The Total Package (14 page)

“Promise!” he called out to her, loud enough for everyone to hear, before putting in his mouth guard and strapping on his helmet. Dani didn’t want to make it look like he had the last word, so she didn’t storm off. She checked that her microphone was still off for the hundredth time and took one more glimpse at his backside at midfield.

“Well now.” Clinton Barrow’s deep Texas drawl could be heard behind her. “I don’t think Ty was saying that to me, because I haven’t asked him for anything. But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s when that man makes a promise, you can count on him keeping it.”

Dani could feel her shoulders tense up into her neck. Now she would have to call a truce. Being considered anything short of a consummate professional didn’t sit well with Dani. Once again, her best-laid plans had backfired. The team began to head back to the locker room after warm-ups for their pregame pep talk. Marcus looked at her curiously and gave her a nod as he passed. She avoided meeting Tyson’s gaze directly but caught him looking as he neared her. Despite her best efforts, Dani couldn’t stop the tears of frustration building. Her chin began to tremble and her eyelids started to burn.

And Tyson didn’t miss it.

CHAPTER 11

TWO NIGHTS LATER
Tyson woke up drenched in sweat. It came to him like a horrific epiphany, in those few foggy moments before falling into deep sleep.

It was those eyes, even if everything else was different. From the color of her hair to the way she was dressed and how she carried herself, it all had changed. But not those tear-filled eyes. Those eyes would’ve brought him back from the dead.

One minute he was on the verge of blissful slumber, and the next Tyson was sent back in time on a lightning bolt. Back to a seedy motel on the outskirts of a Pennsylvania town, and the last evil deed he perpetrated on a cute little girl, before he landed in hell. Sometimes flashbacks from the bad old days came to him, and he would accept them, try to process them, and move on. This one he wasn’t prepared for, triggered by the last time she had looked at him with the same heartbroken disappointment. He threw an arm across his forehead and heaved, thunderstruck by the force of the memory. A lot of it was hazy, but one part was crystal clear. He had banged his virtuous tutor and left her crying.

“Ella,” Tyson whispered, still in disbelief. It was impossible. There was no way he was going to get any rest without solving at least part of the mystery. He got out of bed and pulled out his iPad, doing a quick search on his college’s alumni website. Ella Bella with the Italian last name . . . Daniella Carrino. There wasn’t a picture, or any information about what she did after graduating, but it was Dani Carr enough for him.

And that placed Dani Carr into what every recovery program labeled the “people, places, and things” category.

From the moment he had woken up what seemed like a lifetime ago in one of Clinton Barrow’s guest rooms, Tyson knew his approach to a life of sobriety would be unorthodox. He was never going to be one of those people who checked in with a sponsor like he would a parole officer. Fitting AA meetings into his schedule would not be part of his playbook. But he understood the basic principles he would have to follow if he was to have any hope of success. He would have to cut out all the people who made it easy to slip back into his old ways of thinking. The enablers, who would soon lead him back down the dark lonely path he’d once traveled. Barrow knew it when he yanked everything and everyone Tyson knew out from under him. The vast majority of people Barrow replaced them with were good, clean-living folks, so it was easy to make the principle stick. And mercifully, Tyson’s career as a practicing addict had been relatively short. Some actually viewed him as obsessed with his rigid dedication to abstention, and he was fine with that. There were still many blank spaces and unfamiliar faces from those dismal days, but when someone said they knew him at his worst, Tyson made his amends and moved on.

But it didn’t feel right placing Dani into that group, and he didn’t want to. She was from the part of his past that he cherished, when he was still living a completely charmed life. Memories of the time they shared in the campus library and then his dorm room were clear, and even as he lay in bed, Tyson began smiling. She hadn’t identified herself, which meant she was holding a grudge if not waging a full-on vendetta. Now he just had to figure out exactly why. He fought back a wave of nausea at the thought he might have raped her. But even on the darkest day of his life, he was never a predator. He had always harmed himself instead of others.

Tyson stayed awake for several hours after making the discovery, painstakingly piecing back together the events of that night as best he could, followed by everything that had gone on since then, those eyes haunting him the entire time. He should’ve been furious, but he wasn’t. It was the complete opposite. There wasn’t anything about her that he didn’t admire. He finally fell back to sleep after making two important decisions. One—he would find out for sure what he’d done to earn her wrath and why she wanted nothing to do with him. And two—he would apologize and finally get their relationship back on track. He couldn’t help hoping that that track would end with her back in his bed. Only this time, he was going to get it right. When it came to Dani Carr, he wanted them both to get a second chance.

TYSON SEARCHED FOR HER EVERY
day for the rest of the week without any luck. By Sunday he showed up for game day and asked everyone if they had seen Dani Carr. It ended with him shaking down Marcus, who at first seemed hesitant but finally told him where he could find her. She was in the media room getting her pregame assignment. Tyson marched right up to her, in front of her crew and several other reporters.

“I need to talk to you. Now,” Tyson ordered with his gaze fixed solely on her, unconcerned with who was around and what they might hear.

