Risky Game

by Tracy Solheim

  “Something eating you, Brody?” Devlin asked, sounding like he actually cared.

  “Nah, I just want to get home.”

  “You going to Boston for Christmas?” Devlin was turning into a real Chatty Cathy tonight.

  “Tomorrow night.”

  The quarterback took a pull from a bottle of water. “You’re lucky to have a big family to spend it with. I can remember spending lots of holidays alone.” He smiled one of his rare grins. “It’s nice to finally have one of my own.”

  Brody thought about being smothered by his sisters and their families. It was chaotic and boisterous, but when it came right down to it, he was still alone in the crowd.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Enjoy your daughter’s first Christmas, Devlin.” He made his way out of the stadium to his car. Still mulling over Sister Agnes’s comments and now Devlin’s, Brody went home and ate a solitary dinner Nate had had some dietician prepare. Restless, he climbed back into his Range Rover and drove to the Hampden area of Baltimore to see the famous Christmas lights. An entire block of Thirty-Fourth Street was lit up as neighbors in the row houses strung lights across the streets and on their houses. Inflatable snow globes, musical trains, and blinking angels illuminated the area. It was so over-the-top, Brody was pretty sure the city block was visible from space. He walked, unrecognized, among the throngs of families enjoying the spectacle. The feeling of loneliness swelled.

  Driving back through the city, he made his way to Federal Hill, pulling his car in front of Will and Julianne’s loft apartment. Julianne was the wisest woman he knew, aside from Shannon. But Shannon wasn’t here and he was pretty sure she was at the center of his melancholy anyhow. Will answered the door, his normally impeccable appearance rumpled in flannel sleep pants and a dark T-shirt adorned with spit-up on the shoulder. Owen wailed from the vicinity of the kitchen.

  “At least you knocked first,” his teammate said as he led the way to the kitchen, where Owen sat in his bouncy seat crying and gnawing on his fist at the same time.

  “I surrendered my key a long time ago. Where’s your wife?”

  That got the linebacker’s attention. He eyed Brody menacingly while he flung the baby over his shoulder, gently bouncing him up and down. “She’s taking a bath. She needed a break.”

  “Not much of a break if the kid is wailing. Are you sticking pins in that baby again?”

  “He’s got a cold and he’s fussy. It happens.” Will moved the baby to his other shoulder, Owen’s wails started to calm as his eyes drifted shut.

  “Is she gonna be long? This is important.” Brody glanced into the small living room where the lights of the Christmas tree flickered against the backdrop of the Inner Harbor. A small stuffed elf wearing a “Baby’s First Christmas” hat was lying on the back of the sofa. Brody picked it up and wondered if Devlin had one of these for his daughter. Hell, it wouldn’t be long before his childhood friend Robbie-Rob had one for his inevitable kid. Brody’s stomach rolled.

  “You look like hell.” Will’s voice had gotten quieter to accommodate his son who was slumbering finally.

  “You wouldn’t win any contests yourself.” Brody gestured to the spit-up on his teammate’s shirt as Will laid the baby into a small crib in the living room.

  Will chuckled. “My, how the mighty have fallen.”

  “Can you just get your wife, please?”

  “In a minute,” Will crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned his big body against the island separating the kitchen from the rest of the loft. “Right now, I’m enjoying seeing the great lady-killer Brody Janik being laid low by a woman.”

  “That’s not what this is.”

  “Take it from one who’s been where you are—in this very room with you as my tour guide—you’re always the last to know.”

  Brody thought back six months to when his friend’s new marriage nearly didn’t get off the ground because of a serious lack of trust on both their parts. Yet they’d made it work. They were both happy. The squeezing sensation was back in Brody’s chest. He leaned over the crib and gently put the elf in the corner.

  “Your kid’s got the hands of a receiver.”

  Will scoffed. “He’s too smart for that. He’s gonna be a linebacker all the way.”

  “Nonsense,” Julianne said as she climbed down the stairs wrapped in a flowing robe and silk pajamas. “Owen is going to be an artist.”

