Four Men & A Lady Read online

  Exactly what he'd done with Heidi.

  Heidi had been the one to live with the humiliation of his Tannen-like gesture, while he'd gone on to UT with only the scar on his face.

  He'd wondered then if, once on their own and away from prying parental eyes, they might explore those unexplored years of tension. She'd answered that by not returning either of his calls.

  He wondered now if her hurt had fueled her success, if she'd been driven to prove that his name and family position meant nothing.

  He wondered how far he could take that purple-printed IOU promise of her body. And if she really had the experience her voice had claimed, or was still the virgin he'd seen in her eyes.

  The horse in front of him blew out a shuddering breath, bringing him back to the present. "I know, girl. I know. The waiting'll be over soon." He backed away from the stall to go.

  "I'll see you tonight, Miss Charlie Parker."

  Chapter Six

  THE LAST TIME she'd found herself at a picnic table in this particular park, Heidi had been holding a check in her hand. A large check, more money than she'd ever seen at one time in her young life.

  She hadn't known a single seventeen-year-old who'd had a checking account. She shouldn't have been surprised to find a seventeen-year-old named Tannen would have one. What did surprise her was finding out Ben had the amount of money he did.

  She'd known his family was wealthy, of course. But to have so much money of his own...money for clothes, a car, even gas for his car. Dang it. She'd been so naive, had so underestimated how out of his league she was.

  From her position at the far edge of the park, her denim-covered bottom on a weathered tabletop, her sneaker-soled feet on the scarred and splintered bench, Heidi watched the reunion organizers pull together long tables bearing food and coolers of iced drinks, watched their children unload bats and gloves, tennis rackets, Frisbees and volleyballs from the back ends of minivans and SUVs.

  Damn that Quentin Marks for sweet-talking her into staying. Their one-on-one visit had lasted late into the night. She'd enjoyed the time, had demanded his phone number before they'd done much more than order their food because she realized on the drive to the diner how much she'd missed his candor—and his ability to see through her bullshit.

  It had taken but one, "Tell me the truth, Heidi," to get her talking about her past and her present with Ben. Over the course of the evening, Quentin had learned everything—about the assault and the note, the debt she'd repaid and the one Ben had reminded her of last night.

  She just wished she'd been strong enough to tell Quentin no, that they couldn't pick up last night's conversation this morning, that she had to leave first thing. That she couldn't afford to take time for today's picnic and certainly not for the country club dance tonight.

  She needed to be home in Dallas, poring over legal briefs, filling yellow legal pads with copious notes. That was the life she understood. The life she'd worked so hard to attain. The late nights, early mornings, little-time-to-sleep and less-time-to-eat life of the Mighty Heidi Malone.

  At this moment, she couldn't have felt any less like Mighty Heidi and any more like The joker. A part of that had to do with being here in this park with the people who'd known her only as the one and not the other.

  But more than anything what she was feeling had to do with Ben. And how one evening in his presence seemed to have rendered null and void the steps she'd taken to reach her level of success—success worthy of a Tannen.

  He'd stood there in the parking lot at The Cave, his eyes glittering in the light from the moon, his dark hair windblown, the scar on his face slashing through the shadow of his beard, the lips she'd kissed moving, speaking words with the voice that had soothed her old misery, and she'd wanted to run screaming into the night.

  She'd felt as if her life was a masquerade, that what she'd achieved was all a farce, that she'd never measure up. And that beneath one coordinating founda-tion-to-accessory ensemble costing more than her four-year Johnson-High wardrobe, she still wore the harlequin mask that had served her so well.

  She hated feeling like a fraud, that all she'd accomplished since leaving Ben in that parking lot meant nothing, when she knew, dammit, she knew she'd made a colossal difference in the lives of the women she'd counseled and represented.

  How could one man do this to her? Make everything seem like nothing, so much like so little? She turned her head, physically avoiding what she didn't want to answer. Because her heart of hearts knew this was personal. This was more than Ben. This was the reason she'd avoided Sherwood Grove and her four best friends for the past fifteen years.

