by Rose, Callie
“Is the golf course even open?”
“It’s open year-round for residents. You should try snow golf sometimes, it’s a bigger pain in my ass than you are. Come on, let’s go! Time’s a-wasting.”
I could tell that she wanted to pass on the activity. Hell, so did I. It sounded awful. But this was my story and I was sticking to it, so I simply grinned at her eagerly until she acquiesced.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “Give me five minutes.”
“Chop chop!” I said brightly as she shut the door in my face.
She came out bundled up within an inch of her life, and I almost felt bad. I almost backed down, but then I saw her shove a notebook in one pocket and a recorder in the other. Game on.
“You don’t have clubs? Well, since this is a work trip, I wouldn’t expect you to bring any. The clubhouse has some you can use. You’ve golfed before, I assume.”
“Does mini golf count?”
I laughed. “Not a chance. That’s alright, I’ll teach you. Come on, we want to finish before the sun goes down. Nothing worse than groping around for balls in the dark.”
She shot me a look but I only grinned innocently at her. When we reached the car, I buckled the clubs into the front seat. “You’ll have to take the back,” I told her. “I don’t want these babies getting bashed up.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, and I opened the back door for her and gestured for her to slide in. With a sigh, almost a groan, she did.
“You do this every day?” She asked doubtfully.
“Yep! Well, not game days of course. Every other day, absolutely. Got to keep busy, you know?”
“It’s so you don’t drink?”
I shrugged. “Nah. I don’t drink because I don’t want to. It’s too expensive.”
“And golfing isn’t?”
I met her eyes in the mirror as I drove. “Not talking about money, Addison. You’re a writer, learn to pick up on metaphors.”
“And you’re a hockey player, not a pro-golfer. Learn to train for the job you’re doing.”
“No worries, Miss Beyers,” I said with a grin. “You did bring skates, right?”
She shook her head and crossed her arms. “No, but let me guess… the club has rentals?”
“It sure does! My treat.”
“I’ll take it out of the fifty you owe me.”
I laughed and raised a hand. “Swear to God, I did not sick the janitor on you. I honestly wanted you to be there this morning.”
She raised a suspicious brow. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
I shrugged. “You’re forgiven. You’re wrong, but you’re forgiven.”
She scoffed wordlessly and shook her head. Grinning gleefully, I pulled into a parking space outside the clubhouse. “Alright, when we get inside, just wait for me by the patio. I’ll handle the clubs and stuff.”
“You’re trying to get rid of me?”
“Just wouldn’t want to bore you,” I said. Actually, I had just thought of a giant hole in my plan. Namely, the fact that I was not, in fact, insane, and therefore did not actually make a habit of golfing in the middle of a frigid weekday, and the guy who ran the golf course would probably make a comment to that effect. Fortunately, she didn’t argue. My guess was that she was already getting pretty bored.
Inside, I pointed her in the appropriate direction and approached the unmanned counter. I rang the bell, and the concierge hurried over.
“Mr. Dawson, nice to see you. Are you in need of some assistance?” He looked appropriately confused to see me on this side of the club.
“Yes I am,” I said loudly, then lowered my voice. “You see the beauty waiting by the patio?”
He looked, and nodded. “Yes, sir?”
“She’s a real big hockey fan, if you catch my drift. But she claims to be a better golfer than I am, and you know I can’t just pass up a challenge like that. Think you could let us play a round today? The lady will need clubs.”
He seemed to think about it for a long moment before looking at her one more time and sighing. “Well, the course is clear. Will you be needing a golf cart? Or caddies?”
“No,” I said with a grin. “I kind of want to test her stamina.”
He suppressed a smile, making an effort to look mildly scandalized, then passed the clubs over. “If there is anything else, I am more than happy to help you. Have a good game, sir.”
“Thank you, I’m sure we will.”
