To Win Her Back
Page 25
Still, as though some evil elf were sitting on his shoulder, he tracked the woman’s movements as she checked in at the reception desk and headed toward what he assumed were the locker rooms. The traces of whatever fragrance she wore still lingered, driving him crazy. As she walked, her ponytail bounced with the sway of her ass. He—
“May I help you?”
Chase rolled up his tongue and turned toward the front desk. Enough already.
“Uh, yeah, hi. I’d like to work out tonight. It’s my first time here, so what kind of arrangements do I need to make?”
He tried to concentrate as the nice young lady behind the counter explained membership fees, guest passes, trial packages, and whatever else Pump It Up offered. But it was hard to concentrate when his brain seemed to have self-destructed. What the fuck?
“Yeah, I’ll take that,” he said, wondering exactly what he’d opted for.
“The thirty-day trial package?” The girl beamed at him. “That’s a great way to start. Almost everyone who buys it ends up going for the full ride.”
Thirty-day trial package? Had the snippy female mesmerized him so much he’d forgotten where he was? He’d only come here for one night. Oh, well, it would do him some good to take a step back from the group until they got over all the happy celebrating. He took the papers the girl pushed at him, filled them out, and handed her his credit card. Along with his receipt, she handed him a two-page brochure on the facility itself and a diagram showing where all the different machines and equipment were located.
He changed in the locker room, stowed his things in a locker, and hung the key bracelet on his wrist. His normal pattern was to start with either a treadmill or an elliptical, so he headed for the long double row of them facing the front wall of glass. The treadmills were first, but then he spotted Miss Ponytail at an elliptical so, perverse idiot that he was, he marched over and took the one beside her. After placing his water bottle in the tray and hanging his towel over the bar, he climbed aboard and set his program.
Why on earth was he doing this? He made it a firm habit to stay away from women with attitude like she’d displayed at the door. Women were problem enough without bothering with the hostile ones. Yet here he was, right in her space.
She glanced at him briefly, frowned, and went back to focusing on her routine and whatever she was listening to with her ear buds.
Chase did his one-minute warmup and then hit his stride. Occasionally he slid a glance at Miss Ponytail, working that elliptical like she had a grudge against it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a woman work it that hard. He didn’t know if that was her usual pattern or if she was trying to prove something to him. As if he’d even care. She obviously had a chip on her shoulder bigger than his truck.
They finished at nearly the same time. Chase stepped away, doing his best to ignore her, and went to throw away his empty water bottle. Free weights were next, but when he went to that area, she was already there, adjusting her wristbands and checking the weights. Damn! Okay, he could ignore her and go ahead with his planned routine or he could walk to another area and work out on something else.
As he stood there, indecisive, she looked up at him, irritation stamped on her features.
“Are you following me?”
Chase was so stunned for a moment he couldn’t answer her.
“Because if you are,” she went on, “I’ll have to report you to management. They’ll revoke your membership.”
He was dumbfounded. Who the hell was this person, and who did she think she was? “Excuse me?”
“They don’t tolerate stalkers in here.” She planted her hands on her hips. “And I’ve had enough shit from men to last me two lifetimes. Go find some other corner to play in.”
Stalkers? For fuck’s sake! He was irritated enough to force the issue, but it was his first night here, he’d signed up for the thirty-day trial (Dumbass!), and he didn’t want to get kicked out because some snippy female thought he was following her. What was her problem, anyway?
He turned on his heel and walked to the farthest corner of the floor, not looking back. He located the strength and weight training machines he liked, found one he wanted to use, and set the program. Doing his best to clear his mind, he went into his routine. But a brunette with a bouncy ponytail, a sexy ass, and a well-toned body had lodged herself in his mind. The entire time he worked out, he couldn’t get her out of there no matter what he did.
Fuck!
* * * *
Holly Funchess wanted to spit nickels. She was mad enough to spit quarters, but she wouldn’t waste that much money on that asshole. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, thanks to a crappy date she never should have gone on. That had made her off her game today, putting her on the wrong side of her lieutenant at the firehouse. And somewhere along the way, she’d lost her lucky bracelet. Now this idiot jerk had to piss her off and make her already bad mood even worse. It was as if Life with a Capital L was giving her a big Fuck You finger.
Nice attitude, Holly.
Why had she been so bitchy to him, anyway? If she was truthful, he hadn’t really done anything except stand in the entrance a few seconds too long. But by the time she’d finished what turned out to be an exhausting shift and gotten here tonight, almost any little thing would have set her off. Of course her ex, Brad, dipshit that he was, would say the shift had nothing to do with it. That she was just naturally a bitch.
She hadn’t been able to help overhearing the guy sign up for the thirty-day trial membership. Overhearing was easy when you craned your head while trying to pretend you weren’t paying attention. Was he even single? Damn it! She shouldn’t care one way or the other. What was the matter with her? Hadn’t she already learned her lesson about men like him? So he was hot and sexy. So what? He probably had an ego bigger than this building and an attitude to go with it.
