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CHAPTER TWO

“ARE YOU CRAZY?” Mac leaped to his feet so fast he knocked Tess over. The only thing worse than imagining him involved in this dirty deed was imagining some other guy involved. “Sorry.” He reached down and gave her a hand up. Once she was steady on her feet, he released her hand quickly.

She dusted off the seat of her jeans. “Mac, please. I can’t stay a virgin forever.”

“Why not?” So he was being unreasonable. He couldn’t help it. And dammit, now he’d caught himself watching her dust off her fanny and thinking that it was a very nice fanny. Dammit.

She sighed and lowered her head. “I was so counting on your help.”

“Aw, jeez.” Not only was he having inappropriate thoughts about her, he also felt as if he’d abandoned her. But he couldn’t imagine how in hell he could diffuse either situation. “Tess, you know I’d do anything in the world for you, but I can’t see how this would work.”

Her head came up, and hope gleamed in her gray eyes.

He backed a step away from her. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Here’s how it will work. We’ll brainstorm the possibilities and come up with a shortlist. Then you can find out if any of the guys are seeing anyone, because I don’t want to break up any—”

“Whoa.” Panic gripped him. “I never said I’d do this.”

“You said you’d do anything for me.”

“Anything but find you a lover!” Just saying it gave him the shivers. He’d worked so hard to keep from thinking of Tess in a sexual way, and now the barriers were coming down. For the first time he acknowledged the sweet stretch of her T-shirt across her breasts and the inviting curve of her hips. “I think that’s a little more than a reasonable person should expect, don’t you?”

“This is perfectly reasonable! Why should I search around on my own and end up with some clumsy nerdling who makes my first experience a nightmare, when I can rely on your advice and have a really nice time instead?”

There had to be a good answer to that one. He just needed a moment to think of it. And he couldn’t think while he was picturing Tess having a “really nice time.”

“See?” She gave him the superior little smile that she reserved for the times she’d won either an argument or a game of Monopoly. “You have to admit it makes sense.”

“I don’t have to admit anything. And why me? Why not one of your girlfriends? I thought women exchanged notes on guys all the time.”

“They do, but you’re a better source of info.” She stuck her hands in her hip pockets. “You’ve dated more people around here than anyone I know. You’d know what women say about a guy, and you’ve had a chance to get to know the guys themselves and what they’re really like. You’d know if they brag in the locker room, for example. Besides all that, there’s not a single person, man or woman, I trust to keep my secret as much as I trust you.”

He gulped. When she put it that way, he didn’t know how he could refuse. And he wished she wouldn’t stand like that, with her hands in her hip pockets and her chest thrust forward. He didn’t like it. Okay, he liked it too much.

“Mac.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm.

He tried not to flinch. Tess had put her hand on his arm a million times. She’d grabbed him for various reasons, usually to inflict injury, and he’d grabbed her back. He’d held her hand when she was a little kid and they’d gone trick-or-treating, and they’d clutched each other and screamed when they rode the Twister at the state fair. Touching had never been a big deal. Until now.

“Listen, Mac,” she said. “You pulled out my first tooth, remember?”

“Different case.”

“And you taught me to drive.” She grinned. “You also gave me my first drink of whisky.”

“You begged me for it, and then you threw up.”

“And you held my head. You see, at all those important moments in my life, you were there to guide me.”

“This is way different.”

“Not if you stop being a prude.”

“I’m not a—”

“What about Donny?”

“Donny Beauford?” He snorted. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why? What’s wrong with Donny?”

Mac couldn’t say exactly, except that when he thought of Donny in an intimate embrace with Tess, his skin began to crawl. He passed a hand over his face and gazed up through the leaves of the sycamore. Finally he glanced at her. “He wouldn’t…take care of you.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks grew pink, but she faced him bravely. “You mean sexually?”

“In any way.”

“Oh. Now, see, that’s exactly what I need to know. How about Stu?”

“Oh, God, he’s worse.”

“Buck?”

“Nope.”

“I know who. Jerry.”

