Knock Me for a Loop (10 page)

“I think I’m feeling better about you knowing one of my secrets,” he said with a grin. “Especially since I now know one of yours.”

“Gonna hold it over my head and threaten me with exposure if I don’t lighten my touch during your exercises?”

There was an idea. “I’m not sure a woman watching soaps carries quite the same stigma as a guy who does.”

She seemed to brighten. “True. And if word got around, I might even be able to score a guest role on one of the shows.”

Without turning his head, he slanted a curious glance in her direction, wondering if she realized or even cared that she was completely missing the movie she’d fought so hard to get to watch.

“You angling for a daytime TV career now?” he asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “Probably not. I don’t really think of myself as an actress as much as a talk show host. It’s much easier to sit and chat with someone like they’re sitting in your living room with you than it is to memorize lines and pretend to be someone else.”

“And to put together a seven-layer wedding cake, fix the carburetor on a ‘76 Mustang, or rewire a ceiling fan on live television,” he added, reminding her of only a handful of the other things she did on
Amazing Grace.

“Yeah, well,” she said as though none of those were any big deal, “that’s just following directions. I’ve also got a lot of people on set to tell me what to do, show me what to do, and make sure I look good doing it. Besides, the show is taped, not live, so if I screw up, there’s always a retake.”

Retakes were nice. He only wished they could be applied to real life as easily as they could in a television studio. There were certainly more than a few times—most of them in recent memory and involving her—when he’d have liked to yell “Cut!” and start a conversation or situation over again.

Her easy dismissal of her on-air accomplishments made him wonder, though. Was she just being modest, or did she truly not realize that much of what she did on a regular basis really was amazing? He also knew for a fact that many of the segments and show topics that appeared on
Amazing Grace
were her brainchildren.

When they’d been dating and engaged, she would often hop up during dinner or roll over in bed to find a piece of paper and a pencil so she could make notes about some idea or another that had popped into her head. Or she would use him as a sounding board while she worked out the details of a concept before taking it to her writers and producers.

Truth be told, he’d always thought she was kind of brilliant. She was both beautiful and brainy, and he’d considered himself one lucky son of a bitch to have her at his side, willing to marry a plain old jock and spend the rest of her life with him.

And most of the time, he still wondered how he’d managed to screw that up.

Oh, he was aware of the technicalities of their breakup. But knowing the facts rather than the fiction both Grace and the media had blown out of proportion, he didn’t understand why he hadn’t been able to put things back together again.

In the beginning, it was those regrets that had kept him up at night. And it had taken him a while to get over it, to come to terms with her being gone and not coming back.

Later, though, it was the knowledge that he would probably never find another woman as smart, sexy, or suitable for him as Grace that made him want to crawl into a bottle and not come out.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t find another woman. Hell, if he wanted, he could have a different babe in his bed every night of the week. God knew they threw themselves at him often enough.

After practices, when he was out with the guys, sometimes while he was simply walking down the street. The best, though, was after games. Whether they were playing at home or away, whether they won or lost, the heat and excitement of the game got the chicks all worked up, and they seemed to come out in droves. Sometimes they weren’t even Rocket groupies, but fans of the other team who wanted bragging rights to bagging an opposing player.

And B.G.—Before Grace—he’d had no reason not to accept just about every offer he got. No red-blooded, heterosexual male in his right mind would turn down a set of double Ds being pressed to his chest and the promise of strings-free tail, after all.

Especially when the bunnies shaking those tails made him feel like a god—or a rock star. It was pretty damn intoxicating.

Women of all shapes, sizes, and walks of life had thrown themselves at him, and he’d been only too happy to catch.

And then he’d met Grace. Not his finest moment, since it had involved being the shooter of a puck that had flown into the stands and whacked her in the head. Then later, at the end of the game they were playing for charity, and after she’d recovered from her injury, he’d skated across the ice to apologize and crashed right into her.

They’d both gone down like a ton of bricks, Zack landing flat on top of a dizzy and breathless Grace. She’d opened her dazzling blue eyes, staring up at him in astonishment, and a second later they’d both been laughing their asses off.

It had been one of those “when we met” stories he’d thought they would be telling their children and grandchildren someday. The story of how Daddy/Grandpa had quite literally knocked Mommy/Grandma off her feet.

Looking at her now, just as cute—and yes, smoking hot—as she’d been the day he’d slap-shot her in the noggin and then steamrolled her, he wished it still were.

