Winner Takes All (8 page)

Without another word, she left his office, hoping somehow she'd gotten through to him.

As Annabelle left the school, she forced her mind away from Blake.

It was ten-fifteen and she had a ten-thirty appointment with her friend Stella.

She parked her car along the curb in front of her studio, gathered her bag from the backseat, and went inside the building. She'd just flipped on the lights when Stella breezed through the doors like the breath of fresh air she was.

And Annabelle could use a breath of fresh air right then.

“Sorry I'm late,” Stella said on a breathy voice.

Annabelle glanced at the clock on the wall and lifted a brow. “It's ten twenty-nine, Stella.” If the woman were abducted by aliens, she'd still find a way to be on time.

“Obviously your idea of late and my idea of late aren't the same thing,” Stella replied, then toasted her with the paper cup of coffee she held in one hand. “Love this new thing you're doing with your hair, by the way. Evidently the new football coach is having a positive influence.”

Only Stella could get away with such a comment. A year ago, when Annabelle had come back from Denver, she'd signed up for ballet aerobics. The teacher of the class, a tall, willowy classic beauty named Stella Davenport, had bitched at Annabelle to “stop slouching” in that commanding way ballet teachers were so famous for, and they'd been close friends ever since. Probably the closest friend Annabelle had ever had.

Annabelle fingered the loose curls that she'd actually taken the time to blow-dry. “I had a few extra minutes this morning,” she answered. “And it has nothing to do with a football coach.”

Lies.

Stella snorted, then set her purse down on the floor. “Please. The only time a woman takes care in her appearance is if there's a guy. One of our principal dancers in Chicago used to take her hair out of its bun after every single rehearsal. We all thought it was the strangest thing until we saw the hottie medical resident pick her up for dinner one night.”

“That doesn't mean—”

“And then,” Stella went on, “the mother of one of my students, who always had a god-awful Denver Broncos baseball cap covering her beautiful red hair, started picking her daughter up with her hair all styled and curled. I thought maybe she found her self-worth after losing it for Lord only knows how long, when I remembered the single dad of a different student.”

Annabelle lifted a brow at her friend.

“You see?” She took a sip of coffee. “Throw some man candy into the picture and a woman starts doing things she doesn't normally do.” She pointed an index finger at Annabelle. “Like wearing jewelry.”

“I'm just worried about the holes in my ears closing,” Annabelle argued as she absently fingered the earring dangling from her lobes. So what if she'd dug them out of her jewelry box after going nearly a year without wearing them?

Stella giggled. “I know perfectly well what Blake Carpenter looks like. The man's practically another species. Tell Auntie Stella all about it.”

Annabelle shrugged and led Stella to the mats on the floor to start her exercises. “There's nothing to tell.” At least nothing she wanted to share with anyone. Not even Stella. Because Stella wouldn't rest until Annabelle had acted on her feelings and urges. The woman pretty much wore everything on her sleeve and encouraged everyone around her to do the same.

Annabelle had lost her ability and desire to live like that after her divorce. Stella knew this and understood where Annabelle was coming from and she knew her friend meant well.

“Okay, answer me this,” Stella said as she downed the last of her coffee and tossed the cup in the trash. “Is he as hot in person?”

“You already know he is,” Annabelle answered.

Stella waved a hand in the air. “And the reason you don't want to jump his bones is…?”

Annabelle laughed. “Just because a guy is hot doesn't mean I'm going to jump his bones.” But, yeah, she wanted to.

“Then there's something wrong with you,” Stella stated.

Annabelle crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, so how come you don't want to jump his bones?” Even though it was meant as a rhetorical question, the thought of her tall, beautiful friend throwing herself at Blake Carpenter did something funny to Annabelle's insides. Her stomach tightened unexpectedly.

“I never said that,” Stella countered. “He just seems like more of your type. Besides, I'm not looking for a guy right now.”

Ah, yes, her beautiful friend dated about as often as a groundhog came out during winter. She thought she'd remembered Stella going out on one date a few months ago, but she'd said the date hadn't ended well.

Annabelle gestured for Stella to take her place on the floor.

