Just For Kicks

He was anxious to see his folks, but this crazy idea of his mother’s would never work. Had he been able to convince her of that over the phone, however? Hell, no.

He damn well would, though—just as soon as he had a chance to talk to her in person. Meanwhile, she and Dad were dragging his nephew Niklaus here for no good reason.

That wasn’t his mother’s take on the situation, of course. And Wolf did see the disadvantage of Niklaus having to pull up stakes yet one more time. The mere thought made his jaw tighten because he’d been there and done that himself. Just how many changes of address would this make for his parents, anyhow? He’d personally lost track of the number of times they’d moved by the time he was eleven. His dad, then an American G.I., had met his future wife in Stuttgart in the late sixties. He’d promptly married her, and by the time Wolf was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, four years later, his parents had already lived on two different bases. His sister, Katarina, had been born in Camp Zama, Japan, and by the middle of elementary school Wolf had also lived in Heidelberg, Germany, and Shape-Chievres, Belgium, as well as on two or three American bases, the names of which he no longer even recalled. He’d had several additional stateside bases under his belt by the time the old man finally retired from the service.

Not that the traveling had stopped then. Oh, no. His father—

“Hey, son!”

—was striding down the concourse toward him. Wrenching his thoughts out of the past, Wolf watched his dad approach and felt the same confused mixture of emotions the older man had always brought out in him: the helpless love that warmed Wolf’s heart; the disquieting desire for his father’s attention; the simmering resentment that never failed to churn in his gut.

Tall and loose-limbed, Rick Jones walked right up to him and looped a wiry arm around his shoulders, pulling him in for a hug and a manly slap on the back. Wolf caught a faint whiff of beer on his breath, then it was gone as his father pushed him back to hold him at arm’s length.

“Look at you!” Rick said. “You look the picture of success! Are you getting everything you ever dreamed of all those years moping around the embassies?”

“I’m working on it.” If his voice was a little stiff, well, blame it on the raft of memories inundating him. Memories of all the official quarters of the ambassador he’d been dragged to as a teenager, following Rick’s retirement from the army. Of always being viewed as a loser from the wrong side of those embassy doors simply because his old man had been the supply officer rather than an administrative aide or an ambassador. Recollections of the desire that had been born inside of him for something more, something that would put him squarely on the right side of those doors.

He shook the memories aside. “Where’s Mom and Niklaus?”

“They’re coming. All the soda the kid drank on the plane caught up with him, and you know your mother. She doesn’t think anyone can find their way anywhere without her help.”

Or maybe she thinks that Niklaus shouldn’t have to make his way alone through a strange airport.

“She’s been dying to see you, you know,” Rick continued. “What’s it been, cub? Two years? Three?”

Cub. Images of his father flickered across his mind’s screen, faded films of a much younger Rick tossing him up in the air and catching him, tossing him and catching him again while Wolf shrieked with laughter. He heard an echo of his dad’s voice saying, “How’s my little wolf cub? You been a good boy for your mama?”

Then the images were supplanted by the vision of Rick being gone, even when there was no reason for him to be. Of him always being absent when he was needed most. “It’s been a little over two years,” he said coolly. “The last time was in Santiago, when I came down to visit you and Mom.”

“Wolfgang?”

He turned at the sound of his mother’s voice, warmth washing over him at the retained accents of her native Bavaria. That hadn’t changed even after years and years of stateside military postings. Plump and rosy cheeked, dressed in her usual style-free sturdy clothing, she bustled past the security checkpoint. A lanky teen he could only assume was Niklaus slouched in her wake, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Good God, had it really been that long since Wolf had last seen him? The boy he remembered had grown from a chubby-cheeked youngster into a teenager with the Joneses’ long bones and skyscraper height. The only things that still looked familiar were Niklaus’s shiny brown, stick-straight hair and his hazel-green eyes.

Wolf’s mother shot Rick a chastising look. “You might have waited, Richard,” she said with her usual brisk sternness.

But then her eyes turned softly upon her son, and dimples appeared in her cheeks when she smiled at Wolf. She held her plump hands out to him. “Hallo, Liebling.” Stopping in front of him, she rose onto her toes to enfold him in her arms.

