Kicks for a Sinner S3 (8 page)

“Say, that pie place we stopped at last time is coming up. Remember, you wouldn’t admit the first implants took, that you were pregnant, and you kept blaming bad tamales for your upset stomach when all along you had morning sickness.”

“I do recall.”

“Want to stop there again? Last chance for some hot chili before it gives you heartburn again.”

Nell swallowed. “I think I’ll pass this time. Let’s get to the hotel, order some soup, and have a nice quiet evening together.”

“Wish I could make you feel better, sugar.” His large hand crept across the space dividing them. It moved under her stretchy red top and deftly unhooked her bra. His fingertips, lightly calloused from gripping footballs, found her nipple, gently tweaked and massaged. He waited for her to swat him away, but Nell simply closed her eyes again and sighed.

“You still know all the moves, Joe Dean Billodeaux.”

“A man has to practice his skills to stay in the game, sugar.” He expected her to snap at him about calling her that as she did when she got tetchy.

“Well, it takes my mind off my headache.”

So, petting while driving—okay, but texting, no way. Entirely fine by him. If Nell felt well enough for this, the evening seemed promising. Not only the last chance for spicy Mexican or Cajun food, but for sex for some weeks to come. He wanted them to make the most of it, and they would.

NINE

The thing Nell hated most about whole implantation process was how people treated her afterward. She and Joe stayed in Phoenix for two weeks after the procedure to make sure all went well—in other words, no miscarriages since she’d lost one before by being careless. Joe grabbed her elbow at the least chance of a stumble as they toured museums and took in concerts and plays. He refused to clamber around ancient Native American ruins, citing the possibility of falls, rattlesnake bites, or crumbling adobe bricks conking her on the head. Forbidden to swim in the golf club pool while Joe played a few rounds, she basked in the sun like a desert tortoise full of eggs to be expelled and buried in the sand. No horseback riding, absolutely not, nor overland Jeep trips.

Sadistically, she made her husband sit in a high-end maternity wear shop while she tried on a panoply of clothes from tight little tops that would show off her baby bump to the tent-like dresses she knew she would need if all three babies stayed in place. Joe smiled like a happy idiot and told her to buy them all while the saleswomen fluttered around offering him coffee or bottled water or a more comfortable chair than the little-lady-seat his large frame overwhelmed. In the dressing room, her glorified shopping assistant went on and on about what a handsome, strong and understanding man she’d married.

“Don’t forget rich and famous,” Nell added with a growl.

The hormones made her emotional and insecure. All the old feelings of inadequacy she’d experienced when first married to the legendary womanizer, Joe Dean Billodeaux, surfaced again. What if she lost all these babies? What if Joe strayed while she grew big as a harvest moon and got confined to bed for the last weeks of the pregnancy? She took it out on the clerk, sending the thin, nervous woman scrambling for other sizes, other colors, and endless accessories. In the end, Nell apologized for her rudeness, but the salesperson merely said pregnant women tended to be high-strung. She understood entirely, undoubtedly soothed by a huge commission and Joe’s compliments on the clerk’s good taste. By the end of their stay in Phoenix, their luggage increased by three bags, Joe cheerfully paid the extra fee for them all.

She simply did not like being pushed and told what not to do as if she were a child herself. Joe said that just made her human like everyone else, but as a psychologist she ought to do better. Why did he have to be so damned understanding? She knew before she took the test she’d gotten pregnant again and burst into tears when the results confirmed the fact. Joe beamed and cuddled her to his great chest where she did feel safe and very well loved.

Home again the children soothed her, crammed up against her, boys on one side, girls on the other, while Nadine and Cassie got on her nerves. Her mother-in-law gave her a tour of their freezer stacked to the top with bland, nourishing foods Cajun style: gumbo dumbed down to tourist spiciness, venison stew with no garlic, smothered pork cutlets made with the mildest of onions, all contributed by Joe’s sisters and Nadine, as if Corazon couldn’t cook for them. Nell figured the supply would last the entire pregnancy.

“Now Joe, he can add his own hot sauce to all this,” Nadine said. “You the one we takin’ care of,
cher
heart.” How could Nell retaliate against the well-meaning?

