Kiss Hard Page 3

  Leaving no safety net for Jacqueline’s daughters.

  Back after that truck ran onto the curb and crushed Catie’s legs, her mother had turned up at the hospital. Of course she had. Jacqueline wasn’t a monster. But she’d disappeared the minute the doctors pronounced that Catie was out of the woods.

  Jacqueline wasn’t a keeping-vigil-by-a-hospital-bed-type person.

  It was Clive who’d taken that role. Her flake of a father hadn’t let her down at that critical time in her life, when she’d been so afraid and hurt, her dreams of a running career in apparent tatters at the ends of where her legs should’ve been.

  That was why she could still love him even though he’d broken her heart so many times. Because she remembered waking up from sedation after yet another surgery to find always-spick-and-span Clive passed out in the hospital chair, unshaven and wearing dirty clothes.

  He hadn’t missed a single hospital day, had spent hours keeping her entertained and laughing. But it was Ísa who’d been there for the months and years of rehabilitation that followed, Ísa who’d come to all the appointments with the prosthetic specialists, Ísa who’d made sure Catie didn’t derail her progress by attempting to skip stages.

  Jacqueline, in contrast, had paid to have Clive’s entire home reconfigured so Catie could navigate it. She’d also set in motion the beginnings of a company to build cutting-edge prostheses. Looking after Catie in her own way—just not the way so desperately needed by the wounded child Catie had been.

  Her mother was a complicated woman.

  “We’ll be on the first flight out,” Joseph said toward the end of their call. “Make sure you get some hot drink and food into you since you’re staying up with Danny, or you’ll be answering to me.”

  Catie’s eyes burned. “Yes, sir.”

  Slipping the phone back into her pocket, she swallowed hard. “I hope you know how lucky you are, hotshot.” All those people, ready to drop their lives to come to him. The surreal thing was that they’d do it for her too.

  She’d spent so much time with the Esera clan after Ísa hooked up with Sailor that Veni had once said, “With you and Danny so close in age, you must feel like brother and sister.”

  After gagging, Catie had—very firmly—said, “No. Daniel Esera is not my brother. I’m not sure he’s even human.”

  Veni had burst out laughing, her giggle an infectious thing, but truth was truth. As for Sailor and Gabriel, they did treat her like a kid sister, but she didn’t mind—they were older, had been adults when she first met them. Jake, closer to her and Danny in age, was a friend.

  It was only her and Danny who’d rubbed each other wrong from their first meeting. “And I’d still stab the loser who did this to you,” Catie muttered, her hand yet locked with his. “Don’t let it go to your head. I’d do the same for anyone who had drugs slipped into their drinks.”

  Then she squeezed his hand and watched his chest rise and fall.

  3

  (STRICTLY) TEMPORARY CEASE-FIRE

  Danny woke up feeling like shit.

  His head was all fuzzy, his mouth tasted like he’d snacked on a furred animal of indeterminate origin, and his body felt like it had taken tackle after tackle in a bruising battle of a game. The only point of warmth, of softness, was in his right hand.

  Looking down, he saw a tumble of hair made up of so many shades of red and brown that to call it auburn felt like an insult. That hair was captured sunsets and autumn fire; he loved watching it blaze in the sunshine.

  “Catie?” His voice came out low, gravel-rough.

  It didn’t wake her where she lay sleeping with her head against the side of his bed, her hand curled into his. No, not curled into his. Gripping his tight.

  Why was Catie in his room?

  That was when he noticed the curtain around the bed. Another breath and the scent of antiseptics and who knew what else flooded his system. Hospital. This was a hospital. No mistaking that smell or the medical items nearby—including what looked to be an empty nurse’s cart. And yeah, this skinny thing with a metal frame definitely wasn’t his bed.

  He went to look at Catie again, was distracted by the bright white light coming through the window behind her. So bright it hurt his eyes.

  Frowning, he went to lean forward.

  Catie jolted up. “What? I wasn’t asleep!”

