Last Play: Book 1 The Last Play Series (7 page)

“It’s awkward, right?”

“No.”

“You said no too fast,” she accused.

“I did?”

“You did.”

“O-kay.”

Her eyes twinkled. “If you don’t want people to know you’re lying, you have to pretend you’re thinking about it. You didn’t think about it.”

“Wow, look at you, studying lying.”

“I do have a communications degree.”

“You do?

She grinned. “A master’s degree. My thesis was on lying in relationships, courting relationships.”

Suddenly he felt nervous. “Really?”

She smacked his hand and laughed. “But we’re not courting, so you don’t have to worry, I don’t even think of you that way. You’re my boss, right?”

“Right,” he answered quickly. Then he tried to appear to be thinking about it. “I mean, of course, that’s why we’re here, cause you have one meal a day included.”

She nodded. “You’re just the new signer of the paychecks.”

“Oh right.” The food felt hard in his gut. “Yeah.” He wondered if he answered too fast.

“So, that reminds me.” She put her fork down. “I was thinking, that you could take out ad space for the inn with the ski resort and the boat rental place down at the marina by the lake.”

The lake. Memories surged through him. He remembered going out on a boat with his uncle. “The lake.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Yeah, the lake.”

He shook his head. “I’d forgotten about the lake. Uncle Jim took me out on his boat when I was here.” He grinned, thinking about feeling the water spray on his face and the sunburn he’d had the next day. But the best part had been seeing his mother water ski. Seeing her so alive and happy. They’d eaten ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch, and he remembered Uncle Jim burying him in the sand. “That was one of the best days of my life.”

She cleared her throat.

He looked at her and caught her studying him. He blinked. “What?”

She blinked back. “Nothing. I mean, you—you look so sad sometimes.”

He decided to be honest with her. “Uncle Jim gave me everything, and I gave him nothing. I-I guess being here reminds me of what a jerk I’ve turned into.”

The moment seemed to slow, and she reached across the table and took his hand. “Your uncle loved you.”

The pain that he’d been trying to push away came rushing at him full force, like a natural geyser in Yellowstone that burst with hot air. Tears pushed themselves out of his eyes. “No, I—” He didn’t know why he was telling her this, but it all came tumbling out. “I was a fool. Sheena had this image she wanted to protect, and I see now that I got so caught up in that that I didn’t realize all the important things that she took me away from.”

Her eyes were so sympathetic. “I’m sorry.” She kept her hand on his.

“I got hurt a few months ago and that, combined with—”

“With finding out your wife cheated on you.” Her face had gone stone cold hard.

He was surprised. “You read the tabloids?”

She shook her head. “Your uncle told me you called him.”

Hope sprung out of him. “He did?”

She smiled. “He was really happy to have you back in his life.”

More tears spilled down his cheeks. “Then why didn’t he tell me he was dying?”

She gently squeezed his hand. “I don’t know, but like I told you before, I bet it was because he wanted you to get back on that field. He didn’t want to mess that up for you.”

A turmoil of emotion swirled through him. His uncle had always protected him. Helped him. Even still protected him when he needed Roman. He clenched a fist and put his head down, letting more tears come. “I can’t be here.”

“Roman.” She held onto his hand.

He looked up.

Her eyes were bright, and a tear fell down her cheek. “This is exactly where you should be, don’t you see that? Jim wanted you to come.”

Guilt surged within him.

She swallowed and nodded. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

When she said those words a strange thing happened, the certainty she felt seared into him. She was right. He was okay. He took in a breath. “You’re right.”

Taking her hand back, she nodded. “It’s okay.”

They both sat, saying nothing.

Then she smiled. “So you’ll look into that?”

“What?”

“The ad space.”

He hated lying to her, but he didn’t know how to tell her the truth. He looked out the window. “Sure.”

“Why aren’t you looking at me?”

He turned back. “I am looking at you.”

“You’re not going to look into it.” She sighed and got out her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m adding it to my list.”

“No,” he protested. “I’ll do it.”

“You will?” Her voice was doubtful.

He didn’t know why, but he knew that if he told her he would, then he really would do it. “I will.”

“Fine.”

Letting out an exasperated sigh, she sipped the last of her water. “You would think that you weren’t the owner.”

“Stop. Okay. I…you’ve just been going at this since I met you. Man, you should have been a coach, you’re relentless.”

“Relentless?” She looked pleased at this description of her.

“Yes.”

She threw her hands up. “I’m just trying to let you be the boss.”

Oh no. This sounded way too emasculating for him. The quarterback of the Dallas Destroyers didn’t need her permission for anything. “
Let
me be the boss?” he grinned.

She laughed. “Does that hurt your ego, QB?”

Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that he liked the way she said ‘QB.’ “No, it doesn’t hurt my ego.”

“Does, too.” She pointed at him.

He swiped her finger away with his fork. “Does not.”

They both grinned at each other.

He put his fork down. “Fine, if I’m the boss, then I say we take a day off and go sledding today.”

“You do?”

“I’ve always lived in Texas, and one year we came to visit Uncle Jim for Christmas, and we…went sledding. It was the most fun thing I’ve ever done.”

