Defending Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  They resumed their seats as the bride’s father delivered her to her waiting groom and the priest began the ceremony.

  Oz smiled as he watched Caitlin and Jack turn affectionate, excited eyes on each other. He remembered when they were all wide-eyed freshmen playing pool and Jack shot Caitlin longing looks down his cue. They finally got together over a bottle of peach schnapps smuggled into Caitlin’s dorm room, and that summer Caitlin spent the earnings from her campus job on a flight from her home in Maryland to meet Jack’s family in Minneapolis.

  Nearly a decade later Caitlin was a lawyer, Jack was an architect, and they’d just bought a fixer-upper in Wellesley with big plans for renovations.

  He looked around the church at his former classmates, considering all the different journeys they’d undertaken since they graduated five years earlier. Law degrees, medical degrees, PhDs. Moves across states, across countries, and others who’d stayed put right there in Boston. Relationships forged and broken, and soon Cameron and Melissa would become the first parents among them.

  And him—what had he done? His career meant it took him an extra semester to finish his degree. He and Nedda attempted a long-distance relationship during her first year of medical school, but by Thanksgiving he’d signed for Skyline and they called it quits. Then he moved from Boston to Atlanta, following Roland from a mid-tier club to one of the best in the league. He bought a luxury loft apartment, sold it, bought the house of his dreams and perfected it. Averaged five goals per season, kept more clean sheets than he could count, and consistently excelled for club and country.

  But through it all he’d been alone. He had his friends, and he dated constantly, but he’d spent every night in his big bed in his big house by himself.

  Until now.

  He slid his hand onto Kate’s thigh. Last night she’d had her own room in the hotel with the team, but tonight they had only one booking. Unless he counted the uncomfortable few hours he spent on her pull-out couch—which he didn’t—they hadn’t spent the night together yet.

  He shifted in his seat, the realization that he’d be waking up beside Kate tomorrow morning suddenly making him wish this wedding—this whole day—would hurry up and end.

  He glanced over at her and she gave him a small smile before returning her attention to the ceremony.

  He turned unseeing eyes toward the priest. The obsessiveness that drove him to keep his house immaculate, his car in mint condition and his athletic performance at its peak reared in his affection for her, too. He thought about her all the time, re-read even their most neutral text message exchanges over and over, could barely take his eyes off her when they were together.

  He worried about her, too. Wondered how she was, if she was tired or bored or stressed and how he could help. He hated knowing that he could fix so many of her financial problems with the painless signing of a check, but at the same time he respected her refusal to accept anything more than letting him pay for dinner.

  Seeing Nedda again brought a lot into focus. Until now, she was his most serious relationship. He’d taken her to Sweden to meet his parents, flown to California to meet hers, sat through months of his friends hinting they should get married, insisting they were perfect for each other.

  But no matter how hard he tried, he never loved her. She never drove him to distraction. And she never tested his willpower like the woman at his side.

  Kate was proud. She was strong and levelheaded and secretly so very vulnerable. She was everything he never imagined he wanted, and all he couldn’t imagine living without.

  This was the real deal. He was falling for her.

  Short-term, long-term, it didn’t matter. He knew what he wanted. It wasn’t what he expected, or planned, but it was certain.

  He flattened his feet on the floor and made a decision.

  He tightened the hand on Kate’s thigh, prompting her to toss him a teasing, chiding look. He couldn’t wait to tell her.

  * * * *

  “It took a whole day to get back from Faro, but it was so worth it. Then we spent another couple of days in Gothenburg with Murat and Alara, and I met Yusuf, who was visiting for the weekend with his fiancée. Wife, now, I guess.” Nedda paused to take a sip of her wine, then replaced her glass on the table. “Anyway, I loved Sweden. Have you been?”

  Kate shook her head. “No.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s beautiful.”

  “I’m sure,” she repeated distractedly, glancing over Nedda’s shoulder to look for Oz. He and Glynn had gone to the bar for more drinks, but they’d run into so many people they knew—or people who’d heard of Oz and wanted to meet him—the five-minute errand had taken nearly half an hour.

  “So do you have any more vacation plans for the summer?”

  “Hm? Oh, no, not really.” Kate found another smile, although she was worried she’d run out any minute. When Oz left for the bar Nedda had launched an effort to make conversation. To be fair to her, she was nice. Faultlessly nice. Friendly, chatty, sincere.

  And still hopelessly in love with Oz.

  On one hand Kate couldn’t wait to get him alone and find out what happened to end his relationship with Nedda. On the other she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, for her own sake. If a stunning, smart, successful woman like Nedda couldn’t hang on to him, what chance did she have?

  She’d enjoyed the wedding so far, and everyone had been kind and welcoming, but she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that she didn’t belong—not among these people, and not in Oz’s life.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t think she was good enough for them. Sure, most of them were more educated, had more money and better careers, but that wasn’t what bothered her. The most jarring difference, as far as she could articulate it, was cultural. And she found it as surprising as she did unnerving.

  She understood the topics around which the conversation had ranged over dinner. Politics, art, theater, politics again. She got it. She got all of it. She just didn’t care.

