Jack'sand his cheeks turned deep red.
'How long have you been standing there?' Jack asked, his voice calm and collected for a man who'd just hadhis hands on Daisy's behind, sliding her up and down his body.
'We saw you from down the street.' Nathan returned his gaze to Daisy. He didn't say anything more and shecouldn't tell what he was thinking.
Daisy forced a smile on her face and said, 'Are you going to introduce your friend?'
'This is Brandy Jo.' He pointed toward Daisy. 'That's my mom and Jack.'
'It's a pleasure to meet y'all.'
Daisy moved to take a step forward but Jack's hand on the waistband of her shorts kept her in front of him. Shelooked up over her shoulder at him, he raised a brow, and the light dawned. Jack was using her for cover. Shefelt heat creep up her neck to her cheek. Just like Nathan. The only person who didn't seem embarrassed wasJack.
She turned her attention to Nathan and Brandy Jo.
'Do you live close by?' she asked, to cover the awkward silence.
'Over on Taft.' Brandy Jo glanced up at Nathan. 'The first day Nathan and I met, I told him that we're kind ofrelated. My aunt Jessica is married to Ronnie Darlington's cousin Bull.'
Well, at least she wasn't a blood relative to Ronnie. 'Lily and Ronnie's divorce was final a few weeks ago.'
'Oh. I didn't know that.' She smiled and said just above a whisper, 'Ronnie's a dog and no one could figure outwhat Lily ever saw in him.'
Brandy Jo was obviously a smart girl.
'I came by to talk to you about that football game tomorrow night,' Jack said.
'And you couldn't find anything to do until I got here, so you decided to make out with my mom in the frontyard?'
Daisy's mouth fell open.
Jack laughed. 'It seemed like a good way to pass the time.'
Daisy turned around and looked at him.
'What?' he said through an evil grin. 'You thought so too.'
Chapter Eighteen
Daisy had lived in the Northwest for fifteen years, but she'd never forgotten how seriously Texans took theftfootball. Be it the Texas Stadium in Dallas, a high school field in Houston, or a small park in Lovett, footballwas considered a second religion and was worshiped accordingly.
Amen.
What Daisy hadn't known was that this particulargame was an annual event. A yearly meeting where grown men gathered to sweat, ram into each other, andcompare battle wounds. There were no yardline markers. No referees. No goalposts. Just two sidelines and endzones marked off with DayGlo orange spray paint, and someone with a stopwatch. Jack's team wore redpractice jerseys, the other team wore blue.
Each team brought grit and spit and a desire to tear each other's heads off all in the name of fun.
This was football in its rawest, purest form, and Nathan Monroe was going to be the only player who wore padsand a helmet. A fact that angered him to no end.
Daisy tried to talk him out of his anger by pointing out that he was fifteen and he was playing against men whowere all a lot older and bigger. He didn't seem to care that he'd get hurt, only that he'd looked like a wuss.
'Nathan, I paid over five thousand dollars for your straight teeth,' she'd told him. 'You're not going to get themknocked out.'
It wasn't until some time later, when Brandy Jo showed up at the park and told him she liked the way he lookedin pads and helmet, that his mood seemed to brighten a bit.
She and Nathan caught a ride with Jack to the park, and as the three of them moved closer to the playing field,Jack took a closer look at her dress. 'That doesn't look like your cheerleader outfit,' he said when Nathanwalked over to Billy to get his red-mesh jersey.
Daisy had ignored Jack's suggestion that she wear her cheerleader skirt and sweater, and had chosen instead apeach apron dress that crisscrossed down the back. She looked down at the hem of the dress just above herknees. 'Too long?'
'And it doesn't have a back.'
'I guess I won't be doing any of those toe-touch jumps that you were apparently so fond of in high school.'
His gaze scanned the members of his team assembled in the center of the field. 'In the dress you got on, you'dprobably hurt your pom-poms. And that would be a true shame.'
'You don't need to worry about my pom-poms.' She stopped at the red sideline. 'They're fine.'
'They certainly are,' he said over his shoulder as he continued toward his team.
Daisy stared after him and smiled. He wasn't wearing anything beneath his mesh jersey, and his tan skin showedthrough the tiny holes. Her gaze slid down his back to his tight, butt-hugging football pants. Jack Parrish wasmighty fine himself. His pants encased his legs to just below his knees, and he wore black football socks andcleats. He moved as if he hadn't a care in the world. As if he wasn't about to spend the next hour or so gettingrun over and the stuffing knocked out of him.
Tucker Gooch called her name and waved to her from the middle of the blue team. She waved back to him andnoticed a lot of faces she'd gone to school with. Cal Turner and Marvin Ferrell. Lester Crandall and Leon Kribs.
Eddy Dean Jones and several of the Calhoun boys, Jimmy and Buddy included. She wondered if Buddy knewthat after he'd had sex with Lily, she'd gone crazy and driven her car into Ronnie's front room.
Probably not.
She recognized a lot of other faces too. The people she'd grown up with in Lovett. Penny Kribs and little ShayCalhoun. Marvin's wife, Mary Alice, andGina Brown.
Jealousy knotted Daisy's stomach. She wondered if Gina and Jack had been together in the past month. Theyprobably had. Jealousy moved up from her stomach to twist her heart. She knew the feeling and was familiarwith it. She'd felt it fifteen years ago when just the thought of Jack with someone else used to torment her,sending her emotions bubbling up over the top.
But Jack wasn't hers and she wasn't a kid anymore. She knew what to do with jealousy now. She didn't fight itor pretend it didn't exist. She felt every prickly thorn of it. Then she let it go as best she could.
Her head won this round over her heart, and she sat in a folding chair next to Rhonda and the girls on thesidelines. All three little girls wore red cheerleader outfits and jumped about like their legs were made ofsprings.
'Last year Billy tore a groin muscle,' Rhonda told her as she pulled off Tanya's socks so the baby could wiggleher toes. 'He whined about it for three weeks.'
'Marvin broke his thumb last year,' Mary Alice added as the leaned forward in her chair.
Groins and thumbs weren't covered by padding and helmets. Daisy stood, ready to drag Nathan away from theteam huddle, then she sat back down. He would never forgive her if she did that. So she crossed her fingersinstead.
The game kicked off at seven-thirty. It was ninety degrees in the shade and sweat poured off the players. Jackwas the quarterback for the red team, and Daisy had forgotten how much she liked to watch him play. Everytime he drew his arm back to drill that ball down the field, his jersey pulled up and Daisy was treated to a viewof his flat stomach and navel just above the waistband of his pants. When he got knocked flat, she got a glimpseof his chest.
Horizon View Park was soon filled with the shouts of men calling out to each other, cleats pounding down thefield and muscle hitting muscle. Of bodies hitting the ground with an audible thud followed by a whoosh, andthe cheers and jeers of spectators on the sides.
In the first quarter, Jack threw a short pass to Nathan, who caught it and ran with it for about ten yards before hegot tackled. Daisy held her breath until her son got back up and brushed a chunk of grass from his helmet. In
