Traded (2 page)

“Arrived last night.” It had been after nine when he checked in to the Westin, his home away from home until he found a new place to live.

“Great to hear, great to hear. Heard you checked in with Danny.” The man didn’t say anything else, only pulling his hand away and letting it fall to his side. Jake wondered, when the coach said nothing else, whether the doctor had told him something he should be worried about.

“Yeah, I’m anxious to get out there.”

The smile Bucky wore widened, and he slapped Jake on the shoulders again. “Glad to hear you’re ready to go. Love the last of the season’s training.”

Jake wanted to let out a sigh of relief, feeling the dampness under his arms and down his back. Even though it was warm out, he wasn’t sweating from the heat, so he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, holding it together. The last thing he wanted was to appear weak.

He felt he should say something, but what? He just couldn’t get his tongue to connect with his brain. “Jeger looks good.”

“Jeger looks like shit. He’s become cautious. You can see he hesitates now, ever since he busted his ribs. I don’t know. Some guys bounce back from an injury, but a few never shake it off. He’s lost it. Maybe he’ll never get it back. That’s when you’ve got to know yourself. When your career’s done, son, it’s best you figure it out yourself without anyone telling you.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. It was a career burner, what Jeger had done, especially when he appeared to be on a downward slide. But then again, Jeger was one of the old guys, at thirty-two. He had been with the Cardinals for nine years, and when his contract was up, it wasn’t likely to be renewed. A nightmare for any pro ball player.

“Last good year was two years ago, when he ran seven hundred and twenty-six yards on forty-six catches. You need to be quick, think fast, have agility—be smart, quick minded. Jeger’s lost his edge. No, that position takes a different kind of mental sharpness, being fearless to race across the middle of the field on a third and ten and stretch out for a crossing route when you know you’re going to get hammered, get hit hard by some guy who has thirty to forty pounds on you. And that’s what you got, Jake Wilde.”

Huh? That sure in the hell wasn’t what he’d expected. He never thought of himself as fearless. No, that was his brother Logan. There were still times when life scared the ever-living shit out of him and he found himself picking up the phone to call his brother. Jake just did things, especially in the game, without thinking about someone coming at him or who was coming up behind him. He caught the ball and ran, moved, and he could spin on a dime when the other team tried to take him out.

But the time he got hit…it had been hard, coming out of nowhere and taking him out, knocking the wind out of him. He had never seen it coming. It had done something to him, but Jake knew that was when he had to push himself hard to be better, faster. That was why he’d torn his ACL, pushing himself through a minor injury, not listening to his body when it was screaming to stop. He was thickheaded and persistent, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t be like other guys and let things go. Jill still hadn’t called.

“You don’t say much, do you?” Bucky said.

This time, Jake faced him. This man, for the next three years in his contract, was the one person who would stand between him being benched and him having the chance to show his stuff on the field. “I talk when I have something to say. So do you want me out there?”

The team doctor had cleared him. He was in great shape, having spent time every day in the gym, keeping every other part of his body primed and ready to go.

Bucky slid off his shades, and his deep hazel eyes took in Jake as if trying to figure him out. Good luck on that. Jake knew he was as open as he was going to be right now, still feeling burned and betrayed by the coach who’d meant everything to him.

“You got your stuff?” Bucky said, gesturing with his chin to the bag looped over Jake’s shoulder. “Go get changed and get out there.” He slapped Jake on the back and then walked away to where the Cardinals were training on the field.

This was his team, his new team. Maybe if he said it enough, he’d start to believe it. He took a breath and blew it out, then headed to the locker room to find his things.

He was sweaty and sore, and he could taste blood. He’d been tackled hard from behind, taken down by three of what he thought were the heaviest guys on the team. It was overkill. They had piled on him, and he heard something in his back crack as he moved his now stiffening shoulder. He knew he needed a rubdown to work all the kinks out. The blood in his mouth must have come from the last of the four poundings he’d taken—even though this was just practice and he’d had his mouth guard firmly in place. Evidently, this was his “welcome to the team” initiation.