She scoffed, “You want to work on sledding?” She did not look amused.

He drizzled syrup on the fork, reasoning that if he weren’t ‘courting’ Katie, it wouldn’t matter if he sucked down syrup like a teenager, right? It felt good not to worry about how many carbs were in the syrup. He grinned. “I want to work on sledding.”

She shook her head. “Fine, QB, we’ll go sledding.”

But before he could pay Tiffany and get out of there, Lou, the man from earlier, walked up to their table. He patted Katie on the back. “How are you?” His hand moved to her shoulder.

She smiled and covered his hand with hers. “Hey, I’m good.” Her face became gentler when looking at Lou.

Unexpectedly, Roman tensed.

Lou turned to Roman, giving him an up and down. “So Roman Young returns to claim what’s his.”

The way Lou kept his hand on Katie’s shoulder, felt like he was letting Roman know that he might be claiming the Inn, but he couldn’t claim her, too. Roman gave him an easy smile. “Yep, just here checking out the place and helping Katie get a few things done.”

Lou turned to Katie, keeping her hand in his. “My dear, why didn’t you tell me you needed help?”

If Roman hadn’t known better, he would think that Katie was actually blushing. “Oh no, it’s fine. Roman offered, and since he’s stuck here for a while....” She gestured to the snow falling. “I accepted his help.”

“Hmph.” Roman hadn’t meant to contradict Katie. But really? Offered to help? He thought of having the list shoved at him and being told it was about time he got here.

Lou spun back to him, giving him the same sizing up that Roman had given Lou earlier. “Did you have something to say, Jim’s nephew?” He glared at him again. “I thought it was a good call to go with Dumont in the big game. He did an excellent job.”

The muscles in Roman’s jaw flexed and adrenaline shot through him. One thing a quarterback easily recognizes when he looks at a man is when that man wants to hit him. He sees that look on the field all day, almost every day. Every part of Roman became very still, just like when he was about to throw the best touchdown of the game. Instantly, he knew. He knew Lou, indeed, had planned to mark his territory with Katie Winters. Roman put on his best media boy smile and laughed. “You’re right. He did win it for us.” he conceded.

Touching the side of his mustache with his other hand, Lou swallowed. “I guess I would be more on team Roman if you’d had the decency to show up to your uncle’s funeral.”

The floor scraped as Roman shoved out of the booth and the table shifted on the cement floor. He was tired of everyone assuming that he’d had a choice in the matter.

“Roman!”

He and Lou were now facing each other. Both of them had their fists clenched. Roman knew his agent would not be happy when this story broke—Destroyer’s Quarterback takes out small town waiter.

“Roman!”

He swerved to face her, pulling back on his temper. “What?”

She pushed out of the booth and moved in between him and Lou. Her face was desperate. “Don’t you remember you were going to take me sledding?”

Roman teetered between giving in to his temper and being better than that. Finally, he pulled his wallet out and dropped a hundred dollar bill on the table. He turned and shoved past Lou. “Then I guess we’d better go.”

T
he hill
she took him to was…big. In Texas it would be considered a mountain. Here, it was considered a hill. Neither of them had talked about what had happened.

Katie had quickly gone to Jim’s front closet and outfitted them both with better gear for sledding. She’d tried to crack some jokes, but he’d simply given tight smiles. He knew why Lou’s comments ticked him off so much…because they were the truth.

They parked at the top, and then she handed him the tube. “You go first.”

He didn’t move. “Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“Back there with Lou.”

Her face went serious. He couldn’t help noticing that, even though her hair looked all fuzzy from the hat, her skin was flawless and a few freckles dotted her nose. He could honestly say she was one of the most naturally beautiful women he’d ever met. “I didn’t think it was worth it.”

He sucked in a breath. “You mean me blowing my top?” The media coverage had shown some not so nice scenes of him after the accident—drunk and frightened, which had translated into a fist into the side of his Ferrari. The dent mark had been all over the news.

“No.” Her voice was clipped and she stuck her chin up. “I don’t think it’s worth it to defend something you know the truth about.”

He frowned.

She pointed at him. “You know that you would have come if you’d have know.” She gently tapped his chest. “You know. It doesn’t matter what I thought, what everyone else thinks because
you
know the truth.”

Chills washed over him. Her certainty filled him with a measure of hope. Pride. Something that he hadn’t felt about himself in a long time. He liked it. He blinked and looked around. He didn’t remember sledding on such a big hill. Nervous jitters wound through him. “That’s a long way down.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Come here, would you mind if I took your picture for my son?”

He could tell that she didn’t like asking for things. This made him want to give it to her. “Only if you’re in it with me.”

She hesitated.

He motioned her over to him. “C’mon, bachelorette, pretend like you want a rose tonight.”

This made her laugh. They posed, and she snapped a picture.

“Thanks.”

He liked being able to do something for her, even if it was just taking a picture. “You’re welcome.”

She gestured down the mountain. “Now, are you going to be a pansy, or are you going to take the hill like a man?”

