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The music ended and he didn’t move a muscle, but the tension in the room seemed to tighten with each breath Jane took. Lenny Paxton sure wasn’t the chatty type, and so far she’d shared more with him than she had intended. Which only made Jane want to question him. But she held her ground, smiling up at him with what she hoped was a serene demeanor.
He came toward the table then leaned down to plant both his big hands across the faded linoleum, his buff body hovering inches from her. Then he smiled, another real honest-to-goodness smile, but his tone was low and drawling, his eyes bright with a dare. “A southern girl. I like southern girls. And I especially like home-grown Arkansas girls.”
Jane pulled back. He was too close, way too close. She did not like people getting in her face. Or her space. “Could I have some more water, please?”
He pushed off the table, poured the water then turned to watch her. “See, I told you…even though the wind is cool, that sun is still hot. I think it addled your brain. You look flushed.”
“I’m fine, really.” Sweat poured all the way down to her toes, but she didn’t dare tell him that, especially with him looking at her as if he’d just met his next conquest and he’d already won. “My trip across the state was a bit rough.”
“All the more reason for you to not be here,” he replied as he handed her another glass of water. “Want a piece of peach pie?”
Jane’s stomach lurched at the mention of food, and at the way he’d changed from disagreeable to debonair. “No, I…I have a delicate stomach. I think something at the truck stop—”
“You should never eat truck stop food.”
“I didn’t. I skipped breakfast and lunch, but I grabbed a cup of something that resembled coffee and I had half a Luna bar in my car.”
“Some coach you are,” he retorted, reaching for a loaf of what looked like fresh-baked bread. “I’m gonna butter this and toast it for you and you’re gonna eat, okay?”
“Okay.”
She wasn’t used to being ordered around, but she was hungry. She should have eaten. Low blood-sugar and all that. But she was surprised by his abrupt need to feed her. Was it part of his obvious compulsions, in the same way his hoarding things around him seemed to be? Deciding to test that theory, she said, “Could you put some cheese on it? I need some protein and calcium.”
He gave her a perturbed look and then busied himself with cutting the bread, buttering it, laying the cheese down in precise order and finding a broiler pan, his actions methodical and organized. “You’re too skinny.”
“Thank you so much.”
“I’m just stating the obvious.”
At least they were making polite (well, polite on her part, anyway) conversation. She would have to build his trust one affirmation at a time. The man was notorious for his skepticism. And he had an ego the size of Texas. He had ticked off coaches and reporters across the country with his glib attitude and his blunt retorts, and he’d infuriated women on a global level with his definite lack of commitment. A tough case.
So why the need for perfection with the grilled cheese sandwich?
“You don’t have to put too much butter on the bread.”
He glared at her, looked back at the sandwich and then looked at the trash can.
“Don’t throw it away,” she said, knowing he wanted to do that very thing. “I’m too hungry to wait for another one.”
One compulsion won out over the other. He finished cooking the sandwich, but he kept lifting it with the spatula to stare at it.
Jane was sure she could handle anything this man tried to dish out. But she couldn’t help but admire his backside as he buttered that bread and crisped that sandwich.
About an hour later, after one perfect grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of sweet lemonade, Jane felt refreshed, but sleepy. That surprised her. She didn’t require much sleep. Maybe it was just the way the breeze moved through those lacy curtains, or the way Boy sighed in his doggy slumber at her feet. Or maybe she needed to rest and try to get her brain back on task, instead of wondering why Lenny had hidden himself away behind clutter here on this remote farm for eight months, when the world was waiting for his next move.
Pace yourself, she thought. You just got here. Plenty of time to get inside his head. If she could get past all that indifference and male-speak.
The good news—Lenny stayed with her while she ate. The bad news—he was reading the paper and listening to more Steve Miller—“Jet Airliner” this time—instead of talking to her. Although she couldn’t be sure if the issue he was reading was current since the small table was full of all types of publications.
She glanced through the arched kitchen opening toward the hall to the right into a formal dining room/living room combination, wondering why this house was part dainty organization and part mixed-up male. “Tell me about your grandmother, Lenny.”
LENNY LIFTED HIS GAZE toward her, then checked his watch. Exactly fifteen minutes. That’s how long she’d stayed quiet. He’d almost expected her to fall asleep right there at the table. No such luck. “Who wants to know?”
Shaking a finger at him, she said, “Well, I do. She had a lot of things from what I can see. Was she a collector?”
