Full Coverage: Boys of Fall (8 page)

But Nolan wasn’t as content with leisurely. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her tight as he surged up into her, lifting and lowering her with his thrusts. And eventually that wasn’t enough either. He flipped her onto her back.

“Get that pretty skirt out of my way, Ladybug,” he said huskily.

She pulled it up as he plunged into her. She cried out his name, her orgasm hovering, teasing, tempting.

Nolan braced his hands on the couch on either side of her hips, locking his elbows and watched where he moved in and out of her, clearly meaning everything he’d said about never getting tired of that.

It was partly how turned on he was, how much he clearly wanted her, how much he loved being with her like this, that twisted her tighter and tighter, until finally she came apart in a flood of pleasure and heat and emotion that made her cry out his name for the second time and clamp onto him as if she could keep it all going and going.

But that was all it took to trigger Nolan’s climax. He shouted her name and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding on tight as he came.

Neither of them moved for a few seconds, then he dropped his forehead to her shoulder and eased himself down beside her on the cushion.

She felt like they were glued together, every inch of him touching every inch of her, and she had no desire to move.

Ever.

* * *

R
andi slipped
out of bed early the next morning. She didn’t want to leave. Nolan was taking up more than his share of her bed and she loved it. He was still snoring softly at five a.m. when she pulled on her jeans, T-shirt and work boots. She could have definitely used more sleep, but she had to meet her mom for their Thursday morning breakfast.

And she definitely needed coffee. Nolan had woken her two more times in the night. Once had been hard and fast and heart-pounding. Once had been slow and sweet. That was the one that had wrecked her.

That had been the one that had prompted her to wake
him
up the third time.

She wrote him a quick note and put it on her pillow, clichéd as that was, and headed to the diner. Her mom would be coming off the night shift at the hospital and just getting back to Quinn. Every Thursday they met for breakfast after Katie’s shift and before Randi’s day started.

Randi walked into the diner and spotted her mom, already with a carafe of coffee in front of her. She slid into the booth across from Katie and immediately poured some of the brew into the cup waiting for her.

“’Morning.”

“Hi, Mom.” Randi gave her a grin and then drank.

“You okay?”

Randi swallowed. “Well, yeah. Why?”

“You look perky.”

Randi had been getting up to open the shop at six a.m. for the past eight years. She did great work in the morning before everyone else got there. But she wasn’t a morning person. Getting from horizontal to vertical was the hardest thing she did every day. And no one knew it better than the woman who’d had to haul her butt out of bed every morning for eighteen years.

“Not perky. Fine. But…normal.” But she didn’t feel normal. Not even a little.

She’d had sex before. She’d been with guys who’d really wanted her. But she’d never been made love to. And that was exactly what had happened with Nolan last night.

There had been sparks at Coach’s party. After years of noticing each other, of dancing around any kind of relationship—physical or otherwise—of assuming they had nothing in common so they wouldn’t be compatible in any way. There had been hot kissing. There had been flirting and teasing and then tequila. But she’d had no way of expecting what it would really be like with him. How amazing it would be. How…consuming.

That sounded so weird, but when he was touching her, kissing her, talking to her, moving over and in her, he was everything. There wasn’t room for doubts or fears or even the ability to be surprised or amazed. He took over every thought and feeling.

And in the aftermath,
that
was pretty scary.

And surprising. And amazing.

“No, you don’t look normal,” Katie said. “Did something happen?”

“Something like what?” Randi asked, taking another big swallow of coffee.

“Something good, obviously,” Katie said. “What is it?”

Sex with Nolan could make her perky after four hours of sleep? Huh, she might need to keep him around. She felt a smile slowly spread. She’d love to keep him around.

“There.
That
,” Katie said, pointing at Randi’s mouth. “What are you smiling about?”

“I’m seeing someone,” she admitted.

Katie’s smile was equally big. “That’s wonderful. Who is it?”

Randi looked around. The diner was busy this time of day. They were a ranching community. Ranchers got up with the sun. And everyone in town who depended on the ranchers’ business got up with the sun as well. “It’s brand-new. I don’t really know what’s going to happen. But he asked me to go to New York with him for a big party in a couple of weeks.”

“Nolan Winters,” Katie guessed immediately. She nodded. “I think he’s had a crush on you for a while.”

A few months ago, Randi would have waved that off. Or maybe she would have even agreed. But now, after Coach’s party, after the last few days, after last night, she didn’t like the word crush or the insinuation that it was one-sided.