I brought the clubs over to her and she hitched them over her shoulder. The weight of it seemed to surprise her momentarily, but she didn’t let it show on her face for long. “All right,” she said. “What now?”
“Now we play. Onward!”
This was really going to suck. I was still tired from practice, and I honestly wanted nothing more than to hit the sauna for a little while and work the knots out of my muscles. But it would all be worth it to watch her struggle with the problem of figuring me out. Watching her struggle with her golf clubs wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, either. Maybe that made me a jackass, but really… she kind of deserved it.
I teed up my ball at the first hole and swung, making the thing fly across the green. She was right about me not being a pro, and the ball ended up quite a ways south of where I intended it to go. She set up her own shot, took a swing, and made it within putting distance.
“Huh. Would you look at that,” she said cockily. “You know, you’d think someone who did this every day would be better at it.” She gave me a look that seemed to be trying to call my bluff.
“Nah. I don’t play to beat any records. Just stretching out the muscles.”
“You could do that with yoga. Or ballet. Or swimming, for crying out loud. You know, things you can do indoors?” She shivered slightly, and I patted her shoulder firmly.
“Get that blood moving, soldier! Let’s go.”
“Seriously,” she said as we walked briskly against the cold. “I cannot believe this is how you stay in shape.”
“I like to do things my own way,” I said. It was the truth, just not necessarily in this case. “Colton swears by ballet, and Gage by yoga. The rest of them are more casual about it, but they do some variation of those things too. So do I, for that matter. You’ll see that later, if you can keep up. But there is nothing like freezing golf to build up your stamina!”
She glared up at me, then sighed. “I can see that,” she admitted. “It seems like it would work all the right muscles. And build stamina.”
She wasn’t wrong. By the fourth hole, I was getting tired. By the fifth, she looked completely exhausted.
“All right,” I said, conceding. “Let’s call it here. That’s enough for one day.”
She looked relieved but only shrugged. “If you’ve had enough, I guess that’s fine.”
“Oh, you want to keep going? We can do that if you want. The next hole is just over there. We can—”
“No! No, that’s fine. Don’t let me change what you usually do.”
Oh, thank God. I couldn’t possibly back down from a challenge, but this was starting to hurt. I suspected that we were both going to be sore in the morning, as much from the shivering as the activity itself. It was colder than Addison Beyers’ heart out here.
“What do we do now?” she asked as we headed back toward the club.
“Sauna,” I said with relief. My muscles were screaming for it. “They’ve got towels and robes you can use.”
“Um… unisex sauna?” Her brows drew together tentatively.
“Yep, just the one. Don’t worry, there shouldn’t be too many people in there this time of day. Maybe a wrinkled old billionaire or two, but they just sit there and snore most of the time.”
She flushed crimson, which gave me enough energy to grin. This was going to be more fun than I’d thought. I left her by the patio again as I turned the golf clubs in.
“Good game, sir?”
“She beat the pants off of me,” I said with a grin.
He eyed her appreciatively for a moment. “Lucky you.”
I left with a smirk, then returned to her. “You ready for the sauna? Don’t worry, you can sit next to me. I’ll shield you from all the saggy old men.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m too tired to comment on how excited you are to go get naked with a bunch of old men, but sure. Lead me to it.”
It wasn’t the old men I was excited to be naked with. She knew it, too. In spite of how tired she was, she added a dash of bounce and wiggle to her usually straightforward stride. I could have given her hell for that, but then she would have stopped. I was enjoying the view too much to let that happen.
“Locker room,” I said, pointing.
“At least you told me this time,” she shot back, arching a brow.
I grinned. “Hey, that was my welcoming gift to you. I don’t know any red blooded woman who wouldn’t want to get the view you got.”
She flushed. “All that tells me is what kind of woman you like to associate with. Where to after the locker room?”
“Straight through to the other side. I’ll meet you by the pool.”
She hesitated for a second, then pushed into the room with a resigned sigh.