As for Cassie, her blue eyes filled with tears, saying, “I guess you don’t need me to stay here anymore—but I’d be willing to come every weekend to help out regardless.” That, Nell could answer with a small smile. “Thanks, Cassie, we’ll be fine. Go out and enjoy yourself. You are too young to be tied down yet.”

“I guess I’ll just go say good-bye to Copperhead, then,” the girl said, referring to the barrel horse Joe kept for her to ride.

Joe had gone to check on the animals while Nell got the gourmet tour of the freezer contents. “No!” Nell said urgently, but Cassie went out the door as if she were deaf in one ear.

Nadine patted her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry about her. Howdy is out there putting down some straw. Won’t nothing happen.” Sometimes Nadine for all her pushiness could be very understanding.

“Sure. Who wants presents?” Nell said to her flock of children, but her eyes followed Cassie’s progress from the open kitchen door toward Joe in the barn.

* * * *

Cassie entered the dimness of the barn and glanced around for the ever-present Howdy. That guy seemed to be everywhere when she helped out with the children on the weekends. He took the kids trail riding, inviting her along. And how could she refuse when Tommy begged her to come? The kicker coaxed her into a barrel-racing demonstration, doling out lots of compliments on her fine seat and sharp edges as she ran the cloverleaf course on Copperhead. As if she would ever fall for that line again after her experience with Bijou.

Then, she’d found him in Joe’s weight room one morning since her son insisted they find the man and ask when the next kicking lesson would be. He wore nothing but a pair of red gym shorts as he executed leg presses and extensions on one of the machines. Sweat flattened the light covering of reddish-brown hair covering his pecs and arrowing toward his groin. She imagined when newly showered and dry it would feel fluffy to the fingertips and smell of the body wash she’d come to associate with him—a grassy scent like a new-mown meadow.

His legs were objects of beauty, the shapely calves, the strong thighs, bunching for two counts and pushing back their full length for two more. He’d have stamina, lots of stamina in those quads. Unlike most football players, he had no bulk, but owned arms with long, smooth muscles and a chest and belly of flat planes most men would envy if they didn’t play for the Sinners.

She stayed back while Tommy charged ahead and got right in the man’s face. “Whatcha doing?”

“Strengthening my legs. I do this routine every other day and practice kicking in between.”

“Should I be doing that?”

“Not on machines, not at your age, but you can do squats on your own.”

He stood up, clear of the apparatus, to show Tommy a squat. They did a few together. Howdy didn’t appear to be trying to impress her as he stretched out his arms, folded his knees, and rose fluidly up and down, but he did.

“Whoa now, pardner. Easy does it. You don’t want to rush the exercises. Usually I do these with weights. You can use a couple of soup cans if you want, but I’d just rely on your leg muscles until you build up some.”

Whoa, pardner? Had he been raised by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans? She snorted at his quaintness.

“You getting a cold, Mama Cassie?” Tommy asked.

“No. Maybe a fever.” Had he actually flushed when she said that? “Look, let the man exercise. Stop bothering him.”

“He’s no trouble, ma’am. I always wanted a little brother. Let me shower, then we do can some kicking.”

Cassie knew Joe’s shower off the weight room. She used it sometimes after working out on the treadmill to strengthen her legs for riding. His soap had a stronger, more exotic and less innocent scent than whatever Howdy used. The shower stall itself could fit two and had multiple nozzles easily aimed at sore spots or elsewhere. The things she’d done with Joe’s soap and a strong stream of water while imaging herself with the quarterback made her color a little now. Howdy presented her with that stupid grin of his, probably believing she thought of sharing the bath with him. No chance of that. The man was so squeaky clean already he probably didn’t even beat off like normal guys.

“We’ll see you later.” She got the hell out of there.

Her eyes adjusted to the low light filtering through the barn. No sign of Howdy, but Joe stood by the large box stall at the end feeding carrots to his stud quarter horse, Lazy Boy.

“Glad to see me, big fellow?” he asked the huge red animal with the flashy blaze and four white socks. Lazy Boy never stopped chomping the carrots to give even a nicker of appreciation as Joe scratched the horse between the ears. What she would give to have Joe’s hands on her, right here, right now. She’d been holding in her feelings so long.

