Chapter Eleven
THE GIFT
CAGE
Flying to China on a whim was met with a shit-storm of opposition from the people in my life whom I’d hired to keep me focused and out of trouble.
I wasn’t the guy prone to trouble, but the day I signed with Minnesota, trouble seemed to chase me, usually in the form of greedy people claiming to have been my best buddy in elementary school or women desperate to crawl into my bed.
Seventy-two hours after threatening to fire the very people I hired to keep me from making rash decisions, I found myself in a suite at a Beijing hotel with a woman who made me question my direction in life. That scared me. She scared me.
“So what do you want to do that doesn’t involve sex?” Lake tossed her purse on the black couch by the window overlooking the city.
That’s where I would sleep. The king-sized bed in the middle of the room looked inviting after my long trip, but I needed to stay as far away from her bed as possible. My time would be equally divided between the couch and cold showers.
I nodded. “I love that the idea of us having sex has now become a joke of sorts.” I set my suitcase on the luggage stand.
Lake lifted her shoulders and grinned. “You’re staring.”
I blinked several times. “Sorry, just … taking you in.”
“Yeah?” She held her arms out to the side for a moment then let them flop back against her body. “And what do you see?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You fishing for compliments, Jones?”
“Jones?” She laughed.
My lips twisted to the side as I narrowed my eyes.
She didn’t melt under my scrutinizing gaze.
Lake had her insecurities, they were like small fleeting moments, flashes here and there, but they never appeared to be about her appearance, her leg, or anything on the outside. I couldn’t quite figure it out.
“You fit in here. Big, China doll eyes. Long, straight, black hair. Flawless skin. Tiny nose. Petite frame. The ears though …”
She grabbed her ears. “What’s wrong with my ears?”
I shrugged. “They stick out a bit, but don’t worry about it. I’m sure no one notices unless you wear your hair back.”
“Dumbo ears? Are you suggesting I have Dumbo ears?” Her voice elevated a few octaves.
Fuck me. Lake Jones was the sexiest woman I had ever met, and I think I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her. The space-age looking prosthetic below her knee? It only made her sexier in my eyes. She held her head high, shoulders back, confident smile. She owned herself completely.
“No. I’m not suggesting you can fly.”
She squinted. “That’s not what I asked.”
I stepped closer to her. She didn’t flinch.
I needed to stop. We needed to sit on separate ends of the couch and watch something like Schindler’s List. My dick needed to be removed from the equation, but it was hard—in every sense of the word—because if the events of the previous days were to be stripped down to the bare truth …
I flew halfway around the world just to see if her lips tasted the way I remembered from three years earlier. They did, but even better.
My hands flexed; they itched to touch her.
I’d stood in the pocket, waiting for a receiver to open up, patient and calm, as my linemen worked to hold off the guys gunning to plant my ass on the ground.
I had control. With Lake I was the child running out into the street after a shiny rainbow beach ball.
The woman robbed me of all self-preservation by simply existing in my world.
A knock at the door erased the scowl on her face and saved me from my runaway thoughts.
She pointed a stiff finger at me. “You’re not off the hook.”
Maybe I wasn’t saved from anything.
Lake checked the peephole. “I’m not required to see you until morning,” she yelled.
A muffled man’s voice answered. “Oh come on, love. I’m just stopping by to say goodnight.”
“Love” didn’t sit well with me, neither did the jealousy it evoked.
Lake opened the door, grumbling something under her breath. “Goodnight, Thad.” She started to close the door but his hand stopped it.
I moved closer.
“Do you have company?” He peeked past her to me.
She sighed, moving back as Thad took a step inside the room. He held up his hand, an Iron Man-Doc Ock hybrid. Eight fingers.
“He doesn’t look Chinese, love.” He eyed me.
“He is. It’s just poor lighting.” She shoved his chest, but her little body made the impact of a fly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Thad smirked, looking down at Lake. I didn’t like the way he looked at her. Maybe it was because he called her “love.” Maybe one had nothing to do with the other, or maybe they had everything to do with each other. Didn’t matter. It left me on edge.
“Are you paying him?”
I fisted my hands, but Lake’s left-field reply sidetracked my anger.
“Yes.” She shoved toward the door with her whole body, and he stepped back. “I’m paying him for sex, now go because you’re wasting my money.”
“So you’re trying to tell me that Minnesota’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback turns tricks in Beijing during the offseason?”
Lake grumbled again, louder, but still indiscernible thoughts. She turned to the side, gesturing for Thad to come inside. “Thaddeus Westbrook, meet Cage Monaghan. Cage, this is Thad, my nosy boss.”
“Hi.” I smiled, making my best effort to give him the benefit of every doubt I held in my head.
“I’m a huge fan.” He smiled, but at the same time I saw the protective look in his eyes—the one only another guy would notice. Thad thought I was infringing on his territory, and Lake was oblivious to it.
