The Thrill of Victory

Bouncing the ball in preparation for her next serve, Stevie muttered, "I know the score."

"Sorry," Judd said, cupping his ear, "I didn't catch that."

Raising her voice, she repeated, "I said I know the score, thank you."

"You're welcome."

Gnashing her teeth, Stevie executed her toss and caught the descending ball at just the right angle, putting exactly the right amount of spin on it. Judd shouldn't have been able to return it.

He did. Easily. And because she hadn't expected him to, she was caught falling down on the job. She didn't make it to the corner of the court in time and missed the return by a mile.

"My game," he said cheerfully. "That makes it five to four, my serve. And we switch courts."

"I know the rules, Mackie."

She wrenched the top off the water thermos they'd brought along and tilted it to her lips. He had won the first set. She had barely taken the second in a tiebreaker. With this game, he could win the match. The possibility was untenable.

He was a smug, gloating winner who was enjoying rubbing her nose in her defeat. Oh, he was doing it sweetly, but she was suspicious of that guileless grin, which many times during the course of the match she'd wanted to slap off his recently shaven face.

She mopped her face with a towel and dried off the handle of her racquet before walking back onto the court.

"We're in no hurry," he said to her from the baseline, where he'd been practicing his toss. "If you need more rest time, feel free to take it."

Gritting her teeth, she said, "Just play.

"Okay.

He lobbed the ball like a rank amateur, so that his serve was high and had the hang time of a well-executed football punt. It bounced high.

Stevie had to back up almost to the fence and that destroyed the timing of her forehand swing.

Her return went straight into the net.

"Fifteen, love," Judd chortled.

'Stevie threw down her racquet. "What the hell was that?"

"That was a missed shot."

She saw red. "I mean your serve, Mackie."

"What?" He spread his arms wide, all innocence.

"You seemed a little tired today, off your game. I thought I'd make it easier for you."

"Don't do me any favors, alright?"

"Alright." Then beneath his breath, but loud enough for her to hear, he muttered, "Geez, and I thought McEnroe was temperamental when his game went to crap.''

Stevie tried to ignore him and her own mounting rage, knowing well that it was counterproductive and self-defeating, His serve came in low and hard on her backhand side. She returned it.

They enjoyed a rally, but Stevie ended up with the point when her well-aimed overhead bounced directly in front of his feet.

"Fifteen all," she said with a sweet smile.

"Good shot."

"Thanks."

Thinking that she would try a similar shot on the next point, she moved to the net too soon.

Judd sent a long backhand into the corner of the court and announced with satisfaction, "Thirty, fifteen."

She tied it up on his next serve. "Thirty all," she called out gaily.

Judd's smile wasn't quite as ingratiating as it had been, she noted with satisfaction. She watched his toss, saw the granite set of his jaw, saw his arm go back then arc forward. But just before he hit the ball, he said, "You forgot to wiggle."

The ball whizzed past her like a missile, bounced in the corner of the service court and landed against the fence with a solid thwack. Stevie rounded on her complacent opponent, who was inspecting the strings of his racquet.

"What was that?"

"That was an ace, something that doesn't get pulled on you very often."

She marched toward the net, a study in fury.

'`I'll tell you something else that doesn't get pulled on me. I've never played anybody who opened a conversation just as he was serving the ball. Nobody I know would resort to such a dirty, underhanded trick. Nobody but you, that is.

What did you say, anyway? Something about a wiggle?"

"I said you forgot to wiggle."

She propped her hands on her hips. "And what, pray tell, does that mean?"

"Aw, come on, Stevie. We're alone here. We can be open with each other." He leaned across the net and gave her a knowledgeable wink. "I was referring to that little wiggle you give your backside every time you win a point."

Her mouth dropped open. "I have no idea-"

"Sure you do. You do it all the time. It's to make certain that everybody watching, whether from the stadium bleachers or on television, realizes that you've just done something swell."

It took an act of will to stop grinding her teeth.

"I don't have to stand out here in this heat and listen to your insults." Reflexively she lifted her long braid off her chest and tossed it over her shoulder.

Judd aimed the handle of his racquet at her like an accusing finger. "That's another one."

"Another one what?" ' 'Another one of your cuteisms. The one with the braid is to show your degree of frustration either with yourself, your opponent or a line judge."

"Cuteisms?"

He flashed a proud grin. "I coined the word to encompass all the mannerisms you use to draw attention from your game to yourself. Since the way you look is irrelevant to the way you play, you're very clever to use such a tactic."

Stevie was too furious to speak. If she tried, she'd only succeed in sputtering incoherently. She turned her back to him and marched toward the parked car.

"Aren't we going to finish the match?"

"No!"

"You're quitting when it's match point?"

"Yes!"

"Why, because I'm about to beat you?" he taunted, falling into step behind her. "You couldn't stand being beaten by me, could you?"

"I'm having an off day. You said so yourself.

It's the heat. I haven't practiced in days."

"Neither have I," he pointed out uncharitably.

"And it's just as hot on my side of the court."

She slung her gear into the back seat of his car and got into the passenger side, slamming the door. He got behind the wheel and drove while she sat beside him, fuming in hostile silence.

The pressure had been steadily building. They had been working up to this fight for days. Erroneously Stevie had thought she would welcome a full-fledged blowout as a means of clearing the air. But she was far from having a good time. Probably because Judd definitely had the upper hand in this argument.

"There's nothing wrong with being a showman."

They were more than halfway home before he made that seemingly innocuous observation. It was enough to send Stevie's simmering temper skyrocketing.

"You don't get to be a top-seeded player by being cute, Mr. Mackie."

"Calm down. I'm not going to tell anybody that I beat you."

"You didn't!"

"Only because you refused to finish the match like the spoiled brat you are."

"You weren't playing tennis," she shouted.

"The points you scored were scored by playing badly, not well. You were making a mockery of me and of the sport. Your game had nothing to do with talent, skill or finesse." Wanting to drive the next point home, she turned her head to look at him. "The same goes for your writing."

