by Faith O'Shea
He flashed his eyes in her direction and she was tilting her head at him, her hair a fiery flame of curls around her face. She almost looked pretty.
“You’re looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind. You obviously have never watched Soap.”
He was beginning to think he’d lost his. She was causing more of a stir in his bloodstream than was warranted.
“What? Wash soap?”
She snorted. “Right, like I sit and watch a bar of soap for entertainment. It’s a TV show. There was a character who thought he became invisible when he snapped his fingers.”
“And you watched this?”
“Yeah, the reruns. With my father and sister. It was pretty funny. Their family was almost as dysfunctional as mine.”
“What did he do to become visible?”
She snapped again.
With tongue in cheek, he said, “There you are. I wondered where you’d gone.”
She burst out laughing, and after he’d poured and handed her a drink, she downed it in one swallow.
She was certainly not what she seemed.
“Rather than walking dogs, you should do this for a living. You’d make better money if you’re luck held out.”
Her smile lit up her face. “Nope. I only do it for fun.”
When he’d asked what she did for enjoyment, she might have told him this was one of those things. He would have been better prepared for the trouncing.
“Where did you learn? In school?”
“No. School wasn’t about having fun. It was another one of the ways my father, sister, and I passed the time waiting for my mother to return home from the lab.”
“What does your father do?”
“He’s a mathematician for the Department of Defense. My father, Patrick Barrows, crunches numbers by day, but one night a week, he plays cards with a bunch of his friends at one of the few remaining men’s clubs in the area. He has such an affinity for it, he could have been a hustler. I learned early that if I was going to hold my own against him, I had to keep my face as neutral as I could and learn how to finesse a bluff. I got better at it as I got older, but I never would have thought to use the skill in college. I didn’t have the time for that kind of nonsense.”
“Was your sister this good?”
“She’s a mathematician, too, so yeah.”
“Department of Defense?”
“No. High school math teacher.”
“Remind me never to play with any of you. I think I won maybe two hands all night.”
“Does this mean you’re quitting?”
“I’m all out of chips.”
“That’s the thing about fake money. I can split my earnings and share, or you can just take more and start again.”
“Would another hand improve my chances?”
“Doubt it, but who knows. Anything is possible.”
“Now it’s your cocky that seems to be surfacing.”
“There aren’t many areas where I can beat you. I have to admit, it feels good.”
He took his seat, began to stack the chips before sliding them into the circular holes.
“I don’t like losing.”
Now that they weren’t playing cards, she ripped open the bag of cheese curls and popped a couple in her mouth.
“Does anyone?”
“Probably not.”
“How did you handle it as a team last year?”
His eyes shot up. “I thought you didn’t watch baseball.”
“I don’t but if you live in this town, you know that nightly news means sports. If there was an explosion somewhere in the city and the Greenies, Red Sox, Celtics, blah, blah, blah, the list is endless, are playing, that’s the breaking story.”
“It’s an athlete’s dream city.”
“If you say so. I, for one, would prefer to hear what’s going on in the world that might impact my life.”
He’d taken the bag away and was eating his own fistful of the orange curls.
“Baseball is like life.”
She snorted. “And how do you figure that?”
“It’s where you end up that counts, it’s based on statistics but filled with anomalies, and it’s better to be on a team than alone. You can accomplish more.”
“Life isn’t based on statistics.”
“Sure it is. You can take any person, see where they come from, how they use their talents, who they hang around with, and statistically estimate where they’ll end up. It’s the anomalies that can change the trajectory of his or her life.”
She didn’t respond, just ate another handful of the curls and finished the water she’d brought in with her.
He leaned forward, wanting her to understand his passion. Wanting, for some reason, for her to share in it, too.
“It’s a game based on mechanics, science, gravity, velocity, experiencing what the body can do in a number of ways. When I get a ball hit toward me, I might have to stretch to my right, pivot, and throw, making sure the ball is on target with the first baseman’s glove. You also have to read the ball correctly. How fast is it moving? Where do I have to be to prevent it from making it into the outfield? Will it bounce away from me, and if it does, which direction will it bounce in and can I get there in time? If I’m on first and want to steal second, what is the exact moment I should begin my run?”
“Will your stats tell me how well you do all of that?”
He slumped back.
“Not my most recent. No.”
“You’ve concluded that you need to get married to change that. It’s not something that a little discipline would correct?”
“When men get married, they can take their mind off conquests. They have somewhere to go at the end of a hard day, to a home-cooked meal and a woman in their bed every night.”
“You need your hunger to be satisfied. Is that it?”
“I guess, in a way. That is true.”
“And hunger for a game well played isn’t enough?”
He met here eyes. Her curiosity seemed genuine, so he didn’t know why he felt she was mocking him.
“After Reid married my sister, his life improved. So did his game.”
“It had nothing to do with Izabella?”
“Yes, everything to do with her.”
