Backfield in Motion (6 page)

“Wait till we’re done with you; we’re gonna
knock his cleats off. You’ll have him begging for mercy.” Kelsie
eyed her with the certainty of the beauty pageant star she’d once
been.

“I don’t want him begging. So I think he’s
hot. That doesn’t mean I want to screw his brains out.”

“Of course, you do. What single woman
wouldn’t want a big bite of what he’s selling?”

On that note, the women ignored her.
Lavender raised her wine glass. “Hey, girls, now we’re really on a
mission, not just to help Mac’s career but to cast a line and get
that big fish to bite.” The she-wolves clinked their glasses
together.

Mac didn’t know whether to be horrified or
encouraged.

* * * * *

Bruiser dried off his wet body and wrapped
the towel around his waist. He dropped down on the bench in front
of his locker and checked his messages. Nothing unexpected. He was
meeting Chelsea and Sondra for drinks and entertainment tonight. A
slow smile spread across his face at the thought of the two BFFs
and the fun they’d had together last time. Those crazy-assed women
just about sent him to an early grave with a big smile on his face.
And here he’d thought he’d been in shape. After they’d finished
with him, he’d slept for twelve hours.

Bruiser stared in the mirror hanging in his
locker and ran a comb through his blond hair, wishing he had dark
hair like Harris, or a mean look like Zach, or even a guy-next-door
face like Derek. Hell no, he looked like a fucking movie star, and
he fucking hated it.

Well, mostly. He did appreciate the perks,
especially the female ones.

He sighed and pushed a wayward lock of hair
off his forehead, making sure his hair was perfect. He couldn’t
help it; he did care how he looked. He had a brand to maintain.

He glanced around to find Brett staring at
him. Last year they’d accidentally discovered a mutual love of
fishing after which they spent hours together on Puget Sound and
area lakes fishing for whatever happened to be biting. As a result,
Bruiser became close friends with the quiet backup quarterback, and
Bruiser didn’t have many close friends by his own choice. Neither
did Brett.

Brett had the locker next to him and sat
down, pulling on his shoes. “Looking forward to the barbecue?”

“What do you think?” Bruiser shrugged it
off.

“You’re a prick, Mackey. You wouldn’t know a
good woman if she landed in your lap.”

“Hey, I’m not looking for a good woman—just
the opposite. Good women expect commitments, and I’m not that
guy.”

Brett ran his fingers though his wet hair.
“I wish I were taking her.”

“So do I. Remind me again how I got roped
into this?”

Brett ignored the question. “I bet she’ll
look great.”

“Hope so.” Bruiser frowned. “My future
depends on my ability to market myself, and Mac isn’t, well,
exactly my normal date.” He rubbed his chin for a moment. “Think
she’s gay?”

“No more than you are.”

“You have a point.” Bruiser had battled that
label himself, just because he took care of his appearance and
dressed in the most expensive of clothes. Truthfully, he hated
shopping, but it was all part of his persona. He played the part.
The ladies loved how he looked, and men wanted to be him, which put
money in his endorsers’ pockets and in turn in Bruiser’s
pockets.

“Besides, you got the hots for her, not me.”
Well, except for some recurring erotic fantasies, and he didn’t
have a clue where they were coming from. Maybe he’d grown as weary
of his Barbie doll dates as he had of modeling.

Brett cleared his throat, suddenly looking
nervous. “I have to warn you.”

“Warn me? About Mac?” Bruiser snorted out a
laugh.

“Uh. Not exactly. I saw your mom a few days
ago.”

Bruiser stiffened. “Did you get your hair
cut?” Brett was the only teammate who’d ever met his family.
Bruiser’s mother and sister owned a hair salon on the peninsula.
Brett had been going there for a year. Bruiser wouldn’t let them
touch his hair. He preferred to get it cut at a trendy salon in
Bellevue rather than in his mother’s pink and purple monument to
poor taste.

“Yup. Eunice and Shanna said they haven’t
seen you in a while.”

“I know,” Bruiser swallowed back the guilt.
He sent them money once a month to help pay for the salon expenses
rather than visiting them, as if that replaced him. His mother,
Eunice, had left five messages on his phone this week. Instead of
calling her, he’d sent a text message.

Yeah, he was a crappy son, one who pretended
he didn’t have a family, which made him a crappy person, too.

