The Player Page 4

  “No, no, of course not. I just wanted to give you a reason to miss me.”

  Audrey smiled, rather weakly, it seemed, but didn’t say anything.

  He ran a finger down her nose. “And I also wanted to remind you to think about what I’d asked you.”

  This time she chuckled, but there was almost a sick-sounding quality to it that Jamie was certain both he and Tewanda had heard, but that had completely gone unnoticed by Derrick. In fact, he got the distinct impression that Derrick missed a lot.

  “Er…no worries,” she told him. “I’m not likely to forget.”

  “I guess not,” he said, smiling smugly. “All right then. I’d better be off.” He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll see you Sunday…and I’ll expect an answer,” he added ominously. Without so much as a backward glance to the rest of the occupants in the room, he strode out.

  “Want me to give him an answer?” Tewanda offered hopefully when the door closed behind Derrick.

  Audrey’s shoulders sagged with a sigh of obvious relief. “No,” she told her. “That won’t be necessary.” She pushed a hand through her hair, then looked up and for the first time her gaze landed on Jamie. “Oh,” she said, her eyes widening in obvious embarrassment.

  Tewanda grinned. “This is our newest guest—Jamie Flanagan,” she said. “The Colonel’s friend,” she added significantly.

  Impossibly, her eyes widened further, then another “oh” slipped from between her lips. Three beats passed, then she gave her head a small shake. She smiled and hurried forward to offer her hand.

  Against his better judgment he took it and, to his immediate chagrin, his palm tingled where it touched hers. Heat detonated in his loins and a curious warmth expanded in his chest.

  Now that was novel, Jamie thought, somewhat startled by the singularly disturbing reaction. His dick had stirred the instant he’d seen her—no surprise there because it nodded at almost every woman of the right age with a halfway decent rack—but this was the first time he’d ever gotten a charge out of merely touching a woman’s hand. While the picture of her might have been compelling, seeing her in the flesh was nothing short of magnetic. Jamie gritted his teeth as more prophet-of-doom musings rolled through his head.

  “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Flanagan.”

  “Jamie, please,” he told her, smiling, as a litany of curses reeled through his head.

  “Jamie, then. I’m Audrey. Welcome to Unwind.”

  Hell more like, Jamie thought, because guarding this woman without seducing her was going to be an exercise in restraint which would result in the most perverse sort of torture he could imagine.

  Unwind hell.

  He’d be lucky if he didn’t come un-glued, unhinged, un-wound, or un-manned by the time this week was over.

  “SINCE MR. FLANAGAN IS a special guest, why don’t you show him to his cottage personally?” Tewanda suggested sweetly.

  Unable to tear her gaze away from the man in question, it took Audrey a few seconds to respond. “Er…sure. I’d be happy to. If you’ll just come with me,” she said trying to sound more professional than the half-wit she’d undoubtedly just appeared to be.

  Sheesh, Audrey thought, resisting the pressing urge to fan herself as they walked outside into the cool autumn air. You’d think she’d never seen a good-looking man before.

  But this man wasn’t merely good-looking she thought with a covert peek from the corner of her eye—he was pure take-your-breath-away nippletingling flash-fire-across-the-thighs eye candy.

  This was her grandfather’s friend? This was the guy who needed special attention?

  Quite frankly, she couldn’t imagine that he didn’t get all the attention that he wanted.

  Of the female variety, at least, she thought with a quirk of her lips.

  He had that look, that cocked, locked, ready to rock sexuality that instantly put a woman in mind of warm massage oil and thigh-quaking orgasms.

  Unfortunately, to her immeasurable chagrin considering she’d only been in his presence a mere sixty seconds, that included herself.

  That certainly didn’t bode well for a week of what her grandfather had insisted should be intense one-on-one attention. Particularly as she was supposed to be considering a marriage proposal. But that was a whole other problem she’d simply have to think about later, she decided, channeling a little Scarlet O’Hara.

