The Sweetheart Game

by Cheryl Ann Smith

  A face and body that launched a dozen stalkers.

  Check.

  The idea made sense, but using sex appeal to nab his interest made her twitch. She’d fought to be taken seriously all her life. This was a huge step backward in female advancement.

  What kept her focused was an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the typical American male, and what made them tick: beer, hoagies, and sex. And not in that order.

  If the man was indeed the dangerous felon she expected he was, then she’d need to up her game to catch him before anyone else was hurt. Being a computer expert with a track record of finding terrorists and criminals was something she could do well. Catching one face-to-face in her own neighborhood was beyond her usual skill set.

  Look at this like you’re going undercover. She snapped the black spandex running shorts over her thong-covered butt. Adding a florescent green tank top over a pink sports bra finished her outfit and she was almost ready to set the trap.

  Borrowing sugar to meet a guy was another cliché and she didn’t want to look like a desperate single woman looking for a hook-up. An accidental meeting was better.

  “If you want to hook a man, show the goods and they’ll come running.” Or so her Aunt Candy said. Candy was forty-two and well past the expiration date of your usual pole dancer. However, Candy was still a top biller at The Foxy Tail and known worldwide for her acrobatics on stage. She knew how to wrap her feet behind her head while clinging to the pole, and she knew men.

  Summer’s mother, Tammy, was the same as her sister. They both played suckers for gifts and cash and took pride in all sorts of bad behavior; much to the horror of her daughters.

  No wonder Summer had cut loose that DNA link at her first opportunity. Yet, they were right on this one thing. Beauty had its advantages.

  Staring in the mirror, she took comfort knowing she was dressed like any other runner without a trace of stripper or hooker. She’d packed her fifties pinup girl body into a cute little spandex running outfit, twisted her blonde hair into a loose ponytail, and slid into her newly purchased running shoes. Although she hated running as a rule, the ten yards she had to cover between her house and the criminal’s was doable. She’d barely work up a lip sweat.

  “I wonder if your grandfather knows what you’re up to, Jason Parker?” she said as she went downstairs. There was no other person the gravedigger could be. It was his garden. And she was sure the face she saw in the moonlight was his.

  She tried to imagine sweet Mr. Nealy knowingly harboring a wanted felon and dismissed the notion.

  Not a chance. Then again, people sometimes acted against character for family. A beloved grandson would fit.

  Since discovering grandson Jason on that video yesterday, she’d plotted his capture and how many bonus game points she’d get for a hands-on arrest. But before she got ahead of herself, she needed to confirm that she had the right man. The only way to do that was to get up close and personal with her suspect.

  “You can do this.” Straightening her shoulders, she inhaled deeply. “Go get him.”

  First she checked to make sure the big blue truck she’d seen in the driveway over the last few days was there. Yes. With, that, she left her house.

  The warm sun hit her in the face as she trotted down the steps and onto the sidewalk for a couple of thigh stretches to add realism. Then she jogged to where her sidewalk and the public sidewalk turned into a T and veered left.

  Was sunlight always so bright in the spring? She needed to get out of her cave more.

  Slap, slap, slap went her shoes on concrete for two yards or so then came time to set the plan into motion. She only had about thirty feet to work with before she passed the house.

  “Go.” Find a crack in the walk. That was easy. Sidewalks in this part of the city were old. Twist her left ankle. Fall. Yelp, “Ouch!” Roll helplessly in the grass.

  Summer hated feeling helpless but she rolled around anyway. What man could resist a damsel in distress? Disney made a bajillion bucks on the premise alone. “Oh, my ankle!” she cried out and grabbed for the faux-injured body part.

  So far, so good.

  Drape the back of her hand dramatically across her forehead as if the evil and mustachioed Snidely Whiplash had tied her to a train track and she couldn’t break free. Awkwardly arch backward to cause breasts to press enticingly against the scooped neckline of her sports bra. Wait for rescue. Check and check and check.

  Then, nothing.

  Whimper. Louder.

  Glance discreetly at the house.

  Feel like an idiot. Big check.

