The All-Star Antes Up (Wager of Hearts #2)

by Nancy Herkness

  “In here.” Her sister-in-law’s voice came from the kitchen.

  Miranda bolted down the hall and through the kitchen door, where she stopped dead.

  The room was filled with people—very large people. But her attention fixed immediately on the man leaning against the counter at the far side of the kitchen, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets, his golden hair glistening in a slanting sunbeam. Joy flooded through her body like a brilliant white light, warming away the morning chill, erasing her aches and pains, sending the corners of her mouth upward in an uncontrollable smile. “Luke!”

  Every face in the room turned in her direction. She dialed back her smile and forced herself to look at the rest of the visitors in the kitchen, some seated at the table with mugs of steaming coffee, some lounging against the counters like Luke. Three were obviously athletes. One looked to be a local farmer. The fifth, a lean, dark-haired man with a wicked glint in his green eyes, seemed out of place, despite his jeans and casual jacket.

  When she met Luke’s eyes again, the blast of joy had faded. He wouldn’t have brought all this company if he had planned a romantic reconciliation. She was an idiot to dream of it for even a second. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  He had straightened away from the counter, his expression unreadable. She imagined that’s the way he looked on the football field when surveying the opposition, giving nothing away.

  “I heard you might need some help,” he said.

  She did her best to ignore the weight of all the gazes in the room. “I can’t imagine who you heard it from, but it was kind of you to come.” She glanced around the room with as much of a smile as she could muster. “And to bring reinforcements.”

  Why was he here?

  He’d made it clear that their relationship was over now that he was back in the game.

  Then it hit her: he’d found out Orin had fired her, and he felt responsible.

  “I brought a dairyman and a couple of cattlemen,” he said, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Kort Gorman here’s a Cheesehead from Wisconsin. Greer Davis and Tank Shetler are Longhorns. Kort says he’s in charge.”

  The giant men nodded politely to her before razzing their teammate about his qualifications as a supervisor.

  “Oh, and this is Gavin Miller, the writer.” Luke tilted his head toward the dark-haired man sipping his coffee. “I’m not sure why he’s here.”

  “You write the Julian Best novels,” Miranda said, recognition dawning. He was one of Luke’s new friends. “They’re fantastic.”

  Miller’s eyes held an odd shadow, but he gave her a charmingly rakish smile. “My compliments on your good taste in literature.” He threw a glance at Luke. “Contrary to Archer’s assessment, I am quite good around farm animals, so I believe I can contribute.”

  Patty slid between the men to bring a mug of coffee to Miranda. “They landed their helicopter in Jim Tanner’s field, and he drove them over.” She nodded toward the farmer before leaning close to Miranda’s ear to whisper, “What the heck is going on? I thought you two broke up.”

  Miranda took a sip of the fragrant coffee before she murmured back, “I have no idea.”

  “I understand you have a cheese truck to load,” Luke said. “Let’s get it done.”

  The unmistakable edge of command in his voice brought everyone to their feet. Now the kitchen walls seemed barely able to contain the mass of colossal shoulders, tree-trunk thighs, and swelling biceps.

  Gratitude loosened the tension of wondering how she was supposed to respond to all this. She didn’t have to lug all those heavy hunks of cheese from the cave to the van. Tears of relief welled up in her eyes, and she had to blink hard to will them away. “Thank you all,” she said, not quite suppressing the slight break in her voice. “This way.”

  She could feel the farmhouse’s hundred-year-old pine floor sag under the heavy footsteps of the men following her down the hall and out the front door. As soon as Luke stepped outside, he took charge, assigning men to vehicles. Then he slid into the passenger seat of Dennis’s pickup truck beside Miranda.

  She kept her gaze on the steering wheel as she turned the key in the ignition and shifted the truck into reverse.

  But the air inside the cab vibrated with Luke’s presence. His weight on the old springs of the bench seat made it slant in his direction, so she felt as though she was being pulled toward him. As she twisted to look behind her, she found his gaze turned on her, but she refused to let herself meet his eyes. She hit the gas too hard, and the truck’s tires spun on the slippery asphalt before yanking them out onto the road.