  Right now, she was finding it hard enough to regulate her breathing, much less anything else. She was too distracted by the disturbingly masculine line of his jaw, those sleepy hazel eyes which managed to be both wise and wicked and that shock of adorably curly brown hair.

  He was clearly an alpha—from the jut of that jaw to the swagger in his step, everything about him screamed merited confidence—but that hair softened him up, made him approachable and gave him a beta boy-next-door quality that mysteriously added to his overall sex appeal. Audrey felt a smile tug at her lips. No doubt he could make an orchid bloom in an arctic winter or charm the habit right off a nun if the mood struck…then convince her it was her idea.

  And she’d bet he didn’t scream like a girl when he came, either.

  Mercy.

  Jamie paused next to what was clearly a rental sedan. “Do I drive up to the cottage?” he asked.

  Audrey shook her head and indicated an area to the side of the office. “Up there will be fine. If you’d like to leave your bags with me, I’ll wait here while you park.”

  “Bag.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You said ‘bags.’” An interesting display of muscle action rippled across his back as he reached into the back seat, pulled out a small duffel and, wearing a lazy smile, handed it to her. “It’s bag. Singular.”

  Audrey chewed the corner of her lip, eying the duffel skeptically. “You have almost a week’s worth of clothes in this bag?”

  “With a couple of changes to spare.”

  She chuckled and inclined her head. He certainly had the art of packing light down to a science. Of course, given his military training she supposed that was habit as much as necessity. The more they packed, the more they had to carry. Too bad that some of the other people who came here didn’t have that same mentality. If they had to schlep their weighty Louis Vuitton everywhere themselves, they might rethink packing everything but the kitchen sink.

  Feeling herself intrigued beyond what she knew to be prudent, Audrey waited while Jamie moved the car. He made quick work of it, locked up, then loped with easy grace back down to where she stood and took the bag. “All right, then,” he said, casually taking in their surroundings. “Where to?”

  Audrey set off and pointed toward the lake. “Right down there.”

  “This is a beautiful place,” Jamie remarked, seemingly enjoying the fall landscape. Tall trees dressed in their finest foliage soared overhead and painted a mirror image on the lake’s rippling surface. New England asters bloomed in a purple perfusion of color along the various winding stone paths throughout camp and a couple of bickering squirrels squabbled over acorns. Stark white steep-roofed cottages were tucked along the lake and deep into the tree line, giving the impression of an old Colonial village.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’m proud of it. It was in pretty bad shape when I first bought it. Beautiful land, of course.” She slid him a glance. “It’s not called Lake Bliss for nothing. But the buildings and landscaping were all in need of serious repair.”

  “How long have you been in business?”

  “This is our fourth season.”

  “Season?”

  “We don’t operate year-round,” she explained. “The winters are too intense and frankly, we don’t have enough business to merit being open beyond Christmas. We run camps March through November.”

  Jamie nodded. “So what do you do those other months? Hunker down here?” He glanced around. “I’m assuming you live on site.”

  “I do,” Audrey confirmed with a smile. She gestured toward her own place, a slightly larg
er variation of the guest cottages. “I usually spend a month recuperating, a month vegging out and another month traveling and visiting family. In February, we’re gearing up toward a new season, so even though we aren’t technically open, we’re here getting things in order.”

  He smiled and she felt that grin all the way down to her little toes. “Sounds like you’ve got things down to a science.”

  Audrey chuckled, shoving her hair away from her face. “Not really,” she said. “But we’ve found a system that seems to be working for us.” She mounted the steps to his cottage. “Ah. Here we are.”

  Jamie inserted the key into the lock and let himself in.

  “It’s fully stocked,” Audrey told him, stepping in behind him. Which was quite nice because she got a wonderful view of his delectable ass—the ass she was not supposed to be noticing. She grimaced. Somehow she imagined this was not the sort of special attention her grandfather had in mind. “Linens, pantry—everything. Naturally, we’ve met any special requests which were on your application form, but if you’ve forgotten anything, there’s a general store just up the hill. If you can’t find what you need there, let us know and we’ll take care of it. No worries. That’s our motto.”

