A Younger Man

When he just looked at her and didn’t say a word, she chuckled. “C’mon, Max, don’t be mad. I’m a sucker for romance—you know that. Indulge me.”

When he rolled his eyes, she laughed and reached across the table to pat his hand. “Trust me, this is just what you need to shake you out of the slump you’re in with your writing.”

“There is no this,” he insisted. When her eyes just twinkled in understanding, he had to laugh. “I think I need a new editor.”

As she waited on Max and Katherine for the rest of their meal, making sure they had everything they needed and that the food lived up to their expectations, Natalie couldn’t help but envy Katherine. Max was teasing and attentive and made no effort to hide the fact that he thoroughly enjoyed Katherine’s company. And for the first time since Derek had walked out on her, Natalie wished she had a man in her life.

Shocked by the thought, she told herself that it had been a long day and she was just tired and feeling sorry for herself. But later, as she watched Max and Katherine walk out of the restaurant with eyes only for each other, the emotions tugging at her heart had nothing to do with tiredness.

And things didn’t get any better over the course of the next week. She was lonely and more than a little restless. As she watched the young eighteen-year-old girls in her archeology class flirt outrageously with Max in an effort to get his attention, she felt all alone…and far older than her years. She found herself examining her life, the choices she had made, and she realized that nothing had turned out the way she’d expected. She’d always wanted a home and family and a husband she could go through life with. She had two out of the three, and most of the time, that was enough. She adored her sons and thanked God for them every day. And even though her home was a cottage and not a grand showplace, it was nice and, most important, all hers. Derek had signed it over to her in the divorce. It was the only decent thing he’d done to provide for his children.

She tried to convince herself she was content, but she couldn’t count the nights when she lay awake in the dark, aching to have someone beside her. She was an independent woman, but she didn’t thrive on her single status. In spite of the way her marriage had ended, she’d loved being in love, loved being married. Nothing had ever felt so natural. Yet she was alone. And she had a sinking feeling she always would be.

By Saturday the walls were closing in on her and she couldn’t stand the thought of staying home to study. She had to work the dinner shift at the restaurant, but she had hours to kill before then, and the boys were just as anxious as she to get out of the house. Thumbing through the newspaper in search of a movie to take them to, she arched a brow at the headlines of the sports page. Eagles Take On Bobcats.

You’ve waited a long time to go to college. It should be about more than studying, don’t you think?

Max’s words echoed through her head, tempting her. Why not? she thought, smiling for the first time in what seemed like days. Going in search of the boys, she found them in the backyard, playing with Bongo. “Hey, guys, how would you like to go to a football game?”

They’d never been to a real football game before, and neither, for that matter, had she. As the three of them approached the football stadium with a steady stream of other fans, she had to admit that she was as excited as the boys. The game was scheduled to start in ten minutes, and the stadium seemed, from the outside, at least, to be already packed.

Quickly paying for their tickets, Natalie hurried them through the entrance gate just as the Rocky Mountain University marching band began playing the school fight song. A roar of approval went up from the crowd, and suddenly the old stadium that had been standing in that same spot since the 1920s was rocking.

Holding her sons’ hands in each of hers, Natalie looked down at the boys and grinned when she saw their wide-eyed expressions. “Pretty cool, huh, guys?” she said with a grin. “C’mon. Let’s find our seats.”

She didn’t have to tell them twice. Tugging her after them, they sprinted for the stairs.

Their tickets were for general admission, so they could sit anywhere that wasn’t reserved. With the stadium nearly full, however, there just weren’t that many available places to sit. Searching through the crowd, Natalie was beginning to think they might have to stand for the entire game when she suddenly spied a few seats in the sea of humanity to her right. “I think we just got lucky, boys. Hurry. There’re some places right in front of the man in the yellow shirt.”

