Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Probably. She hasn’t said anything about it, and I don’t really have anything to report until after the checkup.”

  Earl picked up the pencil and drew something on his desk blotter. “What do you think the doc’s going to say?”

  Jonas blew out a breath. “I want him to say I’m cleared. Tom thinks I’ve recovered most of the mobility, and I’m building strength. We’ll see.” Earl frowned and a clammy feeling hit Jonas’s belly. “We have time to wait and see, right?”

  The frown deepened. “As far as I’m concerned, yes.”

  Jonas waited a long moment, but Earl didn’t say anything else. “What does that mean?”

  “The general manager made a trade I wasn’t expecting. Parker Jamieson is a Kentuckian.”

  Jonas whistled. Parker ran an offense in college that allowed him to make adjustments on the fly, and was drafted high in his class by a top-flight team. He swallowed. “What did we give up for that?”

  “An outside linebacker and a first rounder next draft.” Earl pushed down on the pencil and the lead broke. “As far as I’m concerned the trade means nothing. Jamieson hasn’t thrown much since college. Mostly he’s hit the tight end position, a couple of times the running back. You’re still my QB.”

  “But I’m not the organization’s, am I?”

  “They’re just covering bases.”

  Still, this wasn’t the move he’d expected from management, not with training camp around the corner, and not when the GM went for big defenders and a couple of standout wide receivers in the draft that spring. He thought he had more time.

  “It’s image, Jonas. You aren’t twenty-five any longer—”

  “Thirty isn’t exactly washed up.”

  “Thirty means a little longer to rehab. They covered the defensive weaknesses I wanted covered, they shored up our offensive weapons. Adding Jamieson is just another offensive move that the front office is using to get us into the play-offs.”

  On the other hand, this could be their way of letting him know he should look elsewhere for employment. The clammy feeling in his belly spread and Jonas flexed his hands. If the Kentuckians were done, would any team take a chance this close to training camp? And if no one took him this year, what were the chances anyone would want him next year? More than ever, he needed to be in the training room, working with Tom, increasing the use of his left hand. Just in case. This wasn’t the time to bring up throwing left with Earl, though. “I’ll be ready.”

  “I know. No one has worked harder this off-season, and I’m not talking about just in the training room. I’m seeing the kid I knew in college more and more. That’s the man we need running our offense.” Earl’s voice was quiet and his eyes sympathetic. “You’re still the guy, Jonas.”

  He left the office, still thinking about Parker Jamieson showing up at training camp. It was surprising none of the talk shows had picked up on the move already.

  Within a few minutes of leaving the stadium complex, he was at the camp location. The fifty camp attendees were gathered at midfield, sitting and listening to Tom talk about conditioning and endurance. He would do another trust exercise with them, then break for lunch. The buses would be here to take the kids home by midafternoon, but they would all come back next week. Jonas sat on the sidelines listening to Tom talk about training, instructing the teens on how to tell the difference between tiredness and exhaustion.

  Jonas could explain that. Exhaustion left the muscles weak and a little sore, but the brain exhilarated from the endorphin rush. Tiredness was darker. As if it was too much effort to get out of bed—much less take a five-mile run or bench press a few hundred pounds of weight over the head. Tiredness ate at the confidence, told an athlete to give it up.

  As the voice in his head had been repeating for the past few weeks. When Earl was hired, the voice quieted. When he was flirting or arguing with Brooks, it disappeared entirely. Now that slick voice was all he heard.

  You’re through. Stop torturing yourself. It’s only a game, get over it.

  Maybe he just needed a break. A change of scenery. He could meet up with friends in Texas or go somewhere no one knew him and just be. Not worry about the season or the injury. The camp practically ran itself; there was no reason to be here next week.

  “Have you been rolling around in a mucky horse stall or something?” Brooks sat beside him, a smile in her voice as she wrinkled her pert little nose and waved her hand in front of her face.

  He’d forgotten to shower. Jonas lifted his arm a bit and sniffed. Shook his head at the smell. “Busy morning.”

  “Busy morning, lack of hygiene. Whatever,” she said as she elbowed him. “You sticking around until the kids are gone?”

  “You don’t think the smell will drive them away?”

  “They’re teenage boys. Do you think they’ll smell anything at all?”

  Jonas chuckled. “I never did. You’re not shooting today?”

  She shook her head. “Kent got called out as an extra shooter for the college baseball play-offs. I’ve got the equipment, but with the kids heading home for the weekend, I thought I’d give them a break from interviews and all that.”

  “You should have taken the day off.”

  “Thought about it. But what am I going to do? Sit at the TV station and twiddle my thumbs?”

  He focused his gaze on the boys on the field, but his attention was all over Brooks. She hadn’t been this friendly with him since their date the other night. What did that mean? It shouldn’t mean anything, not after his conversation with Earl this morning. What did a washed-up athlete have to offer a woman whose career was on the rise?

  “I’m sure you have friends.”

  He caught her shrug from the corner of his eye. “They have their own lives. Work. I’m not really great at staying in touch with people. To be honest, I’ve only stayed in touch with one girl I grew up with. We played softball together in college.”

