Red zone, p.16
Red Zone,
p.16
“So you know them pretty well,” Maxwell said.
“I had been gone for a while,” Jill explained, grinning down at Shelley while Kevin and Cameron both scrambled to join in. “Living abroad, like I said. But I’ve been in the process of moving back.” She paused suddenly, as though questioning how much to reveal. Then she offered him a sparkling smile. “And I made it a priority to get to know the kids. We did tons of video calls. Wayne was my cousin, but we grew up together. He felt more like a brother.”
“He was a good man,” Maxwell said, his throat tightening. Because it was the truth. Neither Wayne nor Maxwell’s stepsister, Carmen, deserved to miss out on their children’s entire lives. All the smiles and milestones and happiness. “Sometimes I still can’t believe it’s real.”
Jill shook her head sadly, her gaze falling back to the kids. “I’m glad I’d already started moving back to Savannah; now I need to be here more than ever. I want to be in their lives. They need us.”
They need us. Maxwell rubbed at the back of his neck, the familiar emotions from the past two weeks washing over him again. “Yeah. It’s the truth.”
The triplets didn’t grasp that their parents were gone and not coming back, but Maxwell, and their combined families, needed to do their part to make sure the kids grew up knowing how much love they came from.
Jill played with the three kids for a bit, laughing as they showed off various plastic food items and tried to serve her platters of chicken nuggets. She fingered the tight curls on Shelley’s head.
“This girl needs a haircut.”
“I was thinking about finding someone,” Maxwell started.
Jill tutted. “Uh-uh. These kids need to go to the right someone who specializes in Black hair. I know exactly where they should go. I’ll set something up—I can take them.”
“That would be great,” Maxwell said with a relieved laugh. “Honestly—I don’t know the first thing about…well, any of this. I’ve just been sticking to the schedule. I remember Carmen always talking about that much, at least.”
Jill sent him a knowing look. “Schedules are key. So, what’s on their schedule for today?”
“You know, we were just about to head out and go to the park.” Normally, he’d race around fighting to get the kids dressed and ready on his own. But today, he recognized Jill’s arrival for what it was: a chance for the kids to visit with their family and a chance for Maxwell to spend some guilt-free time with a gorgeous lady…who could teach him a thing or two. “Do you want to come with us?”
Jill’s dazzling smile returned, washing his mind clean of whatever sadness or confusion that lingered. “I would love that.”
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Available April 8th, 2021
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BLURB
Charlie Wild knows how to score. On and off the field he’s been a force to be reckoned with since his father taught him how to throw a spiral in the back pasture of Wildhorse Ranch. But a recent injury calls into question his ability to play football and points a finger at his wild child reputation. He’s been given an ultimatum: overhaul his image by renovating his hometown hospital or get off the field.
The last thing Dr. Dylan Rose needs is yet another man telling her what to do and certainly not what to do with her hospital. She’d left Houston and the sports stars she’d fixed there, tired of watching big bulky men beat each other up for fun. So when Charlie Wild limps into her hospital she wants nothing more than to fix his hot body up and see that great ass walk out the door.
Charlie is taken by the sexy doctor. Her sweet smile hides a sharp tongue that he enjoys baiting just about as much as he loves kissing it. He’s on board for following her prescriptions and more than willing to teach her new ways to score in the sheets. But when it comes to the final seconds of this play he’s going to have to decide what is more important: The doctor he’s learned to love, or the game he just can’t quit...
Grab your copy of Healing the Quarterback (Wildhorse Ranch Brothers Book Two) from
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EXCERPT
Chapter One
She was a sports medicine specialist and probably not supposed to have a favorite football team.
But damn it if Dylan Rose didn't love the Texas Teamsters.
She wandered through the packed stadium, munching kettle corn and taking in the football fans lining up for their own concessions. She always arrived at the stadium early so she’d have plenty of time to people watch. It was already the second week of September—the start of the regular season—but ninety-degree heat in Austin meant most ticketholders were buying seat cushions and postponing the moment they stepped out into the baking-hot sun. The covered walkway provided shelter from the elements, sure, but was packed with enough activity to constitute a carnival: children ran screaming underfoot, dull-eyed custodians spun their brooms around like stiff dance partners, and men and women guffawed with equal bravado. It was an atmosphere of ecstatic celebration, and the air crackled with barely-checked feelings of pride and rivalry.
Not to mention smells. Freshly-spun cotton candy, hot dogs grilled until they split open, something that gushed hot out of a machine and passed for cheese—all of this and more perfumed the air. The mouthwatering, caramel-salt smell of kettle corn popping had been the arrow to Dylan's own self-control.
Unfortunately, where humans gathered, they brought with them other smells. Spilled soda, body odor, and overflowing bathrooms—every aroma seemed to be competing as hard as the players were about to in the hopes of taking home a trophy.
