The 90 Day Rule (7 page)

Oops,
his
four car garage.

Well, no matter. There weren’t any threes in my immediate future but, damn, I might just make a lay-up or two. I slipped into loose-fitting trunks and layered the nylon tank top over a cotton tee-shirt. Gathering the braids, I snugged them tight with a rubber band and called it good.

He was waiting by the door, anxious to get on with it.

I motioned for him to go ahead of me and muttered, “Ladies first.”

Ducking his head, he ambled to the stairwell.

Bad Jessamine admired the view. Good Jessamine concurred.

It was going to be a long ninety days.

****

Forty-five minutes into the sparring match—and there was no other way to describe it—the courts filled with the throaty growls, good-natured taunts and high spirits of very young men in need of structured activities.

Basketball after a night of heavy drinking seemed just the ticket.

Some things never changed.

Catcalls and “Yo, Coach” were interspersed with complicated hand gestures. Jack Ryan appeared to have both their unqualified respect tempered with a good dose of friendship and some irreverence.

The inevitable ‘who’s the broad’ got bandied about—and, no, I didn’t mind. After all, it was just ‘broad’, not ‘old broad’. Knowing when to pick your fight is a sign of maturity … or so I’d been told.

Jack introduced me, “This here is Miz Jessamine Cavanaugh. She’ll be assisting Coach Bryant, our defensive co-ordinator.”

My eyebrows shot to the heavens. How did he know that I’d have sacrificed a body part to have a chance at working with Bryant?

That was followed by my almost audible sigh of dismay. If I was assigned to
that
coach then I wouldn’t be having time for
this
coach.

Damn, be careful what you ask for. Just once…

Coach Ryan led me to the sidelines and bid me observe while he organized the young men into mixed squads: veterans already on the teams and the wannabees. The intramurals were every bit as competitive and hard-fought as the real deal.

My first round was going to be studying each young man’s strengths and weaknesses. From the get-go it was obvious that Jack had particular goals in mind in how he paired his players. One thing became very apparent. It was more a matter of seeking and finding leadership abilities than it was in scoring a particular set of athletic skills.

For the first time in … oh, forever, I felt at home and confident. And that confidence came from an understanding of who and what I was, what I wanted to be.

I can do this.

A warm hand settled on my shoulder.

“You doing okay?”

“Chazz, hi. And yeah, this is fine.” I waved a hand at the courts and smiled at the young man crouching down next to me. “Tell me about Coach Ryan, would you? What’s he look for…?”

Chazz settled on the floor and pointed to the nearest group. “That there’s Tollar Jones, he’s…”

Forty minutes later I had a numb butt and a head full of facts and figures and an even deeper respect for the man I hoped would be in my daughter’s life forever.

“Ya want to shoot some?” Unfolding impossibly long legs, Chazz managed to make getting off the floor look easy.

“Okay, but a little help?”

He hoisted me to my feet while I adjusted the baggy uniform to cover all the necessary bits. The air’d shifted to steamy as sweat and effort vied with the ventilation system. It was nearing lunch time. With that many growing boys in one spot, expending maximum energy, you could almost hear bellies growling.

Chazz and I lucked out with a vacated court and set up for us to exchange a few easy lay-ups. The feel of the basketball and the squeak of sneakers on the polished wood floor was like manna from heaven.

In this day and age, five-foot-eleven was short for a point guard. Never mind age and a body no longer fit for the sharp turns and sudden stops. Chazz picked up the pace, moving into a defensive position, no longer feeding me the ball. It was time to earn the baskets.

It wasn’t about winning but about keeping my cool and not giving it away if I could avoid it. Scoring against an opponent nine inches taller and with a wing span of a 747 was a bonus and not something taken lightly.

Sound shut down. Time eased and slowed. Switching to my left I feinted, looking out and away from the basket.

Chazz took the bait, moving in line, blocking me. We were just inside the paint. He had momentum. The problem with really big men, once they started to move it wasn’t that easy to stop.

Switching to my right, I dodged, twisting, taking two huge strides and lifted off.

Nothing but net.

Sweet.

“Dayyam.”

“SCORE!”

“Well, fuck…”

Blushing, I realized we had an audience, a large audience.

Chazz put an arm around my shoulder and whispered, “Well done.”

I suspected that had been a gift and said as much but he just gave me an enigmatic grin and steered me off the court.

Now I was rode hard and ready to be put away.

“Coach, maybe you better take Jes, uh … Miz Cavanaugh here someplace and feed her up. She’s gonna need calories if she keeps playing like that.”

Ryan took an elbow and guided me back to the locker rooms. “Don’t bother getting a shower. I’ve got something better. Just grab your stuff and meet me at the exit.”

Something better… Better than doing what I was born to do?

I followed Jack into the parking lot, back to the big ass truck, but this time hopping in was easier.

I asked, “Where are we going?” and prayed very hard it wasn’t just back to Etty’s apartment because that was the right thing to do. That would keep me within those pesky boundaries I’d set up. Keep me honest.

 “Back to my place.” He looked at me with hooded eyes. “I’ve got a hot tub.”

Of course you do.

And does it come with a timer?

“Timer?”

Shit.

Ninety days.

Chapter Six: In Hot Water

Sweat still dotted my upper lip, despite the truck kicking out plenty of cooling BTUs. Coach Ryan—I was deliberating forcing myself to think of him as Coach ‘Boss’ Ryan and not as ‘Jack’—hummed a ditty as he drove along, once more über cautious, as if he had a body under a tarp in the bed of the truck and a state cop lurking behind every fence post.

