Judith McNaught (89 page)

"He is not! You're so busy trying to prove to everyone how unbiased you are that you're cheating my

team!"

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"He's out and you're going to be out, too, if you keep this up."

"You wouldn't dare throw me out of this game!"

Zack slowly stood up. "You are making a scene," he bit out. "Sit down!"

"That wasn't a scene!" she flung back and to his disbelief, she kicked dirt on home plate so he'd have to

brush it off and then on his shoes.
"This
is a scene!"

she said furiously.

"You're out of the game!" Zack blasted back, throwing his arm up in the unmistakable gesture of an

umpire ejecting a coach, and the balmy night exploded with boos and cheers and roars and applause as

Julie marched off the field. "Play ball!" Zack yelled, gesturing the other team off the field, and returning to

his crouch behind home plate. From the corner of his eye, he watched the stiff set of Julie's shoulders, the gentle sway of her hips, and the breeze tumbling her hair around her shoulders as she walked over to the bench and grabbed her sweater. He was going to regret his action, Zack realized. She was going to make sure he did.

Young Willie Jenkins was of a similar opinion. As Willie walked off the field past Zack, he warned in his

gravelly carrying voice, "You're in deep shit, Zack."

Julie's team lost 4 to 3. When the losers and the losers' parents gathered at a local restaurant for the meal and drinks that Zack had understood were a ritual after every game, Julie was there waiting for them. She had words of consolation and approval for all her boys and nothing whatsoever to say to Zack when he tried to hand her something to drink. The other adults seemed willing to forget that his call had cost their team the game, and several of them offered to buy him a beer, but Julie deliberately turned her back to him and continued talking to Katherine and Sara Mathison and some other friends of hers.

Left with no choice except to either try in public to soothe her ruffled feathers, which he sure as hell wasn't going to do, or else retreat to the bar where he saw Ted, Carl, John Grayson, and Mayor

Addelson having pizza after the game, Zack decided on the latter. Ted saw him heading toward them and turned fully around, leaning his elbows on the bar behind him. "That was a bad move you made during the

game, Zack," he said with a grin.

"Very bad," Carl agreed.

"Really bad," Mayor Addelson seconded, chuckling and tossing a handful of peanuts into his mouth.

"It was a good call," Zack said flatly.

"Might've been a good call," Addelson said, "but it was a bad move."

"The hell with it," Zack said, angrier than he would have believed possible because she was still ignoring him. "If she can't take the heat, she shouldn't get near the fire!"

For some reason, that simple, trite platitude caused all four men to guffaw with laughter.

Zack ignored them, his anger building steadily at the sudden realization of the absurd, undignified, unjust situation she'd stuck him in. He was thirty-five years old, he was worth over $100 million, and except for five years in prison, he'd spent his life eating in the finest restaurants, staying in the best hotels, and fraternizing with brilliant, talented, famous people like himself. Instead of that, he was now relegated to
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eating pizza while standing up in a crass restaurant in the thriving metropolis of Snake Navel, Texas, while

being ignored by someone who should feel honored that he wanted to marry her! He had a good mind to march her out of the restaurant, lay down the law to her, and then take her straight to bed like any adult male deserved to be able to do with the woman he intended to marry. That wasn't a bargain he'd made with her father, it was malicious, petty revenge on the part of some Bible-thumping, arrogant, manipulative asshole…

Zack shoved away from the bar.

Mayor Addelson's hand landed heavily on his shoulder, and he said in a paternal voice, "Take some advice from a man who's already been where you are: Don't do it."

"What?" Zack snapped.

Ted leaned around the mayor and grinned at Zack.

"Have yourself something cold to drink, eat a hamburger, then go home and take another cold shower and sit tight for another week. Someday, you'll

look back on this and laugh."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"We're talking about what is generally known around town as the Mathison Method of Premarital Misery," Ted said mildly. "It is my father's well-intentioned way of restoring the element of suspense and

anticipation to the wedding night in an age where he feels couples are deprived of the magic because they grab it prematurely."

