Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel (3 page)

He chuckled. “Kinda nice actually.”

“I bet.” She inched away from him, but her foot bumped into a tree root, and she wobbled.

His hand shot out to cup her elbow, sincere concern furrowing his brow. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Fine. Perfect. Great. Dandy. Couldn’t be better. This stuff happens to me all the time. I’m a natural-born klutz.”

“You’ve got some dirt . . .” He leaned over and ran a hand across her shoulder blade, dusting her off, his broad hand circling lower and lower to the small of her back, igniting flames everywhere he touched.

Yikes!

Knots formed in her lower abdomen, tugged, tightened. She shook him off and plastered both palms to her butt, vigorously swiping her seat. “I’ve got it.”

He stepped back, piercing blue eyes stabbing into hers, mischief brimming in his gaze. “So cheetah, huh?”

Mortified, she squeezed her eyes shut for a second, gulped. “Could you pretend you didn’t see that?”

“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.”

She scrubbed two fingers over her forehead. “Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one laid out with your underwear on display.”

He pulled out his weapon of mass destruction, that devastating wink. “I’ve always had a fondness for women in animal print.”

“I imagine you have a fondness for women in pretty much anything,” she popped off. What was it about him that brought out this sassiness she hadn’t even known lurked inside her?

He lowered his eyelids in a look so sultry that she forgot to breathe. She’d seen men give other women looks like that before but no man had ever looked at
her
that way. She didn’t know what to do with it.

Suki would say something flirty. Kasha would act cool and sophisticated. Jodi would snort and roll her eyes, and tell him that she wasn’t falling for that slick shtick. But Breeanne didn’t know how to flirt, she wasn’t sophisticated, and well, she
liked
his slick shtick.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured, leaning in closer, his minty breath warm against her cheek. “I prefer that my woman wear nothing at all.”

Sweetheart. My woman.

He spoke those words while looking at
her
. Plain, ordinary, pasty-skinned Breeanne Carlyle.

Wildfire heat spread under her skin, tongues of flame licking her from head to toe.

She wasn’t going to read anything into those words. Most likely he called every woman sweetheart because he had so many women he couldn’t remember their names. Her cheeks burned. She backpedaled, hoping he’d get the hint that it was okay for him to go away and leave her to her humiliation.

And she ran smack up against the tree trunk.

He stepped closer, breaching the breathing-room gap she’d created, and pinned her to the spot with a gaze as sturdy as handcuffs.

Trapped.

She couldn’t keep looking into those heartbreaker eyes. Her heart had healed up nicely, thank you very much, and she wasn’t about to test the strength of her surgeon’s stitches. She dropped her gaze, spied her paperback lying on the ground, and bent to pick it up.

“Allow me.” Like some chivalrous knight, he scooped it up. Pausing, he examined the cover. One amused eyebrow shot up on his forehead, disappearing beneath the shadow of the bill of his baseball cap.
“Love’s Throbbing Fury?”

She jutted out her chin, bristling at the humor in his eyes, and snapped, “You got a problem with that?”

He looked as if he was about to make some comment about her choice of reading material, but instead he simply handed her the book.

Squaring her shoulders, she stood her ground. She loved romance novels—granted some of the titles were hokey, but that didn’t affect the quality of the story inside—and it irritated her when people put them down without ever having read one.

But even so, she heard defensiveness in her voice. “It’s a great book.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Some of the pages had creased. Carefully, Breeanne smoothed them out. She revered books, all books, any books, and took great care with them. It pained her to see people dog-ear corners, or break the spine on paperbacks.

“I feel the same way about baseballs. It gets me here when it’s time to throw them out.” He pressed his palm to his solar plexus, and she couldn’t help staring at the hard six-pack visible beneath his white cotton T-shirt.

Alarmed that he’d so accurately read her mind, she looked around for her tote bag, but he had already retrieved that too, and now the cloth handle dangled from the end of his long, thick index finger.

She reached for the tote.