Deciding he’d best make hay while the sun was shining and answer some of her annoying questions, he said, “Yes, she collected antiques and junk and…dolls.”
That was an understatement. This old house looked like a flea market. Lenny knew things looked bad. Okay, worse than bad. But he just didn’t have the energy to deal with that right now. And he didn’t have the energy to get to the bottom of his new anxieties either. So he let all the collected things sit, neat and tidy, while he kept piling his messy things all around them. The clutter brought him a small measure of comfort. The questions from the perky woman across the table did not.
“What was her name?”
“Bertie.” He went back to pretending to read the paper. And put up a solid wall around his pent-up emotions.
“And how long do you plan to keep all of her things around?”
“Forever.”
Jane leaned forward, his noncommunicative mood seeming to bounce off her like sun rays. “Why did you walk away after losing the Super Bowl, Lenny?”
He looked up at her and saw the earnestness in her eyes, but Lenny put on his game face. At first, he didn’t answer. Then he said, “I was tired.” That admission seemed to make him feel a whole lot better about things. Maybe he did need therapy, after all. But who would believe him? The whole world had given up on Lenny Paxton.
“You look tired now. You have dark circles under your eyes. Do you sleep at all?”
Lenny’s brand of tired creaked all the way to his bones. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a good night’s sleep. “I get by,” he said. “But I suppose you can help me find some new energy?” Exploring the possibilities of that proposition did intrigue him. Analyze a little bit; flirt a little bit. See which one of them caved first. That tactic had always garnered him a pretty woman on his arm. But then, maybe he didn’t have the energy to even flirt.
“That’s part of the therapy, yes.”
He watched as she started stacking magazines, clearing away the section of the table she had somehow managed to take over. “Even if you think you’re too old for football, even if you don’t get this current contract dispute settled, you could be a commentator or a spokesperson. Your agent says you’ve got offers all over the place, endorsement deals, movie offers—”
His halfway good mood turned to ice as a kind of panic knocked the wind out of him. “My agent—the one I just fired—talks too much and presumes too much. Those deals aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Most of them are comical or beneath my dignity. I’m not ready for stupid reality shows about has-beens.” He flipped open his phone, then shook his head. “Eight messages from Marcus already. Got him backed against a wall.” Then he closed the phone but kept his bravado. “I’ll let him stew a little bit more.” Getting up, he cleared away their dishes. “Oh, and did I tell you—you’re fired, too.”
Jane got up, whirling and almost running into him as he turned from putting the dishes in the sink. He brought his hands up to block her at the same time she brought her arms out to keep from ramming against him. Their fingers touched.
Lenny felt as if he’d taken a direct hit from some force of nature. Worse than a linebacker coming at him. Her sleepiness seemed to disappear as her eyes opened in a rush of pure awareness. His very cells zinged with a renewed energy. And he didn’t feel so tired anymore.
Lenny backed away, while Jane looked startled, her hazel eyes changing like the leaves outside. “Sorry,” he said in a deep-throated grunt, the scent of her floral perfume hitting him.
“I…it was my fault.” Her jittery laugh caught in her throat. “My father always said I was clumsy. Always rushing, running into things, banging my knees, scraping my hands, falling, always falling.”
“I don’t see that.” His gaze took a stroll down the tiny length of her. “You seem very sure of yourself.” He held her hands, looking down at her taupe-colored nail polish. “And your hands don’t seem to be all scraped and battered, not like mine, anyway.”
She turned his hands in hers, her touch as gentle as the brush of a soft wind, her gaze following the deep calluses on his fingers, the surgery scars on his wrist.
“You do have a lot of scars. Football is not a kind sport.”
If only you knew.
“Battle scars,” he retorted, trying to hide behind the ice again. But with her tiny hands holding his, Lenny felt something solid and rigid slipping into a slow melt inside him. Acknowledged it and held it back. He couldn’t open that floodgate. Not yet. With a gentle tug, he removed his hands from hers. “We all have battle scars, don’t we, darlin’?”
JANE TOOK IN A BREATH, the lingering heat of Lenny’s calloused touch burning through her. Then, because he was staring at her, she wondered what he really saw when he looked at her. Did he see the unmarried, nearly middle-aged woman who’d given her life to her education and her career? Did he see the loneliness, the isolation of the wall she’d managed to build around herself to keep others out, but more importantly to hold herself in?
