Winner Takes All (19 page)

When the animal realized it wasn't going to get its desired attention from her, it moved on to Blake, exhibiting the same obnoxious yipping and jumping up and down on its short little legs.

“Just ignore the heathen,” Annabelle told him.

Blake eyed the dog, who kept up his constant
yap yap yap
. “What the hell kind of dog is this?”

Annabelle glanced at him, and tossed a death-ray stare at the little animal. “He's a Boston terrier, but he thinks he's a pit bull and has the attitude of a princess.” She stopped and lifted her foot, literally sliding the dog across the floor, who barked the entire time. “Just shove him aside.” Annabelle lowered her foot, and the dog ran back toward her, jumping on her leg. “Annoying little shit,” she muttered.

A television was on in the distance, as well as talking. Two females, conversing back and forth, riddled with laughter. Annabelle paused in front of him, so abruptly that he almost plowed into her.

“Unless you want spaghetti all over your back, give a guy some warning,” he told her.

But she didn't hear him. The tense set of her shoulders told him she'd gone somewhere else, a place she wasn't comfortable with, and for a second, Blake thought she was going to turn around and bail on the whole thing.

He underestimated her, because she squared her shoulders and pushed forward. Just like she did everything else.

The woman had a backbone of steel; he'd give her that.

He walked behind her, until she came to an abrupt stop just inside the kitchen. The space was small and about two decades old, but that wasn't what caught Blake's attention. And it wasn't even the elderly woman, leaning heavily on a wooden cane, with the same dark hair as Annabelle, sprinkled with gray and severe-looking glasses perched on the edge of her nose.

It was the younger version of Annabelle, the woman she'd identified as her sister in the wall of photos, standing at the counter in a floor-length cotton dress and long wavy hair hanging halfway down her back.

“Naomi,” Annabelle said with an unmistakable note of surprise in her voice.

The younger woman dropped the wooden spoon she'd been using to mix something in a bowl and flew across the kitchen. “Tansie!” she exclaimed, and threw her arms around Annabelle's shoulders, embracing her in a fierce hug.

Of course Annabelle returned the gesture, but the motions weren't as loose or uninhibited as her sister's. The stiffness in Annabelle's shoulders had returned and she dropped her arms before Naomi was ready to let go.

Blake set the casseroles on the counter.

“What're you doing here?” Annabelle asked her sister.

“I flew in this morning,” Naomi answered, then glanced back at her mother. “I wanted to surprise you two.”

A broad smile graced Mrs. Turner's features as she gazed at her youngest daughter.

“It certainly is a surprise,” Annabelle said. “How long have you been over here?”

Naomi moved a shoulder in a loose gesture. “I don't know. A few hours I guess. I just started making a batch of cookies. Want to help?”

“Why didn't either one of you call me?”

Mrs. Turner averted her gaze, but Naomi chimed in. “I wanted to visit with Mom first, and then I got the hankering for some pecan chocolate chip cookies.”

“Mom can't eat pecans. They mess up her digestive system.”

“Oh.” Naomi glanced at the bowl and then at her mom. “I guess I'll have to eat them all, then.” And then Annabelle's younger sister turned her inquisitive gaze on Blake, running her green eyes all over his body. “Are you my sister's boyfriend?”

Blake glanced from Naomi, who was still eyeing him like he was a piece of prime steak, to Annabelle, who'd yet to take her attention off her younger sister. “Uh…”

“What's the matter, boy?” Mrs. Turner chimed in. “My daughter not good enough for you?”

“Mother,” Annabelle groaned.

“Well, I'd kind of like to know too,” Naomi added. “I'd also like to know why my sister isn't boning a man who looks like sex on a stick.”

“Naomi, please,” her mother chided.

“How do you know she's not?” Blake countered.

“Because if she was, she wouldn't be standing there looking like she has a stick up her ass.”

“Can we please refrain from the third degree about Annabelle's life for five minutes? Thanks.” Annabelle walked to her mother and offered her a kiss on the cheek. “Did you take your pills?” she asked her mom, who nodded.

“Geez, Tansie, take a chill pill already,” Naomi muttered.

Annabelle ignored her sister. “We brought you some dinners,” she told her mother, then she took the top casserole and placed it in the fridge. Blake picked up the other two, handed them to her, and brushed his index finger over her hand. The woman was about to shatter, and the comforting gesture was the least he could do.

She offered him a smile. And not the same tight smile she showed her sister. This one was genuine, if not a little small, and it was all he could do to keep from pulling her into the tight circle of his arms.

“I've already got dinner for tonight covered,” Naomi said.

Annabelle turned from Blake and stared into the fridge before closing the door. “Who bought this milk?”

