Caught Up In You (Indigo Royal Resort Book 2)

by Claire Hastings

  “No, nothing like that,” she said, playing it off. “But you know his visit causes a lot of stress and Josef is at camp with him and all of it just has me on edge.”

  “That’s why I figured some light screwing might help,” he said, trying really hard to make a light bulb euphemism.

  “Any other time, maybe,” she said, looking at her watch. “But I’ve got to go grab Jo-bro. Raincheck?”

  She didn’t even wait for his reply as she took off out of the room. She hated brushing him off like that, especially after apparently missing his texts. But for as much as it bothered her that Cullen had kissed her last night, Carlos’s kiss today felt wrong. And that was something she just couldn’t have.

  Camp was moving right along, and Cullen was pleased to see pretty much every kid showing some kind of improvement. Even the kids that he would have labeled as hopeless at the start of the week had shown improvement in at least one area. To be fair, for some it was just their growing confidence level, but that was still something. There were a couple of kids who might need to be knocked down a peg or two when it came to their egos, but Cullen figured that life would bite them in the arse soon enough—he didn’t need to be the one to do it here.

  Maybe this coaching thing could work out. He hadn’t been lying to Oliver when he said he was enjoying this week. In fact, it was the first time he’d felt this good since he was called into the Liverpool offices that day. It would still take a while to adjust to the idea of never playing again professionally, but having the chance to still be around the beautiful game would be better than nothing. The research he’d done on the team they were forming in Atlanta left him feeling somewhat inspired as well. It might be the American league, but the local billionaire who purchased the franchise had spent the last two years working with teams all over Europe trying to figure out exactly how he wanted to model his team. While this guy might be fronting the capital for the team, from everything Cullen had read, he was going to have very little to do with the day to day operations of it. Apparently, that was being handed off to a crack team of executives from all over professional sports, although none of the articles he’d seen had named any names. They even had a player or two already signed on from South America, which was extra impressive to Cullen who thought that if their knowledge of international geography was as rough as his, those kids probably had no idea what part of the US they were headed to.

  “Remember, ball control matters more than speed,” he called out to the kids who were running drills in their breakout groups. “It doesn’t matter how fast you are if you can’t control the ball and someone steals it from you.”

  Turning his attention back to the group right in front of him, his eyes immediately found the player that had been the center of his attention for most of the week—Josef Filipe. It didn’t matter what drill they were running or how long they had been at it, the kid excelled. The endless energy that came from him made Cullen’s head spin, and he wondered if there was a way to bottle it. If there was, he needed it. It was still hard to believe that he was thirteen given his small stature, but he would not be the first kid on the planet to grow into himself basically overnight. A couple of seasons ago there had been a kid in the Liverpool Academy who was skin and bones one season, and by the next season, the kid had bulked up to twice his previous size and had also grown two full inches. If it could happen to that kid, it wouldn’t be surprising if Josef grew overnight in much the same way.

  Today, it wasn’t just Josef who still had a lot of energy near the end of the camp day. In his mind, that wasn’t allowed. Everyone should be thoroughly exhausted after training, so he did the only thing he could think of.

  “Alright, time for sprints!” he shouted, blowing his whistle.

  A collective groan came from the majority of participants, and Cullen could even see a couple make an unhappy face at the statement. But the energy that still radiated off of them told him they could handle it.

  “Just for that reaction, we’re going to make them suicides!”

  “Coach!” one of the older boys exclaimed.

  “I said it, not taking it back. Let’s go!” he said with another blow of his whistle.

  As he watched the group run back and forth, tapping the ground as they went, Josef’s speed caught his eye again. He made a mental note to check to see if the kid was registered to return next week. He hoped he was—there were a lot of more advanced things he would like to try out with him, to not only push him a bit but test out exactly what his true skill level was. If this kid was as good as Cullen thought he was, he belonged on an academy team somewhere, not just in a rec league. He had no idea what kind of team structure the island offered, although he did know that there was a USVI National Team, so there must be some kind of premier training available.

  The kids were allowed to end their sprint session when parents started to show up, and it was clear by the looks on the faces of many of the kids that those parents showed up not a moment too soon. Just as before, as all the other kids filed off the field, Josef remained behind, working on a drill they had done earlier that morning. Josef ran up and down the length of the field, kicking the ball back and forth between his feet, speeding up and slowing down at the intervals he’d been instructed to earlier. Cullen wasn’t sure which thing he found most impressive—his speed or his ball control.

  They were the only two left now, so Cullen jogged over to him and tried to steal the ball. “Okay, Josef, here’s what I want you to do. Run toward me like you would in a game, and whatever you do, don’t let me steal it, got it?”

  The kid nodded quickly and started his approach on the goal. Cullen watched as he moved gracefully down the field and handled the ball with ease. As Josef ran toward him, Cullen tried to decide how he wanted to handle this. Did he want to just try and fake him out, or did he actually want to try and slide tackle him? Deciding the latter would be less expected by Josef, Cullen went in for the slide tackle. Just as he hit the ground and was about to make contact with the ball, Josef gave the ball a little extra tap, sending the ball farther up field than Cullen had expected, and leaped over him like he was running the four-hundred-meter hurdles. Continuing his way down the pitch, he easily sliced the ball into the goal.

