Playing for Keeps (Texas Scoundrels) (13 page)

“So you beat the crap out of the guy?”

Jed shrugged again. “I never said I was a saint.”

“You destroyed a bar. And did some serious damage to another human being.”
 

“A man who hits a woman doesn’t qualify as human.” His expression hard. “The bastard had it coming.”

Okay, so maybe the guy did have it coming. Only she wasn’t used to that kind of violence, and never would.
 

She picked up her fork again and dug into her own salad. “That’s quite a temper, Maitland.”

The waitress returned with their sandwiches and a pizza for Austin. “I don’t like men who hit women,” he said.

No, she didn’t either, but she wasn’t sure she could justify his violent reaction. She pushed the thought aside and looked past his shoulder to see Austin walking toward them. He slid into the booth beside her.

“This for me?” he asked, dragging a slice onto his plate.

“He had manners,” she said to Jed. “I just don’t know what he’s done with them tonight.”

“Sorry, Mom.” He grinned sheepishly and started to reach across her, but she stopped him. Sighing, she handed him the shaker of Parmesan cheese.

Jed stifled a grin at Griffen’s gentle reprimand. He remembered his grandmother doing pretty much the same, constantly reminding him that he wasn’t a godforsaken heathen. “Good game tonight.”
 

“Up until we lost.” Austin said. “I missed a couple of blocks and it cost us.”

Jed shrugged, not wanting to place a lot of emphasis on the mistakes, but rather what Austin had done right. His granddad would be proud of him. He’d had a good role model. “Did you learn anything?”
 

Austin’s dark eyebrows puckered as he chewed. “Whaddya mean?” he asked, before taking another bite of pizza.

“You said you missed a couple of blocks. Did you learn anything?”

Understanding dawned in Austin’s eyes. “I went for the ball, not the player.”

Jed looked from Austin to Griffen. Worry lined her features. He could just imagine what she was thinking, and it annoyed the crap out of him. What the hell did she think he was going to do? Rip the kid a new one for screwing up on the court?
 

He focused on Austin. “Then you learn from it and move on.”

“I don’t get it. I fu...I messed up,” he said, then shot a quick glance in Griffen’s direction.

Jed shook his head. “The point is to learn from your mistakes. Next time, you’ll go for the player and not the ball.”

Austin sat up straight. “Really?” he asked, his voice cracking.
 

Ah, puberty
. Jed smothered a grin. “Really.”
 

“Cool.”

“Yes, cool,” Griffen said, relief evident in her voice. She handed her son a napkin. “Now wipe your chin.”

Austin swiped at the glob of pizza sauce on his chin, then helped himself to another slice. “I’m gonna go play some more video games.”
 

Griffen couldn’t help but be pleased her son seemed so happy for a change, more like his old self. Too bad it would only last for as long as Jed was in town, but she quickly squelched that hope. No sense borrowing trouble.

Austin slid from the booth. “Thanks for the pizza.”
 

She grabbed his hand before he could shoot off like a rocket toward the video game room again. “Thirty minutes, Slick.”
 

Austin shook off her grasp. “Screw that,” he said, his voice filled with impatience. “It's Saturday night.”

“Hey, you always talk to your mother that way?” Jed asked.
 

Griffen held her breath when Austin lifted his chin a notch, a glint of determination flashing in his eyes. “No.”

Jed gave Austin a level stare. “I didn’t think so,” was all he said, but the warning in his tone was unmistakable.

Austin’s eyes narrowed slightly, but when he returned his attention to her, contrition replaced hostility. “Sorry, Mom,” he said, then took off at a more sedate pace toward the game room.

Griffen turned her attention back to Jed. Maybe he did have what it took to be a father. He certainly didn’t have a problem calling Austin on behavior he considered out of line.
 

“He’s usually not so rude,” she said, feeling the need to defend her son. Life hadn’t been as good to Austin as she would have liked. He’d lost his mother at a young age. The only father he’d ever known had walked out on him and never looked back. And now he was getting acquainted with his biological father, a superstar athlete. Surely a little rudeness was understandable given the situation.
 

She mopped up the crumbs Austin left behind. “It’s just the excitement of the past week,” she added.

Jed set his empty plate on the edge of the table. “If I’d spoken to my grandmother that way, my granddad would’ve had his boot up my ass before I could blink.”

She moved her own half eaten sandwich to the platter with the pizza remnants, then looked at him. “You handled him well tonight.”

He sat watching her, his expression curious. “Did you think I’d tear into him for a few mistakes?”

She sighed. “No. It’s just—” Just that Ross would have, and that truth bothered her. Her ex-husband expected perfection, little boys included. He’d never been cruel, he just hadn’t been supportive.

“Just...” Jed prompted.

“Ross was never very interested in Austin.” She doubted he appreciated hearing the man who’d raised his son had been less than the ideal parent, but Ross simply wasn’t fond of children. He couldn’t relate to them...like Jed, she thought and frowned.

“Is that the PC way to say he ignored the kid?” A hardness crept into his voice.

“Not quite. He just didn’t take much interest in him or the things he enjoyed.”

“And what does Austin enjoy?”

“Football,” she said on a dramatic sigh and shook her head. She hated feeding his oversized ego, but if he did stick around long enough, he’d discover the truth eventually. She easily imagined him bursting with his damned male pride if he ever saw Austin on the gridiron. The boy had a gift, but at least now she understood where that natural ability came from—his father. “According to Austin, other sports were made to pass the time until football practice starts up again.”

Jed smiled, one of those proud papa smiles again and her heart beat just a little faster. Why? Why was it that the man Austin held biological ties with, the man who hadn’t even known of his existence until a week ago, showed more interest than Ross, who’d raised Austin? She just didn’t understand.
 

