by Jill Shalvis
Her father, Rainey guessed. Everyone knew Martin was a mean drunk but no one wanted to talk about it, least of all Sharee, who lived alone with her mother except for the nights her mother allowed the man into their trailer.
“He called me a scarecrow,” Sharee said, pointing at Todd. “Now his sorry ass is going to pay.”
“Language,” Rainey said.
“Okay, his sorry butt. His sorry butt is going to pay.”
“I said you have legs as long as a scarecrow,” Todd said from behind Rainey. “Not that you are a scarecrow.”
Sharee growled and lifted the hose.
“Stop!” Rainey said. “If you squirt him, you’re leaving yourself wide open for retaliation.”
“That’s right,” Todd said, nodding like a bobblehead. “Retaliation.”
Rainey turned to shut Todd up just as Sharee let it rip with the hose and nailed him.
Rainey gave up. They had worked their asses off and deserved to let off a little steam. She stepped aside to leave them to it, but stopped short as a big, shiny black truck pulled into the lot.
Which was when the entire contents of Todd’s bucket hit her. Sucking in a shocked gasp as the cold, soapy water rained over her, Rainey whipped around and stared at the sheepish teen, who was holding the offending empty bucket. “Oh, God,” he said. “I’m so sorry, but you stepped right in its path!”
“You’re in big trouble,” Sharee told him. “You got her hair wet. You know how long it must take her to get that hair right?”
Sharee was right about the hair. Rainey shoved it out of her face, readjusting the Ducks hat on her head. Her wavy brown hair frizzed whenever it rained, or if the air was humid, or if she so much as breathed wrong. She had no doubt it resembled a squirrel’s tail about now. “It’s okay. Just…clean up,” she said, watching as the black truck rolled to a stop.
“Look at that,” Todd said reverently, Rainey’s hair crisis forgotten. “That’s one sweet truck.”
Sneakers squishing, Rainy moved toward it. She could feel water running in rivulets down her body as the driver side window powered down. “I’m sorry,” she said politely, feeling like a drowned rat. “We’ve closed up shop. We—” She broke off. The driver was wearing a Mammoth hat and reflective Oakleys, rendering him all but unrecognizable to the general public. But she recognized him just fine, and her heart stopped on a dime.
The man she’d just been watching on the news.
Mark Diego.
He wore a white button-down that was striking against his dark skin and stretched across broad shoulders. The hand-painted sign behind her said: Car Wash—$10, but he pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket. She stared down at it, boggled.
“No worries on the wash,” he said in a low voice as smooth as aged whiskey, the same voice that had fueled her adolescent dreams.
He didn’t recognize her.
Of course he didn’t. She was wearing a ball cap, sunglasses, soap suds, and was drenched to the core, not to mention dressed like a complete slob. Unlike Mark, of course, who looked like sin-on-a-stick. Expensive sin-on-a-stick.
The bastard.
“I just need a place to park,” he said with the smile that she knew probably melted panties and temperamental athletes with equal aplomb. “I’m here to see Rick Diego.”
“You can park right where you are,” Rainey said.
He turned off the engine and got out of the truck, six feet two inches of tough, rugged, leanly muscled grace. Two other guys got out as well, and beside her, Todd nearly swallowed his tongue. “Casey Reynolds! James Vasquez! Oh man, you guys rock!”
Casey, the Mammoths’ right wing, was twenty-two and the youngest player on the team. He looked, walked and talked like the California surfer he was in his spare time. He wore loose basketball shorts, a T-shirt from some surf shop in the Caicos, and a backwards Mammoths’ hat.
James was the team’s left wing, and at twenty-four he was nearly as wild as Casey, but instead of looking like he belonged on a surfboard, James could have passed as a linebacker in the NFL. He was wearing baggy blue jeans and a snug silk shirt that emphasized and outlined his every muscle.
