Chapter Two

Lisette stopped herself from slamming the door at the last second. Oh, her day deserved a slammed door or twelve. But Noelle might be napping. And she couldn’t bear the thought of a door slammed in a fit of temper someday causing the tiny baby in her sister’s tummy to fail a geometry test.

Was that massive overkill on the fetal-development worry scale? Probably. But Lisette was already head-over-heels in love with her niece- or nephew-to-be and wouldn’t risk doing anything to stunt their growth.

She could, however, throw back two or three Sazeracs herself. It’d cause no harm to Noelle’s baby and might tamp down her raging temper. So Lisette kicked off her heels and tiptoed, barefoot, straight to the refrigerator.

Where she suddenly remembered that her sister had thrown a giant party upon learning she was pregnant so her friends could drink up all her liquor. Lisette leaned her forehead against the cool stainless-steel door. There wasn’t a drop in the house. That was the problem with quitting your job, using up your savings to train to switch careers and having to move in with your sister.

Who was she kidding? Lisette had waaaay bigger problems than just an empty liquor cabinet. Such as no job, and suddenly, no longer even a prospect of a job.

“How’d it go?” Noelle leaned against the doorframe. Both hands cradled the nearly imperceptible baby bump beneath her oversized pink tee.

“Oh, you mean my job interview?” She pushed off the fridge and circled the room, staring at all of the cabinets as if that’d make rye and bitters magically appear. “The one that was supposed to be a slam dunk?”

“Yes. That one,” Noelle said dryly.

“It went great. Off-the-charts terrific.”

“Then why are you pacing the kitchen like a caged tiger?”

“Because.” Lisette threw up her hands. “Because after they all but promised me the job on the spot, I got a call ten minutes later when I was on the freeway coming in from Metairie. They turned me down. Flat.”

“I’m sorry, Lissy.” Noelle rounded the breakfast bar to envelop her in a hug that made everything better—for about ten whole seconds. “But don’t let yourself dwell on it too much. Something else will come up.”

Hormones made her older sister happy. All the time. Everything was rainbows and unicorns and happy endings. It was adorable, but far from useful. “I’m sure you’re right. But when? I need a job. I’m spending all of my savings on school. I need money. Now.”

“I told you that you can stay with me as long as you like.”

“Which is sweet.” Lisette pulled out of the hug. “Except that you’re getting married in two months. Before the baby poofs out your wedding dress, remember? The ingredients to a good marriage do not include your desperate, third-wheel sister skulking back to your spare room. I’ve got to pull together enough for first and last month’s rent someplace else. Get out of your hair.”

Noelle might not feel the urgency. But Lisette did. And she had a feeling that, as understanding as Sean was to her face, her sister’s fiancé was counting the days until Lisette moved out.

Not that she blamed him one bit.

A knock on the front door sent them both spinning around. “Did you order a hot guy to cheer me up?” Lisette teased.

“Sorry, Lissy.” Noelle shook her head as she walked to the door. “I nabbed the last one in all of Orleans Parish.” She opened it, turned over her shoulder and yelled, “Or maybe not.”

That was odd. Since there wasn’t any reason to stay in the kitchen, Lisette gave in to curiosity and wandered through the living room to catch a glimpse of what must be a super-hot UPS man.

“Is Lisette home?” a deep voice rumbled.

“For you? I’m pretty sure she is.” Noelle opened the door the rest of the way and headed back toward her bedroom. “He’s all yours, sugar.”

All six feet, four inches of Kurt Lundquist filled the doorway. Short brown hair, spiked in the front. Blue eyes as light as an Antarctic glacier. A strong jaw that drew attention to wide lips that made a woman imagine all sorts of wicked things. Although the image of his naked chest was indelibly etched upon Lisette’s memory, now it was covered by a steel-blue polo tucked into bone-colored shorts.

Having him show up at her apartment door—or even her sister’s door—was an almost year-long fantasy come true. Lisette had lusted after Kurt since the moment she’d met him, shaking hands across his brother’s hospital bed. Actually, she’d lusted after him for a year prior to that. Ever since he’d made the move from the Cincinnati Snakes to the Cajun Rage. Posters and billboards of him had been plastered all over New Orleans. Lisette had fallen for his ice-cold eyes and hot body just as hard as the rest of the women in the city.

