Going Cowboy Crazy (29 page)

“All right.” Faith tried to smile even though she didn’t feel like it. “But I don’t plan on staying longer than a few days. If we haven’t heard from Hope by then, I’m leaving for California.”

“In what?” Jenna Jay asked.

“If I don’t get my car back, Slate said I could borrow his.” Faith sent Slate a smile, but he didn’t return it. In fact, he didn’t look happy at all.

“You don’t need to borrow a car from Slate,” Burl said. “I’ll drive you out myself.”

“No, you won’t,” Slate stated. “I’ll drive her out.”

“During football season?” Jenna Jay sounded like she thought everyone had lost their minds.

“I don’t need anyone to drive me out,” Faith said. “I got here by myself; I can get to California by myself.”

Slate jumped up. “Could I talk with you for a second, Faith?” He glared at Burl as he pulled back her chair. “In private.”

Setting her napkin on the table, Faith got up. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Jenna Jay snorted.

This night was cooler than the night before. As soon as they stepped out the door, Faith shivered, although she wasn’t cold for long when Slate directed her over to the porch swing and pulled her into his arms. The position was familiar and nice. She snuggled against him and took a deep breath of cool air and warm-scented man as he pushed the swing back and forth with his foot.

“Now I know you don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, darlin’, but I think you need to tell Jenna and Burl that you don’t want to stay with them. You want to stay with Shirlene.”

She rubbed her nose against the sweet-smelling spot between his neck and shoulder. “Except we both know I won’t be staying at Shirlene’s.”

He groaned when she took a nip at his skin. “You’re right. I want you staying with me. But I don’t think your daddy is going to like it too much if we tell him that.”

Faith pulled back. “And you think he hasn’t already figured that out? And even if he hasn’t, all it will take is a phone call. You know Shirlene won’t lie.”

Tipping his head back, Slate said a very naughty cussword.

She giggled.

He glanced down at her. “You think this is funny, do you? I spent the entire game visualizing what I was going to do to you when I got you back to Bubba’s, and it was all for nothing.” The light that filtered through the living room curtains haloed his golden hair, giving him an angelic look. But she knew better.

“You did not spend the entire game thinking about me.”

“Okay, so I only spent the commercials thinking about
you, but it’s given me the same problem.” He took her hand and guided it down to the fly of his jeans.

The feel of all that hard maleness beneath nothing but worn denim caused desire to pool between her legs, which increased when he leaned down and whispered against her ear.

“Do you feel how badly I want you?”

She tipped her head back for the kiss she knew would be waiting. It was wet and hot and a preview of things to come. And come. And come. But after only a few seconds, Faith pulled back from the kiss and rested her ear against the rapid thump of his heart.

“If you ask me to, I’ll go in and tell them I’m not staying with them. But I won’t lie—I think they deserve better than that. Especially since Burl is only being protective. And if you had a daughter, wouldn’t you do the same?”

“Not when she’s thirty.”

“I don’t think there’s an age limit on fatherly-protectiveness.” She lifted her hand from his lap and ran a finger along the open collar of his western shirt. “So you want me to go in and tell them?”

“No,” he grumbled. “But I’m not happy about it. And I’m certainly not satisfied.”

She traced her finger down his stomach and over his waistband to the fly of his jeans. “I can see that, but just because I’m staying with them doesn’t mean we can’t make sure you get satisfied.”

“Here?” He pulled back to look down at her. “If Jenna Jay wasn’t such a little terror, I might take you up on that, darlin’, but that girl is probably looking out the window as we speak.”

Faith glanced over her shoulder as she did a little
figure eight on his fly. “I wasn’t talking about here. I was talking about stopping off at Sutter Springs on the way to Shirlene’s house to get the rest of my things.”

The swing dipped as he jumped up. Tugging her along behind him, he yelled in through the open screen door. “I’m taking Faith to get her stuff from Shirlene’s! We’ll be back in a minute!”

He had her in the truck and tucked against his side before the porch light clicked on and a smiling Jenna, a laughing Jenna Jay, and an angry Burl stepped out the door. Slate honked as he gunned the truck, the big tires churning up dirt on its way out of the yard.

Giggling, Faith did what she
had
been thinking about the entire game. She grabbed the top edge of his shirt and jerked.

The sound of popping snaps filled the air.

A
COLD FRONT MOVED IN ON
F
RIDAY
, and the temperature dropped by a good fifteen degrees, which was unusually cold for the first week of October. But Slate didn’t notice the weather as he turned and looked up at the packed stands. Nor did he pay attention to the band that had just ended their pregame performance. His complete attention was focused on locating a certain mop of honey-streaked hair in the mass of purple and gold.

“Something wrong, Slate?” Travis asked as he followed Slate’s gaze toward the stands.

“No. I was just checking out the crowd.”

Travis nodded. “It’s a packed house. Of course, it always is.”

“Yeah, packed.”

Packed with everyone but Faith.

He turned away. What difference did it make if she was there or she wasn’t? He’d spent the last four years coaching games that she hadn’t attended. One more wouldn’t make a difference.

Except it did.

In the last five days, he’d gotten used to looking up and seeing her. On Monday, his heart had done a little crazy jog when he looked up during practice and saw her sitting up in the bleachers. Then she smiled and waved, and the jog turned into a full-out sprint. And suddenly, standing right there in the middle of the football field, he had the overwhelming desire to show off for her. To shimmy up the goalpost, just like Austin had done, and do a cherry drop to her applause.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t so sure his thirty-year-old body would cooperate or his coaches wouldn’t send for a padded truck. So instead, he decided to impress her with his coaching abilities. Which was difficult since most of his coaching abilities centered around observing. And you couldn’t impress a girl by standing around watching. So he stopped watching and started teaching, going over the fundamentals and taking the time to talk and listen to each player. As he moved from defense to offense to special teams, he forgot all about showing off and began to enjoy himself. Suddenly halfway though practice, it dawned on him what had been missing from the football program the last four years.

