The Jock

by Jaid Black

  Arty nodded implacably. “Ms. Jones checked out about an hour ago. I put her in a cab headed for the airport myself.”

  In that brief moment, Sam’s entire life flashed before his eyes. Gwenyth had left him. She had well and truly walked out on him. It was difficult at best for him to form a coherent thought beyond that, but there was something else, some kernel of knowledge that had festered itself down deep in his gut and was gnawing at him.

  Sam had to get to Gwenyth before that plane took off. He couldn’t explain how or why, but he knew, just knew, that if he didn’t stop her from leaving it would be over between them. Gwen would never have him back.

  Somehow, though Sam would never remember exactly how, he managed to pack his clothes, check out of his suite, and call a cab, all in under ten minutes time. His heart beating wildly, he settled into the back seat of the taxi and regarded the driver. “If you can get me to LAX in fifteen minutes or less, there’s a hundred dollar tip in it for you.”

  * * * * *

  Gwenyth chewed on her lower lip to keep from crying—again. She was doing the right thing, she told herself over and over. She was doing what she had to do, what her sanity required of her to stay intact. It was just too bad if the right thing didn’t happen to coincide with what she wanted to do. Namely hightailing it back to the hotel, throwing herself into Sam’s arms, and begging him to love her.

  Gwenyth took her place in line, waiting gloomily for the passengers in front of her to hand over their tickets to the gate agent working the flight back to Tampa so they could board. At this point, all she wanted to do was get it over with and go home to her apartment where she could lick her wounds in private.

  The thought that she was taking the coward’s way out flitted through Gwenyth’s mind and weighed heavily on her conscience. Bah! She’d realized even as she was throwing her clothes into suitcases that that was exactly what she was doing—running away—so why bother to ruminate over it now? It was done. And in the long run, she vehemently reassured herself, it was the wiser choice.

  It was time to go home, put Sam from her mind, and begin anew. Gwenyth frowned, thinking that the option no longer sounded as inviting as it had when she’d first descended into the cab that had brought her here to the airport. Going back to Sam held a much more appealing ring to it.

  No! No! No! she chided herself for at least the tenth time in an hour. Don’t even go there, Gwenyth. That way lies madness. That way lies heartbreak. After all, when everything was said and done, the men of Sam’s world inevitably settled their rings onto the fingers of artificially enhanced, bleach blonde women named “Bambi” and “Muffin”…they certainly didn’t marry women of passing beauty whose breasts were beginning to sag and whose hips could stand a five pound reduction without putting a dent in them.

  “Miss, may I have your ticket please? Miss?”

  Gwenyth’s head shot up. She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t even realized she’d finally made it to the front of the boarding line. “Yes. Yes, of course.” She smiled apologetically. “Sorry…I wasn’t paying attention.”

  The gate agent winked at her, but didn’t reply to her comment. “You’re in seat 15c. Enjoy your flight and thank-you for—”

  “I said hold that damn plane!”

  All heads turned, Gwenyth’s included, at the sound of that belligerent and all too familiar voice.

  Sam.

  He’d come for her.

  Gwenyth attempted to squelch the positively glowing feeling that knowledge engendered, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop her traitorous heart from being pleased by the way Sam was barreling toward her, looking fiercely and magnificently determined, any more than she could stop the sun from setting at day’s end.

  Too stunned by Sam’s presence to come up with anything quick and witty to say, she simply shook her head and forcibly closed her unhinged jaw. “Sam?” she finally peeped. “What are you doing here?”

  Sam, however, had no intention whatsoever of discussing anything about their relationship in front of a hangar full of strangers. Without glancing once in Gwenyth’s direction, he ripped her ticket unapologetically from the gate agent’s hand. “There seems to be a mistake. Ms. Jones will not be on this flight.” He drew Gwenyth to his side, still without acknowledging her, and inclined his head toward the gate agent. “We’ll be needin’ her bags before this plane can leave.”

