Playing for Keeps (Texas Scoundrels) (12 page)

“Sorry about that,” Jed said when the boy hurried off to show his friends. “It goes with the territory.”

“I imagine it does,” she replied. Jed didn’t say a word about her snippy tone, so she kept her attention on the court as the boys filed back into the gym.
 

The crowd cheered when the Stallions returned, and Jed cheered right along with them. She wanted to yell at him to stop. This was a one time shot for him. He wasn’t going to come to Austin’s games in the future. He wouldn’t be there to help Austin when he took ninth grade algebra next year or the following year when he studied U.S. history and biology. He wouldn’t be around to fix flat bike tires or give driving lessons. And while it might be his area of expertise, he certainly wouldn’t be around to offer his son advice when it came to the opposite sex.

She kept silent for the remainder of the game, but no less aware of Jed beside her. By the time the game ended, her mood hadn’t improved. The Stallions lost by a basket, but since this was the last regular season game, a celebration was still in order.

“The team’s going for pizza,” she told Jed as she stood. “I’ll take you back to your car.”

From his seat on the bleachers, he looked up at her. “Mind if I tag along?”

Of course she minded. “I’m not sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s noisy and crowded. Kids running all over—”

“I remember what it’s like.” Jed stood. “I’d like to come.”

With the intent to dissuade him, she narrowed her eyes and frowned at him. “I really think you’d be better off—”

“I’m coming,” he said, his tone firm and maybe a little antagonistic and arrogant.

Refusing to acknowledge his determination, she turned her back on him, pasted a smile on her face and looked to her father. “Dad, you coming?”
 

“Not tonight, honey,” Thomas said, pulling on his coat. “I’ve got plans.”

“Plans?” Her father never had
plans
. How could he desert her and leave her alone with Jed?
 

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “Plans,” he repeated firmly, then shook Jed’s hand. “Hope to see you for Sunday dinner tomorrow, Jed.”

“I’m not sure of my schedule yet,” he answered.
 

“Dinner’s at five. My daughter, Mattie, is an excellent cook.” Thomas moved down the bleachers to the stairs where he stopped to talk to an old patient.

Maybe her luck was changing and Jed would leave. He said he wasn’t sure of his schedule. Perhaps she could convince him he wasn’t wanted. Yeah, right. Like Jed would go away simply because she wished it.
 

She headed toward the door with the rest of the crowd. Jed moved beside her, his hand resting against the small of her back as he guided her through the crush of parents and students. That tingle of awareness shot up her spine again, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t ignore it, or him.
 

And that, she realized, was only the beginning of her problems.

Seven

 
JED KEPT HIS attention on his conversation with Austin as Griffen drove to the pizza joint. Something had happened in the gym during half-time. He wasn’t sure exactly what, but it didn’t take a genius to know she was ticked at him. For what now, he could only guess.
 

Maybe because he’d gone and kissed her. Problem was, he wanted to do it again. That, and a hell of a lot more.

When she pulled into the parking lot, Austin unsnapped his seat belt, reached for the door, then hesitated. “Thanks for coming to my game.”

The look in his son’s eyes chipped away at the stone wall surrounding the location of his heart. This was getting dangerous. “I enjoyed it.”

Jed turned in time to see Griffen give him a looked filled with irritation, but she quietly slipped from the Jeep and closed the door. Austin darted toward the front door of Porky’s Pizza Palace while Jed waited for Griffen to circle the vehicle. “Is something wrong?” He fell in step beside her.

She wouldn’t look at him, just kept walking across the lot toward the entrance, her steps clipped and hurried. “What makes you think there’s something wrong?”

He grabbed hold of her arm. As appealing as he found the view of her ass as she walked away from him, he wanted, needed, to see her expressive eyes. She looked up at him and he released his hold on her arm. Irritation and frustration filled her gaze. “You’re awfully moody tonight.”
 

A perfectly arched brow shot skyward. “You don’t know me well enough to gauge my moods, Mr. Maitland.”

He blew out a harsh breath, his own frustration mounting. “Are we back to that again?”

Her lashes fluttered closed and she backed up a step. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, then looked at him again. “I’m just having a difficult time coping with all this.”

“All what?”
 

“With...”

Her words died when he narrowed the distance between them. Obviously, he had a death wish because he leaned toward her and breathed in, taking in that faint scent of lilacs along with something more elemental that held a dangerous attraction. Surrounding her with his presence, he pushed the advantage and lowered his head until her sweet breath fanned his lips. To her credit, she didn’t flinch, she didn’t back away, just looked at him, her eyes filled with an awareness that had his blood pumping hard.
 

He didn’t give a rat’s ass that they were standing in the middle of a parking lot, he kissed her. Again. Her lips were sweet and soft, and he couldn’t get enough.
 

“You guys coming or what?” Austin called from the door. “Everyone’s already inside.”

Jed ended the kiss and straightened, not sure whether to be grateful for Austin’s interruption or to have a serious talk with the kid about timing. Griffen turned away, but not before he caught sight of the blush warming her cheeks.
 

Oh yeah
.
She’s interested.

What he planned to do with that knowledge, he didn’t know. Before Griffen, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a woman blush.
 

He followed Austin and Griffen into Porky’s, then led the way toward the back to a corner booth as far away from the crowd as he could manage. He waited until Griffen sat before he slid into the booth opposite her. Austin climbed in beside him and grinned, sticking his open palm on the table in front of his mother.

She sighed, then opened her bag and pulled out her wallet.

“I got this,” he said, digging into his pocket. He plucked a fifty out of his wallet and handed it to Austin.
 

