Authors: V. K. Sykes
CaddyGirls
Torrey Green once had a promising golf career, now she’s stuck caddying for butt-pinching businessmen. She doesn’t mind playing dumb while hauling clubs if it means she can get her golf career back on track, and she’s going to need an influx of cash to focus on the pro circuit. A booking from video game mogul Julian Grant could be Torrey’s cash-flow solution.
In town for a business deal, Julian’s partners plan for a little action on the greens. They’re looking for some fun with their rent-a-caddy girls and have a lot riding on who can score, on the course and off. This type of gamble isn’t Julian’s style, but he’ll do whatever it takes to keep his partners happy—even if that includes breaking a few hearts along the way.
Julian soon discovers that Torrey is more than just a caddy girl, and they spark an intriguing attraction—but if Torrey discovers the truth behind his foolish wager, all bets are off…
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V.K. Sykes
“If I get one more cigar-chomping lard butt, I swear I’m going to drown myself in the pond on eighteen!” Torrey Green shook her head in exasperation as the object of her tirade waddled off toward the cabana bar of the Lake Las Vegas golf course.
“Come on, Tee, your luck’s bound to turn around.” Cherie Summers, Torrey’s best friend, put her arm around her shoulders. “Let’s get cleaned up, and I’ll buy you a beer. Shower that creep away with the rest of the grime.”
Nodding gloomily, Torrey lugged the overstuffed golf bag over to the pro shop and leaned it against the rack outside the door. Hopefully, Lard Butt—Fred was his actual name, but she could only think of him as Lard Butt—wouldn’t get too drunk to retrieve it.
She flipped off her visor and swiped the sweat from her throbbing temples. In this oven-like heat, the five-mile walk carrying a heavy bag full of metal clubs had left her aching for a long shower and a handful of aspirin.
The temperature had been stuck near a hundred degrees for a week. The desert sun inflicted relentless torture on the white-skinned vacationers eager to get in a round of golf, despite the cost and the risk of sunstroke. Like Lard Butt, some men added an extra thrill by hiring young women to tote their bags and keep them company while they sweated their way around the course. The Internet made it easy—they could book a hot caddy with a few clicks of a mouse at CaddyGirls.com.
CaddyGirls had become a roaring success. That didn’t surprise Torrey, given all the babes who had signed on to make the decent money and big tips they were told went with the job.
Like me
, Torrey thought cynically, though she would never include herself in the “babe” category. Sighing, she followed Cherie to the locker room. She couldn’t wait to sit down—by now, her snappy pink and white golf shoes felt like they had cast-iron insoles.
The other two caddies in their foursome had already peeled down to their bras and lacy panties. As she flopped down into an uncomfortable plastic chair, Torrey fixed her gaze on the Uma Thurman look-alike across the room.
A flash of envy knifed through her. She liked her own body, but what red-blooded woman wouldn’t switch with lithe, sexy Krista?
Krista threw her a goofy grin as she tossed her perfect blond ponytail over her shoulder. “You must have been a serial killer in a past life to keep pulling bozos like that Fred guy. Did he at least give you a good tip?”
Torrey returned a smile that probably looked like a grimace. It sure felt like one. “Yeah, he told me the Red Sox were a lock to go all the way this year.”
“You mean that jerk stiffed you?”
“Not entirely. He dug this out of his shorts.” She pulled a crumpled, soiled five-dollar bill from the back pocket of her skirt.
Krista wrinkled her nose at the sight of the mistreated fiver, then winked at Torrey. “I guess I’d better not tell you what my guy gave me.”
Torrey’s jaw clenched.
What a bimbo
. “Please don’t,” she answered, damping down her irritation. “Look, it’s no big deal. I’m just having a run of bad luck. It’ll get better.”
Cherie glared at Krista then turned her back on the blond caddy. “Did you get in any practice rounds this week, Tee?”
“That’s what’s driving me crazy.” Torrey propped one foot up on the bench to loosen the laces of the FootJoy. “Now that I’m working two jobs, I’ve got no time. I need to quit both soon and start playing full time, or I’ll be toast for Qualifying School this year.”
Cherie gave her a sympathetic nod.
“Unless I find a sponsor, there’s no way I can stop working,” Torrey continued. “Rock. Hard place.”
“Something’s going to come up.” Cherie patted her shoulder. “You’re going to win at Q-School and blow them all away on the tour next year. I know how good you really are.”
