Sloan felt almost as if he were the last man on earth. A little more than forty-five minutes lay between him and his Buckhead town house, but he was reluctant to turn on the car stereo. Somehow, the silence was much more welcome. And certainly more conducive to thinking, of which, Sloan figured, he had a lot to do. So he drove on in silence and thought about the evening he had just spent with Naomi and her daughters, and how very odd the whole occasion had been.
The first reason why it had been odd was because he didn’t normally visit anyone who had children. Especially four of them. Especially ranging in age from four to sixteen. Few members of Sloan’s social circle were even married, let alone procreating. He wasn’t ever around children, ergo he wasn’t ever comfortable with them. Ergo, he should have felt wholly uncomfortable in the Carmichael home, surrounded as he had been, by such utterly alien creatures. But he hadn’t felt uncomfortable at all. On the contrary, all of the Carmichaels had made him feel quite welcome. And it hadn’t just been the children who were alien, he thought further. Because Naomi, too, was unlike any other woman he had ever met.
Which brought him to the second reason why his encounter had been so odd. Simply put, Sloan didn’t generally spend hours talking to women. Certainly he’d never lost track of those hours by talking. No, he spent hours doing other things with women—he’d even lost track of hours doing those other things with women—but never talking. He only talked extensively to women who were his co-workers—though he didn’t lose track of the time in those cases. And with his women co-workers, he had no desire whatever to do those other things he might spend hours—and losing track of the time—doing with another woman. With Naomi Carmichael, however, who was, in a sense a co-worker…
Well, suffice it to say that, at some point during the evening—Sloan wasn’t sure when, exactly—he’d realized that talking wasn’t the only thing he wouldn’t mind doing with her.
Enter odd reason number three. Sloan just didn’t go for women like Naomi. Ever. He dated women who were ultrafeminine, ultra-attentive to their physical appearance, ultrasuccessful in their chosen fields, and ultra-aware of him as a man. He did not go for women who were nearly as tall—and every bit as athletic—as he was, or women who favored a wardrobe of sweats—even when entertaining guests in their homes—or women who worked in less-than-desirable surroundings—like Jackson High School—or women who seemed no more aware of him as a man than they were aware of the living room carpet as a man.
Not once had Naomi Carmichael offered Sloan any sort of come-hither come-on this evening, yet in spite of that, he’d been more than a little aware of her as a woman. In fact, he’d been very aware of her as a woman. Too aware. Even though she didn’t seem to be aware of her own womanhood at all herself. Even though she’d been dressed almost identically to him. Even though she pulled in an income that was only a fraction of his own. Even though she was someone’s mom. Four someones’ mom. The realization of such things hadn’t swayed him at all in finding her very attractive.
Stranger still was the fact that she had revealed to him such personal things about herself and her past—and that Sloan had encouraged her to reveal such personal things—and he hadn’t once felt uncomfortable during the exchange. Which, he thought, pretty much amounted to odd reason number four.
Comfort, he reflected again. That was what it all seemed to come back to. He had just been comfortable in a place, and with people, and in a situation, where he should have felt remarkably uncomfortable. But he hadn’t felt uncomfortable at all. What was likewise curious was that now that Sloan had felt the comfort of the Carmichael home, he realized how much comfort had been missing in his own. Even his own home, after years in residence there, hadn’t ever felt as comfortable to him as one evening spent in the home occupied by Naomi and her daughters.
Wherein lay odd reason number five.
Even after knowing her a matter of hours, Sloan realized that, simply put, he liked Naomi. He liked her a lot. He also liked her daughters. He couldn’t imagine what kind of an idiot her husband must have been to have left such a family behind. Ah, well, he thought further. Who was he to try to understand the mysterious behavior of others, when his own was nothing short of bizarre?
It was going to be an interesting month, he couldn’t help thinking further. And for some reason, he suddenly found himself looking forward to lending a hand to the Lady Razorbacks. He only hoped he could stop at a hand. Especially when so many of his other body parts seemed to be so interested in their coach.