“Definitely not! Jerry’s a dweeb. He’d probably—” Mac thought of some raunchy revelations he’d been privy to and decided to censor them. “Never mind. Not Jerry.”

“Okay, then you make a suggestion.”

He gazed at her as the silence filled with the sound of the river and the shuffling hooves of Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown. The horses were becoming restless in the growing heat. Moisture trickled down his back, but he didn’t think it was only the weather making him sweat. “I can’t think of anybody.” The truth was, he didn’t want to think of anybody.

“Maybe you just need some time. I caught you by surprise.”

“You certainly did that.”

“Tell you what. Let’s postpone the discussion. Maybe we could meet for dinner tonight.”

“It’s poker night.”

“You’re right. I can’t, either. I’m playing pinochle at Joan’s. Okay, then tomorrow night.”

He decided a delay was the best he could hope for. He couldn’t imagine what would occur to him to get him out of this mess in thirty-six hours, but maybe he’d stumble onto a miracle. “I’ll meet you at the Nugget Café.” He smiled. “It’s meat-loaf night.” Meat-loaf night at the Nugget was one of their shared treats.

“So it is. About six?”

“Yeah. Sounds good.” He glanced up at the sun. “It’s late. We’d better get back. I’ve got tons to do today.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“Like what?”

“Research. I bought some books in Phoenix.”

Mac had a feeling he shouldn’t ask the question, but he did, anyway. “What sort of books?”

“On sexual techniques. When the time comes, I want to make sure I know as much as possible.”

He felt as if somebody had kicked him in the stomach. “This is your summer project?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

Mac groaned. It was even worse than he’d thought. When Tess settled on a summer project, a truckload of dynamite wouldn’t dislodge her from her chosen path. If he knew Tess, and he thought he did, she would not be a virgin by the end of the summer. He could help her or not, but she would persevere until she’d checked off everything on her list.

* * *

TESS REALIZED HOW lucky she was that she liked each of the women her brothers had chosen to marry, and they liked her. When the guys got together for poker every Wednesday night, the wives hired babysitters and met at one of the other brothers’ houses for pinochle. Tess was always invited. She’d miss the friendly, raucous evenings when she went to New York, but some sacrifices had to be made if she planned to live up to her own expectations.

Tonight the women were meeting at Rhino and Joan’s. Rhino, originally named Ryan but indelibly stamped with a macho nickname in high school, was Tess’s oldest brother and the acknowledged leader of the five siblings. He’d been the first to get married, buy a house and have kids.

From the moment Tess’s niece Sarah had arrived in the world, Tess had decided being an aunt was the coolest thing in the world, although she was a little tired of being a maiden aunt. She arrived at Joan’s early so she could see Sarah, who was now eight, and six-year-old Joe before Joan tucked them into bed.

After giving each of the kids the game she’d bought for them in Phoenix and joining in as Joan sang them silly good-night songs, she followed her dark-haired sister-in-law downstairs to the kitchen to help her get out chips and drinks for the party.

“Thanks for bringing them the game,” Joan said as she took glasses out of the cupboard. “They’re really going to miss you when you go to New York.”

“I’m going to miss them.” Tess emptied tortilla chips into a bowl and opened the refrigerator to search for the homemade salsa Joan always kept on hand.

“Oh, I don’t know. You’ll be living such an exciting life, I don’t know if you’ll miss anything from back here.”

“Sure I will. I love this place, and my family and friends.”

“Me, too.” Joan turned to look at her. “But I’d give anything to be in your shoes.”

“Really?” Tess gazed at her sister-in-law. With Joan’s Hispanic, family-oriented background and her obvious dedication to her home and children, she seemed to have found her dream. “I thought you were the original Earth Mother.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy. But the challenge has gone. When we first got married, everything was new. Sex was new, and then having kids was new, and then buying this house and fixing it up was new. But now it’s all just a comfortable routine. And I want—” she paused to laugh “—more worlds to conquer, I guess.”

“I so understand. That’s the whole reason I’m going to New York. It’s my Mount Everest.” She hesitated, then decided to risk a suggestion. “Have you thought of going back to school?”

