Not Another Bad Date

Chapter 7

Monday morning Adele worked on the outline for her latest futuristic series. She’d worked out the plot lines for the first three books, but the fourth and fifth weren’t so clear. She wasn’t too worried about it though. By the time she sat down to write those books, she’d know the direction each was meant to take. Hopefully.

After lunch she e-mailed her friends in Boise. Writing in a room by yourself was solitary and often lonely, and she needed contact with the outside world. Within an hour they returned her e-mails, and she learned that Lucy was diligently writing and that she and her husband, Quinn, were busily working on having a baby. Clare was leaving to travel with her freelance journalist husband, Sebastian, to Russia. Maddie had just inked a deal with Hollywood to have her latest book made into a film, and she was planning her wedding.

Adele looked around the small bedroom where she worked in Sherilyn’s home and sighed. While her friends were happily living their lives, making a baby, traveling, and planning a wedding, she was stuck in Cedar Creek. She was cursed with bad dates, vexed with a former boyfriend who gave her hot little tingles despite her desire to feel nothing, and annoyed with playing her sister’s gofer.

On the small desk next to her laptop lay a notebook filled with Sherilyn’s notes and to-do list. Adele looked forward to the day when Sherilyn was home and able to take care of herself and her children, but each time she thought about that day and looked forward to it, she felt guilty. It wasn’t her sister’s fault that she was in the hospital. If anything, Sherilyn hated not working her to-do list and playing gofer more than Adele hated working it. Still, each time Sherilyn added yet one more thing to the list, Adele fought an urge to grab the pencil and snap it like a dry twig. And that made her feel guilty and selfish.

Adele closed her laptop for the day and glanced about at the boxes of baby furniture and bags of baby clothes and diapers and baby…stuff littering the room. Number five on Sherilyn’s growing to-do list was: Paint and set up the baby’s room. Adele figured she had a few more months to get it done and was busy concentrating on the everyday wants and needs of a thirteen-year-old. Although really, she wasn’t sure what those wants and needs were because they seemed to change day by day. Sometimes minute by minute.

Just yesterday morning Adele had made Eggos for breakfast. Kendra had looked up from her plate as if she’d been served freshly toasted crap and had insisted that she hated Eggos and only wanted Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Then just this morning she’d thrown a fit because she got up too late to have an Eggo.

“I thought you hated Eggos?” Adele had reminded her.

Kendra frowned and shook her head. “No. I love Eggos.”

A pain had stabbed Adele’s forehead as she’d stared across at the niece who looked like a regular girl but was obviously an alien pod person who’d been sent from another world to drive Adele crazy.

You think you’re cursed, she reminded herself. Okay, crazier! She scrubbed her face with her hands and let out a deep breath. She was out of her element. She and Kendra weren’t all that much closer now than they had been the day Sherilyn had picked her up at the airport, and Adele didn’t have a real clear idea of how to rectify the situation. She supposed she could ask her sister, but she didn’t want Sherilyn to stress out about her and Kendra. Besides, it wasn’t as if they didn’t get along. They did; it was more like they were two people living in the same house who didn’t talk about anything important. Adele would like to know Kendra better before she left, and she could think of only one way to make that happen.

A month ago when she’d packed her suitcase, she’d anticipated a trip of no more than two weeks. As a result, she hadn’t packed all that many clothes and was getting really sick of the things she had packed. She needed to do some serious shopping, and she’d thought that maybe she and Kendra could do a little retail girl time. All teenage girls liked to shop, didn’t they? Maybe she and Kendra could bond at Dillard’s in the new mall downtown.

Adele stood and walked into Sherilyn’s bedroom, where she had moved her things. With Sherilyn in the hospital until she had her baby, Adele didn’t see any reason to sleep on the hide-abed sofa. The queen-size bed was covered in a simple red duvet made of cotton. On her bed at home, Adele had a puffy silver silk quilt with real silver threads woven into it. Adele didn’t consider herself materialistic, but she did love good bedding.

She gathered up the laundry and was again amazed at how much wash a teenager generated in one week. At three, she left to pick up her niece from school. As she pulled the Toyota to a stop in her usual place, Kendra and Tiffany walked toward the car.

“Can you give Tiffany a ride home?” Kendra asked as she opened the door and stuck her head inside. “Her daddy can’t get away from his football practice over at the high school.”

“Sure,” Adele answered, and both girls climbed into the car. As she pulled away from the curb, Tiffany buckled herself in and asked from the backseat, “Would you mind taking me home the rest of the week? My daddy is really busy, and I don’t want to get stuck waiting around for him.”