Before she'd left Chicago, Stella had been a principal dancer for the Chicago Ballet. She'd been one of the best who'd had a starring role in just about every show she'd performed in. Then a fall during a pas de deux had torn Stella's MCL and ACL. Surgery had repaired the damage, but the time off during her recovery had knocked Stella down a few notches. Not to mention her mobility hadn't been the same. A year after her injury, she'd retired from professional ballet and moved to Blanco Valley after her grandmother had suffered from her second heart attack.

Like Annabelle, Stella was her grandmother's only caregiver. Another thing the two women had in common.

Annabelle had never met a more kindred soul.

Even though she swore she was happy, Annabelle sensed Stella missed ballet like an amputee missed their arm. Annabelle had a feeling her friend had another plan B in place after her retirement that didn't include living in a Colorado mountain town.

“How's the knee today?” Annabelle asked. Last week, Stella had cut their session short, complaining about pain in her knee.

“Better,” Stella commented. She yanked her hooded sweatshirt over her head and lowered to the floor. “Last week was a bad one for me. I had to use my ice machine for a few days.”

“You should still be using your ice machine.” She gestured toward Stella's leg. “You're supposed to be wearing your brace too. You're still prone to swelling.”

Stella only rolled her eyes and moved her leg into position for her reps. She pretended otherwise, but Annabelle knew Stella suffered from a lot of pain. An ACL tear was a major injury that could take a lot of time to recover from. Most people suffered from pangs and stiffness for the rest of their lives. Stella put on a face of steel and made the world think her knee was fine. As though a forced early retirement had been in her plans all along and no big deal.

That had to be about as true as Annabelle planning on a cheating husband and painful divorce.

“Start with ten reps,” Annabelle told her friend. “Then I have some new exercises for you.” She hung back, watching Stella instead of touching her. Stella had a weird thing about direct contact with other people.

Stella huffed out a breath as she pushed through her first set. “I'm going to remember the hell you put me through during your next aerobics class.”

Annabelle smiled as a bead of sweat rolled down Stella's temple and slid back into her dark hair. “I push you because I love you. You push because you're a sadistic bitch.”

Stella answered Annabelle's grin with one of her own, followed by a wince. “You have to be a little sadistic to be a ballet dancer. And most of us are bitches because we have huge egos. Those who aren't don't make it very far.” She slid her friend a sly look. “You shouldn't be friends with me, Annabelle. I'm not as nice as you think I am.”

Annabelle smacked Stella on her shoulder. “You want people to think you're a hard-ass, but you're all mush on the inside.”

“Lies.” Stella gasped as she straightened her leg to finish the rep.

“Forget it,” Annabelle argued. “I know you too well.”

Stella slid her friend a look. “Or do you?”

“Okay, let's stretch,” she instructed her friend.

Stella lowered her leg, moving slower than normal. Annabelle moved into position to assist Stella with the stretches, taking care not to make any sudden movements that would strain the knee. Or make too much contact. Stella's muscles stiffened when Annabelle touched her.

“Okay, how about this?” Stella asked after they'd been stretching for a few seconds. “I'll admit I have a gooey soft center when you decide to go for it with Mr. Football.”

Annabelle lifted a brow. “That's not much of a deal. What is with you and this guy anyway?”

Stella shifted positions into a new stretch. “Because you, my friend, need to get laid.”

“Why Blake Carpenter?”

“Why not Blake Carpenter?” Stella countered.

Yeah, Annabelle. Why not?

“He's hot, for one thing,” Stella continued. “He's big and muscular. And hot.”

Annabelle grinned. “You said that already.” Probably because Blake was so damn hot that it needed to be mentioned twice.

“Well, he is. Some other woman is going to jump the guy's sexy bones if you don't do it already.”

“They can have him as far as I'm concerned,” Annabelle replied. Then she slanted her friend a look. “What makes you think the size of a man's muscles or his looks is all that matters to me? Maybe I'm after a more intellectual type who likes to read horoscopes and clean in his spare time.”

A laugh popped out of Stella. “Honey, every red-blooded woman wants a man who smolders like that guy does.” Stella's mouth curled in a slow grin. “A man who can whisper in a woman's ear and make her breath hitch.” Stella lifted her head off the mat. “And horoscopes? Really?”

