Ahead in the Heat (4 page)

A
nnie didn’t do parties. Not the way Sean did parties, at least. He had his fancy on, that was for sure. His suit was an indefinable gray, and he’d paired it with a pale pink shirt with the faintest plaid pattern. His brighter pink tie should have looked awful. The combination should have made him look slightly effeminate or unmanly.

It didn’t. God, it didn’t.

Annie wanted to wrap his pink-dotted tie around her fist and haul him six inches down so she could kiss him.

The colors made his tan stand out, the darkness of his hair even stronger. All of it was contrasted by his bright, neon, unfairly blue eyes. That wasn’t even counting the blade-sharp cheekbones and jawline. He had lines around his mouth that only men could pull off and behind them, his cheeks were barely hollowed.

It was unfair. He was too beautiful.

At the moment, he was talking with a perfect blonde who had the whole package down pat as well. Sean had introduced the woman as Gloria, Nate Coker’s girlfriend. They obviously knew each other quite well and Sean kept things to a perfectly honed level of pleasant conversation. He never
dipped into flirtation territory with his teammate’s girlfriend.

And yet . . . Annie could tell something was off between Sean and the other woman. She kept touching him, for one thing, despite the way that Sean was practically waving a no-swim flag above his head.

Gloria swatted Sean’s shoulder. “We’re going to miss you in France. What was the name of that bar you took everyone to last time?”

“Chanteclair.” He gave it the perfect French pronunciation. “But I’ll be competing by the time the circuit gets to France.”

He was so coolly collected that Annie felt like digging her toes into the dirt and ducking her head whenever she was around him. Standing at his side while he charmed the event’s coordinators made her feel about as gauche as a terrier at the opera. She was so out of her depth.

Her dress had seemed like a good idea when she was in Nordstrom. The handkerchief hem flirted around her thighs, and she’d loved the fabric’s gold shimmer. But now that she was the three-foot-tall munchkin surrounded by seven-foot beauties in sleek black dresses, she regretted her pick.

“Well, if you don’t make it, we’ll have a round in your name,” Gloria promised, ignoring Sean’s potent determination to be surfing in time for that competition. Then she flicked the shortest glance possible at Annie. “Nice to meet you.”

Sean waved as the other woman slipped away between the closely packed bodies dressed in tiny scraps of silk and cotton. Oddly, more than one person was wearing a scarf wrapped around and
around the neck, as if the sixty-five-degree spring weather in Southern California actually necessitated extra warmth.

“You look like you could use a drink.” Sean leaned toward her, ducking his head to create a private space between them.

“Make it three drinks and you’ve got a deal.”

Sean threw his head back to laugh, and she was mesmerized by the strong line of his throat. He was all strength and sinew. Leanly attractive. When he hooked an arm around her shoulders, his thumb came to rest at the cap of her shoulder. “You’re in luck. It’s an open bar.”

“In that case, I want six.”

They worked their way through the crowd toward the equally packed bar. People were . . . people. Everywhere. Laughing and chattering and talking with flying hands. They were all the fancy people too. Annie had barely made it through med school with all these Type As and the
big
way they lived.

“You like keeping a low profile,” Sean said once they’d squeezed in at the bar. It was made of opaque white Plexiglas lit from behind to make clouds of color that gradually shifted through the spectrum.

Annie faced the bar, tucking her elbows in close to herself. The guy to her right was a dapper man wearing a tailored three-piece suit, but he kept rocking back on his heels as he told a story about a gardener, a pool boy, and his ex-boyfriend’s coke habit. His suit jacket brushed Annie. She scooted closer to Sean. “What gave me away?” she asked dryly.

He braced his left hand on the counter, carving out breathing room for her. He sheltered her, and
though she’d buck up against that sort of male-female protection most of the time, for the moment, she needed it. Her chest was closing in, and she had those awful tingles down the back of her thighs—the ones that said she was getting way too wound up way too fast.

“I dunno,” Sean said. His cheeks hollowed as he tucked away a smile. “Maybe the fact that you’re a millimeter from plastering yourself to me.”

She waved for the bartender. “I’m not that close.”

Half a step between them. Not even that. A shift. He took one deep breath and was touching her, his chest against her shoulder and his hip against hers. Her lips parted. She sucked in a breath. Then another.

No. This wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be that kind of therapist. He was her patient. She’d worked him through a round of mobility exercises that very morning, having him hold one end of an elastic band to work on resistance.

