Winning the Right Brother (10 page)

Will wasn’t ready for this. Holly could read the uncertainty in his posture. It wasn’t
fair,
she thought wildly. It was too much pressure to put on a fifteen-year-old boy.

Then he handed the ball off to Tom, who ran for twelve yards and a first down, and while David and Angela cheered for their son Holly breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it would be okay. She no longer even cared about winning the game. She just wanted Will to get through this without getting hurt, and without making any huge mistakes that would torture him for the rest of—

She groaned and closed her eyes briefly. Will had just gotten sacked, and although he scrambled to his feet
right away, obviously unhurt, she could tell he was rattled. The very next play he was called for intentional grounding, and in a flash of insight she knew he was afraid to pass the ball, afraid to touch the ball, afraid to have the game resting on his shoulders.

Alex called a time-out and Holly wondered what he would say. Will was probably hoping his coach would call another rushing play, and another and another, but then Tom would be the focus of the punishment the Steelers were handing out, and, anyway it wouldn’t work. You had to balance your running attack with your passing attack if you wanted to have success—and that meant you needed a quarterback who believed in himself.

Alex was talking to Will by the sideline. Holly took a deep breath and let it out. She felt calmer suddenly, seeing them together. Alex would say the right things. Will trusted him. Will nodded at whatever his coach was saying, and Alex slapped him on the back. Then all the players came together for the team grip.

“Go Wildcats!” they said with one voice, and then they were running back out on the field.

The opposing teams lined up to face each other. The crowd noise made it impossible to hear but she could see Will behind center, looking right and left as he called the play, crisp confidence in his bearing as he took the snap and backpedaled in the pocket.

And the offensive line held as three wide receivers headed down the field. Will kept his head up, reading the defense, and freezing the safety in the middle of the field with a pump fake. Then he let the ball fly. And watched it sail downfield in a perfect spiral, right into the arms of the intended receiver, who gathered it in gleefully and scampered across the goal line for a touchdown.

They missed the extra point but nobody cared. By the time the Wildcats lined up to kick the ball off, there was still so much pandemonium in the stands that Holly couldn’t hear her own voice as she shouted, pounding David and Angela on the back and arms and any place she could reach, and herself being pounded.

The wind had been knocked out of the Steelers and they couldn’t do a thing with the ball. They turned it over on downs and then the Wildcats just held on grimly, running a series of safe, clock-killing plays until time ran out and the visiting crowd swept out on the field, carrying Holly with them, and she was so proud and happy and there was such joyful madness all around her that she didn’t register that Alex had swept her up into his arms until he was spinning her around fast enough to make her dizzy.

“We did it!” he said, as if hardly able to believe it himself. He let her slide back to the ground but kept his arms around her, smiling down into her eyes, and she was so happy, and Alex was so happy, and her hands were still resting on his shoulders as she looked up at him. All of these things together made it seem perfectly natural to rise up on her toes and give him a quick kiss on the lips.

Later, when Holly was trying to analyze the incident rationally, she told herself that she had just meant it as a brief, friendly kiss, something celebratory stemming out of overflowing emotion and the general joy and craziness that was erupting all around them.

If so, that’s not what it turned into.

Holly started to step back, but Alex’s arms tightened almost convulsively around her waist, pulling her sharply against him. She gasped, and he let her go, but only so he could thrust his fingers into her hair and pull
her to him for another kiss, parting her lips ruthlessly with his tongue and plundering her mouth, the taste of him sweeter and fiercer than anything she’d ever known.

In one instant Holly’s entire world was reduced to this man, his hard body like steel against hers, her breasts crushed against his chest, his fingers tangled in her hair and his mouth bruising hers. She snaked her arms around his neck and pulled him even closer, opening herself to him completely, her tongue meeting his in a glorious, feverish tangle.

The sound of a trumpet blaring in her ear was like a bucket of cold water. Holly jumped and stumbled back a few steps with her hand to her heart.

