groaned. It was even worse than he’d thought. When Tess settled on a summer project, a truckload of dynamite wouldn’t dislodge her from her chosen path. If he knew Tess, and he thought he did, she would not be a virgin by the end of the summer. He could help her or not, but she would persevere until she’d checked off everything on her list.
TESS REALIZED how lucky she was that she liked each of the women her brothers had chosen to marry, and they liked her. When the guys got together for poker every Wednesday night, the wives hired baby-sitters and met at one of the other brothers’ houses for pinochle. Tess was always invited. She’d miss the friendly, raucous evenings when she went to New York, but some sacrifices had to be made if she planned to live up to her own expectations.
Tonight the women were meeting at Rhino and Joan’s. Rhino, originally named Ryan but indelibly stamped with a macho nickname in high school, was Tess’s oldest brother and the acknowledged leader of the five siblings. He’d been the first to get married, buy a house and have kids.
From the moment Tess’s niece Sarah had arrived in the world, Tess had decided being an aunt was the coolest thing in the world, although she was a little tired of being a maiden aunt. She arrived at Joan’s early so she could see Sarah, who was now eight, and six-year-old Joe before Joan tucked them into bed.
After giving each of the kids the game she’d bought for them in Phoenix and joining in as Joan sang them silly good-night songs, she followed her dark-haired sister-in-law downstairs to the kitchen to help her get out chips and drinks for the party.
“Thanks for bringing them the game,” Joan said as she took glasses out of the cupboard. “They’re really going to miss you when you go to New York.”
“I’m going to miss them.” Tess emptied tortilla chips into a bowl and opened the refrigerator to search for the homemade salsa Joan always kept on hand.
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ll be living such an exciting life, I don’t know if you’ll miss anything from back here.”
“Sure I will. I love this place, and my family and friends.”
“Me, too.” Joan turned to look at her. “But I’d give anything to be in your shoes.”
“Really?” Tess gazed at her sister-in-law. With Joan’s Hispanic, family-oriented background and her obvious dedication to her home and children, she seemed to have found her dream. “I thought you were the original Earth Mother.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy. But the challenge has gone. When we first got married, everything was new. Sex was new, and then having kids was new, and then buying this house and fixing it up was new. But now it’s all just a comfortable routine. And I want—” she paused to laugh “—more worlds to conquer, I guess.”
“I so understand. That’s the whole reason I’m going to New York. It’s my Mount Everest.” She hesitated, then decided to risk a suggestion. “Have you thought of going back to school?”
“I’ve already got the catalogs. I’m thinking—now don’t laugh—of becoming a marriage counselor.”
“No kidding! Joan, that would be wonderful. Obviously you know what goes into making a good marriage.”
Joan gave her a rueful glance. “I wouldn’t call me an expert. But I understand what happens when a couple gets to this point and sort of loses interest in each other.”
Tess’s jaw dropped. “You mean…”
“I mean things are getting really dull in the bedroom. I’ve been thinking of driving to Phoenix and getting some how-to books. I wouldn’t dare buy anything like that in Copperville or the whole town would think I’d become a nymphomaniac.”
“Amen to that. You know, I—” Tess stopped herself before she offered Joan a couple of her research books. She loved and trusted Joan, but she wasn’t quite ready to tell her sister-in-law about her summer project. “I think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“I figured you would. Listen, I’m not saying anything against your brother. He’s a great guy. It’s just that we could probably both use some pointers.”
“Sure. Most people can.”
“I mean, you know how it is. You get used to a certain way of doing things, and then it all becomes mechanical.”
“Absolutely.” Tess felt like an impostor, having this discussion with Joan, who assumed Tess had some experience. If she needed any further proof she was doing the right thing, here it was.
Joan came over and gave her a hug. “Thanks for listening and encouraging me. Even though you’re younger than I am, I always think of you as being more sophisticated, for some reason. Maybe it’s your college degree.”
Tess returned the hug. “Book learning isn’t everything.”
“No.” Joan stepped back and smiled at her. “The ideal thing would be to have both.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” And if Mac would help her, she would have both, at last.
THE POKER GAME was held at Tiny Tim’s, the youngest and the largest of the Blakely clan. Tim was a newlywed, proud to show off the new digs he shared with Suzie in an apartment complex near the edge of town.
Mac had spent the entire day worrying the subject of Tess’s virginity, and the hell of it was, he could see her point. Her small-town background might make her seem unsophisticated to native New Yorkers. And if the kids she was counseling found out she had no sexual experience, either, that might become a credibility issue. Then there was the other problem—the very good possibility that some city dude, some fast-talking greenhorn, would take her virginity. Mac really didn’t like thinking about that.
“Hey, Big Mac, are you in or not?” called Rhino from across the poker table.
Mac’s head came up with a snap. Then he realized the question had to do with the cards in his hand, not whether he would help Tess find a lover for the summer. She’d sure ruined him for poker night. One of the things he loved about these weekly games was the simplicity of them. But nothing was simple tonight. No question was innocent. Even the name of the game, five card stud, had overtones he’d never noticed before.
He tossed his hand facedown on the table. “I’m out.”
“Let’s see what you got, Rhino,” said Dozer, whose given name was Doug. Nobody called any of the brothers by their real names anymore. Doug and Hamilton, the two middle boys, had become Dozer and Hammer when they’d formed the heart of the offensive line for the Copperville High Miners.
The brothers were Mac’s closest buddies, not counting Tess. Their mother and his were best friends, so the kids had naturally grown up spending a lot of time together. In high school the Blakely boys had literally covered his ass when he quarterbacked the Miners. But he saw them with new eyes tonight as he evaluated how each of them might react if they learned about the conversation he’d had with Tess this morning, and the fact that he hadn’t turned her down flat.
“Read ’em and weep, Dozer,” Rhino said, laying out two queens and three sevens. At the tender age of thirty he was starting to lose his hair, and so he wore baseball caps a lot, even inside. Tonight’s was a black one from the Nugget Café.
Rhino didn’t miss much, which made him a damn good poker player. He’d likely be the first one to figure out if Mac had lined up some guy to initiate Tess, and he’d probably organize the retaliation against Mac and the poor unfortunate guy Mac had brought into the picture.
“Aw, hell,” muttered Dozer, a redhead with a temper to match. He acted first, thought about it later. He’d been known to deck a guy who so much as looked at Tess wrong. “You must be living right.”
“Nah,” said Tiny Tim, pushing back his chair. “He’s ornery as ever. Just lucky. Who needs a beer?” Tim didn’t have a mean bone in his huge body, and couldn’t even go