Home Field Advantage (21 page)

"A drive-in movie,"
Marian answered without hesitation. "That sounds like fun."

"A woman of true
refinement," he teased, and she hung up a minute later, smiling.

*****

John had called his attorney
a couple of times for progress reports on the search for Mark Wells. Skip
tracing, the investigator had called it. On the Tuesday after the concert,
George Browder announced that they'd found him. "In Atlanta. Turns out he
has grandparents there. Doing well, according to the investigator. Does
something in quality control for a small airplane manufacturer. Good money, has
a sizable savings account." He named a figure, then added, "Remarried,
too."

John swore savagely.
"And he hasn't sent her a cent. God, I'd like to get my hands on
him."

"I'll turn the
screws," the attorney promised, sounding as though he'd do it with
pleasure. He had kids of his own, teenagers. He said, "I could add some teeth
to it if I had her okay."

"No." John was
implacable. "She has to think he's come through on his own."

"You know, she might be
grateful to you."

"I don't want her
grateful." He was also increasingly dreading the day the first check
arrived from her ex-husband, and Marian realized that with it supplementing
her day-care business, she didn't need John or this job. But that was the risk
he had chosen to take at the beginning. "Tell him he'll find himself in
court if he doesn't suffer an attack of conscience and start paying."

"Including a retroactive
sum," Browder agreed. "He's in no position to fight it."

So when John took Marian to
the drive-in, he knew his time was running out. On the football field they
called it crunch time. He was tempted to push her, to make love to her until
she didn't know which way was up, to exact promises of forever from her. But he
didn't want her keeping a promise because she felt honor-bound; he wanted her
coming to him free and clear, following her own heart.

Most of all, what he didn't
want was to wonder for the rest of his life whether his home and money, the
security he offered her, even his daughter, might be what attracted Marian as
much as he personally did. It couldn't be conscious on her part; he knew her
better than that. But love was complicated, never simple. And his doubt was an
ache he couldn't quite forget, however much he might want to.

So this last week he'd let
himself court her, kiss her as often and as long as he could without ripping
her clothes off, and enjoy her company. Her soft, startled ripple of laughter,
the heavy dark silk of her hair that swayed with her every graceful movement,
her gentleness and patience with the children, the recklessness that had
allowed her to give Rafcarah her head—and the generosity with which she'd given
herself. The last was an uncomfortable memory, one he exorcised in hard, sweaty
work in the barn.

Darkness was falling Monday
evening when they pulled into Marysville's Thunderbird Drive-in and found a
spot off to one side. John tested the creaky sound of the speaker, then
grimaced and turned it off.

"What d'ya say, shall we
get some popcorn?"

"After pizza?"

"I'm hungry," he
said simply.

Marian succumbed. "Oh,
well, why not?"

They were cozily ensconced
back in the car with soda and popcorn by the time the credits began to roll. On
the giant screen, the car chase was blurry, and already their windshield was
fogging.

"My parents used to take
me to a drive-in sometimes," Marian said nostalgically. "I'd be in
my pajamas, and they'd fold down the back-seat of our wagon so I could stretch
out with my pillow and sleeping bag. About halfway through whatever we saw, I'd
fall asleep. I don't think I've been to a drive-in since."

John snaked a long arm around
her shoulder and pulled her comfortably against him. They had come in the
pickup, which didn't have bucket seats.

"So we can cuddle,"
he'd explained.

Now he kissed the top of her
head and said, "We're regressing together. First we date like we're
twenty-five, then we neck like we're sixteen, now we go to the drive-in like
we're..." He stopped. "Hell, I still feel like I'm sixteen. I can
hardly wait until the windshield fogs up enough so nobody can see in."

Marian blushed, grateful for
the darkness. She felt exposed with glass all around them and another car only
a few feet away and an occasional dark figure passing the truck toward the
snack bar. On the other hand, this was the closest to being alone they'd managed
all week.

And when, half an hour later,
John gave her braid a gentle pull, Marian didn't have the slightest idea what
was happening in the movie. The sound wasn't very good, and the feel of John's
long, hard thigh pressed against hers was considerably more exciting.

When she turned to smile at
him, his mouth covered hers. The kiss was masterful, seductive, and
intoxicating.

"You don't kiss like a
sixteen-year-old," she whispered breathlessly.

"Neither do you,"
he murmured, and kissed her again.

Who cared about the movie?

*****

On Wednesday morning the
attorney phoned. Marian called John to the phone. "It's a George
Browder." She didn't sound curious, but John felt guilty anyway.

"I'll take it in my
office." When he picked up the receiver, he said, "Okay," and
heard the click as she replaced the kitchen extension. "Hello, George.
What do you have?"

"Nice voice," the
attorney said, his own tinged with amusement.

"She's a nice
woman," John said.

"She's going to be a
happy one pretty soon, too. Her ex agreed to pay up. I talked to him on the
phone. I think he's glad I found him. I've run into that before. The longer he
went without paying, the harder it was to call her and say, 'I'm sorry.' But he
swears he'll write her and send a sizable check. And he swears he won't mention
me or my client."

"Yeah, he'll look better
that way," John muttered. "I wish we didn't have to make it so easy
for him."

The lawyer grunted. "The
only thing to be said for it is that he's more likely to keep paying without
constant prodding this way. Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know you've done
your good deed. Call me if he doesn't come through."

Half an hour later, John was
still brooding over his own mixed feelings when Marian returned from taking the
twins to their morning playschool.

"You're not out at the
barn," she said in surprise, when she walked in to find him sipping coffee
and leaning against the kitchen counter while he gazed out the window.

"I was waiting for
you," he said with a shrug, and meant it. God, did he mean it. "Come
here."

