The Trouble With J.J. (5 page)

“So what do you think of the doghouse?” he asked, casting a proud smile at the canine castle.

“I only hope no one mistakes it for a drive-in. Couldn’t you have done something a little more … colonial?” she offered, trying not to hurt his feelings. “To go with the house.”

“Mmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “I tried scaling down Mount Vernon but the wings took up too much yard space. Besides, I don’t want Flurry getting the wrong idea and thinking he can invite overnight guests, at least not until he’s neutered.”

“Hey, Hennessy!” The booming voice came from a teammate called Brutus, who was roughly the size of Mount McKinley. Brutus wore his hair in a Mohawk and his body encased in black leather. He looked like someone from a Mad Max movie. From halfway across the yard he flung a
foaming can of beer at Jared, who snagged it inches from Genna’s head—but not before it sprayed her face and soaked the front of her plaid blouse.

Laughing, Jared shook the can hard and fired it back at Brutus, who caught it and spiked it on the ground like a football, then went into a victory dance.

“Touchdown!” Jared yelled, dancing around the table, “All right, Brutus!”

Genna stood, sputtering, trying to wipe the beer off her face with her hands. She wondered if anyone had ever done any serious studies on the placement of athletes on the evolutionary scale.

Brutus picked up the can, poured the last of the beer down his throat from an arm’s length away, then tore the can in two with his teeth.

“That guy is missing a chromosome,” she said as Jared danced around her doing things with his hips that threatened to give her palpitations.

“Brutus? He’s just having fun. Don’t you know anything about having fun?”

“I know all about having fun,” she said primly. “It has nothing to do with recycling aluminum orally.”

“It does to Brutus. I don’t know about you, but
I’m
not telling him any different.”

At the edge of the patio a game of Nerf football had turned ugly. Two players were wrestling on the ground rubbing barbecue briquettes into each other’s faces. The dog ran by with a flamingo clenched in his teeth. Two perfect examples of why I shouldn’t be here, Genna thought to herself, her temper wearing thin. She tried to blow beer-damp bangs off her forehead as she plucked the wet fabric of her blouse off her chest.

The Nerf ball squirted up out of the pile of humanity on the lawn, bounced off Genna’s forehead, and into Jared’s hands. He tossed it out to Kyle Dennison, who was promptly tackled by a dozen neighborhood kids.

“Know anything about football, Gen?” J.J. asked, still dancing. He draped a muscular arm across her shoulders, his gyrating hips bumping hers.

“Certainly,” she said stiffly, trying to ignore the tingles racing through her as he brushed against her. “It’s a game played by enormous, sweating men who spit and scratch—”

“That’s baseball,” he corrected.

“And wear Joan Crawford shoulder pads,”
Genna continued, her fuse burning down to the short fibers. “It’s violent and stupid, and I’d rather have a pelvic exam than be forced to watch it on TV.”

She snatched her crutches up and started for home.

Piqued by Genna’s unflattering description of his chosen profession, Jared stood stiffly and watched her hobble across the lawn. It wasn’t going to further his cause any, but he couldn’t resist the urge to take her down a peg or two. He waited until she was halfway home before yelling, “Yeah, well, I still want you in my Jacuzzi, gorgeous!”

For one horrible eternity every pair of eyes at the party riveted on Genna. It seemed even the flamingos were staring at her. She could feel their eyes burning into her back.

Death by slow torture would be too good for him, she thought, taking back all the feelings of contrition she’d had Friday afternoon. She was definitely sticking to her original opinion of him: J. J. Hennessy was an arrogant, mannerless, macho swine. A
gorgeous, sexy
, arrogant, mannerless, macho swine. And she was absolutely certain she wanted nothing to do with him. Almost.

He is not normal, she reminded herself as she
limped around her kitchen slamming pots and pans onto the counter. She’d had her fill of crazy people when she was growing up. All of her father’s family was certifiable, her father included. A self-proclaimed inventor, he’d chased one harebrained scheme after another until he dropped dead, leaving his family with nothing but debts and not even a cent of insurance. He’d been an overgrown boy with no concept of responsibility. Just like J. J. Hennessy.

“Why’d you leave the party, Gen?” Amy whined, letting herself in the kitchen door.

