Love of the Game Read online

  She was three months from turning twenty-seven, high time to find her real place in the world. Sweep the stars from her eyes. If she’d learned anything this past year, it was this. Romantic fantasies were bullshit and she wasn’t going to waste another second on wishes and regrets. She was going to live every day to the fullest.

  Girl-Next-Door-Gone-Wild.

  Well sorta. Wildish.

  Inside the museum, she spied an actor she’d been infatuated with as a kid. An actor who reminded her a bit of the first real life guy she’d ever had a crush on.

  Ryder Southerland.

  Ugh. Another memory she didn’t want tromping in her head.

  The actor looked worse for the wear. She wondered about Ryder. She hadn’t seen the man in twelve years. How would he look today?

  Forget Ryder.

  Ancient history so old it had arthritis. Focus. Tonight have fun. Mingle. Dance. She studied the roomful of strangers, and anxiety sent her heart swooping to her feet.

  Um, maybe she’d have a drink first. Beeline it to the bar. Yes, indeedy.

  But before she could put that plan in motion, her cell phone buzzed inside her purse. She almost ignored it, but what if it was Gabi feeling lonely in a strange town this close to Christmas, and needing a shot of confidence? Twilight, and the town’s perpetual Christmas cheer, could be a bit hard to digest if you weren’t in a happy, happy, joy, joy state of mind.

  Stepping from the main flow of foot traffic, Katie pulled the phone from her purse and checked the caller ID. No, not Gabi, but rather it was Emma, her sister-in-law, who was married to Katie’s brother Sam.

  “Hello, Em,” she answered, scooting to a nearby alcove, and putting a hand to her other ear to block out the hubbub.

  “Auntie Katie?”

  It wasn’t Emma, but her four-year-old daughter, Lauren, Katie’s niece.

  “Hi, honey.” Katie smiled. Lauren was fascinated with phones, and loved calling people. “Does your mommy know you’ve got her cell phone?”

  “She’s inna baffroom. I was gonna play Fruit Ninja, but I saw your pitcher on the phone and calleded you instead.” Lauren sounded pleased with herself.

  “That’s so sweet of you to call me.”

  “Where are you, auntie?”

  “I’m in California.”

  “Where da?”

  “Near the ocean.”

  “Oh.” Lauren paused. “Dat’s a long way off.”

  “It is.”

  “So you not gonna be home for Pop-pop and Nanny’s Christmas party?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Katie said. “But I’ll see you later when I get home on Christmas night.”

  “But … but … it won’t be the same,” Lauren said, sounding years beyond her age.

  “I know, but I’ll bring you a present.”

  “From California?”

  “From California.”

  “I miss you.” Lauren’s voice saddened. “You been gone a long, long time and no one plays tea party with me as good as you.”

  Katie’s heart tugged. When she’d taken off to California for three weeks during the holidays, she never considered how it might affect her niece. “We’ll play tea party as soon as I get home. I promise.”

  “Okay. Bye.” Lauren hung up, leaving Katie a bit disoriented. Her body was in LA, but her mind and her spirit had traveled to Twilight.

  She tucked her phone in her purse. Glanced around. Now what was she doing again?

  Oh, yes, getting a drink to steady her nerves. She snaked her way past people and art exhibits, looking for a cash bar with a short line, and finally found one. She queued up, took a deep calming breath, guilt prickling her for standing up Lauren on Christmas Eve.

  “Buy you a drink?”

  She glanced over to see a blond man in sunshades, fashionably ripped jeans, and crisp beige shirt with four buttons undone showing off a shag rug chest. He sported impossibly straight, white teeth and a smile that rubbed her the wrong way.

  “I’m good, thanks,” she said, hoping to discourage him.

  The guy couldn’t take a hint. He stepped closer, crowding her space. “I won’t slip you a roofie, I swear.”

  She hadn’t considered that possibility. As a rule of thumb, people in Twilight didn’t get roofied. But the look in his eye and his aggressive body language told her he wasn’t above such a stunt.