She finished her reps on the machine she was using and reset the weights on it, deliberately ignoring the hot guy. Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she nearly jumped a foot.
“Wow! I didn’t mean to frighten you to death.”
She looked up to see Adara Mann standing not six inches from her. Her college roommate had been a blessing when she moved to San Diego, even giving her a place to stay until she’d finished her fire science studies and been hired on. She’d been glad, however, to move into her own place, where she didn’t have to listen to Adara lecture her all the time about her spotty social life. She was good with things the way they were. Fine. Excellent, even.
“I could have brained myself on this thing,” Holly complained to the other woman. “What’s up?”
Adara took a step closer. “Did you see the hot, hot guy who came in tonight? I mean, the really sexy one?”
Holly almost snorted. “Adara, you think every guy who walks in here is sexy.”
“And you think every guy who walks in here or anywhere is an asshole,” Adara shot back.
Holly shrugged. “He’s just another run-of-the-mill jackass, as far as I’m concerned.”
“No, no, no.” Adara shook her head. “He’s really sexy. Like sex on a stick. Poster boy sexy. Look. There he is working on the lat pulldown machine. No wonder he looks so fit. This must be his first time here, or I would have spotted him before.”
Holly shook her head at her friend’s instant focus on a guy. “That’s the truth.”
Adara seemed to look at every new male as a target in her hunt for the ideal hookup. Despite her determination to ignore the subject, she glanced over to where Adara was pointing.
She blinked. Of course. She should have known. The man she’d spouted off to on the way in.
Asshole.
Regardless, she found herself taking a closer look at him. For Adara, she told herself. That’s all. She figured his height at just over six feet, and couldn’t help but notice his well-toned body with its defined muscles and wide shoulders. His blond hair was cut military short, making he
r wonder if he was in the service.
Not that she cared, right? Of course not. She was checking him out for Adara. So what was with the unexpected, funny little feeling that zinged through her system when she looked at him? She didn’t get zings these days. Not from him or anyone else. She’d promised herself she’d never get those zings again. Been there, done that. She’d declared a moratorium on zings. It had taken her too long to get past the pain of what had happened with Brad. She didn’t need to deal with that kind of vulnerability again. She had a new life, a new career, and no time for some asshole to screw it up again.
“Well?” Adara nudged her. “What do you think?”
“Like I said, I think he’s probably as much of an ass as every other man in here,” Holly snapped, jerking back to reality. Alpha males made all her defenses pop up and lock in place.
“Well, geez, Holly.” Adara blotted the perspiration on her forehead with the towel around her neck. “Are you ever gonna take that bug out of your ass? The longer you hold on to what happened, the harder it will be to let go. Stop giving that jerk so much power.”
Holly shrugged, doing her best to wipe unpleasant memories from her mind. Adara was the only person outside her family who knew what had sent her hightailing it from North Carolina. She had arrived in San Diego a big hot mess, an emotional wreck, but determined to build a new life. The best thing to come out of it was her chance to pursue her dream of becoming a firefighter. A dream put on hold for so long, because…
Stop! Just stop!
“I hear you. But you know, they don’t exactly wear signs that say Not a Jerk.”
She was very comfortable behind her high wall of defense. She was finished being the one in a relationship who did all the giving and then got virtually smacked in return. She had control of her life now, and that’s the way things were going to stay.
Out of nowhere Brad’s words leaped to life in her brain.
“A firefighter? Come on, Holly. That’s not a job for a woman. People will think I’m marrying a guy.”
Even now the words still had the power to hurt. With ruthless determination, she shoved them away.
Adara squeezed her arm. “You know I’m here for you. Just don’t smack me when I tell you you’re wasting your life because of some shithead. You’re more than that, Holly.”
She was, and she knew it. She wasn’t one to wallow in misery, either. But Brad’s words had cut deeply, and she couldn’t seem to wipe them out of her brain. She was too smart to give someone that kind of power over her, yet she couldn’t seem to break the hold.
Get over it, Holly. And be nicer to guys. They aren’t all assholes.
Maybe.
“I’m good.” Holly’s words were clipped, and she spit them out like bullets. “I’m doing just fine. In fact, I’m so fine I think I’ll do some more core exercises before I finish for the night.”
Adara threw up her hands. “Whatever. Maybe I’ll make a move on Mr. Hot Guy myself.”
Holly shrugged. “You do whatever you want. I’ve got other things to do.”
“Hey! It’s not as if I get to hang with gorgeous firefighters every day.”
Holy tamped down her irritation. “First of all, I don’t hang with them, I work with them. And second, to them I’m just one of the guys, and that’s the way I want it. I keep telling you I’m not interested. Not in them or anyone else. Can we finally be done with this conversation?”
