by Stacey Keith
“I need you,” she whispered. “I need—”
“Yes, baby. God, yes.” He climbed out and then returned, fully sheathed, before sinking into the water. Breathlessly, she watched him. A part of her was beyond caring about things like birth control, but that was how you got in trouble. Thank God Mason loved her enough to want to protect her that way.
Her body tingled in violent anticipation.
He had such an intent look in his eyes as he closed in, wrapping her legs around him and then slowly, weightlessly impaling her on top. His strong hands cupped her behind and set the pace. Cassidy never felt so love-drunk in her life as she did in that moment when she knew her body could give Mason as much pleasure as he gave her. The friction grew white-hot, slippery despite the water, and there was wild urgency to his thrusts.
She could feel him swell inside her. Then he went deep and she soared off the edge of a cliff, calling out to him.
With a hoarse cry, he followed.
* * * *
When Mason opened his eyes, his first thought of the morning wasn’t the game. It was Cassidy softly breathing in the bed next to him.
He turned on his side to watch her and his chest filled with warm happiness. Usually when he woke up with a woman in his bed, there was a sense of wanting to get on with his day. With Cassidy, it felt like this was already the best part of the day, just seeing her long hair draped across the pillow, her beautiful face soft and unguarded in sleep. He wanted to touch her, but didn’t quite dare. Not yet.
His phone chimed and he reached over to turn it off before the sound woke her. Who the hell messaged people this early? He thumbed open his text app and read a message from his mother. He read it again just to be sure. Even though the news was far from unexpected, sadness crept over him and he flopped back down on the pillow.
Cassidy stirred. Sleepily, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
He set the phone on his nightstand. “My mom,” he said heavily. “Dad finally signed the divorce papers.”
* * * *
The elevator reached the top floor of Lone Star Stadium’s box suite and the doors opened. Cassidy smoothed her dress. She told herself the sick dread in the pit of her stomach could have been from a lot of things—Mason’s recent heartache, her own feeling of bewilderment at being here, or maybe Parker’s worrisome attempts to track her down.
But when she stepped off the elevator and everyone stopped talking to turn and stare, Cassidy was pretty sure the sick dread came from just having to be here.
She had a sudden image of the fryer at Artie’s, how she’d have to get on her hands and knees to scrub all the grease and filth that accumulated behind it, rubber gloves up to her elbows, scummy water in the mop bucket by her side. She heard Darlene’s voice, “May I take your order, please?” echoing inside her head.
But this was what she had to do if she and Mason were ever going to make it. And the thought of not making it filled her with anguish. She had to swim in the shark tank, even if the shark tank felt a lot like high school. Even if being here reminded her in the most agonizing way possible that she was nobody—Cassidy Dawn Roby from Nowhere, Texas.
Walking into that room felt like pushing through water. She forced herself to look at things instead of people, even though people were most certainly looking at her.
A bartender stood behind the bar to her right, polishing and racking wine glasses. At the end of the room, leather club chairs were arranged around a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the stadium. Lights were recessed, muted, elegant. Waiters carried trays to a buffet table, scenting the air with roast beef and gravy and baked potatoes. Despite the sick feeling, Cassidy’s stomach stirred rebelliously. There’d been a lot of love today, but not a lot of food.
“You’re new,” a woman said behind her.
Shoring up her smile, Cassidy turned around. Two women with perfect hair and six-inch heels stared down at her. They looked just like the kind of rich celebrity girlfriends who lived on martinis and breath mints, who wouldn’t dream of visiting a buffet table that had potatoes on it.
She reminded herself that she was twenty-five now, not fifteen. She could handle this. After all, she wasn’t walking around with evidence of her poor decision making right in front of her, straining the waistband of her pants. Who was she to judge a bunch of beautiful, glamorous women? They could be lovely people. They could be—
“Interesting dress,” the first blonde observed. She had flawless skin, puffy pink lips and a tennis bracelet that looked both dazzling and real. “Where’d you get it?”
