Trick Play (Mavericks Tackle Love Book 3)

by Max Monroe

  Well, fuck.

  After a long day at the station, working on the details of a new undercover assignment for my team of detectives, I had been more than ready to get in the car and head to Manasquan.

  Cam and I had planned to spend the summer weekend at the beach house, and I was more than excited to start our weekend off with a bang, including an early arrival from yours truly.

  With plans to frolic in the ocean and lazily enjoy each other on the sand, I couldn’t have thought of any other way to spend the next three days.

  Over the past two years, I’d grown to love that beach house. I loved the peace and solace it bestowed upon us every time we visited. And I prayed by the time we were old and gray and retired from our careers, we’d settle down in that house for good.

  But with Cam’s Mavericks football career still booming, and my new role as Sergeant Simone—the woman in charge of the Hoboken PD’s entire undercover unit—now wasn’t the right time for that.

  Despite our busy schedules, there was always one constant in our relationship—we were each other’s number one priority.

  Over the past two years, we’d more than made our way together. Cam had sold his house and I’d sold mine, and we’d found our own little slice of heaven in a sprawling ranch with lots of land in Berkley Heights, a quieter town with a reasonable commute to Jersey City and Hoboken.

  We were happy. Settled. And always evolving together.

  The drive to Manasquan went a lot quicker than I’d expected, and I pulled into the driveway a good hour before I’d told Cam I’d be there.

  I put the car in park, and with Cam and the beach and a weekend together waiting for me, I didn’t waste any time dallying.

  I hopped out of the car, grabbed my overnight bag from the trunk, and walked up the front stairs and into the house.

  But when I stepped inside, the space was hollow with silence.

  “Cam?” I called from the entryway, but I obtained no reply in return.

  That’s weird.

  Figuring he was out on an errand, I walked into our master bedroom and put my overnight bag on the bench at the foot of the bed to get settled. Just before I started to pull off my boots, the sounds of male voices overpowered the soft, whooshing rush of the ocean’s waves.

  Our neighbors were notoriously quiet and reclusive, so the unexpected noise made me curious. I headed back out of the bedroom, down the hall, through the living room, and out onto the expansive deck that overlooked the beach.

  Seven men scrambled around the sand, shuffling numerous accoutrements of romantic delight. I had to lift a hand to scrub at my eyes to make sure what I saw was real.

  My dad and Uncle Joe tossed flower petals into the air. And Buddy, Tommy, Steve, and Vince were mostly just standing around while Cam scuttled about lighting candles.

  The petals lifted up like little kites and scattered across the sand without any real destination. And for every three candles Cam lit, one went out from the breeze.

  If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed by the state of unexpected chaos, I would have laughed.

  “Dad? Cam?” I called toward the familiar male crowd. “What’s everybody doing here? What’s going on?”

  All seven men stopped in their tracks and slowly turned to find me in my spot on the deck.

  “Go back inside, Lana!” Buddy shouted, throwing his body in front of a table full of pastry. “And whatever you do, don’t look at the heart made out of donuts!”

  “Fucking hell.” Cam’s mutter filled my ears.

  What in the hell are they doing? I thought to myself.

  A seasoned detective like me should have figured it out sooner, but I blamed the two-second delay on shock value alone.

  Candles.

  Flower petals.

  A large heart made out of donuts.

  Oh. My. God. Was Cam going to propose to me?

  “Seriously, Lan!” my dad called toward me. “Just go back inside for a minute so we can finish setting up!”

  Cam dropped his head back and stared up at the sky for a long moment before his gaze met mine. “You got here a little early, baby!” he yelled toward me.

  “I was too excited to start our lazy beach weekend,” I called back, the declaration, now that I’d figured out the rest of it, a gross understatement. “I had no idea you were inviting the whole gang to enjoy it with us.”

  He smiled, and everything inside me clenched. There was female weakness born in that smile. I’d suspected it from the very first moment I’d met him, but now, over two years later, I knew it to be true. “I’m starting to regret that a little.”

  I giggled at the sad acceptance on his face and fell a little further in love. “I can tell.”

  “Hey!” Buddy interjected. “I thought we were doing a damn good job at helping you propose.”

  “Goddammit, Bud,” my dad retorted and slapped him upside the head. “You just fucked the whole plan up!”

  Cam groaned and met my eyes again. “I’m guessing you already know, huh?”

  I grinned and shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He laughed. “Get down here so I can ask you the most important question of my life.”

  Just as he said that, one of the flower petals resting on the sand lifted up with a breeze and landed directly on top of one of the candles.

  It burst into flames, and Buddy’s shouts followed. “Oh fuck! Fuck! Fuck! We’ve got a fire, guys! I repeat, we’ve got a fire!”

  “Shit, Bud!” my father yelled as he stepped on the candle with his black boot. “What the hell ya doing?”

  “I didn’t do anything! The damn thing just caught fire.”

  The entire situation had turned comical, and if I weren’t enjoying it so much, I might have felt bad for Cam. As it was, I just couldn’t wait for him to ask me already.

  “You might want to come up here. Where we’re safe!” I yelled toward Cam. “I like my skin intact, thank you very much.” Knowing my family, it’d only be a matter of time before the next calamity occurred.

