Her Forbidden Hero (7 page)

It was just her easy familiarity. Their shared past. That’s all it was.

Goddammit.

From the trunk, he retrieved a gym bag, and then stalked inside, head down, shoulders hunched.

“Marco,” Max called, affection coloring his voice. “You’re here late. Looking to spar?”

Marco glanced at Max, who never seemed to change. With salt-and-pepper hair, bushy eyebrows, and a face grooved with deep laugh lines, the man was one of the few things Marco could count on to stay the same. “Hey, Max. Yeah, I am. Anyone around?”

Max frowned, his gray eyes giving him a once-over, but then he nodded. “Nick?” he called over his shoulder. “Got a match for you.”

“Thanks,” Marco said, not waiting around long enough to allow a conversation to spring up. Max was almost a father figure, and little got by him. Marco couldn’t handle that kind of perceptivity right now. In the locker room, he changed into a pair of black athletic pants, wrapped his hands in tape, and dug his gloves and a towel from his bag. Next thing he knew, he was standing out on the mat across from a guy who kickboxed competitively—exactly the kind of skilled competition he needed right now. He wanted a workout, after all. “Nick.”

“Vieri.” They bumped fists. “Two-minute rounds?”

Marco dropped his towel at the side. “Three.”

Nick’s eyes went wide. “You up for that, old man?”

Tugging on his gloves, Marco ignored the comment, let it add to the big pile of pissed-off he needed to exorcise. “You gonna talk all night, or are we gonna box?”

They started circling, and Nick threw the first punch. Marco bobbed around it easily, then faked with his weaker left hand and hit home with a right hook to his opponent’s ribs. Nick retaliated with a back kick Marco just barely avoided. Facing off again, Nick barreled in with a series of uppercuts. Marco took a few hits but distracted the other man with a parry that allowed him to deliver a sweeping kick that knocked Nick off balance and took him down to one knee. Marco spun on the ball of his foot and delivered a roundhouse aimed at Nick’s head, but the man feinted and popped up to his feet.

The bell rang.

Two rounds. Three rounds. On it went. Nick’s face blurred into the background as Marco visualized the frat boy asshole who insisted on putting his arm around Alyssa’s shoulders and grabbing her hand or arm every time she bent next to him.

Four rounds passed, then five. Nick had more strength and confidence, but Marco had speed and discipline on his side. Knowing he’d be best friends with a bottle of ibuprofen and an ice pack by night’s end, Marco struck out with his left hand more than once and took one serious axe kick near his rebuilt elbow. It was worth it. The match was draining the rage out of him and clearing his head.

The bell rang.

“Marco?”

He turned and found Max standing off to the side. The older man’s gaze landed on Marco’s left arm and lingered for a moment. “You done for the night?” He voiced it as a question, but Marco heard the reprimand in the words. If he hadn’t respected Max and counted him almost as family for the last decade, it might’ve been annoying. But he knew anything Max did, he did out of the true belief it was in your best interest.

Whether you wanted it or not.

Marco turned back to Nick, who was chugging a bottle of water behind him, and held out a gloved fist. “Thanks, man.” They tapped fists.

“Always a pleasure, Vieri.” Nick picked up his gear and made for the showers.

Max stood with his arms crossed. “You trying to hurt yourself? In my gym?”

Marco pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Then what’s the problem? You know that arm ain’t ready to fight that hard. You’ll be damn lucky to not earn yourself more physical therapy overdoing it like that.”

“Wasn’t too bad,” Marco said, pulling off his gloves.

“Yeah? Why don’t you stop back in here tomorrow and tell me how bad it is?” Max grabbed Marco’s good arm, setting off a tension he couldn’t help. Too much fight still coursed through his veins. “What’s got you all tied up in knots, son?”

Marco stared at him a long moment, then figured it couldn’t hurt to tell Max, of all people. “I might want something I can’t have.” Alyssa’s face popped into his mind. Not the image of her looking back at him as she bent over his car—not the
fantasy
of Alyssa. But his Aly-girl, with that genuine open smile she’d worn when they’d first seen each other in the dining room at Whiskey’s.

Max scoffed. “And why the hell not?”

