Game On

by Nancy Warren

  Welcome to Last Bachelor Standing!

  How long can three sexy single men hold out?

  First up? Mr. No Commitment...Detective Adam Shawnigan. As you can see, ladies, he has the protective cop hero thing happening—plus he’s all gorgeous height, piercing dark eyes, sensuous mouth and lean hot body. But here comes sweet temptation….

  Performance coach Serena Long is helping Adam prepare for his hockey league playoffs. As it turns out, he’s also in a position to help out with her little stalker problem. It’s quid pro quo, both in the bedroom and out. And now the bets—and the bedroom games—are on!

  “I don’t think this is going to be a strictly business relationship.…”

  Before Serena could respond, Adam closed the distance between them, pulled her to him and closed his mouth on hers. Hot, determined, possessive, his lips moved over hers. He gave her a moment to accept or reject his caress and she used that moment to angle her body closer, to open her lips in mute invitation.

  He took her mouth then, licking into her, giving her a taste of his power and hunger. Which, naturally, incited her own power and hunger. And, oh, she was hungry. He reminded her of how long it had been since she’d lost herself in a man.

  A tiny sound came out of her throat, half moan, half purr. He took that as encouragement and pulled her even closer, running his hands over her curves. She felt his arousal as he held her tight against his body, felt her own excitement building within her.

  A car with all the windows open, music blasting, roared into the parking lot, and he quickly pulled away, shielding her with his body.

  “Aha,” he said.

  She gazed up at him, stunned at the strength of her own response. “I don’t date my clients,” she reminded them both.

  “I don’t recall asking you for a date,” he said, all sexy and pleased with himself.

  “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, I hope so….”

  Dear Reader,

  I have a friend, John, who is still best friends with two other guys he calls his “sandbox buddies” because they all met when they were kids. They lived in the same neighborhood, went to school together and are now grown men with families of their own. I find it amazing that these three are still close friends and are always there for each other. Of course, to a writer, anything interesting is likely to find its way into a book. In this case, three books.

  My fictitious three heroes are all turning thirty-five. Gorgeous and successful, they still play games together. In this case, amateur hockey. They are also all still single, which becomes a bet to see who will remain so longest. Who will be the Last Bachelor Standing?

  Adam Shawnigan is up first. He’s a cop and also having a few performance issues on the ice. Adam’s buddy Max sets him up—much against his will—with a performance coach to help him figure out why he chokes under pressure. Serena Long is in demand as a performance coach and professional speaker. She’s really good at figuring out how and why people sabotage themselves. But in her real life, an anonymous “fan” is trying to sabotage her. How far will this cyber-stalker go? And can Adam stop him before it’s too late?

  I hope you enjoy Game On and watch for Breakaway and Final Score coming soon. Stop by to visit me on the web at www.nancywarren.net.

  Happy reading!

  Nancy Warren

  GAME ON

  Nancy Warren

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA TODAY bestselling author Nancy Warren lives in the Pacific Northwest, where her hobbies include skiing, hiking and snowshoeing. She’s an author of more than thirty novels and novellas for Harlequin and has won numerous awards. Visit her website, at www.nancywarren.net.

  Books by Nancy Warren

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  19—LIVE A LITTLE!

  47—WHISPER

  57—BREATHLESS

  85—BY THE BOOK

  114—STROKE OF MIDNIGHT

  “Tantalizing”

  209—PRIVATE RELATIONS

  275—INDULGE

  389—FRENCH KISSING

  452—UNDER THE INFLUENCE

  502—POWER PLAY

  526—TOO HOT TO HANDLE

  553—MY FAKE FIANCÉE

  569—THE EX FACTOR

  597—FACE-OFF

  706—JUST ONE NIGHT

  To get the inside scoop on Harlequin Blaze and its talented writers, be sure to check out blazeauthors.com.

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format. Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Game On is dedicated to the three real-life

  sandbox buddies: John, Andrew and Bill.

  You guys rock.

  Contents

  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

  Excerpt

  1

  “HEY, DYLAN, GRAB the fire hose,” Max Varo joked as the homemade chocolate cake laden with thirty-five burning candles made its way into the Shawnigan family rec room. The cake wobbled slightly in June Shawnigan’s hands as she broke into a soprano rendition of “Happy Birthday to You.” The fifty or so people singing along were assorted friends and family of Adam Shawnigan, June’s baby, thirty-five today.

  She suspected his surprise party hadn’t been a surprise for more than a nanosecond—he was a detective, after all—but he was putting on a good face for the celebration.

  It was a rugged, handsome face, too, if she did say so herself. She wasn’t the only one who noticed. As she looked around, June could see the expressions on some of the younger women’s faces. Adam was, as more than one young woman had informed her, a major hottie. So why was her thirty-five-year-old major-hottie son still single?

