Can't Take the Heat

by Jackie Barbosa

Miss Peterson, eh? That was a definite plus.

  Although calculus wasn’t exactly the first thing that crossed his mind when he looked at her. No, the kind of math she made him think about was a lot more basic—as in one and one makes two.

  “Oh, Hannah, I’m so happy to hear that. But you did it all yourself, honestly. I just gave you a little push in the right direction.”

  A wide, genuine smile spread across Miss Peterson’s features as she spoke, making her look less like a fashion model and more like the girl next door. A girl he’d like to get to know better. Too bad he was only going to be in town for a few weeks, or a month at the most.

  Certainly not long enough to delve into anything much deeper than basic arithmetic.

  “Well, I couldn’t have done it without you,” Hannah gushed on, “and your drink today is on the house.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Miss Peterson demurred, reaching into the small handbag slung over her shoulder to retrieve her wallet.

  “Yeah, I do. You spent a lot of your own time helping me. It’s the least I can do.” Hannah leaned forward and added conspiratorially, “Besides, I get the company discount.”

  Miss Peterson laughed, a rich, full-throated sound that filled the shop. The woman reading the romance novel turned around and glared, obviously not pleased to be interrupted from whatever the shirtless guy on the cover was doing inside the pages; Cade suspected math of the one-plus-one-equals-two variety and envied the character his good fortune.

  “All right, but only this once. You need to save up your money for college tuition, not spend it on me.”

  “I know, I know. Don’t worry. You want the usual, right?”

  Miss Peterson nodded and stepped away from the counter, leaving Cade to wonder what “the usual” was. He hoped it wasn’t one of those fancy sweet drinks women seemed so fond of that were more like milkshakes than a good old cup of Joe. A person who drank coffee should actually enjoy coffee, not cover it up to make it taste like something else.

  She turned away from him and bent over to rifle through the rack containing discarded sections of the newspaper, treating him to a near-heart-attack- inducing view of her curvy backside. By the time she straightened back up, he was lightheaded. Then he got downright dizzy, because she hadn’t selected the Fashion or Arts section, or even the front page, but Sports.

  “Here’s your nonfat latte with an extra shot,” Hannah called.

  Holy hell, maybe he’d died and gone to heaven. A tall, beautiful blonde with a great figure who liked sports and took her latte with an extra shot? She was almost too perfect to be real.

  She deposited the Sports section back in the bin, retrieved her coffee from the counter, and turned to leave the shop. He was prepared to run out after her if necessary, because there was no way he was letting her get away without asking her out to dinner. Fortunately, he didn’t need to go to such drastic lengths. Her gaze swung toward the corner he was sitting in and came to rest on him. And rest it did, long and hard, her blue eyes narrowing for a second before widening again and flickering with recognition.

  Cade Reynolds was no longer incognito.

  * * *

  Angie clutched her coffee cup so hard, she nearly crushed it.

  Cade Reynolds.

  Bigger than life and twice as natural. Okay, maybe three times as natural. Because Cade Reynolds had never done anything by mere doubles in his life.

  What on earth was he doing here? Not just here in Café du Coeur—which wasn’t even as popular with the locals as the Starbucks ten miles away in Chisago City—but here in Harper Falls? A place he’d left almost immediately after graduating high school, followed in short succession by both his sisters and then his widowed mother, who had retired to Florida after raising three kids on her own. What possible reason could he have for coming back after all these years?

  As if his presence weren’t unsettling enough, his eyes met hers. They were just like she remembered— thick-lashed, dark brown, and intelligent—but also blazed with a sentiment she’d certainly never been the object of sixteen years ago: open, unapologetic lust. Her body reacted as if she were still fourteen and in the throes of the crush she’d nurtured her entire freshman year. Her stomach flip-flopped, and her heart twisted with nervous excitement.

  He lifted his coffee cup in salute and gestured in silent invitation toward the chair from which he’d just removed his booted feet. Jeans and cowboy boots. Angie mentally rolled her eyes. He’d spent too much time in Texas, obviously.

  But that didn’t make him any less hot. In fact, she doubted anything could make him less hot, short of a restraining order from an ex-girlfriend.

  Not that she’d harbored any illusions about his attractiveness in the years since he’d left Harper Falls. She’d watched every televised game he’d played at USC and then subscribed to NFL Sunday Ticket after he’d signed with the Texans, and that meant she’d been a party to his transformation from drool- worthy boy to sex-on-legs man. As a teen, Cade had been almost pretty, his hair worn just long enough to curl at the nape of his neck and around his smooth, boyishly handsome face. Girls had swooned over him the way they swooned over members of the latest boy band. He’d been desirable but safe somehow, his sensuality muted by youth. Over the years, however, everything about his appearance had hardened and sharpened, from the planes of his cheeks and square jawline to the deep cleft in his chin. He’d cropped his hair short, too, accentuating the stark male beauty of his features. There was nothing remotely safe about him any longer, and Angie knew it as well as anyone who’d ever watched him answer questions at a press conference. Still, there was a big difference between admiring a gorgeous specimen of masculinity through the TV screen and being in the same room with him, because she was pretty sure he was sucking up all the oxygen in the small café.