But
if wishes were horses
, right?

At least his dog was back. Not forever, unless he figured out a way to snatch him and hide him away until Grace lost interest, but something was better than nothing at this point.

And at the rate she was riding him, he might also be able to regain his mobility and get back on the ice sooner than he’d ever thought possible. In time for this season’s playoffs? Probably not. But it was looking good for next season, no doubt about it.

The irony was that it had taken the woman who wanted him drawn, quartered, and sterilized to get him on track and make him realize he actually
wanted
to get better and get back on the ice.

He wondered if she’d figured that one out, too. And that she hadn’t threatened his life or manhood in nearly a week.

Or if she still considered her stay with him simply the easiest way to get her friends off her case—and get him back to the peak of health so she could run him over with her car and kill him clean. (Because hitting him while he was in a wheelchair or on crutches just wouldn’t be enough of a challenge for her, he was sure.)

She laughed at something taking place on the TV screen, absently leaning over and resting a hand on his good knee while she reached for another celery stick.

Yeah. He needed to get back on his feet, back on the ice, and then back into the dating game before his feelings for Grace started clawing around in his chest again and he fell into the trap of thinking there might be a chance of reconciliation.

The only problem, he thought as he forced himself to turn his attention on the chick flick, was that there was a strange warmth already niggling behind his rib cage, making him uncomfortable.

He hoped to hell it was indigestion from too many raw vegetables, because if it wasn’t….

If it wasn’t, he was in trouble.

Row 9

Grace was beginning to feel like a housekeeper—or a
housewife.
Especially since, with her moving in to take care of Zack, Magda’s once-a-week visits weren’t necessary for the time being.

She cooked three meals a day, plus snacks.

She did laundry and dishes and kept the apartment neater than Zack ever had.

She walked the dog, chauffeured Zack back and forth to appointments, and made sure he did his exercises in between.

She should be going stir-crazy …pulling her hair out…bubbling over with resentment. Instead, she thought she might actually be …enjoying herself.

Even though she’d cut back her hours at the studio, relying on repeats of her show to make up for the filming of fewer new episodes, it was still slightly exhausting to juggle both her regular job and the care and feeding of her ex-fiancé. And yet she popped out of bed each morning feeling refreshed and ready to greet the day.

She preferred
not
to think it had anything to do with spending her days with Zack, but that it had more to do with the change in routine and feeling as though she were truly making a difference.

That difference being Zack himself.

It had taken a few days for him to get with the program, but once he’d figured out she wasn’t about to leave him alone to wallow in Cheetos and self-pity, and that he could either go along with her plans willingly or risk having his penis Super Glued to his leg in the middle of the night, he’d really come around.

He went to physical therapy without complaint, and reminded her when it was time for his home exercises rather than making her drag his butt off the couch with threats of excessive poking with pointy objects or the poisoning of his pork chops for dinner. He was also getting around pretty well on crutches now instead of relying on someone to push him in the wheelchair.

She was actually, maybe, almost…
proud
of him. He might have hit a rough spot and not had much motivation there for a while, but he’d really turned things around. In another month, she expected him to be off the crutches almost entirely. And a month or two after that, he’d probably be back on the ice.

She had to be careful not to let that slip, though.

Often while they were working on his stretches or when he moved faster during one of their walks with Muffin than he had the day before, she found her mouth opening to compliment his progress. Whenever she realized what she was about to do, she would quickly snap her teeth together and keep her jaw tightly locked.

She was supposed to hate staying with him, be resentful that she had to babysit him through his recovery from his injury. She was
not
supposed to be feeling at home in his apartment or falling back into the comfortable, pleasant routine of living with him again.

But she was. It felt like old times, and it was…
curses …
nice. She even caught herself—more often than not—forgetting that she was mad at him, that he’d betrayed her.

Once, for only a second, the thought had even run through her head that she should forgive him, give him another chance, and that they should maybe try again to make things work.

It was a stupid idea. She’d been right to end things, even if she’d maybe gone a little overboard in the
how.
And she was definitely not the type of woman to be used and abused, then go back for more.

No, thank you. She’d rather walk barefoot over broken glass, eat a bowl of wiggling worms mixed in with her Chinese noodles, or go an extra month without having her roots done.

But he did look sexy slouched down on the couch, bare feet propped on the low, glass-topped coffee table, Muffin’s wide snout resting on his denim-clad thigh. A ripple of awareness…okay, she could admit it,
attraction …
curled through her belly.