“Maxine’s,” Cassidy said warily.
The other blonde woman eyed Cassidy’s shoes. “Maxine’s? What is that—like a mall outlet or something?”
“No, it’s a store.” That you’ve never been to because there aren’t enough pairs of two-hundred dollar shredded jeans and blinged out T-shirts to interest you.
Across the room, a third blonde woman waved to the woman in front of Cassidy and yelled, “Hey, Tiff!” This particular blonde wore leather jeggings and a super-expensive jersey with Mason’s number on it. Cassidy had seen his jerseys in stores and couldn’t believe how much they cost, especially compared to her simple little dress.
Tiff barely spared the woman a glance. Instead, she peered at Cassidy over the edge of her martini glass. “I bet you teach Sunday school. You do, don’t you? You seem like someone who would, and I can see where Mason would totally go for that.”
Cassidy tried to hide her surprise. Did everyone know she was seeing Mason? Maybe Dallas was more like Cuervo than she thought. “Does Mason usually date Sunday school teachers?”
“Not when I was with him,” Tiff said. “Some of us aren’t really the go-to-church type.”
Cassidy felt the blood drain from her face. She wanted to get as far away from Tiff’s cool, neutral gaze as she could.
Oh, Mason, how could you?
“You’re from that town he used to live in, aren’t you?” Tiff’s friend said. “What’s it called? Queer-o?”
“Cuervo,” Cassidy said softly. “We’re from Cuervo.”
Tiff skimmed the olive off her toothpick with her teeth and then ate it. “Mason kept threatening to take me there, but I said why? Who wants to go somewhere called Queer-o?”
Me, Cassidy thought, feeling her breath hitch. I want to. She didn’t belong here. She was crazy to think she could do this. For all she knew, Mason had dated every woman in this room.
The box suite felt too small all of a sudden, as if there wasn’t air left inside. She knew Tiff and her friend were watching for any sign of weakness, but she was too hurt to care.
“Excuse me,” Cassidy said, “I’m going to watch the game.”
She trudged the length of the box suite, found an empty club chair and dropped into it, staring down at the field. Cheerleaders danced, all bare midriffs and sparkly pompoms. How many of them had Mason dated?
It was one thing to know that Mason went out with beautiful women as part of a publicity stunt. But it was another to be ambushed by one of them at his game. Didn’t he care that they were mean? It stirred up too many memories—Mason at the prom with Kayla. Her own pink lace prom dress crumpled in the footwell of Parker’s car. The day she kept going through test strip after test strip, trying to prove to herself that she wasn’t pregnant. How bewildering and lonely it had been sitting in class in her maternity overalls, surrounded by girls who had their whole lives ahead of them.
She felt frozen inside, as if everybody could see her pain and confusion and humiliation. As if everybody knew she didn’t belong here and couldn’t stop talking about it. She saw them huddled in groups of two or three, giving her the side-eye, tall and thin and sure of their place in the world.
“Hey, is this seat taken? I need to sit my ass down.”
She raised her eyes, expecting to see another Kayla or T
iff. Instead, a gorgeous black woman wearing the same style of maternity smock she used to wear clambered into the club chair next to hers. She had natural hair pulled into a bun, hoop earrings that offset her slanting, long-lashed eyes, and the kind of full lips that women like Tiff could only pray for.
“Your first?” Cassidy gestured toward her pregnant belly, envying her a bit. It had been a long time since Lexie was a baby.
“My third,” the woman said. “We keep trying for that boy. My name is Alicia. You’re Mason’s girlfriend, right?”
Would she ever get used to everybody knowing that? Cassidy nodded.
“God, what I wouldn’t give for a damn drink. I don’t know why pregnant women have to live like saints all the time. When my mother was pregnant, she smoked, drank, and never used a seatbelt.”
“I remember,” Cassidy said. “My mother used to tell me the same stories.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tiff and her friend cozy up to the bar.