Naomi glanced over her shoulder from the cookie mix she was working on. “I did. I saw Mom didn't have any, so I ran out and got some.”

Annabelle shut the fridge door. “But Mom can't drink regular milk. You have to buy the lactose-free stuff.”

“Since when?” Naomi asked; then she looked at her mother. “Why can't you have milk?”

“Because it makes me sick,” her mother answered.

“Mom stopped eating dairy two years ago, Naomi,” Annabelle told her sister.

Naomi blinked and held the wooden spoon suspended over the bowl. “You seriously can't have any dairy at all?” she asked her mom.

“Not unless I take those lactose pills, which I can't all the time because they're expensive.”

“What're you making her for dinner?” Annabelle asked.

Naomi dropped the spoon in the bowl and turned to face her sister. “What's with the attitude?”

“I just want to make sure you're not making anything that's going to make her sick. She can't eat like she used to and you don't know what she likes.”

“I think I know what my own mother likes to eat,” Naomi shot back.

Annabelle opened the fridge door and pointed to the gallon of vitamin D milk. “Obviously not.”

“What's your problem?” Naomi demanded.

“Both of you hush!” Mrs. Turner shouted with all the force her elderly vocal cords would allow. Both girls snapped their mouths shut, immediately responding to their mother's authority. “Annabelle, it's just a beef stew. Now both of you say you're sorry,” she told the girls. “You're sisters, for crying out loud.”

“Sorry,” Annabelle muttered.

Naomi crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the kitchen floor. “I'm sorry too.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, acting like a couple of children. And in front of Mr. Carpenter too. Yes, I know who he is,” Mrs. Turner told Annabelle when she lifted a surprised glance at her mother. “I don't care whether or not you're boning him.” She tossed a pointed look at her younger daughter.

“Nobody's boning anybody,” Annabelle said firmly.

“Maybe you should,” Naomi butted in. “If you're going to do it with someone, it might as well be him.”

“How do you know he's not already involved with someone else?” Annabelle asked.

“Are you?” Naomi asked him.

Blake didn't want to be dragged into their weird conversation that kept alternating between boning him and food allergies. “No, ma'am, I'm not.”

“Okay.” Annabelle grabbed his hand, which trembled slightly under her touch. “We're leaving now.”

“I just got here and now you're leaving?” Naomi wanted to know. “We've had all of ten minutes together.”

“Seeing as though they weren't very pleasant ten minutes, I'd like to go now.” She stopped in the act of pulling him through the front door. “And I already had plans,” she stated. “If I had known ahead of time that you'd be here, I could have cleared my afternoon.”

He laid his hand on her lower back for reassurance and ushered her out of the kitchen. And away from the gaping faces of her mother and younger sister.

W
hy does your sister call you Tansie?” Blake asked after they'd arrived at the lake and spread a blanket on the beach. They'd munched on the food he'd packed in comfortable silence for a few minutes. The fried chicken was good. Greasy and crunchy, just the way Annabelle liked it.

The breeze kept playing with her hair, blowing it across her cheek. The refreshing air felt good, cooling her heated skin, but not quite blowing away the shame for how she'd treated her sister. “When Naomi was little, she couldn't say my name right. She used to say Tansabelle, which eventually got shortened to Tansie.” Annabelle cradled a can of soda in her palms and let out a deep sigh. “I'm sorry you had to see all that back there.”

Blake glanced at her profile. “What're you talking about?”

“The way I acted with my sister. I was cranky and out of line with her.” She stared at the top of the can, trying to force the image of the confusion and hurt in Naomi's eyes. “I mean, I haven't seen her in two years and all I could think about was how wrong she was doing everything. I gave her a hard time about milk, for Pete's sake.” Annabelle shook her head, wondering what the heck was wrong with her. “The thing is, if she'd been around more, she'd know my mom is allergic to dairy.”

Blake lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair off her face. The backs of his fingers were warm and rough and sent a chill back into her hairline. All she wanted to do was lean into his palm and not talk about her sister. Not talk about what a jerk she'd been or wonder why she'd acted that way in the first place.

“You're being too hard on yourself,” he told her. “We all drop in maturity level around our siblings.”

She gazed back at him. “Aren't you an only child?”

“Yeah, but my cousin Brandon came to live with us when he was little, so he's as good as my brother. When he and I get around each other, everything becomes a competition.”

“What happened to his parents?”

Blake bit into a chicken strip. “They were killed in a car accident while he was staying the night at my house. Our mothers were sisters, so when his parents died, my mom and dad became his legal guardians.”

“That must have been awful for him. How old was he?”

“Six. Brandon doesn't have much memory of his parents,” Blake told her.

