She’d already decided it would be yellow, and she would paint a rainbow running up the walls and across the ceiling. Her mouth curved in a dreamy smile. This precious child of hers was going to grow up surrounded by everything beautiful.
Jodie was pissed. The guys had promised her a night with Kevin Tucker if she came up with the Bomber’s birthday present, but it was the end of February, more than three months later, and they still hadn’t delivered. Watching Kevin flirt with one of her girlfriends didn’t sweeten her mood.
Melvin Thompson had rented Zebras for a party, and all the players who were still in town were there. Although Jodie was officially working, she’d been sipping from everybody’s drinks all night so she was finally ready to confront Junior Duncan when she found him in the back room shooting pool with Germaine Clark shortly after midnight.
“I need to talk to you, Junior.”
“Later, Jodie. Can’t you see me and Germaine have a game going?”
She wanted to pull the cue right out of his hands and bash him over the head with it, but she wasn’t quite that drunk. “You guys made me a promise, but I still don’t have number twelve hanging anywhere near my closet. You might have forgot about Kevin, but I sure haven’t.”
“I told you we’re working on it.” He aimed for the center pocket and missed. “Shit.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying for three months, and I’m not buying it anymore. Every time I try to talk to him, he looks at me like I’m invisible.”
Junior stepped aside so Germaine could take his turn, and she was happy to see that he looked a little uncomfortable. “The thing of it is, Jodie, Kevin’s been givin’ us a few problems.”
“Are you sayin’ he doesn’t want to sleep with me?”
“It’s not that. It’s just that he’s been seeing a couple other women, and it’s gotten sort of complicated. Tell you what? How ’bout I fix you up with Roy Rawlins and Matt Truate?”
“Get real. If I’d wanted those two benchwarmers, I could have screwed them months ago.” She crossed her arms. “We had a deal. If I found you a hooker for the Bomber’s birthday present, I got a night with Kevin. I lived up to my part of the bargain.”
“Not exactly.”
The sound of that Carolina drawl coming from directly behind her sent a shiver down her spine, just like somebody’d stomped right over her grave. She turned and looked into the Bomber’s pale gray eyes.
Where had he come from? The last time she’d seen him, a couple of blondes had been trying to make time with him at the bar. What was he doing back here?
“You didn’t come up with a hooker, did you, Jodie?”
She licked her lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” She jumped as he curled his long fingers around her arm. “Excuse us, guys. Jodie and me are going to step outside and have ourselves a little chat.”
“You’re crazy! It’s freezing out there.”
“We won’t stay long.” Without giving her a chance to argue, he pulled her away from the pool table and toward the back door.
All day the radio had been warning that temperatures would be dipping into the single digits that night, and as they hit the alley, their breath made vapor clouds in the air. Jodie shivered, and Cal regarded her with grim satisfaction. He was finally going to have his questions answered.
Mysteries had always made him edgy, both on the football field and in real life. In his experience a mystery generally meant somebody was getting ready to run a play that wasn’t in the book, and he didn’t like those kinds of surprises.
He knew he could have pressed the guys for some answers, but he didn’t want them to suspect how much time he’d spent thinking about Rosebud. Until he’d overheard Jodie’s conversation with Junior, it hadn’t occurred to him to talk to her.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to put the matter of Rosebud to rest. He found himself worrying about her at the strangest times. Who could predict how many hotel rooms she’d stumbled into recently, with her story about SPPs and spiritual advisors? For all he knew, she’d moved on to the Bears by now, and he couldn’t help wondering which one of them she wasn’t undressing for.
“Who is she, Jodie?”
She wore only her hostess uniform, a clingy scooped-neck top with a zebra-striped short skirt, and her teeth were already chattering. “A hooker I found out about.”
Part of his brain whispered a warning that maybe he should let it go at that. How did he know he wasn’t poking into things he was better off not knowing? But one of the factors that made him a great quarterback was his ability to sense danger, and for some reason he didn’t understand, the hairs on the back of his neck had begun standing up.