Backfield in Motion (2 page)

Still grinning, Bruiser turned away from Mac
and struck a pose. He had a job to do and giving her shit wouldn’t
get it done.

But later all bets were off.

* * * * *

Mac Hernandez stalked to the grain bins
madder than a cat tossed in a swimming pool. Bruiser Mackey was a
prick, a pretty-boy prick of the worst kind and as shallow as a
dried-up mud puddle in the middle of a Seattle summer. And dammit,
just thinking of the guy made her panties wet.

She should’ve flipped his shit right back in
his pretty face instead of ogling his perfect abs, nice ass, and,
well, his other assets.

Just one of the guys.

Usually she didn’t give a shit about being
one of the guys because it was the truth; only today it pissed her
off for some reason. Maybe because he’d caught her gawking at his
privates, something she never-effing-ever did. Heck, her
maintenance and grounds position at the Lumberjacks practice
facility put her in direct contact with several tons of muscular
egos, many partially dressed or even naked. They never bothered to
cover up around her, and she’d never cared because she was like one
of the guys.

Until today.

Until the man she’d harbored a secret crush
on for the past three years stated that fact out loud.

She shouldn’t have a crush on a superficial
guy like Bruiser, but tell that to her heart. He was everything she
disliked in a man, a preening peacock who exploited his looks for
money. But he was a damn good football player in spite of his
preoccupation with his appearance.

Even worse, he continually flirted with her,
making every attempt to embarrass the hell out of her with his
outrageous comments. And he did embarrass her, though she thought
she hid it well—usually.

Mac hazarded a glance back at him, his fine
ass once again clad in tight underwear. His perfect eight-pack abs
glistened with whatever crap they’d rubbed on his tanned skin,
while his arm muscles bulged and flexed as he assumed different
poses.

He looked over his shoulder, caught her
staring and winked at her, setting her face on fire again. Mac
never blushed. Absolutely fucking never. Except when Bruiser gave
her shit or looked at her with those penetrating blue-gray eyes.
Thank heavens the darkest corner of the barn concealed her
face.

Damn, but the man had one fine body, and
she’d witnessed some incredibly sculpted bodies in her time with
the Lumberjacks—called the Jacks by just about everyone—but
Bruiser’s body was the finest of the finest.

Mac’s Aunt Helen used to say never to date a
man prettier than you. And Bruiser was way too pretty for a plain
woman like her, with her dishwater blond hair, nondescript brown
eyes and so-so figure.

Not to mention his—uh—equipment might be
more than she could handle. Despite what she said to the glamour
boy, he was—ahem—well endowed. Way too well. With her relative
inexperience with men, she’d best stay away from said equipment and
said pretty boy.

The guys would be shocked that she was
sexually inexperienced, but then no one knew the real Mac. They
only knew the tomboy Mac they saw every day mowing the practice
field grass in perfect straight lines or pulling weeds in the
flower beds or beating them at a game of pool at the sports bar
near Jacks’ HQ. They knew the Mac who didn’t have a life, and while
Mac may not have a life, she had a mission—a mission to figure out
what the hell happened to her older brother, who’d gone missing
three years ago. She spent all her off hours investigating new
leads and going over old ones with her father.

Which was why she fantasized about an
absolute fantasy guy like Bruiser. Harmless fun and a distraction
from how screwed up her life really was.

Mac turned back to her chore of feeding the
horses and forced herself to ignore the photo session several feet
away. In fact, she ignored it so well she didn’t even notice when
they finished up for the day. Instead, she focused on the horses
munching away at their grain and making the deep guttural noises
horses make in greeting. Someday she’d have money and a stable full
of horses and she’d get a life.

Yeah, that’d happen when hell froze over or
Mac wore a dress.

“Hey, sweetheart, did you miss me?”

Mac jumped as Bruiser’s hot breath teased
her ear. She whirled around and swatted at his chest, now clad in a
Jacks sweatshirt. “You scared the crap out of me, you asshole.”

He chuckled. “I’m not the asshole. That’s
Harris’s role.” No one on the team could come close to dethroning
Tyler Harris, the team’s quarterback, from his self-proclaimed
position as the team’s resident asshole.