  Both men choked on that as they followed her to the kitchen, where she pulled coffee mugs out of the cabinet.

  “What do you want, Brody?”

  Julianne, still obviously on Team Shannon, gave him the cold shoulder. This was the hard part, trying to convey to his friends what he wanted when he wasn’t entirely sure himself.

  “Brody, it’s nine thirty. We’ll be lucky to get six hours of sleep before he wakes up again. What. Do. You. Want?” Will demanded.

  “I want what you have!” he growled, suddenly realizing what he wanted. All of it.

  Will took an angry step forward before Julianne placed a hand in the center of his chest giving him a soothing caress. “Down, boy. I’m fairly certain he means our lives and not me.”

  She stretched up on her bare toes and bussed Brody on the cheek. “Sit,” she said, pushing him onto one of the barstools. “I’ll make some cappuccino.” She filled the coffee machine. “Brody, you always told me you were looking for the woman who gets you. And when that one extraordinary woman came along—the one who totally gets you—you sent her away. Why?”

  Brody raked his fingers through his hair. “Because she’s a good person,” he whispered. “The best I’ve ever met. I want to always hold that image of her in my heart: the warm, trustworthy woman who she is. If I let her in—all the way in—I’ll give her the opportunity to sell me out.”

  Will sucked in a breath.

  “Oh, Brody.” The pity in Julianne’s voice made Brody cringe. “That’s no way to live your life. You can’t go around believing the worst in people. Especially someone who you already admit is a wonderful person. When you find someone like that—like Shay—you need to hold on to them. Not push them away.”

  “You’re telling me it’s too late? That I screwed up?”

  “I didn’t say that.” She pulled a carton of cream out of the fridge. “Although you did screw up.”

  Will nodded behind his wife.

  “But you can fix it. You just have to be willing to put yourself out there, Brody. To trust.”

  There was that damn T-word again. Brody pushed through a few hard breaths. Life without Shannon had become nearly unbearable. He was just going through the motions. Brody wanted more and that meant he had to do whatever it took.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Tell me what I need to do.”

  Will laughed. “A good place to start would be groveling.”

  Brody ignored his smart-ass teammate, instead looking to his wife for advice.

  “Sorry, Brody, but I agree with Will. This is going to call for some serious groveling,” she said with a mischievous grin as Brody dropped his head into his hands.

  • • •

  The Platinum Palace was nothing like Brody expected. Instead of being housed in a strip mall or, worse, Shannon’s mother’s garage, the salon was located in a three-thousand-square-foot craftsman-style building, dwarfed by two towering river oak trees. Despite the fact that it was mid-day on Christmas Eve, the sprawling parking lot was filled. Not only that, but the spaces were occupied by Beemers, Mercedes, and Ford F-150 pickups.

  There was lots of blond hair, too. All shades and sizes. Brody was nearly blinded by it; that and the futuristic platinum Christmas tree blinking in the foyer. The mood inside the salon was festive. Clients dressed in black capes, some wearing tinfoil in their hair, milled around sipping something that looked like eggnog and smelled a lot like bourbon.

  Brody stood in the empty
foyer scanning the room for Shannon, but she was nowhere in sight. He’d already tried her mother’s address, only to be told by her grandmother that both girls were working at the salon today. Hanging over the reception desk was a poster-sized photo of Teryn all decked out in her Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfit. On a shelf next to it was a photo of both sisters dressed in identical white dresses. In the picture, Shannon’s hair was wild and her smile impish.

  “That’s my favorite picture of my girls,” a voice said beside him.

  Brody didn’t realize he’d picked up the frame until it was being taken from his hands. He glanced up at the attractive woman beside him. June Everett was pleasingly plump but with the face of a goddess and a head full of the hair that gave the place its name. It was easy to see where her girls got their beauty.

  “They were ten. It was a chore getting them both to stay clean while the photographer fiddled with his equipment. Lordy, but that feels like a lifetime ago.” Her voice was wistful as she replaced the picture on the shelf. Turning to Brody, she got right to the point. “Shay’s in the back. I keep a loaded gun back there, too, and she knows how to use it, so you best mind your manners.”