The tingles down the backs of her thighs turned into full-blown shivers. Her chest was tight. “Who’s Gloria?”

“I thought I said during introductions?” Sean replied blandly. “Nate’s girlfriend?”

Annie shook her head. Tendrils of hair skimmed her temples. “No, who is she really?”

Sean’s mouth tweaked into a subtle smile. “My ex-girlfriend as well, Ms. Observant. Points to you.”

If Annie had thought her chest was tight a moment ago, it was nothing compared to the wrenching pressure on her lungs. Gloria looked right for Sean.
Tall and beautiful and polished, they’d be like the surfing world’s Barbie and Ken equivalent.

“What can I get you?” the fresh-faced bartender said, popping up in front of her. She smiled blankly back at him, glad for the sudden distraction.

“Two vodka gimlets.” She might have been teasing about needing three or six, but this was definitely a multiple-drink moment. She really wished she’d renewed her Ativan prescription. But years of therapy after Terry and that disastrous night had finally helped her work through the need for antianxiety meds. Or so she’d thought.

“And a Corona with lime for me,” Sean added.

“No, he’ll have a cranberry and soda.”

The bartender pursed his lips. His gaze flicked from Annie’s, up over her shoulder, to Sean. He had both hands spread, wiry shoulders leaning into the bar. When he tilted his head, his short Mohawk didn’t move. “Sir . . . ?”

“Cranberry and soda,” Sean echoed. But as soon as the bartender was gone again, he leaned down close enough that Annie could feel his breath on the skin below her ear. “You’re gonna owe me for this one.”

That was certainly one way to beat away the threat of an anxiety attack, wasn’t it? Distraction worked, but it wasn’t something she could provide on her own. Sean, though. The way he touched her was like ice water to her system. Her breathing still felt tight, but God, in a different way. An exhilarating way.

She twisted, turning to face him. The periphery of her vision swam with darkness, but in the center
there was Sean. His eyes. The way he looked at her, with that graceful mouth holding still. Concern narrowed his brows and traced lines across his forehead. “Are you all right?”

She ignored the question. “I warned you there’d be no alcohol under my watch.”

“You were having two. I figured it was worth a shot.”

“Here you are, ma’am,” the bartender said, pushing two slender-stemmed glasses across the bar. He set a squat tumbler of cranberry and soda next to it. He’d stuck a jaunty paper umbrella through a cherry.

“Thanks,” Sean said dryly, before removing the umbrella and cherry without comment. He dropped it on the paper napkin.

“Thank you.” The drink was cool against her sticky palms. Medicating herself with alcohol was a piss-poor idea. She knew that, but she sucked it down anyway. The vodka sizzled against the back of her throat, balanced by the lime juice and sugar. “Come on, Sean. Let’s make this trauma fest worth it.”

She tried to push past him, but apparently, even with one injured arm, there was no making Sean shift if he didn’t want to. He was a wall. A handsome, gorgeous wall. She stretched up to her full height, but that left her still craning her neck as she attempted to look him right in the eyes.

“Only if you tell me what’s going on.”

She was using her best poker face, but her cheeks felt heavy and her skin clammy. At least the fire of the drink had curled through her body, warming her from the inside out. “No.”

“Annie . . .” He drew her name into something she shouldn’t want to hear again . . . but she did. She’d think of his deep, determined voice at three in the morning; she knew it. Her brain would replay that sound, only add in a different context and different hopes.

And she was an idiot. “I’m your physical therapist, Sean.”

“You’re obviously upset.”

“Then why don’t you tell me what you think is wrong.” It wouldn’t count as inappropriate if he was just guessing, right?

Fuck, she deserved to have her license taken away.

“I think you’re on the verge of a panic attack.” He braced himself against the bar, blocking her in. Between the suit and the tie, he looked like something out of a fashion magazine instead of a surfer. But she still wanted to let her head rest against his deep chest.

“Not anymore.” She held up the drink. “I’ve successfully self-medicated.”

“You’re not supposed to do that.”

“I’m also not supposed to be having this conversation with a client.” The washes of sensation down the back of her thighs were gone, at least. That was a bonus. Except she wasn’t sure if they were gone due to the vodka, or due to Sean’s obvious worry. “Let’s make tonight worth it, okay? Can we do that?”

She wasn’t sure how he would answer. Sean had a reputation for being a flashy playboy, and the way he navigated the night’s crush hinted at why. But most people hadn’t seen him sweating through a
physical therapy session. Apparently they hadn’t seen the dark, determined look in his eyes. Otherwise they’d have entirely different ideas about him.