Bruiser hated dishonesty for a multitude of
reasons. His father had figured truth was useless when you can spin
a whole web of lies. And Bruiser’s ex-wife had used lies and guilt
in equal doses to get what she wanted. Then his last three
girlfriends hadn’t been an improvement, except he hadn’t been
stupid enough to marry any of them. Forget that Bruiser practiced
his own brand of deception every waking hour of his day, pretending
to be someone he wasn’t, rather than embracing who he was. But at
least he was only hurting himself. This thing with keeping his
family hidden was another thing altogether.

“Then why don’t you go see them?”

“Why don’t you go see your family?” Bruiser
shot back.

Brett almost smiled. “Touché.” He looked
down at his watch. “Uh, but that’s not exactly what I’m warning you
about.”

“What is it then?”

“You know how you told me your mother and
sister like to chat?”

“Uh, yeah.” Brett was the only person he
ever talked to about Eunice and Shanna.

“Well, I told them about Mac and the
barbecue. They volunteered to style her hair, do all that beauty
stuff, the whole works on the house.”

“Oh, no. No way.”

“She doesn’t have much money. They’d do it
for free.” Brett seemed to be trying hard not to smile, the
dumbass.

“No. I don’t want my mother and sister
filling her full of embarrassing stories about my childhood.” Or
even worse, telling her the entire tragic truth of his childhood, a
truth he fought tooth and nail to hide. Embarrassment he could
handle, pity and blame he couldn’t.

“You know that’s not what you’re worried
about. They embarrass you. You’re a real asshole.”

If Brett only knew. “Yeah, so what?” Bruiser
played along. He hated the guilt that burrowed a little deeper into
his heart every day, which had a lot to do with why he avoided his
family.

“Well, it’s a done deal. I told Zach, and
Kelsie set up an appointment for Mac.”

“Ah, fuck. I thought we were friends. My
mother’s been trying to marry me off to a nice girl for years.
She’ll latch onto Mac like a burr on my ass.”

Brett, the rat bastard, actually grinned a
very rare grin. “Good luck with that.” He stood, grabbed his
jacket, and chuckled as he went out the door, leaving Bruiser alone
with his thoughts.

“Well, shit.” Bruiser spoke out loud. He
worked damn hard to keep his personal and professional lives apart
and his buddy just mashed them all up together.

With friends like Brett, who needed
enemies?

Bruiser shrugged into his jacket and got the
hell out of there.

Mac was kneeling down in the flower-beds at
the front door of the practice facility as he walked out. He
hesitated, his gaze dropping to her nicely rounded ass in those
tight jeans. A ponytail tangle of dark-blonde hair fell across one
shoulder and a thin sheen of sweat covered the bare skin above the
back of her tank top. Bruiser licked his lips. His dick hardened
instantly. Odd, since thinking about Chelsea and Sondra didn’t get
the slightest rise out of it.

Bruiser held his duffle bag in front of his
crotch and plastered his charming smile on his face, a smile he’d
never used before on Mac. Why he was using it now, he hadn’t a
fucking clue. This was just Mac, tomboy extraordinaire and good
buddy to the majority of the team. If he were lucky, she’d say
she’d changed her mind, and he’d be off the hook. Oddly enough,
that possibility actually disappointed him.

One way or another, he’d convince her to get
her hair done elsewhere. His mother and sister talked too much, way
too much, and he didn’t need Mac or anyone else knowing his entire
sorry past.

“Hey, beautiful.” He came to stop a few feet
from her, careful to keep his expensive shoes on the sidewalk and
out of the fresh soil.

Mac glanced over her shoulder, dirt smeared
under one cheek. She rolled her eyes. “Beautiful? Seriously.” She
glanced away and wiped a strand of dull-blonde hair off her
forehead with chipped and ragged fingernails. His mother would be
appalled at the state of Mac’s fingernails, which almost made him
smile. Almost.

“Absolutely. In an au-naturel sort of way.”
Bruiser gave her his sexiest smile, the one that usually had women
unzipping his pants. Not so Mac.

“Are you on drugs?” Mac snorted and sat back
on her haunches, stretching the fabric of her jeans tighter around
her ass. Bruiser’s throat went dry, and he coughed.

She studied him with narrowed eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Bruiser jumped in the
deep end, grateful he could swim with the best of them, and dialed
up the charm. “The only drug I need is your smile.”

“Let me get my boots on. It’s getting pretty
deep out here.”

