A Gleam In His Eye

“Nuh-uh” came the immediate denial.

“Uh-uh.”

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” contributed one child, legs crossed and hand pressed firmly between her legs. Johanna waved her toward the locker room.

“Beat the new kids. Maybe it’ll make them swim faster.”

Hunter half rose again.

“Marcus,” said Coach Jo, “you know the rules. No put-downs. Karen and Robby just started swim team. They’ll get faster all by themselves as they practice, just like you did. I think maybe I’ll beat you instead.”

Yeah, thought Hunter. Beat the little jerkface, picking on his niece and nephew like that.

But the little jerkface danced out of Coach Jo’s reach. “Gotta catch me first,” he said, and dived into the pool. “Besides, you just pretended to beat Billy. He told me so,” Marcus added when his head cleared the surface.

“Oh, yeah?” Coach Jo asked. “Watch this.” She grabbed the child next to her, who happened to be her little sister, flipped her upside down and lightly tapped her seat while making loud smacking sounds.

The kids all laughed, including the victim. “I’m telling Mom,” the small fry said.

Johanna fell willingly into the trap. “Oh, no, don’t do that, Aubrey. Don’t tell Mom on me. I’ll do anything to make it up to you. How about an extra piece of my birthday cake come Friday?”

Five other youngsters pressed close.

“I’ll let you beat me, Coach Jo, if you bring me a piece of your birthday cake.”

“What kind is it going to be?” another one wanted to know before committing himself.

“Chocolate.”

“How old you gonna be, Coach Jo?”

“Old,” Jo’s little sister replied. “Really old.” She danced back out of Johanna’s reach. “Twenty-five. My mom says that’s three times as old as us guys.”

“Man,” a little blonde said reverently. “That is old.”

Hunter eavesdropped shamelessly, calmer as he saw the coach in action. Twenty-five, hmm? Only a few years younger than he. Hunter wasn’t yet sure if he totally approved of the blond dynamo, but he was a desperate man and becoming more so with every passing day. He couldn’t help but notice Coach Jo’s bare left hand.

This was a new sensation for Hunter. He enjoyed women, certainly. What wasn’t there to enjoy about them? The opposite sex was delightful with their softer curves and interesting, um, shaping. And their minds! Well their minds were a fascinating foreign landscape a man could travel forever and never quite be able to map out. Oh, yes, Hunter loved them dearly, each and every puzzling one, but he’d never been much interested in attaching himself permanently to one. In fact, up to now, he’d avoided marriage at all costs. Whenever he dated a woman, he kept a careful watch for signs of nesting. If she started detouring him through the baby section during a harmless stroll through the local department store and investigating the local school system in his neighborhood, he knew he had to end the relationship—or risk losing his bachelor freedom. Hunter just hadn’t been ready for marriage or family. Until now.

Hunter sighed. Unfortunately, through absolutely no fault of his own, things had changed and he found himself with a bad case of ready or not, here they come. Hunter needed a woman in his life. He needed a mother for his brood. His niece and nephews were now his, permanent, full-time for the next fifteen to twenty years. His big brother was up there somewhere laughing at him, he just knew it. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself,” he muttered to the heavens. “But I’ll be joining you someday myself, probably a lot sooner than I ever thought if your kids have their way, and I will get my payback. See if I don’t.”

When his brother and sister-in-law had died in that accident, leaving Hunter their four children to raise, he’d been so naively sure he could handle things by himself. How hard could it be to throw food in front of the little miscreants a few times a day and send them up to bed at eight-thirty every night?

Hard. His recently acquired crew of four had spent the last month and a half proving just how hard it could be. Because of their recent loss, the kids had trouble letting Hunter out of their sight, trouble sleeping in the dark, trouble…just lots of trouble. Hunter needed help and he was becoming desperate enough to admit it.

Now, when he was finally ready to be caught, the women of his acquaintance all seemed to have done an abrupt about-face. It wasn’t really a change of heart, the last one had earnestly assured him. Certainly she wanted children—her own. Elaine simply hadn’t been ready to take on four of somebody else’s before she’d even taken her own genetic code down from the shelf and dusted it off.

Hunter nodded thoughtfully as he observed. Now, this young lady seemed to actually enjoy young children. Why or how he couldn’t begin to imagine. It’s not as if kids could discuss the Cubs latest trade or the stock trends with you. But then, as he’d noticed more than once before, the female mental landscape was one confusing place. Hunter shook his head and tuned back into the other apparently delicate matter of Coach Jo’s age.

“Thanks a lot, Aubrey.” Johanna glared at her sister. “All right, big mouth, now you’re in for it.”

“Chocolate frosting, too?”

“With sprinkles,” Johanna confirmed, her attention momentarily diverted from her unable-to-keep-anything-secret younger sibling.

“I guess you could beat me,” one more said after brief consideration. “So long as the sprinkles are chocolate, too.”

“Too late to take it back,” Aubrey said with a smirk. “She already promised me the extra cake and I decided not to tell.”

“I just may tell Mom myself what a little con artist you’ve become, young lady.” Then Johanna hugged her. “Oh, well, a deal’s a deal. All right, everybody in the water. Do a good job and I just might bring cupcakes for everybody. Ten fifties freestyle stroke drill on the one-twenty. Watch the pace clock.” Johanna turned to study the large poolside clock. “All right,” she said as the second hand approached the top of the clock. “Ready and…go.”

