by Amy Andrews
He’d already had his lawyer draw up the contract and had planned to bring it up in a few months. Obviously, that was going to need to be rethought…
Yes, she’d made it perfectly clear when they’d negotiated her contract she’d be leaving after six years. He’d pushed for more but had ceded to her stipulation, and he’d been fine with it at the time. Six years had seemed an age back then, when his career had been riding an all-time high. But, looking into the past, through the crazy highs and lows of football and the even crazier years since, it had flown by.
And she’d been there for all of it. There’d been plenty of women in and out of his life, but she’d been his only constant. The woman knew everything about him. Well, almost everything. She sure as hell knew him better than most.
Better maybe than even his mother.
CC was an asset impossible to replace, and Wade didn’t want to just let go without at least trying to convince her to stay a little longer. Sure, he knew there were parts of her job she didn’t like, and she whined and bitched about them, but she did them. Because she was damn good at her job, and she liked her paycheck and the perks that came with being in his employ.
Exactly what he needed in a PA.
The problem was, when CC set her mind on something, she was fiercely focused. She didn’t change her direction easily. And she had set her mind on moving to California. He knew in a factoid kind of way—she didn’t really talk much about her past—that she’d come from a broken home, that her childhood had been unhappy, and that escape had been a beautiful, shiny dream to cling to during those years. And escape, for CC, was the ocean.
But maybe he could get his lawyer to negotiate a different kind of contract? One that gave them both what they wanted. That had her working in Denver part of the week but allowed her to work remotely from California for the other part. And he’d just…fly her back and forth.
Actually, he’d hate that—he’d gotten used to seeing her face every day and grown accustomed to the Red Bull in his fridge and the little v that formed between her eyebrows when she was pissed at him—but it was better than losing her, than not seeing her at all.
And her air miles would be through the roof.
He wasn’t sure how it might work right now. All he knew for sure was Cecilia Morgan was the best damn PA in the country—he’d had plenty of doozies to make that judgment call—and he didn’t want anyone else. He didn’t want to have to break someone else in. He didn’t want to get used to someone else’s foibles. He liked that little v, damn it.
So…he had to try and persuade her to stay.
Easy. Not.
It was frustrating for him that ultimately, he had no say in the matter. Especially now that she was more set financially. Money wasn’t a carrot he could use like it had been in the past, and he doubted CC would respond well to blatant attempts at persuasion.
But he’d bought himself three months. And there was no crying in football.
…
Four days later, CC stood on the sidewalk, blinking at the white facade of the replica Southern plantation–style house, complete with fluted Corinthian columns, towering portico, double gables, decorative iron railings, and red tiled roof. It wasn’t as huge as a lot of the mansions of its ilk, in fact it fit perfectly on the neat town-sized block, but given the neighborhood, it was a little on the…ostentatious side. The kind of thing she expected to see in a two-dollar snow globe, not on the streets of rural Colorado.
“You’re shitting me?”
He shook his head and gazed at the monstrosity like he’d laid every brick himself. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
CC’s normal objection to feminizing objects died on her lips. She was something all right. “Oh my God.” She turned to him with raised brows. “You own Tara?” She’d had no idea Wade’s house in Credence was pure Gone With The Wind antebellum.
He rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”
It was, actually, and she laughed. Wade’s taste was generally impeccable, but this was out there. “Well…” She fluttered her hand theatrically in front of her face and dredged up a Southern accent. “I do declare.”
“Okay, it’s a little over the top,” he admitted. “But I’ve wanted this house since I was five years old.”
CC blinked. She was glad little Wade had grown up to become a quarterback and not an architect. Still, it was sweet, in a childhood wish-fulfillment kinda way. And if anyone understood the power of a childhood dream, it was her. “Aww. Bless your heart.”
Ignoring her amusement, he swung the wrought-iron gate open. “After you.”
She shook her head and refused to budge. “We’re not seriously going to live here in this…this…” There were no words.
“This classic, reproduction piece of fine antebellum architecture? Absolutely.”
CC had been thinking mausoleum. White elephant for sure. She supposed they could go with his version. “But…what will we do when Atlanta burns?”
“Okay, wiseass.” Wade picked up their bags to the sound of her laughter. “Get your butt in the house.”
Laughing, she followed him in, shutting the gate behind her and mounting the wide sweep of stairs that led to the portico and the grand front entrance. She’d arranged for a housekeeper—Sally Tait, who’d been recommended by Wade’s mom—to air things out and get the house ready for habitation.
She was about to tell him the door might be locked when he turned the handle and it opened. CC rolled her eyes. Things gave way far too easily for Wade Carter.
They entered and, once again, CC found herself stopped in her tracks. The inside was dimmer than the outside but just as startling, and she stared open-mouthed. A large reception area was dominated by a massive chandelier and a grand staircase. It curved to the upper gallery, around which, she assumed, were the bedrooms.
The parquetry floor beneath their feet was covered in elegant, if a little worn, rugs, and, against one wall, a grandfather clock chimed the hour. Forget Tara. This place was Downton freaking Abbey.