“Good practice there, Wilde. Way to hold you own out there.” Dorcel, the quarterback, caught up to him on the way to the locker room. His jet-black hair was damp and stuck to his head.

“Thanks, I guess.” All he knew about Steve Dorcel was that he was one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL, married, with a kid on the way.

“You didn’t miss once, and the guys really tested you.”

Testing him, was that what they’d been doing? Jake was pretty sure it had been more. They were pissed he was there, moving in on Jeger’s position, thinking he was there to replace him, which, he was pretty sure, was Coach’s intent. Everyone knew it, but no one was saying it.

“That’s the name of the game, isn’t it?” Jake said.

Dorcel pushed open the locker room door, paused, and smiled at Jake, one of those cocky smiles that said just maybe he wasn’t feeling quite the same way as the others on the team. Then he walked in, listening to the catcalls and locker room talk from the other players. Jake pulled open his locker, pulled out his bag, and set it on the bench behind him, then glanced at his cell phone resting on the shelf. Of course he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for it and checking again, as he had a hundred times already today, just to make sure the ringer hadn’t been turned off. His heart jumped just a little when he saw there were two missed calls and a message.

Someone passing by patted his shoulder, but he didn’t look over or say a word. He thumbed through the screen and checked the message, then pressed the phone to his ear. He had to walk to the door, as the noise in the locker room was too loud.

“Hi, Jake.” He could hear something in Jill’s voice on the message as she hesitated. His first thought was to go to her to find out what was wrong. “I got your messages, and I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. But, well, I just hope your move went well, and take care.”

What the hell was that? She sounded off, maybe because of the distance? Had to be. He looked around the now empty hallway and dialed her number. It rang only once before he heard her sweet voice.

“Hi, Jake.” She didn’t sound like herself.

“I just got your message. I was in practice.” He sounded like such a dork. She wasn’t making this easy, but then, Jill wasn’t much of a talker. Neither was he. “Are you all right? Because you don’t sound all right.”

“I’m sorry, Jake.” Was she crying on the other end? “I miss talking to you.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Listen, I’m here, baby. I can have a ticket waiting for you at the airport, and you can get on the next plane. I’ll take care of everything.” And he would. He just needed to get her here, to hold her in his arms. Then she’d know just how much she meant to him. It was all this damn distance, distance she’d put between them. She was confused, was all. He’d pushed too hard.

“Jake, you’re not listening to me.”

He could hear her sigh. At the same time, he was trying to hear the background noise and figure out where she was. Soft music, maybe from a radio, and then he could hear a door close and it was quiet. “Jill, where are you?”

“I didn’t want to get into this on the phone. You’ve been such a good friend. You were there for me, a shoulder to lean on. And I loved being with you, but I was kidding myself.”

What the hell was she talking about? He didn’t like the direction this was going. He’d done everything he could to protect her, to cherish her, the one thing his brother had never done.

“Jill, whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Come down here. Let’s sit down and talk this out. Having this distance between us isn’t the answer. You’re freaking out because I asked you to marry me, and maybe you’re panicking a bit. Maybe it was too soon for you. I can wait, but you gotta know I’m all in for you. I love you.”

“You’re not hearing me, Jake. I don’t love you.”

He couldn’t believe she was saying this, and his heart squeezed as the panic began to build. She was confused. There was no way a woman like her could hide the feelings she had for him when he was buried inside her so deeply. The way she responded to him, to his touch, his kiss, the look in her eyes and the way they brightened when she came around him…that wasn’t a lie. That last time, before he asked her to marry him, he hadn’t used any protection. Of course she knew, and maybe he was being selfish, wanting to bind her to him. Maybe he was a prick for doing it. He didn’t want to look too closely at his motives. He may not have liked who he’d become, but he also knew, in that moment, he’d do it again in a second.

“Jill, maybe I pushed too hard.” He rammed his fingers in his damp, disheveled hair. It was getting long and knotted. He pulled it away from his face hard.

