CHAPTER

22

Marianne looked up at the knock on her door. Reagan entered, holding a manila folder. “Are your interns in here?”

“They’re out watching the guys.” She should be out there, as well. She told herself it was better to stay in and finish up the paperwork. She was lying.

“Perfect. I need you to sign this for me, then.” She slid a piece of paper out from her folder and handed it to Marianne. “It’s just a simple form explaining the relationship between yourself and Lieutenant Costa, as explained to your supervisor and the coach. It shows you were up-front about the situation and that you and he both agree it won’t affect your working relationship.”

Marianne snorted at that. When Reagan tilted her head in question, she shook hers. “Sorry. Allergies.”

“Hmm.” Reagan handed her a pen. “Just a signature, and then I’ll get Lieutenant Costa’s, and we should be all set. It’s a formality, simply a CYA thing.”

Too bad Marianne hadn’t thought to cover her own ass. Otherwise she might not have been in this position to begin with. How the hell did she sign this piece of paper now, knowing that very soon, her relationship would likely be done? “Can I just give this a look through later and give it to you tomorrow? I’ve got a lot of paperwork to finish up.”

“Oh.” Blinking in surprise—because really, who needed an entire day to read through three paragraphs—Reagan lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “All right. No problem. No rush, I’d just like to have it on file before we start traveling.” She started out, heels clicking over the linoleum, then turned back. “Have you had any more problems with the training room?”

“Problems . . . oh.” Marianne sat back in her chair, surprised. “No, not that I can think of. Why? Was there more vandalism upstairs?”

“No . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Reagan glanced toward the door.

“They’re not coming back in here. I told them to stand guard,” Marianne assured her.

“We received some threatening mail at the main office.” Reagan sat down in the chair Levi normally occupied and crossed her legs daintily. “Nothing too serious—nothing to call the bomb squad over. But it was enough to spook me. Nobody else seems to think it’s a big deal.”

Marianne knew there was something to a woman’s gut feeling. But Reagan was younger, in her first job out of college. It could have been as simple as being unsure of herself and not wanting to disregard any potential problem, even when there wasn’t one. “Did whoever sent them take responsibility for the vandalism here?”

“No, not in so many words.” Chewing on her lip a little, Reagan switched her legs and drummed her fingers on top of the desk for a moment. The perfect manicure wouldn’t hold up to that kind of beating for long. “I just don’t want any problems.”

Sorry, sweetheart. I’m about to dump a breakup in your lap by morning. “Understandable. I’m sure if the higher-ups aren’t worried, it’s probably nothing.”

“Maybe.” Sounding unconvinced, Reagan stood. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

Marianne hummed something noncommittal and looked at the sheet in her hand. With a sigh, she let it fall to the bottom of her stack of paperwork. She’d end up handing it back, blank, in the morning.

Kara popped her head in to wave good-bye, but otherwise Marianne’s afternoon sailed on relatively uninterrupted. She managed to get nearly caught up on paperwork to the point where she wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving it to a new trainer. When the Marines started filing in for ice bags, heating pads and help cutting tape off wrists, she put her problems aside and dealt with them, as well as her interns.

She’d end up dealing with Brad soon enough.

*   *   *

BRAD hung around the gym as long as he could stand, hoping to be the last guy in the training room. He needed to talk to her in her own space. For some reason, the conversation didn’t feel right for her apartment. As if the temporary domestic bliss they’d experienced in her home wouldn’t be able to stand the news he was about to drop on her.

Keeping it confined to her professional domain might be enough to get through this unscathed.

Yeah, right.

He walked in as Chalfant walked out. The guy looked raw, as if he’d taken too many beatings. “You okay, man?”

Chalfant tried a smile, but then just raised his hands and let them fall. “Last cuts are coming soon.”

And Brad got it. The nerves were chewing on him from the inside out. He clapped his hand over the younger man’s shoulder and squeezed. “Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning. You can’t let it get to you, or you’re just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Easier said than done,” Chalfant said with a grimace.

“Try some yoga before bed,” he suggested. When Chalfant huffed out a laugh, Brad sent him on his way and stepped into the training room.

