Scrimmage Gone South (Crimson Romance) (21 page)

“Aw, that’s no good. Let’s pick something better.” He flexed his knee some more. “How about a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader or some kind of bad saloon girl? With fish net stockings?”

“I hardly think that would be appropriate for trick-or-treating with Beau and Emma. Besides, I was assigned my costume.”

“Assigned? By who? Oh, wait let me guess. Missy Bragg has laid down the law, hasn’t she? Damn.”

“Missy likes a theme. She has a vision. Now would not be the best time to cross Missy.”

He got to his feet. A lot of men would have let themselves go after an injury. Nathan was not one of those men.

“Well, what has Missy ordered up for you?”

“Fall.”

“What?” He swung around and looked puzzled. “Fall what?”

“I am fall. The season. Autumn. Last year we went as
Wizard of Oz
people but this year we needed something that pregnant people can carry off. So we’re going to be the seasons.”

“
Wizard of Oz,
huh?” He reached for his boxer shorts. Pity — though there was something rousing about seeing him pick his clothes up from her bedroom floor. “Were you Dorothy?”

“No.”

“I thought not. Missy?”

“Of course. I was the Scarecrow. Lucy was the Tin Man and Lanie was the Cowardly Lion.”

“I’m sure if there’s a season that’s better than the others, that’s who Missy will be.” He had his khakis on now and was reaching for his polo shirt.

“She’s summer and Lanie’s spring.”

“What happened to winter?” He took a step toward her.

“Winter had some kind of a teapot emergency in Mobile.”

“Do what?”

“Never mind? Don’t ask.”

He whipped his shirt over his head, smoothed his hair back, and looked around the room. “Where are my socks?”

“I sold them on eBay after you went to sleep last night. Your shoes too.”

“How’d they get way over there? And there?” He crossed the room picking up socks and shoes as he went.

“You were in a hurry?”

“I’d talk.” He tossed a peach lace bra at her as he sat on the bed to put on his socks. “That was in my shoe.”

“It was not.”

“Half in.”

Like they were half in a relationship? The shoe probably wouldn’t talk about where it had been either. And the bra wouldn’t like it. That’s why the shoe was now on his foot and the bra was abandoned on the bed.

Agggh! These crazy thoughts had to stop!

“So, what are you up to today?” she asked causally, as if her brain had not been invaded by insanity. He didn’t seem to be in a particular rush to leave, but that didn’t mean he intended to make any future plans with her. Maybe it would have been different if she had agreed to get tarted up for Halloween. Maybe a dirty nurse outfit. Oh, wait no. Too, too close of a reference to his injured knee. Plus there was that nurse who had chased her out of his hospital room that time. No nurse outfit.

“I’m going to have lunch with Coach Coal at the diner. Then we’re going back to my place to watch the Alabama game. Then I’m going to drive him to the airport.”

“Sounds like a full day.”

“I also need to go to the drug store.” He leered at her.

“Hmm.” Well he did have some future plans for her. His leer said so.

He came and gave her a light kiss. “Are we okay?”

Well, that was a question for the ages, and what did it even mean? Did it mean were they okay separately or together? She’d been taught in law school that no one should ever answer an unclear question. She should make him rephrase.

“We’re okay,” she said. Was there any way they could be? Lanie set such store by trust and maybe she was right. But trust had to be earned and she had some back payments due where that was concerned. Maybe, if she could manage not to make any mistakes, not make him mad until she earned that trust, then, maybe, just maybe …

“Are you sure you need to go trick-or-treating? Sounds like the adult to child ratio is pretty high, without you.”

“I have to be fall.” She hesitated and studied her cuticle. “But you can go. I think Brantley is leaving this afternoon, but Harris and Luke are going.”

He nodded quicker than she would have expected. “All right, then.”

“Really? What are you going as?”

“A football coach, who has spent his day eating lunch with his old coach, watching football, driving to the airport, and buying birth control.”

“Then I guess I’d better shower and dress so I can take you to your truck so you can get on with all that.”

Just then, noise descended — slamming doors, running feet, and teenage voices.

“Crap almighty!” She had forgotten!

“What?”

