He shut off his razor and tossed it on the dresser. She did look good, though. As beautiful as ever, and the front of her sweater had been real interesting. His smile tilted up a bit more. She’d obviously been cold.

“Daddy,” Tiffany called out a second before she knocked. Typical of her, she didn’t wait for an answer before she stuck her head inside. “When ya gonna be back?”

“Probably around two.” He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled on a pair of clean socks. The team needed to work more on their passing game now that Don was out for the rest of the season. Zach had a lot of tricks in his playbook and running the Pistol offense was one of them. He’d talk to the other coaches, but it was a lot easier to run play action out of the Pistol.

“Can I have a few friends over while you’re gone?”

“You need to put the living room back together while I’m gone.”

Tiffany’s shoulder slumped. “Daddy.”

He shoved his feet into his black Pumas and bent over to tie the laces. “And the television room is a mess. There are dirty cups and bowls all over the place.”

“We need a maid,” she said through a long, drawn-out sigh and folded her skinny arms over her skinny chest.

When Devon had been alive, they’d had a full-time maid. Now they had a maid service once a week. “No.” He stood. “We need you to pick up after yourself.”

“If I clean up, can I have a get-together?”

He moved to his dresser and slid his watch onto his wrist. “When and what kind?”

“Next weekend. The girls from my dance team.”

Twelve thirteen-year-olds. Twelve emotional thirteen-year-olds prone to high-pitched screaming and drama. Last summer, one of Tiffany’s friends had locked herself in the bathroom with a cell phone and had cried to her boyfriend all day. What was a thirteen-year-old girl doing with a boyfriend anyway? Zach would rather get kicked in the nuts than go through that again. “Next game is on Saturday in Midland. Kickoff ’s at one, so I’ll be leaving Friday sometime.”

“Is Leanna coming over?” she asked, referring to the neighbor girl Zach hired to stay with Tiffany when he had to go out of town.

“Yep.”

“Cool. Can I have my party Sunday? You’ll be home.”

“Honey,” he said through a sigh, “I’m goin’ to be tired, and you have school the next day.”

“You can sleep in, and I’ll do all the work.” She dropped her hands to her sides. The girl was relentless as her mother had been. “And I’ll make sure everyone is out of here early. Please, Daddy?”

He frowned, and she took it for a yes and bounced up and down on her heels with excitement. “If it’s nice, can we barbecue outside?” she asked.

“I doubt it will be that nice.” He moved across the room. “If it is, I don’t see why not.”

She put her palms together like she was praying and clapped her fingers. “Yay. Can I invite boys?”

He stopped and looked down into her face. She’d never shown any interest in boys before. “No. No boys.” He pointed a finger at her nose. “Ever.”

“Why?”

He continued out of the room and down the hall. Because he knew thirteen-year-old boys. He’d been one himself. “Stay away from boys.”

“You’re a boy.”

He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He didn’t want to talk about boys. Talking about boys would lead to talking about sex, and that was one conversation he didn’t want to have with his little girl. Not yet. She was too young. A few months ago they’d had the first bra conversation, and that had about killed him. “Your new friend Kendra seems nice,” he said, changing the subject.

“Yeah. I think she’s good enough to make the dance team.”

“Why’s her momma in the hospital?” He unscrewed the lid and took a drink.

“She has high blood pressure.”

Zach licked a drop of water from his lip. High blood pressure? It was obviously more serious than it sounded. “Did you talk to her aunt?”

“She was kinda weird.”

He looked down at the bottle. “Weird how?”

Tiffany shrugged. “Kind of in a hurry.”

He’d noticed that. He raised his gaze to his daughter. “Is she from Fort Worth, like Kendra and her mom?”

Tiffany shook her head. “She said she’s from Ohio. Des Moines, I think.”

“Honey, that’s Iowa.”

“Oh.”

He slowly screwed and unscrewed the cap. “Did she, a…mention if she’s married?” He hadn’t noticed a ring when he’d placed her keys in her palm, but that didn’t mean anything. For whatever reason, a lot of married people didn’t wear rings.

“She didn’t say.”

“Kids?”

“I don’t know.” A suspicious frown appeared between Tiffany’s eyes, and she looked just like Devon. “Why?”

Yeah. Why? Zach shrugged one shoulder and took a drink of water.

“You don’t think she’s cute, do you?”

Cute? Puppies were cute. Kittens were cute. Adele Harris was sexier than a row of pole dancers, and since it had been a long time since Zach had seen dancing of any kind, mattress, pole, or otherwise, that sounded pretty damn sexy to him. He lowered the bottle. “Sugar, I just like to know who Kendra’s people are,” he lied because some thoughts were better left in his own head.

