Читать книгу Playing For Keeps - Karen Templeton - Страница 11

“You are hopeless!” Karleen said the minute they were back inside. “Would another couple of minutes have killed you?”

Joanna shoved the patio door shut and marched her little overwrought self across the kitchen. “I never said I was playing along. Beside, I’ve got a party to set up,” she said, yanking out bags of Bob the Builder plates and cups she’d stashed in the cupboard where she kept the extraneous kitchen crap she’d accumulated over the years. “I’ve got no time to waste standing around watching the man slobber all over you. Especially as I’ve seen that act before.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What? That I’ve never seen men drool over you? Not that it bothers me, I’m certainly used to it after all these years—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Karleen grabbed a package of plates from her and attacked the plastic wrapping like a lion gutting a wildebeest. “Whose benefit did you think that was for? It wasn’t my attention he was trying to get, you idiot!”

For the tiniest sliver of a second, something totally insane and irrational—hope, maybe?—shoved aside the annoyance that was even more insane and irrational. “You know, you really need to start eating more. I hear the brain’s the first thing to go.”

Karleen grinned. “Somebody’s pi-issed.”

“I’d have to care to be pissed. Since I don’t—” she ripped open one of the other packages of plates and slammed them onto the counter “—I’m not. And wipe that smirk off your face.”

“Jo, Jo, Jo…don’t you know that flirting with one woman in order to make the other one jealous is the oldest trick in the book? How many of these suckers you want opened?”

“All of them. Okay…just for the sake of argument, let’s say that’s what he was doing—”

“Aha!”

“That was hardly worth an aha. Especially as I was about to point out this oh-so-mature behavior would attract me why?”

“Because he’s hot, he’s giving out all the right signals—”

“To you,” Joanna pointed out, unwrapping napkins.

“—and you’re deprived. And I told you, the flirting with me business was just a ruse. Since you had your back to him the entire time, you couldn’t see that he kept looking over to see if you were reacting.”

Joanna jerked up her head, which earned her one of Karleen’s smug smiles. Okay, so she felt about twelve, but she felt…kinda tingly, too. Alive. Like maybe there was something to look forward to.

Damn.

“Sounds like a perfect fit to me,” Karleen said, which effectively blew the tingly feeling all to hell.

“And in case you’ve forgotten—are there boxes of candles in one of those bags?—I was married to a man whose idea of a formal social event is a keg party. Why on earth would I be even remotely interested in somebody who would use one woman to get another one? Let alone someone who spent a good chunk of his life spitting, throwing a ball and adjusting his package? Activities, by the way, I don’t find particularly endearing in males over the age of three.”

“Never mind how incredible he looks without his shirt.”

“Yeah, well, if memory serves, Bobby looks pretty damn good without his shirt, too.” Joanna pulled the first of the two cakes Bobby’d dropped off earlier—one chocolate, one vanilla—from the bottom of the fridge and set it on the bar. “Trust me. After a while, it’s not enough. Even you know that.”

Marginally deflated, Karleen climbed up onto one of the stools flanking the bar and slit open a package of candles with one lethal hot-to-trot red nail. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. You care how these go on the cakes?”

“Not a bit. And I know I’m right. On this, at least. Next time—if there is a next time—I’d really like a man, you know? Not an overgrown boy.”

“Aha.”

“What now?”

Karleen waved a peppermint-striped candle at her. “You know what your problem is? You see every guy you date as potential husband material.”

Joanna gave her a look.

“Okay, so I’m being theoretical. But I’m just saying, should the earth shift on its axis and you ever do date again, you’ve gotta go through at least one gap guy before you can even begin to think in terms of wedding bells.”

“A gap guy.”

“Sure. You know. Someone to bridge the gap between husbands.”

“I take it we’re talking about sex here?”

“Honey, I’m always talking about sex. Not that it’s a bad thing if they can hold up their side of the conversation, as well as other things, for more than five minutes at a time. But it’s not crucial.”

Joanna laughed. “You’re nuts.”

“No, I’m perfectly serious. Think of it like…a sherbet to cleanse your palate between courses.”

“You mean, something fruity?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Be serious.”

“Hey. You’re the one comparing men to sherbet.”