There were people coming up the steps behind them, also looking for seats. Lightning quick, she pulled the boys after her into the crowd. “Excuse me. Excuse us, please. Thank you. I’m so sorry—”

Long seconds later they burst through the crowd to their seats just as the opposing team lined up across the width of the field for the kickoff. Their kicker ran toward the ball at a steady lope, then kicked it with all his might, sending it sailing toward the opposite end of the field. With a deafening roar of encouragement, the crowd surged to its feet and the fun began.

Grinning down at her sons, who couldn’t see a thing except the adults standing in front of them, Natalie teased, “What are you guys doing down there? C’mon, stand up here next to me and tell me what you think.”

Quickly they jumped up onto the metal bleachers that served as seats and stood on either side of her, broad grins of excitement splitting their identical faces. “Wow, this is cool! Look how little they look!”

“Can we go down on the field, Mom? We want to play. We can catch the ball like that!”

She laughed. “Your time’s coming,” she promised. “When you’re older.”

“Awh, Mom, you always say that!”

“We’re big. We can do it now!”

Watching the expressions that flitted across their faces, she grinned and swept them both into a bear hug. “You guys are going to be awesome when you get to play, but for now, we’ve got to let the big boys play. Okay?”

They grumbled, but were quickly distracted when the crowd once again roared in approval and the band broke into the fight song. “Look, guys! See number 22? Oh, my goodness! He’s going to score!”

Her eyes on the field, Natalie didn’t see Max Sullivan making his way through the crowd in the row behind her. He, however, spied her almost immediately. “Natalie? Is that you?” When she whirled, shocked, he laughed. “I don’t believe this! I didn’t know you were coming to the game!”

“I didn’t know you were. This is too weird!”

“Maybe fate’s trying to tell us something,” he suggested, grinning.

“Or maybe this is fate’s idea of a joke…if you believe in that kind of thing.”

“Maybe.” His gaze dropped to the two identical young boys staring up at him with wide eyes. “You didn’t tell me you had two boyfriends.”

“We’re not her boyfriends,” Harry said, grinning. “She’s our mom!”

“No kidding?” he said, pretending to be surprised. “She doesn’t look old enough to be a mom. You must be…”

“Harry Bailey,” he said proudly.

Struggling to hold back his own smile, Max said soberly, “It’s nice to meet you, Harry Bailey. I’m Professor Sullivan, your mom’s teacher.” When he held out his hand for a shake, Harry’s eyes widened to saucers as he carefully placed his small hand in Max’s much bigger one.

On the other side of Natalie, Harry’s twin said, “Wow! You’re a teacher? How come you’re not all mean looking like the teachers at our school?”

Max laughed. “Just lucky, I guess. And you are…”

“Tommy Bailey,” he said with a grin, whipping out his hand for a shake. “We’re twins!”

“You’re kidding? Really? I would have never known.”

Impressed with the ease with which he captivated the boys, Natalie lifted a delicately arched brow at him. “I didn’t know you had kids.”

“I don’t.”

“Really? Then you must have a lot of nieces and nephews. You’re a natural.”

“Actually, my parents were each married a number of times—” talk about an understatement! he thought wryly “—so I have a ton of stepsisters and brothers, and it seems like they’re all determined to have enough kids for their own basketball team. The kids are all as sharp as tacks and keep me on my toes. They’re doing a good job.”

Just the idea of a dozen or more nieces and nephews talking circles around him made Natalie grin. “What’d they do? Trick you out of your car keys?”

“No, just a trip to a go-cart track for some laps at the speed of sound.”

Natalie saw her sons’ eyes go round and quickly warned, “Don’t even think about going there, boys. Maybe when you’re fifty-two.”

“Awh, Mom!”

Max chuckled, then nodded toward the field. “Hey, guys, look! It’s fourth down. I bet the coach calls a field goal.”

“Surely not,” Natalie argued, frowning at the drama unfolding on the field. “It’s only fourth and two and we’re on the twelve-yard line. We’ve got to go for it.”

Surprised, Max lifted a dark brow. “You know football?”

She grinned. “Why, Professor, I would have never taken you for a chauvinist. Don’t you know any women who like football?”