The moment he decided to let the charade go was so obvious. His smile built slowly, pulling up on one side farther than the other. His eyes sparked with blue.

“What would make tonight worth it for you, Annie? I have a few ideas. But I doubt you’d agree much with my choices.”

“You’re not supposed to flirt with me,” she replied automatically. Really, she wanted to clasp his face between her hands, feel his scruffy stubble across her palms, and plant a smacking, relieved kiss on his mouth. Just as a giant thank-you for letting her change the subject.

“I do lots of things I’m not supposed to.”

She scoffed, the noise slipping right out of her mouth without thought. Challenging a wild animal wasn’t a good idea. “You’re practically a pussycat.”

“Are you gonna make me prove it?”

“Only after you get me that introduction you promised. Mover or shaker, either would do.”

He smelled good. It was expensive cologne, sharp musk that wove beneath the press of bodies all around them. But under that was the tangy scent of salt water. He lived and breathed the ocean. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “If I introduce you to this life-changing person, you won’t need my money anymore. You’ll discharge me as a client.”

Maybe she should do that anyway. She was an idiot for even letting this continue. Therapist-patient restrictions existed for a reason. She sipped her drink
to hide the flush of guilt making the back of her neck prickle. “Does he have another three million I can have?”

“He might.” Sean had lost that cheeky tone, the one that said he’d hauled them into flirty, fun territory. He had dark holes in him, Sean Westin did.

She lifted her gaze to his. “I’m not greedy. Six mil would probably be too much for a fledgling foundation to manage.”

“Ever dream of quitting your day job?” he asked solemnly.

She snorted. “No. With as hard as I worked for my degrees, you’ve got to be shitting me. I’m never walking away. I’ll be practicing physiotherapy when I’m ninety-three. That much funding probably
would
allow me to hire a full-time center director, though.”

He washed her over with a sudden, blinding grin. “Leaving you more time to skateboard with the kids?”

“Totally. That’s the fun part.”

“You’re a good person, Baxter.”

She’d disagree with that. She tried to be good, but she was pretty messed up all the way through. Apparently she could add having no idea of therapist-patient propriety to her list of sins. “You’re stalling, Westin.”

“What if I am? What if I wanna keep you all to myself?”

She shook her head, because that was the last thing she wanted to happen. She was happy where she was, leaning against the bar in the shelter of Sean’s body. Which meant she had to get away. “You’re out of luck, then.”

“But you’re in luck. Because our quarry is coming to us.”

Her spine jolted, nerves slamming into the base of her back in one abrupt punch. Her neck snapped tight. “What? Who?”

“Frank Wakowski, the owner of WavePro.”

Bewilderment made her gaze dart around the room. It was a packed wall of women’s bare backs and deep cleavage and men’s suits. “But you don’t surf for them.”

“Nope. I know Frank, though. He’s a good guy, and he’s looking for a new pet project.”

She scrambled through her knowledge of WavePro. From what she could remember, they put most of their donation money into exclusively surf-oriented causes, such as beach cleanup or runoff prevention. “I run a skateboard clinic.”

“You run a safe house for teenagers.” Sean caught her hand and her gaze at the same time. “That’s important, Annie. I wish I’d had someone like you around when I was young. It might have saved me.”

S
ean apparently had a loose-to-negligent setting on his mouth. Because, Jesus, where in holy hell had that little saccharine drip come from? He hadn’t said anything like that in . . . ever. No one on the ’CT knew where he came from. They didn’t need to. No one needed to, except his personal physician and his manager, who knew to watch for signs of mental imbalance. There’d been none. Sean was about as well-rounded as anyone. Some worries crept in when he hadn’t managed to go surfing for days, but that was about it. He’d made the mistake of telling Gloria a hint of his past when they were dating, and she had very quickly moved on to Nate, deeming him a much less shaky bet. Sean had sworn to not even think about telling anyone else.

Annie had been in a bad place in her head. He’d always been a sucker for women in need, so he’d done what he needed to in order to make her feel better. That was it.

He tugged the bottom hem of his suit coat. An uncomfortable feeling slithered up his spine. Annie was . . . different.

Annie was better than he was. That was the truth. He’d have liked nothing more than to cup her face in his hands and kiss her better, but that wasn’t his
right. She’d have freaked out for sure. She was his physical therapist, and she seemed to take that responsibility seriously. But what they had between them was more than that.

