Chapter 16 #3
This was insane. She was insane. She pushed from her mind all her previous images of him as a giving, loyal and supportive man.
That was all for his family and his teammates.
He’d reserved his most selfish self for the women in his life—no matter the jewelry.
That, she realized, was guilt-gifting. She lifted her hand with the glittering perfect diamond on her engagement ring finger.
She’d gotten the guiltiest gift of all.
The pounding in his ears was not caused by any roaring crowd or a recent blow to the head—and he wished it were.
It was the goddamn Dr. Charlie and his goddamn need to see her.
He couldn’t get enough of her and he didn’t remember the last time that had happened—no, he remembered.
It was in high school when his hormones had raged out of control and he’d been dating one of the cheerleaders.
They’d lasted his entire junior year until they’d both exhausted themselves and their relationship, leaving nothing in its wake.
They hadn’t been friends, hadn’t shared secrets or deepest desires.
He hadn’t shared what he was afraid of. None of his women knew that.
Except Charlie.
He whipped a towel from his locker, stripped down and headed to the shower.
There was a female member of the media or two about but he didn’t care.
Let them take care of their own sensibilities.
This was how low Charlie had brought him.
He was forgetting his manners. His father would be appalled. He was appalled.
Or he would be if he hadn’t realized that there was a new thing he was deathly afraid of. It was Charline Morneau—not her exactly—but his attraction or whatever it was he had for her. His addiction? His obsession?
If he thought about it rationally—and he was damn well going to do that right now under the steaming hot shower—then he would realize he was mixing her up with the promise of her miracle drug.
That his attraction to her was all about what she was doing for him, not about her as a woman.
She’d been right—she was a doctor first and then a woman second and damn if he didn’t see her the same way as she saw herself.
Letting the water and the notion that he’d resolved the cause of his problem wash over him, he stood a few minutes with his eyes closed.
But instead of feeling less tense, his eyes snapped open with the thought that she’d asked him to hurry.
Even as he mentally waved the thought away, he couldn’t ignore it.
She was busy. She had important work to do.
He shut the water off, grabbed his towel from the hook, wrapped it around his torso and went to his locker to dress.
That was the other thing about her that drew him in and repelled him at the same time.
She did important work. She was serious.
He was not. He played a goddamn game for a living and had more money than Zeus, while she struggled in that ramshackle old barn of a house he’d glimpsed when he’d picked her up, doing world-changing work, the kind of work that he couldn’t do.
Or maybe it was that he had chosen not to do it because he hadn’t been man enough to try.
And that killed him. It spat in his face every time he saw past her pretty face to the serious eyes, every time she spoke in that wild voice that called to his inner demons—to all of the demons.
To his raw sexual need until he almost lost control and to his self-doubt.
His long-buried insecurities and dreams that were dashed because he wasn’t good enough—or so he feared. So he’d been told.
He’d told only one person his dreams and asked only one person’s advice. Not his father, but the only other man he admired.
Why waste all that football talent that was given to so few on a profession that would be a struggle for a B+ science student to handle?
That’s what he’d been told in so many ways almost every day of his life since he’d been eleven years old and his physical talent for the game began to show itself. He was from Alabama. There was nothing more serious than football.
He’d believed that. Right up until he was fourteen and he’d gotten sick, meningitis.
Doc Waters did a spinal tap to diagnose him and argued with the hospital to put him on antibiotics before they got the test results.
Doc had saved his life. He’d been in awe of the man since, created a special friendship, talked medical research with him and all about the latest breakthroughs and the latest problems. Took advanced bio and went to him for help with his final project.
For the doc’s part, he’d been at every one of Trent’s games and took care of him whenever he’d had a sprain or a cough.
He’d brought Trent’s youngest sibling, Tammy, into the world and pronounced his grandpa dead.
Doc was a fixture in the Lockheed family and revered by everyone in town, but none revered him more than Trent.
Doc was quiet and serious and brilliant and measured and mature and moral.
