with a loud whoop, slamming the screen door behind him.
Dani shook her head as she remembered what he'd said about Jack and how he believed dads ignored their children. What a sad lesson she'd inadvertently taught her son. A lesson that was undoubtedly more harmful in the long run than a car-theft movie.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I should have realized tonight called for more than spaghetti and meatballs.”
“Nothin' wrong with spaghetti and meatballs. In fact, were you to get it into your head to invite me to a spaghetti dinner tomorrow night, I sure wouldn't turn you down.”
Dani had feared that making love with Jack would have complicated their relationship. Instead, it seemed to have made it even easier. Better, richer.
She thought about him in the morning, on her way to the library, during the day, while she chatted with patrons, date-stamped books, and put others away, and in the evening, when if he didn't show up, he'd call and she'd go into the bedroom, shut the door, and was grateful that they didn't have video phones when his sexy suggestions, drawled on that deep voice that vibrated all through her, made her blush like the teenager she'd once been.
“It's a date. A deal,” she corrected quickly, earning a flashed, wicked grin at her slip as they followed Matt into the house.
“Deals are what you make when you buy a car, or pleabargain a jail term. What I'm talkin' about, Danielle, darlin', is definitely a date.”
The smile he bestowed on her definitely made up for her earlier less-than-stellar day. Which brought her mind skimming back to that horrid supermarket tabloid. “Did you happen to drop by the market today?” she asked with studied casualness.
“Yeah. But it wasn't real necessary, since the phone didn't stop ringing all day. I was amazed so many people in town actually read that rag.”
“I think they mostly read the headlines.” She studied him cautiously. “Aren't you angry?”
“Hell, if I let every negative thing people said about me get me riled up, I'd have gotten myself an ulcer a long time ago.” He shrugged. “Besides, I make a livin' tellin' lies myself.”
“You write fiction. Newspapers are supposed to deal in fact.”
“No halfway-intelligent person considers that thing a real newspaper.” Jack looped his arms around Dani's waist, drew her to him, and sniffed. “Don' worry about it. I'm sure as hell not. 'Specially when I have my girl in my arms.” He nuzzled her neck. “Damn, but yo
u smell extra good today.”
“Thank you. But I think it's the cookies.”
“Cookies?” He lifted his head and glanced over at the plate. “Hot damn. Are those chocolate chip?”
“Are there any other kind?”
“I knew I should have married you way back then.”
You know you're going to have to tell him, that little voice piped up again.
“We were both too young for marriage,” she repeated what her father had told her then, and again just the other day when she'd confronted him about sending Jack away.
“Probably,” he agreed, sobering for a moment. “I sure as hell wasn't that good a husband material back then.” He flashed that devilish pirate's grin. “But I gotta tell you, chère, if you'd promised homemade chocolate-chip cookies every once in a while, I sure would've considered giving it the old college try.”
“Now who's easy?” she murmured. “Mais yeah. And along those lines, I guess this is where I tell you my other great idea.”
“I'm almost afraid to ask.”
“How about we let the boys go sit down in front, where they'll probably want to anyway, so they can get an up-close look at the car wrecks, while you and I hang out in the balcony and neck?”
Having had to sneak around that summer, they'd never done anything so normal as neck in a movie-theater balcony. Actually, now that she thought about it, Dani realized she'd never done that with anyone.
She laughed, feeling unreasonably young and carefree for a woman who, just a few weeks ago, had nearly been homeless with a mountain of debts. She still didn't have her own home, and while she was continuing to chip away at Lowell's debts, her life was ever so much richer than it had been before she'd returned home to Blue Bayou.
Even her relationship with her father, while still suffering from the revelation about Jack's reason for leaving the bayou, was beginning to open up. Last night, when he'd come into the kitchen while she'd been sitting at the table, balancing her checkbook, he'd told her that he was proud of how well she'd grown up. She'd been so surprised by that revelation her fingers had stumbled on the calculator keys, clearing the entire column, forcing her to begin again. But it had been worth it, just to hear those long-awaited words.
“You're right,” she decided with a smile of her own. “That may be the best idea you've had yet.”
“And just think,” he said as he gave her a quick hot kiss that ended far too soon but still left her head spinning, “the night's still young.”
“I was thinking,” Dani said to Matt two days later, as they drank frosty glasses of lemonade beneath a spreading oak that took up most of Orèlia's backyard after she'd gotten home from the library, “that as soon as we get settled into the apartment, perhaps we ought to take that trip to the animal shelter.”
His blue eyes widened with blazing hope. “We're really gonna get a dog?”
“Unless you'd rather have a cat.”
“Nah. Cats are okay, I guess. Mark Duggan has this really weird Siamese cat who'll fetch spitballs, which is kinda neat. But mostly cats just lie around. They don't play with you like a dog does.”
“Then I guess we'd better make it a dog.”
“Do you really, really mean it?”
“I really, really mean it.”
“Wow, thanks, Mom!” He flung his arms around her, nearly making her spill her drink. “You're the greatest mom in the whole world. The universe, even.”
“You're going to have to walk him,” she warned.
“That'll be fun.” He paused. “You mean a real dog, don't you?”
She didn't understand. “As opposed to a make-believe dog?”
“No. I mean we oughta get a mutt. Like Turnip. Jack says they're the best. If we get us some fluffy little dog that wears pink bows and gets its toenails polished like Danny's mother's dog, all the kids'll probably make fun of me when I'm walking her and I'll have to fight again.”