He’d let himself slip around her. Said things he shouldn’t have. Since she was so clever, she probably already had started putting pieces together. Things in his past were better left there, and he couldn’t afford the trouble that came with a serious relationship. Girlfriends tended to need honesty, and he’d had problems with that. Sure, he always stayed on the up-and-up with where he went and the kind of man he was. He didn’t
lie
. But he also didn’t give away all his truths.

He’d never been able to tell a soul about his mother. Not even Gloria. Those days were long ago.

Sean ruthlessly stomped down buried memories that wanted to explode. He needed the water, and soon. It was the only thing that could clear his head. That his shoulder wasn’t aching at that very second made the desire worse. Unfortunately, it would only take one wrong move to hurt it again.

He smiled at the owner of WavePro and shifted so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Annie. “Frank. It’s good to see you.”

The older man verged on skinny from a life spent surfing. He held out a hand. “Sean. I was sorry to hear about your injury.”

Sean nodded, but his back teeth ground together. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t shake hands.”

“Of course, of course,” Frank agreed, waving it off. “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”

Frank was a nice guy, and as easygoing as the
head of any multimillion-dollar company could be. He likely hadn’t meant anything by offering to shake hands when Sean was nursing his injury, but the reminder still grated. For now, it would have to be enough that Sean felt better day by day. Annie’s treatment had plenty to do with that, he was sure. But it made his bones scrape with discomfort that he wasn’t at a hundred percent.

“No worries. But Frank, let me introduce you to Annie Baxter.”

Her mouth curved into a slight smile. “That’s
Dr.
Baxter.”

Shock left Frank’s mouth hanging open. “You barely look old enough to be a coed. I can’t imagine where you managed to squeeze in all your schooling.”

“I’ve had people ask me that before.” There was nothing wrong with the way Annie replied, and her expression never wavered. But Sean could see her pulse flicker into triple speed behind her ear.

How often must she hear that? Too often for it to be even remotely amusing anymore. He wanted to put a hand at the base of her spine, but he resisted the impulse. Putting women at risk of gossip had never been his favorite hobby. “Annie runs a teen drop-in center focused on peer outreach support systems. She teaches skateboarding as a medium for contact,” Sean said smoothly.

If he hadn’t been quite as focused on Annie, he’d have missed her rapid blink and the way her lips parted. Just as quickly, she recomposed her expression into a serene smile. She looked gorgeous enough to eat. The gold dress skimmed over her with a
modest bodice, but it put a killer expanse of back on display. She was sleek and lean, the body that had looked boyish in jeans and a T-shirt suddenly wholly feminine. It seemed that she hadn’t expected him to so easily reel off her foundation’s principles.

“Is it in San Sebastian?” Frank asked. He had salt-and-pepper hair, and he’d recently cultivated a short beard and mustache. He rubbed the beard. “I’m always looking for projects in town. Keeping development local shores up our roots in the community.”

Sean knew that already. He couldn’t have leveraged his surfing into the healthy investment portfolio he’d managed without keeping his ear to the ground. Sean surfed for Coyote, but that didn’t mean he was unaware of WavePro’s growing status in the surf community. They wanted good press, and they wanted it in Southern California. Charity donations created a healthy tax write-off for them as well.

“My ad hoc location is in San Sebastian,” Annie agreed. “We’re hoping to be able to open the permanent center off Seventeenth Street, since there’s a former bowling alley that could be easily converted. But it would depend on meeting our funding goals.”

“What are your goals?”

“High-end figures are two point seven million. We can do it for less, but we’d rather not.”

Sean smothered a grin behind his cranberry and soda. He didn’t miss how she avoided mentioning that Sean had already pledged enough to cover all those so-called funding goals. She was ruthless. He pretty much dug that about her.

“Skateboarding, huh? No chance there’s any interest in surfing?” Frank winked.

Annie’s narrow shoulders lifted in a shrug. “We’ve had interest, naturally. It’s hard to run a teen center in San Sebastian without having kids who want to surf. After all, you sponsor Tanner Wright, who’s also a local. The fervor for the World Championship Tour is at an all-time high.”

She didn’t seem to have any personal interest in surfing, though. Sean didn’t understand that. How could she have left it so cleanly in her past? Unless she’d had a shitty wipeout or some other sort of trauma. He knew plenty about leaving unpleasant stuff behind, but to him, surfing was life. Surfing was what cleaned away all the nasty.