“Something light,” Karleen said, delicately inserting a candle into the frosting. “Insubstantial. A little tart, maybe, but nothing that’ll ruin your appetite for the real thing. Listen, honey, I may not be any good at marriage, but I am an expert at surviving the wasteland between them. Hell, in three years? I’d’ve gone through three or four by now. Raspberry, lemon, pineapple…”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“I take plenty of vitamins. Why do you think God invented pool boys?”

Joanna sighed. Notwithstanding that tingling business a few minutes ago, so Dale was good-looking. And, okay, he seemed like a nice guy. And maybe it had been a dog’s age since one of those had crossed her path. Still…

“I don’t know, Kar…” She moved on to making hamburger patties for the grill, kneeing aside the hopeful dog as she idly mused that, after three years, she still hadn’t gotten used to not having to take off her wedding ring so it wouldn’t get mucked up. “Someone to just…tide me over?”

“Is that a sparkle I see in your eyes?”

“Only reflecting the insane glint in yours.”

“Look…” Karleen’s lips moved, counting each candle before she turned her attention to the second cake. “Who told you to watch your back around Heather Sanchez our sophomore year, huh? And who made you let Eric Stone know you were available to go to homecoming? And what a night that turned out to be, right?”

“Never mind that I nearly died from embarrassment when my mother found the condoms in my purse.”

“And who told your mother they were hers so you wouldn’t get in trouble?” Joanna speared her with another look. “Okay, so maybe she didn’t believe me. But what I’m saying is, have I ever steered you wrong? I mean, yeah, we’ll have to think of some reason for you to see him again, but that shouldn’t be too hard. You have kids. He has a toy store.” She shrugged. “Not even you can deny how neatly everything’s falling into place.”

Joanna slapped a meat patty onto the growing pile on the plate beside her. The dog whimpered and leaned heavily against the lower cabinet. “Watch me.”

“For crying out loud, honey—the Olsen twins could be grandmothers by the time someone comes along who meets all your criteria. But hey, if you wanna sit around and watch your hymen grow back, what business is it of mine?”

“If that’s supposed to cheer me up, you’re failing miserably.”

“All I’m saying is,” Karleen went on, “if you deliberately pick someone you know is wrong for you, you won’t be tempted to think of him as husband material. No pressure, no expectations…what could be better than that? So, here…” She reached across the counter for her purse, pulling out what looked like a compact. “You better take this.”

Joanna glanced over. “I don’t use powder…oh,” she said when she caught sight of the glittering foil packets inside the now open compact. “Jeez. You still carry them with you?”

“I still shave my legs every morning, too. A girl can never be too prepared. And the compact’s nice ’cause you can sneak a peek at your makeup while the guy’s…you know.” She clicked shut the compact again, wiggling it in her hand. “Where should I put this?”

“Back in your purse.”

“You haven’t forgotten how to use them, have you?”

“Considering who taught me? Not bloody likely. It was years before I could look at a jumbo frank without blushing. But I can’t—”

“It’s not safe to expect the man to remember, you know.”

“Yes, I do. But I’d rather take care of things on an as-needed basis, okay?”

“Okay,” Karleen said at last, finally snapping open her purse and dropping the compact back inside.

“Karleen?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“I really do appreciate what you’re trying to do, but did I ever tell you how much I hate sherbet?”

She shrugged. “Maybe you just haven’t tasted the right flavor yet.”

Joanna sighed.

A mile or so south, in the no-frills, three-bedroom apartment he’d been living in since his divorce, Bobby Alvarez leaned in the doorway to the master bedroom, trying to convince his stomach to unknot. Tori sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clamped on the mattress edge through the lacy white comforter she’d picked out, a tiny crease wedged between her brows. He’d seen that crease before. It always meant trouble.

“Hey,” he said lightly. “Jo just called, said it’s time to bring the kids back for the party. You about ready?”

Tori lifted her eyes, solemn and dark blue, outlined with some smudgy stuff that made them look even more solemn. She was almost as tall as him, but thin enough to look swallowed up in the baggy velour top she wore over a pair of jeans, an effect enhanced by her long, dark hair, which she wore loose and parted in the middle, like a teenager. “Do I have to go?”

This was no surprise. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Don’t you feel good?”

“I’m okay. It’s just…” The corners of her mouth twitched. “All those people, your family…”

Stifling what would have been a weighty sigh, Bobby closed the few feet between them, the mattress sagging when he sat beside her. “Aw, honey,” he said, looping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her to him, her flowery-smelling hair slippery under his cheek. “They’re gonna be your family, too, you know.”