She half expected to see Lady Mary sweeping regally down the staircase.
“Did you say Sally was going to be here?”
CC nodded, desperately trying to correlate the Wade she knew with this house. His apartment in Denver was the ultimate in style and sophistication. Sleek lines. Glass and space. All the high-tech gadgetry.
This place seemed about as low-tech as was possible in the age of Netflix.
“She’s probably out back sipping a mint julep,” CC murmured.
He grimaced. “Are you going to do this for three months?”
Recovering a little from her culture shock, CC smiled. “Probably.”
He could consider it his penance for insisting she reside with him while in Credence.
“I look forward to that, then,” he said drily and picked up the cases again. “Do you know which rooms she’s prepared for us?”
“Not sure.” All she knew for certain was that her room was to be as far away from Wade’s as possible.
The sound of a door opening somewhere interrupted them, and a woman whom CC presumed to be Sally bustled into the large open reception area. She was a pretty blonde in her early thirties and about twelve months pregnant, gauging by the size of her belly.
She smiled with apple pie and sunshine in her eyes, rushing forward to shake CC’s hand like she wasn’t about to give birth to a hippo. “Hi. You must be CC? I’m Sally.”
CC shook hands, staring apprehensively at that swollen belly like an alien might erupt from it at any moment. Holy Moses, how many labor laws had she broken by employing someone who should rightly be sitting at home with her feet up awaiting the impending birth of her baby zoo animal?
What had Ronnie been thinking?
“Wade.” Sally’s voice lowered in delight, and her gaze changed to one of pleasure as she glanced at the b
ig quarterback taking up space beside her. “How lovely to see you again. Your momma is thrilled to have you back home for a bit.”
She lifted on tippy-toe and kissed his cheek.
“Hey Sal, how’s Benji? How’s business?”
“Same old, same old,” Sally confirmed with a shrug. “Calls me every minute to check I’m not overdoin’ things.”
CC couldn’t blame him. Sally’s ankles looked like they were going to snap under the strain of her belly, even if she seemed fresh as a daisy.
“I keep telling him, I’ve got a whole month to go, but he’s as antsy as a turkey at Thanksgiving.”
A month? Was the woman giving birth to twin hippos?
“Well come on, I’ll show you where I put you.” She went to reach for one of the bags, and CC almost had a heart attack. But Wade very smoothly grabbed both handles.
“After you,” he said.
Sally laughed and rolled her eyes at CC. “Men, huh?”
CC rolled her eyes back and laughed along to hide her alarm that Sally would even contemplate dragging a suitcase up those stairs in her condition. Hell, if she was that big she’d find a nice, comfy couch somewhere and just loll. Maybe insist her baby daddy fan her with palm fronds and feed her grapes.
Sally, who wasn’t even panting a little after the climb to the second floor, turned right at the top, then traversed a short gallery before turning right again into a longer gallery bordered by an elegant wooden balustrade. She stopped about halfway along.
“I put you here, CC.” She opened the door to reveal a large room with big windows, beautiful parquetry floors, and a massive four-poster bed. “I thought you might appreciate a little grandeur.”
It was grand, all right. CC was starting to feel like Scarlett O’Hara.
“Thank you.”
The doorbell rang. “Oh, that’ll be the electrician. One of the outlets in the kitchen needs fixing, and he’s had to come from the next county, so I better not keep him waiting. I’ve put you in the same room in the opposite gallery, Wade.” Sally tipped her head in the direction of the room. “I’ll just get that, if you don’t need anything else for the moment?”
“No, all good, thanks, Sal.”
Sally smiled and dashed off as if she wasn’t lugging around a gigantic belly. “Wade,” CC whispered as they watched Sally go. “I don’t think she should be working. She looks like she’s about to pop.”
He shrugged. “She’s got another month. And mom said Benji’s construction company’s been struggling the past couple of years, so Sally’s been taking on work where she can get it.”
“I guess.” Still, CC couldn’t help but worry.
“Don’t worry, Sally grew up on a corn farm, she’s not afraid of a little hard work. They breed ’em tough out here.”
They bred them huge, too, by the looks of things.
“Okay.” He returned his attention to her. “Unpack, freshen up, then meet me downstairs. I’ll take you out to the farm and show you around the town.”
“You go on ahead. I want to get your computer set up and all the research laid out. I can have a look around tomorrow while you’re working on the book.”
She wanted to get to know Credence on her own terms, not as some extension of Wade, and they’d brought two cars for a reason.
He hesitated. “The town can be a little…hinky with strangers.”
“I’ll win them over with my sparkling personality.”
He snorted. “Do me a favor, CC, and humor me.”
“You should know by now I’m not so good at that.”
He grinned, unperturbed by her resistance. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Yeah. She deserved that.
CC listened to the running commentary from Wade with half an ear as he drove slowly along the main street. Country music played on the radio, but all she could hear was the picking of banjo strings. He pointed out the library and the police station and a bar called The Lumberjack, which an old school friend ran. There was a gas station and the municipal offices of the local council, where his mother went to her meetings.