  Gwenyth didn’t hear the gate agent’s reply over the pounding in her ears. When Sam led her to a seat and gently but forcibly lowered her into it, she didn’t argue. When he walked over to the ticket counter and had a conversation with the agent standing there that was out of her earshot, she thought nothing of it. She was simply too stunned to do anything other than gape at Sam’s back. Never once had it entered into Gwenyth’s mind that Sam would stop her from going. She hadn’t even considered it as a viable outcome.

  So why then? Why was Sam here? What could he possibly hope to accomplish with this stalling tactic? This was insane. Flattering as she didn’t know what, but insane nonetheless.

  Ten minutes later, Sam set Gwenyth’s luggage at her feet, plopped down into the chair next to hers, and regarded her in stony silence. Gwenyth studied him back. And for the first time since Sam had come tearing toward her at the gate twenty minutes ago, she noted the visible signs of his anger. Sam’s nostrils were flaring. His breathing was choppy. Even the veins on his forearms were bulging out more than usual from the pressure of clenching his hands into fists. Good grief.

  “Sam, I—”

  Sam held up a silencing hand. He shook his head in the negative. “I don’t want to hear it, Gwen. The only thing I want to know is why you did it.”

  Gwenyth opened her mouth to answer him, but he forestalled any explanations with an interruption. “Is this how you plan to deal with our relationship for the rest of your life, Gwen? Are you going to run away like a little girl every time the water gets a little rough?”

  Ouch. Accurate blow. “Well, I—”

  Sam laughed humorlessly. He shook his head and scowled at her. “Are you enjoyin’ this, Cupcake? Do you like makin’ me beg?”

  Not fair. “Of course not! How was I—”

  “Enough!” Sam bellowed, causing a few passersby to turn their heads. He lowered his voice and bore into Gwenyth with his gaze. “I find that your words today please me even less than your actions have.”

  That got Gwenyth’s attention. Her look of shock turned into one of anger. “How dare you! How was I to know that you would follow me? I thought you’d be too busy getting felt up by your trio of groupies to even notice the fact that I’d left!”

  Sam snorted incredulously. Her words stirred a little guilt deep within him, but he concentrated on his anger instead. “Oh I noticed alright! And after the way you let Frenchy fawn all over you this past week?” He made a rude noise. “You’ve got no room to criticize.”

  “Fawn all over me?!”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed into predatory blue slits. “Yes, fawned.” He cocked his head and imitated Etienne, using his best Parisian accent. “Ah mon chere,” he mimicked in a falsetto voice, “that Sam iz no good. Let us go to ze hotel and make amour for the whole of ze night.”

  Gwenyth hid her smile behind a look of outrage. Well, she was outraged truth be told, but it was hard to maintain a proper amount of ire when the man you loved was batting his eyelashes dramatically and making kissy-fish lips. Especially when said man was thirty-one, well over six feet in height, and had the body of a warrior to boot. “Sam, you’re being ridiculous. Etienne never asked me to go to bed with him. He merely asked me out on a date.”

  At Sam’s rapidly reddening face, Gwenyth knew she’d chosen the wrong time to inform him of Etienne’s interest. “But I turned him down!” she quickly amended.

  That seemed to placate him—somewhat. “I won’t have any more of this foolishness, Gwenyth Marie.” He slashed his hand through the air. “Never again.”

  Gwenyth sat up str
aighter in her chair and crossed her arms defensively over her breasts. “If you came all this way just to tell me you don’t want to see me anymore, you could have done it over the telephone. Or in an email. You didn’t have to stop me from boarding the—”

  “Enough!” Sam grunted in satisfaction at the incredulous look on Gwenyth’s face. Good. Let her be shocked into silence. He was too damn frustrated with himself, with her, and with the world in general to think clearly. “I did not come here to end it.” His voice turned hard, unrelenting. “I came to make sure that somethin’ like this never happens again.” Sam glanced at his watch, then made to stand up. “Speakin’ of which, let’s go. We have a plane to catch.”

  Gwenyth’s jaw dropped open. She had never been one given to obeying a command. Sam’s domineering attitude was suddenly too much. “This part of we isn’t going anywhere with you!” She narrowed her eyes and huffed. “Sam, are you listening to me?”

