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There was a peace in the moment, and in each other’s arms, that he wanted to let envelope them forever.
“Hey, lovebirds, enough of that,” Dave said, coming over to them.
They stepped apart.
“So, MacNeil, are you one of those office types who only works out in a gym?”
“No,” he said, not sure where Dave was going with this.
“Wanna join the boys for a game of touch football?” Dave asked.
Jared had a really bad feeling about this. But he wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. And a challenge had been definitely issued.
“Uh…Dave, we’re not really planning to stay that late,” Annie said.
“Can’t take too much of our family?” Dave asked.
“Not at all,” Jared replied. “I’m good for a game. Whose team am I on?”
“You can be on mine,” Alan said, as he joined them.
“You don’t have to do this,” Annie stated, as Dave and Alan moved off to gather more players for their game.
“I think I do.”
“Dave and Alan may have said touch football but the game always gets rough,” Annie said. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“That’s sweet but I’m sure I can hold my own unless they are going to cheat.”
“They won’t cheat but they consider touch to include knocking the other player to the ground.”
“I’m good, Annie. I played rugby at prep school and in college. I still play a couple of times a year when my schedule allows.”
Jared joined the men on the field. The game was as rough as Annie had promised it would be. Jared took a tackle from Dave and then got one of his own in on the next possession changeover. They played for almost two hours and his team won.
“You’re a good player,” Alan said, passing him a cold beer.
“You are, too,” Jared said, taking a long swallow of the cold beverage.
“If you’re serious about Annie?”
“Do you honestly think I’d play a game like that if I wasn’t?”
“I guess you have a point. But you better remember that we were playing touch out there. You mess with Annie and we’ll really kick your butt.”
Alan walked away and Jared rubbed the back of his neck. The Jenners didn’t make it easy for him. But then he didn’t back down from challenges. And he didn’t need to be best buds with the men in her family.
“Jared, come on over here and join us.” Carol Jenner waved him over to the picnic table, where she sat with a cluster of Annie’s female relatives.
He sat next to Carol and Annie joined them a few minutes later, sitting on his other side. When Dave and Alan tried to sit down, the women closed the other men out. It was the second time that Carol had made him feel welcome and he tried not to read too much into it, but it had been a long time since any one had tried to mother him.
It touched him more deeply than he’d expected and he had to excuse himself. Had to get away from the welcome that he felt at that picnic table. Annie followed him into the house.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just remembered something that I need to do back at the track. Do you mind if I take your car?”
Annie frowned at him. “I’ll go with you. Let me say goodbye to my parents.”
“I’ll wait out front.”
He walked out of the house, aware that she was watching him leave, and he knew that if she’d had a camera in her hands she’d capture an image that would show her a man who came up lacking.
ANNIE DIDN’T SAY anything on the drive back to Daytona. She wasn’t sure what had happened back at the picnic table, but later, as he parked her car at the condo in Daytona and he still hadn’t said anything, she realized he was going to pretend everything was normal. Even though it was clear to her he was disturbed by something. Had her brother finally convinced him that she wasn’t worth the effort?
“Did you have fun today?” she asked.
“Yes. Thanks for inviting me,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
She studied his profile in the setting sun. The play of light would illuminate his skin too much if she took a picture and he would look washed out, but the shadows it created would be interesting. She reached between the bucket seats for her camera bag, thinking that she might be able to capture him half in shadow and half out.
Hidden behind the facade of the man she knew was another man. The one she could never reach.
“No pictures,” he said quietly.
“Why not?”
“You hide behind the lens.”
She did. Annie knew it and was a little surprised to realize she’d let him see her enough to know it, too. “You’re right, but just now I wasn’t hiding. I wanted to capture something elusive about you. I can’t ever get the exact picture I want.”