  All huge brown eyes and golden skin creased with sleep wrinkles, she glared at him before breaking out into a sudden, dazzling smile that threatened to steal his breath. “Hotshot.” She used the knuckles of her free hand to knock gently against the side of his head. “You have all your marbles?”

  He scowled. “Why the hell am I in the hospital? Did you run me over?”

  “Ha ha. I’m not the one with three speeding tickets.” Reaching over, she pressed something beside the bed. “Got told to buzz if you woke up.” Then she squeezed the hand she held. “Some asshole slipped a drug into your drink last night. You were out of it.”

  Danny’s blood ran cold. Jerking up into a straight-backed sitting position, he tried to think back to the night, hit a blank wall. His heart thudded, his mouth dry. “I can’t remember anything after the game.” He’d been buoyant, delighted at their win against the Southern Blizzard.

  “I looked it up on the web when I couldn’t sleep,” Catie said. “Being roofied can result in retrograde amnesia.”

  “Roofied?” Mind spinning, he tried to make sense of what she was saying. “Why—?”

  The curtain rustled to reveal a small-boned woman in scrubs. “Good, you’re awake,” she said. “And perfect timing. Dr. Smitherson is doing her final rounds before heading out.”

  He didn’t have to wait long for the doctor.

  After checking Danny over—including testing his cognition and motor skills, she slipped her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “Your friends were right—and wrong,” the doctor told him.

  “You were slipped a drug, but it wasn’t what’s colloquially called a roofie. Rather, it was a downer cut with another drug.” She rattled off the technical names. “Tests show you were dosed with a relatively small amount comparative to your physical size.”

  Danny tried to think. “Why would anyone do this?”

  “Given the circumstances—that you were surrounded by friends who would and did notice that something was off with you—it might’ve been for no reason but that certain individuals get a kick out of it.” Her face reflected her distaste. “Last month we had five people come in sick and vomiting after a supposed friend spiked their drinks with an illegal substance simply to see how they’d react.”

  “It could’ve also been an unscrupulous reporter,” Catie put in. “Photos of Danny out of it would bring in serious bucks, and all they’d have had to do was bribe a member of the bar staff or a groupie who could get close to you.”

  “Shit.” Danny shoved both hands through his hair, only then realizing he’d been holding on to Catie all this time. “This could get me thrown off the fucking team. Zero tolerance to drugs, that’s the policy.”

  “It’s all confidential,” Dr. Smitherson told him. “It won’t leak from here. But if it does ever come up, I’m more than willing to testify that you didn’t voluntarily take the drugs. I also suggest you file a police report.”

  Danny’s mind was a huge roar of noise.

  “Can he go home?” Catie asked, taking charge.

  For once he didn’t argue. Didn’t have the capacity to argue.

  “Yes, but I don’t want him alone for the next forty-eight hours. The effects can linger.”

  “No problem. I’ll stick with him until his parents arrive from Auckland.”

  “If they were planning to fly in, they’re out of luck.” The doctor nodded to the window behind Catie. “Big, once-in-a-century snowstorm swirling outside. All flights grounded. It’s forecast to get worse before it passes. I’m discharging you now so you can get home before it gets too dangerous on the roads.”

  Dr. Smitherson was as good as her word, and Danny walked out of the ward only minutes later.

  “I called one of those fancy executive cabs,” Catie told him. “You know, the ones that advertise about being super confidential. If the driver blabs anyway, we’ll pretend I fell and had to get my prostheses checked out and you came with me.”

  Danny was used to Catie’s quick mind, but it was too quick for him today. “Catie, I can’t think quite right.”

  She slipped her hand into his, slender and warm and with calluses from her weight work. “Lingering effects, remember? Doc also gave me a bit of advice about food and drink while you were in the bathroom, so we’ll start that, try to get your body into the right state.”

  He looked down at their clasped hands. Funny, how delicate she was, though he never thought of her that way—but while Catie was honed and sleek, a bullet on the race track, her hand was all slender bones, and it held his with fierce power. Telling him it was okay if he leaned on her; she could handle it.

