Just One Night Together (Flatiron Five Fitness #3) - Deborah Cooke Page 0,108
up on Main Street, and the ones she remembered looked tired. She found it depressing, and even though the Shop ’n Save had been updated a bit, it was close enough to being the same.
She was already wondering why she’d come on Thursday instead of Saturday. She’d had a bad travel day, with a delayed flight from New York meaning that she’d missed her connection at O’Hare. She was trying to remember why she’d decided that staying with Nick and Tori was a good idea and doing her best to be cheerful and helpful to her friend when she marched down the pickle aisle, slipped, and was caught by Reid Jackson.
Montrose River’s original bad boy.
And its only superstar.
What the hell was he doing here?
He was still good looking—wickedly handsome, actually—still tall and dark with those glinting eyes. But Reid had grown up. Big time. He’d kept that steady stare with a hint of challenge in it, the look that dared you to prove that you were as audacious as he was. You could see that his nose had been broken once, but now she understood why he’d never gotten it fixed. It gave him a dangerous air, one that suited him well. He had two days’ growth of beard, which made him look like a pirate, but it wasn’t sloppy. She’d guess he spent a lot of time trimming his beard so it was just so. Her mother would still say he was trouble on a stick—or maybe that he was an accident looking for a place to happen.
He still made Cassie’s heart skip.
She remembered how much he’d intrigued her. How was it possible for a person to not care about anything? At all? He’d been cavalier, audacious, rebellious and willing to do anything. He should have been in jail by now.
Twice.
But there had been football. Cassie remembered watching him play. On the field, he’d been a brilliant, almost psychic, quarterback. It was the one place he shone. She remembered how he’d been picked by a Big Ten college team and how everyone in town had been so proud of him—conveniently forgetting all their convictions of his doomed future.
She also remembered the news reports when Reid had ruined not one but both knees and had to retire from football before even finishing college. She’d felt badly for him at the time, as any chance of a pro contract evaporated.
Maybe that was why he’d come back to Montrose River.
Maybe he had nowhere else to go.
Reid had been dangerously attractive back in the day but now he was hot. He had broad shoulders and Cassie could feel the steel of his muscles in the arm wrapped around her waist. She told herself that her interest was professional, seeing as she was part owner in a fitness club.
He must work out. A lot.
She reminded herself that he must have fathered a dozen kids in town by now, but stared into his eyes and tingled instead.
That cocky confidence he’d possessed in high school seemed to have multiplied tenfold and Cassie’s heart was racing as a result. He held her against his side as if he had no intention of letting her go, and smiled down at her, as if she was on his menu for lunch. The look in his eyes made Cassie yearn to be gobbled up by this big bad wolf.
Soon.
Maybe she should gobble him up. She wasn’t the girl she’d been once upon a time—and she didn’t have to follow anybody’s rules anymore.
She was only in Montrose River for the weekend, after all.
“I wouldn’t have expected you to recognize me, Cassie Wilson,” he said and his voice was a lot deeper than she remembered. She actually felt it rumble in his chest, right against hers, and her nipples tightened.
How was it that she hadn’t even known that his eyes were such an amazing shade of green?
“Why not?” she said lightly. “You haven’t changed that much.”
He seemed to find that amusing. “While you have.” His admiration of that was more than clear and Cassie felt flustered in an unfamiliar way.
“Well, it’s been fifteen years.” She tried to step away but Reid held her a little tighter.
Cassie liked it a lot more than she knew she should.
“You’ll slip here,” he said, his voice low and silky, then practically carried her down the aisle to a place where the floor was dry. He was rock solid. That took dedication and many, many hours in the gym. Cassie respected that and the result. “Better?”