“Alex’s arrival came as a bit of a surprise to us, too.” Jake chuckled. “You’d never guess to look at him today he was born almost two months premature.”
Okay. So much for that excuse. She had to face the truth. Jake had simply been relieved to be let off the hook—just as her mother had insisted he would be.
“Roxy never let me forget that I finished playing the Super Bowl after my coach got the call to let me know she’d gone into premature labor. She couldn’t understand, if I’d sat on the sidelines worrying while they chartered a flight for me, it wouldn’t have gotten me home any sooner.”
“Did you win?”
“Not that year. But two years later we did.” He tipped his head and studied her. “You had to have known I was Emma’s teacher. Why the hell didn’t you tell me who you were the first time I called your house?”
Good question. All her reasoning eight months ago now seemed ridiculous. “Would you believe because I’m a coward? I kept hoping they’d get tired of each other and break up. After I didn’t fess up the first time we spoke, it just got harder to say anything.” She glanced at her watch. “I should get home so I’m there when Emma comes in. She may need to talk.”
He followed Margie out to her car and opened the driver’s door for her. “So—should I assume from the way you pretended not to know me you don’t want to tell the kids about us?”
She didn’t even want to discuss it with him, let alone her daughter. “Do you want them to know?”
“Not really. Except I’ve found when people try to hide the truth it usually finds a way of coming out. And telling them our story could convince the kids we might know what we’re talking about.”
“True. But if the kids get married, won’t knowing about us make things terribly awkward for them? I think they have enough to deal with right now without complicating the situation with our ancient history.”
“I suppose you’re right. Besides,”—he grinned, turning her knees to Silly Putty as he stepped closer—“every family needs a few skeletons to clutter up the closet.” Two shimmering orbs of quicksilver stared down at her, making her heart play hopscotch in her chest. “It would probably be a good idea to get together with the kids again tomorrow so we can discuss their plans a little further.”
“O-okay.” She gulped. “Since you covered supper this evening, why don’t you and Alex come to my place? I’ll throw something on the grill.”
As soon as the invitation popped out of her mouth, she wished she could stuff it back in.
“Are you sure?” He lifted one dark brow.
Evidently her expression must have reflected her dread of spending another tension-filled evening with him. “Of course, I’m sure.” She forced a smile. “Emma and I would love to have you for dinner.”
“And I’d be happy to join you.” He winked at her. “Just so long as you’re not planning to serve me charbroiled.”
Okay, so the man was a damn mind reader.
Chapter 5
Jake breathed the scent of the flowers planted along the covered porch while he watched Maggie’s taillights fade on the narrow lane. As he closed the door, his stomach growled like an angry pit bull, reminding him he hadn’t eaten much dinner. He wandered into the kitchen to fix himself an omelet, and the memories of the night he met Maggie assaulted him.
It’d been the last weekend in April, right after becoming the NFL’s first draft pick. His teammates had planned a party to celebrate.
His college roommate, Chris Dillon, slapped him on the back that night. “Come on, Scout, we’ll be late for your bash.”
Jake hauled his six-foot-two body off the dilapidated sofa they’d picked out of the Los Angeles trash two years before. “I don’t know why you guys are doing this. You know I hate these things.”
Chris grabbed him by his black T-shirt and dragged him out the door of their campus apartment. “Yeah, but we needed an excuse to get a keg. Besides, I asked Barbie to bring a date for you. As guest of honor, you’ve got first crack.”
“Gherkin, do you ever think about anything besides football, beer, or sex?”
“No.” Chris laughed. “But I don’t obsess in quite that order. You know, since you got engaged, you’ve become a real drag.”
“Well, that may not be for long.” Jake heaved a weary sigh. “I think I blew it proposing to Roxanne.”
Chris’s light brown eyebrows shot up along with the corners of his mouth. “Oh? Trouble in paradise?”