He hugged her tightly in return, inhaling the familiar scent of vanilla. Maria Jones may never have been as much fun as his father, but she had been the one constant in his life, a steady and reliable guiding light. “Guten tag, Mom. Willkommen.” Over her shoulder he met his nephew’s gaze. “Hey, Niklaus. It’s good to see you.”

The teen grunted.

Maria released him and stepped back, reaching to brush her hands over his lapels. “Look at you in this beautiful suit! You look so successful, so handsome.” Grasping his hand, she gave it a tug. “Let’s go collect our luggage. I’m anxious to see your home.”

He ushered them through Baggage Claim and out to the lot where he’d left his car. Rick exclaimed over the Ford coupe and even Niklaus’s eyes lit up, although he was playing it much too cool to actually say he thought the street rod was a righteous ride.

Fifteen minutes later they pulled into Wolf’s garage at the condo complex and piled out of the car. Niklaus waited impatiently for Wolf to open the trunk, then dug through a large duffel bag and extracted a soccer ball. Bouncing it with casual expertise from one knee to the next, he looked over at his grandmother. “I’m gonna go check out the pool, Gram.”

“There are a couple of pools on the grounds,” Wolf told him then pointed out his building. “We’re in that unit in 301 when you’re ready to come in.”

The teen shrugged and let the ball drop, then kicked it back up with the side of his foot. Snatching it out of the air, he tucked it beneath his arm and walked away without another word.

Maria watched him go, a worried pucker tugging her eyebrows together, and Rick slung his arm around her.

“He’ll be fine,” he said breezily.

Wolf wasn’t so sure. He’d been in Nik’s shoes. He, too, had been dragged from pillar to post, but at least he’d had his mother’s steady presence to anchor him. The only thing he could think to say to alleviate her obvious concern was “I’ll get your bags.” And that was pretty damn weak.

She turned to him. “No, Liebling, leave them. We’re staying at a hotel.”

“Don’t be silly, Mom. I’ve got room, if Niklaus doesn’t mind bunking down on the couch.”

“I told him we’d stay at Circus Circus,” she said, and gave a helpless little shrug that wasn’t at all like her. “I thought it might…help this latest upheaval when we tell him….” She trailed off, then straightened her shoulders and handed him the carry-on case she’d had with her. “I made you a kuchen.”

“Aw, Mom.” It was so quintessentially Maria. No bakeries for his mother. She made her cakes from scratch, and she provided one for every occasion—even if that meant packing it from one continent to another. Carrying the case with the same care she’d no doubt given it the past three thousand miles, he escorted her up to his condo.

Once inside the foyer, he paused to glance over his shoulder at his father, who was bringing up the rear. “So you’re going into business as a beer garden proprietor, huh?” He carefully kept his voice neutral. “That seems appropriate.”

Maria, who had already disappeared into the depths of his apartment, stepped back around the foyer wall and gave him a warning glance. “I’ll not have you sassing your father, Wolfgang,” she warned him austerely, then took the carry-on bag from his hands and disappeared behind the wall again, no doubt to give his kitchen a thorough inspection.

“I’m not, I’m stating a fact. It strikes me as a good fit.” And it did. His dad was a party animal and always had been. Wolf’s earliest truths growing up had been that when Mom said nein, she meant nein, that the army was superior to any other branch of the United States military and that if Rick wasn’t out of the country on active duty, then he could usually be found at the NCO club with his fellow brothers-in-arms. After his dad’s retirement from the service, the only thing that had changed about the latter was the name of the establishment and the fact that his new cronies weren’t necessarily military. Every time Rick had moved the family to a new embassy, the first thing he’d done was locate a local watering hole where he could go knock back a few and socialize.

“Leave the boy alone, Maria,” Rick said. “He’s right, this will be the perfect fit for me.” He turned to Wolf, all enthusiasm and charm. “Let me dig out my photos while your mom puts on the coffee, cub, and I’ll show you what we’re getting. Rothenburg is a fantastic town, and the Donisl is the prettiest little establishment you’ve ever seen.”

“I’d like to see those, Dad,” Wolf said. “But first we need to discuss Niklaus.”

