Amber's Ace (8 page)

Just as only one special picnic basket interested Riley.

“Here you go, son.” Miss Kathy appeared at his side and shoved a towel into his hands. “Mop up.” She winked at him. “We wouldn’t want you getting anyone’s, um, cookies a little too moist.”

“Thanks, Miss K.” He rubbed his damp hair, blotted his chest, and then slung the towel around his neck.

The older woman snatched it back from him. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it, I always say. And you have got it, Riley Morgan. Maybe you’ve only got eyes for one female, but the rest of us have eyes for you. Don’t deprive us of seeing that smokin’ eight-pack on display.”

Gah
. He stifled his ready retort. He had to remember that this woman, outspoken as Ryker was taciturn, was the enforcer’s aunt.

He dragged his bent left hand through his hair as Miss Kathy sidled away, no doubt to foment more mischief somewhere else. As she vacated the spot, Miss Claire materialized at his elbow.

“This way, young man.” She steered him down the table, stopping in front of a woven basket, lined and decorated with plaid gingham kitchen cloths. “Looks good, doesn’t it? Take a whiff, Riley.”

Despite his new life in Los Lobos, a shudder rippled down his back. “Never say the word ‘whiff’ to a professional ball player, Miss Claire.”

The older woman laughed. “Take a deep breath, then.”

No need for that. His mate’s essence enveloped him. Spicy but down-home all at the same time, like a Thanksgiving banquet, biscuits and gravy, pumpkin pie with candied pecans, cinnamon and ginger, and the dark sugar of real Vermont maple syrup, the tang of frosty root beer. His mouth watered. Was it his imagination, or were the napkins lining the basket in New York Kings colors of navy and white?

“Don’t tell anyone I said so,” Miss Claire confided, “but that girl’s fried chicken is even better than mine. Your fingers won’t be all you’ll be lickin’.”

“You’re making me drool.”

“Good.” She patted his bare shoulder then winked and handed him a clean, blue chambray work shirt, perfectly laundered and ironed. “You might want to cover those muscles up and save the surprise.”

“Miss Kathy just told me to flaunt ’em.”

“Maybe another time,” Miss Claire laughed. “But we’ve got other plans for you today. Wouldn’t want to give the young lady a heart attack, just when she’s beginning to warm up to you a little.”

“Is she?” Jeeze. Could he sound any more eager? He glanced around. “Do you think so?” Gah. Was he in frickin’ high school, for Goddess’ sake?

Miss Claire chortled and patted him again, his denimed rear this time. “Hope you brought enough cash, big guy. I suspect her brothers won’t let her go cheap. If at all.”

She nodded toward the area where Chance had the barbecue grill set up. Brick stood next to him, the pair of Northridge males deep in conversation and apparently comparing the state of their wallets while their mates, Julie and Summer, made faces at them.

“I was afraid of that.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage. That slow, sexy smile of yours is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Guaranteed to melt titanium.” Miss Claire winked again and sidled away.

He turned from the table with a sigh and received the shock of his life. Well, maybe the second shock of his life.

“You’d be interested in that basket, you think?” Amber stood toe-to-toe with him, her brow creased, expression fierce and intent. Anxious. She barely reached his shoulder.

“How would you feel about that, angel face?”

She bit her lower lip. “I didn’t want to do this at all. The ladies talked me into it. I’m worried no one will bid.”

“I think your brothers have that covered.”

“Besides them, I mean. I’ve talked to them about how humiliating that would be, but sometimes they’ve got wooden blocks for ears. Not to mention heads. Julie and Summer don’t want them to embarrass me, and they want to picnic with their own mates, besides. I don’t know which would be worse. Them trying to outdo each other with extravagant bidding, or no one else having any interest at all.”

“Are you serious, angel face? A male would be a fool to let you escape him.” The moment the words left his mouth, he could have kicked himself. About the worst phrase he could have chosen. He shook his head. No. He would
not
let her flinch away from him this time. Deliberately, he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “You know what I meant,” he growled.

“Everyone knows my history,” she said miserably. “I know you do.”

