One More Night with You (7 page)

“'Fraid so.” She smiled, compelled to see if it might be contagious and could break up the man's frown. “Who warned you about me?”

“Marshall and Tem did. Good to meet you.” He wiped his large hands on a napkin and in lieu of shaking hers, he gestured for her to join him where he stood near the double oven. Draping an arm over her shoulders, he shifted close to murmur, “I'm aware of why you're really here. They looped me in.”

“Then you won't interfere?”

“Do what you gotta do.” To the room at large he said, “Yo, everyone. This is Josephine de la Peña. Emails went out about the drug prevention program we've got going through camp. If you didn't get one, find somebody who did. Josephine's from the Office of Diversion Control and she's in on the prevention program with the Good Samaritans of Nevada. So any questions, she's your go-to person. But please, don't ask her where to score the good shit. That's not what she's here for.”

“Actually, Kip,” she said sweetly, “I'm not official until the presentation at orientation. So at the moment I'm a woman who's eating your food and enjoying free satellite TV.”

The response was a mix of friendly laughter and complaints that the front office had implanted a narc into their space.

Kip started lifting cookies off the baking sheets and onto pans. She picked up a chocolate chip cookie and took a bite.

And now for a little test.
“Oh, that's good. There are recipes floating around that incorporate alcohol. Rum, bourbon, Guinness—whatever you're after. Not as potent as pot cookies, but they're recreationally legal.”

The head coach started to send a frown her way but covered and continued his task. Joey was in tune with everyone in the room, her eyes performing a panoramic scan for changes in expression or stance that indicated interest that hadn't been present before she mentioned pot cookies.

It was a subtle way to send out feelers and see what they'd turn up over the course of the night.

Three cookies and several conversations later, she made her way to the staff lounge and took the liberty of downing half a bottle of water to dilute some of the sugar and caffeine. Kip Claussen and the head athletic trainer—Whitaker Doyle, she believed—were inside consulting schedules over cold beer.

Joey reconsidered her water, but opted to stay faithful and finish it.

Kip introduced her to the trainer, who was on his way out, then stood and stretched, looking at the twilight outside the windows. “Ballsy, what you said in the kitchen. Pot cookies.”

“I don't know if anyone will bite. No one's made up their mind about me yet.”

“To be on the level here, I haven't made up my mind about you.”

“No?”

“No.” He strode past her to look out the door, then, leaving it open, he returned to the recesses of the room and signaled her over. “I've been working with the Blues for a year and I like to think I'm familiar with their...managerial style. Maybe they don't cross the line to get things done, but they sure as hell will walk on it.”

“What does your judgment say should be done?”

“Eat up the expense of a second random drug test during the season, but the Blues want to avoid midseason lineup changes. They don't want sponsors and the media scrutinizing how our team might handle things if the player happens to be someone we depend on to win games. Now, before game one, is the time to tidy up. If these men are smart, they'll stay clean until after the annual test. Then we could be looking at dealing with somebody who's getting high through the season or potentially putting them in a probationary program for a few months and facing the possibility of more damn drama. So what I'm asking you is if you intend to use entrapment to bump a few high risks off my roster.”

She pitched her bottle into a recycling bin and took the seat Whitaker had vacated. “I'm not going to go so far as to solicit drugs to anyone.”

“The guys noticed you. And the one who said that disrespectful comment to you is a new recruit, drafted as a tackle. I'll handle him.” He relaxed in his chair, linking his fingers behind his head. “Correct me if I'm way off base here, but a lot of men are willing to take on certain personas if it means getting a beautiful woman. Tread carefully if your plan is to put it out there that you smoke or shoot, whatever. A guy who's ruled by his dick will make you think he's into using, too, if it gives him an edge over the rest of the pack.”

“Kip, I'm trained to know the difference.” She paused as he sat forward and swiped up his MGD for a swig. “You seem unconvinced.”