Annabelle watched him, thinking how handsome he was with the sun glancing off his strong features and highlighting his straight nose. “You two seem like you're really close.”

He looked at her. “The guy's my best friend.”

“I thought Cameron was your best friend.”

He nodded. “We're all a package deal.”

She gazed out over the lake, loving the way the sunset glanced over the ripples of the water's surface. “I shouldn't have treated Naomi that way,” she whispered, hating herself for allowing her resentment for her sister to claw its way out. Not only that, but also her need for perfection had turned her into a domineering know-it-all who snapped at her own sister over pecans and milk.

“I'm sure your sister knows you love her,” he tried to reassure her.

Annabelle shook her head. “See, I've never been good at the ‘I love you' thing. We never really said it in our house growing up. Except for my mom, who always tells us she loves us.”

“Are you trying to tell me there's something you're actually not good at?” he asked her with a smirk.

There are a lot of things I'm not good at.
She forced the thought from her mind and glanced at him, caught his infectious grin with one of her own. “I think you have a skewed image of me, Blake Carpenter.”

He pinched her chin. “I like the way you say both of my names. Makes me sound like I'm in trouble.”

“You say that as though you like being in trouble,” she commented.

He leaned closer and raised a brow. “Only if you're going to discipline me.”

Her mouth widened into a smile. Damn if this man didn't have a way of coaxing grins out of her. And he didn't have to even try. “You have a sick mind.”

He heaved out a sigh. “If you really knew what went on in my head, you'd probably run the other direction.”

She watched him watching the water, wondering if that were true. There was no telling what sort of things he kept hidden from the rest of the world. The thing was, Annabelle wasn't sure she'd turn the other way. On the contrary, she wanted to help him. To ease the lines of stress and worry bracketing that beautiful mouth of his.

As the thought crossed her mind, she lowered her attention to his lips, remembering all too well how they felt against hers. How the man threw all his energy into kissing, making her wonder how he'd be in the bedroom. It was a dangerous thought, because she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep holding back.

“If you don't stop that, Annabelle, I'm going to give you what you're asking for,” Blake warned in that gruff, low voice of his. A bedroom voice. Made for whispering and teasing and tickling the sensitive skin below her ear.

A shiver ran through her body, and it wasn't from the cool breeze.

“Do you miss it?” she asked, trying to regain control of the conversation.

“What, kissing you?” he asked.

“I meant football,” she corrected as heat burned her cheeks. But, yeah, the kissing too.

“Are you sure?” he pressed, touching a finger to the warmth of her face.

“If I say no, what will you do?”

His face inched closer to hers. “Whatever you want, Annabelle. Remember, you're the one who's keeping this platonic.”

His spicy, and so very male, scent washed over her. “
Platonic
isn't the word I'd use.”

“You're right, it's not. I was just trying to find a respectful way of putting it. And, yeah,” he went on, “I do miss football.”

Annabelle set the can of soda on the blanket next to her and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “If you hadn't been injured, would you still be playing?” When he didn't answer, she pressed. “I know you didn't want to talk about it before, but you can tell me. I mean, if it's something you want to get off your chest. I can just sit here and listen.”

Blake stared over the water for a moment, as though debating whether to share with her before answering. “It's not something I like to talk about.”

Boy, did she understand that feeling. Her divorce was something she kept under lock and key. Luckily, Blake hadn't pressed for details about it. However, Annabelle suspected that had more to do with him biding his time rather than a lack of interest.

“I don't know whether I'd still be playing,” he surprised her by answering. “If I had to guess, I'd say probably not. Not with the issues with my knee.” He placed his attention on her. “You know, you're the only one who does that.”

“Does what?”

“You don't tiptoe around me. Most people act like my retirement is a disease they can't mention. I can tell they want to, but they hold back and it becomes like an elephant in the room.”

Annabelle could understand that way of thinking. It was a natural assumption to think his past would be too hard to talk about, so they left well enough alone. Probably thinking they were doing Blake a favor. The thing was, Annabelle wasn't that kind of person.

“That's silly,” she told him.

Blake shrugged as though it didn't matter to him, when she knew better. “It is what it is.”

“You have no idea the kind of shady shit NFL docs will put in a player's system to get them well. Sometimes it's at the urging of the coaches; sometimes it's the player's decision.”

“So what was it in your case?”

Blake leaned back on his hands. “The first time I messed up my knee, I told the doc to do whatever he needed to get me back on the field.” He looked at her. “The first time I tested positive, I knew it was from whatever they'd been injecting me with, so I told them not to give it to me again.”

“But they did,” she guessed.

“I kept reinjuring my knee and the doctor kept insisting the drugs were FDA approved and he gave them to all the players. I did it at the coaches' urging and trusted them.”