Adele looked in the rearview mirror. With Zach at football practice, it wasn’t likely that she would run into him. “I don’t mind.”

“And maybe next week too? It just depends on if the Cougars win their game Friday night.” Tiffany zipped up her hooded sweater and rearranged her backpack. “I don’t want to ask any of those stupid moms to take me.”

Adele suspected there was more to the story, and after they dropped Tiffany at home, Kendra filled her in. “She doesn’t like some of the girls’ mommas.”

“I got that. Why?”

“’Cause she thinks they only act nice to her ’cause of her daddy. I guess after the party last night, some of the mothers hung around, and Tiffany said they were flirting and acting dumb.”

Adele pulled out of the gated community and imagined it was something Tiffany was going to have to get used to. Zach was very good-looking and rich and…well, he was Zach Zemaitis, and this was Texas. “She doesn’t like women flirting with her father?”

“Oh no.” Adele looked across at her niece who shook her head. “She doesn’t like women around her daddy. At all. She says they want to marry him, and she doesn’t want a stepmomma.”

Adele thought of Genevieve and didn’t think the woman’s interest was in marriage. “Not all women are interested in a husband. Some just like to go out and have fun. He’s single and…attractive.” Which was such a ridiculous understatement. Saying Zach was attractive was like saying a hurricane was a slight breeze.

“Yeah, Mr. Z’s cute. For an old guy.”

Adele chuckled. For an old guy. As she drove across town to the hospital, she thought about the brush of his mouth against hers and the seductive pull of his touch. Fourteen years ago, Zach had had moves well beyond his years. He’d known his way around a girl’s body, and she had a feeling he’d only gotten better.

When they walked into Sherilyn’s hospital room, she sat in a chair by the window waiting for them.

“The baby is really active today,” she said, a smile warming the tired lines at the corners of her eyes.

Kendra dropped her backpack on the bed and moved to her mother’s side. She placed her hands on Sherilyn’s belly and waited.

“Did you feel that?” Sherilyn asked.

Kendra nodded and her dark hair fell over one shoulder. “That was a good one.”

Sherilyn lifted a hand from her belly and motioned to Adele. “Come feel.”

“He always stops when I touch your stomach.” She moved to her sister’s other side and Sherilyn grasped her hand. She placed it on her belly and waited. Just as Adele was about to pull away, she felt movement beneath her palm. She paused and was rewarded with a strong kick.

“Oh my God!” She looked up into her sister’s face and grinned. “Was that him?”

Sherilyn nodded.

“What’s he doing? Tae kwon do?”

“Maybe he’s trying to kick his way out,” Kendra suggested as they all three stared at Sherilyn’s belly. Through the thin cotton of Sherilyn’s nightgown, her taut skin warmed Adele’s palm. A new life grew beneath her touch, and for the first time it seemed real to her. He seemed real to her. Sure she’d seen his sonogram images, but they’d looked more alien than human. She’d heard his heart beat dozens of times, but that sounded weird and squishy, not like the beating of a human heart.

“Have you decided on a name?” she asked. They’d talked about names, but now that he was suddenly real, it seemed right that he have a name.

“I think Harris. He’ll have his father’s last name, but I’d like him to have my maiden name.”

“Harris Morgan.” Adele’s smile grew. “I like it.”

Kendra shook her head. “I like Nick.”

“That’s because you like Nick Jonas,” Sherilyn said.

Adele hadn’t known that Kendra liked a boy. “Does he go to your new school?”

Kendra glanced across her mother’s stomach at Adele and rolled her eyes. “Nick is part of the Jonas Brothers. They sing ‘Hold On.’” She didn’t say duh, but she might as well have.

Beneath Adele’s hand, the baby kicked again, and it felt as if he’d kicked something loose that lodged in the middle of her chest. Something she hadn’t really given much thought to lately because there hadn’t been a man in her life for several years.

Yeah, Mr. Z’s cute. For an old guy. Zach was the same age as Adele. She dropped her hand and walked to the side of the bed. She watched Kendra and Sherilyn talk and laugh as they tried to get the baby to move.

“There it was again,” Kendra said through a great big smile.

Being here with Sherilyn, feeling the baby move and watching Kendra touch her mother’s stomach, it struck Adele that she was watching a family. Yeah, William was an AWOL a-hole, but that didn’t make Sherilyn, Kendra, and the baby any less a family.

Adele wanted that. She’d always wanted a family. When she’d had single girlfriends, she could tell herself that there was still time. But one by one her friends were all married or getting married and starting families of their own. Adele wanted her own family, too. A man to love her and her children. Children who would grow up and demand Eggos one day only to look at her like she was a moron the next and declare they hated Eggos.

