Chapter 9—Standing in the Pocket

A few days later, Tyler wrapped his hands around a beer bottle and watched Lavender. She single-handedly managed the bar and juggled orders from the various patrons with her usual sassy efficiency.

He shifted on his barstool, the same barstool that should have his name on it. No one else in the small island town dared to sit in his space. If some poor, clueless soul parked his ass on Tyler’s stool, a regular made sure he vacated it as soon as Ty walked in the door. He liked that about a small town. People got it.

Lavender whooshed by him, balancing a full tray of drinks. He followed her with his eyes, appreciating her many assets. Hell, his fantasies about those particular assets kept him sane or happily insane. Zipping behind the bar, she whipped up a few martinis. Somehow she managed to please all her customers, except him. As long as she wore clothes, he’d be wanting more. A lot more.

Tyler’s gaze swept across the room and zeroed in on a guy watching Lavender as intently as he was. The jerk flirted shamelessly with her, and she flirted right back. A wave of jealousy surged through him, surprising in its intensity. He tried to shrug the emotion off as a by-product of his alpha-male possessive streak. What’s his was his, and no one else better forget that.

His? What the fuck. She wasn’t his. In fact, they didn’t even like each other. Of course, those two little details didn’t stop Tyler. He locked eyes with the interloper and pinned him to the wall with a threatening glare. No one lusted after the woman Tyler currently lusted over. No one. The chickenshit paled and swallowed nervously. After gulping down the last of his beer, the idiot slapped some change on the table and quickly hustled out the door. Smug with satisfaction, Tyler did another survey of the room. Good, all was as it should be. He settled back and focused his energy on Lavender fantasies.

Tyler’s cell vibrated. He frowned, irritated at being interrupted, and checked out the caller ID—his cousin and best buddy, Derek Ramsey. This better be good. He pressed the answer button. “What’s up, asshole?”

“I could say the same of you.”

“I’m fine. What the fu— fudge are you harassing me for?” Tyler shot a quick glance in Lavender’s direction. She stood too far away to catch his almost slip.

Derek cleared his throat, followed by silence on the line. Not a good sign. Tyler’s instincts went on red alert. He drummed his fingers on the counter. His cousin remained silent.

Tyler hated waiting. “Aw, shit. Put on your big-boy pants and spit it out. Or did Rachel burn them all?”

Derek made an odd noise then finally spoke. “I thought you’d rather hear this from me than from the media.”

Tyler sucked in a deep breath and let it out. He shoved his fingers through his unruly hair. He needed to get it cut, but that was the least of his problems. “Oh, crap, what now?”

“There’s no easy way to say this, buddy. Brace yourself.” He heard Derek inhale then exhale.

Tyler’s mind raced through a hundred possibilities. Somehow they did charge him with a DUI. Maybe some woman came forward and insisted he fathered her kid. Or he’d been cut from the team. Or his sisters ran off to South America with what was left of his money. He shouldn’t have ignored his agent’s many calls. “Dang it. Tell me. What is it?”

“The Steelheads signed Zach Murphy to a one-year contract.”

Tyler went still inside, rendered completely speechless. He bit the side of his mouth just to make sure he hadn’t died from shock. The taste of his blood mingled with disbelief. “Zach Murphy? Are you frigging kidding me?” Across the counter, Lavender raised a brow. He raised a brow right back at her.

“Yeah. I guess Zach took a big pay cut to play for us. He wants to go out with a bang his last year in the league. The poor bastard’s played with piece-of-crap teams his entire pro career. He wants a ring.”

Tyler clenched his jaw and ground his teeth together. He wanted to hit something. How could the Steelheads do this to him?

He dropped a five in the jar before opening his mouth. He knew this wasn’t going to be good. Even if he couldn’t use the F word, he had others. “Damn it. Everyone knows I can’t stand that idiot dickwad, and he feels the same. The asshole is a dirty player. Mother-effing dirty. He’s tried to take me out more than once.”

“Yeah, and he’s laid you flat on your back more than any other linebacker in the league. The guy’s good.” His fuckhead cousin almost sounded amused, which didn’t improve Tyler’s temper one bit.

“He’s old, washed up. There isn’t room on the team for both of us.”

“Tell that to the Steelheads. If you haven’t noticed, you didn’t get a vote. This is your wakeup call, dumb shit. I’m not the only teammate who noticed your attitude this past season, or should I say lack of?”

Tyler tightened his grip on the cell phone, wanting to crush the life out of this electronic bearer of fucking bad news. He thought he’d been clever, fooled them all, but his teammates and coaches had seen through his not-so-incredible acting job.

