Only Phoebe looked pleased, and her amber eyes glowed like a cat’s. “I love this. Not the fact that you’ll end up in a shallow grave—I’m really sorry about that, and I’ll make sure he’s prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But I love knowing that a mere slip of a female put one over on the great Python.”
Molly glared at her sister. “This is the exact reason why Christine Jeffreys won’t let her daughter have a sleepover with the twins. You frighten people.” And then, to Annabelle, “What do you want us to do?”
“Just don’t mention Gwen’s name around him, that’s all. I can’t see any reason the guys would mention her, so I’ll have to hope for the best with them. Unless any of you can find a way to clue them in without actually telling them what I did.”
“I vote we tell them the truth,” Phoebe said. “They’ll laugh at him behind his back for months.”
“You don’t get a vote,” Krystal said. “Not on anything that involves the Python.”
“That is so unfair.” Phoebe sniffed.
Charmaine patted her arm. “You’re a little irrational on the subject.”
The sound of male laughter drifted toward them from the beach. “We’d better get back,” Molly said. “We’ve got all day tomorrow to talk about Annabelle’s problems, including why she brought Heath in the first place.”
Sharon looked worried. “I think that’s fairly obvious. Annabelle, really, what were you thinking?”
“It’s business!” she exclaimed.
“Monkey business,” Krystal muttered.
“Heath needed to get away for a while, and I need a chance to figure out why the matches aren’t working. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
Charmaine exchanged a loaded glance with Phoebe, ready to say more, but Molly came to Annabelle’s rescue. “We’d better get back before they start running plays.”
All of them turned toward the end of the dock.
And came to a dead stop.
Phoebe was the first to break the long silence. In her soft, husky voice, she said what all of them were thinking. “Welcome to the Garden of the Gods, ladies.”
Sharon spoke quietly over the lapping water. “When you’re standing right next to them, you don’t get the full impact.”
Krystal’s voice had a dreamy edge. “We’re getting it now.”
The men stood by the campfire…all six of them…one more gorgeous than the other. Phoebe licked her bottom lip and pointed to the oldest, a big blond giant with a hand cocked at his hip. On a never-to-be-forgotten day in the Midwest Sports Dome, Dan Calebow had saved her life with a perfectly thrown spiral. “I pick him,” she said softly. “Forever and ever.”
Molly slipped her arm through her sister’s and said, just as softly. “I’ll take the golden boy right next to him. Forever and ever.” Kevin Tucker, tan and fit, had hazel eyes and a star-kissed talent that had earned him two Super Bowl rings, but he still told people the night he’d mistaken Molly for a burglar was the luckiest night of his life.
“I’ll take that righteous brother with the soulful eyes and smile that melts my heart.” Krystal pointed toward Webster Greer, the second largest of the men standing by the flames. “As mad as he makes me, I’d marry him again tomorrow.”
Charmaine gazed toward the largest and most menacing of the gods. Darnell Pruitt had left his silk shirt unbuttoned to the waist, revealing a brawny chest and a trio of gold chains. As the firelight turned his skin to polished ebony, he looked like an ancient African king. She pressed her fingertips to the base of her throat. “I still don’t quite understand it. He should terrify me.”
“Instead, it’s the other way around.” Janine’s smile held a trace of longing. “Somebody lend me one of them. Just for the night.”
“Not mine,” Sharon said. The fact that Ron McDermitt was the smallest man around the fire and a self-proclaimed geek didn’t dim his sexual megawattage one bit, not when the right pair of sunglasses turned him into a ringer for Tom Cruise.
One by one, the women’s gazes fell on Heath. Lithe, square-jawed, his crisp brown hair dusted with gold from the fire, he stood in the exact center of this elite group of warriors, both one of them and somehow set apart. He was younger, and his battle-hardened edges had been honed at the negotiating table instead of on the gridiron, but that didn’t make him any less commanding. This was a man to be reckoned with.
“Spooky how he fits right in,” Molly observed.
“It’s the favorite trick of the undead,” Phoebe said tartly. “Shape-shifters transform themselves into whatever people want to see.”