“I’ve already got the catalogs. I’m thinking—now don’t laugh—of becoming a marriage counselor.”

“No kidding! Joan, that would be wonderful. Obviously you know what goes into making a good marriage.”

Joan gave her a rueful glance. “I wouldn’t call me an expert. But I understand what happens when a couple gets to this point and sort of loses interest in each other.”

Tess’s jaw dropped. “You mean…”

“I mean things are getting really dull in the bedroom. I’ve been thinking of driving to Phoenix and getting some how-to books. I wouldn’t dare buy anything like that in Copperville or the whole town would think I’d become a nymphomaniac.”

“Amen to that. You know, I—” Tess stopped herself before she offered Joan a couple of her research books. She loved and trusted Joan, but she wasn’t quite ready to tell her sister-in-law about her summer project. “I think that’s a good idea,” she said.

“I figured you would. Listen, I’m not saying anything against your brother. He’s a great guy. It’s just that we could probably both use some pointers.”

“Sure. Most people can.”

“I mean, you know how it is. You get used to a certain way of doing things, and then it all becomes mechanical.”

“Absolutely.” Tess felt like an impostor, having this discussion with Joan, who assumed Tess had some experience. If she needed any further proof she was doing the right thing, here it was.

Joan came over and gave her a hug. “Thanks for listening and encouraging me. Even though you’re younger than I am, I always think of you as being more sophisticated, for some reason. Maybe it’s your college degree.”

Tess returned the hug. “Book learning isn’t everything.”

“No.” Joan stepped back and smiled at her. “The ideal thing would be to have both.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” And if Mac would help her, she would have both, at last.

* * *

THE POKER GAME was held at Tiny Tim’s, the youngest and the largest of the Blakely clan. Tim was a newlywed, proud to show off the new digs he shared with Suzie in an apartment complex near the edge of town.

Mac had spent the entire day worrying the subject of Tess’s virginity, and the hell of it was, he could see her point. Her small-town background might make her seem unsophisticated to native New Yorkers. And if the kids she was counseling found out she had no sexual experience, either, that might become a credibility issue. Then there was the other problem—the very good possibility that some city dude, some fast-talking greenhorn, would take her virginity. Mac really didn’t like thinking about that.

“Hey, Big Mac, are you in or not?” called Rhino from across the poker table.

Mac’s head came up with a snap. Then he realized the question had to do with the cards in his hand, not whether he would help Tess find a lover for the summer. She’d sure ruined him for poker night. One of the things he loved about these weekly games was the simplicity of them. But nothing was simple tonight. No question was innocent. Even the name of the game, five card stud, had overtones he’d never noticed before.

He tossed his hand facedown on the table. “I’m out.”

“Let’s see what you got, Rhino,” said Dozer, whose given name was Doug. Nobody called any of the brothers by their real names anymore. Doug and Hamilton, the two middle boys, had become Dozer and Hammer when they’d formed the heart of the offensive line for the Copperville High Miners.

The brothers were Mac’s closest buddies, not counting Tess. Their mother and his were best friends, so the kids had naturally grown up spending a lot of time together. In high school the Blakely boys had literally covered his ass when he quarterbacked the Miners. But he saw them with new eyes tonight as he evaluated how each of them might react if they learned about the conversation he’d had with Tess this morning, and the fact that he hadn’t turned her down flat.

“Read ’em and weep, Dozer,” Rhino said, laying out two queens and three sevens. At the tender age of thirty he was starting to lose his hair, and so he wore baseball caps a lot, even inside. Tonight’s was a black one from the Nugget Café.

Rhino didn’t miss much, which made him a damn good poker player. He’d likely be the first one to figure out if Mac had lined up some guy to initiate Tess, and he’d probably organize the retaliation against Mac and the poor unfortunate guy Mac had brought into the picture.

“Aw, hell,” muttered Dozer, a redhead with a temper to match. He acted first, thought about it later. He’d been known to deck a guy who so much as looked at Tess wrong. “You must be living right.”

