Fourteen years.
His gaze moved across her face to her unruly hair. “You look the same.”
He didn’t. He looked better. More like a man. “I’m here to pick up my niece, Kendra.”
“Oh.” His gaze returned to hers and after several long heartbeats, he said, “I’ll get her.” He turned toward the door and took a few steps.
“She knows I’m here.”
He turned back toward her and the early-morning sun filtered though the vines above his head and cut slashes of light across his eyes and the full crease of his mouth.
“I had to take her mother to the hospital,” Adele explained. “She’s still there.”
A single bead of sweat ran down his right temple. He raised his arm and wiped the side of his face with the short sleeve of his T-shirt. “You took her last night?”
“Yes.”
He dropped his arm to his side and lowered his gaze to the coffee stain on her sweater. “Nothing serious, I hope.”
“Not really,” she lied, and clenched her hands to keep from covering the stain. “I heard about Devon.”
He looked up. “Yes. She was killed in a car accident three years ago.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Shock number four. She’d actually said that without choking.
“Thank you.” He took a few steps toward her, and she had to remind herself to breathe. “The Junior League isn’t quite the same without her.” He bent forward and picked up the keys at her feet. “Or so they tell me.” He rose to stand, so close that the scent of his warm skin touched her nose. There had been a time when she would have breathed deep and sucked the scent of him deep into her lungs, but those days were long over. “I didn’t realize you live in Cedar Creek,” he said.
“I don’t. I’m just here until my sister has her baby.”
“When’s the baby due?”
When? He was so close that she took a step back and bumped into the trunk of her sister’s car. “Around Valentine’s day,” she answered.
“Four months.” He reached forward and grasped her wrists. He slid his warm palm to the back of her hand and turned it up. “That’s a long visit,” he said, and dropped her keys into her hand.
“Yes.” Her gaze lowered to their hands and the words “Carpe Diem” tattooed in bold script on the inside of his forearm from elbow to wrist. Unless he’d had it removed, he had a pair of interlocking tattooed Z’s circling his left biceps, too.
The heavy door to the house opened and shut behind Kendra and Tiffany, and Adele closed her hand and pulled it from his grasp. “Too long.” The girls moved from beneath the vine-covered walkway into the shade of the portico. “Did you find your shoes?” she asked, and purposely turned her attention to her niece.
Kendra nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Zemaitis. I had a really good time.”
“I’m sorry about your momma.” He took a few steps back, and Adele quickly slid around the side of the car. “Let us know if there is anything we can do for y’all.” His deep voice held a hint of a smile when he added, “It was nice to see you again, Adele.”
Adele reached for the door handle and looked across at him. His lips were curved up at the corners, but she couldn’t say that it was nice to see him. Beyond the shock of seeing him after so many years, she felt nothing. No lifting of her heart. No butterflies in her stomach or warm tingles at the backs of her knees. “Good-bye, Zach.” She joined Kendra in the car and refused to look into the rearview mirror until she pulled away. Through the glass, she caught one last glimpse of the man who’d once crushed her heart. He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and moved toward the house.
Adele returned her attention to the driveway and pulled out into the street. He’d been the first man with whom she’d had sex. She’d saved herself because she’d thought she had to be in love to make love. “Right.” She made a scoffing sound and reached for her sunglasses. She’d never made that mistake again. As she’d discovered in the past fourteen years, sometimes some of the best sex had nothing to do with love. Sometimes it was just a hot release of pent-up lust. Although lately, she wouldn’t know. Being cursed played hell with her sex life.
“Did anyone call Daddy?”
She slid the glasses on her face and glanced at Kendra. “I’m not sure.” But she doubted it. “Do you want to call him?”
Kendra shrugged. “I don’t know if he cares what happens to us.”
Adele turned her full attention to Kendra and issues more important than an old boyfriend, lack of sex, and curses. “I’m sure he cares what happens to you.”
“No.” Kendra shook her head. “I thought when he found out the baby was a boy, he’d want us all to live together again. But he only cares about Stormy.”