It was the Weston High marching band, milling around chaotically as they prepared to lead a victory dance to the parking lot, and in the time it took to recover from the shock, Holly was reflecting that they’d probably saved her from seducing their coach in the middle of a football field surrounded by teenagers, their parents and several newspaper reporters.

Wouldn’t that have made a nice front page photo for the
Weston Herald.

Holly took a breath and looked around. In the general pandemonium it didn’t look as if anyone had even noticed their little interlude, which couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds, and Will, thank goodness, was nowhere in sight.

She couldn’t look at Alex. She put a hand up to her mouth, which she knew was swollen with the most incredible kiss she’d ever experienced, and wondered if she could possibly get away with just, you know, walking away as if nothing had—

“Holly,” Alex said, grabbing her arm, and she risked a look at him. Whatever expression she’d expected to see on his face, it wasn’t this. He looked worried. Not blasted with lust like her, or even just dazed by the suddenness of it all, but simply worried.

“Please don’t be mad,” he said, his voice sounding concerned, and all Holly could do was blink at him. “I didn’t mean—it was just—” He floundered around for a while longer before Holly finally found her voice.

“The heat of the moment,” she said, thinking that made as much sense as anything else. Whatever it had been, it obviously wasn’t going to happen again, if Alex’s current effort to backtrack was any indication, so the only thing to do was put this behind them with as little embarrassment and disruption to their friendship as possible.

“Right,” he said, sounding relieved, and Holly felt a wave of depression. How could he be so relieved that they’d never be doing that again? Was she really that bad a kisser?

It wasn’t her fault, she thought defensively. It wasn’t as if she’d had a ton of practice. Not like he’d obviously had. God, the way that man could kiss… Holly’s eyes fluttered closed at the memory and she had to bite her lip to keep from making a sound she was very much afraid would have been a moan.

“I’ve got to find Will,” she said, clinging to something familiar.

“Will. Right. He was incredible tonight, Holly. A natural. It took real courage to do what he did tonight.”

Courage. Something she knew nothing about, or she’d be throwing her arms around Alex instead of standing here like a half-wit. So what if she was a bad kisser. She could ask him to teach her, couldn’t she?

Except that Alex didn’t look like a man interested in teaching her anything. He looked more like a man embarrassed by a momentary indiscretion, precipitated by something she’d initiated, however innocently.

She had kissed him first, after all. Alex’s response had probably been automatic for him, like his flirting. A woman kisses you and you respond. Like Pavlov’s dogs.

She thought about all the girls he’d dated in high school, about the call from Amber, about what Rich Brennan had called “the Alex McKenna revolving door.” She didn’t want to be one of those women, with him for a few casual months and then gone. She wasn’t wired that way. And Alex wasn’t wired any other way.

“I’ve got to find Will,” she said again, speaking carefully, like a drunk doing her best not to slur her words. She patted Alex on the arm, wanting to convey somehow that it was all right, that he didn’t need to be embarrassed, that she understood. He looked unhappy, which was nice of him. In his own way he was a gentleman. He would have taken back the kiss if he could.

Which was the difference between them. Because even though she was embarrassed, too, even though what she was feeling now terrified her, Holly was glad it had happened. At least now she could say she’d had one great kiss in her lifetime. Every woman should be able to say that.

Even if it had only been great for her.

She had been there with him, Alex told himself over and over that night as he lay awake. The post-game celebration had seemed to go on for hours, but Alex had barely noticed it through the pain and confusion he was feeling now.

She’d been there with him. He was sure of it. The way she had leaned into his kiss… He’d never been turned on so hard and so fast in his life. She was so fiery, so passionate. If only she could let herself go….

But she couldn’t. You’d think he’d know that by now. Holly had always shied away from expressing her passion, the passion Alex had always seen in her, the passion she was so careful to hide from the world.

It made sense, really. Holly was a person who needed to feel in control, and passion was about giving up control. She would never take kindly to a feeling that took her over, that swept her away, that put someone or something else in the driver’s seat—even if it was only for a little while. Holly might be a smoldering flame but she would never, never let it show except in flashes. Once when she was drunk. Once when her house burned down. And once when her son had just won one of the most dramatic football games Alex had ever coached.