  Who were these people, and how much free time did they have, to spend so much energy on trivial issues? Okay, not trivial, but definitely removed from real life. They had so much outrage about things that didn’t affect them, from state-by-state disparities in the minimum wage none of them worked for or whether the right play won a Pulitzer and what it said about American values when it didn’t. It took everything she had not to roll her eyes right out of her head when one of the other guests went on a rant about public schools failing to provide organic meals and teach students about growing their own produce. She doubted Dallas’s kindergarten teacher had ever seen a zucchini, let alone grown one, but that didn’t make her any less good at her job.

  Until now she’d laughed off most of what she perceived as Oz’s frivolous fixations. She shrugged at his super left-wing political leanings, changed the subject when he went on a tangent about a particular filmmaker whose work she had to see, and when he began to discuss the design integrity of his house she straight-up told him to get over himself.

  He seemed to like her straight-talking, bullshit-reducing perspective. But maybe that was part of her short-term appeal and would become her long-term downfall.

  Then again, he’d used the G-word: girlfriend. The last person to call her that was her ninth-grade boyfriend Alan, who was sweet and earnest and never dared past first base.

  Her inner cynic argued he’d said it only to keep Nedda at bay, but her heart knew Oz chose his words as thoughtfully and deliberately as he did everything else. As much as she wanted to dismiss that moment as careless and without meaning, blood rushed to her head whenever she remembered it.

  He knew what tossing that term out in front of his friends meant to her, and the emotional response it would yield. If he intended to anchor her, to strengthen her tie to him ahead of a chaotic and overwhelming day, it worked. She wanted him more than ever.

  Kate searched
the room for Oz again as Nedda detailed the difficulties she’d had finding a decent vacation rental in the Adirondacks, but he appeared to be signing cocktail napkins for the groom’s young cousins. She sighed inwardly, taking a long sip of beer to steel herself to be appropriately sympathetic to Nedda’s hotel-booking woes.

  “Mind if I join you? I seem to have lost my seat to the bride’s great-aunt.” A tall, ruggedly handsome man with a blond crew cut motioned to the empty chair next to her.

  “Actually, someone’s sitting there.” Nedda smiled apologetically.

  The guy’s face fell and Kate motioned for him to sit. “It’s fine. We have extra places.”

  “Whose seat am I stealing?” he asked, dropping into the chair. “Should I be worried?”

  Kate felt Nedda’s keen stare. “It’s my—my boyfriend’s,” she managed, forcing out the unfamiliar, slightly terrifying word.

  “Damn,” he said ruefully.

  “Don’t worry, he’s very civilized. Most of the time.”

  He peered around the room. “Which one is he?”

  Kate pointed and the man’s brows rose. “The famous one. Double damn. Well, since I don’t stand a chance against a professional hockey player—”

  “Soccer,” Nedda corrected sharply.

  “Soccer player, I guess I can give up trying to impress you and focus on having a good time instead.” He extended his hand. “Jake O’Malley, cousin of the bride.”

  Kate returned his handshake. “Kate Mitchell, plus-one of a friend of the bride and groom.”

  “Nedda Jalil,” she piped up from the seat on Kate’s other side. “I went to Harvard with the bride and groom.”

  “Gotcha.” He turned back to Kate. “Do you live in Boston?”

  “Atlanta. But I was going to be up here anyway for Oz’s game yesterday. What do you do, Jake?”

  He grinned. “I’m a cop. Quincy PD.”

  “Nice. I work in private security.”

  “No kidding.” He took a swig from his beer bottle and shifted on his chair, getting comfortable. “Are you ex-law enforcement?”

  “Army. Eight years.”

  “Wow. Did you deploy?”

  “Three tours. Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  “Shit.” He whistled. “Did you see much action?”

  “I was in combat support, so I guess I saw as much as any enlisted woman could.”

  “If you stuck it out for eight years you must’ve liked it.”

  She shrugged. “The contracts seem to renew themselves sometimes, but yeah, overall I’m glad I enlisted. Only problem is you reach a point where if you don’t leave, you’ll never leave, and I didn’t want to be in the military forever.”

  He nodded. “Makes total sense. What kind of private security are you in now?”

  “Mostly residential. Some VIP. I manage the account for Oz’s soccer team. That’s how we met.”

  “Tough job. I know a guy who does security for a bunch of the Sox players, and he—”

  “Sorry, that took forever.” Oz arrived behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. Glynn set a tray of shots on the table.

  Jake shot to his feet and shook Oz’s hand as he introduced himself. “I’m going to be straight up with you, man, you’ve got yourself a pretty awesome lady here.”

  “I know.” Oz’s mouth quirked in amusement. Jake moved to vacate the chair but Oz waved him away. “Sit. I’m planning to drag my awesome lady onto the dance floor as soon as she finishes her tequila.”

  “Really.” Kate eyed the glass Glynn slid in front of her. “And where is yours?”

  He shook his head. “I’m behaving.”

  She arched a brow but said nothing. He’d stayed sober all night, which wasn’t unusual, but given it was a big party with all his old friends, she expected he’d allow himself at least one drink.

