Part 8 (1/2)
93.
The headmistress deflated with relief. ”Well, that's an acceptable answer. I thought for a moment you were going to say that it was because you really needed a c.o.c.ktail.”
Ash managed a smile over her shoulder as she crossed the room to the door. ”That was just an added bonus.”
There was just something about having a fuzzy green ball hurtle toward her at ninety miles an hour that ignited Ashline's senses. Sure, she'd been out of it all day at school, brought low by a high-strung French teacher and a failed exam. Stepping onto the clay tennis courts was like a cold shower. The fatigue dissipated, probably to be revisited at dinnertime. For now she was alert and ready, her fingers wrapped firmly around the grip of her racket as if it were her last tether to life.
If Coach Devlin had heard of Ashline's foray the previous night-a high probability, given the headmistress's close relations.h.i.+p with her faculty-she certainly didn't show it. Instead her shrewd little owl eyes sparked with delight when she observed the ferocity with which Ash was playing. Her teammate, Alyssa Gillespie, sent a bullet toward the opposite corner of the court, well out of Ash's reach.
But suddenly Ash was there in a sharp dive across the boundary line, firing the ball back over the net. Alyssa, who had celebrated the point prematurely, didn't even have time to react as the ball firmly sunk its teeth into her own corner before skittering over to the fence.
94.
”Christ, Wilde,” Coach Devlin said, helping her star player to her feet. ”Guess we made the right decision bringing you up from doubles. You been pounding pro-tein shakes or something?”
Ash laughed as she brushed the dust off her tennis shorts. ”Just really wanted that break point, I guess,”
she said, and glanced over at the other side of the court.
Alyssa threw her racket against the fence and brushed angrily past Delia c.o.o.ney, who was offering her a water bottle. The door to the locker room slammed closed.
”Apparently Alyssa wanted that last point as well.”
”Forget about her,” Coach Devlin said, running a hand through her spiky hair. ”Just promise me you'll play like that when we take on Southbound next week.”
Ash remembered the crus.h.i.+ng blow they'd suffered earlier in the season when they'd visited the Napa Valley prep school. She had left several dented lockers in her wake after the game-and had no intention of letting that happen again. ”I'll do what I can.”
”Maybe you should bring your good luck charm to the match,” Coach Devlin suggested. Ash raised her eyebrow quizzically, but the coach just pointed up into the bleachers and wandered away, probably to defuse Alyssa after her loss.
Sitting alone close to the top of the otherwise empty metal bleachers, decked out in full park ranger greens, was Colt Halliday. Two of Ash's teammates-JV freshman-were dawdling at the base of the bleachers, giggling and clearly waiting to be noticed by the handsome park 95 ranger. But their amorous glances were unrequited; Colt was either oblivious of or indifferent to them and was patting the metal bench next to him, his stare monoga-mously devoted to Ash.
Ash scooped a tennis ball off the clay and side-armed it at Colt. He caught it between his open legs, robbing Ash of her intended target.
”h.e.l.lo to you, too.” Colt lobbed the ball back at her.
She swatted it away with a casual sweep of her racket, letting it bounce off toward the locker room. The two freshman girls, who must have sensed that the battle for Colt's affections had been won long before they'd even shown up, scurried over to the empty court to volley back and forth.
”Wow.” Ash climbed the steps two at a time. ”So you're a park ranger, a college student, and a die-hard fan of prep school athletics. You wear many hats, Colt Halliday.”
He opened his hands humbly. ”My cable box is on the fritz back in my apartment, and since I'm missing Wimbledon, I thought I'd get my tennis fix here.”
”Wimbledon isn't until June,” she corrected him, but applauded lightly. ”That was a really original and valiant attempt at a good excuse, though.”
”I knew I should have done my research.” He laughed. ”I came by to see how Raja was doing. She just sent me some cryptic text last night about finding her own ride home, and disappeared. And after I confirmed 96 that she was all right, I asked her where I might find you on a misty Friday afternoon. She pointed me in this direction.”
