Night Games (9 page)

She nodded, satisfied by his explanation, as Cap hurried from the room. Brian pushed back his chair, made his excuses, and followed Cap. No use putting off the confrontation.

He found Cap waiting in the hallway. “Okay, why are you here?”

“Maybe we should talk in my room.” Cap glanced nervously around as the phone rang in the lobby.

“Uh-uh. What do you think would happen if the Old One found out we were closeted in your room?” He lowered his voice for a moment as the Fitzpatricks' daughter hurried into the dining room, then he focused on Cap.

Cap nodded. “You're right. We don't want to involve her in this.”

Brian could feel the other man's fear. The Old One did that to people. “So what do you want, Cap?”

Cap ran his hand over his red wig, and Brian
hoped he'd changed the scene from Sex Super Bowl XXXVI he'd had painted on his scalp.

“I know you think I'm just interfering in your business.” Cap didn't quite meet his gaze.

“And you're not?”

“I've known you for a long time, Brian. Ever since you first came into the league. And I have your best interests at heart.” Cap pulled on his earlobe as he looked directly at Brian.

You're lying.
“Okay, so you've come all this way to tell me what?”

“I want to give you some advice. No strings attached.” He tried on a fatherly smile.

“No one's ever given me anything with no strings attached. Say what you have to say.” He needed to get out of here. Talk to Ally and find out whether she intended to dump him and run, or go back to the keep. And he had to remove the Old One from temptation's way. Eventually she'd trap Cap by himself. If the locals dragged her off Cap, then tried to haul her to the animal shelter . . . Let's just say that would
not
be a shining day for world peace.

“Your heart's not in the game anymore. I can see it. Sure you're the best, but eventually you have to settle down, relax.” Cap cast him a searching look. Probably to see how everything was going down.

“Now I've been watching you for a lot of years. You've got a primitive streak. You don't always fit in with life. Like to do things the physical way.” He did some more ear yanking. “What I'm
saying is you'd probably be a lot happier here. Find a woman like this Ally. Build yourself a little house. Your earnings can be converted to currency in this time. Live however you want for the rest of your life.”

Brian leaned back against the wall and grinned at Cap. “And all this for-my-own-good advice wouldn't have a thing to do with you winning the Sex Super Bowl next season if I don't show up to play.”

“Of course not.” He began to bluster. “I wouldn't think of—”

“Sure you would. I bet you checked my travel schedule to see exactly when I'd be arriving. Then you fed Katy that garbage about a vampire so she and Ally would rush out to the castle at midnight. Ally and I would meet, fall in love, and the Titans would have a fast track to the championship.”

Brian pushed away from the wall and moved into Cap's space. “Forget the matchmaking. It won't work. I signed a contract, so I'll be back. And I wouldn't have sex with someone like Ally. It would violate my contract. Besides, I wouldn't have sex with a woman who didn't understand the game. And that's what sex is to me, a game. I never forget it.” Brian didn't understand why he was so mad at Cap. While Brian was a Titan, Cap had made Brian's business his business on a regular basis.

Cap started to answer, then stopped, his gaze fixed on the doorway to the dining room.

Brian turned his head, but he already had a premonition of what he'd see. Ally stood not ten feet away. He'd been so involved with Cap he hadn't noticed her. How much had she heard? He wasn't used to guarding what he said. He'd better learn fast.

She stared at him with wide brown eyes. He tried to read her expression, but came up blank. That shook him. He'd always been able to read women.
But only in the sexual arena.
He'd never had to understand women other than in a sexual context, and now he had no weapons except the ones he'd used for the last twelve years.

Brian walked to where Ally stood as Cap hurried away. She didn't back up or show any hint of panic.

He reached out to touch her hand because touch didn't lie. If he could feel the warmth of her flesh beneath his fingers, he'd have a better grasp of what to say to her.

“What will you do now, Ally O'Neill?” He slid his fingers up her arm until the sleeve of her sweater stopped him. “Will you run away or go back to the keep?” He leaned close, inhaling the scent of shampoo and woman.

