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eye."
"You're a lousy liar, honey," Barbara said, softly. "You get that from me.
Why were you crying?"
"Well . . ." Allison said then shrugged. "We were talking about things that
bother us. It was, like, therapy, I guess. That was why I was crying. That's
all, mom, honest."
Barb started to reply and then decided it was the wrong time.
"Are you going to have another one of these 'team building' exercises next
week?"
"No," Allison said. "Next week is spring break, remember?"
"Yes, I'd remembered," Barbara said. "I was hoping that Coach Sherman had."
* * *
The season started up with a bang after spring break with two games in three
days, both of which the team took. So far the Algomo Middle School Girl's
Softball team had a series of straight wins and the magic of Coach Bobby
Sherman seemed to be rubbing off on his new team.
The coach had scheduled two more "additional team building" exercises that
week, however, and the hours that the girls were putting in was starting to
tell. By the end of the week, Allison was getting bags under her eyes from
late night team building exercises combined with her homework load,
cheerleading and gym classes. Then she came home with a permission form for an
"all day team building exercise" on Saturday. The girls were to be dropped off
at noon and picked up at midnight.
"This is too much," Barb said, waving the form in the air as she practically
screamed over the phone to Cindy. "Is henuts ?"
"You're the one that's always pushing for the girls to do better," Cindy
said, unhappily.
"They'refourteen ," Barbara pointed out.
"Barb, I'm with you on this one," Cindy said. "But Coach Sherman's making
these things mandatory for continuing in the team. I'm thinking of pulling
Brandi, frankly. She's getting really worn down."
"So's Allison," Barbara said, bitterly. "And I'm not all that happy about a
man I don't know very well spending all this time with my daughter in
conditions in which parents are not welcome."
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"Well, call him," Cindy said. "You'd be better at that than I am. And I'm
pretty sure we're not the only ones that are getting tired of all this 'team
building.'"
Chapter Two
Coach Sherman was surprisingly hard to run down. But she'd managed to contact
his wife, a colorless woman on the phone, and arranged a meeting at the
Hazelwood Mall Starbucks. The coach, as it turned out, worked in the Claire's
Boutique in the mall which eliminated "a better job" as the reason for the
move. Unless he'd worked at a McDonalds in Mobile.
Sherman was middling height but gave the impression of size. He had broad
shoulders and strong looking arms as if he'd been a serious athlete when he
was younger. Over the years, though, he'd run to fat and had a large beer gut.
His hair and skin were dark with a look of either Hispanic or maybe Native
American in his features. He had dark eyes that were remarkably piercing,
though. Barb had only ever seen him from a moderate range and hadn't realized
how startling his eyes were. She could see why Allison would have dubbed him
"creepy" when she first met him. He also had a small, blurred, tattoo on the
web of his right thumb. Barbara couldn't quite make it out.
She suspected that some women would find him very attractive. Barb was not
one of them. He came across far too much the "macho man." Barbara counted
among her friends both members of special operations groups and Special
Circumstances operatives who faced death from both natural and supernatural
causes, often on a daily basis. This guy wasn't even in their class.
"A pleasure to meet you, Coach Sherman," Barb said, standing up from her
table and shaking his hand.
"My pleasure, I'm sure," the coach replied, not even bothering to hide the
fact that he was looking at her chest. She'd dressed conservatively for the
meeting so there wasn't even cleavage on display. But his eyes went right to
the breasts. After a long moment's perusal he looked her in the eye and
winked. Then when he withdrew his hand from hers, reluctantly, he ran his
thumb across the palm of her hand.
Barb had had the trick done to her before and, as always, it gave her a
shiver of sexuality. She also thought it was about as low a trick as you could
play on a female; the reaction was entirely involuntary and had little or
nothing to do with actual attraction. It was the equivalent of a goose in her
mind.
Barb realized right then that she wanted Allison off the team. Wins or no,
this guy was a predator. He wasn't just flirting, he was making an overt move
on her. Given that she was married and a daughter of one of the girls on his
team, he either had to be crazy or he thought it would help his case. Which
was just as crazy.
Furthermore, he gave off the "seducer" feel. He had a bag full of tricks that
probably worked on women or girls who had never been up against a seducer.
Barb had been to far too many company parties, and had far too many covert and
overt offers when she was selling real estate, to be even slightly interested.
Teenage girls were something else.
"I wanted to talk to you about all these extra practices," Barb said,
ignoring the wink and the thumb. "Some of the parents, and I'm among them,
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feel that the girls are getting a little worn out by all the time they're
putting in. Among other things, most of the girls are involved in more than [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]