Ally and her grandmother sat in the back of the carriage as it made its way slowly around the park. Ally had to admit that she thoroughly enjoyed her grandmother’s daily constitutional with Paula and Mateo through the park. Ally had never allowed herself the luxury of a carriage ride, and it was lovely. Out of habit, she always refused her grandmother’s offers of money and luxuries. She never wanted to have anything her parents might want. She wanted them to come back for her alone, not for help with their debts. She lived on her teacher’s salary just fine. It suited her.
But what harm was a carriage ride? Not like her parents could snatch this away from her, even if they were near, which seemed beyond unlikely.
Ally put her head back to take in the flawless blue sky peeking between the green leaves. Paula trotted in front of the carriage effortlessly. Mateo had explained that the carriage was so light, even Ally could have pulled it loaded with four of the fattest people they could find. The flat, shaded park was child’s play for such a powerful creature as Paula, he had said. And to look at her trotting proudly, it seemed true.
“Look, darling, the duke!” Her grandmother pointed toward a field of half-naked, bleeding, mud-covered men as if they were dandies strolling about in top hats and tails.
Talk about a powerful creature. Even in a field of beautiful men, Sam stood out. Of course, in a game of shirts vs. skins, he just had to be a skin. His bare chest glistened with sweat; his legs were strong and tanned; even from this distance, she could see the outlines of his abs. But Ally already knew the man was gorgeous. Nothing new there.
“He is a handsome man! Mateo, pull over, would you?”
“Mateo, no. Keep going,” Ally said.
But Mateo ignored Ally and pulled Paula to a stop by the side of the road. He seemed as mesmerized by the game as her grandmother was by Sam.
“He does cut a fine, fine figure,” Granny Donny observed.
Ally couldn’t care less about soccer or Sam’s fine figure, which was why it was so upsetting that it took a herculean effort to rip her gaze away from his effortless, physical grace. She looked everywhere but at Sam and gasped. A toddler meandered over the sideline, oblivious to the men on the field. Ally stood up in the carriage. “Who’s watching that child?”
Apparently, no one. The players began to move up the field as the child toddled farther into the line of play, oblivious. Why didn’t the goalie notice the girl and blow a whistle or call out? He was blind to her. No, not blind, preoccupied with the game. No. Worse. He saw her, and he didn’t care.
Ally looked at her grandmother. Then at the girl. She didn’t want to leave Granny Donny alone, but the goalie clearly had no intention of leaving his goal for the girl, who had crouched to examine something on the ground.
“Go. I’ll watch Lady Giordano,” Mateo said. He had spotted the toddler, too.
Ally jumped from the carriage. She dashed toward the little girl, but it was slow going through the picnic blankets and she was too far away. “Hey! Someone!”
“Tell the duke to come and say hello!” Granny Donny cried cheerfully after her. “Way to go after your man!”
Ally recognized Misha with the ball, his head down as he ran full-speed, leading a pack of men right toward the toddler.
Finally, the goalie moved out of the goal, toward the girl. Oh, thank heavens…
But Misha was picking up speed. He darted around the last defender.
The goalie crossed himself and then aligned himself against Misha, the girl obviously sacrificed.
What a jerk! Ally was too slow, tripping over sunbathing teenagers and novel-reading couples in beach chairs. “Sam!”
Sam didn’t seem to hear. But he had looked up the field and stopped cold. Did he spot the toddler, too? And would he care?
He took off for Misha at full speed.
Ally watched, out of breath, her heart pounding.
Misha pushed the ball up the field. He must have seen the girl by now, but, like the goalie, he obviously didn’t care. He was running full tilt, two players on his heels. Sam coming on strong.
At the last moment Sam dived, tackling the bigger man. Sam, Misha, and two other players fell in a pile, crumpling just yards from the little girl’s feet.
The little girl looked down at them and clapped, as if they’d planned the spectacular crash for her amusement. Then, distracted by a butterfly, she abruptly wandered off the field as if nothing had happened.
Ally’s heart started up again.
But then it stopped.
