by Soraya Lane
“Hey, no offense,” he said, holding up a hand. “You’re a beautiful woman working in a man’s world, that’s all. I bet you charmed the hell out of them without even realizing.”
“You really want to know what I did?” she asked, not giving him the opportunity to say anything else. “I found out their therapist was retiring at the end of the season, and I gave up my job and worked for them for free so I could learn from the best and prove myself. I had to live off my savings and move into a tiny place that I could barely afford, but I was determined to land the top job.”
“Sounds like the girl I used to know. You never did change your mind once you’d decided on something.”
Like them breaking up. They were the words that hung unsaid between them. But he was right, that was something about her that definitely hadn’t changed.
“When the season finished, I was sweating big time. I didn’t know if I’d done enough to impress them or if they were interviewing other candidates, and I was down to my last few hundred dollars. There was no way I could keep paying my rent, and I was terrified I was going to have to tell my parents I was back bartending. I mean, it was fine when I was at college working part-time slinging beers at night, but their little girl all grown up and graduated working a bar would have killed them. They didn’t put aside all their savings for me to get a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree and then walk away from a paying job in the first place!”
Tanner’s laugh echoed around them, warmed her like a cashmere sweater being wrapped around her shoulders. How could he still do that to her? How could the soft, deep timbre of his laugh take her back years, reminding her of being in his arms and listening to that same laugh with her cheek pressed to his chest?
“But you got the job,” he said.
“Yeah, I got the job. Turns out they were just letting me sweat, but the players had all gotten together and requested me. I was able to make my rent check, and soon after I was able to put a down payment on my own place.” She smiled, thinking how much life had changed, and how proud she’d been inviting her parents over to see the house she’d brought with no help from anyone. “I’ve been with them for two years now and my contract has been renewed.”
“You did good, Lol. I’m proud of you.”
She froze. The warm feeling that had engulfed her had fallen away, replaced by a shudder of goose bumps that coursed rapidly across her skin. She hadn’t heard a man use that nickname since … since Tanner. Her sister was the only other person who ever called her that, and it had been years since she’d heard it even from her. It was a silly name that Tanner had started, because everyone always joked that she was always laughing out loud.
“It was an uphill battle for a while there, but life’s good now. I’m happy, the work is rewarding, and I don’t have a lot of downtime so it pays to enjoy my work.”
They sat in silence awhile as Lauren sipped her drink. The seat was so comfortable and she tucked her legs up beneath her as she went back to staring out the window. She’d never been to a tropical island, and Fiji sounded like heaven. The only part of the equation she didn’t like was not knowing what she was going to say to Tanner for the next three weeks.
“So while you were being a nerd studying at college, I was pretty busy too,” Tanner told her. She listened but she didn’t look. “I studied, my dad wouldn’t have it any other way and I agreed with him, but I only lasted long enough at Baylor University to get my undergrad degree, and even then it took me forever to get it. I rode bulls between semesters, and eventually I took up riding full-time.” He laughed. “I’ve secretly always wanted to do an MBA, maybe once I’ve retired, but it’ll probably never happen.”
Lauren was pleased she wasn’t watching him, because then he’d have seen the surprise written all over her face. He’d impressed her, but then wasn’t that why he was telling her? Or maybe he just wanted to make it clear that he hadn’t been moping around with a broken heart.
“You’d probably be the only rider on the circuit with an MBA if you did it,” she said. “You could do it online.”
“Haha, I probably would be. It’s not something I ever bothered to ask when we were shooting the breeze, waiting to climb aboard some asshole of a bull.” He sat back as she watched him. “Maybe I should look at doing it online—it’d be easier than having to turn up on campus somewhere. I’ll think about it.”
Lauren stroked her fingers up and down the stem of the glass. How were they just doing this? Suddenly talking like old friends catching up when earlier there had been such an overwhelming sense of animosity? And if talking to him was like this, what was it going to be like touching him? She was going to have to put her hands on him, she was going to have to breathe in the air around him and place her skin against his.
“Dammit,” he softly swore, his mutter commanding her attention.
“What is it?” she asked, pushing her glass away and turning in her seat. She could see the pain etched on his face, even though he was clearly trying not to let it show. She was used to men trying to be tough guys, and she was just as used to seeing right through any façade they tried to put up.
“Nothin’. I just—” He sucked back a breath. “Mother f—.” Tanner glanced at her, not finishing his curse. “I’m fine.”
She stifled her laugh. It was cute he’d stopped himself from swearing around her, and she remembered how polite and charming he’d always been. A true Southern gentleman, even when he’d been sneaking into her room late at night or roaring off down the road on his motorcycle with her hanging on from behind.
“Let me help,” she said, getting up from her seat. She held onto the armrest for a moment, the champagne hitting her faster than she’d expected it to. No more drinks for you, missy.
“No, just sit down,” he ordered. “It’ll pass.”
She watched as Tanner stretched his leg out, wincing as he shifted his weight.
