Oh, Jericho liked this woman very much, and not merely due to the lush swells of her breasts and hips and the velvety scarlet lipstick on her plush lips. She knew the club’s members, she knew what they needed as club members, and she was advocating for them. She held exactly the kind of information he was looking for.
That analysis shook his brain loose from the testosterone it had been mired in.
He walked toward her, his hand extended to shake. “Hello, yes, I’m Jericho Parr. And you are?”
“Tiffany Jones, assistant golf pro and PGA-certified golf instructor, and that makes me your boss. You look a little old to be a bag boy. Or way too young. One way or the other. Which is it?”
He reached her, his hand still outstretched. “And why is that?”
Tiffany glared at his hand waving in the open space between them, rolled her eyes, and shook his hand.
Her palm was soft and warmed from the sun, and a jolt through his body to his groin was an impulse to pull her against his chest.
What the hell was wrong with him? Jericho had seen beautiful women before. Hundreds of them, in fact. He wasn’t a dork around women.
But this woman was hot.
Jericho was acutely aware that he wasn’t wearing his boxer-briefs as his dick got heavy and extended past his hip and into his pants leg. He would be sporting a boner like a teenager if he didn’t calm down.
Tiffany dropped his hand, and she squinted up at him. Her eyes were tilted up at the corners, almost fairy-like. “The bag room staff who work here are either teenagers fresh out of high school or retired guys who work a few hours in exchange for free golf. You’re not either one of those. How old are you?”
“I turned thirty last month.”
“Yeah, that’s weird. Why are you a bag boy, Jericho Parr?”
The way her lips pressed together when she said the plosive of his last name and then purred the rest was absolutely fascinating—Parr—and he wanted to hear her say it again.
And maybe again after that.
The New Bag Boy
Tiffany
Tiffany Jones glared up at the Jericho Parr guy. She was glaring far, far up at his bright blue eyes and strong, tanned cheekbones and the hard right angle of his jaw, at his dark blond hair that had a wave in it, and his imposing height and easy posture. “Yeah, that’s weird. Why are you a bag boy, Jericho Parr?”
She hit his name a little hard, but jeez. If Jericho Parr didn’t have his life together by the time he was thirty, he should consider joining the military to whip himself into shape like Tiffany’s father had done. Being a bag boy was not a solid career choice, and it spoke volumes about him.
“This is Plan B,” Jericho said, his deep voice smoother than most New Englanders whose voices shaded toward either New York or Boston, depending on what football team they were fans of.
“What was Plan A?” she asked, kind of hoping for something solid. A guy like that—ridiculously tall, broad-shouldered, freaking gorgeous, with a mischievous sparkle in his bright blue eyes and what seemed to be a genuine smile—shouldn’t be brought down by an utter and total lack of ambition and responsibility, right?
A small part of her brain was chanting Damn, he fine, over and over again, and she was close to toppling over because she was leaning forward on her toes toward him. Was she imagining his smile becoming warmer? Why did she keep having flashes of that hand that had wrapped around hers, tilting her chin as he leaned down to kiss her, or those magnificent, muscular arms bracing around her head as he moved on top of her and between her legs?
He blinked, and he smiled a little more. “Venture capital.”
Oh, yeah. His Plan A was venture capital.
Venture capital was what rich trust fund babies said they did for a living when they were out snorting daddy’s money all their lives, until that money ran out. “And what do you think venture capital is supposed to be?”
“A venture capital firm invests wealth in businesses or buys them outright and optimizes their operations. After that, the businesses are sold at a profit or retained in the portfolio as an investment. Warren Buffett, the billionaire in Nebraska, is a venture capitalist.”
Oh, Jericho Parr was one of those guys who thought he was the genius investor, the Oracle of Omaha. Ugh, if there was anything worse than a slacker, it was a guy who thought so highly of himself that he wasn’t willing to work his way up. “Yeah, okay. Nice work if you can get it. Good thing you’ve moved on to Plan B, Jericho Parr. Maybe this one will work out for you. Now, get Mrs. Lombardi’s golf clubs and strap them on her cart for her.”