Tiffany smiled. “Momma liked to know the same thing.”

Yeah, he knew that. Devon had been real big on people’s people.

Tiffany wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest above his heart. “I miss Momma, but I’ve got you, and we don’t need anyone else. Do we?”

He wrapped his arms around her skinny shoulders and pressed a kiss into the part of her light blond hair. “No,” he answered because he knew that’s what she needed to hear. No women with curly hair, turquoise-colored eyes, and interesting points on her sweater.

Chapter 4

“William finally called,” Sherilyn announced, as Adele walked into her hospital room Monday afternoon.

Adele set a vase of white daisies and blue carnations and a bag of Gummi Bears on the stand next to her bed. “It took him long enough,” she said as she fussed with the flowers. The hair at the back of her neck was still wet from her shower, and she’d thrown on a black-ribbed Van Dutch sweater and Lucky jeans after her five-mile jog.

She turned to look at her sister, propped up and wearing a white nightgown with lace trim at the throat and cuffs. She looked like Nicole Kidman, with her shiny blond hair pulled back into a smooth knot at the back of her neck, all slick and proper. She looked delicate and beautiful…except for the tired lines at the corners of her eyes and the puffiness in her face and hands. Both were symptoms of her toxemia and the irritability due to her headache caused by high blood pressure.

“What did he say?” Adele prompted.

“He wanted to know if there was anything he could do for me. I told him there was just one thing.” Sherilyn rested her hands on her rounded belly, and Adele hoped her sister hadn’t done something pathetic like grovel and beg. Adele would have called him an a-hole and hung up. Sherilyn probably hadn’t ever said “a-hole” in her life. She’d always been too busy trying to be a lady.

“What’s the one thing?” She picked up a gold plastic cup with one hand and a matching pitcher of ice water with the other.

“Well…I told him to go fuck himself.”

Adele gasped, and her hands stilled. The spout of the pitcher was inches from the cup. The woman in front of her looked like Sherilyn, but an alien must have taken over her sister’s body. Sherilyn would never drop the f-bomb.

“I know it’s really vulgar and ill-bred, but I’ve wanted to say if for a while now.” She slid her hands in circles over her belly as if she were caressing her baby. “Go fuck yourself, William.”

A woman in a fuzzy pink robe pushed an IV stand past the open door, and Adele composed herself enough to pour the water. She set the cup and pitcher on the tray, then placed her hand on Sherilyn’s forehead. Adele didn’t recall if the doctors had mentioned fever as a symptom of preeclampsia, but there was definitely something weird going on.

“I’m fine.” Sherilyn looked up into Adele’s face and pushed her arm away. “Well, except for the dangerously high blood pressure, headache, and puffiness.”

“I found your Handycam in a box with your computer,” Adele said, in an effort to take her sister’s mind off her troubles for a little while. She sat on the bed next to her sister’s hip and hooked the toe of her black leather pump behind her knee. “The batteries are all charged up and ready to record Kendra at dance-team tryouts.”

“I wish I could be there.”

“As soon as the tryouts are over, we’ll come here and watch them together.”

“Kendra’s had such a hard time. First her daddy leaves, and now this.” Sherilyn held her hands up and dropped them to her sides. So much for taking her mind of her troubles. “I made her leave her home and all her friends, and now she…”

She has to live with an aunt she doesn’t even know, Adele thought. “She’s making friends at school. Tiffany seems like a nice girl.”

“I hope so. Kendra needs a nice friend. You met Tiffany’s daddy Saturday, right?”

She’d met Tiffany’s daddy before Saturday. “Yeah.”

“What did you think of him?”

For the past few days, she’d been trying not to think of him. Not to think of the way he looked all hot and sweaty, strolling toward her, each step slow and easy. “He seemed okay.” She shrugged. “Why?”

“Kendra said that he’s the football coach over at Cedar Creek High and that he used to play professional ball. She couldn’t remember the team, but she said Tiffany showed her posters and bobble heads and football jerseys in glass cases.” Sherilyn leaned her head back against her pillow and sighed. “I guess he seems okay, but I always like to meet the parents of Kendra’s friends just to make sure she isn’t hanging out with children whose parents are too permissive.” A little frown appeared between her tired blue eyes. “A year ago we got crosswise when she befriended a little girl who didn’t have a curfew, dressed like Britney Spears, and was trying to grow up way too fast. Suddenly Kendra wanted to wear a short skirt and thong underwear.”