Part 14 (1/2)
Although he was thoroughly in the middle of the splas.h.i.+ng, the dunking, and other pool antics with the kids, Zack somehow managed to take a long, hard look at his hostess. She walked from the French doors to the edge of the pool and slowly dropped the cover-up onto a chaise lounge.
The plain suit she wore would never be featured in Sports Ill.u.s.trated. But there was something about the fluid motion of her willowy body slipping into the water and the swan-like grace of her strokes as she swam out to them that had Zack thinking about her without the suit.
Don't go there.
She stopped and straightened several feet from him. Water sluiced off her, and she wiped a hand over her face. She'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail and water glistened on her high cheeks and dripped off the point of her chin. She gave him a slight smile, then looked over at the kids.
”What are we going to do?”
”Let's play volleyball!” Bobby yipped and swam to the edge to grab the net setup.
Tracy smiled and looked at Mandy, who was treading water with the help of a Styrofoam noodle tucked under her arms. ”Is that what you'd like to play?”
”Yeah. Can I be on your side, Tracy?”
”I'd love it if you were.” Tracy gave his daughter a winning smile. ”We girls gotta stick together.”
”I can't get it.” Bobby struggled with the end of the net. Zack swam over to the edge, and within moments, had it attached to the other end.
”Looks like it's you and me, buddy.” Zack smiled at Bobby. He'd gotten the impression all evening the boy was less than happy at having him here.
”Okay.” Bobby looked up at him. As Tracy retrieved a big beach ball from the diving end of the pool, he asked, ”Did you really ride rodeo?”
”Yep. I've been riding horses since I was two years old.”
”Not by yourself?” His hazel eyesJake's eyesgrew wide.
”I had a little pony that wasn't much bigger than a shepherd dog. My dad would lead me around on him. By the time I was four, I was riding on my own horse.”
Tracy was back and spoke with Mandy, but her gaze surrept.i.tiously met his.
”When I was about your age, I started riding broncos. About the same time, I started working for my dad and granddad, learning how to saddle train horses.”
Bobby's brow pinched together as if he was deep in thought.
Zack said loud enough to ensure Tracy heard, ”Maybe you could come over to the ranch sometime. You and your mom. We could go riding.”
Bobby shook his head, looked at the surface of the water, and mumbled, ”I don't know how to ride.”
Zack glanced at Tracy, who was biting her lower lip. ”That's okay. I could teach you. It's not hard.”
Bobby met his grin with a wobbly smile. ”I don't know.”
”I think we'll need to think about it,” Tracy chimed in and looked from Bobby to Zack. ”Thank you for the offer, Zack.”
”No problem.” Zack shrugged. What the h.e.l.l? Bobby didn't know how to ride? Tracy was an accomplished rider, and she'd always had access to the Ferguson horses even when Leon owned the place.
”Let's play!” Mandy chirped. ”We girls are gonna beat the pants off y'all!”
Zack and Tracy both laughed, and Bobby teased, ”No way, little girl.”
Then Tracy served ball and the game began.
After the very cutthroat volleyball game, which the girls won by one point, Tracy suggested the kids play Marco Polo. She and Zack got out. She made coffee and carried out two mugs to the wicker chair, where Zack settled in to watch their children frolic in the water.
Amanda's swimming ability had surprised her during the volleyball game. When she jumped into the deep end and swam across the pool chasing Bobby, Tracy commented, ”Wow. She's quite a swimmer.”
Zack sipped from his mug and nodded. ”Yeah, she's part fish, I think.” He sat the mug down on the small table between their chairs. ”I'm glad Lance has a pool, or she'd be bugging me to put one in. Lisa had taken her to swimming lessons since she was a baby.”
”I did that with Bobby, too.” Tracy hugged her hands around the hot cup she held. Lisa...she always seemed to come up. Tracy knew Zack still missed his wife, but she wanted to know if he still loved her. Accepting that he wanted her only for s.e.x was one thing, but if he was still in love with another woman, even a dead one, she'd never have a chance. ”What was she like?”
