Suddenly Sexy (21 page)
Authors: Linda Francis Lee
Tags: #Women television journalists, #Man-woman relationships, #Single women, #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Adult, #Fiction, #Athletes, #Texas, #Love stories
It all happened so fast. The woman appearing, crying out his name as so
many women did. Jesse! Followed by the accident that no one had seen in
that early morning dimnessâjust as she hadn't seen the club face
swinging when she leaped out at Jesse. He knew that as long as he lived
he would never forget the club striking her in the chest. The air
knocked out of her in a strange whoosh, those ticking moments of
startled shock before she collapsed in front of him.
By the time a man with a camera raced onto the scene, Jesse was giving
her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And when word got around about the
incident, the story was that he had saved a
woman's life.
That night, he hadn't been able to sleep, watching news report after
news report recounting his golf careerâ recounting some
larger-than-life bad boy of golf they were now calling a hero. The next
day he had walked to the first tee box, the crowds circling around, and
he'd had the sudden realization that he wasn't sure he could play.
He hadn't quit as he had wanted to. He had gone out on the courseâbut
it was the worst round of his life. He hadn't been able to play since.
With less than two months before the PGA Championship, he
felt
desperation start to pound in his temples.
Anger, fear, and frustration made him whirl around on the El Paso
Country Club golf course. For half a second he didn't even realize he
was facing Kate. When finally his mind cleared he could do little more
than demand, "What the hell are you doing?"
Blood rushed through his veins in a way that he couldn't begin to
explain to her. Nor could he let her know how much she had affected him.
"Oops," she said with feigned innocence. "Did that hurt your
concentration?"
The impudent smile and those white teeth sinking seductively into her
lip made the warrior's fierceness fadeâ thankfullyâto be replaced by a
stirring of desire. He nearly laughed in relief at the heat, at the
distraction from the turmoil in his head.
Sucking in a deep breath, he concentrated on payback. But his teasing
retribution wouldn't involve noise.
The minute Kate bent over for her next shot, he did what he had been
dying to do all morning. He slid
his hand down over her butt.
Kate yelped, missing the ball completely. "You!" Then she came after
him with the pitching wedge.
"Serpentine," he called out, zigzagging as he ran, keeping just beyond
her reach. The memories faded completely, and he ran with a child's
careless abandon. Kate had distracted him.
Yes, she had distracted him from the reason he had returned hereâto
find his game. She had managed
in the space of a few minutes to set the
churning muddle of his life aside. He let her catch him in a thick
cluster of trees. The minute she reached his side, he circled his arm
around her waist.
They came face to face, slightly out of breath from fun. But then
everything shifted. Fun was replaced
by driving need. He wanted
herâneeded her. Wanted to find release from the hell in his mind.
"You truly are amazing. As long as I live," he whispered, "I will never
forget last night."
Her lips parted.
"You wanted nothing more than to give to me. Without a thought for
yourself."
He backed her against the tree, the pitching wedge hanging from her
hand. The moment his mouth came down on hers, the club dropped to the
ground, and she clung to him.
The kiss instantly turned to fire, their hands frantically searching,
unable to get enough. The world
beyond the trees disappeared.
"I've wanted to do this since you walked into the kitchen wearing that
goofy skirt."
"What?" she demanded as he kissed the line of her neck. "I thought you
golfers loved this stuff. Just this morning I saw Hal 'Ribbons' Ribmore
wearing a pair of orange-and-yellow plaid pants that made the sun
squint."
He nipped at her ear. "I think any man who willingly lets people call
him Ribbons is answer enough regarding his choice of apparel."
He pulled her up, pinning her against the craggy bark. He wanted her
with a passion that burned through thought and reason.
With tantalizing attention, he lowered her feet back to the ground,
then lowered himself, kissing a trail down her body until he kneeled
before her. He sensed that she was half hesitant, half aroused as he
pressed his lips against each of the insane multicolored tees and
balls, his hands riding up her bare legs, under her skirt.
Pulling her close, he kissed the ball centered just over the juncture
between her thighs, and her hands fisted in his hair. Slowly, he tugged
the skirt higher. She dragged in a ragged breath when he found her
panties and pulled them low.
