A Little Bit of Déjà Vu (7 page)

Jake dropped his head back and laughed, reminding her how much she’d loved the sound. “Man, I would’ve loved to see the look on old Howie’s face.”

“I’ve never seen a human being turn that particular shade of red before. He glowed like Rudolph’s nose after he saw how many parents were standing behind him.” She smiled sideways at Jake. “So what kind of trouble has he been stirring up for you?”

“I’ve already been hauled before the board once for an informal hearing about the provocative content in my Marriage and Family class.”

Despite the goose bumps already traipsing down her bare arms, she cranked up the air conditioner in order to vent Jake’s masculine smell from the car. Breathing his scent had put every nerve in her body on full alert.

“So how’d a Dr. Phil wannabe end up teaching in the family and consumer science department?” she asked. “You were already halfway through your master’s in psych when we met.”

“I guess you could say my dreams got derailed by life. Having Alex and being on the road so much with the team made it hard to attend classes—even at night.”

“Been there, done that.” Even though Emma had already started school by the time Margie enrolled in college, it had been tough being a wife, mother, and full-time student.

“So when you quit playing ball, why didn’t you go back for your doctorate then? Financially speaking, you should’ve been pretty well set after winning two Super Bowls.”

“I could’ve, but I didn’t want to spend what I’d invested. My mom’s illness left my dad in debt up to his eyeballs. During the first two years I played ball, I paid off her medical bills and his house and put a million away for him so he could retire.”

“Wow.” It was hard to dislike such a generous man.

“He deserved it. Unfortunately, Roxanne wasn’t used to economizing. Everything she bought had a designer label. Part of the reason I hung up my cleats was to give her and Alex a more normal home life.”

“I figured you would become a sports announcer or something. Wasn’t it hard to simply walk away from professional football?”

Jake shrugged. “I get enough of the pros as a guest commentator during some of the bigger games. It’s not something I’d want to do all the time.”

She could understand that. “So why’d you switch from Psych to Family and Consumer Science?”

“I had to. Skinner, Piaget, and Maslow only scratched the surface of what I wanted to teach the kids. So I took the Praxis exam for dual certification.”

She couldn’t believe this was the same man who’d made love to her so tenderly and then married someone else without giving her a second thought. Witnessing what a wonderful father Jake had become fed her resentment.

The sudden lull in the conversation cranked up the tension in the car several notches. She glanced away from the country lane for a moment and discovered Jake studying her like an alcoholic staring at a cold six-pack—as if he were dying for a drink but knew one sip….

“So,” she said, breaking the uncomfortable silence and jerking her gaze back to the road, “I guess your old district wouldn’t let you slide over to that department, huh?”

“Only if I wanted to put on an apron and teach traditional home economics courses.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t expect to be teaching for more than a few more years, anyway.”

“Then what?” The man was way too young to be thinking about retirement.

“Well, I haven’t given up my plans to be a psychotherapist,” he explained. “After Roxanne left, I went back to get my doctorate. It was tough finding a grad school where I could do it in the evenings, but I’m working on finishing my dissertation, now. I’m specializing in adolescents.”

“I’m impressed.” It couldn’t have been easy for him, what with being a single parent and teaching.

“My dad was a big help with Alex.” He pointed toward the intersection ahead. “You do know how to get to my house, don’t you?”

She flipped on her right blinker. “Yes. Emma raves about it every time we pass it.”

“Well, I’m not looking forward to rattling around alone in it come August.”

If the kids got their way, Emma would be leaving home even before then. Margie prayed her daughter would change her mind about getting married. She’d always wanted another baby anyway. They could buy a house with a big backyard, and Margie could baby-sit while Emma went to college in the evenings. The prospect of her daughter moving out wouldn’t be so depressing if Dan were still alive. Margie didn’t know how she would stand the lonely meals without Emma’s chatter or the silent evenings with no music blaring in her daughter’s bedroom while she studied.