She looked down at his hand, but she didn't pull away. “I don't—”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick's daughter stuck her head around the corner. “There's a call for you on the line, Miss O'Neill.”

Ally nodded, then turned away from Brian
without finishing her sentence. He watched her walk away.

And wondered. Did he want her to stay? Yes. Why? With Cap and the Old One carrying on open warfare, why would he want anyone else interfering with his down time? Sure, sexual attraction was part of it. He wasn't going to deny that. But he could control sexual desire. It was more.

Brian shook his head. The truth? Plain old curiosity. He needed to know more about the woman who could make him desire her when a game wasn't on the line. He wanted to be around her. And if offering to help with her book would keep her around, he'd tell her more about sex than she ever needed to know.

Brian frowned. That sounded a lot like getting involved, and getting involved wasn't wise.

He started back to his room. What he thought didn't matter because Ally would probably be running from him as fast as her horse could gallop. Okay, walk. He grinned. He'd seen Moray slugs that moved faster than that horse.

Ally picked up the receiver. She'd called her parents earlier in the morning so there'd be no reason for them to call her back. And she couldn't imagine Mavis having anything more to say than she'd already said. But no one else had this number. “Hi. This is Ally.”

“Ally, thank God I caught you.”

Ally closed her eyes. Dave. All the anger and
sorrow rushed back on a wave of memories. “I don't want to talk to you, Dave.”

“Don't hang up, Ally. I made a terrible mistake. Erica wasn't the woman I thought she was.”

Ally had never met Erica, but she'd gotten great visuals from Dave. Long dark hair, great body, electric personality. According to Dave, Ally's personality was still in the kerosene lamp stage. “Well, poo on me for not giving a damn.”

“I know you're bitter, but I'll make it up to you.”

Ally held the receiver away from her ear for a moment and stared at it. The jerk actually sounded like he thought she'd want him back.

“Would you believe she got bent out of shape when I told her all the little things you used to do for me? She said some ugly things about a woman who'd put the toothpaste on her husband's brush so he wouldn't have to squeeze the tube. I told her you did that because you knew I was always running late. But I think it was the Cocoa Puffs that really set her off.” He paused, and Ally had the feeling he was doing some deep thinking about those Cocoa Puffs. “I told her you put exactly one teaspoon of sugar and a half a cup of low-fat milk in my Cocoa Puffs every morning.”

Ally winced. Had she really done those things? “So what happened?”

“She threw the Cocoa Puffs at me. I had to go upstairs and change my suit.”

“Good for her.”

“Come back to me, Ally. Erica's been gone for over a week. Maybe she won't come back, but if she does I'll tell her we're through.”

His betrayal, her disillusionment, pounded at Ally. “What happened between you and Erica doesn't matter to me. It's your life, handle it.” She had to know one thing. “How'd you get this number?”

“I knew I couldn't call your parents, so I called your publishing house. They told me you were traveling in Ireland. Someone named Sara gave me the details.”

Thank you, Sara.
“Katy and I have decided to get rid of the wagon and hire a car. We'll be driving to Donegal and then into Northern Ireland so you won't be able to contact me again.” Lying was weak, but she didn't want to field his calls complaining about Erica-the-
not
-boring. She was here to get away from everything and work on that damned book. Dave wasn't going to reach across the miles and mess up her life again.

“No, you have to listen to me. We can make it work again. If only you—”

She hung up, waited for a minute until she was sure the connection was broken, then lifted the receiver from the cradle. It wouldn't take the Fitzpatricks long to discover the phone was off the hook, but by then she'd be gone. And she wouldn't need to call anyone again, certainly not Mavis. Mavis had made it clear what she expected from Ally.

A short while later, she headed across the
street to a sweet shop while Katy and Brian went for the wagon. This morning called for sugar in the bloodstream. Distractedly, she asked for a bag of licorice Allsorts.

“Hey, you're from the States, aren't you?”

Ally turned to look at the woman who'd spoken. “Yes. How about you?”

The woman brushed back a strand of short red hair and grinned at Ally. “Cleveland. Is this country great, or what? Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. Claudia Morgan.”