He nudged her feet apart, her red-and-white saddle oxford golf shoes
looking like candy canes lying forgotten in the green grass. He kissed
her again, his lips trailing to the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.
Her body began to tremble, desire winning out completely. But when
reality had faded so thoroughly
that he would have pulled her down and
made love to her in the trees, their bubble burst as a golf ball from
the foursome playing behind them landed with a solid plop on the green.
Kate and Jesse froze, then her eyes went wide, and she started
scrambling to get away.
"Oh, my gosh! What are we doing? We're on a golf course, with people
everywhere."
Straightening her skirt, she rushed out, only to stop dead in her
tracks when the foursome pulled up, looking startled when she popped
out of the trees. But startled turned to amused knowing when Jesse
followed.
Kate was the brightest shade of red he had ever seen. Jesse smiled
calmly, held up a ball, and said, "Found it."
The men glanced at his pant knees, which he noticed were marked with
sprigs of grass and pine needles. Jesse quickly brushed them off with a
laugh. "Amazing how you have to crawl around to find these tiny little
things. Guess I should have called it a lost cause and moved on."
With their eyes focused straight ahead, Jesse and Kate leaped into the
cart, then zipped over to the number nine tee box.
Kate teed off, then they didn't speak during the rest of the hole. They
made good time since Jesse didn't hit another shot. Though every few
minutes they burst out laughing when they remembered the looks on the
foursome's faces.
But when they pulled up to the back nine turn-around to head back out
for the second round of nine holes, things changed.
"Hey, Jesse!"
A guy who clearly didn't belong on the course came over to them.
"Jesse," the man said. "How's it going?"
He wore a short-sleeved business shirt that was a decade old if it was
a day. Pens lined his pocket, from which he pulled a small spiral
notepad.
"Tommy," Jesse said, his voice clipped.
The man looked Kate up and down. "Hey, babe, I'm liking your new show."
"And you would be?"
"Tommy Davis."
"The
El Paso Tribune
sportswriter?"
"The one and only."
Tommy Davis was known to be caustic, not a man to honey coat his words.
He also reported any
rumor he heard swirling. If it turned out to be
untrue, he shrugged it off. "
You win
a few, you lose
a few
," he had
been quoted as saying.
Kate felt the tension that rose through Jesse. This was a different
tension than what she had sensed coming from Jesse earlier.
Tapping a pencil on his pad, Tommy glanced at their golf cart. "I've
been thinking about doing an article on you. El Paso's very own hero."
"I can't imagine there's anything very interesting in that," Jesse
replied.
The reporter smiled, his lips thinning. "I suspect everyone 'round
these parts would love a Jesse
Chapman expose."
Then Jesse changed. He sat back in the cart and took on a casual,
devil-may-care attitude. Tension fled and he turned into the Jesse
Chapman she had read about a thousand times in
People
magazine.
"If you want a story, then call my publicist. Gwen Randolph."
He called out the woman's phone number by memory, and Kate hated the
taste of jealousy.
"I'd rather deal with you," Tommy persisted. "In fact, maybe I could
tag along for the back nine."
Jesse chuckled. "Sorry, my friend. But I'm giving Kate a lesson."
"Really?" The reporter considered Kate for a long second. "You gonna do
some golf on
Getting Real
with Kate
. It's not a bad
idea."
She hated this man just as much as she hated this new Jesse. Cool and
suddenly a star.
"But a lesson is even better," Tommy persisted. "It'd make for a great
angle. A Hero Always Helping." The reporter got a strange, considering
look on his face. "You are a hero, aren't you, Jesse?"
That tension flared, and a slow-burning, barely detectable panic surged
in Jesse, like he was a hunted man.
She glanced back and forth between the two men, then, regardless of how
Jesse was acting, she knew what she had to do. "I've had enough golf
for one day," she interjected.
A palpable relief sparked in Jesse's eyes, she was certain, before he
shrugged with nonchalance. "Got
to do what the woman wants, Tommy boy.
Call Gwen. She can get you whatever you need."
They drove away, neither saying a word, though Kate would have sworn
that Jesse didn't relax an ounce until they returned the cart to the
pro shop, gathered her clubs, then finally closed themselves inside his
Jeep. She searched for something to say, but hardly understood the
quietly contained rawness in him
that she felt simmering against the
rugged leather interior like heat coming off tarmac in waves.