“The kids, yeah.” She twisted the brand-new engagement ring—even getting it at Sam’s Club, it had pretty much wiped out his Visa—around and around her finger. “Not your ex. Or her parents.”

God, this sucked. The whole reason he’d fallen for Tori to begin with was because their relationship required little mental effort on his part. Not like him and Jo, who were like those two cats that still lived out in back of Joanna’s house and couldn’t cross paths without spitting at each other. And he was thrilled about the baby, even if he wasn’t about to admit to Jo or anybody else that he’d nearly had a coronary when Tori’d told him she’d found a tear in her diaphragm. How they were going to manage, what with a good chunk of what he was making already going to Jo and the kids, he had no idea. So he figured he had plenty of worries without having to deal with pregnancy hormones, too.

But ready or not, he had to, didn’t he?

“Hey. We talked this all through, remember?” And since talking things through wasn’t exactly Bobby’s strong suit, the prospect of tilling the same ground ad nauseum wasn’t exactly giving him a big thrill now. “About how everybody being together is gonna be inevitable from time to time? That it’ll be easier for the kids to accept you if you’re included in family get-togethers?”

“I know. But this is just so…weird. Not what I imagined, y’know?”

Praying for the smarts to get through the minefield without blowing off his balls, he said, “You knew I had kids from the get-go, Tor. It wasn’t like I sprung ’em on you.”

“I know. But…”

He saw her hands slip over her tummy and something primitive and possessive shot through him. In a way, it was kind of sexy, knowing he’d put the baby there. But it also signaled the onset of what amounted to nine straight months of PMS. Hell, if you wanted teenage boys to abstain from having sex too early, just lock ’em up with a pregnant woman for twenty-four hours. Guaranteed to kill any chance of an erection for a good five, maybe ten years.

“It’s just I watch you and Jo together,” she was saying, “and all I can think is, I can’t compete with that. With what the two of you still have.”

He panicked for a second, afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep up. “What are you talking about? All Jo and I do is fight.”

“Not always.”

“Okay, only like ninety percent of the time. And when we’re not, we’re either recovering from a fight or gearing up for one.”

“Because you still care about each other.”

“No, because we’re from two different planets.”

“But you have this…this history together.”

“Well, yeah. We were married for nine years. We have three kids we’re raisin’ together. I can’t change that, can I?”

She blew out a quick sigh through her nose. “No, I suppose not.”

“But now it’s time for you and me to make our own history, right?”

“And I’ll always be second.”

By his estimation, he had maybe ten seconds to defuse this bomb. “That’s not how I see it, honey. Yeah, maybe you’re…second, chronologically, but…okay—you know how a movie might be number one at the box office? But then, the next week another movie comes along and that movie is number one?”

She stiffened.

“Dammit, Tor…I’m lousy at this—”

“Oh, never mind,” Tori said on another sigh. “I know what you’re trying to say. It’s just I keep thinking, if your marriage to Jo didn’t work out, what’s to say ours will? And it’s not like I’ve got a whole lot of experience to fall back on. My mother’s been married and divorced twice. I haven’t seen my real father in years. So I’m not exactly feeling real secure. Especially as…”

“What?”

Tori gave him a look that scared the crap out of him, because she looked far too much like Jo did, there at the end. Still did, come to think of it.

“Look,” she said, “I know I had nothing to do with you two breaking up, but still. I feel bad. That I’m in the middle. That you’re in the middle. That I have you, and I’m so happy, and she has…nothing.” Then she pulled her feet up onto the edge of the bed, toying with one of her toe rings, her mouth all funny.

“What?”

“I can’t say it, it’s too tacky.”

“Tori, I’m not a mind reader. Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.”

After a moment she said, “It’s not that I resent the money you give to Joanna for the house and stuff, and certainly not whatever you pay for child support, but somehow…well, I wish she didn’t need to depend on you quite so much. And that really sounds selfish and stupid and horrible, but I don’t want to start out our lives together wondering if every time we buy something for us, we’re spending money that should go to your first family instead—”

“Dad?”

At the sound of his daughter’s voice, Tori pulled away. Dammit, they’d been dating for more than a year, living together for three months. The kids spent every weekend with them. In other words, their relationship was hardly a secret—and would be even less of a secret once he told the kids about the baby—but Tori refused to show any affection toward him when they were around.

