Love in Straight Sets (2 page)

Regan Hunter’s reputation preceded her by miles in the coaching community. Oft-repeated anecdotes about hurled rackets, heated confrontations and a constant churn of hiring and firing strung together the widespread notion that she was, quite frankly, the worst player to work with in the whole of the women’s game. Nothing in their brief exchange dispelled these impressions—if anything, she was even more haughty and demanding than he’d expected.

Throwing in the added complications that he’d never gotten anyone into a Grand Slam final—he’d never even coached a pro before—and was apparently so badly in need of getting laid that he’d been ready to rip off her sarong with his teeth, he wasn’t sure there was a word in the dictionary to describe how catastrophically this situation might end. Forget tennis coaching—he’d be lucky to get a job hawking smoothie samples in the mall if he single-handedly destroyed America’s best hope for a trophy at this summer’s Baron’s Open.

Then again, she was one of the most exciting players he’d seen in years. He’d never had an opportunity to work with someone at such an elite level. If she was even half as thrilling to coach as she was to watch, he’d consider himself extremely lucky. Spending the past ten years coaching up-and-coming teenage amateurs meant he was no stranger to bad attitudes and temper tantrums. What could Regan do that he hadn’t already endured from hormonal adolescents and their pushy parents? And if he became the guy who finally got Regan Hunter’s name engraved on a Grand Slam trophy, he’d have his pick of the next crop of championship hopefuls. This could be the moment his career took off at last.

Plus, he really needed the money.

“Well, that’s that,” he announced to the empty driveway. He climbed into his secondhand hatchback and started the engine. He had a lot left to do that afternoon, and he wanted to get to bed early. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

Chapter Two

Regan padded through the carpeted halls of the clubhouse, relishing the silence and the faint smell of cleaning products that were as much a part of her early morning training routine as her cereal or her predawn stretches.

The solitary, focused nature of tennis had been its main appeal when she’d first penned her name on a sign-up sheet for her high school’s junior varsity team. She’d always wanted to play a sport, but the prospect of endearing herself to an entire outfield’s worth of her preppy peers was beyond daunting. She’d never been able to replicate her football-playing brother’s easy popularity, but she was familiar with tennis from her afterschool job at the local country club, and the players on the tennis team seemed far less socially intimidating than in cheerleading or volleyball.

She’d never forget the way the coach rolled his eyes as he showed her how to hold the racket at the first practice. By the end of that freshman season, she was ranked fifth in the state.

He’d been one in a long line of naysayers she’d proven wrong. Ever since that first too-hot afternoon on the crumbling tennis court behind her high school, she’d heard from all corners that she was too short, she had the wrong body type, she started playing too late, on and on until the only way to drown out the murmurs of disbelief was to shout over them. Despite all her success, she still thought of her doubters every time she hefted a trophy and smiled at a camera. Sometimes she was no longer sure whether she won for her own love of the sport or simply to make the point that she could.

Nonetheless, Regan smiled at the high school memory as she pushed open the door to court six. She’d been so embarrassed to ask about the rules of tennis that she’d walked off after losing the first set in her first match, assuming the game was over, and then the umpire—

She came to such an abrupt halt that her sports bag slapped against the backs of her thighs.

Ben lowered his newspaper and beamed at her from a folding chair on the sideline. “Good morning.”

Regan dumped her bag on the floor with unnecessary force. It didn’t help.

“You’re early. How did you get in here, anyway? The clubhouse doesn’t open until seven.”

“Your name opens a lot of doors around here.” He rose to his considerable height—six foot two according to the old player stats she found on the internet last night—and stretched languidly, the motion tightening his T-shirt enough to show that despite his absence from the circuit, he still had the body of a professional player. One of the archive photos she’d seen online offered a view of an honest-to-God six-pack. She wondered if he still had it.

As his shirt crept up with his stretch, she glanced at the line of dark hair bisecting his hard abs before snapping her gaze to the net, swallowing hard against the tingle of arousal that flared deep in her chest.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s get started,” she commanded, knowing full well that the irritation in her tone had more to do with her bewildering physical reaction than Ben’s schedule. There was always something she found intolerable about each of her succession of coaches, but being distractingly attractive was a new one.

“Great. To begin, why don’t you hit some balls so I can see your strokes? Nothing fancy—I’ll put this on nice and slow at first.” He indicated the preloaded ball machine already in place on the far side of the net. “We can speed it up as we go along.”

