Winner Takes All (32 page)

As though he'd been waiting for the appropriate moment all evening.

And Stella would be lying if she'd denied the same feeling.

But after never hearing from him, she'd realized said feelings had been one-sided. Almost as humiliating as throwing up all over the guy.

Brandon stood at the bottom of the bleachers, cradling something wrapped in foil in one large hand and stopping to shake hands with another man.

Brandon had large hands. Long-fingered. Thickly veined. Tanned.

Man's hands.

They were probably covered in calluses, given what he did for a living. Yes, now that she remembered from their date, he did have calluses. When he'd her helped down out of his truck, he'd offered his hand and she'd taken it. Which had been a mistake because she'd spent the rest of the evening wondering what his hands would feel like on the rest of her body.

Brandon chuckled at something the other man said. Funny how she could hear his deep-throated laugh over the sounds of the game and cheering from the fans. He glanced up at the stands, but Stella couldn't tell if he was looking at her or not.

But she stared back, wondering what was going on behind those dark sunglasses of his. He lifted the hot dog to his mouth, took a big bite, and slowly chewed while staring in her general direction.

Annabelle stood from the bleachers. “I'm hungry,” she stated. “Want something from the snack shack?”

Stella made a desperate grab for her friend's arm. “Wait,” she blurted out. “I'll go with you.” She sneaked a peek at Brandon, and the man he'd been talking to walked away.

“If we both get up, we'll lose our seats,” Annabelle pointed out.

Brandon turned toward the bleachers and started climbing. In their direction. Those long legs moving from one metal bench to the other, dodging the various people sitting around. “Then let me go instead.” Brandon was now five rows down from them.

Annabelle tugged her arm free. “But I have to go to the bathroom.”

Three rows down. Shit.

“Can you hold it for a few minutes? I'll go first, and then you can go after me.”

Two rows.

“What?” Annabelle queried. “No, I can't hold it. What's wrong with you?”

What's wrong with me is coming up the bleachers.

Stella waved a hand at Annabelle and admitted defeat when Brandon's shadow fell over the both of them. “Just go.”

Annabelle stared at her a moment longer, then accepted Brandon's outstretched hand to help her down the bleaches. “Ms. Turner,” he greeted Annabelle.

“Thank you.” She beamed at him. “Do me a favor and keep Stella company. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

She's under his spell; she doesn't know what she's doing.

That could be the only explanation for Annabelle abandoning her to the man she knew good and well Stella didn't want to be around.

Brandon placed his attention on Stella, looming over her from one row down like the overpowering…man he was.

She couldn't even think of a good word to describe him, because he scrambled her brain and made her feel like she had the IQ of a walnut.

He took another bite of the hot dog, chewed slowly and carefully before saying, “My pleasure.”

Someone please kill her.

“Brandon West, if you drip mustard on me, I'll have to swat that cute little behind of yours.” Beverly Rowley, born during World War II, stood at about five foot four but had the authoritative presence of a general. She and her three equally opinionated longest-standing-Blanco-Valley-residents had been dubbed the Beehive Mafia to pay homage to the pewter gray, top-heavy hairdos they'd been trying to bring back in style for the past thirty years.

Beverly blinked up at Brandon, way up because she was hunched over on the metal bleacher next to Brandon's legs. She tapped one of her orthopedic shoes. “Have a seat, boy.”

One side of Brandon's mouth kicked up. Stella wasn't sure if he was more amused at being called “boy” or having one of his greatest assets described as “cute” and “little.”

“How are you today, Mrs. Rowley?” he asked her, not moving from his spot.

She swatted his leg with one sun-spotted hand that was adorned with a petite gold watch. “I'll be better once you're not hovering over me like some guard dog. You're making my hearing aid buzz.”

