“Yeah, Jenna. This is my thing. So? You gonna come meet the guys, watch us do some drills? Or d’you want to sit in the SUV?”
She stared at the dry field beyond the ugly fence, taking in the sandy patches among dead grass, the football posts. “It must be like 106 degrees out there, Lex,” she said, pushing her thick fall of hair back from her face. “Why?”
“Why is it hot?”
“No, I mean, why do you coach at this time of year, this time of day? It’s almost July. Midday. It’s insane. People die exercising in weather like this.”
A smirk played over his mouth as he raked his eyes slowly and purposefully over her short, tight skirt, her very high heels, the way her halter top was already wet with sweat under her breasts. “Can’t stand the heat, sweetheart?”
Irritation flared. “Oh, please. I’m serious. People really do die in stuff like this.”
“This is the only time we can get access to a field free of charge. No one uses these grounds at this time of day or on weekends. We take what we can get.”
She thought of her quarter million donation. Of how it could help. Of why Lex had actually subjected himself to strutting on stage. While it had been a mercenary ploy on her part to help her father get his hands back on his precious ring, Lex had done it for those guys out there under the scorching sun on a burned-out field. His orphans.
He’d done it for love.
And she felt a little spurt of affection and of purpose. She—Jenna Rothchild—could actually help make a difference. A real difference.
To these lives.
To his.
She slammed the SUV door closed behind her, started toward him, careful not to catch her heels on the cracked concrete. “I still can’t believe anyone actually physically exerts themselves in this heat,” she muttered.
Lex grinned, and took her hand. As he did, a sharp jolt of energy whipped up her arm and slammed into her chest. Shocked, Jenna stopped dead, stared at him. And she could see in his unshaded eyes that he’d felt it, too. Again, thoughts of The Tears of the Quetzal shimmered eerily into her mind as she stared into his green eyes. She felt shaken. And oh so out of place.
He glanced away sharply, equally rattled, and he started to lead her around the fence, making for a stand of metal risers along the perimeter of the field. Jenna stumbled after him, her sharp heels sinking deeply, awkwardly into bone-dry sand.
Jenna loved heels. They made her feel feminine. They made her feel complete when she dressed. But for the first time in her life, be damned, Lex was making her feel wrong in her own clothes. In her own city.
“You could have at least told me what to wear,” she grumbled.
That smirk played over his mouth again, but he said nothing.
She stopped again, withdrawing her hand from his. “Oh, wait, I get it.” She scooted her oversized designer shades higher up her nose. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”
“What? You mean taking daddy’s little casino princess out of her shiny tower and putting her down in the dirt? Showing her how real folk live on the other end of town? Now why would I want to do that?”
She glared at him.
His eyes sparkled, naked against the harsh glare.
The sound of a boot resounding off pigskin echoed over the field as one of the guys kicked the football, his skin gleaming ebony with sweat under the relentless sun. Another teen caught it, absorbing impact with his body, then ran. The others were doing exercise drills. But they all stopped, began milling about, watching from the distance as Lex and Jenna approached the risers.
She knew they had to be wondering who she was, why she was here. And for the first time since elementary school, before the girls decided she was “cool,” Jenna actually felt self-conscious.
“Hey, Coach!” The guy with the ball yelled, punching his arm high into the sky.
Lex raised his hand. “Be right there!” He stopped at the risers. “You want to watch from here?”
She shielded her eyes. There was nowhere else, no shade in sight. “A hat, Lex. You could have suggested I bring a hat. And sunscreen.”
He held out his duffel bag. “All in here. Ball cap, sunscreen, sports drink, water. Camera. The guys would love some shots of practice, if you’re up to it.”
Jenna wasn’t sure whether to curse at him, call her father’s chauffeur to come fetch her, or just show Lex that she could suck it up and take whatever curveball he was going to throw at her next. She grabbed the bag handles. “So, now I know what turns you on, Agent Duncan—making fun of me.”