“No, Jake. You made it easy for me, too easy, so easy that I didn’t have to face up to my feelings. You have no idea how good it felt, you taking care of everything. You were my rock, my friend, and you deserve someone who can love you for the wonderful man you are. You have a lot to offer.”

What the hell was she saying? “Jill, I want to give everything to you, to have a family with you, to be with you. We’re so good together! I know you want me. You can’t hide the reaction you had to me in bed. You can’t fake that. Are you pregnant?” He had to know.

She didn’t say anything, and that made the anxious knot that twisted in his gut tighten even more.

“Jill, answer me. You know the last night we were together, I wasn’t prepared for you to walk out.”

“No, you were trying to find a way to keep me. I figured it out after, when you asked me to marry you. It was then I realized it had gone too far. It was my wakeup call for how serious it was between us. I didn’t mean for it to go there. I just wanted—”

“You wanted what?” He was furious. He couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“Don’t be mad at me! I couldn’t bear it, Jake. I miss you, but not in the way you think. I miss my friend Jake, who was there for me, who listened to me. You have such big, amazing, strong, broad shoulders, and the way you allowed me to lean into you… You made me feel so safe. But I can’t, we can’t, because I don’t love you the way you love me. I’m not being fair to you…because I still have feelings for Samuel.”

What the fuck? How could she, after what he’d done to her? He didn’t know what to do with his hands. He wanted to hit something, someone, as he squeezed the phone. “Are you kidding me? Are you forgetting how he picked up another woman right in front of you because he was getting cold feet? His way of dumping you, and then he moved the chick in. He really didn’t think very much of you, did he?” Now he was being an ass, a hurtful, spiteful ass, but he didn’t care. This woman on the other end of the phone was jamming an icepick in his heart because…why? She was so fucked up because of his brother.

“I know what he did, and I hate him for that, but there’s a fine line between love and hate, and Samuel has always been my everything. I just didn’t know it until you asked me to marry you. I knew I would be settling with you, and I don’t ever want to settle. That’s not being fair to me, and that’s not being fair to you.”

“Where are you?” he asked again. He was out of his mind, and for a moment he wondered just how stupid he was. He was, right now, considering getting on a plane and going to see her so he could talk to her face to face. He knew if he just touched her, was with her in the same room, she’d realize she was kidding herself. Because the chemistry that clicked between them was so off the charts that she’d have to force herself to admit she was wrong.

“Jake, don’t do this. You’re making this so hard. You need to look after you, and you have a new opportunity with your new team. You need to walk away from me, Jake. Go be the success I know you are.”

“Jill, I’ll come to you. We’ll talk, you’ll see—”

“Stop it, Jake!” she cried. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore, but you’re pushing too hard. You need to back off. I didn’t want you to find out like this, but I’m with Samuel now. I’m staying with him, so don’t call me again.”

He was squeezing the phone, listening to the buzz of the disconnected line. Maybe it was shock or disbelief or something, because he felt lightheaded, as if the entire team had just jumped on him, knocking everything he believed to be true out of him. It was cruel, and he heard the words again over and over in his head. It took a second before he realized that it wasn’t just Jill that had screwed him, it was his brother.

He didn’t think, he just reacted, throwing his phone into the concrete wall and watching it as it shattered.

“Whoa! I hope she was worth it.”

He jumped at the feminine voice behind him. He turned around, staring into the bold, big blue eyes of one of the cheerleaders. She had a bag tossed over her shoulder and was wearing white shorts and a peach tank top. Her long hair, more mahogany than red, was tied back and hung down to her waist. She was slender with curves. She gestured to the wall where he’d just shattered his phone.

Crap!
He hoped no one else had noticed, as he realized they were both standing in the open hallway of his new stadium. A great first impression this had made. He didn’t want to be known as the crazy, stupid player who couldn’t hold it together.

“I’m Chris, and you’re Jake Wilde, the new guy.” She didn’t reach out to shake his hand. Smart girl. Maybe she was scared, but the way she stood in front of him, taking him in, she didn’t seem scared of anything.