Krista slipped her feet into flip-flops and moved over to sit next to Torrey. “Didn’t I hear you were some kind of big college golfer?”
Torrey turned to face the sexy blonde with the shampoo-commercial hair. She barely knew Krista but had quickly figured out it was best to keep their conversation down to one-syllable words.
“I did okay—for as long as it lasted.” She mentally cursed the down-in-the-dumps tone in her voice the instant the words left her mouth.
Jesus, don’t fall into that again. You promised to stop feeling sorry for yourself.
“Okay?” Cherie laughed. “Torrey never blows her own horn, but she was an All-American at UNLV in her sophomore and junior years. She was our star. I couldn’t make the team, and I envied her like crazy.”
“You weren’t driven like I was, Cher.” In college, Cherie Stevens had been a talented golfer who lacked the killer instinct needed to win at professional golf.
Cherie wrinkled her pretty nose. “Nobody was driven like you were, Tee.”
Torrey couldn’t argue with that. She’d locked her sights on the pro golf tour almost as soon as her club pro father cut down a set of clubs for her when she was five. Golf was in her DNA, and nothing had meant more to her than living out the dream that had been just a little out of her dad’s reach. As hard as Mike Green had fought to get his tour card, he’d always come up short.
Unlike her father, she’d been on the fast track to the pro tour until the beginning of her senior year at UNLV. Then one thunderstorm destroyed everything.
As she slogged up the three flights of stairs to her one-bedroom walk-up in Henderson, Torrey murmured a quick prayer of thanks for a night off from the casino. She’d been on her feet dealing blackjack until her shift ended at four in the morning, crashed into bed at five, then got up with the alarm at nine to make her caddying assignment. After six blistering hours on the golf course, every muscle from her hips down ached with fatigue. Her right shoulder hurt like hell, and her lower back screamed for more aspirin.
Having to work two physically demanding jobs sucked. But short of winning the lottery or lining up a sponsor—and the odds were starting to look about as long for both—this was going to be her life for a while. Maybe a long while. But she’d be damned if she was going to give up on her dream. Sure, it had taken a big detour—actually, it had driven right off the road—but she’d come back, and with a determination that would have made her father proud. For her to make it as a pro golfer had been every bit as much his dream as her own. No way would she let him down, even if he wasn’t here to cheer her on any more.
Booting up her laptop, she clicked on the CaddyGirls web bookmark and typed in her password. The rent-a-caddy concept seemed nutty to her at first, but it worked. The smart guys who came up with the idea had kept it simple. After checking out the caddies’ profiles on the web site, clients arranged rounds with them directly by email. Torrey had described herself in her profile as a blackjack dealer and aspiring pro golfer. She knew the blackjack dealer part had attracted a lot more clients than the pro-golfer wannabe reference.
Her mood picked up as soon as she saw her inbox contained a new message. An email usually meant a booking.
Oh my God
. The president of OverTheEdge Games and three other executives would be in Vegas the following week and had already booked rounds at four different courses. Would she by any chance be available all four afternoons?
She lunged across her battered coffee table for her appointment book. Tuesday and Thursday were clear, but she had bookings already for Monday and Wednesday. Well, she’d just have to find another caddy to fill in for her on those days.
Her aches and pains disappeared as an adrenaline rush surged through her body. OverTheEdge Games was a huge, growing company. She’d bought all three versions of their golf video game over the years. She’d never approached them about sponsorship because she knew they didn’t provide funding to athletes. But that didn’t mean they never would—especially if she had the chance to bypass the marketing department and get to the guy in charge.
She quickly tapped out a cheery reply accepting the booking. As usual, she tagged on a request that the client take a minute to tell her a little about himself. More often than not, though, she got nothing beyond confirmation of the location and time of the round.
Torrey found herself desperately hoping that this guy—Julian Grant—would respond with some useful information. She needed to plan her strategy of attack, and the more she knew about him in advance, the better.
After all, her future might just depend on it.
“We’re going to beat that bastard, but I’m beginning to think we’re going to kill ourselves in the process.” Julian Grant groaned as he loosened his tie and swung his Rockports up onto the thick, polished glass of his desktop. The sun had started to set behind the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west. “One more fourteen-hour day, and our brains are going to be in full meltdown.”
His business partner and head designer Josh Wade had just ambled into Julian’s window-lined office and collapsed onto the leather sofa. The guy looked way too perky after a gruesome day of meetings to plan out their strategy to nail down a merger with their rival, Apollo Systems.
