Jackson's Trust

by Violet Duke

  Though Lloyd quickly resumed his more-professional-than-not praise, he began thumping Jackson on the shoulder between compliments with a heavier-than-usual hand; in short, he was being a big-ass baby. For the most part, Lloyd was a good producer, but he liked his glamorous perks. And it just burned his balls that Jackson was the only one from the network who had been invited to tonight’s star-studded charity dinner. Lloyd and the other producers had even tried to call the event coordinators to see if their invites had been lost in the mail.

  They hadn’t.

  Why the snub came as a shocker to any of the producers was a mystery to Jackson. None of them cared one iota about all the many youth outreach programs the NFL has spearheaded across the country. Really, the producers weren’t big on any cause that wasn’t mutually beneficial for their bottom line in some way. They weren’t bad guys or anything, and Jackson liked them well enough, but there was a reason he didn’t consider any of them friends.

  “Jackson is like an encyclopedia of stats and plays, which makes him a hit with the coaches and players,” said Lloyd, in the same passive aggressive tone he used whenever he was being a sulking asshat. “Here at the network, he’s also pretty famous for his crazy-accurate game predictions, which is why we all like to call him the Weatherman.”

  Jackson fought the urge to give him the finger.

  That moniker they “all”—meaning Lloyd and his cronies—called him at times annoyed Jackson to no end, and Lloyd damn well knew it. Sure, they didn’t report on the weather at their network, but they were in the same business; they all knew why weathermen preferred to be called meteorologists. There was a science behind meteorology, which determined the forecasts that weathermen broadcasted.

  Jackson’s determinations of likely game outcomes were no different. There was a science involved. Yes, he could generally make ten times more precise determinations than most analysts, but he didn’t just pull predictions out of a crystal ball. Each one took perspective and calculation predicated on vast historical and ever-growing current knowledge, as well as a deeper understanding of the game beyond positions and points. It was grossly inaccurate to have someone attribute what he did to some inexplicable phenomena, which is exactly what Lloyd was currently doing by going on and on about Jackson’s “psychic abilities.”

  The only good that was coming out of the aggravating conversation was watching Leila zone out again as she murmured his nickname under her breath, just once, thoughtfully, her lips shaping each syllable as if tasting the full effect of the word.

  Weatherman.

  Then with the last syllable still lingering in the air, she released a small smile of amused approval that damn near lit up his whole freaking office.

  “Sunshine,” Jackson exhaled on a deep whisper, low enough that he knew his voice would only carry to her ears.

  Leila blinked, her startled gaze immediately snapping over to him.

  Jackson grinned and declared quietly, “If you’re going to call me the Weatherman, I get to call you sunshine.”

  My sunshine.

  Where that errant, completely foreign thought came from, he had no idea. But he liked it. And he liked that sweet little quick breath she’d taken in as well, which caused her lips to part slightly like a snapshot from a wet dream. While those soft, tawny eyes of hers were…

  Now positively spitting fire at him.

  “Not if you expect me to answer, Weatherman. Unless you plan on calling everyone here with a penis in his pocket ‘sugar lips’ and ‘honey buns’ as well, you better believe I’ll get HR on your ass,” came her hissed, riled-up reply.

  Hell, he liked that, too.

  Hands on her hips, she looked ready to continue objecting—wildly—to his “naming” her, but Lloyd’s next statement effectively caused her to do a dispositional one-eighty.

  “…Jackson even predicted the Vipers’ unexpected win over the Outlaws in last year’s conference championship game.”

  Just like that, her entire mood seemed to shift.

  This time, her swift inhale wasn’t inadvertently X-rated. But it was loads more interested. And her eyes were now filled with glints of grudging respect.

  She was impressed.

  Interesting.

  Jackson tilted his head, feigning a lack of memory over the game prediction Lloyd was referring to. “You mean the one where the Outlaws’ quarterback pressured out?” he asked, deliberately choosing to misremember his own analysis of that game, and go with popular—erroneous—opinion.

  Two pairs of confused brow furrows looked back at him.

  Lloyd frowned. “I thought you said it had something to do with the corners and the timing, and all that other position data you’re always going Rain Man about all the time.”

  Jackson barely heard him. Because suddenly, and with no filter whatsoever, admiration, appreciation, and a touch of something hotter ignited Leila’s gaze.

  Holy hell. Just as he thought. The woman knew way the heck more about football than he even suspected. Most folks didn’t have a clue why that win had happened. But clearly, Leila did. So either she was a closet analyst with a memory that rivaled his in obscure NFL offense and defense data…

  …Or she was something far more special.

  He’d bet good money it was the latter.

  He shook his head in amazement. Unbelievable. For once, their network hiring panel had managed to select a woman who didn’t just look good on paper.

  Not to mention the first woman in the entire building who had ever made him want to rethink his rule about separating his work life from his personal life.

  This was definitely a problem he’d have to figure out his feelings about later, but first things first. It was undeniable that his new trainee knew truckloads more about football than she was letting on.

  Now he just needed to find out why she was being a bald-faced liar about it all.