“I really like him,” she said. “He makes me feel…special.”

Katie clearly liked that. “He should.”

Yes. Randi agreed. But they all should. All the guys she’d spent time with should have looked at her like she was the best thing since someone covered a coffee bean in chocolate. They should have wanted to whisk her away to New York. They should have woken her up in the middle of the night and made love to her with their eyes locked on hers like they couldn’t believe she was really there.

But none of them had. Until Nolan. And while all of that sounded a little narcissistic even in
her
head, that’s not how it felt. Because she felt the same way. She’d loved not just being the object of his affection, but showing him how she felt too. The body shots, the brownies, the way she went eagerly into his arms each time he woke her—and the time that she’d awakened him—she hoped she showed him that she was just as amazed to be with him.

The waitress took their order and she and her mom chatted about her dad and how his back was feeling, if Katie should paint the kitchen yellow or white, and if Randi should wear her hair up or down for the New York party. They made their way through their eggs and waffles, discussing the touristy highlights of New York and if Randi was scared to fly. She hadn’t even thought about it. She’d never flown, had never really thought she’d have a chance, so she didn’t know
how
she felt about it.

“But Nolan will be with you,” Katie said. “You won’t be nervous if he’s there.”

The waitress refilled their coffees again and took their plates, and Katie excused herself to the ladies’ room.

Randi sat sipping, and remembering the night before, and blushing at some of the things Nolan had gotten her to say.

Until she heard, “How long is Nolan in town?”

She straightened and glanced over her shoulder. Monica Williams sat facing Randi’s direction in the booth behind her. She couldn’t see the other woman’s face but she knew exactly who it was. Monica’s best friend. Teresa Winters. Nolan’s mother.

Randi knew Teresa, of course. She’d spent her whole life in Quinn and Teresa Winters had been here, working as the receptionist at the dental office, as long as Randi could remember. She’d worked on Teresa’s car a number of times as well. They got along fine. But there was something about sitting back to back with a woman whose son she’d been naked with for the better part of last night that felt funny.

“Oh, he’s going back in a couple of days,” Teresa said to Monica’s question. “He’s just here messing around in between assignments. You know he needs that downtime. He works so hard and does those in-depth stories. Every now and then he needs to blow off some steam and forget about all the demands in the city.”

Randi frowned and tried
not
to lean back closer to Teresa so she didn’t miss anything. Nolan was just here blowing off steam? Nolan came back every few months, and when he was in town, he made a point of seeing old friends, hanging out and catching up. And checking up on his mom. She’d been married to Nolan’s dad, but he was long gone now. Nolan had been pretty young when his dad took off, by all accounts. It was long enough ago that Randi didn’t remember Nolan ever having a mom and a dad at parents’ day at school or in the audience for school programs and such.

Did he come home to blow off steam and escape from the job pressures? She supposed that made sense.

“I heard he had asked a Quinn girl to go with him to New York,” Monica said. “But no one knows who for sure.”

“Oh, just for a party,” Teresa said dismissively. “He’s just trying to give an old friend a thrill.”

Randi felt her chest tighten. Did Teresa know it was her? Did it matter? Was she right?

“I’m sure there are a million women in San Antonio and New York that would be happy to be on his arm for this big posh party,” Monica said to Teresa.

“Of course,” Teresa said, as if it were obvious. “But think of how fun it would be for Nolan to get to show off his new lifestyle to someone who knew him from high school. Maybe someone that didn’t give him the time of day back then,” Teresa said. “This is his chance to show someone from here what he’s made of himself, up close and personal. I don’t blame him.”

“Nor do I,” Monica said. “He deserves the kudos. The girl will be completely swept off her feet and her head will be spinning.”

“Exactly,” Teresa said. “Though how any of the girls who’ve spent their lives here think they can compete with New York City and San Antonio is laughable.”

“It really is,” Monica agreed.

“You ready to go?”

Randi watched numbly as her mother slid into the booth across from her.

Did Nolan want to show off his success because she hadn’t paid attention to him romantically in high school? Was that really what this was about? But it couldn’t be. If they’d stuck to tequila sex and he’d hit the road, maybe. But he’d stayed. He’d made love to her. He looked at her like she really might be the answer to everything he wanted.

He couldn’t be faking that, could he?

“Randi?”

She shook herself and focused on her mother. “Yeah?”

“You ready to go?” Katie repeated.