“This team has seen unprecedented crises. A lot of it was inherited from Alessandro Franco's reign, but some came from our own team members. I'm over that and don't want more of it this season.”

“And that's why I was hired. Tread carefully, sir, if you're getting a look at me and see only weakness. I'm stronger than I look.” She'd need to be to complete this job, return to ODC where she belonged and, of course, keep herself out of a billionaire thug's reach.

Beer finished, Kip crumpled the can and pitched it. “Look, Josephine—”

“Call me Joey.”

“Joey. Some of the staff's heading into Vegas for a bite. Why don't you come with us?”

It was an invitation into an inner circle. Not the players', but that would come and this was progress. The Blues had not specifically asked her to put staff under suspicion, but doing so would offer her a more detailed picture.

“Tempting,” she said, getting up and squeezing his arm. “I'll have to pass, though. I heard someone issue a foosball challenge. Can't miss that.”

“Jesus,” he said, scratching his forehead. “They don't stand a freaking chance.”

“What's that mean?”

“They're going to fall in love with you.”

Watching him leave, she hoped he was wrong. Gathering the hearts of men, nearly all of whom she'd venture to guess were in relationships, was not part of her agenda. Parker Brandt was the last man who'd figured he was in love with her, and their breakup had been messy to the point that they could find no friendship between them anymore.

Besides, the gladiator-like professional athletes she found here seemed to be interested in shallow sexual attraction, and she would do nothing for them in that respect. The Blues had been clear and she wasn't aiming to strike up anything new.

Not after her adventure in blind dating had resurrected her ex.

Don't think about him. Don't let him get to you.

Perhaps it was morbid curiosity, and if it was, Joey didn't particularly care as she forewent the foosball game kicking off in the players' lounge and returned to her room. The blooms' fragrance was stronger now than it'd been when it was competing with chemically engineered sandalwood.

It was after eight, over an hour past the time she'd told Zaf to show up at her place. She'd trashed the disposable phone and though she knew with certainty he had her cell number, she found no calls or texts on the screen.

Taking the phone to the dresser, she breathed in the bouquet's gentle smell and thought it'd neutralize the impact of realizing Zaf wasn't trying to get through to her. Maybe his Rhett no longer gave a damn about her Scarlett.

In the end, she would save herself, so why should she entertain the thought that she might want closure after he dropped off the grid five years ago?

Rubbing her nose against the petal of a gardenia, she closed her eyes. Perhaps she wasn't heartsick for a lover, but homesick for loved ones. She dialed a familiar number.

“Hello?” a masculine voice as rough as unsanded timber greeted.

It was late but Joey pictured Hector de la Peña still tinkering around in the flower shop he shared with his wife.

The family business had been a single store within their small town outside El Paso during Joey's childhood, but had since opened locations throughout Texas. The family had the means to allow both Hector and Anita early retirement, but neither would give up their careers.

Hector was an authority on flowers and his wife ran the books, and that was what Joey—and now, she was quite sure, her younger brother—told anyone who questioned how the de la Peña family could afford one of the most prosperous spreads in their corner of Texas on a florist's salary.

“Hola, Papá. ¿Cómo estás?”

“Josephine!
Hola, mija.
You taking care of yourself?”

“Como siempre.”

“Yeah, then why do you sound sad?”

She poured cheer into her voice. “I'm smelling flowers and missing you and Mamá and Eddie and the shop, that's all.”

She wouldn't bring her troubles to her family's door. Her mother, Anita, had been a force to be reckoned with in supporting the trajectory of Joey's career in law enforcement.

But Hector was a man of pride and ruled as head of the household. He'd wanted his daughter to become a chef, after noticing her fervor for baking treats to sell in the flower shop. Then he thought she might earn a teaching license and devote her career to TESOL. Then, when she'd announced to the family that her calling was in law enforcement, he'd said he would allow it only if she took the LSATs and failed. If she passed, she would pursue law school and become a lawyer. The thought of her working undercover as a field agent had worried him to the point that it had impacted his health, and she hadn't wanted to openly defy him to pursue the career she'd been meant for since she was a girl.