“Yeah, sure,” Rick agreed. But he headed for the door with a brisk stride. “I’ll just leave you to talk that over with your mother.” And he walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind him.

Wolf swallowed the bitterness that surged up his throat as he strode into the living room. “Well, that’s typical,” he said with what he considered admirable mildness.

His mother, who had located his coffeemaker and was busy scooping grounds into the basket, gave him a level look. “It is well past time, Wolfgang Richard, for you to—how do the Americans put it?—cut your father some slack.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Has he ever stuck around for the tough discussions? No,” he answered without awaiting her input. “He goes out and he has fun. Hell, even at work, he turned it into one big party, instead of applying himself to—” He cut himself off.

Too late, as it turned out, for Maria’s eyes narrowed and she pointed an autocratic finger at one of the stools bellied-up to the breakfast bar.

Wolf sat.

She stood across the counter from him. “I am tired of you looking down your nose at your father because he wasn’t some big, important executive. We’re both sorry that you felt such pain over being on the wrong side of the social divisions that run rampant in so many of the embassies. But there is no shame in hard work, and that’s what your father put into being a supply clerk. He was good at it, and God bless him if he had fun with it at the same time.”

“Yeah, God bless him.” Wolf swallowed the snort he felt crowding his throat. “He had fun. But what about you, Mom? Where were you in all this? Besides left behind all the time to be the disciplinarian and taskmaster.”

“Has it never occurred to you, Wolfgang, that a woman doesn’t stay with a man for thirty-eight years without knowing what she’s getting into? I liked being in charge. It’s my nature to be the disciplinarian and taskmaster.”

“But when do you get to have a good time?”

“What makes you think I don’t? More important, when do you ever have fun?” Her eyes held a deep sadness as she gazed at him. “You have beautiful suits and an important career. But you’re thirty-four years old and you have no wife, no kinders. You don’t even have a pet. This course you’ve set for yourself doesn’t seem to be making you particularly happy.”

He leaned forward. “But I will be, Mom. I’ve got a plan, and I’m getting close to accomplishing it. It’s just a matter of putting everything together. When that’s done, then I’ll be happy.”

“Aw, Liebling. Happiness isn’t a goal for the future. It’s what should be sustaining you while you’re working toward your objectives. You’re half American, for the good Lord’s sake. The pursuit of happiness is one of your inalienable rights.”

She was wrong. Happiness was what he’d be rewarded with down the road for all the hard work he was putting in now. It was what he’d attain once he got everything right.

But Maria was his mother, and one didn’t tell one’s mother that she was wrong. Instead, thinking about his nephew and the insane idea she had come up with for the teen’s care, he changed the subject.

“You do know that this plan of yours to have Niklaus stay with me is impossible, don’t you?” he demanded gently. All right, perhaps that equated to telling her she was wrong. Still, the idea was crazy, a crippled jet fore-ordained to crash and burn. “I work nights, Mom—long nights. Nik’s not going to be any better off in Sin City with no one to supervise him.”

“He’ll be much better off having the influence of a stable man in his life, even if the situation isn’t ideal. Katarina can’t continue shuttling him aside whenever she has a new man or some other enthusiasm-of-the-moment in her life, only to come swooping back to interrupt the new routine he’s managed to make for himself once she remembers again that she is a mother. And I have no doubt that our offer for the biergarten in Rothenburg will be accepted. That means dragging him to Germany, Wolf. He’s headed for trouble already and I’m scared to death another move—this time to a foreign country—will be the final nudge to push him right into the thick of it. We have to head that off before it’s too late.”

“How is he headed for trouble?”

“By—how do you say it?—suspending out with some undesirable young people.”

He had to think that through for a moment. “Hanging out, you mean?”

“Yes, that is the expression. Niklaus is a good boy, but how much longer will he remain one without a strong man to help guide his life? He needs you, Wolfgang. He desperately needs a home that doesn’t get uprooted every nine or ten months.” Reaching across the table, she laid her manicure-free, work-worn hand over his and looked beseechingly into his eyes. “Please.”

Aw, hell. His mother had provided him with the only security he’d ever known, and she had never before asked a thing from him in return. “Fine,” he agreed less than graciously. “But I’m probably not going to be in Las Vegas much longer myself, so his routine is still going to be shot to kingdom come.”