  When he’d finished blowing out the candles, and she’d passed slices of cake and forks, she called for quiet and motioned to her husband, Dennis, to dim the lights and push Play.

  “No. For the love of God, no,” moaned Adam as the big-screen TV came to life. Oh, she’d surprised him now, she thought with satisfaction as the home movie she’d taken on her first camcorder thirty years ago filled the screen.

  Three little boys sat at the picnic table in June’s backyard, all chubby faces and mustard-stained mouths, chomping through hot dogs and potato chips. She must have guessed they’d stay still for at least another minute or two, so she’d grabbed her new camcorder, pushed Record. Of course, at five years old, the three were used to being followed around by eager parents with cameras and barely batted an eye.

  She said, “Adam, how old are you today?”

  “I’m five,” he said, looking at the camera as though a not-very-bright woman were behind it.

  “What do you want to be when you grow up?” she asked.
>
  “I’m going to be a police officer,” he said, dipping his hot dog into a pool of ketchup and stuffing it into his mouth. Even then he’d had big blue eyes that were so like his father’s. Then, his mouth full, he mumbled, “Like my dad.”

  “Aw,” said a chorus of voices in the living room.

  “How about you, Dylan?” she asked the freckle-faced kid next to her son, as if his answer weren’t perched on his head.

  He put his hand on the red plastic firefighter’s helmet he’d barely taken off in a year and said, “A fireman.” Dylan was the tallest of the three boys and the most daring. It had come as no surprise to June when he’d been cited for bravery four years ago for rushing into a burning building as it collapsed to save a young woman’s life.

  “Amazing,” a voice from the crowd piped up. “Who gets their career right at five?”

  “What about you, Max?” she asked the smallest of the three boys. Max Varo at five was very much like Max Varo at thirty-five. He had dark South American good looks and a neatly buttoned shirt that showed no signs of dropped food—unlike the shirts of the other two. He ate tidily and always remembered to say please and thank you. “I am going to be an astronaut.”

  “Or a billionaire,” Dylan called out. There was general laughter in the crowded rec room but she couldn’t help looking at Max now. He grinned at the crack, but June wondered how many people realized how bitterly he’d resented the childhood ear infection that had done enough damage to his hearing that becoming an astronaut—or even a commercial pilot—was never going to be possible.

  But on-screen it was 1983 and everything was still possible. Because the boys were adorable—and she was of a matchmaking disposition—June then asked, “And who are you going to marry, Adam?”

  Laughter and someone shouting, “Yeah, Adam, who are you going to marry?” almost drowned out the little boy’s voice. On-screen he grinned at her and said, “Princess Diana.”

  “She’s already married, stupid,” Dylan informed him. Then, unasked, he said, “I’m going to marry Xena, warrior princess.”

  “How about you, Max?”

  The serious little boy said, “I’m not getting married until I’m grown up.”

  She stopped the show there and as the party grew more raucous, she went over to her husband, who wrapped his arms around her. “A dead princess, a comic-book character and a boy who’s waiting to grow up. No wonder they’re all still single.”

  “Give them time, sweetie,” Dennis said, kissing the top of her head.

  “They’re thirty-five—how much time do they need? I want to take movies of my grandchildren out on that picnic table before I’m too old and weak to hold a camera.”

  As though in answer, the three men, still best friends, all tough, loyal, gorgeous and as dear to her as though they were all her children, started one of their complicated bets, the rules of which were known only to themselves. But she wasn’t so clueless she didn’t see where this was going.

  “Oh, no. Dennis, are they making a bet to see who can stay single the longest?”

  Her heart began to sink as her husband solemnly nodded, and the three men clinked beer bottles. “To the last bachelor standing.”

  * * *

  “I CAN’T DO IT,” the man at the podium said into the microphone. As his admission of failure bounced through the air, he pushed the mic away with a grunt of frustration and stomped down two steps to throw himself into the seat beside Serena Long. Fortunately, she was the only person in the audience.

  She’d decided to have her first session with Marcus Lemming in the auditorium of his gaming empire’s brand-new headquarters here in Hunter, Washington.

  “Okay,” she said calmly. “You can’t do it. You can’t give a speech to your potential shareholders. What does that mean?”

  Marcus wiped clammy sweat off his forehead with a trembling hand. Instead of answering her, the twenty-six-year-old CEO said, “I’m worth 100 million dollars. I’m a computer frickin’ genius. And when I stand up there, I feel like I’ll throw up.”

  “I know. That’s why you hired me.” She loved being a performance coach and she was damn good at it. “I want you to breathe into your fear.”

  He stared at her.

  “Go on, breathe. Feel the energy, the raw power of that fear. Now, we’re going to take that energy and turn it into positive excitement. You have a great site, a winning formula. No one can sell it like you can.”

  “Yeah. Online. I could write a killer email. Why can’t the suits be happy with that?”