“HughJack loves Murphy’s fire. Says the team could use a little of it these days.” Hubert Jackson, a.k.a. HughJack, was the team’s coach.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Like he didn’t know? Maybe they’d disrespected him with this obvious vote of no confidence, but he was also guilty as charged.

“They’re doubting your team leadership.”

His cousin’s words cut right to the heart of the matter.

Enough of this shit.

Tyler jabbed the end button on the phone, cutting off his cousin. Without even a backward glance, he stomped out of the bar into the dark, rainy evening, which matched his mood just fucking fine.

 

* * * * *

 

Lavender grappled with the large roll of welded wire fencing. It took on a mind of its own and wrestled her to the ground. She was losing the battle when her neighbor decided to be neighborly and lifted the recalcitrant roll off her pinned body as if the heavy wire was a roll of toilet paper. Sometimes brute strength did have its advantages.

She ignored his outstretched hand and struggled to her feet. “Good to see you know how to use those muscles.”

“That’s how I make my money, babe.” A cocky grin spread across his strong, square jaw. His Caribbean-blue eyes twinkled with pure devilment, even though she sensed an edge to him.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Whatever you say, El.” He was deliberately attempting to provoke her.

“Don’t call me that either.”

“Lilac? Violet?”

She shook her head violently and tried like hell not to laugh, which would only encourage the insufferably obnoxious man. “How about not. Perhaps I’ll come up with something equally annoying to call you.”

“Call me anything you want, baby.” He reached up and brushed a smear of dirt from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. Her body responded with a revealing shudder. His eyes turned the color of an ocean in a storm, a sexual storm. “Damn, I love it when you get down and dirty.”

Lavender sighed and brushed off her clothes, aware of her innate scruffiness in comparison to his innate gorgeousness. “Did you come over here to exercise your vast wit or do you need something?”

“No, but you do. I couldn’t stand watching you fight with the fencing. It was about to deliver the knockout punch.” He leaned down, his mouth way too close to her ear. “Besides, if anyone’s going to wrestle you to the ground, it’ll be me.”

“Why don’t you exercise your feet and leave?” Before her body exercised its fantasies.

“Seems someone called the phone company and canceled my request for service. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” He propped one foot on the bumper of her pickup truck, more amused than pissed off, which irritated her.

She wiped her face of all emotion, but she was pretty damn sure guilt still came through. “No, not a thing.”

“I figured as much. Now I have to wait another few weeks. My ninety days will be up before I get service on this island. Guess what? Maybe I’d just as soon be unreachable.”

“Then you don’t have a problem. Someone—I’m not saying it’s me—did you a favor.”

“Perhaps. Being incommunicado does have its merits. But as attractive as it is, I have business to attend to.”

“If you leave the island now, you can attend to all the business you want.”

He shook his head, not the least bit put off. “Now that’s no way to treat a man with a hammer, especially when he knows how to use it.” Tyler held up a good-sized hammer for her inspection. For once he smiled a genuine smile, a nice-guy smile oddly out of place on his sinfully bad-boy face.

“Are you offering to help me with my fencing?”

“Yup, just to get a little peace. You’re making a fu— frigging racket.” He smirked at his quick catch. The man wanted his kiss. Of course, he’d most likely pegged her right and knew a kiss would only be foreplay to the foreplay.

“Something has me curious.” Tyler looked at her long and hard. She started to squirm under his dissecting gaze. “You don’t have any animals? What’s up with that? Don’t you like animals?”

“I love animals.” Lavender felt a twinge of jealousy toward her neighbor, not because of his fame or money, but because he was living with the cat, and she had no animals to comfort her or stave off the loneliness. She’d never planned to live in her parents’ house for this long, but the bad economy and life conspired to keep her under their thumb.

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“My landlady, who happens to be my mother, is highly allergic to animal fur. She doesn’t want cats in the house.”

“She doesn’t live here. You do.”

Lavender shrugged. Her mom could be a little controlling but only because she loved Lavender and wanted the best for her daughter, who didn’t have a history of making the right choices.

“So what’s the fence for?”

“To keep the deer out of the vegetables.”

Tyler gazed pointedly at her woebegone vegetable garden. “I think it’s too late.”

“So do I, but I promised I’d fence off the garden.” Her mother loved fresh vegetables, one of the things Lavender with the brown thumb did to earn her keep on this little plot of land.

“Let me get to work.”

“Pound away, jock boy.”

Tyler slanted her a sideways look.

“Drag your sorry ass out of the gutter. I meant with a hammer.” Lavender stood back with anticipation and waited for him to make an ass of himself demonstrating his hammer-pounding talents. Tyler grinned. Perfect white teeth stood out against his dark tan. No one had a tan in the islands this time of year, but Tyler did.