Hunter Pace watched his seven-year-old niece and eight-year-old nephew look around in confusion. He didn’t blame them. Any attempts at poolside order and organization were well hidden. It was his children’s first session ever with a swim team, and the energetic and incredibly vivacious coach seemed to be speaking Greek. He rose, prepared to go question Coach Jo on the directions and decipher them for Karen and Robby. Truth be told, he wouldn’t mind getting close to the kids’ new coach again. Her coaching style seemed a bit unorthodox to him, but anybody who exuded the natural sex appeal Coach Johanna exuded got the benefit of his doubt. He’d make it a point to keep an eye on her, that was all. The closer eye the better. Coach Johanna was not only a looker, she smelled like a ripe peach. Hunter had discovered that interesting tidbit when he’d introduced Karen, Robby and himself at the beginning of the session. He’d always had a thing for peaches. And fruits were, after all, an important part of any man’s diet.

But before he could even rise to his full six foot two, he realized it would be once again unnecessary for him to interfere and sat back down. His thighs were really getting a workout what with all this standing up and sitting down. He could probably leave the leg sets out of his regime later on that night.

Coach Johanna already had her arms around his niece and nephew while she instructed them as to what she wanted them to do. Then she handed them each a twelve-inch length of thick dowel rod and gestured at the children swimming in the pool, as she pointed out the correct way to use the sticks for the freestyle drill. She pointed out the large clock propped up by the pool’s side and explained that ten fifties meant swimming fifty yards, or to one end of the pool and back, ten times.

Karen and Robby nodded seriously several times, their little chests heaving from all the exertion. Maybe they should sit down. He was trying to wear them out so he could get them to bed at a decent time, not kill them. Once again Hunter got up to interfere, and once again found it unnecessary. He was starting to feel like a jack-in-the-box. He watched while Johanna directed Robby and Karen to sit on the edge of the pool, where they kicked their feet in the water and called out times from the clock as kids came in and hit the wall.

Never turning her back to the water, Johanna began picking up kickboards from around the pool’s edge and stacking them neatly. Positioning herself so that the swimmers were always in her sight presented her backside to the gallery, giving Hunter a view he greatly appreciated.

After the first two sets, Johanna took Robby and Karen over to the slowest lane and had them slide in. She walked along the edge of the pool beside them, encouraging them as they tried to copy the other children, holding the rod out in front of them while they stroked one arm, grabbed the rod with that hand, then rotated the other arm.

“Stretch out,” Johanna yelled. “That’s it, reach for it. Now kick. Kick, kick, kick! Good job. Put your face in the water and only turn your head to breathe every third stroke. That a way! You’re going to be awesome swimmers, I can already tell.”

Hunter swelled with newly acquired parental pride. Of course they’d be awesome. Why just look at them, they were like little fish out there, obviously in their element. His eyes narrowed in contemplation. Just exactly what kind of credentials did this young swim coach have? She obviously could recognize pure talent when she saw it, but beyond that? Karen and Robby should have the best, after all. Just look how quickly they caught on—see how they hung on to that stick? Neither one had dropped it yet. Well, anyone that coordinated could very easily have Olympic potential.

Johanna handed out stopwatches at the end of the set and walked the youngsters through taking their own pulse. She doubted any of them were even close to getting the correct rate, but eventually it would click in and they’d be able to do it. And it made them feel like big shots, keeping their interest level high. She didn’t want any eight-year-old burn-outs, which was why she tried to vary the practices and keep everything low-key and nonthreatening. This practice, however, had been uncomfortable for her. She’d never really quite found her groove. There’d been two new kids, cute but without a whole heck of a lot of natural athletic ability. Johanna certainly recognized that not everyone would go to the Olympics or even swim collegially, and in general, she disliked that elitist attitude so many sport enthusiasts took—her student Marcus and his parents a case in point. You didn’t have to have Olympic potential to benefit from and enjoy a good, wholesome sport. Exercise was good for everyone, after all. And with a lot of work those two new little water sprites might be good enough to at least swim competitively during high school, maybe even earn a letter.

No, the kids weren’t the problem.

It was the dad.

He’d stared at her almost the whole time until she’d wanted to stop and make sure she didn’t have her shorts on inside out or backward. Heck, he was still staring at her. She’d been doing this for a million years and he had her feeling self-conscious. She never felt self-conscious. Well, at least not much anymore. Johanna did not appreciate the fact that this man she didn’t even know could make her feel that way now.

Johanna blew her whistle. “Okay, my little munchkins, that’s it for tonight. I need all my stopwatches back in my box, the kickboards and pull buoys back in their bins, and I need everybody to take all their stuff home with them. Next pair of goggles I pick up off the deck are mine. I could use a nice new pair. Anybody who leaves their swimsuit in the locker room loses it. I’m wearing it next time.”

That got a good laugh.

“Coach Jo, you couldn’t wear our swimsuits. They’re too little.”

“Oh, yeah? Maybe I’ll put one on each leg and one on each arm, ever think of that? And I’d have enough to do it, too, if last practice was any indication. If I wanted to be a maid I’d have gone to maid school. Make sure you’ve got everything before you leave. No more upset parental phone calls, hear me?”

They all nodded agreement between smiles and giggles at the mental image of their coach piecing together all their suits to create one of her own.

“It’d never work,” one whispered.

“Yeah, it’d fall right apart to pieces.”