Genna opened the refrigerator and started flinging vegetables into the sink. Potatoes sailed through the air one at a time, arching gracefully into the porcelain basin. A bunch of carrots missed the target and skidded down the counter, sliding into a piece of salt-glazed stoneware. Scallions flew like scattering buckshot. Amy dodged a stalk of celery. Genna answered without coming out of the refrigerator. “I won’t be a party to madness.”

“Lighten up. A little madness is good for a person.” Leaning around Genna, she snatched a Coke out of the fridge and plopped down on a stool at the counter.

“Who are you now, Dr. Joyce Brothers?” Genna
shot her friend a glare as she returned to the sink and started peeling carrots with a vengeance.

“It didn’t take a shrink to see you weren’t trying very hard to have fun,” Amy answered.

“You shouldn’t have to try if it’s fun,” Genna said without turning around. “I don’t happen to like mass insanity, and the taste of beer turns my mouth inside out.”

Suddenly suspicious, Amy asked, “What are you making?”

“Vegetable soup.”

“But it’s ninety degrees out!”

“I’ll freeze it.”

“You’re upset, Genna,” she singsonged in her grating voice, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

“I am not upset.” Genna stabbed a potato with her paring knife.

“You always cook when you’re upset.”

Genna spun around with the knife clutched in her hand, her eyes wild. The beer in her bangs had dried, leaving them stiff and straight as string. The front of her blouse was one big stain.
“I am not upset!”

Amy smiled serenely and drummed her fingers on the counter. “Not at all. Are those chocolate chip cookies over there?”

Glaring at the clear glass cookie jar, Genna said nothing. One jar of cookies was hardly proof. Thank heaven Amy didn’t know about the three frozen cakes. She turned and calmly attacked a stalk of celery.

“Wasn’t it nice of J.J. to invite everyone over? He’s so sweet—”

“He’s a lunatic.” Chop. Chop. Chop.

“I’ll bet he signed a hundred autographs this afternoon.”

“He’s a spectacle.” Stab. Stab. Stab.

“He’s got style.”

Genna faced her friend with an exasperated look. “The man mows his lawn in stripes and puts pink flamingos around the doghouse.”

“I said he had style,” Amy qualified. “I never said anything about taste.”

They were silent for a moment while Genna dumped her mutilated vegetables into a big stock-pot and set it on the stove to simmer. Amy sipped her soda, waiting for Genna to turn toward her so she could watch her friend’s expression when she dropped her bomb.

“I think he’s interested in you, Gen. As in ‘romance.’”

Something akin to panic flashed across Genna’s
face, then changed into annoyance. “I think he’s interested in most of the unmarried female population of Connecticut.”

“Are you attracted to him?”

“Certainly not,” she said huffily. She turned back to her cupboards and started rummaging through them. How could she be attracted to a macho lunkhead like him? Absurd.

“Come on!” Amy scoffed. “The guy’s got a bod to die for!”

“He’s moderately good looking … in a brutish sort of way,” Genna said grudgingly, her blood heating up at the thought of his muscular arm draped across her shoulders, his lean hip bumping hers. Those gorgeous, translucent blue eyes took her breath away, and he had a smile that could melt stone. Tom Selleck should be so good looking.

Amy snorted. “It seems to me you’re trying pretty darn hard not to like him.”

It was Genna’s turn to snort as she ripped open packages of yeast and dumped them into a bowl of hot water. “I don’t have to try not to like him. It comes naturally.”

“Bull.” Amy plucked a cookie from the jar and munched on it. “I think you know he’s a hunk and a half.”

“Ha!”

“I think you know it, and it turns you on, and that’s why you’re upset.”

“I am not upset!” Genna shouted, flinging flour into the bowl, a cloud of white dust rising to coat her hair and face.

“What are you doing there?”

“Making bread.”

“Oh, good day for it,” Amy said dryly, reaching for a second cookie. “You can put it out on the driveway to bake.”

Genna snarled as she took a wooden spoon to the batter.

“Careful, you’ll dislocate your shoulder.”

Sometimes Genna wished Amy weren’t such a good friend. Amy never hesitated to say what was on her mind, and no amount of nasty looks or sarcastic remarks could drive her away if she didn’t want to be driven.

Neither woman spoke for several minutes. The sounds of the party came in through the screen door. Someone was getting thrown into the kiddie pool.