“You have a point there.” Mac strode away
from Bruiser, head held high, throwing flakes of hay into the
stalls. Bruiser followed her. Instead of his usual brash smile, he
appeared—worried? Bruiser?

“So do you really think I’m small?” He
studied her with concern, as if her opinion regarding the length of
his penis actually mattered. It wasn’t like overconfident Bruiser
would ever be concerned about what she thought.

He stepped closer to her—too close. His
scent surrounded her, engulfed her. Oh, God, please. Just one
night, just one night with the Jacks’ pretty boy, and she’d never
ask for another thing. Never.

His blue-gray eyes bored into her and his
brow furrowed. Well, damn, the pretty boy was actually concerned.
Mac shook her head, eager to dispel his insecurities, even as she
battled with the reason why. “Too bad your brain isn’t as big as
your dick.”

A big smile tugged at the corners of his
mouth. “I knew it. You think I’m large.”

“That wasn’t a compliment, so don’t let it
go to your head.”

“Too late, already has. Both of them.” Then
he met her frosty gaze with his steady blue-gray one and a slow,
sexy smile crossed his face. “Hey, you’re in luck. I’m at loose
ends tonight. How about we get a burger at that place down the
road?”

“You buying?” Mac slipped into her usual
buddy mode, knowing that’s all she was to Bruiser and being
pathetic enough to play her part.

* * * * *

A few minutes later Bruiser slid into a booth
seat across from Mac. He pulled a ball cap over his head to avoid
being recognized, not that it helped. People still stared. He
ignored their stares and took a long pull off his beer.

“So, little lady, how goes the battle?”

“Same old, same old,” Mac muttered.

Something seemed to be stuck in her craw.
Bruiser admired that about Mac. She never put on pretenses; what
you saw was what you got. Sometimes he envied her ability to be who
she was and not give a damn what others thought, while he spent way
too much time worrying about others’ expectations and how he
measured up. Chalk up that particular issue to a father who made it
clear Bruiser never measured up and a mother and sister who
believed appearances weren’t everything—they were the only
thing.

He admired Mac. She didn’t dress or behave
to please anyone but herself—a rare trait in a woman. But Mac was
no ordinary woman.

As if reading his mind, Mac stared across
the table at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in jeans.”

“Pretty awesome, huh?” He glanced at her
baggy sweatshirt with the horse snot on it. Mac never cared about
that crap. She was who she was. She carried off this earthy
sexiness that put other women to shame with their fake faces and
fake boobs.

“You’re an awesome pain in the butt.”

Bruiser threw back his head and laughed.
“Mac, you’re a hoot.”

“I don’t see what’s so funny.”

“You should’ve been born a guy.”

“You’re not the first person who’s said
that.” She shrugged and looked away, almost as if he’d hurt her
feelings. He shook off that outrageous thought. Mac was the
toughest woman he knew.

Bruiser leaned back in the booth and
grinned. He liked Mac, really liked her. She was such an exact
opposite of the other women in his life, and he found her
straightforward honesty refreshing. Besides, he knew a kindred
spirit when it tackled him to the ground.

Oh, yeah, Bruiser recognized it—that very
pain that hid behind the false smile and the sparkling eyes. Yeah,
he recognized it because he had the same dull pain himself, the one
that never went away and at times became a sharp stab to the gut.
No one saw it but his best buddy on the team, Brett Gunnels. Not
his parents. Not his closest friends. Only kindred spirits saw the
mutual burden of guilt carried by another.

Apparently Mac battled similar demons.
Bruiser had heard things from the guys, but he didn’t know the
details. He could probably search for them but he kept his nose out
of other people’s business, expecting them to do the same.

“How’re things going at work? Vince giving
you any more shit?”

“I can handle that tool.” She focused her
full attention to the TV showing the Mariners game. Bruiser made a
point not to pry and let it drop. When she glanced back at him,
their gazes met. A strange little curling sensation tickled his
stomach lining, almost like the first stage of desire. Yet even as
he tried to drag his gaze away, he couldn’t, like an elk caught in
the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle, knowing he was going down but
not able to save himself.

What the hell? Desire?
For Mac
? Fuck,
he didn’t even know if she dated guys or girls. He must be losing
it. Yet some primal instinct insisted a passionate woman lurked
beneath all those baggy clothes and that tough-girl facade. And he
knew this how? He wasn’t sure, but his mind flashed to a vivid
vision of Mac, naked and straddling him, taking him deep, then
pounding up and down on him until he damn near reached
insanity.