Tiffany stalked out of the bag room and back into the bright April sunshine. Her left knee ached as it always did, but with the strong brace strapped around her leg under her golf slacks, at least sharp pain wasn’t running from her knee through the muscles and tendons, as it would in a few hours. She stopped outside the bag room and took a deep breath, willing the muscles to relax and concentrating on the tulips budding around the hedges to externalize her attention.
The pain subsided somewhat. Tiffany was tough. Her knee didn’t stop her from doing anything she wanted to.
Except that it had.
But it wasn’t going to stop her from making sure Mrs. Lombardi got her clubs.
A group of elderly ladies stood over by the flock of carts, chatting and swiveling their heads impatiently. Their long-billed golf hats made them look like apprehensive ducks.
She called over to them. “Mrs. Lombardi? Our new bag boy, Jericho, will get your clubs for you. He’s getting them for you right now. I guarantee it.”
Jericho did indeed hustle out the door right behind Tiffany, bearing clubs. He strapped them onto Mrs. Lombardi’s cart with practiced ease as they quacked over him, looking at each other like the lecherous old ladies they were. Some of the older guys at the club eyed Tiffany a little too much, but those ladies shamelessly flocked around every guy under fifty and Mr. Kowalski, too.
The ladies waved at Tiffany as she struck out on the narrow path cut into the meadow toward the driving range.
The golf course had managed to open three weeks earlier this year than it usually did due to a stretch of fair weather. Up in Connecticut, golf courses often couldn’t open until the end of April or even into May, but they’d had a mild winter that year, other than a huge snow dump the day before New Year’s Eve.
Newcastle Golf Club spread out around Tiffany as she walked past the chipping practice area to the driving range. Oak and elm trees towered over the course’s perimeter, most of which were probably older than the United States. The driving range was longer than three football fields of neatly cut emerald grass with seven flags jabbed into the turf as targets. She’d spray-painted white targets around each flag at six o’clock that morning, using a clothesline looped around the flagsticks to make perfect circles.
Tiffany’s next golf student wasn’t scheduled for another hour. One of her high school students, Latoya Miller, needed a beginning of the season tune-up. Latoya was on the varsity golf team at the local public high school, Newcastle Free Academy, and had a decent chance of winning a college scholarship. Tiffany coached ten promising NFA golf team members for free.
But in the meantime, Tiffany had an hour to herself, which meant she could work on her own game.
Her bag and clubs were right where she’d left them on the driving range. She pulled out her nine-iron, a short-range club, and started smacking balls at the red flag waving in the breeze to calibrate it.
Gentle grip, solid feet. Swing easy, hit hard.
She twisted in her backswing and released the club, throwing the clubhead through the air like an Olympic athlete whipping the hammer in the hammer throw.
Ping.
Her ball soared through the air, landed in the white-lined circle she’d painted that morning, rolling within a few inches of the flag.
When she finished her swing, her left knee ached again, even with the support of the long brace from her thigh to her calf.
She repressed a grimace and herded the next golf ball into position with the head of her golf club.
Tiffany had picked a tee area near the middle of the line of tees on the driving range. Other golfers were swinging in their designated spots with their boxes of golf balls. Because Newcastle Golf Club was a private club, in that golfers or families bought unlimited memberships for the entire season, nobody had to hike over to the pro shop to buy buckets of balls to hit on the range. Range balls were included.
However, that meant the range attendants needed to keep the boxes full of balls that had been retrieved from the driving range, and like most of the low-level positions, they slacked off sometimes. Half of Tiffany’s job was making sure other people did their jobs.
Because management.
She smacked balls down the range, minding her own business and playing her own game. Sometimes she helped the club members with minor adjustments, but for the most part, they were just working on their games, too. She wasn’t obligated to constantly be giving free golf lessons.