  Sam grunted as he rose to his feet. The fact that he seemed to be paying Gwenyth’s outrage as little attention as he was her words, only served to pique her temper all the more. “Sam! I’m not going anywhere! Let go of my arm!”

  Sam gestured toward the suitcases. “Will you carry one or do you plan to make me carry both of yours plus my own?”

  “You’re not even listening to me!”

  “Amazin’ly perceptive, Cupcake. Now pick up a suitcase.”

  Gwenyth started to hurl a choice sentiment at him, but stopped when she got a close-up view of the look on Sam’s face. Quite frankly, it chilled her to the bone and made her regret running out on him without nary a word. Never in all of her life—and Gwenyth had known Sam Tremont for twenty-one years—never had she seen him look so hurt. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Please Sam. I don’t want to argue with you.” She nibbled on her lip and regarded him. “Where is it that you want us to go?”

  Sam drew in a deep breath, his blue gaze never breaking contact with Gwenyth’s green one. “Las Vegas.”

  “Las Vegas?” She cocked her head speculatively, not understanding. “Why?”

  “Because, Cupcake.” Sam hoisted up the lighter of Gwenyth’s two suitcases and handed it over to her. “We’re gettin’ married.”

  Chapter 13

  The plane ride to Las Vegas was, for the most part, a quiet one. Sam barely spoke a word, grunting and gesturing instead to get his points across.

  When Gwenyth didn’t touch the food that had been brought to her, Sam grunted and pointed at it, indicating she should eat. When she failed to drink the wine that he’d ordered in a timely enough fashion to suit him, he grunted and pointed at her glass, then raised it to her lips and held it there. All in all, the grunting and pointing was steadily wearing on Gwenyth’s nerves. She idly considered the fact that the comparison she’d made last week between Sam and a Neanderthal wasn’t terribly off course.

  But Gwenyth was too busy reflecting on the fact that Sam wanted to marry her to pay his odious behavior too much attention. It seemed impossible. Like a dream.

  When Sam had first made his announcement that they were flying to Las Vegas to get married, Gwenyth had been too shocked to protest. She was still feeling much the same way. Why would Sam want to marry her? And what if marriage was merely Sam’s way of assuaging his male ego after she’d run out on him? What if he regretted marrying her tomorrow, or next week, or next year? Could she take that chance? Or more to the point, would she take that chance?

  “Stop it, Cupcake.”

  Since it was the first coherent sentence Sam had uttered in over two hours, it had the effect of gaining Gwenyth’s undivided attention. “Huh?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  Sam sighed. “Thinkin’.”

  Gwenyth narrowed her eyes. “Stop thinking?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  She blew out a dramatic breath. “Why?”

  “Because as of late I generally don’t care for your thoughts any more than I do your words or your behavior.” Sam inclined his head and raised an impervious brow. “We are gettin’ married, Gwenyth Marie. Tonight. As soon as this plane lands. The end. No discussion.”

  Gwenyth shook her head at his ego. “Will I be permitted to think after we’re married?” she asked incredulously.

  Sam rubbed his chin while he considered her question. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?!”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “A man can only plan so far in advance. Right now I’ve got my mind on which chapel we’ll be tyin’ the knot in. Will it be Elvis’ Chapel of Love, or Bubba’s Barn of Bliss?”

  Gwenyth gritted her teeth. “If you’re referring to that red-roofed monstrosity on the strip whose flashing neon sign reads: Bag a stag or marry your gal: All night rodeos and marriage ceremonies performed inside, you can forget it.” She slashed her hand definitively through the air. “I won’t have it.”

  Sam merely grunted.

  The rest of the plane ride was spent in silence. It was as if both of their emotions were too raw and unpredictable to wager speaking to the other. It was just as well. Gwenyth needed the time to try and absorb what was happening. She was a thinker, a planner, not at all unpredictable and spontaneous like Sam.

  While Gwenyth worried her lip and stared at the passing clouds from the vantage point of the tiny window to her right, Sam flexed his fingers, clenching and unclenching them, as he considered how best to get Gwen to marry him. The knowledge that she might simply refuse to take part in their upcoming nuptials was unnerving.

