Faking the Shot (Golden Meadow Polo #1)

1. Maggie

Chapter one

Maggie

Jack was the absolute last person I should have been hooking up with.

The man had allegedly slept his way through both high school and college, and, at barely twenty-three, he was well-known for his affinity for no-strings-attached relationships.

He was bad news for the heart, but I stuck around since I had no intentions of anything romantic with him.

We were close as kids, slowly growing apart as we got older, so our current friendship didn’t consist of much talking.

Jack and I’s fathers were professional polo players, and friends nonetheless, so we always ran into each other at practices and while exercising horses.

“Wow,” Jack breathed as he leaned back against the door window, readjusting his pants and belt. A few strands of blonde hair stuck to his tanned face while his brown eyes roamed mine. His broad chest glistened with perspiration, rising and falling in time with his breath, captivating me.

“Yeah,” I replied, barely getting the words out.

We made eye contact for a split second before smirking at each other. We were thinking the same thing:

We’ve still got it.

My life was dangling somewhere between being put together and not having a clue what I was doing.

After graduating with a business administration degree I would likely never use, I moved back home to work for my dad as his groom while trying to make a name for myself in the polo industry.

My goal was to break the glass ceiling of female professional players and become one of the top co-ed professionals in polo.

Fuck stereotypes. I could play the sport just as well as any man.

After coming home and learning a few months later that Jack had a similar goal of working as a professional, we began seeing each other more and, as of today, rekindling our fiery, high school fling.

We were kids back then. Sixteen years old, hooking up in the back of a car for the first time.

It lasted a good few months before I remembered that Jack was an infamous player with no intentions of turning romantic, and I should quit before any unwanted feelings came along.

Luckily, they didn’t, and my teeny tiny crush on him when we were little was long gone.

We moved off to college and went our separate ways, and here we were, four years later, like no time had passed.

I shook my head and basked in the triumph of what Jack and I had just done. Most men I had been with were unfairly average compared to the man in front of me. Jack was intuitive, confident, and a downright machine. I mean, the man could win trophies for his latest performance.

Not to mention, his performance on the polo field was nothing short of perfection.

He was a four-goal player at only twenty-three, which was as rare as a diamond appearing on my left hand.

There was nothing better than getting him right off the field after a game when he was riled up with frustration and adrenaline.

I loved watching the game itself, whether Jack was in it or not, but when he let that passion out on me…

it was a euphoria no other man could offer.

“I can’t believe we haven’t done that in six years,” he chuckled. “And it still ended like that. ”

I laughed along, rolling my hips at the sound of his voice. My body was sensitive after Jack. “I know. You even learned some new moves.”

Jack’s laugh followed my own as he offered his hand to pull me up from the seat. His rough, calloused skin burned my hand at the contact. The windows were fogged, and we needed to open a door before the oxygen ran out. “I guess I did.”

“I’m sure you hear that all the time.”

His laugh rumbled deep in his throat, but he glanced sideways.

“Anyway,” I started as I tightened my grip on his hand and pulled my sweaty back off the cloth bench seat. “I’ve got to get going. I told my dad I would check on Fiona’s cut.”

Jack began putting on his shirt, and my body sighed in disappointment. “Yeah, me too. I’m supposed to be dragging the field or something like that.”

“You forgot your job already?” I joked.

“My mind was a little preoccupied when I was given instructions.” He winked. He was a shameless flirt. “I’ll drop you off at the end of your driveway.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

The short drive from the club’s service barns back to my dad’s farm was fairly silent, with only the radio playing quietly.

While Jack and I had known each other for almost all our lives, we hadn’t talked in depth much since we returned from university.

It was strange that we knew so much about each other and yet barely made an effort to dive deeper than surface level.

We lived basically the same lives, working for our dads, getting up early to feed the horses and put them in the barn, and dreaming of becoming respected professionals.

Well, I was the one dreaming. Jack was already there.

