“Watch it,” Gabe warned. “And she does have all of those as well, of course.”
“Gabe, you need to figure out what you want from her and fast, before you muck things up even more than you already have.”
Gabe snorted. Like he didn’t know that already.
Twenty-four hours later, Bobbi nervously made her way across the lawn toward the gate. She hadn’t heard from Gabe since his phone call the night before and she wasn’t quite sure what to expect from him tonight. She had felt awful after that awkward telephone conversation. It had been so tempting to just say yes and rush to his side again—but he couldn’t keep blowing hot and cold like that. It was too emotionally draining.
She crossed the threshold of the gate onto Braddock property and followed the echoing sound of masculine laughter coming from the back of the house. Gabe had a standard-sized football field, complete with lines and goalposts in his huge backyard. He’d even had small bleachers built on either side of the pitch. Their friends and family only ever used the stands closest to the house and there were never enough people to actually fill them but Gabe liked symmetry—so of course he had to have two sets of bleachers.
The group of men were standing around, chatting and stretching, a couple of them had pregame beers clutched in their hands. Their original group had grown to include Rick and Bryce Palmer, Pierre De Coursey, and Rick’s business partner, Vuyo Mashego. Bryce was more of a rugby player and didn’t take the Friday night games as seriously as some of the other men. He was one of the guys with a beer in hand, and so was his brother and Max Kinsley, a joker who didn’t seem to take anything seriously.
They usually played five a side: goalkeeper, two defenders, a midfielder, and a striker. Chase saw her first and ran over to meet her halfway.
“Hey.” He grinned when he saw her all kitted out in her usual football gear.
“Hi. Are you playing tonight?” she asked. With Chase there they had eleven players.
“I’m thinking of substituting.” He shrugged, not seeming particularly concerned about it. “Or refereeing, maybe.”
“Is everybody here?” Bobbi casually glanced around the field.
“He’s inside,” Chase told her, and she rolled her eyes, hating how obvious she was. “He’s waiting for Sandro. Everybody else is here. Except Billy, who called to say he’d be a bit late.”
“Did he say wh—” She stopped mid-word when she caught sight of Gabe exiting the house with Sandro and Theresa in tow. He had his arm wrapped around Rosalie De Lucci’s slender shoulders, and Bobbi felt like she took a blow to her solar plexus. She fought to catch her breath and couldn’t take her eyes off the gorgeous couple.
Bobbi hadn’t given the other woman any further thought after last Saturday. When the stunning woman hadn’t been at the girls’ night out, Bobbi had assumed that Rosalie De Lucci had returned to Italy. But no, here she was, showing up again like the proverbial bad penny. Gabe had his head bent toward hers, giving her his full attention as she said something to him.
“What’s wrong?” Chase asked, following the direction of her gaze. She was vaguely aware of him tensing beside her. “Who the hell is that?”
“Sandro’s sister, Rosalie,” she supplied, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears. Theresa and Sandro finally reached the gathering beside the stands and everybody shouted out friendly greetings. Sandro was toting their sleeping toddler on his hip, he had his free arm around his wife’s waist, and he drew her in for a hug and a kiss before transferring the baby to her.
“Go on,” Theresa prompted her husband with a laugh. “Run. Be free.” Sandro grinned and jogged onto the field lazily, doing a series of stretches along the way. Like Gabe, he tended to take football more seriously than Bryce and Max did.
Bobbi couldn’t drag her eyes away from Gabe and Rosalie though. They had paused halfway to the field, and he was brushing her hair off her brow with a grin. The wind kept catching the silky strands and blowing it back into her face, so Gabe was fighting a losing battle. They looked like the cover of a romance novel standing there, leaning into each other with the wind in her hair and the backlights from the house delineating their shapes in silver. Bobbi would never look that perfect standing next to him. People would constantly wonder what he was doing with her. With Rosalie De Lucci they’d only nod and think, Of course those two are together.
She felt Chase’s arm creep around her waist and she leaned against his solid frame, needing the support.