Yeah, she felt like she might throw up her breakfast already. She couldn’t stomach any more of Teresa Winters’ conversation.

Randi slid from the booth and took a breath. She was going to have to walk by Teresa’s table to get to the door. She could only pray that Teresa didn’t know she was the one going to the party with Nolan. Otherwise, this could be very awkward when Teresa realized who was sitting right behind her.

Randi turned and smiled, first at Monica, then at Teresa. “Good morning,” she greeted.

“Good morning, Miranda,” Monica said.

“Hello,” Teresa returned.

And Randi felt her smile die. She saw it in the other woman’s face. Not only did she know Nolan had invited Randi to New York—but she’d known Randi was behind her for the whole conversation.

“Come on, sweetie. I’m about to fall asleep standing here,” Katie said, nudging Randi toward the door. “Hi, ladies,” she greeted the women.

Monica and Teresa smiled at her as if they hadn’t just stomped on Randi’s heart.

In front of the diner, Katie and Randi hugged. “Talk to you soon,” Katie said. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Randi headed off across the square toward the shop, her thoughts spinning. Was Teresa right? Was Nolan just wanting to show off with the New York trip?

And if so, so what? He
had
gone on and made something of himself. She was already impressed, but if he wanted to really hammer home the point, she’d take the free trip to New York and ooh and aah over the bright lights, big city and the big important author who’d brought her. What did she care if there was a sliver of revenge to the whole thing? A dash of “look what you passed up”. A hint of “you should have been nicer to me in high school”.

But that was what tripped her up. She’d been nice to Nolan in high school. Always. There was no bad blood between them. He’d never asked her out, she’d never turned him down, they’d never fooled around, no one’s heart had been broken.

No, he wasn’t taking her to New York to rub in what could have been.

But it did leave the question—why
was
he taking her to New York? If he needed a date, there had to be a dozen other women he could have asked who would have been better choices, who knew how to dress and handle themselves at a big, fancy party.

If he’d done it to get her naked, he could now save a bunch of money on that plane ticket.

S
omething was up with Randi
.

Nolan watched as she rolled underneath the car she was working on until only her legs were showing.

“We were approaching halftime. We were up, but only by three, and were only to midfield on fourth down with inches to go. Coach had to make a decision. He could punt. That would have been the safe thing. We had the lead, we had the best kicker in the state and with only a minute to go, it would be hard for the Tigers to score once Wade put the ball on the opposite end of the field.”

Nolan nodded. He should be taking notes, but he couldn’t pull his gaze from the strip of bare skin that showed as she lifted her arms over her head and her shirt pulled up. “But he didn’t punt.”

“Nope. He went for it. It was a huge gamble. If we didn’t make first down, it was their ball and they were on the fifty. They had the number three running back in the state and our defense was tired and beat up.”

“We were up. Why’d he go for it?” Nolan asked. He’d asked Coach the same question. He’d asked players for their take as well. But he wanted to hear Randi’s answer.

She rolled out from under the car. She met his eyes. “Because anyone can play it safe. Champions do it the hard way.”

Nolan loved that answer. And he wondered if Randi was the type to play it safe or do it the hard way. She seemed spunky, she seemed tough, but she hadn’t ever taken any chances. She was living and working in her hometown, doing something she’d been doing since she was a kid, with the same routine and same people.

He wanted her to take a chance. With him.

It wasn’t a startling revelation. But where it had been a dream, a desire before, now he accepted it. He wanted to take her with him when he left Quinn. He’d made love to her. He’d poured his feelings into every touch and kiss and when he’d felt it returned, when he’d felt how much she wanted and needed his love and attention and passion, he’d realized that he couldn’t leave her here. He wanted to show her the world, give her every opportunity she’d never had. She could go to school. She could be whatever she wanted, could do whatever she wanted.

“Coach said that he went for it because no one writes books about guys who play it safe,” Nolan told her.

Randi smiled at that. “He’s right.”

Nolan nodded. He agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly. No one remembered the safe and easy times. They remembered and appreciated the times when they took a chance and came out on top.

She rolled back under the car.

In spite of her smile, something was off with Randi today. She’d smiled at him, but it hadn’t quite reached her eyes. She’d talked with him, but it was like she was explaining a football game to just some guy rather than talking about her passion with the guy who’d been the object of her passion all night.