He put the vehicle in gear, leaving the parking lot, driving with
controlled precision until they arrived at her house.
"Hey," she said, touching his arm, "are you okay?"
The minute she touched him, she felt the battle of tension and ease
rush through him like an electrical current. She saw a restlessness, a
frustrated dissatisfaction in his eyes, before a smile filled with
yearning pulled at his face.
"I'm fine. I've just been distracted lately, and I need to get some
things done. I need to be playing and practicing, and whether I like it
or not, with the PGA coming up, I'm going to have to start dealing with
reporters."
He didn't wait for her to respond. He reached across her, his strong
arm brushing against her. For half a second they were so close that he
could kiss her. It was like he could do nothing else when he gently
pressed his lips to hers. Then he smiled, this time genuinely. "I'll
see you later." Then he reached even farther across and pushed open the
passenger door. "I promise."
Not knowing what else to do, she got out of the Jeep. The minute she
shut the door, he drove away, controlled patience spent, the car going
too fast as if somehow Jesse was howling at a too bright sky, pushed to
that precarious edge he had been flying toward for as long as she could
remember.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chloe Sinclair
Subject: Auditors
Station Manager
Award-winning KTEXTV
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Like what
From: Chloe Sinclair
ktextv.com>
Subject: Specifics
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: e-mail
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chloe Sinclair
Subject: Solution?
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Sigh
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Meeting
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
many women did. Jesse! Followed by the accident that no one had seen in
that early morning dimnessâjust as she hadn't seen the club face
swinging when she leaped out at Jesse. He knew that as long as he lived
he would never forget the club striking her in the chest. The air
knocked out of her in a strange whoosh, those ticking moments of
startled shock before she collapsed in front of him.
By the time a man with a camera raced onto the scene, Jesse was giving
her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And when word got around about the
incident, the story was that he had saved a
woman's life.
That night, he hadn't been able to sleep, watching news report after
news report recounting his golf careerâ recounting some
larger-than-life bad boy of golf they were now calling a hero. The next
day he had walked to the first tee box, the crowds circling around, and
he'd had the sudden realization that he wasn't sure he could play.
He hadn't quit as he had wanted to. He had gone out on the courseâbut
it was the worst round of his life. He hadn't been able to play since.
With less than two months before the PGA Championship, he
felt
desperation start to pound in his temples.
Anger, fear, and frustration made him whirl around on the El Paso
Country Club golf course. For half a second he didn't even realize he
was facing Kate. When finally his mind cleared he could do little more
than demand, "What the hell are you doing?"
Blood rushed through his veins in a way that he couldn't begin to
explain to her. Nor could he let her know how much she had affected him.
"Oops," she said with feigned innocence. "Did that hurt your
concentration?"
The impudent smile and those white teeth sinking seductively into her
lip made the warrior's fierceness fadeâ thankfullyâto be replaced by a
stirring of desire. He nearly laughed in relief at the heat, at the
distraction from the turmoil in his head.
Sucking in a deep breath, he concentrated on payback. But his teasing
retribution wouldn't involve noise.
The minute Kate bent over for her next shot, he did what he had been
dying to do all morning. He slid
his hand down over her butt.
Kate yelped, missing the ball completely. "You!" Then she came after
him with the pitching wedge.
"Serpentine," he called out, zigzagging as he ran, keeping just beyond
her reach. The memories faded completely, and he ran with a child's
careless abandon. Kate had distracted him.
Yes, she had distracted him from the reason he had returned hereâto
find his game. She had managed
in the space of a few minutes to set the
churning muddle of his life aside. He let her catch him in a thick
cluster of trees. The minute she reached his side, he circled his arm
around her waist.
They came face to face, slightly out of breath from fun. But then
everything shifted. Fun was replaced
by driving need. He wanted
herâneeded her. Wanted to find release from the hell in his mind.
"You truly are amazing. As long as I live," he whispered, "I will never
forget last night."
Her lips parted.
"You wanted nothing more than to give to me. Without a thought for
yourself."
He backed her against the tree, the pitching wedge hanging from her
hand. The moment his mouth came down on hers, the club dropped to the
ground, and she clung to him.
