Illegal Motion: A Loveswept Classic Romance (4 page)

If he wanted a confession, then he was just going to have to come right out and ask her—she wasn’t going to be a willing participant in any more of his seductive games.

She looked up at him, ready to begin the standard first workout interview, only to find his blue-eyed gaze running up and down her forest-green Millennium track suit. His slow scrutiny made her feel as though she’d dressed to display herself to him. Ridiculous considering she was covered head to toe in baggy nylon. But also disconcerting because the thought of dressing for his approval didn’t seem the least bit repulsive to her. So much for reacting to him like an ordinary client. Nick Logan might be many things. Ordinary would never be one of them.

“So, where should we start? Do you want me standing up or lying down?”

Nick’s deep voice broke into her thoughts like a velvet hammer. He obviously wasn’t going to let up on her and she considered confronting him right then and there, putting an end to this charade. But she knew she’d have a far better chance of convincing him of her story if she had some facts from Eric to back it up. She glanced at
her watch. Less than an hour to go. Certainly she could manage him for that long.

“Sitting will be fine, but I need to ask some questions first.”

He smiled. “Shoot. My life is an open book.”

There was a trace of bitterness in that last statement, and for the first time she thought about what his life must have been like these last eight months. She knew from the experience with her father how the media could insinuate themselves into every nook and cranny of your life until you’d do anything to get them off your back. It surprised her how badly she wanted to ask him about it, but just the knowledge that they shared a common bond gave her more confidence, and she smiled as she asked her first question.

“How long has it been since the last surgery on your knee?”

“Three weeks. So you’re training pro football’s fair-haired boy wonder.”

Her smile faltered. He really had distraction down to a science. Getting a firm grip on the clipboard and her patience, she pretended not to know what he was talking about. “Who do you mean?”

“Your receptionist mentioned that Eric Miller was training here. She must have recognized
me from when I played for the Jaguars and thought I might be interested.”

Willa wanted to tell him to quit the games, that she knew exactly when he’d learned about Eric training here, but then she’d have to admit to overhearing his conversation with Sky. And that would lead to questions she wasn’t ready to answer until later. “Actually I haven’t seen him yet. He starts Monday.”

“I got the impression from Kelly that you two were old acquaintances.”

“Does every woman you come into contact with feel compelled to spill her guts?” Willa grumbled under her breath. But she knew Kelly was usually very professional, and his tactics only served to remind her what he was trying to do.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

She smiled stiffly. “I don’t make a habit of discussing my private life, but if you must know, Eric and I dated a year or so ago. Now he’s only a client.”

“I’m surprised we never met, Willa. Not that I socialized with Eric much, but he did come to a barbecue I held for the camp kids. It would have been right about the time you dated. About eight months ago?”

Willa knew exactly what day he’d had the barbecue. It was the day she’d discovered Eric
with one of the team’s cheerleaders. She’d been so upset, she’d forgotten all about the host. Knowing he hadn’t brought the subject up idly, she carefully steered the conversation away from the event.

“Camp kids? Sounds interesting, but I don’t remember Eric ever mentioning anything about a camp.” That was true. All she’d known was that it was the first team event he’d ever asked her to attend. Willa was surprised at the look of pain and defeat that crossed Nick’s face. The sympathy she’d felt minutes ago returned. Obviously these kids had meant something to him.

“I—ah, that is, the Jaguars ran a summer camp every year during the off-season for some of the less privileged kids. Mostly from downtown Washington. I helped out a bit.”

She knew from his expression that he’d done far more than help a bit. Intrigued by this side of him, she completely forgot the forms in her lap. “I take it the players gave seminars and stuff at the camp?”

“Some did. Others stayed for a few weeks at a time as counselors. You’d be amazed at how important it is to a young kid to have someone to look up to.”

“Someone like you? You were one of the counselors, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. I used to be.” Nick hated the shame and humiliation that coursed through him every time he thought of how he’d let those kids down. Dammit, it wasn’t even his fault. And that alone was the main reason he’d do anything to clear his name. He sensed Willa’s sensitivity to this subject and it confused him. He wanted to think she was guilty as sin. It was much easier to go about gathering evidence when he didn’t have to deal with his growing suspicion that the woman he’d thought partially responsible might be as innocent a victim as he.

