Blindsided Read online

  “Enough, Nic. Leave it alone. Leave me alone.”

  Nic pushed himself onto his feet and headed for the kitchen, saying, “Pull your head out, man. You look stupid.”

  He felt stupid, too. He felt a lot of things, actually, but stu pid was one of the few feelings he could name. That and a numb kind of sadness. “Nic!”

  “What?” his friend answered from the refrigerator door.

  “What risk was she thinking about taking?”

  “A little late to wonder about it now, pal.”

  “C’mon, Nic. You owe me.”

  Nic stepped out of the kitchen, opening another beer. “No I don’t. You wanna know, you go ask her.” And then he turned and walked down the hallway, went into his room and closed the door.

  Logan expelled a long hard breath. Go ask her? He remembered how she’d stood in the locker room, her hands fisted and looking like she’d come at him any second. He closed his eyes and swallowed. If only she had. He’d have had to wrap her up to keep her from hurting herself. And holding her…. God, he missed holding her. He missed everything about her.

  Maybe he should go find her. And then what? he wondered. Make her mad enough to actually take a swing at him this time? Just bypass any talking and get straight to the physical? They were good together that way. Really good. Uncomplicated, perfectly natural and in tune with each other. It was when they put their damned clothes on that things got out of sync. It was like they were trying too hard.

  He took a gulp of warming beer and winced. Too hard at what? Everyday conversation? No, that wasn’t it. They’d had some great back and forths. Cat wasn’t a shallow pool of intellect and she could hold her own with him. She had a quick sense of humor that could go wicked twisted in a heartbeat. He’d laughed more with her than any other woman he could remember.

  He’d also had his heart nearly stopped more often, too. God, she was one surprise after another. As long as he lived, he’d remember how she’d vaulted out of that booth in Tu cumcari and laid her principles right on the line. How she’d come across that hot tub and laid her desire on the line. No, Cat didn’t have one cowardly bone in her curvy little body. When it came down to it, she stepped up. She was the kind of teammate a guy could go to the wall for. When you were caught in the corners, she’d muscle in and cover your back. No one would blindside you when Cat was there. He smiled. Cat would spend a lot of time in the box for being the third man in a fight.

  His smile faded. He finished off the beer, leaned his head back into the cushion and stared up at the ceiling. So what had gone wrong? How had they gotten from easy and uncomplicated to yelling at each other across a locker room? Where had they lost the smooth edge?

  The last two weeks had been hell. He’d been out of town for most of it, living out of the suitcase and moving from rink to rink, waking up at night and hating that he was sleeping alone, resisting the urge to call her every five minutes just to hear her voice, just to hear her laugh. When he had broken down and called, she’d been dashing somewhere, up to her eyeballs in being Cat and so, so far away. And when he’d been back in town, it hadn’t been any different. He’d never felt so…alone. Alone and angry.

  God, he was wallowing. He shoved himself to his feet and gathered up the empty beer bottles. He needed to be rational, he told himself as he carried them to the trash. Looking at emotions wasn’t going to get him anywhere close to figuring out how to fix this. He dropped the bottles one by one into the pail and mulled that one over. Yeah, he wanted to fix it. Walking away would be harder than squaring up and dealing with it. If Cat didn’t want to, though…

  He got another beer out of the fridge. He slowly opened it, the sharp hiss mimicking the air leaving his lungs. Des Moines. Everything had shifted in Des Moines. The edge had slipped out from under them while he’d been playing that pickup game. They’d been hit and mostly miss since the moment she’d come down those stairs to tell him she was going home. She’d created the Kyle Rule that night. And a few others she hadn’t told him about—all of them designed to keep him at arm’s length. He’d felt them, but hadn’t put it all together to understand that’s what she was doing. Not until now.

  He needed to find out what had happened in Des Moines. Who had said what to her. That’s where whatever risk Nic was talking about had cropped up; he’d bet money on it. There was a vague inkling in the back of his mind, a sense that he knew the answer already and that asking Cat straight out wasn’t necessary.