  Damn, that was a slick move, Cullen thought.

  As soon as the words went through his brain, he heard clapping from the other end of the pitch and heard a familiar voice shout out in celebration. Leona. He wondered how long she’d been standing there. Obviously long enough to see her little brother hurdle over him like he was a log in the woods.

  “Well done, Jo-bro!” she hollered out, as the two guys headed back her way.

  “In my defense,” Cullen said, “I am an attacking forward, not a center back.”

  Josef just laughed and held up his hand for a high five. Gladly reciprocating, Cullen slapped his hand into Josef’s. He was surprised how much he’d genuinely come to enjoy spending time with this kid. It almost made him wish his wild accusation had been true.

  “You ready to head home?” Leona asked, completely ignoring Cullen and his comment. She looked beautiful standing there in a sea-green sundress with a short flared skirt and skinny little straps that showed off just enough of her cleavage to catch his attention. It was a good thing she didn’t wear outfits like this around the resort, or it’d be like being a teenager all over again.

  “Sure!” Josef said, handing his bag of gear to his sister. “Hey, Mr. Cruz, would you like to come to dinner? Lena, what’s for dinner?”

  Cullen wasn’t sure he heard the little guy correctly, until he looked over at Leona who had frozen in her tracks. He could tell by her body language that she was trying not to snap at her brother over asking such a question.

  “I’m sure Mr. Cruz has plans, buddy,” she started. “And that’s the kind of thing you need to run by Mom first.”

  “It was her idea! She said if I wanted to invite him for dinner, I could!” he answered her. Turning back toward Cullen
, he looked at him with a hopeful gleam in his eye. “So, do you…want to come to dinner? Please don’t say you have plans!”

  Cullen looked back up at Leona. He knew she hated the idea of him joining her family at their home, but that really only made him want to do it more. After all, he didn’t want to be rude and not accept such a gracious invitation.

  “I don’t have plans, actually, and I would love to join you all,” he answered Josef, giving him another high five. He could feel Leona’s glare on him, but he didn’t care in the least. Standing back up, he turned to her and said, “Shall we just take the town car?”

  Chapter Ten

  The excitement that flashed in Josef’s eyes when Cullen suggested that he could ride in the town car with him if he’d like was explosive. It was almost as if someone had told him he’d signed a professional contract and was going to be able to play football for a living. For a moment, Leona thought that he might actually bust out of his own skin from all the adrenaline pumping through his body over the offer. She hated to be the bad guy in the situation, but there was no way she was letting Josef get into a car with that man. It was bad enough he had her brother’s undivided attention all day long this week—she didn’t need him trying to pry information out of him on the jaunt home.

  “I don’t think it’s such a good idea, Jo-bro,” she said. “Let Mr. Cruz have some time to decompress from the day.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Cullen said, looking right at her, talking over Josef. “I offered.”

  “Yeah, he offered!” Josef mimicked.

  “That is very kind of you, Mr. Cruz, but if it’s all the same, I would prefer to drive him home myself,” she said very politely, hoping it masked her annoyance. She would not let him bully her here in front of her brother. It was one thing to tout his power at the resort where he was a paying guest, but it was another entirely to act that way here and now.

  “But Lena!” Josef interjected, obviously embarrassed that she was acting this way in front of his hero.

  “It’s okay, Josef, if that is what your sister wants, then that is the way we shall do it,” he said, crouching down until he was about eye level with him. “What did we talk about the other morning? You always respect those in authority, right? Whether it’s parents or coaches or teachers…”

  “Even if you don’t agree with them,” Josef finished the mantra. He slumped his shoulders slightly in resignation, but only for a second.

  Damn it, Leona thought. Cullen is good at this shit…

  She’d been so wrapped up in her own battle with him—and in not wanting Josef to get caught up in the spell that was Cruz’s presence—that she hadn’t taken even a moment to consider that maybe he’d actually be a good influence on him. All she had known was that this was a “skills clinic,” whatever exactly that was supposed to be. When she’d heard him talk about what they had been doing, it was all running and kicking the ball and playing the game. There hadn’t been any mention of learning about respect and all that. Although now that she thought about it, learning about teamwork and respect were all things that were probably required of a good player, but they were still not things she had come to associate with Cullen Cruz.

  Ushering her brother into the car, she motioned for Cruz to follow her to La Hacienda. Trying to remain calm as she drove, hoping that Josef didn’t see how nervous she was, she wished she could call Drea and word vomit right about now. Cullen Cruz was coming to dinner at her house. He was about to meet her parents and see how her family lived, and that filled her with more anxiety than she knew how to deal with.

