Stroke of Luck

by Stilletto, Trixie

  “Jesus. ‘Personal space’, she says. You’re like a secret weapon. You took out three guys leaving the river. It’s a wonder you didn’t drown us both.”

  Though he was glaring at her and treating her like a five-year-old, she smiled brilliantly at him. First, he was drop-dead sexy, even if he was as surly as a grizzly bear on a futile hunt for salmon. Second, he’d rescued her—or at least her press pass. To her, that was grounds for celebration. So she didn’t respond to his obvious error in blaming her for the accident, just gushed her thanks instead.

  “It’s so great that you found my credential. They’re very particular about them and although I’m sure I could get another,” she wasn’t sure of any such thing but he didn’t need to know that, “it would probably have meant tons of paperwork and I would have missed my next assignment.”

  She hesitated for a nanosecond then went with instinct. She leaned forward, getting close enough even with her oversized breasts to place a chaste kiss on his cheek. His hands were at her waist and held her in place, not letting her back quickly away as she’d planned. She got a close look at his fabulous blue eyes and felt as if she were falling into a cool, wet pool. Although it was only for a few seconds that he held her close, she was seriously considering taking another taste of him—this time of those stern lips, to see if she could coax a smile from them or taste the humming impatience there. His pupils widened and she knew one thing—he wanted her but he wasn’t going to lose control. At least not now. With a regretful sigh she prepared to pull away, just as he pushed her.

  The combination of the two moves overbalanced her and the only thing that kept her from falling full against him was the pressure of his hand on her arm.

  “Jesus. You’re unbelievable, lady.”

  Annalisa righted herself and smiled again. “Thanks. You’d think having lived with this body since I was fourteen I’d be accustomed to it, but I’m kind of like a Weeble. I wobble but don’t fall down. Usually.”

  He shook his head. Annalisa didn’t know why, so she asked. “Do you have water in your ears? I know I do after that fall. I tried to knock it out but I don’t think I got it all.”

  He shook his head again, harder this time. “Water?”

  “Yes. It happens a lot. There’s a new report that says ‘swimmer’s ear’—which is when water gets into the outer ear canal—affects adults almost as much as children. It can cause some intense pain if not taken care of.”

  “I know what swimmer’s ear is. I’m not a swimmer. Rowers normally stay out of the water. That’s what the scull is for.”

  Annalisa smiled again. “Oh, that’s good. So, thanks again for returning my pass. I really wish you’d let me buy you a cup of coffee or something. And of course I’d still love to set up that interview. My news organization would love to have an exclusive as you get ready for the finals and then the games. The fans would love it as well.”

  Buchanan shook his head. Although he wasn’t smiling, Annalisa wanted to believe there was a hint of humor in his eyes. She really liked men who knew how to laugh, not only at life but at themselves too. She had a feeling about Robert Buchanan. Even though he was a bit of a grizzly on the outside, she’d seen a spark in his eyes. Her intuition was telling her that Robert had a highly developed sense of humor. He just didn’t show it.

  “No,” he said, staring hard at her. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

  He didn’t wait for her response to his order or his refusal as he backed away from her. She smiled once more and turned her back to him to go to the security checkpoint. She’d have to make her first stop the media center to see if they could either give her a new pass or fix her torn one. As she walked away, she hummed, thinking that she would have to be certain to return to the river the next morning to shoot the time trial.

  * * * * *

  There was something about that photographer that bothered the hell out of Robert. And it wasn’t just that he was certain she was going to be trouble. She was a looker, with long, blonde hair and witchy green eyes. The hair and eyes combination, along with a curvy figure that would have fitted on a pinup poster, made his dick ready to give a twenty-one gun salute.

  But Robert had seen beautiful women before and they hadn’t swayed him from his mission or his duty for a single nanosecond. Never mind that he wasn’t on active duty any longer—giving one hundred and twenty percent to this competition was the most important mission in his life now. Horny or not, he shouldn’t be thinking about anything but the next race. And he wasn’t, except going so far as to track this woman down to return her press credential. Damn it, he should have just given it to one of the event volunteers, or even one of the paid staff members. Hell, he could have just left it at the venue office and they’d have returned it to her. He cursed under his breath. What the hell was wrong with him?

  He walked with steely determination toward the shuttle stop to go back to the athletic dormitory section. The woman wouldn’t enter his mind again, he willed himself. He was here to do a job and for the remainder of his four days in Kingsport there would be only two things on his mind—winning the finals in the individual events he was entered into, and helping his team to post the best time in their events. After that, the next stop was the Olympics.

  It was something he’d vowed to do. For all the guys at Walter Reed who had helped him to come back from the shoulder injury in Afghanistan that had ended his Ranger career. For all the guys still in harm’s way there and in other places where freedom was only a dream. Finally, Robert admitted, he wanted to win the gold for himself.

  See? No room in his mind or life for one curvy and ditzy, blonde, trouble-making photographer.

