Her Favorite Rival

by Sarah Mayberry

  “It’s okay, Mum,” he said.

  What else was there to say?

  The paramedics bustled through the door then, stretcher banging against the wall. Zach stepped out of the way as they did an assessment of his mother before plugging her into a saline drip and loading her onto the stretcher for transport to the hospital.

  He followed them out into the street, stopping only to lock the house and thank Vera for her endless patience before trailing them to the hospital.

  There he watched as his mother was greeted by name by long-serving doctors and nurses who’d seen her far too many times over the years. He did his best to answer questions and resigned himself to a long wait while they rounded up a vascular specialist. It was five in the morning by the time his mother had been seen and a course of heavy-duty IV antibiotics prescribed by a grim-faced woman in her late forties.

  Afterward, Dr. Fawkner called him out of the cubicle to talk.

  “You understand that if this infection had gone another day or two, there’s a real risk your mother could have lost her leg, possibly her life?”

  “She’s going to be okay, then?” Strange that he had enough hope left in him to be relieved.

  “It’s going to be a close run thing, and one of our surgeons is going to have to excise the necrotizing skin around the abscess, but my best bet is that she’s out of the woods. This time.”

  Meaning his mother would have yet another scar to add to her collection.

  He asked some more questions and listened carefully to her answers. Afterward, he returned to his mother’s bedside. She was dozing, her face slack. Even though he needed to get home and get some sleep, he resumed his seat beside the bed. He didn’t have it in him to abandon her while she was sleeping, even though he knew she was in good hands now.

  So he sat, and he waited.

  * * *

  EVEN THOUGH THE company had hired a bus to transport everyone to the golf course en masse, Audrey chose to drive there the next morning. That way she could make her escape as soon as possible.

  Seated in her car in the dusty gravel parking lot, she tucked her hair behind her ears and slipped on her Makers cap, inspecting the result in the rearview mirror. She’d already smoothed SPF 30 sunscreen onto her face and arms, all the better to withstand a day beneath the warm spring sun.

  “Okay. Let’s do this,” she told herself before getting out of the car and hefting her clubs out of the trunk. She’d bought them secondhand after she’d been promoted to buyer, back when she’d kidded herself that she might actually develop an affection for the game. She’d given up that particular delusion after her first tournament, but held on to the clubs anyway. It didn’t hurt to look the part, after all, even if her heart was decidedly not in it.

  The buggy wheels bounced over the gravel as she approached the clubhouse, shaking her head a little when she saw the crowd of loudly dressed men milling beneath the broad veranda. Bright pink and yellow and lime-green polo shirts were the order of the day, sartorial statements that had been matched in some instances with equally bright plaid trousers.

  She wondered what it was about golf that encouraged middle-aged straight men to dress like children’s entertainers. Truly bizarre.

  She spotted a couple of suppliers she knew and headed over to say hello. That was what the day was all about, after all—making them feel special, so that next time she asked them to bend over on pricing and cooperative advertising dollars, they’d touch their toes with a smile instead of a frown.

  She chatted with suppliers for nearly forty minutes, all the while a part of her was keeping an eye out for Zach. She didn’t even try to quell the urge these days. What was the point? Despite the time that had passed since they’d been naked in his bed, her awareness of him hadn’t simmered down one iota. Telling herself to get over him was clearly a futile gesture.

  She wasn’t sure where that left her, but at least she wasn’t wasting a whole lot of energy pretending she wasn’t feeling the way she was feeling.

  One of the organizers began calling for groups to tee off around about the same time that Audrey started to worry about Zach’s failure to appear.

  He was never late. Like her, he was a stickler for punctuality. Which meant one of two things: he’d either gotten lost, or something had happened.

  A dart of fear tightened her chest and she rolled her eyes. She was being a drama queen. Zach was not lying in a ditch, bleeding to death after a car accident. The odds of that were so high as to be absurd. He was simply held up. Or something.

  Chewing on her lower lip, she abandoned her buggy and went to find Gary’s assistant, Jenny. Armed with a clipboard, the other woman was looking frazzled as she tried to organize groups and send them off onto the course.

  “Jen, have you seen Zach at all? I need to check if he heard back from Black & Decker about the new rechargeable range,” Audrey said.

  She felt stupid the moment she added the explanation to her request. Jen wouldn’t care why she wanted to talk to Zach; the woman was clearly more than a little overwhelmed. Paranoia was turning Audrey into an idiot.

  “Haven’t seen him. But if you find him, tell him to come see me. There’s been a change to his team.”

  “Sure. Will do.”

  Frowning, Audrey moved off to one side of the crowd and pulled her phone from her back pocket. She dialed Zach’s number and swore in annoyance when it immediately went to voice mail. He was on another call or his phone was dead. Either way, he was not contactable.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Jenny was talking to Gary, pointing to her clipboard, her face a picture of frustration. Any minute now she was going to run out of teams to send out onto the course and everyone was going to notice that Zach wasn’t here. If it was last year’s tournament, Audrey was almost certain she wouldn’t have broken a sweat over it. But this year... Things were so tense at work. Everyone was doing their damnedest not to put a foot wrong. If Zach didn’t turn up for some reason, it wasn’t going to look good.

