by Tami Hoag
“Hi, gorgeous,” Jared said in a voice like dark velvet as he slid onto the chair across from Genna.
“Hi,” she said with a tremulous smile. She gestured to the stadium in general, the elaborately laid table in particular. “How did you manage all this?”
“Bribery.” He grinned.
Her smiled faded away. “What for?”
“Peace offering. An apology dinner.”
Genna sat back, tearing her gaze away from the hypnotic blue of his eyes. “I’m the one who should apologize, Jared. I had no right to blow up at you the other night. I got too involved when I knew I shouldn’t have, and … well … I set myself up for it, and heaven knows I can take it on the chin with the best of them. I was just feeling sorry for myself and I took it out on you. If you can forgive me, I’d still like us to be friends.”
Speech ended, she tried to clear the tears out of her throat without sounding like a longshoreman. She kept her watery eyes trained on the delicate rose pattern that edged the china.
A little more sure of herself than he had been, Jared leaned across the table, hooking a finger under Genna’s stubborn little chin and tipping her face up so he could see into her eyes. “We had a little misunderstanding—”
“I know.”
“About the note I left.”
“Could we just drop it, J.J.?” she asked, trying not to sound annoyed. Why did he have to go on beating that poor dead horse?
“You missed page two,” he said, sitting back in his chair. While she squinted at him suspiciously, he took a fortifying sip of champagne.
“There was no page two,” Genna said flatly.
“Yes, there was.” It had never occurred to him she wouldn’t believe him.
“Why are you doing this to me, Jared? I apologized, what more do you want?”
“Page two—and I quote—” he said. “‘Then we can make plans to go looking for an engagement ring. I love you. Jared.’”
As he might have predicted, she was speechless. For all of two seconds.
“Baloney!” Genna said, ignoring the part of her that wanted to believe him. If he’d wanted to marry her, he’d have said so. He’d had plenty of opportunity. “There was no page two. What kind of sick joke is this, Hennessy?”
“Joke?” Jared roared indignantly.
“I can tell you right now, it’s about as funny as a nuclear holocaust,” she said furiously, her eyes scanning the cutlery for a good weapon.
“Look, I like a good joke as much as the next guy, but I’m not about to rent a whole football stadium to play one in. I’m telling you there was a page two!”
“There was not!”
“I ought to know, I wrote it!”
“You ought to have your head examined! There was no page two and this is not funny!”
His eyes round and incredulous, Jared raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. Women! “Genna, I want to marry you. Why would I make this up?”
“Because …” Abruptly the fight drained out of her. She remembered how Jared had stuck up for her with Allan, how appreciative he’d been of her help with Alyssa and Simone. She remembered what she’d taken for pity in his eyes that night in the potting shed. She twisted her pink linen napkin in her hands, then swiped at the tears that suddenly clung to her lashes. “You’re so sweet. You’d do that kind of thing out of some sense of obligation, like that business with your T-shirts. I got in over my head, and you think you have to stick with me because we’re a team and all that—”
“Genna, honey,” Jared interrupted gently as a sudden thought occurred to him. He covered her hand with one of his, “you’re behaving very irrationally lately. Are you pregnant, sweetheart?”
Genna’s head came up as all the color washed out of her face and a wave of nausea hit her. It seemed fate had an exceedingly poor sense of humor. Allan hadn’t wanted to marry her because she had been pregnant, now Jared wanted to marry her only because he thought she was pregnant.
She stared at him for what seemed like an hour, hurting in ways she had never even dreamed were possible.
“No, Jared,” she said in a deadly whisper, pulling her hand out from under his and sliding her chair back. “You can breathe easy. I’m not going to trap you into anything.”
She rose with the dignity of a queen, then turned and bolted for the exit, tears of pain and anger stinging her eyes. Her short legs on high heels were no match for one of the top running quarterbacks in the league, however. While he cursed himself for being ten kinds of a fool, Jared’s long legs ate up the yards of turf until he was no longer behind her, but blocking her path. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held firm when she struggled.
“Let me go, Hennessy!” she yelled, resorting to kicking at his shins. He dodged her feet and managed to haul her against him so she couldn’t move enough to wound him.
“Genna, honey, I swear on a stack of Bibles that thought came to me just now. It had nothing to do with my proposal—not with the one I just made or the one I left you on Saturday. Ouch!”