  If he hadn’t had the better part of a six-pack in under thirty minutes… But he had and so his options were pretty much down to two. He could stop drinking and wait until his brain dried out enough to wrestle the answer from the closet on his own. Or he could get in the car and go over to Millie’s and… Royally screw up any chance he might still have. Oh, yeah. Driving drunk. Showing up on the doorstep polluted and wanting to talk. Man, Cat was already ticked at him.

  Okay, there was only one option. He looked at the clock on the microwave. Nope, back to two. If he stopped drinking now, he’d be sober enough to think straight about eight. How long to see the light after that…? Hell, it could be after midnight before he figured it out. And then what? Showing up on the doorstep at that hour wasn’t going to be all that much more welcome than now and wasted. And no matter what time it was, Millie and Kyle would be there and he sure as hell didn’t want an audience this time around with Cat.

  Naw, he’d just keep on drinking. He’d think about it all in the morning. Cat probably could use the time to cool off, any way. As sexy as she was when she was mad, getting her into bed wasn’t the immediate objective. No, he just wanted to hold her so his world could come back to center.

  Chapter Thirteen

  H e felt like hammered hell. His stomach was tight as a fist and his chest felt like he’d taken the butt end of a stick in the sternum. But he was a team player and he was where he was supposed to be. Dressed like a fricking penguin. The only consolation in that department was that every other man heading through the doors of the Petroleum Club had been talked into a tux, too.

  It wouldn’t have been worth it, and he wouldn’t have bothered, if there wasn’t a chance to see Cat tonight. He didn’t have any idea what he was going to say to her once he did, though. Well, other than to say he was sorry for being such an ass the day before. After that, he was just going to have to wing it. And be ready to duck if she wasn’t in the mood to be forgiving yet.

  There were people milling around the area outside the dining room. Lots of tuxes, lots of spangled dresses. Everyone had a drink. He swallowed and decided that he’d be way bet ter off without one. His head wasn’t feeling any less abused than the rest of him.

  The music coming out of the dining area was good, he realized as he waited to pass his invitation to the doorkeeper. A live R&B band. A female vocalist who sounded a lot like Bonnie Raitt. If it was supposed to be setting the mood for the party, it was going to be a rocker.

  Oh, yeah, he granted as he walked in. Cat knew how to do it right. Which wasn’t at all surprising. The bar was on the far side of the room. Three bartenders were hopping to mix and pass drinks. He grinned. Apparently Cat knew that a well-liquored crowd was a generous crowd. She also knew that the little touches mattered. Low overhead light. Candles and flower arrangements and glitter on the tables. Balloons everywhere, floor and ceiling. All of it in the team colors. Black, royal blue and silver. Classy. Really classy. The buffet was at least four tables long. Four groaning tables. No one was going to leave here hungry, that was for sure. Or rested. People were dancing everywhere. Even in the line to sign up for bidding paddles.

  He looked around for a familiar face and saw Nic with Lakisha over in the corner by a chocolate fountain. Lakisha was holding a large, flat florist kind of box. Nic was feeding her dipped strawberries. Logan chuckled and threaded through the crowd.

  “Eh,” he said as he joined them and reached for a chunk of pineapple.

  “Eh. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” />
  Yeah, at two that afternoon he wouldn’t have put any money on it, either. “Hi, Lakisha,” he said. “You look terrific tonight.”

  She grinned, shifted the box top to her hip so she could flip her beads—red metallic to go with her dress—back over her shoulder and wiggled her hips. “Honey, I always look terrific.” She jerked her head in Nic’s direction. “He’s another story. Tell him how good he looks for a change.”

  Logan obediently gave his friend the once-over from top to bottom. Hair cut. A tie that was actually well tied. Nice tux that he hadn’t slept in. Logan stopped and looked twice. “What happened to your patents?” he asked, staring at a pair of well-buffed, black leather laced shoes.

  “She’s holding them hostage.”

  “Way to go, Lakisha!” he said, holding his hand up. She took the high five with bracelets jangling. “You look great, Nic,” he assured him. “You ought to fetch at least twenty bucks.”