She ran to the window, her heart racing, and peeped out the edge of the curtain. “The drama club is here to clean up all that toilet paper!”

He shrugged. “Sounds like a good thing to me.”

“Good? You need to go and we can’t go out there!”

“And why not?”

“They’ll know you are here.” Was he out of his mind?

“And again, what’s your point? I can be here.”

“They’ll know you were here all night. They will talk about it. They will tell their parents. They’ll tease Kirby!”

He took her by the shoulders. “Townshend, calm yourself. How are they going to know I was here all night? For God’s sake, most of the morning is gone. I could have come over to eat breakfast with you and watch College Game Day.”

“There isn’t any breakfast! I don’t even have any eggs!”

“Townshend. Listen to yourself.”

Crazy. She took a deep breath. “You’re right. Okay. But you don’t understand. You cannot know how I don’t like my dirty linen aired in public.”

“So now I’m dirty linen?” he said, but he was smiling. He drew her into his arms. “I might understand. I hate a scene. It’s not too far removed. Now listen to me.”

God, it felt good to be in comforting arms. Sexy passionate arms were beyond wonderful, but you could only take so much of that at a time. She could stay in this sweet embrace forever.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Nathan said. “You’re going to take your shower. I’m going to make some coffee and watch ESPN.”

“Okay.”

“Then we’re going to nonchalantly walk past those kids to the garage. And you are going to take me to the school. Then we’re going our separate ways to do what we need to do today. Then I’ll call you when I get back from the airport and we’ll do this trick-or-treating thing. Okay? And all those kids will have to say, if they think to say anything, is that they saw us at your house midmorning. That isn’t news. Everyone knows we’re seeing each other.”

“But you have on the same clothes you had on at the dance.”

He laughed. “Townshend, if you think they got outside themselves long enough to notice what I wore last night, or even if I was there, you don’t know much about teenagers.”

What he said made a lot of sense, and by the time she got out of the shower, she was embarrassed at her irrational reaction.

When they stepped out the door a bit later, she had completely relaxed. She even let him causally take her hand as they stopped to make a bit of idle chit chat.

Then she saw Jamie Fisher. Should have known she was in the drama club. Very fitting too. She threw down her rake and flounced off. Remembering her vow to not stir the pot, Tolly didn’t comment.

Oddly enough, as they were getting in the car, Nathan said, “Wonder what made Jamie so mad.”

“Maybe you?” Tolly said but she laughed.

“Can’t think of anything,” he said, disinterested, as he turned on the radio and began surfing the channels. “Do you care? I want to get the score of the LSU game.”

It had been a good day for Nathan — good visit with Coach Coal and his alma mater won — not to mention the damned fine start, waking up with Townshend looking at him. Even trick-or-treating had been fun. They had started the evening by having Brunswick stew and cornbread at Missy and Harris’s house. He’d been a little worried about how his knee would hold up for trick-or-treating but, turns out, three-year-olds don’t last long, and neither do their pregnant mothers. The kids had been full of energy for about three blocks — running around growling like bobcats. Then they had slowed down and Harris and Luke — who had
not
dressed in costumes — ended up carrying them for another few houses.

Harris had invited he and Townshend to stay and watch the Auburn/Georgia game, but they had declined. He would have liked to have seen the game live, but he could watch the replay tomorrow. He’d told Townshend that they would do better and he was going to try. And if that meant trick-or-treating and missing a night of watching football, so be it.

He put his hands on her waist to help her into his truck.

“I need a step ladder,” she said. “This is the tallest truck I’ve ever seen.”

“Naw,” he said as she settled in and straightened her sparkly fall leaf and nut crown. There might be some berries in there too. “You just need me.”

“Hmm,” she said, smoothing her skirt.

Her costume was no latex body suit, but she looked cute. She had on that brown leotard she’d talked about and an orange skirt made up of little pointy see-through strips that hung about mid-calf. Only there were so many little strips layered up you couldn’t really see through the skirt. Plus, it had glittered-up fall colored leaves all over it. She had glitter on her face too — gold, red, and orange. And there was the headgear. She’d started out with a glitter pumpkin wand, but Emma had taken such a liking to it, Townshend had given it to her.