9
Addison
“Damn it, Sawyer.” I stripped out of my clothes in the chilly locker room, aching from head to toe with every shiver. “If you think for a second that I believe you really do that every day, you’ve got another think coming.”
He’d been as miserable out there as I had been. I could see it all over his face whenever he thought I wasn’t looking. Freezing wind, crunchy grass… not to mention the look of surprise on the concierge’s face when Sawyer approached him about the clubs.
“I’m not an idiot,” I said fiercely as I shoved my outer clothes into an open locker. “As much as I might look like an idiot. God, why did I accept this assignment anyway?” I scowled at myself in the mirror. I was still dressed in my black bra and panties because I would rather walk through fire than sit in a sauna naked with Sawyer.
“Not because he’s all that attractive or anything,” I told myself. “He’s a prankster. If he pushes me in that pool, I better be covered.”
He would, too. I had no doubt of that. I fully expected there to be some sort of prank looming on the horizon. I’d probably walk out in front of a water jazzercise class in my club-provided robe and give the old people a show when Sawyer tossed me in. Shadowing him was becoming more of a problem for me than I’d originally anticipated.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the door. I relaxed as the sharp smell of chlorine hit my nose. I used to swim every day, back before journalism had taken over my life. I wondered if I could talk him into bringing me to the pool itself before the two weeks was up.
“Took you long enough,” he said impatiently.
I glanced over at him and almost choked on my next breath. He was wearing a towel around his trim waist… and nothing else. His muscular thighs and calves were on full display below, and his washboard abs and thick pecs made their appearance above. I wanted to press myself against him, just to know what that hard body felt like up close.
The impulse lasted only an instant before I squashed it ferociously. “I was busy cursing your name,” I said nonchalantly. “Where’s the sauna?”
He grinned at me and gestured to the right. I followed him to a small cedar hexagon in the corner, which sat opposite the hot tub. The pool was in the center of the room, cut like a wedge so that the shallow end lapped at the sandy-colored floor like the tide.
“The chlorine can’t quite hide the smell of money in here, can it?” I observed wryly.
He shrugged. “Why would you want to hide it? That’s the whole reason people live here.”
“Is it? Is that why you chose this place?”
He opened the door to the sauna and held it for me. I shot him a demanding, inquisitive look as I stepped through into the steamy little cave. To my relief, there were no saggy naked men like Sawyer had threatened. The room was actually completely empty.
“Sure,” he answered as he closed the door behind him. “Aw, damn! The wrinkle brigade skipped their afternoon sauna session.” He shook his head in mock disappointment.
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “Okay, so I can see you choosing a neighborhood with a club. Even a fancy club which will let you golf at ridiculous times for insane reasons. But that house? That house was clearly built with a purpose.”
“What makes you think I didn’t just buy somebody else’s pet project?” He asked defiantly.
“Because I know you didn’t. When you were getting those clubs, I was listening to the conversations around me. A man was looking to buy a house. The agent told him that each house in the area was built to the owner’s specifications, and that they had all been built within the last ten years.”
He shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t buy someone else’s house. People with money do crazy things all the time.”
“Like build a million-dollar house and then sell it off as soon as it’s finished?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“You haven’t told me outright that you did buy it from someone else, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that I’m right.”
His body was beginning to glisten with sweat and steam. The overwhelming urge to lick the dew off of him made me wriggle uncomfortably. God, I wish the wrinkle brigade had showed up. At least it would be a distraction from his insanely hot body.
“So maybe you are right,” he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Maybe I did build it. Maybe I wanted to have an insanely massive house full of rooms and stuff. So?”
“So, why?” The heat in the room was beginning to make my head feel heavy and fuzzy in the wake of the torturous game. My muscles began to stretch and unwind, relaxed by the steam. Scents of cedar and Sawyer mingled together in the air, stirring something inside me that was better left undisturbed. Needless to say, I was beginning to lose track of my own interrogation.
