6. Six

Six

Nell froze.

Girlfriend?

The word seemed to explode in the air like a firecracker: loud, echoing, and (at least to her ears) startling enough to send small animals scurrying into the thickets. Which was exactly what Nell wanted to do. If she'd been thinking clearly, she'd have tried to laugh it off, then come up with a quick rejoinder or witty comment to put Whit in his place—which was at least twenty feet away from her and not molded to her side like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver.

Nell was not thinking clearly. In fact, she wasn't thinking at all. She was too stunned to react. It was a good thing Whit was holding her up, or she'd have toppled face first into the road.

GIRLFRIEND??

"I'm bringing her to meet my dad," Whit added. His hand had settled at her elbow, the tips of his fingers grazing the fabric of her sleeve, the arm he'd curved around her back the only thing keeping her upright—and effectively keeping her trapped. She was pinned to his body with her shoulder tucked against his chest and her hip snug against his thigh. And while he may have sounded cool and collected, he was humming with tension and he felt like a furnace.

A nervous laugh worked its way out of her. She was a little appalled she was even capable of making such a noise—it was practically a titter !—but decided it was forgivable, given the circumstances. Short of calling Whit a liar, there didn't seem to be much she could do, so she gave James her best attempt at a smile. "I go by Nell."

Then she brought her foot down on Whit's. Hard.

Something that might have been a yelp squeaked out of him, but he covered it with a cough and adjusted his grip on her, nearly lifting her off the ground as he steadied them both. "Or Nellie."

"Nellie is reserved for small children," she said through her teeth. "Maturity level aside, no one here qualifies, Whitney ."

"Your sister calls you Nellie," Whit pointed out.

"She named me. She can call me whatever she wants."

He tilted his head to glance down at her. "Your sister named you?"

Now why had she told him that? "I'm lucky she named me after a neighbor and not her stuffed bunny." She turned back to James. "It's nice to meet you. You're a friend of Whit's?"

James frowned, making his pirate scar bend inward. "Yeah. We go way back," he said gruffly, hitching a shoulder before turning to Whit. "I didn't think we'd be seeing you this week."

Whit just went right on smiling. "You thought wrong."

The rest of their conversation—which was an exercise in passive aggression that would've impressed even her grandmother—involved the details of getting the tire changed, so Nell spent it trying to come up with ways to punish Whit that wouldn't end with her being tossed in jail. Like sticking all of his baseballs together with Gorilla Glue. Or programming his car to play nothing but talk radio.

The second James returned to his truck to get his gear, she rounded on Whit. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Whit had the grace to look abashed. That was something. Not much, but something.

"I said I'd explain the video to your family," Nell continued. "I did not sign up to be your freaking girlfriend . You're supposed to be fake dating my sister, not me!"

And boy, if that didn't win some sort of prize for bizarre statement of the year.

"Hey, you went along with it. "

"Under duress!"

"Relax. It's not going to mess up Paige's little media show. No one in Fallen Oaks cares who I'm dating."

"Then why did you just introduce me as your girlfriend?"

"You'd rather he assume you're my weekend hookup?"

"Oh my god," Nell said. He was right. Who else would Whit be taking to his hometown, wearing what was clearly one of his own hoodies? James would have taken one look at her and decided they were sleeping together. "I hate this. I hate you ."

"Yeah, I'm pretty clear on that one."

"And before you even think of adding another point, that wasn't an insult, it was a statement of fact."

He sobered. "Do you want me to tell him you're just here helping me out?"

"No. I'd better be your girlfriend," she grumbled. "But we are avoiding everyone else in this town, and we are telling your family the truth, okay? No ridiculous story about how it was all just a hilarious accident." The truth didn't make either of them look particularly good, but at least she could tell it with a clear conscience.

Whit brushed a hand through his hair. "All right."

He'd agreed to that easier than she'd expected. It sort of deflated her righteous fury. "Well… good." She nibbled on her lower lip, glancing past him to where James was crouching down to fiddle with something on his truck. It was none of her business, but—

"So, what'd you do?" she asked. "Wait, let me guess. You slept with his girlfriend."