There were a few Marines finishing up their icing session. The guy intern was dumping out a bucket into the huge sink, while the girl sat chatting one of the guys up. And Marianne—his calm in the storm—moved from one table to the next, assessing and encouraging, educating and . . .

He grinned.

Handing out another pamphlet.

He walked in, and she turned immediately. The smile on her face faded, and he wondered what that was all about. He waved, then went to get a bag of ice and ask Levi to start his time on the sheet. The younger man glanced up with what looked like annoyance, but wrote his name and time down with a nod.

With no free table, he settled his back against a wall on the floor, stretched his knee out and closed his eyes. The best part about icing was the fact that it gave him an excuse to sit still for twenty full minutes.

As his body relaxed and his heart rate slowed, he heard Marines leave one by one. But it was as if he were hearing them from underwater, or from a great distance. For the first time in a long time, his mind felt uncluttered from the knowledge that he was keeping a secret from his coach. The simple act of unburdening himself to Coach had lifted a metric ton of weight off his shoulders.

He prayed the same thing would happen when he talked to Marianne.

He heard Nikki say her good-byes to Marianne and Levi. Then Levi came over and nudged his left foot. “You’re done. Dump the ice and you’re free to go.”

“Thanks.” He stood stiffly—even when he was relaxed, sitting on the floor wasn’t ideal—and tore the bag open, letting the last of the ice and water run into the sink. He watched over his shoulder as Levi grabbed his bag, took one last look at Brad, asked Marianne if she was sure she was okay, then took off. Maybe the crush wasn’t on Nikki, but on his boss. Brad smiled at that. He couldn’t blame the kid.

When he tossed the wet bag in the trash, he found Marianne sitting at her desk, back to him, making notes. He walked over and ran a hand over the nape of her neck. She jerked, then hunched away from his touch.

What the hell?

“Hey. Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

She shuffled papers, stuck them in a folder, then turned. Her face was grim, and a sudden chill slid through his gut.

“What’s wrong?”

She lifted her hands; let them fall back into her lap. “You tell me.”

He raised a brow at her tone. She wasn’t typically so snippy. He propped one hip against a file cabinet and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’d rather not play the guess-why-I’m-mad game. My sister plays that shit all the time and I suck at it.”

Marianne’s brows furrowed together. “This is a game? I asked you to tell me what was wrong. As your athletic trainer, that’s not a game. It’s a serious question.”

Okay, so they weren’t in lover-mode. Fine. “I wanted to talk to you about my knee.”

Her face lightened slightly, and she leaned forward. “Sit.”

He grabbed the other rolling chair and dragged it over. “I have some paperwork I need to hand you. It’s in my duffel out in the gym. Basically, it’s a torn meniscus. Not the worst injury, but something to deal with. And so we’re going in tomorrow morning with Coach thirty minutes before warm up to talk to him about it.”

She nodded slowly, watching as his hand unconsciously went to rub at the area just above his kneecap. “How long have you known that?”

He tensed. “It’s been painful for a while, but not unbearable.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“About ten days.”

Her eyes slowly slid closed, and her lips moved as if she were saying a prayer to herself. Brad waited patiently. Whatever condemnation she threw at him, he’d earned.

“But it’s hurt all along, hasn’t it?”

“Since the second day, I guess.” He shrugged. “I’ve worked through it. It’s not paralyzing pain or anything like that.”

“I know what it is.” She took a deep breath, then let it out and ran a hand through her hair. Some of the blonde hairs pulled loose from her short ponytail and drifted down to rest against her cheek. Her now-flushed cheek. Flushed from relief? Heat? Or anger?

“You’ve known for almost two weeks what was wrong, and you didn’t tell me.”

Okay, anger. “I wasn’t ready to—”

“And because I didn’t know, I wasn’t able to do my job.” The flush crept down her neck now, and her ice-blue eyes were like white-hot flames, searing straight through him. “And now, I get to go to the coach tomorrow and discuss this with him, and he’s going to ask me why I didn’t know this sort of important information two weeks ago, when you did.”

“He already knows.”

She blinked at that. “He . . . Since when?”