When it all became too much for her, Dylan mounted the steps to the upper deck of the stadium. She would get some exercise walking laps at a higher altitude and escape the crowd for a bit, before heading back down to her own seat in time for kickoff in an hour.
She had not figured on getting knocked on her ass by a freight train.
It had to be some form of locomotive that hit her and sent her ten-dollar popcorn flying out of her hands. Nothing else could account for the power, the sheer force, responsible for the collision. It knocked the air out of her lungs, the sunglasses off her face, the indignation off her tongue; Dylan rebounded off the obstacle, arms pinwheeling, until someone reached out and caught her.
The train had a hand. He had a face.
God, did he have a face.
The man gazed down his nose at her, surprised but not in the slightest bit upset by their encounter. The man towering over her had a strong jaw, cocked slightly off-center in a rueful smile. His eyes were a wintery blue, and his blond hair hung down past his incongruous square chin.
"Excuse me, I didn't—" she began.
"Sorry about your—"
They both offered their stumbling apologies at once. The man held up a finger, and Dylan clicked her mouth shut. Wait a minute—had he really just signaled her like she was a dog? But he stooped down in front of her like Cinderella's prince to pick up her sunglasses, and she decided to let it slide. Speaking of letting things slide, it was all too easy to imagine from this angle how her hands might arc down those incredible shoulders of his…
It hit her like the first kickoff of the season. They had never met before, but this man was all too familiar. Dylan knew he was famous before she could put a name to his face, to his body. He was football stock, but he wasn't just any ordinary player.
Charlie Wild, starting quarterback of the Texas Teamsters, straightened and brushed the popcorn kernels off her glasses before passing them back to her.
"Yours, I believe."
"Thank you."
The way his eyes lingered on her…he must have some imagination hidden away in that impenetrable head of his, Dylan mused. He may dote on her like Cinderella, but she was definitely the sans-ball gown Cindy. Today she had dressed herself in a white slouchy tee, a corner of which she tucked into the front of her jeans to give the casual viewer at least some evidence of her trim stomach. A baseball cap pulled low over her eyes completed the lazy, figure-swallowing ensemble.
It amused her to watch the behemoth lean in again, conspicuously this time, to try for a good glimpse of her face beneath the hat. Now that she knew who he was, she also knew his specs. Charlie Wild: six-foot-six, two hundred eighty pounds, thirty years old. He hadn't just trained himself to peak physical perfection, he had invented it. In all her time pursuing a degree in sports medicine, Dylan had never been faced with a specimen like him. He looked like he had descended from Valhalla to play starting quarterback for the Texas Teamsters.
And she looked like a mortal mess. For once, Dylan actually regretted dressing down for one of these games, but it didn't appear her efforts—or lack thereof—dissuaded Charlie Wild from getting an eyeful. Dylan lifted the brim of her hat a little to gaze back at him defiantly. If he was used to women shrinking beneath him or melting into panty-twisted puddles of goo and thought she would do the same, he had another thing coming.
"You look like you're incognito." His voice boomed in his chest like a summer storm, like a packed stadium rumbling with applause. "You in some kind of trouble?"
What a line! Amusement tugged at the corners of Dylan's mouth despite herself. "Something tells me I might be," she confessed.
Charlie's own mouth quirked at her response. Of course—he seemed the type to enjoy games, on or off the field. It factored into his public persona, but maybe there was more to it than just marketing.
"Something tells me you can handle it," he said.
"Oh, I handle men like you every day in my line of work," she agreed. She didn't give him an inch, didn't betray who or what she was.
"I doubt you've ever handled a man like me," he said.
"That remains to be seen," she replied. And likely will remain so, Dylan thought, even though she couldn't resist pushing their innuendo to its natural conclusion.
The last thing she intended when she got up this morning was to be flirted with by the Teamsters' star player. Apparently, he was as unprejudiced when it came to picking up women as Entertainment Weekly reported him to be. Dylan would have never guessed he could make time in his busy schedule for a woman who wasn't a cheerleader or Playboy model.
"Speaking of things that remain to be seen…" Charlie indicated the box he had been headed toward. "Why don't you come watch the game from the VIP suite? The only better view you'll find today is the one I'm already looking at."
"Hm." Dylan pretended to deliberate, resting her hand on one cocked hip as she watched the box's occupants file in. Suits, most of them—probably corporate bigwigs from sponsors, billionaire friends of the owner. A few had arm candy, similarly dressed up. "Something tells me you aren't allowed to extend that invitation."
"C'mon, now." Her resistance only seemed to make him more insistent. "If anyone were to see you walking away from our conversation, it would be bad optics for me." Dylan failed to pull a sad-puppy face, and he grinned. "Besides, I thought you said you could handle a little trouble."
Grab your copy of Healing the Quarterback (Wildhorse Ranch Brothers Book Two) from
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Leslie North, Red Zone
