Griffin had run off the field for a piss break. As he approached the locker room he heard voices. One loud and cruel, the other trying to stay calm. The loud voice belonged to the assistant coach.
Everyone on the team was used to being yelled at by Coach Nelson—it went with the territory. But this was different. This was personal and cutting…threatening. “You little homo, if I catch you looking at my son again…” he was saying. And then came something about a wetback. Griffin knew who the other voice must belong to. Jiggy Rodriguez, who might or might not be gay, but who was definitely Latino.
He burst into the locker room, determined to step in before it got worse. But he was too late—the coach was swinging his big fist right into Jiggy’s face. His head snapped back and he crumpled to the floor.
Griffin shouted something and ran toward his friend. Then that same fist slammed into his gut. He doubled over, and Coach Nelson twisted the thong around his neck like a garrote. “You didn’t see a fucking thing here,” he growled. “If you say anything, I’ll tell everyone who I saw your mother with. Got it, kid?”
He choked out something unintelligible.
“Got it?”
“What…are you talking…”
“I’m talking about your mother. What do you think she’s doing while you’re racing, you little punk?” The thong broke in his hand, and the pendant came off Griffin’s neck. Coach tossed it across the room. “You got me?”
Griffin nodded, pain lancing through his neck at the motion. Was Coach on something? He looked like a bull, all red in the face and sweaty. It was absolutely terrifying to see him like that. He was a tough coach, but this…
“Can I just—” He gestured to Jiggy, who still lay curled on the floor.
Coach sniffed, nostrils flaring, then shrugged and stormed out of the locker room. Griffin ran to help Jiggy.
“We need to get you to the hospital,” he kept saying, but Jiggy refused.
“I’m okay. It’s just a broken nose. Ice, that’s all. Ice, I need some ice.”
Maybe he was in shock, because he kept shaking and repeating the same thing over and over again. “We have to file a police report.”
“No. No fucking way. You can’t say anything, Griffin. Promise.”
Griffin helped him over to the sink to clean blood off his face. “Jiggy, he hit you. That’s assault. He hit a student. Two students. Punched me in the stomach.” It still hurt, actually.
“I don’t care. Swear to me you won’t tell. Let’s just say we got into a fight. I insulted you or something and you punched me.”
“Why? Why should we cover for that bastard?”
“Please? Just trust me on this, please?”
He looked so desperate that Griffin agreed, even though he’d never been someone who got into fights. Everyone bought the cover story and both he and Jiggy were suspended from the team.
He didn’t care. He never wanted to play for Coach Nelson again. Shortly after that, the accident happened, and Mom died.
It wasn’t until much later that he realized why Jiggy hadn’t wanted to go to the police. He probably didn’t want to risk his family knowing anything about his sexuality. The guy came from a strict conservative family and if the coach gave any hint at all about why he’d gone after Jiggy…that blow to the face would probably be easy compared to what came next.
“Everything okay?”
He jumped as Serena put a hand on his arm. “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I just hadn’t seen this in a while. It brought back a couple things I haven’t thought about in a while.”
Serena dropped her hand, making him wish it was right back where it had been. “Anything you can share?”
He shook his head. Sharing wasn’t his strong point, and he wasn’t even sure where to start. Mom? The Coach? The fight?
“Well, anyway, you might want to drop in at the Depot and thank Betsy for hanging onto it all these years.”
God damn. He swiped a hand across his forehead, where sweat beaded. What were the chances that this pendant would reappear in his life? It was crazy.
“Sorry it didn’t turn out to be a real clue,” he told Serena.
She was looking at him oddly, as if still trying to make sure he was okay. “Is there any possible way that my father and your mother had some kind of connection? When was your mother’s accident?”
“Seventeen years ago this winter.” A memory tugged at him, something that Kai had recently told them all. “Was your father a fisherman? Kai said she was on her way to meet a fisherman.”
Her forehead crinkled. “He liked being outdoors. Camping, fishing, I guess. But that wasn’t his profession. He was a jack of all trades, but mostly a salesman.”
“A jewelry salesman, by chance?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe at some point in his life. He changed jobs a lot, didn’t like to get bored. That sure would be weird if they knew each other. Gracie didn’t find any mention of him in your lodge’s books.”
“I’ll check again. Do you have a picture of him?”
She went to her bag and found the photo she’d been using. “Unfortunately, this photo was taken about seven years before he’d disappeared, when he was still with my mom. He would have been a little bit older than this. I also did an age progression if you want that. Every year I make a new one, so I can make sure to recognize him if I see him.”
He scrutinized the photo. The man looked vaguely familiar, but that was probably due to his resemblance to Serena. “I’m on it.” He looked around the little cabin. “Right after we get this place cleaned up. Now that we started, we have to finish. I need the satisfaction.”
“Back to work with you then, house slave.”
He laughed. “Bow down and obey, is that what you’re saying?”
She grinned at his reference to her words from the other night. “You’re kinda sexy when you say that.”
“That’s a coincidence, because you’re kinda sexy when you say that.”
And that constant current of attraction between them revved up another big notch.