  So what was he to do? How could he force her to the altar? Times were definitely much simpler back in the days of the Greeks and Romans when a man took what was his and brooked no arguments about it.

  Sam sighed dejectedly. Whatever he came up with, it had better be good.

  * * * * *

  “Sam, I don’t know about this. I mean, what will my family say?” Gwenyth’s eyes widened nervously as a bouquet of flowers was thrust into her hand by her newly acquired maid of honor, a bald woman of indiscriminate age who had tattoos over every square inch of her body and a nose ring pierced through her septum.

  Sam pulled Gwenyth’s hair out of its topknot and watched the curls cascade around her shoulders and down her back. “I want your hair down for our weddin’, Cupcake.” He leaned into her and inhaled the fragrance of the sweet, strawberry-scented mane. “It’s so beautiful.”

  Gwenyth closed her eyes briefly against the longing she saw in Sam’s face. There was a vast world of difference between lust and love, she reminded herself, and Gwenyth needed both before she could even consider getting married. How was she going to tell Sam that she simply couldn’t go through with this? How could she even begin to make him understand that if he was going to give her back the dream she’d let go of in adolescence, she had to have the whole thing? “Sam, we need to talk,” she quietly insisted. Glancing at her formidable maid of honor, she then added, “alone.”

  Sam sighed, but in the end he acquiesced with a nod. He reached for Gwenyth’s arm and gently drew her to the other side of the chapel. “What is it, Gwen?”

  Gwenyth drew in a deep breath. There was no point in skirting around the issue of their marriage. Holding herself steady, she gazed into Sam’s eyes. “I can’t do it.”

  Silence ensued for a drawn out moment. Finally, Sam asked, “why not?”

  “Because you don’t want to marry me for the right reasons, Sam.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No.” Gwenyth glanced around the all-night wedding chapel Sam had dragged her to. In the end he had settled on a beautiful, cathedral-looking structure that would have been a lovely setting for a wedding had it not been operated by people who looked as if they heralded from another planet. She blew out a breath. “I have no idea why you want to marry me,” she mumbled, “but I’m certain it’s not for the right reason.”

  “Oh?” Sam crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. “And just what is the right reason?”
>
  Because you love me.

  The words were on the tip of Gwenyth’s tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them aloud. There were some things a man needed to discover on his own. Preferably before the wedding ceremony.

  “Listen to me Gwen.” Sam shoved his hands into his pants pockets and regarded her uncompromisingly. “We’re not leavin’ here until we get married. You are not walkin’ out that door until you bear my name. How much clearer can I make that?”

  Gwenyth raised her chin up a notch and glowered back at her so-called fiancé. “I’m not a child of five, Sam. You can hardly force me to marry you!”

  Sam shrugged his hands out of his pockets and splayed them at either hip. “Just what is it you want from me, Gwen?” She was right and he knew it—he had no real way of forcing her into a marriage she didn’t want. The knowledge of it was making him desperate. “I’ve been wantin’ you for years, Gwen. I think about you all the time. I can’t bear to be apart from you.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I need you, Gwen. What more can I do to convince you that I’ll make you a good husband?”

  Gwenyth stared at Sam with sadness in her eyes. She needed the one thing he seemed incapable of giving, the one thing he could have said to change her mind. She needed his love.

  Against her better judgment, Gwenyth let go of her pride and spoke from her heart. “I’m in love with you Sam,” she whispered with thick emotion in her voice. “I’ve been in love with you all of my life. But are you in love with me?”

  Sam said nothing. He peered at Gwenyth moodily as if he hated being forced into this vulnerable position. Never in all of his life had he actually said those three little words of “I love you” to a woman. The three words that Gwen most wanted to hear. The three words he stubbornly refused to dwell upon until he was certain, absolutely certain, she really did feel genuine love for him back.

  It was easy for a woman to say she loved a man. Women told Sam as much all the time. Hell, he’d heard those words from women who’d spent less than a full night in his bed. True, Gwenyth had worshipped him as a child, but she was an adult woman now. Hardly the worshipping type anymore—not that Sam wanted her to be. But how could he genuinely believe she loved him when she’d been running fast and furiously away from him since the moment they’d been reunited?