Softly and Tenderly (27 page)

“He’s a year and a half. His mother is Max’s ex-fiancée.”

“You just now found out?”

“Yes. She was killed a few weeks ago, making her first solo flight across the country in a small Cessna.”

Dustin studied her, then replaced the last of his tools without a word. The skin covering his jaw drew tight.

“It happened . . .” Jade pressed her fingers into her forehead, hearing the confession in her head. Could she verbalize it? Give it life through her words? “Right before we were married. One dumb night . . .”

“One dumb night.” Dustin faced her, hands behind him, gripping the table’s edge. “You deserve better.”

“Do I?” She rearranged withered straw with her boot. “I’ve done worse than Max.”

Dustin’s scoff echoed in Jade’s chest. “Hardly.”

If he only knew
. But tonight, she couldn’t confess. Weren’t there enough emotional balls in the air? Why toss in the one she’d dropped fifteen years ago?

“You deserve better, Jade. Than Benson, than me.”

“Dustin, it’s okay . . . what happened between you and me. It had to be.”

“Are you going to leave him?”

“I don’t know . . . I shouldn’t have come here.” She headed for the door without a glance toward him. What right did she have to invade his life? Walk onto his emotional plain and stake a claim? Especially for her own comfort.

Dustin caught her arm. “Whoa, where you going?”

“Home. Dustin, I can’t barge in here like we hung out last week, crying on your shoulder like you’re my best friend. Do you date? Have a girl? I don’t even know anything about you anymore.”

He lowered his face to hers. “You know everything about me.”

One long inhale and his lips would be on hers. “Dustin, I’m—” Her body trembled.

“I’m achingly aware, Jade.” He released her and stepped back, gaining his composure. “You can impose on me anytime, Jade. I thought that was clear when I showed up at the hospital.” He regarded her for many heavy heartbeats, then whipped his phone from his shirt pocket. “You know what time it is?”

“What time?” Jade pinched her brow. “I don’t know, around ten thirty.”

What was with the slick grin? “What are you . . . Oh no, Dustin, no, it’s not
that
time. Come on, you’re kidding.”

“Jade-o, I
never
kid . . .” With the phone to his ear, he searched the shelves along the wall. “Hartline . . . do you know what time it is?”

A football spiraled toward Jade. “Ack! Dustin.” She almost ducked, but dropped her purse on reflex and snatched the ball in midflight.

“Way to go. I thought you were going to miss, Fitzgerald.”
Benson, Dustin;
my name is Benson
. “But it’s all right. You’re a little out of practice. We can work with that.”

He dialed another number. “This is exactly what you need, Jade-o. Get rid of the weight of the world. Put the light back in your eyes. Help you forget about your husband, your mama . . . just for tonight, it’s game on. Midnight football. All that other crap doesn’t exist. Brill, man, it’s midnight football.”

The idea appealed like Christmas morning. No troubles. No worries. Peace on her earth. If only for a few hours. She passed him the ball.

“Game on.”

Midnight football was Dustin’s invention, and the reason Jade understood what it felt like to laugh until it hurt.

He cradled her with his shoulder. “In the bright light of morning when your body is so sore from using muscles you forgot existed, your brain won’t care about all the problems, Fitzgerald.” Dustin warmed her temple with a kiss.

Benson, I’m a Benson
. Still chatting with Brill, Dustin dug around in a metal cabinet. Flags and cones and one muddy set of cleats flew out and hit the floor. “Yeah . . . call Spence . . . okay, but tell Susie she can’t call time-out because she broke a nail . . . I know, but once is one time too many. No . . . Jade. Yeah. Jade. Fitzgerald. She’s in town.”

“Benson,” she said out loud this time.

“Good.” Dustin gazed over at her. “Yeah, she’s really good. Okay, see you in twenty. And bring the Boss.” Dustin ended the call, grabbed a gym bag, and stuffed the flags and cones inside. “I’ll drive you to your house to change; then we can go out to the field. Bring you back here for your truck.”

“Sounds like a plan. Convoluted, but a plan.” She followed him, carrying a set of cones to his truck. “Dustin, aren’t we too old for this?”