If she hadn’t known they were the two players who’d been in the big bar brawl, she could have guessed by Casey’s nasty black eye and the bruise and cut on James’s jaw. Still managing to look like million-dollar athletes, they smiled at Todd and shook his hand.
The kid looked like he might pass out.
Mark and his two players clearly had a longtime ease with each other, but just as clearly there was a hierarchy, with Mark at the top—and he hadn’t taken his carefully observant eyes off Rainey.
Crap.
She turned away, but he snagged her hand and pulled her very wet self back around. She thought about tugging free.
Or kicking him.
As if he could read her mind, his lips twitched. “Easy,” he murmured, and pulled off her sunglasses.
She narrowed her eyes against the sun and a wealth of unwelcome emotions as the very hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his sexy mouth.
“It’s a little hard to tell with the raccoon eyes,” he said. “But the bad ’tude’s a dead giveaway. Rainey Saunders. Look at you.”
The others were all still talking with a false sense of intimacy. Mark tapped the bill of Rainey’s Ducks hat, giving a slow shake of his head, like he couldn’t believe she’d be wearing anything other than the Mammoths’ colors.
And suddenly she felt like that silly, love-struck teenager all over again. Having four years on her, he’d been clueless about the crush. He might never have known at all if she hadn’t made a fool of herself and sneaked into his apartment to strip for him. It’d all gone straight to hell since he’d been on the receiving end of a blow job at the time. She’d compounded the error with several more that evening, which she didn’t want to think about. Ever. It’d all ended with her pride and confidence completely squashed.
Worse, the night had negated the years of friendship she and Mark had shared until then, all erased in one beat of stupidity.
Okay, several beats of stupidity.
She lifted her chin, which turned out to be a mistake because water had pooled on the bill and now dripped down her face. She blinked it away and tried to look cool—not easy under the best of circumstances, and this wasn’t anywhere close to best.
Mark pointed to her nose. “You have a smudge of dirt.”
Oh, good. Because she’d been under the illusion she was looking perfect. “Thought you liked dirty girls.” The minute she said it, she could have cut out her tongue. He’d been on GQ last month, artfully stretched out on some L.A. beach, draped in sand.
And four naked, gorgeous, equally sandy women.
She’d bought the damn issue, which really chapped her ass. Mark clearly knew it, and his smile broke free. She rubbed at her nose but apparently this only made things worse because his smile widened.
“Here,” he said, and ran a finger over the bridge of her nose himself.
Up this close and personal, it was hard to miss just how gorgeous he was.
Or how good he smelled.
Or how expensive he looked.
All of which was hugely irritating.
“Got it,” he said. “Not much I can do about the soap all over you. Let’s fix this too.” Then, before she could stop him, he tugged off her drenched hat, flashed an amused glance at what was surely some scary-ass hair, then replaced her hat with the one from his own head. The Mammoths, of course. He ran a hand over his own silky, dark hair, leaving it slightly tousled and perfectly sexy.
She snatched back her hat. “I like the Ducks. They’re my favorite team.”
At this, both of his players turned from Todd and stared at her. Rainey didn’t know if it was because of what she’d just said, or because no one dared sass their fearless leader. “No offense,” she said to them.
“None taken,” Casey said on a grin and held out his hand, introducing himself. James
did the same.
Rainey instantly liked them both, and not just because they were famous, or cute as hell—which they were—but because they were quite harmless, as compared with their head coach. He wasn’t the least bit harmless. Rainey squirmed a little, probably due to the soapy water running down her body.
Or the way Mark was studying her with the same quiet intensity he used on the ice—which she knew because she watched his games. All of them.
“So how do you know Coach?” James asked her.
Rainey looked into Mark’s eyes. Well, not quite his eyes, since they were still behind the reflective Oakleys that probably cost more than her grocery bill for the month. “We go way back.”
Mark’s almost-smile made an appearance again. “Rainey went to school with my brother Rick.” He paused, clearly waiting for her to add something to the story.
No thank you, since the only thing she could add would be “and one time I threw myself at him and he turned me down flat.”
