by Jen Talty
Then his soft lips brushed hers, sending shockwaves from her head to her toes.
“Courtney,” he whispered, pulling her against him.
He felt strong, and she felt like she had just come home from a long and exhausting journey. Lifting up on tiptoe, she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and gave in to his kiss. It was too sweet not to. Too tender not to be real, and damn it, too good to pass up. She’d dreamed about what it would be like to be kissed, really kissed, by Jack Hollister since she’d been sixteen years old. She knew back then it was a pipe dream, but she figured when she became an adult, everything would change.
Boy, had she gotten that wrong.
He pressed his hands on her back, pressing his body hard against hers. His tongue, warm and tasting of peppermint, danced inside her mouth, sending shock waves to the soft spikes on her golf shoes. She lost herself in the moment, the dream, until the sound of a golf cart pulled her back to reality.
“Damn you.” She pushed him away, trying desperately to slow her breathing. “How could you?” she muttered, turning from him.
“What? All I did was kiss you.”
“Why? Why did you do that? Because I remember a time, a few years ago, when I kissed you and was told to go home to daddy.”
“That was different.”
“Oh. You’re right. I was a stupid, starry-eyed kid who didn’t know any better. I had a crush on a washed-up drug addict, and I didn’t marry much better.”
He turned from her and grabbed his driver. “Finish the damned hole.” He addressed the ball and let it rip, straight down the fairway.
Jack stood under the cold water in the locker room trying to cool his emotions. But it didn’t help. The kiss had come out of nowhere, but, God, it felt right. And Courtney was more beautiful than he remembered. He felt the same way about her as he did the last time he saw her.
Confused. Conflicted.
And totally infatuated.
When Courtney came to him five years ago, declaring her love, he almost choked on his beer. He had been halfway to drunk when she had shown up. And her confession only made him want to drown in a vat of beer even more. He’d been having feelings for Courtney since before it would be considered appropriate. He used Wendy to try to change that, but it backfired. If Wendy hadn’t just told him she was pregnant just hours before, he might not have pushed Courtney away that night.
But none of that mattered now.
Once he changed into a fresh set of clothes, he headed for the grillroom since Rudy wanted to talk. Lay out the plan for Jack’s quiet comeback, so to speak. This was what he wanted, so why was he so damned scared?
Rudy sat at a corner table with Courtney. They looked deep in discussion. Jack really didn’t want to go over and interrupt them, but then Courtney bolted from her chair and took off. She uttered a few profanities as she flew by him.
“Sit.” Rudy offered him a chair, rubbing his jaw. “What do you want?”
“To play again,” Jack answered.
Rudy shifted in his chair. “To play? Be on top? Or to come home?” He looked Jack in the eye.
“The golf course is home.” Jack’s palms broke out in a cold sweat.
“I don’t work the same way as Van Aken.”
“I’m not looking for a promoter, a sponsor, or anything like what I was before.” The only thing Van Aken offered Jack, besides an ulcer, had been money and coverage, but neither one had been worth it. “I want a teacher and mentor. I want to ease myself back in. Play in all the smaller tournaments. Start from the bottom and work my way up. I want what you and I started all those years ago.”
“And can you agree to stay out of the limelight?” Rudy questioned him as if he could read his thoughts.
“Hell yes.”
“If we do this, it’s my way or hit the road, Jack.” Rudy’s gaze never wavered. “Are we in agreement?”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Jack had worked with Rudy for years. He had some pretty unconventional ways of doing things. One newspaper deemed him the ‘outlaw golf doctor.’ Jack could deal with whatever Rudy tossed in his direction, as long as it meant Rudy was his teacher and not someone else.
“Whatever I tell you, starting with moving into the house.”
“Nah-uh. No way.” Jack shook his head vigorously.
“Then no deal.” Rudy leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He had this look that told Jack this could be a dealbreaker.
“What does Courtney say?” Just the sound of her name, rolling off his tongue reminded him of how good she felt against his body, her lips on his skin, and the passion in her embrace. Today wasn’t the first time he had felt it.
“She threatened to move out. Doesn’t think it’s good for you to be around Bri.” Rudy leaned closer. “How much money do you have?”
“I’m surviving.”
“How bad?” Rudy put a sturdy hand on his shoulder.
“Bad enough,” Jack admitted. “I can’t pay you.”
“Having you back will be payment enough. No drugs, no staying out late, and no girls.”
“I can live with that, but I can’t live in your house.”
“You don’t have a choice. I need to know where you are and what you’re doing.” Rudy stood, waving his hand toward the door.
Jack followed. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I wouldn’t in your shoes. But, and I mean no disrespect, Courtney doesn’t want me there, and I think we should consider her thoughts and feelings in all this.”
“I have.” Rudy walked to Jack’s pickup where Courtney had perched herself, not looking so happy. “Give me your keys.” Rudy held his hand out.
Jack pulled his keys out, handing them to Rudy, thinking he should hightail it back to Galveston and go back to being a nothing. “Why?”
“Courtney will drive you to collect your belongings.”
