The Naughty Corner (2 page)

This summer Andrea had planned to take the boys on a whirlwind tour of Europe while her rich executive husband visited each branch of his company in every foreign country. What fun for them all. Until the nanny fell ill. Horrors. What was Andrea to do with the boys while she attended all the company functions and parties? After all, as the president’s wife, her presence was a requirement. Her big idea to solve the nanny debacle had been for Lola to go with them and squire the twins around Europe because, after all, Lola’s job was of no importance when compared to Andrea’s need. An all-expenses-paid trip through the best of Europe’s hotels did have a certain appeal. And they’d make a visit to the south of France where her parents had retired to three years ago. It all sounded great. Except that Lola would have to spend every waking hour with Heckle and Jeckle, oops, Harry and William. She’d rather clean toilets. Even more important, she had the Fletcher Cellular job to finish. It was the first major tech-writing project she’d had sole control of since she started her own business. No way was she screwing it up for her sister’s convenience. She was
not
going to Europe, and she wouldn’t have taken the boys at all if Andrea hadn’t started crying. And begging. And making Lola feel guilty. Not to mention Mom’s call from the south of France.

So thank goodness for Gray Barnett’s altruism and his football camp for high school boys, which was six weeks long, Tuesday through Saturday, eight in the morning until one. Lola had also enrolled the twins in a driving school, lessons on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Problem solved. She’d barely have to see the little magpies at all.

“Your sister needs therapy,” Charlotte said, ever the loyal best friend.

“She’s already
in
therapy.” Andrea wasn’t born rich, but after she’d married Ivy League Ethan Penfrey-Jones and given him the little princelings, she’d become the stereotypical rich society matron. “I used to like her once upon a time,” Lola mused. “She was a good kid.” Money had spoiled her the same way she’d spoiled the twins.

“She sure has your number. The twins for the whole summer.” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

The coach now had the boys running the track. Lola counted sixteen charges, none of whom appeared particularly athletic. Then again, the football camp wasn’t about training next year’s great players. She’d been diligent enough to read the mission statement on the website; the camp was about giving kids some self-esteem. Lola admired the coach for that.

And she certainly admired several other things about him. By the benches, he downed some water and snacked on a banana. Lola had a vision of the old commercial where the half-naked construction worker drank his diet soda. Watching Gray Barnett gave her the same heated sensation.

Charlotte might have been remembering the commercial when she said, “Well, I can’t sit here all day watching men get sweaty.”

Lola could, if the sweaty man was Gray Barnett. “Yeah, I gotta go, too.” She had a meeting with one of the engineers from Fletcher Cellular. She’d watched long enough to be able to assure Andrea that the boys were in capable hands.

She certainly wouldn’t mind spending six weeks in Coach Gray Barnett’s capable hands. But she had work to do.

* * *

SHE WAS A LONG-LEGGED BEAUTY IN A DENIM SKIRT, WITH A SLENDER
, almost boyish figure. The gentle breeze up on the bleachers ruffled her black hair. Gray liked long hair he could wrap around his hands.

Was she the mother of a boy on his team? She neither waved nor tried to catch the eye of any of the kids as she and her friend glided down the bleacher steps together and headed to the exit gate.

The rear view, a very shapely bottom, was equally impressive. And all that hair swishing across her back.

The two women had been the only adults in attendance. Most parents had simply dropped their kids at the curb.

The boys finished another lap. He started camp early to miss the heat of the day. Marshaling them to him with a wave of his arm, he kept one eye on the lady’s rear assets. Very nice.

“Line up,” he called out. She turned, watched him a moment, then preceded her friend through the gate. “All right, we’re going to do some lunges.”

“Come on, Dad, we just did laps—” Rafe started.

“Coach Barnett,” he corrected.