“Go for it. I’d like to see you wield that hammer.” Would she ever.

He opened his mouth to speak then seemed to think better of it. He turned to the task at hand and assessed the damage.

Lavender flipped a bucket upside down and took a seat. They were getting along almost too well, and she scrambled to find a subject to ruin his mood. “What’s the deal with Zach Murphy?”

Immediately, the shutters slammed shut over his eyes, and he regarded her warily. “You were eavesdropping on my conversation last night.”

“I, uh, I just happened to, uh, overhear a bit of it. That’s all.”

“Then you already know what the deal is.”

“Not really. I could only hear one side of it.”

“We hate each other’s fu— frigging guts. That’s the deal.”

“So I hear.”

“You did? I thought you hated football?”

“Just because I hate football doesn’t mean I don’t know stuff about it. Why would the Steelheads sign someone who has a very public feud with the heart and soul of their team?”

“Maybe they’re looking for a new heart and soul.” He frowned, as if he hadn’t meant to say the words out loud.

“You’ve done some stupid things lately, like driving drunk.”

He glared down at her with a ferocity she’d never witnessed from him. “Have you ever seen me drink too much to drive home?”

Lavender searched her memory. “No, I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“If that’s what you think…” Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked at an unseen spot in the distance. His expression hardened with determination. “It’s my team. He’ll learn that soon enough. I can handle the jerk. No big deal.”

But it was a big deal, as illustrated by the restlessness she’d sensed in him earlier. It went deeper than the team signing a player Tyler didn’t like and rumors of pending DUI charges. Beneath his unease lingered a hint of something, almost like insecurity, or fear, even vulnerability. She shook her head, denying the quarterback possessed a heart with real emotions. The second she acknowledged he might be human would be the beginning of the end of her ability to resist him.

“I’m sure it’ll all work out just fine.”

“I’m sure it will.” He didn’t look one damn bit convinced.

Turning his back to her, Tyler picked up a hammer and fence staples. Giving each staple a few solid whacks, he attached one end of the fence to the post. Then he rolled the rest out on the ground.

Lavender stayed out of his way. The man worked like a hummingbird on crack. His hammer strokes were efficient and clean, no wasted movement. He showed her how to stretch the fence tight with a come-along tool. What would have taken her hours and looked like crap took him a little over an hour and looked better than most professional fencing jobs she’d seen.

She hated to be impressed, but she was.

 

* * * *

 

Tyler drove in the last fence staple then stood back to admire his handiwork, the most satisfying chore he’d done in the past twenty-four hours. Pushing his baseball cap off his brow, he wiped off the sweat with the bottom of his T-shirt.

He’d walked over here with every intention of starting an argument with her, anything to assuage his bad temper. The second he’d seen her down for the count with the fence winning the match, he couldn’t suppress his amusement.

“Does that cat always follow you around?” Lavender stood close behind him, too close. Her curvy body enticed him. Just the sight of her fueled a lifetime of wet dreams.

“He’s not following me.” Tyler almost smiled as he caught sight of Cougar sitting on a fence post, casually licking his nonexistent balls and faking disinterest in what the humans were doing. Truth be told, the cat followed him everywhere, to the bathroom in the morning, out to the barn, to the garage… Anywhere Tyler went, the cat showed up. He even followed him to the kitchen every morning and bitched until Tyler put fresh food in his dish. Every time he caught the cat following him, the little orange bastard would sit down and preen as if he wasn’t following Tyler at all. Tyler knew better.

“I really do appreciate your help.” Her words sounded forced, like thanking him didn’t come easily.

“Does this mean you don’t hate me anymore?”

“Of course it doesn’t.” She lifted her chin, a defiant tilt to her head. One curly strand of red hair fell over her cheek. He wanted to touch it, roll it between his fingers.

“Good, I wouldn’t want to end an enjoyable neighborly feud.” He moved into her space. His nostrils filled with the scent of lavender and aroused woman.

“Never happen.”

“I’m counting on it.” He leaned closer and ran the pad of his calloused thumb down her cheek and tucked the rebellious strand behind her ear. “Conflict makes sex even better.”

“Too bad you won’t find out how good.”

“I will, purple lady. I promise. One kiss from me, and you’ll be putty in my hands.”

“You have to win first.”

“Honey, I never lose. Winning is encoded into my DNA.” He noticed she didn’t say she’d stop after one kiss, just that he had to win. He suspected his redheaded tigress would be a wild, untamed animal in bed, the best kind. He was a physical guy with physical needs and a healthy imagination when it came to sex. An imagination he didn’t mind indulging. Lavender might not be his usual type, but the chemistry between them snapped and sizzled.

