Daisy smiled as she picked up a few wrappers that had managed to escape the surprisingly tidy group. They might have had a scare, but they were ready to get back on a plane again. So was she.
“Thank you, guys, for cleaning up,” she said to nobody in particular. “We really appreciate the help.”
Matt Stephens, the owner of the Sharks, gave her a broad smile as she approached him. Daisy didn’t spend a lot of time keeping up with football, but any woman with a pulse knew who the startlingly handsome Matt was. She also knew that he was married and, according to all reports, crazy about his wife, Amy.
“Thanks for getting us home safely.” Matt reached out to shake Daisy’s hand.
“The pilot’s your man for that, but thank you,” she said.
Daisy was a bit surprised that Matt never sat with the front office guys and coaching staff when he flew with the team. He seemed to prefer the sometimes-boisterous player seating. Matt’s brother-in-law Brandon McKenna, who’d retired from the Sharks a few years back and took Matt’s job on a nationally broadcast pre-game show, sat next to him.
“He saved our ass—butts today,” the tall, blond Brandon said. He reached out to loop his arm around Matt’s shoulders. “Let’s go home, bro.”
“You don’t need to ask me twice,” Matt said. “I wasn’t sure we were getting off this damn flight alive.”
“If I got killed in a plane crash, Sugar would kick my ass,” Brandon said. His dimple flashed as he impulsively kissed his brother-in-law on the forehead. “We’re outta here.”
Daisy moved away from them and reached out for another full plastic bag from Grant Parker, the Sharks’ backup quarterback. He looked into her eyes and raised an eyebrow—the universal guy signal for Hey, how you doin’?
Grant wasn’t hard on the eyes, either. His tousled, wavy, sun-streaked, chestnut-colored hair brushed his shoulders. His eyes were the color of melted dark chocolate and twinkled when he smiled. He had the required three-day scruff of whiskers most men under thirty sported these days. Instead of the bulked-up muscles of most of his teammates, Grant was tall and lean. He also bore a somewhat disconcerting facial resemblance to a major religious figure. This hadn’t slowed the party in her panties down one bit.
Imagine what the pastor of her parents’ church would have to say if she told him she had lust in her heart for a guy who looked like Our Lord.
She made an extra effort to remain somewhat professional while he was around, despite the fact that she wanted to squeal like a fourteen-year-old girl confronted with her favorite teen idol. She’d been working on the Sharks’ charter flights for two seasons now. The other guys on the team, the coaching staff, and the Sharks announcing crew and other media—they were fun to fly with, and she enjoyed chatting and laughing with them, especially after the team won. Grant was another story. She’d like to toss herself in his lap and run her fingers through his hair, for starters.
He spent his flights listening to music on his headphones and working on his tablet. There might be an occasional conversation between him and his teammates, but for the most part, she’d noticed he kept to himself. Her interactions with him were limited to “What would you like to drink?” and “What would you like to eat?”
Of course, this hadn’t stopped her from embroidering a rich fantasy life about Grant in her head. She would love to know what he was like when he wasn’t at work, so to speak. She’d read stories about him in the Seattle papers and had seen him shown on the local sports reports. She wondered how much was true and how much was creative fiction.
He was a pastor’s son. He spent most of his spare time during the season making charitable appearances on behalf of the team. He told reporters that he hadn’t met the “right girl” yet, despite the fact that he’d been seen out to dinner at Seattle-area restaurants with more than a few women from the local Christian colleges over the past few years.
Mostly, he (or his representatives) wanted Grant to be seen as an asset to the Sharks, a great addition to the community, and Tom Reed’s worthy successor. Daisy wondered if Grant was curious about what it might be like to be out with someone who’d be interested in a bit more than sharing a root beer float and seeing a G-rated Disney movie with him.
Grant glanced up at her again.
“Need some help with the rest of this?” he asked. “Just point me toward the Dumpster. One of my jobs growing up was taking out the garbage.”