A half mile down the rural road, she pulled the Camry into the long driveway leading up to the sprawling one-story stone house overlooking a breathtaking panorama of farmland being gobbled up by upscale housing subdivisions at an alarming rate. Jake’s home had to be close to four-thousand square feet and sat on a rise with a small pond and a beautiful gazebo behind it, all backlit by the promise of a gorgeous sunset.

He nodded toward his front door. “Okay. Let’s sit down with a glass of iced tea and discuss what to do with the kids.”

Just as long as the only thing on his agenda was a conversation about their children. “Okay, but I can’t stay too long.”

Spending an entire evening squirming under Jake Manion’s bone-melting gaze ranked extremely high on her list of tortures to avoid. Like somewhere between having a tooth pulled and a Brazilian bikini wax.

And having unwanted hair ripped from her privates was sounding better and better.

Chapter 4

Margie reluctantly turned off the engine and followed Jake into a large foyer and winced at the click-clack of her heels against the obviously expensive hardwood floor. Glancing into a formal dining and living room on either side of her, she let him lead her past a powder room to the back of the house.

The center hall spilled into the dining area of a huge combination country kitchen and immense family room where the door to what appeared to be a study sat ajar. She swept her hand around the great room and pointed to the enormous flat screen television. “Now, I understand why Alex wants to live here. You could show movies and charge admission.”

“Actually, my team watches games here a lot. As long as they bring their own snacks and keep the noise down to a low roar so I can work, I don’t mind. But they each have to ante up for drinks from my fridge so I’m sure no one’s sneaking any booze in.

“Doesn’t that get a little intrusive? I mean, all those kids underfoot must make having a private life a challenge.”

Jake leaned against the wall and smirked. “As my son would say—
what private life
?”

“Uhh, I didn’t mean that as a fishing expedition for information on your love life. I assure you that’s the last thing I have any interest in.”

Liar.

The man’s lethal sex appeal started her heart knocking against her breastbone like a woodpecker’s beak. Even though he’d left her with wounds that had never healed, she couldn’t help but admire his dedication to the kids.

Playing ball at the high school could be just what Simon needed. Jake might even be able to convince him to continue working with her.

She tipped her head back and gazed up at Jake. “Tell me something. How badly do you want Simon Newberry to play for you next year?”

“Very badly. But I don’t want his education compromised. Besides, his grades would probably make him ineligible.”

“I have a proposition to make.”

“Really?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “This could get interesting.”

Heat crept up her neck. Wasn’t the tension from their situation wearing on his nerves, too? His levity—lewd though it might be—was a welcome respite. “I’m talking about a
deal
between us.”

“Damn.” He snapped his fingers. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“I’ll recommend promoting Simon to the high school if you’ll make his participation on the team conditional on him working out with you and tutoring with me several times a week this summer. I think his biggest problem is poor self-esteem.”

“It’ll have to be an informal workout at my house. It’s against the rules for me to hold preseason training sessions more than twenty-five days before our first official game.”

“That’s fine. I don’t care if he even touches a football. I’m simply hoping you can use a little of your psychology training to help boost Simon’s confidence and make him more receptive to my teaching.”

“Deal.” Jake held out his hand to shake. “You know it might help if you used some sports magazines instead of a fifth grade primer to teach him.”

“
Duhhh
.” She smacked her forehead. “If only I’d thought of assigning something that actually interested him. Simon could’ve been reading
War and Peace
by now.”

One corner of Jake’s mouth turned up. “I guess I just made an ass of myself, huh?” He shrugged one of his he-man shoulders. “Nothing new.” Linking his callused fingers with hers, he tugged her toward the hall. “Come on, I’ll give you the twenty-five cent tour.”

He led her down the corridor at the end of the family room to three spacious bedrooms. The first one looked as if the movie
Twister
had been filmed in it. She picked up a dirty sock from the back of the desk chair and wrinkled her nose. “Your son is delusional if he thinks my daughter will put up with living in a pigsty like this.”

“Good. Maybe he’ll clean up his act.”