Passion.

Passion for the game.

Like him, the team had just been going through the motions—killing time in a small town where there was little else to do. And that was his fault. Instead of teaching a love of the game, he’d only been concerned with winning. Winning, not for the kids, but for his own inflated ego. He’d been the elusive coach who stood on the sidelines and talked on a headset—a coach who, deep down, had resented the fact that these kids had the opportunity to succeed in a game where he felt as if he’d failed.

But by the end of practice on Monday, thanks to the petite woman huddled under a blanket in the stands, his love for the game was back, along with the strong desire to see his boys have fun. He must’ve succeeded. The excitement and enthusiasm was such that practice ran over by a good forty minutes, yet no one complained. Not the coaches or the kids.

Not even Faith.

Not the first day or the next four. Every day, she drove to the stadium in Burl’s old pickup and sat on the hard metal bleachers until he was finished. Then she waited for him in the parking lot so he could follow her back home. Slate had tried on more than one occasion to whisk her back to Bubba’s, but she wouldn’t go along with it. It seemed Faith had a streak of honor a mile wide. She told Jenna and Burl she’d stay with them, and she was going to do it, regardless of how easily she melted into his arms. He didn’t complain, not when she spent so much time sitting in the stands and not when he was invited over for supper every night.

But it was getting harder and harder to say good-bye. Especially when they sat out on the porch swing after dinner, and she fed him a dessert of warm kisses and steamy caresses. Every night, he left with a hard-on that could easily hammer in six-inch nails, while Faith waved good-bye with a happy sparkle in her eyes.

Slate would like to think he was responsible for that sparkle. But he knew some of it had to do with the new relationship she’d formed with her biological parents, and because she would soon have her reunion with Hope. Hope had called on Monday while Faith was at the stadium and left a message that she would call back this weekend.
Which meant Slate’s time with Faith was running out.

So where the hell was she?

The band struck up the national anthem, and Slate covered his heart and returned his gaze to the field where the color guard held the American and Texas flags. The song ended, and the uniformed kids had barely gotten off the field when a loud female voice rang out.

“Give ’em hell, Austin!”

Slate looked back to see Shirlene leaning over the railing, decked out in a down purple coat with a white fur collar. But his gaze only rested on her briefly before getting trapped by a pair of eyes as blue as any Mexican ocean.

Faith stood next to Shirlene, engulfed by a huge purple and white letterman’s jacket. And not just any letterman’s jacket.

Slate’s.

His heart leaped up to his throat, and happiness gushed through his body like a midsummer flash flood. She hugged the leather sleeves close and sent him a timid smile. He swallowed his heart back down and grinned like he’d never grinned before. He didn’t know how she’d gotten the jacket, and he didn’t care. It was exactly where he wanted it to be—wrapped around his girl.

“Coach?”

It took an effort to pull his gaze away from Faith to the kid who stood next to him.

“You ready to win this ball game?” Austin asked with a cocky grin.

“Damned right, I am.” Slate smacked the kid on the butt, then watched as he strutted out on the field with Billy Ray for the coin toss.

Suddenly, Slate’s senses were on overload. The green of the field was more vibrant, the stadium lights brighter, the sound of the band clearer, and the yells of the cheerleaders more distinct. He could smell cheesy nachos and anxious sweat. Feel the cold wind nipping at the tips of his ears and the end of his nose, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He watched as the shiny coin hurtled up into the night sky, flipping end over end before it started its descent down to the artificial turf between the ref’s cleats.

It felt like high school all over again. No, better than high school. All because a blue-eyed girl wore his jacket.

“You think Austin will be all right?” Travis asked, bringing Slate out of his moment.

Slate had spent quite a few hours debating the same question. Austin was only a sophomore and a newcomer to Bramble. But age and status didn’t seem to matter when the kid got the ball. His talent was as obvious as his arrogance. He was quick on his feet and consistent with his passes. At least, he was in practice. But in a packed stadium beneath bright lights, it could be a different story.

“We’ll have to see,” Slate said as the coin toss went against them. Fortunately, Rutledge chose to receive, which Slate considered an advantage for Bramble. He always preferred to get the ball at the beginning of the second half.

But the Rattlers proved that it wasn’t such a disadvantage. They moved the ball down the field and scored a field goal on their first possession, while on the Bulldogs’ first possession, Austin was sacked three times for a loss of yardage.

“What’s going on with the offensive line?” Slate asked
Travis, wishing he still had his headset so he could talk to his coaches in the booth.

“I don’t have a clue,” Travis answered.

Frustrated, Slate walked down the sidelines to where his offensive line stood sucking down Gatorade and looking not the least bit concerned.

“Is there a problem?” One by one, he stared them down until they looked away.

“No problem, Coach.” Austin stepped up, looking no worse for wear after getting his bones crushed by the Rattlers’ big defensive ends. “We’re just warming up. We’ll do better the next possession.”

His offensive line shot glances at one another but refused to look at Slate or Austin.

“Fine.” Slate spoke through his teeth. “But I expect to see some blocking out there.”

The blocking didn’t get any better, and Slate was forced to call quick little screen passes in an attempt to keep his quarterback from getting hurt. Not that Austin showed any signs of pain. The kid took the punishment without one word of complaint. After a sack, he simply rolled to his big feet, huddling the line back up with pats and words of encouragement.