“Thank you so much, but we’ll let the cabin cleaners deal with it,” she said. “You need to get on the bus before the lightning storm starts.”
She heard the dull thump of the rolling stairs being shoved up against the side of the jet. The baggage guys were going to have a hell of a time unloading the jet in this weather, especially since she heard the boom of thunder from a few miles away.
The passengers grabbed backpacks, purses, and other items from the overhead bins and filed off the plane as she and Rachel stood at the jet’s doorway and told each person good-bye. She got several hugs as the players filed past. One of the bigger guys reached into his backpack, pulled out several new Sharks-logo ball caps, and handed one to each flight attendant as he passed them.
“You ladies need some gear,” he said. “I’ll bring more next week.”
“Is that a threat, Morrison?” one of his teammates asked.
“They’re spending time with us. They need swag,” he insisted.
“My son will love this. Thank you so much,” Rachel said.
“Oh, no, ma’am. That’s for you. I’ll bring him something else.” He sauntered down the stairway leading to the tarmac, where a small group of airline employees stood in a covered area waving the Sharks’ flag and calling out, “Go Sharks” and “Welcome home.”
Grant Parker was bringing up the rear. He stowed his headphones and tablet in his backpack and reached out to shake Daisy’s hand.
“Nice to see you again,” he said. Maybe she imagined that he’d squeezed her hand. “Will I see you on Friday’s flight?”
“Yes. I’ll be here.” It was amazing she could get any words out at all.
“Good. I’ll look forward to it,” he said. She saw his lips curve into a grin. He was still holding her hand, and the fact that her pulse sped up as a result had nothing to do with today’s flying adventure. “I know this is pretty sudden, but I have a question.”
“Of . . . of course,” she managed to stammer out. “What can I do for you?”
He pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket as he released her hand. Damn it. She’d like to stand there and hold his hand for an hour or so. That wasn’t weird or anything.
“Can I get your cell number, Daisy?”
“Uh, sure. Yeah,” she said.
She rattled off the digits as he punched them into his phone. “Thanks,” he said.
He was halfway down the stairs before she realized he’d asked for her number and she’d never asked him why. It seemed a bit sudden, but truthfully, she was still so rattled from the flight he probably could have asked her for the password to her checking account, and she would have blurted it out. She leaned out of the doorway of the plane to see if he was still around. The players and coaches were sprinting across the tarmac as she heard another roll of thunder in the distance.
Daisy could still feel the imprint of Grant’s hand clasping hers. Of course, she’d done a lot more than shake hands with him in her imagination.
And in the book currently burning up every digital retailer’s best-seller lists.
Chapter Three
AN HOUR LATER, Daisy wheeled her suitcase into the suburban townhouse she’d scrimped and saved to buy. The weather was even worse. The steady pounding of rain, lightning, thunder, and howling wind had made the ride home from Sea-Tac a less-than-fun adventure with slick roads and pooling water. She needed a change of clothes and a glass of wine, and at the moment, she wasn’t sure which she wanted more. She’d left the blue skies and low seventies of San Francisco’s airport for the torrent
ial rains of Seattle. She loved the area, but she was looking forward to some sunny days.
Her roommate, Catherine, was working a flight home from London. She’d arrive home late tomorrow afternoon, but till then, Daisy had the house to herself. Maybe she should add a hot bath into her evening’s plans. She pulled off the low-heeled pumps she wore to work, carefully draped her damp uniform over the bedroom chair, and grabbed her iPad as she sat down on the bed.
Most single women in the Seattle area spent their time off enjoying the thousand and one things to do in the area. She liked going out and meeting new people, but lately, she was consumed with one thing. Actually, a person. The only chance she had to talk to him was when they were surrounded by a hundred other people who needed her attention and who weren’t going to sit patiently while she did her best not to make a fool of herself over him. She thought about him when he wasn’t around. She dreamed about him. Even more, she fantasized about him. There were other guys in her life, but she couldn’t seem to forget about him.