“Where does it hurt?” she asked, taking the step to his chair and dropping to her knees. She watched his face and saw him hiss in a breath of air as he lengthened his leg.
“Just sitting here, it’s…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s being stiff because I’m not moving here but, hell, nothing feels right. Shouldn’t I be feeling better than this after being in a cast?”
She shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know that you should be feeling better yet. You’ve just had your cast off and you’ve been through one hell of a trauma, and all that’s happened is that the bone has healed, not everything around it.” She dropped to her knees and touched her hand to his leg, glancing up at him to catch his eye before she went any further. “May I?”
He grunted and she took that as a yes. Lauren pressed more firmly, the softness of the worn denim at odds with the tight, solid muscle beneath it. His calf was bunched up, and she knew that the only bit of relief she could give him now was a massage of sorts. She leaned in, head bent as she ran her fingers up and down his leg, pushing into his muscles to try to help him, even though what she really needed was to be touching skin not denim.
Lauren startled when he exhaled, the noise taking her by surprise, and when she looked up at him, her eyes fixed on his, she saw so much there. The pain of what they’d once had, longing and dammit, she’d be lying if she didn’t see desire matched by the heat coursing the length of her own body right now.
“Lauren…”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
Lauren’s head snapped up, her skin ignited as if she’d been set on fire. The poor attendant was standing there, face as red as Lauren’s felt, backing up so she could disappear into where she’d just emerged from. She looked at Tanner, at her hand on his leg, at the way she was bent forward …
“I’m a physical therapist,” she choked out. “I…”
“It’s none of my business. Excuse me,” the attendant said. “Please let me know if there’s anything you need.”
Lauren pushed up, palm to Tanner’s leg.
“Shit, you trying t
o hurt me or heal me?” he muttered.
She quickly pulled her hand back, wrapping both arms around herself. “She thought I was giving you a blow job,” she whispered. “Oh my god, she thought I was … shit! What if she knows someone from my team? What if…”
Tanner looked amused. A smile played across his lips as she glowered at him.
“If you’d spent your entire career trying to prove to everyone around you that you were beyond professional in your role, you’d be pissed too,” she fumed. “You have no idea how hard I’ve had to work to get the trust of the players’ wives and girlfriends!”
“Hey, I wasn’t the one who told you to drop to your knees, sweetheart.”
She opened her mouth to say something back but bit down on her lip instead. Asshole. Just when she’d been wondering if walking away from Tanner all those years ago had been a mistake, he went and acted like a total jerk.
Lauren sat back in her seat, downed the last of her champagne, and pulled out her headphones and iPad. It was going to be a long flight, and she intended on watching a movie or two and not looking up until they’d landed.
She certainly wasn’t going to give Tanner the satisfaction of showing him how much he’d hurt her. Not now, not ever.
* * *
Tanner looked up from his device and watched Lauren. She’d been ignoring him for almost two hours, and he was starting to realize just how much his joking around had hurt her. The attendant had been brave enough to come back out, offering Lauren a cashmere blanket and bringing her bottled water, but other than seeing her shy smile and watching her mouth move as she’d spoken to the attendant, that was it. She hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t spoken to him, and she sure as hell hadn’t smiled at him.
The girl he’d known way back when had liked to joke around and hadn’t stopped laughing. She’d spent more time with her lips stretched wide into a smile, head back, laughing the hell out of whatever dumb thing he said. Her eyes had danced when she’d spoken, lighting up whenever she was happy. But Lauren was every inch a woman now, no longer just a fun-loving girl, and from her reaction before? One who had worked her tail feathers off to get where she was today. And defying others’ expectations and walking your own path were two things that Tanner respected.
He tried to stretch his leg out but his ankle was stuck and everything felt rigid. He needed Lauren’s help, and he needed it badly. Her nightmare might be someone thinking she wasn’t behaving in a professional manner toward one of her clients, but his was never climbing aboard a bull again. And right now she was the one thing standing between his retirement and his comeback.
I’m sorry. They were the words he needed to say. He just had to find a way to actually get them off his chest, which wouldn’t have been so hard if they weren’t the two words he’d been waiting twelve years for her to say to him.
“Mr. Ford, would you like me to serve lunch now?”
He looked up into the warm, pretty-as-a-picture blue eyes of the attendant, but suddenly all the pretty blue eyes in the world didn’t appeal to him. The only eyes he wanted up close and looking back into his were a different color.
“Thanks, that’d be great,” he said.
“I have turkey and Swiss cheese sandwiches, or I can fix you something different,” she said, her smile fixed as she spoke. “We are well stocked with fresh fruit, cheese and crackers—”
“The sandwich is fine,” he interrupted. “And an OJ please.”
She nodded and then moved on to Lauren. His view was obscured, but he watched the way Lauren looked up, the polite way she said thank you and enquired about the attendant’s plans for Christmas.
Lauren was familiar enough to make him yearn for what they’d had in the past, yet at the same time she was a complete stranger. He just wasn’t sure whether he wanted to keep things that way, or whether he wanted to know every damn thing there was to know about the woman who’d made him shut off his heart to the world from the day she’d walked away.