  This had to do with where she'd come from and the escape she'd made, never having come to grips with the legacy she was leaving behind. She should have listened to Georgia. She shouldn't have come. She should, instead, have gone blindly forward with the rest of her life and forgotten she'd ever heard the name Tannen.

  The wooden table shifted and creaked and Heidi looked over to see Jack Montgomery settling onto the opposite end. He wore sunglasses and a T-shirt similar to the one he'd played in last night, but he'd traded his biker boots for athletic shoes and his jeans for gray sweats cut off at the knees.

  He sidled an inch or two closer, nudged his shades down his nose and peered over the rims. His green eyes burned with a fire that rivaled the intensity of Ben's. “Someone told me you're Heidi Malone. But I couldn't be sure seeing as last night all I saw was your exit."

  "A little bird tells me that's not quite all you saw." Heidi decided to wait for a cue from Jack about his mood before saying more. His expression was unreadable. And she preferred to avoid a repeat of the emotional hot water she'd jumped into with Ben last night.

  Jack removed his sunglasses completely, tossed them to the table, scooted another couple of inches closer. "True. I did see more. But I've learned through the years that discretion is the better part of valor."

  Gripping the tabletop with both hands, Heidi looked into Jack's eyes. Funny how with this man as well as Quentin, she didn't see as much of the boy she'd known as she'd seen looking deep into Ben's eyes.

  Damn. If this weekend got any deeper, she'd need to scrounge up a pair of waders. Better yet, overalls and barn boots. "So...if I don't mention what we're not talking about, you won't mention what we're not talking about?"

  "We can do that." He moved another inch. And another. "Or..." he arched a brow "...we can blow that off and just go for it. Given the right incentive, I can forget everything I've ever learned about valor and discretion and get down and dirty like you can't imagine."

  "I see." She fought back a grin. "What happens then?"

  "Then, we get back to talking about you and Ben. And I say, 'What the hell took you two goats so long?"' He moved closer, this time a good half a foot.

  Goats? "And what do you say if I tell you that I'm not Heidi?"

  Jack grimaced.

  Well, that looked ominous. "Go ahead. I can take it."

  "Huh? Oh, I sure hope you're Heidi because I really don't want anyone else to know that I've been scooting across a wooden table wearing nothing but a jock and sweats and now I have a splinter the size of Tennessee in my butt."

  Heidi laughed out loud as Jack jumped up off the table. He squirmed around, batting at his backside until Heidi waved him over. She got to her feet and ordered him to lean across the end of the table.

  Jack narrowed one eye before bending. "What if Ben catches us? In the act?"

  "So what if he does?" Heidi took a long look at Jack's jersey-covered rear before shaking herself back to the moment at hand. She reached for the tiny sliver of wood stuck more to his jersey sweats than in any portion of his anatomy.

  "Whaddaya mean, 'So what?"' Jack straightened, rubbed at the sting and turned to catch Heidi staring. His grin belonged to the cockiest cock of the walk. "Hey, hey, hey. Eyes front and center."

  A warm flush crawled up her cheeks. "I'm only examining my handiwork like any professional."
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  Jack obviously didn't buy it for a minute. "A legal doctor, eh? As opposed to a medical doctor? Can't say I've run across too many of those in my travels."

  "You've been busy keeping up with my career as well, I see." Heidi crossed her arms over her chest.

  "Me? No way. I've just been listening to Ben keep up with it."

  Heidi felt like tapping an exasperated foot until Jack held open his arms and grinned. "C'mere, Heidi. Give the ol' Jackster a hug."

  How could she resist? "Oh, Jack. It's so good to see you." *

  Feeling him wasn't half-bad either and taking in an eyeful had been downright great, though those thoughts were neither here nor there. "You were wonderful last night. I had no idea you'd gone on to play professionally."

  He released her, laid a quick finger over her lips. "Uh-uh. None of that P-word. I play for fun. I sing for fun. I've been working big-time the last few years on puttin' fun back into my life."

  "Ben told me you'd been in the Marines?"