Stella hid a grin, because Beverly didn't take kindly to people laughing at her. Not that Stella would have the nerve to poke fun at a woman who'd written an open letter to the mayor of Blanco Valley because he had the “poor taste” to order the demolition of one of the city's historical buildings. Beverly hadn't cared that the building had been condemned because of asbestos and an abundance of rats and other sewer creatures. But anyone who had the gumption to openly lecture the mayor was a woman not to be messed with.

Even if she was seventy-two and weighed as much as a seventh grader.

Brandon obeyed her order, wisely keeping any argument to himself.

“Will I see you at the Meet the Bobcats next week, Mrs. Rowley?” Brandon asked the old woman.

Beverly kept her focus on the game, tapping her hands on her polyester-covered legs. “That depends if the Shouting Bean decides to stop serving that god-awful soy crap they insist on inundating us with.” She turned and glanced at Stella and Brandon, her painted-pink lips pinched in a look of distaste. “Some of us like good old-fashioned vitamin D.”

The place was called the Screamin' Beans, but Stella didn't correct her. “I believe you can still have regular milk, Beverly. The soy is only an option.”

Beverly gazed at Stella over the top of her ginormous sunglasses, pinning her with a disapproving stare she probably reserved for unruly three-year-olds. “Well, in any event I don't like that stuff. And the reason I do my cardio at the park is so I can get away with drinking the real stuff.”

Brandon opened his mouth to say something, probably argue with her because Brandon West wasn't intimidated by any of the Beehive Mafia like half the town was, but Stella leaned forward and placed a hand on Beverly's frail shoulder. Which was also covered in polyester. “I agree, Mrs. Rowley. You drink whatever you damn well want.”

Beverly lifted her pointy chin, then nodded once. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Stella Davenport.” Then she turned her attention back to the game, ending their conversation.

One of Brandon's brows arched above the rim of his sunglasses. “Impressive.”

“One just has to know how to sweet-talk her. It's a talent only a few of us possess.”

“And what about you?” he asked her as he dipped his head toward her ear, sending shivers down her spine. “Will you be at the meet and greet?”

She kept her gaze averted, because if she turned her face, their noses would be inches apart. “That depends.”

“On what?”

On if you'll be there.

“If you keep fidgeting like that, I'm going to start to think you don't want to sit next to me,” Brandon said after Stella's traitorous friend had abandoned her for nachos and a soda.

That's because I don't want to sit next to you.

As if she needed another reminder of what a big guy Brandon West was. How overpowering he was. All-consuming.

And she wasn't going to even mention the way he smelled.

The people who'd been sitting in front of her and Annabelle returned to their seats, which had forced Brandon to spread his thighs from the lack of space. At five foot seven, Stella wasn't exactly little. Her own legs were cramped and had been forced to rub against his. Who knew the friction of denim against a bare leg could be so…nerve-wracking? All her girly parts, which had been so neglected they were practically covered in cobwebs, awoke with a startling jolt.

“Why do they have to put the bleachers so damn close together?” she griped, trying not to cram her knees into the girl in front of her, but when she moved them aside, that only shoved her up against Brandon even more.

“Sit still,” he told her. “You're driving me nuts.”

“You know, you didn't have to sit here,” she reminded him. “I could have kept myself company.”

His only reply was a deep-throated grunt as he lifted the foot-long hot dog to his mouth and took another bite. The scent of the food, along with the swirls of ketchup and mustard smeared on the dog, made Stella realize she hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. Her stomach protested at the lack of protein and made its discomfort known when Brandon bit off more hot dog.

“Want some?” he offered.

Yes, please.
“I'm fine, thanks,” she told him.

He held up the hot dog. “Sure? Because your stomach is saying otherwise.”

Stella took her attention off the play-making on the field and placed it on the virile man next to her. “I'd think you wouldn't want me eating in close proximity to you again.”

His mouth twitched. “I didn't say I was going to give you any. I just asked if you wanted some.” And then to really drive the knife in deep, he sank his teeth into the hot dog, bit off a huge chunk, then chewed. Slowly, working the muscles in his square jaw, which was covered by a layer of dark stubble, and swallowed. His Adam's apple moved up and down, and holy Lord the sight shouldn't have turned her on. It was a throat for crying out loud. What kind of a woman got turned on by a throat?