“No,” he retorted wryly. “Do you?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “My mother. She’s a Dallas Cowboy fan. When I was little, we spent every Sunday afternoon in front of the TV, watching the Cowboys.”

Impressed, he grinned. “So you know your stuff, do you?”

“Well, I’m no expert, but yeah, I know enough to understand what’s going on.”

“Good. Care to wager a little bet on the next play?”

For an answer, she grinned and held out her hand. “Make it easy on yourself.”

“I never bet more than two dollars,” he warned with twinkling eyes, then promptly closed his fingers around hers. “You’re on.”

All around them, the crowd went crazy as the teams ran back on the field after a quick time-out. Natalie could almost hear the pounding of her heart and told herself it was because she was caught up in the game and wanted the satisfaction of winning the bet. If she could still feel the warmth of Max’s fingers around hers, she intended to keep that little bit of information to herself.

“Looks like I was right,” Max said smugly, making no effort to hide his grin as he drew her attention back to the field. “We’re kicking a field goal.”

“What?” Snapping back to attention, she frowned down at the field as the Eagles lined up for a field goal. “I can’t believe this! It’s only the first quarter! Why’s the coach playing it so safe?”

“Maybe he’d rather have three points than nothing,” he replied. “Here we go. Have you got your money ready?”

“I think college football needs some women coaches,” she sniffed. “A woman would have gone for it.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth when the center hiked the ball to the quarterback, who was supposed to catch the ball and hold it steady on the kicking T so the kicker could kick it. Instead of placing the ball on the T, however, the quarterback jumped to his feet the second he caught the ball. A heartbeat later, he threw a pass to his favorite receiver, who sprinted into the end zone before the other team even realized that the home team had just faked a field goal.

Stunned, the crowd went wild. Laughing in delight, Natalie grabbed her sons and did a little dance. “Yeah! Touchdown! Did you see that pass, guys? Right in the breadbasket! Looks like I won the bet.”

When her eyes laughed up into his, Max only grinned. All around them, people were celebrating the touchdown, but Natalie was too caught up in her victory over him to notice. Tickled pink with herself, she had a grin as big as Texas on her face and couldn’t seem to stand still. Jumping up and down, pumping her fists, she had no idea how cute she was. The boys were as excited as she, but Max couldn’t take his eyes off Natalie. She might have been a thirty-six-year-old mother of twins, but she looked like a high school cheerleader. Max had never seen her so carefree, and regardless of how many times he reminded himself she was his student and off limits, he couldn’t resist her. Taking advantage of the fact that the boys were watching the band as it jumped into a frenzied rendition of the fight song, he gave into impulse and reached for her.

His lips touched hers, and almost immediately he realized his mistake. She was soft and sweet, and the taste of her went straight to his head. If they’d been anywhere but in a crowd of screaming people and in full view of her five-year-old sons, he would have pulled her close and lost himself in the taste and feel of her. Instead all he could do was step back before her sons noticed that their mother’s teacher was on the verge of kissing the stuffing out of her.

When she stared up at him with stunned blue eyes, Max groaned. Don’t! he wanted to tell her. If she kept looking at him like that, he was going to reach for her again, and then he really would be in trouble. “It’s a tradition,” he said gruffly, nodding toward the kissing couples that surrounded them on all sides. “Everyone does it when we score.”

Dazed, her lips still tingling from his kiss, all Natalie could think of was the six touchdowns the team had scored last week. She’d missed that game, but she’d read about it in the newspaper. According to all predictions, this game was going to be even more of a runaway. Would Max kiss her every time the Eagles scored?

“Natalie? Are you okay? I didn’t mean to offend you….”

“What? Oh, no…I—”

“I’m hungry, Mom! Can we have some popcorn?”

“I want a hotdog…with chili!”

“I’ll get that,” Max told her when she looked down at the boys like they were speaking a foreign language. When she blinked up at him in confusion, he grinned. “I owe you.” When she just looked at him, he chuckled. “For the bet? Remember?”