Jake trudged down the hallway after his roommate, dragging his feet as if he were heading toward death row. “You could say that. When Roxy’s father offered to fly her out here for a few days before she left for Europe, I gave her some lame excuse that the draft had distracted me, so I’d be too busy studying. Now, tell me turning down the chance to get laid so I could avoid discussing the wedding isn’t sick.”
“Then call off it off.” Chris punched the elevator button. “Hell, by the time you finish training camp, you’ll have so much beaver hanging around, you’ll need one of them to gnaw you a splint to keep your dick up.”
“I don’t know.” Jake shoved his hands in his pockets. “My dad thinks I’m just having doubts ‘cause Roxanne and I haven’t seen each other much in the last nine months.”
“Of course he’s gonna tell you to go through with it.” Chris smacked Jake lightly on the back of his head, knocking the forelock of his flyaway hair into his eyes. “She’s a freaking heiress—and doesn’t he work for her father?”
His dad had kissed Alexander Warrington’s ass for twenty years and commuted an hour to Manhattan every day so their family could live in a school district with a topnotch football program.
“Exactly. I owe my old man for helping me get where I am.” Not to mention, the recent loss of Jake’s mother, whom his dad loved more than life itself, made it hard for him to understand Jake’s ambivalence.
Jake stepped off the elevator behind his roommate and could feel the beat of music pounding through the floor from all the way down the hall.
Chris shook his head. “Don’t do it. In a few years, you’ll be raking in so much dough your father will be able to retire.”
The wedding was scheduled for two weeks after Roxanne’s return. Jake only had until the end of June to make up his mind.
“Whatever you decide,” Chris said, “don’t say anything to the guys. They planned this shindig as sort of a combination first draft pick/bachelor party for you.”
“Fine, just promise you won’t bring some girl back with you and take over our room again tonight. I’ve been stuck on that rack of a sofa all week. I’m beat.”
“Quit blaming your insomnia on the couch.” Chris slapped him on the shoulder. “You can’t sleep ‘cause you haven’t gotten your rocks off since you went home for winter break. This girl Barbie’s hired is gonna fix you right up.”
“Forget it. Even if I weren’t engaged, you know how I feel about hookers.”
Chris opened the door to the suite where the party was already in full swing. “That’s why I told her to get someone who specializes in guys who like their tail sweet. She told me this girl has less experience than she does.”
Jake had dated Barbara a few times until he discovered the Bo Derek look-alike was screwing the whole first string of his team. “Considering you’re comparing the girl to a nympho, that’s hardly a recommendation.”
Chris shoved him through the door. “Relax. By the time the evening’s over, you’ll be swearin’ she still has her cherry.”
Jake followed him to the keg and filled two plastic cups. Chris scanned the smoky room and nudged him in the ribs. “I believe that fox in the glasses is your date.”
A tiny, studious-looking girl stood a few feet away, drinking a glass of punch, and wearing a pale pink sundress with a line of tiny pearl buttons down its front. Her dress’s short hem revealed a killer set of bare legs and made her stand out like rosebud in a weed patch next to the other girls in their skimpy tank tops and ti
ght jeans.
Opie, the team’s redheaded wide receiver, was moving in fast, followed by a couple of other guys. The top of her tawny head barely reached any of their chins.
“You’ve gotta hand it to Barb, she knows how to fill an order.” Chris chuckled and took one of the full cups from Jake. “I told her you like your women brainy. The specs are a nice touch, don’t you think?”
“Very nice.” The girl’s sexy pout was the only contradiction to her pure schoolgirl image. “That can’t be her.”
“Wait here and I’ll go find out.” Chris chugged his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Jake inhaled the yeasty bouquet as he sipped his drink and watched while his roommate pushed the circling vultures aside to introduce himself.
“Hi, there.” Chris sidled up to the young lady, and the room quieted while someone switched the tape in the stereo. “I assume you came with Barb since you’re the only girl I don’t know.”
“Yes. I have no idea what happed to Barbara.” She glanced around the room. “I’m her cousin, Margaret Hunter.” The rosebud’s genuine smile lit her whole face, radiating her subtle beauty like the sun at dawn.