9
When they were both satisfied with the state of Serena’s house, they grabbed their jackets and headed outside. The leaden sky was filled with heavy clouds trudging across the sky like worn out laborers. A chilly wind snuck icy fingers onto every exposed patch of skin—cheeks, hands, ears.
“Now that is a sky that wants to snow.” Griffin tilted his head up to gaze at the parade of grayness. “But it won’t because it’s going to wait until you know how to handle it. It’s a good thing we’re doing this now.”
“I can’t believe I’m a grown woman getting driving lessons,” she grumbled. “I’ve been driving since I was sixteen.”
“Who taught you?”
“My stepfather. Who hated me.” She screwed up her face. “You know what, you’re right, I could probably use a refresher. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.”
He had to laugh at that. “He hated you? Really?”
“In his defense, I was a total bitch to him. I missed my father, I was angry at my mother, angry at the world. If Mom had married a literal chocolate-covered marshmallow I still would have been a nightmare.”
“Sorry, not buying it. You’re passionate about things. That doesn’t make you a bitch. Except in the good way, the badass way.”
She glanced at him with a look of surprise. “What makes you so sure?”
“As your bodyguard, it’s my job to know,” he answered virtuously. But really, it wasn’t hard to see those things about her. Not if you looked closely, the way he had been ever since he met her.
A bit embarrassed, he crouched next to her little blue Toyota to check the tires. “First things first, you’re going to need studded tires. I’ll set you up with those.”
“I can buy my own tires, thank you.” By her stiff posture, he realized he’d offended her, without meaning to. He had to keep in mind how independent she was.
“Fine. I recommend Rusty’s Repairs, the
y’ll give you good rubber.”
She snickered. “Did you mean that to sound so dirty?”
“No, I’m meaning to make sure you’re safe. Take this seriously, please. For now, we can drive with these tires, but you shouldn’t drive on any kind of ice or snow until you get either studded tires or all-season.”
“I get it. Good rubber it is.” She dug out her keys from the pocket of her red coat and opened the car.
“Look, I lost my mother and nearly lost my brother because they skidded on the roads around here. I don’t want to scare you, but I also do want to scare you.” He swung over to the passenger seat and slid inside.
“Consider me officially scared.” She put her hands on the wheel. Her hands looked unusually strong to him. Muscular and capable—not a stitch of nail polish, a small healing cut, a smear of old paint. They weren’t soft hands, or well-groomed, but he found them incredibly sexy nonetheless.
He thought about how they’d felt slipping into his pocket and felt a jolt of heat.
He cleared his throat. “First rule of winter driving, never put your foot on the brake if you’re skidding. Your first instinct will be to hit the brakes, but you’ll end up just sliding all over the place. If you hit ice, take your foot off the accelerator and stay loose. Don’t grip the wheel too tight. Just kind of go with the flow of the spin.”
“Go with the flow? Are we ice-surfing?”
“Sort of, without the waves. Once you’re in a spin, you’re subject to the forces of physics and there’s not much you can do. It has to take its course.”
“I know how that goes,” she murmured.
“Yeah? You’ve been in an accident?”
“No, never. I meant my father disappearing. My own personal black ice that sent me skidding all the way to Rocky Peak.”
Which wasn’t so bad, in his view. Otherwise she wouldn’t be next to him in this little Toyota, with all those rich waves of red hair held back by her knitted hat, and the smell of jasmine mingling with damp wool.
“How do you know he came here?”
She glanced at him, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. “I tracked down a friend of his. He said the last call he got from my dad was from some little town in the Cascades that had two words in the name. I made a list of all the places that fit that description and when I said ‘Rocky Peak’ he said ‘bingo.’”
“Did he have anything else to say?”
“Just that my dad sounded like his usual happy self. He loved to travel, loved meeting new people. Wherever he went he made friends. Oh—and his friend mentioned something about sailing, that he wanted to do some ocean sailing.”
Griffin startled. His mother always talked about how much she missed the ocean.
Then again—so what? Lots of people liked the ocean. Most people did.
He gestured for her to start the car. “There’s an empty parking lot behind the car parts store. We’ll practice fishtailing.”
“Practice fishtailing? I thought the idea was to avoid fishtailing?”
“That would be best, but you have to know what to do in case it happens. The best thing is to do it over and over again so it’s not so terrifying when it happens in real life. You’ll keep your head better.”
When they reached the parking lot, he guided her to the back, away from the other cars.
“Don’t trust me, huh?” she joked.
“Not a bit, city girl.” He grinned at her. “Want me to show you how it’s done first? Watch closely, then you can try it.”
“You want to show off, don’t you?”
“Yep. Worked in high school, why not now?”
When she glanced his way, surprise in her eyes, a current of heat sparked to life between them. Of course he found her attractive—she must know that. What man wouldn’t? Unless they didn’t like sassy, sexy as sin redheads. And he didn’t know what sort of man that would be, but it wasn’t him.
As if on cue, they both got out of their respective seats and headed around the hood of the car to switch places. When they crossed paths, goosebumps rose on his skin, and not just from the cold wind at the back of his neck. Serena had a striking effect on him, and he didn’t know exactly what to do with that.
