Playing For Keeps. Karen Templeton

      Chapter 1

      If Joanna Swann had learned nothing else in her thirty-two years, it was that bad news rarely came à la carte. If one thing went wrong, it was only a matter of time before the other shoe would drop. This phone call, however, had to make at least the thirty-fourth shoe to drop within the past few weeks, which was sorely taxing her good humor.

      For a single bright, glistening moment, the temptation to leave her three children to fend for themselves and to take to her bed was nearly overwhelming. However she scraped together her last ounce of reserve and said, “Mr. Shaw—” she tried to place her relatively new neighbor, but all she was getting was a beer belly and a cowboy hat large enough to shelter a family of six “—how is that even possible? Chester doesn’t even come up to Glady’s knees. Let alone her—”

      “I saw ’em with my own eyes! Right out here in my own goddamn backyard! Your goddamn dog got up on the top step of my goddamn back porch and got my bitch pregnant! We were just about to have her bred, too, and we were counting on that income! You have any idea how much a Great Dane puppy with papers brings?”

      Her neck muscles cramped from cradling the cordless between her jaw and her shoulder as she tossed Bob the Builder fruit snacks into the boys’ lunch boxes. Joanna glared at the fur bag lying with his head on his paws, bushy white eyebrows twitching. Damn dog had been nothing but trouble from the moment her ex-husband had brought him home for the kids’ Christmas present, year before last. Without consulting her first, natch. And if the kids hadn’t been so attached to the mangy beast, he would’ve long since been history. His manners were atrocious, his libido embarrassingly healthy, and there hadn’t been a fence or wall invented he couldn’t dig out of. But Chester was purebred, so Bobby had said it didn’t make sense to get him fixed until they’d put him out to stud a few times, at least. Apparently, Chester had decided to take the initiative on his own.

      Heaven help them, this was going be one butt-ugly batch of puppies.

      “No, Mr. Shaw,” Joanna said, eyeing the clock and frowning—Bobby was late picking up the kids for school. Again. “I have no idea how much—”

      “Six hundred bucks a pop, that’s how much! And Gladys always has at least ten pups! That means I’m out six thousand dollars, lady. So what’re you gonna do about it?”

      “Me?” she squeaked, the sleep-deprivation fog lifting just enough for her to realize where this conversation was going. Glowering, she dumped out an inch of murky water from the bowl she’d left on the counter last night to catch the drip from the leaky roof. “You expect me to compensate you for an…an…accident?”

      “Damn straight I expect you to compensate me! Wasn’t my dog that got out, it was yours! Your fault—you have to pay up. We can go to petty court if you like, but that’d only add court costs to what you already owe me. So I’ll be sending you a bill soon as Gladys delivers.”

      Wham! went the receiver in her ear just as the father of her three children picked that inauspicious moment to drag his sorry hide through her back door.

      “Next time you bring me an unneutered dog, Bobby Alvarez, make sure he knows how to use a condom!” And long as the gun was loaded, might as well get off another round. “And where the hell have you been? Kids!” she bellowed in the general direction of their rooms. “Your father’s here!”

      “Whoa, babe, back up.” Bobby dug a blue-and-red-striped tie from the pocket of his top-of-the-line JCPenney sportsjacket, threading it through his shirt collar. “What’s this about the dog and condoms?”

      Joanna pointed to Chester, whose eyebrows twitched some more.

      “That…thing knocked up the neighbor’s Great Dane.”

      Bobby stopped knotting his tie to grin at the dog. “Chester! My man!” He bent at the knees, extending one hand. “Give me five!” The dog hesitated, then belly-crawled to Bobby, eyeing Joanna warily as he shook hands with the only person in the room who currently didn’t wish to see him stuffed. Bobby did the praising thing, then sidled over to the coffeemaker. “This fresh?”

      Fumbling to hook an earring one-handed into her left lobe, Joanna gulped down the cold remnants of her first cup of coffee, refusing to let the crooked, charming, you-wouldn’t-really-smack-somebody-this-cute-wouldja? look in those hot-fudge eyes get to her.

      “Touch that coffee and die. And since you find your dog’s sexual escapades so amusing, then I guess it’s okay to send the bill to you.”

      “Bill?”

      “Yeah, bill. As in, for the loss of what would have been a purebred litter. For which the mother-to-be’s daddy is suing me. Us. Which is just what I need on top of the roof leaking. Again. And why the hell are you late?”

      “How can you be mad at me for so many things in one breath?”

      “A time-saving strategy fine-honed after nine years of marriage. Well?”

      “Hey, I’m really sorry, babe. But Tori—”

      “And don’t even try to blame this on your girlfriend—”

      “Fiancée.”

      Joanna reeled for a second or two as shoe number thirty-five bounced off her head. “Since when?”

      Something almost like apology flickered in his eyes. “Last night. I mean, this probably isn’t the best time to spring this on you—”

      “No, no…” Joanna inserted the second earring. “Now, later, whenever. Congratulations. I guess. Although that’s neither here nor there,” she added, scrambling to get back up on her high horse. “The whole point of my asking you to take the kids to school today was so I could get to my appointment on time…dammit, what are they doing?” Joanna tromped across the kitchen’s tiled floor, her curly hair boinging around her face and annoying the life out of her. “Dulcy! Matt! Ryder! Now!”

      “Jo,” Bobby said behind her. “It’s been more than three years since we split up. Time at least one of us moved on.”

      Joanna whirled around at the precise moment the dog decided to shuffle back across the kitchen floor. Right in front of her. She clutched the edge of the counter, sloshing coffee all over her left boob. Cursing, she grabbed a napkin and started rubbing at the spot, even though some small, tired part of her brain knew coffee and peach cotton did not mix. She glared at Bobby as her breast jiggled from the onslaught. “One word about wanting to help and you’re dead meat,” she said, then added, “As for your moving on…as I recall, you did that before the ink was dry on the divorce papers.”

      “You’re still pissed about the dog, aren’t you?”

      “The dog, the roof, your being late…take your pick. Oh, and Ryder’s teacher called. She wants us to come in for a conference.”

      To give Bobby credit, concern flashed across his features. “I thought he was doing better this year.”

      “Yeah, well, so did I. But apparently not. So believe me, your getting married again doesn’t even make the short list. But honestly, Bobby…” Joanna gave up on the rubbing and looked at her ex. “Can Tori even vote yet?”

      “She’s twenty-one, for God’s sake. Besides, in some ways she’s older than I am—”

      Which, Joanna thought uncharitably, wasn’t all that much of a stretch.

      “—and she’s pregnant.”

      At this rate Joanna could open a damn shoe store. “Well,” she said after a moment, “at least no one’s holding Chester accountable for that puppy.”

      “That’s why I’m late,” Bobby said, ignoring her. “Tori was so sick this morning, she didn’t want me to leave.”

      Oh, no. Uh-uh. Not that she didn’t genuinely feel badly for Bobby’s girlfriend, who clearly had no idea what she was getting herself into.