The son-of-a-gun had started with ninety bottles and by the time we pulled into his driveway there were seventy-two bottles of beer on his wall.

I got it.

I wasn’t sure I appreciated being the butt of his humor.

Nerves and hope. Not a good partnership for me. Not when they were primed with frustration and no small amount of guilt. I was, after all, my mother’s daughter.

The tidy ranch house was still innocuous, plain vanilla. The front window was that faux bowed version so popular in the eighties. A small landing with a retractable cloth awning in need of scrubbing stood before a dark green front door with no window or other decorative feature. Utilitarian. Two cross-hatched windows to my right, probably a bedroom. What passed for a front lawn had been recently mowed judging from the absence of leaves and other woodsy detritus.

The big man next to me resided here but had yet to put his mark on it, make it a home. That said ‘available’ in big neon letters and my belly plummeted with the possibilities.

“We’re here.” A sideways glance, a quick flick at the seat belt snap and he was out of the truck and at my door before two synapses fired in my beleaguered brain.

I was still processing the concept and anticipation of ‘available’.

Holding out a hand to help me with the substantial drop down to the ground, he said, “Sorry, didn’t think. We should have stopped at your place first.”

The ground came up fast, faster than my sore muscles realized, leaving me half crumpled and expelling a loud ‘oof’. Coach steadied me. I managed a ‘huh’ as I followed him to the house.

The door was still unlocked.

Coach pointed to the right down the hallway. “The girls’ rooms are straight back, bathroom’s on the left. They’ll have something in there you can wear.”

“Wear?” I fingered the nylon shorts, wondering what I’d missed.

The man looked down at me with a sly grin. “Hot tub’s on the deck out back, through the sliding glass doors.”

I followed his line of sight, still hung up on ‘the girls’ room’. That and ‘available’ did not compute. Disappointment and resolve replaced hope and the giddy flirt I’d had with overlooking my so-called rule.

“You hungry?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Good. I’ll throw together some sandwiches while you change.” He strode into the small kitchen, his voice lost as he bent into the refrigerator to pull out the fixings. “Turkey okay, hon?”

“Fine.” Clipped, refined and holier-than-thou. How dare he get my hopes up?

Did he just call me
hon
?

“Um, what exactly am I changing into?”

“Swim suit. Shorts. Whatever.” He slapped mayo on a roll. “Tomato?”

“Uh, okay.”

“Bottom drawer, triple dresser. The twins keep spares there for when they come to visit.”

Oh. Visit.

“I don’t really want to impose…”

“Neither of ’em will mind. The girls are always sharing stuff.” He slapped a piece of cheese over the turkey, added sliced tomato, and capped it off. “Want I should do a pannini?”

I giggled, “You’ve been in central PA too long.”

“How’s that?”

“Oh, the ‘want I should’. I’ll just bet you’re dropping infinitives too.”

Eyes flashing with mirth, he shrugged and said, “Better to drop a few of those than to let other things dangle.”

He placed the sandwiches on a pannini grill and pressed the lid down. I tried very hard not to stare at his loose nylon sweats. Imagination in overdrive had them not so loose. Not in the front.

How many beers on the wall was he down to now?

“Beer? Yeah, I think I have some left.”

“I didn’t…” Did I? Say that out loud?

Coach removed the squashed rolls from the grill. The concoction smelled delicious and my mouth watered. After that workout, I was starving. Even my belly agreed, growling in anticipation.

“Do you want to sit on the deck? I can get the tub heating up.” He handed me the plates with the sandwiches and grabbed a couple cans of beer out of the fridge. “Want a mug or something?”

“Nah, this’ll be fine.”

He sauntered out and headed to a large, round teak table with six thickly cushioned chairs arranged neatly in a circle. With a nod he said, “Let’s eat first, then you can get changed.”

The deck was a revelation. Multileveled, it conformed to the slope of the land, surrounding two standing red oaks, incorporating the woods into the design with a masterful touch.

Mouth full, I mumbled, “This is lovely.”

“Thanks. I’ve been building it for a couple of years. Still needs a little work.” He took a swallow of beer and waved at the dense woods. “We don’t have nothing like this where I hail from.”

“And that is...?”

“Waco area. Family’s got a ranch. We run mostly beef cattle, some reining horses.” Coach polished off the last of his sandwich and gave mine a stare.

“Forget it, Tex. This is mine.” Popping the last bit in my mouth I chewed slowly and swallowed.

Jack’s eyes bored into mine.

“Go ahead and ask.”

Flustered, I hesitated. The man was a mind reader. Had to be. Of course I had questions. But I wouldn’t begin with the most compelling. Definitely not the bit about the girls. Girls who would come with a handy ‘little woman’.

Jack squirmed a bit in the seat and it had nothing to do with it not accommodating his huge body. The vibe that he might be regretting the open invitation to an inquisition hit me loud and clear.

Twenty-two years with a lawyer had given me tutorials on a few skill sets. One of them was coming at a hostile witness sideways, planting a seed of interest, then letting them hang themselves. Robert had been the acknowledged master in the firm of Dougherty, Wills and McMahon.

So I decided not to ask. Instead I sighed, “I always wanted to ride a horse, but…” I shrugged, “we lived in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Not exactly conducive to equestrian pursuits.”

I explained how we couldn’t afford it, being gentile and strapped for cash after my father’s investments went south in a bull market. There were lots of things I’d wanted to try. Sports were free, relatively so.

"I had a little bit of talent." Ryan's eyebrows shot upward but he let me continue.