by Sosie Frost
“Where’s mine?”
“It’s coming, Red! You wait right there.”
We kicked the extra-point, and I hauled Jack with me to confront a pacing Cole Hawthorne, staring at the field with that crazed blood-lust that made me glad he was on our team.
I pointed at Cole, regretting it as he stared, ready to snap my finger off. Not the time to piss off The Beast.
“Stop them,” I said. “Get that ball for us.”
“The fuck you think I’m doing out there, rookie?”
“I’m gonna win this fucking game.” I forced Cole to look me in the eye. “Get us the ball back!”
Talking like that would probably end with a snapped neck, but Cole nodded.
“Win this game.” He put his helmet on. “I’ll bring you their receiver’s head, but you gotta put the ball in the end zone.”
Jack thrived on the enthusiasm. He had me follow him on the sidelines, rushing lineman to lineman, receiver to receiver, pumping them up, getting them ready.
“We’re gonna get one set of downs,” he said. “This is your show, Charming. You be my right-fucking-hand.”
“Ain’t nothing to it,” I said. “We got this.”
True to his word, Cole pummeled a receiver on third down. He dropped the ball, and the Tigers punted.
Two minutes remaining.
One time-out left.
We could do it.
But the first snap was botched when our center tumbled backwards. The whistle blew almost immediately as Jack fell under our own linemen and two defensive ends. He clutched his ankle but waved away the trainers before they rushed to the field.
Too late.
The referees charged our last time-out. Jack lurched up, limping behind the line as he walked off the pain and called the next play in the huddle.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Not your problem.” Jack pointed to the clock. “We have sixty seconds to go sixty yards. Worry about that.”
But the play call wasn’t for me. I shook my head.
“I want the ball!”
Jack ignored me. “Taking it down the sideline first. Isaac’s got this one.”
We lined up. The snap was quick, and I did my block. We got the ten yards, but no more. Isaac was pushed out at the fifty. It stopped the clock, but the Tigers weren’t giving up the big yardage.
The next call was a timing pattern, a quick drop and spiral over the middle twenty yards down the field. Jack completed the pass to Troy, but we lost time running down the field for the spike.
Twenty-five seconds left on the thirty. Second down.
I beat my chest in the huddle. “Give it to me, Jack. I’ll get open.”
“Shut your mouth, rookie. One more shot to get closer.”
He called the play.
It wasn’t gonna work. I knew it. I think he knew it too. But the radio in his helmet ordered another pass to a receiver.
I lined up, the ball snapped, and Jack dropped back to throw. Isaac grabbed it, but he wasn’t near the sidelines.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I bolted to the line, but the team was slow. Jack snapped it on the fifteen and stopped the clock.
Ten seconds left. This was it.
I didn’t need to hear the call. I read it in Jack’s eyes.
Time to prove my worth.
The past four weeks I’d played well. Held my own. Kept the team alive.
This was the moment that would define me.
The sweat stung my eyes. I wiped it away. Didn’t matter. More would spill. I couldn’t catch my breath, and every second I spent on my feet shocked me with a piercing agony even the adrenaline couldn’t cure.
Jack barked the snap count. My heart lurched.
The ball snapped.
And I sprinted, slamming through the linebacker assigned to cover me and jetting across the field. I cut, turning just as Jack found me in the open field.
The pass spiraled through the air. A defender leapt to bat it away.
I surged forward, nipping the ball with my fingertips and grasped it just as I lost my balance and tumbled through the back of the end zone. I plummeted to the ground, swearing the entire way.
I didn’t breathe until the stadium started to cheer.
I’d fallen into line of media and reporters, but Elle was the first one there.
She snapped a picture. I gave her the ball.
“It’s yours, Red!”
She took it and leapt out of the way as the offense crashed through the end zone. Jack beat everyone there, chasing me down the field the instant the ball was in the air.
He slammed into me, pulling me into a hug, beating my helmet and cheering louder than anyone in the stands.
