“I have no idea.” He pulled plates from the cupboard. When he turned, she stood right next to him. As she put her hands on the plates, their fingertips touched, and his body ignited all over again.
What was this between them? Lust? He’d lusted before—a lot. He’d never felt like this—ever. He wanted to kiss her again, right now. Drop the china, pick her up and take her on the kitchen table with the door wide-open. He wasn’t going to, but knowing that didn’t make him want to any less.
She tugged on the plates, and he let them go, then turned to the stove while she set the table. The scene was so domestic that he paused in the act of scooping pasta into a serving bowl and just stood there thinking. This was what he’d come to Oak Grove to find, but he had never thought to find it with Evie Vaughn.
What had she whispered about magic? He recalled a conversation they’d had about love. Her face had been all dreamy. Joe had an uncomfortable feeling his face had been pretty dreamy when the kids walked in. Had he fallen in love with Evie?
No way. He barely knew her. She annoyed him. She was too competitive, too driven, too domineering, ever to be happy sharing the kind of life he dreamed of.
Then Joe thought of all the other women he’d dated. Not one of them had made him feel a bit like Evie made him feel all the time. He’d kissed every one, and that had been enough. He’d never wanted to do anything more than take them to their house, then run back to his.
He wanted to take Evie to bed, then stay there forever.
To be honest, though they argued, he enjoyed it. She was smart and funny, and she gave as good as she got. He liked her, and though he’d prefer to lock Adam in a closet and throw away the key, Joe had to admit her kids were great. She knew how to be a mom, and Toni adored her.
He turned with the food in his hands, and relished the view of Evie leaning over the table to position silverware at each place. Her shirt had pulled up, revealing an enticing bit of skin at her waist. She looked good enough to eat, and he was very hungry.
She straightened. “All set.” Glancing over her shoulder, she caught him staring, and her welcoming smile became a confused frown. “What?”
“Nothing.” Joe crossed the room and set the bowls on the table. He had a lot of thinking to do, and he wasn’t going to share his fantasy with her—at least, not yet.
An unspoken truce went into effect during dinner, for which Evie was thankful. She was light-headed, whether from the heat, the wine, the smell of food after eight hours of abstinence or the kiss, she didn’t know. What she did know was that she didn’t have the energy to spar with Joe any more.
The meal was exquisite. “Do you cook like this every night?” she asked.
“Not like this. But I cook.”
“Every night?”
“I like to eat every night.” He shrugged, and the movement caused his shirt to open.
He didn’t notice, but Evie did. She drank some water and stared anywhere but at his chest. She’d always been a sucker for a great chest.
“Don’t you ever eat leftovers?” she inquired.
“Never liked them much.”
“So you throw out the extra?” Evie couldn’t keep incredulity from her voice.
“What do you do with them?”
“Leftovers are one thing I don’t have to worry about. Three boys at the table resemble a three-hosed vacuum cleaner on full throttle. Everything’s sucked up by the end of the meal.”
“You must have very … ah … pleasant meals.”
“Not exactly.”
She glanced at Joe in time to see him grin. She wanted to smile, too, but this companionable meal made her nervous. She was too comfortable with him. Though he could be a great, big, chauvinistic jerk when the mood struck him, he could also be funny and interesting and kind of endearingly sweet when he spoke of Toni. She liked looking at him. She liked doing more than looking.
Time to change the subject—both out loud and in her mind.
Joe beat her to it. “You’re a good coach, Evie.”
She gaped. She hadn’t expected him to go there. “I am?”
“Yeah. I’m glad Toni’s on your team. She adores you.”
“I think she’s pretty neat, too. Though girls baffle me, for the most part.”
“Join the club.”
They smiled at each other again. This was just too darn cozy for comfort. Evie stood and started clearing the table. Her abrupt movement left Joe blinking, but he recovered well enough to help her clean up.
“I appreciate your support,” she said. “Most of the men in this town seem to think I need help coaching the boys. As if I haven’t been doing it since Adam was the twins’ age. I suppose it’s our bet. Though I’d think all the macho men would be on your side.”
“Macho men, huh?” He found he wasn’t offended, probably because her assessment was right. “I’ve had my share of back-slapping supporters. But no one wants to give me any advice, even though I could use some.”
“Really? And I thought you knew everything.”
“And I thought we were playing nice tonight.”
“Sorry.” Evie opened the dishwasher and started loading. “I find it frustrating that everyone thinks you know baseball just because you’re a guy. But because I look good in a dress, I need coaching advice from the peanut gallery.”
“You do, you realize.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Need advice?”
“No, look good in a dress. You should wear one more often.”
“Can you see me showing the kids how to slide into home plate while I’m wearing a froufrou skirt?”
Joe laughed. “I’d like to be around if you do.”
There was a sudden silence between them. Evie turned on the dishwasher; the hum of the machine filled the air. He was flirting with her. She was flirting back. She liked it.
The clock in the hallway chimed ten—pumpkin time for Mommy. She needed to get home, hose off the twins and put them to bed. No rest for the weary.
“I’d better take you back,” Joe said, echoing her thoughts.