He brought the car to a jarring stop in front of the house. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You figure it out."

Leaving her things in the car, she got out and bounded up the porch steps. They hadn't bothered with locking the front door. She sailed through it and headed for the stairs. She had almost reached the top when Judd, taking the steps two at a time, caught up with her and grabbed hold of her braid.

"Ouch! Let go of me."

"Uh-uh. Not until you explain that last crack about my writing. What do you mean by saying that I lack talent and skill, etcetera?"

"I didn't say you lack them. There's just no evidence of them in your column."

"I graduated with a degree in journalism, remember?"

"What you print every day isn't journalism, it's gossip," she said, warming to her topic.

"Anybody with an inferiority complex and an ax to grind could write what you do. So could anybody who wanted to avoid a real job by boozing it up every night and calling it research. Not to mention the womanizing."

"I haven't touched a drink since we got here.

And as for womanizing…" He encircled her waist with his arm and yanked her hard against him. "I haven't done any of that since I left Dallas, either."

"Let me go."

"No way, baby. I've earned this kiss."

His mouth came down hard upon hers. She resisted by bowing her back, which only brought her up harder and higher against him. She tried to free her lips, but he captured her jaw in one hand and held her head steady while his tongue plumbed her mouth repeatedly.

Their breathing was harsh and loud in the otherwise silent house. The sounds of strenuous denial that Stevie uttered deep in her throat diminished to whimpers of desire. Her hands, which had been trying to push him away, began clutching handfuls of his damp tennis shirt. She angled her head, giving his lips better access to hers. Her tongue joined his in love play.

He raised his head suddenly and peered into her wide, dazed eyes. "Stevie?"

"What?"

Taking her hand, he slid it down his body and pressed it against the distended fly of his tennis shorts. "It wouldn't be fair of you to start something you don't intend to finish, would it?"

She shook her head and reflexively squeezed the rigid proof of how much he wanted her. "Oh, God." Groaning, he gave her another searing kiss.

Pent-up frustration erupted in an explosion of sexual desire. Their arms wrapped tightly around each other. Their kisses were carnal, ravenous.

Still clinging to each other, they stumbled into the nearest bedroom, his. Blindly he reached for the switch of the ceiling fan. It began to rotate over their heads and cast flickering shadows on the walls as they worked off shoes and bent to remove their socks. They bumped heads but barely noticed in their haste.

He whipped his T-shirt over his head. Stevie did the same. He reached for the front clasp of her bra and unfastened it, shoving the lace cups aside. He touched her briefly, feathering her nipples with his fingertips, making them instantly stiff.

Eyes trained on them, he unzipped his shorts and let them drop. Stevie shrugged off her bra and removed her shorts. Judd, with some difficulty and a near-comical grimace, removed his jock strap.

Stevie couldn't bring herself to glance down, though she wanted to. She hooked her thumbs into the elastic of her panties, but couldn't bring herself to take them off, either. She looked up at him with silent appeal.

"That's good enough for now," he whispered taking her hand and pulling.her toward the bed.

He lay down on his back and pulled her on top of him. Cupping her head between his hands, he gave her a long, thorough kiss, sending his tongue deep into her mouth. His legs sawed restlessly against hers. One knee insinuated itself between her thighs and worked its way up until she was riding it.

With one hand, he began tugging her underpants down over her hips. Then he rolled her onto her back and removed them completely. His eyes swept her hungrily. His hands skimmed the surface of her body, touching her breasts, nipples, thighs, the cluster of curls covering her mound.

"Stevie," he mumbled thickly before levering himself above her and pressing his face into the cover of her shoulder.

"Judd?"

"Yes, sweetheart, right now.'

"Maybe you should know-"I do know, baby. Believe me, I do.' "I'm a virgin."

His head popped up. Eyes that had been foggy with passion came into sharp focus as instantly as a high-tech camera.

"A what?"

Even after she repeated the word, he stared at her with patent disbelief. Slowly he eased himself up, rolled over to his side and sat on the edge of the bed, keeping his back to her.

"God, I wish I hadn't quit smoking."

He rested his face in his hands, digging into his eye sockets with the pads of his fingers. Eventually he peered at her over his shoulder. She had self-consciously pulled the bedspread over her.

"How did you wind up a virgin?" She gazed at him with puzzlement. "I'll rephrase. Why, how, are you still a virgin?"

"Maybe you should have finished what you started in Stockholm."

"With Presley Foster breathing down my neck? No thanks. Did he scare off all your would-be lovers?"

"In fairness to him, no. I did. Not overtly," she added when he gave her a curious look. "I just never took the time to let anything develop.

Potential boyfriends always took second place to tennis."

"Second place isn't a healthy or desirable spot for a man's ego."

"So I discovered." She moistened her lips nervously. "I wouldn't have told you if I'd known you were going to stop."

"I wouldn't have gone so far if you had told me sooner."

"Does it matter that much?"

He laughed hoarsely, humorlessly. "Yeah, it matters. A lot."

"Why? I don't think it would have mattered in Stockholm."

"Maybe, maybe not. But in Stockholm I was young and stupid. Now I'm old and stupid. At least when you're young and stupid you've got an excuse for being stupid."

Stevie closed her eyes briefly, then she stretched out her arm and laid her hand on his bare shoulder. "Please, Judd, comeback."

Keeping his eyes averted, he stubbornly shook his head no. "I can't assume that responsibility, Stevie."

"It doesn't come with obligations."

"They're implied."

"Not to me."

"Tome."

"Please."

"I said no."

A small, strangled sob escaped her.

Judd's head snapped around. He saw her tears, saw the pleading in her eyes. Apparently they touched him in a way her temper tantrums could not. The resolution keeping his lips compressed and uncompromising deserted him. His features softened.

He lay down beside her again and drew her against him. "Don't cry, Stevie. Don't." Typically a cynic where women's tears were concerned, he held her close and kissed her brow with commiseration.