“Hush. We are never too old for midnight football.” Dustin opened the passenger door and gave Jade his football face—narrowed eyes, tight jaw, jutted chin. “Get your head in the game, Fitzgerald, and let’s play some smashmouth fooootballllll!”

Twenty-two

June hovered by Jade’s bedroom door, arms folded over her waist, wearing a charmeuse robe. “Where are you going so late?”

“To play.” Off with the nice top and sweater, on with the T-shirt and UT sweats. “How’s Mama?”

“Sleeping. Play what? With who?”

“Football. With old friends.” Jade tied on her first sneaker.

“Football? At this hour? It’s nearly eleven o’clock.”

“Midnight football, June. It’s played at night. The later the better. Thus, the name, ‘midnight football.’ Dustin is waiting for me downstairs.” With her second shoe on, Jade straightened the legs of her sweats and situated the gathered hem over her socks. “Where’s Reb?”

“Flew back home. Jade, is it wise to be going around with—”

“My ex-husband?” Jade searched her toiletries bag for a ponytail holder. “We’re playing football on a public field with other people. I want to laugh, scream, run around, smash some heads, score touchdowns, and forget.”

“Forget Max? Your responsibilities? You’re not a kid anymore, Jade.” June leaned against the door frame. “Mercy, so you’ve had a bad few weeks. So what? You have a husband who loves you, and—”

“Loves me? Like Rebel loves you?” Her ponytail was too high and tight. Jade loosened the tie and started over. “All the misery he’s put you through because he wasn’t a hundred percent sure Max was his son.”

“You heard.” June’s voice was flat and thin.

“We can hear the ants picnicking in these walls.”

“Max doesn’t know, Jade. About Bill.” The soles of June’s slippers scraped over the hardwood, then the area rug, as she entered the room.

“Of course he doesn’t. Your family is all about secrets. Why would any of us want to know the truth?” Jade tossed her hairbrush to the dresser.

“There’s no reason for him to know.” June’s features were taut and dark.

“Except another man might be his father.” Jade snatched her jacket from the bed and stepped around June for the door. “A paternity test could put it all to rest, June.”

“Rebel doesn’t want it. Look down your sleek nose all you want, Jade, but for all Reb’s faults, he raised Max like his own flesh and blood and never once wavered. If it took enduring years of infidelity to be the brunt of his anger about Bill Novak so he could embrace my son as his own without prejudice, then so be it. It was worth it.”

“I guess I’m not the martyr you want me to be, June.” Jade exited into the hall, then paused to face her. “I’m not going to live like you. Life is too short. And I don’t have a son to consider. This is about Max and me, not you and Reb, so don’t pull me down into your brand of crap. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my friends are waiting.” Jade jogged down the stairs.

“If you fall in love with that boy again, Jade”—June trailed her—“you won’t know which way is up. Tonight it’s football, tomorrow a lunch. He’ll get close . . .”

Jade jerked open the front door. Lights from Dustin’s truck reached across the ground, barely touching the edge of the porch. “Don’t you dare make me out to be like you.”

“You think I planned to fall in love with Bill? Planned to have an affair? When I married Rebel, it was for life. I’d be faithful and true-blue. I was a Christian woman, for pity’s sake; how on earth would I ever find myself in another man’s bed? But I did, Jade.”

“I’m not going to Dustin’s bedroom.”

“Really? Just how did you end up at his house in the first place?” She took hold of Jade’s shoulders. “Think about what you’re doing, Jade. You’re mad, upset. Things are messed up. Your in-laws have secrets. Your husband betrayed your trust. Your own desire for children has borne emptiness. But going back to Dustin isn’t going to make it right. It will only make it worse.”

“You think you know me, June? Think you can understand what it’s like to be barren? To discover your husband gave another woman the one thing you wanted most? Oh, wait, you did that to Reb. Gave another man the son your husband wanted.”

“Max is Rebel’s son. Goodness, how can you not see it?”