Marco chuffed out half a laugh. Max saw everything in black or white. “Because it wouldn’t be right.”
On so many levels
. He unwound the tape from his hand.

“We’re talking about a girl?”

Marco debated, then nodded.

“What’s it say in here?” Max jabbed a finger against Marco’s chest, just missing a tender spot where one of Nick’s kicks had hit home.

Nothing I can admit. Nothing I can act on. Ever.

Marco swallowed, his throat suddenly tight and dry. “I think—” He forced some moisture into his mouth and air into his lungs. “I think it says I’m fucked.”

…

“I’ll finish up in here,” Alyssa said, stifling a yawn. With Pete’s blessing, she’d offered to help Eric clean the green room so she could learn what needed to be done. Forty minutes after beginning, all that was left to do was run the vacuum.

Eric gathered up the last of the garbage. “You sure? I can come back and finish that.”

“It’s just vacuuming. It’ll take five minutes. I’ll close everything up and then head out.”

“All right. You’re nice to have around, you know?”

Unsure how to respond, Alyssa ducked her head and busied herself unwrapping the vacuum cord.

Eric chuckled. “See ya tomorrow.”

“Okay. Good night.”

The door eased shut behind him.

She flicked on the vacuum and was surprised at how much her tired muscles protested as she pushed it back and forth across the carpet. With the whine of the vacuum filling the room, Alyssa tried not to think about those long moments when she’d been so damn sure Marco was going to kiss her. God, just the thought made her heart race even now.

And then he’d called her naïve.

The dig hurt in places she didn’t like to think about. At the age of twelve, Alyssa had lost her mother to a stroke. Her father lost his mind, searching for solace in bottle after bottle of vodka. When he couldn’t find it, and when the liquor-induced numbness wore off, he’d taken it out on Brady and her, making her an unwilling witness to all that could go dark and ugly in the world. She was many things, but naïve wasn’t one of them.

And Marco Vieri damn well knew it.

With the flick of her thumb, she turned off the vacuum and the room went quiet. Alyssa’s back and feet ached and demanded a break, so she plopped down on the couch and sank into the plush cushions. Thinking about her parents and the way she’d been forced to grow up after her mom died made her feel ancient.

She was fine now. She’d survived. Life was good. Nothing ever came from dwelling on the past.

She yawned again and her thoughts turned to Marco. Maybe she should just come out and ask him what happened in Afghanistan. Maybe if she understood more about that, she’d know better what to do to help him now. Or at least be there for him. But would he even tell her? Probably not.

But Brady might.

Alyssa drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest. Problem was, if she went to Brady, she’d have to explain why she was seeing Marco, why she’d taken the job here against his wishes, and why she wanted to know. That seemed more fraught with complications than she wanted to chance. She loved her brother to death and back, but his overprotectiveness and suspicious spidey senses knew no bounds.

The thought made her smile.
I hope you’re safe tonight, big brother
.

She sighed and yawned again. She needed to get off this couch and back to the hotel so she could check in for the night. Tomorrow was the last shift she’d have to shadow another waitress for training, and then she’d be making a steady stream of her own tips, which would provide her with enough money to
stay
checked in at the hotel. Soon, she could even start apartment hunting…

Alyssa gasped awake in a pitch-black room. She flew into a sitting position and lights turned on around her. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she squinted at her surroundings, trying to figure out where the hell she was.

Oh, damn. She’d fallen asleep in the green room.

She yanked her phone out of the pocket of her jeans to check the time. 7:01 a.m. Holy crap! She didn’t even remember falling asleep.

Oh my God, I am going to be in so much trouble. Way to go, Aly.

Alyssa pushed off the couch and hurriedly wrapped the cord around the handles of the vacuum, then stowed it in the closet.

How was she going to explain this? Was anyone even there that early?

She dashed into the bathroom to inspect the damage. Luckily, her ponytail had kept her hair fairly neat. Her face was another story. She wiped a square of tissue under her eyes to remove the smudges of mascara and hoped the crease from the couch’s seam would disappear from her cheek sooner rather than later. But,
oh hell
, nothing was changing the fact that her shirt looked slept in.