She dropped her purse and
came. "Maybe if you tried 'please,' " she murmured and flowed into
his arms.

"Please," he said,
just as he bent his head and captured her mouth. Something unpleasantly close
to fear was churning in his stomach. What if she thanked him, packed up, and
left? What if she didn't love him enough to stay, given a real choice? What
if...?

He buried that ache in the
kiss—intense, passionate, all-consuming. Nothing like his kisses lately. He
felt surprise tremble through her, and then her answer. Wholehearted and
generous, she kissed him back. Her arms came around his neck, her mouth opened
softly, her body melted against his. And he had to have her. His need was a
drive so powerful he didn't even try to fight it.

John swung her up into his
arms. When Marian gasped and tightened her hold on his neck, he lifted his
mouth from hers long enough to say huskily, "I lied. I'll take you for a
lover any time or place."

"I'm glad," she whispered,
and smiled at him with dazzling warmth.

"God, I love you,"
he said, the words wrenched from him.

Her eyes widened, but when
she started to speak he kissed her again. He didn't want to hear it, not if she
loved him, not if she didn't. She had to have a choice. That's what love was,
he thought, before he couldn't think anymore. A life with all its burdens and
joys, freely chosen. Right now, she wasn't free.

Upstairs, across the
threshold of his room, as though he were the groom and she his bride, he laid
her down on the huge expanse of his bed and paused, one knee braced on the
edge. She was glorious against the black coverlet, and he remembered his first
sight of her and his fancy that she had stepped from a daguerreotype. The hair
that shone against the black background was close to the same color, but caught
by something brighter, as though a stream of moonlight had touched her. Her
eyes, dark and glowing, were dreamy, and her lips were parted and sensuous.
Skin like porcelain, her neck long and graceful, her hair slipping from the
knot at the nape. He had never seen anything in his life as beautiful as Marian
lying on his bed.

He wanted suddenly to see her
naked there, the silk and curves and creamy skin in contrast to the dull black
spread. Without a word he lifted her and pulled her sweater off over her head,
exposing a simple white bra that was innocently seductive in a way black lace
wouldn't have been. She watched him with those wide eyes as he unfastened her
bra and spread his palms over her breasts, unbearably aroused by the textures.
Then he tugged off her canvas tennis shoes and socks, jeans and panties. A
strip tease that he orchestrated. She accepted all wordlessly, her gaze fixed
on his face.

Her body matched the delicacy
of her face. She was so slender he couldn't imagine her bearing twins. He sat
beside her, looking, tracing with his fingertips the plump curve of her
breasts, the long slim line of her waist flaring into her hips. Her gorgeous
legs—he remembered them wrapped around him. The dark springy curls at the apex
of her thighs were as silky as the hair he spread across the coverlet. And
between her legs was heat and dampness and pleasure. When he touched her there
she closed her eyes, then stretched languorously so that her back arched and he
felt the tension run through her.

His own hand was tanned
against her white skin, clumsily large. It was the contrast that was so erotic.
Bulk against slenderness, sun-roughened skin against the protected silk of hers,
the bluntness of his arousal against the creamy sheath of hers.

"I love to touch
you," he said hoarsely.

She was breathless. "I
love...having you touch me. I love...touching you."

And her hands, strong and
supple, slipped under his sweatshirt to run experimentally over the hard planes
of his back and chest. He groaned, then shrugged out of his shirt. Marian sat
up and kneeled, then bent her head to whisper kisses against his neck, to
nibble and taste the salty skin of his shoulder and chest. His breath rattled
harshly in his throat, and suddenly he lifted his hands to tangle them in her
hair and hold her still.

"I'm going to
explode."

"That's the idea, isn't
it?" she said mischievously, and he gave a husky laugh.

"Eventually," he
agreed.

"I'm just setting the
charges," she murmured, and spread her hands over his chest, flicking the
nub of his nipple with one thumb. A jolt ran through him, and a smile quivered
on her hps.

"You're asking for
it," he warned.

"Mm-hmm. " There
was that smile again, lilting, laughing, tempting. He would kill for that
smile.

The laughter on his own face
fled and he lifted her chin so that his mouth could plunder hers. He was driven
by only one thought: he had to have her.

Have her he did, as soon as
he could kick his jeans off. She waited for him, sprawled on the black coverlet
with her cheeks flushed rose and her mouth a luscious soft curve.

He felt dangerously out of
control as he locked her legs around his waist and plunged desperately into her
warmth. But her hips rose to his and she made a sound deep in her throat of
such pleasure, it ripped any last shreds of restraint from him. Harder, faster,
sweeter. She was with him all the way. When she convulsed around him, John growled
his satisfaction.

His first thought, when he
could think at all, was, What if I lose her? But she couldn't leave! She
couldn't hold him like this, accept him like this, give herself like this, and
then leave.

But what if she did? He
turned his lips against her throat and felt her pulse dancing there, beneath
that translucent skin. Fear and love knotted sickeningly in his chest and were
transformed into passion. She still lay stretched beneath him, and he wanted
her again. He wanted to possess her, not just now but forever. Forever he might
not have, but the present was here, in his grip. He wouldn't let it go.

When he nipped at her neck,
she murmured wordlessly, and her hands moved on his back, sliding over the
sweat-slick muscles. And when he kissed her, he felt her smile. She was his.
Now, at least, he thought triumphantly, she was his.

*****

The phone call came as a
total surprise. Frank Dellino was the head of football programming, so John
talked to him almost weekly. Frank was just the messenger boy this time,
though. Although John didn't know the network higher-ups well enough to
remember their faces, apparently they did know his.