The Player

by Rhonda Nelson

  Equally as frantic as last night—he couldn’t get into her fast enough—but somehow more intense than before. In fact, every moment he spent with her seemed to be more powerful than the last. And yet she was easy company. He felt…complete in her presence. Go figure?

  At the moment he was resting with his head in her lap while she rowed them around the lake. It was late afternoon and the sun melted like a big scoop of orange sherbet above the trees, painting their riotous fall foliage in fiery color. It was truly beautiful here, Jamie thought, dragging in a breath of cool crisp air. Though he’d lived all over the world, he’d always considered Alabama his home. But he could easily see making this his home as well.

  Anywhere with her would be home, he realized, a bit startled by the epiphany.

  The water lapped against the hull of the boat, birds sang and a gentle breeze whispered through the tops of the trees. Unwind was right, he thought, feeling his lids flutter shut.

  Audrey’s fingers skimmed his eyebrow, making a smile tug at his lips. “You look relaxed.”

  “I am,” he said. “I like it here.”

  “You mean you like having your head in my lap or you like being at Unwind?”

  He looked up at her. “Can I like both?”

  She chuckled, the sound soft and intimate between them. “Certainly. I like them both as well.”

  Jamie frowned as a thought struck, a question he’d been meaning to ask but had kept forgetting. “You said you’d been a commodities broker in a past life,” Jamie reminded her. “But you never told me how you ended up here.”

  She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about, the little nimrod. “Did you ask?”

  “I did,” Jamie confirmed, laughing. “You said if you told me that, you’d have to kill me. Permission granted. After you have satisfied my curiosity, you can take your best shot.” It’s not like she hadn’t been taking shots at him all week. It wouldn’t hurt her to reciprocate the gesture.

  “It’s not pretty,” Audrey warned him.

  “The truth rarely is. Come on. Tell me.”

  He heard her sigh, looked up and watched her gaze cloud over. “I had a heart attack,” she said glibly, shrugging. “Stress. It was either lose the job or lose my life.”

  Jamie had to clamp his jaw to keep it from sagging. Out of all the reasons she could have listed as to why she’d made such an abrupt career change, a heart attack certainly would never have occurred to him.

  Stunned, he sat up and turned around to face her. “But—But you’re young. You’re healthy.” He frowned, gestured toward her chest. “How did—”

  “A body can only take so much,” she said, smiling sadly. “I put mine through hell. I was also with a guy who—” she paused, chose her words carefully “—required more of me than I could give. That relationship ended with a restraining order.” She frowned with regret. “Not one of my better decisions, but we all have some we aren’t proud of.”

  Jamie swore. He passed a hand over his face and his gaze inexplicably zeroed in once again on her chest. He got it, all right. The guy she’d been with had taken so much of her that he’d literally broken her heart. Not in the traditional sense, no, but damaged her all the same.

  Christ. No wonder the Colonel had kept going on and on about how special she was. He’d known it, of course. A man couldn’t spend half a second in her presence without feeling the healing, soulsoothing effects of her company. And hell, he’d even felt it from a friggin’ picture, two thousand miles away from here. A heart attack, Jamie thought again, absolutely shaken.

  “How are you doing now?” he asked quietly. “Taking meds? Watching your cholesterol?” Another thought struck. Surely to God all the wild sex they’d had in the past couple of days couldn’t be good for her. The exertion, the orgasms…He could have killed her, Jamie thought, his own heart turning to lead and plummeting into his stomach. Sweet mother of—

  Audrey chuckled. “I can see that your imagination is running away with you,” she told him. “No, I am not on any medication, though I do watch my diet since I’ll always be at risk.” A small smile turned her lips. “And, for the record, there are no special limitations on my…physical activities you should concern yourself with.”

  “But—”

  “I’m fine,” Audrey insisted. “I take care of myself. I know it sounds like a big deal, but it really isn’t.”

  The hell it wasn’t, Jamie thought. “How old were you?”