Oh, yes. An interesting month indeed.
Chapter 6
Thursday evening was an almost identical repeat of the previous Tuesday, right down to little Sophie’s wanting to introduce Sloan to more very useful engines—which, he had to admit, he enjoyed immensely. He hadn’t played with trains—or any other toy, for that matter—since he was a boy, and he’d forgotten how much fun it could be to just lose a little time, a little reality, playing make-believe. Games of pretend were such a big part of little lives, he reminded himself. And it was just too bad that, when their lives got “big,” people tended to forget about the importance of things like that. Sophie, though, was remarkably adept at reminding Sloan of a lot of the things he should remember.
All of the Carmichael girls were, really, he realized very quickly. Evy and Katie’s single-minded focus on basketball reminded Sloan of what it was like to choose a goal and pursue it relentlessly until it was achieved. He hadn’t done anything like that himself since college. His goals always seemed to change from one day to the next, and he often abandoned one goal before achieving it because another came along that seemed more important. Then he’d abandon that goal, too, for something else that took his fancy. In fact, he couldn’t recall the last time one thing had been more important to him than anything else in the world. And Ginny’s breathless preoccupation with boys reminded Sloan what it was like to fall in love for the very first time. And the second time. And the third time. And how every single time seemed to be more passionate and unbearable than the time before.
Even by that second night, the Carmichael women were already getting under his skin, he thought, as he watched them all abandon their places at the dinner table to move into what looked like a well-orchestrated evening tradition of cleanup and homework rituals. And as the younger Carmichaels retreated to their respective roles, Sloan and Naomi once more retreated to the living room to enjoy coffee and conversation. In fact, the only difference tonight over Tuesday night was that when Sloan once more found himself seated in Naomi’s very comfortable living room with a very comfortable Naomi, he was the one who ended up imparting bits of himself and his past to her. As the evening wore on and the coffee ran out, they once again forgot about talking basketball strategy and the conversation instead took a turn for the personal. Sloan’s personal.
He told her about growing up in Atlanta, but he found himself skirting the subject of his family. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of them—on the contrary, he was proud of his parents’ and his younger brother’s accomplishments and status, and his own, in the community. But somehow, Sloan wasn’t comfortable—there was that word again—discussing his family’s wealth and prominence with Naomi, who seemed to be struggling, though succeeding fairly well, just to get by. Too, he honestly didn’t think his own background and family made for conversation that was all that interesting. So instead he focused vaguely on his childhood and education, less generally on his decision to go into law, and more specifically on the job he performed now.
And, much to his delight, he did uncover a few more things about Naomi, too—but only because he had to consciously turn the topic of conversation to her whenever she seemed intent on steering it back to him. He learned about her own upbringing in a small town in South Carolina, about her three older brothers—no sisters—about how she’d lost her mother to cancer when she was six, and about how she couldn’t deny that much of her athleticism had come about not just because she was so surrounded by males while growing up, but
also because she wanted to keep herself as healthy as possible—especially now, so that her girls wouldn’t experience a loss as deep as her own.
And as Sloan listened to her talk, he realized something very important about Naomi Carmichael. She was a doer. A doer and a get-doner. And she relied on no one—no one but herself—to do and get done. And although he couldn’t help but admire the quality, something about it being so present in Naomi bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Because suddenly, he kind of liked the idea of lending a hand, and not just to the Lady Razorbacks.
Which was crazy, he told himself. Not only did Naomi clearly not welcome such things into her personal life, but she wasn’t a woman suited to him. And even if she had been a woman suited to him, she had four—four—children. No matter which way a man looked at it, there was just no getting around that. Whatever strange attraction he might be feeling for her—and the attraction was, most definitely, strange—it was totally out of character for him, and, he knew, utterly temporary.