Annabelle lifted a shoulder. “Just saying.”

Stella let her head fall back on the mat. “For all you know, maybe he does read horoscopes. Maybe underneath that sculpted torso is a guy who can scrub calcium stains off a faucet like a boss.”

Yeah, right. Blake was 100 percent prime alpha male who only knew how to beat his chest and make a woman's heart flutter.

Problem was, Annabelle couldn't think of one thing wrong with that.

The bell above her door dinged, and Virginia McAllister shuffled in, her orthopedic shoes scuffing across the carpeted entryway.

“Hi, Mrs. McAllister,” Annabelle called to the woman. “I'll be with you as soon as I've finished with Stella.”

Virginia's head, which was capped by her signature beehive, was bowed over her cell phone. “Oh, don't rush on my account. I'll just use the time to update my Tumblr page.” She shot the two women a grin, accentuating the grooves etched in her cheeks. “This morning we caught our coach jogging without a shirt on. Him and his cousin,” she added with a single nod of her head. “They tried to be sneaky by jogging on the other side of the park.” Virginia chuckled, which sounded wicked coming from a seventy-something-year-old woman. “Those boys think they can outsmart the Queen Bees. I'll show them who's smart.”

Stella bit back a laugh as she moved into another stretch.

“Mrs. McAllister, do they know you're taking pictures of them?” Annabelle asked. When what she really wanted to ask was,
What does Blake look like without his shirt on?
But she wouldn't. Not because she didn't want to know but because her mind was already conjuring up enough images that she didn't need to see the pictures.

Yeah, he'd look good. Athletic shorts clinging to those narrow hips. Maybe a trail of sweat running down the center groove of his carved abs. Back muscles bunching and tensing, glistening under the morning sun from the sweat covering his smooth skin.

“Want to see?” Virginia asked as though she'd read Annabelle's thoughts.

“We'd love to see,” Stella piped up before Annabelle had a chance to say No Effing Way.

Annabelle smacked her friend in the shoulder.

Stella slapped her back and gingerly rolled to her feet.

“Traitor,” Annabelle mouthed to her friend. Stella tossed a grin over her shoulder and strolled toward Virginia. She took the phone from the older woman and thumbed the screen. Annabelle reached her friend's side in time to see a photo of Blake and Brandon, shirtless of course, because life was just that unfair, jogging through the Blanco Valley City Park.

“Do you have one of just Blake?” Stella asked.

Virginia looked at Stella like she had a screw loose. “Of course not. Why would I take a picture of one when there were two of them? They are both equally nice to look at.”

Stella scrunched her nose and watched the tumbling pictures. Annabelle watched, too, because, well, what else was she going to do? And she was curious.

One picture was of Blake and Brandon jogging side by side, no shirt on either of them. Dark sunglasses, low-slung athletic shorts.

It was pretty much like she pictured. Every woman's fantasy wrapped up in one big, sweaty, chiseled package.

The pictures continued to scroll, and one of just Brandon popped up. He and his dog Duke and a red do-rag tied over Brandon's head, covering most of his rich brown hair.

Stella made a sound and shook her head.

“Girl, what's wrong with you?” Virginia demanded. “You have a problem with a man that looks like that? Because I could find a hundred other girls who would appreciate that fine piece of work.” Virginia pointed at herself. “Me being one of them.”

Stella looked up from the phone, and she and Annabelle stared at the woman, who had bright red lipstick on her thinning lips. Virginia yanked the phone out of Stella's hand. “Just because I'm old enough to be your grandmother doesn't mean I'm blind. I can still appreciate a young man who can get a woman's pulse fluttering.” She waved the phone in the air. “How much do you want a bet the first game of the season is packed?”

Of course Annabelle hoped the whole town turned out to watch the Bobcats play. But not because they'd been stalking the Queen Bees' Tumblr page and now knew what Blake Carpenter looked like without a shirt on. Chances were half the town had already seen the photos. The Beehive Mafia had a staggering following on their Tumblr. Mostly because they posted pictures of Blanco Valley's hot young bachelors. For some reason they'd targeted Brandon West, who seemed to be featured on the page more than anyone else.