Regan rolled her eyes as she hauled her bag onto a wooden bench beside the door and unzipped it, selecting one of the three rackets inside. “I got to the finals in two Grand Slams last year. It’s my defensive game that’s keeping me off a win, not some minor adjustments to my form.”

“Then it shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to assure myself your form is spotless.” His aggravatingly reasonable response sounded even milder in his light accent. “You’ll have had a good warm-up and we can move on to other issues.”

“Fine.” She yanked off her windbreaker, hefted the racket and moved to the baseline. “What do you want to see? Forehand? Backhand?”

“Whatever comes naturally.” He flipped a switch to turn on the machine. After a few seconds of electronic whirring, the first fuzzy yellow ball sailed across the net.

Regan squared her stance, gripped the racket in her right hand and easily returned the ball with generous topspin. She repeated forehand after perfect forehand, using a loop backswing and making contact with the ball at waist height.

Ben stood at one end of the net, his forehead creased in concentration as he watched.

She pivoted, her shoes squeaking against the rubberized surface of the hard court as she gripped the racket in two hands for a backhand shot. Her heartbeat increased as the balls began to pour out of the machine with mounting speed. Soon she was practically grinning with the familiar, comforting thrill of exertion. Although her pulse beat faster, her ever-humming mind calmed and quieted, until all the anxious thoughts and worries that plagued her downtime hours were subsumed by her focus on the crisp, controlled execution of each shot. She bounced in place between strokes, her eyes fixed on each yellow target as it hurtled toward her, becoming so engrossed in perfecting each shot that she forgot Ben was there.

From the day she first picked up a racket, tennis had been her refuge. The anxiety that always lurked on the periphery of her consciousness was banished only by the intense focus and quick reactions required to guide a yellow ball into a particular spot on the court at a speed and angle that would flummox an opponent. Everywhere else in her life, from the bathtub to the checkout line to the darkness of a movie theatre, she existed knowing that a breath-stealing, pulse-pounding, logic-obscuring panic attack could be only minutes away.

But on the court she was free. On the court she was in complete control.

Which made her impending retirement that much more momentous. She’d promised herself she would finally speak to a therapist, but not until after her last match at the Baron’s. As afraid as she was of the panic attacks, she was even more terrified that her anxious edge was essential to her game. Tranquilizers would help dull her nerves, but she couldn’t risk their potential to soften her competitive drive at the same time.

Although she hated it more than anything, she was convinced she needed the anxiety to win.

By the time she returned the last ball with a satisfying
thwap
, Regan’s muscles were warm and loose, her cheeks flushed with satisfaction. She turned to her new coach with a pleased smile, expecting his effusive approval. But the line of concern splicing the space between his brows blew out her happiness like a gusty breeze on a candle.

“Let me see your forehand stance,” he instructed, crossing to meet her on the baseline.

Regan moved into position, but her spine stiffened. She absolutely loathed receiving criticism—problematic for a professional athlete—and still struggled not to take it personally. It was another of the legacies left by bullying kids at the country club, and one she wasn’t sure she would ever overcome.

Ben stood in front of her, his gaze flicking between her hands and her feet. He drew a circle in the air. “And the backhand.”

Regan switched sides, her skin tingling under his scrutiny as she suddenly regretted the mismatched shorts and sleeveless top she’d thrown on that morning and then shook her head to dispel that thought.

Since when did she care how she looked in front of her coach? He was paid to be here, and if he had even half a brain cell he’d know better than to comment on her appearance.

But then again, it was his opinion that counted, not whether he voiced it aloud.

Am I insane?
Regan chided herself as Ben took a slow step to the side.
I’m ranked in the top ten and he’s a washed-up nobody with one fluke win to his name.

Still, she found herself making a mental inventory of her sportswear and planning a coordinated outfit for tomorrow.

Finally he stepped back with a satisfied nod. “Your racket’s too short.”

She broke into an incredulous laugh. “No, it’s not.”

“It most definitely is.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been playing with the same racket length since high school.”

“And are you the same height and weight now as you were then?”

“Of course not, I was fourteen when I started.”

“So you were given a smaller racket,” he concluded. “Probably because it was lighter. But an extra half inch would give you a lot more power and bolster your defensive returns. We need to speak to your supplier and get you a whole new set.”

“This is ridiculous. If you think I’m going to completely change the equipment I’ve used for years only months before the Baron’s—” she pointed the offending, half-inch-too-short object at his chest for emphasis, “—you’ve got another think coming.”