“I don’t know what the hell that’s about,” Chase murmured in her ear. “But it’s probably not what it looks like. Turn away, before he sees that look on your face. You look like a woman who’s just had her heart ripped out of her chest.”
How apt. Since that was how she felt. She allowed him to turn her toward the field and watched the men warm up. Some of them, like Sandro, Vuyo, Pierre, and Rafael Dante looked almost professional, while the rest goofed around, kicking the ball to and fro and bantering while they did it.
“Let’s go get warmed up,” Chase suggested, and she nodded, needing to find some way to distract herself from the fact that Gabe still hadn’t joined them on the field. She maintained such total focus on her running and stretching that she barely noticed when someone came up to jog beside her until he spoke.
“I’m glad you’re here.” His voice made her break stride and stumble. She would have fallen if he hadn’t reached out to steady her.
“Gabe, I’m surprised you were able to drag yourself from Rosalie De Lucci’s side,” she said, and then winced at how bitter she sounded. She had promised herself she wouldn’t say anything but there she was putting her foot in her mouth again. She self-consciously wiped her sweaty face on the shoulder of her T-shirt before realizing how completely unsexy that must have looked. Especially in comparison with the ever-fresh, ever-polished Rosalie De Lucci.
“Don’t be childish, Bobbi. Rosalie is a friend and a very nice woman on top of that.” And he obviously found her attractive.
“You think she’s beautiful though.”
“Because she is,” he said impatiently, clearly done with the conversation. “You’ve been warming up for a while, the guys are ready to play.” He nodded toward the group of tall men standing in the middle of the field, and she felt her face flush in embarrassment. “Billy isn’t here yet, so Chase is subbing for whichever team picks him.”
She nodded brusquely and jogged toward the waiting group, leaving him standing there. When he joined them seconds later, the team captains, Sandro and Gabe, flipped a coin to see who would have first pick of the players. Gabe won and immediately picked Bobbi. She didn’t know how she felt about that; he’d never picked her first before. Neither of the men ever had. She wasn’t the strongest player, but she made up for it with speed and agility. Still the guys usually chose the bigger men first and the last choice always came down to Max and Bobbi, and she generally always got picked before poor Max.
They were well into the first half of the game when Billy came jogging out of the house and toward the field. He was followed by Jason, who joined their football game only occasionally and . . . Bobbi stopped so abruptly that she got a ball kicked straight in the face. The impact made her reel for a second, before she actually lost her footing and sank down on her butt. The game came to a halt as everybody gathered around her to check if she was okay. Gabe muscled his way through the huddled men and went down on his haunches in front of her, looking pale and shaken.
“Are you okay?” he asked in an unsteady voice, wincing as he reached out to touch the enflamed skin of her cheek. Bobbi grimaced and shied away from his hand before he could make contact. She didn’t want him touching her in front of an audience because—despite the stinging pain—she knew that she would totally embarrass herself by leaning into his touch.
“I’m fine.” She dismissed all the concerned queries and instead focused on her brother and Jason and the creative ways she planned to murder them both. They had brought Kyle Foster. Of cour
se they had brought Kyle Foster! God, could her life be any more complicated? Last Friday she’d been just another woman mooning over her handsome best friend. A week later and she was involved in a supersecret affair with said best friend and had an admirer who all of her friends and family thought was her new boyfriend.
Gabe looked like he was about to help her up, but Chase leapt in and took Bobbi’s hand to tug her up. She smiled at him gratefully.
“Are you sure you’re okay to play?” Gabe asked. She waved off his concern and trotted off to the sidelines for a quick drink of water. Billy, Kyle, and Jason joined her.
“That was quite a hit,” Billy said with brotherly glee. “You’re gonna look like hell tomorrow.” She glared at him, or she would have if the left side of her face didn’t felt so numb and swollen.
“Hi, Bobbi,” Kyle greeted, while Jason not so subtly elbowed Billy in the ribs and the two backed off like pubescent teens.
“Hey, Kyle, nice seeing you again.” He winced as he looked at her face and reached out to run a gentle finger over the stinging area.