  And he was looking at her as if she were having the same effect on him. Which absolutely blew her mind.

  One thing was clear, however. He had no idea who she was. He thought she had recognized him because he was Cade Reynolds, NFL quarterback, not because a half a lifetime ago, they’d shared the same high school and a few conversations about life, the universe, and football. Well, technically, football was life, the universe, and everything.

  With a concerted effort, she relaxed her grip on the coffee cup and walked toward his table. All gentleman despite the fact that he’d spent the past several seconds undressing her with his eyes, he stood as she approached. Even in her heels, she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze, an unfamiliar but not unpleasant sensation.

  “Cade Reynolds,” he said in his deep baritone, stretching out his hand in greeting.

  Her knees wobbled as she took his hand and shook it. It was warm and dry and positively engulfed hers. He was even bigger and more masculine than she remembered he’d been or imagined he might have become.

  “But then, I think you already know that,” he added.

  She was a little aggravated by his arrogance, but then she remembered the Sports page she’d been perusing and decided there wasn’t much point in feigning ignorance.

  “You’re right, I do.”

  “I’m flattered,” he said, holding on to her hand a few seconds longer than could be considered strictly polite. “I haven’t exactly been front and center lately. Out of sight, out of mind, you know.”

  Okay, she liked him better already. Maybe fame and fortune hadn’t turned him into a self-centered jerk after all.

  “How’s your rehab coming?” Even as she asked the question, the awful image of the tackle that had sidelined his career flashed through her brain. The linebacker had jumped the snap count and shot straight through the line.The referee blew the play dead, but the linebacker either didn’t hear the whistle or flat-out ignored it. Cade had been completely unprotected when the other player’s helmet collided with his throwing shoulder. The offending linebacker had been ejected, suspended for six games, and fined a hefty sum for the infraction, but it wasn’t enough to put
Cade’s shoulder back together. Angie didn’t think she would ever be able to wipe from her memory the image of Cade walking off the field, his lips twisted in a grimace of silent agony, his right arm hanging limp and useless at his side.

  As he released her hand, however, she noted that his right arm seemed far from limp or useless now. In fact, based on the musculature rippling beneath his snug-fitting black T-shirt, there was nothing wrong with the man. She swept him head to toe with her eyes. Nope. Nothing at all wrong.

  Which did make her wonder whether the rumors of a dependence on prescription painkillers—rumors she’d discounted—might be true, because she could see no visible reason he shouldn’t be staging his comeback on the football field instead of killing time in the back corner of a rinky-dink coffee shop in Harper Falls.

  “Oh, slow but steady. These things sometimes take longer than we expect,” he said with a lazy shrug of his broad shoulders.

  “Well, you look fine to me,” she blurted, then felt herself turn ketchup-red as she realized how that must sound. She hadn’t said it with the emphasis on fine, but she might as well have. Because Cade Reynolds was fine in every way.

  His brown eyes twinkled with amusement. “I’m glad you think so. Maybe you could get the message to my physician?”

  She breathed a small sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to make her feel like a stupid, tongue-tied adolescent fan girl, even though he could have.

  “I’m not sure he’d take my word for it.”

  “He’s a she, but you’re probably right.” Cade gestured again toward the chair. “Sit down and talk a while? I’d like to get to know you better.” The husky timbre of his voice said better meant something a lot more intimate than talking.

  Not that she was complaining about his intentions. She didn’t do one-night-stands or casual flings and never had, even before she’d become a high school teacher in a small town where everyone knew everyone else’s business and discretion was unheard of. But for Cade Reynolds, she was willing to make an exception. She’d wanted him for almost half her life, mostly from afar. Now that he was here in Harper Falls and, surreal as it seemed, might want her in return, she wasn’t about to turn and walk away.

  With a nod, she slid onto the straight-backed wooden chair. “I’d like that, too.”

  He sank into his own seat and stretched his legs out in front of him. Angie resisted the urge to fan herself as she involuntarily conjured the image of him doing the same thing...sans jeans.

  Hot.

  “So, you teach math?” he asked.

  She stopped examining his thighs—okay, to be honest, his crotch—and looked at him in surprise. “How’d you know that?”

  “I overheard you talking with the barista.”

  She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Was I that loud?” Her voice had a tendency to carry, which was useful in the classroom and during football practice but a nuisance pretty much everywhere else.

  “No, not at all. Actually, technically, I didn’t so much overhear as try really hard to eavesdrop.”

  Her cheeks flushed, this time with pleasure. That should probably seem more stalkerish than flattering, but it didn’t. At least not coming from him.

  “So, Miss Peterson, do you have a first name? And can I use it?”

  Oh, God. Her name.