“On top of it all, my mother is dying.” Jade snapped her shoulders out of June’s grasp. “So I’m ending this conversation and going to play football. And if Dustin happens to flirt with me, I might just flirt back. But I won’t end up in his bed.”

June crossed her arms, arresting Jade with her steely glare. “Well, since you’re so good at breaking down everyone’s issues, are you planning on telling Dustin the truth about you?” She lifted her eyebrows. “That you aborted his child?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business, June.” Jade stood on the threshold. “Do you live to make people as miserable as you, June?”

“Who says I’m miserable? I’m just asking a question. You accused me of secrets in such a self-righteous tone. I’m merely reminding you of your own.”

Did she find pleasure in this? Chaining Jade to her pitiful wall? Jade glanced toward Dustin waiting in his idling truck. “I just want to play football, June. Maybe when my present makes sense, I’ll be able to bear the burden of my past.”

“Before we play, we’ll review the rules for Jade.” Dustin motioned to the fifty-yard line as he walked toward the end zone. The PCM Mustang’s floodlights lit up the field. “And for Susie, because she forgets the rules from week to week.”

“Don’t talk smack to me, Colter.” Susie walked under Dustin’s nose. “You change the rules every time we play. However, I can recall the periodic table and recite pi out twenty decimals. Can you?”

He smacked her head with the football. “Geek.”

“Blockhead.”

Jade laughed, feeling both shy and elated to be with friend-friends. Any jitters about meeting Hartline’s math and science teacher girlfriend ceased with Dustin’s teasing and her rebuttal. She could hang with Susie, a petite brunette with long, dark hair flowing out from under a wool cap.

“Susie, this is Jade.” Dustin walked backward toward Hart’s truck. “Jade, Susie.”

“So you’re
Jade
.” Susie offered her cold hand, shivering.

“The one and only.” Why did she say
Jade
? Like she knew a secret.

“I’ll say.” Susie smiled as she stared to where the boys worked to light a fire in the fifty-gallon drum, her arms still wrapped around her torso as she shivered. “Dustin talks about you like you’re still in his life.”

The Boss, Springsteen, blasted from Hartline’s truck parked in the home team end zone.

“Baby, come on, let’s get playing. I’m freezing.” Susie bounced around, curling her arms up tight.

Ben Hartline fired another log from the bed of his truck into a barrel, feeding the struggling flames while Brill, Spence, and Dustin set up the field cones.

“Watch.” Susie motioned toward the barrel and flame. “See Spence? Hart will probably catch him on fire.” She laughed easily.

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Spence leaned tentatively over the flame just as Brill aimed some kind of bottle that shot liquid.

“So Dustin . . . he talks about you mostly when he’s tired, had a beer or two, when the guys start reminiscing. I tease him, tell him you only exist in his dreams. But now, here you are.”

“Live and in person.”
Dustin, what are you doing?
Worse, what was she doing? Why did Susie’s confession wrap around Jade’s heart like a velvet glove? June’s warning was a thousand miles away.

Jade watched the flame in the can kick up and lick the night. Dustin was easy to spot among the guys with his broad, upright posture. The truck lights mingled with the growing fire highlighted his face and the ends of his waves.

So Dustin carried a small torch for her. Maybe? Didn’t mean he’d seduce her or that she’d end up in his bed.

She was playing football with him. Not much romantic about a cold, muddy field.

The Boss’s song faded, but in the next heartbeat started again with Springsteen lauding the “Glory Days.”

The guys cheered when a flame shot out of the barrel. Again Hartline showered it with fluid. Sure enough, the flame licked up just as Spence checked the barrel a second time.

“Told you.” Susie laughed, shaking her head.

Watching Spence jump away from the igniting flames sparked a vivid image in Jade’s mind. Dustin’s flame already felt lovely to her cold heart.

But she was married. She’d stood before the Lord and made a vow.

“S-so, Susie.” Jade gathered her emotions, shaking the fiery image and touch from her soul. “How’d you and Hart meet?”

“How do you not meet someone in this town? Brill had a party, invited all the teachers, and I went. Ben Hartline was handsome, charming, if not a bit brutish, and I had to have him.”