As the pile cleared, Sam, who was at the bottom, wasn’t getting up.
Ally didn’t think. She ran to his side. “Sam?”
Sam was dead still. The other players gathered around.
“Foul in the box,” Misha protested. “Penalty kick.”
The other men cursed and argued whether it was in the box or not, whatever the heck that meant, as if Sam weren’t in a heap on the ground, not moving.
“Sam?” Ally whispered. He looked peaceful lying there, like a fallen warrior. Please don’t be dead. To her utter dismay, she felt a rush of emotion. She put her hand on his chest. His heart was beating. That was good. Did he need CPR? She had taken a course ages ago, but the class dummy had never made her feel like this. She bent close to him to feel if he was breathing.
His eyes fluttered, then opened. “Ally?”
Ally jumped upright and removed her uncomfortably hot hand from his chest. “Oh. Ah. Hi. Hello.”
“Hello.” He stared up at her with a curious sort of regard.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Did you tackle me?”
“Me?” Her face fell. Had Sam become as confused as her grandmother?
“Gad, woman. Just kidding,” he said, trying a slight smile but then wincing. “Is the girl okay?” he asked.
She wished he’d get up, as he looked so helpless and sexy stretched out on the grass. Maybe just a little CPR? Just in case? Her throat was dry and her skin tingled and it was hard to form words. Of all the ass-hats on the field, only Sam had cared about the toddler. “She’s fine.” Her voice was rougher than she intended. It was hard to take her eyes from the fallen warrior.
He tried to sit up, winced, then lay back down.
“Sam, I don’t think you’re okay.”
He blinked a few times, then, to Ally’s relief, he painfully pulled himself to a sitting position. Unfortunately for her ability to speak, he looked as good sitting as he had lying down. He shook his head as if he had water in his ears. “You don’t have to pretend to care, Ally. I’m fine.” He looked around and spotted the carriage. He tried to wave to her grandmother but winced and lowered his hand.
“It’s a goal kick,” Misha insisted.
“Penalty was clearly outside the box,” someone else cried.
“Shut up,” Ally snapped at them all. She had been so entranced by Sam, she’d forgotten ignorant brutes surrounded her. “Can’t you see this man is hurt?”
“Get the woman and the wounded off the field so we can play,” a man called out in a heavy Italian accent.
“Nice friends,” Ally commented as two players pulled Sam to his feet, none too gently. They were mumbling about Sam’s foul. Stupid bastard. Kick on goal. Merde. Mierda. Merdoso.
Sam hobbled off the field, holding his side. She followed, ready to catch him if he stumbled, or collapsed, or wanted to turn and kiss her—
No. Not that. What was with her? It was her dream last night of Sam, confusing reality and fantasy just as badly as Granny Donny. She started to babble. “I think you lost consciousness. Concussions are very dire medical emergencies that are undertreated in ninety-four percent of cases. You need to go to the hospital.”
He collapsed onto the grass at the sideline, obviously still in pain. But his attention had gone back to the game. Misha was setting up for his penalty kick.
“Sam? Hello? Concussion? Broken ribs? Internal organ damage? The sooner you get to the doctor, the less the permanent dam
age. They’ve done studies.”
The sooner she got away from Sam, the less her permanent damage. It wasn’t just his physical form, but his physical bravado at saving the girl. It was just one more example of his recklessness. But she had to admit, that kind of recklessness was impossible not to admire. Good thing it was tempered by his idiocy of refusing medical evaluation. “We can take you out of the park in the carriage.”
“Nonsense. Just had the wind knocked out of me,” he said, but he winced as he tried to stand to watch the action on the field, so he stayed put. Sam’s team formed a wall in front of the goal, but Misha’s powerful shot cleared it and scored easily. The Russian danced around the field until he was buried under a pile of his teammates.
“Bloody hell,” Sam said. He stood up shakily. “I’m back in,” he called.
“Sam, no!” Ally hated how she sounded, so she added, “Don’t be a fool.”
He stopped in his tracks and stared at her. “But why not? That’s what you think I am, isn’t it?”
