White Picket Fences

Which might explain why sex with Sean had been so terrible she’d only tried it with him twice. Once he’d made the initial move to her bedroom, she’d had to initiate everything else. And had found the experience more embarrassing than arousing.

Grabbing one of the nine other pairs of athletic shoes lined up in front of her, she slipped out of the ones she had on and put them aside for bleaching.

“Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” Randi whispered. She didn’t usually allow herself to think that way, but sometimes, in the dark of the night, she was unable to keep her fears at bay.

“No!” Becca’s answer was emphatic. “You’ve just led an unusual life. You were an athlete from the day you were born. What choice did you have with four older brothers? You had to join in or be left in the dust. And you were good at everything you tried. You started training before you got to high school, and when most girls were experimenting with their sexuality, with boys, you were traveling on the junior professional golf circuit. You were hardly home enough to be able to graduate from high school, let alone do any dating.”

All of what her sister-in-law was saying Randi had already told herself. But it sounded so much more reasonable coming from Becca.

“And by the time I’d reached my twentieth birthday, I was on the LPGA tour and most men were too intimidated by me to see me as a woman. I usually knew more about sports than they did, and if a man happened to know as much, it was because he was an athlete himself, and then the fact that I might be able to beat him at his own game became a problem.”

“Tanner Snow?” Becca named the golfer Randi had brought home for Christmas one year.

Randi tied the laces on the shoe she’d just put on. “Yeah.”

“And it hasn’t gotten any easier, has it, since you won the position at Montford?”

“Probably not.” Randi hadn’t really noticed. Had she? She liked her life. Had more friends than she knew what to do with, enjoyed the time she spent with them.

Not everyone had a strong sex drive—which was surely why she hadn’t had a better experience with Sean.

Randi expended her physical energy on the basketball and tennis courts. And occasionally on the golf course, when she could bring herself to play a round with a rotator cuff that would never be what it was, thanks to the car accident nine years ago.

“Will and I have always said that when you got hit, you’d get hit hard,” Becca said.

“Got hit?” She studied the logos on her shoes. They were clearly legible.

“Fell for a man.”

“I’ve just met him, Becca! I haven’t fallen anywhere.”

“Have it your way.” Randi couldn’t tell if her brother’s wife was humoring her or not.

“So will you call him and tell him I can’t go? Say I have the flu or something?” She lay back on the end of her bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Why can’t you call him?”

“Because I might do something stupid, like let him talk me into going.”

“And that would be so horrible?”

“I think so.”

“Why?”

Randi swallowed. “Because it matters.” The admission was hard. “I don’t know why. I can’t understand it. But it matters.”

“So how will not going to dinner with him help that?”

“I won’t have to sit there and know things aren’t going to work out.” Randi sat up and bounced her feet on the floor.

“How do you know it won’t?”

“It never does.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Yesterday was certainly a case in point. “He’s a total pet freak.”

“He’s a vet.”

“I hate pets.”

“You’ve never had one.”

“I’m trying to sabotage the pet-therapy club assignment.”

“How are you going to do that?” Becca asked, chuckling.

“I don’t know.” Randi planted her feet solidly on the floor. “Plan A was yesterday and something went drastically wrong. I haven’t figured out Plan B yet, but rest assured, I will.”

“Go to dinner and maybe it’ll come to you.”

She’d never thought of that. Dinner would be an excellent opportunity to talk Zack Foster out of using college students for his little service project this semester. She had to get this settled before the students were back in session the following week; this might be her last opportunity.

And when Zack saw the benefits to his schedule, he’d be thanking her for it.

“DO YOU REALIZE what time it is?”

Zack looked at his watch. Holy hell, somehow it had jumped from eight-thirty to almost midnight without his even noticing. “I’m sorry,” he said, signaling for their bill. “You probably have to work in the morning, don’t you?”

Randi shrugged. Her shoulders, snug in the tight spandex jumpsuit she was wearing, attracted his attention. Everything about Randi’s body was tight.

It made Zack tight, too.

“Classes don’t start until next week, so while I have to go in, it doesn’t have to be too early.”

He had a surgery scheduled at seven-thirty the next morning.

“This place was great,” Randi said, pushing through the front door of the five-star Scottsdale hotel he’d chosen—before she remembered that he would probably have opened it for her. “You were right—not only was the duck à l’orange superb, but that guitar player was fabulous.”

He hadn’t heard much of the music. He’d been too focused on hearing about Randi’s job as athletic director at a class-one university. He’d learned the inside scoop on recruiting and eligibility rules, about Title Nine’s effect on the world of sports and found out which sports brought in money at the gate. He’d guessed right on basketball, but missed volleyball by a long shot. He’d told Randi about his job, too, when she’d asked. For someone who had no fondness for pets, she certainly had a lot of questions.

And a load of sassy comebacks, too. Zack couldn’t remember when he’d laughed so hard. Or just plain enjoyed himself so much.

What they hadn’t talked about was the pet-therapy club.

“So did you go immediately to Montford after you graduated from high school?” he asked Randi as he reluctantly turned his Explorer back toward Shelter Valley. Despite the lateness of the hour, he wasn’t ready for the evening to end.