by Crowe, Liz
But the challenging, physical work brought her true peace. The realization of that fact made her ongoing, not-so-low-lying fury at J.D.—which had an annoying tendency to get muddled in her head with her equally not-so-low-lying desire to have him kiss her again—slightly easier to manage. She no longer required a half a bottle of wine to get to sleep anymore. Some nights, she barely made it to her mattress before she conked out and stayed that way for almost a full eight hours.
Finalizing the documentary took two-and-a-half weeks, longer than LeeAnn had hoped, which made her prone to bite heads off in lieu of conversation. By the time they wrapped up the final edits and LeeAnn claimed the thing was finally put to bed and ready to broadcast, Kayla had never felt stronger. After she’d shattered her leg, she’d considered herself done with soccer. But she was back into it, for real—back playing the game that at one time was the only thing that made her happy.
They had a wrap party planned at the new soccer stadium which Kayla was inclined to skip even though she knew she wouldn’t or couldn’t. It got in the way of her strict training schedule, which was a problem. Suppressing her urge to bolt, she joined the others on the chartered bus for the trip to the party, determined to show her face, then get her ass to the gym. They’d been told to come dressed for “games” so she changed into her workout gear beforehand. By the time she got there, she saw that some of the starters from the women’s team she hoped to join in a few weeks were there already, along with a group of men, some of whom she recognized from the Detroit men’s team.
The women named her their captain, which meant she had to meet her men’s team opposite at the middle of the field before the match started. She chatted and laughed with the women, about half actual soccer players and half random DSN employees, as she tied up her cleats and captured her hair in a bandana.
“Come on, Kayla, let’s get this show on the road,” the guy serving as ref shouted as she trotted toward him.
“Hey,” J.D. said. “Nice hair.”
She froze in the middle of the pitch, her smile stiff, her body on high alert at his sudden proximity.
He was dressed to play, in a pair of Detroit team labeled shorts and a black DSN t-shirt.
She swallowed hard, and forced herself to meet his gaze. “Hello,” she said, proud that her voice sounded a thousand times calmer than she felt. “Stop trying to distract me. Heads,” she barked to the ref.
He flipped the coin. It landed tails up.
J.D grinned at her, which made her wobbly and subsequently pissed off, then sprinted back to his team.
They were only playing fifteen minutes a half, but it seemed like the longest game of her life. She was in her usual position, as the mobile defensive back which pitted her against J.D. who had put himself into the shooting forward spot—the egomaniacal bastard.
He was a terrible kicker, but he was strong and she had to fight hard to keep him from getting too close to the net. The fact that he kept touching her ass, hips, and arms every chance he got threw her until she realized it for the challenge it was. She could take it and she was, by God, better at this game than he thought about being, superstar quarterback history be damned.
With a little less than two minutes to go, the match was tied at one all. Kayla made a few position adjustments, keeping her strongest kickers up front and herself in the back so she could continue to monitor the progress of the game.
At the thirty-second mark, J.D. got the ball and started dribbling across the turf, straight at her. She set her shoulders against the sight of him, against her need to throw herself at him and beg him not to insist that she work for him, to assure her that he hadn’t targeted her that night at The Grange, that their connection had been organic and not pre-meditated.
At the last second, he juked to the left, which he, no doubt, determined was still her weak side. She shifted with him, ignoring the pain in her knee and met him head on, slamming into his chest, tangling up with his arms and wrestling the ball away from him. She trotted down the field all alone and planted the damn ball into the upper left corner of the net right before the whistle blew.
Her teammates buried her in a victory pile, then lifted her onto their shoulders and trotted her around the field while the sourpuss loser men pouted and argued that she’d committed a red-card level foul against their captain. While the sweaty, laughing groups gathered around the Mexican buffet tables, Kayla remained near the middle of the field, staring at J.D. who’d not moved from the spot where she had, indeed, mugged him with a move that would’ve gotten her ejected from a real game.