Not that it mattered. It was clear he’d never looked beyond her purple nurse’s scrubs to see the woman underneath. To him, she was just Jasper’s caregiver. And no matter how much she wanted Kurt, no matter how much she’d grown to like and respect him while working in his family’s house, Lisette knew she’d never be anything but a reminder of the saddest time of his life.

Nevertheless, she was super glad to still be in her interview outfit. If he’d shown up five minutes later? It would’ve been the makeup-off, shorts-on, ponytailed version of herself who greeted him. She might not have a shot with Kurt. But Lisette did have her pride.

So she put a tiny bit of a sway in her walk as she approached the door. “This is a surprise. I never expected to see you again, let alone twice in one day.”

“Watch out. I’m addicting.”

“That’s a bold promise.”

“Nope.” His lips curled into the same smug smile he slipped on right after a perfectly executed slap shot. “Just a fact.”

“Even bolder.”

“Bold enough to get an invite inside?”

Omigosh. The shock of Kurt flirting with her, showing a side she’d never seen other than in television clips, had shocked the manners right out of her. Lisette yanked the door open wide. “Of course. I’m so sorry. I’m having a weird day.”

“Weird how? Like you found a fingertip in your salad?”

She froze, one arm outstretched toward the cream-colored sofa. “That’s randomly horrible. Do you think that just because I’m a nurse, body-part references won’t skeeve me out?”

“Now I’m sorry. I just...” Kurt shoved his hands into his pockets. “Let’s say I’m out of practice making small talk with a pretty girl.”

This couldn’t be happening. Kurt couldn’t be standing in the middle of her sister’s living room, flirting with her. It made no sense.

Hang on.

What made even less sense was him pretending to be off his game. In fact, it pissed Lisette off more than a little.

“Do you really expect me to fall for a line like that? Remember, I spent a lot of time listening to you tell Jasper stories. Especially stories about all the women who throw themselves at you. How they wait to ambush you at the rink after practice. Follow you up the elevator in hotels. Even trail you into the bathroom at clubs.”

He nodded. “That still happens.”

“I thought so.”

“I just don’t follow through anymore.”

“Really.” She let the disbelief and sarcasm coat the word as thickly as perfume hung in a Bourbon Street bar bathroom on a Saturday night. “You’re telling me that you took a vow of celibacy to win the Cup? The way some guys stop shaving?”

“Not on purpose. But I promised Jasper that I’d win it. For him. I pushed myself harder than ever. I used any extra time to help a couple of rookies on the team. Basically, I didn’t look at anyone without a mouth guard, a helmet and a stick for the whole season.”

“The season ended in April, Kurt. With the biggest win of your life. Champagne can’t be the only thing you popped to celebrate.”

Snickers floated down the hall. Great. Not only did Lisette get to be humiliated by a sports star, but she had a witness. She hurried down the hall. Stuck out her tongue at Noelle before trying to shut the bedroom door. But Noelle jammed a foot in the gap.

“You’re really putting him through his paces. Make him work for it, Lissy.”

“Eavesdrop any more, and I’ll set the scale ahead by five pounds. You just won’t know when.”

“Cruel.”

“Nosy.” She slammed the door. Living with her sister turned them both back into teenagers occasionally. When Lisette whirled around, Kurt was there. In her space. Filling the hallway with his broad shoulders.

He braced one hand on the wall behind her. “Look, I’m not feeding you lines. And I’m not lying. Once I won the Cup, I didn’t have anything else to work for, to aim for. So I’ve, uh, been in a funk. For a while.”

Understanding sliced through her on razor-sharp shards of regret for hassling him. God, she’d trained in not just how to care for the dying, but how to care for loved ones dealing with their loss. How shortsighted to ignore all of that just because Kurt was famous. Or because maybe, just maybe, because she’d always been jealous of the women who got to spend the night with him.

Lisette was aghast at her lack of compassion. She put her palm gently on his chest. “You’re still grieving.”

“Maybe some.” Shrugging, he added, “Not all the time. That heavy fog of it is gone.”

