by Elaine Fox
Jack stepped out of the car and trotted across the street toward the green.
“Thanks for stopping,” he said. He wasn’t winded from his short sprint across the road, but his hair was perfectly tousled, and he had a healthy glow in his cheeks.
“You seem to be feeling better,” she said, edging left so his body would block any view of her to whoever might be watching from the diner.
“I am,” he said with obvious relief. “I think it, ah, passed. Last night. Not without an incredible amount of pain, however. Thank you very much for the Percocet. I think I’m still feeling a little high from it.”
“I’m very glad to hear it. That it passed, that is.” She shifted her purse from one shoulder to the other. “They generally do, once they get that painful, and if they’re very small like yours.”
“Thank God for that.” He was blushing. “I just dropped it at the clinic for analysis, as you instructed, Doctor.”
“Good. I was just heading that way,” she said, beginning to turn away.
“Delaney, wait.” He reached one hand out, as if to grab her arm, but stopped before touching her. “Do you have a minute?”
She faced him again, her eyes on his neck, unable to meet his gaze. She was disconcerted to be talking to him, to be seen with him, so soon after what she’d just heard, and at the same time she was aware of every inch that stood between them. When she thought he might touch her arm, the nerves from her hand to her shoulder had tingled as if he actually had.
“I owe you an apology.”
At this she did look at him, raising her brows and rearranging her purse on her shoulder. “What for?”
“For yesterday. I acted like a defensive ass, and I’m sorry. You were being nothing but professional and I…well, I wasn’t acting very professional in return.”
“It’s not the patient’s job to be professional.” She smiled slightly, her gaze on his downcast eyes. It was easy to look at him when his intent gaze was averted. In fact, she believed she could look at him for a long time if it weren’t for the possibility that he might look back at her.
“You know what I mean.” He folded his arms across his chest, arms that filled out the short sleeves of his white tee shirt in a way that made her think of fifties drag racers and cigarettes.
She dropped her head. “Yes. I do. Thank you. I appreciate your apology, but it really isn’t necessary. Most people get defensive in the face of those sorts of questions.”
“Well…” He ran a hand through his hair and glanced behind him at a car honking its horn. Catching sight of the driver, he raised a palm in greeting.
“You have a good day, Jack,” Delaney said, turning away again. Seeing him standing here in the bright sunshine with his hair ruffling in the breeze, she had a hard time remembering why she needed to keep her distance. And that was not good.
“Delaney wait.” He strode toward her again. “I also wanted to tell you…”
He hesitated, and Delaney found herself trying to read the expression on his face, as if she understood him, as if they had once been close. For some reason he made her feel as if she knew him quite well, when that was so patently false based on everything she’d heard about him.
Then again, she’d heard a few things about herself today that put a decidedly odd spin on which rumors might be real and which were sheer fantasy.
He looked up at her, his eyes sober and intense, as if he might see something in her face that would either encourage or stop him.
“I wanted to tell you that you weren’t a mistake. A drunken mistake, like Lisa.”
Delaney looked at the ground again. “This isn’t necessary.”
“Yes it is.” His voice was firm. “I never considered that night anything but a godsend. And I know—I know”—he held his palms up in the face of her impending protest—“I promised never to bring that night up again but I thought this needed to be said. I don’t think—I never got the chance to tell you that—what I felt about that night.”
A thrill shot from Delaney’s stomach to her heart, causing it to thunder wildly.
“Morning, Dr. Poole. Hey, Jack!”
Delaney jumped and glanced over to see Maggie striding swiftly down the walk toward the bus stop.
“Hey, Mags,” Jack said.
“Good morning, Maggie,” Delaney said.
Maggie waved and rushed on. “I’d stop to talk, but I’m late!”
Delaney looked back at Jack. His expression was frustrated.
“I know this isn’t the best time or place to be doing this,” he continued. “God knows why I am, maybe it’s the Percocet.” He laughed. “But I was up all night thinking about it. I really think you should know, you deserve to know, that I wanted to call you a dozen times—more than a dozen times—after that night. But I didn’t know your last name or have your number, and I didn’t know where you lived.”
He stopped talking, and Delaney had no idea what to say in response. Her head was empty, but her body was a mass of jittering nerves.
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“But I guess it’s just as well, since even if I’d found you, I would have found Jim too.” He looked at her so intently her breath caught.
“Jim?—oh yes.” She coughed and rubbed her forehead as if her mind had been somewhere else. When in fact, she’d forgotten all about Jim as she’d tried to figure out why Jack was explaining this to her. “Well, of course, Jim. Sure.”
“Delaney,” he said, his expression unguarded. “This probably comes under the heading of ‘things we shouldn’t talk about,’ but I need to know. Did you think of me at all, after that night?”
She stood rooted to the spot. His expression, so vulnerable, brought such a wave of unexpected feelings to her that she found it difficult to breathe. He wasn’t asking if she’d thought of him—God knew she could answer that question unequivocally, she’d had to think of him. No, he was asking if she had any feelings for him. He was asking if the night meant something to her.