  It wasn’t that she was embarrassed by her family or their house. Quite the opposite. She was proud, damn proud even, to be a Filipe. Her parents were good people who had raised her to be a strong, smart, independent woman. Prior to his stroke, her father had been the best mechanic on the island, with the ability to fix just about anything, and her mother had been with the police department as a dispatcher for more than twenty-five years now. It was a well-known fact that many of the local law enforcement officers considered Anna to be like another mother to them and that the department would be lost without her. Her parents had worked very hard to provide for Leona while she was growing up, and still did so for Josef.

  But Leona still knew what her family looked like to people like Cullen Cruz. To all the exceptionally wealthy people who showed up for a couple of weeks a year to their vacation homes and acted like they owned the island. They looked “underprivileged” and “needy,” rather than simply a working-class family. It didn’t matter how they viewed themselves or that the only reason money was important to them was to keep the roof over their heads and food on the table. Now Cruz would have another thing to look down on her for.

  What upset her the most is not that he would look down at her—although that idea didn’t exactly sit well with her—but that she worried it would have an effect on how he viewed Josef. Of course he probably already knew that Josef was at the camp on a scholarship. For all she knew, he was only coming to dinner to see just how poor they were.

  She pulled into the drive, parking behind her mom’s sedan, not worrying about blocking her in since she’d leave to go back to the resort before her mom’s next shift in the morning. The town car pulled up against the curb and Cullen hopped out, saying something to his driver about calling him when he was ready to head back to the Indigo Royal. Josef bounded toward Cullen, his excitement returning and his annoyance with Leona seemingly forgotten now that they were here.

  “Welcome to La Hacienda!” Josef said as Cullen strode closer to them.

  He looked around and took in the place slowly, making the hairs on her arms stand up. He looked so damn sexy standing there, all lean muscle and raw strength. The athletic shorts he was wearing hung low on his hips and hit just above his knees, hiding those tree-trunk thighs but showing off the incredible curves of his calves. His T-shirt was stretched across his pecs and his shirtsleeves clung to his upper arms like they were holding on for dear life. She was pretty sure she would not have to try very hard to rip that shirt from his body, but she couldn’t allow herself to be thinking such things right now. Her focus belonged on surviving this meal.

  “Your house has a name?” Cullen asked Josef. “That’s pretty slick.”

  “Lena named it!”

  Cullen turned to look at her, as if she would be able to dispense some wisdom or fantastical story as to where the name came from. “I thought it was funny when I was younger. It just means home in Spanish,” she offered.

  “I am aware. I’m fluent,” he replied.

  “Seriously?” she said, amazed.

  “Well, almost. I’m conversational in Spanish. You have to be playing football, it’s an international game.”

  “Good point.”

  “It also wasn’t that hard to pick up—I’m fluent in Portuguese,” he winked. As if she needed some kind of reminder that his stupid little name for her was in Portuguese.

  “Let’s go inside. I can show you my room!” Josef interjected, somehow not noticing the energy that flowed between his coach and his sister.

  “Lead the way, young man!”

  The little white house was nestled in a neighborhood among a bunch of houses that all matched in their own way. It wasn’t a cookie cutter development by any means, but each structure was obviously built to reflect the same kind of style. It was a cute little neighborhood with a cul-de-sac at one end. It was the kind of place that people dream of raising kids. The house itself was well-kept for the most part. It needed a new coat of paint, one new shutter to replace a broken one, and a repair on a loose gutter in a spot or two, but other than those simple items, it seemed like a solid structure.

  Once inside, the feeling of home engulfed him. The bench that sat by the front door was packed full of shoes, sweatshirts, purses, and Josef’s duffle bag. Family photos adorned the walls, showing off both Leona and Josef throughout the years. As beautiful as she was now, Leona might just have been even
cuter as a child. Her blonde hair and blue eyes sparkled in all the photos, just like they made her sparkle now.

  Following Josef through the little foyer and into the kitchen, he found the busy hub of the house, alive with the sounds of dinner cooking, family chatter, and a TV on in the background. There were dishes in the sink and drying in the dish rack, as well as a grouping of papers posted to the fridge with some magnets. While there wasn’t a graded test or any artwork currently on the fridge, it was obvious that during the school year that was exactly where those kinds of things were displayed.

  “Mr. Cruz, please come in,” an older woman who looked just like Leona said, ushering him into the kitchen. “I apologize for the state of the house. When I suggested inviting you to dinner, in my mind I had thought this weekend. Josef seems to have missed that part of the conversation. The house is a little…lived in, at the moment.”

  Cullen didn’t mind the lived-in look. In fact, if it wasn’t for the young lady he paid to clean his flat once a week, his place would look a little “lived in” a lot more often. “It’s okay, Mrs. Filipe, the house is lovely. Reminds me a lot of where I grew up.”

  “Oh, well, that’s nice of you to say,” she replied, smiling. She was a beautiful older woman who stood about the same height as her daughter, however her blonde hair had a touch of gray now woven through it. “Dinner is almost ready. If you’d like to wash up first, Leona can show you to the bathroom.”