  “At the time it happened? Twenty-six.”

  “Then it was a big deal,” Jamie said. Honestly, he’d heard of athletes who’d pushed themselves into a premature heart attack, but never a young healthy woman. The Colonel must have been out of his mind.

  “Anyway,” she said, releasing an end-of-subject sigh, one he recognized because he’d used it frequently himself. “That’s how I got here. Who better to help stressed-out professionals than a former stressed-out professional, eh?”

  He could certainly understand that, and there was no doubt she was in her element here. Still…“Do you miss your old job? Your old life?”

  She smiled again, marginally lightening the load in his chest. “Not at all. I’m where I’m supposed to be. Everything happens for a reason.” Her clear blue gaze tangled with his and a secret knowledge seemed to lurk there that he sincerely wished he was privy to. “You’re here for a reason, too,” she told him.

  While he could have just as easily made a joke, Jamie didn’t. “Do you really believe that?” he asked. “Or is that just a platitude people bandy about when they don’t have an answer for something? It all comes down to fate,” he said, a hint of bitterness he couldn’t control seeping into his voice.

  Audrey mulled it over, then ultimately nodded. “I think so. There’s a point and purpose to everything. Just look at the way the world is designed. Even nature has a point, a goal, an end.”

  While he couldn’t fault her reasoning, he couldn’t accept it either. Accepting it meant that Danny had been destined to die on that hill, and that Jamie had been destined to fail when it had come to saving him. Fate? he scoffed. Then fate was an unfair bitch. He was bitter and angry and wanted to know why. Why, dammit? What possible good had come out of his friend losing his life?

  Geez, God, he was losing it here. Until the past few days Jamie had done an admirable job of keeping a tight rein on his feelings. He’d put every ounce of grief, regret and anger into a neat box at the bottom of his soul and, while he’d suffer an occasional setback—nightmares, mostly—for the most part, he could go into lock-down mode and keep it together.

  It was her, he realized. She was acting like a sponge, drawing to the surface everything inside him he wanted to keep hidden.

  Audrey set the oars aside, leaned forward, framed his face and gave him a tender kiss. “I just gave you a painful piece of my history. Now I’m asking for one of yours. Tell me about Danny,” she implored softly.

  Jamie instinctively drew back, shut down. He knew what she was doing—she was trying to fix him, but there were some things that simply couldn’t be fixed and he was one of them. She’d been doing this all week—picking, probing, question after question, trying to open him up and lay him bare. The mere thought turned his insides to ice, made bile rise in his throat.

  “Leave it,” Jamie told her, a warning he hoped like hell she heeded. He set his jaw and fought back a tide of angry emotion. More horrible memories from that night rushed rapid fire through his mind, making his gut clench with dread. Leave me! You know it’s over! The backs of his lids burned.

  Oh, God. He couldn’t do this.

  “He was a Ranger with you, right? In the same unit?”

  Jamie shoved his hands into his hair, pushing it away from his face. He glanced around and realized that she’d rowed them all the way out into the middle of the lake. No escape. Panic sent acid churning though his belly. This had been a trap, he realized suddenly. She’d done this on purpose. His gaze flew to hers. Of all the sneaky, underhand
ed…If he wasn’t so damned angry, he’d be impressed. Like a bear with a ring in its nose, she’d led him around all day, setting him up for this very moment.

  And while this tactic might have worked on an ordinary man, it wasn’t going to work on him, he thought grimly. He’d been a United States Ranger, by God. He was like Houdini, he could find his way out of anything.

  Jamie stood, inadvertently rocking the boat.

  Audrey inhaled sharply, grasped the sides. “What are you doing? Sit down! You’re going to tip us over.”

  “News flash, baby,” Jamie told her, his lips curled in an angry smile. “Your plan didn’t work.”

  Then he leaped neatly over the side and started swimming toward shore.

  She would not break him, dammit.

  She would not.

  His feelings were all he had left of his friend. He didn’t want to share them. And he wouldn’t.