“That’s what I want from you!” He slammed his hands into my chest. “Every fucking game, rookie. Every single one!”
The game ended, and the success belonged to me.
A victory over my opponents. A win for the team.
And the proof that I needed.
This was where I belonged.
Elle’s Epilogue
How many football players did it take to ruin a photoshoot?
One. His name was Lachlan Reed.
“Who’s idea was this again?” I groaned, lowering the camera onto my swelling belly. “You take any longer, Charming, and this baby’s gonna pop out.”
He grinned, flexed, and made a kissy face at the camera. “Our boy’s still got two months to cook. But these guns…” He kissed his biceps. “These are prime grade, ready for the spotlight.”
I snapped a shot and gave up. It wasn’t even our shoot. Lachlan was selected by the league for one of their Rookie/Veteran shoots—a passing of the mantle for players close to the end of their reign and the up-and-comers. It was one of Piper and Leah’s initiatives.
Piper huffed though, marching into Lachlan’s shoot with a finger pointed to his face. “If you don’t take this picture before I have to go nurse my infant son, so help me God, Lachlan Reed—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Lachlan backed away, nearly taking the green screen and half of the lights with him. “Easy! I’m sorry!”
I loved that the one person Lachlan feared was Piper Hawthorne.
She loved it too.
“Yeah. I’ll go. Take it.” He snapped his fingers towards the league photographer. “Hurry, man!”
I grinned, shooting a couple behind-the-scene shots that would entertain the rather large female fan base Lachlan had coveted. He posed with the football as the back doors opened.
“Jude!” Piper greeted him with a wide smile. “I knew I could count on you!”
Jude Owens wore a sharp, black suit, matching his long dark hair, intense brow, and stern, perpetually tensed jaw. The running back currently had no home in the league, recently released. Rumor was he contemplated retirement.
He’d never do it.
Not in a million years.
Jude might have had the fancy suit, the killer car, the panty-melting smile, but he didn’t have that championship ring.
And the future Hall of Famer deserved a ring.
He greeted Piper with a polite nod.
“Change of plans.” Piper pointed to his suit. “You’re doing a photo set as the league’s most eligible bachelor.”
“I can hook you up.” I aimed the camera. “Work it, Jude.”
Lachlan held his arms out. “I’m right here!”
“Take your pictures, honey,” I teased.
“You’re carrying my baby.”
“Just one picture of the sexiest man in the room?”
Lachlan’s expression fell—the sad, kicked puppy dog look. I winked and snapped a picture of my husband. He grinned.
“You’re trouble, woman,” Lachlan said.
“Take your pictures. Jude’s already here.”
The photographer surrendered and abandoned his post. “Forget it. We’re done. I’ll find something salvageable.” He shook his head as he passed me, his words bewildered. “And you’re havi
ng his child.”
An adventure to be sure.
“Jude Owens!” Lachlan hurried to my side, but Jude’s presence distracted him. He grinned like he met one of his idols. “I’m Lachlan Reed. Dude, I watched you every Sunday. You’re amazing.”
Jude seemed to keep his thoughts, as well as his smiles, to himself. “Thank you.”
“I mean, after Cole Hawthorne drilled you—”
Piper tried to hush him. “Lachlan—”
“It was like...no one even knew if you’d walk again.”
She covered her face. “Which I’m sure Jude doesn’t want to talk about.”
“But you came back,” Lachlan said. “He nearly killed you. You spent what? Two weeks in the hospital?”
Jude stiffened. “I…uh, don’t really remember. The doctors said it was eighteen days.”
“Damn, dude. And you’re back on the field! No problem. That’s amazing.”
Jude curled a fist. I pretended like I didn’t see the tremor. Or how he avoided the bright lights. Or that peeking from his pant leg was one black sock…and one navy.
Fortunately, that could be photoshopped. I wasn’t so sure the rest of him could be so easily fixed.
“You gonna play this season?” Lachlan asked.