For a second, he’d wondered if she was regretting the night before. But then he realized that she was acting hurt and uncomfortable. Not like she wished the night before hadn’t happened. Not embarrassed about the way she’d called out his name and begged him and told him the most intimate thoughts in her head. Not distracted, as if she couldn’t look at him without thinking about his mouth between her legs or her mouth on his cock. Not overwhelmed, as if she was dealing with some major emotions of her own after last night.

No. She was acting awkward. Again. Like she had all the times she’d tried to talk to him before this trip home.

Of course he’d asked if she was okay. To which she, of course, said she was fine.

So he was giving her space. For now.

“They went for it,” Nolan said. “And made it.”

“Yep, first down plus ten yards. The next play, we marched right into the end zone.”

“And ended up winning the game by three.”

“Right. Without that touchdown, we could have lost by three.”

Nolan listened to her working under the car, studying her long legs and remembering how they’d felt wrapped around his waist as he’d thrust into the hottest, tightest, sweetest body on the planet. But more, he remembered how she sounded, breathing hard in his ear, begging for more, crying out his name—
his
name—when she came.

And he remembered how it had felt to wake up with her draped around him like she was a spider monkey and he was her favorite tree.

“Let’s go to the Valentine’s Day thing together.”

She stopped moving. Then slowly rolled out from under the car. “What?”

“The Valentine’s Day Dance. At the Community Center.”

“Together?” she asked.

He smiled and stood. Crossing to where she lay on the floor, he squatted down and handed her a pink envelope.

Randi reached for the rag that was perpetually tucked into her back pocket and wiped her hands. Then she took the envelope hesitantly. She opened it and proceeded to read the sappiest card he’d ever purchased in his life. And that included the Mother’s Day card he’d bought for his mom when he was seven.

She seemed to be reading it three or four times, because it took her almost two full minutes to lift her gaze from the card.

“You got me a Valentine?”

He grinned at her. “Be mine.”

She swallowed and looked back at the card. “I’ve never gotten a Valentine before. Well, not since elementary school when everyone gave them to everyone.”

Nolan liked that. And he wanted to kick a bunch of sorry, stupid asses. Like all of the men in Quinn. He liked being the only person to do something special for her at the same time he hated that she hadn’t had anyone crazy about her. Because that was a fucking waste.

“I’ve worked really hard not to be dating anyone around Valentine’s Day though, so that’s probably part of it,” she said, almost to herself.

“You’ve avoided having a boyfriend around Valentine’s Day?” Nolan asked. “Why?”

She shrugged. “It’s a complicated holiday. Lots of expectations. Just seemed better to avoid it.”

“Lots of expectations.” He thought about that. He supposed it could be true. “What about this year?”

She looked up from the sappy card. “Well, you went to all the trouble of getting the card.”

He nodded. “It was tough,” he said lightly. And suddenly he wanted to do something tough, to go above and beyond, overboard, over-the-top for her. He wanted to work hard, to show her she was worth it.

There was a niggle in the back of his mind, almost as if he was on to something with that thought. But then Randi stood, stepped close, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.

With his arms full of hot, sweet woman, it was hard to concentrate on anything else.

* * *

H
e’d been
in town for a week. Randi was trying to remember the last time Nolan had stuck around that long. When he’d first started the book last summer, he’d been here for a couple of weeks. But usually, he was in and out in a weekend. Four days at the most.

She hadn’t realized she’d been paying that much attention.

But apparently she had, because she knew this was the second longest he’d ever stayed in Quinn since graduating.

It wasn’t just his mother’s words at the diner the other day that had Randi thinking about it either. It had been on her mind almost constantly since he’d asked her to the Valentine’s Dance. Why was he staying? He had to have most of the book done by now. She was just helping fill in football details. There was no way he actually wanted to go to the dance at the community center. She’d never been, but the fact that she’d heard zero details about it in years past, meant it wasn’t noteworthy. So that couldn’t be the reason Nolan was hanging around.

She did wonder what Teresa thought of Nolan sticking around though. Especially after her comment about how he was only here in between projects. He was still working on the book. That wasn’t between projects. Did Teresa know that he was here because of the book and that Randi was helping him?

It wasn’t a secret that Teresa Winters thought Quinn was beneath her brilliant son. Frankly, she thought Quinn was beneath her whole family. Except for her no-good, scumball, lying, cheating ex-husband. All terms she’d used to describe him in multiple public places over the years.