Annabelle suppressed a powerful urge to defend him.
“Harvard brains, GQ polish, and country boy charm,” Charmaine said. “That’s why the young guys want to sign with him.”
Phoebe tapped the toe of her sneaker against the dock. “There’s only one good use for a man like Heath Champion.”
“Here we go again,” Molly muttered.
Phoebe’s lip curled. “Target practice.”
“Stop it!” Annabelle rounded on her.
They all stared. Annabelle unclenched her hands and tried to retrench. “What I mean is…I mean…If a man said something like that about a woman, people would throw him in jail. So, I don’t…you know…think maybe a woman should say it about a man.”
Phoebe seemed fascinated by Annabelle’s rebuke. “The Python has a champion.”
“I’m just saying,” Annabelle murmured.
“She has a point.” Krystal began walking toward the beach. “It’s hard to raise male children with good self-esteem. That kind of thing doesn’t help.”
“You’re right.” Phoebe slipped her arm around Annabelle’s waist. “I’m the mother of a son, and I should know better. I’m just…a little uneasy. I’ve had so much more experience with Heath than you.”
Her concern was genuine, and Annabelle couldn’t stay upset. “You really don’t have to worry.”
“It’s hard not to. I feel guilty.”
“About what?”
Phoebe’s steps slowed just enough so they fell behind the others. She patted Annabelle the same way she patted her children when she was worried. “I’m trying to figure out a tactful way to say this, but I can’t. You know, don’t you, that he’s manipulating you to get to me?”
“You can’t blame him for trying,” Annabelle said quietly. “He’s a good agent. Everybody says so. Maybe it’s time to let bygones be bygones.” She regretted her words the moment she spoke them. She knew nothing about the inner workings of the NFL, and she shouldn’t presume to tell Phoebe how to run her empire.
But Phoebe merely sighed and dropped her hand from Annabelle’s waist. “There are no good agents. But at least some of them don’t go out of their way to stab you in the back.”
Heath had scented danger, and he came striding toward her. “Ron had his eye on the last brownie, Annabelle, but I snagged it first. I’ve seen how cranky you get if you go too long without chocolate.”
She was more of a caramel person, but she wouldn’t contradict him in front of his archenemy, and she took the brownie he extended. “Phoebe, do you want to split this?”
“I’ll save my calories for another glass of wine.” Without even glancing at Heath, she walked away to join the others.
“So how’s your plan working so far?” Annabelle said, studying Phoebe’s back.
“She’ll come around.”
“Not anytime soon.”
“Attitude, Annabelle. It’s all about attitude.”
“So you’ve mentioned.” She handed him the brownie. “You can work this off easier than me.”
He took a bite. From the beach, she heard Janine say she needed to finish the book before tomorrow. As everybody told her good night, Webster slipped another CD in the boom box, and a Marc Anthony song came on. Ron and Sharon began to salsa in the sand. Kevin grabbed Molly, and they joined in, executing the steps more gracefully than the McDermitts. Phoebe and Dan looked into each
other’s eyes, laughed, and began to dance, too.
Heath’s fingers tightened around Annabelle’s elbow. “Let’s take a walk.”
“No. They’re suspicious enough as it is. And Phoebe knows exactly what you’re up to.”
“Does she now?” He tossed the rest of the brownie in the trash. “If you don’t want to walk, let’s dance.”
“Okay, but dance with the other women, too, so nobody gets suspicious.”
“Of what?”
“Molly thinks…Oh, never mind. Just spread your dubious charm around, okay?”
“Will you relax?” He grabbed her hand and led her back to the others.
It didn’t take long for her to kick off her sandals and get into the spirit of the evening. After all the classes Kate had forced her to take, Annabelle was a good dancer. Either Heath had taken a few classes himself or he was a natural because he stayed right with her. When it came to mastering the social graces, he didn’t seem to have missed a trick. The song came to an end, and Annabelle waited for the next one. With the water lapping the shore, a crackling fire, a star-spangled sky, and a frighteningly tempting man at her side, this was a romantic cliché of a night. She couldn’t handle a ballad—that would be too cruel. To her relief, the music stayed upbeat.
