When Alana reached the east orchard, Gustavo had already organized the sound-off to determine the teams. Ten adults and twice as many children surrounded him, calling out either one or two as he pointed around the circle.
He saw Alana and pointed to her.
“You’re a two.” He gestured to an orange rope that edged the small meadow and divided it from the surrounding orchard.
Sophie walked up to her.
“I’m a two,” Sophie said. “Two’s are the best. Dad’s a one.” She pointed to where her father stood at the back of the group of ranch hands and older kids on the opposite side of the orange rope.
He wore a pair of jeans in a way that would make marketing people swoon.
“I was going to umpire,” Alana said.
“When you’re seventy.” Peg laughed. “Your grandmother didn’t start umping until she hit seventy-five. Besides, you have to know the rules first.”
Peg had her there. She didn’t even know what the game was.
Gustavo began to rattle off the rules for Capture the Flag. At first it seemed like a simple combination of freeze tag and soccer but as he began to describe how players could tag opposing team members and take them to jail, how players could run and free one member of their team from jail but only one at a time, the details began to blur. The ranch hands and parents nodded. Evidently these people had spent their younger years playing Capture the Flag while she was taking equestrian lessons or learning to waltz wearing pristine white gloves. Another strike against her all-girl boarding school.
“Okay.” Gustavo beamed. “Youngest players are going to guard the flags. Remember—no puppy-guarding.”
“C’mon,” one of the older boys groused.
Gustavo gave him a friendly glare.
“No what?” Alana asked.
“Guarding the flag by standing right on top of it or too close. Makes the game boring,” Gustavo explained. “Guards must stay ten feet from the flag. It’s an honor system. Anyone caught violating the flag-guarding rule goes to permanent jail.” He looked back at the older boy. “No exceptions. And remember, touch tags only. And you have to shout ‘Caught!’ when you’ve tagged an enemy. Got it?”
Sophie patted Alana’s elbow. “I’ll help you. It’s really easy. You can be a border guard.”
That her consternation showed enough to alert a six-year-old was bad enough, but when she looked over at Matt, his bemused smile made her forget most of the rules she’d just logged.
Gustavo pointed out the jails off to the side of the respective fields. Small white tents shaded the benches, and the table alongside each bench held lemonade and cookies. Jail had never looked so good.
“We’ve used these orange ropes to designate the boundaries,” Gustavo said, gesturing.
Alana smiled. He used the same two-finger signal that flight attendants used to point out emergency exits. If there was an emergency exit from the field, she’d use it.
Gustavo nodded to the parents. “Most gopher holes have been filled, but watch where you run. Oh, and watch for low branches, especially around the younger trees. And decide among your teammates who’s attacking and who’s defending.” He put his hands on his knees and crouched down to the younger kids’ eye level. “When you’re across your boundary you’re in enemy territory and you’re vulnerable. Got it?”
The kids all nodded. To Alana it didn’t matter which side of the line she was on, the whole enterprise made her feel vulnerable.
A couple of the ranch hands were stretching and making fake lunges at their kids on the other side of the boundary line. Alana noticed that Matt hung back at the periphery of his team’s territory and didn’t mix with the other parents. But as she took her place for the start of the game, she saw him talking with a couple of very earnest-looking boys. The boys were lapping up whatever he was telling them. Maybe they knew he was a professional athlete. Maybe they could just read competitive excellence in his body and stance. She sure could.
Watching Matt show the boys a couple of moves for evading the enemy fired her up, and her competitive edge kicked in. She might not know backyard games, but she’d played a mean game of tennis in college and still could beat her brother Simon on a good day.
Gustavo blew the whistle.
“Five minutes to hide your flags. They have to be visible from one angle at twenty feet and can’t be above”—he glanced around at the players—”the flags can’t be higher than Sophie can reach.”
Sophie mugged and stretched her arms in the air to demonstrate.
“And keep the tags light,” Peg added. “Like the touch of a butterfly wing.” She winked at Sophie and the two little girls standing beside her. “And hand-offs are allowed. Now shake the hands of your opponents across the boundary line and let the games begin!”
A motley mix of parents, kids and ranch hands lined up along the orange rope. From the gleam in their eyes and the chattering, you’d think they were about to save Rome from the Huns. Alana started down the line, giving high fives and handshakes. When she came to Matt at the end of his team’s line, he took her hand in his and she froze. The same feeling she’d had in the dream poured through her, as if his merest touch entered her and changed the arrangement of every cell in her body.
The man made her body hum.
“I’ve been warned about you, Tavonesi,” he said as he released her hand.
“I’m sure it’s all true.” She tried to sound light and offhand, but the tumble in her stomach made her retort come out breathy and jumpy.
“Alex said you put on a good fake. And Scotty told me you nearly nailed his wife in a volleyball game.”
She laughed. So much in her life had changed since that day at the Sabers’ friends and family picnic—had it been less than a year ago? She was pretty sure it was at that picnic that Scotty and Chloe had fallen hopelessly in love. She liked to think she’d had a hand in it. They were a great couple.
“Legends tend to grow when retold,” Alana parried. “But we Tavonesis are always a force to be reckoned with.” She tossed her head with the challenge.
Sophie ran up to Alana. “I’m a flag guard. You’re on offense.” She pointed to Mark, the ranch’s chef. “He decided.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” Alana called over to Mark. “No dessert for you for a week.”