  Openly gawk at Jason’s windows for telltale curtain flutters. Tamp down growing frustration and images of failure.

  There was no sign of the man anywhere. Surely he had to come to the window and look out. How could he miss the show?

  Perhaps he was hard of hearing or just dense. Her kiddy pageant days had taught her to act like nobody’s business. She’d always gotten high marks for playing to her audience and Tammy had the trophies to prove her daughter’s skills. Why then wasn’t the drama working?

  Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Summer lifted her eyes and peered around for the man with big shoulders from last night. Instead of Jason the grandson, she saw a boy of approximately fifteen barreling down on her at a high rate of speed on a fire-engine-red bike. He wore no helmet. Worse, he was staring up at a squirrel doing a high wire act across the street on a power line and was headed straight for her.

  Her stomach plummeted.

  “Watch out!” she cried out. Panicked, she pushed onto her elbow and rolled to her side to avoid the crash, causing her right breast to attempt an escape. The boy finally looked down beneath a fringe of greasy black hair and caught sight of her double Ds figuratively going over the prison wall of spandex to freedom. The teen started, sending his bike reeling past her at an angle as he rolled off the walk and smashed into a fire hydrant with a sickening crunch.

  “Oh, no!” she cried.

  He flew forward, did a roll-twist and landed on his back in the grass next to the curb. His feet splayed out into the street and his left foot twitched inside a red Converse sneaker. A motorcyclist swerved to miss him and barely managed to remain upright as he jerked sideways to avoid an impact.

  “Owwwwww!” Bike kid yelled and drew up into a fetal position. “It hurts! Bad!” The way he clutched himself, she was sure of internal damage.

  “Shoot!” Summer scrambled to her feet, hopped on one leg, shot a glance at the killer’s house, and gave up the ruse. She raced to the teen boy and leaned over to look into his pale and orange-freckled face. “Are you hurt?”

  He mumbled something that sounded like “erglet.” Worried he’d suffered a massive skull fracture that mangled the speech lobe, she dropped to her knees, reached across him, and weaved her fingers in his unwashed hair; looking for blood and gray brain matter.

  “What’s your name? What year is this?” She lifted his head slightly, careful in case of spine damage, and checked the back of his skull. “Can you move?” No blood wetted her fingertips and his skull felt intact. “Don’t move.”

  Thank goodness for tough male skulls. Everything seemed intact. “We’re going to get you an ambulance.” Could she leave him while she went home for her cell phone?

  Guilt poured through her. This was all her fault. What if he died? What if her face was the last he’d see?

  The kid sighed, the sound like a death rattle. She looked back into his face and braced herself, expecting to see the light of life go out of his pale blue eyes. Instead he was gawking down her cleavage with a stupid grin on his face.

  From behind her she heard hurried feet. Her neighbors, the Crosbys, from across the street, dropped to their knees on the kid’s other side. They were a middle-aged couple wearing matching tennis whites.

  “We called an ambulance,” Mel said. He filled in his bald spots with burnt umber hair in a can and Mary occasionally didn’t wear pants to collect the newspaper, b
ut they were decent neighbors and Mary was friendly.

  Mary put a small gold-tasseled throw pillow under the kid’s head. She looked pale and shaky. “Is he breathing?”

  “His eyes are open, sweetie,” Mel said. “He’s alive.”

  “Barely,” said a weak and shaky teen voice. He stared up at Summer as though someone was calling him to walk toward the light and Summer was at the end of the hallway to heaven wearing a red string bikini. “I may need mouth-to-mouth.”

  Ewwww! Summer scrambled back and up to her feet.

  The kid wasn’t about to give up. “This was her fault. She flashed her boobs and made me crash!” He coughed like a lung was coming up. “I think she should give me CPR!”

  “I didn’t do anything! There was no flashing! He must have hit a bump and fell! He should be wearing a helmet!” she said as the crowd began to congregate. Some were staring at her accusingly as if she was the neighborhood exhibitionist. “I think he has a concussion!”