“Stormy.” Adele made a gagging sound and wrinkled her nose as if she’d smelled something rotten. “What a stupid name.”
“She’s a bitch.” Kendra glanced at Adele out of the corners of her eyes as if she expected to be reprimanded for swearing.
“Yeah. A bitch with a stupid name,” Adele added as she drove through the gates and out into the real world where the air was a bit easier to breathe.
“Momma says I shouldn’t hate anyone, but I hate Stormy.”
Adele reached for her water bottle between the two front seats and unscrewed the cap. Sherilyn had always tried to be so good. The perfect Southern lady and look where that had gotten her. Adele had never tried to be perfect like her sister, but she had always tried to be kind. To be thoughtful of other people, and look where that had gotten her. She took a long drink and replaced the cap. She might not be alone and pregnant, but she was alone and cursed with one bad date after another. “I hate a lot of things.” Being surprised by an old boyfriend was currently at the top of the list.
“I hate peas.” Kendra fiddled with the zipper pull of her backpack. “I hate Cedar Creek. It’s just so small.”
“True, but you’ve already made friends. Tiffany seems like a nice girl.” Which was true and also a surprise, given her mother. Although, Zach had always been polite. Sometimes sarcastically so. He’d once told her that the fear of three-hundred-pound linebackers was nothing compared to slipping with a curse word or being disrespectful in front of his mother.
It was nice to see you again, Adele, he’d said, but he was probably just being polite. Not that she cared.
Adele had lost her accent. A smile curved Zach’s lips. Well, she might have lost that Southern, melt-you-like-butter voice spilling from her full red mouth, but she was still as hot as all hell. Still had those long curls and turquoise eyes that looked slightly drowsy even when she was wide-awake. Still looked good in other places, too.
Zach dried his hair with a towel, then hung it on the heated towel rack in the bathroom. He grabbed his electric razor and walked into his bedroom. He had half an hour to get to his office at Cedar Creek High to review last night’s game tapes with the other coaches. He shaved as he dressed in blue boxers, a pair of Levi’s, and a Cougars Coaching Staff sweatshirt.
She hadn’t seemed very happy to see him, though. In fact, she’d been all fired up to leave. Which was probably for the best. He wasn’t the kind of guy who lived in the past or thought much about what might or could have been. He didn’t relive his glory days in the NFL, nor did he rehash his mistakes. God knows there’d been enough of those.
Zach pointed his chin to the ceiling and shaved just below his jaw. When he did look back on his life, he saw it in three distinct parts. Before the NFL, during, and his life now. He’d known Adele a few lifetimes ago, and he had little interest in a trip down memory lane. Especially with a woman who clearly wanted nothing to do with him.
He shut off his razor and tossed it on the dresser. She did look good, though. As beautiful as ever, and the front of her sweater had been real interesting. His smile tilted up a bit more. She’d obviously been cold.
“Daddy,” Tiffany called out a second before she knocked. Typical of her, she didn’t wait for an answer
before she stuck her head inside. “When ya gonna be back?”
“Probably around two.” He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on a pair of clean socks. The team needed to work more on their passing game now that Don was out for the rest of the season. Zach had a lot of tricks in his playbook and running the Pistol offense was one of them. He’d talk to the other coaches, but it was a lot easier to run play action out of the Pistol.
“Can I have a few friends over while you’re gone?”
“You need to put the living room back together while I’m gone.”
Tiffany’s shoulder slumped. “Daddy.”
He shoved his feet into his black Pumas and bent over to tie the laces. “And the television room is a mess. There are dirty cups and bowls all over the place.”
“We need a maid,” she said through a long, drawn-out sigh and folded her skinny arms over her skinny chest.
When Devon had been alive, they’d had a full-time maid. Now they had a maid service once a week. “No.” He stood. “We need you to pick up after yourself.”
“If I clean up, can I have a get-together?”
He moved to his dresser and slid his watch onto his wrist. “When and what kind?”
