FLOWERS and CAGES Read online

"E-mail buddies. However, he told me if I ever moved to Los Angeles, there was a job waiting."

  "You didn't tell me that."

  "I'm telling you now." Colleen's hand came to rest on his thigh. "In a few months, who knows how you'll feel. How I'll feel. We have time to find out."

  Dalton drove into the night. Turning on the radio, he chuckled when the band's latest hit song poured through the speakers. Time Is On Our Side. Hearing Colleen's answering laugh, he placed his hand over hers, relaxing. The lights of Phoenix burned brightly in the distance. No more looking back.

  They did have time. All the time in the world.

  EPILOGUE

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  "DON’T TOUCH ME!"

  "Those are the words every man longs to hear from the woman he loves."

  "This woman is a dirty, sweaty mess. But she loves you, too."

  "That, I definitely want to hear."

  Dalton gladly accepted Colleen's quick kiss, understanding why she leaned in, keeping her body as far from his as possible.

  "If I don't hop in the shower, we'll be late meeting everyone for dinner."

  Colleen rushed up the stairs, pulling her shirt over her head as she went. Enjoying the view, Dalton trailed behind. He liked this arrangement much better than the one they had the first few months after Colleen moved to Los Angeles. She and Zoe turned out to be surprisingly compatible roommates. For a while, Dalton worried about prying her loose. He wanted her with him. Not living the single life with her new BFF.

  Dalton had nothing to worry about. Between her new job at World Restorations, and acclimating to city life, Colleen had little time for anything else. She settled in nicely. He soon realized his worries were without foundation. Work during the day. Dalton at night. Before long, Colleen spent more time in his bed than the one in Zoe's guest room.

  It was during one of those sleepovers after he had shown her with his body how much he loved her, that she said the words. I love you. Dalton hadn't hesitated to tell her what he had known almost from the beginning. I love you, Colleen.

  Colleen had said it hundreds of times since that first time. However, it hadn't lost its impact. Dalton was certain it never would. Tonight, in front of their friends, he planned on asking her to spend the rest of her life with him. It was a big step. Before Colleen, he would have sworn it was a step he would never take. Crazy as it sounded, the cliché was true. All it took was the right woman.

  Dalton quickly removed his clothing. Sharing a shower with Colleen was one of life's great pleasures. He would be a fool to pass up the opportunity.

  "You know where this will lead."

  "I can only hope."

  Turning, Colleen wrapped her arms around his waist. The water had turned her hair a deep auburn. In Dalton's mind, red was red. Beautiful no matter the shade. He squirted a dollop of her favorite shampoo into his palm, running his fingers through the thick locks until her head was covered in citrus-scented lather.

  "Mm." Closing her eyes, Colleen's turned her face upward, her lips curving into a smile. "You are so good at that."

  "Aren't you glad you agreed to move in?"

  "You do come in handy." Colleen wrapped her fingers around his erection. "For so many things."

  "We'll be late," Dalton warned, not giving a damn.

  "You can blame me."

  Dalton covered Colleen's mouth with his. Had he been happy before her? Yes. A different kind of happiness. This was richer. Deeper. The kind that could only grow brighter with each passing year.

  "I love you, Colleen." When she didn't answer, Dalton dipped his head, looking into eyes that sparkled like brilliant emeralds. "Tears?"

  "I can't help it," Colleen brushed her lips against his. "Those words get me every time. I love you."

  Dalton didn't cry. He was too happy. But he understood. Those words. I love you. When Colleen said them, they got to him. Every time.

  COMING SOON

  Flowers Are Red

  Hart of Rock and Roll Book Three

  AFTER THE RAIN

  (One Pass Away Book One)

  PROLOGUE

  LOGAN. LOGAN. LOGAN.

  Logan Price closed his eyes, taking it all in.

  "Hear that, kid?" Starting quarterback Gaige Benson slapped him on the back. "Two games under your belt and you're a star. Now let's go out there and add super to the front of it."

