On the Fly (14 page)

I still wasn’t
used to seeing Dana acting comfortable in a social
setting, even though it had been nearly a year since she’d shown up
in Portland and asked Zee to help her learn to touch and be
touched. Hell, I still wasn’t entirely sure I liked the fact that
he
was
touching
her. Although if I had to let anyone do it, I guess I was glad it
was him.

She had been raped by some guys in
college, and it had completely fucked with her mind, like it would
with anyone who’d been through something like that. After it
happened, she couldn’t even stand the slightest bit of contact with
a man, couldn’t handle flirtation—nothing at all where men were
concerned. Any little thing could trigger a panic attack, so she’d
spent seven years of her life in almost total isolation from the
male species.

But right now, Zee had both his hands
on her waist, pulling her toward him from behind, and she seemed
fine. No, she was better than fine—she was glowing.

Because of that, I couldn’t hate him
for touching her.

I was sitting on a barstool by the
kitchen island and nursing a beer with Webs at my side. David Weber
was a veteran on the team, a forty-year-old winger who brought more
leadership than skill to the table these days, but he could still
find a way to score when it mattered. My stool was at the end, so I
had a good view into the living room where everyone else was.
Webs’s wife and kids were here—including his teenaged daughter
Katie, who was nursing a serious crush on Babs—and Sara Thomas, the
coach’s daughter who, like Webs’s wife Laura, had become one of
Dana’s best friends.

I was pretty sure the case of puppy
love between Babs and Katie was mutual, but I didn’t want to get
involved. They could sort out their own love lives. I was having
enough of a problem dealing with my own.

Not that I was in love with Rachel
Shaw. At least not yet. How could I be in love with a woman who
didn’t trust me enough to even talk to me? I was definitely in like
with her, though. How else could I explain kissing her like I had?
Or continually thinking about kissing her again?

At the moment, she was sitting on a
recliner in the living room, watching all the kids play in the
middle of the living room floor. Babs and Katie had organized all
of Katie’s younger siblings along with Maddie and Tuck, and they
were playing Monopoly in teams. Babs had been smart enough to pair
the younger kids up with someone older, so they could be more
evenly matched. He was playing with Tuck, Katie was with Maddie,
and Luke and Dani Weber made the third pair.

The kids were fine. There was no
reason for Rachel to watch their every move from only about a foot
away; no reason she shouldn’t be sitting a few feet further from
the kids drinking wine with Laura and Sara; no reason she couldn’t
be in the kitchen with the rest of us while Zee and Dana cooked; no
reason she couldn’t just let the kids be kids.

Hell, Babs didn’t need to play with
the kids, either, but it came naturally to him. Not only that, but
I figured he wanted to hang out with Katie, and playing games with
the kids made it easy for him to do that without having to face
Webs’s wrath.

I shouldn’t have let it bother me, how
Rachel was separating herself and not spending time getting to know
the people in my life, but it did. It bothered me a hell of a lot
more than it ought to.

I downed the last of my beer and got
up to get another from the fridge. “Anyone need anything while I’m
up?”

“
Toss me the bag of spinach
from the bottom drawer,” Zee said.

When I turned around, I did just
that—I tossed it straight at his head. He didn’t miss a beat, just
reached up and snagged it before it could hit him.

He looked at the bottle in
my hand and raised an eyebrow. “We’ve got a game tomorrow.” That
was all he said, but I knew what he was really saying.
Don’t overdo it
.
You’re still trying to earn your
spot
.

This was my third beer of the night.
I’d definitely have to stop after this one. The last thing I needed
to do was get drunk and have to deal with a hangover tomorrow. I
nodded my acknowledgment.

Webs had been looking over his
shoulder at the kids, but he turned around and smirked at Zee. “Get
me another beer, too,” he said to me after a minute.

I slid the bottle along the counter
toward him. After all the broken glass and bloody feet yesterday
morning, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of cleaning up the mess if
Webs failed to catch my throw.

He snagged it and inclined
his head in thanks. “Does Katie look…I don’t
know…
tired
to you
boys? She seems tired.”

Dana looked up and stared out into the
living room. “She’s got first semester finals coming up, right? And
that Glee Club competition. I’m sure that’s all it is. Nothing to
worry about.”

Webs grunted before downing about half
his beer. He didn’t look convinced.

The doorbell rang. It had to be Cam
Johnson, another of the guys from the team who Dana was comfortable
with. He was the only other person she’d said she’d invited
tonight. She set down her knife and wiped her hands on her apron,
but she had plenty more to do in here. Zee had his hands full
flipping burgers on the grill pan now that he’d divested himself of
the spinach.

“
I’ll get it,” I said,
setting my beer on the island and heading toward the front
door.