“Next weekend. The girls from my dance team.”
Twelve thirteen-year-olds. Twelve emotional thirteen-year-olds prone to high-pitched screaming and drama. Last summer, one of Tiffany’s friends had locked herself in the bathroom with a cell phone and had cried to her boyfriend all day. What was a thirteen-year-old girl doing with a boyfriend anyway? Zach would rather get kicked in the nuts than go through that again. “Next game is on Saturday in Midland. Kickoff ’s at one, so I’ll be leaving Friday sometime.”
“Is Leanna coming over?” she asked, referring to the neighbor girl Zach hired to stay with Tiffany when he had to go out of town.
“Yep.”
“Cool. Can I have my party Sunday? You’ll be home.”
“Honey,” he said through a sigh, “I’m goin’ to be tired, and you have school the next day.”
“You can sleep in, and I’ll do all the work.” She dropped her hands to her sides. The girl was relentless as her mother had been. “And I’ll make sure everyone is out of here early. Please, Daddy?”
He frowned, and she took it for a yes and bounced up and down on her heels with excitement. “If it’s nice, can we barbecue outside?” she asked.
“I doubt it will be that nice.” He moved across the room. “If it is, I don’t see why not.”
She put her palms together like she was praying and clapped her fingers. “Yay. Can I invite boys?”
He stopped and looked down into her face. She’d never shown any interest in boys before. “No. No boys.” He pointed a finger at her nose. “Ever.”
“Why?”
He continued out of the room and down the hall. Because he knew thirteen-year-old boys. He’d been one himself. “Stay away from boys.”
“You’re a boy.”
He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He didn’t want to talk about boys. Talking about boys would lead to talking about sex, and that was one conversation he didn’t want to have with his little girl. Not yet. She was too young. A few months ago they’d had the first bra conversation, and that had about killed him. “Your new friend Kendra seems nice,” he said, changing the subject.
“Yeah. I think she’s good enough to make the dance team.”
“Why’s her momma in the hospital?” He unscrewed the lid and took a drink.
“She has high blood pressure.”
Zach licked a drop of water from his lip. High blood pressure? It was obviously more serious than it sounded. “Did you talk to her aunt?”
“She was kinda weird.”
He looked down at the bottle. “Weird how?”
Tiffany shrugged. “Kind of in a hurry.”
He’d noticed that. He raised his gaze to his daughter. “Is she from Fort Worth, like Kendra and her mom?”
Tiffany shook her head. “She said she’s from Ohio. Des Moines, I think.”
“Honey, that’s Iowa.”
“Oh.”
He slowly screwed and unscrewed the cap. “Did she, a…mention if she’s married?” He hadn’t noticed a ring when he’d placed her keys in her palm, but that didn’t mean anything. For whatever reason, a lot of married people didn’t wear rings.
“She didn’t say.”
“Kids?”
“I don’t know.” A suspicious frown appeared between Tiffany’s eyes, and she looked just like Devon. “Why?”
Yeah. Why? Zach shrugged one shoulder and took a drink of water.
“You don’t think she’s cute, do you?”
Cute? Puppies were cute. Kittens were cute. Adele Harris was sexier than a row of pole dancers, and since it had been a long time since Zach had seen dancing of any kind, mattress, pole, or otherwise, that sounded pretty damn sexy to him. He lowered the bottle. “Sugar, I just like to know who Kendra’s people are,” he lied because some thoughts were better left in his own head.
Tiffany smiled. “Momma liked to know the same thing.”
Yeah, he knew that. Devon had been real big on people’s people.
Tiffany wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest above his heart. “I miss Momma, but I’ve got you, and we don’t need anyone else. Do we?”
He wrapped his arms around her skinny shoulders and pressed a kiss into the part of her light blond hair. “No,” he answered because he knew that’s what she needed to hear. No women with curly hair, turquoise-colored eyes, and interesting points on her sweater.
Chapter 4
“William finally called,” Sherilyn announced, as Adele walked into her hospital room Monday afternoon.