“Since the beginning of practice. I skipped yoga and talked to him about it.”

She sat back in her seat with a chair-squeaking thump. “You went and talked to him without me?”

“Uh . . .” Brad knew a trap when he was walking right into one.

“You obviously did,” she went on, without giving him time to pick an answer. She closed her eyes, then ran a hand down her face. “Great. Not only could you not talk to me about it, you went to the coach first.” She laughed, but the sound was scratchy. “When you throw someone under the bus, you do it right.”

“That’s not what I did. That’s not what I meant,” he corrected when she shot him a glare so cold he wondered if he’d ever need to ice his knee again. He was losing his grip on the situation. Losing her.

“Look, I wanted him to understand first that—”

“That I can’t do my job. That’s what you basically said, by going there first. And you’re right.” She glanced down at the desktop, with its neatly stacked papers and files. “You’re probably right,” she said again in a low voice. “I should have pushed harder from the start. Played hardball. I would have, if you’d been anyone else. I take responsibility for that much. I just . . . from that first night we had dinner . . .” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes shifted from contemplative to accusatory. “Is that why you asked me out that first time? The night we went to dinner?”

“That was just dinner,” he said weakly.

“I was bugging you about your knee.” She held up a finger, then another. “You shot me down. I started again, and you asked me to dinner. To distract me? Was that . . .” Her eyes grew round, and his stomach roiled. If he’d have eaten lunch, he’d have lost it. “Is that what this whole thing was? Oh my God.”

“No. Jesus H., no, Marianne. You’re spinning.” He stood, went to pull her into his arms. If he could hold her for a minute, just a minute, they’d both calm the hell down and they could talk it out more rationally. “I—”

“Tell me the truth.” Her voice cut through him like tiny blades, but it was nothing compared to the hurt he felt when she scooted her chair out of his reach. “Right now, because I’m watching your eyes and I’ll know this time. Did you ask me to dinner . . . did you start this with me to keep me from hassling you about your knee?”

He hesitated, and that cost him. He could see it in the way she shut down. “I asked you to dinner to stop the inquisition, but—”

The blood drained from her face, and if she hadn’t been sitting down he would have had to lunge to keep her from falling to the floor face-first. As it was, he wondered if she’d just slide straight out of the chair into a puddle on the ground.

“I’m such an idiot,” she whispered.

“No.” He kept his voice firm, praying it would cut through whatever emotional bullshit she was letting block him out. “No, you’re not. This is my shit. I should have—”

“I should have seen past my emotions. I sat there, and let myself love you, and let this go on longer than . . .” She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. “I’m an idiot, and a fool. And most likely jobless. So.” She clapped her hands together once, the sharp sound echoing in the empty training room. Then she stood on stiff legs and grabbed her bag from under the desk. “Just . . . whatever paperwork you have, slide it under the door before you leave. I’ll grab it and put it in your file in the morning before the meeting. Thirty minutes before warm-up, like you said.”

“You’re leaving? Just like that.” God, why couldn’t she slow down and let him talk for a minute?

“Just like that,” she agreed, looping the strap over her shoulder. She watched him for a moment, face still white, eyes a little hollow. When he didn’t move, she waved an arm expectantly toward the door. “You have to go first. I need to lock the door.”

“I can’t . . .” He cleared his throat, struggling to talk around the lump. “I can’t just leave with us like this.”

“You can, and you will. Unless you want to be arrested for trespassing.”

His legs felt like lead, and it had nothing to do with the afternoon’s conditioning exercises. But he managed to walk out through the wide double doors of the training room and wait for her to close them. “Just . . . can you call me later? Please. Let me know you got home okay, or something?”

“I’ve been driving myself around Jacksonville longer than you’ve been in the Marine Corps. I’ll get home just fine.” She locked the door, then turned and headed for the parking lot. He started to follow, then remembered his duffel and ran to grab it, cursing a little when his knee caught and hitched his stride. When he got to the parking lot himself, her car was pulling out.

She was gone, and there was no way in hell she wanted him chasing after her.

Jesus H.