  Cam grinned up at me and took off at a run. His long strides and powerful legs made short work of the distance. Across the sand, up the stairs, and right to me, he picked me up in his arms, and I squealed.

  “Damn, you’re stubborn, woman,” he whispered into my ear, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

  He kissed me hard, but he didn’t let it linger.

  Instead, he set me back to my feet and looked down at me with the softest, most loving smile and the most hopeful eyes I’d ever seen.

  “I had a plan,” he said. “I had a whole romantic plan, but apparently your family has a hard fucking time staying focused when there are donuts lying around.”

  I quirked a teasing brow and proved his point irrefutably. “There are donuts down there?” I might have been a woman, but I was a Simone, after all.

  He nodded proudly. “A giant fucking heart that I crafted out of them with my own two hands.”

  “Wow. Sounds like you’ve been busy.”

  He sighed and chuckled at the same time. “You have no fucking idea.”

  All I could do was smile up at his handsome face in response.

  God, this man, he had my heart. And I was certain he always would.

  “So, this wasn’t quite how I’d planned it,” he said, a smile lifting the corners of his lips until they almost met his eyes. “But I guess it doesn’t really matter, huh? Because at the end of the day, perfect hearts and flower petals and candles and romantic dinner be damned. All that really matters is that I get to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  A shaky breath filled my lungs as he got down on one knee in front of me.

  “Lana, baby, we’ve come so far. We’ve been through so many ups and downs, and these past two-plus years, even during the hard times, have been the best of my life.” My legs shook as I lifted a hand to my chest to ease my racing heart.

  “I want—no, need—to spend the rest of my life with you. Y
ou are the first person I want to look at when I wake up in the morning and the only one I want to kiss goodnight.” He reached out, pulled my hands into his, and stared down at them in awe. “And these little hands, God, these fucking hands,” he said with his heart in his eyes. “The first time I saw these perfect, little, mostly tough-girl hands, I couldn’t imagine not being able to hold them.”

  He looked up at me, and my breath caught in my lungs.

  “When you love someone as much as I love you, you can’t picture a future without them in it. I can’t picture my life without your smile or your giggle or your sometimes badass attitude.”

  Cam smiled and pulled a small black box out of the pocket of his jeans. He popped it open and displayed the beautiful, perfect-for-me, diamond ring before my eyes. Oval cut with jagged, crown-like stones around the edges, it was the kind of ring that would fuck someone up if you punched them in the face with it and the kind of ring that would make any woman jealous. It was the perfect combination of badass and beautiful.

  “Lana, will you marry me?”

  Turns out, it was the easiest question I would ever answer in my entire life.

  Meant to be together, meant to be us. Of that, I was certain.

  “Yes,” I whispered, and tears streamed down my cheeks. “God, yes.”

  Cam’s grin glowed like the candles he’d tried so desperately to light as he slipped the ring onto my finger and climbed to his feet. I was in his arms between one breath and the next.

  Our lips connected, and I kissed him, my man, my future husband, with everything I had.

  God, I love him. So, so much.

  In that moment, lost in each other and the future we’d have, I knew, no matter what life threw our way, we’d always have each other. And because of that, we’d always be the lucky ones.

  “I love you, baby,” he whispered against my mouth, and a girlish, giddy giggle slipped from my lips.

  “I love you too, Cam.”

  Hoots and hollers went wild below, and for the first time since Cam had made it up the steps and into my arms, I remembered the audience of stooges.

  We both looked down toward the beach to find all six men staring up at us with giant grins on their faces.

  Uncle Joe and Buddy lifted their now donut-filled hands in the air and gestured their excitement toward us.

  “Congratulations!” Buddy shouted around a mouthful of sugary dough.

  “Mazel Tov!” Uncle Joe joined in.

  “So happy for you, sweetheart!” my dad called out with a victorious smile on his face.

  The rest of the group offered their congratulations before Buddy chimed in with a question of his own. “So…uh…is it too early to ask about getting our hands on a set of Mavs season tickets?” he asked. “I mean, we are pretty much family now…”

  “Goddammit, Bud,” my dad muttered and slapped him upside the head.

  Cam looked down at me and grinned. “This isn’t how I pictured it, but for some strange reason, it feels like it’s exactly how it should be.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed and smiled up at him. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “You think they’ll be okay sleeping on the beach tonight?”

  “I mean, they’ve still got a table full of donuts and enough candles to light the fucking town.” I shrugged. “Surely, they can fend for themselves.”

  He chuckled and reached out to pull me back into his arms.

  “Let’s go inside, baby,” he whispered into my ear. “I think it’s time I explore every inch of my future wife.”

  “Promise to take my panties off?”

  He grinned and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “You don’t even have to ask. That’s a guaran-fucking-tee. Tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of my life, I’m going to take my sweet, sweet time with you.”

  Yeah, it was official. I was the luckiest girl in the whole fucking world—the future Mrs. Cameron Mitchell.

  THE END

  Love Cam, Lana, and the rest of the hunky Mavericks?

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  Last but not least, rising star Leo Landry in 4th & Girl.

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  Trust us, it’s about to get cocky. ;)

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