His Seduction Game Plan (11 page)

“Ferrin, please don't hit Delete. I'm sorry. You're right, I should have told you everything I knew about that night...”

When he was done recording, he messaged the video to Ferrin. He waited, staring at the iMessage screen on his phone until he saw that it had been delivered and then read.

She'd read it. She'd opened his video. Did that mean she'd watched the entire thing? He didn't know.

But he'd sit here until he had a reply and then...well, then he'd make another plan. Because as much as he needed answers and closure about the past he needed to make this right with the woman who could very well be his future.

He saw someone walking toward the car.

Ferrin.

Twelve

F
errin had no idea what she was going to say to Hunter when she saw him. But that video...

It made her believe that he was struggling, too. That he wanted, well, forgiveness. She wasn't sure she was ready for that. But she wanted to at least hear from his lips what had happened.

He opened his car door and now that she was so close to him, a mix of anger and fear roared up inside her again. It surprised her.

He got out, closed the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess you got my video.”

“I probably shouldn't even be down here right now. It was just that I needed to see you.”

He didn't say anything, just dropped his arms to his sides.

“Here I am. You know me now, Ferrin. All the scars and battle wounds that I was trying to hide. The ugliness that I can't get rid of.”

He dropped his head toward his chest and then shook it and lifted it back up again. She couldn't read his expression through the dark sunglasses he wore.

“Could we go someplace and talk about this? I don't think we should do it out here on the street,” he said. “I'll answer all of your questions.”

“Okay. Meet me at Café Carmel in town in thirty minutes.”

“I can't go into a coffeehouse in Carmel,” he said. “I'll be recognized. People will really gawk now that it's out they might be reopening the case. You remember how it was that first night when we went to dinner.”

“I do remember.”

“How about the beach? It's public but we can have some privacy, too,” Hunter said.

“Okay. I'll get my car and follow you.” She just didn't think she could handle being alone with him in a car right now.

“Stop being ridiculous. I'll drive you.”

“No. I need to be able to leave on my own. Until you tell me the whole truth, it's not a good idea for me to be dependent on you for anything.”

“Screw that, Ferrin. I'm hurt, too. I know it's my fault that you're mad. But that doesn't lessen my anger.”

He took his sunglasses off and the rawness in his eyes made her stomach hurt. But she couldn't just let this go.

“There's a park at the end of the street. Want to go talk on the bench there?” she suggested.

He put his sunglasses back on and hit the lock button for his car. “Which way is the park?”

“This way,” she said. She began walking down the street. When she'd visited her dad after her parents had divorced she'd spent a lot of time in the park. Swinging and pretending that if she could get the swing high enough she'd be able to escape from the reality of her life.

She'd tried really hard when she'd first started coming to visit him to be the daughter he wanted. She'd failed miserably.

Maybe that was why she kept failing with men in relationships. She couldn't be what a man wanted. She had to be what she wanted and then the right man would come along.

Hunter followed slowly behind her and she felt a little bit of her anger and confusion wane. He sat down next to her, leaving more than a respectable distance between them. This was it. He'd tell her whatever he thought would make him feel better about why he lied. She'd have to be grown up about it and then she'd send him on his way.

The crash landing from her time in the glamorous world of Hunter Caruthers hadn't entirely been unexpected. From the beginning she'd known they came from two very different worlds. But she'd had no idea how different.

And the crash wasn't the one she'd expected.

She crossed her legs and tried to be objective, the way she counseled her students who were studying psychology. She wanted to find a label for Hunter and pin it to him, but her mind wasn't dominating her right now. Her heart was and she wasn't finding objectivity at all.

“So talk. Start from the beginning.”

* * *

“Stacia and I met the first day I was on campus. I had been a big fish in a little pond back in Texas. Everyone thought I was destined for great things but it was scary to be in California. Everyone seemed like they belonged. And Stacia came over to me and offered me something...a cookie. She'd baked a bunch at home before driving down from Oregon.”

“That's sweet,” she said. She heard in his voice the affection and the guilt he felt toward Stacia. What
had
happened the night she died?

“It was. She'd grown up on a farm and her parents were into organic food. She taught me about juicing and kept me healthy with the meals she'd cook for me.”

“Did you live together?”

“Nah, I was in the frat house and she lived in an apartment off campus to save money.”

Ferrin was sad for the girl who never had a chance to be a woman. She sounded like someone Ferrin would have liked to know. And Hunter felt guilty about her death. Why?

He stretched his legs out in front of himself and stared off in the distance.

“She was taking nursing classes. Her mom was a nurse and all Stacia wanted to be was like her mom—” He broke off and turned away. He stared at the horizon and didn't say anything else and for once she had no idea what to say.

“What happened the night she died?” Ferrin finally asked. She wasn't sure what she'd hoped to hear in his voice. But aside from the affection and the guilt, she heard pain and sadness. She wasn't a judge or a jury. She wanted to pretend the reason she needed to know about his past was solely because of the files in her father's den, but she knew as a woman who cared for Hunter, she wanted answers. He wanted her to go against her father's wishes and give him access to papers and videos that for some reason her father wanted to hide.

Pushing his sunglasses up on his head, Hunter turned back to her, and the weighted expression in his eyes made the ache inside her deepen.

“I...it was the end of the season and rumor had it Kingsley was going to get the Heisman Trophy again. I was projected to be drafted by the NFL and I started to think of the future. Coach had talked to me and said I was too young to be tied down with a girlfriend. That being in the NFL was my chance to focus on playing.”

“I can hear Coach saying that. Nothing's more important than the game. So you and Stacia had dated all through college?”

“Yeah, all four years. Senior year we weren't as close as we'd once been—I was busy with meetings and playing so we'd only been on a few dates and we were both feeling pulled away from each other,” Hunter said.