He let go of her and grabbed his side where she’d pinched him. Genna backed away, glaring at him. “Drop the phony-note business. I’d throw myself in a shark tank before I’d let you marry me out of some noble sense of duty.”
“And I’d jump in ahead of you before I’d offer to do that, Genna,” he said, looking as serious as she’d seen him. “I made that mistake once. I wouldn’t do it twice. There’s only one reason I want to get married again. It’s because I love you.”
He chanced a step closer, then another. One hand seemed to reach out of its own accord to touch her cheek. She seemed tiny and fragile, her smoky eyes wide and full of uncertainty. Jared thought his heart would burst with love for her, his Genna, who seemed so practical and capable on the outside but was so vulnerable on the inside. He wanted her in his arms, safe forever.
“You really believe we just had a summer fling. You think it’s all over between us, don’t you?”
“Isn’t it?” she asked, her heart in her throat. She didn’t dare let herself hope. If she had let herself hope, then she really would be lost when she found out she’d been right all along.
Once again Jared’s hand lifted to touch the peachy softness of her cheek. What if she listened to all his arguments and still said no? His heart thudded in his chest like a faulty fuel pump. When he spoke, his voice was that whiskey-on-the-rocks rasp that made Genna’s pulse race. “Not if you don’t want it to be.”
Genna tried to force herself to breathe normally, but it seemed she’d forgotten how. What if he were just being a gentleman and giving her a chance to decline first? She’d been so sure he’d wanted nothing more than the summer. But what if she were wrong?
“I love you,” he whispered. “I only said that stuff about us being a summer thing so I wouldn’t scare you off. I was afraid to pressure you. You hardly even liked me at the time. I thought if I told you we’d keep it light, you’d give me a chance to prove I wasn’t the jerk you thought I was.”
Her look was skeptical. He gave her his roguish grin, the Jack Nicholson grin that made Genna’s knees sway threateningly. He rested his big hands on her shoulders, repeating his claim with heart-stealing tenderness. “I love you. I told you that.”
Genna trembled. She’d heard those words before, and they hadn’t meant what she had hoped. They hadn’t meant anything. “You told me that in bed, but—”
“But nothing,” he said, his expression uncompromising. “When I told you I loved you, I meant it. For all time, not just when you’re all warm and soft beneath me.”
“Ja-red!” She blushed to the roots of her hair and cast a furtive glance back at Otis and Brutus, who were nearly fifty yards away, sitting on a bench studying their playbooks.
Chuckling, Jared slipped his arms around her waist and started to cuddle and kiss her, attacking her throat with tiny nips and licks. “So, how about it, Teach? Will you marry me?”
“I don’t know,” Genna said soberly, for once
immune to his touch. “I can’t get away from the feeling that it’s not what you really want. I know I’ve been a basket case the last few days, and I can see Amy’s fine hand in all this.” She waved a hand at the empty stadium. “I wouldn’t put it past her to have pleaded my case until you broke down and offered to marry me.”
J.J. let a smile tease his lips. He brushed a wild lock of chestnut hair from her eyes. “Hey, I’m a great guy, but I wouldn’t go as far as marrying someone just to make them feel better.
“Genna, you ought to know by now, I don’t play by other people’s rules. I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t mean it with all my heart. I don’t do anything I don’t want to—”
“What about becoming normal?” Genna asked warily.
He made a face. “That was mostly a way to get you to spend time with me. It seemed like a great way to kill two birds with one stone.”
Genna gaped at him, furious, and at the same time aware of an undeniable joy flooding through her. “You tricked me!”
“Sort of.” He grinned, his eyes alight with mischief. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with me otherwise. I’m not your type, remember, Miss Tunnel Vision? You’d still be looking for a Hart Schaffner and Marx mannequin if not for my brilliant strategy.”
“I should bean you for your boneheaded strategy!” She pinched him on the arm and wriggled out of his grasp. “You’re a filthy sneak, Hennessy!”
“Ouch!” He rubbed his arm and leered at her teasingly. “I love it when you get abusive, Gen. Do it some more.”
“And you’re perverted too.” She danced away from him. He pursued. She wheeled to face him. They both dodged one way, then the other. Genna turned to retreat, and Jared caught her from behind with his arm around her waist, hauling her back against him. His lips nuzzled the sensitive spot beneath her ear as she wriggled against him in a way that encouraged his hands to wander.