She nuzzled his naked chest, rubbing her face against the pelt of crinkling hair. "Please, Judd, make love to me while I'm still whole. I want it to be you."

Why?"

"Sentiment, maybe. Even though you doubt it, I know it would have happened in Stockholm if Presley hadn't stopped us." She touched his nipple with the tip of her tongue, licking it deftly, and pressed her palm against his hot, swollen flesh.

"Oh, baby," he moaned, threading his fingers up through her hair. "Stop."

"I don't want to stop."

"You've got to, or- "

"I want to be a complete woman once. Just once, Judd, please."

She dusted his chest with soft, airy kisses, swinging her head back and forth as she worked her way down. She kissed his stomach, then his belly, which was rapidly rising and falling. Her lips tracked the satiny stripe of hair that fanned out denser and coarser on his lower body. He was in a state of supreme agitation and had almost reached the point of no return when he closed his fingers around her head and raised it.

He rolled her to her back and leaned over her.

"Okay," he rasped breathlessly, "if you're sure."

"Absolutely sure." He nodded grimly.

Laughing, she touched the corners of his mouth.

"Your frown is death to my ego. You could look a little happier about it."

"I'm worried."

"I told you not to be. There are no strings attached."

"It isn't that."

"Then what?" Her eyes rounded and she gasped. "You do know how, don't you?" she asked teasingly.

"Yeah, I know how," he said, his intensity unchanged. "And hard and fast isn't the way to do it the first time. If you keep doing stuff like that…" He blew out a breath and shook his head as though to clear it. "I'm going to set the tempo.

Got that?"

She nodded obediently, though she wasn't sure she could keep such a rash promise when her blood was surging through her veins with a mix of want and wonder. She wasn't sure Judd could stick with the plan, either. His breathing wasn't any steadier than hers and his face was ruddy with arousal.

"Alright, kiss me," he instructed her huskily.

"Forget everything you've ever heard about technique. Kiss me the way you think a 'bad girl' would and we'll both have a much better time."

Taking his advice as a challenge, Stevie linked her arms around his neck and drew his head down. His open mouth met hers, and it was a melding of dual passions. His tongue probed the soft, wet heat of her mouth, sliding in and out, mating with her tongue, which then returned the favor to him, apparently to his satisfaction, for he groaned with pleasure and drew it deeper into his mouth.

His hands rubbed her back, then gradually pulled the bedspread from between them until they were lying naked face to face again. She felt the warm, smooth tip of his shaft against her belly. His thighs pressed against hers. Her breasts lay lush and full against his hard chest; her nipples nestled in the dark, curly hair.

All the sensations were exquisite. The contact with his raw masculinity made her feel wholly female. She wondered how she had survived this long without being intimately acquainted with his body.

And she realized at that moment that she was falling madly in love with her enemy.

Asking him to make love to her had little or nothing to do with Stockholm or with sentiment, or any other excuse she could have conjured up. She wanted to be with Judd, be a part of him, entirely, without reservation or inhibition.

It was as simple as that.

Though, actually, it wasn't simple at all. It was very complex. Too complex to muddle through while his mouth was inching down her throat.

He scooped her breast toward his descending mouth and sucked on the tip with strong, urgent tugging motions that touched off responsive chords in her womb. "Ah, Judd," she cried in ecstasy.

"You're sweet, Stevie. Very sweet." He moved to her other breast while his fingers caressed the nipple he'd just left wet and erect.

"Please," she gasped moments later as his tongue feathered one stiff crest. She thrust her hips forward, grinding them against his rigid manhood.

Moaning low, he smoothed one hand down her body and between her thighs. He caressed her gently, moving his fingers between the velvety folds. "Almost, but not quite," he told her, smiling gently into her face before lowering his head and kissing her stomach.

His hands stroked the insides of her thighs, urging them to separate, though without any hint of threat, coercion or violation. He nipped her skin lightly with his teeth and bathed her navel with his tongue.

She cried his name sharply when he kissed the cluster of pale curls between her thighs. Then his tongue, soft and inquisitive and agile, entered her. He kissed her deeply, again and again, until her head was thrashing on the pillow and her body was quickening to the strokes of his tongue.

Rapturously she submitted to the spirals of sensation that were winding her being tighter and tighter. At the height of her release, she clutched handfuls of his hair and gasped his name.

A film of perspiration had broken out on her face when he raised himself above her. He sipped at it while he positioned himself between her thighs and lifted her hips against his.

Holding her there, he pressed into her by slow degrees, letting her body gradually adjust to his hard length, so that by the time he was buried snugly inside her, the only difficulty either had experienced was in holding back the passion that demanded immediate fulfillment.

"You feel wonderful surrounding me," he whispered, softly kissing the lips she had bruised with her own teeth. He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, reveling in the ecstasy of being inside her. "You feel sensational."

She murmured his name in a breathy voice while her fingers ghosted lovingly over his face.

She was unaware of the tears that glistened in her eyes, but he saw them.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded her head quickly. "Yes, yes, yes."

"Well, I'm not," he said, baring his teeth.

"I'm about to die. But, God, it's a helluva way to go."

He began moving inside her, stroking her until they were both senseless and all that mattered was succumbing to the tumult of emotion that seized them. When they did, he pressed his forehead upon hers and chanted her name.

"Want me to-"

"No."

Judd chuckled. "You didn't let me finish.

"Whatever it is, I don't want you to do it because you'd have to move. And if you move, I'll have to," she said, yawning listlessly, "and I don't think I can."

Judd did move, but only to pull her into the circle of his arms and prop his chin on the top of her head. Stevie moved, too, curving her arm around his waist.

"Why did you taunt me on the tennis court this afternoon?" she asked.

"Because you were playing poorly, and the reason you were was that you didn't consider me a worthy opponent and, therefore, weren't putting forth any effort."

"I was playing poorly, yes, but not because I didn't consider you a worthy opponent."