  Chapter 3

  Somewhere in the past few minutes, Leila Hart went from barely paying attention to practically tuning out her new boss Lloyd completely. For a guy who didn’t seem to know his helmet from his jockstrap, he sure did like talking.

  Unlike the silent Abercrombie model standing beside him.

  Jackson Gray.

  She’d caught sight of him yesterday after she’d filled out all her hiring paperwork down at Human Resources. And as it turned out, he was even better looking in person.

  Figured.

  Of course the universe would make the man assigned to babysit her at the network look strikingly similar to the same pretty-boy NFL quarterback who’d messed up her fantasy football team last season, causing her to have the lowest post-season standing since she’d first begun playing with the big boys for the six-figure grand prize winnings three years ago.

  Eighth place. Ouch.

  Yes, she was well aware that most folks never even smelled the national leaderboard in the countrywide fantasy leagues. Still. The loss was a raw, open wound that continued to throb.

  It wasn’t just because she’d lost out on the hefty post-season purse, which had been earmarked for the down payment on a house she’d had her eye on for the past several months.

  It wasn’t even because of the ribbing from the guys in her league that she’d had to suffer through for the first time ever.

  No, the loss stung her pride more than anything else because…well, because she’d been proven wrong. About football. And that nonsense just plain didn’t happen to Leila Hart.

  Or rather, it never happened to her online alter ego L. J. Hart, aka, the one and only good thing that came out of her parents naming her Leila Jane.

  Seriously.

  If the major players she’d managed to beat over the past few years only knew that not only did she not have a pair of testicles, but that her usual fantasy football attire at home on her computer consisted of honest-to-God homemade fuzzy pink bunny slippers made by one of the old biddies from the small town she’d grown up in…

  Goodness, she’d never li
ve that down.

  She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if they found out she had seven sets of cute-as-can-be fingerless hand-knit gloves decorated as different woodland animals, complete with some variation of a giant pompom or a tassel as their tails. All crafted out of chunky, rustic yarn that she and her grandmother had sheared, spun, and color-dyed themselves. Good times.

  When Leila had first left Utah for grad school—to move a grand total of thirteen hours away to Arizona—her grandmother had reacted as if she were moving to the moon. The woman had mother-henned her via the Internet for an entire year, requesting live visual proof that Leila was, in fact, keeping warm with the slippers and gloves almost nightly. Yes, even in the desert summers.

  Teaching the ole battle-ax how to Skype? Best thing ever.

  God, she missed her.

  Grams had been her kindred spirit, a fellow eccentric outcast. The only one Leila had been even remotely close to in her entire family. The only one she’d ever been able to be herself around. The only one who had never been stingy with the hugs and the laughs and the hour-long phone calls about nothing at all.

  The one family member who had taught her what it felt like to love and be loved.

  After Grams passed away, Leila no longer had a reason to pretend that she had a childhood home or family to visit in Utah. So she didn’t. The nostalgic slippers and gloves had since become a permanent fixture in Leila’s daily existence, her cherished keepsakes, reminders of all the nightly Skype chats she used to have with Grams.

  Heck, even the thought of the comfy little things had her smiling and wiggling her fingers and toes, while mentally laughing over a particularly crazy thing Grams had once said.

  And judging by Jackson’s amused lips-to-toes scan of her, and resulting quiet smile, he’d witnessed the whole thing.

  Jiminy Cricket, a gorgeous man who looked that handsome in frameless glasses should not be allowed to have playfully seductive eyes. Period. Then again, if she were taking inventory, the universe clearly went waaay overboard in handing the sexy smarty all the good stuff when they created his genetic make-up.

  She, for one, was absolutely not complaining.

  At first glance, Jackson looked like any other ridiculously handsome former athlete. But the second glance was when it became obvious the man was complex, more than simply handsome.

  He was deep.

  Everything about him made you realize there was much more beneath the surface.

  If you made it that far, that is. Leila didn’t blame a woman for getting lost in surface appearances for quite a while because good lord, what a surface it was.

  He had a hard-to-miss All-American athletic build that almost couldn’t be contained in the swanky NFL-after-party-worthy sports jacket he was wearing. His locked-and-loaded guns for arms framed a spectacularly broad chest and carved abs his shirt had actually molded to for one particularly memorable few seconds. All in all, it was the sort of physique that very likely inspired the first ad campaign with male models lifting the hem of their T-shirts up like it was a perfectly normal occurrence.

  And above his shoulders? Jesus. She would’ve pegged him as having been sculpted rather than born based on that etched jawline and the ruggedly sexy lines along the muscular column of his neck.

  Meanwhile, his casual product-free ash brown hair was the unassuming variety you expected to find on the guy next door. The kind that looked like he’d just sprinted over from a jog on the beach and shoved his hand through it right before a candidly perfect black-and-white model photo shoot.

  Really though, the most distracting of his long list of magnetic qualities was his ability to just stand there without feeling the need to say more than a few words. Never before would she have put “quiet” in the same category as “sexy.” But on this man, it so very much was.

  His composed, confident presence was almost deafening. And if she had to hazard a guess, she’d estimate that those hypnotic hazel eyes of his, with that touch of buried sadness, could likely charm the panties off of an unsuspecting woman even at ten yards away.