“Goddess, Amber. Do you think I care about that?”
Mate
.
Protect. Comfort
. “Only because
you’ve
been hurt, angel.
That
makes me murderous. Drives my wolf crazy.” His vow faded into mist, and he curled an arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward him. She stiffened for an instant then leaned her cheek against his chest and let him hold her. He tightened the embrace, folding her into him and resting his chin on the top of her head.

Goddess. Heaven.

Across the field, her brothers stiffened, ready to pounce.

“Forget about them,” she whispered, as if reading his mind.

“They’re forgotten. So is anyone else who has the dumb idea of coming between us.” He inhaled the fragrance of her hair and sighed.

“I love the way you smell,” she murmured into his shirt. “Like summer. Like sunshine. Like….”

“Like mate?”

“You’ll bid, then, Riley? I-I want to share my blanket with you.” Her head sprang up so abruptly she hit the edge of his jaw. She clamped a hand over her mouth and stared at him. “Oh! I mean…. I didn’t mean….” Her cheeks flamed.

He ignored her chagrin and tucked her back against him again. The hell with the lethal glares her brothers aimed his way, or the curious looks his public display garnered from the rest of the pack. He wanted to claim this female, and he wanted everyone to know it.

“I got what you meant, angel face. I’d be totally proud and honored to have lunch with you today, sweetheart. See how that goes? Baby steps. I’m a patient guy. When I was on the mound, I’d shake off a catcher’s signs till the cows came home, waiting for the call I wanted. It’s important it’s right for you, Amber. I get that. I’ll give you as long as you need.”

He stifled the inner grumbling of his wolf. The beast butted its head into his ribs in furious reaction to his words. The wolf wanted its mate. Now. Today. “Today,” he echoed aloud. “Tomorrow. Next year. As long as it takes. That’s a promise. But I’m persistent, and one day, angel, we are gonna share more than a picnic blanket. That’s a promise, too.”

And, just like that, from a brief, covert wallow in his delicious scent and furtive snuggle against his hard-muscled chest in front of the long picnic basket display table, she was all of a sudden
with
Riley. Very much
with
Riley. A few of the young females around her age aimed venomous scowls in her direction. A few of the young males snickered behind their hands. The rest of the pack offered winks and sly smiles but otherwise steered clear of the newly minted pair, giving them all the distance they needed.

Riley did, too, acting like a female whisperer trying to encourage and lure a feral Amber back to the fold and into his arms. Her mate was good. He was very, very good. He apparently knew just how to handle a woman. Or, at least, a woman like Amber. He’d give her space and let her pull away from him…to a point. Then he’d carefully reel her back in. Gradually, a deep sense of comfort replaced her anxiety and fear. Apart from the excitement and arousal she experienced when close to him, he represented security. A sense of well-being. Of
home
. Home was in his arms. And at last, she was safe at home.

“Protect,” he whispered into her ear. “That’s what mates do.”

She sighed. “You seem so sure.”

“I am.” His deep voice reverberated with certainty. “Aren’t you?”

“I can’t breathe when I’m near you. Everything inside me quivers and shakes. I melt. When you touch me, it’s like an electric shock pulses through me. But…I feel restful and at peace, too. Is that how it is for you?”

“From the day I first saw you at Hidden Maiden Creek, lying on the bank like an angel aglow beneath the sun. Before that, even.”

“Before?” She wrinkled her nose. “How can that be?”

“I heard you,” he said, hesitation in his voice. He stared at her, shaking his head and shifting his weight, clearly uncertain what words to choose. “Soon,” he said at last. “You haven’t guessed yet, but I’ll tell you soon enough.”

Amber sifted through his words, trying to ferret out their meaning. Before? He
heard
her? She was certain they’d never met. What did he mean?

“But right now, ah, my angel.” He inhaled deeply. “Your scent is so delicious to me I want to lie down in it and roll around. That part I can’t explain.”

“That part I totally get.” She shot him a smile. When he returned it, with that long, sweet slow grin of his, every molecule of oxygen left her lungs. Breathless did not begin to describe his effect on her.

They walked around the field, several times, making circuit after circuit, lost in each other, in their private conversation. When he spoke to her, he met her gaze full-on, and the warmth in his ice-granite eyes thrilled her.

“It doesn’t bother you that I’m…that I’ve been…I’m damaged goods, Riley?”