  Anger scalded her. She was mad mostly at herself, for falling in love with a man she knew damn well she had no business even kissing. But she was furious with him, too, for giving her that blinding moment of hope in the kitchen. It was difficult enough to see him on television. Having him present in this confined space intensified her yearning to the point where it slashed at her like a razor blade.

  She slammed the truck into drive and burned rubber again as she headed up the hill. “Why are you here?” It sounded ungracious, but she didn’t have the energy to soften it.

  “I found out that you lost your job.”

  She slowed down as the truck bounced on the undulating lane. “My problems with Orin started before your brother’s issue.”

  “It made the problems worse. I made them worse.”

  She sneaked a quick glance at him. His hands were fisted on his knees, and his attention was locked on her. She turned back to the winding road in front of her. She didn’t want him here out of pity. “You can stop feeling guilty. I have another job lined up.”

  “I’m not surprised. You’re excellent at what you do.”

  Her temper flashed. “You don’t have to give me a pep talk. I’m not your teammate.”

  The cheese cave came into sight, and she heaved a sigh of relief. The conversation would be over soon.

  “I don’t tell my teammates they’re good if they’re not.” She could hear a flicker of irritation in his voice. “Look, I was a—”

  “We’re here,” she said, jerking the wheel around to veer into the parking area. She felt a twinge of guilt when she heard his elbow bang against the door as her sudden turn threw him off balance. She didn’t want to give him a chance to undermine her anger. Without the strength it gave her, she would suffocate in the breath-clogging misery of her longing.

  She heard him speak her name as she shoved open the door and jumped out of the truck. The SUV pulled up behind them, its doors swinging open to disgorge the rest of the crew. She stepped toward the huge men, feeling like Alice after drinking the shrinking potion. She’d been grateful for their muscular heft until she realized that the three largest ones wouldn’t fit into the coveralls Dennis kept in the cheese cave.

  She felt rather than saw Luke come up beside her. “Gorman here tells us that we can’t all go tromping through a cheese cave because it will disturb the bacteria or something. So we’ll create a kind of bucket brigade and pass the cheeses along it,” he said. Again, the undertone of command resonated under the Texas twang. “Kort, you handle the van. I’ll work inside with Miranda.”

  “Always quarterbacking,” Gavin Miller said, slouching against the SUV’s fender.

  Miranda looked sideways to see how Luke reacted.

  “You wanted to come. You play by my rules,” Luke said, his eyes narrowed.

  She’d thought that Miller was a friend of Luke’s, but their interaction seemed more fraught than amicable.

  “I’ve never been good at that.” Miller pushed off the truck.

  Miranda pivoted toward the cheese cave, and Luke fell into step beside her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t ignore the muscles of his thighs under the worn jeans as he matched his stride to hers. Before she could reach for the big metal handle, Luke had grasped it and swung the substantial door open as though it were cardboard.

  She led the way into the changing room, plu
cking the largest coverall off the wall and picking up the hired hand’s boots. “I don’t know if these will fit, but give it a try,” she said, offering them to Luke. It was the first time she had faced him directly since the kitchen. He took the clothes but didn’t move to put them on. Instead, his gaze roamed over her face.

  “You look tired,” he said.

  “I can jog in Jimmy Choo stilettos, but I’ve lost my cow-milking muscles,” she said, trying to ward off his concern with feeble humor. If he was nice to her, she would lose it. So she put up a wall of gratitude. “I really appreciate all the help you brought with you. Especially because it’s very strong help. Cheese is darned heavy.”

  “Miranda, I want to—”

  Gavin Miller poked his dark head inside the door. “Heigh-ho, the derry-o, where stands the cheese?”

  Luke’s eyes blazed with annoyance, but he kept his tone neutral. “We have to suit up.”

  The writer came inside and glanced around. “I had imagined something more picturesque when I heard the word cave.”