"Then why?"

"My head wasn't in the game."

"Where was it?"

"Here."

"Here?" Judd angled his head back. "You mean here, like we are now?"

"Hmm."

"You just won't let me lie, will you?" he said around a resigned sigh. "In all honesty, that's the reason I was taunting you." Stevie lifted her head off his chest and looked up at him, her expression questioning. "Making love to you is all I've thought about since the other morning when we were interrupted."

"Me, too."

"All you had to do was ask, lady."

"I did."

He looked chagrined. "Oh, yeah, you did, didn't you? Well, you know what I mean."

Smiling, she returned her head to his chest and began idly plucking at the hairs tickling her nose.

"I can't believe I'm lying here like this with you, naked and sated. I've often thought that if I ever got you alone, I'd kill you slowly."

He placed his lips close to her ear. "If you hadn't come when you did and given me the green light, you might have succeeded." She giggled and gave his buttock a hard pinch. "Imagine the headlines," he went on, undaunted,

"'Famous Tennis Pro Screws Famous Sportswriter to Death.'"

"Will you behave? This is serious. I don't think you realize how badly your nasty articles have wounded me."

His soft laughter subsided. "Why didn't you just consider the source and blow them off?"

"Because almost everything you've written about me is true."

His hand ceased strumming her spine. He eased her off him, placed her on her back, and rolled to his side. Propped on one elbow and leaning over her, he asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Off-the-record?"

"In journalistic circles, when the interviewer is in bed with the interviews in a state of undress and sexual repletion, it's generally understood that whatever is said is unprintable."

"Oh. Thank you for clarifying that."

"You're welcome. Now quit stalling and run that by me again. What do you mean, everything I've written about you is the truth?"

"A lot of it was. You've often said that I don't belong on a tennis court. In a way, you're right, Judd. From the very beginning my father discouraged me from playing because tennis was 'a rich kid's sport.' I played anyway, but what he had said stuck with me. It gave me a complex. I wasn't like the other players. I wasn't as… as privileged.11 "That's nonsense."

"Maybe, but that sense of inferiority compelled me to prove myself. I had to work harder at it than anyone else, always playing catch-up. I was accepted into most clubs because of my ability on the court, not my pedigree.

"I always had to be better," she stressed, making an appeal for his understanding, "because acceptance depended on it. That's why, when I was financially able, I always dressed well and played up to the spectators. Don't you see, Judd? I was saying, 'Hey, look at me. I'm worthy of your attention.' I was desperate to win approval.

And, yes, sometimes I even resorted to being cute just to ensure that I wouldn't be ignored.

"You saw through all my machinations," she told him in a voice husky with emotion. "You had me pegged from the very beginning. Your columns struck terror in me because they were so incisive. I feared that if my insecurities were visible to you, they must be to everyone else. I'm the classic sufferer of the impostor syndrome.

You were my worst nightmare, the person who would expose me."

His eyes were fixed on her lower lip, but he wasn't contemplating its sexiness so much as he was arranging his own thoughts.

"If all that is true, Stevie, it was an accident.

If I tapped into your insecurities, it was by chance and had nothing to do with incisiveness.

Fact is, I took digs at you because I resented that a cute, young thing like you could do what you did so well and reach the pinnacle of your sport, when I'd had to fall back on writing about how others were doing what I wanted to do myself.

Hacking out that dumb column is a far cry from a career in professional baseball."

"It is not dumb," she said, laying a sympathetic hand along his cheek. "I only said it showed no talent or finesse because I was angry.

You've cultivated a faithful reading audience that wouldn't miss a single acerbic word. No writer can do that for any length of time unless there's substance behind his writing. Your readers aren't fools, you know."

"Thanks for the compliment." He finally surrendered to the temptation and kissed her lower lip. "But I know, deep down, that I haven't done a single worthwhile thing since I had that water-skiing accident."

His hazel eyes became dark and intent. "Not until I brought you here. Maybe I've redeemed myself for all the jealousy I've harbored against you." 'Jealousy?" 'Of you and every other pro who made it. I've been lashing out at all of you to some extent, but you were the easiest one to single out."

"Why?"

"Because you were atypical. You weren't muscle-bound and unattractive, which was my chauvinistic, narrow-minded opinion of what a professional woman athlete should look like.

"And," he added around a deep breath, "as long as I'm baring my soul, I might just as well go all the way. I was still miffed about Stockholm.

I wanted to go to bed with you, didn't get to, so I was sulking like the little boy who didn't get his candy. Maliciously I disparaged the very thing I desired. Pretty juvenile, huh?"

"Pretty human."

"You're being generous."

"I'm in a generous mood." She smiled up at him and drew a line down his nose with her fingertip.

"To prove just how generous, I'll forgive you every nasty word you've ever written about me on one condition."

"What?" he asked suspiciously.

She whisked a kiss across his lips. "Make love to me again."

"Stevie, we really shouldn't."

"Why not?"

He hesitated, which was a mistake. She took advantage of his indecision by sliding her hand down his middle and cupping the full heaviness of his manhood.

"We shouldn't because it might…uh-" he became hard beneath her rhythmic stroking "-might not be good for you," he finished lamely.

"I'll be the judge of that." Her lips nibbled at his chin, her teeth making scratching sounds against his stubble. Her hand became even more persuasive, her thumb lazily inquisitive. "Please, Judd," she breathed against his lips.

Moaning, he clasped her around the waist and pulled her on top of him. "Well, since you asked so nicely '

Insects gave up their lives against the windshield of Judd's stolen car. The gooey smudges they created made little difference to the thief who could barely see the markings on the interstate highway through her tears.

Stevie wiped her nose on her sleeve. After seventy-five miles she would have thought her supply of fresh tears would be exhausted, but it wasn't. Each time she thought of what she had left behind and the ordeal that she was facing, another hot, salty batch filled her red, swollen eyes.

She had left him and he'd been furious.

