The young woman wadded the wrappers and tossed them in the nearest trash can before turning to Eve.
“Thanks.”
“Glad to help. You okay?”
The question seemed to snap the woman to attention. She pulled her shoulders back, pushed her chest out, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. He thinks he’s psyching me out, but he’s just pissing me off.”
“And he would be?”
“Bobby Milton.”
“Your husband?”
“Not in this lifetime. He drives for the same team I do.”
“You’re the driver,” Eve said. “The woman driver my friend mentioned.”
“I’m a driver. A good one, too. Damned good enough to know how many laps I can make before I need replacement tires. I know the limit. I don’t need his damned advice on tires, or how to come into a turn or which goddamned way to hold my friggin’ steering wheel. I’m the driver of my car, even if all these dumb-ass, dick-for-brains, I-have-a-cock-therefore-I-rule-the-world, male-chauvinistic Bubbas don’t want to admit it. The fact that I happen to be a woman is beside the point. I can drive as well as any of those jocks. Just as fast, as controlled. I don’t fucking need them telling me how to do it.” Silence settled as she drew several deep breaths.
Eve gave the woman a knowing look. “Feel better?”
The woman blew out an exasperated breath. “I’m getting there.”
“Here.” Eve fed money into the machine, punched the button, and handed the woman another Reese’s. “Eat this and call me in the morning and remember, we’re already the superior sex, so we have nothing to prove. They, on the other hand, need constant reinforcement that their shit doesn’t stink.”
The woman smiled. “I’m Jaycee Anderson.”
“Eve Farrel.”
“Nice to meet you, Eve Farrel . . .” Her expression faded into disbelief. “Not Farrel as in Jacqueline Farrel?”
“She’s my mother.”
“No way. She is so awesome. You wouldn’t catch her taking crap from these guys. She doesn’t doubt herself. She thinks she’s just as good.”
“That’s my mom.” Eve smiled, picked up the woman’s gloves, and handed them to her. “And she doesn’t doubt herself because she knows she’s just as good.”
High on a sugar rush, Eve shed the indifferent bitchy persona and put on her sexiest, most confident smile. She headed back to Pit Road. But when she arrived, she found something much more threatening to her charade than a pack of nosy reporters.
Skye Farrel-MacAllister looked very out of place as she stood among the uniformed crew that rushed around Clint’s legendary red, white, and blue Chevy. She wore trendy hip-hugger jeans that hit just below her protruding belly and a flowing white peasant blouse that would have made the average pregnant woman look like a blimp. On Skye’s petite frame, she looked like she should be walking the runway for the latest in maternity fashion. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her green eyes sparkled and her cheeks seemed pinker as she touched a protective hand to her belly.
Eve felt a momentary pang of envy that faded into a rush of fear when Skye’s gaze found her.
“Hey, Skye,” Eve said as she walked up to her sister.
“Hey, yourself.” Skye frowned. “You look like hell. Marriage must not be treating you well.” Before Eve could say anything, she rushed on, “And why would it? You’re making a mockery of a sacred institution.”
“If that were my only problem.”
“You didn’t . . .” Skye studied her before declaring, “You slept with him again.”
“I did not”—Eve shrugged, her bravado fading beneath her sister’s knowing gaze—“but I want to. What’s wrong with me?”
“He’s handsome, successful, and charming.”
“I know. That’s why something has to be wrong with me. I don’t lust after men like him. And I don’t lust after men who can’t even help with a decent orgasm.”
“Maybe you should have given him a clue instead of jumping off the deep end and faking it in the heat of the moment. Geez”—Skye touched her face—“is it just me, or is it hot in here?”
“It’s hot.”
“Thank God. I was afraid the hormone thing was raging again. I’m in month five. I should be even for the next few months. At least I hope so for Clint’s sake. Do you know I actually yelled at him for breathing? I mean, he was doing it sort of loudly when I was trying to read the ending of Sandra Brown’s Slow Heat in Heaven, but that’s beside the point. The poor thing. He’s been walking on egg shells ever . . . Oh, no.” Skye’s gaze filled with panic. “I just rambled. Rambling is a sure sign of raging hormones.”