  Brody nearly laughed at the woman’s bravado until he realized she was serious. Pushing his Ray-Bans on top of his head, he followed where she’d pointed toward the back of the salon. As he made his way past the chairs of women, a silence descended like a bow wave until the only sound in the cavernous room was Blake Shelton belting out “Jingle Bell Rock” over the stereo system.

  Inside the large storage room a washer spun while Shannon stood at the dryer pulling out towels and folding them on a table beside it. A fluffy white cat sat beside the pile, swishing its tail as Shannon sang along to the Christmas song, her jeans-clad hips swaying nicely to the beat. The sight was so enticing, Brody let out a load groan. Shannon froze in mid-fold, taking a moment before turning toward him, her face a mask.

  “Oh, for the love of Christ, Shannon! What are you wearing?” Not what he’d planned to say, but seeing her in the flesh again was doing crazy things to his body.

  She looked down at her gray T-shirt, Redskins emblazoned across her fine chest. Lifting her chin again she arched an eyebrow at him. “Seriously? That’s what you’re gonna lead with, Brody?”

  His brain was telling him to shut the hell up and stick to the script, but that same brain had scrambled once he’d caught sight of those whiskey eyes again. “You have plenty of Blaze T-shirts you stole from me. Why are you wearing that?”

  “To goad my sister and all the Dallas fans in the salon.”

  “Well it goads me!” He wanted to touch her, but he knew he was already screwing everything up. Badly. “At least tell me you’re wearing your Blaze panties,” he asked.

  No reaction. Not even her telltale blush.

  “You didn’t come all this way to discuss my panties, Brody.”

  He’d come all this way to get her out of her panties, but he figured now was not the time to bring that up. He reached a hand behind his neck to rub at the muscles that were squeezing so hard they were cutting off his circulation and common sense.

  “No, I came here to bring you your Christmas present.”

  She arched a delicate eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t aware we were exchanging Christmas presents, Brody.”

  He pulled an envelope out of his pocket. “Not exchanging. I’m just giving.” He handed it to her.

  Shannon was careful not to touch him, taking the envelope between her fingers as if it had cooties. Carefully, she pulled out the contents and unfolded the papers inside and scanned them.

  “You paid off Mama’s mortgage?!?” Her angry tone and wild eyes were definitely not what he expected.

  A gasp at his back alerted him that they had visitors. Damn you, Jerry Maguire, for making this look so easy. Shannon swatted him with the paperwork that freed up the rest of her life.

  “Hell’s bells, Brody! What in the Sam Hill did you do that for?”

  “So you wouldn’t have to work in a prison!” He seriously thought she might be more grateful.

  “Oh, Brody. I don’t even know if I am going to work in a prison, Teryn and I haven’t flipped the coin yet.”

  “What? Flipped what coin?” He was having a little trouble keeping up.

  She shook her head at him. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter because you’ve done this.” She waved the papers again. “I told you that I’m not one of your girlfriends who you can just pay off when you’re through with her!”

  “I’m not trying to pay you off, because I’m not through with you!” he yelled. There was another gasp behind him. He grabbed the paperwork out of Shannon’s hands and went to the door where her mother and her sister, Teryn, stood and he shoved the papers at them. “Here. Merry freakin’ Christmas.” Then, he slammed the door in their faces, drowning out Teryn’s laughter.

  When he turned to face Shannon again, there was a definite softening of her attitude.

  “Now, can we get to the real reason you’re here, Brody.”

  He rubbed a hand through his hair.

  “I’m an ass,” he said quietly.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  He muttered softly to himself. Hooking a stool on wheels with his foot, he pulled it directly in front of Shannon and sat down. This would be a lot easier if she wasn’t slaying him with those eyes. Reaching up to span her hips with his hands, he leaned his forehead against her belly. The familiar scent of her filled his nostrils giving him the strength to go on. He could feel her heartbeat against his head, its steady rhythm calming him. Her hands stayed fisted by her side, but this was his big move and Brody figured she was going to make him work for it.