Rafe muttered and fell into line with everyone else. Gray couldn’t give his son special treatment. It wouldn’t be fair to the other kids. He was glad Rafe had signed up again, but he couldn’t fathom his reasons since he’d always seemed resentful of every moment spent on the field with his dad. Though Gray had started the football camp four years ago as a community service, he’d also done it with the idea of spending quality time with Rafe, but it hadn’t brought them any closer. Gray was hoping this year would be different. Rafe had just turned seventeen; he was almost a man. Maybe he could start to understand. If his mom gave him half a chance. Gray didn’t want to blame his ex-wife for the state of his relationship with Rafe—he’d caused the problem himself with too many hours at the office or traveling and not enough time with his son—but Bettina hadn’t lightened up in the five years since the divorce.

“Here’s what I want you to do.” He demonstrated a lunge. The boys, ranging in age from thirteen to seventeen, were not athletes by any stretch of the imagination. Most were out of shape, spending too much time with their iPods and computer games or in front of a TV. The whole point of the camp was to get them some exercise, teach them to be team players, and bolster their self-confidence and esteem. With only sixteen players, he didn’t have a full contingent to make two complete teams, but they could still accomplish a lot during the six weeks. If the boys finished the course, they were guaranteed a tryout for the football team. In the previous three years, nine of his boys had made it, and those who didn’t had still come away with a sense of accomplishment. Rafe, however, had never tried out.

“Three sets of ten,” he called out.

Amid grunts and groans of exertion, the boys lunged with varying degrees of agility. Up on the hill beyond the bleachers, a car remote beeped in the parking lot. The woman climbed into a bright blue hatchback.

He hoped she was the mom of one of his guys. Because Gray sure as hell wanted her back on his field again.

* * *

THE TWINS WEREN’T AT THE CURB WHEN LOLA PULLED UP
behind a line of parental vehicles a little after one on Friday. She waited, tapping the steering wheel.

On Tuesday morning—because of the time difference, her sister talked to the twins in the morning,
every
morning—Andrea had emailed a list of instructions on what the boys could and couldn’t eat. Not
should
not but
could
not. Of course, what Harry and William wanted wasn’t on the approved list. And since half of what
she
ate wasn’t on the approved list either, Lola was damn near ready to chuck it. The twins didn’t have nut allergies. They didn’t have a gluten allergy or lactose intolerance. So why cut all that stuff out completely? And really, what was wrong with good old-fashioned iceberg lettuce? Her sister was a food Nazi. She was also a movie Nazi and a TV Nazi. Lola would have felt sorry for the princelings if they hadn’t been so annoying. What had come over Andrea? Was it Mr. Penfrey-Jones? Was
he
the real Nazi?

An overweight boy of about fifteen shuffled to a minivan, his stick-thin mother holding his arm in a vise-like grip. Her mouth was moving a mile a minute, and she shook her finger right up until he hauled himself dejectedly into the front seat. Through the minivan’s back window, Lola could see the finger-shaking continue once the woman climbed in beside him.

Lola’s was now the last vehicle at the curb. She wasn’t supposed to leave her car unattended in the pickup circle, but no one else was around so she shoved the gear into park and got out to see what was holding up the twins.

Harry and William were seated on the bench, the coach standing tall over them, a dark-haired boy watching the proceedings from nearby. He was the twin’s age, maybe a year or so older, and if they’d been standing next to him, he probably would have topped them by three or four inches. With their plain brown hair—worn very short per Andrea’s edict—and their undistinguished height, Harry and William took after the Penfrey-Jones side. Andrea’s husband was not a tall man. In fact, he was a bit Napoleonic in both stature and demeanor, in other words, a short dictator.

Coach Barnett talked, the twins listened. Across the expanse of red-brown track and short green grass, she was too far away to hear. He was intent, focused, and spoke with little animation, his hands on his hips, legs spread. His white shorts emphasized his deep tan.

He raised his eyes as Lola entered his periphery, his gaze dark, only shades lighter than his hair.

He seemed to study her as her stride brought her closer, then finally said, “I’m going to talk to your mother for a minute.”

“She’s not our mother,” Harry—the younger by five minutes, which was why he was named Harry instead of William—said with a snotty edge in his voice. “She’s our aunt.”

Coach Barnett stared him down, his eyes narrowed. “Watch what you say.”

“What?” Harry asked with feigned bewilderment. “All I did was explain that she’s not our mother.”