“Nice work,” he called out. “I think you might have broken my ankle for real.”
“Don’t be a baby,” she said, moving closer despite herself. “Let me see it.”
He flopped down on his butt and held up his leg.
Kayla grabbed a bag of ice from a cooler on the sidelines and tossed it to him, unwilling to get too close, out of self-protection. “If it were broken you’d be in a hell of a lot more pain than you seem to be.”
He winced when he put the ice on the swollen joint, then lay back, giving her a breathtaking view of the outline of his…
Stop it, she insisted to herself. The outline of this man’s private parts is no longer of any concern to you.
“I’m an ex-NFL quarterback, Makayla. I know it’s not really broken.” He leaned on his elbows and met her gaze. She looked away, embarrassed at being caught staring at his junk. “I watched the final cut of the documentary. You were amazing. Perfect.”
“Stop flattering me,” she said, taking a seat on the turf near his leg. But not too near. Her need to touch him was so great it was like a lump in her throat she couldn’t swallow no matter how hard she tried. She pulled the scarf from her hair and shook her head. “I’m trying out for the team next week, and I don’t anticipate not making it.”
He raised one dark brown eyebrow. But she saw the way his blue eyes sharpened as his brain took on this bombshell, processed it and understanding what she was telling him. “You could do both.”
She leaned back on her hands, letting her feet come within an inch or so of his. “Nah. I don’t really feel like being part of your harem.” She wanted to slap herself for saying it. She knew it wasn’t true. But something in her couldn’t resist baiting him, and in the process, protecting herself from any real feelings about him.
He sat up fast and reached for her arm, but she kept her distance. “It’s not a god damned harem and you know that more than anyone, now that you’ve worked with us for the last month. You are the most stubborn woman…” He dropped onto his back again with a groan. “You’re killing me, Kayla. Killing me.”
She was shocked to hear him use the shortened version of her name, something he’d never done before. “Well, jeez it’s not like you, I don’t know, showed your face much these last few weeks.”
“I think the reason for that might appear obvious to you,” he said, looking up to the bright blue fall sky. “I have missed you, no matter what your militant feminist heart may try to tell you about me. I missed you a lot.” He propped his head on his folded arms and looked up at her.
“Save the sweet talk, Mister. I’m no longer susceptible.”
“Really. Damn. I must be losing my mojo.”
Kayla shaded her eyes and gazed toward the scrum of people around the food and booze. “I’m willing to bet ten bucks that if you limped your way into that crowd right now, at least five gorgeous women and one of the gay guys would go out of their way to prove you wrong on that point.”
“Aw, you know I’m a sucker for an easy bet.” He got up, flinching when he tried to put weight on his bad ankle. “I’m gonna—”
“J.D.! You need to take this call. It’s an emergency about Gwen!” Matilde called from across the pitch.
“Who’s…?” But before Kayla could get the second word out, J.D. had already taken off like a shot down the field, with only a slight hitch in his giddy up. She rose, thinking she might be willin
g to continue their light flirtation. How nice it would be to skip the workout at the gym and have one between the sheets instead.
How she’d gone from considering him way off her menu to pondering asking him to take her home with him was something she refused to contemplate. It was the effect he had on her, plain and simple. She’d missed him too and was glad he’d admitted it first. She was leaving DSN anyway, once she made the team. They could rekindle, or newly kindle, or something. And she was more than ready.
She picked up the ice bag he’d left and made her way over where he was standing, facing away from the group, Matilde’s phone pressed to his ear. Before she could let her inner needy female lead and suggest they get a drink or something together, he’d dropped the phone onto the turf and was sprinting toward the tunnel to the locker rooms without a backward glance.
Several staff members stood around looking freaked out enough for her to let her annoyance morph into panic.
“What’s up with him?” She pulled a water bottle from an icy tub and opened it.
The women all exchanged glances, then turned away, leaving poor Matilde standing and holding her plate of food, her face a mask of worry.