The kiss instantly turned to fire, their hands frantically searching,
unable to get enough. The world
beyond the trees disappeared.
"I've wanted to do this since you walked into the kitchen wearing that
goofy skirt."
"What?" she demanded as he kissed the line of her neck. "I thought you
golfers loved this stuff. Just this morning I saw Hal 'Ribbons' Ribmore
wearing a pair of orange-and-yellow plaid pants that made the sun
squint."
He nipped at her ear. "I think any man who willingly lets people call
him Ribbons is answer enough regarding his choice of apparel."
He pulled her up, pinning her against the craggy bark. He wanted her
with a passion that burned through thought and reason.
With tantalizing attention, he lowered her feet back to the ground,
then lowered himself, kissing a trail down her body until he kneeled
before her. He sensed that she was half hesitant, half aroused as he
pressed his lips against each of the insane multicolored tees and
balls, his hands riding up her bare legs, under her skirt.
Pulling her close, he kissed the ball centered just over the juncture
between her thighs, and her hands fisted in his hair. Slowly, he tugged
the skirt higher. She dragged in a ragged breath when he found her
panties and pulled them low.
He nudged her feet apart, her red-and-white saddle oxford golf shoes
looking like candy canes lying forgotten in the green grass. He kissed
her again, his lips trailing to the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.
Her body began to tremble, desire winning out completely. But when
reality had faded so thoroughly
that he would have pulled her down and
made love to her in the trees, their bubble burst as a golf ball from
the foursome playing behind them landed with a solid plop on the green.
Kate and Jesse froze, then her eyes went wide, and she started
scrambling to get away.
"Oh, my gosh! What are we doing? We're on a golf course, with people
everywhere."
Straightening her skirt, she rushed out, only to stop dead in her
tracks when the foursome pulled up, looking startled when she popped
out of the trees. But startled turned to amused knowing when Jesse
followed.
Kate was the brightest shade of red he had ever seen. Jesse smiled
calmly, held up a ball, and said, "Found it."
The men glanced at his pant knees, which he noticed were marked with
sprigs of grass and pine needles. Jesse quickly brushed them off with a
laugh. "Amazing how you have to crawl around to find these tiny little
things. Guess I should have called it a lost cause and moved on."
With their eyes focused straight ahead, Jesse and Kate leaped into the
cart, then zipped over to the number nine tee box.
Kate teed off, then they didn't speak during the rest of the hole. They
made good time since Jesse didn't hit another shot. Though every few
minutes they burst out laughing when they remembered the looks on the
foursome's faces.
But when they pulled up to the back nine turn-around to head back out
for the second round of nine holes, things changed.
"Hey, Jesse!"
A guy who clearly didn't belong on the course came over to them.
"Jesse," the man said. "How's it going?"
He wore a short-sleeved business shirt that was a decade old if it was
a day. Pens lined his pocket, from which he pulled a small spiral
notepad.
"Tommy," Jesse said, his voice clipped.
The man looked Kate up and down. "Hey, babe, I'm liking your new show."
"And you would be?"
"Tommy Davis."
"The
El Paso Tribune
sportswriter?"
"The one and only."
Tommy Davis was known to be caustic, not a man to honey coat his words.
He also reported any
rumor he heard swirling. If it turned out to be
untrue, he shrugged it off. "
You win
a few, you lose
a few
," he had
been quoted as saying.
Kate felt the tension that rose through Jesse. This was a different
tension than what she had sensed coming from Jesse earlier.
Tapping a pencil on his pad, Tommy glanced at their golf cart. "I've
been thinking about doing an article on you. El Paso's very own hero."
"I can't imagine there's anything very interesting in that," Jesse
replied.
The reporter smiled, his lips thinning. "I suspect everyone 'round
these parts would love a Jesse
Chapman expose."
Then Jesse changed. He sat back in the cart and took on a casual,
devil-may-care attitude. Tension fled and he turned into the Jesse
Chapman she had read about a thousand times in
People
magazine.
"If you want a story, then call my publicist. Gwen Randolph."
He called out the woman's phone number by memory, and Kate hated the
taste of jealousy.
"I'd rather deal with you," Tommy persisted. "In fact, maybe I could
tag along for the back nine."
Jesse chuckled. "Sorry, my friend. But I'm giving Kate a lesson."
