Taming the Legend (10 page)

The weight of responsibility settled heavily on her shoulders. Eleven people depended on this camp for their livelihoods throughout the year, and another ten worked here every summer. A couple of the staff had come to the camp the same way she had—as teenagers feeling empty inside, acting out in destructive ways. After she’d given up her daughter, Camila had been desolate. This camp had saved
her life.

Now she had to save it.

She sat at one end of the rectangular table and warmed her hands against her mug. “Morning, everyone. I know we’re all feeling down right now, so let’s start with some good news. There’s a chance we can save our camp.”

Chapter Eight

“And this is Roderick, but he’s got a little speech impediment so he calls himself
Wodawick.
Isn’t that adorable?”

“Mmm, adorable.” Ash tried to stifle his yawn as Mrs. Albright, the grandmother next to him on the plane, swiped her finger across her iPad to the eight-hundredth photo of her brood. Though she was American, two of the kids were being raised in Somerset
and she was on her way back from a month-long visit. She’d described every single one of those days to him in mind-bleeding detail.

He’d planned to spend the flight trying to figure out what Camila had meant by
friendly hug.
Instead he’d been inundated with stories about another person’s family, which only filled his sleepy mind with thoughts of his own.

He had a daughter. A teenage
daughter older than Camila had been when he’d met her. The realization made him cringe. God, she’d been a baby with a baby.

All the questions he hadn’t thought to ask when she first dumped the news on him hit him on this flight. What emergency meant she’d had a C-section? Had their daughter cried when she was born? What had it felt like to hold her? Why had Camila decided to give her up for
adoption?

He could make guesses about that last one, considering how young she’d been, but he wanted to hear it from her. But how could he ask when he was so keenly aware that he’d failed her, even if he’d never intended to? The decision had been hers to take, and he couldn’t think of a way to ask without sounding judgmental.

He was glad she’d sought him out, happy to have the opportunity
to do something for her after the way his dad had royally screwed her over.

Plus, he relished the challenge. Half a million dollars was more than he’d made for a full year of playing for Legends. It was an exciting prospect, even though he wouldn’t get to keep the money—and he’d probably donate his share to her camp, if it seemed like it was doing good things for troubled kids.

He’d
always loved rugby sevens too. The festival atmosphere of tournaments, the quick pace and the innate understanding of a team of only seven men trying to cover the entire pitch.

The more he thought about it, the more excited he was getting.

The queue at immigration took forever, and by the time he collected his suitcases his temples felt like America had driven a stake through them. He
could hardly keep his eyelids open. All he wanted was to take a nap in a real bed, taste real food and watch the sun set as the waves of the Pacific rushed up the shore to lap at his bare feet, maybe as he fell asleep on the sand. No strangers chattering away at him. No cramped seats that only reclined a few inches. No food wrapped in cellophane.

He stepped out of Customs and scanned the
crowd for Camila. Thick, dark hair flowed over her shoulders, hiding her face as she read on her phone. She hadn’t noticed him yet and seemed engrossed in whatever she was reading. Ash pushed through the crowd, peeked at the screen and saw it was filled with Spanish.

“Hola,”
he said.

Her head jerked up, and she gave him a hesitant smile. “
Hola.
You made it.”

“I did.”
Sweet Jesus.
Every time he saw her, her eyes struck him dumb. He might not be able to speak, but he could move. He dropped his bags and wrapped his arms around her.
Heaven.

Heat rushed through him, but it wasn’t the burst of lust he usually felt when he was this close to a woman. Well—not entirely that, anyway. This was comfort and familiarity tempered by years of painful separation. This was forgiveness
and moving on.

But it was also feminine softness, sweet-smelling hair and a body that fit his perfectly. When she pulled away and looked at anything but him, he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to pull her back. He couldn’t remember the last time a simple hug had made him long for so much more.

“Long flight?” she asked.

“Endless.”

The awkwardness
was stifling. It was even worse than her pitch-side confession at the stadium. “So, when do I get to meet the lads?”

Weirdly, her bearing seemed to get even stiffer as she slung one of his smaller bags over her shoulder. He got the hint and picked up the others, following her as she made her way to the door. “Friday. I’ll take you to the camp now. The campers arrive tomorrow, but you’ll have
the whole day off to sleep and adjust to the time. In the mornings, the kids have big group activities or free time at the lake. Practices start Friday afternoon. I hope it’s not too boring for you, coaching a bunch of teenagers.”