Alicia followed her gaze. “Hey, didn’t your boy Mason date that chick for two minutes? She called me fat once.”
“Now I really don’t like her.” Cassidy tried glaring at Tiff but just ended up feeling bad again. Did Mason have a thing for bitchy women?
Just then the stadium blasted loud, aggressive music and she swung her gaze glumly to the field. Players were coming out, one by one. Mason got the loudest cheers of anybody. As she watched him smiling and waving to his fans, she was proud of him, even though her heart felt wilted, as if somebody had failed to water it.
Alicia grabbed a handful of nuts and studied her thoughtfully. “This whole celebrity girlfriend thing. It’s not your scene, is it? I mean, you’d be just as happy if Mason weren’t famous.”
Cassidy glanced over at Tiff again. “Happier.”
“I’ve been at this a while, see. Do you want advice from someone who knows Mason and knows what it takes to handle this bullshit?”
Cassidy’s heart gave a leap of hope. She leaned forward expectantly. All she wanted was for her and Mason to be happy. No more worrying. No more looking over her shoulder to see who had her in their crosshairs for daring to “date up.” Alicia seemed like the only warm, real human in this place.
“Fame’s a bitch,” Alicia told her. “Everything you do or don’t do, the press will find out about it. They’re relentless and they’re everywhere. People you’ve never met before will read the shit they write and hate you for it. So if you can’t make your peace with that and the idea that Mason dated some skanky bitches before he found you because he was lonely and that’s all that was offered, then you’re not cut out for this lifestyle.”
Cassidy stared at Alicia, speechless, knowing that everything she said was probably true. A sense of horror flared and then receded. Alicia’s expression was understanding, though, not unkind, and Cassidy drew strength from hearing the truth put so bluntly. “Thank you for that,” she said.
Alicia propped her swollen feet on the table in front of her and sighed. “Ain’t no big thing. Downhome girl like you seems like you’d be good for Mason, but that boy needs someone who’s going to be there for him. If you don’t think it’s you, break his heart now, you hear me? Don’t wait ’til it’s too late.”
* * * *
Mason stood panting and in pain on the thirty yard line. There was a decent chance a few of his ribs were broken, but he was too elated to care. The crowd hadn’t stopped cheering since the Lone Stars’ last touchdown, the one that put them ahead of the Giants 21-14.
When the two-minute warning sounded, the stadium went wild. A galaxy of flashbulbs exploded. The jumbotron lit up with digital fireworks bursting around a countdown clock.
Somewhere up there Cassidy was watching.
With no timeouts left for the Giants, and his team in possession of the ball, all Mason had to do was run down the clock.
He and the team assumed their positions on the field. Hooper, his offensive lineman, was actually bleeding from a head wound. Running back Lance Pardiman limped, but tried to hide it. Knowing they were in this together, through pain and injury, through victory and defeat, gave Mason a rush of something that could only be described as love. Maybe you could pay men to play a game, but you could never pay them to care.
And his team cared.
Mason ran out the clock by taking a knee on the first, second, and third down while 70,000 fans boomed out the numbers, “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen—!” A wall of sound that brought chills to Mason’s sweat-soaked skin. “Twelve, eleven, ten—!” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Coach Lemery give him a rare thumbs up. “Eight, seven, six—!” Mason got to his feet, ribs protesting, and pulled off his helmet. “Three, two, one!”
Victory.
Amid high-fives and fist pumps, Mason looked for the Giants’ quarterback. Anton Fuller was a solid athlete, cool under pressure, explosive strength in the long pass. Mason found him and shook his hand, remembering when their situations were reversed and it was Fuller who wore the tired, happy smile.
The stadium was still rocking by the time Mason and his teammates hobbled off the field. All he could think about was seeing Cassidy.
Through a mini-forest of sports reporters’ video camera lights and overhead booms, he could see her waiting for him in the tunnel, but then the reporters closed in, shouting questions. Mason started by thanking his team, his coach, his fans. The first rule of being a good quarterback was giving credit to the team when games were won and accepting responsibility when they weren’t. He talked for a few minutes about teamwork and discipline, and then a female reporter he’d never seen before thrust a mic at him.