“I’m not at liberty to say. Sorry.”
“Not at liberty? What the…? Hey, LeeAnn.” Kayla ran over to her would-be boss, who had her phone to ear. She had her fingers pressed into her other ear and moved away from the crowd, but not before Kayla heard the words, “Oh my God. Okay. Well, call me if you need anything, J.D. Promise? Are you sure you don’t want me to send Frank and Ted over? For backup or something? All right. Okay. I’ll call nine-one-one right now.”
Kayla sipped and stood, straining her ears but couldn’t make out any more, thanks to the party noise behind her. Frank and Ted were two of the huge ex-convicts J.D. paid to serve as bodyguards in certain circumstances. Because he was that kind of a guy—hiring dudes who needed second chances out of prison. She watched LeeAnn closer, her panic level rising at the whole “nine-one-one” and “do you need Frank or Ted the bodyguards,” parts of the conversation.
The other woman sipped her water, her gaze flickering across the rowdy gathered crowd. “I’m sorry,” she said to Kayla. “I know he wanted to be here for this. But he’s…”
“Who’s Gwen?” Kayla asked, figuring that this woman knew her better than anyone by now. No reason to not be her direct self over this weird scene.
LeeAnn blinked fast and took a breath, then exhaled, shaking her head.
Kayla let anger fill the space in her chest, forcing out the worry. Leave it to J.D. to run off to help some other woman. “It’s fine. I get it. You’re not at liberty to say.” She tried to keep her voice light, but she heard the tightness in it as she wrapped her mind around J.D.’s reality once again.
Right. Good call, Kayla. Get away from him before you make a huge mistake.
She glanced around at the crowd, decided she wasn’t hungry after all, and ran down to the locker room where she could worry in peace. She still had her workout to do, after all. And her competition for a starting position on the team was probably already at it. With a loud sigh, she shouldered her bag and made her slow way out of the stadium, determined not to give J.D. the satisfaction of a second thought.
Chapter Fourteen
J.D. floored the accelerator of the SUV, grateful for the powerful engine’s ability to ease up to ninety-five miles an hour with little effort, on his way from downtown out to Birmingham, the ritzy Detroit suburb where he’d once lived with his family. His ears rang with panic about the sound of his ex-wife’s voice on the phone, and he prayed the cops would get to the house before it was too late.
Gwen. He had to get to Gwen.
Lisa always did have crappy taste in men since their divorce. He’d watched her in the gossips rags and on social media, sleeping her way through the locker rooms of various teams, ever the WAG, willing to hang off the arm of some goon if it got her some publicity. He’d warned her about some of those guys, knowing them as abusive assholes. She’d recently been dating a guy he didn’t know. Someone new to the Detroit sports scene—a B-level trade for the basketball team. And according to her, she believed he might be The One. After himself of course, as she was fond of reminding him. She’d take him back in a hot second, he knew. She was forever telling him that.
But now?
Gwen. He had to get to his daughter.
He pressed harder on the pedal and watched the number hit one hundred a few miles from his exit. With a loud curse, he screeched off the interstate and ran as many red lights as he could manage. Vision tunneled, red tinged with fury, he slammed the truck into park and jumped down, not bothering to cut the engine in the circular driveway in front of the obnoxious stone McMansion that Lisa had loved more than life itself. He shook the door handle a few times, then put his shoulder and the full force of his football player’s body into breaking the doorjamb on his way in.
“Gwen? Where are you, honey?”
“Daddy!”
He started for the back of the house, since it sounded like she was in the well-furnished basement.
“What the fuck do you want?”
The sound of a belligerent masculine voice behind him reminded him why he’d been summoned here. He turned and came face to face with the new boyfriend. J.D. crossed his arms, taking the guy in, seeking potential weak spots and not finding much.
“I said. What the fuck do you want, you washed-up piece of shit? You don’t live here anymore. Beat it.”
“J.D.?” His ex-wife’s voice came from upstairs.