  “I never say no to tequila,” she declared. She downed the shot, let it burn all the way through her ribs to her stomach, then declined the lime wedge Glynn offered.

  “That’s hardcore,” Jake remarked approvingly. Oz took her hand and tugged her to her feet, then led her along the edge of the ballroom toward the dance floor.

  He stopped a few steps short, pulled her into his chest and lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss was possessive, insistent, and she obeyed it gladly. She parted her lips, hummed her enjoyment as his tongue swept over hers, stifled a shudder as he hardened against her hip.

  He swore softly as he pulled away and brushed his thumb over her cheekbone.

  “You really are an awesome lady.”

  “Awesome girlfriend, you mean.”

  He smiled slyly. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Before she could say anything else he pulled her into the mass of people swaying and bopping on the dance floor. The live band played a mix of cheesy classics and pop hits, and the night was late enough—and alcoholic enough—that most dancers cheered and sang along and didn’t seem to care how ridiculous they looked.

  She watched in delight as the intense, serious man she knew transformed into an air guitar-playing college kid. Glynn appeared and the two of them embarked on what was clearly a long-standing air guitar partnership, both of them goading her until she made a feeble effort to accompany them on an invisible drum set.

  As the night wore on and the music got cheesier, she tried and failed to remember the last time she’d felt so silly, or so unspeakably, unimaginably happy.

  “Oh my God, I never want to see these torture tools again.” Kate flung the high-heeled sandals her landlady had talked her into in the general vicinity of her open suitcase. She missed, and they fell on the floor six inches to the left.

  “You look so good tonight. You always look good.” Oz dropped his tie on the desk and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, then yanked her against him, his hands encircling her waist.

  “I’ve been waiting all day to get you alone,” he told her. She was tired and dehydrated and her ears rang with all of the small talk she’d endured for the last twelve hours. She wanted quiet and a huge glass of ice water and about a day’s worth of sleep. But the intent in Oz’s tone made her want him more than anything.

  “Did you have a nice time?” she asked mildly, slowly unbuttoning the rest of his shirt.

  “I did. Did you?”

  “It was an exhausting day but yeah, I had fun. Glynn is such a good guy. He made sure I was never alone for too long.”

  “Except when we left you and Nedda together and got stuck at the bar.” He tilted his head apologetically. “I don’t know why Caitlin and Jack decided to put me and her at the same table. She and Caitlin are best friends, so I would’ve thought—”

  “Then she probably asked to be at your table and her best friend obliged.”

  “You think so?”

  “How can a man as smart as you be so oblivious?” she asked, only half-joking. “Nedda’s still crazy in love with you.”

  “No, she’s not,” he said firmly. “She recently broke up with someone she’d been with for a long time—longer than we were together—so she may be a little sensitive but she’s not in love with me.” His gaze sharpened. “Did she give you a hard time when I was at the bar?”

  “No, nothing like that. She was sweet. She really made an effort to be friendly.” And she’s as in love with you as the day is long, but if you don’t want to hear it I’m not going to repeat it.

  “Good.”

  “Why did the two of you break up?”

  He groaned, sliding his hands to cup her backside. “I don’t want to talk about her anymore.”

  “Give me the thirty-second version. I’ve been wondering all night.”

  “I’ve been thinking about why, after seeing her again tonight. On paper we were a perfect match, and everyone else seemed to think so too. But there wasn’t enough between us to
hold us together.”

  “Enough what?”

  He shrugged. “Enough anything. Passion, commitment, dreams in common—none of it. We were good in college, but never great. Never amazing. She left for medical school halfway through my last season with Boston Liberty and without even proximity to tie us to each other, we fizzled out.”

  An alarm rang somewhere deep inside Kate’s consciousness, but she muffled it before she could detect its source. “And you never slept with her?”

  “No.”

  “When we talked about it in Charlotte, you said you didn’t want to fall for the wrong woman. Someone who wanted Oz the soccer player, not Oz the man.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Were you worried about that with Nedda?”

  He pursed his lips, his expression thoughtful. “Yes and no. On some level I think Nedda was excited to be with a professional athlete. That mattered to her. Does that mean her feelings for me weren’t genuine? No, I don’t think so. To be honest, I didn’t sleep with her because it didn’t feel right. I just didn’t want to. Not with her.”

  Kate bit her lower lip, absorbing his words, and as she processed what he said she located the source of her discomfort.

  If there wasn’t enough common ground between him and Nedda to last, there was no way in hell he had any more of a future with her.

  “Enough about Nedda. That was then, this is now.” He reached around and pulled down the zipper of her dress, his middle finger trailing along her bare spine as he exposed it.

  She slid her hands beneath his open shirt and flattened her palms against his warm skin. Tomorrow worried her more than now, and she didn’t even care about then, but that wouldn’t get her anywhere tonight. Like him, she’d waited all day for this, and she intended to enjoy it.

  “This dress is beautiful, but every time I looked at you it made me think about how much lovelier you are underneath.” He shoved one strap off her shoulder and lowered his lips to her collarbone, then repeated the movement on the other side. Then he tugged down the bodice so it gathered at her waist, revealing her sheer, lace-trimmed black bra.