  The announcer for the team set them in motion down the tunnel with his familiar introduction.

  "And now, let's hear it for your division champion SEATTLE KNIGHTS."

  The roar of the crowd. There was nothing like it. A packed stadium. Fans chanting his name. Few people would ever experience what it was like to take the field in a professional football game.

  Logan Price had been working for this his entire life. He could still remember in exact detail the first game he ever saw. Too small to climb onto the stool in his father's bar by himself, his old man had lifted him onto the seat.

  Stay and be quiet.

  Not an easy order to follow for an active, inquisitive little boy. One look at the game and for once, Logan had no problem following his father's command. The old TV transported him to a foreign world filled with bright lights and shiny helmeted warriors. Logan didn't know what he was watching. He did know he wanted to be one of those men.

  A Sunday afternoon in rural Oklahoma. Lefty's Pub was filled with after-church drinkers who figured they had done their duty to God and family. The rest of the day was their time. A beer. Or two. Or six. Cronies who understood a man's need to unwind before the start of another workweek.

  And football.

  If the Friday night high school game was their true religion, the Sunday afternoon games were a close second. As Oklahoma boys, they hated anything Texas. The men of Denville gathered every week to root for whichever team was playing the Dallas Cowboys.

  No matter how the games ended. Whether the crowd was happy or disgruntled. It meant more drinking. Hours later, husbands, boyfriends, and sons would stumble out, pile into beat-up trucks, and weave their way home to frustrated wives, girlfriends, and mothers.

  As he grew older, Logan's view changed. He moved from the stool to behind the bar. And he promised himself one thing. He would never become one of those men. He wouldn't spend the week at a job he hated. His home wouldn't be a semi-wide trailer filled with hand-me-down furniture and a wife to whom he couldn't face going home.

  His Sundays were going to be spent playing football, not watching it.

  "Ready to take down this vaunted Arizona defense?" Gaige yelled at him, butting helmets.

  Vaunted. Good word, Logan thought. His QB liked to use what his granny called highfalutin talk. Must have been that Ivy League education. He knew that Gaige Benson didn't grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He came from the mean streets of Brooklyn. He had the scars to prove it.

  Like Logan, Gaige had vowed to get out of the life into which he was born. In the process, he polished himself up like a new penny. He took advantage of his full-ride scholarship to Yale. He didn't spend all his time on the football field. Fancy vocabulary. Fancy clothes. Fancy women. They were all part of the package Gaige purposefully fashioned for himself.

  Seventeen years after clawing his way out of the tenement that he grew up in, very little of that borough-rat remained. Until game time. No one was tougher than Gaige Benson. Three-time league MVP. Considered one of the best ever to play the game. No one stood in his way when he was playing the game. He had the scars to prove it.

  "Gather round."

  Knights head coach Harry Coleman gathered the team close. He had to yell over the crowd, but he had the voice to do it. Booming was putting it mildly. The first time Logan heard it, he stood right beside the man. The ringing in his ears didn't go away for three days.

  "Divisional game. If I have to say any more than that, you shouldn't be out here. Go kick some ass."

  The defense took the fiel
d to start the game. Arizona had a rookie quarterback drafted in the second round from a small college in the Midwest. The only reason he was out there was because the regular starter suffered a concussion in last week's game and the regular backup had food poisoning. Thrown into action at the last minute, Logan swore he could see the guy’s hands shaking before he took the first snap. When the ball went sailing between his legs, Logan shook his head.

  The moment was too big for some people. For Logan, it wasn't big enough. He aimed for the biggest stage of all. The Super Bowl. It wasn't a matter of if he would get there, but when.

  "Three and out." Gaige grinned, pulling on his helmet. "Come on, kid. Let's go show them how it's done."

  Logan ran onto the field. Kid. He shook his head, grinning. From the first day of training camp, Gaige had hung that moniker on him. Ironic since he was almost twenty-five, a good two years older than most of the other rookies. However, he supposed when someone had been in the league as long as Gaige, all the new guys seemed like kids.