“But you’ve been in this job for two years,” Maria said, her forehead furrowing. “And you just bought this beautiful condominium. That seems pretty settled to me.”

“I’ve been in Security and Surveillance at the Avventurato for almost three years, but I’ve moved up the ladder as far as I can go there because my boss isn’t planning on retiring any time soon. And although I’ve freelanced at a couple other casinos who like my work, I don’t plan on spending the rest of my life in this town. As for the condo, I’m subletting from a guy who took a job in the Middle East. I was unhappy with my old place and this unit had sat empty for so long that he was happy to sign a contract saying I could give a month’s notice at any time. Which I plan to do just as soon as my dream job comes through. So I don’t see where this move will be doing Niklaus any favors.”

Not that he wouldn’t take the kid with him when he went, of course, but he felt no need to verbalize the fact since his mother knew him well enough to understand that that was a given without having to be told. Still, it would be yet one more case of Niklaus having to pull up stakes and move in a long succession of them. Wolf knew only too well what that was like.

He gave Maria a sober look across the table and shook his head. “I’ll do it, Mom, and I’ll try my damnedest to do a good job. But if I were you, I wouldn’t look for Niklaus to be thanking us any time soon.”

YOU GOT THAT RIGHT , Niklaus thought furiously, digging his tense shoulder blades into the six-paneled wood of the entry door he’d quietly shut behind him. He had stood there long enough to overhear most of the conversation, and betrayal bit like a rabid dog deep in his gut. Grandma Maria—the one person he’d always felt he could count on—had failed to mention when she’d come to collect him from his and Mom’s latest home in Evansville, Indiana, that he wasn’t coming home with her and Grandpa Rick. Not that he’d been all that crazy about the idea of living in Bolivia, where Grandpa was currently stationed, but at least with Grandma he felt safe.

He gripped the black-and-white soccer ball to his hip with a force that drove the blood from his fingertips. His free hand fisted tightly at his side and tears burned like acid behind his eyelids.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. I am not going to cry, he vowed with silent ferocity. I’m seventeen years old—or near enough, anyhow—and I will not goddamn cry like a baby.

He forced his shoulders to relax and pried his fingers loose of the fist they’d formed, shaking his hand out. What the hell. What was another fucking move? It wasn’t like he and his mom hadn’t been flitting from place to place, anyway, for as long as he could remember. He must have been—what?—twelve, thirteen years old when he’d first realized he was probably more mature than Katarina would ever be.

He’d known forever, though, that Grandma Maria was in his corner, that she would always be there for him when Mom got particularly flaky. He never had to be the grown-up in the group when he was with her. Yet here she was, suddenly fobbing him off on his uncle. What the hell kind of bullshit was that?

And because of his friends? Sure, they dressed kind of Goth, had lots of piercings and tattoos, and occasionally smoked a little weed that one of them managed to score. But they were just regular kids, and at least with them he didn’t have to be the everything’s-okay-so-don’t-you-worry-about-me happy camper the adults liked to believe he was.

If he had known Grandma Maria was going to dump him on Wolfgang, however, he might have attempted to bridge the gap between his friends and her during the week she and Grandpa Rick had spent with them while Mom was packing up to move in with her newest asshole boyfriend. Too late now, though. He’d expected this to be a quick stop to see his uncle Wolf and stay in a cool Las Vegas hotel for a few days before continuing on to Grandpa’s La Paz embassy. Instead, he was being dumped on a guy in whose company he’d spent maybe three or four months combined out of his entire lifetime—without so much as a single discussion or anyone asking what he wanted. The only thing he knew about Wolf was that he was one of those tight-assed über-authoritarian types. Hell, Mom didn’t refer to him as Dr. Gloom for nothing. The guy hardly ever smiled.

For a minute, Niklaus considered grabbing his bag out of the trunk of Wolf’s boss car and striking out on his own. He could take care of himself. Shit, he’d been doing the job most of his life, anyhow. But he took a couple of deep breaths and stayed put.