  Had she been seen through windows making an idiot out of herself? If Jason saw the whole faked sprained ankle thing or the crash, he wasn’t showing his face. Maybe he was offing someone in his basement and was distracted?

  The ambulance rounded the corner and pulled up. A pair of EMTs dressed in official looking blue polyester uniforms and sensible black shoes, climbed out and hurried over clutching medical bags. They appeared efficient as they slapped a neck brace on the kid and checked him for a pulse.

  Thankfully, the crowd found something more interesting to occupy them than speculating on the impropriety of Summer’s behavior; the kid’s survival chances. A pair of men in Detroit Lions shirts took bets and dollar bills changed hands.

  Poor teen boy was making the most of his five minutes of fame. By the time he was loaded on a stretcher and according to his groaning and moaning, he didn’t have a single unbroken bone in his body and was certain that his damaged liver was flooding his chest cavity with icky fluids.

  The gurney slid into the open ambulance doors and his head popped up off the pad. He swung out a pointer finger right at Summer, and shouted. “I want her to ride with me! It’s my dying wish!”

  Dozens of eyes swung around.

  And then his mother arrived.

  Summer bolted backward before someone pushed her into the ambulance. The siren sounded and, thankfully, the neighbors turned back to watch it go.

  Time to flee! She lurched sideways, hit a small decorative planter on the corner of Mr. Nealy’s yard, and went down. Hard.

  Darn yard art!

  She writhed in the grass, biting her tongue so as not to draw attention from the neighbors and clutched her formerly only fake-hurt ankle. Darn! Darn! Darn! If she was a swearer, she’d be cussing like a trucker right about now.

  “Ouch,” she whimpered. Her ankle really, really hurt! Just when she thought she’d have to drag herself back into her house, a savior arrived wearing beat-up Nikes.

  “Do you need some help?” The gruff voice came out of nowhere and a body blocked out the sun. She followed the shoes up to a pair of jeans-clad knees, to a blue button-down shirt, to a nice chin, and then to a pair of deep green eyes. The man had the body of an Adonis and the chiseled jaw of a movie star. He’d clearly been beamed from heaven to overheat the female population of Ann Arbor, and points beyond.

  Not that she noticed. But she did recognize him from the picture on Mr. Nealy’s desk, although the outdated pic hadn’t shown the changes brought on by the flood of pubescent testosterone. He was more muscular and no longer had braces.

  For a minute her pain-infused mind flashed to them falling in love, her having him arrested for murder, and her dreaming at night in her cold bed about their nonexistent conjugal visits—Michigan wasn’t as liberal as California on that matter—while she paid for his lawyer with her waitressing tips. After all, Irving put up with a lot of stuff with his detectives, but her dating a prisoner would be beyond what even he could deal with.

  Then for the rest of her life, she’d happily sit in her car across from the prison hurricane fence topped with barbed wire, if only to get a glimpse of those dreamy green eyes filled with love for her.

  “Are you okay,” he asked.

  Her throat tightened until she couldn’t breathe as she snapped out of the ridiculous daydream. Rescue had come at the absolute wrong time. In the form of the unfortunately handsome Jason, the arms-dealing terrorist!

  * * *

  Jason stared down at the blonde at his feet and felt a kick to the gut. He suspected the writhing woman with the figure that almost killed off a teen boy was Summer from next door; as per the description from his grandpa. However, good old gramps needed his eyes checked to call Summer “cute.”

  She was stunning. From her full mouth to her long legs and curves that would make a man lose his mind, she stared up at him with big blue eyes and he felt a bit like a horny teenager.

  Worse, he had a feeling, from the strange and somewhat fearful look on her face, that she might well be the eyes watching him in the garden under the cover of darkness. If that was the case, he wouldn’t complain about her looking, although crazy did come in all packages.

  Proceed with caution, he warned himself, until he could rule her out as a stalker or a crazy person. He didn’t want her boiling his bunny.

  He knelt. “Where does it hurt?” She pointed to her ankle. “Is this the same one you hurt over there?” He pointed to where a few neighbors lingered around the damaged bike.