*   *   *

MARIANNE made it home—barely—before the tears started. How could she have been so damn stupid? She’d sat there and fallen in love with one of her athletes. Had given herself permission to. That was bad enough, though not the end of the world. But she’d let it blind her to his problems . . . or at least to the severity of them. She’d let it damage her credibility as a trainer.

Damn him for doing this to her. For not only breaking her heart, but her confidence.

She beat on the steering wheel, jolting when her fist hit the horn instead.

Fantastic idea, Marianne. Destroy your property. That’ll show him.

She forced herself to take a deep breath, but that only ended in a hiccup, and she started all over again.

She was losing the guy she’d fallen in love with. Losing that sappy dream, the one that had caused her to doodle hearts and swirls on a notebook page. Just remembering that embarrassing moment made her cringe.

And now she was losing the dream of working in the big leagues. Colleges, minor leagues, farm teams . . . good-bye. Maybe taping up entitled high school jocks and icing down cheerleading injuries was just where she belonged.

Five seconds of that train of thought and Marianne knew it was absolute, utter bullshit. She was good at her job. She’d made a mistake, damn it, but who the hell didn’t make one every so often? She’d learned, that was for sure. No way was she even getting remotely involved with an athlete after this. Burned once . . .

She would go into the coach’s office tomorrow, lay down the error, tell him it wouldn’t happen again, and accept the lecture she deserved. And she would treat it as a foregone conclusion that she would keep her job, because she was good at it. As far as working with Brad . . . she would be a professional, because that’s what she was. A damn professional.

Her phone beeped, and she checked it. Kara.

How’d it go?

She knew her friend wasn’t asking about practice. She was asking about Brad.

Not so good.

Wanna come over for pancakes? Son’s cooking.

She nearly said no, because really, pancakes now? Heartbreak could not be solved by carb-alicious pancakes and syrup.

But then again, it couldn’t hurt.

An hour later, she pushed away from the coffee table where she and Kara were sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching a Project Runway marathon thanks to DVR. “Those were amazing. Seriously. That kid needs to be a chef.”

“He is sort of amazing, isn’t he?” Kara smiled the warm smile of maternal pride, and maybe a little smugness. Marianne didn’t blame her. Anyone who raised a halfway decent kid had a reason to be smug.

Marianne’s bag rang, and Kara reached for it without asking.

“Go right ahead.” Marianne waved and let her head hit the seat of the couch behind them. She patted her belly, too full to do anything else. “Tell whoever it is I’m currently in a breakfast-for-dinner food coma and I’ll get back to them tomorrow.”

“It’s Brad.”

She didn’t move, but her entire body tensed. “Then tell him to fuck off.”

“Kid in the room,” Zach said wryly as he came in to grab their plates.

“Sorry, Zach.” Marianne cracked an eye open and shot Kara an apologetic smile. “My bad.”

“He’s heard worse at school, I’m sure. Though he knows not to repeat it,” Kara added with a warning tone.

Her son saluted her and headed back to the kitchen with their empty plates. A moment later, they heard the sink running.

“He cooks pancakes and does dishes? I’ll take two.”

Kara chuckled. “He’s sucking up. I took away the Xbox for sassing off, and he’s attempting to get back into my good graces so he can return to Minecraft a day or two early.”

“Not gonna happen, is it?”

“Hell, no. But I’m not telling him that. I might get a load or two of laundry out of the deal before I drop the truth bomb.” Kara held up the phone, which beeped with a voice mail. “Want to check it?”

“No. There’s really nothing left to talk about.” She held out a hand for the phone, but it started ringing again before Kara could pass it over. “Now who?”

“Brad again.” Kara rejected the call, then turned Marianne’s phone off before tossing it back in the tote bag. “There. You can check it tomorrow when you get to work.”

“I love you.”

“I know you do.” Kara pressed her cheek to Marianne’s head for a moment. “Do you need to stay here, or are you okay to drive back home?”

“I had eighteen pancakes, not beers. Ugh,” she finished with a groan, rubbing her stomach harder. “You’d think I’d learn. Carbs never solve anything.”

“But they taste delicious while you avoid your problems.” Kara snickered as Marianne flipped her off. “Come on, Carb Queen. Let’s get you back to your car.”