  On the field, Tom split the guys into groups according to their position. Quarterbacks began throwing to receivers while offensive and defensive players lined up opposite one another to drill. Mark stood a little outside the groupings of boys, as if he still wasn’t certain he should play. One of the safeties jostled him, but he didn’t fight back.

  “If you’re thinking we could start that interview, this afternoon isn’t great for me.” The long afternoon stretched before him filled with nothing, but he wasn’t in a good place to answer questions. “If you contact the front office, we could set something up for next week.”

  “I thought we were waiting until the camp was over for that?”

  Jonas shrugged. “Wouldn’t want to throw you off schedule.”

  Brooks sat beside him for a long minute. “I wasn’t actually thinking about the interview.”

  The safety jostled Mark again and this time Mark jostled him back. Tom caught the commotion and settled the conflict with a sharp word.

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “Moving my things out of my teenage bedroom and into the converted barn at my parents’ place.” She waited another beat. “After the other night I kind of thought having my own space would be a good thing. Not that I’m looking for a repeat of the other night,” she said quickly.

  Jonas was more confused than ever. The women he knew were up-front. If they wanted to go to dinner, they brought up dinner. If they wanted to have sex, they made a move. They didn’t sit beside him on a bench, teasing him about being sweaty and making small talk.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no,” Brooks said, her voice quiet as she lay her hand on his arm. His skin tightened at the contact. Her attention wasn’t on him, though, her gaze focused on the boys across the turf. Jonas focused on what was really happening on the field.

  Tom had broken the guys up into an offense and a defense. Both sides took posi
tion; Mark was at wide receiver. Oh, this was not going to be good. The quarterback took the ball and the safety Mark had jostled with before drove him into the ground. Mark jumped back up, staring hard at the other player. The offense huddled and then broke apart and Mark took position on the line again.

  The quarterback dropped back as Mark pushed past the defender. He went ahead by a step, but the other player sped up, too. The quarterback let the ball fly and it landed perfectly in the kid’s arms. He kept his pace steady for a step and then two and then it was as if he hit a whole other gear. He stretched his lead on the defender to a yard and then two. Then he was ten yards ahead, and still gaining ground on the defender. The hotheaded defender pushed himself faster, but it was too late. Mark was gone. He crossed into the end zone for the touchdown.

  His teammates scrambled to greet him with cheers and high fives. The defender put his hands on his knees and pulled in a few deep breaths. Putting his hands on his hips, he stared at the boy who had been so distant through the first week of camp. For the first time a smile split his face. He returned a few high fives and tossed the ball to Tom as he trotted across the field.

  “I knew he had it in him,” Jonas said, not just proud of the kid but happy for him. Fear had held Mark back from participating for most of the week. Fear that he shouldn’t play.

  “I was afraid that other kid would drive him into the ground so hard he’d never get up.”

  “The kid is a fighter.”

  Jonas stood to walk across the field. Maybe if a kid like Mark could come back from a tragedy that took his friends, maybe there was hope for Jonas, too. Parker Jamieson didn’t have his position just yet.

  He glanced back to see Brooks watching him. She wore khaki shorts and a fitted tee, blue flip-flops on her feet. Hair in a ponytail, as usual. Fresh and clean and he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything better.

  Maybe he didn’t have a clue what was going on with the pretty reporter, but maybe it was time he took a chance on a woman who didn’t need his fame to feed her own.

  “Think you’d like a little help with the moving?”

  She smiled at him and his stomach did a weird flip. “Sure.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “STAY AWAY FROM that drawer,” Brooks instructed when Jonas started to open her panty drawer. “A woman’s underwear is top secret.”

  He’d showered and changed before leaving the camp area, and now wore blue athletic shorts, an old T-shirt with the arms cut out and flip-flops on his feet. His toes, she’d noticed, were perfect, with each just a smidge shorter than the next. No snaggle-toes. Not that she had a foot fetish. A man’s feet had never intrigued her like this before.

  He eyed her for another moment, as if weighing her seriousness, and Brooks felt the urge to redo her ponytail. “I’ve seen you in them and I’ve seen you out of them. I can open a bra clasp one-handed, and although I know how to rip panties from a woman’s hips—” he smiled as the blush heated her face “—I prefer to hear their sighs as the fabric slowly slides down their legs. How manymore secrets can there be?”

  Brooks’s toes curled against the hard plastic of her own flip-flops when he mentioned the sighing part. How manymore secrets? Plenty. There were the granny panties she wore when she felt bloated. The purple striped pair she never wore any longer, but that had helped her win that national championship her senior year. A few ugly sports bras that made her look like she had a uni-boob, but that she knew gave the ladies’ support that would be noticeable in another ten years or so. A couple of lace-and-satin numbers that he might get to see sometime. Maybe. And there were a couple of non-clothing items she’d rather not share at the moment.

  “Just stay out of it.”

  Jonas shrugged and began putting framed photographs in a large box. They’d been packing her old room for about an hour. It was weird having a man in this room. She’d never even tried to sneak in a boy when she was a kid. Brooks looked around. Her clothes were already secured in suitcases, her work gear in her satchel and mailbag. The Backstreet Boys could stay on the wall until her mom decided how she wanted to redecorate this room.