He reminded himself that in a month’s time, his obligation to Naomi and the Lady Razorbacks would be over. He would have no reason to come to Wisteria, and over time, this strange attraction would go away. If he acted on it, it would only make things more difficult when the time came to tell Naomi goodbye. And it would distract them both from the matter which had brought them together in the first place—coaching a basketball team that was poised for the state championship.
Not that Naomi had offered any strong indication that she would welcome any acting on his part, anyway, Sloan reminded himself further. Still, he couldn’t deny that there was something buzzing in the air between them. He had no idea what, precisely, it was. But he could tell from the way he caught her looking at him sometimes that Naomi felt it, too. Even if she was as unwilling to act upon it as he was.
Which, of course, was good, he told himself. Because he was unwilling to act on it, too. And that was why, in the days and evenings and weeks that followed, Sloan made damned sure he kept his attraction to Naomi to himself. Nevertheless, in the days and evenings and weeks that followed, it somehow became a custom for Sloan to have dinner at the Carmichael home after each Tuesday and Thursday night practice. And also, in the days and evenings and weeks that followed, somehow—and Sloan honestly had no idea how—his attraction to Naomi only multiplied.
He told himself after each of their encounters that he only imagined the magnitude of his fascination with her. And then, just about the time he started believing himself in that regard, he would see Naomi again. And the fascination would be there once more, stronger than ever, mocking him.
It made no sense. Here was a woman he saw primarily during athletic encounters, during which time they were both dressed in ragged workout clothes, and during which time they both did a lot of yelling and sweating, yet every time he saw her, the pull Sloan felt for her grew a little bit stronger, a little bit tighter, a little bit more urgent. She was just so strong, so commanding, so admirable. There was no way a man could ever not find her fascinating. But there was no way—no way—Sloan could allow himself to act on that fascination.
No matter how badly he might want to.
Finally, though, on their last night coaching together—the Lady Razorbacks’ regular assistant coach would return to his duties the following week, just in time for the start of the state tournament—Sloan felt like he had to do something. His time with Naomi was almost over, he reminded himself. There would be no reason for him to come back to Wisteria, though he did have every intention of attending the tournament games to see how the girls fared. He had to. Not just because he had a vested interest in their performance, but because he’d become rather attached to several of them. Especially, he couldn’t help thinking, the Carmichael girls.
So, as had happened on every previous Tuesday or Thursday night over the past four weeks, on the final Thursday night of Sloan’s coaching duties, four weeks after that first Tuesday night, he ended up staying much too late at Naomi’s house. Because, as had been the case on all the evenings that had come before it, the conversation and the surroundings—and the company—were just too appealing for him to conjure the desire to leave. Finally, though, reluctantly, he did make himself get up off of the sofa and head for the front door. But not before finalizing plans he felt it necessary for both of them to make.
“So, what are you doing this weekend?” he asked as he pulled open the front door, preparing to leave.
Obviously perplexed by the question, Naomi arrowed her dark eyebrows downward and studied him with much confusion. “This weekend?” she echoed.
He nodded. “Yeah, I thought maybe the two of us could get together this weekend and talk about the team and the tournament,” he reminded her. “I mean, I know your regular assistant coach is coming back next week for the tourney, but until then, I still feel like I need to contribute something.”
“Oh,” she replied, still sounding a little puzzled. Then, before Sloan could suggest a place for them to meet, she hurried on, “I, ah, I—I can’t do this weekend. I, um, I have a…uh, a…um, a thing. A thing that I, um…that I need to go to.”
Sloan eyed her warily, wondering at her sudden attack of nerves. Over the last four weeks, he’d never seen her anything except cool, calm and collected—except, of course, for those few unguarded moments when he’d caught her gazing at him in a way that was warm, wanton and wistful. Why, suddenly, was she blushing and stammering and looking at everything in the room except him?
“A thing?” he repeated dubiously.
She nodded quickly, and, he couldn’t help thinking, not a little anxiously. “Yeah. A, ah…a thing. This weekend. I have a definite, um, thing. To go to, I mean. A really important thing. A thing I can’t get out of.” Seemingly as an afterthought, she added, “I’m sorry.”