“Looks painful,” he observed.
“It hurts like hell,” she managed cheerfully. “But you know, it’s all part of the game. I lost focus for a second and took my eye off the ball. It’s my own fault, really.”
He smiled and she returned the smile, but when she happened to look over his shoulder it was to see her brother making kissy faces at her. She diverted her attention to the bleachers, where Bronwyn and Lisa were winking at her suggestively. Bobbi sighed and directed her eyes down at her feet, knowing that she probably appeared coy but was too afraid to meet anybody else’s eye. Seriously, what was wrong with everybody?
Gabe was furious. When he saw Bobbi go down, his entire body had constricted with fear, and he just couldn’t seem to reach her fast enough. He had felt like he was running through a lake of molasses to get to her. When he had eventually fought his way through the seemingly impenetrable wall of men surrounding her, he had nearly howled at the sight of her red and swollen face. He had wanted nothing more than to sweep her up into his arms and transport her to some place where he could protect her, spoil her, and take care of her, but she had flinched away from his touch, and that more than anything else had cut him to the core. He had no claim on her. He would never have any claim on her. Some other man would one day have the right to do everything Gabe had wanted to do. But that didn’t mean that Gabe had to like the thought of that future man.
He watched her walk off the field and frowned when he saw Billy, Jason, and a third man make their way over to her. Billy and Jason backed off and the third man . . .
A growl worked its way up to his throat as he watched the guy touch her. Exactly the way Gabe had wanted to touch her earlier. This guy had even less claim on her than Gabe and yet he had the utter gall to touch her? And worse she was allowing it? That well and truly pissed him off, and he stalked over to the sidelines toward them. The closer her got, the more about the stranger he recognized—it looked like that Kyle Foster guy from the pub, but why the hell was he here? Who had invited him?
A fulminating glare at Billy and Jason, who were quite merrily watching Bobbi and Kyle exchange awkward pleasantries, confirmed that one—or likely both—of them was the culprit.
“Bobbi,” he snapped when he reached them. “Are you ready to join the game again?”
She looked surprised to see Gabe standing right beside her but she nodded, and Kyle took her water bottle from her, with a promise to “guard it” with his “life.” Did the idiot think someone would steal her damned water bottle? Gabe glowered at the jerk, who merely looked back at him impassively.
“Braddock.” He nodded, a small smile on his lips. Gabe refused to acknowledge the greeting, no matter how damned petty he seemed and trotted onto the field after Bobbi. The game resumed moments later.
Bobbi didn’t see the hit coming. One second she was skillfully maneuvering the football through a duo of hapless defenders, and the next she was flat on her back, blinking up at the star-filled night sky and battling to suck in her next breath.
Panic set in when she realized that she was unable to draw in that breath and a distant, detached part of her brain recognized that she’d had the wind knocked out of her. It was a highly unpleasant sensation that she hadn’t had the dubious privilege of experiencing since childhood. Man, she was having a really terrible night.
“Bobbi?” A group of concerned faces popped into her field of vision, and she tried to assure them that she was fine, but only a wheeze emerged from her chest.
“What the hell, Kinsley?” Gabe’s face was hovering on her left and he fixed a glare on Max, who seemed to be hovering on her right. “What’s up with the frikkin body check?”
“I slipped,” Max explained defensively. “It was totally unintentional.”
“She could have been seriously injured, she’s just a tiny thing,” Gabe pointed out insultingly. If Bobbi had her breath back she would have taken exception to that, but she was barely getting in a decent gasp of air every few seconds and it took all of her concentration to breathe normally again.
“Oh come, Gabe. She can handle herself.” Bobbi lifted a limp hand and gave Max a thumbs-up in agreement.
“See?” Max pointed toward her. Bobbi mentally rolled her eyes and cursed them for worrying about her in theory but not in practice. Neither of them had even bothered to ask her if she was okay. Feeling neglected, she pushed herself up into a sitting position and gingerly prodded her ribs to ensure that they were still intact. She grimaced. They were a bit sore but it was nothing major.