“Excuse me?” Ally said. The edge in his tone alarmed her. Was he really that upset about a stupid goal?
“You think you’re too good for me. That I’m nothing. I’m your Veronica, Ally, aren’t I? Only worse, because you wouldn’t dream of sleeping with me even just for fun.”
Ally felt as if he had just flattened her the way he’d taken down Misha, knocking the air out of her. She and Sam had collided these past few weeks, but she had thought she was the only one feeling the impact. “Sam, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she blundered. But she did. She knew exactly what he meant. He had nailed it. Her fantasies of him were just fantasies, to be put in a box and ignored as insane.
“Give it up, Princess. You wouldn’t deign to give me the time of day if you didn’t need me to help your grandmother. Well, don’t worry, I’ll live long enough to talk to her. To lie to her. Because that’s what you think a man like me is good for, right? I see through you, Princess. Now, excuse me, I have to go. I just cost my team a goal, and as dumb as you think that is, it matters to me.”
“Well, if all you’re worried about is a goal, then you are an idiot,” Ally called after him, flustered.
He stopped and turned, his eyes flaring with anger. “I’m not worried about a goal, Princess. I’m worried about my team. But you wouldn’t know about that, because you do everything alone, don’t you? You’re too good to ask for help from anyone, especially someone like me. It kills you, doesn’t it, that you need my help? Good thing I’m a gentleman and won’t demand anything in return.” He started walking again and this time didn’t look back.
Ally was left alone on the sidelines, overcome with anger and confusion. Where had that attack come from?
On the field, Misha delivered a stiff elbow to Sam’s injured ribs, and she winced as if the blow had hit her. Sam kept up with the play. He was hobbling but determined. His teammates patted his butt and mumbled monosyllabic grunts of approval at his idiocy. Men.
He didn’t spare her another glance, so she turned on her heel and hurried back to the carriage as steadily as she could despite her pounding heart. He didn’t know a thing about her. He didn’t know anything about the pain of not having parents to rely on, about making it on her own, about being the only one left to care for her last link to family, to be the only responsible one—the one who couldn’t give in to passion and idiocy. He had no idea how long and how hard she had waited for people who never came. Yes, you learned to be on your own. So what? Who was he to criticize her?
When she got back to the carriage, Mateo was feeding Paula. “Let’s go,” she said, climbing into the carriage.
But Mateo shook his head. “I’ve got to give Paula time to digest. Her colic. Fifteen minutes, si?”
Ally cursed her bad luck. She jumped back down out of the carriage. “Okay. Of course.” Mateo had explained to her about the old horse’s delicate stomach.
Now she just had to keep her eyes and mind off Sam for fifteen minutes.
No problem.
No problem at all.
When halftime finally came, Sam was surprised to see Ally and the carriage still under the trees by the side of the path. Mateo, the coachman, stood by Paula, whose nose was buried deep in a silver bucket. Mateo adjusted the tack here and there, but his attention was on the men on the sidelines, as if appraising them with expert eyes. Ally paced impatiently beside the carriage, her arms crossed.
God, he had been an ass, lashing out at her like that. Why was he so mad at her? What was it about her?
Sam tried to ignore the scene, but images of Ally bending over him, asking him if he was okay, clouded his head, and something deep inside him tightened as memories he usually blocked rushed him. The only day Mum ever appeared on my sideline. Kingsbridge United vs. Waldron Prep. Me, number twelve, playing a brutal, punishing game for her. Bloody brilliant my cross at eighty-nine minutes. Assist on the winning goal, a header just under the crossbar by my winger, Manny Cypress. My head high, strutting to the sideline after the game. Mum saying, “Number twelve? Why, Samuel, I had thought the whole game you were number six, the boy who scored. Now he was very good.”
He knew his mother from a football field away at a glance, knew her every mannerism, her every nuance, had it all inscribed into his soul. He had been able to pick her out of the crowd of parents with an eagle’s eye.
Sam never told her about another match. Only Hana, much later, had ever come to see him play.