As long as Camila was around, he couldn’t imagine being bored. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. How far are we driving?”

“Nearly two hours, if we don’t hit traffic.
Could take us two days if we do,” she joked.

“Two
hours?
” He dropped his suitcase. Oh God, he needed a bed and food and the beach. He couldn’t handle two hours squished in a car before getting them. “I knew L.A. was big, but I didn’t realize you could drive two hours and still be in the city.”

“Oh, you could drive two hours and only be a mile from where you started, if you leave at the
wrong time.” She cleared her throat. “But, um, the camp isn’t exactly
in
L.A. It’s more like, in the general L.A. vicinity…depending on your definition of
vicinity.
”

The shitty sleep he’d had on the plane convinced him he’d misheard her. “The camp’s not in L.A.”

“No.”

“Where is it, then?”

She pressed her lips together till they nearly disappeared. “The San Bernardino mountains.
A couple hours east of L.A.”

He stared at her mouth. Maybe he’d gone temporarily deaf and could read her lips. “San…?”

“Bernardino,” she repeated, this time changing her accent and sounding out the words so he could hear all of the syllables.

“Bernardino. And that’s
not
in L.A.?”

“No.” She grimaced. “Sorry.”

He leveled her with a look that had made grown men quake. She
just looked more apologetic. “Is it my imagination, or did you tell me we’d be in L.A.?”

“I might not have been entirely precise about where my camp was located,” she admitted. “I figured I had a better shot at getting you over here if you thought we’d be in the city, near a beach.”

Not entirely precise?
Sounded more like an outright lie. But he was here now, so there wasn’t much he
could do about it. He pulled his mobile from his pocket. “I want to see where we’re going on a map.”

“Search for Lake Sunshine.”

Fucking hell. “Please tell me it’s close to the ocean.”

“Sorry. As the name implies, it’s on a lake that gets a lot of sunshine.”

“I wouldn’t be sarky with me, sweetness. I’m desperate for a dip in the ocean and a good sleep, and finding out that
isn’t going to happen is just about the worst thing I can imagine right now.”

Her face flushed, and he realized his old nickname for her had slipped out. Willing to spare her any discomfort at the memories, he said, “If we’re going to be driving for two hours, I hope you don’t mind me taking a kip.”

“Is a kip a piss?”

He froze. “Uh, nooo. It’s a nap.”

She looked at him like
he was ridiculous. “Why would I mind that? As far as I remember, you don’t drool excessively. You
are
getting old, though. Do you snore like a freight train?”

“I’ve never had complaints.”

“Fart in your sleep?”

Oh, God. Where’s Mrs. Albright? Maybe she’ll give me a lift.
“Not that anyone’s ever made me aware of.”

“Then kip away. My car’s just across the street in that parking
garage.”

She turned and strode out the doors, her short legs eating up the ground faster than they should be able to. Ash grinned. He’d forgotten how much attitude could be crammed into the Camila package. She wasn’t one of those exhausting people who constantly thrust their attitude at others like an unwieldy sword. He’d seen her unsure and he’d seen her vulnerable. But when she let the
attitude out, he always found himself secretly impressed, even that time he was admiring her attitude from his arse, where he sat with an aching jaw and a drunken brain.

He followed her outside into the beautifully dry heat of Southern California and looked up at the blue sky and palm trees.
Palm trees.
Traveling to exotic destinations had been one of the perks of his career he wasn’t ready
to give up. He’d never been to California, but he could already tell he would like it. Camila and about a dozen others waited for the light to change at a zebra crossing. Too tired to wait, Ash stepped off the curb as soon as he saw a break in the traffic, but her hand shot out and yanked him back.

“You’ll get a ticket.”

“For what?”

“Jaywalking.”

His jaw softened as he stared
at her in disbelief. “I thought this was the land of the free.”

“You’re free to do lots of things. You just have to wait for the light to turn green first.”

When the light turned, she led him across the street and through a parking garage to a beat-up red hatchback that looked like she’d built it herself. The sideview mirror was even wrapped in duct tape. So much for the luxury car he’d
hoped would be waiting for him. While he’d been earning a comfortable living, Camila was clearly just scraping by. The thought made him feel ill.