The acid in Jack’s stomach hit the back of his throat. He clutched the center of his chest. He grimaced as he choked the bile down and looked in the cab of his pickup for the Tums. He popped two, feeling four eyes piercing into his back.
“We still have a deal?” Rudy looked between Courtney and him.
“Not if she’s gonna leave on my account.”
“She has nowhere else to go.”
“I could go back to Tom,” she said.
Rudy narrowed his gaze. “Don’t you dare ever joke about that, young lady.”
Jack stepped back, feeling the rage coming from Rudy’s rigid body. He glanced at Courtney. Her eyes welled with tears. He’d known her marriage to Tom hadn’t been good, but he got the distinct impression bad only scratched the surface.
“This wasn’t such a good idea. I didn’t come here to cause problems with the two of you, though I am glad I got to apologize. Now, give me my keys, and I’ll just go back to where I came from.”
Courtney sighed. “Get in the damned car, Jack.” She climbed behind the steering wheel of her small SUV and started the engine.
He looked to Rudy for advisement. Rudy nodded, so Jack got in the car.
“Where are we off to?” she asked, pulling out of the parking lot.
“Traveler’s Motel, outside of town.” His hands smacked the dashboard as the SUV lunged to the right. “You heard correctly,” he muttered, shame gripping his heart.
“That place is a dump.” Courtney’s voice seemed softer.
“No kidding. I’m sorry about all of this.”
She laughed. “No, you’re not. Just the same old selfish Jack. Thinking only of yourself and no one else.” The anger in her words matched the jolting of her vehicle.
“That’s bull.” He turned to look at her. “I never expected him to make me move in.”
“Save it. You moved in the last time you started training.”
“I was fifteen and had no place to go. Christ, Courtney. My father had just died. What would you have me do?” Jack got out of the SUV before she even put it in park. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
He slammed the door shut, turned his back, and headed for his room.
“Ouch!” She stopped the hotel door from hitting her in the face.
“I don’t need your help.” He tried to push her outside, but she had already entered the pathetic room that smelled of stale eggs left out on a hot summer day.
He had his one and only other golf shirt hanging to dry, along with his other pants. “I lost it all. Satisfied?” He stuffed everything he owned in his duffel bag. “I just have to settle the bill.” He stormed off, leaving her standing in his simple but pathetic existence.
4
Courtney listened to her father tell Bri the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Courtney couldn’t help but feel all warm and fuzzy as her father deepened his voice and Bri giggled in delight. Just like Courtney had when she had been a small child.
“Grandpa?” Bri sighed.
Courtney stepped closer to the half-open door to listen.
“Jack’s sad,” Bri said.
“I think you might be right, but I’m sure you can cheer him up.”
“How?”
Courtney didn’t listen to the rest. She didn’t want to know her father’s plans for her daughter to make Jack feel better because then she might taint them, and that would be a horrible thing to do to a child.
Besides, Courtney understood Jack’s pain, the lost, lonely feeling of starting over. Facing your deepest, darkest demons head-on, unable to stop the thundering crash of all your hopes and dreams of the past, only to have to rebuild them all.
Remembering the look of utter despair plastered on Jack’s face back at the two-bit hotel made Courtney want to scream. He had to know they’d already figured out he was broke. Hell, no shame in that. But if Jack had the money, he probably wouldn’t have come running back to her father in the first place.
“Damn him,” she muttered just as her father came out of Bri’s bedroom.
“Me?” He looked playfully at her.
“No, Jack. He’s just using us.”
“I don’t think so.” Her father squeezed her shoulder. “But if it will make you feel better to think the worst of him, go ahead. But don’t forget how people treated you, especially not knowing the entire story about what happened between you and Tom.” Her father arched a brow. “We really don’t know what’s happened to him in the last couple of years, but it can’t be good.”
“Damn you now.” She glared at her father, knowing he was right. She was just looking for a way to hate Jack, because her true feelings were unmentionable. And impossible. Courtney slipped into Bri’s room. “Hey there, sweetheart.”
“Mommy?” Bri looked up at Courtney from under the covers.
“What baby?” Courtney sat down on the bed, brushing Bri’s bouncy blond curls from her face. She had her father’s hair, but she looked like Courtney and smelled like bubbles.
“You like Jack? I like Jack.” Bri smiled wide.
Boy, did Bri like Jack. She had sat on his lap, pulled him all over the house, and even had him laughing.
“He’s okay.” Courtney curled up next to her daughter, snuggling in close. “I’ve known him a long time.”
“Daddy hates him.”
“When did you talk with your dad about Jack?” Courtney sat up in alarm. If Tom had spoken to Bri, he’d be breaking their agreement. He was supposed to go through her first, but it wouldn’t be the first Tom did things his own way.
“Today,” Bri said innocently.
“Daddy called?” Courtney’s stomach twisted.
“Yep.”
“When? Did Grandpa talk to him?” Courtney tried not to upset her daughter.
“Grandpa wasn’t happy about it.”
“Did you have a nice talk with Daddy?”
“We talked about the party.” Bri shrugged her shoulders. “He’s not coming,” she said, like it didn’t matter. “Can Jack come?” Her eyes glistened in the reflection of the nightlight.