“I’m working here, Palmer,” she began brusquely, taking a quick look around. Several people had stopped what they were doing to observe, alerted by the tone of his voice. “And you should be suiting up.”

“You sure you want to do this in front of other people?” He brought his voice down to a whisper, but there was still an unmistakable undercurrent. He looked perfectly capable of causing a scene. She gave him a curt nod and left the room with him following closely behind, much to the interest of everyone watching. They found an empty room, and as he closed the door behind them, she rounded on him, clearly miffed.

“You made your point the other day, okay? I’m playing nice,” Dani told him peevishly.

“I just have a few questions,” he replied, angrier than he intended, but it had been building all week. And when it came to her, he often found himself displaying more emotion than he normally would. “Starting with when exactly did Dani Carr kill Ella Bella?”

The sentence sucked up all the air in the room. She hated the way both the names rolled off his tongue. It made her momentarily forget all the potential ramifications of his discovery.

“Dani Carr didn’t kill her, Tyson Palmer did,” she spat, on the verge of blurting out more than she wanted. “So now you know. It took you long enough.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I’ve had sneezes that lasted longer,” she replied. “And I didn’t see the need to bring up old history.”

She wanted to hurt him, but she also needed to send the message that his attention was unwelcome. She needed him to leave her alone. Because she was powerless when it came to him, she knew that now. After their last altercation, she had spent the night in her hotel room crying it out, alternately cursing him and then herself. She had created this quagmire, and every solution she tried to come up with only pulled her deeper. She couldn’t let him get close to her on any level.

Nothing good could come from them becoming friends or, worse yet, lovers. Whenever she looked at Tyson, she saw the grown-up version of the child they shared, which brought nothing but guilt. Guilt over how there might come a day when Brendon felt shortchanged by not having a father. Guilt that the more she interacted with Tyson, the more he showed that he had put his past behind him and deserved to know the truth. Every missed opportunity to confess was another stab at her conscience.

“I deserve that,” Tyson said without a single ounce of hostility. “I wish I could take that night back.”

Her righteous anger drained away. Now that he had made a full apology, she could no longer pretend he was still a lowlife lothario. But the closer she allowed him to get, the harder it was to deny that she still felt all the longing for him that had tormented her since the first time she met him.

“I’ll bet you’ve had a lot of those nights.” Being unkind wasn’t in her nature, but it was vital now that he back off.

“You’re right.” This time he chuckled, succeeding in making her feel awful. “There are a lot of days and nights I would take back if I could. But that’s one I really wish I could do over, for a whole bunch of reasons. Maybe if I hadn’t been such a jerk, you wouldn’t have spent all this time thinking the worst of me and maybe we’d be in a different place right now.”

He was sincere and contrite, and it was getting harder to stand her ground.

“But mostly, I wish I could do it over so that when you looked back on it, it made you feel as special as you are,” Tyson added.

Dani’s mouth fell open. He had put it more eloquently in reality than it sounded in her dreams, where she had chosen the words herself. No matter what else he may or may not have remembered about that night, he remembered that he was her first. She began to blush, heat creeping up her neck to her cheeks.

That made him smile all the more, because she looked so adorable when she did it, and when she tried to fight it.

“It wasn’t that big a deal, Tyson,” she mumbled, trying to get the conversation over with. “From what I hear it’s not special for anyone.”

“Still, it’s the kind of behavior that warrants an apology and I’d really like to say I’m sorry, Dani. If it makes you feel any better, over the last couple years I’ve had to issue a lot of apologies. They told me in rehab it would make me feel better, and it usually does.”

He didn’t tell her that in this particular case, in many ways, it made him feel worse. He had gotten used to grappling with true regret. This went so much deeper. The more she tried to make it sound like it wasn’t a defining moment, the more clearly it translated to just how much it was.

She started over, trying to keep it simple. “I accept your apology, Tyson.”

“And don’t worry about me going back to my old ways. Trying to be the life of the party all the time was tedious. Plus I like being able to look at myself in the mirror.” He gave her a little nod and a wink.

I would certainly drink to that,
she thought. She had always liked looking at him too. But why did he feel the need to explain his ways? Seconds ticked by and Dani wondered if he was waiting for an apology from her. Just how much of their night together did he truly remember? Was he taking all the responsibility because he was being chivalrous or because he really had no recollection of her throwing herself at him?

“It’s nice to see you back on the field,” Dani finally said, keeping it as noncommittal as possible.

Tyson took a deep breath. “How do you feel about new beginnings?”

“Like I get one every day,” she teased, even though she knew encouraging him was the wrong thing to do.

“Can I get in on that?” he bantered back. “Starting with dinner after today’s game?”

Dani sadly shook her head. She had to stop this now. There were only so many scenarios dinner with him could lead to, and all of them were treacherous. “That’s probably not a good idea. I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

He nodded and blinked. When his eyes settled back on her, the brightness that was present just a minute ago was significantly dimmed. “Sure, of course. That’s good policy. Thanks for hearing me out and letting me make my amends. I should probably go get ready for the game.”

He turned on his heel and left. And for his own self-preservation, he filed her under “people, places, and things.”