The Lucky Charm (The Portland Pioneers)

by Beth Bolden

  They broke apart finally, mouths panting, foreheads nearly brushing. “I respectfully disagree. You’re very nice,” Jack whispered, and Izzy swore she felt her heart clench at his words. His blue eyes were practically glowing and the smile on his face widened, no doubt matching her own awestruck expression. She’d just kissed Jack Bennett and it had been even better than she’d fantasized it would be.

  The bathroom door swung open and a tall brunette walked in. Jack sprang back and Izzy whirled toward the sink, catching sight of her flushed cheeks and dreamy eyes in the mirror. The brunette stopped in her tracks and eyed Jack up and down, like he was some kind of creep.

  It took her fuzzy brain a half second to process the why, but then a surge of embarrassment crested through her. She’d dragged Jack Bennett into…

  “This is the women’s restroom, you know,” the brunette snapped, before locking herself into a stall with a decisive click.

  Izzy turned to Jack with an apology on her lips, but she didn’t even get it out. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, pressing a finger to her mouth. “Don’t even apologize. I deserved it, and well, it was worth it. Now I’d better get out of here. I’ve got a non date to get back to.”

  The non date. Flashes of their conversation before the kiss went through her mind, and she reached out for him. “No, wait,” she hissed.

  He looked at her with amusement. “Do you think we could have this conversation someplace other than the little girl’s room?”

  Izzy flushed bright red. She didn’t even have to glance in the mirror to see she was positively glowing. “It’s not a date?” she asked in a low voice.

  He sighed. “Okay, it might have been a date of the conscripted variety.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “To put it bluntly, Foxy dragged me along and had his date bring a friend so I wouldn’t seem quite so pathetic.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I know. I really am pathetic,” Jack said ruefully, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Well, actually, no, that wasn’t what I was thinking,” Izzy said carefully. “I just wondered what it would be now, you know, after. Is it still a date?”

  “It’s not a date,” Jack said quickly. “It was never a date. I never liked her. I only wanted her to be you.”

  The toilet flushed and Izzy blushed again as the brunette exited the stall and fixed Jack with a steady glare as she washed her hands at the sink. “Actually,” she said, “you’re both pathetic. Just so we’re clear.”

  “Transparent,” he responded cheerfully with a smile that shouldn’t have been so wide.

  The brunette dried her hands and threw the paper towel in the trash. On her way out, she glanced back. “Just so you know, this is still the ladies’ restroom.”

  The door slammed shut behind her and Izzy glanced ruefully over at Jack. “She’s right. We should get out of here.”

  “Wait, Izzy,” he said and though she was already to the door, she turned back. “I meant it. It wasn’t a date. It’s not a date. But tomorrow…”

  Of course he had to bring up the one thing she couldn’t explain—where they were going from here. She still couldn’t date him, not really, not the way he wanted her to. They couldn’t go back to being just friends; clearly that was going to fail no matter what. And she didn’t want to lose him completely either. In some ways, the kiss had both changed everything and nothing at the same time.

  “Tomorrow we’ll talk,” Izzy promised. “But I’ve got a dinner I need to get back to. Also, not a date.”

  “Right,” he said, a teasing grin on his face. “Bart and Jed. A couple of real keepers.”

  “They’re sweet. Kind of insane, but mostly sweet.”

  “As insane as still being in the ladies’ restroom?” he asked and let the door swing shut behind them.

  When Izzy returned to the table, Jed and Bart looked over at her tentatively. “Are you okay, Izzy?” Bart asked hesitantly, like she might break into a million pieces at any moment.

  “I’m great,” she said with a big smile. I kissed Jack Bennett and it was awesome. “Sorry for leaving so abruptly.”

  “Not a problem,” Jed said. “We haven’t even ordered.” It really was sweet they’d invited her tonight and even postponed their dinner when she’d left so abruptly. For a moment she thought they might actually like her, but that would make them even crazier than she’d supposed.