“Sure.” The single word flew from her mouth with excitement. “I mean, if you want and he doesn’t have plans.” She shouldn’t be happy her daughter wanted Jack to come to her party. She should be concerned about her little girl getting too attached to the all-too-charming Jack Hollister.
Bri giggled. “He lives here now, Mommy. How could he have other plans? Gosh, you’re so silly.” Bri gave Courtney a big kiss. “Night, Mommy.”
“Night, baby.” Courtney slipped out of her daughter’s room. She rubbed her temples and headed down to the kitchen where her father sat at the table, reading the latest Golf Digest.
“Jack said you had some dizzy spells on the course.” He glanced over the magazine.
“The doctor said they could still happen,” she said.
“He said you fell over.”
“I was in the hot sun all day and under pressure. I stood up too quickly.” She reached out and touched her father’s face. “I have a doctor’s appointment next week. I will talk with him about it then.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He kissed her hand. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Dad,” she said. “Were you going to tell me about Tom’s call today?”
Her father glanced over his shoulder toward the stairway. “Tom heard through the grapevine that Jack was at the club today. He couldn’t get ahold of me there, so he called the house. She got to the phone before I could answer it, and the asshole asked her about Jack.”
“What did she tell him?” Courtney held her breath.
“The truth. We can’t ask a five-year-old to lie.”
“That’s true.” Courtney took a bottle of wine from the beverage cooler and filled a portable tumbler. “So, Tom knows Jack is living with us. That’s going to cause problems. How long did he talk to Bri?”
“Only a couple of minutes. When I asked for the phone, she handed it over pretty quickly, but Tom was defiantly strung out on something, and he all but threatened to come after you.”
“If I wasn’t afraid he could beat me in a custody case, I’d tell him to bring it.” If only she’d come to her father the first time Tom had hit her.
If only she never started doing cocaine.
Or taking pills.
If only she’d been a stronger person all those years ago.
“I wish you would ask him to give up his parental rights all together, or fight him on it,” her father said. They’d had this argument more than once, and she was glad her father opted to shut it down before it got heated. “Listen, Jack is out back practicing. He’s doing everything I’m asking; now I need you to help me.”
“You want me to go analyze his swing, watch his short game, and give you my opinion in the morning.”
“You’re an amazing teacher,” her father said. “You have a real talent for the game, but you have an ability to fix people’s swings.”
“I learned that from you, Dad.” She tipped her wine glass and took a sip. “I’ll go see what’s he’s doing.” She snagged the bottle. “I hate to admit it, but he’s still got it.” She tucked the bottle into a portable cooler along with another tumbler, assuming Jack might like a glass or two. “If he’s truly changed, he’s got a real shot.”
“You don’t believe he’s a different man?”
“I haven’t spent enough time with him, but I know from experience we all can change.”
Her father leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I don’t believe that is true of your ex-husband.”
“I know you don’t like to hear this, but if he could ever stop doing drugs and give up chasing tail, he’s not the horrible person you think he is.”
Her father drew his lips into a tight line. “After what he did to you, I can’t believe you’d even think that.”
“I’m not saying I forgive him, or that I want him near my daughter, but he does have some redeeming qualities.” She patted her father’s chest. “As does Jack.” Comparing Tom to Jack was like comparing a Kia Soul to a Range Rover Sport, but her father got the point. “Knowing Jack, he’l
l either be sitting on the big rock pretending to practice, or he’ll actually do what you want, and he’ll be at it until I make him call it quits. Either way, don’t wait up.” She didn’t wait for her father to respond. She made a beeline for the back door and the driving range.
The large lights lit up the backyard, dimming the moon and the stars. The sound of metal hitting a ball echoed in the cool night. Quietly, she made herself comfortable on the bench and watched Jack take swing after swing.
“I can’t get rid of this slight hook,” he said, teeing up another ball and lining up his driver. “I’m so used to correcting for a slice that I’m not sure what to do.”
“For now, keep swinging.”
“I can’t even feel what I’m doing wrong, and that’s making me nuts.”
“Give me five more swings, and I’ll tell you.” She crossed her legs and soaked in his muscular frame.
He raised the club and swung. “Are you my coach now?”
“I work with my father, and he sent me out here to observe. I’ll report to him what I see, and he won’t mind if I tell you in the process.” Her body trembled; her blood pumped unevenly through her veins, and her breathing became slightly erratic.
“You always knew my game better than anyone.” He set his club in the caddy and meandered toward her, taking the glass of wine she offered. “So, why am I hooking the ball?”
“You’re lifting your left hip before you even start your swing. It’s subtle, but you’re doing it, making you draw the ball to the left.”
“Impressive.”
“You’re an asshole.” She scooted to the other side of the bench, making sure there was a safe distance between them. “You did that on purpose.”
“No. Actually, I didn’t, but now that you say it, I can feel that’s what I was doing, which means I’m probably leaning into my swing when chipping from a hundred and twenty yards out.” He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles.
She focused her gaze on the silhouette of his plump lips as he raised the tumbler to his mouth. “I won’t be doing a lot of this in the coming weeks.”
“Training is about to get real intense.”