  “Hah! I had my butt pinched twice between the door and the bar and over here.”

  “It only counts as one,” Lakisha countered. “It was Mrs. Roman checking your goods both times.”

  Nic looked disappointed. Logan laughed and turned to face back into the room. “Which one’s she?”

  “The one with the platinum helmet hair over by the dance floor,” Lakisha supplied. “The one with the, ah…package obsession and no inhibitions about it.”

  “Jeez,” Nic said. “She own Fort Knox?”

  More like a high-end jewelry store, Logan thought.

  “Her husband’s a biggy wig surgeon in town. Bucks is her middle name. Rumor has it that his middle one is Cheatin’.”

  And apparently tonight was a Revenge of the Wife deal. He slapped Nic in the gut. “Man, you could get lucky.”

  Nic looked like he might toss his cookies. “More like a disease.”

  Lakisha said something, but Logan wasn’t paying attention. Cat was wearing that little off-the-shoulder black dress she’d worn in Albuquerque. Standing over by the windows, balloon streamers dancing around her head, a glass of water in her hand, the city lights twinkling behind her as she laughed and reached out to lay her hand on the sleeve of a tux. Logan checked the guy in it and went back to breathing. And then gave up. God, she got more beautiful every damned day. He had to get things straight with her.

  He looked back to Lakisha. “How’s Cat doing?”

  She arched a brow. “Well, she took the price off your head. But I don’t know whether it’s because she’s forgiven you for being a first-class jerk, or because she’s just up to her ass in alligators and doesn’t have time to mess with killing you right now.”

  It wasn’t exactly what he’d been hoping to hear, but probably what he should have expected. “I’ll stay out of her way.”

  “And here I was thinking,” Lakisha said, “that you didn’t have two live brain cells left.”

  He managed a smile. “I have three.”

  “I have four,” Nic bragged.

  “Yeah, but they’re on life support,” Lakisha countered, laughing. She shifted the box on her hip. “I gotta go pin on boutonnieres. Stay away from Helmet Head,” she said as she inched away. “She’s a walking virus cloud.”

  Nic looked so damn relaxed and happy as he watched Lakisha shimmy through the dancers. “It’s none of my business,” Logan began.

  “We’re just friends.” He reached for another strawberry. “Kish is cool.”

  Logan snagged a big marshmallow. “Sometimes being friends grows into something more.”

  Nic laughed and shook his head. “Her mama would kill her and mine would kill me. Neither one of us has a death wish.”

  “What mama doesn’t know…”

  “You ever meet an Italian mama?” Nic asked with a snort. He didn’t wait for an answer. “They know. And I’ve met Kish’s mama. She could teach mine how to do the evil eye thing. We’re talking two peas in a fricking pod. Two mean peas in a fricking pod. Ready for a drink?”

  Not for the next year. “Naw, but I’ll go along for the change in scenery.”

  They worked their way to the bar and joined the line. The man in front of them glanced over his shoulder and then turned. “It’s Logan Dupree, isn’t it?” he asked, sticking out his hand. Logan shook it because it was the polite thing to do despite the hair prickling on the back of his neck.

  “And Dominic Parisi?” the man went on, extending his hand toward Nic. He looked between them. “My name’s Charles Hollings. I represent a group of investors interested in acquiring sports franchises.”

  A broker. Logan’s stomach clenched tighter. “And?”

  “I’m familiar with your background, Mr. Dupree. Yours, too, Mr. Parisi. You’re both just the kind of partners the consortium seeks to include.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Nic drawled. “What franchise you currently looking to snap up?”

  “The Wichita Warriors.”

  Of course. Why else would you be here? “I thought Mrs. Talbott declined the offer.”

  “She did originally,” he answered, smiling.

  Fricking shark.

  “But yesterday she called me and indicated that she’d be willing to discuss a possible sale at the end of the season.”

  Christ! He’d screwed up bigger than he’d thought. He searched the crowd, looking for Cat while saying, “Well, we’re not there yet and the road’s a long one. A lot can change between now and then.”

  “We’re prepared to make a substantial offer whenever she’s ready to hear it.”

