Playing For Keeps

“Emily’s a real pretty name. What made you pick it?”

“She was my best friend in first grade.” Eyes exactly like his mother’s, just as intelligent but without the sass, met Dale’s. “But she moved away.”

Matt tapped Dale on the shoulder. “Hey, Mr….Mc…”

“Let’s just go with Dale.”

“Mr. Dale…I’ve read more Caldecott books than anybody in my class.”

Now, Dale didn’t have a clue what the heck a Caldecott book was, but he did know that one kid’s boasting about his accomplishments around another kid, especially a sibling, was usually sufficient to provoke a rise to the challenge. But Ryder just stood there, petting his bunny, like he hadn’t heard. But not like he didn’t care. Like he was trying to pretend he didn’t.

Luckily, though, before he had to figure out how to handle things, Joanna called for the kids, telling them they were about to eat soon, to come get cleaned up. The kids took off. Dale straightened, watching Joanna watch her sons as they ran toward her, the intensity of her gaze binding them to her as surely as if they’d been attached by a string. She touched each of them in turn when they reached her, her attention lingering a second or two longer on Ryder, who must’ve started talking about him, if the curious look on her face when she looked in Dale’s direction was any indication.

Like dead leaves disturbed by a sudden breeze, old, dried-up feelings rustled inside him, leaving him feeling unsettled.

The boys went on in; Joanna stayed outside, waiting.

“You’ve made a big hit,” she said, her arms now crossed. The pencil had been banished from her hair; instead, all those curls fought against a skinny gold headband that looked to be rapidly losing the battle. She’d put on some lipstick, too, a natural color that glistened softly on her mouth.

“They’re good kids,” Dale said. Except, when she nodded, he saw worry etched in the lines around her mouth, between her brows. “But then,” he said, “that’s probably because they’ve got a good mama.”

Her mouth twitched. “And how would you know that?”

“Just a hunch. From what I saw just now. The way they went running off, soon as you called them. Like they wanted to go to you, not like they were afraid of what you might do to ’em if they didn’t.”

Joanna laughed. “Damn. There goes my reputation.”

But there was a heaviness to her voice that disturbed something inside him, enough to make him do something stupid and to ask if everything was okay with Ryder.

She flinched slightly, and he could tell she was about to say, “Of course,” or some such, except a tear slipped out. Her arms tightened, like she wanted to wipe it away but to do so would only acknowledge its presence. “It’s…none of your concern,” she said softly, not in a way meant to make him feel he was butting in, but because she simply didn’t wish him to worry himself. And Dale didn’t wish to embarrass her by pressing the issue, especially since he wasn’t all that sure himself of the motives behind his inquiry.

“You have kids of your own?” she asked, catching him off guard. Although it shouldn’t have. Women like Joanna just naturally wondered about things like this.

“Hell, no.”

Her head tilted slightly. “You sound like you’d rather eat slugs.”

“No,” he said with a smile he really didn’t feel. “I just don’t think I’d be much good at it. Not for the long haul,” he added when she frowned at him.

“And you’re basing this on…?”

“Gut instinct? The fact that, for all the kids I’ve seen and been around, I’ve never felt like I was missing out by not having any of my own?”

“But I was watching you with the boys—”

He held up one hand to cut her off at the pass. “Likin’ kids and wantin’ to deal with ’em on a full-time basis are two different things. I mean, look at you, all tied up about your boy. I have enough trouble worrying about how to take care of myself, let alone trying to figure out how to make anybody else happy.”

She looked at him oddly. “You don’t strike me as the selfish type.”

“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said, then thought, Oh, yeah, that’s a great way to get the woman into your bed. Then he said, “And you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who would judge somebody else by her own standards. Not everybody’s cut out to be a parent…”

Shards of memories he thought he’d swept out years ago pricked at him, deep inside. He realized she was giving him one of those damned compassionate looks that gave him the willies.

“You’re absolutely right,” she said quietly. “Raising kids is hard, and messy, and usually thankless, and it’s easy enough to lose sight of the joy of parenthood when you did want your kids. But just for the record? I’ll gladly deal with being ‘tied up’ about my babies, as you put it, for the chance to see the world through their eyes on a daily basis. In fact, I’d have another one in a minute if I—” Her mouth clamped shut, then stretched into a tired smile. “Well. You might as well go mingle. Food’ll be ready in a sec.” Then she disappeared inside the house, hugging her burdens to herself like she was afraid of the mess they’d make if she dropped them.

When Dale looked up, he realized that Bobby Alvarez had been watching them. Not that Dale cared, not really, but antagonizing husbands, ex or otherwise, was not something he cared to do on a regular basis. So you could’ve knocked him over with a feather when Alvarez suddenly grinned at him, nodding in a way that Dale could have sworn was meant to be encouraging.

Chapter 6

“This means a lot to the kids, you coming to their party like this,” Roger Swann, Joanna’s father, said to him a minute or so later. Dale had duly reintegrated himself into the group, slipping easily into the good-old-boy charm he always used to mask a background that not even years of making obscene amounts of money could disguise.

So over the screams and laughter of more than a dozen little boys racing back and forth in the yard, he smiled at Roger, who looked laid-back enough in a long-sleeved denim shirt and blue jeans probably a size or two bigger around the waist than the man had worn ten years ago. That is, until you took a real good look at the silver-and-turquoise concha on the man’s bolo tie, as well as the no-doubt, custom-made cowboy boots peeking out from underneath the jeans’ hems.

“Thanks. It’s my pleasure.” Dale took another sip of his soda, then said, “You know, it’s just bugging the life out of me, but you look familiar. We haven’t met before or something, have we?”

Roger grinned. “You must’ve seen my last set of commercials.” At Dale’s frown, he said, “Mesa Lincoln-Mercury? Reassures folks, seeing the man behind the dealership. Or so I’m told.” He laughed. “Besides, I’m just a big old ham at heart. Even if it does embarrass the life out of Joanna’s mother.”

Whatever Dale was about to say vaporized when Joanna came back outside, that blond friend of hers in tow, the two of them toting plates and utensils and things.

“That Karleen’s sure a looker, isn’t she?” Roger said.

“What? Oh. Yeah. I guess.”

One bushy gray eyebrow arched speculatively before Roger dropped heavily into a nearby molded plastic chair, waving Dulcy over.

“Hey, baby…come on over here and sit beside your old granddaddy.” After a cautious glance at Dale, she did, whiskey-colored eyes huge behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, her dark brown hair as wild and curly as her mama’s. She was pretty, Dale supposed, in the way of girl children straddling adolescence, her top front teeth still a little too big for a mouth still the natural pink of a child’s. Her smile in answer to Dale’s flickered shyly, but her gaze was wide and clear and questioning.

“So what made you decide to go into retailing after your retirement?”

“A whim,” Dale said mildly, settling into another chair. “Just something I always thought I’d like to try someday.”

“You happy with it?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Heard you had all sorts of offers to coach.”

“I did.”

“But…?”

“Just wasn’t something I could wrap my head around, is all.”

Roger’s intense scrutiny didn’t make Dale near as uncomfortable as the unexpected sympathy he saw there. Just when he thought for sure his skull would pop from the tension, Roger waved his empty glass toward Dale’s soda can. “You ready for another one of those?”

“No, no. I’m good.”

Roger handed his glass to Dulcy. “Would you mind seeing if there’s any more Sprite, honey?”