“Jack, I…” her voice faltered.
She could ask the same of him. But then, she’d unilaterally answered the question for him. He hadn’t thought of her, she’d concluded. The night had meant nothing to him, was something he did all the time, she was but one of many female encounters he had with “summer girls” over the years. She had answered these questions and more, and had considered herself right.
But if she was so right, why did he say he’d wanted to call her? And why was he asking her how she felt about that night?
She glanced behind him and saw diners-club Sam exiting Sadie’s. He smiled and tipped an imaginary hat in her direction. Delaney wilted. She knew what kind of picture they made, standing in the middle of the green, talking intently at seven-thirty in the morning. She and Jack both had their arms folded across their chests. They were speaking like adversaries, like people with something to hide, like people the diners club would speculate about ad nauseum.
She, Delaney Poole, was becoming Harp Cove’s juiciest scuttlebutt, thanks to the notorious Jack Shepard.
She cleared her throat. “Jack, I’m late for work. I can’t talk about this now.”
His face closed up, and he withdrew as surely as if she’d slapped him. “Yeah, sure. No problem. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
She regretted it instantly.
“No, it’s all right,” she said, searching for something to say that might make him feel better. But what could she say? What did she want to say?
From the corner of her eye she saw Sam walk to the corner. She flicked her glance to him, saw him purchase a newspaper and turn back to the diner. Delaney knew damn well there were papers in the diner. She’d left one herself, as a matter of fact. The man had emerged solely to make a point to her, she was sure. And the point was, her reputation was history.
“Have a good day, Delaney,” Jack said, and turned away.
It was on the tip of her tongue to call him back, but she was caught between the real Jack She
pard and the one whose image lived in Sadie’s Diner. Which was more important?
But she knew the answer as soon as she asked herself the question.
She watched Jack smack his palm against the hood of his truck, then open the door. He slid onto the seat, slammed the door, and started the engine, almost simultaneously throwing it into gear.
He’d misunderstood her distraction, thought she didn’t care about his feelings, but what could she say? That she did care? She could never tell him that. For so many reasons.
Not the least of which was that it was true.
Chapter 13
Jack stood in the middle of the field wearing gym shorts and a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. The late August day was hot and his shoulders flexed as he tossed a football to one of the padded and helmeted students in a line in front of him. The students trotted sideways, back and forth, like a bunch of bulked-up crabs defending some unseen habitat.
Despite the fact that school hadn’t started yet, football practices had been going on daily for a week. Since the boys were already gathered at the school, Dr. Jacobson and the principal had decided Delaney might as well start their health class now, before they got distracted with their other courses.
A whistle swung from Jack’s neck, and a clipboard lay on the ground beside him. Tan, muscled legs carried him along the line of boys as he watched the players’ movements and occasionally tossed a football to one who perhaps looked unready.
Delaney stood watching him, acutely aware of her prim skirt and pumps, her hair pulled conservatively back in a clip at her neck, and her briefcase neatly parked at her side. She was like a parakeet getting ready to walk into a pack of puppies. These boys wouldn’t listen to her. They needed to hear what she had to say from someone they could relate to, someone they respected. Someone with shoulders broader than theirs and the ability to run the 440 without breaking a heel, not to mention a sweat.
Jack moved tirelessly among the players. Now tossing the ball; now bending down, four fingers on the ground in a classic set position; now jogging backwards to catch an overthrown return pass.
Delaney’s eyes caught on the long stretch of outer thigh. The vastus externus, she thought idly, attempting to keep it clinical. Finely developed and toned, the muscles moved like well-oiled machinery under skin tanned and gleaming with perspiration.
He was a picture of health, a man in his prime with a textbook body. She tried to think of this in terms of genetics, of the healthy stock he’d passed on to Emily, but her mind kept regressing to the night when her hands had felt the definition of those deltoids and biceps, when her fingers had known the hardness beneath the skin.
She stood watching a few moments longer, then made her way along the sidewalk by the side of the school. She looked at her watch. Class was to start in ten minutes, so surely they would finish up soon. She pictured them all tumbling into the auxiliary gym as they were, sweat-stained and revved-up from hours of physical exertion. How in the world would she capture their attention? How could she get her message across without crossing any of the school-board-imposed lines?
She frowned, considering again the blunt measures she’d toyed with the previous evening, when drawing up her notes. “Health” class was a thinly disguised veneer for sex education, in her mind. And sex education for teenagers was vitally important. These boys were men, she saw now even more clearly. In every aspect but the mental they were ready for real—i.e. biological—life. Their bodies were strong, their urges stronger. Their spirits were perhaps their most invulnerable assets, and their willpower their most vulnerable. They needed to know what effects their actions could have. And how to contain them.
Jack blew the whistle in five quick blasts, and the lines of players dissolved into boisterous groups of kids bumping and hitting each other, laughing and smacking each other’s heads as the helmets came off. Their boyish faces reconfirmed Delaney’s resolve. They needed to know what she had to tell them, and the local school board could just blow a gasket later.