He shrugged. “So I could have a bunch of rooms and stuff. What’s the point in having boatloads of money if you aren’t going to spend it?” His heavy brows had lowered dangerously over his eyes, which had gone flinty. The corners of his mouth were pulled back flatly, as if he didn’t want his lips touching the words he was saying.
“When did you have the house built?” I asked hazily. Focus, focus.
“Five years ago.” He looked like he wanted to expand on that, but he snapped his mouth shut. A muscle in his jaw began to jump.
“When you were still with what’s-her-face.”
“Yep.”
“You put so many bedrooms in that you could have had five kids with room to spare. Did you want kids?”
It was the wrong question. If I hadn’t been so fuzzy-brained, I wouldn’t have asked it at all. But I did, and he saw his opening. A slow, sly smile spread over his face and he slid closer to me on the cedar bench.
“Why? Do you want to have my babies, Addison? Was this story just a ruse so you could get close to my—if I do say so myself—highly exceptional DNA?”
“No! Shut up.”
“Are you sure? Should I wear a chastity belt at night so you won’t be tempted to steal my baby juice?”
“Jesus, you’re a pig.”
“Gives ‘throw the pigskin’ a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?”
“Ew, nasty! Go stand in the corner.”
I shoved his chest lightly, which was my second mistake. My hands slid right over his dewy skin, racing up over his pecs and collarbone, over his muscular shoulders. He breathed a small gasp of pleasure, rolling his eyes back for a fraction of a second. My body ignited with a primal lust that had nothing to do with him as a person, and everything to do with the fact that we were mostly naked together in a sweaty room.
That was what I told myself, at least. I snatched my hands back as his expression moved from pleasure to surprise to a withdrawn wariness.
“I don’t wan
t your damn baby juice,” I said grumpily. “What I want is a damn story, and all you’re giving me is a hard time. I’m done here.”
As I stood to leave, my robe caught on a rough part of the bench, slipping off my shoulders. As I gasped and turned to free myself, the stupid thing twisted around, pulling on the belt with just enough force to slip the knot. A second later, the robe was lying flaccid on the bench. I stood in my bra and panties, glaring at it.
“Did you set that up too?” I asked, my voice trembling with a tumultuous cacophony of emotions. Of course, he hadn’t. He couldn’t have, unless he had some kind of telekinetic abilities.
“Nah,” he said, biting his lower lip briefly as he smiled. “That’s just good luck.”
I turned my glare to him then snatched the robe off the bench. I stormed out of the sauna without another word, trembling. As I stomped across the sandy concrete, the locker room doors opened, revealing a stream of older people dressed for aquasize. I pinched the bridge of my nose as I stood dressed in nothing but a bra and a tiny pair of panties, holding my robe in my hand like an idiot, waiting for the doorway to clear.
“We open the club to the general public for classes a few times a week,” Sawyer said from behind me. “Our little way of giving back. Nice outfit!”
“Go crawl in a hole,” I groaned.
“Not trying to sound dirty, but—”
“Then don’t.” The doorway finally cleared, and I strode inside, flushed with anger and embarrassment. God, I hate jocks. I wasn’t going to let him get away with this, though. I knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to drive me crazy so I would leave, or keep me distracted so that I wouldn’t figure out his secrets. Which meant he had secrets to distract me from.
“I’m going to find them,” I said, glowering as I jerked the locker door open.
A mumu suitable for an older, larger woman spilled out, along with a giant pair of underwear and sandals. My stuff was squashed in the back under her large, loud, flower-printed quilt purse.
“I’m going to get him for this. As God is my witness, I will slaughter him.”
“Oh, dear! Is that your locker? Terribly sorry, dear, I thought those things were abandoned.” The woman belonging to the clothes stood stark-naked in front of me, clutching her bathing suit in one hand and adjusting her glasses with the other. If it was even possible for him to have set up this awkward moment, I’d blame him for it, too.