“You didn’t ramble. You just got off the subject a little, but it’s okay.” She touched Skye’s hand. “Really, sis. It’s all right. Breathe.”
“I’m breathing.” She puffed once, twice, for emphasis. “Okay, I’m okay. Are you sure I wasn’t rambling?”
“Rambling is insignificant nonsense. That all had meaning.” Sort of.
“I’m totally in objection to this whole marriage business,” Skye went on, “but I am glad you’re here. We don’t get to spend nearly the time together that we should.” Before Eve could respond, Skye gave her a huge hug.
Okay, one minute she was Captain Ass Kicker and the next she was ready to sing “Kumbayah.” Definitely hormonal.
“I love you,” Skye murmured and hugged harder, and for whatever reason, it felt good. “I talked to Mom,” she said when she finally pulled away.
Eve raised an eyebrow. “You?”
“It’s the whole pregnancy thing. Before, all I could think of was avoiding her in the interest of self-preservation. Now I just keep thinking how I’ll feel if little Clint and little Cowboy avoid my phone calls, and so I can’t help but pick up the phone. That’s why I came to the track with Clint despite a ton of work. It’s the only way to honestly avoid the phone.”
“You have a cell phone.”
“Of course, but I accidentally left it at home.”
“Accidentally, huh?”
“Actually, I told Clint to hide it so that I couldn’t find it. He’s good, too. I looked everywhere. So I’m guilt-free right now. Sort of.”
“You’re naming one of the boys Cowboy?”
“It’s just for right now. We can’t decide on a second name. We could use Dad’s, which is my vote, but that will make Clint’s dad jealous.” She motioned to her husband, who stood several feet away talking to Cal, the crew chief responsible for Linc’s car. “If we use his father’s name, it’ll make Dad feel ousted. If we do both, then we face a similar situation. Donovan Frank. Frank Donovan. So we’ve just agreed to disagree for right now. In the meantime, he’s Baby Cowboy. Whew.” She blew out a breath and touched a hand to her back. “I think I need to sit down.” She motioned to a few chairs off to the side, away from the hustle and bustle and noise of the pit area.
After they had settled down into the chairs, Skye turned to Eve. “Mom’s really freaked out.”
Eve smiled. “Mission accomplished.”
“I mean she’s more freaked out than usual when it comes to you. She’s mega-freaked. I’m kind of worried. She sounded stressed when I talked to her. She never sounds stressed.”
“She’s got Dad underfoot.”
“And Grandma,” Skye added.
“What?”
“She said Grandma is on some dating quest to find Mr. Right.”
“No wonder she sounded stressed.”
“I can’t help but feel a little sorry for her.” Skye slid her feet free of the two-inch sandals she wore and wiggled her toes. “Her whole belief system is on shaky ground.”
“Don’t you think you’re being overly dramatic?”
“Am I?” Worry lit Skye’s eyes as she slid her feet back into her shoes. “Drama is a definite sign of out-of-control hormones.”
“A shaky belief system sums it up to a T,” Eve said, trying to steer Skye away from the hormone issue. “I�
��ll call her.”
“You will? Because I told her you love her and aren’t trying to purposely ruin her life.”
“I’m trying to keep her from ruining mine. I just need her to give me some space, and this was the only way to accomplish that. I’ve got a lot riding on this, Skye. This is my chance to kick my company up to the next level. I can’t blow it, and you know what Mom does to me.”
“I know . . . I mean, I’m sure she doesn’t mean to.”
“Little Clint and little Cowboy again?”
Skye nodded and rested a hand on her belly. “Just call her to touch base. You can even act blissfully married, but not too blissful. I don’t want her to have a heart attack or anything. Just say hi, tell her you love her despite your life choices, and hang up.”
“Like that will reassure her.”
“Maybe not, but at least you tried, and she can stop saying you totally hate her.”
Eve sat up straighter in her seat. “She said I hated her?”