  "Can you believe it?" He shook his head, as if he had a hard time believing it himself. "We were all so paranoid in high school about Carter enacting the draft registration, and I end up enlisting. Go figure."

  Heidi leaned back against the picnic table. "I guess you've seen a lot of the world."

  "Yep. I have. Seen a lot of the world. All that I care to see."

  The way he said it, biting off his words with a sudden burst of bitterness, raised questions Heidi didn't dare ask. "Ah, and now you're back to having fun."

  "I call it a regret minimization framework. I don't want to hit eighty and wonder how I got there. Or what happened to the years in between." He snagged up his sunglasses from the table. "I figure if I take care of the fun, the rest will fall into place."

  "And that philosophy is serving you well?"

  "So far, so good. All I'm missing is the sort of fun you were having with Ben last night."

  Heidi hesitated in her reply. She wasn't sure how much of this she wanted to get into with Jack—Ben's friend, Jack. Instead, she shoved her hands in her pockets and begin to walk the trail around the park's perimeter. Jack fell into step at her side.

  "I wasn't exactly having fun with Ben last night," she finally said after they'd walked a minute in silence.

  "That so."

  She glanced up at Jack's grin, watched as he returned his shades to his face, wished she had a pair to hide behind. She certainly could've used a pair last night.

  "What I mean is...fun is not what I was aiming for when I kissed him."

  "You kissed him, huh?" Jack ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. "Well, I don't know what you started out aiming for, but from where I stood it seemed you hit a bull's-eye of a good time."

  A good time. That was certainly too simplistic, wasn't it? For what she'd felt while kissing Ben? A good time was dinner with Quentin. Or now, here, walking and talking to Jack.

  But that kiss with Ben? She'd felt...movement. She didn't want to say it had been the earth. But all the way from her tongue to her toes there'd been a whole lot of shaking going on.

  She warded off a shiver. "A good time? That's certainly an interesting reason to kiss someone."

  "You must not've done a lot of kissin' in your time, Heidi Malone. Or you'd know there're a hundred reasons one body kisses another." Both eyebrows wiggled above the pewter rims of his sunglasses.

  "I know plenty of reasons." She wasn't sure she knew a hundred—might even have trouble coming up with that many if pressed—but still. How dare Jack assume her experience to be so limited. "You kiss for friendship and affection and love—"

  "And passion and lust and a good ol' building of body heat." When she snorted without so much as a hint of refinement, Jack laughed and added, "But there's not much point to any of those reasons if you're not having fun, get my drift?"

  She didn't want to get his drift. "Okay. The kiss was...enjoyable. Fun even," she added when his frown pressed the point. "It's not like it meant any more than that." Go ahead, Heidi. Perjure yourself while you're at it.

  "Hey, that's none of my business. What it meant is between you and Ben." He pointed one finger her direction. "Just don't forget what I said."

  "I know. I know. Fun or bust," Heidi said and picked up the pace.

  Jack matched her stride, kicking a pinecone cluster from the dirt path. "I'm just glad to see you two finally getting around to doing it."

  Heidi stopped dead in her tracks. "I am not getting around to doing anything. All I'm doing is offering Ben a long overdue apology."

  "Say what you will, sister." Jack stepped closer, towered over her. "What you laid on Ben fifteen years ago won't stay with him half as long as what you laid on him last night."

  "That's ridiculous." Heidi looked away toward the picnic festivities, took a deep breath and looked back. "Fifteen years ago I scarred Ben for life."

  "Glad to see I made my point. Now," he said, taking her hand and pulling her off the pathway while she tried to interpret his meaning. "They're choosing up teams on the field down there. Let's go play ball."

  "GO, RANDY! Knock it out of the park!" Even with Julie's full-bodied encouragement, Randy, after a long 3-2 count, only managed to eke out a single. Julie shoved away from the chain-link fence and plopped back down on the dugout bench next to Heidi. "Man, they are killing us."

  Heidi watched Jack pitch to the next batter. If he was having fun, it didn't show in his face, in his stance, or even in his attitude. He'd long since tossed off his T-shirt, and beneath his shades and sweat-drenched hair, his mouth was grim.