"Really?" The reporter considered Kate for a long second. "You gonna do
some golf on
Getting Real
with Kate
. It's not a bad
idea."
She hated this man just as much as she hated this new Jesse. Cool and
suddenly a star.
"But a lesson is even better," Tommy persisted. "It'd make for a great
angle. A Hero Always Helping." The reporter got a strange, considering
look on his face. "You are a hero, aren't you, Jesse?"
That tension flared, and a slow-burning, barely detectable panic surged
in Jesse, like he was a hunted man.
She glanced back and forth between the two men, then, regardless of how
Jesse was acting, she knew what she had to do. "I've had enough golf
for one day," she interjected.
A palpable relief sparked in Jesse's eyes, she was certain, before he
shrugged with nonchalance. "Got
to do what the woman wants, Tommy boy.
Call Gwen. She can get you whatever you need."
They drove away, neither saying a word, though Kate would have sworn
that Jesse didn't relax an ounce until they returned the cart to the
pro shop, gathered her clubs, then finally closed themselves inside his
Jeep. She searched for something to say, but hardly understood the
quietly contained rawness in him
that she felt simmering against the
rugged leather interior like heat coming off tarmac in waves.
He put the vehicle in gear, leaving the parking lot, driving with
controlled precision until they arrived at her house.
"Hey," she said, touching his arm, "are you okay?"
The minute she touched him, she felt the battle of tension and ease
rush through him like an electrical current. She saw a restlessness, a
frustrated dissatisfaction in his eyes, before a smile filled with
yearning pulled at his face.
"I'm fine. I've just been distracted lately, and I need to get some
things done. I need to be playing and practicing, and whether I like it
or not, with the PGA coming up, I'm going to have to start dealing with
reporters."
He didn't wait for her to respond. He reached across her, his strong
arm brushing against her. For half a second they were so close that he
could kiss her. It was like he could do nothing else when he gently
pressed his lips to hers. Then he smiled, this time genuinely. "I'll
see you later." Then he reached even farther across and pushed open the
passenger door. "I promise."
Not knowing what else to do, she got out of the Jeep. The minute she
shut the door, he drove away, controlled patience spent, the car going
too fast as if somehow Jesse was howling at a too bright sky, pushed to
that precarious edge he had been flying toward for as long as she could
remember.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Â
From: Chloe Sinclair
Subject: Auditors
Julia, the
auditors are still
unimpressed with our ratings. They are
pressuring me to make scheduling changes. I'm afraid it's time we take
a long hard look at our lineup.
Chloe Sinclairauditors are still
unimpressed with our ratings. They are
pressuring me to make scheduling changes. I'm afraid it's time we take
a long hard look at our lineup.
Station Manager
Award-winning KTEXTV
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Â
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Like what
Did they
mention specifics?
Juliamention specifics?
Â
Â
From: Chloe Sinclair
ktextv.com>
Subject: Specifics
Yes, a few,
including Getting Real
with Kate. The truth is, the ratings
for
Getting Real
are all
over the place. One day they're up, the next
they're down. While it's had some great ratings,
the rest have been
dismal and advertisers are wary of the show.
Chloeincluding Getting Real
with Kate. The truth is, the ratings
for
Getting Real
are all
over the place. One day they're up, the next
they're down. While it's had some great ratings,
the rest have been
dismal and advertisers are wary of the show.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Â
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: e-mail
I've been
reading through several
viewer e-mails and reviews of the
show. Apparently no one
knows what to expect. One minute Kate is trying
to be sexy, then the next she's ultraprofessional.
I thought this was
the perfect answer to Kate's image problem. I'm afraid I've only made
it worse.
Juliareading through several
viewer e-mails and reviews of the
show. Apparently no one
knows what to expect. One minute Kate is trying
to be sexy, then the next she's ultraprofessional.
I thought this was
the perfect answer to Kate's image problem. I'm afraid I've only made
it worse.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Â
From: Chloe Sinclair
Subject: Solution?
What do you
propose we do?
Chloepropose we do?
Â
Â
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Sigh
Let me
speak to her.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------speak to her.
Â
From: Julia Boudreaux
Subject: Meeting
Kate,
sugar, could you come to my
office?
Juliasugar, could you come to my
office?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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