Gabe and Max were so focused on each other they barely noticed when she shakily made her way to her feet. The other players were all too caught up in the unfolding drama of Gabe and Max squaring off to pay much attention to her. She always felt like a little person in the land of giants when she stood amongst all of them like this. It didn’t help that she found herself practically sandwiched between Gabe and Max. They were the tallest guys there.
The men were both bristling with outrage and an overabundance of testosterone, and Bobbi hissed impatiently before placing a small, restraining hand on each of their chests. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as her hands settled onto equally sweat-soaked T-shirts and tried not to appreciate the well-defined musculature of the chests beneath the revoltingly wet shirts. Especially not Gabe’s; she was trying very hard not to appreciate Gabe’s chest too much. It felt like every time she took one step forward she took about eighty-seven steps back.
“I’m fine,” she asserted firmly, trying very hard not to sound wheezy, knowing that it would set Gabe off again. He looked down at her and his eyes went flat with fury.
“Damn it,” he gritted. “She’s bleeding.”
“I am?” she asked blankly, hesitantly reaching up to touch her face. She blanched when her fingers came away covered in blood. “Oh my God, I am!” Bobbi was tough and could withstand quite a lot of things, but she couldn’t stomach the sight of her own blood. Anybody else’s? Sure! Her own? Not at all.
She swayed woozily and Gabe reached out a hand to steady her. He ducked his head to peer into her eyes intently.
“Take a deep breath,” he advised, and she complied with a shallow gasp.
“Deep breath, Bobbi,” he repeated authoritatively. Nope. She couldn’t get her lungs to work and she swayed again, as black dots swirled in front of her eyes. God, how embarrassing! She felt like she was about to faint. She vaguely wondered how she knew that, when she had never fainted in her life before. Gabe swore beneath his breath and shifted one of his arms to her back and the other to the back of her thighs before hefting her up to his chest like a sack of potatoes. He carried her to the sidelines, where the other women had all anxiously gathered around and lowered her gently to the grass.
“Oh my God, Gabriel, is she okay?” Bobbi blinked up into the worried faces around her, recognizing the voice as Theresa’s. Her friend knelt down on the grass beside her and pr
essed a towel to the profusely bleeding cut on Bobbi’s eyebrow.
“She’s fine,” Gabe reassured. “The sight of her own blood makes her a bit queasy.” Of course he would know that embarrassing fact about her.
“Take care of her, will you?” Gabe handed her care over with one last grim look down at her before trotting back out onto the field.
Theresa sucked in a shocked breath, and Bobbi looked up at her in alarm. Was the cut worse than it seemed? Was that why her friend seemed so appalled? But Theresa wasn’t even looking at her; the other woman’s eyes were fixed on something on the field. Bobbi watched as her friend cringed and followed the direction of her stare to whatever was happening out on the field. The guys were all huddled in a tight circle, and Bobbi couldn’t quite make sense of what was going on.
“What’s happening?” she asked, her injury forgotten.
“Gabe and Max just got into a bit of a shoving match.” Theresa, usually so kind and gentle, seemed to find that fact hilarious.
“Oh my God. That idiot,” Bobbi moaned, pushing herself up unsteadily before standing up on wobbly legs. Theresa held on to her arm, obviously afraid Bobbi would lose her balance. She shook off the remnants of her dizziness like a dog shaking off water and marched purposefully back onto the field.
The other guys had managed to separate the two men and Gabe was standing off to the side with Sandro. He was still glaring at an unconcerned Max, who was ignoring him and calmly chatting with Chase. It was clear from the handsome Italian’s stance that Sandro was trying to keep Gabe calm.
“Sandro, would you excuse us please?” Bobbi planted herself between the two men, and Sandro shrugged.
“I’ll get the grill started. I think maybe my Theresa is hungry. I say this match is probably over.”
“Yeah, getting the braai started is a good idea. I doubt any of us are in the mood to finish this game,” Bobbi agreed, and Sandro walked off to where Theresa stood waiting for him.
His Unlikely Lover Page 17