  His accomplice in this game of win or die trying was having just as much fun. Squatting behind home plate, Ben caught every burner Jack hurled, shouting encouragement to his cohort and catcalls at the batters.

  Heidi spared a glance Julie's way. "Killing us, yeah. But look how much fun they're having doing it."

  "You think those two planned this attack?" Julie nodded toward the dynamic bare-chested duo. "And who let them play on the same team, anyway?”

  "I think that's what's called stacking the deck." Adjusting the brim of her baseball cap, Heidi squinted and, hands on knees, leaned forward, staring out into center field where Quentin pounded fist to glove waiting to snag his next fly ball.

  Her gaze traveled back to the infield, where Randy had taken a dicey lead off first. She then focused on the pitcher's mound, on Jack as he prepared his windup, checking out Randy's big jump from the base.

  Finally, she took a good long look at home plate, at the batter's box and the man crouched low behind. Ben had long since stripped off his white polo shirt and tied a blue bandanna around his forehead. Beneath denim shorts, his thigh muscles flexed as he balanced on the balls of both feet.

  She just wished he hadn't taken off his shirt. Not that she'd never seen him shirtless. She had. Years ago...in high school...before he'd reached his broad-shouldered potential. Before his biceps bulged with the throw of a ball, before his back stretched with long straps of muscle.

  Before a wedge of dark hair defined his chest and made her fingers itch to thread through it. Years ago in high school she'd been just one of the guys, which had made it hard to look her fill as she was doing now.

  She stood, leaving Julie and the rest of the team on the dugout bench, and hooked her fingers through the chain links of the fence. Her gaze moved again, from the strong lines of Ben's back to Jack to Randy to Quentin.

  Four men. Her four men. Friends who'd seen her through four years of high-school hell. Who'd kept her sane and focused and on time to class. Who'd made her see that a drunken mother wasn't the end of the world.

  Four men who'd encouraged her to pursue her dream when she couldn't see beyond cigarette burns on linoleum flooring. Or the insects who shared her bathtub drain. Or the men who bought what her mother sold at a blue-light-special discount.

  Four men. Her four men. Friends who'd believed in her. Friends who'd known that no one could make more of a difference than a river kid who'd s
urvived life. One who'd sharpened both her tongue and her mind, and clawed her way out of the gutter.

  Jack's next pitch struck the leather of Ben's glove with a sting as sharp as the tears in Heidi's eyes. She blinked hard. And again felt the stares. Again heard the whispers. Yet this time her sense of discomfort was lessened.

  Because the deepest part of her knew that what she shared with her four men was rare. Rare enough to spawn speculation from those unable to fathom the bond of The Deck. Rare enough to incite jealousy, induce envy.

  Rare enough to set her apart as unapproachable because she'd held herself so to survive.

  It's time to come to grips with where you came from, Heidi. It's long past time.

  “Batter up!"

  "Heidi!" Julie called. "That's you!"

  Heidi swallowed hard, shook off the truth of what she'd soon have to deal with and took the bat from the other woman's hand.

  "Go get 'em, girlfriend," Julie urged and Heidi answered, "They won't even know what hit 'em."

  The bigger the words, the harder the fall.

  She made her way across the infield's loose dirt, twisting the wooden bat handle between both palms, concentrating hard as she tried to remember if she'd walked away from a single "at bat" in her life with a hit.

  The minute she stepped into the batter's box, she knew it wasn't going to happen. Not this time. Not with this center fielder, this pitcher and certainly not with this catcher crouched level with her, uh, right hip.

  And poor Randy. The way this looked he'd end up stranded on first for the rest of his life. Heidi dug in with both feet, settled into her stance and narrowed her eyes toward Jack. Probably not a smart look because Jack, preparing his windup, leaned forward and returned the glare.

  Only he couldn't keep a straight face. It started with a chuckle he hid behind his fist, grew into a laugh he buried in his glove, ended as a guffaw that had him doubled over while Heidi backed out of the box, propped a hand at her hip and scowled. Oh, now he decides to have fun!