Sloan told himself not to take it to heart, the fact that she was so obviously giving him the brush-off. Clearly, she had no thing. Clearly, what she did have was a reluctance to see him in any capacity other than the one she’d seen him in for the last month. She was trying to tell him politely that she didn’t want to see him outside the realm of coaching, even if, ostensibly, the whole point to getting together would be to discuss coaching. He told himself to be big about it and let her off the hook. For some reason, though, he couldn’t let it go that easily.
Feeling playful—and boy, before making Naomi’s acquaintance, had it been a long time since Sloan had felt playful—he asked, “What kind of thing?”
Her eyes widened in panic at the question. “Um, you know, a…a thing.”
“An important thing,” he said, recalling her earlier, if vague description, and trying not to smile at how easily he’d cornered her, and at how uncomfortable she became when she was cornered. This could potentially be a lot of fun. And man, it had been a long, long time since Sloan had had a lot of fun. Then again, he reflected, he’d had a lot of fun over this last month, hadn’t he? With all the Carmichael women, come to think of it. But before that, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any real fun.
“Right,” she told him. “An important thing. A really important thing.”
“And where, exactly, is this important thing to be held?” he asked. “Here in Wisteria?”
She seemed to give the question some thought—for a full two or three seconds, at least, Sloan noted—then shook her head quickly. “No, not here in town. Somewhere else.”
“Where?” he persisted.
Looking more panicked with every passing second, she told him, “It’s, um, it’s much too far. It’s in, uh… It’s in, um… It’s ah…Atlanta,” she finally told him. “I have a thing in Atlanta.”
Immediately after saying it, she must have realized her faux pas, because she squeezed her eyes shut tight in obvious distress. Sloan smiled devilishly, knowing her reaction came about because she realized she had just played right into his hands. And it was with no small effort that he kept himself from laughing outright.
“
Really?” he said with much interest. “Atlanta? Well, you’ll be right in my backyard. This is perfect. We can meet for dinner with no problem. In fact,” he added, hoping he wasn’t laying it on too thick, “I just remembered I have a thing this weekend, too. Maybe it’s close to where your thing is.”
She eyed him very suspiciously at that.
“Really,” he said. “I have a thing this weekend.” And in that moment, he made definite plans to have a thing that very weekend, just so he wouldn’t be lying to her. Unlike some people he knew. “What day is your thing?”
She narrowed her eyes some more. “Saturday?” she said.
He expelled a sound of utter incredulity. “Mine, too,” he told her, doing his absolute best not to do or say anything that might spoil his total solemnity. “Wow. That really is a coincidence. So where exactly in Atlanta is your thing going to be?” he asked further.
She parted her lips fractionally, as if she wanted to say something, but had no idea what. “Well, where’s your thing?” she asked, turning the tables.
Sloan pulled a site out of thin air. “At the Four Seasons Hotel,” he told her.
She nodded with—dare he say it?—relief. “Oh, see, that’ll be a problem, because my thing is on the other side of town, at the San Moritz.”
Hoping he really wasn’t pouring it on too thick now, Sloan opened his hand and smacked his palm resolutely against his forehead. “That’s what I meant to say. The San Moritz. I always get that mixed up with the Four Seasons. But what I meant to say was the San Moritz. That’s where my thing is, too.” He smiled. “We must be going to the same thing.”
Naomi continued to eye him with much suspicion, but she didn’t say a word. Oh, she opened her mouth to do so—several times, in fact—but no words ever actually emerged.
“So what’s your thing?” Sloan asked mischievously.
She smiled—devilishly, if he wasn’t mistaken, something that made his own smile fall a bit. “It’s a meeting of the Clemson University Alumni, Georgia chapter,” she told him smugly. “Guess we’re not going to the same thing after all, since you went to Vanderbilt.”
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 21