“You’re a strange man, Hennessy.”
“Yeah,” he drawled, sighing into her ear, “but you love me for it … don’t you?”
She slanted a look at him over her shoulder, her heart swelling at the vulnerability in his eyes. “I guess.” She smiled softly. “I guess I love you so much it scares me.”
He grinned and resumed nuzzling. “So you’ll marry me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Aw, come on, Gen,” he pleaded, turning her to face him. “I love you. Alyssa loves you. My family loves you. My dog loves you. My brother’s a priest; we’ll get a discount on the ceremony.”
She frowned at him, but her heart was racing fast enough to break the land speed record. “Was there really a page two?”
Jared took her hand in his and raised it to his chest, tracing an X with her fingers over the silk of his shirt. “Cross my heart.”
She pressed her palm flat, feeling the strong, regular rhythm of his heartbeat. Her eyes locked on his. “So where is it?”
“Beats me. I left it on my desk with page one and your check.”
“Finally something makes sense! That desk of yours should be declared a national disaster area.”
“I promise to clean it if you say yes.”
“You’ll probably find Jimmy Hoffa,” she said dryly.
“I’ll set fire to it as soon as I find that blasted page.”
Genna grinned. “Maybe we could get your dad to blow it up.”
He laughed, relief washing over him. She was going to say yes; he could feel it. He’d find that confounded note, have it framed, and give it to Genna for a wedding gift.
“You actually proposed to me on a piece of scrap paper?” she asked, looking less than pleased with him.
Jared had the grace to look sheepish.
“What a lousy proposal, Hennessy.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, it stinks. You should have heard what Amy had to say about it.” He winced in remembrance as he traced one finger along the delicate V of Genna’s collarbone. “My ears are still ringing. She said I’d better come up with something pretty good to make it up to you.”
Genna’s eyes landed on the table at center field and the waiter who had wheeled out a tray with covered dishes on it. Her gaze found Jared’s, and she smiled. “This is pretty special.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he said with a grin. He took a step away from her and waved up at a set of windows on the second deck. The scoreboard came to life again as the organist played “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Cartoon brides and grooms marched across the enormous lighted board, then disappeared.
GENNA, I LOVE YOU MORE THAN A SUNDAY WITH
NO INTERCEPTIONS
I LOVE YOU MORE THAN A WIN AT THE SUPER BOWL
I LOVE YOU MORE THAN ROOT BEER
I LOVE YOU
A little football player ran across the screen, stopping in the center and giving an exaggerated shrug. The next line chased him away.
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
WILL YOU BE MY TEAMMATE FOR THE GAME OF
LIFE?
SAY YES! SAY YES! SAY YES! SAY YES! SAY YES!
SAY YES!
Genna pressed her hands to her cheeks. Tears shimmmered in her eyes. She took in the entire scene: the stadium, the table, Stephan the waiter, Otis and Brutus, the scoreboard, the corny sound of the organ. Jared, wearing his heart on his sleeve. He’d gone to a lot of trouble and she’d love him for it until the day she died.
Jared’s sexy smile teased his mouth as he looked down at her. His blue eyes glittered like jewels. The stadium lights turned his diamond earring into a prism of brilliant colors. “I feel it only fair to warn you, I’m going to run that at every home game until you say yes.”
She laughed out loud and let him take her in his arms, her fingers sliding up the lapels of his suit jacket to tease the back of his neck.
“Genna,” he singsonged. “Come on, say you’ll marry me.”
Genna fought a losing battle to keep a straight face.
He was incorrigible. And irresistible. And she loved every molecule of him even if he was a madman. She gave him a lopsided smile. “I guess I’ll have to. We’re a team. Team players stick together, right?”
“Right.” He grinned.
“And we’re pretty good together, right?”
With a loving smile Jared lowered his head to touch the tip of his nose to the tip of Genna’s nose. “Unbeatable.”
“The best.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TAMI HOAG’S novels have appeared regularly on national bestseller lists since the publication of her first book in 1988. She lives in Los Angeles.
The Trouble with J.J. is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
2009 Bantam Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 1988 by Tami Hoag
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published as a Loveswept mass market edition in the
United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1988.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90652-3
www.bantamdell.com
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