She unlocked the boot, revealing a space barely big enough for a bag of bread. “Can you put your smaller case into here? I think the big one’ll fit in the back seat, and maybe you can sit with your carry-on at your feet.”

“Sure.” Tinned sardines
had more room than he would on this leg of the journey. Even a seat in Economy was more spacious. She slid into the driver’s seat and clicked her seatbelt into place. Slightly disoriented at being in what felt like the driver’s side but lacked the essential steering wheel, Ash tried to get comfortable with his smallest bag taking up all his leg room.

“I’m starving,” Camila said. “Do you mind
if we stop at In-N-Out?”

“Is this In-N-Out a high-class fish restaurant with views of the Pacific?”

“Mmm…not really.”

“I thought not. Do whatever you want. I’ll be asleep before we’re out of this garage.” He tugged on the seat recline lever, and the seat flopped back with a squeal, jerking to a halt almost immediately when it hit the suitcase in the back.

No cramped seats that
only reclined a few inches. No food wrapped in cellophane.
Looked like the flight was just the beginning of his American nightmare.

But when he shifted to his side to get more comfortable he saw Camila, and all his reasons for being here came back to him. He owed her and he wanted her. A scary combination.

Don’t fuck this up, mate.

Chapter Nine

It was dark by the time Camila turned in to the secluded campground. Ash had slept for most of the journey, giving her time and mental space to start adjusting to his presence in her world. It was stranger than she’d expected, seeing him walking through Arrivals in his nice long-sleeve button-down, surrounded by people in T-shirts, Hawaiian shirts and tank tops. He’d
stood out among the locals and the American tourists.

Or maybe he’d just stood out to her.

And that hug. God in heaven, that hug. Being back in his arms felt all kinds of right and wrong. She hadn’t known what to do, what to say. She’d been as lame as a one-legged dog.

She was glad he’d fallen asleep quickly. She’d fumbled her words enough when she admitted lying about her camp’s
location.

One lie down, two to go.

He’d woken as they’d driven around the curvy road that wound around the side of the mountain, but he’d stayed quiet and let her concentrate. She hoped to be able to show him to his cabin and then get back to the peaceful solitude of her own without having to make conversation with any of her staff. Her shoulders tensed and she exhaled a frustrated sigh
as she saw the cabin windows blazing with light and realized they had other ideas. Noise filtered out from inside. Chatter, music and laughter.

Damn it. She was not in the mood for a party. Especially when some of her staff knew about the team and
didn’t
know they needed to keep their traps shut.

“Something wrong?”

“Yeah. I didn’t leave your lights on.” She parked the car and unbuckled
herself.

“This is my cabin?”

“Yeah.”

He got out of the car and stumbled, grabbing hold of the door to keep from tumbling onto his ass.

“You all right?” Camila rounded the hood, ready to pull him up if he fell over. Or try, at least. But that put a vision of another uncomfortable hug in her head, and she was glad to see him stand up straight and flex his legs.

“Fine. Just
spent too long in confined spaces. I think my whole body has a cramp.”

“Sorry I couldn’t offer you better transportation. My stretch limo’s being serviced.” She popped open the battered trunk and gave it an affectionate pat. “Betsy’s another thing I inherited from my dad, so I’m pretty attached to her. That and I can’t afford to buy a used skateboard, much less a new car.”

She reached
in to pull out his bag, but he touched her arm to stop her. The touch stopped her all right. She stood there tongue-tied, her every instinct warring within her to pull him close and push him away.

Leaning closer than strictly necessary, he murmured, “I’ll get it.”

She let go of the bag and stepped away. “I should see what’s going on inside.”

She rushed away at a speed she hoped
hid how badly she wanted to escape and jogged up the three steps to the porch. He followed as she threw open the screen and front doors.

Nearly two dozen people had crammed themselves into the small living room/kitchen. There weren’t enough chairs or sofas for everyone’s butts, so some stood while others perched on windowsills. They all grinned when she and Ash entered the room, and she did
her best to return their smiles. “Hey, guys. This is a surprise.”

Neal, a bearded therapist who dressed all in hemp—pants and probably underwear included—threw his arms in the air. “Welcome, our angel!”