After they were buckled in, he sent the car into a tight controlled spin that left rubber on the asphalt of the lot. “See how I did that?” he said when he was back in position.
She squeaked in response, and he looked over to discover that she was covering her eyes. “I feel sick,” she moaned. “What did you just do? That was terrible. This is why I never go to amusement parks.”
“That’s gotta change. As soon as we whip your driving skills into shape, we’re going to Six Flags and putting you on a roller coaster.”
She pulled her hands away to make a face at him. “You’re delusional. I’m in the car with a crazy person.”
He gave her his best crazy-eyes madman look. “Hang on. Here we go again, and this time try to keep your eyes open or we’ll be here all night.”
Again he launched the car into a tight spin, but this time he talked through it. “Since the car is going left, I’m steering right, against the grain of the spin. It feels uncontrolled but it’s not. I’m in complete control right now. If I had to stop the car on a dime, I would, but it would be jarring and might give you whiplash.”
He ramped down on the rpm’s and pulled the car out of the spin. “Pretty good turning radius on this thing.”
“Right,” she squeaked. “Totally why I chose it.”
“You okay?”
Again, her hands were over her face, but at least this time her fingers were spread apart so maybe she’d witnessed more than last time. “Sure,” she said weakly. “I’m alive, right? We didn’t crash? How do you do this all the time? This is your life, isn’t it. Make vehicles go really fast.”
With a laugh, he put a hand on the back of her neck and massaged lightly. “To me it’s second nature. I love going fast. I love that feeling of running smack into a centrifugal force. It’s like a little glimpse into the universe. You work the moment and forget everything else. Are you sure it wasn’t just a little bit fun?”
She drew in a deep breath. With his hand still on her neck, he felt her rapid pulse, the subtle flex of her tendons. He pressed his thumb into her tight occipital muscle, releasing some of the tension there. She moaned and tilted her head forward to allow him better access. He parted the thick waves of her hair and bared her neck, so vulnerable and pale against all that rich merlot.
And suddenly all those little moments of attraction accumulated into a flare of fierce heat and he was absolutely on fire for her.
His cock surged with arousal, his mouth went dry. He wanted to bury his head in her hair, breathe in her scent, slide his hand down to that softness she’d brushed against him before. He wanted to bare her breasts, right here in this parking lot. He wanted to delve between her legs, find the secret wetness, the private heat he’d stroke into a fiery blaze.
He snatched his hand away from her neck.
She lifted her head, hair tumbling back into place. “What’s the matter? That felt so good.”
“This is supposed to be a driving lesson.” His voice sounded gruff and sterner than he’d intended it to. But his lust-fever reaction to her had totally caught him off guard. Jesus, he was in a public parking lot and he was supposed to be watching out for her. Not fantasizing about getting her off. “Okay, your turn. Let’s switch seats again.”
“Are you sure I’m ready?” She still looked confused by his sudden switch from masseur to driving instructor.
He gestured at the gray sky outside. “You’d better be. Time is running out.”
“Okay, but just so you know, I usually like a little more foreplay before the main event.” With a naughty wink, she slid out of the car.
He took a little extra time climbing out, and hoped she wouldn’t look too closely as they walked around the hood of the car.
10
Serena’s heart was
hammering as she took the driver’s seat. Her adrenaline spike wasn’t only thanks to the two spins Griffin had just perfectly executed. Watching his expert control of her dumpy little Toyota was truly inspiring. Even arousing. And then there was the way he’d massaged her neck, as if he knew as much about how female bodies worked as he did about motor vehicles.
Being in such close quarters with him made it crystal clear how powerfully attractive she found him. Every time he glanced at her, every word he said in that deep voice, every accidental touch stoked those sparks even higher.
She hauled in a deep breath and tried to locate her focus. Driving lesson. Right. Hands at two and four. Foot on accelerator. Spring forward. Okay, I got this.
“Now yank the wheel to the left,” Griffin said. “Feel the car start to fishtail. That’s when the rear of the car just kind of goes rogue. Steer into it. To the right. That’s it.”
The car was spinning—oh God! I’m going to die! Hold on. Listen to Griffin. Just do what he says.
“Good job,” he was saying. “Now put your foot on the gas. You have more control if the car is going faster, even though it seems counterintuitive. So as soon as you’re out of the spin, you can hit the accelerator to find your final position.” His calm voice served as a kind of lifeline. “Steer to the right. There you go. You got it. Now slow down and hit the brakes. Boom.”
She jerked to a stop. Her hands were gripped so tightly to the wheel that Griffin had to reach over and peel them off, finger by finger. “Oh my God. I don’t think I took a breath that entire time.”
“Something to improve for next time.” He held one of her hands between his, the rough warm skin of his palms sending waves of reassurance through her. “You did good. You didn’t panic.”
“What are you talking about? I was silently screaming the whole time. And I’m not usually a silent screamer. I’m a top-of-my-lungs screamer.”
“Want to let it out now?”
She whooshed out a breath and shook her head. “I’m good. I don’t want to scare you. I suppose you want me to go again.”
The Rogue Page 7