  She laughed even though she suspected he was only half joking. Fear of public speaking was higher than fear of death on the stress scale to certain people. And she loved them for it. They were making her rich. “I guarantee that if you do the exercises and the work I assign you, in a month you will give that speech. I’m not saying you’ll love every minute of it, but you’ll speak in public and you will do fine.”

  “You guarantee it?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re that good?”

  She grinned at him. “Yep.”

  “I can’t even give a speech to one person. How am I going to talk to hundreds, with a media feed broadcasting out to millions?”

  “We start small. Okay. Maybe you’re not ready for the mic and the auditorium yet. I’ll get you some water. And then you’ll sit here right beside me and read your speech.”

  “My speechwriter said it’s lame to read a speech.”

  “Like I said, we start small.”

  By the time she left Marcus, he’d been able to read his speech to her without vomiting, crying or fainting. It was a start.

  Serena was one of the best at what she did, coaching better performance out of employees, helping superstars fight their demons or overcome their handicaps, whether they struggled with public speaking, learning how to manage people or goal setting. She was part business tycoon, part psychologist and, as a client once suggested, part witch. She wasn’t sure about the last part, but she did have instincts that surprised even her sometimes when she worked what appeared to be magic.

  When Max Varo’s name showed up on her call display as she was clicking open the door locks of her car, she answered her cell phone at once.

  “Max,” she said, letting the pleasure she felt out in her tone. “How are you?”

  “Never better.” He wasn’t one to waste time, not his or hers, so he got right to the point. “I need a favor.”

  They’d met in Boston, when both took their MBAs, she with her human resources background, he with astrophysics and a few other degrees under his belt. She considered Max her first success in performance coaching. She hadn’t even realized that was what she wanted to do until she helped him turn his life around and realized she could do the same thing for others.

  They’d been friends ever since and he’d sent her some of her best clients. If he needed a favor, they both knew he was going to get it.

  “What’s up?”

  “You know I play amateur hockey?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, our center forward is choking under pressure. He’s a great player all year but when we get to the championships, he just freezes up.”

  “Performance anxiety,” she diagnosed.

  “I know. But we can’t replace him. He’s the best we’ve got, plus one of my closest friends. I need you to work with him, get him over this choking thing.”

  “I’m not a sports coach.”

  “Serena, you could get Bill Gates into the NBA if he wanted it.”

  “Okay. You have a point. But it’s not really my field.”

  “Look at it this way. You won’t get paid, so nobody’s going to judge you.”

  She was as busy as she’d ever been, had recently turned down paying work in her chosen field, bu
siness, and now she was contemplating working pro bono for a sports guy? If it were anyone but Max...

  “I don’t know the first thing about hockey,” she warned.

  “You don’t need to know about hockey. His problem isn’t related to stick-handling skills. He’s choking under pressure. Nobody helps a man struggling to find success like you.”

  “He’d better be super motivated.”

  “Adam Shawnigan is dying to work with you,” he assured her. “I can’t wait to tell him the good news after our game tonight.”

  * * *

  ADAM LOVED HOCKEY. After a day of precinct coffee, discovering evidence he’d worked months to gather in a murder trial had been deemed inadmissible and getting yelled at by a woman who insisted her taxpayer dollars gave her the right to report her dog as a missing person, it felt good to step out onto the ice.

  Out here the sound of a skate blade carving cold, clean tracks helped clear the crap out of his mind. With a stick in his hands and a puck to focus on, he had control over his destiny, even if only for a couple of hours.

  Max and Dylan played alongside him, as they had since their parents had signed them up for hockey when they were in first grade. They’d all kept up the game and now played in the same emergency-services league. Most of the players were cops and firefighters, with a few ambulance guys thrown in. Max barely qualified since he was a reserve firefighter, but he paid for the uniforms, so the Hunter Hurricanes weren’t inclined to complain.

  Normally they practiced once a week at 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. and played a weekly game, but with play-offs looming, they’d upped their practice schedule and it showed. Well into the third period against the Bend Bandits, they were ahead 3–2. Adam was center forward. With Dylan and Max as wingmen, he felt they were a dream trio. They’d come close to bagging the Badges on Ice championship not once but twice. This time, he told himself. This year that cup was theirs. All he had to do was focus.

  Max, the right wing, had the puck and stayed back while Adam and Dylan crossed paths and headed for the offensive zone in a classic forward crisscross they’d practiced hundreds of times. Max then shot a crisp pass to Dylan. They were gaining speed. Adam felt his adrenaline pump. Focus and timing were everything. Max maneuvered himself into the high slot. Dylan, under attack, passed to Adam, who flicked the puck to Max. But the goalie was right on him. Instead of taking the shot, Max tipped the puck to Dylan, who then sent the thing flying past the stumbling goalie and scored.