Hot Ticket (30 page)

As Lindy trooped toward the aisle at the end of her row, she had one thought on her mind:
beginnings.
She was great at them. Beginnings were her thing. She excelled at beginnings. If they awarded degrees in beginnings, she’d have a dozen PhDs.

It was everything that came after
hello
that needed work.

She’d wanted possibilities . . . well, she’d gotten a possibility. The cowboy certainly offered an interesting prospect. Dare she explore the potential?

Yes. No. Maybe?

Definite maybe. Things could turn out differently, couldn’t they?

And by the time Lindy bid sayonara for good to her ex and headed back to her seat, she almost believed they could.

First Quarter

Sweet?

That wasn’t the word that sprang to Josh Weldon’s mind.

It was a wonder he and the luscious-smelling redhead didn’t spontaneously combust right there in the middle of the stands. He could still hear her breathy voice, still feel her knowing fingers command his full attention, still taste her wicked grin.

Talk about pregame warm-up.

She was well-built and earthy and so disarming it was tough not to think sinful thoughts. His intention was to do a good turn for a pretty lady in distress, but she’d taken him by surprise.

Hoo-boy, there was definitely something to be said about a woman who used her mouth to work up a man. A couple more heated rounds like that, and Josh would go for the gusto.

To shouts and cheers, the teams ran out onto the field just as Josh stepped over the chair back and slid his keester into the redhead’s seat as she’d asked. On his left perched a gassy old geezer
with eyebrows like Jiffy Pop in a face that resembled the lunar landscape. On his right sat a chunky pubescent boy.

Which one was Casey?

Josh was almost afraid to find out. While the boy indulged in an Olympic-class feeding frenzy, the geezer gripped a clap stick in each meaty hand and wielded them against the blue sideline barrier as if they were light sabers ready to zap any out-of-bounds player on the helmet.

Pube-boy took the decision out of Josh’s hands when he nudged his elbow and thrust a nearly empty bag of Twizzlers under his nose.

“Want one?”

“Thanks,” Josh said, helping himself to one of the candy ropes.

“Better take two. You’re going to need your energy.”

Josh slanted the kid a curious glance but grabbed another piece of candy anyway and ventured a guess.

“I’m Josh Weldon. I take it you’re Casey?”

“Casey Stuart,” the kid said with a nod and a firm handshake. “Are you a friend of Aunt Lindy’s?”

“If Aunt Lindy is the redhead . . . ?”

“That’s her.”

“Then I’d sure like to be.” Josh ripped off a piece of the chewy candy with his teeth and leaned in closer. “So you like arena football?”

“Not really, but Aunt Lindy had an extra ticket, and I couldn’t think of a good excuse fast enough.”

“Yeah, I know how that goes.”

“How come? You here with your aunt?”

“Might as well be,” Josh grumped and then pointed toward the field. “See the quarterback over there for the Mocs?”

“Number sixteen?”

“That’s him. He’s my cousin. I call him Snake.”

“Why? Don’t you like your cousin?”

“Sure I like him. He earned the name in high school for his ability to be slippery in the pocket.”

“No offense, but isn’t he kind of small?”

“He may be undersized and underskilled, but he has a strong arm. It’s because I like him that I’m here.” Josh noted the kid’s thousand-mile stare of confusion. “We’re family, and family sticks together. I’m the one who talked him into playing ball at a two-A school in western Mississippi. Do you even know anything about this game?”

“Some. It’s a quarterback-driven league, and the players are expected to protect the quarterback because it’s a passing game. Sound about right?”

For a chubby kid, he did better than Josh expected.

“You’re a smarty pants, aren’t you?” he said. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be,” Casey said, holding up the program. “I can read.”

Josh muttered under his breath, then said, “Okay, tell me something else, Einstein, man to man, does Aunt Lindy have many . . . friends?”

Casey edged his face behind Josh’s shoulder and glanced in his aunt’s direction for a second before pulling back.

“Looks like a slot just came open if you’re interested. So are you?”

The crowd erupting in a roar caught Josh’s attention, and he cut his gaze to the field.

The kickoff returner for the Mocs charged down field hell bent for the goal line at the other end with most of the kickoff team hot on his heels. Josh leaped to his feet. Twenty yards . . . fifteen . . . ten . . . five . . . touchdown!—oh, please, not a flag on the play.