One night after a bit too much wine, she opened up her laptop and wrote down one of those fantasies. A few days later, she found herself writing again. Before she knew it, she had written something a Google search called a “novella”—her raunchiest, filthiest, most graphic and unrealistic fantasies about the churchgoing, chaste Grant Parker of the Sharks. He’d flip out if he knew the things she thought about, and she’d die before she’d tell anyone else (besides her roommate) about them. Nobody else in her life had any idea.
According to Amazon.com’s best-seller rankings, however, she’d told thousands of strangers. She’d copyrighted the work under her initials for some attempt at privacy. She’d snapped a picture of Grant with her tablet one afternoon as he walked across the tarmac to board the team’s jet for a game in Denver and used it for the cover image. She’d figured out how to edit, format, and upload her book after researching it online. A few clicks later, she was a published author. She still couldn’t believe she’d done it. Even more, she couldn’t believe the book was selling.
If Grant ever found out about this, she’d die.
Another several-thousand-dollar royalty payment had been direct deposited into her checking account this morning. It joined the one she’d gotten last month. She was going to have to talk to an accountant about paying taxes on the money. Maybe she should donate it to a charity or something.
She glanced at the sales rankings one more time: number five. In all of Amazon. Her smutty little book was trouncing authors who actually did this for a living. And the reviews were as explicit as her fantasies.
If anyone found out what she’d done, she’d be lucky if she could get a job as a waitress in a coffee shop. In Iceland.
THE ADRENALINE PUMPING through Grant Parker’s body after the rough flight had drained away during the drive home. The weather was shitty, but he could take it easy behind the wheel of his car. He didn’t have the same control over the jet he’d been in an hour or so ago. Flying was part of his job, and for the most part, he enjoyed it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to die in a plane crash, though.
He kept seeing his parents’ faces as the Sharks’ plane bounced around. Mostly, his mom’s. He didn’t want to think about them grieving for him. He had a tough time making friends due to the shyness he’d battled most of his life, but he had a couple. They’d miss him if the worst happened. Maybe they’d pour one out for him at the bar they all liked to go to while they were in college. But the last few hundred feet or so from the runway, he wasn’t thinking about them. He was thinking about one of the flight attendants.
He’d noticed Daisy the first time she’d flown with them. She was pretty, but he was more attracted to her outgoing, funny personality. She seemed to be able to talk to anyone, and she’d made an extra effort to talk to him. Even if it was part of her job, he appreciated it.
He had gotten a glimpse of her sitting up front. If she was the last person he saw, his life had been pretty good. He’d decided that if the flight landed safely, he was asking her out.
He didn’t have a date yet, but at least now he had her number.
Half an hour later, he dropped his garment bag in the living room of the Bellevue high-rise condo he’d moved into last year, after Sharks security suggested he might want to live somewhere a bit more inaccessible. A woman had broken into his previous house while he was on a road trip. She’d told the cops he was the father of her unborn twins. He’d never met her before. A DNA test proved he wasn’t the father of her children, but his parents were horrified. He wondered what they might have to say if they had any idea how he spent his evenings off.
Wait until they heard about Overtime Parking, he thought. Even worse than his parents finding out he was the subject of someone’s most explicit fantasies, the possibility that the book might become public knowledge made him groan aloud. He’d gotten enough crap from his teammates and the local sports radio hosts over the woman with the twins. Of course, the guys thought giving him shit showed that they cared.
His teammates didn’t seem to care when he threw himself into a window seat on the flights to away games, pulled out his tablet and his headphones, and sealed himself off. He socialized with the guys at times, but he preferred to keep his private life private.
Of course, the Sharks’ PR group capitalized on his visits to the local children’s hospital, his interactions with the Make-A-Wish kids visiting practice once a week, and his speeches at local churches. He was fine with the media talking about that. The public ate it up. They wouldn’t believe how he spent the vast majority of his time off.