He’d come home to find the two of them there before him, Will still pumped up with adrenaline and excitement, telling his mom for what was probably the hundredth time how calm he had felt taking that snap, how he’d known, just
known,
he’d be able to complete the pass, how he hadn’t let fear stop him. He’d seen Alex come in and jumped to his feet, the happiness bubbling out of him until Alex couldn’t help but smile in response, in spite of the anxious look he shot at Holly.

“It really was an amazing game,” she said, meeting his eyes with what looked like complete self-possesion. So much for his hope that she might still be affected by the mind-blowing kiss they’d shared. “So amazing that a person could possibly get carried away by all the
emotion.” She gave him a rueful look, her lips forming a silent “sorry” behind Will’s back.

Alex gave her the universal forget-about-it gesture, a quick wave of the hand, and that was that.

The three of them spent the next two hours together talking and laughing, with Will doing most of each but Holly and Alex contributing more toward the end of the evening. The two adults were a little uncomfortable at first but slowly grew used to each other again until, finally, things felt almost back to normal.

Normal.

Alex sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. Oh, he supposed it was better this way. It was what Holly wanted. Just because he wanted something different didn’t mean it was going to happen. In fact, it was pretty clear now it was never going to happen. A woman who could walk away from a kiss like that was not a woman he’d be able to talk into anything, especially if it went against her better judgment.

And her judgment was probably right. He was more attracted to her than he’d ever been to any woman, but that wouldn’t be—shouldn’t be—enough for Holly. She was a woman who deserved forever, and he didn’t do forever. The most he’d ever offered a woman was a few months of fun.

Holly deserved more than that. She deserved everything a man had to offer, including his heart. And that was something Alex had never offered to anyone.

So it was all for the best, right? They were both cowards when it came to love.

Not that this was about love, of course.

There was heat between them, even if Holly refused to face it, but there wasn’t love. Friendship, yes. Respect
and affection, yes. A deep connection, yes—for him, anyway. And a long-standing crush that he had, apparently, never gotten over.

But love was about forever. And when it came to Holly, it was about Will, too. What in his track record would give anyone, including him, the idea that he was ready for love and commitment with a single mother and her teenage son?

No. Holly had been right to run from their kiss, even if she’d run out of fear. Alex had never believed in listening to fear, but when it came to his feelings for Holly, he was prepared to make an exception.

Saturday morning was Pancake Day, Will and Holly informed him when he came downstairs at ten o’clock. By the looks of things they’d already done some damage pancake-wise, and Holly was at the stove flipping three more. She grinned at him, wearing jeans and his Bengals jersey. Her hair was in a loose braid down her back.

“What did you do, raid my T-shirt drawer?”

She looked down. “Oh, right. Sorry. This is one of the shirts you brought me that first night. They’re so comfortable, and when I went shopping last week I sort of concentrated on work clothes and didn’t really get anything casual. Is it all right if I borrow it a little longer? This one and the Pittsburgh one? Just until I can get a few of my own.”

He waved it away. He was getting pretty good at that.
Don’t worry, it’s as if it never happened, what’s a little toe-curling kiss among friends?

“No problem,” he said out loud. “Comfort is important.” He cleared his throat. “So what are you two doing today? Anything exciting planned?”

“I’m going to teach my mom to throw a football.”

Alex gave Holly a skeptical look as he dug into the huge pile of pancakes she put in front of him, which were, predictably, delicious. “Are you telling me you actually
want
to learn to throw a football?”

Holly grinned. “I wouldn’t say I’m brimming over with excitement, but in case you hadn’t noticed it’s a gorgeous fall day out there and running around in your enormous backyard has its appeal. I’m going to the gym later, too. I haven’t been since the fire, which is a mistake. Missing workouts always makes me cranky. My job is good for intellectual stimulation but not physical stimulation. I need both.”