Whit, who had been gazing down the highway at some object in the distance, turned back toward her and frowned. "Why do you assume it's my fault?"

"Are you saying it's not?"

"I didn't sleep with his girlfriend."

"His mother?"

"Yes. I slept with his mother."

" You slept with his mother ? "

Whit rolled his eyes. "I didn't sleep with anyone, so get your mind out of the gutter. We grew apart, Nosy Nellie, that's all."

"Haha, very original."

"I thought so," he answered. She shot him a glare and he cracked a grin. "Are we done with Twenty Questions? Because you might want to wait in the car after all."

She blinked. "While he's changing the tire?"

"Unless you feel like making more friends," Whit said. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the truck making its way down the road. " No one in this town can mind their own business, so if they're a local, there's a good chance they stop."

Nell didn't wait to find out. She swung about and darted back to the car, diving into the passenger seat with Whit's soft, chuckling laughter floating behind her.

***

After three and a half hours in a car with Nell—plus another forty minutes on the side of the road—Whit had come to one inescapable conclusion: he seriously needed to get laid.

That was all there was to it. His body was sex-deprived and starving and desperately in need of the kind of workout that only a bout of vigorous, enthusiastic sheet-tangling could provide, or he would never have let whatever latent attraction he felt for her override his common sense. And override it it had. There was no denying the subtle physical tug he'd been feeling ever since Nell had bent over at the gas station just outside of Minneapolis, her tightly-fitted jeans providing him with a generous view of that gently-rounded bottom and those long, slender legs. Since then, he'd tried and failed to steer his thoughts in a less disastrous direction. Ignoring her had proved impossible. Reminding himself that she was off-limits even if she weren't an enormous pain in the ass had only tempted the perverse part of himself that couldn't resist a challenge. Whatever rational thought he'd had left had gone out the window the moment he'd seen her gazing up at him, flushed and flustered, all wide eyes and softly parted lips. He'd damn near kissed her before James's untimely—or rather, extremely timely— intervention.

So, okay, maybe the attraction wasn't all that latent. It definitely hadn't been latent four years ago, which had been more of a problem than he'd cared to admit. And he wasn't going to pretend she wasn't good-looking. Pretty, even. The silky wisps of hair that had come free from her ponytail had framed her face with loose curls, accentuating her caramel-colored eyes and the delicately sculpted line of her jaw. Her mouth was sensuous and prone to smiling (when she wasn't using it to argue with him, anyway), and she might look the very image of the girl-next-door, but the crooked little scar curving along her upper lip was a potent reminder that every nice girl had a naughty side.

But she was also the last woman on earth he should ever think about kissing. A few hours ago, he'd been happily imagining the expression on her face when he found the most cutthroat lawyer money could buy and slapped her with a couple of lawsuits. Now he'd just introduced her as his girlfriend.

Definitely not his best idea—though it had been less an idea than a reaction.

He'd been living with the antipathy of his former classmates for so long, he hadn't thought he'd let the icy disdain and naked hostility get to him. He'd been wrong. The confrontation with James had sent him hurtling straight back to high school, all the anger and hurt as fresh as it had been a decade ago, all the history he'd thought well-buried surfacing with roughly the force of a four-seam. He'd gotten the same tight, panicked feeling in his chest that he'd had four years ago when three separate doctors had told him he needed surgery. The same surge of adrenaline that had propelled him toward self-destruction after. The same quiet dread. And beneath it, the old, familiar bite of guilt.

He'd wanted to run. Just the sight of that scar slicing down James's face had made his stomach churn. For an instant, he could have sworn he'd caught the smell of burnt rubber. Then, instead of running, he'd used Nell as a buffer. It had been a stupid, desperate move—and an ironic one, considering she'd made no secret of her own dislike for him. Still, however low her opinion of him might be, it didn't compare with the utter contempt James held for him.

But then, she didn't know the worst of his sins.

Introducing her as his girlfriend hadn't been entirely for his own benefit, of course. He'd had to protect her reputation. What hopeful sportswriter would torpedo her career by getting involved with an athlete? That had to cross some serious professional and ethical boundaries. Eleanor Lacey, aspiring journalist, would've had a lot of explaining to do.

