Kicks for a Sinner S3 (3 page)

Still, she could tell the other guy exercised more than his legs as the damp T-shirt clung to a smoothly muscled chest. Cassie shook her own curls and turned to grab the seat at the picnic table closest to Joe, who sat at its head in a folding chair. Dean beat her to the spot. Nell took a seat on Joe’s left and slid down the bench to allow Howdy to deposit their daughters between them in case either girl needed help with their food.

“You two are like hauling a sack full of giggles,” the cowboy said. Jude and Annie giggled some more.

“You’re very good with children, Howard,” Nell said as she distributed plastic plates, cheerful with a sunflower pattern, on the table covered with a dark green cloth, weighted down with pitchers of iced tea and lemonade. Purposefully, she placed the extra plate on Cassie’s side of the table leaving the kicker no choice but to sit next to her as Tommy had already slipped into the end place. As he slung his long legs over the bench, Cassie lifted Dean and plopped him between them.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to your daddy all day, Dean. Why don’t you sit next to nice Mr. Howdy.”

“Okay.” Dean reached for a burger already enrobed in a whole wheat bun and put a splotch of ketchup from a squeeze bottle under its lid before digging into his meal.

Nell, slightly pursing her lips, appeared displeased by the change in sitting arrangements, but that was just too bad. Ever plucky, she continued to pimp for Howard, pointing out again what a way he had with children.

“Did you come from a large family? Cassie belongs to an enormous family of eleven children.” Nell squeezed a line of mustard onto Jude’s hotdog and tucked some relish into the side of the bun.

“Don’t you remember, I told you Howdy doesn’t have any family.” Joe drew a frustrated sigh from his wife and shrugged, puzzled. Impaling a thick, grilled t-bone from a platter, he asked, “Who wants one of these babies?”

Cassie immediately held out her plate. Howdy sent his up to be filled by red meat, and Nell asked her husband to cut off half a portion for her. “Some of my special steak sauce?” Joe asked, passing around a yellow ceramic bowl brimming with the stuff.

Cassie ladled it over her steak until the t-bone swam in sauce. “Dean, do you want some on your burger?”

“No, Dad makes it too hot. Pass the chips, please.”

Howard McCoy accepted the bowl from Cassie’s hands and cautiously spooned some on the side. “How about you, Tommy?”

“Little bit.” The kicker applied a dab to the boy’s burger and handed the bowl across to Nell who sent it straight back to Joe.

Nell offered a plate of foil-wrapped baked potatoes and her own homemade yogurt topping flecked with fresh chopped chives as well as little dishes of bacon bits and grated cheese, a concession to her husband’s tastes. Since the children ignored the vegetable platter, she piled grape tomatoes, baby carrots, and celery sticks on their plates, along with some of the yogurt and nodded to Joe to do the same. He took a big handful of veggies and bathed his potato in all the toppings.

Nell tried to jump-start the conversation again. “Now that everyone is settled, Howard tell me how you know so much about children if you have no brothers and sisters.”

“Well, ma’am, I used to babysit for pocket money when I went to middle school. But after I got involved in football, I didn’t have the time. I do like kids.” He carved off a portion of tender pink steak, dipped it cautiously in the sauce and chewed.

“Please call me Nell. Ma’am makes me feel so old.”

“See?” Cassie hissed.

“Sure, Nell. Joe, this is a fine steak sauce.” He cut and dipped another piece.

Cassie sawed a chunk from her t-bone and shoved it into her mouth. Her eyes began to water, making her liner run a bit. She blotted the tears carefully with her napkin and chewed gamely until she could swallow. A coughing fit followed the swallow. Howdy reached over Dean and walloped her on the back a few times making her breasts wobble like a gelatin mold.

“Need the Heimlich?” he asked.

“No, no, I’m fine,” she gasped. It should have been Joe who patted her back. After all, she gagged on his sauce.

“Try the yogurt. It will kill the burn,” the cowboy suggested with a cheesy ear-to-ear grin. “Joe, I am enjoying your recipe. Next time I pass through Albuquerque I’ll bring you some fresh red and green chili powder to try. My grandpa cooked a lot of Mexican dishes.”

“I’d like that. Sorry we couldn’t take a Super Bowl while he was still alive,” Joe said.

“He got to see the field goal that got us into the playoffs. I’m glad he wasn’t around to watch me miss the one that lost the division title.” He set down his utensils as if his appetite suddenly failed.