Even now, her heartache was overshadowed by the fear that Judd might somehow catch up with her. Glancing once over her shoulder as she had sped away from the farmhouse, she had glimpsed him, wearing only his underwear, running down the porch steps. His fist had been raised. He was cursing her and the rock that had gouged his bare heel.

It could have been a comic sight; it hadn't been. It had broken her heart, and it was still broken. She rather imagined that it would remain broken for a long time.

The skyline of Dallas was glittering and glitzy against the western horizon, deep indigo now in the waning dusk. In an hour she would be at her condominium, she calculated mentally. Allow an hour to make necessary phone calls and pack.

Then…

She refused to think beyond that. The only way she would get through this alone, without jeopardizing her sanity, would be to take it one step at a time. First things first. Getting home was first.

As she took the exit in the concrete labyrinth that connected one expressway to another, she permitted herself to reflect on their afternoon of lovemaking.

Judd, speaking softly and sexily. Judd, his hands instructive and sensuous, guiding her hips down over him. Judd, hard and full and smooth, filling her. Judd, his lips hungry, yet tender, on her breasts. Judd, Judd, Judd.

She dashed tears out of her eyes as she switched lanes cautiously, unaccustomed to driving a sports car with an engine powerful enough to fly an airplane. He would never forgive her for "borrowing" it without his permission.

He would never forgive her for leaving him stranded, either.

The farmhouse's old-fashioned bathtub had become a shrine in which they'd worshiped each other's bodies. Hands covered with soapy lather were the sexiest instruments ever employed to give carnal pleasure. Or was it that Judd just knew how to use them?

It had been a delight to discover that the undersides of her upper arms were particularly susceptible to open-mouthed kisses and that kisses to the backs of her knees left her weak.

Judd had a ticklish spot midway between his lowest rib and his right hipbone. He had a birthmark on his left shoulder blade, and he'd grown misty-eyed when she traced every inch of the ugly, jagged scars on his leg with her loving lips.

This has always been an object of fantasy for me, he had confessed, tugging lightly on her long, single braid.

Really?

Really.

How? He had only smiled mysteriously and demurred from telling her. Then show me.

Her seductive suggestion had turned his eyes smoky. When he acted out his fantasy with her full cooperation, their harmonious cries of fulfillment had echoed off the walls of the house.

That was the instant she knew unequivocally that she loved him, and her decision had dawned crystal clear. The solution to her dilemma had unexpectedly risen out of the murky depths of confusion and despair.

Life, in its simplest, most basic form was far more precious than any amenities it could afford, such as prizes and fame, respect and riches, the acceptance of either peers or strangers.

While Judd was still dressing, she had gone downstairs, ostensibly to prepare them a light supper. Instead she had grabbed her purse, taken his car keys, and left the house at a dead run, not so much because she feared his wrath over her deception and desertion, but because she feared that given time to think about it, she would change her mind.

She had got as far as the edge of the clearing before he ran out onto the porch, shouting after her, "What the hell? Stevie, come back. Where are you going?" Then, when he realized that she was escaping in their only means of transportation, he'd become furious.

"Damn you, what kind of stunt is this? Ouch!

Hell!" Livid, he had cursed when he stepped on the stone. "When I catch up to you, I'll strangle you for this. Dammit," he had sworn, slamming one fist into his other palm.

Her condominium was dark. She was relieved to see that there was no one lurking about. Either the news hounds and merely curious had tired of their siege or had given up on Stevie Corbett altogether.

Her plants needed her immediate attention.

She chided herself for forgetting to call the service that took care of them in her absence and vowed to do so at her earliest convenience, though God knew when that would be.

Her first telephone call went to her gynecologist, who was so glad to hear from her that he was nearly incoherent with relief.

"If I don't do it now, I might change my mind." She spoke so quickly that the words stumbled over each other. "I can be there in an hour. Can you make the arrangements that soon?"

He promised he could and would. The next call she made was to her manager.

"Stevie, thank God. I've been frantic."

"I needed time alone to think." She hadn't been alone, but Judd was too complicated to explain, even to herself. "I'm checking into the hospital tonight. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning."

A significant pause ensued. "It's your decision, of course," he said.

"Yes, it is. My life is in the balance. That's more important than a career."

"Hey, it's only Wimbledon," he said with false cheer. "They have it every year. Next year it belongs to you."

They both knew better, but Stevie tried to inject enthusiasm into her voice when she said,

"You'd better believe it."

He promised to notify everyone concerned and to issue a statement to the press, which had been having a field day speculating on her whereabouts.

"That's fine, but hold off until tomorrow after the surgery, okay? No matter what the outcome, we'd just as well tell them everything at once." He agreed before hanging up.

After the connection was broken, Stevie felt terribly alone. The silence in her house was depressing, so accustomed was she to hearing the pecking noise of Judd's typewriter in the background.

The framed photos on the walls, picturing her holding aloft trophies of victory, seemed to jeer at her. Memorabilia of her career mocked her from bookshelves and etageres. The prize from The French Open, so recently acquired, no longer seemed to belong to her.

"Too late to reconsider now," she reminded herself as she went into her bedroom and began packing a small suitcase. Then, like a prayer, she whispered, "Stevie, your life is in God's hands."

God had a lot of helpers.

At least there were innumerable people who got their hands on her before she ever made it to the operating room the following morning. By then she had been stripped of all dignity and privacy.

Leaving Judd's car locked in her garage-it wouldn't do to have it stolen twice in one day- she was conveyed to the hospital by taxi.

In Admittance, she had to attach her signature to an endless number of insurance forms, as well as to a note to Jennifer. "My twelve-year-old daughter wants to grow up and be exactly like you," the star-struck receptionist told her.

From there she was taken to be x-rayed.

Wearing nothing except a paper poncho, she was placed in a room as cold as a meat locker and instructed to wait, which she did for over an hour before an unapologetic technician came in to x-ray her lungs.