Eight or nine months ago, she’d have responded to that burst of desire by pushing her chair back from the dining room table, sauntering silently across the bare oak floor, and crawling onto his lap. She might have had to share that space with a snoozing pooch, but it would have been worth it. And she’d have bet her favorite pair of Jimmy Choos that after she kissed him, pressed her soft curves to his firmly muscled planes, and whispered a few sweet nothings in his ear, he’d have been only too happy to push the Saint Bernard aside and let her take the dog’s place.

That wasn’t going to be happening today, though. Instead of pushing away from the table, she stayed where she was, reviewing the script for an upcoming show about children who exhibit signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder. That would be followed later in the same hour by a segment about homemade Valentine treats. She was set to decorate cookies and cupcakes and make ladybugs out of gumdrops and black licorice.

Over the dialogue of a new episode of
General Hospital
—which he’d gone back to watching (along with all of his other stories) since she’d caught on to his big, bad secret—she heard a loud, obnoxious ripping noise.

“Good God, Zack,” she said, her brows knit and her mouth open in disgust.

“Wasn’t me,” he called back. Then a second later, he started waving a hand in front of his face to dissipate what—from the sound of it—had to be a horrific odor. “Whoa, Bruiser, that was toxic! Must be the green beans you served for lunch,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “They were a bit
al dente.”

She’d long ago given up correcting him when he referred to Muffin as Bruiser. For a while, they’d done the battle of wills thing, but she’d soon realized it was a lost cause. So now Zack called him Bruiser and she called him Muffin, and she only hoped the poor dog didn’t develop multiple personalities because of it.

Of course, she still dressed the Saint in his warm, fuzzy pink sweater, booties, and rhinestone-studded “Muffin” collar when they went out, and she’d still won the ultimate battle of having the dog fixed.

Oh, Zack had thrown a fit when he’d figured that one out, but Grace knew it was more for manly, macho appearances and the need to maintain a bit of clout over his former dog than anything else. Because he, too, believed in spaying and neutering to cut down on the pet overpopulation; he’d simply wanted to be the one to have it done.

But he’d procrastinated too long, and since she’d had Muffin (née Bruiser) at the vet for shots and a checkup, anyway, the smart thing had been to have that taken care of at the same time.

“I’ll be happy to turn the meal prep over to you, if you like,” she replied, tapping the end of her pen against the papers in front of her. “Besides, I’m not the one who feeds him from the table.”

“He likes it.” Zack continued to defend, and continued to use his arms in an attempt to clear the air around him. “And it’s not like you can exactly hide food from him. He sits a full six inches taller than the tabletop.”

“You spoil him.”

“So do you, you’re just sneakier about it, and slip stuff to him when you think no one’s looking.”

Grace wrinkled her nose, glad he was facing away from her. He had her on that one. The pony-pup apparently had them both wrapped around his gigantic paw.

She opened her mouth to fire back another witty retort…because she
couldn’t
let him have the last word—she never had before, and was darned if she’d start now …when the phone rang.

She jumped a little at the unexpected buzz, but stood and went in search of the cordless that never seemed to be in the same place twice.

“I’ll get it.”

She found the phone, punched the talk button, and said, “Hello?”

“Grace! My lovely, my darling, my doll!”

Rolling her eyes, she couldn’t help but chuckle. “Hello, Quentin,” she greeted her flamboyant, often over-the-top agent.

“Hello, hello. Do you realize, sweetie, that you’ve just answered the phone at your ex-boyfriend’s apartment?”

Now that he mentioned it…”Yes,” she said slowly, drawing out the single word. “But how did
you
know I would be here?”

He only even had this number because she’d given it to him when she’d started spending as much time at Zack’s place as at her own and wanted him to be able to reach her wherever she might be. It had seemed like a smart idea at the time, but now she wondered if she should be regretting that decision.

“A little cockatiel told me that you and your estranged hubby-to-be have been seen together about town, and I wanted to find out for myself if it was true. Is it possible that your broken heart has mended, and that bad-boy ex of yours has changed his evil ways?”

“No,” she answered quickly, firmly, as much to assure him as herself that there was no reconciliation going on whatsoever.

“So you and the blond Adonis haven’t been tripping the light fantastic together?” he asked, but she could hear the note of suggestion in his tone.

“You’re the only one tripping, Quentin, as usual.”

It was his turn to chuckle.