  “And Pilar Richardson came by the table while you were gone,” Bart added. “She said she was sorry she missed you, and that maybe she’d catch you tomorrow at the stadium.”

  Even though she had told herself not to listen, she swore she could hear Jack return to his table. She swore she could hear Foxy’s voice, greeting him, and the pouting tone of the blonde Jack had abandoned to chase after her. Even though he’d reassured her it wasn’t a date and she did believe him, it was still really hard not to glance back over her shoulder and look at him. And if she was being honest, she wanted to do a hell of a lot more than just look.

  “I didn’t know you knew Pilar Richardson,” Jed said, and she knew he was fishing.

  “Barely. She introduced herself on the long road trip, but I’ve been so busy…” Izzy purposefully let her sentence trail off so she wouldn’t have to explain what she’d been so busy doing during the road trip. She hadn’t been spending time with Pilar Richardson, that was for sure.

  She picked up her menu and actually read it this time. “So what looks good?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Izzy really meant to talk to him. She really, really did. She wasn’t in a regular habit of making promises and then breaking them, especially to a guy like Jack Bennett who was pretty freaking spectacular in just about every way—especially that way where his lips were on her lips and his tongue was in her mouth—and though she’d nearly messed this whole thing up, there was still a chance she could salvage it.

  Plain and simple, the talking thing wasn’t nearly as fun as the making out thing.

  Of course it hadn’t exactly been difficult to lure him to her hotel bed, the remnants of another pizza in a box on the desk forgotten, just like that other night when they almost kissed—but tonight, any thought of almost kissing had been put to bed. Kinda literally.

  She kissed him with purpose, her fingers creeping up toward his neck, tangling in the short hair there. Pulling him closer, Izzy thought she might be able to feel just how much he wanted her if she managed to move him just a little to the left, but before she could pull him the last bit of distance, he pulled away and flopped over on his back.

  Izzy knew what he was going to say before he probably did, and decided that he wasn’t going to ruin this perfectly awesome evening with words. If he ran, she was just going to follow him. “This isn’t talking,” he half laughed, half gasped as she swung a leg over him, placed a hand on either side of his head and dipped down, searching for his lips again.

  She almost just kissed away his observation, but then she looked closer and saw his expression had turned serious, and as much as she wanted to deny it, she knew why. He was serious about them—serious about her. Under any kind of normal circumstances, this would have sent her running for the hills, but now she just wanted to kiss him some more.

  “You really want to talk?” Izzy asked, as she leaned down and closed her teeth gently over his lower lip, nibbling. It was kind of unlike her to be this aggressive, but she’d mostly figured out his passive-aggressive tactic of waiting until she made a move, and despite the confusion over a guy that didn’t push, Izzy had discovered she kind of liked being the one calling the shots. Besides, she knew what she wanted, which was pretty much to do this, over and over, until she couldn’t ever forget what he felt like underneath her.

  And maybe over her, too.

  Jack hesitated, just long enough
that she almost pounced again, but then he sat up a little, tilting her backwards onto his lap. This was the confusing part. Izzy could feel him underneath her, hard and solid and definitely interested in taking this to next level. She raised a questioning eyebrow, and he just shrugged.

  “Yeah, maybe I do. Maybe a guy doesn’t want to get used for his body unless he knows the reason why.” His tone was slightly defensive, and she didn’t want to feel like a bitch for pushing the physical half of their relationship, but she wasn’t about to hide that she wanted him.

  “The reason why?” Izzy couldn’t help herself, she was definitely gaping at him a little. “You’ve seen yourself, right?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Jack said, and he shifted just enough that she couldn’t quite stay on top of him without a fight. Izzy wanted to believe that he hadn’t done it on purpose, but she wasn’t sure what to think right now.

  “Wait, you don’t think…” Izzy began, then trailed off, realizing that he could very well think that, because hadn’t she thought that herself once upon a time? When she’d first come to Portland, she’d salivated over Noah Fox, and in comparison, had found Jack a little lacking in the looks department. Objectively, he wasn’t the most handsome guy in the universe; more ordinary than anything else. But he’d long since become pretty much insanely attractive to her, and in the end, that was what mattered, right?