They’d seen each other since, of course, on the few occasions when he’d come back to town to visit his dad and brother. Once when she’d been twenty-one, at a local police ball that Mark had helped chair. He’d slow danced with her and the air had crackled between them. Chemistry had abounded, and she could read in his dark eyes that he’d felt it too, and she’d melted at his interest. But she hadn’t been able to swallow her mortification about the fiasco on her sixteenth birthday, so she’d made an excuse and bailed on him. She’d seen him again, several times, and each accidental run-in had been the same.
The laws of physics didn’t change. The sun would come up. The sun would go down. And she would always be insanely attracted to Mark Diego.
The last chance encounter had been only two years ago. They’d had yet another near miss at a town Christmas ball when they’d again slow danced. He expressed interest in every hard line of his body, some harder than others, but she’d let self-preservation rule once more.
“So are you friends?” James asked her and Mark now. “Or…?” He waggled a finger back and forth between them with a matching waggle of his brow.
Mark gave him a single look, nothing more, and James zipped his lips.
Impressive. “Neither,” she told James resolutely, trying to wring out the hem of her shirt while ignoring how close Mark was standing to her, invading her personal space bubble.
“It’s been a long time,” he said. “You look…”
“All wet?” she asked.
His eyes heated, and something deep inside her quivered. Damn, he still had the power. He smiled, and she narrowed her eyes, daring him to go there, but his momma hadn’t raised a fool.
“Different,” he finally said. “You look different.”
Yes, she imagined she looked quite different than the gorgeous women she’d seen hanging off his arm in magazines and blogs.
“It’s good to see you,” he said.
She wanted to believe that was true, but realized with some horror that she’d actually leaned into him, drawn in by that stupid magnetic charisma. But she was nothing if not a pro at hiding embarrassment. Spreading her arms, she gave him a hug, as if that’d been her intention all along. Squeezing his big, warm, hard body close, she made sure to spread as much of the suds and water from her shirt to his as she could. “It’s good to see you as well,” she said, her mouth against his ear, her lips brushing the lobe.
He went still at the contact, then instead of trying to pull free, merely folded her into his arms, trapping her against him. And damn if her body didn’t burst to life, as if all this time it’d been just waiting for him to come back.
“Yeah, you’re different,” he murmured, doing as she had, pressing his mouth to her ear, giving her a shiver. “The little kitten grew up and got claws.”
When she choked out a laugh, he closed his teeth over her earlobe.
She gasped, but then he soothed the ache with a quick touch of his tongue, yanking another shocked response from her. “You said you were looking for Rick,” she managed to say, shoving free. “He’s in his office.” And then, with as much dignity as she could muster, she walked off, sneakers squishing, water dripping from her nose, and, she suspected, her shorts revealing a horrible, water-soaked wedgie.
2
AFTER CHECKING IN with his brother, Mark and his players got back into his truck, not heading back to the coast, but further up into the rolling hills.
Rainey Saunders, holy shit. Talk about a blast from his past. Seeing her had been like a sucker punch; her smile, her shorts. Those legs…
Once upon a time she’d been a definite sweet spot in his life. A friend of his younger brother, who always had a smile for him. He’d been fond of her, as much as any teenage guy could be fond of something other than himself. She’d hung out on the fringes of his world throughout school, and he’d thought of her as one of the pack. Until she’d changed things up by going from a cute little kid to a hot teenager.
The night she’d shown up in his college apartment had been both a shock and a loss. A shock because he’d honestly had no idea that she’d had a crush on him, at least not before she’d dropped her clothes for him without warning. Until then, she’d never let on, not once. And a loss because everything had changed afterwards. He’d never forget how she’d broken into his place and found him in the throes with a coed. By the time he’d caught up with her, she’d run off with the first guy she’d found.
And that guy had been a real asshole who’d nearly given her a birthday moment she hadn’t counted on. Mark had managed to stop it, and somehow he’d ended up the bad guy.