  Curling his bigger, browner, blunt-tipped fingers around hers, he said, “I’m incapacitated. This doesn’t count.”

  No one else would’ve understood. Catie grinned. “Granted. This does not go on the scoreboard.”

  The taxi driver proved to be an older guy who was far more interested in Catie’s prosthetic feet than anything to do with Danny. She’d worn skin-hugging black capris that exposed her high-tech ankle joints, her equally high-tech feet clad in gold-sequined sneakers.

  Catie chatted away to the driver as the taxi crawled through the snowy streets, the silence beyond a soft hush. She’d told him once that she liked talking about her prostheses. “As long as people aren’t rude and are just curious,” she’d said. “I figure if I can help them see prosthetic limbs as nothing strange
, just a normal aid, it might help another amputee who isn’t as comfortable talking about this stuff. Plus, I mean, my hardware is wicked cool.”

  By the time the taxi came to a stop outside a building Danny didn’t recognize, the driver had asked for a selfie with Catie and was planning to tell his grandchildren about the famous runner he’d met. He ignored Danny.

  Thank God. Or thank Catie. Better not tell her that. She’d probably command him to refer to her as God from then on.

  After paying—and after the selfie, for which Catie leaned forward into the gap between the two front seats—they got out under the shelter of an awning. Danny automatically held out an arm in case Catie wanted to take it. She usually didn’t, but she curled her fingers around his biceps today. It wasn’t until they were inside the lobby that he realized she wasn’t holding on to him. She was holding him.

  His cheeks burned.

  Aggravated at the continuing heaviness in his head, he said, “Where are we?”

  “Jacqueline has an apartment in the city.” She gave the crisply uniformed front desk concierge a cheery wave before heading to the elevator. “My girls and I were staying here.”

  He froze. “Your girls?”

  A roll of the eyes, the glitter on her lids sparkling. “No need to hit the panic button. They flew out after the club last night—I was supposed to go with them, but I made an excuse.” A disgusted face. “Do you know they actually believed Viliame’s stupid rumor about the two of us hooking up?”

  “Vili what?” Danny felt like his head was exploding.

  “I’ll catch you up upstairs.”

  Upstairs ended up being the penthouse. Of course it did. This was Jacqueline Rain’s place after all. “It smells like women.” He sniffed the air, his eyes narrowed. “All perfumy and soft.” Then he turned to sniff at her. “Ugh, you smell like a woman too.”

  Catie snorted at him, laughter in her tone. “You want a shower? Viliame grabbed your stuff from the team hotel and dropped it off, and I asked the concierge to put it…”

  Stopping, she went back out into the small entrance area… and returned with his bag. “Voilà!”

  The shower did help, and he was feeling much better by the time he walked out, dressed in a clean pair of gray sweatpants and a white tee. Catie, her hair damp from her own shower, wore a velour sweat suit in eye-searing purple as she stood at the kitchen counter scrambling eggs.

  The outfit, with its gold zips and epaulets on the shoulders, should’ve been a monstrosity, but she made it look kick-ass. But, of course, he could never allow her to know that.

  Raising his hand to his face, he said, “My eyes, my eyes!”

  “Shut up or no eggs for you.” She pushed over her phone. “And call your parents. They just rang to say their flight was canceled. I told them you were fine, but they want to talk to their baby boy.” She smirked. “Coochie coo.”

  “Bite me.” But his lips twitched—he knew just how much she loved his folks; last month she’d taken them out for lunch for no reason but that she enjoyed their company.

  Instead of taking her phone, he went back to the guest bedroom and dug into the pockets of his jeans. “I still have my wallet and phone,” he called out, “so at least I didn’t get robbed.”

  “I’d have loaned you some dollars,” Catie said when he emerged from the room. “At a generous interest rate. Nothing over twenty-five percent.”

  “The Dragon would be proud.” Walking over to the counter, he made the call as he began to pour himself an orange juice from the bottle Catie had put there.