“I saw that one. You blew it,” Cassie said, knowing how heartless and unfair she sounded.

Joe’s black brows snapped together. He chastised her like one of his children. “He missed an impossible sixty-three yard field goal by a whisper in Green Bay with the snow coming down during the last five seconds of the game because I asked him to give it a try. If I had played a better game that field goal wouldn’t have been necessary. Next year, we’ll get them, Howdy.”

“Yes, sir.” Howard picked up his fork and delved into the baked potato. Silence thick as a sour cream topping enveloped the table.

“Maybe after lunch, you could show the boys how to kick a football,” Nell said with all the brightness she could bring to the suggestion.

“Not me,” Dean replied. “I’m gonna be a quarterback like Dad.”

Even knowing her face still burned from Joe’s reprimand and how badly in the wrong she was, Cassie blurted out, “That’s right, Dean. Kickers are just glorified soccer players.”

“We used to call her Sassy Cassie not so very long ago,” Joe answered, scowling her way. “Her mouth isn’t as cute now.”

“That’s okay. Lots of folks feel that way, like kickers aren’t real football players. I did start out as a soccer player in high school. The football coach saw one of my kicks and before I knew it, I’d made the team and had a special trainer. Oh, and I think your mouth is cute, very cute, ma’am.” He continued eating his steak while Cassie’s cheeks burned even brighter.

“This kid is cool as ice on the field, and we did have some in Green Bay,” Joe told Nell while disregarding Cassie. “You wouldn’t know it to look at him. He has that boy-next-door kind of face, you see.”

“Takes a lot to rile me, Grandpa always said.” Howdy glanced at Tommy who tugged on the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “What can I do for you little man? Need more lemonade?”

“Nope. I play soccer ’cause Mama Nell says we’re too young for football. Daddy says I might grow up tall and skinny like Mama Cassie and not be able to play pro, but I could be a kicker, couldn’t I?”

Before Howdy answered, Cassie spewed again as if Joe’s steak sauce had set her on fire. Oh, why couldn’t she stop herself? “I am not skinny! I was thin and sickly as a child, but now I’m very well built.”

The cowboy’s big, blue eyes, all wide and innocent looking, swept across her bosom. “Yes, I’d say you are—ma’am.”

She gritted her teeth. “I told you to call me Cassie.”

“I call friends by their first name, but you don’t seem to want to be friends—ma’am. It doesn’t matter if your mama likes me, buddy. I want to teach you how to kick.”

Tommy’s small forehead wrinkled under a shock of red hair. “Maybe not if Mama Cassie doesn’t want me to learn.”

“Oh, Tommy, no. I didn’t mean that at all. You go play with Mr. Howdy after dinner.” Cassie blotted her eyes again.

Nell sat up straight very suddenly as if someone’s long leg had prodded her thigh. Joe leaned over the twins and whispered to his wife loud enough for Cassie to hear every single word. “Ice, baby, ice.”

THREE

Howard McCoy sat cross-legged in the grass beside the barn. Cassie watched him from a deep shadow cast by the late afternoon sun. Surrounded by childish objects—a box of chalk, a kid-sized soccer ball, a small football with a plastic tee—he tore off a long strip of adhesive tape Nell had provided and wrapped it lengthwise around the football. A smaller piece went around the swollen middle of the ball. Then, he quartered the space with more tape. Satisfied with his work, he tossed the football into the air and caught it, a small object swallowed by large hands.

All four children raced from the barn where they’d been rubbing down their ponies as Joe expected them to do after riding. They left a whiff of horsey sweat in the air as they blew past her. Ordinarily, she would have helped with the chore, would have been riding herself, but she had dressed for seduction, not a trail ride, and could ill afford to soil the expensive cashmere sweater.

Nell came along carrying a lawn chair from the pavilion. “Grab a seat, Cassie. Let’s watch the kicking lesson.”

“No thanks, I’ll stand.” After forcing down all that meat to show Joe she wasn’t a prissy eater like Nell, she doubted if she could sit without popping the snap on her jeans. How embarrassing would that be, especially since she’d tucked in the sweater to show she possessed a flatter belly than Nell?

Howdy unfolded from his place on the lawn, his legs carrying him up to his six-foot height, three inches shorter than Joe, and not so broad in the shoulders. But, his thighs pulled the denim jeans tight, and his calf muscles strained the cloth. Cassie saw where Nell’s eyes had gone, too, that dirty old woman lusting after this young guy when she had Joe. Disgusting. How could she want anyone else?