She opened her mouth to respond when a voice from the front of her house interrupted them. Lavender jerked around and tensed immediately.

“Lavender? Honey, where are you?” A small powerhouse of a woman came into view from the corner of Lavender’s little house, followed by an equally short, balding man. They were both dressed casually in jeans and hoodies. The woman’s red hair was a little too red to be natural, and she had this eighties big-hair thing going on.

Lavender frowned and turned to Tyler. “It’d be good if you left now.”

The woman hadn’t noticed them. Stopping at the side of the house, with her back to them, she started pulling weeds from one of the overgrown flowerbeds. Tyler recognized the signs of a nosy female relative. After all, he’d grown up with more than his share. “Is that your mother?”

Lavender nodded and fidgeted with wire cutters. “You really need to go.”

Tyler considered his options—stick around and needle Lavender or get the hell out of Dodge. As much fun as it might be to stay, he wasn’t interested in meeting his neighbor’s family, especially when he didn’t want to get involved with Lavender on anything but a sexual level.

He grabbed his tools and slipped through the gate in their mutual fence.

Cougar leaped off the fence post and raced ahead, not wanting to be left behind.

Smart cat.

 

* * * * *

 

For the next hour, Brenda Mead fretted over her daughter’s situation. Was she eating healthy foods? Was she getting enough exercise? Had she done more thinking about going back to college? Lavender learned after her rebellious teenage years to nod and say nothing. It made her life much easier. Thank goodness her mother and stepfather lived on the mainland and didn’t make the ferry trip to the island too often.

Brenda paused in mid-sentence and frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t wear that thing.”

“What thing?”

“That ring your father gave you. You shouldn’t wear it. It brings back painful memories.”

Lavender shrugged. She didn’t know why she always wore the ring, but she did, and she refused to take it off. “I like it.”

Brenda sighed and stared out the back window. “You repaired your fence. It looks good.” She motioned to her ever-present husband. “Larry, look at this.”

Larry Mead walked over and peered out the window pane. “That fence looks better than this house.”

Lavender said nothing.

“How much did the fence cost?” Her mother’s eyes were clouded with concern. Lavender immediately felt a twinge of guilt, a familiar neighborhood.

“Nothing. I did it myself.”

“Honey, tell me the truth.” Her mother’s face looked ten years older when she frowned like that.

Her stepfather, a retired accountant, rarely said much. Boring but nice, just the type of man her mother loved to control. Nothing like her father had been.

“I’m not lying.”

“Who built that fence for you?” When her mother grabbed hold of something, she hung on to it like a rabid retriever with its favorite ball.

“My neighbor helped me.”

“What neighbor? Not the college dropout down the road with the dreadlocks? The one who does drugs.”

“Gideon doesn’t do drugs. He’s just a free spirit. And, no, he didn’t help me.”

“Who then?”

Lavender sighed. There was no way out. “The guy who inherited the mansion.”

“Twin Cedars?”

Lavender nodded and busied herself making a fresh pot of coffee. Her mother and stepfather walked to the side window and looked out. “The place looks uninhabited.”

“He’s working on the inside first.”

“Who is he?” Brenda straightened a picture on the wall and ran her finger across a wood table. She frowned at the dust.

“Just some nice guy.” Lavender choked on the word nice. If they only knew.

“What’s his name?”

“No one you’d know.”

“Wait a minute. It’s that football player, isn’t it? Tyler Harris?” Larry said.

Playing dumb seemed the only viable option. “Oh, does he play football? I don’t know him well.”

Her mother studied her closely, giving the impression she saw it all very clearly.

“We’re not even friends. We can’t stand each other.”

“A man you can’t stand helped you build a fence?”

Lavender shrugged. “He’s bored.”

“He’s in loads of trouble.” Larry’s helpful addition to the conversation didn’t help Lavender one damn bit. “He was driving drunk, ran into a cop car, and resisted arrest. I heard he assaulted a police officer when they tried to cuff him. He’s got drug and alcohol problems.”

“Please tell me you’re not interested in him as anything but a neighbor. You know how athletes can be, especially wealthy ones.” Brenda’s concern was written across her face.

“Tyler and I aren’t even friends.”

“His reputation precedes him. He’s—”

“Mom, I know. I’m not interested in him, and he certainly isn’t interested in me. He’s just a neighbor.”

“I hope that’s all he is.” Brenda rubbed her eyes as if she was weary of having these kinds of conversations with her daughter.

Lavender couldn’t blame her.