In the exchange, their fingertips brushed, sending a shocking current of awareness humming through her arm to invade her entire nervous system. Lighting up all the secret parts of her that she’d never had the opportunity to use.

I want.

S
he bit down on the inside of her cheek, desperate to keep him from seeing how his touch electrified her.

He cocked his head, studied her like she was something he’d not quite seen before, and didn’t know what to make of his new discovery.

Honestly, she didn’t know what to make of him either. Why was he still blocking her exit? Why was he still here? Didn’t he have someplace to be?

Nut bunnies.

He had no idea the amount of hero worship she had built up inside her, nor was she about to let him find out. She needed to get away from him before she did something irretrievably stupid, like throw herself at his feet, and grovel,
I’m not worthy
. She had no business thinking sexy thoughts about him. None whatsoever.

She adjusted her weight, her gaze, and her fantasies.

And for the first time she noticed the long pink scar running underneath his left arm, and her gut twanged. It was such a shame what had happened to him. That savage, career-ending beating in the alley behind a popular Dallas nightclub dished out by a jealous husband.

Empathy punched her in the throat, and she reached up to rub three fingers over her breastbone scars. Pain she understood far too well.

When the news of Rowdy’s attack first broke, some people in Stardust had declared he’d brought it on himself by sleeping with another man’s wife. But no one deserved to be brutalized like that, and Breeanne ached for him. He’d sworn in interviews that he had not slept with anyone’s wife, and she believed him. The police had not caught his attacker, so no one knew the other side of the story. It might well have been a case of mistaken identity as Rowdy had maintained in TV interviews.

But now that he was standing right in front of her, looking so much larger-than-life, and more delicious than a triple Dairy Queen dipped cone, it seemed unfathomable that anyone could mistake this man for someone else. He was one of a kind, solid, sexy, masculine, and far more man than she could ever handle.

Ha!

As if he would ever want the likes of her when he had the most beautiful women in the world to pick from. He’d dated models and actresses and female athletes. And yes, so sue her, she followed his sexploits in the tabloids, often pretending she was the woman du jour on his arm.

But even so, even though she knew it was silly and futile, she couldn’t stop fantasizing about him. She imagined being pressed beneath those powerful hips as they rocked her relentless as ocean waves, his big body inside hers, his calloused palms gliding over her bare flesh . . .

Snap out of it.

While she was scouting him out, he was scrutinizing her with the same intensity. His gaze traveled from her hair, which the breeze was fluttering against her cheek, to her chest, where his number was stamped across the front of her baseball jersey.

Oh heavens, she was wearing his number, and now because of that he had
her
number. It was no secret she was a fan girl. Easy pickings. No doubt he considered her a pop-fly lay.

Breeanne gulped. Ha. The joke was on him. She’d never been anyone’s lay.

But why on earth would Rowdy choose her, no matter how easy he might erroneously perceive her to be?

His eye-trip continued as if he was thoroughly enjoying the journey, his gaze lighting for a long moment on her hips. Was he thinking about the cheetah panties underneath her skirt? Goose bumps coated her arms, and it was all she could do not to shiver under the burn from those hypnotic blue eyes. His roving gaze took a long time sliding down her legs before finally stopping at her feet clad in a comfortable but unattractive pair of purple canvas loafers. Not exactly her sexiest outfit.

As if she owned a sexy outfit. And if she did, as if she would wear said sexy outfit to an estate sale. Okay, true confessions. If she’d known he was going to be here, she would have bought the sexiest outfit she could find, and worn it just for him.

A twig snapped, and they both glanced over to see his chauffeur/bodyguard or whoever the big, bald, badass dude was, standing behind them.

Bodyguard Dude cleared his throat, gave Rowdy a look that said,
Why the hell are you hanging out with this nerdy chick?

Rowdy’s gaze stayed married to hers, but he inclined his head toward his companion. “I gotta go.”

“Oh yes.” She bobbed her head like one of those silly drinking-bird-toy heat engines. “Me too. Busy, busy, that’s me.”