Adara cocked her head. “You need to stop being so snotty about it. The old Holly was a really nice person.”
“Are you implying I’m not nice anymore?”
“No, just…” She flapped her hand. “Never mind.
But Holly knew the truth of that. Sometimes she missed the old Holly, the one who’d laughed spontaneously and thought life was an adventure. Then she’d discovered sometimes the adventure wasn’t what you thought it would be. Sometimes it turned into a battle for control. Now she had all the control she wanted or needed, because she didn’t let anyone in close enough to challenge her.
“Holly? Are you here with me?”
Adara was staring at her.
“Yeah. What did you say?”
“I think I’ll go see for myself what’s what with Mr. Hot Guy. If you don’t want him, I’m going to check him out.”
“You go ahead and do your usual thing.” Holly grinned. “I’ll watch the show from here.”
She’d discovered her former roommate loved to explore uncharted waters. Not that she went swimming in all of them. Far from it. She was very selective. But she did love a challenge. She watched as Adara moved across the room to the machine next to the one “Mr. Hot Guy” was using. Well, okay, he was sexy. She couldn’t lie about that. But sexy men, in her history, were untrustworthy, domineering, and a total pain in the ass. Brad McKeller had taught her that. He was—
Nope. She shut down that line of thinking. Not going there, not now, not ever again. She’d left him and all the bad memories that went with him back home in North Carolina.
“You think I want to come home and fuck someone dressed in turnout gear? Me or your butch job fetish, Holly. Make the wrong choice and we’re done.”
Yeah, they’d definitely been done. When she’d moved out of his place, she’d cried enough for the rest of her life. Then she’d packed up her things and left for the future she’d always dreamed of. Far away from her parents who thought she was crazy and Brad who thought she was…less than feminine.
Only her brother, Will, had supported her, even though he’d had reservations.
“Be sure you know what you want, kiddo,” he’d urged her.
“I do,” she’d insisted. “This is my dream, and I’m not letting anyone talk me out of it any longer.”
“I just worry about you being out there away from everyone, starting all over. No support system.”
“I have Adara,” she’d pointed out. “I’ll be fine.” She’d squeezed his hands. “Just be there for me if I need you.”
“Always,” he’d promised, and kissed her forehead. “Just…be careful with yourself. Next time choose wisely.”
She wanted to tell him there would never be a next time. She was done. Finished.
San Diego was a fresh new start for her, and she had no intention of letting some jerkoff ruin it. Someday, maybe, she’d find a man who wasn’t threatened by her choice of careers. But not now. Not for a long time. It certainly wouldn’t be some macho idiot like this one, an idiot who, objectively speaking, was indeed as hot as Adara said. Who set her misbehaving hormones to do a jitterbug if she was honest. Not that she was interested. Not one single bit.
Liar!
Still, she watched as Adara made her approach, waiting for the guy to finish his reps before trying her perfected, smooth intro on him. She was sure he’d—
Wait! What? That didn’t look like any friendly intro-to-hookup conversation going on over there. The smile on Hot Guy’s face was little more than polite, and Adara’s entire posture screamed frustration. This was a first. Holly had yet to see anyone turn down her friend. Tall and lithe, with a tumbled mass of dark hair and curves in all the right places, she was usually fighting them off. Hmm. Didn’t this guy like women?
In less than two minutes, Adara was back, frowning.
“Don’t tell me Mr. Hot Guy was immune to your charms?” Holly teased. “Maybe you should give him another chance.”
“In his dreams,” Adara snarked. “I don’t know what his problem is, but he was damn near rude to me.”
Holly shrugged. “Maybe he’s just antisocial.”
“Like someone else I know.”
“Har, har, har. Anyway, he’s something, that’s for sure. Come on. Let’s finish our routines and get a pizza. I think we’ve earned some fat calories tonight.”
“Okay. I can go for that. Food is a lot less complicated than men.”
And wasn’t that just the truth. Too bad it irritated the crap out of her
that all through the rest of her workout, and even while they scarfed down their pizza, she couldn’t get the image of Mr. Hot Guy out of her brain.
Meet the Author
Wife, mother and really young grandmother, Mackenzie Crowne shares her home with her high school sweetheart husband, a rambunctious Lab pound-puppy, and a blind cat. She calls Arizona home because the southwest feeds her soul. Her love of the romance genre has been a lifelong affair, both as a reader and a writer. A bout with breast cancer sharpened her resolve to see her stories shared with others. Today, she’s an eight-year survivor, living the dream. Her friends call her Mac. She hopes you will too. Visit her website at mackenziecrowne.com, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/MacCrowne.
Table of Contents
Cover Copy
Books by Mackenzie Crowne
To Win Her Back
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Fourth Down
Chapter 1
Meet the Author