  The band shifted into a bouncy version of “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” and people started dancing around the exhibits.

  Katie glued on a stiff smile, kept her voice light, but firm. “I do appreciate the offer, but I prefer to buy my own drinks.”

  “Cock tease.”

  “Excuse me?” Startled, she thought she must have misunderstood what he said.

  “You heard me. You stroll in here, wearing a slut dress and fuck-me-shoes and you turn down my offer of a drink? What a stuck-up bitch.” He snarled.

  Stunned by the creep’s verbal attack, Katie stood there with her mouth hanging open, her brain trying to process what was happening.

  What shocked her was the fact that no one intervened. If this had happened in Twilight, half-a-dozen gallant cowboys would have jumped to her aid and challenged the guy.

  Where was a knight-in-shining-armor when you needed one?

  Katie pivoted on her heels, rushed through the crowd. Maybe no one had spoken up because of the way she was dressed. Did people believe she was asking for that treatment?

  No.

  That was her old childhood insecurity talking. Plenty of other women were wearing formfitting clothes, and sexpot stilettos. Still, it disturbed her to think that the way she was dressed—the clothes she’d worn precisely because they made her feel empowered—had spurred the jerk’s ugly behavior.

  Shame. She was ashamed.

  In her mind she heard the voice of the grief counselor she’d visited after Matt’s death. Dr. Finley had been kind, but with a no bullshit approach to life. The guy is a narcissist, antisocial jerk. Don’t let him define you.

  She wasn’t, but she was done for the day. She’d had enough of glittery charity galas. Problem was, in the labyrinth of the exhibits, she’d lost her bearings.

  Where was the front entrance?

  Rounding a corner, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure the creep wasn’t coming after her, and smacked hard into a young woman holding a small plate of food.

  “Oof!” exclaimed the woman. She had Angelina Jolie lips that appeared to be courtesy of an excessive amount of filler, and an overly thin neck that made her head look like a lollipop on a stick. The woman fumbled her plate, and spilled food down the front of Katie’s dress.

  The plate clattered to the floor, but thankfully didn’t shatter. A big blob of something mushy and green, which Katie initially thought was guacamole, flipped into her cleavage, slid down into her bra.

  Ugh. What a mess. She prayed Gabi’s dress wasn’t ruined.

  The Angelina lookalike glowered. “Excuse you.”

  Katie raised her hands in apologetic surrender. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I should have been watching where I was going.”

  “Yes, you should have,” the woman chided, but her tone softened.

  The cold green mush that had settled between her breasts started burning her skin. A lot. Katie stared down, and saw a bright red rash spreading over her chest.

  “Wh … what … is that stuff?” She gasped.

  “Oh, dude,” said Lollipop Angelina. “That’s sick. Are you allergic to wasabi?”

  Katie didn’t know, but her breasts were ablaze. She had to wash it off. ASAP! “Bathroom?”

  “Up those stairs.” The young woman pointed at a metal staircase leading to a second level.

  “Thanks.” With energy born of pain, Katie flew toward the stairs in search of salvation, fanning her chest with a hand. But when she got to the bottom of the steps, a red velvet rope was stretched across the bottom, and a posted sign announced CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY.

  “BOLO. BOLO.
Be on the lookout for a hot blonde in a red dress.”

  Personal bodyguard Ryder Southerland resisted an eye roll, and muttered into the tiny microphone clipped to his lapel. “I know what a BOLO is, Messer, and I don’t need an update every time you spy a good-looking woman.”

  “Not a hot chick alert. Repeat this is not merely a hot chick alert, although she does sizzle. It’s Ketchum’s stalker.”

  Les Ketchum, the rodeo star turned country and western chart-topping singer, that Ryder had been hired to protect. Two weeks ago Les had broken things off with a buckle bunny in possession of a mean streak who couldn’t seem to take hasta la vista, baby, for the brush-off it was.