“I guess it’s in the genes.” His grin never faltered.

She couldn’t help herself. She smiled back. “I suppose it is.”

The way Jed figured it, Austin would be busy in the game room with his buddies for a while yet. He didn’t mind. For the first time in a very long time, he was enjoying an intelligent conversation with a beautiful woman, and he liked it. The women he usually dated weren’t exactly Mensa candidates.

“Coffee?” At her nod, he signaled for the waitress and placed the order. “So why’d you leave your ex?”
 

“I didn’t. He left me,” she said without an ounce of bitterness in her voice.

Her bland tone took him by surprise. He’d been dumped—once, and it had pissed him off big time. He hadn’t allowed it to happen again, either. There’d never been anyone serious since. Any affairs had been on his terms, just the way he liked it. “How long were you married?”

“Close to eleven years.”

“Were you happy?” he asked after the waitress returned with a couple mugs of coffee.
 

She added a dollop of cream to her coffee and stirred. “I thought so at the time,” she said. “I don’t know any longer. We never really fought, we just...”
 

“Drifted apart?”

“Co-existed.” A melancholy smile canted her lips, now devoid of that tempting peach lip gloss. Damn, but he wanted to kiss her again.
 

“I was still in college when we got married, for one thing,” she continued. “I’d barely had my first real job when Dani relapsed. I took a leave of absence and we moved back here so I could take care of her and Austin, but Ross commuted back and forth to Dallas. Once Dani passed, I did go back to work for a while, but it was just too hard on Austin. He’d just lost his mother and here I was, leaving him every day. It was too much, so I quit and eventually opened Antiquities. I was able to take care Austin and I liked having my own business. There were a lot of times I thought Ross was jealous of the time I spent with Austin.”

Bastard
. “Is that why you never had any kids of your own?” Because her ex was a selfish prick?

She sipped her coffee and looked at him over the rim of her mug. “He never wanted children.”

“But you did.”

She set her mug on the table and issued a light chuckle. “Boy did I. Ross was horrified.”

“I think your ex is a jackass.” What kind of dumb son-of-a-bitch wouldn’t want to give a good woman like Griffen a house full of babies?
 

That thought had some interesting images filling his mind. Bodies slick with sweat, tangled limbs.
 

Austin returned to their table and slid into the booth next to Griffen, forcing Jed’s baser thoughts back into a holding pattern. God help him, he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for lusting after the kid’s mom.

Griffen brushed a lock of dark hair from Austin’s forehead. “You look tired, Slick.”

Austin scooted close to his mom, then rested his head against her shoulder. Jed watched them and sipped his coffee, feeling an odd sense of peace. He waited for the panic to set in, for the flight instinct to take over, but it never happened.

Austin didn’t bother to stifle his yawn. Jed had seen so many facets to his son in the past twenty-four hours, he was having a hard time keeping track. First, he’d been confronted by an angry youth who looked ready to take his head off. Tonight he’d watched the athlete on the court, his movements and ability pure magic. He’d seen a hungry teen devour half a pizza in less than ten minutes, and now he caught a glimpse of the little boy looking to his mama for comfort. He saw things he’d missed by not knowing about Austin’s existence, and that bothered him. But he knew enough about himself to know he wasn’t cut out for the day-to-day parenting. Thankfully, Austin had Griffen, who would see to his needs before her own, and who would offer him guidance and support and love.
 

She slipped her arm around Austin’s shoulder and kissed the top of his dark head. She spoke to him, her voice low and soothing.

Austin rolled his eyes and sat up, as if he remembered he was in public where his friends might catch him being cuddled by his mother. “Did I thank you for coming to my game?” he asked.

Jed finished off his coffee and signaled the waitress for the bill. No matter how much he hated for the evening to end, Austin was tired and so was Griffen by the look of her.
 

“You did. Thank you for inviting me.”
 

Austin shifted in his seat. He looked at his mother, then back at him, a frown creasing his brow. “Okay, here’s the deal. Everyone’s asking me why you’re here with my mom and me. What should I tell them?”

Jed looked to Griffen for support, hoping she had one of those ready-made, parent-type answers. Considering where his thoughts had been wandering all night, he didn’t want to touch this one.
 

Griffen smiled at her son. “The truth is always best, and the least complicated.”

His brown eyes rounded in surprise. “I can tell everyone that Jed Maitland is my dad?”

When Austin turned his attention to Jed, he tried not to wince. Griffen had warned him when he’d walked into that gym tonight that his presence would be construed as a full-blown acknowledgment. This was it. No half-truths, no avoidance, no running away from his responsibility.
 

No turning back.
 

“Your mom’s right,” he said. “The truth is best.”

Austin beamed at him, a smile so blinding and bright Jed refused to regret his answer. Except he had one question—what exactly had he done now?

Eight

“PLANS, DAD? REALLY?” A mixture of humor and skepticism filled Mattie’s voice. She checked the meat thermometer inside the beef roast before setting it on the counter to rest. “What is that? Senior citizen code for hooking up?”
 

“I was being discreet,” their father called out from the back porch. Dr. Thomas Hart and Trenton Avery, Mattie’s fiancé, were deep into a game of chess, pretending to keep an eye on Austin and Phoebe while they played in the back yard with Jessie, her father’s ten-year-old Border Collie.
 

Griffen leaned over the sink to the open kitchen window so she could see her father and Trenton. “Don’t put this on me. You go all cryptic and then think I’m not going to discuss it with Matt? Come on, Dad. You know us better than that.”

“Trenton, you’re a lawyer,” Thomas pleaded. “Help me out here.”