"There, that wasn't that bad, was it?" another technician asked as he slipped the syringe from her vein, from which he'd drawn what looked like a quart of blood. "You can relax now," he said, working her fingers out of the tight fist she'd formed. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," she replied gruffly. "I just don't like needles."

She was finally placed in a private room, but was granted little privacy. A stiff, no-nonsense nurse came swishing in with a sheaf of yet more forms to be signed. "They showed you the video tape downstairs?" she asked dispassionately.

"Did you understand it?"

"Yes." The tape had explained all the things that could go wrong during abdominal surgery, each possibility more terrifying, irreversible and deadly than the last.

"Sign here, here and here."

The hospital chaplain came in next. "You're the celebrity in our midst," he said, flashing a glorious smile. After discussing the best remedy for tennis elbow, they bowed their heads over their clasped hands. He prayed for the skilled surgeon and her full, rapid recovery.

Stevie prayed for Judd's stone-bruised heel, forgiveness for stealing his car, protection from strangulation when he caught up with her and for a lawsuit against the hospital on her behalf if she should die on the operating table. She thought somebody should hold the institution accountable even if she'd signed forms absolving it of responsibility.

Her gynecologist came in next and explained the surgical procedure. "If the tumors are be nign, and I have every reason to believe that they are, we'll remove them and you'll be as good as new." 'And if they're not?"

"Probably a complete hysterectomy, followed by treatment."

"What kind of treatment? Radiation?"

He patted her hand. "Let's get through the surgery first. Then if we have to discuss options, we will."

The anesthesiologist, who disturbingly reminded her of Count Dracula because of his steep widow's peak, came in and sat down on the edge of her bed. "First thing in the morning, you'll be given a sedative. We'll put in two IVs, one in your arm, the other on the back of your hand."

"I don't like needles," she said in a choked voice.

"I promise to send in my painless assistant. By the time you reach the operating room, you'll be drowsy. Sleep well tonight."

Sleep well? What a joke. She was cleansed from the inside out-a humiliating experience- and given a shot to make her sleepy. She refused anything to eat, even though it had been lunchtime that day since she'd had a bite.

Didn't any of these efficient ghouls realize that she couldn't possibly go to sleep without the distant and reassuring sound of Judd's typewriter?

But he was miles away, stranded in the farmhouse.

What if it caught fire and he couldn't get away? What if it began raining hard enough to cause a flash flood and he had no means of escaping high water? She tortured herself with hideous possibilities.

She must have slept, however, because when she was awakened by a smiling nurse, she was dreaming that Judd was chasing her with a foot-long hypodermic needle that was shaped like a tennis racquet, laughing maniacally and sneering that he'd teach her the consequences of stealing his car.

In a remarkably short time, she was prepped for surgery and, feeling like a pitifully abused pincushion, wheeled into the operating room.

Where last night the hours had seemed to drag by, now everything accelerated to a rapid clip that panicked her. The surgeon squeezed her hand reassuringly and smiled from behind his mask.

"Everything is going to be fine, Stevie. Just relax now. Take deep breaths and start counting backward from ten."

Ten. She wanted to halt things. Nine. She needed more time to think. Eight. She needed Judd. Seven…

She weighed ten thousand pounds and these morons were ordering her to scoot across the bed. "That's it, roll to your other side, Miss Corbett. No, don't pull on your IVs. Just relax your arm. That's fine. Right there. Your operation is over."

"Is her catheter in?"

"Yes."

"Isn't her hair pretty?"

"Hmm. Ever seen her play?"

"Are you kidding? I can't afford the tickets."

"I meant on TV. Miss Corbett, did you hear me? Your operation is all over."

Clatter and clank of metal. Jarring motion.

Light. So much light. Too bright. Telephones and activity and racket. Why didn't they just be still and quiet and let her sleep?

"Time to turn over again, Miss Corbett."

A groan. Her groan. No, don't make me move. A monster in green scrubs was insisting that she cough.

"Cough, Miss Corbett. Come on now. You've got to cough to clear your lungs." Let them stay clogged. "Miss Corbett. Cough."

She made a feeble attempt just so they'd leave her alone. Her reward was to have something very cold crammed between her thighs. "… to keep the swelling down." Someone jarred her bed again. Klutzes. They were all klutzes.

Her hand was tucked beneath the nurse's arm while she pumped the bulb of the blood pressure gauge. "That's good." The binding pressure around her arm was removed. "Miss Corbett, we've got to change your ice pack now."

"A drink?" Her mouth was sprouting cotton.

"You can have an ice chip."

A spoon, cold and hard, was crammed against her teeth, jarring her whole body. Precious ice.

She sucked greedily.

"There, just that one. Turn over."

"I can't."

"Sure you can. Cough for me again."

"No." 'Cough,' She did. "Good girl. And here's a fresh ice pack.'

Thanks for nothing. My thighs are already numb.

"… can't come in here!! "I'm in."

Stevie was aroused by the familiar voice, but opening her eyelids was nigh to impossible. Had they weighted them down with something, fifty-cent pieces like they did corpses in Western movies?

"Visitors are only allowed in Recovery every odd hour at ten till. That's the rule."

He told her what she could do with her rule and his suggestion wasn't very nice. "I'm going to see her whether you like it or not."

"I'm calling security."

"Stevie?"

"Judd?" she croaked.

"I'm here, baby."

A strong, warm hand clasped hers. She whispered,

"Are you going to strangle me?"

"There he is, officer. He's not supposed to come in until ten till the hour."

"Later, baby."

A soft whisk of his lips across her forehead then he was gone.

It was probably just another bizarre dream.

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

"You took out everything even potentially dangerous?"

"Everything."

The doctor noticed that his patient's eyes were open and that she was solemnly regarding him and her disheveled visitor.

"You're doing fine, Stevie," he told her with his bedside smile firmly in place. "I know the recovery room is rough, but they'll be moving you to your room soon. Are you up to having a visitor?" She nodded. The doctor touched Judd on the shoulder. "Remember, only ten minutes.