“That was huge!” Sherilyn laughed.

It wasn’t as if Adele was standing there, watching her sister, and suddenly hearing the ticking of some biological clock. It was more like a glimpse into her future.

There’s always time, a little voice in her head reminded her. But was there? That’s what she liked to think, but she was thirty-five and hadn’t had a good date in three years. She was either cursed or crazy and what were the chances of finding a man who would marry a cursed or crazy woman?

Good. Crazy people have a way of finding each other. Look at Bonnie and Clyde. Ozzy and Sharon. Whitney and Bobby. Okay, so what were the chances of finding a nice normal man who would marry a cursed or crazy woman?

Not so good. And she didn’t want to purposely raise a child by herself. Some women did and were good at it. She just didn’t think it was for her. Maybe she’d change her mind in a few years, but for now, she wanted the whole package.

“This Thursday night there’s a rally at the high-school gym, and the Stallionettes are gonna dance,” Kendra announced, and pulled Adele’s thoughts from her troubles.

“Why is the junior high having a rally at the high school?” Adele wanted to know.

“It’s the high-school football rally.” Kendra looked across at Adele. “You’ll film it again, right?”

“Of course.”

Kendra removed her hands from her mother’s stomach and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet with excitement. “The high school’s dance team is out of town at a competition, so they asked us. How awesome is it that we get to perform at Cedar Creek the night before a playoff game?”

Watching Kendra dance again-very awesome. Seeing Zach again-not very awesome.

Inside the Cedar Creek gymnasium, gold and green streamers wafted from the rafters. Since the last time Adele had been in the gym, the packed bleachers had been painted green and gold. The wooden floor had a new snarling cougar logo that was very fierce, and a few new championships had been painted on one wall.

Adele stood just inside the door, Sherilyn’s Handycam in her shoulder bag. The Cedar Creek marching band stood in the center of the gym as cheerleaders jumped about to the blasting horns and thumping drumbeat of the school song. Adele didn’t consider herself a particularly sentimental person, but hearing the old familiar tune hit her with a touch of nostalgia, like thumbing through an old photo album and seeing a picture of her first dog, Hanna.

The band finished on a booming note, then filed out two opposite doors. With the floor cleared, Adele looked for Kendra and found her across the gym, sitting on a bottom row in front of the football team. She wore her black footless unitard, purple sparkly vest, and soft leather dance shoes. Her dark hair was pulled to the back of her neck, and she’d painted her lips a deep red.

Since Kendra had found out that her team would dance at the high school, she’d been extremely nervous. What if she didn’t get her sparkly vest in time? What if she did tour jeté when she was supposed to do a stag leap? What if she didn’t give the crowd “energy”? Evidently, “energy” was big in the dance-team world because Kendra worried about it a lot.

Her gaze moved across the row of football players, all suited up in their team jerseys, to the coach sitting on the far side. Zach wore a black long-sleeved polo and a dark green ball cap that shaded his eyes. He rested his forearms on his Levi’s-covered thighs, and his attention was directed at the center of the gym, where a man with a white cowboy hat and boots took the microphone.

“Hello, Cougars! For those of you who don’t know, I’m Principal Tommy Jackson.” Applause broke out that mostly drowned out a few stray boos. “We’re all here tonight to show our support for our football team and to cheer them to victory tomorrow night.” Adele moved farther into the gym as the principal thanked the boosters and the students and teachers who’d hung the streamers and made posters. Adele found a seat near the middle, three rows up, and sat.

“The boosters have graciously provided ice cream to be served in the cafeteria directly after the rally. So y’all be sure to wander in that direction.” He paused to take his hat off and revealed a dark wreath of hair. “A year and a half ago, when Coach Wilder passed away unexpectedly, we didn’t know what would become of our football program. We had some mighty fine assistant coaches, but none were fully prepared to take over the job of head coach. Then someone”-he looked over toward the bench of players-“I believe it was you, Joe, suggested that we ask a man who certainly knows his way around a football if he could step in and help us out.” The crowd whooped and hollered and stomped their feet. The bleachers shook, and Zach looked down at the floor between his boots. The bill of his hat hid the top half of his face and the shadow rested just above the bow of his top lip. “Now, let’s hear it for the man who’s gonna take us all the way to State! Coach Zzzz!”

The crowd grew even louder, chanting his name, buzzing the air with excitement. Zach stood, pulled his hat from his head, and tossed it on the bench. As his long legs carried him to the center of the gym, he combed his fingers through his blond hair.