“No more than I am,” he shrugged. “Besides…you’re perfect to me.”

“I’ve been with men,” she blurted. “Not by my choice, but—”

He covered her lips with two fingers. “Ssh. I’ve been with women. It
was
my choice, so that’s worse. You had no control over your situation, okay? But there’ll never be any more women for me. It’s done, Amber. It’s past. For both of us.”

His words took her fears away, made her light-headed and weak-kneed. They would have to discuss everything that had happened to her, her captivity and the horrors she experienced at the hands of Magnum and his evil henchmen. But not today. Today was for everything fresh and beautiful and full of sweet promise.

“I would like to hold your hand,” she said, after a while. “Could I do that?”

He beamed and moved around her to her other side, offering his uninjured right hand.

“No, this one,” she said, indicating his gnarled southpaw. “Unless that would hurt you?”

“You can’t hurt me, angel face.” His slow, sweet smile spread across his face, lighting it like sunshine. “Not anymore.”

She threaded her fingers through his bent ones. “You’re sure, Riley?”

A flicker of something uncertain flashed into his eyes again, his brow knotting. Would he disclose his secret? The thing he didn’t want to tell her yet? She held her breath. But then the look was gone, his tanned forehead smooth once more.
I’ve already hurt him somehow
. But what had she done?
When?

“Damn right, I’m sure.” His voice sounded gravelly and gruff, his wolf speaking for him. The moment of hesitation vanished, and he was the supremely confidant and dominant male he’d always been. What had he wanted to say and hadn’t?

“You’ll tell me one day, won’t you, Riley?”

“One day I will, angel face. That’s a promise, too.”

“You’re making a lot of those today.”

“I’m a wolf of my word, Amber. I keep the promises I make. The ones I make to you are etched in marble. You’ll always be able to count on me.”

***

She sat near him when the gorgeous glass orb, filled with colored gemstones, went up for bid. A foreign, uneasy tension stiffened his normally relaxed body, and he leaned forward, straining to hear better.

Would he bid on that? She wanted it with every fiber of her being, as much, almost, as she wanted the big, delicious-smelling male sprawled next to her. She couldn’t remember ever being interested in a man, let alone wanting one.

Amber glanced across the field at her sister, sitting with Julie and Chance and Brick and Summer and their little twins, but somehow isolated and curled in on herself. Maybe Garnet would like it, too. They could share it. Neither of them had much money.

She tried to gauge the interest of those around her while appearing nonchalant at the same time. Hard to appear casual, though, when Riley’s compelling presence at her side had turned them both into something of a pack spectacle, a new juicy source of pack gossip and conjecture—The Imprisoned and The Destroyed. Perhaps The Ruined applied to both of them, in a way. Although, studying Riley’s self-possessed form, ruined and destroyed were the last words anyone could or should apply to him. Maybe his career had come to an end, but Riley remained a vital life-force. Nothing would stop him. He’d find another path in life and he’d own that, as much as he’d owned the glittering role of major league baseball star. She could learn so many things from this male.

The ripple of hushed whispers around them ceased. Necks seemed craned their way, human ears perked up so as not to miss a whisper that wolf ears would catch. Many pairs of eyes focused on them, some knowing. The whiff of a tantalizing secret seemed to drift upon the air.

The pack alpha’s mate, Betty, approached the display table and raised the glass orb high.

“That globe is so beautiful,” Amber murmured to Riley.

Her words seemed to please him. One of his heart-stopping grins spread across his face. “You like it?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “It must have taken someone so long to gather all those gorgeous gem stones.”

“You want it, angel-face?” His wintry eyes twinkled. “It’s yours.”

“It’s awesome. I’d love it. But…I don’t think I could afford it.”

“You’d bid?”

“I only have five dollars.”

“No worries.” He winked and chucked her under the chin. Even the brief touch of his fingers sent sparks shooting through her. “I’d wager it was made for you.”

“This next item is spectacular,” Betty called out, starting the auction for the beautiful piece. “Look how it sparkles when you hold it up to the sun. Like holding a handful of jewels. Let’s start the bidding at one hundred dollars.”

Riley leaped up from the blanket, even as Amber grabbed his jeans’ leg to try to yank him back down. “One dollar!” he shouted.