He’d discovered early on in his dating life that many women who claimed they loved long walks on the beach, picnics, and bike rides on sunny days on online dating sites also wanted the nastiest, crudest, no-strings-attached sexual encounters he could offer. He wasn’t complaining. He knew he wasn’t the only guy in the world who was interested in getting what he wanted and then getting out, but it would be nice to meet a woman who had her way with him and then threw him out.
He didn’t want feelings. He didn’t want tenderness. He wasn’t interested in the melding of souls, at least not right now. He wanted to bury himself balls-deep inside a beautiful woman, roll out of her bed, pull on his pants, and go home alone. He was pretty sure there was a reason for this that he didn’t understand, but he wasn’t willing to plumb his psyche right now for the motive behind why he’d avoided attachment to others (especially romantic partners) so much. If the author of Overtime Parking was a woman, he’d happily reenact every scene in her book. No matter how potentially compromising or how shocking.
Chapter Four
DAISY NEVER MADE it to the hot bath she’d been dreaming about. She woke out of a sound sleep a few hours later to the sound of a crash and someone saying in a British accent, “Dammit. Damn suitcase wheels.” It didn’t take the brains of a duck to figure out who it was. She threw the blankets back, jumped out of bed, and hurried down the stairs.
“You’re home early,” she called out.
“Bloody hell,” her tall, slender, red-haired roommate said. “My flight home got cancelled, so I deadheaded back to Seattle through NYC. And the wheels on my bag decided to go tits up too. I love dragging a suitcase through JFK.” Catherine heaved a sigh. “It’s not all bad. It seems I might have an extra day or two off as a result.” She reached out to lock the townhouse’s front door. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“No, you’re not,” Daisy said. The two women grinned at each other.
“Nice to see you,” Catherine said.
“I’m relieved to see you too. There were a few minutes earlier I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get to.”
Daisy pulled breath into her lungs. The first time she’d had a near-miss on a flight, she’d laughed it off. This time, she’d kept thinking about all the things she still wanted to do in life, like fall in love. It still hadn’t happened. What if it never did? She knew all the safety statistics on flying, but they didn’t account for the
fact that she still had a lot of living to do.
“But here you are. Fancy that.” Catherine reached out to pat Daisy on the back while she shoved her suitcase away from the front door. “How about a piece of fruit?”
“I’d rather have a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, but that’ll work.”
Catherine had been with Pacifica Airlines for eight years. She didn’t mind working international flights. As a result, she worked a few days a week and spent the remaining days dealing with the jet lag. She’d moved into the spare bedroom in Daisy’s place when Daisy had told a few of her coworkers she was looking for a roommate. It was always a good thing to split expenses, and Daisy genuinely enjoyed Catherine’s company. It was also nice to have someone to complain to when her love life wasn’t going as well as she might like.
Catherine had had the same problems until she’d met her boyfriend, Declan. Spending one’s time flying back and forth from Seattle to London sounded like fun, but it was hard to find someone to date as a result. A few coffee dates turned into dinner dates. The dinner dates turned into a relationship. Catherine met Declan’s parents. She joked that they were in no hurry, but Catherine had already told Daisy that Declan was the one.
Daisy was thrilled for Catherine. She’d like to meet the one, but so far, it hadn’t happened.
Daisy met lots of single guys on flights. She met married ones as well but did her best to avoid them. Many of her fledgling relationships didn’t last long due to her schedule. Daisy wasn’t so worried about finding a guy to have a family with; she’d have plenty of time to have a baby later on. Right now, she just wanted to meet a guy who could handle her independent lifestyle. Men claimed they liked a woman who wasn’t underfoot all the time but were irritated when Daisy couldn’t drop whatever she was doing (or reschedule work) to be with them.
If Daisy had a rough time meeting guys the rest of the year, August through February was tougher. She sacrificed one or more of her days off every other week to work the Sharks’ road game flights. She told everyone else that it was extra money, but she was more interested in the opportunity to be anywhere near Grant Parker for a few hours. She didn’t want to dwell on the fact that she was attempting to get the attention of someone unattainable, as opposed to a guy who might want to date her.
Intercepting Daisy Page 2