With a sigh, she moved into the kitchen, farther away from Zack and his television program, and said, “I’m just helping him out. He hasn’t been doing very well since he hurt his knee, and he needed someone to kick his butt, get him to his appointments, and see that he does his physical therapy. That’s all.”

“Too bad,” her agent replied.

“What is it, Quentin?” she asked, knowing there had to be more. He wouldn’t have called, especially on Zack’s line, unless he had something important to say.

“Oh, nothing but the opportunity of a lifetime. Remember that endorsement deal the Insides Out clothing company offered last year? The one that involved both print and television ads for you and Zack.”

Grace’s heart gave a little ping. She remembered. Getting that phone call had been one of the most exciting experiences of her career.

Insides Out Underwear (also known as I.O.U.) produced some of the finest, sexiest undergarments in the business. They’d begun branching out into other types of clothing recently, but their reputation was still that their bras and panties, boxers and briefs were so nice, they could be worn on the outside of any outfit and still look amazing.

She loved them and had been wearing their stuff for years, even before they’d come to her with a deal so sweet, it had made her want to weep. And when they’d tossed “free undies for life” into the mix, she had.

Of course, that was before she and Zack had split. Because Insides Out’s offer had hinged on them being a couple, and after the breakup it had all gone away.

“Well, they just called and are interested again. They got wind that you and that ‘Hot Legs’ hottie of yours might be back together, and they’re putting the offer back on the table. Provided you are—back together, I mean.”

The ping in her chest turned to a full-fledged pain.

Great. It wasn’t enough that she’d been guilted into moving back in with her ex after he’d maybe, probably, most likely cheated on her. Or that she’d been relegated to chief cook and bottle washer. Or that she’d been forced to cancel the tapings of several shows in order to play nursemaid to her cheating ex.

Oh, no, that could never be enough. Life had to eat a big bowl of refried beans and then take a dump on what was left of her happiness and self-esteem.

She swallowed hard, the words she had to say lodging in her throat like a giant, uncoated pill. “Sorry, but we’re not. I almost wish we were, though, for an offer like that.”

Never one to take no lightly, her agent’s enthusiasm remained the same as he said, “You’re sure? Because we’re talking nearly a million dollars here for you and the hottie both. Nationwide print ads and commercials. And because they know how cause-oriented you are, they’re also still offering to give a portion of future sales to the charity of your choice, up to a quarter of a million. That’s a hell of a deal to walk away from.”

“Are you
trying
to make me cry, Quentin?” she asked, and was only half kidding. She really was near tears at the thought of having to pass on something so amazing.

“You’re making
me
cry, doll.” He let out a ragged sigh, sounding just as disappointed as she felt. “At least tell me you’ll give it some thought. Sleep on it. And then, if the spirit moves you, sleep on Zachariah so we can tell Insides Out you’re an item again and will be happy to become the poster booty for their products.”

Was it wrong that she could imagine doing just that…jumping on Zack, stripping him down to his own Insides Outs, and “convincing” him to partner up with her—in more ways than one? And that it sent a little thrill rippling out from her solar plexus?

Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad.

Talk about mixed signals. She’d already shown up on his doorstep to play Nurse Betty only months after going postal on nearly everything he owned, and threatening forms of bodily harm that would make Lorena Bobbitt toss her cookies.

Snuggling up to him now just because her juices were flowing and there were a million tiny temptations singing in her ears would only confuse Zack and let him believe there was a chance they might reconcile.

“I’ll think about it,” she agreed, ignoring the rest of Quentin’s suggestion, “but don’t get your hopes up.”

“Sometimes hope is all I’ve got,” was his melodramatic reply. “Let me know what you decide.”

For better or worse, she’d already decided, but nodded all the same, even knowing he couldn’t see. They said good-bye and she clicked off the phone, setting it beside the stovetop.

“Who was that?”

Eeep!
Stomach lurching into her throat, she jumped, squeaked, and whirled around.

Zack was standing directly behind her, leaning only slightly on a pair of apparently stealth crutches.

“Jesus, Zack!” Hand on her heart, she fell back so that the edge of the counter bit into her spine. “I’m going to break your other knee just so I can hear you coming.”

Rather than being offended, his mouth curved into a patented I’m-so-cute-girls-fall-at-my-feet grin. She had no intention of falling at his feet, but in all honesty, he
was
cute, and other women’s brains did tend to become the consistency of blueberry Slushie when he was around, so she supposed his cockiness was justified.