She glanced up to find him staring at the kitchen table with a funny expression, almost as if… No, he couldn’t be thinking what she’d been thinking.
“Yeah, you’d better,” Evie blurted, before she herself could ponder the fantasy any more.
The trip to her house took only five minutes. Heck, driving from one side of Oak Grove to the other took seven, so you could say they lived pretty far apart. Unfortunately, they were not sitting far enough apart in Joe’s little red sports car for Evie’s comfort.
She could feel his heat. His scent surrounded her, excited her. When his fingers brushed her knee as he shifted the car—who bought stick shifts anymore, anyway?—she jumped, but her knee tingled from the graze of his fingers long after he’d withdrawn his hand.
The car roared into her driveway, and he shut off the engine. A drizzling rain fell, causing mist to rise from the pavement. The windows clouded over as they sat and stared at her house, all lit up, looking like home. Shadows moved beyond the windows, calming her. The kids were safe inside.
“Ten-fifteen and all’s well,” Joe intoned.
“We made it through another day.”
“That’s what we pray for.”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “Well, thanks for dinner and the ride.”
“And?”
She shifted her gaze so she could see his face, which was lit by the dashboard lights. He smiled at her. There was no way she was going to thank him for that kiss—though it had been better than dinner.
“And … good night.”
“No kiss?”
“You had one.”
“But don’t I deserve another?”
“I think you and I had better stop kissing. It’s like spontaneous combustion.”
“But what a way to go.”
He leaned toward her. She leaned back and her head bumped the window. There was nowhere to run in this car, unless she ran out of the
car and into the house. She wasn’t that desperate. Yet.
Distraction—that was what she needed. “So the plan is for me to talk to Adam and you to talk to Toni.” He blinked as if she’d sprouted another head. “Right?”
He sat back. “Uh, right. Do you think it’ll help?”
“Didn’t we already agree it couldn’t hurt? Though what I’m going to say to him, I have no idea.”
“I thought you were going to talk about past mistakes, ruined lives—the usual parental talk when a member of the opposite sex has just come into your child’s life.”
“I wish I knew how to explain guy feelings.”
“Guy feelings?” He looked blank.
“You do have them, don’t you? Or are all those jokes about guys being led around by their—”
“Whoa!” He put up his hand. “Let’s stop right there. Guys have feelings.”
“What kind of feelings?”
He pushed long fingers through his hair, a pointless gesture since his short haircut left little to push about. Then he stared out the window. “I don’t know. You’re hot—you’re cold. Your gut aches. She smells good. She’s so soft you have to touch her. Does she taste as good as she smells? You have to find out.”
Evie groaned. “That’s what I thought. All sex. Physical, not mental.”
His head whipped back in her direction, and he crossed his arms over his chest. At least he’d buttoned his shirt, so the distractions for her were kept to a minimum.
“Well, what about girls?”
Evie hesitated for a moment, but fair was fair. He had shared; now it was her turn. “It’s a head game. What’s he thinking? What’s he feeling? Does he like me as much as I like him?”
“Do you think that when we’re … you know?”
“Actually, no. Not when we’re… you know.”
“What do you think?”
She blushed at the intensity of his stare. Luckily, the night was too dark for him to see. She glanced at the house. All quiet on that front. “I have no idea,” she lied.
He shifted, and the seat creaked. Startled, she turned to find him close, very close. Her heart thundered loud enough that he must hear it in the tight confines of this ridiculous excuse for a car.
Caught in his gaze, she was unable to flee as his hand snaked about her neck and drew her toward him. Nearer and nearer came his mouth, until he hovered less than an inch away.
“Let’s find out,” he whispered, and his breath caressed her lips.
She discovered that what she thought when Joe kissed her was, quite simply, nothing at all. Worries, fears and concerns about the boys and the team and herself disappeared. All her responsibilities faded. The demands upon her time, the tugs on her heart and the drains upon her soul melted in the heat of the desire only he could bring.
When his mouth was on hers, she was no one’s but his.
*
Chapter Fourteen
Joe had been wrong about guy feelings—or maybe he’d just never had them before. Embarrassing but true, at the ripe old age of thirty-six, Joe Scalotta discovered a whole new world.
Sure the feelings started with needs, and wants, and desires. He needed to touch her. He wanted to kiss her. He desired to hold her close to his chest and run his fingers through her short, soft hair.
But when she sighed against his lips, cupped his face between her palms and kissed him—deeper, harder, longer—his heart seemed too big for his chest and his stomach did a flip-flop. Was she feeling this, too?
He breathed in her sweet scent—one he would know now in a crowd—and his body tightened in a rush that made him dizzy. He couldn’t recall being this aroused since high school. Perhaps because that was the last time he’d made out in a car.
Joe’s lips curved into a smile against hers. No, that wasn’t the reason. The reason was her; the reason was him. Together, and only together, they made the magic she’d been talking about. The magic he hadn’t quite understood until now. Could the magic be love?
She laid her hand on his chest, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. This woman’s touch had him poised on an edge sharper than any he’d ever known. She’d spoken of the wonder of first love, the intensity, the newness of the emotions. Is that what was going on here?