  She flushed, confirming that she might be a bit off.

  Injured. Recovered. Injured again. All in a matter of minutes. The woman had put on one heck of a show in his grass that ended with a kid in an ambulance. She was either extremely injury-proof with amazing recovery properties or was up to something.

  Pulling down her short sock, he pressed his fingers to the area. She winced. “It looks a little swollen. You might have a sprain.” He smiled at her. “My diagnosis is to watch out for flower boxes in the future.”

  “Are you a doctor?” she said with a croak.

  “No. But I did take a first aid class in the ninth grade if that helps?” He slid her sock back up.

  The prettiest blue eyes stared up at him. “Do I need to go to the hospital? I hate hospitals. People die there.”

  Okay, one of those half-empty people. “Why don’t I get you inside and put some ice on the bruise. If that doesn’t help, I have a saw. We can take your leg off.”

  A gasp followed. Fear replaced pain in those astonishing eyes. She looked ready to bolt.

  “Geez, I’m kidding.” He bent and scooped her into his arms.

  “Really, I can walk.”

  “No need.” For a woman with a whole lotta curves, she was surprisingly light. “I’m Jason Parker by the way, from the house with this yard. And you are?”

  “Summer O’Keefe.” The woman sounded wary, like she thought he actually might use a saw on her. He adjusted her position for a better fit. Perfect. She felt good and smelled like sunshine. “Arms around my neck. That’s it. Hold on.”

  Before they drew too much attention, he had crossed her grass and was inside her house, pausing for a quick look around before spotting her couch.

  For a woman who drove an old, girly blue convertible, her home was not as frilly as he expected. It was tall and in the craftsman style with small touches of Texas here and there. One wall clock was a boot; sort of tacky but not over the top.

  “Either you’re with the rodeo or you might be from the South-west?” He watched as a small longhorn steer popped out of a pair of barn doors to moo the top of the hour.

  “Texas,” she said, he eyes still fearful. “A little town outside of Dallas. My grandpa gave me the clock when I was twelve because I was always late.”

  “Did it help?”

  “It did. When I was with him anyway.”

  He carried her to a couch with wooden armrests and sat her down, feeling some regret for having to do so. She felt good up against his chest. To
o bad they were both wearing clothes.

  “Lift.” He pulled off her shoe and tucked a blue throw pillow under her foot. She had legs that went on forever. “Which way to the kitchen?” he asked. He needed to think of something other than his visceral desire to wrap her legs around his waist. Or kiss her. Kissing her within seconds of meeting would likely not go over well. She’d probably punch him in the face.

  Summer stared.

  “For ice?”

  A finger pointed the direction.

  The entire downstairs appeared clean with a touch of the feminine, but not enough to make a man run for a beer and beef jerky to reload his testosterone level. And there was no sign of one of those little rodent dogs that subtracted man points from the guy on the other end of the leash. No, Summer O’Keefe knew how to make a man comfortable in her home.

  Well, except for that whole saw thing. She still looked like she expected him to dismember her and bury her in the rose bushes. Or the garden.

  “Did you find the ice?” she called out.

  The fridge was ahead. “Got it!” Digging around in a pair of drawers by the sink, he found a plastic zip bag, added the ice, and wrapped the whole thing in a clean kitchen towel. He’d made a nice pack to keep down the ankle swelling. A few cubes down his boxer-briefs would keep down his swelling, too.

  Snort-smiling, he pulled himself together. The woman needed first aid, not him fantasizing about sex.

  “Here we go.” He rejoined her and sat on the couch. “I’m going to take out the pillow.” He positioned her heel on his thigh and slid off her sock. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

  “Did you know that there are about two hundred and fifty thousand sweat glands in your feet?” she said in a rush. Her face went red and she turned away. “I read that online.” The last came out in a whisper.

  Well, that was random. “I didn’t know that.”

  The ankle was turning purple. He laid the pack over the worst of the damage. “I don’t think it’s broken.” He’d seen a lot of broken bones during his former lives and this looked like a sprain. “But it will hurt for a few days.”