Teresa was the most critical person in town and very few people truly liked her. Especially those who had spent their lives in Quinn and loved it. She was an outsider. She’d come to town a little over thirty years ago with her husband, a Quinn boy who had met her when he was going to school in Dallas.

He’d, apparently, never been forgiven for getting her pregnant right away and bringing her to Quinn. He’d also, apparently, not been able to take living with her for more than six years. He’d left her behind in Quinn and had never looked back.

Randi felt a little sorry for Teresa, but it was hard not to grit her teeth around the woman. It seemed that nothing was ever good enough. Teresa showed up to school board meetings, city council meetings, Chamber of Commerce meetings. And she always had a complaint. There was always something that someone was doing wrong or not doing enough of or doing too much of. Randi had heard most of it second-hand through the rumor mill, from her mother, or in the shop. Randi wasn’t really the school board type. But, as a business owner in Quinn, she’d witnessed Teresa’s negativity at more than one Chamber meeting.

It was sad, really. Teresa had some good ideas, and she wasn’t wrong when she said they could implement a summer reading program or that the businesses could all pitch in and get the sidewalk on Main repaved. But it was the way she made her suggestions and the fact that it seemed Quinn was perpetually not good enough that made everyone defensive and less likely to listen.

It was hard to believe Nolan was Teresa’s son, actually. Nolan was a nice guy who had always seemed to love Quinn. Sure, he’d left as soon as he’d had the chance. Sure, he’d moved well beyond Quinn, literally and figuratively. But he’d never seemed disdainful toward his hometown. And he came back regularly.

He just never
stayed
.

“So yesterday you told me about Marv and Dan and Chuck and Tom and how they always kept their grandsons’ stats and had an ongoing competition going,” Nolan said, from where he was sitting on the dirty overturned bucket again.

Randi couldn’t get over that. He didn’t seem to care that her shop got his pants dirty every day. He kept coming back and he’d sit on the bucket beside her work area, his notebook flipped open, pen poised. He’d been taking pages of notes every day and Randi couldn’t believe it when she was going on and on about the off-field stuff that went on at football games, and she’d glanced over to find him scribbling madly.

They got off on tangents every day it seemed, and she felt bad. He was at the shop for hours every day because she didn’t stick to game details. Like yesterday: she’d been talking about a big first-quarter stop the Titans made in their fifth game of the season, and she’d gone off telling Nolan about Marv Bennett and Dan Brady and Chuck Olsen and Tom Tyler, the old guys who had grandsons who had all played for the Titans at once. The men had sat on the very top row of the bleachers with a huge cooler of root beer and sandwiches at every single home game and made bets on their grandsons’ stats. Loser had to make the sandwiches for the next game.

“Yeah,” Randi said, leaning on her wrench to loosen a stubborn lug nut.

“You were saying something about Chuck and Tucker, and then someone came in with a hose problem.”

She grinned. A hose problem. Yeah, Paige Wilcox had needed a new water hose put in. Supposedly. Once Randi got into it, the water hose had been fine. So had all her other hoses. But Paige had gotten the intel about what Nolan was doing at the shop every day for the other girls.

“Chuck Olsen didn’t have any grandsons so he would have been left out of the bets,” Randi said. “So he kind of adopted Tucker. Tucker didn’t have a grandpa in the stands, so Chuck’s bets were all about Tucker. And then when Tucker got drafted, Chuck wore gear from Tucker’s NFL team every game that next year, just to rub in that his guy had gone the farthest.”

Nolan was busy writing. “That’s kind of nice that Chuck became Tucker’s adopted grandpa.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Randi said, straightening and shaking her head. “Coach found out that Chuck was betting on him, and he went over there one night and told Chuck to stay the fuck away from Tucker.”

Nolan’s head came up quickly. “What? Really? Why?”

“Chuck’s a drunk. Tucker’s dad was a drunk who beat his mom up. Coach didn’t want Chuck anywhere near Tucker.”

“And Chuck stayed away?”

“Oh yeah, no one messed with Coach, especially when he was protecting one of his boys.”

Nolan went back to writing.

Randi rested a hip against the front of Glen’s truck. “I don’t think Tucker even knows that, Nolan. You can’t write about it.”

“No, I won’t use any names or anything,” he said.

“What’s that got to do with football anyway?” she asked. “That’s not about the game.”

Nolan shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s even better.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. This is about…the world around the field,” Nolan said. “The fact that so much was going on…it’s like there was this whole universe of stuff happening. The field was the center—the sun—but all of these worlds were turning around it.”