  Ryder’s entire body tensed, and he pressed a hand to the Bluetooth device that fed Messer’s voice into his ear. “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Where?” Ryder leaned over the balcony railing, scanning the well-heeled crowd milling in the art gallery below.

  You’d think a hot blonde in a red dress wouldn’t be that hard to spot, but since it was a celebrity-studded holiday bash, a surprising number of women were wearing red. And sun-drenched LA had a knack for manufacturing blondes.

  “You got Ketchum in sight?” Messer asked.

  “Yes.” Ryder swung his gaze to his client who was kissing a busty redhead known for her appearances in makeup commercials, underneath a bouquet of mistletoe. “Does your red-dress blonde look armed?”

  “It’d have to be in her purse. That dress is spray-painted on. Couldn’t hide anything underneath that.”

  “Can you still see her?”

  “Negatory. She disappeared in the crowd.”

  “Stop talking, and freaking follow her.”

  “I’m trying, but some drunk sitcom-actress just took off her top, and there’s a hundred guys in my way.”

  This time, Ryder did roll his eyes.

  Trite. His job was trite. Protecting spoiled celebrities from overly zealous fans who thought getting near them meant something special. But after four years in the Middle East, and an unpleasant bout of PTSD, Ryder was good with trite.

  And working for his former platoon leader’s personal security business in LA was a long sight better than crawling home to Twilight where small town minds had branded him disreputable years ago.

  Pathetic.

  He was twenty-nine years old, had been a decorated MP in the U.S. Army, and yet he couldn’t shake the old childhood wounds, and the names he’d been called—bad boy, punk, troublemaker, delinquent, thug.

  Ah, his youth. Those were the days.

  There was only one family in the whole town he gave a fig about, and that was the Cheeks. The family who’d taken him in when his father kicked him out and no one else would touch him.

  His favorites of all the Cheeks was his best friend Joe, and the other was Joe’s kid sister, Katie. He hadn’t talked to Joe since his friend had moved back to Twilight to take over his ailing grandfather’s Christmas tree farm that summer. And it had been two years since they’d seen each other in person, back when Ryder had crashed at Joe’s place for a couple of months after he’d been discharged from the Army, and was struggling to get his act together.

  And as for Katie?

  In his mind she was still the gawky fifteen-year-old who’d flung herself into his arms and kissed him. And that had been the last time he’d seen her, but he couldn’t help wondering what she looked like today.

  Head in the game, Southerland. Katie ain’t nothing but a fond memory.

  He leaned farther over the balcony railing for a better look, watching the circular metal staircase that led to the second story exhibits. The party was in full swing. The band blasted Christmas songs. People packed in close dancing, drinking, eating canapés served by tuxedoed waiters passing through the throng.

  The crowd was eclectic. Young and old, trendy and traditional, dressed down and dressed up, an equal mix of male and female. The majority of them were wealthy, or plus ones of the wealthy. Ironic, how much money was being spent raising funds to benefit the poor. Why not just give the money to the homeless?

  He scanned the three exits he could see, each one manned by museum security, and finally caught sight of Messer trapped in a bottleneck near the entrance.

  He counted off the attractive blondes in red dresses, one, two, seven, a dozen. Was one of them Ketchum’s stalker?

  Concerned, he glanced back at Ketchum. The celebrity and his woman of choice, who had shifted to the bench exhibit seating near the restrooms, were still in a lip-lock, hands all over each other. The second floor was reserved for special VIP sponsors, and Ryder was the threshold guardian to their domain.

  From his peripheral vision, he caught movement at the top of the staircase. A blonde. In red. Hurrying.

  Hurrying, hell, the woman was full-on running.

  Immediately, Ryder tensed, and his hand touched the Taser at his hip. He didn’t want to use it, or the concealed Sig Sauer in his shoulder holster. Discretion was a big part of his job. Diplomacy another.

