he was as territorial as the next male animal he thought about moving closer, staking his own claim. Maybe leaning one palm on the tree trunk, right over her head.
Oh, yeah, this was definitely a game to him. One of his favorites. One he hadn’t felt much like playing in a long time. And wasn’t all that sure he should be playing now.
Because, unless he was sorely mistaken, Joanna Swann played by a whole different set of rules than he was used to. If he wanted to set this one up to win—should he decide that’s what he wanted to do—he’d best remember that. So he didn’t move closer. In fact, he crouched by the pile of four-by-fours, going through the motions of checking them off on his parts list, even though he’d checked them three times before loading them into the truck. “Don’t see as time has much to do with anything.”
“Time?” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets in a way that managed to be sexy as all get-out and childlike at the same time. On closer inspection, she wasn’t near as skinny as he’d first thought, although far as he could tell underneath the sweatshirt, she didn’t have much in the way of breasts. But this was one instance where size did not matter. “Nothing,” she said. “But I sure hope you’re wrong. For his pregnant fiancée’s sake, if nothing else.”
“Oh. That puts kind of a different spin on things, huh?”
“That would be my take on it.”
“Still and all, maybe he figured he made a mistake, walking away from you.”
After a moment she said, “He didn’t walk away. I did.”
Dale looked up. That hadn’t been regret in her voice, not that he could tell. But there was something that niggled at him, anyway. “Because?”
“Because I saw no point in sticking something out that wasn’t working anymore.”
“I see.” A pause. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you got any idea why you’re telling me this?”
Her gaze met his, cool as a freshly cut lawn on a summer’s day. “None at all.” Then she tilted her head. “So you were a ball player?”
To hide his smile, Dale got up and crossed to where she wanted the set, nudging the roots with the toe of his shoe. Nice tactic she had there: if the conversation wasn’t going the way she liked, she just moved on to something else.
“Yep,” he said. “My entire adult life, up until a nasty case of pitcher’s arm ended my career a couple years back.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It happens. I…take it you’re not a fan?”
“Of sports? No. Paying a bunch of grown men millions of dollars to chase, kick, bat or otherwise torture a ball never made a whole lot of sense to me.”
“Don’t hold back now, tell me what you really think.”
She laughed. “Okay, so I’m not going to wet myself because you were a sports star.”
“So why’d you say you were sorry?”
Her smile faded into a faint blush. “Because…I can imagine how hard it must have been for you to give up something you loved. Assuming you did.”
It was the weirdest thing. With most women, he had no trouble keeping track of whether he was making points or not. Not with this one. Damn, it was unnerving, the way she managed to be aloof and sympathetic at the same time.
“Yeah. I loved it.” Although not for the reasons she probably thought. The real motives behind his playing, for his determination to win at that game, too, weren’t any of her business. Or anyone else’s.
Jose and the dog finally returned with the ax. After telling them to come get her in the studio if they had any questions, Joanna called the dog and carefully picked her way back to the house in her bare feet. Dale noticed there were two little dusty butt-cheek impressions on the bottom of the long white sweatshirt, a detail that fueled his imagination. Behind him, Jose chuckled.
“Shut up,” Dale muttered. Jose just laughed harder.
Could Joanna help it that her worktable sat at the perfect angle to see across the yard? Or that the play set really only worked in that spot? And was it her fault that stuffing Santa bodies didn’t exactly require her entire concentration? She would have been looking out the window anyway, right? And it certainly wasn’t her fault that Dale McConnaughy had taken off his shirt.
Or that he liked to wear his jeans slung low on his hips.
She was an artist, after all. Her perusal of Dale Mc-Connaughy’s naked torso was no different than all those life drawing classes she took. Muscles and sinews and shoulders.
Oh, my.
On the floor beside her, stretched out in a patch of dusty sunlight, Chester twitched, dreaming. One of the cats, who was just passing, smacked Chester’s nose on general principles; the dog jerked awake, looked accusingly at Joanna, then crashed his head back on the floor with a beleaguered sigh. Joanna chuckled, then looked out the window again and gave a beleaguered sigh of her own.
Maybe Dale McConnaughy represented everything Joanna didn’t want or need, but he was one fine specimen of human male. And Joanna was one fine specimen of pathetically horny female. That she should feel a twitch in her hoo-hah every time she looked at the guy was hardly a surprise.
What was a surprise was that, for all Dale Mc-Connaughy’s come-to-papa charm—yeah, yeah, she wasn’t totally out of the loop—she’d bet her butt that charm was a cover for something that went far deeper. Oh, she had no doubt he was out for only one thing, but unlike most guys who saw sexual conquests as some sort of Holy Grail, she had the distinct feeling Dale McConnaughy used them because his real Holy Grail was out of his reach.
Which was certainly a presumptuous conclusion for her to have reached after—what?—two five-minute conversations. But she remembered vividly, from her stint as a part-time art teacher before the twins were born, seeing that particular expression in this or that student’s eyes. The look that said, “I’m fine, don’t dig, don’t ask, don’t make me think about things I don’t want to think about.” A look that asserted itself at unguarded moments, when buried or ignored pain dimmed even the brightest smile. After a dozen times of asking the kids’ teachers what was up, and getting answers she didn’t want to hear, she no longer questioned if she was seeing what she thought she was. She knew.
But reaching out, however subtly, to a nine-year-old was far different than reaching out to a grown man who would, in all probability, completely misinterpret her motives. Which, considering the way her nerve endings were shouting, “Hallelujah, I am reborn, sister!” would be a completely understandable misinterpretation on his part.
So she wouldn’t reach out.
At all.
Ever.
“Hey, honey!”
Joanna jumped a foot, then turned to see her best friend, Karleen Almquist, click-clacking her way across the room in a pair of high-heeled ankle boots and designer jeans that could practically fit Dulcy. Karleen was not, and had never been, into the natural look. Karleen, bless her, not only believed comparing her to a Barbie doll was a compliment,