  “How much to buy in?” Nic asked.

  “Given the number of current partners, and assuming you’d want to be on an equal footing, a hundred and fifty thousand apiece would be a fairly accurate ballpark figure.”

  “How many partners?” he heard Nic ask.

  “Eight at the moment.”

  Logan ran the math in his head. One point five mil for the Warriors. Way too much for what it could earn out in a decent time frame. But then they weren’t as much interested in earning back the investment as they were in having the bragging rights to owning a hockey team. A million and half would be impossible for Cat to turn down. And they knew it.

  She was over at the auctioneers’ table. Lakisha was with her, the box gone. Cat was handing her secretary a bidding paddle and laughing. A million and a half to buy her. It wasn’t enough. Not anywhere close. There wasn’t enough money in the whole damned world to buy Cat. She was priceless and that anyone would even think she wasn’t…

  His throat tightened and he clenched his teeth. No way was he going to let a sale go down. No fricking way. She wasn’t going to get away from him.

  He blinked and dragged a breath into his rock-hard lungs. Jesus. Aw, sweet Jesus. And then the tension drained out of him. His chest eased and his stomach relaxed. And into the calm flooded absolute certainty. His legs felt like he’d skated a hundred mountains. He swallowed, took another breath, and squared his shoulders. Okay, so he’d screwed up bigger than any man in the history of the world. If he had to crawl over glass to fix it, he would. The first chance he got. God, she had to give him a chance. She had to.

  “Logan?”

  It was a slow kind of start, a coming back from far away. “Huh?” he said, aware that Nic had a hand on his shoulder. He looked around. “Where’d the used car salesman go?”

  Nic took the beer from the bartender, nodded his thanks, and answered, “You checked out and I ummed and aahed and he decided to go pick some other pockets.”

  “Good.”

  “Yesterday was just a really bad day,” Nic offered as they moved away from the bar. “She’ll rethink selling. You’re not worried about it, are you?”

  “Nope. If she really wants to sell, I’ll double whatever they offer.”

  Nic stopped in his tracks and whirled around. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nuh-uh.” He’d never been as sure of anything in his life.

  “Why would you do that? You really think you can turn this into a hoc
key town?”

  He wasn’t going to do it for the money, but Nic didn’t need to know that right now. Later. Cat had the right to know first. “Stranger things have happened,” he said with a shrug.

  “Like what?”

  He managed a smile. “You’re not wearing patent leather loafers tonight,” he said as he walked off to figure out just how the hell he was going to salvage his life.

  Cat leaned her shoulder against a window and lifted one foot slightly off the floor. The blood pounded in her toes as she wiggled them. Two more hours to go and she could climb back into some real world clothes and collapse. Exhaustion didn’t even begin to describe what she was feeling. On the plus side, all the weeks of dealing with one crisis after another had paid off tonight. Not one hitch. Smooth as silk. And everyone was having a blast. They were laughing, eating, dancing, drinking and, most importantly, they were bidding through the roof.

  Logan was definitely the odd man out. Every time she’d seen him in the last couple of hours he’d been standing by himself off in one corner after another, a glass of something in his hand. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t taken so much as a sip of it all night long. He wasn’t socializing. He wasn’t eating. He certainly wasn’t dancing. The high-spirited bid ding seemed to be blowing right past him, absolutely unnoticed. Actually, he looked like he was a thousand miles away and wrestling with the problems of the world.

  It was probably too much to hope that he was feeling miserable and guilty about their fight, but she did, anyway. It would make her attempt at offering him an apology easier. There wasn’t a more handsome man there. Not another one she wanted to be with. Loving him wasn’t something she was going to get over. And keeping her distance wasn’t accomplishing a single thing except making her heart ache all the more. It didn’t matter if he ever knew how she felt. In fact, it was probably better if he didn’t. As long as he’d wrap her in his arms again, the ache would ease. She could be content with that.

  “Ms. Talbott?”

  She looked up. And up. “Hi, Tiny,” she said, shifting her stance to wiggle the toes of her other foot.