His gaze skimmed brazenly over her body. “It’s just one of the things—” he said, lowering his voice “—that turns me on, Jenna.”
Her nipples hardened in spite of the heat, and she swallowed. “Guess I asked for it, huh?” she said softly.
A delicious smile curved over his lips. “I guess you did, princess.” He hooked his knuckle gently under her chin. “Would you prefer I take you home?”
“If I said yes, would you?”
He laughed—a glorious sound deep and throaty, from somewhere in his broad chest. It rippled over her skin, unsettling her further.
“What is so damn hilarious? Why are you laughing?”
“Because, Jenna.” He tilted her chin up gently. “I know you won’t say yes.”
“A gambling man are you then?”
“Just an astute reader of personality. I think you pointed that out yourself over dinner. And you, Jenna, are a fighter. In your own sweet way.”
“And you, Lex, are annoyingly patronizing,” she snapped, as she yanked the bag from his hand and turned to climb the bleachers before realizing that in her tight skirt, she was going nowhere up. She was going to be relegated to the bottom rung. The universe was trying to tell her something today.
“Glad you find me so amusing,” she said, dumping his bag down on the bottom riser. She rummaged through it, finding his water bottle, and she took a deep and thirsty swallow, wiping a spill from her mouth with the back of her wrist. “Still can’t believe anyone can handle physical exertion in this hellish weather. I’ll be the one sitting here saying I-told-you-so when one of your guys collapses and dies.”
Lex pulled off his shirt, abs rippling, and Jenna stared while he wasn’t looking. “My boys are built to take the knocks in life,” he said, pulling on a fresh gray T-shirt that molded to his hard lines. “They wouldn’t be here today if they weren’t. Some of those guys have had a really rough shake, Jenna. They’re lucky to even be alive.”
“And they’re all orphans?” She offered the water bottle to him.
He took a swig. “Yeah. Some are in foster homes now, being bounced around by the system. Others are on their own.”
“Is that what happened to you, after your mother died? Were you bounced around the system?”
“Yup.” He capped the bottle. “Until I ran afoul of the law in a minor way. I was on a one-way track to trouble until Tom McCall, the Washoe County sheriff at the time, took me aside and helped me pull my act together. He said he saw something in me.” Lex hesitated for a moment, the darkness of some memory entering his eyes. “I ended up going into law enforcement because of Tom. He showed me that if I worked with the system, instead of against it, I could take charge. Hit back. Fix things.”
“And catch bad guys.”
He looked at her, silent for a beat, darkness consuming his eyes. “Yeah. And catch bad guys.”
Jenna studied him, sensing a hidden story between his words. She wondered which bad guy in particular might have fired up the young Lex and what it was he’d so badly needed to fix back then.
Lex turned to look at his boys out on the field. “I owe that sheriff,” he said quietly, watching them for a moment. “Big time.”
“And helping those kids is your way of paying back?”
He grunted, tossing the water bottle back into his bag. “We’ll be out there for a couple hours. If you start to wilt, go wait in the car.” He began to jog out onto the gras
s.
She swore at him, only partly in jest. He turned, jogging backward, a big grin back on his face. “Hey, Rothchild—I like fighters,” he said. And he turned, jogged out onto the hot field to join his guys.
Jenna forced out a lungful of air as she plunked herself down on the metal bench. Yelping, she jumped right back up as the hot metal seared the backs of her legs under her short skirt. She cursed again, yanked Lex’s shirt out of his bag and sat on it, thinking it was a darn good thing she’d listened to him and left Napoleon at home. Poor Naps would have perished of heatstroke out here. She might just die herself, she thought, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist.
As the minutes ticked by the day pressed more heavily down on Jenna. Her face grew flushed and red, her hair springy. Sweat trickled irritatingly between her breasts, down her stomach. But she was not going to let Lex win—she was not going to crawl back into his air-conditioned SUV with her tail between her legs. She refused to give him that satisfaction. She lifted the hem of her halter away from her belly and fluttered her shirt, trying to let air in and dry herself.