He put that thought aside, still frustrated that she’d neatly turned the tables on him. He didn’t like it that she’d so easily gotten him to discuss a subject even Sky knew better than to bring up. Never mind that he’d been the one to mention the camp kids in the first place.

“I thought you wanted to know more about my knee injury.”

Her sympathetic expression faltered at his terse statement, and he was relieved when she gamely switched gears.

Glancing back at her clipboard, as if the interview hadn’t gone off topic, she asked, “Tell me more about the exact nature of your knee injury. How it happened, that sort of thing. Was this a football injury?”

You know damn well it wasn’t a football injury
, he wanted to shout.
Damn her control
. “No, I didn’t play last season.” He tried hard to keep his tone casual, but doubted he’d succeeded. “I tripped over a cord about a month ago and wrenched it pretty badly, tore some ligaments.”

Her expression now was purely professional, and for some reason that irritated the hell out of him. “I’m sorry if I got too personal earlier. Guess ol’ Eric is a sore spot, huh? Guess I shouldn’t have brought him up. Must have hurt like hell when he dumped you.”

Willa blanched. Familiar emotions like pain and humiliation welled up whenever she thought about her relationship with Eric. But now she also felt angry, and for the first time she defended herself. “He didn’t dump me, Nick,” she snapped, wanting to wipe that smug look off of his face. “
I
dumped
him
. The lousy slimeball was two-timing me. Hell, he was probably three-timing me!”

“Honest mistake.” His tone was anything but contrite. “As I said, I didn’t hang around with Eric much, but I know his reputation with women. He wasn’t exactly known as the kind of guy who was ready to make anything resembling a commitment. Far from it. He was notorious for leaving women when they got too close. So I just
assumed …” Nick trailed off as he noticed her expression change. His taunt had produced a look of gut-deep pain.

Nick was on intimate terms with the kind of personal demons it took to feel that kind of pain—and nothing could have forced him to put her through any more at the moment. “I’m sorry, Willa. You’re right, what happened between you and Eric is none of my business.” But he wanted it to be. And not because he thought it would give him more ammunition for his case against Miller, but because he wanted to help her deal with and get over whatever the bastard had done to her.

And that scared the daylights out of him.

Willa didn’t know what to think. She felt foolish for letting him goad her into that outburst. She eyed him warily, but judging from his expression, his last comment had been completely sincere. For the life of her she didn’t know why, though. Wasn’t this what he wanted? For her to lose control and reveal the truth?

She’d only been alone with Nick for a few minutes and he’d already irritated her, embarrassed her, made her lose her temper again—and now, amazingly enough, he seemed to be trying to comfort her. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said. A tentative smile touched her lips. “You seem to bring out the unprofessional in me.”

His responding grin created a small glow inside
of her.
He should smile more often
, she thought.
Those pearly whites are almost as devastating as his baby blues
. If she wasn’t careful she might start to care about him—really care.

“We’d better concentrate our time on setting up your program. Tell me more about your injury.”

“You probably won’t believe this,” Nick responded, his smile becoming somewhat sheepish, “but I was out jogging, and I tripped over a dog leash. At the time it was still attached to the dog.”

His self-deprecating tone and boyish grin were both qualities she wouldn’t have associated with him, and they were completely endearing. “And you twisted your knee when you fell?”

“Actually, aside from the trauma to an old knee injury, there was also a shoulder separation.”

She could have sworn his face was actually reddening. Her voice hovering on laughter, she asked, “Your shoulder or the dog’s? And what kind of dog was it anyway, a Great Dane?”

“Ah, the dog wasn’t hurt.” Nick mumbled something else that Willa couldn’t hear.

He was blushing! “I’m sorry, what kind of dog did you say it was?”

“I don’t see what difference it makes, but it was a poodle. A toy poodle.”