“Okay, Tommy. Let me see your soccer kick.” Howdy tossed the boy the round, white ball well-scuffed with use.

“I thought we were gonna kick a football?”

“I started learning by kicking a soccer ball over and over again against a barn wall. It’s good practice. Show me what you got.”

Tommy placed the ball and stepped back a little, then gave it a good strong wallop that sent it crashing midway up the barn wall. Both girls took a turn, but even at this young age, anyone could see they would never be power kickers. Both were bitty like their mother and the aunt who donated the eggs for Joe to inseminate. The only thing inherited from their father appeared to be their curls and lovely brown eyes. Nell had brown eyes, too, but not nearly as beautiful as the dark chocolate shade of the Billodeauxs. Dean, who had his dad’s eyes and curled thick lashes, hung back by his mother’s chair until Joe arrived and rested his hands on Nell’s shoulders.

“Go on, son. Give it a try. A good quarterback understands all the positions and what they bring to the game. No better way to do that than experience it yourself.”

With that encouragement, Dean smacked the soccer ball a good one. It soared higher than Tommy’s try and rebounded with a vengeance. Cassie cringed a little for her boy. At seven, Dean Billodeaux showed an inborn, natural athleticism that would be hard to top at any age.

“What you want to go for is smooth and long, not so hard and bouncy, kiddo. Hit with your instep, not your toe,” Howdy said.

Right then and there, she could have thrown her arms around the kicker and kissed those ridiculous cinnamon freckles across the bridge of the man’s nose. One thing nice she could say about Dean, he took constructive criticism well having heard since birth to “man up” from his dad. The boy nodded and asked for another turn, but the kicker told him he’d only wanted to get a feel for their style before moving on to the football.

He started with a demonstration using the child’s plastic tee to hold the undersized football. Setting up way back, he approached the ball in three smooth steps: one forward, one to plant his left foot firmly, and then a smooth, solid kick off the instep of his athletic shoe that sent the small object soaring over the barn roof and tumbling down the other side. Most eyes followed the arc of the ball as if the audience sat in a large stadium and watched the extra point being scored. Cassie’s eyes stayed on the kicker, his head down, his arms extended into the air and one powerful leg stretched upward in balletic perfection, a beautiful sight to see.

And then, he became loose-limbed, grinning Howdy again. “A mighty small target to hit. Glad I didn’t flub it.”

“Golly!” Tommy led the pack of children around the barn to find and retrieve the ball like a pack of eager puppies being trained to hunt. Nell and Joe applauded. Cassie kept her hands locked in a tight knot. She would not give this hick any encouragement. She wanted Joe, Joe, Joe, no one else.

One of the girls returned with the football tucked tight against her flat chest since both boys attempted to steal it. Tiny but quick, she already knew how to protect what she had.

“That’s the way, Jude. Don’t let the guys strip the ball,” Joe shouted. “And she scores!”

Jude handed the football to Howdy and executed a prim princess curtsey as if she wore a ball gown and not jeans and sneakers, her triumphant demonstration of victory over her brothers. Then, practice began in earnest.

Howdy chalked the insteps of the children’s shoes and showed them after each kick where their foot should have hit in the right quadrant. Cassie thought Tommy did the best. The girls were feeble kickers, and Dean always approached the ball too aggressively and shanked it. Annie, the quietest of the Billodeaux kids, cried when she missed the ball altogether and sniffed, “I want to be a ballerina, anyhow.”

“They say punters and kickers are the ballerinas of football,” Howdy told her. He followed that comforting statement with a silly pirouette on the tips of his big toes that got them all laughing. Cassie couldn’t keep in the smile no matter how hard she tried. Okay, so he was a nice guy just as Nell said when she’d told her another guest would be coming. You could detect the fix-up in her words. Cassie guessed she preferred bad boys like Bijou and Joe before he became a devoted family man because she had a bad streak herself and wanted another woman’s husband.

Howdy coaxed Annie to try again. This time she managed to hit the broad side of the barn a few feet off the ground. The children continued to take turns until the early winter dusk descended and the cold air prickled their skin. The pro kicker sent one last ball over the barn for the fun of it and let the kids scramble for its return. This time Dean brought back the ball with Tommy shadowing behind him as he so often did.