Kind of sad he’d never felt this way before. He’d been married, had made a child, and had never wanted to hold a woman so close that he became a part of her—and he didn’t mean by having sex. He’d always thought the songs and the poems silly, because he’d never felt the symmetry their words expressed. Until now.
He traced his mouth along her jaw, aroused further by the sound of his name uttered in a hoarse, desperate voice when his tongue found the hollow at her collarbone. He savored the flavor of salt on her skin and the thunder of her pulse against his lips. His heart seemed to beat loudly enough to pound back at him from the fogged windows. Joe pressed a kiss to Evie’s temple and opened his eyes with a frown. What was that noise?
Twin faces pressed to the window of the car, squashed flat, resembling something from an alien outbreak. Four fists pounded a native drumbeat.
“Hey, Joe! What’re you and Mom doin’ in there?”
Evie gasped and shoved him away. Turning, she pushed the button on the door and the window slid down.
Danny and Benji hung into the car. “Why’s the car all steamed up? Whatcha doin’?”
“Talking.”
Her voice was clipped, and she wouldn’t look at Joe. He fought the urge to apologize. He hadn’t done anything but kiss her a little—make that a lot—but he was far from sorry.
“Nah. You were kissin’. We couldn’t see good, but we could see that.”
Evie groaned and put her hands over her face. Then she leaned forward and hid her eyes against the dashboard.
“It’s okay, Mom,” one of them said, looking worried. “We like Joe. You can kiss him if you want.”
“Gee, thanks,” she mumbled.
“But why do you want to, huh?” said the other—whichever one that was. “You said kissin’ spreads germs.” He eyed Joe with a serious expression as he imparted his words of wisdom. “I never kiss girls.”
“Don’t you kiss your mom?”
“Oh, yeah. But I don’t do little girls.”
Joe choked. Evie tilted her head to the side and glared at him. The twins grinned toothless grins.
“How come everyone’s kissin’ each other, Mom?”
Evie’s head went up like a pointer that had just heard a bird rustle through the grass. “Who’s everyone?”
“Adam and Toni were steamin’ up the station wagon when we came home from next door. Now they’re steamin’ up the living room. Adam told us to—” He scrunched his face into a perfect parody of a dried-apple doll while he tried to recall his brother’s order. “Go outside and stay outside. Don’t leave the yard on parallel of death.”
“That’s peril, doofus.”
“Don’t call me ‘doofus’! Mom, he called me ‘doofus.’”
“Stop!”
They stopped. Impressive.
“Your brother sent you outside in the rain?”
“It wasn’t raining then. ‘Sides, it’s warm out. We like it.”
Suddenly the light in the living room went out, though the television screen still flickered in an eerie dance across the curtains.
All four of them stared, speechless, at the house. “Uh-oh,” murmured one of the twins.
Joe reached for the car door, but Evie’s hand on his arm made him pause. “Let me,” she said.
“I don’t think so. This is a job for—”
“Iceman?”
He frowned at the sarcastic twist she gave to the nickname.
“Think about it, Joe. You go blasting in there, shouting, embarrassing her and him, she’ll hate you for it.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I’ll go in, break it up and send her out. Then we have our talks with them—tonight.”
“What kind of talk
s, Mom?”
Evie’s mouth tightened before she faced the twins. “None of your beeswax.” She hit the Close button on the window, and the little boys became shadowy aliens once more. Evie turned back to Joe with a lift of one shoulder and a helpless gesture of her hands.
She was right. He was furious, and he’d say something stupid. “Well, you’d better get in there before they do something we’ll regret.”
His voice was gruff, but she smiled as if she knew what he felt, and patted his arm. Then she got out of the car, but before she shut the door, she leaned back in.
“Thanks for the kiss,” she whispered.
As he watched her walk inside, his fury dissipated just a bit.
Someone tapped on the driver’s window. Joe glanced to his left. Twin noses squashed against the glass.
“Can we drive your car?”
Evie resisted the urge to slam open the front door and start screaming. That situation was the one she’d hoped to avoid by leaving Joe in the car. She’d purposely left the twins out there, too. They wouldn’t let Joe out of their sight. For some reason they were attached to the man.
Evie paused with her hand on the doorknob, blew a sharp breath upward to get her bangs out of her eyes, shook off the remnants of Joe’s kiss, and went inside to… Grr. She didn’t even want to think about it.
A flick of the light switch illuminated the living room. Evie sent a quick thank-you heavenward that things weren’t as bad as she’d feared. Adam and Toni were sitting on the couch, blinking at her. Close as they could get, true, but though their lips might be red, all their clothes were on. Small favors, she would take.
“Toni, your dad’s waiting in the car. You’d better go.”
“Sure.” She hesitated, as if she’d kiss Adam goodbye. Then glanced at Evie and stood. As she walked past, Evie couldn’t seem to stop staring at the girl’s face. She glowed; that was the only word for it.
The door shut, and Evie sighed before turning back to Adam. He did not glow. He glowered. Great.
She’d just opened her mouth to begin, when the whirlwind came and hit the back of her legs. She was so used to the twins’ brand of physical affection that she barely stumbled anymore, even from a sneak attack. Frontal assaults were a piece of cake.
Out of Her League Page 15