Zack's jaw tightened with fury in the mistaken belief that Julie's father had actually gone around town, telling everyone about the ridiculous bargain he'd foisted on Zack in retaliation for kidnapping his daughter. "What did you say?" he demanded.

John Grayson heard his question and leaned around Ted. "He's going deaf already." With an attempt at lewd levity, he added, "You know what they say that comes from doing?"

Ted took a swallow of his drink. "No, you go blind, not deaf, from doing that."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"We're talking about you, my friend," Ted said. "It is not Julie who can't take the 'heat,' it's you. Just like it was us. Half the men in this town got talked into the same bargain you made, and most of us—the ones

who stuck with it—ended up picking roaring fights over nothing with our wives-to-be."

The fury and frustration Zack had been feeling evaporated in a flash of stunned disbelief mixed with mindless hilarity at the absurdity of what he was hearing.

"Tell him, Mayor," Ted invited.

"It's hell. I've got ten years on you, son, and I couldn't believe how bad I wanted something partly because I agreed not to have it. It takes its toil on the women, too, only I am of the opinion their discomfort is lessened by their suppressed enjoyment of seeing the male of the species reduced to a state

of desperate need of them. That last part about women," he added with a grin, "isn't my theory, it was a

generalization that came from a professor of sociology I had during my second year at A&M.

Where did

you go to college, by the way? You've got the look of a Yankee, but the accent's a little off."

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Still torn between annoyance and disbelief over the Mathison Method, Zack hesitated, knowing

Addelson was trying to diffuse the situation, then he looked at Julie's pretty profile and considered the amusing fact that his sexual frustration was known by, and understood by, most of the other males in the restaurant, and he capitulated with an irritated sigh.

"USC."

"What was your major?"

"Finance and film."

"Dual major?"

Zack nodded, his eyes on Julie, still unwilling to make a second public attempt to soothe her unjust anger

at him.

At the far end of the bar, Ed Sandell hooked his scuffed boot over the rung of his stool and wiped the back of his sunburned neck with his handkerchief, then he looked at the other two ranch hands with him.

"My sister, Holly, met Benedict at church on Sunday," he said, nodding toward Zack, who was standing

at the juke box. "She said he's nice."

"He's a pansy," Jake Barton said, shoving his hat back on his head. "All those Hollywood types are."

"No way," Martin Laughlin disagreed. "I mean, the guy spent five years in the pen doing hard time."

"Big deal. He's still a pansy. Look at those jeans he's wearin'. Right off some de-sign-er rack."

"C'mon, Jake," Laughlin argued. "He not only spent five years in prison, but he had enough guts to escape."

"He got caught, too. He's a pansy," Jake said flatly.

Ed Sandell signaled to the waitress and said idly,

"He umpired the game with Perseville tonight. Julie Mathison hassled him over a call he made, and he threw her out of the game."

Jake Barton looked up. "No shit?"

"Nope."

His expression filled with a dawning respect, Jake looked round at Zack Benedict, then he glanced at the waitress with a grin. "Tracy," he said, "bring Mr.

Benedict a drink, and put it on my tab."

Across the room, Julie stole a glance at Zack. He caught her, his gaze leveling on hers, his expression impassive. Waiting. The last remnants of her anger died. She loved him so much, and they'd been through

so much. She'd been wrong tonight, and she knew it
.
She wished she'd let him make amends earlier when they first got here, so that she didn't have to swallow her pride and go to him now, when everyone

was sure to be watching. On the other hand, she decided, excusing herself to the people standing and talking to her, it was insane to waste another minute of their lives in this ridiculous standoff. When she reached Zack, she nodded to the mayor, her brothers, and John Grayson, then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts, hesitating.

"Well?" Zack said mildly, trying not to notice the way her T-shirt stretched delightfully across her
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breasts.

"I'd like to order something to eat," she said.