Dana grinned at me, stretching up on
her toes to kiss my cheek as I walked by.

I was right. It was Jonny. He just
nodded at me when he came in. He’d never been a very talkative guy
in the time I’d known him. Mom would say he was the strong, silent
type. Maybe there was something to that because any of the guys
like him that I’d known throughout my career—guys who had
reputations as fighters—would easily fit that
description.

He slipped past me and headed for the
kitchen, stealing my barstool. That was as good an excuse as any
for me to go sit with Rachel, try to get her to let the kids be
kids for a while and loosen up.

I didn’t just sit beside her, though.
I picked her up and sat in her recliner, pulling her down onto my
lap the same way I’d held her yesterday on my sofa.

The blush I was coming to love raced
to her cheeks. “Here?” she said beneath her breath, frowning at
me.

I smothered a laugh. “Jonny took my
seat,” I said since she seemed to want an explanation.

“
There are plenty of other
places you could sit.”

I quirked up a grin. “But none of them
had you in them.”

Rachel set her lips into a thin line.
“I meant what I said, you know. That I don’t date. You’re not going
to change my mind.”

“
Okay.” I couldn’t help but
notice that I had drawn her attention away from her kids, at least
for now. She looked right at me, utter disgruntlement furrowing her
brows. That, at least, was progress. “You still haven’t told me
why.”

“
It’s none of your
business.”

“
What if I want it to be my
business?”

“
Do you?” Her voice was so
quiet I almost couldn’t hear her over the kids’ laughter and the
conversations around us.

I took a minute to answer her.
Something in me warned that this was not the time to tell her
anything other than the absolute truth, even if it wasn’t a truth I
was fully prepared to handle. “Yes,” I finally said.

She stared into my eyes, studying
them, searching them for God only knew what. “Why?”

Hell if I knew. I still hadn’t figured
that out for myself. “Because you fascinate me,” I said, even
though I knew that was barely skimming the surface.

“
That’s not
enough.”

I should have known she wouldn’t go
for an answer like that.

“
You’re right,” I said.
“It’s not.” I dragged a hand through my hair, keeping the other in
place at her hip. Touching her helped me feel grounded, however
crazy the thought of that might be. “I just—I feel like you’re
always so worried about your kids that you forget to worry about
yourself, and so maybe I want to be the one to do that. To worry
about you. To take care of you.”

She turned to stone on my
lap. “I’ve been taking care of myself
and
my kids for a long time. I don’t
need someone to take care of me.”

I didn’t agree, but now
didn’t seem like the best time to argue my point—especially since
she had started letting me chip away at her wall of defenses, a bit
at a time. “Whether you can take care of yourself or not, I
still
want
to take
care of you. I don’t fully understand it. Hell, I don’t even
halfway understand it. But I want to take care of you, and I want
you to let me.”

“
I don’t know how to let
someone take care of me,” she whispered. “It’s been too
long.”

“
Burgers are ready,” Zee
said loudly enough to break through the ruckus. I’d almost been
able to convince myself that we were alone, just me and Rachel,
until then. He moved into my line of vision, carrying a tray piled
high with meat to the dining room table. “Let’s eat.”

Reluctantly, I got up and carried
Rachel to the table, setting her in a chair next to me.

Dana sat across from me and caught my
eye. When Rachel turned to help Tuck fix a plate, Dana arched a
brow in question, moving her eyes from me to Rachel and back
again.

All I could do was shrug. I didn’t
have the first clue what was going on between us. I only knew I
wanted it to continue, to get to know her better. I wanted
more.

At our dinner
table at home the next evening, Tuck shoveled a
bite of chicken into his mouth. He didn’t bother to chew or swallow
before he asked, “Mommy, can we watch Mr. Jamie’s hockey game
tonight?”

I’d made it through my second day of
work without running into Brenden or any of the other guys who’d
been at dinner last night, but that hadn’t taken away the edginess
I felt. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him all
day.

More specifically, I hadn’t been able
to stop thinking about how he kept pulling me onto his lap at
inappropriate times, how he’d kissed me, and how much I had enjoyed
all of it and wanted more despite myself.

The last thing in the world I wanted
to do tonight was watch a game he was playing in. It would only
make me think about him more than I already was. I’d been looking
forward to a night where I knew he wasn’t across the hall so he
couldn’t just show up unannounced and carry me around.

“
You both have homework to
do,” I said in response.

“
Not that much,” Maddie
said. She set her fork down beside her plate and stared at me, her
green eyes focused and intense. “We already did most of
it.”

They were ganging up on me. That was
the problem with having more than one kid. They tended to act as a
team to get their way. It usually worked, too, darn them. At least
with me. Maybe some other parents were able to hold their ground a
little better than I could.