Dulcy stuck her head in the door, her dark, thick curls struggling to escape her ponytail. As usual, she wore some loose top, her long legs encased in a pair of bleached-out jeans. She was nearly as tall as Jo now. Way she was growing, she might even end up passing Bobby. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

But he sure knew it scared the hell out of him to think there were boys just like he’d been out there, lying in wait….

“Dad? Hello? The boys are totally driving me nuts.” She frowned slightly at Tori but didn’t acknowledge her presence. “Can we please get going?”

“Sure. Just a sec, okay?”

With a huff, Dulcy stomped away.

“She hates me,” Tori said.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Right. She looks at me like I was something she found in back of the refrigerator.”

“Honey, she looks at everyone like that. If this is a girl—” he laid his hand on Tori’s belly and immediately felt stirrings that would do him absolutely no good right now “—she’ll look at you that way, too.”

Tori covered his hand with hers, which wasn’t helping the stirrings any. “How come you know so much about teenage girls?”

“I’ve got three sisters, remember? First time a girl looked at me like I wasn’t something she found in the back of the refrigerator, I couldn’t talk for three days.”

A small laugh bubbled out of Tori’s mouth. Then she said, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It’s not my place—”

“No, it’s okay, baby, I want you to feel you can tell me anything.”

Which wasn’t exactly true. Frankly, half the time women told him what they were thinking, he only got more confused. Like now. He was pretty sure he was supposed to do something about whatever was bothering Tori. He just had no clue what that might be.

“I love you,” Tori said, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.

“Aw, I love you, too, sweetheart,” he said, figuring he’d just hang on to that, for now. Then he kissed her, long and deep, deciding maybe all this communication garbage wasn’t so bad after all, once you got used to it.

But during the fifteen-minute drive to Jo’s house, the boys about to bust from excitement in the back seat of the Taurus—which made him realize he was going to have to go the minivan route, once the baby came, damn—he kept mulling over what Tori said, about Joanna’s being alone, about how it would be nice if there was somebody else to help out financially, since she was never going to get rich off those Santas she made, that was for sure.

The fact was, he worried about Joanna. A lot more than he’d ever admit to Tori, who’d for sure take it the wrong way. But he didn’t like the idea of Joanna being all by herself in that big house, when he had the kids. And he didn’t like the idea of her being lonely, either. Oh, she could act as independent as she wanted, but Bobby knew her. Joanna was a woman with a lot of love to give. Hell, why else would she have stuck out the marriage as long as she had? So, yeah. Joanna’s falling in love again, getting married again, would be a very good thing for everybody. Somebody good at fixing things would be a bonus. Or well off enough to pay for somebody else to do it. Somebody to take the heat off of Bobby. One of those win-win situations, you know?

But who? He’d tried to get Jo to go out with some of his friends, but she’d never gotten past a first date with any of ’em. If only he knew somebody he could nudge in her direction, y’know? Like when he used to sell cars, before Joanna’s father hooked him up with the advertising manager at the TV station. Somebody would come into the showroom and Bobby’d simply steer ’em toward the car he figured they’d like. Then, if they showed interest, he’d close the deal.

He really, really liked closing deals.

They pulled up in front of Jo’s house, the house he no longer lived in but was still expected to help keep up, Bobby frowning when he saw Karleen’s shiny white Expedition hogging half the driveway, parked behind the Playing for Keeps pickup. Huh. Guess they weren’t finished yet.

Huh.

The kids and Tori got out of the car—Tori had to pee every five minutes these days, seemed like—but Bobby sat there, thinking. Shoving the puzzle pieces around to see if he could get them to fit. Thinking about how, when he’d come out onto the patio earlier, he thought he’d picked up on some pretty heavy-duty, who-the-hell-are-you? vibes from Dale. As if Bobby’d interrupted something.

As if maybe the dude was interested in Joanna.

Now if maybe Joanna was interested back…

Aw, come on…it couldn’t be this easy.

Could it?

A grin stretched across his face.

Dale seemed nice enough, Bobby guessed he was okay to look at, and he probably had money. Hell, star players raked in serious bucks.

Of course, Joanna would probably have a fit if she knew what Bobby was thinking.

Which just meant Bobby’d better be good and sure she never found out.