“I have a couple prospects I’m checking out. Gotta see what’s offered.”
“Did the doctors clear you to play?”
He cleared his throat. “They should. Soon.”
The photographer called for Jude. Lachlan extended his hand again.
“Great to meet you, Jude.”
Jude smiled, but it faded, crumbling into a pained expression. “Good to meet you too…uh…”
Piper and I exchanged a worried glance. My charmer took it in stride.
“Lachlan.”
“Right.” Jude nodded. “Of course. Lachlan.”
Lachlan didn’t seem to notice anything strange, but I cradled my belly on the drive home. The worry didn’t go away, even once we picked up Bast to help us plan out the nursery.
My boys picked a manly blue. Something fitting the next Reed man to enter the world. Little Nicholas would love it, no matter the color.
Bast darted between us, helping to fluff the football pillows and grinning just like Lachlan.
“I’m gonna be the best uncle.” He touched my belly, trying to feel for the baby. “Don’t worry, Elle. I know how the world works. I’ll take care of him.”
“That’s a relief, Sebastian.”
He made a face. “Call me Bast.”
Lachlan nearly did a dance around the nursery. “You mean it, little man?”
“Yep. I like Bast now.”
And that was the wrong thing to say to Lachlan.
“Well, then Sebastian, I should probably honor that.”
Bast groaned, and both boys tore up the nursery, tossing pillows and blankets and toys at each other. I chased Bast from the room with promises of popsicles in the freezer. I grabbed Lachlan before he followed, bellowing his preference for orange.
“Not so fast,” I said.
He never missed a chance to hold me. He dropped low, kissed my belly, and took my hand.
“Yes, Mrs. Reed?”
“Promise me something?”
“Anything.”
I still couldn’t shake the unease from meeting Jude. “Please…don’t get hurt? Like…ever?”
“You don’t have to worry. Cole’s on our team.”
“You know what I mean. Jude seemed perfectly fine, but I could just tell…”
He brushed my cheek. “Jude’s concussion prone. Everyone knows it. But he wants to win the big one before he retires.”
“Well, don’t you get concussion prone.” I poked his chest. “No game is worth your health.”
“The championship is. We lost in the playoffs this year. That was unacceptable.”
“Lachlan—”
“There’s an easy way to fix this, Red.” He gently kissed me, nibbling my lip. “You tell me you want me to win a championship, and I’ll be compelled to do it.”
“Compelled?”
“You put that magic spell on me the first day we met. Hasn’t broken yet.”
“So you’re only with me because of a spell?”
“Nah.” He laughed. “I love you cause you’re smokin’ hot.”
My hands fell to my hips. It only pushed my swelling tummy out further. Lachlan liked that.
“I also love that sass. The hundreds of knick-knacks that have filled every corner of my house. The way that eyebrow quirks when you think I’m being a jerk.”
I sighed. “Go on.”
“I love that you’re carrying my baby.”
“Obviously.”
“I love that you never gave up, even after all those pictures and interviews came out.” He took my hand. “I love that you came back to work because there was a job to do, and it was yours to do. I love that you helped to heal this team, that you kept us honest.”
“Not bad.”
“I love that Coach Thompson can’t even look at you.” Lachlan’s expression darkened. “Though I have my own reasons for that, and until he’s fucking fired—”
I covered his lips with a finger. He kissed.
“I love how good you are with Bast.” He pulled me close. “I love how good of a mother you’re going to be. How much you care about this family.”
“Never had a real one before.”
“You got one now.” Lachlan pressed his forehead into mine. “Okay. Your turn.”
“My turn?”
“You gotta love me. Count the ways.”
“There’s too many.” I placed a hand over his chest. “This is the biggest one though.”
“My muscular physique?”
I considered it. “No. Your heart. Because you knew when to listen to it, even when I was too scared to admit everything I felt. You love so hard, Lachlan. Every day with you is a rush.”
“So is every night.”
“That goes without saying.”