  His mother answered on the first ring. “Danny, sweetheart.”

  His mum and dad’s concern wrapped him in a familiar warmth. He knew other guys his age might’ve been annoyed at their worry, but Danny made no bones about being close to his parents. Joseph and Alison Esera were his rocks, and they understood the line between caring and hovering. That was why they had four strong, independent sons who adored them.

  After the two pronounced themselves satisfied that he was all right and that Catie was “looking after him”—he narrowed his eyes at that—they told him to call Gabriel.

  Danny took their advice, and his big brother helped break it all down for him. File the police report, contact his sports agent so he could talk to team management on Danny’s behalf, and touch base with the hospital to authorize the release of his medical report from tonight’s incident to the team.

  “That way no one can accuse you of drug taking,” Gabriel said. “It ever comes up, it’s all documented.”

  Being labeled a drug cheat could be the kiss of death for a sporting career, but Danny hesitated. “Gabe, no one knows. I just want to forget it.” Forget being out of control when he’d spent a lifetime learning to be disciplined, to color within the lines.

  “This is your call,” his brother said. “But if you don’t report it, it becomes a hidden thing you’re going to worry might come back to bite you. Better to be up front as close to the incident as possible, when all the data is there to back you up—including a respected ED doctor and her colleagues. Also, you’re going to go to therapy.”

  Danny’s jaw dropped. Striding to the balcony doors, he opened them and stepped out into the icy chill. “Hell I am!” He never yelled at his big brother—he had too much respect for Gabriel. But this was ridiculous. “It was one night and nothing bad happened!”

  Gabriel let him go on for a bit before quietly saying, “You’re angry, little bro. Listen to yourself. Sort it out by talking to a professional before the anger goes toxic inside you.”

  Chest heaving, Danny pressed his back against the outside wall. “Shit. I just— I was surrounded by friends, Gabe. The idea that one of them might’ve done it…” There was a strong likelihood that it had been a stranger, but still, the thought haunted him.

  “That’s exactly why I want you to talk to someone. Look, Mum shoved me into therapy after my injury. I whined like a baby, but it was the best thing she could’ve done for me. If you don’t listen to anything else I say, listen to this.”

  “Yeah, okay, I’ll think about it.” After hanging up, he stared out at the snow for a while until Catie stuck her head outside.

  “Hey, I didn’t know you wanted prostheses too.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, since you’re trying your best to get frostbite and lose your feet.”

  “Funny.” But realizing she was right about him freezing off his feet, he walked in and slid the door shut.

  His stomach rumbled.

  Catie didn’t take the chance to razz him, and together, they dished out the eggs and bacon she’d made along with slices of what looked like fresh bread. When he held it up with a raised eyebrow, she said, “It’s a premade kind that you keep frozen, and when you want a bit, you chuck it in the oven for fifteen minutes. Jacqueline’s private chef stocks it.”

  Not for the first time, Danny wondered how Catie had turned out so normal after having Jacqueline Rain for a mother and a womanizing gambler for a father. “Eggs are good,” he mumbled after shoving a huge portion into his starving mouth.

  “I know.” Catie took a sip of the coffee she’d refused to give him, citing doctor’s orders. “What did Gabe say?”

  He told her. No point keeping secrets from Catie when she was a vault where family was concerned. And to her, the Eseras were family—except for him. He was her chief nemesis and vice versa.

  His friends got on his case all the time, asking if he had blue balls by now what with how long the two of them had been flirting. Idiots didn’t get it. He and Catie didn’t flirt. It didn’t matter that she was hot—he had eyes in his head, could see why several of his single teammates tried to hit on her every chance they got.

  Only to get shot down. Boom.

  His enjoyment of their misfortune might have been assholish behavior if they didn’t spend so much time ragging him on his “unrequited crush.” Hah! The idea was ludicrous. Catie would fall down dead of laughter if she heard it.

  He shoved more eggs into his mouth.