“No, but she’s thinking it. I know because that’s what I would think if little Clint or little Cowboy went and married some totally horrible girl that I didn’t approve of.”
“They won’t do that because you won’t be so close-minded.” Eve eased back against the chair and tucked her long hair behind one ear.
“I tell myself that, but what if I am?” Skye asked. “What if I’m like Mom?”
“Don’t even think it,” she told her older sister, just the way she’d been telling herself the same thing ever since her sixth-grade gym teacher, Maybeth Sparks, who’d also gone to grade school with Jacqueline Farrel, had told Eve she was the spitting image of her mother.
“Why, it’s like being in the sixth grade all over again. You could be her twin, Lord help you. Probably stir things up just the way she did, too, but I’ll have none of that in my class. No sirree. The boys have their side of the gym and we have ours. They get the football equipment and we do badminton. End of story.”
Eve had hated badminton, but she’d actually gone to the state championships two years in a row because her mother had detested the sport, and so she’d given it her all.
“You’re right.” Skye’s voice drew Eve back to the present. “There’s no way I’m going to try to shape and mold my boys to be what I want them to be just because I think they ought to be that way. And no way am I going to get mad just because they’re too busy with their lives to talk to me when I call. And I won’t be hurt, either. That’s just life. And— Geez, I’m really hot. And hungry.” A startled expression gripped Skye’s face. “Oh, God, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
“You are not hormonal. You’re just hungry. Come with Auntie Eve. I know this perfect little vending machine just around the corner.”
A few candy bars later, Skye was laughing and talking and Eve was starting to think being stuck at the racetrack every few weeks, smack-dab in the middle of the whole macho, chest-beating NASCAR thing, might not be so bad if it meant seeing her sister more often. Hormones and all.
Chapter 12
That feels soooo good.”
Ruella Farrel stared down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap, before shifting her attention to the man who sat on the sofa next to her. “But I’m not even touching you.”
“I know. I’m just practicing.” Morty Haskins was a seventy-nine-year-old widower who’d only recently gotten back into the dating pool. He’d seen Ruella’s ad in a sexy singles section of the paper and responded with a profile of himself. He had four children, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. He also had a nice apartment in a small suburb on the outskirts of Los Angeles. He’d been the packaging department manager for a cereal company for forty years before retiring. He’d lost his wife seven years ago to a heart attack. He liked Wheel of Fortune, Reader’s Digest, and crossword puzzles. He enjoyed cooking, bunko, and his favorite color was yellow.
Ruella adjusted her lemon-colored blazer and barely resisted the urge to laugh at the man sitting beside her.
Laughing should be the last thing on her mind while having dinner with her number one orgasm prospect. Why, he’d made a roast, for heaven’s sake, complete with little new potatoes and strained spinach. To round off the meal, he’d made individual tapioca puddings sweetened with sugar substitute—bless him. No man had ever done anything for her before, much less taken on the monumental task of making dinner. She should be mesmerized right now. Entranced. Turned on, as her sexologist daughter would say.
“Practice makes perfect.” He pulled out a small cheat sheet from his pocket and held it up. “See, my memory ain’t what it used to be, and to compensate for my shortcomings, I just write things down. Since I also ain’t too good at verbalizing my feelings, either, I write ’em down.”
She set her tapioca aside, took the list, and read the second entry. “Great, baby, I like it just like that.” She wasn’t sure whether to smile or run as fast as her orthopedic shoes and slightly arthritic knees would permit.
“I was never verbally inclined. So I’ve been taking some classes here lately down at the seniors’ center. This one in particular, Over the Hill and Behind the Times, is all about getting back into the whole courting scene. They tell you how to be successful—give you tips on what to wear, how to act, what to say.”
“They told you to wear that rather, um, interesting tie?” She eyed the bright green tie covered with orange shamrocks and again tried to hide her smile.
This is not funny. This is a romantic situation. A simmering pot of seductive stew that should soon be hot and ready.
“Actually, my grandson told me to wear this. He gave it to me for St. Paddy’s Day last year and it’s his favorite.”