“Ally O'Neill.” She felt old and worn beside Claudia. Pretty, young, and enthusiastic. Probably just out of college. Life wasn't fair. If she were kind, she'd warn Claudia never to read any of her perfect-marriage books.

“I love old ruins, castles and stuff. Don't you?” Claudia bit into a piece of chocolate.

“Love them.”
Loving them less each minute
.

“Well, if you're sightseeing in the area we'll probably run into each other again.” Claudia walked toward the door.

“I bet you hired a car.” Ally knew she sounded wistful.

“Yeah.” Claudia paused before leaving. “Doesn't everyone?”

Ally sighed as she watched Katy pull the horse to a stop in front of the bed-and-breakfast. “Not everyone.”

Leaving the sweet shop, she climbed onto the wagon.

“You go on inside, Ally. I'll drive.” Katy clucked
to the horse. The horse ignored her. “This horse is so slow I could take a nap, wake up an hour later, and we still wouldn't be out of town.”

Ally grinned. “Feel a need for speed, Katy?”

“Not usually, but I want to get back to the castle as soon as we can. Saw another one of those white deer yesterday. Mentioned it at breakfast, but no one could tell me anything about them.” Katy looked thoughtful. “Maybe they're ghost deer.”

Ally paused before going inside. “Various cultures have legends about white stags, but I don't know about Ireland.”

Katy slid her a warning glare. “Don't you go finding a logical explanation for those deer. I like my idea better.”

Ally shrugged and went into the wagon. She paused in the doorway. Brian had folded down the table to make the double bed and was lying on his back studying some pictures. With his dark hair spread across the pillow, his body open and relaxed, Ally could believe him capable of what he said he did in his time. She felt the warm pull of desire, the remembered feel of his bare body touching hers. She coughed to dispel the image.

What she didn't need was one more unwanted emotion. She had enough emotions clamoring for attention: anger at Dave for trying to disrupt her life again, at Sara Somebody for blabbing to Dave. Frustration at the book Mavis was asking her to write, fear that she wouldn't be able to do
it. And above and beyond everything else, uncertainty.

“Come here.” Brian abandoned his pictures and patted the bed beside him.

Come here.
Unwanted images formed in her mind. A hot Arizona night. A light breeze moving the curtain at an open window. The outline of a saguaro cactus, dark mountains, and the excited yips of coyotes in the distance. And this man's naked, sweat-dampened body gleaming silver in the pale light of the desert moon. She frowned. No, that was wrong. Silver was a cool, distant color. Cool and distant would never be words to describe Brian Byrne.

She walked to the bed and sat down by his feet. Ally knew a bed was a dangerous place to be with Brian, but courage was part of her new persona. He wouldn't intimidate her. Not much anyway.

“What do you think, Ally?”

“I think you're a dangerous man.” She said the words before she realized he was holding his pictures out to her.

“Don't ever doubt it.” His voice was soft with laughter, but behind his laughter was the truth.

What did you say to that? She didn't have to say anything because a low growl interrupted the conversation. Ally turned to see the Old One sitting on the counter top, her designated throne for the moment. The cat's tail twitched angrily from side to side. Her yellow eyes warned Ally away.

Brian exhaled sharply, a clear signal his patience
was at an end. “I'd go out and make sure Katy isn't having any trouble driving, Boss. Because if you don't, I'm going to talk to Jupe about the legality of what you're doing. We wouldn't want anything that could put that multiyear contract we signed in danger.”

The Old One's hiss was venomous, but she left.

Still not comfortable with a man who talked to a cat, Ally busied herself with the pictures. They showed a castle from several different angles. “What are these for?”

He sat up in one fluid motion and leaned close to look at the pictures. “Before I left home, I fed all the data I had about the original Byrne castle into a refresher, and it gave me a set of pictures that simulated the original structure.”

With Brian's dark hair sliding across her arm as he leaned closer to the pictures, and his large body near enough to touch if she leaned just a little to her left, Ally decided she needed a “refresher” to simulate her original breathing pattern.