  Miranda stepped into the coveralls and pulled them up. “It’s just a cement tunnel dug into the hill. The ground provides natural temperature control.”

  Luke was cramming his shoulders into the coveralls with difficulty. She stifled the urge to help him work the fabric over the swell of his muscles.

  Miranda tucked her hair into the hairnet. “High fashion in the world of cheese making,” she said, posing with one hand on her hip and inviting Gavin to laugh with her.

  “I’m not wearing one of those,” Luke said, eyeing her headgear.

  “You wear a helmet to play football,” she said, even though she had no intention of forcing a hairnet on him. “It’s the same principle.”

  He shook his head so that his blond hair rippled. “Do you know how much sh—er, garbage they’d give me?”

  The writer smiled an evil smile. “Even worse, they’d put it on Twitter.”

  “Okay, no hairnet,” Miranda said. It was the first time Luke had shown any concern about his image. There was some comfort in seeing a tiny crack in his composure. “Try the boots.”

  He toed off one cowboy boot and shoved an athletic sock–covered foot into the rubber footwear. She heard him mutter a curse as his toes hit the front of the boot while his heel was still inches above the sole.

  “We weren’t expecting to clothe giants,” she said. “You can wear your own boots. Just don’t go into the aging rooms.”

  The relief on Luke’s face as he slid his boot back on almost made her laugh out loud. This was an improvement over her mood in the truck.

  Gavin scanned Luke, encased in the white polyester fabric like a sausage. “I may have to tweet this myself.”

  “Go right ahead.” Luke’s voice held such a threatening edge that Miranda took a step backward. When she caught the look he directed at the writer, she shuffled a few more inches away. This was the man who faced down entire defensive lines on the field. She was glad he was looking at Gavin and not her.

  Evidently, the writer didn’t want to tangle with him, either. He flung up one hand in a gesture of self-defense. “I don’t, in fact, have a Twitter account.”

  “Can’t keep it to a hundred and forty characters?” Luke asked with a lifted eyebrow.

  “Can’t come up with a hundred and forty characters,” Gavin shot back.

  “Sorry, man.”

  Gavin waved his hand in casual dismissal and disappeared out the door.

  “What was that about?” Miranda asked.

  Luke shook his head. “A bestselling novelist with writer’s block.”

  “Ouch. I wondered why there hadn’t been a new Julian Best book in a while.” How easy it was to talk to him again. His lips curved in sympathy with Gavin’s problem, and she had to force her gaze away to focus on getting into her boots. “Let’s move some cheese.”

  He opened his mouth and then shut it again, silently following her through the door into the holding room.

  “Whoa! That’s one strong smell,” he said.

  “You can almost taste the air.” Miranda sniffed. She’d come to love the cheese cave’s overload of scent.

  Luke surveyed the shelves stacked with all shapes and sizes of cheese. “We’re going to need more help in here.”

  “Two of us are enough.”

  He turned sharply. “You’re not going to lift a single chunk of cheese. Just supervise.”

  “Quarterbacking again?”

  “What’s the point of having a bunch of athletes here if you don’t let them use what God and the weight room gave them?”

  She climbed onto a high wooden stool. She was too tired, both physically and emotionally, to put up a fight.

  His eyes widened. “You’re not going to argue?”

  “I’m happy to sit down.”

  Every line in his face softened as he walked toward her perch. Knowing he was going to touch her and knowing how she would react, she cast around for an escape route, but her back was against a wall, and two shelving units loomed on either side, trapping her.

  “Miranda.” The low rumble of his voice vibrated through her. “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened. I was a real jerk Friday night.” He cupped her shoulders ever so gently with his big hands. “Will you accept my apology?”

  Shivers of delight ran through her, and her eyelids drifted closed as she savored the feel of his hands on her. Had he asked her a question? Something about an apology. “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Thank you.” She opened her eyes just enough to see him bend his head toward her, so his lips brushed her forehead and then her cheek. Then his grip went tight, bringing her breasts hard against the wall of his chest and sending sparks of pleasure shimmering through her rib cage. He pushed his knee between hers, spreading her thighs around his hips as he moved in close. She felt the ache of emptiness low in her belly and the need to be filled by him.