We approached my driveway, and Jack put the truck in park before reaching over the console for my neck, pulling me into another kiss. His breath was hot on my swollen lips, but his tongue soothed them when it reached me. I hummed into the kiss one last time before breaking away.

“Thanks for the sex,” I waved, opening the door.

“Anytime, Mags.” His accent bled in the slightest bit, the German in him he tried hard to hide.

I gave him one last smirk before turning around and hearing his truck pull away. I couldn’t help the playful side Jack brought out in me. Sure, we had fun together sexually, but we had grown out of our childhood friendship shortly after we became teenagers.

I had a lot on my plate. I wanted to become a renowned female professional polo player; I wanted to help my dad—in more ways than one. He had gotten into a lot of trouble over the last thirteen years since my mom left.

If there’s one thing you need to know about male professional athletes, it is that they love to act like teenage boys.

Unfaithfulness, recklessness…the list went on.

And my dad, despite the great man that he was, fell directly into those categories.

I loved him, but his actions uprooted both of our lives.

He was the reason my mom wasn’t around anymore, the reason I didn’t drink alcohol, and the reason I would never, ever get married.

But I had learned from his mistakes. And I was happy, really. I was working for my dad, working toward my goals. Life was good.

“Maggie? That you?” my dad’s voice traveled across the house from the kitchen. I shut the front door and kicked off my old canvas slip-ons. The sound of grease crackling in a pan and a familiar scent meant only one thing: bacon for dinner. Again.

“Hey, Dad. Yeah, I’m back. Bacon again?”

“Mags,” he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek on his way to the sink. “How’s Fiona?”

He began to wash his hands, and I reached for two plates from the cabinet.

“She’s improved. It should only be a couple of days until her cut is better and the swelling is gone.

You should be able to play her for Saturday’s practice.

” It was a good thing I actually checked on her before meeting up with Jack.

She was one of my dad’s best horses, but also one of the clumsiest, always getting hurt or coming up lame.

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to play for me on Saturday. You can have the string,” he suggested. “I’ll even groom for you.”

“Wow…really? Don’t you want to prep for the Silver Cup tournament?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dad waved a hand. “I want to help you achieve your goals, and you won’t go far working and living with me for the rest of your life. You’ve got big things to do.”

I smiled at his sincerity. While my dad had wrecked his relationship with my mom, he always put me first and did whatever he thought would make me happy.

If that meant selling our farm and moving to New York City in a cramped apartment with no animals, he would do it.

Maybe he wasn’t a great husband, or ex-husband, or really anything that had to do with staying put in a romantic relationship, but he loved me unconditionally.

“Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.”

His crinkled eyes smiled back at me, and his smoker’s lips curved upward. “But I was also thinking,” he cleared his throat, telling me he was moving on to a more serious topic. “Maybe you should move up a little bit.”

I raised my brows in question.

“I mean, you working for me has been great, and you know I’ll continue to support you to no end.

But Mags, I don’t have a string for you,” he said.

“I can’t afford the horses.” He looked away, trying to hide his embarrassment.

He thought he was letting me down, but I knew the ten to twelve horses it took to play as a full-time player were more than we could manage.

“I’ve already taught you everything I know, but the cost to get you higher than you are…

you’re already at a two-goal handicap. You have so much room to grow. ”

The handicap scale of polo players went from a negative one, being the lowest, to ten, being the highest rating. Granted, there were only about a dozen ten-goal players in the world, so I was impressive to the average outsider, being twenty-two years old and a two-goal player.

“I want you to work for Hennicke.” His tone was drab, but he was definitely not joking.

“Jack?” I asked in disbelief. “Or his dad?”

“Yeah, Jack. Obviously, you know the Hennickes are better off than we are. Lenz has been invaluable in getting his son into high-goal polo, and he adores you. He sees your potential, and working for Jack will get you into the right place.”

“Dad, I’m twenty-two. I can make my own decisions, I don’t need to work for the Hennickes to move up in the polo world.”