  He hadn’t recognized her yet, but once he heard her name, he might recall a clumsy, four-eyed freshman girl named Angie Peterson. When he did, he’d react like all the other men she’d known in high school did. Like Erik Larson, who remarked at their ten-year reunion—which Cade, blissfully, had missed due to training camp—that, wow, she wasn’t coyote- ugly anymore and he’d do her in a heartbeat. Yeah, that had been charming. Or like Matthew Thibodeaux, whom she’d dated for a few months before he dropped his guard and admitted his friends couldn’t believe he was shagging the girl they all used to joke about paper- bagging so they could stand to screw her.

  Ugh. Her stomach churned at that memory.

  Cade had seemed like a nice guy in high school, though, particularly considering he’d been not only captain of the football team but also homecoming king. She really didn’t want her memories of the few conversations they’d shared tarnished by the knowledge that he was just like the rest of them. And she didn’t want him to think of her as the pathetic, lonely creature she’d been in high school.

  But then the voice of reason—and good old- fashioned arithmetic—jumped in to save the day. There must be a dozen Angela Petersons in the Twin Cities area alone, the voice argued. Why would he jump to the conclusion that she was that Angela Peterson, especially when she looked nothing like she had as a teenager?

  All right, then. Tell the truth and take your chances.

  “It’s Angela,” she said and took a sip of her latte to cover her nerves.

  “Angela, huh?” His gaze swept over her, sharp and assessing. Her pulse stuttered to a virtual halt. Just when she was sure he had recognized her and all was lost, he said, “I like it. It suits you.”

  The breath she’d been holding shuddered out of her lungs. She only wished she knew whether relief or disappointment had forced the air from her chest. Although she truly hadn’t wanted him to realize who she was, a part of her wished their short-lived friendship had meant half as much to him as it had to her.

  But that was then. This was now, and she was going to enjoy the heck out of the fact that the tables had turned—or at least equalized.

  “I guess I won’t change it to Agatha, then,” she said lightly.

  He coughed to avoid choking on his coffee. “God, no. Why, were you thinking of doing that?”

  “Well, you have to admit, it would be a lot more memorable.”

  “Any man who could forget you needs his eyes examined.”

  She held back a gust of harsh laughter. He’d probably used that line—or variations of it—to great effect on any number of women in the past. It wasn’t his fault that it was the worst possible thing he could have said to her. And for that reason, she wasn’t going to hold it against him.

  “Now you’re just trying to flatter me so I’ll go out with you.” Or sleep with you.

  “You’re right. Is it working?” he asked, his eyes puppy-dog wide and hopeful. The effect was hilarious...and irresistible.

  “Maybe.”

  “Good. Pick you up at your place at, say, six o’clock?”

  Her place? Crap. That was an idea that had thewords “epic” and “disaster” written all over it in capital letters.

  “No, I’d rather meet you,” she said hastily. “Where are you staying?”

  He named a luxury resort hotel five miles down the river on the Wisconsin side and gave a room number on the top floor. Probably an extravagant suite with a killer view of the falls. The kind of place she couldn’t afford to stay for even one night if she saved up for a year.

  “Six thirty, then?” His smoky-lashed eyes swept over her with possessive heat, lingering on her mouth, her throat, the swell of her breasts. She wondered again what he’d think if he realized who she was.

  God, he was so out of her league. In every possible way. They might have grown up in the same small town, but they had nothing in common anymore. Cade had become rich, famous, and worldly. In addition to his Texas ranch, which was probably twice the size of downtown Harper Falls, he owned a mansion in Houston as well as a chateau in the French Alps. Over the years since he’d hit the big time, he had dated supermodels, actresses, and heiresses. Angie, by contrast, taught math to wisecracking teenagers, still lived with her father in the modest three-bedroom house she’d grown up in, and counted herself lucky if she could get a date at all.

  She wouldn’t lie to herself. There was no future here. This could only turn out one way—badly.

  And she couldn’t bring herself to give a damn.

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  About the Author

  Jackie can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be
a writer when she grew up, but there were plenty of times when she wasn’t sure she ever would be. As it turns out, it just took her a lot longer to grow up than she expected!

  On the road to publication, Jackie took a few detours, including a stint in academia (she holds an MA in Classics from the University of Chicago and was a recipient of a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities) and many years as a technical writer/instructional designer for a data processing company. She still holds her day job in instructional design, but her true passion is writing steamy romances–both historical and contemporary.

  Jackie learned to believe in love at first sight when she met the man of her dreams more than two decades ago and to believe in happily ever after when she married him. She lives in Southern California with her very own romance hero, their three children, and an ever-changing menagerie of pets. You can learn more about Jackie and her books at her website, www.jackiebarbosa.com, and follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jackiebarbosa.

  Table of Contents

  Can't Take the Heat

  Table of Contents

  Prologue Thursday

  Chapter One Saturday

  Chapter Two Monday

  Chapter Three Tuesday

  Chapter Four Wednesday

  Other Books by Jackie Barbosa

  An Excerpt from Skin in the Game

  About the Author