  As he walked, he put one hand to the spot on his cheek where she’d kissed him. Stupid, but it still felt warm. He didn’t even consider what she’d done a kiss, really. More like something a maiden aunt would bestow on a five-year-old. His mood was turning surly so fast and he realized he was scowling, especially since a couple of people stepped quickly out of his path. Damn if he couldn’t also feel tingling around the spots on his chest where her amazing breasts had rubbed against him.

  Shit, he thought. If I keep this up, I’m going to have a hard-on walking down the street. Jesus. He was acting like some idiotic pre-teenage boy. He shook his head and thought, ridiculously, that he felt some water sloshing around inside his ear canal. Damn it, he did not have swimmer’s ear.

  Chapter Two

  Annalisa was on the tram to the river very early the next morning. She was determined to go back to the scene of yesterday’s mishap and prove to herself and everyone—not just Robert Buchanan—that she was a professional photojournalist who could handle her job. She’d decided after a sleepless night that, like the time she’d fallen off the horse as a child, she needed to get right back on it. This horse—the surprisingly complex rowing competition—was not going to defeat her. Yes, she’d made a tactical error trying to go out on the ledge to get the shot she needed. Truth be told, she still didn’t know what had happened. Her footing had been secure. She was sure of it. She had worn shoes with good rubber soles, so even if there had been some slick spots, she should have only slipped a bit, not completely fallen off.

  But lesson learned and not to be repeated. Just before she’d fallen yesterday, she’d spied an even better and safer spot to get the aerial view she was looking for. There was a small landing on the underside of the spectator bridge about midway along the course. She was more than a little frustrated that she hadn’t seen the spot yesterday, but she wasn’t going to beat herself up over her mistake. Everyone made mistakes—the key was to learn from them.

  Annalisa knew what other people thought about her. She’d heard the taunts of “klutz” from childhood. It had all started shortly after the deaths of her parents. Her Uncle Vinnie and Aunt Rebecca had taken her into their household and given her love, gentle discipline when needed, and security. More, they had given her the chance to find herself through photography. Even as a child w
ith that kind of loving support, there had been taunts from the other kids. Her aunt and uncle had told her repeatedly that they didn’t believe she was a klutz, but Uncle Vinnie had a tendency to look after her as if she were one step away from sure disaster every day. That was part of the reason this assignment at the Olympic trials was so crucial. She needed to prove to herself, Uncle Vinnie and everyone else what her abilities were. Right now Uncle Vinnie, back at the main offices in New York, didn’t know about the accident yesterday. She was determined that he wouldn’t find out. More, she was determined to dazzle him in his role as both parent and boss, to show him that she had what it took to be a star in the business.

  So here she was, headed back to the scene of the crime, so to speak. She’d done her homework the night before and she was ready to get the scoop she needed—a personal interview with Robert Buchanan on the eve of his first event in the rowing competition.

  Buchanan was a hero in the true sense of the word. He’d served in Afghanistan and Iraq in the War on Terror and had been awarded medals for valor. According to news reports, he’d saved three members of his squad and several civilians in action there, despite being injured himself. After his service and heroism, he’d returned home and used the physical training necessary for rowing to rehabilitate himself. That had been the beginning of his quest to become an Olympian.

  No one had expected him to actually perform in the games though. The rowing team members had been training together for years, working toward this one shot at Olympic glory. Then the unthinkable had happened. The captain of the eights and one of the top-ranked scull rowers in the world had been injured in an automobile accident. The result had been a broken tibia and collarbone. Buchanan, as first alternate, had moved into the open spot for the eights and was competing in the singles sculls competition. The team was set again, and although this weekend’s finals were important, the real challenge would be in next month’s Olympics.

  According to the experts in the events, nobody expected him to actually win a medal, but Annalisa had a feeling about the man. He had “hero” written all over him and she would have bet—if she ever bet, that was—that Buchanan was going to surprise everyone at the games. She was going to be ready to capture those moments before anyone else.

  First, though, she had to get him to take her seriously. After yesterday’s tiny mishap, she was going to have to work hard today to reestablish herself as a professional.

  She got off the tram when it arrived, being very protective of her camera bag. She jogged around a man dressed in a yellow-and-red tie-dyed shirt to get to the admission gate. He was carrying a bullhorn, a pair of huge binoculars and what appeared to be a large rolled-up vinyl banner. Within seconds she had her camera in position and had snapped a shot. She hoped the picture would be one chosen by editors around the nation for their photo feature pages. As her Uncle Vinnie had told her many times, no one did feature photos better.

  She was a good feature photographer but she also wanted to be good at taking sports shots. She wasn’t a sports fan, but she loved the symmetry of athletes, the way their strong muscles and limbs worked like machines without missing a beat, the competition of the games they played.

  That made her think about Buchanan. He was pure perfection, from a strictly photographic standpoint. She smiled and barely noticed how the tie-dye fan sucked in his protruding belly and grinned back at her. She turned to walk the short distance to the river.