“Your costume was the best,” he said, as he slid behind the wheel. “Much better than summer and winter.”

“Winter wasn’t there. Missy was summer. Lanie was spring.”

“Oh, right. If you couldn’t be a cat burglar, I’m glad you were fall. That’s the best time. See, spring is just starting out. You don’t know your team. You don’t know who needs to play what position, or if they even have any talent. Then summer is hell. Two-a-days and down to business. Are you working them too hard in the heat? Are you working them enough? But then fall comes and you get to play the game. That’s what you’ve been waiting for.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Plus your girl will get assigned to be fall and her costume will be way better than the other two.”

“Really? Describe their costumes,” she challenged, but she looked pleased.

“Well … ” He thought a minute. “Missy looked all — you know — summery. And Lanie had that spring look going for her. Was that a tornado on her head?”

Townshend started to laugh. At first it was pretty little laughter, but then it turned hysterical, but in a good way. She wiped tears from her eyes.

“It was a butterfly,” she said around gasps.

“Oh, yeah. That. Well, I — ”

He never finished because she cupped his face and kissed him as thoroughly as a man had ever been kissed.

“Thank you for tonight,” she said softly against his mouth, her little hands still on his cheeks. “I know you’d rather be watching football.”

“Thank you for
last
night. I know you’d rather have been — Well, on second thought, just thank you for last night.”

She kissed him again. Maybe that Auburn game wasn’t so interesting after all.

“Where’s Seven tonight?” he asked.

“Halloween party. He’ll be late.”

“Then let’s go to your place. You won’t have to get up and go out again.” Besides, it was more homelike there.

He drove slowly. Wouldn’t do to run over trick-or-treaters. He parked on the street in front of Caroline Brantley’s house. Her porch light was on and there were three glowing jack-o-lanterns on the steps. A couple of vampires and a cat ran up on her porch and Miss Caroline opened the door as he and Tolly were making their way around the house.

“Happy Halloween, Miss Caroline,” Townshend called out. “Maybe the yard won’t get rolled tonight.”

“All in good fun, my darling. All in good fun. Hello, Nathan.”

He’d known Brantley Kincaid’s grandmother all his life, had been at the double funeral for Brantley’s mother and grandfather. Through it all Miss Caroline had been stoic and classy. It seemed she had held up Brantley and Charles Kincaid by sheer iron will.

“How are you tonight, ma’am?”

“Better for having seen my grandson for a bit this weekend,” Miss Caroline called as a ghost, a princess, and a tiger ran up on the porch. “You two children have a good evening.” She waved before turning her attention to the real children at her door.

“She quite a lady,” he said. Not the type to abandon her family.

“The epitome of grace,” Townshend agreed.

So are you
, he might have said. For all that he had grown up here and had known these people all his life, Townshend was much more a part of all this than he was. It wasn’t a matter of money. It was something elusive he didn’t have, and couldn’t have bought even if he’d gone to the NFL and won seven super bowls.

“You got quiet all of a sudden,” Townshend said, as they stepped onto the path that led to the carriage house.

He drew her to him. “Maybe I’m just thinking about what I’m going to do to you when we get in that door.” He gave her a playful little tickle. She giggled and took his hand, pulling him along until they were on the porch.

Then they stopped short. Every light in the house was on. The curtains were open and there was Kirby Lawson inside, plain as day, stretched out on the couch watching football.

“Looks like Seven’s more into tricking than treating tonight and the trick’s on us.”

Townshend looked at him and pursed her pretty little mouth.

“Do you want to go to my place?” he asked.

She hesitated. “No. I mean, yes, I do. But I can’t — shouldn’t.” She reached up and traced a button on his shirt with her fingertip. “I haven’t seen Kirby in twenty-four hours. I hardly saw him at all last week. I need to go inside. I need to set my eyes on him, make sure he’s okay. And not just for a few minutes. I need to be around tonight, even if he doesn’t stay in the same room with me. He needs to know I’m there.” She looked anxious, like she was afraid of upsetting him. “Do you understand?”

Oh, yes. He understood. He understood why that was important even more than she did. Her brow furrowed. She was afraid he would be mad, afraid of not pleasing him. Truth was, he melted a little.