“Then it wasn’t the marriage. It was the woman.”
She rose from her chair, rolled the top of the cheese curl bag closed, and turned toward the kitchen to put it away. When she reached the doorway, she glanced back and added, “I’m not sure you can find that in any search. I think it finds you.”
Her last words lingered in his mind long after she’d made her exit.
He went to his room as soon as he’d returned the playing cards and chips to their proper place.
After stripping down to his boxers, he lay on the bed, his arms under his head.
Fifi was wrong.
It was marriage that did it. Look at his father. He’d spent years with Izabella’s mother but never married. It was only when he found Livia that he pledged himself. It was the sanctity of the vows that made them one, and the family that followed.
He had a family with Julianna. It wasn’t enough to hold him.
He always thought one woman was the same as the next. It was true that they needed to meet a
certain criteria in looks, manners, upbringing, and domestic skills but what else did he need?
He had friends, he had money, he had fame.
CHAPTER FOUR
Fiona was back in the bedroom chair reading, as if she’d never been interrupted, hadn’t spent several hours playing cards with an oversized juvenile, or been disillusioned by his attitude toward women. He made it sound as if one woman was the same as the next. Could he be that clueless or that shallow? Or even worse, could he really mean it? Or maybe the women he chose to date were interchangeable, so much the same that he couldn’t tell the difference.
She tried to imagine what his regular date would look like.
Long dark hair that w
as straight naturally, dark eyes, an alluring figure, a gentile voice, and good manners. She’d probably have to like baseball, at least enough to go to his games without feeling tortured. Could she dance? Yes, that would be important. Rique was a sleek animal and she had a feeling he excelled at it. She remembered seeing snatches of the wedding video from the Izabella and Reid’s wedding. He was moving sensually across the floor with a woman who fit her imagined version perfectly. He’d looked roguish in his tux, and she’d spent more than an extra minute admiring his form.
Fine, the woman would be stunning, but would she have an original thought in her head or would all she need to win him over, be an adoring smile and lush body?
She snapped the book closed.
Men were strange creatures. It’s why she stayed away from them. Not that she’d been on a lot of dates or held some secret aversion to the male sex. There’d been one boyfriend in high school, a couple in college and beyond, but nothing that lasted more than a few months. She’d been too busy or too bright or too consumed with her schooling and post-graduate work to waste time feeding the male ego. And from what she’d seen they needed it spoon fed.
One guy had dropped her after she scored higher than he did on one of the projects they’d been assigned. Another had dumped her for a cheerleader. None of them had touched her heart, so it hadn’t been any big deal. She was a solitary creature by nature, didn’t need socialization the way others did. When she was in the lab, she forgot about the rest of the world. It’s where her passion lay, and she didn’t have much left for anything or anyone else.
Her mother wasn’t a great role model on the family front. Clare had made only a sliver of room in her life for a husband and kids. Most of her time was spent in her lab, which she called her home. It was decorated more in line with Clare’s taste than their real one was. Her mother was consumed with the earth and the exterior world, an expert in her chosen field, a tenured professor of geological studies at Penn State, who’d written books deemed brilliant by her peers. Fiona had spent a lot of her time in that lab while she was growing up and could have easily followed in Clare’s impressive footsteps, but she tired of the earthquakes and sediments, and the stifling procedures and protocols her mother used. She’d certainly inherited the right chromosomes, the right genetic code for the sciences, and strove for the same kind of excellence, but she’d been attracted to the opposite end of the science spectrum. She’d studied the human body and all the amazing, nitty-gritty details of how it worked. It was a magnificent organism, with a complexity that constantly staggered her imagination. Discoveries were being made every day, and she loved playing the part of investigator as new mysteries emerged.
Her mother wasn’t sure she had the aptitude for it, had taken a wait-and-see attitude about her talents. It had taken more than an undergrad degree for Fiona to establish herself as a scientist in Clare’s eyes. It had taken her dissertation to prove she could think for herself, not performing experiments around a well-versed subject but developing a thesis of her own. It had been a terrifying time and she’d almost quit before she was finished, the ten-hour days, seven days a week, wearing her down. Not wanting to make that call to her mother had forced her to stay the course. It hadn’t helped that she decided to forego the suggested year or two off between course loads but dove right into her doctorate program. She was afraid the sabbatical would become a permanent ending to her studies, that working in the real world of research might keep her too busy, too involved to go back to the grind of proving some specialized point to a panel of judges. Unfortunately, it was a requirement if her end goal was her own lab. She’d investigated her options, spent time in various labs, chatted with other students and when accepted to the program of choice, found an advisor whose personality meshed with hers. Researching, testing samples, lecturing, assisting, and writing lab reports had eaten away all the hours in the days, months, and five years it had taken her to complete the program. She’d been judged in glowing terms on her thesis and had been awarded her PhD this past November. It might all be for naught. Her age might be a disqualifier. Employers were looking for experience, something she had in short supply.
