“Halftime!” squealed Emily, grabbing Declan’s arm just as everyone else in the stands surged to their feet to watch the Wicks Hollow quarterback complete a beautiful pass to one of his running backs in the endzone.
“Touchdown!” shouted the announcer as Declan and the other football fans went crazy, high-fiving at the last-minute score. “And WH is up by ten at thehalf.”
“Halftime!” exclaimed Emily again. “We get to watch ourgirls!”
Declan was still talking with the guy on the other side of him about that perfect touchdown pass when the squad came out onto the field with their shiny pompoms and long, slenderlegs.
“Here they are!” said Emily. “Watch,Dec!”
Hewaswatching, but apparently he wasn’t allowed to talk at the same time—at least, according to Pom Parent Code. Some unrecognizable rap song blared from the speakers, distorted and half-muted at the same time, as the girls shimmied and kicked intime.
“That’s my daughter there, in the front row,” he said apologetically to the man next to him. “The tallest blond with the highest ponytail.” It was hard to differentiate between the girls, but that was the bestway.
“Stephanie Lillard’s your daughter?” The man next to him smiled and offered a hand. “I’m GregHammady.”
“Hammady? You’d be—uh—Paul’s father, right? Nice to meet you. I’m Declan Zyler. I guess I would probably have met you tomorrow night anyway. I understand I’m to be at your house for pictures for the Homecoming Dance at six o’clock,right?”
“I think so. Nancy, the photos are at six tomorrow night, right?” Greg turned to the woman next to him, obviously his wife and clearly the keeper of the family calendar. “This is Stephanie’s father,Declan.”
“Great to meet you,” she said, offering a mittened hand. “Yes, we’ll feed the group—I guess there are five couples going—and then we’ll do pictures at six. Then off to the dance byseven.”
“Oh, you’ll be there too?” Emily asked, looking up at Declan. He could already see the invitation forming on her lips, and he swiftly turned back to theHammadys.
“Thanks so much for hosting everyone,” he said. “It’s a lot different than when I was ateen.”
“Watch them, Dec!” Emily gave him a gentle nudge from the other side. “This is my favoritepart.”
As soon as the pom squad finished their routine, Declan excused himself to go up to the press box and say hi to Baxter. Somehow, he managed to get away without Emily insisting on going with him. As he jogged up the bleachers, taking two steps at a time as he dodged the people who were descending, he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about blowing heroff.
He knew what it was like to be blown off. To think there was something going on, but really therewasn’t.
Although he hadn’t really done anything to make Emily Delton think they were together…unlike Margie, who’d teased and flirted and made herself very available to him until he finally succumbed and went to bed with her in between sessions working on the wrought iron railing of her Antebellumgazebo.
He’d done some very fine work there, at her charming Charleston home—both on the railing and in the bedroom. Even now, he couldn’t contain the ghost of a smile. Fine work indeed. But Margie hadn’t been interested in anything more than a fling, and once she was finished flinging, Declan had been relegated to nothing more than laborerstatus.
He’d learned his lesson, no doubt about it. New rule: no sleeping with the client. Made things a helluva lot easier when it came time to collect his check and move on to the nextproject.
Which was why it wasn’t the greatest of ideas to be noticing Leslie Nakano’s dark, liquid eyes, the way her jeans cupped such a nice ass, and how she softened the minute he mentioned the stray cat and its broken tail. Not to mention the way she got all businesslike and frosty when she was explaining about hiring his daughter. An interesting woman, to say theleast.
“Yo, Dec!” Baxter was glad to see him. And, to Declan’s pleasure, their friend Ethan Murphy was up theretoo.
“How goes it, bud? Hey doc,” Declan added, shaking Ethan’s hand. “Didn’t know you were back intown.”
Ethan Murphy was a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago and a semi-famous non-fiction author, so he spent his summers and whatever weekends he could up here at his log cabin on Wicks Lake. Thanks to Baxter, Dec had gotten to know Ethan last summer shortly after moving here, when Ethan was caught up in the break-ins and other problems at Jean Fickler’s house—which had been inherited by Jean’s niece DianaIverson.
“Came up for the game tonight,” Ethan said. “Diana’s neck-deep in a case she’s litigating, and she said I was breathing too much of her air while I’m around—whatever the hell that means—while she’s trying to think.” He grinned and shrugged. “I figured I’d give her some space, come up and sample Bax’s latestandget over to East Lansing tomorrow for thebiggergame.” He whistled the Michigan State fight song, then ducked when Baxter smacked him with his University of Michigan ballcap.
“Don’t be contaminating my press box with that tune,” Baxtergroused.
“Things are still going well with you and Diana, then?” Declan asked, remembering his brief meeting with the elegant, dark-haired rising-star attorney from Chicago. She and Murphy had had so much sexual tension between them at Maxine’s birthday party last summer, he’d sworn he felt it sizzling across thepatio.
“Couldn’t be better. And now that no one’s trying to kill her or break into her house, I thought I might be able to get her to come up next weekend. She can check out the restoration at the farmhouse and see how the cats are doing—Doc Horner’s keeping them at his place when neither of us are in town.” Ethan took a swig from the water bottle he carried. “Though with my sister going to be in town here, maybe she’ll be able to take care ofthem.”
“You mean Fiona?” Declan asked, vaguely remembering a gorgeous redhead with long, wild hair. He’d met her maybe once, briefly, since moving to Wicks Hollow. She’d reminded him of one of those women who’d look at home in a corset and long skirts at a RenaissanceFestival.
“Yeah. Damnedest thing happened,” Ethan said with a glance at Baxter. “You, being the town journalist, probably heard aboutit.”
“Can’t say,” replied Bax. “Might if I knew what you were talking about—and hurry, because halftime’s almostover.”
