The Game of Love

by Heather Graham

  But she couldn’t help hoping that Jeffrey Martin would buy a very expensive house.

  “And if it proves to be too much, you can choke on it!” she cursed aloud.

  “Who can choke on what?”

  Sandy had stuck his head curiously out of his office doorway. Jade flushed, then told him about the previous evening, and how the man who had crashed into her had now become a client.

  Sandy, to her annoyance, was impressed with the name Jeffrey Martin. “I’m going to have to go to one of those practices and get his autograph. Genevieve, this is your lucky month.” Sandy was one of the few people who ever used her real name. He shook his head happily. “Imagine that! First you get Mr. Harrison’s property. Then you crash into a baseball great, and he becomes your customer, anyway.”

  “He crashed into me!”

  The protestation made no difference. Sandy was gone, Jade decided that all men were jerks. Mention sports and they all turned into awe-struck little kids.

  It didn’t occur to her until Sean was in bed for the night that she really didn’t have to go to practice on Thursday afternoon. Timmy Hodges’s mother was supposed to pick the boys up and take them to practice. All that Jade had to do was swing by and find Sean when it was all over.

  She glanced at the listings she had been studying and caught her lower lip between her teeth. She really needed to sell Jeffrey something. Quickly. The market had been depressed for a long time and her last sale had been a small house down in Perrine.

  She hesitated only a second longer, picked up the phone and called Miriam Hodges, telling her that she’d go to school to pick up Timmy and Sean. Miriam was glad—she was very involved in her tennis lessons and could put in another hour or so working on her backhand.

  Jade replaced the receiver with a wry smile. More power to you, Miriam.

  “I wonder if I’ll ever have the time and money to take tennis lessons,” she mused aloud and then laughed because she didn’t even know if she would like to play tennis.

  Her laughter faded and her smile became bittersweet. If Danny were alive, she would have fewer financial worries. They wouldn’t have remained married; she knew that. Danny had needed more variety and excitement out of life than she could provide. But he would have taken care of her, and she would have loved him always.

  One of his best qualities had been his adoration of his son. She and Danny might have divorced, but he never would have shirked his parental responsibility. He would have seen to it that the roof was fixed. He would have made sure that the Corvette was repaired.

  Jade slipped her papers into a folder with the name Jeffrey Martin neatly penned across it. Then she rose quickly to press her clothes for the following morning. She didn’t want to sit there thinking about Danny. His death always brought tears to her eyes, but there was nothing she could do to change the past.

  * * *

  On Thursday Jade found she was alarmingly nervous. The events of the afternoon, however, were a letdown. She didn’t know what she had expected, but Jeffrey Martin barely spoke to her. He accepted the folder with a simple “Thanks,” set it aside and gave his attention to batting practice.

  Lynn was the only other mother present that day. All the fathers had found ways to slip out of work to bring their kids to the park. Word had gotten out that Jeffrey Martin was the new assistant coach, and the guys had come out en masse to meet him.

  At the end of practice, he handed the folder back to Jade. “I marked off the ones I don’t want to see,” he told her. “The rest look interesting.”

  He didn’t suggest dinner. She was surprised to realize that she would have gone without a thought.

  Sean was talkative all the way home. “Toby says I have to pitch the second half of the game all the time. That’s so that if we fall behind, we can try to catch up. If we’re behind at the beginning, and can’t pitch the other guys out in the second half, we won’t have a prayer.” He fell silent for a minute. “You know, it’s funny that Ryan can’t pitch worth beans. You would think he’d be great. I mean, he lives with his dad. He’s got Jeff to help him all the time. Boy, if Jeff were my dad, I could be really great.”

  Sean sounded envious. Jade clenched her teeth together.

  “Don’t brag,” she said. “You know I hate it. And if you do too much of it, you won’t have any friends, no matter how well you pitch. I’m sure that Ryan is very good at something else—like math, maybe, which is much more important in the long run.