In one swift, decisive movement Ben was behind her, wrapping his hand around her wrist before she could gather the wherewithal to protest.

“Let me show you,” he murmured, reaching around her shoulders to guide her hands onto the racket’s handle in a backhand grip.

Shocked into silence by his unexpected touch, Regan’s eyelids fluttered rapidly against the warm, escalating desire that swelled in her sternum. His body was a hard wall of heat at her back, the arms that moved over her own were lean and wiry with muscle, and she caught the fresh, grassy notes of his aftershave cutting through the stale smells of sweat and rubber that pervaded the clubhouse. His scent reminded her of lazy summer afternoons spent watching dragonflies skim the surface of the pond behind her parents’ house, and she had to clench her teeth to keep from giving into the instinct to drop the racket, turn on her heel and press her face against his strong, solid chest.

“You’d normally hold it here, but if your racket were longer, your hands would be here.” He pried her fingers from the grip and slid them down, his big hands covering hers as he pressed them into position. “Now think about that extra half inch of coverage. That’s a half inch you don’t have to stretch or dive for, and you’ll be a half inch less likely to miss a shot.”

Tennis was the last thing on her mind as his voice resonated in her ears, her flesh heating so intensely at every point of contact that she was surprised she wasn’t smoking. As the long line of his upper arm crossed her body it brushed her breast, sending her into a state of such hyperawareness that even the slightest sweep of the hair on his bare calf against her own had her breath quickening, her pulse pounding—

Abruptly he dropped his hold on her and stepped back, and Regan snapped back to the present as if she’d been pushed naked into a snowbank.

“I’ll speak to Des about ordering new rackets.” Ben strolled to the other side of the net to begin gathering up the balls and dropping them in the machine, and as his officious command finally registered in Regan’s brain, her mouth clamped shut.

“You most certainly will not,” she called across the court, her barely contained fury giving her voice the shrill, screechy tone that always made her cringe. “Having me hold the racket in a different place for two seconds is not a convincing argument to change everything this close to a Grand Slam. I’m surprised any coach working at this level would suggest such a thing.”

“I thought Des told you,” he replied, his back to her. When he straightened with a ball in hand, he shot her a dazzling, wry grin that set her heart racing all over again. “I’m not at your level.”

“No kidding,” she muttered, impatiently tapping her racket against the sole of her shoe while he resumed his task. The view of his behind was almost as good as the front, and she fixed her eyes on the baseline, biting down hard on her lower lip.

He was right, when it came to professional tennis he wasn’t at her level—in fact he seemed nowhere near it. If she had any hope of boarding that plane from London with a trophy in hand, she had to keep a tight rein on her training—not to mention her stupid, schoolgirl crush.

It’s just the pressure and isolation of playing at this level with so much on the line.
I’m letting it get to me
, she decided, rolling her shoulders.

Ben might have charmed his way through the feisty teenage girls and bored mothers of the amateur circuit, but this was the big league. She was finally in touching distance of the ultimate prize and wasn’t about to let some smooth-talking has-been ruin it with subpar training and crackpot ideas about half inches.

Regan narrowed her eyes as he loaded another two balls into the machine. She couldn’t renege on her promise not to fire him—so she’d just have to make him quit.

* * *

Ben pulled his baseball cap lower over his forehead as he watched Regan effortlessly defeat her sparring partner, a lanky Slovakian named Ivona. The overcast, breezy afternoon meant they could use one of the outdoor courts, but he could tell Regan’s total lack of visible exertion wasn’t due to the cool temperature.

This match was too easy. A complete waste of her time.

She was like one of the impalas in the countryside back home in Zim. They watched you approach with muscles twitching and ears perked forward, almost seeming to trust you until the very last minute when they suddenly jolted and bounded away, springing through the tall savanna grass on long, spindly legs.

Despite many boyhood hours spent trying, he’d never caught one. Yet as his arms had encircled her small frame, Ben thought he might know what it would’ve felt like if he had.

Regan bounced on the balls of her feet, her toffee-colored ponytail swinging with the subtle motion, as her sparring partner served into the net. Ben thought again of the impalas, of the way they tensed like coiled springs before leaping over the uneven ground, and the echoing
clack
of the males’ lyre-shaped horns colliding and locking as they fought.

She was practically vibrating with untapped power. And he’d have a hell of a fight on his hands dragging it out of her.

Ivona double-faulted, the net shuddering where the ball struck it, and Regan exploded into furious motion, throwing her racket onto the ground and slapping her palm against her forehead.