“Really?” Lake narrowed her eyes at him.
Thad gave her a quick look before returning his attention to me. “Yes. I actually have several patents on knee braces that will put injured players back on the field in half the time with limited risk of further injury.” He shrugged. “I watch a lot of sports. It’s research.”
“I’ve been pretty lucky so far, no major injuries.”
“It’s not if, it’s when, but I’m sure you know that.”
I nodded. Of course I knew that, but I didn’t like to dwell on the unknown.
“You coming to watch Lake in action tomorrow? Jerry Chu is fitting her for a kick-ass fin and a climbing limb too. She’s a natural at everything she attempts to do. That’s one of the reasons I hired her. She’s fearless.” He rested his hand on her lower back.
I didn’t like that either.
“I’d love to, but I don’t want to be in the way or be a distraction.”
Her eyes shifted to me, but she didn’t say anything. One of the things I noticed right away when we first met was how her emotions revealed in her eyes or her smile before she ever said a word. She literally looked honest. However, at that moment she revealed nothing.
“Anything else, Thad?”
His tight-browed expression mirrored my own confusion. After a few moments of unspoken words between them, Thad turned toward the door. “Huge pleasure to have met you, Cage.” Thad continued to eye Lake.
“You too.”
“Be good.” He tapped the tip of one of his robotic fingers on Lake’s nose twice before disappearing out the door.
She closed it and rested her back against it.
“Sorry, he’s … him.”
I shrugged. “He seems fine. You don’t like him?”
Her brows rose. “No, of course I like him. I would never work for someone I didn’t like. Life’s too short for that misery. He’s just …” She grazed her teeth along her bottom lip over and over. It was a new side to her, a truly nervous gesture.
“Tell me.”
She looked up and blew out a slow breath that made her hair shift away from her forehead.
“Thaddeus has seen a very vulnerable side of me. He’s watched me stumble and fall more times than I can count.
Last year he saved me from drowning in a pool when a fin-type prosthetic fell off during my first lap.
Of course I could swim just fine without it, but it freaked me out in that moment. It was not a ‘fearless’ moment for me.”
“He sings your praises quite well.”
She nodded slowly.
“I don’t have to go tomorrow. This is your job. We can meet up later when you’re done.”
“Wanna watch TV?”
I took that as a ‘yes, we’ll meet up later and stop talking about it now.’
“Sure.”
LAKE
My mom gave me six months after the accident to grieve, to regret, to feel sorry for myself.
I took every single day. Nothing I did during those six months brought Ben back, or my leg, or the dreams I believed to be the purpose of my life.
She could have given me ten years and on the first day of the eleventh year the outcome would have been the same: no Ben, no leg, shattered dreams.
Month seven, day one, I tore off my clothes and stood in front of a full-length mirror on my one leg. I said a final, silent goodbye to Ben, my leg, and the dreams they held. Then I introduced myself to the reflection in the mirror. I blinked and in that moment Lake Jones was whole again.
New girl.
Single girl.
Single girl with new dreams.
Cage Monaghan flew to China to kiss me. If he didn’t marry me, it would be very awkward for my future husband or children to hear that my greatest memory was another man flying to China to kiss me.
“You’re yawning. You look tired,” I said as we chilled on the couch watching the worst TV shows ever.
Cage glanced at the clock. “Well, I haven’t slept in almost twenty hours, so yeah, I’m a little tired.”
“I’ll shut off the TV. You get ready for bed.”
He shook his head, bringing his fist to his mouth to hide yet another yawn. “It’s fine.”
I liked his blond hair a little messy, his white T-shirt a little wrinkled, and his bare feet propped up on the coffee table in front of the couch. So. Very. Sexy.
I scooted to the end. “Here, lie down.”
I giggled as he tried to maneuver his large body onto the couch without invading my space.
“Put your head on my lap, silly.”
He gave me a questioning look.
“I won’t shave off an eyebrow or write dork on your forehead in permanent marker.” I patted my lap.
Uncoiling his crumpled-up body another foot, he rested his head on my lap.
“No Packers or Bears shit drawn on my face either.”
“Shh …” I pressed my finger to his lips. “Sleep.”
Cage wrapped his hand around my wrist, keeping my finger pressed to his lips as he kissed it.
Then he kissed the inside of my wrist before laying my hand over his heart and covering it with his own as he closed his eyes.
I had to remind myself to breathe. With my other hand I feathered my fingers over his face in random patterns and softly teased his hair. He hummed or maybe purred like Trzy.
After his whole body visibly relaxed and I was certain that he was asleep, I looked in the direction of God and whispered, “Can I keep him? Pretty please?” I didn’t want to play the you-owe-me card with the creator of the world, but … he owed me.