Amid gripes and grumbles, Josh and the rest of the crowd resumed their seats.

“Am I what?” he said to the boy.

“Interested? In my aunt?”

Just as Josh opened his mouth to answer, a syrupy voice called his name. He groaned to himself and sank lower in the seat.

“Isn’t that lady calling you?” Casey said.

“Ignore her. Maybe she’ll go away.”

“No such luck. You are so busted.”

Josh canted his head to the side to see that his date finally found her way out of the bathroom and off her cell phone. Every hair was artfully arranged, and her mouth was a glossy crimson. She looked good, he had to admit, but she’d missed the kickoff.

A woman could be anything else under the sun, but if she was more involved with herself than with him, she was out of there. The evening was young, but Josh had already decided to lose her number.

“Josh, honey,” she called again from the aisle, “you’re in the wrong section. We’re over there.”

He glanced down to row one where he sat, then up and back to where she pointed, and his gaze collided with Aunt Lindy’s. The heated look in her smoky eyes made his thoughts travel along dangerous tracks, and he didn’t even try to stop that train from derailing.

“To answer your question, Casey,” he said as he rose to leave, “yeah, I’m interested.”

Half Time

Finding a nice guy at a football game was like finding a second husband in a small town—if he sounded too good to be true, he usually was.

For the hundredth time, Lindy shook her head in disbelief. The hunky cowboy wasn’t alone; he attended the game with a date, a
d-a-t-e date
, yet he came sniffing around Lindy?

What a dog.

Where was the loyalty? Even if he was easy on the eyes, didn’t she just nix it with a weenie of that stripe?

The world was full of them. Why was she surprised to unearth another one? After all, men had displayed various flavors of morality ever since they crawled out of the primordial ooze.

Lindy sincerely hoped there was a special place in hell reserved for such rounders.

For her part, sure, she was the one who’d initiated the kiss. But so what? She was a fun, fearless female and unattached, to boot.

He should’ve said something, done something to stop her. But did he object?

Not on his life.

Lindy sure didn’t notice him putting up much of a fight at all. In fact, he seemed to enjoy their brief encounter as much as she did.

That did it. She wasn’t wasting one more thought on him, even if he was mouthwatering in a leather jacket over a black turtleneck and snug jeans. And on that resolve, she washed the last of the gummy candy down with a cold draft beer.

Time expired on a fumble recovery, so at the end of the second the Moccasins led 28–17. Lindy’s teeth were swimming. She needed to visit the ladies’ room.

The halftime buzzer barely finished sounding before the stands resembled a busy anthill with people scurrying in all directions. Cotton balls littered the aisles.

Lindy herded Casey through the steel double doors that led toward the bathrooms and the concessions. She had a little pep in her step that had nothing to do with “Eye of the Tiger” blaring out of every speaker.

The concession venue was mega crowded with people of all ages, shapes, and sizes, and smelled of burned coffee, pizza, and sausage and peppers. Lindy made a beeline for the bathrooms and stopped short when she spotted incredibly long lines winding out of both ladies’ rooms.

What else was new?

There were never any lines at the men’s rooms. Why? Probably because men designed sports complexes. Just once she’d like to see guys wait in line, but that would never happen, not when they could whip out their johnsons at will and hose down the nearest wall.

When a young mother corralling two little girls exited the nearest bathroom, Lindy caught her attention to ask, “Is the wait long?”

“Unbelievable, hon. Upstairs has a plumbing problem—again—and they’re detouring us down here. We were in line twenty minutes, can you believe?”

“Any idea if it’s any better at the other end of the civic center—?”

“Don’t bother. I tried there already. It’s just as bad.”

Lindy thanked her for the tip and flagged down Casey on his way out of the men’s room.

“Thought you had to go,” he said.

“Line’s too long. I’ll wait a bit until the crowd thins out.”

“Can I get a snack then?”

“Sure, sweets.” Lindy fished in her pocket and pulled out a few bills. “Here, get what you want. I’ll go grab a table.”

“You want something?”

“Surprise me.”