  Jamie dropped his bag into a recliner. “Special requests?” A line wrinkled his forehead. “I didn’t make any special requests.”

  Audrey forcibly flattened a smile and cleared her throat. “Er…my grandfather made several on your behalf.”

  “I’ll just bet he did,” Jamie muttered darkly with a comical grimace.

  “You’ll find Guinness beer in the fridge and Jameson whiskey in the cabinet.” She cocked her head. “Tribute to your Irish heritage, I presume?”

  Jamie nodded and grinned. “It’s the best.”

  Audrey’d had Guinness before, but had never been much of a whiskey drinker. She confessed as much. “It’s too much,” she said. “I don’t care for the burn.”

  “Uisce beatha.” He sighed, absently scratching his chest.

  “Come again?”

  “Uisce beatha. It’s Gaelic for ‘water of life.’”

  “Oh.”

  He chuckled. “Trust me, the Irish know how to make a good whiskey. You’ll have to try it. It’s smoother. It’s got a sweet honey flavor and slides like silk down your throat.”

  Audrey resisted the pressing urge to fidget and let go a small uneven breath. Well, when he put it like that, who wouldn’t want to drink it?

  Jamie crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a heavily muscled shoulder against the wall. His too-sexy lips quirked with droll humor. “What other special requests did the Colonel make for me?”

  “Oh, just a few things,” Audrey told him lightly. “Books, medications. The usual.”

  Liar, liar pants on fire. There’d been nothing usual about the things her grandfather had specifically asked for on Jamie’s behalf. And in fact, now that she’d met him, she couldn’t imagine that he’d need any of them.

  Jamie frowned. “Books? Med—?”

  “Anyway,” Audrey smoothly interrupted before they could get into any of that. She moved toward the door, preparing to make a swift exit. “You’ll want to get settled, I’m sure. Take your time, but do be sure and come up to the lodge at six. It’s informal, but we like to go over everything that Unwind has to offer. I’ll be taking care of you personally this week.”

  “Personally, eh?” he asked with a grin that would ignite water.

  Audrey blushed. “That’s right.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, be sure and bring your schedule—”

  “Schedule?”

  “Yes. It’s in there—” she gestured toward the manila envelope on top of his bag “—and we’ll get you on the road to relaxation.”

  He muttered something else she didn’t quite understand.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It was nothing,” Jamie said quickly, offering her a smile she knew he’d conjured solely for her benefit. It might have been false, but it was still potent. At any rate, he clearly didn’t want to be here and, as her grandfather had said, was only acting on the Colonel’s orders. That was going to make things much more difficult, Audrey thought, but she’d promised her grandfather that she’d do her best to take care of him.

  For the next week, this guy was hers—the mere thought made her insides quiver—and even with the wacky trumped up so-called hobbies her grandfather had supplied for Jamie, she fully expected to enjoy herself much more than she should.

  4

  * * *

  YOU CAN GO ON—Dealing with Erectile Dysfunction.

  Coping with Incontinence.

  Jamie snorted and tossed the books aside, then pulled his cell from the clip at his waist and dialed Garrett directly. “What?” he asked when the Colonel answered the phone. “Was Chicken Soup for the Psychopath’s Soul on backorder?”

  Garrett chuckled, the twisted bastard. “I see you’ve arrived.”

  “I have.”

  “And everything’s in order?”

  “Everything but your sense of humor. Basket-weaving? Watercolors? Ballroom dancing? Just exactly when were you planning to have me guard her?” Jamie asked, completely exasperated. Hobbies, hell. “Because the relaxing schedule I’m looking at leaves very little time for that.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” said the Colonel. “You make it sound like you’re not going to have a good time.”

  Jamie moved his duffel out of the recliner and dropped heavily into it. He flicked a casual glance around the living room and deemed it to his liking. Comfortable furniture, natural gender-neutral decor. A nice view of the lake. Not bad at all. “I didn’t think the purpose of this mission was to ensure that I had a good time. I thought I was here to protect Audrey.”