He treated everyone, no matter their ability to pay. A true old-fashioned country doctor.
So when Trent had told Doc of his deepest, secret desire to take pre-med classes and go to medical school instead of pursuing pro ball, Doc Waters looked at him with his kind wise eyes and, after a thoughtful pause, he’d said, “You have a gift, Trent. A tremendous gift that many would sell their souls for. And it’s not a gift for medicine.
Why would you go and waste all that football talent that was given to so few on a profession that would be a struggle for a B+ science student to handle?
Trent’s first thought was that he’d gotten an A in his advanced biology class and the only B+ he ever got was in physics because it was during football season and he took it at the same time as advanced bio.
But he realized then, as he looked at the kind smile of Dr. Waters, that the doctor didn’t want to hear it.
Doc was like everyone else. His hero and would-be mentor thought Trent was special because he could play ball. That was all.
He hadn’t felt so foolish in a very, very long time. Until now.
His father had been disappointed that he didn’t go to med school but didn’t try to talk him into it, knew he’d gotten advice from the doc, and told him to make his decision and not look back, to commit a million percent, balls to the wall, until he was the best. Until he made the Hall of Fame.
Then the decision would have been worth it.
Then his decision to not go into medicine would have been the right one.
Failing that, the unspoken message was that he’d be wasting his damn life throwing a ball around instead of saving people’s lives.
His dad hadn’t said it, but he had that sad look that spoke volumes, that Trent read without fail.
The kind man that his dad was, he wouldn’t say a discouraging thing to Trent.
But his father had known then what Trent was learning the hard way. That no matter how well he played the game, he would be forever disappointed in himself because he could have done something more important—he could have saved lives.
The young, impressionable version of himself had sensed some of the disappointment, but he had enough self-doubt and enough admiration for Doc that he took the man’s advice.
And then he took his father’s advice to leave no prisoners, make no compromises, to give everything in him to be the best. To never look back.
Until now.
“I have my own car. I can’t just leave it—”
“Yes you can. No one will bother it. I’ll drive you back here in the morning. You’re going to be leaving it here anyway. I’ve arranged for you to travel with the team. We have a team plane.”
“What? You can’t—”
“Of course I can. You’re my betrothed. Remember?”
His smile was evil. Nothing casual or warm about it.
She refused to give in to the shudder quaking up from inside her.
She wasn’t at all sure she liked this side of Trent, but she wasn’t surprised at the emergence of his darker, forceful self.
He had to have one. Otherwise he couldn’t have gotten so far or been so competitive or made the decision he did to risk everything on a miracle drug to play a few more games of football to what—get into the Hall of Fame?
He could just as easily end up in jail. She knew he had a dark side all right. He’d made a bargain with the devil.
But then so had she. They were each looking at their devils right now. She trained her face into a calm, collected facade that she tried desperately to feel.
“I have important things to take care of.”
“Are any of them more important than John Doe?”
She opened her mouth and sucked in a breath. Shock held her mute for a beat and his smile turned even more evil in its triumph.
“I can’t believe you played that card. We’re supposed to be on the same team.
” This got her nowhere, judging from the deepening dimples that mocked her self-righteousness and called her naive without a word being spoken.
She took a deep breath and felt every nerve ending churn in her stomach, tasted the bile as it rose, slow and acidic, forcing her nostrils wide.
She did not want to play this game, but it was her game.
She’d invited him and she had to beat him at it, if that’s the way he wanted it.
She had as much at stake as he did. Maybe he hadn’t realized that, but if he wanted to find out the hard way, then so be it.
“Don’t forget, Trent, darling betrothed, I have the EM-HGH-1-JD and I am in charge of the protocol.” Then with a shallow breath she said, “And you already gave me the money.”
To her astonishment, his face didn’t change. His dimpled smile still mocked her naiveté and he shook his head in a slow wag. It had been foolish of her to threaten him that way, to imply that she would withhold treatment, that she would control him with the threat.