At one end of the venue, marketers jammed the walls with arena football bric-a-brac. Bar tables were clustered on the other end for people to stand at and eat. She snagged a table before all the spots were gone and, despite herself, casually searched the crowd for the hunky cowboy.

Ball caps and cowboy hats of all colors abounded. Even so, a momentary spurt of disappointment hit her when he was nowhere to be seen.

Casey found her just as Lindy was about to go searching for him. He surprised her, all right.

He brought kraut dogs to feed a small army, an armload of chili cheese nachos . . . and her cowboy, holding a plastic cup of foamy beer in each hand.

“Look who I found,” Casey said, unloading his stash of junk food along with packets of mustard and a bunch of paper napkins on the tabletop. “Aunt Lindy, this is Josh Weldon. Josh, Aunt Lindy.”

Having dispensed with the superficial niceties of civilization his beleaguered mother had spent years drilling into him, Casey dove into his eats and proceeded to ignore the two of them.

Josh’s roguish smile knocked Lindy’s socks off.

“Hey there again, beautiful,” he said.

Lindy felt her heart speed up and her ears warming at his compliment. She remained cool and tried not to grin when she said, “Hey right back at you, cowboy.”

For a moment, he just blinked, apparently unsure what to make of her guarded reception. Then he seemed to shake off any doubts, relax, and set one of the beers in front of her.

“I spotted Casey loading up, and I thought you might be thirsty.”

“Thanks.” She pushed the cup back across the table toward him, not ready to test fate by swilling more beer. “I just finished one.”

“Great,” he said, unfazed by her rejection. He took a big swallow of his beer and added with a satisfied sigh, “That’s more for me, then.”

This time she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Weldon? The name’s familiar—wait! Did I see it listed somewhere in the program—?”

“Cousins,” Casey mumbled around a mouth full of nachos, then he swallowed and repeated, “Him and the quarterback for the Mocs . . . they’re cousins.”

“Bet that comes in handy,” Lindy said, silently wondering if the quarterback cousin had the same devastating combo of long, lean body; blazing blue eyes; and rugged, healthy complexion.

She hadn’t paid much attention to the individual players before. Now, she made a mental note to check out this cousin in the next quarter.

Probably heartbreakers, the both of them.

“Handy?” Josh said. “I don’t get your meaning.”

“Never mind. Where’s your girlfriend?”

“What girlfriend?”

“How quick they forget.” She rolled her gaze heavenward. “The southern belle with you earlier . . . remember now?”

“Oh, her.” He lowered his cup to the table, drumming his fingers on the plastic side . . . long, tan fingers with neatly trimmed
nails. “She’s in the bathroom. I don’t expect she’ll show her face again until halftime’s over, so I’ve got fifteen minutes to kill . . . and she’s not my girlfriend.”

Lindy couldn’t help but notice his hands were broad and muscular, like an athlete’s. She had a weakness for a set of strong hands.

“She’s not?” Lindy pinched off the end of a kraut dog, popped it into her mouth, and added, “Does she know that?”

“Oh, I’m hurt.” He grabbed his chest, closer to his liver than his heart. “Is that what you really think of me?”

Either anatomy wasn’t his forte, or he was hungry. She contrived to look innocent.

“I just met you. I don’t really know what to think of you, but if the scum-sucking shoe fits . . .”

“We’re friends, beautiful, that’s it.”

“You sure?”

He leaned in close to her, his voice a low, stoner drawl, effectively cutting Casey out of the convo.

“Step off my nuts already. I don’t play games like your friend the total ass from earlier. No offense, but he sounded selfish, insensitive, manipulative . . . need I go on?”

“Ex-friend,” Lindy corrected and wiped her greasy fingers on a napkin. “And trust me, he
knows
that.”

Josh straightened, grinned in an adorably bemused way, and said, “I imagine he does at that.”

“Look, I was just checking. I don’t want to get in the middle of anything. Been there, done that.”

He snorted.

“Quit worrying. There’s nothing to come between. Bingo night at the rest home is livelier than she is. Now, can we talk about something else? Something more interesting?”

“Like what?”

“For starters, like you having dinner with me?”

“Can I come, too?” Casey said, snapping his chin up so fast he sent chili rocketing onto Josh’s sleeve.