She wouldn’t mention that, up until the previous fall, Emma’s room had looked nearly as bad. Then she’d met Alex.

After showing her the two guest rooms, Jake guided her to the double doors at the end of the hall and into the lavish master suite, obviously designed and decorated with seduction in mind.

A see-through fireplace separated the large sitting area from the bedroom, which had a huge whirlpool tub situated near the door to the luxurious bathroom. The romantic suite inspired the mental image of a steamy bubble bath in front of a roaring fire, giving birth to an envious moan Jake couldn’t help but hear. Her cheeks blazed when he moved closer as if he too imagined soaking in the huge tub together.

Her good sense must have flown the coop. Why else would she have let him maneuver her into his bedroom thirty seconds after entering his home?

 “The house is beautiful. I love all the little extra built-ins.”

“My builder, Ben Danvers, gets the credit for that.”

 She strolled to the bed and dragged her hand over the gray satin comforter and studied the drapes’ geometric silver and plum pattern. Now she understood why her daughter was so impressed with the house. The plush carpet made marshmallows seem hard, and everywhere she turned, she found some upscale amenity. “If this is only the twenty-five cent tour, I don’t want to know what I’d see for a buck.”

“Oh, that tour would include my playroom in the basement.”

“Your
playroom
?” Wonderful. He probably had an S&M sex dungeon in the basement.

“Yeah. There’s a weight room and gym with all sorts of workout equipment. And the rec room has ping-pong, pool, and air-hockey tables with a couple of computer gaming systems. I’ve always figured the best way to prevent my kid from getting into trouble is to keep him and his friends where I can keep tabs on them.”

A lot of good that had done with Alex and her daughter.

“Well, Emma didn’t exaggerate. Your house is gorgeous, and very tastefully decorated.”

“I can’t take credit for the décor, either,” Jake said as he led her back to the kitchen. “A lady friend helped me.”

“I thought you had no life.”

“Uhh—I don’t really. It’s complicated.”

In other words, he didn’t want to discuss his relationship with the woman.

He pulled a pitcher out of the refrigerator while Margie poked her head into the laundry room and saw a door she assumed led to the three attached garages she’d seen from the outside. It pained her to admit it, but Emma would be crazy not to prefer living in a home like Jake’s.

The grinding of the ice dispenser sliced through the quiet kitchen as he filled two glasses. “Emma talks about her father quite a lot. She seems to really miss him.”

“Well, she was her daddy’s girl. If the crash hadn’t killed Dan, Emma’s pregnancy would have.” Especially since she was carrying Alex’s baby. Sharing a grandchild with Margie’s ex-lover would’ve been the end of Dan’s sanity.

The scent of fresh lemon tickled her nose as Jake handed her one of the glasses of iced tea. “It makes me wonder if losing her dad might have had something to do with her pregnancy. A lack of a paternal affection frequently pushes girls into becoming sexually active. And for one reason or another, quite often teens subconsciously want to get pregnant.”

Margie’s own father had walked out when she was just a baby. Had Jake believed the same thing about her nineteen years ago? She narrowed her gaze. “Are you suggesting my daughter deliberately let herself get—”

“No, please, that’s not what I meant.” He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m including Alex in that statement. A lot of teens unconsciously screw up their lives on purpose. For that matter, not just kids—adults do the same thing. The subject of my dissertation is
Methods of Identifying Adolescents and Young Adults Prone to Self-sabotage and Means of Intervention
.”

Their history was making her overly sensitive.

“Creating a crisis situation gives a kid an excuse to fail or a reason to avoid whatever he doesn’t want to face. It can also be a way to punish his parents or even himself.”

“But sometimes it’s just purely accidental, right?”

“Sure,” he admitted. “Except, more than three-quarters of a million teens get pregnant every year. That seems like way too many to be just a bunch of mishaps—especially nowadays with all the information and contraception available.”

He smiled down at her and sighed. “All I’m saying is sometimes there are hidden reasons behind our major blunders. Hell, I was so freaked out about getting married I jumped into bed with you six weeks before my wedding.”