  “This is hard and you know I don’t do hard,” he said.

  “Mmmm. You’re going to have to grow up sometime, Brody.”

  Yep, he definitely had to work for it. But since she was still allowing him to hold her, he figured he was safe to go all in.

  “All this time, I kept thinking there was something more I’m supposed to be in life, something more I’m supposed to be doing,” he began, relieved that her hands had unclenched and found his shoulders. “But I’ve been chasing something that doesn’t exist. What I should have been looking for is something I’m supposed to have. Well not a thing exactly. It’s you. What’s been missing in my life is you, Shannon.”

  He looked up into those eyes he loved, now damp with unshed tears, and he made the greatest leap he’d had to make in his life. “If I’m going to grow up, I want to do it with you. Alongside you.”

  Straddling his legs, she crawled into his lap, so her face was level with his. She draped her arms around his neck. “But do you trust me, Brody?”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “I must. Because I love you madly.”

  She was silent for a long moment and Brody’s breathing stopped.

  “By all means, keep me hanging here, Shannon.”

  Her whiskey eyes danced as she wrapped her legs around his waist. “I’ve never had a man tell me he loved me before. I’m just savoring the moment.”

  “Damn it, Shannon,” he growled. “You’d better not have any other man tell you he loves you.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if they did. Because the only man I’ll ever love is you, Brody Janik.”

  And then she kissed him. The feel of her sweet mouth was like coming home. At last, he’d unraveled the conundrum and found what he’d been looking for.

  Epilogue

  THE GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO THE NFL

  Well, girlfriends, it’s official. Everyone’s favorite tight end tied the knot today. Looking sexy in a Versace tux, number eighty’s blue eyes were focused solely on his brainy scientist bride. It turns out the homely PhD cleans up quite nicely. Of course, she had a little help from bridal gown designer Julianne Connelly, who decked her out in a
stunning sleeveless sheath gown that transformed the gawky nutritionist into an elegant woman worthy to be seen on sinfully sexy Brody Janik’s arm.

  Until she pulled on a pair of cowboy boots for the reception. Can you say tacky? Several of the guests, including the bride’s twin, former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Teryn Everett, and the groom’s sister, high-profile environmental lawyer Bridgett Janik, as well as an elderly nun, took to wearing boots for the dancing. Not that the rest of the guests weren’t pretty raucous during the after-party as well. Lots of two-stepping and twelve ounce curls by the Blaze players and their WAGs.

  The only dateless member of the organization was the team’s hot, young new owner, Jay McManus, which just goes to show you, girlfriends, women aren’t attracted to coldblooded reptiles.

  • • •

  Brody was deliciously naked. Again. He carefully stepped over Shay’s discarded wedding gown that was pooled on the floor where he’d peeled it off of her an hour earlier. Smiling his wicked grin, he prowled toward the bed carrying a flute of champagne in each hand. Shay shivered with anticipation as she snuggled deeper among the silk sheets. Darkness had fallen over Dallas and the lights of the skyline framed his tall body as he paused in front of the windows of the honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton.

  “You do realize you don’t have to get me drunk to have your way with me,” she teased.

  Brody chuckled as he handed her a glass before sliding beneath the sheets and leaning his broad shoulders against the headboard. “You are delightfully easy, doc. It’s one of the many things I love about you.” He draped an arm over her shoulder, pulling her in close to him. “But I wanted to make a toast. A private one.”

  A warm glow settled over Shay as she peered into her husband’s blue eyes, now reverent and serious as he held her gaze. Brody brushed his lips along her hairline, lingering a moment before he spoke softly.

  “From this day forth, you are all that matters to me. You are the most important thing in my life. Whatever happens after football, I’ll face it because all I ever need to make my life complete is you. Whatever makes you happy makes me happy. Wherever you are I want to be. You’re my everything, Mrs. Dr. Janik.”