  She tried his number again, and again got his voice mail. She walked to the head of the driveway and squinted up the highway. Was that a black car she could see on the horizon? She waited until it drew closer, revealing itself to be a minibus full of tourists.

  She tried his phone again and swore softly when she got his voice mail for the third time.

  “Call me when you get this, Zach. You’re about to miss your tee-off time. If you need directions or...anything, just call, okay?”

  She made her way back to the clubhouse. The crowd had thinned considerably and Jenny waved her over when she spotted her.

  “There you are! I was beginning to think you’d disappeared. You and your guys are up next, okay?”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Jenny started to turn away, but Audrey caught her arm.

  “Also, I just spoke to Zach. He had a flat tire, but he said he’d be here as soon as he could.”

  “Oh, thanks. I might send his team out without him, then, and he can catch up with them.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Audrey smiled brightly before moving away.

  Good one, idiot girl. What happens when Zach turns up and doesn’t know he’s had a flat tire? Or what if he doesn’t turn up at all?

  She would look like a big fat liar. Or something.

  Well. So be it.

  She cast another look toward the freeway.

  Come on, Zach. Move your ass.

  Unsurprisingly, his car didn’t miraculously appear. She pulled her phone out and left one last message on his voice mail, telling him the excuse she’d concocted on his behalf. By then Jenny was hollering for her to go tee off with her team and she grabbed her buggy and headed for the first hole.

  Zach was on his own. Wherever that may be.

  More than anything, she really hoped he was okay.

  * * *

  ZACH EASED OFF on the accelerator as he rounded the final bend and saw the turnoff for the golf course. The car bucked as he hit t
he gravel driveway, and he throttled back some more to turn into the crowded parking lot. He swore when he saw there was only a handful of staff hanging around the clubhouse.

  He’d missed tee-off. Awesome.

  He’d been pretty certain he would, given how late it had been by the time he dropped by his place to change and grab his clubs after leaving the hospital, but there’d still been a seed of hope in his heart.

  He found a spot and grabbed his clubs and buggy, trying to decide what was best to do. Strike out on his own in an attempt to find his group? Chase after the closest team and latch onto them?

  He was still tossing up options when someone called out to him and he realized that one of the women he’d mistaken for clubhouse staff was actually Jenny, Gary’s assistant.

  “You got here!” she said as she strode toward him, a relieved smile on her face.

  “Yeah. Sorry I didn’t call, my phone was dead and the charger chose this morning to die.” He shrugged ruefully, not even attempting to hide how frustrated he was. “Sorry if I put a spanner in the works.”

  “No worries. Audrey told us about your flat tire, you poor thing. At least you know how to fix it on your own—I’m so hopeless I’d have to wait hours for the car club to come find me,” Jenny said, laughing self-deprecatingly.

  He narrowed his eyes. Flat tire? What flat tire? Then he understood what Audrey had done for him and gratitude warmed his chest.

  “Yeah. I managed to get a message through to her before my phone died completely.”

  Jenny was busy consulting her clipboard. “Your team left about half an hour ago. The pros tell me we should allow about twenty minutes per hole, so if you cut across there—” she pointed across the fairway “—and head through that stand of trees you should be able to catch them at the second green. And if you want to leave your phone with me, I can stick it on my charger, since I brought it with me.”

  “Great. Thanks, Jen. And sorry again for the hassle,” he said as he handed over his phone.

  “All good, don’t worry.”

  Zach tugged his cap lower on his brow as he set off across the grass. Even though he was so tired he could barely see straight thanks to his all-night vigil by his mother’s bedside, he couldn’t keep the grin from his face as he made his way to the second green.

  Audrey had covered for him. She’d been worried, and she’d made up an excuse for him and put her own credibility at risk by offering it up to Jenny, even though she’d had no guarantee that he wouldn’t land her in it by inadvertently blowing her story or even by not turning up full stop.

  She’d put herself on the line for him.

  It was a little ridiculous how happy the realization made him.

  She liked him, so much so that she’d tried to prevent him from getting into trouble. The thought made him grin like an idiot.

  He hit the second fairway and glanced around to get his bearings. Tee off to his right, green to his left.

  As Jenny had predicted, the suppliers he’d been assigned to host for the day were taking their turns to putt. One of them spotted him, alerting the others, and they gave him a round of applause as he climbed the slope to the tightly clipped green.

  “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Black,” one of them called.

  “Thought I’d better give you guys a head start. Don’t want to make you feel too bad when I wipe the floor with you,” he said.

  Pure bravado, given his golfing skills, but a bit of macho bull was the order of the day at these kinds of events. He figured he could be forgiven for stretching the truth a little.

  The rest of the day went smoothly enough. He managed to avoid complete humiliation by finishing in the middle of the field for his team of five players, not too bad a showing, and the sunshine and fresh air went a long way toward blowing away the smell of the hospital and keeping him awake and alert.