  Yes, if she continued to think her attraction to the rower was strictly photographic, she might even convince herself it was the truth. The biographical profile produced on each athlete for the media by the US rowing team gave all the specifics. He was six feet tall, one hundred and ninety-five pounds with black hair and blue eyes. He had scars on both knees and his left shoulder from injuries sustained while fighting in the Gulf. What the profile didn’t say was that his body was tanned nearly bronze from all the hours of training and that the scars on his knees were almost obscured by the dark hair on his legs. She had noticed that twice—once when he’d been standing on the boat launch yelling at her for falling into his boat, then again when he’d followed her back to the village. She’d also noticed that the scars on his knees were just tiny slashes against all that dark skin.

  The scar on his shoulder was more prominent. The skin around it was also brown, but there was a large white strip where the staples to seal the wound had been. Yesterday she’d had the absurd compulsion to touch the scar on his shoulder with her lips. Now she shivered just at the thought of pressing her mouth against his hot, vital skin.

  Yes, her attraction was strictly professional. She firmed her resolve. Sure, she wouldn’t mind getting to know the sexy rower in much more personal terms, but it would just have to come after she’d captured his story and given it to the WNO. She would take both stills and video to give to the newspapers and television stations that subscribed to the service—all the options they needed to run with it. But first she had to get into position to get the best shots.

  Still, there was nothing wrong with dreaming and fantasizing about what it would be like to be involved with the sexy rower while she set things up for her shots. She felt the smile start to spread across her lips and winked at the fan. He gaped at her and her smile grew. She had an idea that Buchanan’s skin would feel warm and hard where it covered the layers of muscles that roped his arms. She could picture herself leaning over him, tracing then tasting his skin while he sprawled on her large, comfortable bed at her apartment in Atlanta. They could laze away a sunny morning or afternoon. She giggled. She didn’t know Buchanan, but she was a good judge of people and she was willing to bet her last photo memory card that he was the type who hadn’t lazed any morning away in longer than he could remember.

  Annalisa hurried toward the venue with two things on her mind—getting the shot everyone would be talking about tomorrow, and seeing if she could convince Buchanan that he really needed to take time for at least one lazy morning of sex and fun.

  * * * * *

  Robert could feel her and that pissed him off.

  He was stretching in the state of the art workout area that had been set up on the bank of the river. After his stretch, he planned to hit the rowing machine for a quick twenty-minute workout before getting out on the water for the real warm-ups. Some would probably think he was crazy for using an electronic rower when he had all the rowboats he wanted just on the other side of the building’s block wall. But while the rowing machine couldn’t duplicate the actual tension of pulling his oars through the resistance of water, it was a good starter to get his heart moving and loosen the stitched-together tendons in his shoulder and scoring his knees.

  He kept his focus strongly on warming up each of the major muscle groups he would be using as he worked with the machine. The only other thoughts allowed in his mind were visualizing what he planned for today’s heat. The pace of the race and the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses ran through his mind like a video.

  But that was all shot to shit, because Scotty had just come through the door and while it had been open, Buchanan had seen her walk by the building. She was impossible to miss—blonde hair done up in a ponytail and so many curves that she ought to come with warning signs. But it’d been the huge backpack and the camera slung around her neck that had been the final clues. How the woman could make having a camera slung around her neck a fashion accessory was a mystery to him.

  There’d been several photographers embedded with his unit in the danger zones in the Middle East. A few of them had even been women—not when they’d gone deep in-country, of course, but for some of the less intense missions. Not with a single one of them had the sight of a camera slung around the creamy white skin along the collarbone made his boys start to get hot and swell. Until this photographer had fallen into his boat yesterday.

  He’d told himself after the debacle of following her back to the press area that what she did was not his concern. So what if she’d kissed him? Or barel
y kissed him. She wasn’t the hottest woman he’d ever known. Frankly she wasn’t even among the top ten in the looks department. She had scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs like a tomboyish preteen.

  If he hadn’t seen her lack of coordination himself, he’d probably have figured her for being in an abusive relationship. He hated when people abused weaker creatures—animals or humans. He scowled again when he thought of her Pollyanna smile. She wasn’t weak. Despite his reaction when she’d fallen, she wasn’t short in the brains department either.

  He’d been unable to help himself. After returning to his room, he’d punched up the internet and Googled her. She definitely had an eye and a talent for taking pictures. Seeing her work and thinking about those hands wrapped around the body of the Nikon and the ridiculously large lens had made him harder than a pike. After he’d taken his second cold shower of the night, he’d resolved that she wouldn’t enter his mind again. He wasn’t counting his dreams, because nobody could control where their mind went when they were asleep. But he’d been mostly successful in not thinking of her in any way, up until she’d walked past the center moments ago.

  “Hey, man, what are you doing? Rowing yourself home and back?” Scotty slapped Robert’s shoulder. He looked down at the time and distance gauge on the meter. What the hell? He’d been rowing for nearly thirty minutes. At a rate of forty-six strokes per minute, it was as if he’d been sprinting for at least the last ten minutes.

  “Shit,” Robert said.

  “Yeah, man. I thought you were going to save some for the time trials today. Good thing you’re only doing the eights today, not the singles. But you’d better pump some electrolytes and take a cool shower. Your heat is in twenty minutes. We want you ready to go then.”