He had a blueprint for his future, and being a teenage runaway wasn’t part of it. He’d lived hand to mouth most of his life already and he didn’t intend to do so for the rest of it. A kid on his own without an education was looking for nothing better on the employment front than to say, “You want fries with that?” He planned to graduate frigging high school, then get himself a soccer or academic scholarship to a university so he’d have some options. That would be a big improvement over what he’d had most of his existence.

But in fucking Las Vegas? What was he likely to find in the way of a decent soccer program in a city that was a hundred frigging degrees most of the time? What if the high schools here didn’t even have soccer teams? His schooling had already been screwed up so many times, it wasn’t even funny. Every time he’d gotten ahead academically, Mom had either up and moved them or packed him off to wherever Grandma and Grandpa currently resided. That had meant yet another school with yet another system for him to learn.

He was so goddamn tired of it he could spit.

Feeling his shoulders starting to creep up around his ears again, he forced himself to relax. Only thirteen more months to go and he’d be eighteen. Ten months after that, he’d have his diploma and be starting university.

So he’d stay with Dr. Gloom. And if his uncle abandoned him in Las Vegas when he took off for his frigging dream job, well, he’d be just that much closer to his goal, wouldn’t he?

And hopefully by then, if he wasn’t quite close enough, Grandma Maria would be willing to take him back again.

CHAPTER FIVE

“SO THERE I WAS Tuesday morning, girding my loins to swallow my pride and ask Jones for more German commands,” Carly said, winding up the story of Rufus’s amazing progress over the course of the past couple of days. It was Thursday night, and she and her best friend, Treena McCall, were headed to work. “And you gotta know, Treen, that this took some major attitude adjustment on my part after the way he’d talked to me Monday night.” Wheeling her car into a slot in the Avventurato parking garage, she shot a glance at the redhead in the passenger seat. She cut the engine and yanked on the parking brake, then turned in her seat to meet her pal’s interested gaze more fully.

“Yeah,” Treena agreed. “Having seen you in action with Wolfgang, we’ve gotta be talking serious adjustment.”

“As a heart attack, toots. So, anyhow, I did the girding thing—and guess what?” Indignation ruled all over again. “The bum’s disappeared!”

“That rat!” Treena’s tone was full of the appropriate best-friend outrage. But her tongue was firmly planted in her cheek when she demanded, “What do you bet he did it just to piss you off?”

“That was precisely my first thought,” Carly agreed. Then she laughed. “But all right, so maybe I’m not even a blip on Jones’s radar, while I continually overreact when it comes to him.”

“Ya think?”

“I don’t know what it is about him. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve never run up against a disagreeable man before.”

Treena’s lips ticked up in her habitual barely there, one-sided smile. “Just not one with such a great butt.”

She didn’t even have to think twice. “Yes! His is truly world class and, omigawd, it’s been forever since I’ve had sex. So how fair is it that a guy with the finest ass ever designed to spin a girl’s thoughts to getting a grip on it for a little hootchie-kootch, turns out to have the personality of a gorilla accountant?”

Treena shook her head in sad commiseration. “Life’s a bitch.”

“Tell me about it.” She was never attracted to men she didn’t like. They could be Adonis come to life, and it didn’t matter—if they were jerks they left her cold.

Wolfgang Jones wasn’t even close to Adonis and he was definitely a jerk. So why the hell had she been feeling that raw edge of sexual awareness lately whenever they’d encountered each other? “Damn chemistry,” she groused as she climbed out of the car.

Treena gave her a look over the top of the sporty auto’s red roof. “You talking to me?”

“No. It’s just…I don’t understand why certain people have chemistry with each other while other guys—people—leave you cold.”

“Is that what’s yanking your chain with Wolfgang? You got some chemistry going with a guy you don’t like?”

“Hell, no! Well…maybe.” She shook her head. “No, no, of course not. It’s his lack of respect for the babies, that’s all.” But that wasn’t all, and she gave the other dancer a helpless grimace. “Oh, crap, Treena, I don’t know.”

A friend for ages, Treena took pity on her and changed the subject. “So, how’s your ankle feeling? You sure it’s going to hold up for you tonight?”

Carly shrugged. “I’m not even sure of my own name these days.” She held her fist out, knuckles facing her friend. “But here’s hoping.”

Treena bopped it with her own. “Promise me you won’t push yourself if it starts to hurt too much.”