Loving You (19 page)

“How'd he take it?”

“
Stunned
would be a good word.” Shaking her head, Tasha swallowed hard, to keep the sudden roll of nausea where it belonged.

“Maybe it'll be okay.” Molly shrugged helplessly. “I mean, why would he care, right?”

“Sure. Why would he care? The fact that he's rich and settled and famous and could take Jonas away from me in a heartbeat if he wanted to, that should be enough.” She eased down to sit on the corner of the desk. “Why should he be interested in the new ammunition I just handed him?”

Molly hissed in a breath. “Right.”

“But there's more.”

“More?” Molly slumped back against the door. “Jesus. What else is left?”

“I kissed him.”

“You—” Molly came away from the door like she was on a spring.

“Well, technically,
he
kissed
me
,” Tasha corrected before Molly could get her question out. “But there was definitely kissing.”

“
Lips
kissing?”

“No,” Tasha said, sarcasm dripping from her voice, “
hand
kissing. Yes, lips. And maybe, just a hint of tongue.”

“Whoa.” Molly's eyebrows shot up. “Was he as good as I think he is, just by looking at him?”

“Better.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.” Tasha rubbed one hand across her mouth, but all she succeeded in doing was reminding herself of that kiss. The soft, gentle brush of his mouth on hers. The snaking ribbons of electricity that sizzled through her.

“Well, this might work out okay then.”

“What?” Tasha's gaze snapped to Molly and she could have sworn she actually saw the wheels in her friend's mind whirling.

“Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.”

“Join 'em how?”

“This could be worse, you know. At least he's really cute and a good kisser, judging by the glassy shine in your eyes.”

“Which has to do with what?”

“Everything.” Molly leaned back against the door again, folded her arms over her chest, and gave Tasha a sly smile. “He likes you, you like him, you get married, and you
both
get Jonas.”

Tasha shook her head, then stared at her friend for a long minute. She couldn't even argue with a statement
as dumb as that one. Tasha Flynn was so
not
Nick Candellano's type. She didn't have a family. Didn't come from a good home. Hell, she'd lived on the streets as a kid. That's not exactly the kind of woman Nick was going to take home to Mother. Nope. Molly, bless her heart, was just a romantic—with a blind eye. “You know, Molly, sometimes I worry about you.”

*   *   *

Evelyn Walker sat at her computer and stared blankly at the screen. The clutter of noise surrounding her—raised voices, the clatter of fingers on keyboards, and the weeping of a solitary child—never touched her.

She was used to it.

Thirty years working in child welfare had made her immune to the sound of tears as well as to the various and sundry excuses people came up with to sidestep her inquiries.

People like Tasha Flynn.

Sitting poker-straight, Evelyn reached for the wafer-thin bone china cup at her elbow. Lifting the rose-bedecked cup to her lips, she took a dainty sip of her still warm Earl Grey tea. Tasha Flynn was hiding something.

Evelyn knew it.

She felt it.

She could smell a lie from a hundred yards off.

Setting her cup gently back down on its matching saucer, she stared at the file, lying open across her desk. Jonas Baker. One of dozens of children she was responsible for, the boy stared back at her, unsmiling in the official photo. Evelyn tapped her fingertips against the paper-littered blotter as she considered his case.

Eleven years old and in the care of a woman so
flighty she'd been on “vacation” for six months. Evelyn's mouth puckered as if she'd bitten into something especially sour. Mimi Castle was undignified, unconventional, and annoying in the extreme. However, the woman had been a foster mother for so many years, she was thought of as a saint in the Santa Cruz area.

Which left Evelyn in the minority when she filed complaints about the woman's frequent displays of unorthodox behavior. For heaven's sake, what woman of seventy actually held a car wash in her front yard to benefit a stranded sea lion? And as for her “hippie” tendencies … Evelyn unconsciously straightened in her chair and tugged at her pale blue suit jacket. A woman as old as Mimi had no business wearing braids and moccasins.