“Her cousin,” Chris repeated and smirked. “That’s good. I’m Chris Dillon, but everyone calls me Gherkin.”
“Gherkin?” The rosebud laughed. “You guys really do have some weird nicknames.”
“Well, mine sort of evolved.” Chris chuckled as he refilled her cup with punch. “The guys started out shortening Dillon to Dill and that eventually morphed into Gherkin. Ironically enough, I can’t stand sweet pickles.”
Billy Joel’s River of Dreams flowed through the room. Margaret accepted the glass from him. “Thanks. Would you by any chance like to dance?”
“Truthfully? Yes. But Barb brought you to meet our guest of honor.” He turned her toward Jake and guided her the few steps over to him. “Margaret, this is, Scout.” Chris cocked an eyebrow at him. “Meet Barbie’s cousin.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “You never give up, do you, Gherkin?”
The girl gawked at him, and her hand trembled as she gulped the rest of her drink.
Chris took her empty glass. “I’ll get you another one.”
“You really shouldn’t drink their witch’s brew,” Jake warned her. One glass of the poison these guys mixed up could knock a little thing like her on her ass. As she turned to take the refill from Chris, Jake dropped his gaze to her rounded bottom. And she had such a nice one, too.
The rosebud smiled at Jake as she turned to face him again and raised her voice above a crescendo in the music. “So, Chris calls you Scout. Do you have a real name?”
He nodded and stared down into the girl’s twinkling owl eyes. He’d never seen a pair quite that shade of sky blue before. Her glasses made her appear even more wide-eyed and innocent. Which was an absolute hoot if she really was the busty blonde cheerleader’s cousin.
Barbara gave new meaning to the definition of easy. Except, he, like Captain Kirk, preferred to boldly go where no man had gone before—or at least not a whole football team.
“Well, what is it?” Margaret asked.
“What’s what?”
“Your real name?”
“Oh.” He gulped his beer. “Jacob Nicholas Manion III.”
“The third? Don’t things get confusing on holidays?”
“Nah. Everyone calls my dad, Nick, and my grandpa is Jacob. I’m just plain old Jake.”
“Jake.” His name rolled musically off her tongue. “So how’d you get to be known as Scout?”
He tossed back the rest of his beer and glanced at Chris. “It’s short for Boy Scout. The guys think I’ve got an overdeveloped conscience sometimes.”
“Good.” She grinned. “That must mean I can trust you.”
Chris clamped his hand over his mouth, muffling his laugh.
Jake turned to the keg to refill his glass. “You should note that I said sometimes.”
Unfortunately, at the moment, his conscience was on strike. The knowledge that this girl had been bought and paid for specifically for his pleasure conjured the mental image of the two of them entwined in bed. The swish of her short hem against her bare thighs kept him speculating whether or not she wore panties.
It disturbed him to find the prospect of discovering her stark naked beneath her prissy dress so incredibly appealing. If he could seriously contemplate sleeping with anyone besides his fiancée—let alone some hooker, regardless of how enticing—it proved he wasn’t ready to commit himself to one woman. He never should have asked Roxanne to marry him.
“And sometimes I’m apparently not such a good guy.” He chugged his beer and scowled at the bottom of the empty plastic cup. He’d better slow down.
The girl made him as nervous as a zit-faced teenager with a hotel key on prom night. Since he’d been red-shirted his freshman year, he’d been eligible to play college ball another season and had taken advantage of the opportunity to start his post graduate degree. He was working on his master’s in psych, and for the life of him, he couldn’t read Margaret at all. She seemed so innocent and, at the same time, blatantly sexy. Barbara must have told the girl to put on some sort of virgin act for him. That prissy name of hers probably wasn’t even real.
Tipping her head back, Margaret smiled up at him. “A Boy Scout is supposed to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, and a whole bunch of other noble things I can’t recall. But I don’t remember the list including gorgeous.”
“It doesn’t.” Chris’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t by any chance charge extra for flattery, do you?”