  “Exactly,” he said ruefully, his gaze dropping to the comforter.

  “Listen, if I wanted to be with someone else, I’d be kissing them right now, but just in case you missed it, I like you. I like you a lot.”

  He smiled like he’d just hit a home run. Or maybe even a grand slam, but then his eyes grew a little more calculating. “Do you like me outside this hotel room?”

  She’d been terrified that he’d ask that, and of course he had. That was the very reason he’d wanted to talk in the first place, and she’d stumbled right into it, like an idiot. Of course Jack Bennett didn’t need her to tell him how hot she found him; five minutes ago, she’d been shamelessly plastered against him. But calling him out on his little maneuver was acknowledging that he’d manipulated her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d fallen for it.

  Izzy steeled herself and said in a low voice, “you know why we can’t be seen together.”

  “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind. After all, you kissed me in a women’s bathroom. Nothing public about that at all.”

  She almost retaliated with some crack about how it’d been a huge mistake, but it hadn’t felt like a mistake then, and it didn’t feel like a mistake now. That was just the problem. Kissing him had felt like the rightest thing she’d done in weeks, maybe even in months, and she didn’t want to give him up—and at the same time, she couldn’t give him the freedom he wanted to acknowledge his feelings in public.

  “Things are complicated,” she finally admitted. “But I kissed you because I wanted to, and because I’d wanted to for a long time.”

  His eyes softened a little, until Izzy felt like she was almost drowning in the blue. “Then why don’t you try it again?” he murmured, threading his fingers through her hair and cradling her skull in his hands.

  Jack slid his key card and opened the door with a semi-vicious jerk. It was killing him to keep everything he wanted to do and say with Izzy under wraps, and by the time he made it back to his room, he was usually boiling with a lethal combination of lust and frustration. On one hand, he never expected her to put him above her career, but on the other, his feelings for her had multiplied so rapidly that he felt like he was drowning some days. He wanted her until he ached with it, and fundamentally, he wished she felt the same about him.

  Yeah, they were friends, and he was there for her, and they had enough sexual tension to power a small electrical plant, but he’d come to the conclusion that her feelings weren’t nearly as deep as his and man, that hurt. It made him want to punch a wall or throw a bat—pretty much every sort of macho stunt that was bad news.

  He spent most of his time with Izzy alternatively wanting to rip her clothes off or tie her to a chair and make her confess just how crazy she was about him. Jack shoved a hand through his hair and clenched his jaw. She had him balanced on some kind of insane tightrope and sooner or later, he was just going to break.

  “Rough night?” Jack glanced up and Foxy was lying on his bed, the TV on ESPN with the volume turned down low.

  He collapsed onto his own bed. “You have no fucking idea,” he groaned.

  “Let me guess. Still no sex?”

  The moment Jack confessed to his best friend that he was keeping his pants on because he didn’t want to dive headfirst into a relationship until she was nuts about him as he was about her was probably going to be the moment Noah had him committed for crimes against the masculine sex. So he just shook his head.

  “She has you tied up in way too many knots. You need to get her out of your system. Only one way to do that.” Most of Foxy’s pop-culture sexual psychology was utter bullshit; Jack wanted to ask him if any of these one-night stands had helped him forget Tabitha, but Jack liked his nose intact, so he didn’t.

  “I told you before, it’s not just about sex.” Six months ago, he would have laughed himself silly at his own maudlin sentiment, but then Izzy had hit him square in the face like a two-by-four and he hadn’t exactly been the same since.

  Noah was silent for a moment, as if he was considering this, which was highly unlikely because Jack had said it about fifty times in the last few weeks.

  “You haven’t told her she’s your lucky charm, right?”