He shook off the childish memory only to see Ally watching him with cold appraisal. Pleasing a certain kind of woman was impossible. A waste of time and effort. When a woman was cold inside, there was no touching her.
He ought to go and talk to Donatella Giordano now, save himself the trip to her apartment later, get rid of these people once and for all who seemed to dredge up memories of his past. He limped to Ally’s carriage as best he could, aware that the pain in his side was getting steadily worse.
He bowed to Lady Giordano, who nodded back, her face bathed in a radiant smile that pained him almost as badly as his side.
“Nice game,” Mateo said.
“I cost us the tying goal.”
“You saved that little girl from getting crushed,” Ally said. Her eyes had softened, or maybe he had only imagined that they had been hard. Oh, hell, maybe he really did have a head injury, because he cared. I don’t care.
“Tell that to my teammates,” he said.
Mateo rearranged Paula’s bucket. “You’re too slow with the left foot. And you turn into traffic on the defense. But not bad. For a Brit.”
Paula snuffed agreement, her nose still buried in the bucket.
“He’s also not bad for a husband,” Granny Donny called down from her seat in the carriage. “Right, Alexandra?”
“How are you feeling?” Ally asked, changing the subject.
“Fine. No problems,” he lied. Every breath was like a stab wound.
“Then you’ll still be able to come with us to the country?” she asked. Her voice trembled slightly.
A wave of roiling, conflicting emotion engulfed him: her hand on her chest, the worried look in her eyes as she bent over him. Was she only worried that he wouldn’t help her, or was she alive inside? Her touch had been more. Her touch had been nothing. She despises me. She wants me. I despise her.
I want her.
He did?
No. He didn’t. That would be emotional suicide. But his pride was hurt. He wanted to prove to her that he was no Veronica. Why? What was happening to him? He had nothing, absolutely nothing to prove to this woman. His breath quickened and the stabs got stronger and he hoped maybe he’d just keel over now, and save himself the agony of trying to understand his feelings for Ally Giordano.
“Sam?” Ally asked. “I really think you should get to a doctor. You don’t look so good.”
He didn’t feel so good, but it had nothing to do with his ribs. It had to do with what he was considering doing despite his forebod
ing. “Lady Donatella,” Sam began. Then he stopped, frozen by the regal woman in the carriage staring down at him like he was the most worthy man on the planet.
Sweat dripped down his back. Mud and blood coated his legs. It hurt to breathe. And yet, this one female, this gentle, crazy old woman, didn’t see him for what he was, but for what he was raised to be. He was her knight in shining armor, a nobleman, a gentleman. Worthy.
Of course, there was the little issue of her being insane.
But he was feeling more than a little insane himself. Must have been the head injury. You want me, Ally. And I want you. I want to know what makes you so alone. I want to understand why you can’t trust anyone. I want to hear your discussion on the percentage of head injuries treated vs. untreated and how you segue from that into the mating habits of the Central Park pigeon. I want to dance with you at midnight in the dark.
I want you to look at me the way your grandmother does—with respect.
He looked back at his teammates on the sidelines, then at Ally and her grandmother.
I want to stop playing games.
The verdict was in: He had bloody well lost his mind. But there it was: He wanted Ally, God knows why, and he was determined to make her admit that she wanted him, too.
He bowed to Lady Giordano. “May I pay you a visit later this evening? After supper?” he asked. He would go home, wash up, and come to Lady Giordano properly, in her sitting room, as a respectable duke, not as a half-naked bleeding slob caked in sweat, a boy on a field playing a boy’s game.
“Of course, good man, of course!” cried Lady Donatella.
Ally’s jaw dropped. “Sam?”
“A problem?” he asked.
“No. No problem,” she said, but her eyes said otherwise.
“Tonight, then.” Sam took Ally’s hand and kissed it, meeting her eyes with his own. She was off-balance, confused, angry—and intrigued.
She was just where he wanted her.
There comes a time in every scoundrel’s life when he catches a glimpse of what he might have been. Only if he catches it in the reflection of the right woman’s eye, is there hope for reform.
How to Tame a Modern Rogue Page 10