Shock hit Ash’s face, and she could tell he hadn’t considered what his being here meant to her staff, that he wasn’t just saving the camp for her but for twenty-one people who depended
on it for their livelihoods. She tried to cover for him and give him a chance to absorb that by joking, “Neal, how many times do I have to tell you, you don’t need to greet me that way. Just call me Camila. Everyone, this is Ash Trenton, the coach I told you about this morning. Ash, this is my team.”

She ran through everyone’s names, and he walked around the room shaking their hands and finding
out what they did at the camp. Even with the nap he’d taken on the drive, he had to be exhausted, yet he looked fresh, happy and totally confident as he met the people who were ready to worship him.

Probably nothing new for him. From the pictures she’d seen and the stories she’d read, he was used to being worshiped. How would he cope with life in a town where no one recognized him or knew
his incredible achievements?

No one but you.

She wasn’t in the market for someone to hero-worship, though.

Finally they reached the last person in the group, Becca, who smiled her big smile and held onto Ash’s hand just a few seconds too long. “This is Becca, our administrator.”

Becca gave him a flirty smile. “Nice to meet you, Ash. We hope you don’t mind us throwing this little
welcoming party so you don’t feel lonely on your first night.”

“Absolutely not. Very thoughtful of you.” Ash let go of her hand and put his hands casually into his pockets.

“If you need anything while you’re here—anything at all—just let me know. Day or night. My cabin’s just next door.”

Oh God.
Camila actually felt a little embarrassed for her.

Ash just nodded. “Sounds like
you’re a good person to know.”

“The best, in my humble opinion. But don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone.”

Ash’s lips twitched. “All righty. I’ll be sure to stop by the office if I’ve got any questions.”

“The office?” Becca finally seemed to get the hint, and the spark of lust faded from her eyes. “Sure. The office. Sounds good. Oh! We got you this.” She thrust a gift bag at him.
“Some Californian goodies.”

He peeked inside. “Cheers, that’s very thoughtful. I’ll look forward to sampling them.”

Camila took the bag from him. “Why don’t I put this in the kitchen for you?”

“That would be great.” He smiled, and anyone who didn’t know him would think it was genuine. But Camila could see it didn’t make his eyes sparkle.

Ash? Sparkle? You really are sad.

Camila let him mingle, joining conversations whenever he caught her eye and silently communicated he was stuck. He managed to keep up with the chitchat for about an hour. Someone handed him a glass of red wine and he nursed it the whole time. When his eyelids seemed weighed down and his blinks lasted longer than they should, she raised her voice above the chatter and the music. “Everyone, I
think we need to let our coach get his beauty rest. Don’t forget he’s just spent eleven hours on a plane to get here and then had to put up with my driving for another two.”

A good-natured groan rumbled throughout the room, but people got their asses in gear, shook Ash’s hand one last time and filed out the door. Becca seemed the most reluctant to leave. Apparently determined to try once
more, she leaned a little too close, her eyes gleaming a little too brightly and her smile a little too promising as she said goodnight. Camila averted her eyes and rifled through the gift bag on Ash’s kitchenette counter, trying her best not to feel every single one of her thirty-four years.

She wasn’t old—and she honestly never worried about her age. But it was hard not to notice the difference
between twenty-one and thirty-four. Hell, somewhere out there she had a child closer to Becca’s age than she was.

When Becca finally left, Ash shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Well…they seem nice.”

“They are. I’m lucky to work with them. Becca’s especially great.” The words slipped out of her mouth before she’d even thought them.
What are you doing?

Saving you from
yourself.

“Becca? Yeah, she seems very capable. Funny too.” One corner of his mouth quirked up and he leaned closer as if to share a secret. “You know I’m not interested in Becca, right?”

“It doesn’t matter. That has nothing to do with me.”

Tell me more.

He stepped closer, settled his amazing ass against the counter, making her body keenly aware of how small the cabin really
was. Now that they were alone, it somehow seemed even smaller than when it had been packed with twenty people. The gift bag Becca had put together sat on the counter between them. Desperate for something—
anything
—to occupy the hands that wanted to run themselves all over Ash’s body, she rifled through it. “There’s some nice stuff in here. A couple bottles of Californian wine.”