“Okay, y’all. Settle down a minute,” he began, the epitome of cool under pressure. He grabbed the microphone and adjusted it to reflect his height. “First off, I’d like to thank y’all for coming out tonight and showing your support. I know it means a lot to the boys.” He placed his hands on his hips and rested his weight on one booted foot. “We’re all mighty happy to have Don suited up in his jersey tonight.” The gym broke out in wild applause, and he leaned forward, closer to the microphone.

“I just talked to his doctors this afternoon, and he’ll be ready to play next year. When we lost Don, people said we were done for the season, but I never believed that. Don is one hell of a player with a big future, but we have a lot of boys on this team who can play ball. Who come ready to play at every practice and give me 110 percent. Who come to the games and leave their blood on the field. I am proud of every one of those boys, and I want to thank all the mommas and daddies who raised them up right.” He straightened as the crowd filled the air with whoop whoops.

“I’m not gonna lie. Amarillo is a tough team, and they’re going to show up to win. Our boys are tough, too, and it’s goin’ to come down to who wants it more. I’m bettin’ we do. I’m bettin’ we have the heart, guts, and the glory to show those Amarillo boys how we play ball down here in Cedar Creek.” The crowd exploded, whooping and hollering and pounding the air with raised fists as if they were at a rock concert.

Zach turned his head and looked in Adele’s direction. Across the distance, his gaze skimmed past her only to return abruptly as if he was a magnet and she was a shiny piece of metal. He waited a few seconds for the noise to die down before he continued. “I know the boys will appreciate it if y’all can drive up to Lubbock tomorrow night and show your support.” He looked at the crowd in the seats above her, then raised a hand. “Thanks again for coming out tonight.”

His easy confident stride carried him back to the bench, and he reached for his hat. As he sat, he slid it back on his head, then leaned to one side to listen to one of his assistant coaches. The Stallionettes rushed onto the floor, and Adele broke out the camera. She recorded Kendra as she danced her heart out to N’Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye,” and cheered the loudest when the show was over.

Next, the Cougar cheerleaders took the floor and jumped about, calling out cheers. They did lots of backflips, and an impressive human pyramid. Through the stack of arms and legs, Adele’s attention was drawn to Zach. She could not see his eyes, but she knew that he was looking at her. His jaw was set. His chin squared. If she knew him better, she might think he was angry, but she didn’t know him. Not at all.

After fifteen more minutes of cheering, the pom-pom squad ran out of the gym, and the football players followed, high-fiving one another on the way. The crowd in the bleachers began to file out, and Adele made her way to Kendra, who stood in a knot of dancers and their mothers. She recognized Cindy Ann Baker from the barbecue at Zach’s.

“Are you ready?” Adele asked her niece.

“Can’t we stay for ice cream?”

She glanced behind her and spotted the top of Zach’s hat. He was surrounded as if he was a superstar, and she guessed he was. “I’ve got to work tonight,” she said, which wasn’t even a lie. She hadn’t worked very much that morning and had to make up for it tonight.

“Please,” Kendra begged. “All the girls are staying.”

“We’ll take her home,” Cindy Ann volunteered. “You go on to work before you’re late.”

“Thanks.”

“She works at home.” Kendra picked up her bag. “She can’t be late.”

A little wrinkle appeared between Cindy Ann’s light blue eyes. “What do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

Cindy Ann froze, and her brows rose up her forehead. “Oh my God! You’re Adele Harris. Aren’t you?”

It wasn’t like Adele was recognized every day. Or even often, but she did have a fairly large readership. “Yes.”

“The other day at the party I thought you looked familiar. But when you said you went to Cedar Creek, I thought I must be wrong ’cause I just moved here from Alabama a few years ago.” She placed a hand on her chest. “I’ve read every book you’ve ever written. My favorites are your books with the Brannigan fairies. Although I just love your Star Ship Avalon series, too.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you enjoy them.” Normally she liked to fly under the radar. At home, no one at her grocery store knew who she was, and she liked it that way. She liked running into the grocery store for a pound of chocolate and a box of tampons, looking like complete crap.

“What are you working on now?” Cindy Ann wanted to know.

Before Adele could answer, Joe Brunner approached. “Hey, ladies.”

“Hey there, Joe.” Cindy Ann smiled at the assistant coach. “Did you know Adele here is a published writer?”

“Why no. What do you write?”

Zach excused himself from the parents surrounding him and moved to Don’s side.

“Be careful now,” he cautioned. “I want you back to a hundred percent next season.”

Don stuck crutches under his arms and hopped along on one leg. His mouth pulled into sullen lines. “I hate sittin’ out, not playin’ ball,” he grumbled.