* * *
“It’s not you, it’s me,” Lauren said, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she pulled her shoulders forward, hunched over, stomach concaved. “We’re too young, Tanner, and I’m off to college. Everything’s changing.”
He stared at her, feeling like he’d been sucker punched. “What?”
One minute they’d been making out, her back against the wall, one leg curled around his butt as he pushed hard up against her. He was still catching his breath from kissing her, from having her body warm to his and her fingers clenched in his hair. And now she was breaking up with him?
“Where the hell did this come from? Did your parents put you up to this?”
She shook her head, but he watched the way she sucked in her lower lip, catching it beneath her teeth as she stumbled backwards.
“Tanner, it’s for the best. We’ve been way too serious and we’re too young.”
He clenched his fists. They were Tan and Lol. They were supposed to stay together, they were going to be the couple who kept it together no matter what. “Lauren, come on. You’re not thinking straight. What the hell is up with you?”
She moved back toward him and pressed her hands to his chest, leaning in. Her mouth touched his, warm and soft, as tears fell to her mouth, salty as he kissed her back.
“Goodbye, Tanner,” she said, stepping away so he could see her tear-stained cheeks before she turned and ran.
He’d stood there, waiting for her to come back, to tell him it was some kind of sick joke. But Lauren had never come back, and no matter how many times he’d slammed his fist into the wall, the pain in his knuckles never caught up to the aching, grinding pain in his chest that almost split him in half.
Chapter 5
LAUREN shut her eyes and dug her fingers into the leather armrests as the jet landed on the tarmac. She never got particularly nervous flying, but there was something about the descent that always made her stomach flip a little. When she opened her eyes, she knew it was time to put on her game face—and those big girl panties she’d talked about before.
“Now that was a long flight,” Tanner said with a groan.
She slowly released her fingers and wiggled them, stretching out her legs and flexing her feet at the same time. “Yeah, you can say that again.”
Trying to ignore Tanner and keep herself occupied for so long had felt like the most tedious task she’d ever faced, but she wasn’t about to confess that to him. She reached for her bag, put her Kindle, iPad, and ear buds into it, and took out her makeup. She hastily glanced in the little mirror, dabbing some concealer beneath her eyes, dusting bronzer over her cheeks and then dabbing on some lip gloss. Her eyes were red and she was ready to find her bed and sleep off the jet lag for at least ten hours.
“We’ll be ready to disembark shortly,” the attendant informed them, appearing from behind the privacy curtain. “Don’t forget to take some bottles of water with you. The humidity here is insane.”
Lauren took the half-empty water bottle, opened the lid, and guzzled it down. She knew better than to get dehydrated leaving a plane—it was one of the key things she always reminded the players to help keep their bodies in good shape. Water, water, and more water.
She looked out the window one last time, then stood. She was about to turn, about to look at Tanner and swallow the lump in her throat and say something, when his hand closed around her wrist.
Lauren looked down at his skin against hers and fought the urge to rip her arm away.
“I’m sorry about before,” he said, his voice gruff.
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine. If it was fine, we wouldn’t have spent the last fifteen hours in silence.”
He had her there. “How about we agree to forget about the plane ride?” she suggested. “New country, fresh start.”
His deep chuckle sent a trill down her spine as his fingers left her wrist. “How about I request a different attendant for the flight home, huh?”
They both laughed,
although Lauren knew her cheeks were pink. She’d always been the straitlaced one and Tanner had been the daredevil—it was why her parents had found their relationship so hard to deal with. He might have grown up and mellowed out a lot, but underneath the stubble and the more weathered appearance she knew he was still the same risk-taking, fun-loving boy he’d always been.
“Come on, help a guy out of his seat, would you?”
Lauren held out a hand and helped haul Tanner up. She had to clasp her other hand over his arm as she pulled him up, and given how much effort she had to put into it, she knew how stiff and sore he must be.
“This Fiji weather better help my aching bones,” he muttered.
Lauren’s breath caught in her throat as he looked down at her. One step. One step was all it would take to have his body rammed hard against hers, her fingers clenched in his hair, her lips dancing with his.
He cleared his throat and she took a step back.
The trouble was that she didn’t sleep with clients. She didn’t kiss clients. She didn’t even joke around inappropriately with clients. Which meant that Tanner Ford was more than off-limits—he was forbidden.
Tanner raised an eyebrow, looking down at her, like he was waiting for her to do something or say something.
“You ready for some tropical sunshine, Lol?”
“How about you stop calling me Lol?” she replied. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a grown-ass woman now.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed.” Tanner laughed. “How about you stop staring at my mouth and just hurry up and kiss me?”
Lauren’s skin burned hot and she glared at Tanner, opening her mouth to say something smart back. Only words failed her. She balled her fist, aching to open her palm and slap him straight across the cheek as punishment, but she didn’t. She wasn’t a little girl lashing out, she was a woman who wanted respect—and it looked like she was going to have to earn it.