Ash growled and rapped him on the back of the head with her tennis racket. It was supposed to be a light tap, but she must have put a little too much oomph into it, because Colt winced and rubbed his p.r.i.c.kly buzz cut.
”Are you trying to make enemies for me, Colt?” she asked. ”I came to Blackwood to get away from the ang-sty teenage love drama. You're really not doing me any favors in the 'starting over' department.”
Colt groaned impatiently. ”You're going to have to trust me on this one. There is nothing going on between Raja and me. From either side. If you ask me, she's got her sights set elsewhere.”
Ash only stood there, with her hands fixed on her hips, studying the park ranger. He was certainly beautiful, though more of a ”wolf,” as opposed to the puppies she was used to. But beautiful had never done her right in the past. Rich Lesley, Bobby Jones-her track record certainly wasn't impressive. Of course, she was only pa.s.sively at fault for ”choosing” Rich and Bobby, as they had been the ones to seek her out. In both cases her only sin had been that she'd succ.u.mbed to beauty.
So how was this any different? Here was a guy who by all standards should be too old and too cool for her, and he had a winning smile that could probably thaw an ice age-or at least melt an ice cube tray or two. And 97 rather than ransacking his campus for tail on a Friday afternoon, he'd taken time off from patrolling the forest to visit a couple of teenagers. It was flattering and creepy at the same time.
Even after earning the attention of Raja, who had an exterior modeled on Aphrodite herself, he was dodging her to visit Ash. She dug for any thread of logic in all of this, but whatever Colt Halliday's intentions were, reason was not what had compelled him to make the drive north to watch a high school tennis practice.
”Listen, you can throw as many tennis b.a.l.l.s as you want at me, or threaten to hit me with the racket again,”
he said, and rubbed the metal bench next to him. ”But when you get all of that out of your system, would you mind pulling up a seat for a few minutes?”
Perhaps it was the whisper of the dew against her skin. Perhaps she was exhausted from her match against Alyssa. Or perhaps it was just hormones winning out and she was tired of fighting his charm. Regardless, she caved and dropped down heavily onto the bleacher seat next to him.
”Okay, Halliday,” she said. ”You've just won a few minutes of my valuable time. I'll make you a deal. You get to ask me any three questions you want. After I've finished answering them, I'm going to shower and take a much needed nap.”
Colt whistled. ”Only three questions. Guess I better choose ones that count, then, huh?”
98.
Ash nodded. ”Guess so.”
”Well,” he said. ”I suppose I wouldn't be any sort of gentleman if I didn't ask how your head is feeling today?”
Ash gave him a look. ”My head?”
He peered at her. ”Last night you grabbed your head, mumbled something about a migraine, and then ran for the door like your dress was on fire. Unless it was all just a ruse, and you were just so fl.u.s.tered from talking to such a handsome and astonis.h.i.+ngly single park ranger that you needed fresh air.”
Ash coughed in disbelief and held up a warning finger. ”First of all, don't flatter yourself. Second of all, you want to waste one of your questions on whether or not I took an aspirin when I got home?”
He smiled. ”Pardon me for devoting one question to your well-being. It's my question to ask. Now you have to answer it.”
She laughed. ”I skipped dinner last night, and the c.o.c.ktail just went straight to my head. The headache went away as soon as I got some fresh air, and I called it a night. Happy?” She felt bad lying to him on his first question, but in fairness her statements were at least half-truths.
”I guess that wasn't as fulfilling an answer as I thought it would be,” Colt said with mock disappointment. He looked out to the court at the two freshmen who were flopping about; Ash gave them an A for pa.s.sion but a D- for form. They were probably hoping the coach would 99 come out and take notice. For their sake Ash hoped Devlin had closed the blinds in her office.
”Two more,” Ash taunted him in a singsong voice.
He opened his mouth to ask a question, and then immediately shut it and racked his brain for a new one.
Ash tapped her wrist.
Colt ma.s.saged his five o'clock shadow, as if the whiskers themselves would impart some kind of ancient wisdom. ”So . . . how long have you been playing tennis?”