The kind who's seen as much action as a retirement community.

“It's good,” he told her, swiping a napkin across his mouth.

Stella turned away and watched the game in front of her. “You're a tease, Brandon West.”

“Worse things have been said about me,” he commented. “Want the last bite?” He held the stubby end of the dog in front of her, temping her to just take it. Take the thing and quiet the stomach. And what was the harm in sharing a little food with the man, anyway?

But for some reason, the thought of biting where he'd just bitten rattled the ironclad shield she'd erected between the two of them after their date.

“Last chance,” he urged. “I know you want it, so open up.”

Yeah, she wanted it. And she wasn't talking about the hot dog. At least not the one in his hand.

Her stomach let out another audible growl. “All right, give me the thing.” She made a grab for it, but Brandon held it just out of reach. “You offer it to me, and now you won't let me have it?”

His mouth, the wicked thing, turned up in another grin. “I said open up.”

Say what?

“On second thought, I'm not that hungry,” she told him.

He chuckled. “Liar. Your stomach's been talking ever since I sat down. When was the last time you ate anything?”

She turned away from him again. “That's hardly the point.”

“Maybe not, but you still want this.” He waved the dog in her face again.

Why did the man have to be so insufferable? Worse, why did he have to look so damn good doing it? She knew for a fact his eyes underneath those black-as-pitch shades were the same color as creamy milk chocolate and had the ability to see down into her soul. Hence the reason for the wall she'd erected between them. She didn't want Brandon West seeing into her soul because then he'd melt it. The man was dangerous and the realization had hit Stella about halfway through their date.

They'd been sitting at dinner talking about this and that and Stella had asked about Matt. Brandon had fished a picture out of his wallet and shown it to her. She'd taken the photograph and gazed down at a much younger Brandon—she'd guessed him to be about twenty-two or twenty-three—with Matt. The kid had probably been about five or six and the two of them had been sound asleep on a hammock, hats covering their faces, no shirts and wearing cutoff shorts and bare feet. And she'd thought,
Oh yeah.

This is a man she could lose her heart to. When he'd taken the picture back and said something to the effect of “I'd do anything for that kid,” she'd just about lost it. And the thing was, it hadn't even been what he'd said that had stuck with her. It had been the way he'd said it and the look on his face. Here was a man who'd dedicated his life to a child he most likely hadn't planned for but would do anything for. The concept was foreign to Stella, however strange that sounded, because her mother, Gloria Davenport, hadn't lived by the same motto.

Gloria lived in Gloria's world, and most of the time, Stella had just been along for the ride. Not that she didn't love her mother. Gloria had her good qualities and Stella knew she'd been loved. But Gloria was self-centered and thought everyone around her should cater to her whims.

Instinctively, Stella knew Brandon wasn't like that. There was something about him that told Stella he'd move heaven and earth for his son, and Stella admired him for that. In fact, a part of her sort of loved him for it.

Which was why she needed to stay away from him. Even after being here two years, Stella wasn't entirely sure Blanco Valley was her permanent home.

“You want this or not?” Brandon asked again after she'd spaced out.

“All right, fine. But you're not”—she made a mad grab for the hot dog, managing to yank the thing out of his big hand—“feeding this to me.” She tossed it into her mouth before he could take it back.

“Spoilsport,” he told her.

She lifted one shoulder, which was a mistake because it was the one that kept rubbing up against him. “One of us has to be the mature one.” Or keep whatever weird dynamic they had going on in check.

Brandon either didn't notice it or didn't care.

The Bobcats, whom Stella had been ignoring since Annabelle had invited Brandon to completely invade her personal space, intercepted the ball and gained twenty yards. The two of them surged to their feet along with the rest of the crowd as the team ended the third quarter four points ahead and with possession of the ball.