Taking a deep breath, Alyssa opened the door to the green room and peered down the dim hall. The coast was clear. She dashed to the lounge and grabbed her purse, then darted toward the door, the sound of clanging pots in the kitchen sending her heart into her throat. Finally in the parking lot, Alyssa heaved a relieved breath at the good fortune of not getting caught and jumped into her car.

There were a few other cars in the lot, but she didn’t know anyone besides Marco well enough to know who they might belong to. Before anybody saw her, she made a beeline for the exit—but then had no idea where to go. She needed to change clothes, at a minimum, but a shower wasn’t possible since she no longer had a room, and she didn’t want to waste her money just to have a place for a few hours.

The Old Town Diner down the street was her first stop. Some coffee and pancakes would clear the remaining fog from her head and she could come up with a game plan. The only drawback was the possibility of running into her father, who used to love bringing her and Brady to the diner before their mother died. It wasn’t likely because he’d long ago become a shut-in, living on the family savings and her mother’s insurance policy when he’d become too sloppy to hold down a job. But that didn’t keep her stomach from squeezing in fear of the prospect.

After doing a quick scan of the restaurant to ensure the coast was clear, she slid into a Naugahyde booth and grabbed the plastic menu from behind the napkin dispenser. She smiled to herself—they still had the blueberry pancakes she remembered from when she was a teenager. Brady and Marco used to bring her here sometimes to carry on the family tradition and try to give her some semblance of normalcy. And because the diner was open late and served huge portions. The guys could eat like, well,
guys
, and the bill would still be cheap.

She eyed the long Formica counter and saw her teenage self sitting on the third stool from the end, Marco beside her and a chocolate milkshake in front of her that was so big it came with seconds in a big silver mixing cup. They’d just finished a guitar lesson, and the milkshake had been meant to cheer her up after Brady arrived at the Vieris’ house with a black eye…

Stop it, Aly
.

The waitress arrived, interrupting her thoughts, and efficiently took her order. A few moments later, she brought over a cup of hot, fragrant coffee. Exactly what Alyssa needed.

Cheap food was good, because eating out like this was
not
part of the plan. Even though she felt horrible about falling asleep at Whiskey’s, at least she’d saved the money a hotel would’ve cost, giving her an even hundred dollars to her name and making her feel a bit less guilty about splurging on a meal out for the first time since arriving back in Frederick. She’d enjoyed the complimentary continental breakfast the hotel laid out the day before, and then there was Van’s awesome cooking at work. It was tiding her over just fine for now. Someday—soon—she would be able to stop fretting over every little expense. Or maybe not, since the grace period on her student loans ended in six months, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

Alyssa dug into her pancakes when they came, enjoying the burst of warm blueberry on her tongue. She could only make it halfway through the huge stack before she had to admit defeat. Her cell phone rang and she dropped her napkin to her plate.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Aly, it’s me,” came her brother’s voice through a crackle of static.

“Brady? Oh my God. Are you okay? Where are you?” She pressed her fingers against her other ear in an attempt to hear through the poor connection.

“I’m fine. Listen, I—” His words cut out behind a burst of static. “…tell you…weeks. Are you…”

“Brady, you’re coming in and out.”

“…I don’t know when I’ll…”

Tears pricked at the backs of Alyssa’s eyes. “I can’t hear you. Just promise me you’re okay.”

“…okay. I promise… Damn, Aly, I have to…”

“Brady?”

“…again if I can, okay?”

Alyssa nodded in reply, though of course he couldn’t see her. “Call me again when you can. I love you.”

“Me, too. Okay, gotta—” The line went dead.

Blinking the tears from her eyes, she pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. She didn’t have the slightest idea what he’d been trying to tell her. At least she knew that, somewhere out there in the world, her brother was fine and thinking about her.

Talking to Brady always made her realize just how much she missed him. She hadn’t seen him since two Christmases ago—the same time she’d last seen Marco before this week. She could picture the two of them so clearly in her mind, sitting at Mrs. Vieri’s dinner table. Their hair had been shorter than they’d kept it before, their skin more tanned, but they’d both seemed their old selves, joking around, telling stories, and eating everything that wasn’t nailed down.