Adele set a vase of white daisies and blue carnations and a bag of Gummi Bears on the stand next to her bed. “It took him long enough,” she said as she fussed with the flowers. The hair at the back of her neck was still wet from her shower, and she’d thrown on a black-ribbed Van Dutch sweater and Lucky jeans after her five-mile jog.
She turned to look at her sister, propped up and wearing a white nightgown with lace trim at the throat and cuffs. She looked like Nicole Kidman, with her shiny blond hair pulled back into a smooth knot at the back of her neck, all slick and proper. She looked delicate and beautiful…except for the tired lines at the corners of her eyes and the puffiness in her face and hands. Both were symptoms of her toxemia and the irritability due to her headache caused by high blood pressure.
“What did he say?” Adele prompted.
“He wanted to know if there was anything he could do for me. I told him there was just one thing.” Sherilyn rested her hands on her rounded belly, and Adele hoped her sister hadn’t done something pathetic like grovel and beg. Adele would have called him an a-hole and hung up. Sherilyn probably hadn’t ever said “a-hole” in her life. She’d always been too busy trying to be a lady.
“What’s the one thing?” She picked up a gold plastic cup with one hand and a matching pitcher of ice water with the other.
“Well…I told him to go fuck himself.”
Adele gasped, and her hands stilled. The spout of the pitcher was inches from the cup. The woman in front of her looked like Sherilyn, but an alien must have taken over her sister’s body. Sherilyn would never drop the f-bomb.
“I know it’s really vulgar and ill-bred, but I’ve wanted to say if for a while now.” She slid her hands in circles over her belly as if she were caressing her baby. “Go fuck yourself, William.”
A woman in a fuzzy pink robe pushed an IV stand past the open door, and Adele composed herself enough to pour the water. She set the cup and pitcher on the tray, then placed her hand on Sherilyn’s forehead. Adele didn’t recall if the doctors had mentioned fever as a symptom of preeclampsia, but there was definitely something weird going on.
“I’m fine.” Sherilyn looked up into Adele’s face and pushed her arm away. �
��Well, except for the dangerously high blood pressure, headache, and puffiness.”
“I found your Handycam in a box with your computer,” Adele said, in an effort to take her sister’s mind off her troubles for a little while. She sat on the bed next to her sister’s hip and hooked the toe of her black leather pump behind her knee. “The batteries are all charged up and ready to record Kendra at dance-team tryouts.”
“I wish I could be there.”
“As soon as the tryouts are over, we’ll come here and watch them together.”
“Kendra’s had such a hard time. First her daddy leaves, and now this.” Sherilyn held her hands up and dropped them to her sides. So much for taking her mind of her troubles. “I made her leave her home and all her friends, and now she…”
She has to live with an aunt she doesn’t even know, Adele thought. “She’s making friends at school. Tiffany seems like a nice girl.”
“I hope so. Kendra needs a nice friend. You met Tiffany’s daddy Saturday, right?”
She’d met Tiffany’s daddy before Saturday. “Yeah.”
“What did you think of him?”
For the past few days, she’d been trying not to think of him. Not to think of the way he looked all hot and sweaty, strolling toward her, each step slow and easy. “He seemed okay.” She shrugged. “Why?”
“Kendra said that he’s the football coach over at Cedar Creek High and that he used to play professional ball. She couldn’t remember the team, but she said Tiffany showed her posters and bobble heads and football jerseys in glass cases.” Sherilyn leaned her head back against her pillow and sighed. “I guess he seems okay, but I always like to meet the parents of Kendra’s friends just to make sure she isn’t hanging out with children whose parents are too permissive.” A little frown appeared between her tired blue eyes. “A year ago we got crosswise when she befriended a little girl who didn’t have a curfew, dressed like Britney Spears, and was trying to grow up way too fast. Suddenly Kendra wanted to wear a short skirt and thong underwear.”
“I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, but I don’t think you have to worry about Tiffany.”
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