Did he see her as the successful life coach, or the pathetic woman who’d come traipsing up his driveway on a broken shoe heel in hopes of using his name and his fame for her own purposes? The woman who worked to keep her own sorry personal life at bay, who stayed close to family simply because she needed the noise they could provide? Appalled, Jane wondered why was she analyzing herself instead of the subject at hand.
“Hey, are you all right?” Lenny asked, his icy eyes turning warm.
“I’m fine. The food helped.” Then she put her hands down by her side. “Lenny, please let me help get this place in order. I can help clean up your grandmother’s house. For her sake. She’d want that, don’t you think?”
His expression turned taut and pinched. “Maybe I don’t want to get this place in order.”
“But you need to get your life in order. I can help you with that. And I think you’ll feel better afterward.”
He shook his head. “You know something, Coach. I’m beyond help. I appreciate your efforts, but you should leave while you’ve got a chance.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jane replied. And this time, it had nothing to do with ulterior motives or professional recognition. And why had that plan changed? she wondered.
Because this bitter, melancholy man has you all twisted and confused, she thought, anger clouding her better judgment. And you don’t get twisted and confused.
She was about to tell him to stop playing his flirty little head games with her when an alarm went off on his watch. Boy jumped up from his spot at the back door, barking at the buzzing noise.
And then Jane noticed something really amazing about big, bad Lenny Paxton. He looked up the hallway, his consistent frown changing with all the beauty of a cloud passing through the sun’s rays, his eyes going from cold and distant to bright and full of excitement.
“What time is it?” he asked as he hit his watch. “This thing is slow sometimes.”
Jane looked around at all the various clocks in the kitchen. Not one of them was working. “It’s four-thirty.”
Lenny made a whistling sound. “This infernal expensive watch has never worked. I have to go feed the hogs before I go to football practice.”
Noting his stress coming and going, she said, “Hogs? You have hogs?”
“It’s a farm,” he said, his words long and drawn out so she could catch on.
“You’re going to feed the hogs, before… What…? Did you say football practice?”
“Peewee football,” he said, grabbing her by the hand. “We have practice and I can’t be late. C’mon, you can help.”
“With the hogs?”
Lenny nodded, clearly proud of himself for thinking up this idea. “Yeah, and then, Miss Life Coach, you’re going to sit tight while I go to practice. This week we have opening night for the Warthogs and I’m their head coach. If you’re still around later in the week and if you behave, I might let you go to the game.”
If you’re still around… He was thinking of letting her stay! A good sign. But about the immediate plans…
Jane backed away. “I don’t do hogs and I don’t do football.”
Lenny turned to lean down, his nose level with hers, his eyes sparkling like fireflies at midnight. “Then what are you doing in Razorback country, lady?”
CHAPTER THREE
JANE WENT UPSTAIRS and entered the first room on the left, her mind reeling. After she’d stood there dumbfounded, her throat too dry to speak, he’d told her to change her clothes. Then he’d dumped her suitcases up here. “Hurry up. We’re burning daylight.”
After meeting him on the rather narrow stairs—or at least the stairs seemed narrow with him blocking her and with all the clutter of old newspapers and magazines on almost every step—she’d silently watched him stomping away with a parting shot over his shoulder. “Wear something sensible—like jeans and a work shirt.”
“I don’t have a work shirt. I mean, I have blouses and jeans, and workout clothes, of course, but what exactly kind of shirt do you mean?”
His smirk had deepened as he turned, one hand on the newel post, those crystal blue eyes sweeping over her. “I mean something to keep the bugs off. I’ll find you one of mine. Oh, and we might run across some other varmints. You know, snakes, mice. All kinds of critters hang out around the hog pen.”
The man was testing her endurance again. She’d thought they might have reached the first breakthrough there in the kitchen, but this was going to take a while. But she was organized and thorough and after having seen where Lenny’s priorities were, she knew this mission was important. Lenny needed to learn to let go. And she was the perfect woman to teach him exactly how to do that. As long as she could keep her own scattered reactions to the man at bay.
“I’ll be down shortly,” Jane had countered, the dare in her words unmistakable. “I can’t wait to see the little piggies.”
Now, unable to stop the rapid progression of her thoughts, she got out her laptop to make notes on her first impression of Lenny Paxton. Good thing she always carried a tiny tape recorder and notebooks. In five minutes, she’d done a passable first draft of her analysis and saved it on both the hard drive and a flash drive. She’d pretty things up for the magazine article.