Him and Mac? Hooking up like two sex-starved
teenagers?
Crap.
Bruiser scrubbed his hands over his
face.

“Are you okay?”

He glanced up with a guilty start. “I’m
awesome. Remember?”

She smiled, and it changed her, made her
look softer, more feminine. Funny how he’d never noticed what a
knockout smile she had, but she didn’t smile much. His dick
noticed, too, and pressed against the fly of his jeans almost
painfully. He shifted his ass but couldn’t find a position that
gave him any relief. Well, there was one position, but that wasn’t
going to happen.

Damn. He’d call one of his standbys tonight
and get some. Maybe he’d call two. It’d been a while since he’d
indulged. In theory, a threesome sounded like any man’s dream, but
in reality, not so much. Especially when the two women were
narcissistic and competing for his attention. Screw that, maybe
he’d stick with one woman.

Only for some reason, sex with an anonymous
woman with big fake boobs and long muscular legs didn’t excite him
like it had a few weeks ago. Most of the women he dated worked out
so much that they had these hard bodies, more like a guy than a
woman. He glanced at Mac. She was muscled, too, but more from hard
work than from working out in a gym.

He jumped when Mac’s hand touched his.
“Seriously? Are you all right?”

Her concern touched him. Rarely did anyone
care about him or his feelings beyond how it could benefit them,
including his family—especially his family.

He faked a devil-may-care smile and nodded.
“Keep touching me like that, and I’ll be more than fine.” He
drained the last of his beer.

“You’d flirt with an eighty-year-old
grandmother.”

“Try it sometime. You might like it.”

“Flirting with an eighty-year-old
grandmother?”

“No, flirting in general. It’s harmless
fun.”

“You do it just to irritate me.” Mac’s brown
eyes flashed fire.

Bruiser only grinned even more. He loved
getting a rise out of her. “My flirting irritates you? Most women
are flattered.”

“Most women aren’t me.”

Bruiser got a chuckle out of that. “You’re
so right, Mac, but I wouldn’t want you any other way. You’re an
original.”

She pursed her lips as if his words tasted
sour. Hell, he’d meant it to be a compliment. Time to hit the road
before he fell all over himself trying to impress a woman he
couldn’t impress. Bruiser stood and dropped a couple twenties on
the table.

“Gotta go. This should cover it.” Then he
got the hell out of there.

Whatever this weird preoccupation with Mac
was, he needed to squash it flat. As he sped down the street in his
badass SUV, he dialed a number and made a date with for the next
night.

Chapter 2

Mac’s boss waved her down as she made a pass
across the practice field with the riding lawn mower. She slowed
and turned off the engine, annoyed at being interrupted but trying
like hell not to show it. Jed Simms might be her boss and the
fields and grounds manager for the Lumberjacks, but he was also a
life-long family friend. His craggy face reminded her of one of
those dried-up applehead dolls her grandma used to make. Too much
time in the sun, but even so he seemed the picture of health.

Tapping her fingernails on the steering
wheel, she waited for Jed to walk up to her. If she drove over,
it’d ruin her perfectly straight lines. And no one did straight
lines like Mac.

“We need to talk.” Jed grimaced, and Mac
immediately went on red alert.

“Am I gonna like this?” She frowned while
the pessimist inside her braced for the worst. Jed never
interrupted her when she was mowing.

“Uh, knowing you, probably not.” He shook
his head and looked everywhere but at Mac. This wasn’t good at
all.

“What is it?” Mac held her breath. Her
intuition warned of bad news ahead.

“I need a head count for the Jacks’ annual
summer barbecue at the owner’s Lake Washington mansion. Can I count
you in?”

Mac scrunched up her face and shook her head
so hard her ponytail slapped her in the cheek. “No way am I going
to that bullshit barbecue.” Every summer the daughter of the team’s
owner put on this huge barbecue though the name was a misnomer. It
was a black-tie charity affair that made the society page of the
newspaper, nothing like Mac’s idea of a barbecue. But then Veronica
never did anything small. Unfortunately, her position as the Jacks’
personnel director gave her the power to dictate attendance.