  UTTERLY SHOCKED, Audrey watched Jamie determinedly swim toward shore. When she’d concocted this trap-him-in-the-boat plan, she could honestly say that she’d never anticipated this scenario. She’d wanted to force him to open up, to let her help him. The small boat had seemed like a good choice because, logistically, it would have been hard to distract her with sex, his usual, admittedly excellent, method of shutting her up.

  Her eyes narrowed on his rapidly shrinking form. This new development was a setback, but she’d be damned before she’d accept defeat. The more time she spent with Jamie, the more she knew he needed her. She could feel the ache inside him worsening. Hell, he hurt so much it made her nauseous. It was eating him up inside, Audrey knew, and the more it festered, the worse it was going to become.

  She stood. “Jamie!”

  When he didn’t so much as look at her, Audrey did what seemed like the only plausible thing—she jumped in after him.

  The shock of cold water stole her breath, but she pressed on. She was an excellent swimmer, after all, and frequently took a dip in the lake. She’d never done it in late September, but what the hell. New experiences were what made life interesting. Between strokes, she looked for Jamie and had the pleasure of seeing his outraged face when he saw that she’d come in after him.

  His eyes looked like they’d burst from their sockets. “Have you lost your mind?” he shouted at her.

  Audrey ignored him. No more than he had, the stubborn jerk. But she’d lost something a whole lot more precious—her heart. She’d given it to a tight-lipped obstinate former Ranger who could swim like a friggin’ fish, Audrey thought, resisting the inappropriate urge to laugh.

  Jamie had doubled back and was suddenly next to her. “Do you have a death wish?” he shouted angrily. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I just followed your lead,” she said, ignoring his anger. “I’m not letting you run away from me.”

  “What about the boat?”

  “Fuck the boat.”

  His feet found ground before hers did. He gaped at her. “What is your deal?” he demanded, slogging forward. He grabbed her arm and tugged her with him.

  “What’s yours?” she answered back.

  “I want you to lay off!”

  “Why? So you can wallow in self-pity for the rest of your life?” It was risky and mean, but he wasn’t mad enough yet and it was going to take anger to make him break.

  Five feet from shore, his face dripping wet, clothes clinging to him like a second skin, he stopped and glared daggers at her. “Self-pity?” he repeated in a voice so quiet it was thunderous. “That’s what you think is wrong with me?”

  “What choice do I have when you won’t level with me?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked at her. “Did it ever occur to you that it was none of your damned business?”

  That dart found a mark, forcing her to swallow. “Maybe not,” Audrey conceded. “But you made it my business when you showed up at my camp! Sure, my grandfather ordered you here, but you didn’t have to come, did you?”

  He opened his mouth, readying for a comeback, but stopped short. He released a weary breath, rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Just let it go,” he said instead.

  Shivering, Audrey shook her head. “I won’t,” she told him. She thumped a hand against her chest. “I can feel it in here. It hurts, dammit, and if it hurts me, it’s got to be killing you. Just—” She blinked, determined not to cry. “Just tell me what happened.”

  Jamie blanched. His gaze dropped to her chest, then darted back up and tangled with hers. She didn’t have any idea what was going on in that head of his, but she could feel more and more pain radiating off him.

  A helpless laugh rumbled up his throat and he shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me,” he told her, his voice breaking.

  No, she did, and that made pushing him for it even harder. Audrey fisted her hands in his shirt, looked up at him. “Nobody deserves to carry around what you’re wrestling with. I may be little, but I’m tough. Share the load, Jamie,” she implored, punctuating the statement with a soft kiss to his jaw.

  And that did it.

  Her bad-ass former Ranger closed his eyes tightly shut, rested his forehead against hers and a quiet sob shook his shoulders.

  13

  * * *

  JAMIE FELT AUDREY’S ARMS tighten around him and he clung to her, sapping up her strength just like every other selfish bastard who’d come before him. God, he was pathetic. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. She’d just kept on and on, and then when she’d told him that she could feel it too—that his pain was hurting her—that was just the last damned straw.