“I’m here, Lisa. Hang on a second while I take out the garbage.” He clenched his fists and landed two solid punches to the jerk’s face before he got a fist to the gut, then to his jaw for his trouble. The fact of the other man’s red, raw knuckles registered in his reeling brain. That tore it. He pounded the guy over and over, until he was on the floor, arms over his face, begging J.D. to stop.
“Police! Back away from him, sir.” J.D. turned to the two cops who were pointing their guns at him, chest heaving with exertion and panic.
He bolted for the back of the house, not caring if the damn cops hit him in the back with a bullet. He found her by following the sound of her voice, locked in the utility room in the basement.
He stood, quivering with rage and tried to keep his voice neutral. “Gwen? Baby? Come on out. Daddy’s here.”
She came out from behind the furnace, clutching her mother’s phone, which she’d used to call her sitter when he’d not answered, who’d then called Matilde’s phone. Sobbing as if her heart was breaking, she latched onto his legs. He pulled her up and held her, making soothing sounds while trying to determine if that bastard had laid a finger on her. Once he figured out she wasn’t hurt, only scared out of her wits, he kissed her wet cheeks and headed back upstairs.
J.D. followed the medical team with Lisa in an ambulance to the hospital. He kept promising Gwen ice cream and all sorts of treats, anything she wanted, so grateful she was alive and unharmed. Her mother on the other hand… He shook his head to clear it of a fresh cloud of fury, recalling the sight of her tied up on her bed—their old bed—her face unrecognizable in the mass of bruises and blood.
Gwen stayed quiet, curled into a corner of the back seat, thumb stuck in her mouth, gripping an old stuffed toy. He drove the speed limit, his mind awash with horrific images, sounds, and pain in his knuckles, face, and gut. He carried Gwen into the hospital and found Lisa in the ER, unconscious from pain medications.
“We’re admitting her, Mr. Baxter,” some random doctor told him while he stood, his daughter clinging to him like a limpet, his ex-wife beat within an inch of her life on the other side of a pane of glass. “We’re concerned about concussion. And we need to run a few more tests to ascertain damage to her internal organs.”
“Fine,” J.D. said, his jaw clenched. “Do whatever you need to do.”
“She’s in good hands, sir. And may I say that I really admire your sports c
hannel.”
“Yeah, great. Whatever.”
“Daddy?” Gwen raised her red, tear-stained face from his neck. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay, baby. Let’s go find some food.” He glanced back at the doctor. “When will you move her to a room?”
“As soon as one is available. Probably within the hour.”
“I need to find something for my daughter to eat. If I come back here after that will you be able to tell me where you’ve taken Lisa?”
“Your wife will be fine here. Just stop in once you’re finished and we’ll point you in the right direction.”
“She’s not my—oh never mind.”
****
Gwen refused all the food options he offered, demanding the ice cream he’d promised with increasing volume. Finally, he gave up and got her a candy bar and a bottle of water, with promises of ice cream as soon as he was sure her mommy was okay. He found Lisa in a private room upstairs and got Gwen settled in the chair with a blanket. She was sound asleep within a few minutes, the candy bar unopened on her lap.
“J.D.” Lisa called from the bed. “Is that you?”
“I’m here, Lisa. Just rest. You’ve got…” He gulped, taking in the horror show of her face, the red marks around her neck, recalling matching ones on her wrists and ankles while the EMT’s had gotten her free from the cuffs and onto a gurney. “You need to rest.”
“I’m sorry.” A tear slipped down her ruined face. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’d never let anyone hurt our little girl.”
He put a hand on her hair. “It’s okay, Lis. I know you didn’t put her in harm’s way on purpose.”
“He … he … was … he hurt me.” Her chest hitched with a sob. “Why did he do that?”
“Some guys are assholes, Lis. I’ve told you that before. But I didn’t know him. I didn’t know he was capable of all this.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to her swollen cheek. “I’m sorry.”