Mark shot her a look of mock horror and then beamed a jaunty smile. “Not if our side wins,” he said as he crouched in position at the boundary line.
Warmth spread in her chest as she took her place with the laughing, chattering parents and workers and the kids clustered along the rope. Fun. These people liked to have plain, simple fun. She envied them, envied their sense of community, their sense of belonging to an enterprise they believed in.
Gustavo blew the whistle and chaos erupted. At least it looked like chaos to Alana. Within a few minutes, four of her teammates were in jail, including Sophie, who’d forgotten her role as flag guard and had run across the enemy border.
Alana dashed over to the jail and tagged one of the younger boys to free him.
“I wanted to play Zombies and Humans,” he said as they jogged back to safety in their own territory.
“Maybe next time,” Alana said, not liking her placating tone and liking even less that she had no idea what he was talking about. Her response cheered the boy, and he went dashing back across the line and freed Sophie. He lectured her as he escorted her back to the area where she’d been assigned to guard their flag.
Out of the corner of her eye, Alana saw Matt dash into her team’s territory and with the grace and stealth of a cheetah, conceal himself behind a row of olive trees.
She cut to the right and then doubled back behind the line of trees.
She snuck up behind him and touched her hands to his hips. “Caught!”
He spun so quickly that she was pushed off balance. Her foot slipped out from under her and what she’d intended as a light touch morphed into a full-on tackle. She grabbed at his w
aist to keep from planting her face in the mulch circling the tree.
With a fluid move, he caught her under the arms and righted her.
She started to pull away, but he circled his fingers around her wrists and pulled her to him.
He lowered his head until his lips nearly touched her cheek. “The rules guy didn’t mention the adult penalty for catching opposing players.”
She knew he was going to kiss her. Whether she would’ve protested, she’d never know. He tightened his hold on her hands and crushed his lips to hers. Maybe it was her dream, maybe it was some power he held, but she met his kiss with wanton hunger. He tasted like sun-warmed honey, and the tease of his tongue made her boldly open for more. He released her hands, and she ran them up the muscles of his back. He traced his fingers lightly along her sides and over the curve of her hips. She thought he would cup her bottom, craved that he would, but his hands stopped short. He gently clasped her waist and moved her back a step toward the olive tree.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
The look of apology in his eyes was genuine. It made her want to kiss him again.
“All’s fair in love and war,” she said as he removed his hands from her waist and dropped them to his sides. Already she wanted more of his touch, more of the luscious, drug-like feeling he aroused, even though neither time nor place was appropriate. As for the appropriateness of the man...
“I believe this is a war game,” she said with a toss of her head. Her feelings were warring in her, that was for sure. And if the pulse hammering in his neck was any indication, his were too.
The shrill sound of a whistle shocked her back to reality.
“Game’s over,” Matt said.
She couldn’t read the look in his eyes. She was used to being able to read people. That she couldn’t read him lit a fire of challenge in her, as if air or light were reaching some place inside her that waited coiled, hungry and ready to spring to life.
“Perhaps we should go find out who won,” she said, pulling her T-shirt back into place.
He laughed then, a deep laugh from the gut.
“Laughing becomes you,” she said as they jogged back to the boundary line.
“Probably becomes most people.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook an olive leaf out of it.
He probably hadn’t meant to, but the gesture displayed the bulge of his biceps and the incredibly well-defined muscles of his forearm. He couldn’t know how his simple gesture lit her core, just as if someone had struck a match.
“By the way,” he said, “nice tackle back there. You might have a career ahead of you.”
Their pulse-hammering kiss was more on her mind than her tackle, but his compliment sent a thrill through her. “I do have brothers,” she said. “Some skill is required to reach adulthood, even in my family. Tackles might be my forte.”
He laughed again, and she heard the release in it; a path of hot desire teased through her like a drug.
Sophie ran up to Matt and gave him a puzzled smile.
“Dad, you look happy.” She lifted her eyes to Alana’s. “He’s always happy when his team wins.”
But Alana knew it was more than the win. She knew the feeling of letting loose. Matt could probably use a lot more of it. She, on the other hand, could probably use a little less letting loose. Maybe a whole lot less.
In that moment, Alana envied him. His life made sense; he had ground under him. He seemed to know what he wanted, had a kid who adored him and a profession he loved.
Alana knelt down to straighten Sophie’s pigtails.
“You can’t watch the trophy ceremonies with pigtails that are askew,” Alana teased.
“Dad helped me with them.”
“I’m not much for doing hair,” Matt confessed.
“But you should see him hit.” Sophie tipped her face to Alana’s. “He can really hit. We have awards for it. Lots of them. A whole shelf. I’ll show you sometime if you come over. I get to keep two of them in my room. Do you have any awards?”
“Only one.”
“What for?”
A ripple of self-consciousness tightened the muscles in Alana’s throat. “It’s just for painting. For one painting.” That she’d been awarded it by the Sorbonne, she didn’t say.
“Can I see it? The painting, I mean.”
“It’s in Paris.” Alana felt Matt’s eyes on her as she talked with his daughter. He didn’t seem like one of those parents that hovered, but he did seem extremely cautious.
“Maybe I’ll bring it here someday. If I do, I promise to show it to you.”
That was crossing a line. Promising kids anything was out of bounds and Alana knew it.
She purposely didn’t look at Matt, not wanting to see the closed expression return to his face.