  “Oh, Jamie,” she said. She tugged him toward the cottage. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  Jamie allowed her to guide him, numb from the cold, from arguing, from the grief he’d been carrying for so long. He should be taking care of her, not the other way around, and yet he wasn’t strong enough to deny himself her comfort. Selfishly, he needed it. No, it was more than that—he needed her.

  Audrey grabbed the bottle of Jameson from the kitchen counter, then led him toward the bathroom. She quickly adjusted the tap and started the shower. One quick guzzle of whiskey later and they were both naked and under the spray. The hot water beat down like little needles of fire, warming his skin back up. She lathered him up, washing his hair in a way that was gentle but not overtly sexual. It was nice, Jamie thought, to be able to be with a naked woman—one he admittedly wanted more than any other on the planet—and yet be content not to act on that desire. He supposed that’s what happened when you found the right one.

  In short order, she had them both clean, warm, dressed and situated in front of a small fire. She’d tossed a couple of easy-start logs into the grate and a cozy warmth soon permeated the room.

  Her hair still wet, she sat down beside him wearing one of his shirts, and offered him her hand. A simple gesture, but one that had a singularly profound effect on his heart. His throat clogged.

  Okay, he thought, blowing out an uneasy breath. She wanted to know about Danny. Where to start? “You were right,” Jamie told her. “Danny was in my unit. I’m assuming your grandfather told you a little bit about him and—” he cleared his throat “—what happened?”

  She nodded once. “Some. He mentioned that you’d lost a good friend recently.”

  “That’s the watered-down version.” He traced a finger over her palm. Then he swallowed again. “Danny was more than a good friend. He was more like a brother. Our unit was like that. Tight. We met in college, the four of us. Me, Danny, Guy and Payne.” Jamie smiled, remembering. Young and dumb, he thought, hell-bent on changing the world. “Guy and Payne are my business partners in Ranger Security,” he added as an aside. The silence yawned between them, then he shook his head. “When Danny died, we…We all wanted out.”

  “That’s certainly understandable,” Audrey told him. “Surely you don’t fault yourself for that?”

  “No, not for that,” Jamie said. “I fault myself for not saving hi
m.”

  “Oh, Jamie,” she sighed, smoothing the hair above his ear. “You can’t fault yourself for that either.”

  He could and he did. Tears burned the backs of his lids, his chest ached with the pressure of guilt. Jamie swore, wiped his eyes. “I was supposed to have his back,” he said, his voice cracking. “Not Payne. Not Guy. Me. I was the one who was supposed to make sure nothing happened to him.”

  In an instant, Audrey was in his lap. She straddled him, framed his face with her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye. “Jamie, your intentions were good, but we both know you were setting yourself up to do the impossible.”

  “But—”

  She shushed him. “Let me ask you something. Did you follow procedure?”

  “Of course.”

  “Didn’t vary from what you were supposed to do and took every precautionary measure?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Were you operating on good intelligence?”

  She was definitely the Colonel’s granddaughter, Jamie thought. He’d asked many of these same questions. “Yes.”

  “Then what went wrong?”

  A cold chill slid down his back. “We were ambushed.”

  Her thumbs gently swept his cheeks. “Then how were you supposed to have his back?”

  Jamie started to reply, but found he couldn’t answer.

  “You would have had to have been psychic to know what was going to happen,” she said softly. She bent forward and kissed him, causing the flow he’d been holding back for eight months to come rushing forward in a cleansing torrent he didn’t have a prayer of stopping. He cried for Danny, he cried for himself, he cried for his friends.

  “Let it go,” she said, hugging him tightly. She rocked him back and forth, the movement soothing and tender and heartbreakingly sweet. “I’ve got you,” she murmured. “Just let it all go. If he was the kind of friend worthy of this grief, then he wouldn’t want you holding on to it like this, would he?”