Bruiser leaned against the nearby building.
“Have I got a deal for you, Mac. I’m going to save you the time of
going all the way over to the peninsula to get your hair done. I’m
setting you up with my stylist, Armand. The man’s a regular miracle
worker.”

Mac frowned. “So you’re saying I need a
miracle?”

“Uh, no, no,” Bruiser backtracked—great time
for his legendary silver tongue to turn to scrap metal. What an
idiot thing to say to a woman. “I’m just thinking you don’t want to
spend an hour one way on the Bremerton ferry.”

“Maybe I enjoy a good ferry ride.” She
narrowed her eyes in a look that was pure badass Mac. “Are you
ashamed of having your mother meet me?”

He was really fucking this up. “It’s not
you, it’s them. They’re a little tough to handle.”

She didn’t look like she believed him.

Bruiser dropped the charming act. “Oh, come
on, Mac. I like you. I’m trying to save you here. You don’t want to
be around my mom and sister. Trust me.”

“I don’t?” She tempered her response with a
smile, her eyes sparkling with mischief. Her face softened, making
her look almost—pretty? Mac? Damn, his weird attraction to her
needed to stop.

“You seriously don’t.”

“You just blew it, buster. Now I’m more
committed than ever to meet them.”

“Please, Mac. Let me make an appointment
with Armand. He’s one of the best stylists in Seattle. My
treat.”

“And miss meeting Shanna and Eunice? Not on
your fucking life.”

Shaking his head, he grinned at her in spite
of himself. “You’re a firecracker, Mac.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He was pretty sure of that.

Chapter 5

Hands with fingernails like bear claws shoved
Mac into a salon chair while the She-Wolf Pack, as she’d come to
think of Kelsie, Lavender, and Rachel, hovered nearby, as if they
didn’t totally trust Bruiser’s sister and mother to do a good
job.

Mac had her own reservations. Judging by the
appearance of the place, she’d be lucky to escape without pink hair
and fluorescent fingernails. She’d expected a classy salon because
Bruiser was the ultimate in class. This place celebrated tacky
beyond belief with hot pink and purple wallpaper, purple sinks,
pink countertops, and cotton-candy pink chairs. Even the outside
was a nasty Pepto-Bismol pink. All in all, it looked like a Barbie
hair salon gone wild.

Shanna, Bruiser’s sister, went for
gaudy-chic with bleached blond hair, a tight purple tank top, and
tons of tats, while his mother, Eunice, showed a little less of her
wrinkled skin—thank God —but reminded Mac of one of those dancehall
girls with red hair on the old Westerns her dad loved to
watch—
had
loved to watch—until everything changed.

Mac swallowed the apple-sized lump lodged in
her throat. Now was not the time to think about Will. Now was the
time to think about doing all she needed to impress Veronica, even
if that meant subjecting herself to a Eunice-Shanna makeover
overseen by the Pack.

The She-Wolves had swept Mac along like a
leaf in a flash flood. Once they’d discovered her crush on Bruiser,
they jumped in with reckless abandon to transform her into
something she wasn’t. She prayed they didn’t tell their men
everything, or Mac would never be able to face the team again,
especially Bruiser.

Even worse, she hoped like hell they hadn’t
told Eunice or Shanna.

Mac forced a smile as Eunice pulled up a
small stool and bent over Mac’s feet, making tsking noises and
shaking her head. Mac squirmed a little and got sharp tug on her
hair from Shanna.

“Hold still.”

No wonder Bruiser never brought them around
or mentioned them. And here she thought he’d been raised with a
platinum spoon in his mouth and a trust fund to go with it, not by
these two polar opposites. She almost smiled. So Bruiser was common
folk, just like her family. Who’d have guessed?

She glanced up to find Kelsie hovering over
her. The former beauty queen took over, giving Shanna specific
instructions and ignoring Shanna’s annoyance. Shanna slathered some
smelly crap on her hair, wrapped strands in aluminum foil, and
stuck her under a 500-degree hair dryer, leaving her to sweat a
gallon while Eunice painted her toes a deep shade of hot pink
complete with tiny Lumberjack logos on her big toe nails. Nice
touch, she had to admit.

A half hour later, she sat at Shanna’s
station with her back to the mirror. The Pack wouldn’t let her see
until Shanna was done. Judging by the smug expression on Kelsie’s
face, she liked what she saw. Eunice painted her fingernails to
match her toenails. Mac drew the line at acrylic nails. She did
gardening for both a living and a hobby for God’s sake.