The Game of Love (5 page)

“All right, I shouldn’t have asked.” Understatement of the century. “But I think you’re being a little dramatic—”

“Dramatic?
Dramatic!
” She shrieked in that superbly feminine way that never failed to make his brain bleed. She stood up, her chair scraping on the concrete, and he followed suit.

Before he could put out a hand to stop her from leaving, she grabbed her cup and tossed the rest of her drink in his face. He stumbled back, knocking over his chair and the table behind him before falling flat on his ass.

As he wiped coffee out of his eyes, he heard a few chuckles of laughter, some not-so-subtle whispers about how men were pigs, and the footsteps of a helpful employee coming to the rescue. The jingle of the bell above the doorway told him the odds were Chris was long gone.

He got up, fixed the table, dropped an extra tip in the jar for the trouble they’d go through mopping up the drink, and left amidst speculation and more laughter. He got in his truck, shirt still dripping.

Thank God she’d ordered iced coffee.

Ten hours later, the smell of coffee still lingered, even after he’d showered and changed clothes. Did coffee seep into pores? He heard a car drive up but made no move to the front door. Either it was a family member—who would let themselves in anyway—or nobody he wanted to talk to.

“Yoo hoo!” His mother pushed the door open.

“Over here, Mom.” Bret took another pull of the beer before standing up. He waited for her to flutter over for a kiss on the cheek like always, but she stopped a few feet away and put her hands on her hips.

“Of all the arrogant, selfish, bone-headed, arrogant—”

“You already said that one, Mom.” He sighed and picked up the beer for another drink. Word traveled fast in smaller towns. He shoulda seen it coming.

She tossed her purse on the couch and stared him down. He knew she meant business when her hands settled on her hips. As a boy, this was the time he’d find a good hiding spot to avoid a wooden-spoon spanking. She might be a tiny thing, but she was not a woman to cross. A lesson he and his brothers learned early in life.

“I have a first-hand account from several witnesses that there was trouble at the coffee shop today.”

Brett sighed and gave up his hope for a quiet evening of reflection. “All right, fill me in then. What did your spies tell you?”

She waited a moment longer, then turned and walked toward his kitchen. He watched as her no-nonsense bun disappeared around the corner. Knowing better than to stand around waiting for her to return, he followed, bringing the beer with him. He’d need this one, and a few more. It was shaping up to be a very long night.

His mother pulled down spices from his cabinet, at home in his kitchen as she was in her own. Any kitchen seemed to become her domain the minute his mother stepped foot in it. She grabbed a pound of ground beef and an onion from the refrigerator and went to work, browning meat and sautéing onion. He propped his shoulder against the door jamb. She’d speak when she was good and ready.

After she had everything settled on the stove and the aroma of good, home-cooked food started his mouth watering, she turned to him and leaned back against the counter.

“I have it on very good authority that you were at Beans this morning with a Miss Christina St. James, who happens to be the new tennis coach.” When he only took another sip of beer, she continued. “And at first, my sources were convinced that this could be the beginning of a nice little romance.” She flicked her wrist to turn down the heat under one of the burners. “Apparently she’s a very attractive young woman.” Her eyes slid over him, waiting for him to disagree.

Why would he? It was the truth. So he stood and waited for her to go on.

“It was all nice and cozy for a while, talking and such, though they couldn’t hear what you were talking about.” She stopped once more, and he knew she wanted him to tell her, fill in the gaps from the old biddies’ story.

He rolled his eyes, took another sip. “Eavesdropping is rude, you know.”

She took that for the brush-off that it was and grabbed a jar of sauce she’d canned and given him from his cupboard, dumped it in with the meat and onions and set it to simmer. “They couldn’t tell, but they said at certain points it looked like I might be getting another daughter-in-law.” Her voice was light, but he saw the first buds of hope in her soft brown eyes.

His mother, above all else, wanted to see all of her sons settled, married to good women and raising hellions of their own. Currently batting seventy-five percent, she wasn’t satisfied, wouldn’t be satisfied until her last baby chick was mated and producing chicklets of his own.

“Mom.” He sighed the sigh of the weary. “You really need to let the whole ‘marriage and family’ thing drop. If it happens, it happens. If not…” He raised his hands.

“Would it kill you to find a nice woman, settle down. Have someone else live in this house with you instead of rattling around in it by yourself?”

“Why are you always pushing this?” It was an argument they’d gone over time and again, almost since the minute the ink dried on his divorce papers.

“I want grandbabies!” she cried out to the ceiling, as if Jesus himself were hovering in the attic, waiting to grant her request. When no divine answer came, she huffed and stirred the sauce.

“Mom, you have like, forty-seven grandkids.” Or nine. But put them in a room together and it was like they multiplied. God knows they made enough noise for forty-seven.