Rainey had wanted Mark to notice her, to see her as a woman, and hello, mission accomplished. Hell, he could still picture her perfect body—but he’d been too old for her. Even at twenty, he’d been smart enough to know that. Too bad he hadn’t been smart enough to handle the situation correctly. Nope, he’d screwed it up badly enough to affect their relationship to the point that they’d no longer been friends.
It’d taken him a shamefully long time to figure that out, though, and by then he’d been on his path and gone from the area. Leaving Santa Rey had been his dream. To go do something big, something to lift him out of the poverty of his upbringing. He’d spent the next few years climbing his way up the coaching staff ladder, working in Toronto, New York, Boston…finally landing back on the west coast with a coveted head coaching position at the Mammoths.
He’d seen Rainey several times over the years since, and on each occasion she’d definitely sparked his interest. As a bonus, they’d both been age suitable. But though she’d flirted with him, nothing had ever come of it. He had no idea what being with her would be like, but he knew one thing. It would be interesting.
The Mammoths were officially off season now and on vacation. Except for Casey and James, who were damn lucky to still be a part of the team after their stupid bar fight.
He and the Ducks’ coach had agreed to teach their players a lesson in how to be a role model by making them contribute to a struggling local community. Both coaches had chosen their own home communities, areas hit hard by fires and needing to heal. The players would be volunteer laborers at charity construction sites for most of the day, then after work they’d coach summer league ball. At the end of the summer league, the two rec centers would have a big game, with all the proceeds going directly to their programs. The community would benefit, the players could get their acts together, and everyone would feel like they’d made a difference.
All that was left was to tell his idiot players that they wouldn’t be summering in style, but doing good old-fashioned hard work.
“Uh, Coach? Aren’t we going home?” Casey asked from the passenger seat of the truck.
“Nope.” Their asses were Mark’s. They just didn’t realize it yet. “We’re staying in town.”
“Where? At the Hard Rock Café?” This from James.
“We won’t be at the beach.” That was the South District, and they didn’t need
nearly as much help as the North District did. “We’re heading to the very northern part of the county.”
His two players exchanged glances. Mark smiled grimly and kept driving. He had a lot to think about—recruiting and trading for next season, not to mention hundreds of emails and phone calls waiting to be returned—but his brain kept skipping back to Rainey.
She’d grown up nice. The wet T-shirt had proved that. But it’d been far more than just a physical jolt he’d gotten. One look into her fierce blue eyes and he’d felt…
Something. Not even in the finals had his heart taken such a hard leap as it had when he’d realized who she was. Or when she’d touched her mouth to his ear.
Or when he’d bitten hers and absorbed the sexy little startled gasp she’d made.
“Come on, Coach. We’re sorry about the fight. We’ve said it a million times. But it was the big game, and we were robbed.”
Just getting to the finals had been a sweet victory, considering the Mammoths were only a five-year-old franchise. It’d been a culmination of grit, determination, and hard work, and even thinking about the season had a surge of fierce pride going through him. But the bar fight—now viral on YouTube—had taken away from their amazing season, and was giving them nothing but bad press. Mark had been featured on Sixty Minutes and all the mornings shows, trying to put a positive spin on things. He’d been flown to New York in a helicopter to recite the Top Ten Things That Had Gone Through His Mind After Losing The Stanley Cup. He’d been on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and had plunged Ellen into the dunk tank for charity. And then there’d been the endless lower profile events filling his calendar: meet-and-greets, photo shoots and endless charity appearances.
And still all everyone wanted to talk about was the fight. It pissed him off. After working around the clock for seven months, he should be on vacation.
He’d seen the press of other players on Jay-Z’s yacht in the Caribbean with a bunch of scantily-clad women. Mark wouldn’t mind being on a sandy beach somewhere, a woman at his side, a drink in his hand. But no. Instead he was babysitting his two youngest players because apparently they thought with their fists instead of their brains.