  The barn was already furnished, and that surprised her. The last time she’d been inside it, boxes of game tapes and a couple of messy desks littered the area, along with a few cups her father and his assistants left in the sink. The desks and chairs were metal, and she’d helped hang the drywall that created a cozy space from the too-spacious barn, but hadn’t been around for the painting or decorating. Now there was a full kitchen with a small dinette table and chairs, a living room with a pretty floral sofa from her mom’s old sewing room and a full bath on the first level. An old four-poster bed she remembered from her grandparents’ home took up most of the loft sleeping area. The walls were a pretty blue that matched the Kentucky sky, the floors dark hardwoods.

  There was nothing else she needed from her old bedroom, Brooks decided as Jonas put the last of the pictures into the box. Well, she needed her undies.

  “I think we need one more box for the closet. I left a couple on the porch, would you grab one?”

  Jonas left and as soon as she heard his feet on the stairs, she grabbed a tote from her closet and dumped the items from the underwear drawer into it. Zipped it up and slung it over her shoulder with the satchel and mailbag.

  “Wow, I need to downsize a few things,” she said aloud to herself, trying to get the three bags into a better position. She felt as if she might topple over.

  “Downsize what?” Jonas asked from the doorway with an empty box in hands.

  “Just in general,” she said. “Turns out, we don’t need that one.” He dropped the empty box on her bed as Brooks grabbed the handle of her suitcase. Jonas stacked and hefted the two large boxes of pictures and other mementos, following her down the stairs.

  Another hour later and the boxes were unpacked, pictures arranged on the table behind the sofa and the books settled on the built-in shelves along the far wall. Jonas looked in the fridge.

  “Unless you’re planning to eat and drink baking soda, you need a trip to the grocery,” he said and then opened a cabinet to pull a glass out. He filled it with tap water and drank. “You want?”

  Brooks shook her head. “I think I’ll unpack my clothes and call it a night. You, ah, don’t have to stay.”

  “Afraid I’ll get into your underwear drawer this time?”

  Brooks chuckled. “Maybe. As you said, you’ve already seen me in and out of them.”

  “I promise not to look,” he said solemnly, leaning against the kitchen countertop with one ankle crossed over the other. “For now.”

  “Speaking of ‘for now,’ the other night...” God, what was she thinking? She’d successfully avoided having this conversation for nearly three days. Kept things businesslike. Talked the whole thing over with Trisha and decided her ethics were in the clear. Even he hadn’t hunted her down, so he must be fine leaving things as they were.

  However, he was here, in her house. Helping her move her things from the bedroom where she grew up to an adult’s apartment. Those chocolate-brown eyes glinting, he’d joked about her underwear and he only had to look at her to make her internal temperature pop up a few more degrees.

  “I had a good time,” he said.

  Well, that didn’t sound good. “Yeah. It was...fun.” She pointed to the loft. “I, uh, should finish unpacking. And I’m sure you have somewhere else to be.”

  Jonas sipped his water and then pushed away from the cabinet. “I have nowhere to be for about the next month,” he said, “but even if I did, I think I’d change my plans.”

  He was still across the room, but he was too close. Brooks stepped behind the sofa, as if it might shield her from the man coming her way. “You—you would?”

  He shook his head from side to side. “It’s kind of a kick in the pants, to be hone
st. Before you showed up in the locker room last week, I was set to rehab the rest of the summer, start training camp, then the season. Rehab is going okay, but suddenly it’s not the focus of my days. It should be, but it isn’t.”

  He was just across the sofa from her now. Jonas set down the glass and picked up a picture of her with her dad, taken the day her team won the collegiate national championship for softball. “What did he say to you when they took this picture?”

  “That he was proud of me. That I did a good job. If I needed a painkiller.” He shot her a confused look. “They thought I’d sprained my wrist sliding into home a few innings earlier. Turns out it was a hairline fracture. But I didn’t feel anything at that moment except pure happiness.”

  “You played with a fractured wrist?” His eyes widened in surprise.

  “Football players aren’t the only ones who play hurt. Besides, it was my non-throwing arm. Easy enough to hold still.”

  Jonas set the picture down. “Earl said kind of the same things to me—minus the painkiller part—when we won the national championship my senior year. I was sitting on the bench, wondering what would happen next. All the other guys were whooping and jumping around like maniacs. I couldn’t get into the celebration because I wasn’t sure what happened next.”

  A lightbulb went on in her mind. “The picture on the mantel?”

  He nodded. “I asked him what happened next.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Keep playing and football will help you figure it out.” There was a sadness in his words, a wistfulness in his expression as he looked at the picture of her with Jimmy.

  “Look where you are. Playing professional football. A wall filled with awards and pictures of the amazing things you’ve done. You were nominated for a Player of the Year award.”

  “Because when the games are tight I’m a ball-hog.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, it was what she’d thought of him that first day. What she saw now wasn’t a ball-hog, though, but a man who had lost his faith in the game. “I didn’t see a ball-hog this week. Not when you were showing that boy how to grip the ball for a tighter spiral, and not when you took time out of your morning to talk to Mark.”