With that amused thought, he darted a quick glance toward Nell, who was sitting beside him with her arms folded. She'd been quiet since they got back in the car, her head turned toward the window, her body scooted as close to the door—and away from him—as she could manage. So he'd probably said something to piss her off again.

At least the ordeal was nearly over. He wasn't looking forward to the upcoming conversation with his father, but once it was done, he could send Nell and whatever ill-advised attraction he felt for her safely back out of his life.

"This is it," he said, easing his car into the long curve of driveway that led up to his father's house. Ahead, the sprawling two-story building with its white stucco exterior and wide picture windows came into view.

"Just so we're on the same page this time, we're going with the truth," Nell said as Whit pulled his Audi around the side of the house and put it in park. "Agreed?"

"You mean the truth where you were only apologizing to me so I would pretend to date your sister?" he asked, stepping out of the car and waiting for her to emerge on the passenger side before clicking the lock on his key fob. "That truth?"

"Maybe we should skip that part."

"There's some word… I can't quite think of it—goes along with omission… "

"It's not lying," she huffed. "It's cutting down on unnecessary details. "

"Uh-huh. Just remember you're supposed to be on my side here, so try to keep the insults to a minimum. And be nice."

"I'm always nice."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, I'm usually nice. Can we please just get this stupid thing over with?"

Smirking, Whit jogged the last few steps to the front entrance, Nell grumbling as she followed along behind him. The door had been left open a crack, which was unusual. He'd half expected to find his father had locked him out—and then changed the locks. But maybe whatever antics his sisters had gotten up to had provided a distraction. Clearly something was amiss. From inside, he could hear the sound of raised voices, and a couple of sharp yelps that sounded a lot like—

"Is that a dog?" Nell asked.

"My dad doesn't have a dog."

"Well, someone does," Nell said as Whit tugged the door open and ushered her inside.

Chaos greeted them. Whit hadn't taken more than three steps into the hall before a small terrier wearing a gray and red argyle sweater came streaking across the floor. The dog swerved as soon as it saw him, stopping to aim a few sharp yips in his direction, and then resumed course. It had left a small puddle of urine on the hardwood floor, Whit noticed—though no one else seemed to be paying the slightest attention to the dog. Or to him, for that matter.

He blinked, taking in the tableau. Gerda, his father's seventy-year-old housekeeper, was sitting on one of the blue upholstered dining room chairs, drinking scotch straight from the bottle and muttering in German. A frazzled-looking young woman carrying an iPad was pacing back and forth in front of the main staircase while a second terrier barked at her heels. Allie and Freddie stood near a side window, Freddie making soothing noises while Allie gestured wildly with her hands. Somewhere deeper in the house, Whit's dad was yelling into a phone—presumably—his voice reverberating down through the halls.

"Who are you?" the woman with the iPad asked, pausing to stare at them with wide, panicked eyes the color of cornflowers .

"Whit O'Rourke. Who are you?"

Her forehead wrinkled, but the panic vanished. "Oh. I thought you weren't coming. I'm Maggie, Skip's assistant. He's busy." She went back to pacing.

A thump sounded from above, followed by the telltale noise of a fist slamming into a wall. But since no one else seemed in any hurry to investigate, Whit stayed where he was. His first thought was that something had gone wrong with the stadium. Contracts falling through, an investor backing out—maybe the city was dragging its heels on a couple of details, or someone had gotten an injunction. That didn't bode well for Whit's chances of reputation rehabilitation. There couldn't be much of a groundbreaking celebration without a groundbreaking.

Allie had spotted him. She lifted a quick hand to shush Freddie and came flying toward Whit, barreling at him so fast she had to skid to a halt to avoid a collision.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "Rory just won the Piss Off Dad Contest!"

"I don't care about the stupid—"

He broke off mid-sentence. If Rory had managed to top bogus footage of public fellatio in a national media outlet, she must have done something truly egregious. "What'd she do? Get herself arrested?"

"She married Satan!"

Something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh wheezed out of Nell.

"She joined a cult?" Whit asked. "We aren't talking the literal Prince of Darkness here, I assume."

"Trust me, this is way worse."