Pushing her guilt about that aside, she rushed around stripping off her business clothes with one hand while she talked into the tiny machine which she held in her other hand.
“Subject seems unwilling to try therapy. Concerned that he might be hostile toward working through his problems. (Big surprise, that!) Note: He did make me some food and he can be very pleasant when he sets his mind to it. But it’s all an act, I think. He needs to clean up his clutter, both emotionally and in his physical residence. Messy and overstuffed in both areas! Subject seems extremely attached to his grandmother’s possessions. Refusal to maintain contact with friends and coworkers indicates a deep-seated need to connect with something from his past—something he has lost.” She stopped, took a long breath. “Saw a bit of hope when he turned soft and told me I should leave. It wasn’t a threat. It was more of a plea. I think I’ve made a hint of progress. And for that reason, I think I need to stay.”
A paradox, Jane thought as she shut off the tape machine then put it on the old walnut chest of drawers. Lenny looked so out of place in this bulging antique-filled house. And yet, he seemed right at home here, too.
“I think he has a heart,” Jane said as she pulled on an old pink T-shirt she’d brought to sleep in. “I intend to find that heart and get it back into shape. And I also intend to find out why Lenny refuses to get back into action. Does he truly want to retire from all public life, or is he just scared of failing? Does this cluttered house bring him comfort, or keep him from going through his real feelings? He’s stuck in the past so he can’t commit to the future.”
No way was she leaving now. This challenge was too important, for her career and also…for Lenny.
Suddenly excited about the prospect of helping Lenny to deal with his problems, Jane delved into her findings with renewed energy. She quickly plugged in her 3G Internet card and pulled up information on hog farms, scribbling notes and making faces about what the poor animals had to endure. Soon, she had information on peewee football, too. She might be a fish out of water, but she could swim upstream if need be.
A loud knock followed by Lenny’s bellowing voice brought her head up. “How long does it take to put on a pair of pants, Coach?”
“Oh, I’m almost ready,” Jane said, grabbing the jeans she’d tossed on the bed. He’d called her Coach—a term of acceptance if she’d ever heard one. That was a good sign, a very good sign.
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, Jane wondered if she’d died and gone down below. It was that hot and miserable and stinky in the pigpen. And these animals—brutes, all of them! They snorted and pushed and gobbled and drooled in such disgusting, sickening ways. And the stench! Wishing she had on a protective face mask, Jane tried not to inhale too deeply as she distributed grain, old fruit and wilted vegetables to a passel of grunting, rooting animals.
This was not exactly the industrial-sized operation of a real pig farm; it was more like a few sows and one very-pleased-with-himself, ton-sized boar hog who’d obviously sired the twenty or so squeaking, squealing piglets of various sizes and shapes. No, this was more like an old-fashioned pigsty.
And it smelled worse than anything Jane had ever sniffed in her life.
Reminding herself that she had to get through this first test in order to show Lenny she had staying power, Jane tossed more pig feed into a dirty metal trough and waited for the onslaught of muddy sows and squealing older piglets. Gingerly stepping out of the way, she turned to survey the round pigpen. This was the last of the feed and every trough had been filled. Her work here was done.
Turning with a satisfied smile on her face, she saw Lenny sitting on the wood-and-wire fence, grinning at her, the smirk of his trickery evident on his face.
“How’s it going out there, Coach?”
Jane held her pristine smile in place, in spite of the thumping beat of elevated blood pressure in her temples. “Just dandy.” She sneezed. “These piglets are so adorable.” Then she added a few choice suggestions. “Tell me, though, have you ever considered using sow stalls or gestation crates to lower your birth production costs? And what about iron? Are these piglets getting daily doses? You know, you could probably produce a better pig if you take my advice.”
The proud smirk left Lenny’s face as he hopped off the fence and came stomping through the mud toward her. “This isn’t some mass market pig farm, Ms. Harper. This is just me—trying to do what my granddaddy always did—raise a few animals for meat.”
Jane gasped. “For meat? You mean you’re going to send all of these cute little pink pigs to the slaughterhouse.”
His laugh was as coarse as a hog’s snort. “Of course. That’s what the fancy farms do. Or did you think I was raising them for pets?”
Jane glanced around, eyeing one particular little runt who couldn’t seem to get anywhere with either the grain or his mama sow’s offers of dinner. “But, Lenny, look at him. He’s so precious. You can’t mean to send him into such a horrible death.”
