Karen Templeton - Playing For Keeps

“Just a hunch. From what I saw just now. The way they went running off, soon as you called them. Like they wanted to go to you, not like they were afraid of what you might do to ’em if they didn’t.”

Joanna laughed. “Damn. There goes my reputation.”

But there was a heaviness to her voice that disturbed something inside him, enough to make him do something stupid and to ask if everything was okay with Ryder.

She flinched slightly, and he could tell she was about to say, “Of course,” or some such, except a tear slipped out. Her arms tightened, like she wanted to wipe it away but to do so would only acknowledge its presence. “It’s…none of your concern,” she said softly, not in a way meant to make him feel he was butting in, but because she simply didn’t wish him to worry himself. And Dale didn’t wish to embarrass her by pressing the issue, especially since he wasn’t all that sure himself of the motives behind his inquiry.

“You have kids of your own?” she asked, catching him off guard. Although it shouldn’t have. Women like Joanna just naturally wondered about things like this.

“Hell, no.”

Her head tilted slightly. “You sound like you’d rather eat slugs.”

“No,” he said with a smile he really didn’t feel. “I just don’t think I’d be much good at it. Not for the long haul,” he added when she frowned at him.

“And you’re basing this on…?”

“Gut instinct? The fact that, for all the kids I’ve seen and been around, I’ve never felt like I was missing out by not having any of my own?”

“But I was watching you with the boys—”

He held up one hand to cut her off at the pass. “Likin’ kids and wantin’ to deal with ’em on a full-time basis are two different things. I mean, look at you, all tied up about your boy. I have enough trouble worrying about how to take care of myself, let alone trying to figure out how to make anybody else happy.”

She looked at him oddly. “You don’t strike me as the selfish type.”

“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said, then thought, Oh, yeah, that’s a great way to get the woman into your bed. Then he said, “And you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who would judge somebody else by her own standards. Not everybody’s cut out to be a parent…”

Shards of memories he thought he’d swept out years ago pricked at him, deep inside. He realized she was giving him one of those damned compassionate looks that gave him the willies.

“You’re absolutely right,” she said quietly. “Raising kids is hard, and messy, and usually thankless, and it’s easy enough to lose sight of the joy of parenthood when you did want your kids. But just for the record? I’ll gladly deal with being ‘tied up’ about my babies, as you put it, for the chance to see the world through their eyes on a daily basis. In fact, I’d have another one in a minute if I—” Her mouth clamped shut, then stretched into a tired smile. “Well. You might as well go mingle. Food’ll be ready in a sec.” Then she disappeared inside the house, hugging her burdens to herself like she was afraid of the mess they’d make if she dropped them.

When Dale looked up, he realized that Bobby Alvarez had been watching them. Not that Dale cared, not really, but antagonizing husbands, ex or otherwise, was not something he cared to do on a regular basis. So you could’ve knocked him over with a feather when Alvarez suddenly grinned at him, nodding in a way that Dale could have sworn was meant to be encouraging.

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