But as flighty as the older woman was, Evelyn was forced to admit that Mimi Castle had
never
been incommunicado this long before. Something was wrong. Unfortunately, since Jonas was being well cared for and fed, that put him light-years ahead of the other children she was sworn to protect. So Mimi Castle would stay on Evelyn's back burner a while longer.

But sooner or later—when she could find a little extra time in one of her too-short days—Evelyn would discover whatever it was Tasha Flynn was so determined to hide.

*   *   *

The drive to the small television station outside San Jose was long, familiar, and didn't require a hell of a lot of attention. The truth was, Nick could have driven it in his sleep. So that left his brain plenty of time to wander.

Usually, if left to its own devices, his mind shot
directly to his playing days. Recalling the glory moments, play-by-play. He could remember all of the truly great ones with amazing clarity, as if those small pieces in time had been carved deep into his brain.

Without even trying, he could recapture the heady sensation of a victory run. The thrill of crossing the goal line just a breath ahead of some three-hundred-pounder intent on destroying him. In his thoughts, Nick heard the roar of the crowd and the shrill shriek of the ref's whistle. He remembered exactly how it felt to be standing on the sidelines with his teammates. How their breath puffed into clouds of fog in front of their face masks during the winter games. How spring and summer practice sessions could sweat the life out of a man.

And how good it had been to be a part of something … special.

But today he couldn't get Tasha's words out of his mind. He saw her as she must have been. Young, alone. Scared. What had she been running from? What had been so bad that she'd chosen outright danger rather than staying put? Did she have a family somewhere? Someone who might be looking for her? Worrying about her? Or had they been happy to see her go?

Jesus, what kind of family was that? He couldn't even get his mind around that one. To a Candellano, there was nothing more important than family. His mother would have walked into fire for any one of her kids. They'd all known it. His brothers, his sister, and he had all grown up secure in the knowledge that no matter what, they were safe. Loved.

Had Tasha
ever
had that?

Sunlight speared through the bank of dark clouds overhead and sliced right through the windshield and into his eyes. Nick reached for his sunglasses, tugged
them on, and squinted anyway. Hell, he felt like his head was going to explode, and at the moment that sounded like a vacation.

He couldn't forget the look in her eyes when she'd faced him down. Couldn't forget the taste of her when she'd—so briefly—kissed him back. Couldn't forget too damn much about her. She was slipping into his life. Into his … heart?

Her face filled his mind and it seemed as though he could even taste her scent. No exclusive, expensive perfume for Tasha. She smelled of flowery shampoos and soap and … he chuckled and shook his head. Hair spray. Yet somehow those scents combined to become something alluring. Something that was pure Tasha. Something that drove him to distraction the moment he came close enough to catch a hint of her scent.

That woman touched places in him he hadn't been sure existed. Scowling, he reached up to adjust his sunglasses, then scrubbed his hand across his mouth. Damn it, he could still taste her. That one sweet, soft, too-damn-brief kiss had ignited the embers that had been smoking inside him for days. Heat pooled in his belly and reached out with hungry talons to drag across his nerve endings. He wanted her. Wanted her so badly, his whole body ached with it.

And the wanting was something he wasn't used to. Oh, he'd wanted women before. But that had been simple desire. A quick flash of need that was just as quickly eased. But this wanting went deeper.

Ever since he'd first laid eyes on her, he hadn't so much as
thought
about another woman, and that was just not like him. He blew out an exasperated breath, changed lanes, and honked the horn at the idiot merging onto the freeway in front of him, traveling at little
more than a crawl. Maybe that was it, he thought, just a little desperately. He'd been so involved with Tasha and Jonas, he'd forgotten about having a life. Getting out. Seeing people.
Women
. Maybe he just needed to get laid.

As much as he'd like to believe that, he couldn't.

It wasn't just sex he wanted.

It was sex with Tasha.

“Okay, enough already,” he snapped through gritted teeth. Reaching out, he flipped on the radio, and, instantly a clash of guitars and a slam of drums blasted from the speakers. Good. Just what he needed to get rid of the soft, sexual thoughts invading his brain.