“You will not fight again,” she said sternly. “But you don't have to worry, because I honestly cannot imagine painting a dog's toenails.” Dani glanced down at her sandaled feet that were in dire need of a pedicure and couldn't remember the last time she'd managed to find time to paint her own toenails.
“Can we get him his own bowl? With his name on it?”
“I don't see why not. Of course you'll have to come up with a name.”
“Yeah.” He turned thoughtful. “We ought to get a boy dog. That way he can make puppies with Turnip. Wouldn't that be way cool?”
“It's certainly something to consider,” Dani said, torn between being pleased such a simple idea could make her son so happy and wondering how Jack would take to having a litter of puppies running around Beau Soleil. Let him be the one to shoot the idea down, she decided.
“Boy, I can't wait for Jack to get here, so I can tell him.”
They were having dinner at his house again tonight, just the two of them. Anticipation sent ribbons of desire, like streams of shimmering light, flowing through her veins.
When the GTO pulled up in front of the house, Matt went racing toward the car while Dani stayed beneath the comforting shade of the ancient oak and enjoyed the sight of Jack unfolding himself from the driver's seat.
Just as he had, that summer, he filled Dani's mind. She couldn't stop thinking about him. Her first thought in the morning was how she wished she was waking up with him beside her; her last thought at night was while her bed didn't seem at all empty when Lowell had left, now, knowing that Jack was a good six miles away, sleeping alone at Beau Soleil, made the guest bed seem as vast and arid as the Saraha. In those long hours between waking and sleeping she thought of him as well—hot, erotic, wicked, wonderful thoughts.
For the first time in years, Dani was totally aware of her body. Every nerve, every pulse, every pore was vividly, almost painfully alive. And, just as he'd suggested on the drive to Angola, they were all screaming “I want to fuck Jack Callahan.”
Still, if it was merely sex, she wouldn't have been so worried. What concerned her, as they began to find time to slip away together, was that she'd come to view it as lovemaking.
Watching the way he really listened as Matt danced around him, unable to control his boyish exuberance, she thought, not for the first time, what a good father Jack would make.
Dani knew she should tell him. She'd tell herself that a dozen times a day. Then, just as often, she'd tell herself that they needed time. Time to see if these feelings were real, or merely a product of romanticized memories of a forbidden, teenage love affair.
Dani had learned the hard way that fairy tales only happened between the pages of books and in the movies; she was living proof that women who made the mistake of believing in happily-ever-after endings were more than likely to end up disappointed.
But being back here in Blue Bayou with Jack again had her remembering just how seductive happiness could be. And it terrified her. Both for herself and her son, who was, just as she'd feared, becoming so very close to Jack. Too close, perhaps. But watching him open up from an intelligent, often too-studious child into this eight-year-old ball of boyish energy, Dani didn't have the heart to limit their time together.
Besides, it was obvious that they were good for each other; the brooding, self-absorbed man she'd found that night she'd first gone out to Beau Soleil was gone, replaced by a warm, caring, generous person who laughed easily and often.
She'd tell him. Soon, Dani promised herself. She just needed a little more time.
“You're awfully quiet tonight,” Jack murmured as they drove through the bayou that evening. “Rough day?”
“No. Just busy. I was just thinking.”
“Now, that can get you in trouble.”
She smiled as he'd meant her to. “I owe you an apology,” she said.
“You don't owe me anything.”
“We both know that's not true. I shouldn't have ever accused you of using Matt to get to me. You're obviously very good for him, and I appreciate you spending
so much time with him.”
Jack shrugged. “I like hangin' out with him. He's a great kid.” He tugged on the ends of her hair. “You did good, sugar.”
“I should've done better.”
“Life's full of should-haves. If you let them, they'll just eat you up.”
“I suppose you're right.”
“Believe me, I'm an expert on the subject.”
It had crossed Jack's mind while watching Dani's son single-handedly making a double cheeseburger, chocolate shake, French fries, and a chocolate ice-cream sundae disappear the other night, that he hadn't had any nightmares or woken up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat since Danielle had first come out to Belle Soleil and he'd cooked her supper.
In fact this morning, when he'd been drinking some chicory-flavored coffee and watching the sun rise, he had the strangest feeling that something was wrong. No, not exactly wrong, but different.
It wasn't until he'd finished his second cup that he'd realized that something was missing: the survivor guilt that had seemed to have become a part of him was no longer grinding away at his gut.
Also, except for the occasional beer, like the one he'd had the day they'd fetched the judge home from Angola, and another the night they'd had supper at the Cajun Café, he'd just about stopped drinking, and since he didn't want to expose Danielle's son to secondhand smoke, he hadn't had a cigarette in hours.
He almost laughed at the realization that, despite the effect she was having on his hormones, Danielle Dupree was actually good for his health.
“So, you'll be movin' into the apartment soon.”
“Next week. Orèlia offered to sit with Matt once school's out while I'm at work.”
“Couldn't imagine you'd find anyone better.”
“I know.” Dani sighed. “She also suggested Daddy stay at the house with her, rather than move with us.”
“Makes sense, what with her bein' a retired nurse and all. Besides, the place might look like a warehouse for the Smithsonian, but even with all the stuff she's managed to cram into it, she's still got a lot more room than you will in that apartment.”