“But no granddaughters. God blessed me with four sons and nine beautiful grandsons. But no girls.” Her eyes narrowed at him. “I want a girl!”

She was staring at him like she expected him to catch a pink bundle dropping from the sky and hand it to her. “Maybe Jeremiah will have another one.” He silently apologized for throwing his brother under the mom-bus.

“Not the point. I want you settled and happy. Now that you’re out of the clutches of that…that…money-grubbing floozy.”

He laughed, because two years afterward, he could finally laugh at the truth. “Nobody says ‘floozy’ anymore, Mom.”

“Anyway,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “It was looking cozy and sweet. Then you must have done something stupid, because I hear she stood up, tossed her drink in your face and left the shop looking madder than a horse with a bee under its saddle. And you!” She pointed the sauce-covered spoon at him. “You stumble around with all the grace and elegance of a tranquilized rhinoceros and knock over furniture.” She shook her head. “Always a good way to impress the ladies.”

“You’re forgetting something, Mom.”

“What?”

He walked over to the other side of the kitchen to toss his bottle in the trash can. “Since we already established your eavesdropping, gossipy sources couldn’t hear a word we said, how do you know I did anything wrong?”

She sighed the long-suffering sigh of a woman cursed with too many males in her life. “Because you’re a man. It’s just the way it works, dear. Men are completely ignorant of what will set a woman off. Oh, I’m sure you didn’t say anything mean-spirited or with malicious intentions—”

He held back a wince at that.
Thanks, Mom.

“—but you’re a male. And God put men on this earth with a taste for shoe leather.”

He didn’t bother correcting her. It was close enough to the truth, and he’d rather avoid the disappointment in his mother’s eyes if she found out what he’d said.

She started dividing the meat sauce into individual serving sizes in the plastic containers she’d given him. “You should apologize,” she said over her shoulder.

“You’re right, I should.” It was easy to agree with her because she was right.

“Is she nice?” she asked, her eyes full of innocence.

Brett wasn’t fooled for a second. “Mom, drop the matchmaking yenta crap.”

“Would it kill you to ask a nice, pretty woman on a date?”

“She’s a ballbuster, and she hates me.”

“So fix it. Make her not hate you.”

Brett pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. “Christina St. James is not a woman you would want for a daughter-in-law,” he said, trying a different approach.

“Why is that?”

He fought for a semi-reasonable way out of the corner he backed himself into. Ah, it was time to bring out the big guns, also known as…the truth. “We fight constantly. She thinks football players are basically macho, grunting cavemen who dress alike and hit things. She doesn’t understand my passion.” There. His mother was always big on having a passion. Now for the extra insurance. “She knocked me down in the parking lot with the door to her car.” He tried for a wounded look.

His mother’s mama-bear instinct should be kicking in about now, wanting to defend her son from the big, bad man-eater.

Apparently the mama bear had dipped into the rum because she tipped her head back and hooted with laughter. She clutched her belly and took a step back from the stove, tears streaming down her face.

Desired result: unachieved.

“So…” She gasped for breath. “So basically…basically she put…oh, I’m sorry sweetheart. I just…” Another peal of laughter followed and he realized she was going to be doing this for a while.

“It’s not funny.”

“Oh, it is.” She gathered herself, patted her hair and straightened up. “You’ve met your match, haven’t you?” He didn’t answer—because really, what could he say to that?—and she continued. “There’s finally a single woman in this town who doesn’t bat her eyelashes, pout her lips and try to slip a finger in your back pocket in search of your wallet. That’s perfect.”

She turned and walked back out of the kitchen, heading for the living room. Collecting her purse, she pointed back toward the sauce she’d abandoned. “Once those cool, stick them in the freezer.”

He’d just been hit by a tornado with a bun. “Yes, ma’am.” He walked her to the front door, kissed the offered cheek.

As he held the door open for her, she glanced back at him. “Sweetheart, I think you’re wrong about one thing.”

He tilted his head to one side, smiled. “Just one?”

She smiled back. “For now.” She gave him a serious look. “She sounds exactly like someone I would like to have for a daughter-in-law.” And with that, she left him with a house full of delicious smells and head full of jumbled thoughts.

Sometimes being the bigger person just plain sucked.

Jared had assured her this was Brett’s place. Standing on the walkway of his mini-mansion, she turned a quick three-sixty. Nobody within shouting distance. He wasn’t completely isolated. On the drive to his house she’d passed a few driveways, but they were separated by a few hundred yards instead of feet. Definitely not a neighborhood. A space for a man who wanted quiet. Privacy.

That surprised her. From her experience, men with egos as large as Brett’s tended to like having people around all the time…People to fawn over them, to enhance the “super stud” image.

Moonlight had guided her walk up the stone steps. The air was thick and the lilacs that lined his walkway gave off a fresh scent. She breathed deep and her throat relaxed, loosened the bands of dread and anxiety that threatened to choke her.