  “Ah, Audrey, is it?”

  Jamie felt his fingers tighten around the cordless phone. “That’s her name. You didn’t expect me to call her Ms. Kincaid, did you?”

  “No, and I don’t want anyone calling her Mrs. Derrick Willis either, which is the real reason you are there. Take notes. You’re about to receive orders.”

  Jamie blinked, stunned. “What? I thought you said you wanted me to protect her from a personal enemy.”

  “I do—that enemy is Derrick Willis.”

  Jamie leaned forward in his chair. Derrick? How could Derrick be his personal enemy? What the fu—

  “I have it on good authority that he’s asked my granddaughter to marry him and has given her until the end of the week to make up her mind,” Garrett said.

  Jamie stilled. So that was the question Derrick-the-ass had been referring to, Jamie realized, suddenly sickened. Though he’d barely had time to rub two thoughts together since he’d gotten here, he had to admit that Audrey choosing a boyfriend like that sonofabitch was a little disheartening. Quite frankly, he would have thought she’d had better taste.

  What was the draw? he wondered. It damned sure wasn’t personality or sex appeal. The guy was provokingly abrasive at best and Jamie had personally seen her cringe when Derrick had tried to hug her. That certainly wouldn’t make a happy marriage. It didn’t make any sense.

  And he sure as hell didn’t see how he was supposed to “protect” her from Derrick.

  “I don’t understand,” Jamie told him, thoroughly confused. “Derrick’s not even here.”

  “I know. He’s on a business trip.”

  What? Jamie wondered. Did he have the place bugged? “How did you know th—”

  “Suffice it to say I have an excellent source in place who also has my granddaughter’s best interests at heart.”

  Ah. Tewanda.

  He was beginning to get the picture—albeit a vastly different one to what had originally been painted—but he still didn’t see how he figured in it. “Sir, with all due respect, I fail to see how I can—”

  Garrett chuckled. “For someone with a genius-level IQ, you certainly aren’t doing a bang-up job of putting things together, Flanagan.”

  He supposed not, Jamie thou
ght, completely baffled. He couldn’t hit a target that wasn’t here. What the hell did Garrett want him to do? Follow Derrick? If so, then why had he arranged for Jamie to be in place here? It didn’t make any sense. Exactly what did the Colonel have in mind—

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Garrett finally snapped. “You’re bait.”

  If Jamie hadn’t had a death grip on the phone he would have dropped it. He felt his eyes widen and his jaw drop. “I’m what?”

  “Bait,” Garrett repeated calmly. “Your reputation with the ladies makes you the perfect man for this mission, Flanagan. Oh, I suppose McCann or Payne would have done okay as well, but in order to make absolutely sure that Audrey doesn’t permanently attach herself to that pompous moron, I thought I’d err on the side of caution and send you in.”

  Silence stretched across the line while Jamie tried to process what the Colonel had just told him.

  “You see,” Garrett continued, “if my granddaughter is even remotely attracted to you, she wouldn’t dream of saying ‘I do’ to that gelled-up windbag. She has too much class. And it’s no secret that you have a certain talent with women…So here are your orders and you’d better heed them to the letter,” Garrett warned. “Otherwise, I assure you that you’ll be very, very sorry.” He paused, letting the threat sink in. “For the next five days I want you to shadow my granddaughter. Spend time with her, flirt with her, compliment her. Do whatever it is that you do to get women to fall all over you. But that is all. I’m not pimping you out to my granddaughter, Flanagan,” he said gruffly, some of that legendary piss and gravel in his voice. “Baseball’s an all-American game, so I’ll put it into terms I’m sure you’ll understand. You are ondeck, but you will never get to bat, do you understand?”

  Still in a state of shock, Jamie cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

  “First base is forbidden. Second base is forbidden. Third base is forbidden. If you get anywhere near home plate, you’ll need that book on erectile dysfunction. You’ll also need a surgeon to remove my foot from your ass. Is there any part of this that’s unclear?”