Jack looked up and saw her standing on the top of the hill. She saw his reaction in his body as he stopped briefly, then moved more slowly, picking up balls and tossing them to a scrawny assistant—obviously a boy too young to be on the team—who corralled them into a canvas bag.
“Showers, now,” he yelled to a group of boys squirting water at each other from white sports bottles.
“Aw, Coach, it’s hot out,” one of them protested.
“Then make it a cold shower,” Jack said, tossing a ball onto the head of a boy still squirting at a rival.
The boy put a hand to his head and whirled, ready to drench his attacker, but his posture turned sheepish when he saw Jack.
“Kyle, I’m serious. You guys have health class after this, remember?”
“All right, Coach.”
The boys had wandered close enough now for Delaney to see their faces. Some of them had five o’clock shadows, some nothing but peach fuzz. A couple looked to be about twelve, but she knew they must be older if they were on the varsity team. Some looked as if they could be in college. It was a strange age for kids, with everyone maturing at such different rates. But she remembered well those surging hormones and the frenzied pawing at the ends of dates. Yes, they needed a health class.
Jack gave a few more directions, chastised a few more students for moving slowly, then moved toward Delaney.
Her pulse accelerated as he neared. He looked larger, for some reason, in his athletic clothes, and perspiration dampened his hair.
Talk about hormonal impulses, Delaney thought. Her physical appreciation of him was directly related to that primal instinct to secure such a man for protection, she was sure. Thank goodness she wasn’t one to confuse that biological imperative for anything other than what it was.
“You’re very good with them,” she said, nodding toward the boys. “I’ll bet you’re their favorite teacher.”
“I don’t know about that, but they’re good kids. They’ll be quick,” he said, looking down at her with shuttered eyes.
Delaney was immediately reminded that she had hurt his feelings yesterday. The loss of his openness was like a loss of sunlight—and she was decidedly chilly in its absence.
“Actually I’m glad we have a minute,” she said. “Is there someplace we can talk before class?”
He considered this request for a minute, then nodded, and said, “Yeah. My office.”
They cut through the auxiliary gym, where class would be held, and skirted a blackboard and table, wrestling mats, and a long set of parallel bars.
Jack’s office was small, densely furnished and crammed with football equipment ranging from pads to helmets to balls. One wall was consumed by trophies, newspaper clippings and plaques announcing Jack Shepard as Coach of the Year for several years running.
She was curious about the clippings and plaques, wanting to see what Harp Cove’s journalists thought of the infamous philanderer, but they only had a few minutes, and she wanted to clear the air with him.
He motioned her to a seat across the desk from him. It was a rolling desk chair with no arms and a distinctly wobbly back. Delaney perched on the edge of it.
“First, I want to tell you how much I admire what you do,” she began, as soon as he sat. “Those kids obviously think the world of you, and I’m sure that’s no coincidence. I know I once gave you the impression I didn’t think much of your job, but I do. I really do.”
He lounged back in his chair, feet outstretched, and his hands folded across his stomach. He fit the surroundings as comfortably as a ball in a catcher’s mitt.
“Okay,” he said carefully. “Thanks.”
“Second,” she continued, “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“What are you sorry about?” he asked. “I’m the one who shouldn’t have brought any of that stuff up. I don’t know what I was thinking. Blame it on the Percocet.”
He watched her with guarded eyes, his expression pointedly unconcerned. Delan
ey felt suddenly out of her depth. But yesterday he had been open and she the one distant, so she forged on.
“I’m sorry that I did not give your question the proper attention it deserved. I’m sorry I was so distracted. The problem was, I had just come from the diner where that group of meddling old men were, and I felt…exposed, I guess.”
His brow furrowed. “‘Exposed’?”
She took a deep breath and let her eyes drop to a brass nameplate attached to a triangular base. Coach Shepard.
She was so tired of lying. And especially tired of lying to him. So she continued, “Yes, you see I managed—totally inadvertently—to overhear them talking about me in the diner, and I was bothered by it. I don’t know where they got their information, but it was absurd. Almost laughable, really, except that the things being said were not just unflattering but untrue.”
“You shouldn’t let them get to you like that,” he said, his expression becoming slightly less disengaged. “They’re just a group of bored old men. Let them have their fun. It’s nothing to do with you, really.”
She looked up at him, intently. “But it was. It was all to do with me. And you.” The moment she said it, she regretted the admission.
A small grin crept onto his face. “Ah, so that’s what had you so upset. They were gossiping about you and me.”
“Yes, partly. And then you showed up there, on the green, and I knew they were watching.” She shrugged and looked at the scattered papers on his desk. “Well, I was just terribly uncomfortable. I couldn’t shake the feeling that their eyes were on me. On us.”
“So what were they saying?” he asked, his expression still bordering on amused.
“There was some…speculation going on about us, about how close we live to each other and what might be going on. But that wasn’t all. They were also talking about my father. And my husband. Of all the ridiculous things.” She laughed incredulously and threw out a hand. “Talking about a man who—”