figured, since you’re a wide receiver. I’m smart that way.”
“Yeah, you are. How about paddleboarding?”
“How about driving up the coast and eating lunch at this restaurant that I know? Or taking a walk on the beach?”
“I like it. But you’re never going to really know me unless you see me in action,” he said. When he talked he got into trouble. He said the wrong thing, and with Ferrin when he was being so careful to watch his every move, he didn’t want to chance it.
“I want to know the man, not the player, Hunter. Talking will do,” she said.
“You’re right, I’m happy to do that but in return you will do something with me.”
“Football?” she asked. The dread in her voice amused him.
“It’s not like I’m asking you to outrun zombies.”
“I think I’d prefer that,” she said. “I’m going to level with you. I never liked football and I know it’s because my dad loved it more than anything—and anyone—else.”
Hunter put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. “My dad is that way about the land.”
“The land?”
“Our family has a ranch that is generations old and when other families left and went to Dallas or moved on to oil, we kept cattle. It’s the only thing that Dad really understands. Football is okay for a man to watch on the weekends but to make a living at it, well, in his mind, that’s a lazy man’s path.”
“Football is at the crux of both our lives,” she said.
“See, we’re not so different after all,” he said, but they were different. He’d made his peace with his father. He’d always gone home in the off-season when he’d still been playing, and more frequently now. He did the early morning chores with his father. They’d gotten past the differences from their past. Ferrin hadn’t found that yet with Coach. Could Hunter do that for her? Mend that relationship?
Why did he want to?
Because he wanted her and was going to use her anyway, he thought. He needed to justify his actions to himself. To somehow make it seem as though it was okay for him to use her, to take her and the information he needed.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“You can look through Dad’s files. But... I’ll go through them with you,” she said.
Score.
But it didn’t feel like a touchdown. He felt as if he’d gotten the points due to something sly. A cheat.
“When you’re ready,” he said. “I still want to teach you to catch and spend the day with you.”
She gave him a long look from those gorgeous eyes of hers. And he realized there was much more to her than he’d noticed before.
“Waiting isn’t going to make me think you want to be with me more than you want to see the files,” she said.
“I know. But it will make me feel better that you are letting me see them,” he said.
“For a badass that’s not really a tough attitude.”
“The last time I put football before a woman it ended badly, Ferrin, but I need to make sure my conscience is clean on this.”
“Are you talking about Stacia? I want to know more about that. But I know it must be hard for you to talk about it,” she said.
Ferrin was right; he didn’t want to tell her the painful memories of Stacia’s death, how he’d broken up with her the very night she was murdered and had felt guilty about it ever since. But he knew he was going to have to. Only by talking about the past could he believe that she would understand why those files were so important.
“Definitely,” he said. “But not today. Today is about the present.”
She gave him another look, and to his guilty soul it seemed she read the truth buried beneath what he hoped was charm. “Fine. But you know it’s hard to move forward when you are carrying the weight of the past.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “I’m very well acquainted with that fact.”
“It’s okay. This is only our second date. I was just trying to be helpful,” she said. “Occupational hazard, I guess.”
“Right, psychology professor. Why teach instead of practice?” he asked.
“Teaching suits me. My parents are teachers.”
“I guess coaching is teaching, isn’t it?”
“I meant my stepdad, but coaching can be considered teaching, as well.”
She didn’t include Coach when she talked about her parents. That was interesting, and he wanted to know more. He would take today to learn about her and when he got her home he’d tell her the whole truth about Stacia and the past.
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