It hadn’t even been a year since Jasper’s death. Lisette knew all too well, clinically, that grief didn’t fade away cleanly, like a pimple. That it’d come back and go another ten rounds on Kurt when he least expected it, many more times. Taking off her nurse’s cap, though, it was easy to tell from the dull flatness in his tone and the downward turn of those wide lips that Kurt was still struggling.

After silence hung between them for far too long, Lisette prompted, “But?”

“I can’t get my stride back. Can’t get excited about...well, anything.” His other arm lifted to cage her in completely. Those ice-blue eyes pierced shockingly straight into her. “Until today. I was excited to see you.”

Lisette could barely breathe. She didn’t want so much as a puff of air to dispel the moment. The heat, the intensity swirling between them. She just wanted to stand here, a breath away from lips that promised to engulf hers, eyes that already burned with something she was scared to try to name.

She wanted this moment, taut with anticipation, to last forever.

It didn’t seem possible, but when she didn’t respond, Kurt moved even closer. His breath fanned across her cheek in an almost infinitesimal caress. In a near whisper, he said, “I shouldn’t do this.”

Not a blink, not a sound. Lisette froze.

Waiting. Hoping.

“Push me away,” he demanded.

She still didn’t say anything. But she curled her fingers into his shirt, just the tiniest bit.

It was all the signal he needed.

Kurt dipped his head the rest of the way to slant his lips across hers. She’d thought it’d be hard and fast, the way he played.

But his wide lips just teased at hers. Stroking and nipping and gently setting off sparks of excitement that sensitized her even more. Lisette slid her hand up, over his shoulder, to curve around his strong neck. Realized that they were still staring into each other’s eyes. It was the most intimate kiss of her life. She felt stripped naked already, right outside her pregnant sister’s bedroom.

Kurt’s hand came off the wall to skim down her side. His thumb grazed the side of her breast. When she moaned and arched into the touch, he slipped his tongue into her mouth. Whatever heat she’d imagined between them before quadrupled.

It was obvious he’d been holding back. Because now his tongue thrust with a rhythmic, searching skill that had her grabbing at his waist just to stay upright. There wasn’t an ounce of extra skin on him. So her fingers curved lower, into the top rise of that amazingly tight ass to find purchase.

Obligingly, he tilted his hips forward. Lisette felt his interest—all of it—in a hard, vertical line against her belly. As fast as this kiss had heated her up, Kurt was right there with her. That spiraled Lisette up even higher, even faster. It was amazing to be so wanted by someone she’d lusted after for so long.

His fingers tunneled through her hair, tilting her head to the side so he could move his kisses in a line across her jaw over to her ear. Teeth closed on her lobe. Gently, but with just enough of a bite to zing wetness between her thighs. His tongue flicked the very edge while his teeth held on and his lips kept moving, caressing the oh-so-sensitive inner shell of her ear. Holy crap, but the man was good at that.

Kurt brushed his thumb along her breast again, this time with more purpose. A little more pressure. Enough so that Lisette arched sideways and let out a soft moan.

His head jerked back. “Shhh. Your sister,” he cautioned.

Oh. Yeah. Probably six inches away with her cheek pressed against the door. Talk about a mood-breaker. Lisette came off the tiptoes she didn’t remember flexing up onto and stepped out of his embrace.

“Let’s, um, go back into the living room.” As she led the way, Lisette put her palms to her cheeks. They were flaming hot...just like many, many other parts of her.

She sat in the wooden rocking chair. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, with its ladder back. But it kept her away from the couch, where she’d be tempted to crawl right onto Kurt’s lap. Lisette laced her fingers together. Then she remembered what they’d been doing and hastily reached up to finger-comb her hair. “What brings you here, Kurt?”

One dark blond eyebrow shot up.

It was devilish and sexy and sent her pulse jackrabbiting again. “Besides that. I assume you didn’t come here to kiss me.”

“Didn’t your mother teach you that it’s never safe to assume anything? But,” he continued at her get-on-with-it glare, “I came over here to get your help.”

“With what?”

“I need you to plan a party.”

That was about as random a request as if he’d asked her to help wax his hockey stick. Instantly, Lisette wondered if that phrase was as dirty as it sounded in her head. Thank goodness she hadn’t said it out loud. There was no question that Kurt flustered her beyond all telling.