  “I’ve missed you. Missed this.” His mouth slanted over hers, his lips hard and warm and male.

  She felt his touch as a blossom of heat in every molecule of her body. Yes, desire pooled inside her, but it was also the sense of being in the right place with the right arms around her. The resonant timbre of his voice, the silky thickness of his hair, the perfectly calibrated pressure of his chest against hers—all danced together and set her heart flipping in her chest.

  “Ahem.”

  A blush burned up Miranda’s cheeks and she tried to jerk away, but Luke’s grip didn’t loosen.

  He moved his lips one inch away from hers to say, “Go away, Miller.”

  “Boyo, I understand you want to win the bet, but it’s colder than a mother-in-law’s kiss outside.”

  “So sit in the truck with the heater on,” Luke growled.

  As much as she didn’t want to, Miranda wedged her hands against his chest and pushed. It was a token gesture, since she couldn’t budge the quarterback if he didn’t want to move. “Luke, they’re all waiting for us.”

  She felt his body give against her palms and he lifted his head. “I really hate your guts, Miller.”

  “I consider that a compliment from the Iceman.”

  Luke released her and stepped back. “Suit up, jackass. I’m going to need your help in here.”

  “Do you have a Twitter account?” the author asked.

  “With three quarters of a million followers. My assistant runs it, so you’re safe.”

  Gavin disappeared out into the changing room, where they could hear him rustling around.

  Something the writer said surfaced through Miranda’s embarrassment. “What bet was he talking about?”

  “Nothing. A stupid bar conversation.” But he didn’t quite meet her eyes.

  “What does it have to do with me?”

  “Miller’s a troublemaker. Ignore him.”

  “Take his advice. He’s correct.” Gavin slouched into the storage room dressed in a coverall and boots.

  Luke gave him one of those icy stares th
at made Miranda shiver before turning back to her with a warmer look. “Where do we start?”

  Her blush subsided as the two men loaded the cheese into containers and hauled them out to the door. Watching Luke’s hands carefully cradling her brother’s handiwork sent little tendrils of desire winding through her. When he bent and straightened, the too-snug coverall rippled over the shifting muscles of his back and thighs. The memory of how those muscles felt under his skin when he moved over her sent a flood of prickling arousal through her breasts and lower.

  As he tramped past her laden with a stack of large cheddar wheels, Gavin Miller gave her a sly look, as if he knew what she was thinking. She yanked her thoughts away from Luke’s body and tried to make sense of his behavior toward her. He’d been almost standoffish until the passionate kiss. But even then she’d felt a reluctance in him, as though he hadn’t meant to do it.

  A surge of power straightened her spine and lifted her chin. Once he touched her, he’d been unable to stop himself from wanting more. That was a rush. But he’d come here just to clear his guilty conscience. When that was done, he would return to the screaming fans, blazing lights, and adrenaline-fueled battles of his first love.

  She couldn’t compete.

  “That’s it for the cheese in here.” Luke squatted to check the lower shelves.

  “I can’t believe you finished so quickly,” Miranda said, sliding off the stool.

  “Many hands make light work.” The writer lounged against the doorjamb, his gaze traveling between the two of them.

  Luke straightened with that controlled grace she loved so much. “Nice job of pitching in,” he said with a nod to Gavin.

  “You thought I was just another pretty face.”

  “I hear there’s hay to be stacked in the barn.” Luke gestured for Miranda to go ahead of him.

  Gavin stepped aside before following them into the changing room.

  “Can’t say I ever want to wear one of these again.” Luke struggled to strip off his coverall. Miranda gave in to temptation and helped ease the fabric off one of his shoulders, her fingers sliding over the swell of his biceps. He seemed to freeze for a moment before pulling his arm free. “Thanks,” he said in a clipped tone. “I’ve got the other one.”