“Excellent.
I can get started on developing an alcohol tolerance so a little punch doesn’t knock me down again.”

She couldn’t resist playfully tapping his shoulder with her fist, making him laugh. “It’s not funny, you know. I feel really bad about hitting you.”

“I’d have hit me, too, if I thought what you thought.”

Camila kept her gaze firmly focused on the contents of the gift bag, not ready
to revisit all the years she’d despised him because of his dad’s fuckup. “Becca asked if there’s any food you really love. It looks like she paid attention.” She pulled out a small box wrapped in white paper and handed it to him.

He took the box from her, slipped his finger under the gold seal at one end and pulled the paper off to find a white box with an old-fashioned black design. “See’s
Candies?”

“A California chocolate company.”

He made happy noises, tore the lid off and shoved one into his mouth, groaning as he chewed. “Fuck me, that’s amazing.”

“It’s the good stuff. And there are unlimited supplies in town.”

His eyes narrowed as he savored the chocolate. “You planning to pay me in chocolate for a month?”

“I could. It’s about all I could pay you with.”

He held out the box. She selected one of her favorites and took a bite. Caramel oozed out of dark chocolate, and she bit back a moan. After the horrible emotional upheaval of the past week, the chocolate tasted all the more decadent.

“Why did you tell her to get me chocolates?”

She swallowed and cleared her throat. “I remember you saying chocolate was your greatest weakness and the
most difficult thing to give up.”

He selected another chocolate for himself and took a slow, teasing bite. He seemed to savor it, as if it were a luxury he normally couldn’t afford. When he finally swallowed, he gave her a soft smile that looked sad and regretful. “I must’ve said that before you and I happened.”

It took her a few seconds to get his meaning. But the intense look in his
eyes told her everything.
She
had become his greatest weakness, the most difficult thing to give up. Heat pulsed through her belly, but doubt plagued the rest of her. She glanced away, unable to keep her distance when he was so near and so real. She took a few steps backward toward the door. “On that note, I’d better be going. Sleep well, Ash. We have a tough month ahead of us.”

As she stepped
out into the night, she wondered why saving her camp suddenly seemed like the easiest of the challenges she faced.

Sleep eluded her that night. Not surprising, since it usually did the night before a new group arrived. It didn’t matter whether they were her summertime kids, the writers who searched for inspiration every spring, the married couples who came to improve their relationships throughout
the year or the traumatized soldiers who raked dead leaves and pine needles in the fall. New groups meant new energy in the camp, and she fed on it so much it kept her lying awake.

Stress over the camp’s fate had made her sleeplessness worse these past few months. But those weren’t the worries plaguing her now.

She hadn’t wanted to bring Ash back into her life. If she’d been asked three
months ago, she would’ve sworn she would happily never see him again. But then her bank manager had contacted her with the bad news that he was retiring and his replacement—who hadn’t known her dad or cared how much good the camp did—wouldn’t be so lenient with her overdue mortgage payments. She’d searched desperately for anything,
anything
that would help. She’d applied to be on game shows. She’d
looked into selling a kidney on the black market. She would’ve done pretty much anything to avoid asking the one person who had a shot in hell of helping her.

And now? Now that she’d seen him in person after so many years and had a chance to talk to him about some of the things she’d suffered because of his silence?

Now she wished she’d contacted him years ago. Because now the deep scars
she’d tried so hard to slough away finally felt like they were healing.

He would be here for a month and had already made an impact. But years of pain couldn’t be smothered so quickly. She was grateful for his help—
so
grateful—but she wasn’t stupid. With a different man, a no-strings-attached affair might’ve been possible, but not with Ash. With Ash, the strings were already too tangled.
She would consider herself a lucky woman if those tangled strings unknotted themselves by the end of the month so she could say goodbye to all the past agony when she said goodbye to him. Getting involved with him any more than necessary would just tighten the knots further, and his leaving would leave her a mess.

She was a grown-ass woman. She could ignore the stirrings of desire when they
were ignited by a man who’d consumed her once and still seemed to have the power to do it again. She would protect herself by treating him the way she treated the other men on her staff—with respect but a very clear distance so there would never be misunderstandings. Probably wouldn’t be too difficult, once he found out the truth about the team.

She snuggled her pillow, pretending she wasn’t
pretending it was Ash.