He watched her profile as she continued chatting with Frank. It was hard to believe the pixie who’d almost had a panic attack in the middle of a party twenty minutes ago was holding her own with the owner of a multinational company. She was badass like that. Her nose and chin were rounded from the side, her cheeks soft. Her lashes were dark and lush, casting shadows across her upper cheeks under the party’s dramatically colorful lighting.

“Well, naturally I can’t promise anything,” Frank eventually said, “but if you contact Adin Lund, our new director of operations, I’ll take a look at your prospectus.”

“I’d be happy to, Mr. Wakowski,” Annie said, every inch the graceful professional.

Sean thought there would probably be a much more significant reaction from her as soon as Wakowski walked away, though. She was vibrating, but quietly. Her muscles popped into tight alignment along her spine. The hint of ribs at her midback
suddenly became more visible, three definite swoops revealed by her electric tension.

“Sean, it’s been wonderful to see you,” Frank said, clapping Sean on the back. “I must say you’re dealing with those strange rumors fairly well.”

The world tilted. Sean’s fist curled. Some part of him had been subtly terrified this moment would eventually come. There was nothing in Frank’s words that guaranteed he was about to say something horrible about Sean’s past. Not at all.

But Sean knew. He knew with a perfectly incontrovertible irrationality that was all sorts of convincing. There was only one thing in his past. One allegation that had haunted him for life. His mother’s ruin. Everything else was practically sunshine and roses when held in perspective. “What rumors?”

Frank flushed red. His jowls pushed up as he shook his head and held out a hand. “No, that is . . . if you haven’t heard . . . You haven’t heard?”

Sean shook his head. “I’ve been keeping my head down the last two weeks. Well, collarbone, anyway.”

But he should have been dialed in. His smartphone had all the addresses and phone numbers of every person on the ’CT, as well as their Instagram accounts and sponsor-mandated Twitter. If no one had told him what was going on, this was bad. He’d been here before, the one on the outside when the slightest hints about his mother leached into his high school’s rumor mill. His stomach coiled into a chilled knot.

Annie set a hand on his forearm. The suit and his long-sleeved shirt meant that he couldn’t feel the
softness of her skin, only the weight of her touch. “Sean,” she said softly.

“What’s going on, Frank?”

“Son, maybe we should sit down.”

“Maybe you should just spit it out.” He was losing his grip on the spike of anger that had his fists clenching, both of them. There was no pain from his shoulder, because the rest of him didn’t even exist.

“There’s talk that a documentary maker has found something interesting about you. They aren’t saying great things. Rumors are saying the topic might be doping.” Frank held up both hands. “But they’re mostly just rumors so far. No one’s even attached a director’s name to the picture. I wouldn’t put any stock in the idea.”

Sean gave a bitter huff. His stomach twisted. No one had come to him with a request for a documentary lately, which could only mean that they’d intended from the beginning for it to be unauthorized. “People are putting plenty of stock in whatever the hell they feel like. Otherwise someone would have told me what was going on.”

He’d been left in the dark. Fuck, he hated that. He’d felt helpless and ignorant when his mother’s illness pushed him around. Not her, not the
stuff
that she accumulated, but the mental illness that pushed and pulled her around. He’d never been able to help her conquer it, not even at the dark end.

That was why he’d avoided being helpless once he’d had his own life. He conquered the damn ocean, and he’d been so close to a world championship so many times, he could have kissed the damn silver trophy. Yet he’d missed it.

He was close again this year, but between injury and these new rumors, he could feel things slipping out of his grasp. All his plans, all his work. Fucked again.

He ground his teeth together, and his spine felt like it was made of metal. “Frank, there’s nothing in my past worth making a documentary about.” That was a lie, but he wasn’t going to tell that to the head of a rival company.

“I know, Sean,” Frank agreed, giving a conciliatory nod. “But . . . well, things have gotten tough lately. Everyone’s scrutinizing athletes for doping history. Hell, look how long Lance Armstrong got away with it until they really started clamping down. . . . If there are any sorts of drugs in your past, things might get a little tough.”

Sean muttered curses under his breath. This was not good. “Why me? Why are the rumors centering on me? I’m a midranker at best.”

“I think it has to do with this recent injury, and particularly the circumstances of it. It’s drawing you extra attention. Combined with how closemouthed you’ve always been about your past . . .”

“Man, this is bullshit. These are just rumors.” And they were way off the mark. So far.

Frank’s expression turned mournful. His mouth turned down at the corners, and his eyes deepened with sadness. “Sean . . . I know they’re rumors, but
you really should cover yourself. Maybe you should talk to your attorney.”