Nothing worked.
Jenna finally just gave in to the sweltering temperature, stopped worrying about what the humidity was doing to her hair, and how beet-red her face must be—no one cared what she looked like out here, anyway. So she let the heat swallow her as she watched the guys play.
Lex repeatedly threw the ball, neat spiraling rockets as the guys peeled off a line, one by one, to run and catch it. While they sweated they traded cheerful insults, bantering. Guy stuff. The day grew hotter, more intense.
Jenna shaded her eyes and squinted toward the distant mountains. The red haze over them was gathering into a dark bank of purple cloud, signs of a looming summer electrical storm. No wonder the air pressure felt so heavy.
Lex ran backward, received the ball and was tackled hard. She heard him thud to the ground.
Jenna winced.
But he was up, running and throwing again, his muscles getting pumped, his hair damp. His skin glistened, and his T-shirt molded wet to his torso. They played hard like that for almost a full hour, zigzagging over the field, doing different drills. Lex looked so different out there compared to the dry FBI suit who’d visited their home yesterday. On that field he was in his element, gripped by a sense of free spirit, joy even. It was fascinating to watch.
Jenna got over herself and into the spirit. She found Lex’s camera in his bag, fiddled with it until she figured out how to use it. Then she kicked off her sandals and worked the sidelines barefoot, the grass hard and sharp underfoot in some places and pocked with small stones in others. But it was easier than having her spiked heels sinking erratically into soil—she was so not going to break her ankle. She could just imagine the hilarity that would invoke. He was asking for her to make a fool of herself, and she knew it.
Well, she was going to prove him wrong.
Jenna got down on her knee, her skirt riding high up her thigh. She zoomed in with the lens, clicked. Good shot, she thought, trying for a different angle.
Lex waved, suddenly distracted by her and what she was doing. It cost him—he took the full brunt of a barreling kid in the gut, blew backward into the dirt, landing with a hard bounce that made her scrunch up her face.
Ouch.
But he laughed—that great big infectious laugh. And she caught the moment on camera. Then she lowered her lens, stilled. He watched her for a moment, an energy transferring between them over the length of the field, crackling with soft electrical potential.
“Coach! Heads up! Incoming!”
He spun, caught the football just in time and the game was back on.
Jenna smiled.
Lex ducked his head under an outside tap, sun hot on his back as a barefooted Jenna watched. He stood, flicked back his wet hair. “Pass my shirt, will you?”
She handed him his clean T-shirt with a warm smile and a happy lightness in her eyes.
He stilled as he took his shirt. Something had shifted in Jenna. His princess had easily shed her Vegas glitz. She looked real—her hair a sexy wild mass, skin aglow, cheeks kissed soft pink from the sun, her blouse molded to her breasts, damp with perspiration—and Lex’s world narrowed as his attention was drawn along the curves of her body. He slowly took his shirt from her hand, forgetting why he’d brought her out here in the first place. He forgot the homicide case, The Tears of the Quetzal, the FBI…it all flowed in a dim viscous river to some place deep down at the back of his mind as his skin connected with hers.
She came a little closer, eyelids lowering. “Lex—” her voice come out a low whisper “—I understand.”
Lex tried to swallow. “Understand what?”
“What you don’t like in me.” Her eyes held his with a bright directness that made him turn to throbbing molten lead down low in his gut. The sun burned down on his head.
“I can see why I am not your thing,” she said.
Right this minute, babe, you’re exactly like my thing.
He cupped the side of her face suddenly, thumb under her jaw. And he tilted her full mouth up to him, meeting her lips with his, fast and hard before he could think. Her curvaceous body softened instantly against his. He drew her close to his naked chest, tasting her, drawing her scent in deep as he opened her soft, sweet mouth under his.
She ran her hand down his torso to his waist, urgency mounting in her body, and she reached the band of his shorts. A raw lust bottled and swelled inside him like it was going to blow. He wanted her bad. All of her. Now. Here. In his car, wherever. But this was wrong, so wrong…the legal stuff will be in the clear as long as you keep your hands off her.