“Nah,” said Tiny Tim, pushing back his chair. “He’s ornery as ever. Just lucky. Who needs a beer?” Tim didn’t have a mean bone in his huge body, and couldn’t even go hunting because of his tender heart. He’d do anything for anybody and never took offense—except when it came to somebody bothering his sister. Then all his tenderness evaporated. Mac had seen it happen.

“Hit me,” said Rhino with a tug on his cap. “And don’t be bringing out any of that light crap, either.”

“Yeah, he wants something to put hair on his head,” said Dozer.

“Funny,” said Rhino. “Real funny.”

“Don’t blame me for the light beer,” said Tim as he headed for the kitchen. “Suzie bought it. Said I needed to watch my waistline.”

“Yeah, Deena’s been giving me that old song and dance, too,” said Hammer, the third and smallest of the brothers, although at six-three he was no midget. He was Mac’s age and they’d been in many of the same classes in school. Logically he should have been Mac’s best friend in the family, but Hammer wasn’t a thinker, and Mac had always found more to talk about with Tess. Mac had often suspected Hammer was a little jealous of Mac’s special relationship with his sister. This new development could really set him off.

Hammer glanced at Mac. “You don’t know how good you’ve got it, with no woman to nag you to death about your diet.”

“That’s the truth,” added Dozer. “It’s getting so bad that if I haul out a bag of chips for Monday Night Football, Cindy tries to grab them away.”

“And you let her?” Rhino asked. “You wouldn’t catch that happening in my house. I lay down the law with Joan.”

Mac led the chorus of hooting laughter. “Are you kidding?” he said. “Joan’s got you wrapped around her little finger!”

Rhino grinned sheepishly.

“In fact,” Mac continued, “I’ve never seen guys crazier about marriage than you four. You could hardly wait to march down that aisle. Don’t give me this bull about nagging wives. You love every minute of it.” And he envied them, he realized. They’d all found happiness.

Rhino took the beer Tim handed him and popped the tab. “So when are you gonna round out this ugly bunch and make it five for five?” He watched Mac over the rim of the can as he took a drink.

Mac gave his standard answer. “When I find the right woman.”

“Hell, you’ve had a passel of right women.” Dozer brushed back a lock of red hair from his forehead. “Jenny was great. I dated Jenny, and there was nothing wrong with her.”

“So why did you end up with Cindy?” Mac asked.

“Cindy knows how to handle my temper. But you don’t have much of a temper, Mac. Jenny would’ve been fine for you.”

“Yeah, she would,” said Hammer. “Cute figure.”

“Obviously I should have taken a poll before I broke up with her.” Mac picked up his beer.

“And Babs,” Rhino said. “I liked Babs, too.”

Mac swallowed his beer. “Me, too. Just not enough to last forever.”

“Aw, you’re too picky, Mac,” said Tiny Tim. “That’s your problem. Nobody’s gonna be perfect.” He grinned. “Although Suzie’s close.” He ducked a shower of peanut shells.

“The newlywed nerd might have a point, though,” Rhino said. “Maybe you are too damn picky. What kind of standards are you using, if you eliminated two nice girls like Jenny and Babs?”

Mac shelled a peanut and tossed it in his mouth. Then he glanced around the table. “You know, I’m truly touched that you all are so worried about my marriage prospects. Maybe we should hold hands and pray about it. Maybe, if we concentrate real hard, I’ll see the light, and grab the next available female I run across.”

Rhino’s bushy eyebrows lifted and he glanced at Tiny Tim. “Seems to me this apartment complex has a pool.”

“Sure does.” Tim pushed back his chair, as did the other Blakely brothers.

Mac saw the look in their eyes and pushed back his chair, too. “Now don’t get hasty, guys. I was just making a joke.”

“So are we,” said Hammer. “Right, Dozer?”

“Yeah.” Dozer grinned, revealing the tooth he’d chipped in the state championship football game eleven years earlier. “I love jokes.”

As he was carried unceremoniously out to the pool and thrown in, Mac thought he probably deserved a dunking, but not for the reason the guys were doing it.