“I’m glad to see you, Joe.” Cassie advanced toward him in what she hoped was a slow and sexy gait.

“Always good to see you, too, Cassie. Thanks for helping out with my brood while Nell and me were away. You know she’s expecting again. I think all three babies took, but we won’t know for sure for a while.”

“I realize how you felt about using all the embryos since I’m Catholic, too.” She placed a tentative hand on his bicep.

Joe took a step back and let his eyes wander anywhere but on her. “Howdy sure did a great job of keeping this barn clean. You can’t even smell the manure.”

“Knox Polk helped him and me and all the kids. He didn’t do it single-handedly.”

“Well, he didn’t have to do it at all. He has his own ranch inherited from his grandfather in Oklahoma to take care of and stayed here as a favor to me.”

“So now he can go there. Joe, you know Nell didn’t want to get pregnant again.”

“She did it for me.”

“Reluctantly. I’m used to big families. I want one of my own.”

She moved closer again. The tension in the air upset Lazy Boy who tossed his big head up and down, sending his unshorn chestnut mane and forelock flying. Usually docile if headstrong, still the stallion could be unpredictable, especially around mares in heat. Only Joe rode him, and he hadn’t gotten much exercise while his master made babies in Arizona. Howdy had permission to take the animal out, but he’d said “no” to riding a valuable stud and instead displaced a resentful Dean on Drummer Boy and relegated the boy back to a pony. The cowboy kicker hadn’t made any friends there. Why did Howdy have come to mind now, now when she finally had a chance alone with Joe—no Nell, no kids, no Nadine?

“Joe, you must know how I feel about you. I’d lie in the hay with you right now if you wanted. I haven’t been with any other man since Bijou. You are all I want, a strong man who loves children and would never fail me.”

Joe, as nervous as his favorite mount, shook his head and made that problematic black curl he so despised drift across his forehead. Cassie moved her hand to bush it back into place, but he shied before she touched him. She swore his nostrils flared and his eyes widened like a wild mustang cornered in a box canyon.

“Cassie, you’re a great girl, but I’m married to Nell. We got three more babies on the way. Would you really want a man who cheated on his pregnant wife, who failed
her
? I said my vows with Nell, twice, both in and out of the Church. When a Billodeaux says his vows, that’s it. I’m done foolin’ around.”

“But I’m younger than Nell. I’m prettier and better built and just as smart.”

“Not in my eyes. Look, I think you need to go back to grad school and stay there for a while until you cool off. You can call Tommy and Skype with him, but I don’t want you around here upsetting Nell. The babies are due in October. Let’s say we’ll see you again for Thanksgiving.”

“But that’s ten months away!”

“Sounds about right to me. Stay away from me until you leave.”

He was gone, turning on a dime, out the far end of the barn, escaping from the pocket to run free. Lazy Boy snapped at her, something he’d never done in all the time she’d spent at Lorena Ranch. Cassie drew back and let her tears come. She heard a creaking of the hayloft ladder, the thud of a body jumping the last few rungs, and tried to stop her shoulders from heaving. There Howdy stood, the last person on earth she wanted to see right now.

“Ouch. That must have hurt,” he said, not grinning now.

“You eavesdropped!” she accused, using anger to quell her anguish.

“I couldn’t hardly help it. This is an old barn even if Joe refurbished it, and the cracks between the boards are fairly wide. I went up to the loft to throw down some hay for Lazy Boy. I guess I was standing right above you when you made a fool of yourself. Everybody but you knows Nell and Joe are forever. Why, the team gets that and steers the groupies away from him because he doesn’t want to be bothered.”

“I bet even the groupies don’t want you,” she lashed out, determined to wound someone else.

He smiled, not a grin, but small and rueful. “A few have come my way, but they aren’t the kind of woman I want. A gal who has been with a lot of men, not my type.”

Cassie raised her chin and pulled back her shoulders to show off her chest. “You think I’m attractive, don’t you?”

“Sure. Beautiful, actually.”

“Okay, then. Right here, right now, up in the loft. Show me how much you want me.”

“No. Thank you, ma’am.”

“What! You moon around me for a month, and now it’s ‘no thanks’. I can’t believe I’ve been turned down by a kicker! You are gay, aren’t you?”