He pulled back instantly, breathing hard, trying to align everything in his head—he was supposed to be working her for information, and he’d just crossed the line, damn it.
Quinn would have his balls if he found out. The system would eat him alive.
Lex swore to himself. No one needed to know this had happened between them. He just had to make damn sure it didn’t happen again, and that he kept his lust in check. Besides, how could he be sure that Jenna wasn’t still playing him on behalf of her father? He wouldn’t put anything past that family.
Lex quickly pulled his shirt over his head, cleared his throat. “We should get into the shade. It’s…hot.”
“It sure is.” She grinned. Genuine. Affectionate. Definitely not calculated. And deep down Lex wanted to believe that what he saw in her face, in her eyes, was real. And that’s when he knew he was in real trouble. “Do…uh…you want to go get an ice cream…or something?” Like a cold shower.
“Love to.”
“Hey, Coach!” The skinny kid suddenly came trotting back around the corner, all toothy smile and sweaty gear. “I lost my bus money.”
“Again?”
“Could you maybe loan me some?”
Lex peeled off a couple of notes from his wallet and handed them to the kid. “You gotta watch your cash, Slim.”
He shuffled on his feet. “Hey, I’ll pay you back, just like I did last time.”
“Yeah. Take it. Go.” Lex slapped him playfully on the back. “Get yourself some dinner while you’re at it. Put some meat on those skinny bones of yours.”
“Thanks, Coach! Thanks a ton.”
“Go!”
He spun and jogged off.
And in that moment, Jenna thought she could fall head over heels in love with this man. He was the furthest thing from any of the guys she’d ever dated, and way out of her social circle, but he did something to her. He’d make a terrific father, and that made her think that maybe she wanted a family of her own someday. Something real, built on love. And the notion shocked her. Jenna had never, ever thought along these lines before.
“Come,” he said, taking her hand in his and leading her back to his car. “You surprised me back there, you know?”
“Because you thought I’d melt?”
“You did,” he chuckled, holding the car d
oor open for her.
Jenna flushed. He was right—she had melted. Her hair had frizzed out all over the place. She’d gotten sunburned and sweaty. And she didn’t give a damn. Because he thought she looked gorgeous. She could see it in his eyes. She’d tasted it in his kiss.
And that’s all that mattered right now.
Afternoon was segueing into evening and wads of purplish-red clouds were now scudding in from across the Mojave as they entered an industrial part of the city. Jenna felt fatigue creeping up on her. With the low feeling came a sense of regret.
After watching Lex give of himself to those kids, after having seen him suffer on stage at her auction because he cared for them, Jenna was beginning to feel she was a flake. Truth be told, she’d wasted a good chunk of her life shopping and partying. Moving from one pseudoevent to the next. She was surprised Lex had even bothered to bring her out here, that he’d actually given her a second chance.
Why had he?
She glanced at his strong profile as he drove, and Jenna found herself wishing it was because he’d glimpsed something in her. More likely it was because he was interested in her connection to Candace—and his case—and he wanted to keep plying her for information.
He shot her a look. “Hey, what’s up? You’ve gone quiet on me.”
She shook her head, feeling a weird burn of emotion in her eyes. “It’s nothing.”
“Jenna?”
She looked out the window.
He drove in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what happened back there.”
“Oh, no, Lex…that’s not it.”
“You sure?” His eyes were vulnerable, and she felt a sharp stab of affection. It bloomed soft and warm through her chest. She tried to smile. “I was just thinking…about how I’ve wasted my life, my money. How I could’ve been doing so much more. Seeing what you did in one afternoon, how you create a sense of family for those kids…” Her voice faded as she thought of her own dysfunctional family, that stupid woman her dad had gone and married. About how she wished she’d had her real mom around. “It’s nothing.”
“Hey, you haven’t had a normal life, either, Jenna. Growing up in Vegas, imprisoned by your father in that—”
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