So she had her eyes on her ball and was paying attention to her results, which must have been why she didn’t see the tall, athletic form of Jericho Parr step into the driving range stall right in front of her until she heard the hard crack of him slamming a ball with his driver.
Speaking of attendants in low-level positions slacking off when they should be working, Tiffany asked him, “Hey, Venture Capital, aren’t you supposed to be helping our senior members get their clubs out of the bag room?”
Jericho was standing with his long legs spread, bent slightly from the waist in preparation to swing the golf club. Thus, Tiffany had a front-row view of his spectacular ass, lean and muscular under his clinging golf pants. His hips were narrow, and his waist was tight under his red staff shirt.
When he heard her speak, he turned his head to the side without changing his stance, bringing his square jaw and strong cheekbones into view. “My shift is over.”
Tiffany glanced at her watch, which read two-fifteen. “It’s the middle of the afternoon shift. Were you scheduled for eight to twelve or noon to four? Anyway, attendants aren’t allowed on the practice facilities until the twilight hours, which start at five o’clock. Didn’t anybody give you an orientation?”
Jericho’s head swiveled, and he must have seen Mr. Kowalski striding down the line of tee boxes at the same time Tiffany had. Jericho called out to the head pro, “It’s okay if I hit a few balls here, right?”
Tiffany looked down to hide her smile because Head Pro Kowalski was even more of a stickler for the rules than she was, and she had grown up a military brat.
Mr. Kowalski clapped Jericho on the shoulder as he went by. “Absolutely! Hit as many as you want. How do you like our driving range?”
Tiffany’s jaw dropped, but she recovered and closed it so quickly that her teeth clapped together.
Jericho told Mr. Kowalski, “I like your practice facilities. It’s nice to be able to use my driver on the range. So many ranges are only a few hundred yards.”
To punctuate his statement, Jericho Parr hauled back and slammed another ball down the range, landing it at somewhere close to three hundred yards, an excellent drive for an amateur golfer.
Okay, Tiffany did not know what was going on here, but she did not like attendants thinking they had the run of the practice facilities. The members would not appreciate being crowded out of the driving range and putting greens by a bunch of slacking bag boys and range guys. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Kowalski?”
“Of course,” Kowalski boomed with his eyes squinched shut and surrounded by weathered wrinkles. “We’re honored to have Mr. Parr with us.”
None of this made any sense. “Whatever you say, Coach.”
Kowalski had coached the NFA varsity golf team when Tiffany had been on the varsity roster. Sometimes she trotted out the title because it always made him smile, and it worked again that sunny afternoon, too. A gold tooth glinted at the very corner of one side of his grin as he leaned his head to talk to Jericho even though he was looking at her. “I see you’ve met my assistant pro, Ms. Tiffany Jones.”
Jericho smacked another ball far down the fairway, but the ping the clubhead made at connection was a little tinny. The ball curved left, its flight somewhere between a fade and a hook. “I have, indeed.”
“We’re lucky to have her. Tiffany won a full-ride golf scholarship to Tennessee State right out of high school and got her business administration degree with a 4.0 grade-point average.”
Tiffany picked her driver out of her bag and bent over to tee up a range ball. Heck yes, she had.
Jericho half-turned to glance at her out of the corner of his eye and grinned. From that angle, his jaw cut an even sharper square. “Oh, really? Why didn’t you go on for your MBA?”
She coiled her backswing and whipped the club, connecting hard with the golf ball and launching it down the fairway. The brace bit into her skin, and her knee ached. Her ball didn’t go quite as far as Jericho’s, but it landed about two-seventy dead-center, and then it bounced and tapped the flagstick she’d aimed at. “I made different decisions.”
“How come?” he asked, peering at her.
Tiffany did not need this second-career bag boy critiquing her life choices. “Coach?”