“Jed, don’t,” she said, her voice a harsh whisper.

“Be quiet,” he told her with a grin as he handed off the bill to the kid.

“Wow. Thanks.” Austin scooted out of the booth and shot across the crowded restaurant to the video game room.
 

Griffen frowned at Jed. She suspected he didn’t mean any harm in giving Austin what probably seemed like a fortune to a thirteen-year-old, but that didn’t mean she wanted him giving her son money. The sooner she established some ground rules for the time he would be around, the better. “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t do that.”

He leaned forward, his arms resting on the plastic red and white checkered table covering. “You’re being over-protective.”

Dropping her wallet into her bag, she gave him a level stare. “No, I’m not. I don’t want him spoiled. I can’t—” She folded her hands on the table in front of her. How could she say this without sounding pathetic?

“Can’t what?” he prompted.

 
She moistened her bottom lip. “I can’t compete.” She hated admitting weakness to this man. And it didn’t help that he affected her, made her wonder about things she had no business thinking about. Like how it would feel to be held by those strong arms or cuddled against that wide chest. Or what his body would feel like pressed up against hers, skin to skin, man to woman.

He reached across the table, his large, strong hands sliding over hers. Her imagination kicked into overdrive as she wondered what his hands would feel like on the rest of her, skimming over her, holding her against him as he sank into her.

Oh, hell
. Something was seriously wrong with her.
 

“Griffen, look at me.”

She didn’t want to, fearful he’d see the erotic fantasy in her eyes. But when he tugged gently, she did as he asked.
 

His gaze held a sincerity she would have thought impossible for a man like him. “This isn’t a competition.” His voice was as gentle as the expression in his dark eyes. “He’s my son, Griffen. I don’t know yet where all this is going to lead, but I’m not going to take him away from you. I promise you that.”

She nodded, because she couldn’t speak. He’d voiced her greatest fear and painstakingly put it to rest with gentle and infinite care. Now all she had to do was get over herself and believe him.
 

“Thank you,” she finally managed on a hushed whisper.

The waitress stopped by their table to take their order, then returned with a pitcher of Coke and three glasses. With a minor fortune in her son’s pocket, chances were they wouldn’t see him again for at least an hour.
 

She poured them each a glass of Coke. “So tell me...” She handed him a red plastic glass. “Who is the real Jed Maitland? And I don’t want the publicity version, either.”
 

Who was the man who’d kissed her? The one she couldn’t stop thinking about in terms of sweat drenched bodies and tangled sheets.

He leaned back in the booth. “Not much to tell. My parents died when I was ten and I was raised by my old man’s folks.”

She knew the pain of losing a parent. Three years ago, her own mother had passed, and she’d been devastated. She could only imagine what it had been like for a child to lose both parents. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That must have been very difficult for you.”

He grinned, and her heart nearly stopped. Would she ever get used to that killer Maitland grin? For the life of her, she didn’t think so.

He lifted his glass and took a long drink. “For my grandparents, it sure was,” he said. “I wasn’t an easy kid to like at first.”

She gave him a teasingly shocked expression. “I find that so hard to believe.”

He laughed, the sound running along her nerve endings and settling into a warm glow in the pit of her stomach. “Very funny,” he said in a wry tone.

“So you went to live with your grandparents,” she prompted, anxious to keep the conversation going. She needed to keep her attention on something other than the way he was affecting her. Or how much she wanted to kiss him again. For starters.

“I was pretty rotten.” He braced his arms on the table, the sleeves of his t-shirt tightening against his thick corded arms. “My granddad was ex-military, but he was a good man who took his responsibility seriously. If I’d had to live with anyone else, who knows where I would’ve ended up—probably as a permanent resident in a ten-by-ten with a roommate named Big Bubba.”

“Jail? Really?” She’d spent so much time thinking the worst of him, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Except the more she got to know him, the more she believed that perhaps she’d been wrong about him. Maybe everything printed about Jed wasn’t true. Maybe Dani had known the real man behind the legend, after all.

“I was a wild one.” He chugged down the last of his drink then refilled his glass and topped off hers, as well.

“From what I’ve heard about you, you haven’t changed much.”
 

He lifted a dark eyebrow and gave her a tolerant look. “I keep to legal activities these days.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, feeling a tad guilty for being so hard on him. She propped her elbow on the table and cupped her chin in her hand. “What about that high dollar sports car you wrapped around a telephone pole? Weren’t you charged with possession?”

“Not quite.” He swirled the ice in his glass. “It was legally prescribed medication.”

She straightened when the waitress brought their salads. “But still drugs,” she said once they were alone again.

He picked up the fork and stabbed a cherry tomato. “I was taking Naprosyn for a knee injury, hardly a controlled substance. I had an allergic reaction and passed out.” He popped the tomato into his mouth.

Was she so narrow-minded she actually believed the less than sterling reports about him? “Seriously?”
 

“I told you not to believe everything you read in those grocery store rags.”

She set her fork aside and leaned forward. “I don’t read rags. I told you, Austin’s a fan. You’re a pretty familiar topic at the dinner table. Now, what about that bar in San Diego? The one they say you destroyed in a bar fight.”

“It was no big deal.” He shrugged, concentrating on his salad.

“Trashing a bar sounds like a big deal to me,” she said. “Especially when it ended in thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.”

He set down his fork and looked at her, the laughter disappearing from his eyes, replaced by a deep anger she didn’t understand. “Some jacka—some jerk smacked his date around because she’d had too much to drink and was coming on to one of my friends.”