Lot of pressure, matter of fact. Anna Grace would love the girls. And when she figured out who Mamie was—he grinned. Yeah, that would be worth taking a girl home for the first time since high school. “Break might be good for you,” he said to her.
She looked at him like the campfire had smoked his brains.
Probably had.
“Still owe you from that old redneck golf game,” Jackson said, willfully ignoring the way her eyes went round as a UFO. “Tell you what, I’ll drive on over and pick you up so you can study in the car.”
Her ears wiggled as though she were working on swallowing something too big. “I wouldn’t know who to cheer for.”
“That’s a dumb problem,” Louisa said. “We’ll get you all dressed up in orange and blue soon as we aren’t outnumbered.”
“Shoot, sugar, Ole Miss’s gonna kick all their asses in the end,” Kaci said cheerfully. “You ever been to a real football game, Anna?”
“I went to a Big Ten school.” Anna Grace pulled herself up, but it was only about nine feet instead of her normal fourteen. “AndI’ve seen the Vikings and the Bears play.”
She said it so earnestly, as though it meant something, that Jackson choked back a laugh. Louisa wasn’t as kind, but Lance and Kaci made a good show of taking her serious.
“So you’re in?” Louisa said after she got over her giggle fit.
Anna held his gaze for a short eternity, as if he was supposed to give her the right answer, and darned if it didn’t feel great to finally have something she needed from him.
But when the thought made him grin, her pretty mouth narrowed tighter than he imagined she would’ve liked to be gripping her label maker. An answer to a challenge flared up in those doe eyes. “Sure,” she said. “Sounds fun.”
“You bet your Big Ten it will be,” Louisa said. She rubbed her hands together. “I got a feeling nobody’ll forget this one for a long, long time.”
It was more than a feeling.
It was an inevitability.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
She’d learned to ask beyond what she needed, but he’d yet to learn to provide only what was asked.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Jules was off again. Her sunken cheeks and eye bags had moderately improved, but she was arriving later and later, working some weekends to catch up. And Anna had had to correct a few notes and color-codings.
The color-coding was normal, but the notes?
Freaky, that’s what it was.
Not that Jules responded to any inquiries about her health and happiness with anything other than, “Life’s a beach.”
So when she asked Anna to lunch the next Thursday, looking as if she wanted to talk, Anna cancelled her lunch date with Jackson and went with Jules to the food court at the BX on base.
Neither of them were authorized to shop at the BX anymore, since Anna’s divorce and Brad’s separation from the Air Force, but contractors were allowed to eat at the food court. Jules wanted a Philly cheesesteak, so they climbed into Jules’s car and headed out for Charley’s. Their base access badges from work got them through the security gate.
Anna didn’t have a reason to visit base often. Being surroundedby uniforms again felt odd. Jules didn’t seem to notice much of anything around them. She was fixated on watching the woman behind the counter fry her steak. Even when they sat to eat by the soda fountains, Jules barely looked around. She downed the sandwich, then asked if she could have Anna’s fries.
“Sure.” Anna slid them over. A prickle went up her nape.
A good kind of prickle.
The my-boyfriend-is-watching-me kind of prickle.
Not that he was her boyfriend. Exactly. Yada yada. He stood with a couple of uniformed guys near the Robin Hood pizza counter, giving her a half-smile.
TheI see you too but you’re too busy for me and can make it up to me laterkind of half-smile.