  “Not if I make the Major Leagues.”

  “Sean, you’re nine years old. Drop it.” She exhaled and turned on the radio. Then she said, “Sean, you are very good, and I’m proud of you. But there are—”

  “Lots more things in life. I know.”

  She turned the radio up. Sean spoke above it, anyway.

  “Mom!”

  “What?”

  His lower lip was trembling a little, and she turned the radio down.

  “My father wasn’t killed because of the game, you know. What happened to Dad was…”

  He was going to start crying. And if he did, she would. She gripped his hand. “I know, Sean. Did you decide what you want to do for your science project yet?”

  Sean muttered out a negative reply, then turned the radio back up himself.

  Jade told herself that she was being a little bitchy and that he was just being a kid. He had a right to love baseball, and a right to want her approval when he did well. It was that damned Jeffrey Martin again. Tonight, the problem wasn’t that he had plagued her, she was annoyed because he had ignored her.

  “I’m going to take a quick shower before I start dinner. Just hot dogs tonight, okay?” she asked as they went into the house.

  Sean was agreeable. He liked hot dogs.

  Jade slipped out of her dusty sandals and clothing, showered and put on a long satin robe. Sean was seated at the kitchen table finishing his homework when she came out. She rummaged in the freezer for the hot dogs and started when the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it!” Sean said.

  “Hey!” She called after him. “Make sure you see who it is first!” Nighttime visitors always made her a little nervous. Unfortunately, the Grove was known for crime as well as beauty.

  “Hi! Come on in!”

  Jade wanted to clobber Sean. Here she was in a robe, wearing no makeup, with damp hair plastered to her face and he was inviting people in.

  She hurried to the kitchen doorway and winced.

  Jeffrey Martin and Ryan were there. Ryan was still in his dusty baseball pants; Jeffrey was still in his jogging shorts and gray T-shirt.

  His eyes met hers across the room and the curl of an elusive smile touched one corner of his lips. She wanted to shrink back into the kitchen, and then she wanted to kick herself for caring how he saw her.

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to disturb you. Your phone number isn’t listed, and we didn’t make arrangements for a place to meet in the morning.”

  “Oh.” She was annoyed at her stupidity. “The, uh, office is north of where we’re looking. I thought we’d start off in Cocoplum; I have keys to all those houses. Our first actual appointment is at eleven—”

  “Shall I just pick you up here?”

  Again she hesitated. “I should probably drive. I know the area better than you.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll drive. I’ll be here at…what…nine-thirty?”

  “Uh, yeah, I suppose that will be fine.”

  “Hot dogs!” Ryan said suddenly. Jade realized that she was holding the pack in her hands, and that Ryan was looking as enviously at her as Sean had spoken about Jeff earlier.

  She had to smile. His eyes were so big, so hopeful.

  Why didn’t Jeffrey Martin have a bratty little kid she could dislike?

  The words were out of her mouth before she realized that she had spoken them. “You haven’t had dinner yet, Ryan?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Ryan!” Jeffrey spoke sharply. “We’re
not—”

  Jade found herself rushing to Ryan’s defense. “It’s fine, really. If you don’t mind just hot dogs, chips and salad, you’re very welcome to stay for dinner.”

  Jeffrey’s jaw had hardened, but for once, Jade had pleased her own son. He was giving her a big smile of approval. “Please, coach?” he asked Jeff. He didn’t wait for an answer, but told Ryan, “We can take out the stuff I was showing you the other night—”

  “You cannot, young man. You can finish your homework.”

  “But I need help with the centimeters—”

  “I can help you, Sean,” Ryan said. “Really, I can help him, Mrs. McLane.”

  “Call her Jade. All the other kids do.”

  Ryan looked at his father anxiously. “Can we stay, Dad? Can we, please?”

  He threw up his hands in defeat, but he still didn’t appear particularly pleased. Jade gave him a wry smile.