Kowalski clapped Jericho Parr on the shoulder. “I’ll see you around, Jericho. Have a good afternoon.”
He walked away.
Jericho raised one hand, pink palm out. “Sorry about the interrogation. It’s none of my business. To answer your question, no, I didn’t get a proper orientation. I just found myself in the bag room, and then a pretty girl ordered me to carry bags for people.”
Pretty girl?
Tiffany paused, allowing the fluster from this tall, hot man’s compliment to drain away. “I’m your boss, not a pretty girl.”
Jericho bit his lip as he surveyed her, and then he said, “Right. Sorry about that, boss.”
She didn’t detect sarcasm in Jericho’s tone, but it must have been there. Tiffany was just getting ready to launch a retort that would have blistered his white butt when he asked, “So, since I didn’t get a proper orientation, why don’t you show me around the club and tell me what’s really going on around here?”
That was the job of the office manager or head pro, but Loralinda was out sick for the day and Coach Kowalski had just abrogated his responsibility. Plus, Tiffany had more than a half-hour left before her next appointment, and Jericho really should have an orientation before he worked another shift. “Okay, fine. Let’s go.”
They stowed their clubs in the caddie shack at the end of the driving range, and she took him on a tour of the club.
“Newcastle Golf Club was founded over seventy years ago,” Tiffany told him as they hiked through the trail cut through the high grass back toward the clubhouse. She was in the lead, as was proper because she was showing him around. “The original members used to talk about how they would play eighteen holes and then walk the course a second time, prying stones out of the ground and building the rock walls you’ll see lining the fairways.”
When she glanced back, Jericho had picked up a stick from somewhere and was absently smacking the thigh-high grass as they walked. “Are many of the original members still here?”
Tiffany chuckled. “Only a few of them are left. A lot of their kids are members now, but even those ‘kids’ are in their sixties and up. Newcastle GC has been a part of the community here for decades. It’s a polling place during elections, and it was the place to have your wedding reception for decades. But then the Wedding Barn opened up over in North Middletown.”
“Don’t you have to be a member to rent out the clubhouse and grounds?”
“Oh, no. We’re not fancy like the Narragansett Club over in Rhode Island. We’ll rent out the clubhouse, the course, or Head Pro Kowalski for the right price.”
His eyes brightened, and he chuckled. “Right. How long is your waiting list for
membership?”
“Waiting list?” She laughed. “We don’t have a waiting list. As a matter of fact, we have a membership sale going on right now where you only have to pay half the initiation fee for family memberships.”
His smile drooped, and lines pressed between his sandy brown eyebrows. “Doesn’t that decrease your profit margin? Or do you make up for it with volume?”
“Oh no, we don’t make up for anything with volume. We are at our lowest membership level ever right now. When Freemont-Macintosh closed the plant on the east side of town five years ago, almost half of our members resigned within six months, either because they had to move somewhere else for a job or they didn’t have the extra money anymore.”
Jericho gestured toward the horizon. “The median income of Newcastle County is almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s more than enough of a population base to support a small country club.”
“Yeah, but that isn’t in Newcastle. People at that income level live in the McMansion developments where the cornfields used to be and send their kids to private schools. A lot of them don’t golf, or they’re into sailing. Plus, Newcastle as a town is shrinking. The schools all have budget problems due to declining enrollment. How long have you lived in Newcastle that you don’t know this?”
“I don’t live in Newcastle,” he said.
“Then why did you apply for a job at NGC?” she asked him.
He waved his hand vaguely toward the eighteenth hole that lay at the base of the small hill they were walking over. “I’m planning to move closer if this works out.”
“Oh, okay.” They walked a little more, and the clubhouse came into view. “I thought it was weird that I wouldn’t remember you from high school, but you’re a few years older than I am. We wouldn’t have been there at the same time.” She turned around and walked backward on the path while she was talking to him. “Were you on your golf team in high school?”
Under Parr Page 3