  It helped that every now and then he caught sight of a trim, neatly dressed figure playing farther along the course. Even from a distance, he knew it was Audrey. There was something about the way she walked, the way she held herself, that he would have recognized in a crowd of millions.

  He watched her from afar and wondered what had been going through her mind when she’d lied for him, and found himself grinning like a fool all over again.

  He shouldn’t be. He knew he should be worried that after nearly two weeks, he wasn’t even close to moving on from their one night together. He should be busy writing off her act of charity as a gesture of comradeship from one colleague to another, instead of reading all sorts of things into it.

  He didn’t care. Maybe that was because he was so tired, or maybe it was because he’d spent the night beside his sick mother, and turning his back on something—on someone—who felt as good and life-affirming and right as Audrey did seemed nuts.

  He didn’t want to stop at one night. He didn’t want to stop, period. He wanted to see her again. Screw the consequences. He’d dotted his I’s and crossed his T’s and paid his dues. He figured he deserved something that was just for him. Something good. Something that made him happy.

  They could sort out the work stuff later. Somehow. They were both intelligent, articulate adults. There had to be some way that they could negotiate a relationship without it impacting on their careers.

  Relationship. Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?

  He was. Big time. He knew there was no guarantee that Audrey would be prepared to risk the inevitable flak that might come their way if they embarked on something long-term. God knows, it wasn’t as though the situation at work had gotten any less tense or fraught. There was no guarantee she wanted anything more from him at all, apart from one night of scorchin’, smokin’ sex.

  So be it, but he had to try. He’d regret it for the rest of his life if he let her slip through his fingers without a fight. He knew it in his bones.

  As for the myriad complications that would arise the moment they decided their one night was the beginning of something more...well, they could cross those bridges when they came to them.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AUDREY WAS HOT and tired by the time her team trudged the final few meters to the clubhouse. The men separated to find the bar and make phone calls, and she found a bench beneath a shade tree and drank a whole bottle of cold, cold water in one fell swoop.

  Better. Much better.

  Resting her elbows on the backrest of the bench, she watched the other teams straggle in. There was lots of ragging and catcalling as people compared scores, and she found herself smiling more than once at some of the slurs and jokes.

  It hadn’t been too awful a day. She’d surprised herself by finishing first in her team, a minor miracle that said more about how bad her teammates were than her own skill. Still, not too shabby. And best of all, the ordeal was almost over for another year.

  Her gaze caught on a tall, broad-shouldered figure among a group of men returning to the clubhouse.

  Zach.

  Her stomach did the familiar nervous-excited dance that it always did when he was around.

  She’d spotted him from a distance midmorning and been relieved—he’d arrived in one piece, so she could put the worst-case scenarios chattering away in the back of her head to rest once and for all.

  Whether he’d maintained her impulsively offered cover story was something she was yet to discover. Jenny hadn’t rushed over with a “please explain” yet so that was a good sign. She hoped.

  Glad of the privacy offered by her sunglasses and the bill of her cap, she watched Zach as he approached the clubhouse.

  He was dressed in slim-cut chinos and a navy polo shirt, a navy Makers baseball cap casting a shadow over his sunglasses, and he looked far hotter than any man had a right to in any of the above. But he always looked hot, no matter what he was wearing. Especially when he was wearing nothing.

  We’ve had the “not helpful” chat before, right?

  She batted away her inner nag. There was no harm in enjoying one of
nature’s simple pleasures. Just because she was looking didn’t necessarily mean that she would be touching. She understood that Zach was out of bounds.

  She knew the exact moment he spotted her—his head came up, and she felt his gaze on her, as warm and real as a caress. Any ease she’d felt fled for the hills as he abandoned his buggy and made a beeline for her. She glanced around, hoping no one else had noticed the very intent way he was homing in on her, all the while trying to quell the excited rush of awareness rocketing through her.

  He was coming over to talk to her. Nothing more. She needed to calm the hell down.

  “Hey,” she said when he stopped in front of her.

  His shadow fell across her as he looked at her. “I owe you,” he said bluntly.

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t. You’d do the same for me.”

  He sat beside her on the bench. It wasn’t the longest bench in the world, and the two of them were a cozy fit. She didn’t move, though. This was the closest she’d been to him in days, and, God help her, she wanted the contact.

  There would be plenty of time for her to flagellate herself for her weakness later.

  He copied her posture, propping his elbows on the backrest, his gaze focused on the course, not on her. For a moment they were both silent as they pretended to be people-watching.

  “I would do the same for you. In a pinch.” His voice was gravelly and very low.

  “I know.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  “All this self-sacrificing behavior, you mean?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “That we’re friends?”

  He was silent for a long beat. “I don’t feel very friendly toward you.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “Don’t you?”

  “Not at all. I’ve been thinking about it, and I realized that if you and I didn’t work together, there’s no way I would have let you go the other night.”

  It was such a frank, raw admission, for a moment she couldn’t think, let alone speak.

  “I believe they’ve opened the bar in the clubhouse if you’re feeling a powerful urge for an out right about now,” Zach said.