  "We're starting on the ground," Gaige instructed them in the huddle. "Sweep out left. Basic. Got it?"

  Lining up as he had a thousand other times, Logan checked the defense. He knew he was fast. One of the fastest in the game. What set him apart was his anticipation. He had the uncanny ability to read the guy covering him. He knew when to fake left or when to fake right. Stutter step or flat out, in your face, catch me if you can.

  His speed got him out of Denville, Oklahoma. His brains and determination got him to the NFL.

  The sounds of the game were as familiar to Logan as the back of his own hand. The call from scrimmage. Each quarterback had his own unique cadence. Gaige was a master of mixing his up. Study him all you want. Good luck figuring it out. His teammates knew. A signal just before they broke the huddle.

  Pay attention, you were golden. Slack off even once? Gaige could ream a guy out with the best of them. And he had no problem doing it in the middle of the game.

  An entire YouTube channel had been devoted to Gaige and his rants. They were as legendary as the man himself. With a ball in his hand, he was cool as ice. The rest of the time, watch out.

  No one would ever accuse Logan of lacking focus. Today was no exception. They were driving down the field. First and ten from the Arizona twenty-yard line. He already had three carries of thirty-five yards. It was going to be a good day.

  "Ready to take it in?" Gaige asked.

  "Always."

  "Then show them what you've got."

  A quick snap later, Gaige handed the ball to Logan. The offensive line created a seam. Not a big one. Just big enough. Using the push of his powerful legs, Logan surged through. One more step. They wouldn't catch him. No one could.

  Like everything connected with the game, Logan heard the snap of the bone with total clarity. The agony that surged through his body was so intense he almost passed out. In the next few minutes, he was going to wish he had.

  "Get back." Logan heard Gaige through the haze of pain. "Goddamn it. Move the hell off."

  The three-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker didn't get off by standing. He rolled. Crushing Logan's broken leg as he went. He would never know if the move had been deliberate. Now, it was the last thing on his mind. He only cared about two things. How bad was the injury and when would he be able to play again.

  "Hold on, kid." Gaige took his hand. "They're bringing the stretcher."

  The team doctor checked his eyes. Logan knew he was asked some questions. What they were and how he answered, he would never remember. By the time they carted him off the field, Logan knew the break was bad.

  "Gaige." Logan reached for him.

  "I'm here, kid."

  "Is it over?"

  "The game?" Gaige walked with him, his head bent toward Logan. "No. But I promise we're going to win the bastard."

  They loaded him onto the open cart. They had him secured and the vehicle rolled away before Logan had his answer. He wasn't wondering about the game. It was his career.

  To no one in particular, he whispered the question again.

  "Is it over?"

  CHAPTER ONE

  LOGAN SAT UP in bed, his body covered with a fine coating of sweat.

  He glanced at the clock. Three in the fucking morning. On the one night he managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour, he was plagued by the nightmare that had haunted his dreams for the past two years.

  Running his hand through his long, damp hair, Logan fell back onto the mattress. His sheets were as wet as he was. With a grimace, he rolled onto the floor. Flexing his stiff knee, he stripped the bed, tossing everything onto a pile of dirty clothes he planned on taking to the laundromat on his day off.

  There was an alternative. He could always take Linda Sue Hemmings up on her offer. She would do his laundry anytime. Payment. On-call stud service whenever her husband Darryl was out of town on business. As much as Logan hated folding socks, he decided the price was too high. He had lost a lot in the last few years. He still held onto his dignity. Just barely.

  Still groggy, Logan shuffled to the bathroom. Flipping on the light, he grimaced at what the mirror reflected.

  Too many late nights followed by not enough sleep. As patterns went, it wasn't a healthy one. Perpetually bloodshot eyes. Dark circles on his dark circles. He needed a haircut. Logan ran his hand over his face. Even more, he needed a shave.