So she'd lied to him, claiming she failed the LSATs, and he'd given her his blessing to pursue the field.

Gradually, Hector had begun to accept her career—until she'd been shot. Her parents and brother had come to DC for post-op support and then to Las Vegas to make sure she wasn't indulging in what gave the place its Sin City nickname—she was, very enthusiastically—but she hadn't visited Texas in years.

Something Hector reminded her every time they managed to catch each other by phone. “You wouldn't miss us if you came home once in a blue moon,
mija
.”

“That's what you say. I think if I came home, I'd only miss you more each time I left. That's no way to live.”

“Right. So you should live here, work in the family business. We won't even require an interview.”

She smiled. “And leave all this sin and debauchery behind? You're a silly man, Papá.”

Hector grumbled, “You think you're being funny when you say stuff like that, but it worries me.”

“I don't mean to worry you... Listen, is Mamá around?”

“She's back at the ranch, asleep. Want me to get her to call you? I know when there's something you want to tell Anita that you can't tell me, it's important.”

“Don't bother her. It's all right.”

“You sure?”

No,
she almost blurted.
Zaf Ahmadi is back and I can't be certain everything I felt for him died when he disappeared.

Except, she'd never given her parents Zaf's name. She had said a colleague had fired during an operation and she'd been unintentionally hit. Clinical. Clean. Unemotional.

“Anita will be sorry she missed you. She'll send me to the couch when she finds out I let her sleep through your call.”

“I'll call again—soon. Promise. Tell Eddie I'm thinking about him.” She hesitated, touching the phone as if to lay a hand on his cheek. “Papá, don't work too hard.
Dale un beso
a
Mamá de mi parte. Te extraño
.”

“Buenas noches, mija.”

Speaking to Papá, hearing the concern and unconditional love in his voice, never ceased to leave Joey with a scratchy sensation of guilt. She hated lying to him. But she lied to protect him and for years had been searching for ways to be at peace with that.

Drawn out of her room again, she declined a defensive lineman's suggestion for a fast hookup in his room and went downstairs to the ruckus of revelry in the players' lounge.

She hesitated to infiltrate. She wanted the men to maintain a sense of a safe place that wasn't threatened by a narc. So she needed an invitation. A player, preferably one with tenure on the Slayers' roster, would have clout and if he vouched for her then she had a better chance of gaining acceptance.

The starting quarterback would be a bona fide ace in hand, but Dex Harper wasn't expected to report to camp until tomorrow morning. The press was obsessed with his affair with the team's former general manager, Danica Blue. Joey knew that Dex and Danica were each other's obsession, and love made them crave private moments however and whenever they could be found.

To have a man of his status stand by her would be great, but Joey could do this with a touch of creativity. “I missed a hard-core foosball game, didn't I?” she said softly from the entryway, and the man nearest her twisted around holding a bottle of beer topped with a lime wedge.

“You're talking to the champ.” He held out a hand and her gaze followed a trail of eclectic tattoos up his arm to the cotton shirt stretched across the muscles carved into his body. A cocky grin and dozens of thin cornrows were a shot of handsome on such a troubled, severe canvas. His umber complexion wasn't smooth and his hand calloused, but she'd always been more comfortable with rugged, unrefined men.

Laborers similar to her father, who was as much a gardener as he was a scientist, athletes who pushed their bodies to extremes and men who confronted danger with selfless bravery intrigued her.

Shaking his hand, she recognized him now.

You're exactly who I'm looking for, Mr. Dibbs.

TreShawn Dibbs, a twenty-five-year-old in his second season as the Slayer's kicker. Las Vegas had picked him up after San Diego had dropped him for steroid abuse—along with a slew of off-field transgressions. “Congratulations.”