She danced with Darnell and Kevin, Heath with their wives. After a while, the couples drifted back together, and they stayed that way for the rest of the evening. Eventually, Kevin and Molly disappeared to check on their kids. Phoebe and Dan wandered away, hand in hand, for a stroll along the beach. The rest of them kept dancing, shedding their sweatshirts, mopping their brows, refreshing themselves with a cold beer or a glass of wine while the music urged them on. Annabelle’s hair whipped her cheeks. Heath pulled a Travolta move that made them both laugh. They drank more wine, came together, slipped apart. Their hips touched, their legs rubbed, the blood surged through her veins. Krystal ground her bottom against her husband like a freak-dancing teenager. Darnell took his wife by the hips, gazed into her eyes, and Charmaine no longer looked prim at all.
Sparks shot into the sky. Outkast launched into “Hey Yah!” Annabelle’s breasts brushed Heath’s chest. She gazed up into a pair of half-lidded deep green eyes and thought about how being drunk could give a woman the perfect excuse to do something she normally wouldn’t. The next morning, she could always say, “God, I was so hammered. Remind me never to drink again.”
It would be like having a free pass.
Somewhere between Marc Anthony and James Brown, Heath started forgetting that Annabelle was his matchmaker. As they headed back to the cottage, he blamed the night, the music, too many beers, and that wild auburn rumpus dancing around her head. He blamed the impish amber sparks in her eyes as she’d dared him to keep up with her. He blamed the feisty curve of her mouth as her small bare feet kicked up the sand. But most of all, he blamed his training regimen for marital fidelity, which he now realized had been way too strict or he’d be able to remember this was Annabelle, his matchmaker, his—sort of—buddy.
She fell silent as they approached the darkened cottage. Granted, tonight wasn’t the first time his thoughts toward her had turned in a sexual direction, but that had been a normal male reaction to an intriguing female. Annabelle as a potential bed partner had no place in his life, and he needed to get a grip.
He held the cottage door open for her. All evening, her laughter had chimed like bells in his head, and, as she brushed his shoulder, an unwelcome surge of blood shot straight to his loins. He smelled wood smoke, along with a light, floral shampoo, and fought the urge to bury his face in her hair. His cell sat on the end table, where he’d left it before the cookout so he wouldn’t be tempted to use it. Normally, he’d have checked for messages first thing, but he didn’t feel like it tonight. Annabelle, however, was busy as a bee. She slipped past him to turn on a lamp, knocking the shade askew in the process. She opened a window, fanned herself, picked up the purse she’d left on the couch, set it back down. When she finally gazed at him, he saw the damp spot on her top where she’d spilled her third glass of wine. Bastard that he was, he’d refilled it right away.
“I’d better get to bed.” She nibbled on her bottom lip.
He couldn’t look away from those small, straight teeth sinking into that rosy flesh. “Not yet,” he heard himself say. “I’m too wired. I want somebody to talk to.” Somebody to touch.
Being Annabelle, she read his mind, and she confronted the situation head-on. “How sober are you?”
“Almost.”
“Good. Because I’m not.”
His eyes settled on that moist blossom of a mouth. Her lips parted like flower petals. He tried to come up with a smarmy comment that was sure to offend her, which would snap them both out of this, but he couldn’t think of a thing. “And if I weren’t almost sober?” he said.
“You are. Almost.” Those melted caramel eyes didn’t leave his face. “You’re a very self-disciplined person. I respect that about you.”
“Because one of us needs to be self-disciplined, right?”
Her hands twisted at her waist. She looked adorable—rumpled clothes, sandy ankles, that hullabaloo of shiny hair. “Exactly.”
“Or maybe not.” To hell with it. They were both adults. They knew what they were doing, and he took a step toward her.
She threw up her hands. “I’m drunk. Really, really drunk.”
“Got it.” He moved closer.
“I’m totally wasted.” She took a quick, awkward step backward. “Hammered out of my mind.”