  “Hey,” she reminded him softly, “we did wind up being your dinner guests last Tuesday.”

  “We didn’t come for dinner.”

  Jade smiled again and returned to the kitchen. Sean followed her, snatching up his books and promising that Ryan would help him in his bedroom. Jade took out another pack of hot dogs.

  She was running them beneath hot water to defrost them before putting them beneath the broiler when she realized that she wasn’t alone. Jeffrey had followed her in. He was sitting on top of the dryer, legs dangling. “Can I help?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I was dead serious. It’s just hot dogs.”

  There was an awkward silence. Jade wished she wasn’t standing there like a half-drowned rat. She wondered why it was that his being in the room made it a different place. Why she felt as if something inside her had caught fire.

  She dug the lettuce and tomatoes out of the refrigerator and then exclaimed, “Oh! Would you like a drink? I don’t have much of a choice. I think there’s some Scotch. And beer. No—I don’t have any beer, I’m sorry. Toby was over here about a week ago and he finished off the last of the six-pack. I have some wine. White and red. I wonder which is supposed to be proper for hot dogs.”

  He laughed and slid off his perch on the dryer. “I always say it’s proper to drink white with anything—if you prefer white wine. And equally proper to drink red with anything—if you prefer red.”

  He was standing next to the refrigerator, grinning. Slowly, she returned his smile, but she moved back along the counter to put some distance between them.

  “I think I like that rule,” she said. “Mind helping yourself? The white is in the refrigerator; the red is at the end of the counter.”

  He reached for the red, Jade noticed.

  “Glasses?”

  “Right above you.”

  He poured a glass of red wine. “And for you?”

  “White, please.”

  He poured a glass for her. He didn’t hand it to her, but set it on the counter before her. Jade was alarmed at the disappointment that their hands hadn’t touched. It was crazy to want that kind of contact with him.

  He reached into the pocket of his shorts. She heard his keys jingle, then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “No. There’s an ashtray at the end of the counter, too.”

  He lit a cigarette, found the ashtray and leaned against the counter, watching her. Jade tried to give her attention to the lettuce. Even though she refused to look at him, she was all too aware of his presence. He hadn’t seemed quite so…naked out on the diamond. Now she kept recalling the way his cutoff T-shirt ended at his ribs, that the three inches of bare stomach beneath it were bronzed and tight and just slightly rippled with muscle. His shorts didn’t leave much to the imagination, either. His thighs were muscled and dark from the sun. His long legs were those of a runner.

  “I didn’t realize that you smoke,” Jade mumbled, searching for something to say, something to break the silence. She took a long sip of her wine.

  He leaned an elbow on the counter. His eyes touched her lightly; they were filled with amusement, as usual.

  “I don’t often,” he said simply. “Only when I’m nervous.”

  A surge of adrenaline went through her. She swallowed too much wine and bent over the stove to hide her coughing.

  “Why on earth would you be nervous?” she asked, turning the hots dogs.

  “I don’t really know.”

  He inhaled very slowly on his cigarette. Jade realized with dawning horror that his gaze was fixed on the satin V of her robe. Her bent position had caused the neckline to dip, and from his vantage point she probably appeared naked to the waist.

  Embarrassment warmed her much more than the heat of the oven. She pulled her robe together and slammed the oven shut. Oh! What if he thought she had purposely chosen that position? Oh, God. This was worse than looking like a drowned rat. She imagined she could feel his gaze. It was as if he could actually touch her with his eyes, feather her breasts with a gentle stroke….

  “It’s…strange. That anything at all could make you nervous,” she said finally, and she added silently, You’re the most nerve-racking man I’ve ever met!

  “Oh, we’re all human, you know.” My God, he was thinking, you’ve got the most beautiful breasts I’ve ever seen.

  She stared at him and smiled a little awkwardly. “The plates. Would you mind?”