“First, you use your aunt’s name, not
she
. Second, your tone is disrespectful. Now apologize to your aunt.”

Harry stared at him stonily. William watched the exchange, posture erect, as if the outcome held some sort of significance. The dark-haired boy, a few yards off, simply observed, his expression unreadable.

Lola still wasn’t sure why the three boys had been kept after the day’s activities had ended.

“Do you understand?” Coach Barnett enunciated sharply, his voice harder this time.

Lola was so used to the boys’ snotty attitudes that she’d barely registered the edge of derision in Harry’s tone.

Harry and the coach locked eyes, the big stare-down going on, and, amazingly, it was Harry who gave in. “Sorry, Aunt Lola.”

Lola had long since stopped expecting respect from them. She didn’t even ask for it. She didn’t care whether the twins gave it to her or not. Ages ago, she used to exert a certain amount of discipline, but Andrea didn’t like anyone disciplining her children except her or Ethan Penfry-Jones. And since Andrea was incapable of discipline herself, the boys were out of control when their father wasn’t home.

But the coach had gotten Harry to comply. Lola decided it was only polite to acknowledge her nephew’s effort. “Thank you, Harry.” Then she shaded her eyes. “You wanted to talk to me, Coach? I’m Lola Cook, by the way.”

Up close, he was more than merely hot. With a tanned face, that sexy stubble along his jaw, and pectoral muscles defined by the polo shirt he wore, he was movie-star handsome. The strands of silver in his black hair only added to the effect. The coach made her downright breathless.

“Gray Barnett,” he said by way of introduction. “Let’s have our discussion in my office.” He flourished a hand toward the locker rooms down by the end zone, then turned to the dark-haired teen. “I’ll be back in ten, Rafe.”

She saw the resemblance then, the same aquiline nose and cast of the eyes. The kid had to be his son. Not much doubt.

“What’s the problem, Coach?” she asked, one step behind him.

“In my office,” he said again. The deep timbre of his voice heated her insides.

She definitely enjoyed a good view, but she didn’t normally have a physical reaction. This man was just too attractive. His stride was long, and a couple of times she had to skip to keep up. Passing beneath the goalposts, he crossed the track, then opened a door between the men’s and women’s locker rooms.

“After you,” he said politely, holding the door for her.

She sidled past him, drawing a deep breath of some barely there scent, maybe soap or shampoo, laced with the aroma of pure masculinity. His proximity was dizzying, his height giving her a taste of how it would feel to be petite like Charlotte.

He rounded the desk and stood behind it. To his left and right, the blinds were lowered over windows she assumed looked into the locker rooms. Trusting. A male coach could peek out the blinds on the women’s side, and vice versa for the men’s side, or boys’ and girls’, as the case may be. Obviously the school hadn’t had a problem.

God, what a thought. In her opinion, people were actually too distrusting these days, thinking there were peepers and sexual predators around every corner.

“Have a seat,” he said.

“Thanks, but we have to get going.” She had the boys scheduled for their driving lesson this afternoon, which was ultimately another way to get them out of her hair. But Lola also didn’t want to be in the one-down position with this man. At least not under these circumstances.

“Fine. I’ll get right to the point.” He didn’t smile, simply held her with a steady, dark-eyed gaze. “Harry and William don’t want to be here.” He referred to them as Harry and William, too, instead of the princely order, just the way she did. Harry was always dominant. “They don’t want to play football,” he went on. “They aren’t team players.”

She wanted to sag down onto one of the two folding chairs in front of the desk. She should have known the camp was too good to be true, that Heckle and Jeckle—no
oops
about that at all—would ruin it in less than a week. She didn’t, however, show her weakness, and went for a light, mystified tone. “Why ever would you think that?”
Duh
.

“They refuse to follow instructions. They seem to delight in asking stupid questions just to be disruptive. I’ve had to force them to leave their iPhones in their lockers because they kept texting during practice.” He shook his head slightly with disgust, the first glimmer of emotion she’d seen. “I swear half the time they’re actually texting each other.”

Well, that was just like the twins. She wondered how many times they’d sneaked the phones out to the field with them despite what the coach said.