“Okay.” He stopped where he was and waited.
The toe of her sandal eased forward. “I am not responsible!”
“I’m readin’ you loud and clear.”
“Any man would look good to me right now.” Another step toward him. “If Dan walked in, Darnell, Ron—any man!—I’d think about jumping him.” The bridge of her nose crinkled with indignation. “Even Kevin! My best friend’s husband, can you imagine? That’s exactly how drunk I am. I mean…” A gulp of air. “You! Can you believe it? I’m so wasted, I couldn’t tell one man from another.”
“You’ll take whatever you can get, right?” Oh, this was too easy. He closed the remaining distance between them.
The muscles in her throat worked as she swallowed. “I have to be honest.”
“You’d even take me.”
Her narrow shoulders rose, then fell. “Unfortunately, you’re the only man in the room. If somebody else was here, I’d—”
“I know. Jump him.” He ran the tip of his finger over the curve of her cheek. She leaned into his hand. He rubbed his thumb over her chin. “Could you be quiet now so I can kiss you?”
She blinked, thick lashes sweeping her pixie’s eyes. “Really?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Because, if you do, I’ll kiss you back, so you need to remember that I’m—”
“Drunk. I’ll remember.” He slipped his hands into the hair he’d been aching to touch for weeks. “You’re not responsible for your actions.”
She gazed up at him. “Just so you understand.”
“I understand,” he said softly. And then he kissed her.
She arched against him, her body pliant, her lips hot and Annabelle-spicy. Her hair curled around his fingers, ribbons of silk. He freed one hand and found her breast. Through her clothes, the nipple pebbled under his palm. She wound her arms around his neck, pressed her hips to his. Their tongues played an erotic game. He was hard, mindless. He needed more, and he reached under her top to feel her skin.
A muffled little whimper penetrated his fog. She shuddered, and the heels of her hands pressed against his chest.
He drew back. “Annabelle?”
She gazed up at him through watery eyes and sniffed, the corners of her soft, rosy mouth drooping. “If only I were drunk,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirteen
Annabelle heard Heath’s sigh. That kiss…She’d known he’d be a wonderful kisser: domineering in t
he best possible way, master and commander, lord of the realm, leader of the pack. No need to worry about this one slipping into high heels when she wasn’t paying attention. But none of that justified her foolishness. “I—I guess I have more self-discipline than I thought,” she said, her voice unsteady.
“So gosh darned thrilled you figured that out now.”
“I can’t throw everything away for a couple of minutes of heavy breathing.”
“A couple of minutes?” he exclaimed indignantly. “If you think I’m not good for longer than—”
“Don’t.” Pain shot through her. All she wanted to do now was climb into bed and pull the covers over her head. She hadn’t cared about her business, her life, her self-respect. All she’d cared about was giving in to the moment.
“Let’s go, Tinker Bell.” He snagged her arm and steered her toward the kitchen. “We’re taking a walk to cool down.”
“I don’t want to walk,” she cried.
“Fine. Let’s go back to what we were doing.”
Even as she pulled away, she knew he was right. If she intended to get her footing back, this couldn’t wait till morning. She had to do it now. “All right.”
He grabbed the flashlight hanging by the refrigerator, and she followed him outside. They set off down a path soft with pine needles. Neither of them said a word, not even when the path opened into a small, moonlit cove where limestone boulders edged the water. Heath turned off the flashlight and set it on the lone picnic table. He stuffed his hands in the rear pockets of his shorts and walked toward the water. “I know you want to make a big deal out of this, but don’t.”
“Out of what? I’ve already forgotten.” She kept her distance, wandering toward the water but stopping a good ten feet from him. The air smelled warm and marshy, and the lights from the town of Wind Lake twinkled off to her left.
“We were dancing,” he said. “We got turned on. So what?”
She dug her fingernails into her palms. “As far as I’m concerned, it never happened.”
“It happened all right.” He turned toward her, and the tough note in his voice told her the Python had uncoiled. “I know the way you think, and that wasn’t some big, unforgivable sin.”