Giving her a bored look, he ripped the tube away from her and threw it on the ground. He grunted and pounded his chest. He let out a war cry and jumped on the tube. “Me. Man!” he shouted. Then he was flying. His speed picked up, and mists of snow flew around him. He could hear traces of her laughter behind him.

When he got to the bottom, she was whooping and hollering. “Oh yeah! That’s what I’m talking about, that was awesome!”

He would be lying if he didn’t feel satisfaction from her praise. He knew she meant it. She wasn’t one of those baller girls hanging on his every word, trying to be something he wanted her to be so she could spend all his money and then cheat on him with his best friend. He grinned and gave another war cry back at her.

She clapped and laughed.

He stood still, watching her with her pink pom pom hat and her red hair coming in waves down her shoulders. Then he did something he never should have done. He wondered how it would feel to have her at the games, to look up and see her smiling and cheering him on.

He huffed back up to the top of the mountain, realizing that it wouldn’t matter how many carbs he ate today. This trudging through deep snow would burn up everything.

When he got to the top, she had her arms crossed, an eyebrow lifted.

“What?” he asked, sucking in air and handing her the tube.

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you still love her?”

This question, he had not expected. For some reason it made him feel weird to have her ask it—like he couldn’t lie to her but he couldn’t tell her the truth. He purposely tried to think about it. “No.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You can’t try to pause. Then I know you’re lying.”

He threw his hands up. “I’m your boss. You’re an employee. Why do you care if I love her?”

She looked him up and down. Then she shrugged. “You’re right. I don’t.” She grinned. “Is sledding still as fun as you remember?”

He grinned. “The best.”

“Worth paying me twenty bucks an hour? Because I’m collecting, QB.”

He shook his head. “Worth every penny.”

She put the tube down. “Want to go together?”

Confusion clouded his mind. “Why?”

An innocent grin filled her face. “Why not?”

Sitting down in the middle of the tube he patted his lap. “Hop on boss!”

“Wait.” She motioned for him to stand. “Go on your stomach. I’ll back up and give us a push as I jump on.”

He acquiesced, thinking it was kind of close quarters. He flopped down, and before he knew what happened, she was pushing his feet to the edge of the hill and then hopping on top of him.

Granted, she didn’t weigh much, and he didn’t mind absorbing her weight. What he hadn’t anticipated was how the extra weight would speed them up.

She let out a yell next to him. “Wahoo!”

His heart leapt in his chest, and he echoed her, “Whoo-hoo!”

Snow flew in their faces, but he glanced up at her. Her hair had gotten free—red curls flew in his face with the snow. He could honestly say that this was the first time in as long as he could remember that he felt like a kid.

They got to the bottom, and she quickly rolled off, laughing. “Oh my gosh, that was fun!”

He brushed himself up. “That
was
fun.”

She got to her feet and grinned.

“Thanks for asking me.” He meant it.

A wicked glint came into her eyes, and she backed up starting into a sprint up the hill. “You’re carrying the tube, right? Come on, QB. I’ll race ya to the top.”

Now he understood. He watched her sprinting. She’d asked him because she wanted him to be the pack mule. But he had never been one to back away from a challenge. He grabbed the tube and took off. It wasn’t hard to pass her. As he did, he turned around and taunted her, “C’mon, boss, never stop. Never quit.”

She only grinned wider and winked at him. “Really, you’re proud of yourself for beating a girl? That’s pathetic.”

At that, he laughed. This woman, she was driving him mad. This time, before she knew what was happening, he threw the tube down and grabbed her, holding on while he dove sideways onto the tube. “I’ll show you pathetic.”

A squeal louder than a foghorn came out of her. “Let me go!” She giggled.

Then they were off, flying down the hill. When they got to the bottom, he gently rolled off the tube and messed with her hair. “That’s right, boss! I’m proud to beat a girl!”

More giggles erupted from her. At this moment she looked…so young. Child-like. He liked it.

“Stop!” she shouted.

He stopped, collapsing into a heap next to her by the tube.

She panted hard and turned onto her side to face him. “Dang, you’re in good shape. What do you do—like running drills all day at work?”

He picked up a little piece of snow and tossed it in her hair. “No, apparently, I run an inn.”

Trying to pick the snow he threw out of her hair, she flipped her hair back. “What about the injury? Are you going to go back out there?”

“If by going back out there, you mean am I going to keep playing football, the answer is yes.” The conversation had taken on a serious tone. Granted, the media couldn’t stop talking about which quarterback should have the shot. “If they give me a shot, I’ll take it.”

“Hmm.” She eyed him top to bottom.

“Hmm,” he mimicked, moving closer to her and wiping at a clump of snow in her hair.

Giggles erupted out of her for the second time. “What? Do I have snow in my hair?” She shook her hair at him.

It didn’t matter what anyone said to him after this point. Right now, he knew he had to be with this woman. Suddenly he quit grinning, concerned by this realization.

Seeing him turn serious, she stopped giggling, too. “What’s wrong?”

The hammering inside his chest reminded him of the first time he’d thrown the winning touchdown in the first championship game he’d won. “Nothing,” he said too fast.

Squinting at him, she grinned. She stood. “C’mon, QB, don’t be lazy. We can do a few more runs before I have to pick up Josh!”