  Jack snorted with a lot more confidence than he really felt. “Hell, no. I’m not going to complicate this even further by making her believe she’s obligated to be with me so we can win baseball games.”

  “You’re right. That’s a little messed up, even for me,” Foxy admitted.

  “She can’t know,” he repeated. “And I mean it. No quotes to the media, no anonymous tips, nothing. You’re locked tighter than a safe on this.”

  “Hey, chill,” Foxy said with faux defensiveness. “You know I’ve kept quiet about her and you. Not a word.”

  “Sorry, I just worry,” Jack admitted. “The last thing I need is for anybody to find out and freak her.”

  “Would that be the worst thing?” Foxy asked.

  Jack rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you’d even ask that. Of course it would be. She’d flip out and then whatever we have now would be over.”

  “What I mean is that the status quo is gonna change sooner or later. Maybe instead of letting all of this happen to you, you should do something about it and make it happen on your terms.”

  Jack didn’t like admitting it, but sometimes Noah made solid sense. “You’re either insane or actually right.”

  Noah just shrugged. “Things are going to change. Nothing wrong with making sure they change in your favor.”

  “It’s worth considering,” he finally admitted. “I’ll think on it.”

  And he did, long after Noah had switched off the TV and had fallen asleep, his soft snores echoing off the walls of the dark room. There had to be a way they could be together without Izzy losing credibility as a reporter. And if there was, he was going to make it happen.

  “Days like today almost make me like baseball,” Izzy said with a gusting sigh as she leaned out of the press box and breathed in the scent of sun-warmed, freshly mowed grass.

  “It’s my favorite part of the game,” Pilar admitted, using a lineup card to fan herself as she lay back in her chair. “The peace and quiet before the storm.”

  Izzy turned back to her companion and took in her recumbent pose and closed eyes. “Aren’t we supposed to be doing the interview about your charity?” she asked with a smile.

  Pilar just waved a hand absentmindedly.
“Ask away. Nobody says I can’t answer questions and work on my tan at the same time.”

  “What made you want to become involved with Sport Cares?” Izzy asked, staying at her window perch, ostensibly to breathe the fresh air, but mainly because batting practice would be starting shortly and like an addict, she needed to see Jack. There was something mesmerizing about the way he hit the ball, swinging the bat with his strength, the muscles on his forearms flexing. She’d be a liar if she claimed it didn’t turn her on.

  “You really want to know?” Pilar asked, and Izzy glanced back to see her raise a questioning eyebrow.

  “Of course I do,” Izzy insisted, and to her own surprise, she actually did. After Jack had left her room last night, she’d done some quick reading in preparation for this meeting, and surprisingly, she’d found herself envious of the purpose that Pilar Richardson had in her life. She united professional athletes with kids who needed their help.

  Izzy blamed her own aimlessness on the fact that she spent most of her time shopping and applying makeup and listening to Toby rant about how bad she was at her job. The only part of her days that felt worthwhile anymore were the evenings she spent with Jack. She could only imagine how amazing he could be for a child’s life; just look at the way he motivated and taught and supported her. Instantly, she felt a pang of guilt at how she was treating him, but she pushed it aside. The last thing she needed to do was slip up when it came to Jack, and she’d deemed Pilar Richardson a pretty crafty lady. She couldn’t let her guard down. Not right now.

  “Did you know I used to be a model?”

  Izzy glanced back at Pilar in surprise. “No, I didn’t. But now that you say so, you do have an arresting face.”

  The arresting face crinkled in disgust, and Izzy laughed. “No, seriously. That’s all I was. A face,” Pilar continued. “I woke up one morning and realized that I hadn’t done a single worthwhile act in years. Everything in my life was centered around the way I looked. Grooming. Makeup. Clothes. And I was never good enough; there was always something to improve. No time to rest on your laurels and just be happy. It was always onwards and upwards to the next thing. I quit and didn’t look back. A golfer I’d casually dated was involved with Sport Cares and I literally walked into their headquarters and told them to use me any way they could. I just wanted to help.”