“Reading
Love’s Throbbing Fury
,” he teased.

She flushed, realizing she still held the paperback clutched in her hand, had in fact raised it up to the level of her heart. Quickly, she stuffed the book into her tote.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.

She stapled on a cheery smile. “Yep. Fine. Couldn’t be better.”

How many times had she daydreamed about this man whispering sweet nothings into her ear in the middle of the night? An endless number. Uncountable.

Double nut bunnies.

Why was she getting weak-kneed over some jock? She was an adult, not a simpering teenager, never mind that she was also a virgin.

“For the record,” he whispered, “cheetah is my favorite animal print.”

“Really?” she quipped, not having a clue where the sauciness was coming from. “I would have pegged you for snakeskin.”

This was so unlike her. She was quiet, studious, and minded her own business. Just ask anyone. But something about this man whetted her tongue, and turned her mind to quicksilver.

It was scary. Startling. And kind of awesome.

His laughter exploded loud enough to cause people to turn and stare at the mousy woman who’d tickled the funny bone of such a vibrant peacock. Playfully, he chucked her under the chin. “Love your sense of humor,” he said, then turned and walked away with his companion.

Leaving her with her mouth hanging open, a tingly chin, and the terrifying knowledge that she had just been Rowdy Blantonized.

Rowdy walked
away smiling. The image of those cheetah panties permanently imprinted in his brain. That was the most fun he’d had in a long time.

Which was sort of pathetic when you thought about it because he’d done nothing special. Just checked on the woman who’d gotten beaned by one of the freebie baseballs he doled out, and he flirted with her a little.

Is that what his life had come down to, mild joy over mild teasing with a mild woman in a mild place?

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

He rubbed his shoulder. Winced. He was losing his touch. He hadn’t even gotten her name, or phone number.

Who cared? It wasn’t like he was going to call her. Or ever see her again.

But damn she looked cute in the baseball jersey with his number on it, that denim skirt, and those surprising cheetah panties. He grinned again just thinking about those rocking panties. She’d done what no one had been able to do in over four months. She’d made him forget about his problems for a few minutes.

Why was he feeling like this? And why hadn’t he insisted on getting her name and number?

Before he could fully figure out his unexpected urges, Jenna Tomlinson, his former high school biology partner—and one of the few girls in town that he hadn’t dated because she’d been madly in love with her boyfriend—hollered his name. Jenna was Irene Henderson’s great-granddaughter, in town from San Francisco with her husband and kids. He’d skipped Irene’s funeral, not wanting to intrude on the family’s private grief, but he wanted to make time to see Jenna and offer his condolences before she returned to California.

Jenna flung herself into his arms, and Rowdy spun her around. Laughing, she kissed his cheek, slipped her arm through his, and chattering a mile a minute, guided him toward the house.

Just as they stepped inside, Rowdy paused to glance over his shoulder for one last puzzling peek at Miss Cheetah Panties, but she’d already disappeared.

Leaving him feeling vaguely, inexplicably disappointed.

CHAPTER
3

It’s no coincidence that female interest in

baseball increased greatly since ballplayers swapped

baggy flannel uniforms for leotards.

—
M
IKE
R
OYKO

Illogically jealous of the beautiful woman who’d thrown herself into Rowdy’s eager arms, Breeanne slipped around the other side of the tree, striving to calm her somersaulting heart. She slapped a palm to her chest, gulped in a deep breath of air.

Big whoop. What’s all the fuss about? The man put his pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else. He was not worth a cardiac arrest.

What
was
the fuss?

Heck, just look at him. He was big, bold, and utterly gorgeous, and her body was still tingling from his touch. What was up with that?

Time to cut herself some slack. Rowdy was one sweet slice of man. Any red-blooded female would respond. Everything about him was impressive, from his brash, cock-of-the-walk strut, to those sharp blue eyes that didn’t miss a thing, to that slow, lazy smile designed to charm the cheetah panties right off a girl.