Don't get thrown out again."

Judd wasn't listening. His gaze was fixed on Stevie's face. He bent over her, careful not to dislodge any of the tubes. "I had to fight my way in here. I hope you appreciate it."

"How'd you find me?"

"I put Addison on your trail. I phoned him from a truck stop on the interstate. Ramsey wouldn't accept a collect call from me, the s.o.b., so I had to borrow change from the trucker I had hitched a ride with. He even felt so sorry for me that he bought me a cup of coffee, too. Turned out that he's based in Dallas and is an avid reader of my column. For his trouble, I promised him a season pass to the Mavericks' games."

She tried to follow the explanation, but it was far too complicated. "Addison?"

Smiling over her confusion, Judd said softly,

"I'll tell you about it later. There's almost enough material there for another novel."

She tried to moisten her lips with her tongue, but her mouth was still too dry even though she had been allowed a few more ice chips. "Judd, what about my operation?"

He drew a more serious expression, leaned in closer, and when he spoke, it was in a raspy, confidential voice. "I might have known you were just showing off, pulling one of your cuteisms for the benefit of the crowd. Much ado about nothing."

"What was?"

"Your tumors. All those headlines and hoopla over a bunch of benign tumors." His tone was chastising, but there was a telltale moisture in his eyes.

'Benign?" 'Harmless little critters. Every last one of them."

She closed her eyes. Tears leaked from them.

He brushed them away with the pad of his thumb. "They're sure?" she asked.

"If your gynecologist and the finest pathologist in Dallas know their stuff, it's a sure thing you're cured."

"Then they didn't have to do a hysterectomy?"

"If you discount your right ovary."

"They had to remove an ovary?"

He shrugged. "Inconsequential when you consider that everything else is intact and functioning.

Oh, and while they were there, they took out your appendix. I told them I didn't think you'd mind."

"Judd," she whispered, tears of gladness bathing her cheeks.

"Hey, stop blubbering or that bitch of a nurse will have me kicked out again for disturbing the peace."

"You shouldn't have come."

"Those proverbial wild horses couldn't have kept me away."

Stevie sniffed back her tears. "I'm sorry I stole your car."

"What the hell? It really belongs to the bank more than it does to me anyway. Are you feeling okay?"

Laughing was out of the question, but she smiled. "I've got needles in my arm and hand, metal clamps holding my belly together, I can't even tee-tee on my own and I'm straddling an ice pack. They make me cough every so often, though I'm sure it rips out all my stitches. In short, I feel terrible."

"Not as terrible as I felt before I found out where you had gone. If you ever run out on me without an explanation again, I'll tan your hide."

She ignored the edict. "Did you write today?"

"Write?" he asked incredulously. "Stevie, I've been stalking the corridors of this hospital like a wild man waiting for you to come out of the anesthesia."

"You should've been home writing. Chapter seven needs work."

"Yeah, I know. It's dragging in-" He broke off. His eyebrows formed a fearsome V. "How in hell do you know what chapter seven needs?"

"I've been reading your novel."

"Since when?"

"Since you started it." She wanted to touch him badly, but couldn't find the wherewithal to raise her hand. "It's wonderful. Truly."

She felt the postoperative medication luring her back into oblivion. Before she succumbed, there was something she had to say. "Judd, I love you."

He took her hand and held it against his lips after pressing a fervent kiss on the backs of her fingers. "I figured that out when you decided to go for life instead of the Grand Slam. Want to know the real corker? I love you, too."

Smiling wryly, he realized that she'd drifted back to sleep. He regretted that she hadn't heard his first profession of love, but that was okay.

He would still be there when she woke up.

Thank you.

"Thank you," the attractive young woman gushed. "I can't wait to read it. If it's half as good as your picture on the dust jacket, I'll be thoroughly entertained."

Judd glanced up at his wife, who was glaring at the gum-popping, high-strutting, miniskirted ingenue through slitted brown eyes. When they ventured back to her husband, he gave her a helpless shrug that was at odds with his smile, which defined masculine complacency.

"Mrs. Mackie, the line outside the door just keeps getting longer," the manager of the Manhattan bookstore said. "Mr. Mackie is going to be busy signing books for quite some time.

Would you care to sit down?'

'I'm fine for now, but thank you."

He glanced at her shyly. "Would it be presumptuous of me to ask for your autograph, too."

"Not at all," she returned with a smile.

He produced a pad and pen. "I saw you play at the U.S. Open once."

"Did I win?"

"You lost in the quarter finals, but it was a close match."

Stevie only laughed.

"You're semiretired now, isn't that right?"

"I don't play competitive tennis anymore, but I'm busy organizing some instructional clinics."

"So I've heard. For underprivileged children, aren't they?"

After six months of recuperation following her surgery, her gynecologist had given her the go-ahead on any project she wanted to tackle.

Her brainstorm, which she had considered from every angle during her convalescence, had won Judd's hearty approval. He'd helped publicize the idea locally through his column in the Tribune. As a result, donations to support the project had poured in. .

The original clinic in Dallas had received so many accolades that other cities had approached Stevie to organize similar programs for them. There were now Stevie Corbett Tennis Clinics nationwide, catering specifically to players who couldn't afford club memberships.

"The clinics are community supported and open to anyone who shows up wanting instruction," she said in response to the bookseller's question.

"Doesn't your husband mind sharing you with such a time-consuming undertaking?"

"Not at all. He understands my need to work.

Besides, he's been busy himself."

"I understand that his daily column is now in syndication and that he's already at work on a second novel."

"That's right."

"What's it about?"

She gave the man a sweet smile. "I'm sworn to secrecy. You'll have to wait along with all his other fans."

There was a long line of them snaking out the door and down the sidewalk. Stevie watched as one elbowed his way through the crowd until he reached the table where Judd was autographing copies of his book. He introduced himself as a book editor for the Times.