“Yeah, my ass is fried too. Thank God tomorrow’s Saturday, and then we’re off to Vegas on Sunday.” Josh stretched his long arms over his head. “But like I keep telling you, Jules, you’re sweating this too much. Apollo’s not going to last six months more without a cash infusion, and Colton knows it. Besides, when do you not get what you want? You always figure out a way to make the deals happen.”
Julian rolled his eyes. Josh’s never-ending but frequently unfounded optimism reminded him yet again of his design guru’s limitations. Josh’s quirky mind had fueled their company’s skyrocketing success in designing video games that players loved. But he had the business sense of a hedgehog. Fortunately, Julian’s financial creativity meshed perfectly with Josh’s design wizardry.
“We’ll get a better handle on it when I meet Colton face to face in Vegas next week,” Julian said grimly.
Colton Kerr had betrayed them once, and Julian would never let that happen again. There was nothing lower than a close friend who screwed you over for money. He’d never trust the snake, even if the merger succeeded and they all had to work together again.
Josh angled his lanky body across the sofa as if he planned to spend the night there. “Speaking of Vegas, I am so ready for a week of golf and women.”
“And here I thought we were going for the trade show,” Julian said sardonically.
“Very funny. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah—that you’ll try to fit the show into your schedule if it doesn’t get in the way too much.”
Josh grinned. “Guilty as charged. But we both know that the best designers need a lot of external motivation.”
Julian laughed, knowing Josh had it right. He had always given the design geniuses a long leash, which was exactly why he’d agreed to Josh’s absurd idea for spicing up their Vegas trip.
Still, he couldn’t let pass an opportunity to rag his friend about it again. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this dumbass bet idea.”
Josh glared at him. “Come on—it’ll be a blast. And a hell of a lot more fun than playing ‘rock, paper, scissors’ to decide who gets the trip to Scotland.”
Julian thought back to last week’s surprise phone call from Nick Wells, the second-ranked golfer in the world—who also happened to be Josh’s personal hero. Because OTE had been one of the top corporate donors to his charitable foundation, Wells had invited the company to send the president or another top executive to Scotland in June to play a round of golf with him at the historic Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.
Julian smiled at the big kid on his sofa. “Rock, paper, scissors would be more adult, Josh.”
“Screw adult. You can’t resist a challenge. Plus, you actually think you might be able to beat me. I think Brendan does too, as hilarious as that thought is.”
Julian swung his feet off the desk and turned to the bank of three monitors arrayed on the side of his desk. “Time for you to get out of here and let me work, boy genius. Go home and get some sleep.”
“I’m thinking it’s time for a beer.” Josh cocked an eyebrow as he hauled his lean frame off the sofa. “You on?”
“Hell, no. I just want to take care of some email and go home. We’ll have plenty of time for beer next week in Vegas.”
“And a whole lot more.” Josh’s voice hummed with mischief. Turning, he fired a parting shot. “Jules, we both know you can beat me at lots of things, but not this. It’s not going to happen. Don’t stop dreaming, though.”
Julian blew him off with a wave as Josh closed the door behind him. His partner had one thing about him pegged—he hated like hell to lose. But Julian always picked his battles, and this goofy Vegas bet sure wasn’t one of them.
Not that he’d ever let Josh know that. The poor guy would be scarred for life if he thought Julian had thrown the contest.
He scanned the sea of unopened emails that had been filling his inbox all day while he was stuck in the boardroom. One grabbed his attention immediately.
Torrey Green. The sexy blackjack dealer with the mysterious chocolate brown eyes.
He’d reacted instantly to her head shot the first time he scanned the CaddyGirls.com web site. Unlike some of the other caddies, her looks didn’t jump off the screen and grab you by the throat. But her natural sensuality had caught his eye. Sexy without having to work at it. Her dark eyes looked like they’d left innocence behind early. Despite her smile, those eyes betrayed a world of life experience. And probably more than a little hurt to go along with it.
He clicked open her message, surprised at how much he hoped her answer to his question would be yes.
Hi Mr. Grant,
Thanks so much for asking about my availability next week. We’re in luck. I’m free all four days. You’ve picked wonderful courses. Let me know if there’s anything special I can do or get for you before you arrive.
I hope you don’t mind, but I always ask my new clients if they could tell me a little about themselves. After all, you’ve seen my profile, so you know quite a bit about me. But if you’d rather not, that’s great too—we’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted in Vegas.
See you next week!
Torrey Green