She blushed. “Oh, no! I was just playing around.”

“A bet’s a bet,” he insisted. “So, we need popcorn, a chili dog, and I’m getting a sausage on a stick. How about you? What do you want?”

She should have said she didn’t need anything—somehow, the game was turning into a date, and she didn’t even know how it had happened—but she was thirsty and didn’t want to appear rude by turning him down, then getting something for herself later. “Just a cola. Do you need some help carrying everything?”

“No, I can get it. Stay here and enjoy the game.”

As he made his way through the crowd toward the aisle on his left, Natalie stared blindly at the action still going on down on the field and tried to calm the wild pounding of her heart. Max had kissed her! Touching her fingers to her lips, she could still feel the warmth that had streaked all the way to her toes the second his mouth had brushed hers. It had only lasted mere seconds, yet with nothing more than that, he’d shaken her to the core. What had possessed him? What did he want from her? She wasn’t one of his teenybopper freshmen students looking for a good time. Even at eighteen, that hadn’t been her style. She hadn’t slept around then and she didn’t now. She had responsibilities…children. She didn’t intend to forget that just because Max Sullivan had kissed her and made her go weak at the knees….

“Mom? You look kind of funny.”

“Yeah, your cheeks are all red. Are you sick, Mom? Do you have a fever?”

Jumping up onto the bleachers so he was eye level with her, Harry placed his hand on her brow and frowned into her eyes. Startled out of her musing, Natalie blinked both sons into focus and blushed all over again. How could she explain to her five-year-old sons that she was in la-la land because her professor had kissed her for all of five seconds? They wouldn’t understand, of course, and she couldn’t say she blamed them. She didn’t understand it herself!

“I’m fine,” she assured them huskily, forcing a smile. “I think I just got a little too hot jumping around. It’s warm today, isn’t it? I should have worn something cooler.”

She was wearing a thin, short-sleeved cotton blouse that should have been more than cool enough for the middle of September, but the boys were too young to notice that. Then the Eagle band broke into the school fight song, distracting them, and there were, thankfully no more questions about her “fever.” Standing beside them, her gaze directed unseeingly at the field, Natalie could think of nothing but Max…and the kiss.

Caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t notice that he’d returned until he suddenly joined her. Carrying a cardboard tray full of food, he grinned down at her. “What’d I miss?”

A dozen answers sprang to mind…the crazy need he stirred in her, the rush of her blood, the pounding of her heart every time he smiled at her. The last thing Max needed when it came to women, however, was encouragement. He was far too sure of himself as it was. “Just the kickoff,” she said lightly. “Here, let me help you with that.” She took the drink he’d bought for her, then handed the boys their food. “What do you say?” she asked them.

“Thank you, Professor Sullivan,” they said in unison, flashing their twin dimples at him.

“Can you make another bet with Mommy so we can get some nachos later?” Tommy added. “We really like nachos.”

“Tommy Bailey!” Natalie gasped, shocked. “You know better than that! Apologize right now!”

Chuckling, Max only reached over and ruffled Tommy’s red head. “You got it, sport. But how do you know your mom’s going to win the next bet?”

“Because Mom’s really smart,” he said simply, proudly. “She always wins when we bet.”

“So you’re a gambling woman,” Max teased, interest sparking in his eyes. “I would have never guessed.”

“We only bet on little things—like who can run the fastest or jump the highest,” she said ruefully. “If these monkeys keep growing the way they are, it won’t be long before they leave me standing in their dust.”

Max could just see her running with her boys, encouraging them, daring them to be the best they could be. She was a good mother—and her sons clearly adored her. So where was her ex? he wondered. She’d said he’d taken a hike, but to where? Had the divorce been amicable or hostile? Did she still love him? If she did, then she wasn’t as smart as he thought she was. The man had to be a fool. He’d walked away from a fascinating woman, and Max didn’t have a clue how he’d done it. Because he wasn’t even involved with her, and he was finding it harder and harder to keep his distance.

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