“Huh?” Her forehead wrinkled as she took another large gulp of her drink and fanned her face. “Whew. Is it just me, or has it gotten awfully hot in here?”
Jake took her punch and swigged the rest of it. “I think you’d better lay off this stuff.”
Chris jerked his head toward the bedroom door. “You know it’s a lot cooler in the other room. No warm bodies heatin’ the place up. Why don’t you take Margaret in there to cool off?”
Raising his hands, Jake backed up a step. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
She brushed aside the damp wisps of butterscotch hair framing her face and swayed, grabbing Chris’s arm to steady herself. “Sorry, I got a little dizzy.”
“Come on, Scout, you don’t want her to pass out, do you?” Chris asked.
“No, but—”
“She needs to lie down for a while. None of the other guys will keep her company the way you will.” Chris pushed them toward the bedroom and smiled at Margaret. “It’s nice and cool in there.” Once they were inside, he grabbed the doorknob and turned the lock on the inside. “I’ll close this so the heat doesn’t drift in from the other room.”
Or any other couples. Jake rolled his eyes at Chris’s charade as his friend closed the door.
Margaret wobbled on her feet and plopped down on the bed closest to the window. “What was in that punch? The whole room is spinning.”
“You don’t want to know.”
As her body tilted, he swung her feet up on the mattress. “Maybe you should lie down. You look as if you’re about to fall over.” He sat on the edge of the bed, facing her. “So does anyone call you anything besides Margaret?”
“Barb and some of my friends call me Margie.”
He tipped his head and fingered one of the honey tendrils curling around her fresh-scrubbed face. Her lack of makeup made her look very young. “You don’t look like a Margaret or a Margie.”
Her eyes widened, her lips parting slightly. “I don’t?”
Shaking his head, he stared at her mouth as the tip of her tongue peeked out to moisten her soft pout. “Maggie fits you—or better yet, Rosebud.”
His teammates must have blown a bundle to get someone with her acting ability. A novice could never pull off her innocent performance so convincingly. He shifted his hips and tugged on the inseam of his jeans. Regardless of whether this girl was a pro or not, he shouldn
’t be getting married if she could make him think about cheating on Roxanne without even touching him.
The wedding was most definitely off.
“Why Rosebud?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe because you have the most flawless skin I’ve ever seen. It’s like you’ve got roses blooming in your cheeks.”
“I think that has more to do with me being hot.” She smiled.
“Yes, you are.” He cupped the girl’s face, and her eyes drifted shut as her mouth turned into his palm. She smelled of baby powder and fruity punch. “And you’re sweet enough to give a guy a toothache.”
Her wide-eyed gaze popped open. “I am?”
What the hell. If he called off the wedding, there was no reason not to at least go for a first down and enjoy a little of the game the fellows had set up for him. Ideally, he’d prefer to officially end it with Roxanne, first. But he’d be damned if he’d take cold showers for the next five weeks while she was busy globetrotting.
Leaning into Maggie, he pressed his lips to hers while her mouth remained an innocent, unyielding pucker.
He drew back and chuckled. “You are something else, Sweetheart.” He combed his fingers through her hair and played along, whispering, “You haven’t kissed very many guys, have you?”
Her cheeks grew even pinker as her lashes lowered. “You mean, you can tell? I’m sorry.” She shrugged one shoulder and slurred, “I hope you don’t mind teachin’ me.”
Her request and ability to blush at will left him speechless for a second. “Not at all.” He traced his finger over her lower lip. “Relax your mouth.”
She closed her eyes and offered her parted lips to him. He dipped his head and slid his tongue along the crack she’d left him, coaxing her mouth open further. As he swept his tongue inside, she whimpered and wound her arms tightly around his neck.
Damn, she tasted good—like grenadine and oranges. He devoured her sweetness, running his hand up her silky leg to her bottom. Squeezing a handful of her softness, he drew in a sharp breath. She’d even dressed for her innocent virgin role, right down to her little-girl cotton undies.
A Little Bit of Déjà Vu Page 7