“There are rumors going around about a new girlfriend,” she said coyly. “Someone from your hometown. Care to comment?”
Mason sucked in a breath so hard, he almost doubled over from the pain to his ribs. Sure, he’d known this day was coming, but not now. Please, not now.
His gaze flew to Cassidy’s stricken face.
Instantly, he knew two things: one, it was way too soon for this, and two, there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do to protect her from the press. She needed protecting.
Only he had no idea how to do it.
Chapter Sixteen
Cassidy peered outside her living room window. Again. It was starting to feel like a bad habit she’d picked up in Dallas. Ever since that reporter at Mason’s game asked if he was dating a woman from his hometown, she’d been in an agony of suspense, constantly checking over her shoulder, waiting for some reporter to shove a microphone in her face.
It didn’t help that her mother kept telling her to wear lipstick. “The camera washes you out, honey. Just put on a little.”
In fact, there was her mother now, coming up the walkway with Lexie.
Watching Lexie gave Cassidy a terrible sense of unease. All day at work Cassidy had thought of her, wondering about their upcoming trip to Dallas. There was a boy there, someone named Terrence who’d just learned how to swim. Mason had promised him a pool party, so of course she and Lexie had been invited. But what if Lexie hated it? Sometimes she was shy around new people. Shyness was probably genetic.
Yet Mason talked to Lexie regularly on the phone now and she seemed perfectly natural with him, asking football questions that had “Grandpa asked me to ask you” all over them. Cassidy wasn’t sure whether Lexie saw Mason as more of a father, a friend, or an honorary uncle, but it made her a lot calmer knowing they got along. Then she’d take the phone into another room and she and Mason would talk privately while every part of her swooned with joy.
Being in love was amazing, even if she still worried about… well, everything.
She went out on the porch to greet them, barefoot despite the mid-November cold.
“Hey, Mom,” Lexie called up to her. “Grandma said she can’t help me with my math homework anymore.”
“Well, that’s not exactly
what I said,” Priscilla replied.
Lexie traipsed up the steps and handed her backpack to Cassidy. “Grandma said it was getting too hard for her and that she couldn’t even figure out how to do it on the calculator.”
Before Priscilla could object, a car drove up and parked in front of the house. Cassidy’s head went right up. Priscilla turned around and even Lexie came back out on the porch to see what was going on.
“Who is that?” Priscilla muttered.
Cassidy’s stomach quivered like a rope pulled too tight. “I know who it is,” she whispered. “Don’t leave, okay?”
She started down the steps on legs that didn’t seem able to hold her. Parker got out of the driver’s side and Kayla got out of the other.
Priscilla said under her breath, “Oh, Sweet Lord Jesus, what next?”
All week, Cassidy had been alert for the press, but she’d been watching for Parker, too. Now he was here. No matter how many times she told herself not to be afraid, that he couldn’t take Lexie away from her, nothing could soften the thundering of her heart. Without even meaning to, she stepped closer to her mother, needing her strength and the comfort of her nearness.
Lexie came bounding down the stairs. “Hi, Daddy! Hi, Aunt Kayla!”
Parker put his arms out for a hug, just like any other father who returns home from work and finds his daughter waiting outside for him. And Lexie ran to hug him with all her hurt and disappointment apparently forgotten. Daddy was taking her to Disney World. Everything was good now.
“Heaven help me,” Priscilla said softly. “I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.”
With a fixed smile, Kayla watched Parker and Lexie greet each other. Then she focused her laser gaze on Cassidy and a kind of belligerence came into her eyes. She had on a red wool dress fitted at the waist, which made her look as though she meant business, and held a stack of magazines against her chest. Parker wore a dark blue suit. Together, they reminded Cassidy of prosperous young missionaries—only it sure wasn’t the gospel they’d come to preach.