Morty wasn’t very smooth, but he was a sweet gentleman. “It’s nice.” Ruella pulled up her sleeve and revealed a handmade bead bracelet with a tiny silver leopard clasp. “This is from my granddaughter Eve. So tell me more about this class of yours, Morty.” She was determined to give the situation a good effort. “It sounds really fascinating.”
“Well, the main point of it is that you have to change your preconceived notions about the opposite sex and what they want from a relationship. It’s different than it was years ago. Before, you could bring a woman a bag of penny candy and a bouquet of handpicked daisies or something, and she was a happy camper. Not anymore. First off, you can’t get anything for a penny, and if you try to pick flowers anywhere in L.A., you’ll wind up in the pokey. Second of all, women aren’t half as interested in a man’s taste in candy as they are in his communication skills. Women want you to actually talk to them.”
“I can see how that might be helpful if you want to have a relationship with someone.”
“You ain’t just whistling ‘Dixie.’ Women want a man who puts himself out there and says what he wants. A man who doesn’t assume she knows the meaning behind a full bag of licorice bites. There ain’t no such thing as subtlety anymore.” He took a bite of his tapioca before wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Women want you to just blurt out everything. They want to crawl inside your head. Speaking of inside, when are we going to do the deed?”
“I . . . You really want to do, um, the deed?” About the only thing Ruella wanted was a glass of warm milk, a box of Milk Duds, and her comfy pajamas.
“You bet.” He eyed her before adjusting his shamrock necktie. “I mean, I guess I do. I would really like to give it a shot again. Not that I haven’t had relations recently, or anything like that. But it’s been a while since I’ve had them with a real woman.”
Ruella wasn’t going to inquire.
“So I might be a little out of practice,” Morty went on, “but I’ve also been taking this other class, which teaches you all about the female body parts. There’s a helluva lot more parts down there than I ever figured, and it’s all got its own name. There’s the vulva and the . . .” Morty went on for the next ten minutes about a woman’s nether regions and Ruella prayed that the racy subject matter would stimulate some s
ort of reaction. After all, she hadn’t put on her new lemon yellow lounging suit, matching sandals, and knee-high panty hose for nothing.
Other than learning a few new facts about her own treasure chest, she wasn’t any more excited than she’d been when he’d pulled open the door and she’d first glimpsed his necktie.
The most thrilling part of the past two hours had been when she’d accidentally sat down on his grandson’s Bouncing Tigger. Other than a quick tingle thanks to Tigger’s loud “Woohoo!”, she’d felt nothing even close to excitement all night. In fact, she was this close to borrowing Morty’s blood pressure cuff—which he kept on the end table next to his bifocals and a bottle of Dr. Scholl’s foot powder—just to make sure she hadn’t given up the ghost already.
Otherwise, she should feel something, shouldn’t she? Morty was perfect on paper. And he wasn’t half bad in person. He had an average face, thinning gray hair, and watery blue eyes, but she’d seen worse. And he was nice. Maybe a little desperate, but she couldn’t blame him for that. At least he was trying.
It wasn’t his fault that she kept noticing the age spots just below the long strands of white hair he’d combed over the balding patch on his head. And it certainly wasn’t his fault that his dentures clacked every now and then when he laughed. She’d had the same problem herself until she’d switched to a different adhesive cream. And it surely wasn’t his fault that he was out of practice when it came to seduction. The man had been married to one woman for fifty years. Why, if it had been fifty years since Ruella, say, had made biscuits, she doubted she could whip up even a halfway decent batch.
Bottom line, he was trying.
Which meant that it wasn’t his fault the evening wasn’t a romantic success. It was hers, because she simply wasn’t the type of woman to ever feel such things with a man. She wasn’t a woman, period.
“You’re damned lucky to have me, Ruella. ’Cause ain’t no man would ever have you. You’re too plain, too fat, and too dumb, to be good for anything ’cept mopping up after someone. There’s no fire in you, gal. No fire a’tall.”
Sweet as Sugar, Hot as Spice Page 13