"Can I have a minute, Mr. Mackie?"

"Nope," Judd said amicably, pointing down the line of people waiting to meet the author of the new best-seller. "But I can talk and sign at the same time. Ask away."

"Is the novel autobiographical?"

"Parts of it."

"Which parts?"

"In deference to my family and friends, I can't answer that question. I will admit that, as a young man, I wanted more than anything to play professional baseball. I was denied the chance.

For years afterward, I harbored a lot of bitterness and carried a chip on my shoulder the size of Mount Everest." He closed the book he'd just signed, handed it to the customer and smiled a welcome to the next person in line. "Hi."

As he scrawled a brief message and his signature, he continued. "I was disenchanted with life, so I could relate to the protagonist in this book, who had also suffered a bitter disappointment."

"What changed your personal outlook?" the reporter asked.

Judd's gaze found Stevie's across the crowded bookstore. He saw her eyes shining back at him.

"I met somebody with real guts. She taught me through example that life is damn sure worth living even with all its drawbacks, and that sometimes we have to suffer a defeat in order to recognize a victory."

A sunny smile broke across Stevie's face. But it was immediately replaced by an expression of alarm. The alarm was telegraphed to Judd, who dropped his pen onto the table and left his position behind it.

He crossed the store in three strides and pressed his wife's hands between his. "Stevie, is something wrong?"

"Not at all, darling. Go back to work."

"Mr. Mackie," the bookstore manager said nervously, "people are waiting."

"I'll be right back," Judd told him, drawing Stevie down the narrow aisle toward the back of the store.

"But…but you can't leave now. Where are you going?" he sputtered. "What'll I tell the customers?"

'Tell them that I've been signing books for two hours and I have to take a leak. I'm sure they'll understand."

He left the bookseller, the reporter and those customers close enough to hear his statement gaping speechlessly as he pulled Stevie past the overloaded bookshelves into a rear storeroom that was even more cramped than the store proper.

"What's the matter?" he demanded the second the door closed behind them.

'Nothing." 'I saw your face, Stevie. You look like I do every time you playfully grab my-"

"Judd! People will hear you."

"I don't care. I want to know what brought on that expression that made you look like you'd just been goosed."

From the day they had returned to the east Texas farmhouse following her surgery, he constantly wanted to be apprised of the state of her health. Only after she'd had a normal menstrual cycle did he begin to believe the doctor's positive prognosis. But he had never totally relaxed his vigilance where her health was concerned.

"I knew I shouldn't have listened when you begged to come along today," he said now, berating himself for letting her persuade him. "Let me put you in a cab back to the hotel.'' "Forget it, Mackie. I love watching people adore you, because I adore you so much myself."

She gave him a soft kiss. "Besides, I refuse to stay cooped up in that stuffy little room while you're out getting ogled by every woman you meet."

"Not every woman," he replied with the insufferable conceit she now found so endearing.

She linked her arms around his neck and moved in close. "You're incorrigible. Why do I love you so much?"

"How can you help yourself? What's not to love?" Slipping his hands to the small of her back he drew her even nearer and angled his parted lips over hers.

"Mackie, you've got people waiting."

"Let them wait."

He kissed her thoroughly, using his tongue to search the sweet recesses of her mouth. Their hunger for each other hadn't abated a single degree.

Judd often joked that he was probably the only husband in history who'd had to wait twelve weeks after the wedding to consummate his marriage. Stevie would retort that he had only himself to blame since he'd insisted on bringing a minister to the farmhouse to marry them while she was convalescing and that, once he'd gotten her gynecologist's okay, he had certainly made up for all the lost time.

"Hmm, delicious," he said now, lifting his lips off hers at last, "I've been craving-" He broke off suddenly. His expression went completely blank.

Stevie began to laugh softly. "Now who looks like he's been goosed?"

"What the hell was that?"

"That," she said, taking his hand and moving it down to her swollen abdomen, "is our baby, moving for the first time."

Judd's adam's apple slid up and down his neck when he swallowed hard. "Oh, Geez," he groaned, "I knew I should have insisted that you stay in the room. I knew this would be too tiring.

Standing up on this damn hard floor brought this on. Why aren't you sitting down?"

Happiness bubbled out of her in the form of soft laughter. "Will you calm down? It's normal.

It's right on time. The doctor told me on my last visit to be watching for movement. There it is again. Feel it?" They waited expectantly, but nothing happened. "I guess he went back to sleep."

"Unfortunately," Judd said thickly, "touching you has brought me wide awake." He nudged her with his middle so she couldn't possibly mistake his meaning. "I'm a lucky cuss. Married to the sexiest prego broad on earth."

"Have I ever told you that you really have a romantic way with words?"

"No."

"Good."

It was a word game they often played. He was smiling at her wit as his hands skimmed past her thickened waistline and moved up to her breasts.

Over the past few weeks they'd grown larger with her advancing pregnancy. "Tender?" he asked as he massaged them through her dress.

"Not as long as you're doing that."

He swept his thumbs across her nipples; they didn't disappoint him. "God, I love you. You came along when I needed you most." He swallowed hard again, this time with emotion.

"Every time I think about your surgery and what could have been…" He let the unbearable thought go unspoken.

"But it wasn't, and we are blessed with each other." Again they kissed, putting behind it the love that brimmed in their hearts.

"Judd, it's happening again!" she said excitedly.

She guided his hand down to her tummy and they smiled radiantly at each other as the child of their creation moved within her.

"Does it hurt?" he whispered.

"No," she whispered back.

There was a knock on the door. "Mr. Mackie, the crowd is getting testy."

"What does it feel like?" Judd asked his wife, ignoring the panicked bookseller and keeping his voice low and stirring.

"It feels marvelous. It makes me feel alive and wonderful. 'Victorious. Almost as good as I feel every time you're inside me."

Judd laid his lips against hers and growled,

"I've gotta go for now, Mrs. Mackie, but hold that thought."