  She reached for the plates in the cupboard above the sink. He took them from her. His fingers did brush hers then. They felt just like fire. She lowered her eyes. They fell on the bare patch of taut muscled flesh just above his waistband.

  “Where do you want them set?” he asked, but his mind was on other things. That slip of nothing she was wearing must be satin. He could see her nipples against it and they were beautiful. “In the kitchen?”

  “Yes, we’ll eat in here.” How could he possibly smell so wonderful? she asked herself privately.

  “Want to give me the forks and napkins, too?”

  “Oh, yes. Thanks.

  Jade wrenched open the silverware drawer and piled utensils on top of the plates. Then she backed away from him, feeling that she was surely beet red. “I, uh, think I’ll throw some jeans on,” she mumbled. And then she ran.

  She tore into her room, dug wildly through her dresser, avoided her reflection in the mirror and ignored the fact that she was totally destroying the order of her drawer in her haste to slip into a bra. She still didn’t feel safe from the traitorous effects of her body, so she went through the closet until she found a loose shirt.

  She was breathing too quickly; she forced herself to take in deep gulps of air.

  All this from a conversation about forks and plates? It was ridiculous.

  She bit her lower lip lightly and slipped on a pair of jeans, determined to go back out and behave normally. When she reached the kitchen, she found that was easier than she had expected. In her absence, the boys had made an appearance. Jeff had taken the hot dogs out of the oven, set the salad on the table and seated himself next to Ryan.

  And Sean was being, as usual, quite adept at talking up a storm. “Wow! I finished all that math, Mom. Do you believe it? Ryan told me what I was doing wrong, and I finished it! That quickly.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Jade said. “Do we need anything else?”

  “Grace.”

  Sean rattled off the prayer so quickly that Jade was amazed he got all the syllables in. And when he was done, he continued to talk nonstop, telling Jeff and Ryan all about the slumber party Toby and Lynn had at the beginning of each season. For once, she was grateful that Sean had the capacity to be a real motor mouth. She was saved from having to add much to the conversation during the meal.

  But the boys finished quickly, too quickly. And then she was left alone again with Jeffrey Martin.

  Jade played with her salad, trying to find something to look at, anything but him.

  “Ryan seems to be a very bright child,” she remarked finally.
<
br />   “Yes. He is. He’s lucky. He catches on to things quickly.”

  “Was…is his mother sharp like that?” What was she doing, she wondered in dismay, trying to find out about his personal life?

  Jeff laughed. “Does that mean that I’m supposed to be stupid? That he couldn’t possibly have inherited such qualities from me?”

  “No!” she said quickly, glancing up at him. In response to the wry amusement in his eyes she went on hurriedly. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that, uh, well, sports is obviously what you do well. And—”

  “And baseball players are dumb clucks who chew tobacco and scratch their heads if someone asks them what the capital of the state is?”

  “I didn’t say that at all!”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Jade stood and began clearing the table. She turned her back to him, running water over a plate.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded him.

  “Is Diana particularly brilliant? No, I don’t believe she’s going to take any Nobel prizes. She’s smart, though, when she chooses to be.”

  With her back to him, Jade was able to wince without his noticing. What was she doing? she berated herself. They could talk about the weather; they could talk about his new job. They could talk about half a million things, and here she was prying into his personal life.

  Her motive for doing so was what really disturbed her. She was dying to touch him, to run her fingers through the dark hair that waved across his forehead, to place her palms against his cheeks and test the texture of his skin. She wanted to run her knuckles over the taut muscles between the waistline of his shorts and the edge of his shirt…

  “What does she do?”

  Oh, hell, oh, hell, a thousand times over. She didn’t want to fall for a man like this one. He was too handsome, too rugged, too sexual. She needed a professor, a librarian, a skinny accountant, someone with his nose always in a book, his heart in his home.

  Jeff was on his feet, clearing dishes behind her and setting them on the counter.

  “Whatever she wants, usually,” was his brief reply.