Smiling broadly now, but still struggling to keep from laughing out loud, she said, “I assume then that these injuries weren’t sustained in self-defense.”

“I’ll have you know,” Nick shot back indignantly, “that the little black-haired rat actually bit me while I was lying there, writhing in pain! I’m flat out on the path, my knee and my shoulder are on fire, and the little bugger bit me right on the—Never mind.”

Willa sobered immediately. Vivid pictures came to mind of the part of his anatomy most likely to have sustained the bite.

When Nick raised his eyebrow in her line of vision, she cleared her throat and looked away. The old kiss-it-and-make-it-better remedy had never had such erotic overtones.

“Willa?” Nick’s quiet tone dragged her gaze up to his eyes. “Will you help me?”

In that instant she knew.
He knows that I know why he’s here
. He wasn’t just asking her to help heal his body. He was asking her to heal his soul.

Willa wasn’t sure if she was willing to risk giving him what he so desperately needed, but in that moment she realized she had to try. Despite their constant sparring matches, which, she had to admit, she found strangely stimulating, she
found it was getting harder to deny her growing attraction to this very determined, very sexy man.

“I’ll do what I can, Nick.” She had taken the safe way out, not wanting to be the first to broach the real subject at hand. She only hoped he realized the true meaning behind her carefully chosen answer.

“That’s all I can ask. And I like it when you call me Nick.”

“Hello, I thought I might find you here.”

Willa looked up at the man she’d hoped never to see again. Before she could come up with a response, Nick turned to greet his former teammate. She stiffened, her gaze riveted to the look that passed between them.

“Eric Miller. I haven’t seen you in—oh … almost a year now.” Nick’s smile made it no further than his lips; his eye remained an icy shade of blue.

“Logan, how’s it going? Why the cane? Hurt yourself coaching a peewee team or something?”

“Or something.” Nick spoke quietly, his tone lethal. Looking pointedly at his watch, he then turned to Willa and said, “I’ll start on some of the stretches my doctor recommended before we start your program.” Willa nodded in response, and Nick lifted his cane and moved off to the
other side of the training area without another word to Eric.

Eric walked over and dropped his shiny multi-pocketed gym bag next to Nick’s old, cracked leather one. Willa barely waited for him to turn back to her before speaking.

“What are you doing here? I thought we weren’t supposed to meet until eight-thirty?”

Looking put out, he responded in a coaxing tone. “I’d tell you that I came early to use the whirlpool, but the truth is, I couldn’t wait to see you. So I decided to check if I could persuade you to play hooky and leave early.”

She hadn’t laid eyes on him since the day she’d walked into his apartment and discovered him locked in more than a passionate embrace on the living-room floor with a very healthy, very naked blonde.

And he had the nerve to say he couldn’t wait another hour to see her again! Willa felt the rolling tide of her stomach pitch violently toward her throat. Had she really been that taken in by the golden-boy charm and practiced pout? The humiliating answer was yes. But she knew better now—now it made her sick. “I’m sorry, Eric. But as you can see, I have a client to train—”

“Yeah, right. What in the hell is that has-been cokehead doing here?”

If she’d been a man, she’d have punched him right in the face. Even so, she felt her fingers curling into fists. “Nick is a client,” she said through gritted teeth. “If you intend to wait for me, why don’t you go on up to the lounge?”

“I’d rather wait in your office. You know, with people coming in and out, I’d be stuck signing autographs and stuff. I’d appreciate the privacy.”

Willa refrained from rolling her eyes and capitulated. Anything to get him out of this room. “Fine, it’s down the hall to the left. But it will be at least another hour.”

“All right, I guess you’re worth it.” Eric smiled and tilted his head toward her.

Shocked by his audacity, Willa froze. Only a loud clanging from the other side of the gym kept Eric from kissing her.

“Sorry.” Nick’s low voice carried easily across the gym, his tone anything but sincere. “Boy, these plates are heavy,” he added as he turned back to the machine he’d been loading up with the huge, black iron disks.

Willa had jumped a foot away from Eric when Nick “accidentally” dropped the plate. She felt like winking at him for his timely intervention.