Now that she was through, would she make time for other things? Or would she be like her mother, and install herself behind the walls of some lab? She honestly couldn’t remember how she’d filled her days before her devotion to science had consumed her. Was there ever a time it hadn’t? She’d always been intrigued by how systems worked, the rules and patterns that governed them. It meant there was always a research project on her desk, whether it was some school project or something of personal interest. She’d gone through a stage where all she did was build a house of cards to see how high she could make it. In another, she’d taken up a variety of instruments to study the way they sounded, and why. They were all solitary pursuits, taken up to pass the time, waiting for her mother to come home, waiting to form a friendship, waiting to finish school, waiting to get her degree, waiting to be offered a job. Soon she’d have everything she’d worked for and she needed to try for some balance, more connections and interactions.
Enrique was in the hunt for a mate.
Would she ever look for a man to fill the nights or would she be satisfied with her test tubes, microscopes, and computer printouts?
There’d be no need to navigate the globe like her mother had. No need to explore fault lines or earthquake epi-centers, which was how they’d spent part of every summer. She might be well traveled, but she’d never seen the glittering lights of the major cities. Her mother’s work took them to remote places where she’d probed the earth’s surface. Today Clare was investigating the results of fracking, a landmine of opinions already under foot, but if she had to wager who’d win, it would be Clare hands down. Her mother had a way with words that made complicated material, understandable. When she presented a paper, it would be clear and concise and the least knowledgeable among her listeners would walk away with a depth of understanding they hadn’t gone in with.
She wanted no part of that, but it came with the territory. She’d have to give presentations and fight for grants and funding if she wanted to hold her own in the world of academia. Her lab would provide the environment she needed to gain insight into fighting disease.
Now if she could just find one that wanted her…
Her next important interview wasn’t until a week from Friday out in the western part of the state. She’d have to bide her time, keep her nervous agitation to herself and keep calm and carry on. What was going to make that more difficult than she’d originally thought was the man-child down the hall. She was beginning to be comfortable with him. It helped that she felt somewhat superior. He thought she was a dog walker by profession. That was laughable but she liked him thinking she was beneath him. He wasn’t trying to one-up her.
She still couldn’t get his looks out of her mind. He was such a tempting morsel of male flesh.
She’d glanced up at him from time to time while they were playing cards, when he was deep in concentration. He looked a lot like Izabella, and she determined that they’d gotten a lot of the same genetic material from their father. He had to be the source of their common attributes. They were prime examples of the law of segregation, where offspring have the same chance of inheriting a particular allele, an alternative form of gene, from a parent. She didn’t even have to meet their father to know he was a handsome man, with dark hair and eyes and a Galican skin tone that tanned well. That two of his offspring carried his most dominant genes wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. The random separation of chromosomes meant traits were passed on independently, and each child had the same chance of inheriting them as another. It was often compared to the flip of a coin. Their eyes were their mothers’ contribution, but they gave her too little to go on to gain a clear picture of what they looked like. Clare had passed on her nose to both daughters, Patrick his eyes and there was a recessive gene going back a couple of generations that gave her her hair. No one c
ould have predicted that.
When her phone rang, she reached over to grab it off the nightstand.
Speak of the devil.
It was her mother. Even though it was after midnight, Clare knew she’d be awake. Their calls always took place between the hours of eleven p.m. and one a.m. Her mother was out of the lab and on her way home. Not liking the thirty-minute drive home in silence, she’d use the time to catch up with one of her daughters. It was apparently her turn.
Without even a greeting, Clare got right to it.
“How did it go?”
“Not as well as I would have liked.”
She pressed her lips together and braced for the repercussions of the truth.
“Why? What question caught you off guard?”
She was prepared for that question. It was always the first, why being the scientific basis for all things.
“The one about being too young for this kind of plum assignment.”
“Bullocks. You’re more qualified than people ten years older than you are. And your dissertation speaks volumes.”
Fiona pulled her legs up under her and rested her head against the back, letting her eyes flutter shut.
“Wish you were the one interviewing me for the position.”
There was a clicking sound that told her Clare was thinking. No matter how many times she’d been told about the irritating trait, she couldn’t seem to stop it.
“Just pretend I am. Just remind them that youth brings energy and a fresh perspective. And anyone who can finish the PhD process by twenty-five deserves kudos, not deprecation.”
It was her mother’s doing that put her in this quandary.
“Sometimes I think you did me a disservice with the double promoting thing.”
She’d been too smart for her own good sometimes.
“I should have done the same thing with Siobhan, but I didn’t know any better first time around. You were challenged rather than bored.”
Challenged in so many ways, Mom.
Two years younger than anyone in class when she got to high school. There was a mile of developmental distance at that age. It’s when solitary became her way of life. And college at sixteen meant lots of nights left back at the dorm.