Deliberately he turned his brain from the problem of Tasha to the problem of Jonas. He propped his elbow on the top of the car door, adjusted the lie of his sunglasses again, and squinted into the distance. Jonas. A great kid, but Jesus. This whole thing was spinning way out of control. Every time he saw the boy, Nick was digging his own grave just a little deeper. He was getting sucked into a whirlpool of emotions that he wasn't sure he'd be able to deal with.

If he handled things Jackson's way, there'd be some fallout from the media, maybe. But at least everything would be cut-and-dried. He'd know. Jonas would know. One way or the other.

But maybe … Nick wasn't ready to know.

Maybe he just wasn't ready yet to give up on whatever the hell it was he'd found.

Shit.

When his cell phone rang, Nick gratefully lunged at it. Anything was better than his own company at the moment. He turned off the radio and impatiently
shoved the earpiece into place, stabbed the SEND button, and growled, “Yeah?”

“Nice talkin' to you, too.”

“Travis. Good.” Nick hit his left turn signal and squeezed past a slow-moving pickup truck. Keeping his gaze fixed to the road, he asked, “Do you have that address for me?”

“No problem,” his agent said, “but why exactly are you going to see the fan mail machine in action?”

Nick frowned. “Because maybe it's time I found out just who was writing to me and what
I'm
saying in response. So, will you call my house and leave the information on the answering machine?”

“Sure. Now, on to business.”

“Shoot.” His hands fisted on the steering wheel and he punched the accelerator just for the hell of it. Wind screamed past him, shoving through his hair and reducing the sound of Travis's voice to an annoying buzz.

“The Make-A-Wish Foundation is asking for one of your jerseys for their auction again this year.”

Nick smiled. He'd always enjoyed going to that auction. Gave him a chance to visit with some sick kids and to feel like he was making a difference. “No problem. Hell, we can offer my helmet, too. Not like I'll be using it.”

“Right. So. Anything else you need?”

“A less confusing life?” Nick suggested.

“Hey, if I could offer that, I'd charge twenty percent.”

“You would, wouldn't you?” Another driver came up fast behind Nick. The black SUV tore past the Vette doing at least ninety, and when the driver took a swerving left to pass, he just missed clipping the front
bumper of the Corvette. “You dumb son of a bitch!” Nick shouted, just to push his heart back down from his throat.

“Problem?” Travis asked.

“Just a moron escaped from the asylum for the day.”

“Must be on the freeway.”

“Good guess.”

“Anyway, there's nothing else?”

“No, thanks.”

What he needed his agent couldn't find for him. Hell, he had a job. It wasn't ESPN, but that'd come. Eventually, he guessed. Everybody knew rookies didn't go in and play first string right off. He'd have to work his way up to the big leagues, just as he'd had to prove himself on the playing field. Besides, it wasn't as though he
needed
the work. He'd made more money playing ball than three men could spend in one lifetime.

It was just … he
wanted
to work. To be a part of the game he loved. In some way, he wanted to stay connected to football. It was all he knew. All he'd ever wanted. All he'd ever planned on doing.

“Okay.” His agent started talking again. “I'll call your place and leave the address you wanted and—”

“Travis,” Nick said suddenly, “did you ever think maybe you were in the wrong line of work?”

“What? Is that a complaint?”

“No. I mean,” Nick said, trying to explain to Travis what he didn't really understand himself, “do you ever think about what road you might have gone down if you hadn't ended up on the one you're on at the moment?”

“Have you been drinking again?”

Nick snorted a laugh. Well, so much for philosophy. “Forget it. Hell, I don't even know what I'm talking
about.” Frowning, he tipped his sunglasses down and stared off at a smudge of black rising on the horizon. “Travis, I'll call you later.” He ended the call and kept driving, more slowly now as the traffic began to back up.

Scowling into the distance, he watched as twists of smoke drifted and danced on the ever-present wind. Horns blared and tempers shortened as the freeway choked down to not much more than a parking lot. Cars inched along the highway, crawling across the asphalt, getting ever nearer to what had to be a hell of an accident.