Whit frowned. "Don't tell me she got back together with Scott." If Rory had somehow married her scumbag of an ex, their dad wasn't going to be the only one pissed off.

"Come on, Whit. Satan ."

It took him a second to put the pieces together. "Rory married C.J. Saint? "

Fourteen years ago, Saint had been a twenty-year-old hotshot rookie freshly called up to the bigs—cocky, careless, and determined to keep himself in the show. Whit's dad had been a thirty-six-year-old veteran, fighting the relentless pull of time on a body that had already been stretched to its limits. Their clashes in the clubhouse had led to Saint being traded. Their collision at home plate a few months later had torn Skip's ACL and ended not only his season, but his career.

The bad blood hadn't stopped there. Whit didn't know the precise details, but comments his father had dropped now and then led him to believe the feud was ongoing. His own interactions with Saint had been brief and few. From what Whit had heard, in the years since Saint had waltzed away with Rookie of the Year, he'd gone from reckless arrogance to being a bit of a loner: quiet, broody, focused, and unforgiving.

There was no way that Rory, who as far as Whit knew had never even met the guy, would just up and marry him. She might have inherited every ounce of their father's competitiveness, but unlike Allie, she wasn't entirely lacking in common sense. And Rory of all people knew better than to marry a ballplayer—especially since she was two months out of a three-year relationship with a man who had publicly cheated on her.

"Relax," he told Allie. "She's pranking you. Both of you. Not even Rory would marry someone just to win a stupid contest."

His father's screaming into the phone aside.

"Oh, no, she married him," said Allie. "When I got here, Dad was talking about hiring a hitman!"

This time Nell definitely laughed.

"And we weren't invited to the wedding?" Whit asked. "I'm hurt."

"She's not lying. She sent us the video of the ceremony. From Vegas!"

Admittedly, that was rather elaborate for a prank. And it occurred to Whit that Rory was one of the very few people who hadn't contacted him about Meltdown article. Still, if he'd wanted to add gambling to his list of vices, he'd have wagered a good chunk of his contract that Rory had simply upped the ante in his sisters' silly competition. Even if he could believe her choosing to take over the dubious honor of Least Favorite O'Rourke Child by eloping with their father's arch-nemesis—which he couldn't—she definitely wouldn't have done it without telling him. He hoped Rory was prepared for the fallout, because as far as jokes went, this one was rather sadistic.

Although it was also pretty damn funny.

"Stop laughing!" Allie hissed. "Dad's gone ballistic. He's going to disinherit her, and when I refuse to shun her for the rest of eternity, he's going to disinherit me ."

"Lucky for you, you have a rich older brother," Whit said. Not that he planned to fund Allie's aimless lifestyle of traipsing across Europe or South America or whatever continent she'd chosen this year, but he also didn't think she was in any real danger of being cut off. Rory, on the other hand…

He cocked his head toward the staircase, where Skip's roars had gone up a few decibels. "So which one of them is he yelling at? And where did the dogs come from?"

Allie waved a hand. "The depths of hell, according to Gerda. Dad's dog-sitting for one of the guys." A slight furrow appeared in her brow as her gaze darted toward Nell, then back at Whit. "If you don't care about the contest, why did you bring a groupie here?"

"Don't be rude, Al," Freddie murmured, coming up beside Allie and slipping his arm around her shoulders. He grinned at Whit.

"Sorry." Allie shrugged, directing a thin smile at Nell. "I have no tact. Nice to meet you, whoever you are." Then she wriggled away from Freddie, stalked across the hall to the dining area, snatched the bottle of scotch from Gerda's suspiciously unsteady hand, and took three long swallows.

"She's taking it hard," Freddie said before turning to follow her.

Whit was debating whether to give Nell a tour of the house or forage in the kitchen for something to eat when the shouting from upstairs abruptly ceased.

"Either she hung up on him or he's having a heart attack," Whit said, flicking a glance at Nell. "Come on. "

She looked horrified. "You think now is a good time to talk to your dad?"

"We'll still be here next spring if you want to wait around for a better one." Taking her pained expression and faint shudder as assent, he started forward, carefully sidestepped the puddle of dog urine on the floor, and headed for the stairs.