“My tools of choice are a stethoscope and hypodermic needles, not a clipboard and balloons. I think you’ve got the wrong woman.”

“Are you kidding? Running into you today was exactly what I needed.” He leaned forward, draping those thick, hair-dusted forearms over his knees. “You planned Jasper’s birthday party.”

“I helped a sick patient.” A mere teenager, at that. Kurt couldn’t seriously be equating that to planning a party for a famous athlete.

“Don’t downplay it. Jasper told me that you made lots of decoration suggestions when he was stuck. You helped him work through the logistics.”

“While checking his blood pressure and changing his IV bags. I don’t know the first thing about professionally planning a party.”

“You helped him. I guarantee that means you know more than me.”

Well, that was probably true. Kurt was the ultimate guy’s guy. But that didn’t single her out as a party-planner extraordinaire by any means. “Kurt, you’re a big star. Your friends will expect excesses that I can’t even dream up.”

“This isn’t for my friends. Who, by the way, aren’t fancy at all. For the most part, we’re still all the same guys who used to scoot around a tin can with a broom in the kitchen.”

Mmm hmmm. She’d seen him in his Bentley SUV. Even if it was just a party with his teammates to watch a baseball game, they’d probably expect top-shelf liquor Lisette couldn’t even name. “Who is the party for?”

“Jasper’s old hockey team. I want to throw them a party on my day with the Cup.”

The unexpectedness of his answer stole away her breath almost as much as the heart-squeezing sweetness of it.

Lisette knew the tradition. Each member of the winning team got to spend one day with the Cup. They could do whatever they wanted, take it wherever they wanted, for twenty-four hours. She’d seen pictures of it over the past few weeks as the other Cajun Rage players had their days. It’d been to the top of the Matterhorn at Disneyland. It’d been right behind home plate at Yankee Stadium. And there’d been a photo of it draped with naked females that got removed from Twitter about two minutes after being posted.

But to throw a party for a high school hockey team? For them to get to touch it and pose with it in a way that so many professionals never even got the chance to do? That was selfless and wonderful of Kurt.

He stared up, over her shoulder, clearly lost in a memory. “It was on Jasper’s bucket list. He was so positive that we’d win it that he made me a bucket list of things to do with the Cup.”

Lisette flashed back to a piece of notebook paper she’d seen Jasper hide beneath his pillow and his tablet every time she entered the room. And realized that the young boy had been protecting her from his matter-of-fact acceptance of his impending death.

“Please, Lisette.” It took him only two long strides to cross the room. Kurt dropped to one knee, gripping the arm of her chair. The mix of desperation and vulnerability on his face  was so at odds with his muscular frame dominating the small space. “I need to do this up right. For Jasper. Come work for me. Just two weeks. I’ll pay you the same daily rate you got for nursing my brother. No, double that, if that’s what it takes. You cared for him so much, so well. This is the last thing he asked for. So you’re not done yet.”

No. Nope. Huh-uh. It was a bad idea for soooo many reasons. The ghost of losing Jasper would always hang between them. Lisette didn’t want to be reminded of the pain of losing him. After all, that’s why she’d spent the last ten months and all her savings training to switch her nursing specialty—to get away from the heartbreak of hospice care and its inevitable death.

Kurt wasn’t ready for a relationship. He was too busy holding himself together to be available to another person. Not to mention the overriding fact that Lisette had a gigantic crush on him that would undoubtedly only increase the more time she spent with the hockey hottie.

On the other hand...

There was absolutely no denying that she needed the money. It’d be a huge help. It’d be enough for a deposit on an apartment of her own. All she was doing was beating the pavement trying to get a job. That left quite a bit of time to fill during the day. This would keep her from going crazy with impatience at waiting for the phone to ring. It was apparent Kurt needed the help—both logistically and with balancing his grief. Lisette loved to help people. It made sense.

Accepting his offer would be the fiscally smart thing to do.

Emotionally injudicious, sure. Reckless, even. But who was she kidding? This wasn’t just about the money or even Kurt. In some way, no matter how small, she’d be helping carry out Jasper’s last wish. So there was only one possible response.

“When do I start?”