He pulled his gaze from the kids and studied her. ”Who?”
”Lisa.”
”She was outgoing,” he said in a low tone and looked back out at his daughter. ”She was a nurse and a fantastic mother. She had to beI was gone most of the time. I wasn't even there for Amanda's birth or the time she got her appendix out.”
”That was when you were wounded, wasn't it?” She'd spent all evening trying not to let her gaze settle on the silvery puckered scar on his mid-abdomen where he'd been shot.
He looked at her again and nodded. ”Yeah, Lisa had called me and told me she was taking Mandy to the hospital because she was afraid her appendix had burst. Mandy had woken up screaming her belly hurt.” He paused and looked down at his hands in his lap. Tracy watched as he fisted one of them. ”I wanted to be there so badly, if it had been possible, I would've gone AWOL. I'd already missed so much of her life. I hadn't been there for her birth because I was on a training mission. I missed her first words and steps because I was deployed to Iraq. Now, she was sick, and instead of being home, I was watching supply trucks roll through the checkpoint at Peshawar on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
”Finally, one rolled in and exploded. Guerrilla soldiers swarmed us, and I was shot in the gut. Dennis, one of my fellow Marines, pulled me to the safety of a rock. But we had been followed, and that Taliban b.a.s.t.a.r.d shot Dennis in the chest. The only good thing out of it was Dennis got a shot off, too.” Zack paused and took a long draw on his coffee cup. She flinched at the haunted shadows in his blue eyes. ”If he hadn't risked his life, I'd be dead.”
Zack looked out at Mandy again playing in the pool and murmured, ”I wish I could turn back time. I'll never...”
She wished she could give all those early experiences with Amanda back to him. She understood, because her father hadn't been around for so many of her milestones. ”Zack, you're here now for her when she really needs you.”
”I know.” He shook his head. ”I should never have re-enlisted after my four years were up. I wouldn't have been there. Dennis wouldn't be dead, and... Well...” His smile looked pasted on. ”Nothing will change the past.”
No wonder Zack understood Dylan's post-traumatic stress so well. ”True.”
He looked away and murmured, ”I just wish I'd realized that years ago.”
As she watched the way his jaw clenched, something else he'd said to her from a meeting a year ago in his office when she'd gone to pick up Dylan came to mind.
”For me it was an IED packed in a supply truck. I blamed myself when I came home for not checking out the truck better. Then an argument over stupid stuff from the past and a drunk driver crossing a double yellow line killed my wife. I can imagine what Dylan is going through. I was wounded and came back only to have my wife killed six months later, leaving me a single father of a four-year-old baby girl. I blamed everyone and anyone while I tried to crawl into a bottle of whiskey, but I could never bring Lisa back.”
Tracy looked out at the pool. Bobby tagged Mandy in their Marco Polo game. The floodlights had long ago come on, with a ma.s.s of moths and gnats swarming around the bright bulbs.
She turned back to Zack and found him staring down at his fisted hands. Although she wanted him to open up, she knew now wasn't the time, nor was he ready. ”That was really nice of you to invite Bobby out to the ranch.”
He seemed to pull himself from some dark place and looked at her. ”The invitation was for you, too. I'm hoping you'll let me reciprocate the time we had tonight. I don't have a pool, but I think Bobby would have fun. I can't believe he doesn't know how to ride. I could teach him. I still have old Gra.s.shopper. He's the gentlest horse in Texas.”
Tracy ached at the realization Zack wanted to spend time with her and Bobby, but she couldn't risk Jake using the invitation against her in his ridiculous custody case. ”I'll have to get back with you. I'm not sure about Bobby's football schedule.” She told a boldfaced lie and hated it.
He stared at her for a few moments, as if searching for something. ”Okay. The invitation is open. Maybe some time you'd like to come over and go ridingwithout Bobby.”