It wasn’t at all like she’d imagined it would be.
The street was wide, lined with storefronts on either side, and cars had parked angled to the curb. The storefronts had all been painted different colors, but most of them were faded and peeling, and a lot of shops were empty, some even boarded up. The fronts were flush with the sidewalk, no fancy boardwalk with overhanging eaves, which somehow made it seem even more stark and bare.
There were trees every twenty feet or so, providing some shade for cars, but even they seemed scraggy and disinterested in life.
It was the middle of the day on a weekday, and there was barely any traffic. In fact, CC half expected to see tumbleweeds. Credence wasn’t a town bustling with energy.
It looked like a town in decline.
The diner—apparently run by an old woman named Annie since Jesus was a baby—was the only business that appeared to be doing okay. CC could see people sitting inside, and the street parking outside was popular.
“And that’s where I had my first kiss.”
CC tuned back in and focused on where Wade was pointing. It was the football field, a lush bright green amidst the faded wooden bleachers and the peeling goalposts.
“Right there under those bleachers.” He smiled and sighed. “Kathy Williams. I became a man that day.”
“It was that good, huh?”
He laughed. “I suspect it was terrible at first.”
He shook his head, and a tiny little hitch near CC’s heart snuck up and surprised the hell out of her. Her gaze was drawn to his profile, to the tilt of his lips. Usually those lips just exasperated the hell out of her, articulating his ridiculous demands, but, she had to admit, he had a great mouth. Kinda made a girl wonder what other demands lips like those could make.
Not that she’d ever wondered. Nor was she about to start. Crushing on her emotionally unavailable boss would be dumb. Especially when she was only a few months away from never having to see him again.
“I fumbled it badly, went like a bull at a gate. She pulled away and said, ‘softly, Wade,’ and then…”
It was hard to believe Wade had ever fumbled anything. His had been the safest hands in the NFL. And he’d obviously improved beyond kissing, if that thing he did with his tongue was as good as Annabel had said.
“Well…” He smiled, obviously still caught up in the memory. “Let’s just say she was patient, and I’m a fast learner.”
“How old were you?”
“I was fifteen. She was seventeen. The head cheerleader.”
CC rolled her eyes. “How very Riverdale of you.”
“What about you? Where was your first kiss? How old were you?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”
This is why she shouldn’t have come to Credence. He never would have asked her this in Denver. He’d be too busy actually kissing women there to be worried about her game.
“Oh, come on, what? Sweet thirty-two and never been kissed?” he teased. “Give me something, CC.”
CC’s stomach tightened. She’d given him her life for the past five and something years—wasn’t that enough? But he was looking at her with those flirty blue eyes. She was immune to them, but she liked that he tried.
“On my school trip to California. A guy in my learn-to-surf class. He was from Ohio. I was thirteen, he was fifteen. He kissed me under the pier.”
It was CC’s turn to smile. She remembered everything about that day, that moment. The breeze lifting her hair, the way the sun shone on the beads of water on his chest, the sand between her toes, the slap of the water against the wooden pylons of the pier.
He’d been wearing one of those wet suits, which he’d peeled off to his waist, and, even at fifteen, he had
this fascinating trail of hair that led down from his belly button. Wade had one of those, too. She’d seen it a little more than was good for her sanity.
Unfortunately for her, professional athletes had no issues with nudity.
“How was it?”
Pulling back from the memory, she glanced at him. “I was spectacular.”
He grinned. “Never doubted it.”
A tightening across her middle made CC squirm in the seat a little. “So was he.”
Wade grabbed his chest. “Go easy. Not all fifteen-year-old boys are made equal.”
“No, Danny was exceptional.”
“Danny?” His deep laughter filled the cabin until he was slapping his knee he was laughing so hard. Yeah…CC knew where this was going.
“Was his last name Zuko?”
She guessed she deserved that for the Riverdale crack, but still. “You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that, right?”
He broke out into a rendition of “Tell me more, tell me more,” and despite her dislike of country music, she pumped up the radio volume to drown him, and visions of him in a half-pulled-down wetsuit, out.
Chapter Four
CC had always been curious about the farm where Wade had grown up. It was hard to reconcile the wealthy jock with his humble Midwestern farm boy beginnings. Yeah, yeah, she knew, Colorado was not technically part of the Midwest. But hell, they were so close to Nebraska and Kansas right now, she could spit and it’d probably land in both states.
The landscape swung from flat to gently undulating. From pastures to crops to miles of what looked like open grassland. Animals and agricultural machinery dotted fields. Grain silos rose from the earth. Everything seemed yellow, from the sun glinting off barn roofs to the color of the fields.
Unlike the Tara nightmare she was calling home for the next three months, the Carter family’s farmhouse was what CC had imagined. Low-set, ranch style, stone walls, covered porch, and a chimney. It might have been a warm eighty today, but she bet it’d be bitterly cold here in the winter.