  He had to hand it to himself. When he let himself go, he went all the way. All he had to do was stop showering. If he wasn't worried about driving the customers away with his smell, he might have considered it.

  The old plumbing rattled with protest when he turned on the faucet. It wasn’t a bad place. There were worse. Logan splashed some cold water on his face. He didn't bother with a towel. It would dry soon enough on its own.

  He had two choices.

  Toss and turn for a couple of hours on the unmade bed – he really needed to get more than one set of sheets.

  Or lose himself with an old friend.

  Sleep wasn't coming which made the choice an easy one.

  Logan pulled on a pair of old shorts, a faded t-shirt and sweatshirt that was too ratty to be called anything as fashionable as a hoodie. After lacing up his sneakers, he hit the road. When he was a kid, he ran for the fun of it. In high school and college, it strengthened his legs and improved his stamina. Now, the only thing it accomplished was getting him a reputation as that half-crazy Price boy. Running the deserted streets at all hours? Maybe his head had been permanently injured along with his leg.

  Logan jogged past Lefty's Pub. The place where he spent most evenings tending bar. The day he left for college he swore to anyone who would listen that he had served his last beer. Eight years later, here he was, washing glasses and putting up with not so subtle jabs about how the mighty had fallen.

  Coming back to Denville was more of an adjustment than Logan anticipated. He expected the cracks about his failed NFL career. Any kind of success tended to breed a certain amount of jealousy and resentment. There were those who reveled in his injury.

  Logan Price always thought too much of himself. Denville wasn't good enough for the high school's star running back. He forgot all about us when he made it big.

  The sound of his feet pounding on the unpaved side street couldn't keep the usual thoughts from creeping back. Some of what those people said was true. He had been full of himself. At seventeen, one wasn’t written up in national magazines without it going to his head.

  Logan never tried to hide his plans. A full-ride scholarship to the college of his choice. Then the pros. MVP awards. Super Bowl rings. The cocky attitude of a teenager wasn't any easier to take than if he had been an adult. Most of Denville embraced their golden boy.

  AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

  (One Pass Away Book Two)

  PROLOGUE

  SEAN McBRIDE WOKE up with a smile on his face. It happened a lot lately. And he thoroughly approved.
r />   He stretched his long, athletic body. Some mornings every inch of him ached. Such was the life of a professional football player. Everything was about preparing for the game. Focus. Concentration. The goal was to be ready for game day.

  He had to hold it together for sixty minutes. Pull out a win any way possible. Sacrifice his body to the football Gods and pray he walked away healthy enough to do it all again next week.

  Sean dreaded the day after the game. The adrenaline had long ago worn off and he felt all of his thirty years. There were degrees of bad. Sometimes he shuffled to the shower, the aches and pains palpable, but mercifully bearable.

  Then there were the bad days. After a day of three-hundred-pound defensive backs using him as their own personal punching bag, he didn't get out of bed—he crawled.

  Bruised from top to bottom, his joints creaked and his muscles protested like screeching banshees. Those were the times he wondered why he did it. He could have been a doctor. Or a lawyer. He could have taken his father's advice and gone into the family business. No seventeen-year-old with dreams of glory in the NFL wanted to think about becoming a butcher. But damn. Cutting meat sounded good on those mornings.

  This was a good Monday. His body felt lithe—limber. The bruises were there. That was part of his life. However, yesterday had been one of those rare games when every moment fell into place. From the kickoff to the final whistle, the outcome of the game was never in question.

  Sean caught every ball thrown his way. He evaded the defense. Fast as the wind. Three touchdowns. One hundred and eighty-two total yards. A damn good day for any wide receiver. He would have had more if Coach Coleman hadn't taken him out of the game in the fourth quarter. With a big lead, there was no reason to risk injury when he wasn't needed.

  The after-game celebration moved from the locker room to one of the team's favorite hangouts. Naturally the atmosphere was raucous. Cautiously so.