But she wasn't too sure she wanted to hear more about this woman whom Hunter once loved. It would be foolish to be jealous of a dead woman but Ferrin wondered if Hunter was still in love with Stacia.

“I can see that. It's sad, Hunter. But what I need to know is if you took a drastic measure to get free.”

“Well, I didn't kill her,” Hunter said. “I thought you'd know that.”

“I thought I did, too, but you sound guilty when you talk about her.”

“Yeah, I broke up with her that night. Told her we needed time apart and things weren't working out. She got upset and we had a fight and she left the frat house. A bunch of people heard us fighting, which is why the cops originally suspected me.”

“How does Kingsley play into that?” she asked. “I don't imagine he was fighting with her, as well.”

“No, he wasn't. After Stacia left, Kingsley and I went to the living room and got drunk. I passed out and when I woke up the cops were at the door and we were both arrested.”

“They arrested you?”

“Yes. Kingsley's brother is a big-time lawyer so he flew out to be with us when we were questioned. At first we didn't even know why we'd been arrested. When I heard that it was...that Stacia was dead... I couldn't—”

He turned away and put his head in his hands. Suddenly all the anger, fear and heartbreak drained away from her. She wasn't sure she could care about him the way she had last night but this man was broken. He couldn't have possibly killed Stacia.

Ferrin touched him. Just a brief light tap of his shoulder because her arms ached to hug him. The same way she'd have comforted a stranger in the street if she'd seen someone break down. Or at least that was what she really wanted to believe.

“Okay. So how is this related to Dad's stuff? What do you think you're going to find there?” she asked.

Hunter turned to face her. “I'm sorry about that. I haven't spoken out loud about Stacia in a long time. I wanted some closure for myself of course, but also for her. I want to know what happened that night and let her parents know. They deserve that. Your father's files and tapes might be another false lead, but I'm hoping that maybe there is something on the tapes that might explain what happened. Gabi was also a student at the time and she heard—hell, it sounds like gossip—but there's a chance someone on the team was drugging girls and then raping them. I'm not saying Coach knew anything about that but there might be something in his notes to help me find out.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist. She hadn't known what to expect but she hadn't expected to feel this kind of empathy.

“Fair enough. I... I need to think about this,” she said. “I'll go home and give you my answer in a few days.”

She needed to know why her father was so adamantly opposed to letting Hunter see the boxes of stuff from his office. Did he know something? Was he protecting someone?

“I'm haunted, Ferrin. I have to exhaust every line of inquiry. I have to figure out what happened so that we can both have some peace. I hate that whatever happened back then has cost me twice.”

* * *

A small group of moms and toddlers were walking toward the park and Hunter put his sunglasses back on. In Texas most people got behind him. After all he was a son of the Lone Star State and they had always believed in his innocence. But in California where the story had been played in the media nonstop until he and Kingsley had been released from jail, people thought that they'd bought their freedom.

Kingsley was the son of a wealthy family, as was Hunter. People called them the privileged elite and said that they thought they were better than the law. But they hadn't been. It was easy for people to assume that money fixed everything but it hadn't. It had simply given them the means to leave California. Hunter wouldn't have come back here if not for Kingsley.

But Kingsley had been tired of running. He wanted his son to grow up here and now that he and Gabi were engaged they wanted to make their life here. They deserved to do it free of suspicion and vicious tongues.

As much as Hunter needed to put the past to rest for himself.

“If I let you go through his stuff, that's it. I need to take a step back,” she said. “When I heard that there was a story about us on E!, I realized everything is going way too fast.” Her voice was level and calm but there was still a flush on her cheeks.

“We'll see.”

“No, we won't. I'm serious, Hunter,” she said.

He turned to face her on the bench and put his hand on the back of it. He ached. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she stopped thinking and started reacting to him. Started to remember how good they were together, but he knew that he couldn't. He owed her the chance to process everything. He should back off, but it wasn't his way. He felt as if his team had been blitzed and he was scrambling to recover. He'd lost ground.

The end zone was farther away than before.

Wait. He thought the end zone had been Coach's files, and until this moment sitting on a park bench with Ferrin, he'd have sworn that was all he wanted. But he knew now he wanted her.

“But what about us?” he asked. He was tired of playing the long game. He wanted to get to the end zone and maybe retire with Ferrin by his side. But convincing her to give him a second chance was going to be hard.

“There is no us,” she said.

“You can't ignore last night.”

She stood up, put her hands on her hips and looked down at him. “I have to, Hunter. It's the only way I'm going to be able to function. It's just too confusing.”

“Give me a chance,” he said, getting to his feet next to her. “Let me prove to you that I am the man you thought I was.”

She chewed her lower lip and he realized he'd never in his life wanted a do-over more than he did this one. He needed a second chance with her because even if he could fix the past for Stacia and her parents, he had no future without Ferrin.

“I really don't know.”

“Just give me a chance. That's all I ask. Let's look through the boxes—”

“I haven't decided yet,” she reminded him.

“Or not. Just don't shut me out.”

She didn't answer him and he thought he'd lost all hope but then she nodded. “We can talk in a few days. I need a break.”

“What kind of break?” he asked.

“I'm going home to Texas. I want to sit in my parents' house and let them spoil me.”

Fair enough. She deserved that.

“When will you be back?”

“I have to look at flights but I'm thinking a week. I'll give you my answer then about the boxes or you can try your luck again with Coach. I'm done with men and football for now.”

She walked away and all he could do was watch her go. He wasn't dumb and he knew when a woman was at her breaking point. Ferrin had been pushed too far today. He knew it was his fault. He wanted to make it up to her but she'd asked for time.

Maybe time would work in his favor. It couldn't hurt. And a gift. He'd send her something to show her that she meant more to him than access to some old files.