  Besides, she was a woman. He was big, and she was small. Body block, and choke hold ought to do it, and that was only if she was unreasonable.

  He didn’t want things getting messy.

  In two long strides, he reached her, and for a split second, he was struck by the notion that anyone watching them might assume they were lovers rushing into each other’s arms.

  Except she showed no signs of slowing down, her gaze fixed to the spot where Ketchum sat kissing the redhead. This had to be the stalker, hyped up with rage, jealousy, adrenaline, and god knew what else.

  Instinct, honed from numerous tours in the sandbox, took over and he reacted without hesitation. It happened during the space of a single breath. Grabbing her by the arm, flipping her onto her back, falling atop of her, pinning her to the floor in a four-point restraint.

  “Stand back, people!” Messer shouted. Ryder felt rather than saw his colleague herding people down the steps. “Nothing to see here. Go downstairs and enjoy the party.”

  Ryder’s hands manacled her wrists. His cowboy boots locked spread-eagle around her ankles. The woman was panting.

  And so was he, because he realized not only was she not Ketchum’s stalker, but he knew her.

  Ryder peered down into her face. A familiar face despite the fact it had changed a lot over the past twelve years.

  Katie Cheek.

  What in the blazes?

  All the air exited his body in one hard puff.

  Her features were softer, thinner, and prettier than ever. The glasses were gone, and so were the braces, and instead of frizzy untamable, dishwater blond curls, her hair was straight and lush and golden.

  Yes, she’d changed a lot, but he would recognize her anywhere.

  Yep. Katie Cheek, all right.

  It was his high school buddy’s kid sister, all grown up, and curvy in the most dangerous places.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author LORI WILDE has sold seventy-nine works of fiction to four major New York publishing houses. She holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Texas Christian University and a certificate in forensic nursing from Kaplan University. She is a member of the International Association of Forensic Nurses.

  Her first New York Times bestseller, the third book in her Twilight, Texas series, The First Love Cookie Club, has been optioned for a television movie. The town of Granbury, Texas, upon which her fictional town of Twilight, Texas, is loosely based, honors Lori with an annual Twilight, Texas weekend each Christmas.

  www.loriwilde.com

  www.twilighttexas.com

  www.avonromance.com

  www.facebook.com/avonromance

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  ALSO BY LORI WILDE

  The Stardust, Texas Series

  LOVE OF THE GAME • RULES OF THE GAME

  BACK IN THE GAME

  The Cupid, Texas Series

 
LOVE WITH A PERFECT COWBOY

  SOMEBODY TO LOVE • ALL OUT OF LOVE

  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT • ONE TRUE LOVE (A NOVELLA)

  The Jubilee, Texas Series

  A COWBOY FOR CHRISTMAS

  THE COWBOY AND THE PRINCESS

  THE COWBOY TAKES A BRIDE

  The Twilight, Texas Series

  I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS • CHRISTMAS AT TWILIGHT

  THE VALENTINE’S DAY DISASTER (A NOVELLA)

  THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE COLLECTION

  THE WELCOME HOME GARDEN CLUB

  THE FIRST LOVE COOKIE CLUB

  THE TRUE LOVE QUILTING CLUB

  THE SWEETHEARTS’ KNITTING CLUB

  Available from Harlequin

  The Stop the Wedding Series

  CRASH LANDING • SMOOTH SAILING • NIGHT DRIVING

  The Uniformly Hot Series

  BORN READY • HIGH STAKES SEDUCTION

  THE RIGHT STUFF • INTOXICATING • SWEET SURRENDER

  HIS FINAL SEDUCTION • ZERO CONTROL

  COPYRIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Excerpt from A Wedding for Christmas copyright © 2016 by Laurie Vanzura

  LOVE OF THE GAME. Copyright © 2016 by Laurie Vanzura. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. For more information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

  EPub Edition MAY 2016 ISBN: 9780062311443

  Print Edition ISBN: 9780062311436

  FIRST EDITION

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