Disappointed that she wasn't going to give him the courtesy of an apology, Zack looked up and nodded to the waitress, who hurried to their side.

"What's it gonna be, folks?" Tracy asked, hiding her unease over their widely known quarrel on the baseball field by staring at the pad and pencil in her hand.

"I can't decide," Julie said. Shifting her gaze from the waitress to her fiancé, she solemnly asked,

"Should

I order crow, Zack? Or humble pie?"

Zack's lips twitched with laughter. "What do you think?"

Julie looked at the waitress, who was trying unsuccessfully to keep her face straight. "An order of each,

please, Tracy."

"With extra cheese and pepperoni," Zack added, switching their order to a pizza and grinning as he looped his arm around Julie's shoulders, pulling her tightly against his side.

Waiting until Tracy stepped away, Julie called out,

"Oh, and bifocals for the umpire, too, Tracy."

A silent sigh of relief swept around the restaurant, and the laughter and noise escalated dramatically.

They walked home in the balmy spring night, holding hands. "I like it here," Zack told her as they turned

up her sidewalk. "I didn't realize how badly I needed some normalcy. I hadn't stopped to relax since the day I walked out of prison."

When she opened the front door and started to go inside, he shook his head and stayed on the porch.

"Don't tempt me again," he teased, pulling her close for what he intended to be a brief kiss. His lips brushed hers, and he started to let her go, but she tightened her arms around his neck, kissing him back

with all the love and apology in her heart. Zack lost the battle, and his mouth opened hungrily on hers, his

hands shifting restlessly over the sides of her breasts, then cupping her buttocks and holding her tightly against his aroused body while he kissed her until they were both on fire.

When he finally pulled his mouth from hers, she kept her arms around his neck and rubbed her cheek against his chest, a kitten with the claws she'd shown him earlier sheathed now. Her body was still pressed tightly to his and Zack was debating about the wisdom of torturing himself with another kiss when she tipped her head back, smiling invitingly into his eyes. He felt his entire body tighten and surge in

response to that provocative look, and he reluctantly shook his head. "No more, my beautiful little jock.

I'm already so turned on that I can hardly stand here.

And besides," he belatedly added, trying to look stern, "I still haven't forgiven you for not telling me your father inflicts his miserable bargain on every male

who asks him to perform the wedding ceremony."

In the moonlight, he watched her eyes light with an embarrassed smile. "I was afraid it would make you more uncomfortable if you knew everyone else knew what you were going through."

"Julie," he said, pulling her hips tighter against his arousal to illustrate his next words, "I could not possibly

be more uncomfortable than I am now."

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"Me either!" she said so forcefully that he burst out laughing and kissed her again, then he gently moved her away. "You make me very happy," he said with a tender grin. "I've had more fun with you than I've had in my entire life."

Seated at Mr. Mathison's desk two days before the wedding, Zack looked up from the script he was reading and smiled absently at Mary Mathison.

"Zack, dear," she said, looking a little distressed as she

put a plate of freshly baked cookies on the desk,

"could I ask you for a special favor?"

"Absolutely," he said, reaching toward the plate.

"Don't spoil your appetite with too many cookies,"

she warned.

"I won't," he promised with a boyish grin. In the nearly two weeks he'd stayed in their home, Zack had

developed a deep, genuine affection for his future in-laws. They were like the parents he'd never had, and their home was filled with all the laughter and love that his had lacked. Jim Mathison was intelligent and kind. He stayed up late, getting to know Zack, beating him at chess, and telling him wonderful stories

about Julie and Ted's childhood. He treated Zack as if he were his adopted son, warned him about saving money and being thrifty, and sternly advised him not to make any R-rated movies. Mary

Mathison

mothered Zack, scolded him about working too hard, and then sent him to town to do errands for her as if he were her own son. To Zack who had never been sent to a butcher shop or a dry cleaners in his adult life, it had been both touching and disconcerting to be handed a list of errands and sent on his way.

It had also been strangely pleasant to have shop owners smile at him and ask after his new family.