She’d given herself a day to let her temper go from white-hot rage to simmering annoyance. The arrogance, the complete and utter egotism from yesterday had burrowed under her skin like a tick.
“Does knowing a pro athlete excite you?”

With that one badly delivered line, she hadn’t been sitting across the table from Mr. Hometown Hero Wallace any longer. It’d been Dax. All sneering cockiness and swaggering self-centeredness.

And she’d reacted much as she wished she would have reacted during all those years with him. But instead of Dax, her target had been Brett. And years of pent-up frustration had been thrown at him in the form of a double-shot iced mocha.

Not that he hadn’t deserved it. Oh, no. He’d played the ass so well it was like he wore a donkey suit for pajamas. But no matter what he said, she shouldn’t have tossed her drink in his face. She and Brett still had to figure out the budget situation, and there’d be no way to do so if they were scratching at each other like feral cats. Someone had to take that first step so they could move on, make the decision about the money and get on with their lives.

She was going to apologize. Plus, in doing so first, she’d be the bigger person.

So, ha. Take that, Brett Wallace.
She pressed the doorbell.

It chimed like cathedral bells announcing a wedding. A sweet, ringing melody that went on far longer than she expected. Ten seconds passed by, then twenty. It was a large house, but even if he had to walk from one end to the other, it wouldn’t have taken this long.

Maybe he was out. No car in the driveway, but he had a big garage so it could be in there…Why was she even bothering to debate this? It’d now been over a minute and—regardless of the reason—he hadn’t answered the door.

Probably at a bar, talking some hoochie out of her panties. She walked back down the steps. When something pinched in her chest, she chalked it up to the annoyance of driving all the way out to his house for nothing.

The door clicked open.
Damn, home after all.
She turned around to face the music. The front door sat wide open, and light poured out into the night around the silhouette of a man. Brett. He took a step out the door onto the front step, and moonlight slid over his features like a silvery satin sheet.

Long mesh basketball shorts hung low on his hips. He was barefoot. He had nice feet. What an odd thing to notice…

He held something white in his left hand while the right brushed water out of his buzzed hair. Droplets ran down his chest, which was only slightly less golden-brown than his arms.

Just out of the shower, she guessed. And more delicious-looking than he had a right to be.

“Chris?”

This was the part where she was supposed to answer. Dazzle him with her charm and good breeding by being the first to apologize. Then walk away, leaving him stunned and awed.

Her mouth didn’t get the schedule of events, apparently, because it felt so full of cotton no words would fit. So she nodded like an idiot.
Yes, dazzle him with your witty nodding. That’ll do the trick.

“Sorry, I was in the shower when I heard the doorbell, and I hustled as fast as I could.”

If he noticed her acting unusual, he didn’t say so. Water droplets still ran down his chest, shimmering in the moonlight, bringing attention to the cut muscles of his torso. Yeah. Like she really needed a reminder he’d been in the shower. Naked. And wet.

If she opened her mouth now, she’d probably blurt out something stupid like
Can I taste you?
So she just shrugged. Safer that way.

“Did you, uh, want to come in?”

Get a grip, Chris. Remember why you’re here. Remember how he acted yesterday. How arrogant he is. Remember: Pro. Athlete.

It snapped her mind to attention like a soldier caught sleeping in. She forced a formal tone her mother would be proud of. “Yes, if you have a few minutes.”

He swept his arm toward the door in invitation. “After you.”

Spine so stiff it felt like she had a brace on, she walked into his entryway and was immediately struck blind.

Or rather, struck beige.

Everything was muted. Cream tiles on the floor, fawn paint on the walls. Above the entry table hung a woodland print like you’d find in any three-star hotel room, the predominant colors being brown, white and a forest-green.

No homey touches. Nothing personal or intimate. Nothing that said Welcome to Brett Wallace’s Domain. It was clean, well decorated and completely sterile. It could have passed for a model house instead of a lived-in home.

When she turned back around, he’d closed the door and was wearing a plain white undershirt. Ah, the fabric he’d been holding in his hands. Now that she wasn’t distracted by his—admittedly impressive—chest, she could focus on the task at hand.

“Brett, I—”

“Let’s go into the kitchen.” He walked past her into the house, and she followed on instinct. He led her to a kitchen with walls that were slightly lighter brown than the entryway. Every surface gleamed, from the pristinely clean sink to the stainless steel appliances. “Do you want something to drink? Water, juice, beer?”

“No, thank you.” Wow. That was a scary-good impression of her mother. Time to scrape off a layer of frost. “I won’t take too much of your time.”

“Actually, you’re saving me time.” He reached into the fridge, grabbed two bottles of water. He slid one across the granite countertop toward her, leaving a trail of condensation behind. He popped the top of his own and took a long guzzle. Finishing, he grinned at her. “I was going to have to chase you down somehow.”