  Yowza. Make that twenty.

  The dangerous weapons in question were now locked on her own eyes.

  And if her body’s immediate reaction to that were any reliable warning, she wondered if she’d ever get any normal breathing done at work.

  Honestly, if she weren’t so darn curious about this whole “Weatherman” nickname—which appeared fitting if Jackson had been able to predict the Vipers’ two-touchdown win from position stats alone—Leila would already have made a heartfelt request to her new boss to pair her up with a mentor that was far less attractive.

  Or at the least, someone who didn’t call her “sunshine.”

  …In a low, darkly seductive rumble that didn’t belong in remotely the same category as mortal male voices.

  Mentally, she braced herself when she felt him lean over, just a bit, to utter in a low voice only she could hear, “While I’d love nothing more than to stay right here and figure out what blush-inspiring thoughts you’ve been thinking about for the past few minutes, unfortunately, I have to get going.”

  Before she could even attempt to contradict, or be offended by, the remark, he met her narrowed gaze with a searing hot promise, twined around a dare. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning, sunshine. Bright and early.” His eyes dropped down to her still-heated cheeks in a gentle caress. “We can discuss the Vipers’ conference championship win that Lloyd mentioned,” he added quietly, as if knowing exactly which hot buttons to press to turn her imagination on. Literally and figuratively. “Only if you’re interested, that is.”

  With his closeness affecting her ability to think about anything other than how good his voice sounded in her ear, she simply nodded, choosing to ignore how deeply her answer could get tangled in that broad net he’d just cast with that last statement.

  Not that any sort of admission of her being “interested” could be any worse than the wildly imaginative, mildly panic-worthy daydream she was currently having.

  Which starred him discussing football stats with her in that mesmerizing 1-900 voice of his.

  Holy crap.

  Her knees buckled.

  No judging. To each woman, her own version of dirty talk.

  When the low sizzle in his eyes swiftly kicked up a notch, she wondered if he knew her dirty little secret. She stopped wondering and immediately went back to daydreaming when he leaned back in to add: “It’ll be just us two tomorrow, so be sure to bring whatever thoughts are going through that mind of yours right now. We can take turns doing show and tell.”

  Then with a quick, friendly goodbye wink that was devastatingly hotter being discharged from the lethal weapon of quietly intelligent sex appeal that was his glasses, he was on the move.

  Criminy, the man looked good coming and going.

  Lloyd followed him out, as did Leila, so Jackson could lock up his office.

  “Just to warn you,” said Lloyd as Leila watched Jackson disappear down the hallway, “that guy can be quite the ladies’ man.” His voice held none of the childishness it did earlier when he was pouting. It was merely factual as he continued, “He’s a great guy and I wouldn’t blame you for falling for him. But we do discourage office romances for a reas—”

  “I have a boyfriend,” she blurted out. It was a total lie. But judging from the approval on Lloyd’s face, she’d wagered well on it.

  “Oh, well that’s good. It’ll keep all these other yahoos here from hitting on you, as well. The pretty ones, and by that, I mean our male TV talent, are mostly single so just let everyone know you’re taken and the whole new-girl-on-the-block thing should die down quickly. If anyone gives you any trouble, here or out on the field, just say the word and I’ll take care of it. I don’t tolerate that shit at all for the women who work for our network.”

  Aw, so apparently, he wasn’t a sexist creep of a boss. Just a slightly chauvinistic one who seemed genuine about wanting her to
have a safe work environment.

  “My door is always open so give me a buzz if you have any other concerns or questions.” He gave her one final shoulder thump and a warm smile. “Welcome aboard, my dear. I’ll leave you to get settled for a bit before you head home.”

  As he and his secretary headed to the elevator, he called back over his shoulder, “And good luck with your training with Jackson tomorrow. He can be a little intense, especially when he’s filling your ear with all those football stats he loves so much.”

  Oy, just when she’d managed to stop panting when she thought about the man…

  Chapter 4

  She had a boyfriend.

  The news of Leila having a boyfriend had swept through the network quickly. Jackson himself found out only a little while ago when he’d walked into the big break room next to the morning show studios—that floor had the best bagels—only to find his appetite killed when a group of supremely disappointed men had begun discussing Leila’s unavailable status like it was front-page news.

  Not that he blamed them for wanting to be in the know. Jackson was guilty of checking her relationship status on Facebook the second he’d gotten home from the charity dinner.

  Though he hadn’t been able to ascertain her relationship status from her remarkably uninformative profile, he had discovered something nearly as unsettling.

  The woman didn’t have a single female Facebook friend.

  Not one.

  Three hundred some odd friends.

  All male.

  And of those male friends, he’d actually recognized one. A freaking NFL assistant coach—Nick Torres, the defensive coordinator of the Reno Outlaws.

  Thankfully, that jealousy-inspiring information swiftly took a backseat to the content of the woman’s public Facebook posts. It took him only a quick skim to realize that Leila didn’t just know football, she really knew football.

  Hell, nearly all of her posts were football-related commentaries. That were dead-on. Not to mention insightful, always respectful, and almost artful in perspective.

  She wasn’t a fan, she was a connoisseur.