“It’s only one season.” But in football that meant a lot, and they both knew it. “Just a few games, if you think about it.”

They passed Joe, chatting it up with Cindy Ann and Adele. From beneath the brim of his hat, Zach glanced at Adele, standing there in a pair of jeans and the same white sweater that zipped up her front she’d worn the day he’d seen her standing beneath his portico. Tonight, her hair hung down her back in sexy, wild curls, and she was doing a stellar job of ignoring him.

That was fine by him. He didn’t need some uptight woman from his past getting him all hot, then telling him nothing was going to happen between them. Not ever.

“Careful now,” he said, as Don teetered. Hell, it wasn’t as if he had even been meaning to start things between him and Adele the other day. At least not there. Not in his office with twelve thirteen-year-olds outside. One of whom was his daughter. When he’d walked into his office that day, he hadn’t even thought about kissing her. Then he’d touched her cheek, her goddamn cheek was all, and he’d wanted more. In seconds, he’d turned hard as a rock, and the memory of the night he’d taken her to the La Quinta flooded his head. The memory of her naked body pressed to his had lowered from his head to his dick, and damned if he hadn’t wanted to relive that night. All five times and twice in the morning.

Slowly, he and Don moved through the gym as people called out to them. Zach nodded and smiled and waved and wondered how his life had come to this. Lusting after a woman who clearly wanted nothing to do with him. That had never happened to him before, and he didn’t know why it was happening now. Maybe his system had gone all peculiar because he was a full-time dad. Although, what that had to do with it he didn’t know.

Someone he didn’t recognize called out to him and he smiled and waved. “Hey there. How you doin’?” More than likely, though, the peculiarity to his system had something to do with his lack of a sex life. It was making him screwy. So to speak.

“Hey, Coach Z.”

“Hey there, Miz Owens,” he called out to Alvin Owens’s mother.

Maybe during the Christmas break, he’d drop Tiffany off at his mom’s in Austin and take a little trip to Denver and hang out with some of his buddies. He’d drink a few beers and get laid. A lot. That ought to take care of it. At least enough so he’d quit fantasizing about an old girlfriend who’d made it really clear she wasn’t interested in the likes of him.

Don stopped at the door to talk to a girl, and Zach continued through the halls of the school to the cafeteria, which had been decorated with paper cutouts of each boy’s jersey. The boosters had set up a table and were selling pennants and foam fingers. Zach grabbed a strawberry ice-cream cone and took a big bite out of the top. Baskin-Robbins might have thirty-one flavors, but he was a strawberry man. Always had been.

“Did you catch the game last Monday?” one of the boosters asked him, as he wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

He didn’t have to ask which game. Not in the heart of Cowboy country. “Sure did. Romo looks good in the pocket this year.” He shoved a hip into a vending machine and talked ball for several more minutes before Joe entered the cafeteria, followed by Tiffany, Kendra, and one of the other dancers. Cindy Ann’s girl maybe. Adele wasn’t with them. Not that he cared one way or the other. Just a mild observation.

He took a big bite out of his ice cream. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to give himself a brain freeze. “Denver is playin’ Pittsburgh Saturday night,” he said, as Joe walked toward him. Tiffany had some sort of dance-team sleepover that night, and pizza, beer, and a ball game with the guys sounded good to Zach.

Joe smiled and rocked back on the heels of his Tony Lamas. “I have a date Saturday night.”

“Good for you.” If anyone needed to get laid, it was Joe. Hell, maybe even more than he did. Zach took a big bite of his cone. “With Cindy Ann?”

“No, that writer.” Joe shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “The one with the curly hair and great behind. She was at your barbecue last weekend.”

“Adele?” Zach swallowed, and his brain froze, but he wasn’t sure it was from the ice cream. Adele couldn’t go out with Joe. She belonged to Zach. He straightened away from the vending machine as if he’d been jerked by invisible strings and threw the rest of his cone in a lined garbage can.

“Yeah. I think I’ll take her somewhere nice. Try and impress her.” Joe grinned, and joked, “Maybe get her good and drunk so she’ll come home with me.”

Normally Zach would have laughed, but he suddenly wasn’t in a laughing mood. No, he was in the mood to kick Joe’s ass, which was a strange feeling for Zach, who’d never been a particularly possessive guy. Adele wasn’t his, and he didn’t know where the feeling that he wanted to kick anyone’s ass was coming from. She could do whatever the hell she pleased. Joe could do whatever he pleased, too. They could do what they pleased together, and it wasn’t any of Zach’s business.

He clapped Joe on the shoulder as he walked around him. “Have fun.”