“So what happened the second time?” she asked.

Blake took a deep breath. He'd never really told this to anyone before because he'd been ashamed. Even though retirement, he knew, had been the right thing to do. Still, he'd felt at fault. Responsible, because weren't people responsible for their own actions?

“My coach informed me the test would likely come back as positive.”

“That's when you knew, didn't you?”

He tossed her a look. “That they'd screwed me over again? Yeah, you could say that.”

“So how could they allow the doctors to keep injecting you with that stuff if they knew it was illegal?”

He shrugged his shoulders, which only accentuated their bulk beneath the T-shirt he had on. “They needed me on the field. It was a chance they were willing to take.”

“And what about you?” she asked. “Wouldn't have you been suspicious?”

He paused before answering. “Of course I was. But I trusted them enough not to do it again, but they did.”

“That's why you retired?”

“Yeah,” he answered without hesitation. “There was no way I could keep playing after a second test came back positive. I knew no other team would touch me. Retirement was the only option.”

She blinked at him. “So you would rather have been forced into an early retirement from a game you lived and breathed rather than tell on your coaches and teammates?”

“You don't sell out teammates, Annabelle. And I wasn't forced. My retirement was my choice.”

“But that's not the only reason, is it?” When he only stared back at her, she continued. “You didn't want to put your teammates, who I'm guessing were probably also your friends, through the same hell you'd been through. So you sacrificed your own future.”

He sat very still, casually leaning back on those well-defined sleekly carved arms as though he didn't have a care in the world. Just a lazy afternoon at the beach, enjoying the late Colorado sun. But Annabelle knew better, because his eyes gave him away. They always did. He may have been able to joke and play his way around his hurt, but his eyes betrayed him.

“Don't make it sound like a Shakespearian tragedy, Annabelle. I'm no hero.”

“Oh, that's right. Because you're nothing more than a disgraced ex-football player whose only gig was coaching high school football,” she told him. “Is that right?”

“You don't miss anything, do you?”

She shook her head and turned away from him, wanting to strangle him for refusing to see what a good guy he was and for not being able to let go of his demons.

The accusations had to hurt. Living day in and day out, knowing he'd been put in an unfair position, paying the ultimate price, and listening to unthinkable things said about him. The thought that that's what he'd reduced himself to, that he believed all the trash talk, made Annabelle's heart hurt. When anyone could see he was more than rumors and scandal and gossip.

“You really believe what they say, don't you?” she asked him.

The question must have thrown him by surprise, because his brow lowered.

“You think you're damaged goods and that's why you keep people away.”

“You think I keep people away?” he asked with a slight tilt of his head.

“How many relationships have you been in since you retired?”

“Depends on your idea of a relationship. Which we've already established is different than mine.”

Okay, he had her on that one. So he might have had some casual flings, or whatever his dating life had looked like. Frankly, Annabelle didn't want to think about it and she wanted to smack herself upside the head for even asking in the first place.

“Because you only do casual, right?”

One side of his mouth quirked in that sexy way of his. The man could reduce her to a puddle with a simple tilt of his mouth. “Exactly. Casual is more fun anyway.”

“Except that's not why you refuse to commit yourself,” she pushed. Now that she knew his bark was much worse than his bite, Annabelle thrived in pushing him. Besides that, she had the feeling not many people in his life had pressed for more beyond what he showed them. People in his life had accepted him at face value, and that was probably the way he wanted it.

Not Annabelle.

“I'll just bet you have a different theory,” he said, as though he were enjoying the conversation. As though he were humoring her. Well, she refused to give him the satisfaction.

And heck yeah she had a different theory. And heck yeah she was going to tell him. Someone needed to kick him out of his rut of self-contempt.

“You hold yourself back because you don't think you have anything to offer. You don't think you're worthy enough for anyone to get attached to you.” She ought to tell him it was too late for that. She was already attached to him.

“Yet you can't seem to stay away from me,” he pointed out, as though her theory was flawed.

“Because I don't see you that way.”

“How do you see me, Annabelle?” he asked softly.

She got to her knees and, without thinking about what she was doing, swung one leg over his stretched out ones and straddled his thighs. They were rock hard beneath her. He didn't move a muscle, besides the clenching of his jaw. Maybe some desire flashing through his blue eyes. Oh yeah, she could have him. All she had to do was give him the signal and he'd take her to bed.

A part of her, a huge part that was getting harder to keep in check, wanted that more than she wanted her next breath. But that would be too easy. She wanted, and needed, to prove to him that he was capable of doing more.

He continued leaning back on his hands, watching her beneath heavy lids, his chest rising and falling with each steady breath he took. The slow movement contradicted her own uneven breaths.