“Genna, are you afraid to try another relationship because of what happened with Allan?” Amy asked gently. She winced as she saw her friend
flinch at the name. Damn Allan Corrigan to hell and gone, Amy thought.

The pain was automatic, a conditioned response, but Genna had a firm hold on her emotions when she answered. “No. But that doesn’t mean I’m desperate either. I don’t have to throw myself at the first guy to come along.”

“J.J.’s hardly the first guy to express an interest.”

“He’s an irresponsible playboy who wants only to get me in his Jacuzzi!” Her hands squeezed the bread dough. She pretended she was strangling Jared Hennessy. It had to be his fault she wanted him and wanted him gone all at the same time.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Amy said, “but it sounds like fun just the same.”

“He’s not my type,” Genna said stubbornly.

“You and your blasted type!” Amy said disgustedly, banging her Coke can on the counter. “You don’t want a man. You want a three-piece suit and a subscription to the
Wall Street Journal
.”

“I want someone who’s quiet and loyal—”

“Springer spaniels are quiet and loyal,” Amy commented sardonically. “I don’t think they shed much either.”

Genna turned around and glowered at her
pudgy friend. “There’s nothing wrong with looking for a person with certain qualities.”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Amy agreed. “There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun either. You’re a fun person, Gen. What are you going to do with Mr. Dull N. Boring when you find him?”

Unable to come up with any kind of suitable answer, Genna turned back to her dough and slugged it.

Amy slid off her stool and headed back toward the party, stopping at the kitchen door. “I don’t think that’s what you want at all, but you’ve convinced yourself that’s the kind of man you need to feel safe. Do yourself a favor, Gen. Live it up. Have a summer fling.”

Genna walked to the screen door as she wiped her hands on a blue striped towel. She watched Amy cross her lawn and rejoin the festivities next door. There was Jared, wearing a sombrero, dancing with a flamingo in each hand.

“So he’s a hunk. Why should I care? Why should that upset me? It doesn’t. He could be ten hunks and it wouldn’t bother me,” she said resolutely.

She chewed her bottom lip as she watched the
sun gild a male body that should have been a bronze sculpture. Amy said she was looking for a man she would feel safe with. What was wrong with that? Nothing. She certainly wouldn’t feel safe with Jared. A nun wouldn’t feel safe with Jared.

“Maybe I should bake a cake as long as I’ve got the flour out.”

THREE

J
ARED STARED DOWN
at the letter in his hands. A feeling he had experienced only rarely in his nine years in the NFL slashed through him like a knife. Fear. He hated it, resented it, but couldn’t stop it from tearing his insides apart.

The letter, neatly typed on ivory vellum, was from Simone Harcourt, his ex-wife’s older sister. He’d met her only a handful of times, but he’d spent enough time with her to have formed a lasting opinion: She was a cold, determined woman who despised him. The letter that trembled in his hands was absolute confirmation of that.

Simone didn’t believe he was fit to be Alyssa’s
only parent. She didn’t believe his lifestyle provided a suitable environment for a five-year-old girl. She claimed it was public knowledge that he was dedicated to decadence and that a life of parties and loose women did not hold a place for a child. She was prepared to take action—legal action—to see to it that Alyssa was spared the horrible fate of growing up under a playboy’s influence.

A shudder jerking his body, Jared drove a hand through his close-cropped hair and swore. He swore until he couldn’t think of any more curses, even though he was trying to give up the bad habit. He had vowed to quit swearing when Alyssa had come to live with him. The thought pulled a wry laugh from his throat.

He rubbed his hand over his face, then looked at the Super Bowl ring on his finger. It was large and impressive, the ultimate symbol of success in his profession. He was at the top, the pinnacle of his career. He was a celebrity, respected by his peers, and he had more money than he knew what to do with. He would gladly have given it all to the next stranger to come down the street if it meant keeping his baby girl with him.

When he’d married Elaine he hadn’t been ready to settle down, but she had gotten pregnant and he
had done the right and honorable thing. From the start their marriage had gone awry. Elaine had continually derided him for his freewheeling lifestyle—which she had enjoyed as much as he before their marriage. Rebellious, he had refused to give it up just as he had never given up the idea that Elaine had gotten pregnant because the idea of being married to a pro quarterback had appealed to her.