“Now do you believe in fairy-tales?”
I smiled, pulling him closer for another kiss.
“You tell me, Charming.”
The End
Touchdowns & Tiaras - Series Epilogue
The Rivets’ Epilogue
1
Jude – The Fairy Tale
For the first time, I wasn’t the one who had forgotten a meeting.
Rory was supposed to meet me for lunch at the hospital.
Busted.
I checked my phone and carried Dawn to the outdoor picnic table in the hospital’s parkette. It’d been a nice place to join Rory for lunches since she started her new job, but I had a better plan for today.
I tickled Dawn’s bare foot. How the hell a six-month-old lost more socks than I did was a goddamned mystery.
“Let’s text Mommy.” I grinned at her. She coo’ed, kicked, and spit a healthy dose of excitement onto her chin. “She’s going to love that I remembered to meet her, and she was the one that forgot—”
“Oh, I see how it is.” Rory huffed from behind me.
“Whoops,” I whispered to the baby. I turned and pointed at the kid. “Dawn was egging me on.”
“Was she now?”
“She’s trouble.”
“Not as much trouble as you’re gonna be in.” She poked my chest. “I’m five minutes late, and you get all self-righteous.”
“I’m not a patient man.”
“You’re lucky I’m a forgiving woman. You can give me all the hell you want for me being a late, but I’m still mad about the pizza you burned in the oven yesterday.”
“You said you liked it crispy.”
“I do like crispy.” She kissed me. “But we ate cinders.”
“Good thing I’m making it up to you today. What do you say we get out of here for lunch?”
Rory twisted her fingers in her lab coat. “Oh, Jude, I’d love to, but—”
“I have my six-month follow-up appointme
nt and physical therapy at two o’clock. I figure you, me, and the baby could go for a long lunch. We’ll come back so I can do my appointment…and then I’ll whisk you two away for the weekend.”
“Really?”
“Know what today is?” I brushed her cheek. “It’s been one year since you moved in with me.”
“You do remember the good stuff.”
“I want to show you how grateful I am for you coming into my life…”
I leaned down for a soft kiss. Rory’s lips parted.
I loved causing that sweet sigh. Too bad it turned into a groan.
“I really, really like that idea,” she said.
“But?”
“But there’s this amazing case that just came in. I’m swamped. I can’t leave.”
I loved Rory, and she loved her job, but every day there was a new amazing case. Some concussions, a few nerve damages, sleep disorders, one Parkinson’s study. For as great as she had been at the fellowship, Rory finally found her true passion.
I couldn’t have been more proud of her.
Though I did want to drag her away for lunch.
“Training camp starts next week,” I said. “I’m going to be busy with the coaching staff and the players.”
Rory pointed at me. “Promise me you aren’t running the routes. You instruct, you don’t play.”
“I promise.” I crossed my heart—and then I crossed Dawn’s, just to prove it. “Can’t guarantee I won’t show the rookies up in the weight room though.”
Rory teased me with a squeeze of my biceps. “I don’t mind that as much.”
“I can show you something else hard.”
She smacked me. “Jude Owens, you’re so bad.”
“Blame the concussion. I just lose all control around you now.”
Rory kissed me, but she pulled away with a pout. “Lose control tonight. I just can’t get away this afternoon.”
“Tell me what’s so interesting about this patient, and maybe I’ll let you slide.”
Her eyes widened. Her voice hushed, like she was whispering some great secret.
“Amnesia.”
“So?” I laughed. “I get that walking from the living room to the kitchen.”
“No, Jude. Total amnesia. She came in with a head injury, and she can’t remember a single thing. Not who she is, where she’s come from. Nothing. And the craziest part…we can’t find anyone she belongs to. No family has called. There’s no police reports for a missing woman. She’s just like…” Rory wiggled her fingers. “A ghost. We’re hoping her memory returns once she’s been treated and rested for a while, but…it’s amazing. I’ve never had a case like this.”
