Hanna Martine - Long Shot

All of Gleann seemed to erupt in cheers.

He walked away from the trig. Duncan’s round face was split by a massive grin, that missing tooth making an appearance. His huge arms were thrown out wide and he was laughing. “What the hell are you doing?”

Leith stomped over and snatched Duncan’s clipboard from his hands. “What’s it look like?” Leith scrawled his name at the bottom of the list of competitors. “I’m fucking throwing.”

Leith sat on the edge of the motel bed, cheap polyester bedspread sticking to his thighs, cold air rattling out from the window unit but just barely filling the room. The second floor window overlooked a parking lot near Stamford, Connecticut, off I-95.

Beyond that lay one hell of a challenge.

How much had changed in his life in the last twenty-four hours. Most of it not good.

His phone jumped from where it sat by his hip, buzzing and blaring Jen’s name. He hated to admit he’d been waiting for her call all day, but the truth was, he had been. He’d left Gleann early that morning, heading south, high on how throwing in the games had made him feel, even if he hadn’t thrown that well.

Now he looked down at her name and realized that if she’d stayed at the games, chances were he wouldn’t have picked up the stone or the sheaf fork or the caber again. He wasn’t quite sure how that made him feel.

He ran his thumb over her name then touched Answer. “Hey, you.”

“Hi.” It came out in a sigh, and he was thrown back two nights, to the sounds she’d made in the back of Da’s Caddy, her exhalations in his ear.

“How did it go last night?” he asked, because he felt like he should. “Everything squared away?”

“Um, yeah, pretty much. Saved the event. Retained the client.”

“Your superhero cape looks good fluttering in the breeze.” He’d meant it as a joke, of course, but she didn’t laugh. Neither did he. He wondered if Jen had heard about him throwing. “Have you talked to Aimee today? Or anyone back in Gleann?”

“No, I haven’t. She, ah, isn’t picking up my calls or answering my texts. Listen, can I take the train out tonight? I need to see you.”

He rose from the bed, his heart pounding with hope. “Absolutely. Hell yeah. I’m just in a shitty motel, but—”

“I don’t care.”

She was doing this, coming to him. She’d heard what he’d said about trying, about not running away. He started to pace, a strange brand of excitement pumping through him. On a day that had had such turbulent ups and downs, this was definitely an up.

“Can’t wait to see you,” he said. “I have a lot to tell you.” So, so much.

There came one of those pauses that lasted a beat too long, but still he could have sworn she was smiling. “Good. So do I. Pick me up at the Stamford station at 6:44.”

Two hours. He couldn’t wait to tell her face-to-face about throwing, how incredible it had felt—how she’d been right. She wouldn’t gloat. Not his Jen. She would look at him with those sparkling eyes and she would be happy for him. She would slide her arms around his neck and then they’d talk about his Da, how Leith had finally been able to let him go.

Then he would tell her that he’d lost the Carriage job.

He parked his truck in the Stamford train station lot and got out, leaning against it, waiting, unsure if he should go inside to the platform like they did in the movies and immediately drag her into his arms. It seemed like a month since he’d seen her, not a day. In the end he chose to stay in the lot, his weight shifting from foot to foot. But when her familiar figure— not carrying that purse with the laptop—finally exited the building and crossed the street to him, he pushed away from the truck.

She looked incredible. Just . . . phenomenal. Black pants that fit her thighs and ass perfectly. Black high heels he’d never seen before but would kill to see on the ends of her bare legs right before she wrapped them around his neck. She wore a short-sleeved top that might have looked demure on anyone not as achingly sexual as her.

Turned out he didn’t have to drag her into him. She came willingly, a great magnet pulling them together across the barren Sunday commuter parking lot. She wasn’t smiling, but that was okay because her eyes were filled with an apology. He folded her into his arms and she gripped him tightly, her hands splayed on his back, reminding him of how she’d clung to him naked.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

This time he was ready to hear it. Ready to accept it. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he whispered, and then he took her mouth in a kiss that burned with slow fire.

After he’d pulled his mouth away but kept his hands on her face, she didn’t look so sure that he’d accepted her apology. Or maybe it was something else. He couldn’t quite tell. But at that moment he didn’t really care. She was here.

“So this is Connecticut.” She smiled. “Your new home.”

He coughed. “Never been here?”

“I have. Just not with you.”

They got into his truck and he rumbled slowly out of the lot. “Are you hungry? Need a drink?”

“Sure, I guess.” When he pulled in front of a little cafe on a busy street whose narrow outdoor patio was dotted with orange umbrellas, she peered out at it and asked, “What’s wrong with your hotel?”

“Motel,” he corrected with a grin. “It’s a sad, sad place not fit for a superhero.”

Plus, he knew she would likely head back to the city tonight, and if they went back to his motel he would, without a doubt, have her naked for the next few hours. Believe it or not, he couldn’t afford that. He had things to tell her. Things he needed to say, to get out in the open, period.

She responded with the same weird pause he’d heard over the phone two hours earlier, only now he saw the accompanying facial expression. Jen, who always looked people in the eye with confidence, now turned her face to her lap, brow furrowed, that beautiful mouth drawn in a tight line.

“Superhero,” she murmured with a little shake of her head.

His heart turned over. A sick feeling bubbled up in his throat.

“Oh, no.” He wrenched off the ignition and turned in the seat toward her. “What.”

She licked her lips and met his eyes. “Do you want to get out of the truck? Go sit down?”

“Something tells me I don’t want to be in public for what you’re about to say. We already did that once yesterday and I didn’t really care for it. Just say it. That’s why you came, right? To tell me to my face that you don’t want to try after all?”

“No!” She stretched for him with both hands, placed them on his chest, and he was powerless against their pressure and heat. “That’s not it at all. But I have some news that I know you won’t like.”

With the air off, the cab was starting to get stuffy, so he gave the truck half power to lower the automatic windows. Sweet summer air rushed in. It even smelled different than Gleann.

“What is it,” he said.

Another lick of her lips. “I’m going to London.”

That’s it? Really? “London. Okay, when?”

“Tomorrow.”

Ah, okay.

“And”—her hands pressed harder into his chest—“I’ll probably be gone for a month. At least.”

Ah, shit . “Let me guess. Work?”

Now her hands slid off him as she nodded. “Tim’s co-owner, the guy who’d been running the London branch of the company, had a major heart attack early this morning. He survived, but he’s old and Tim’s pretty sure he’ll want to retire after this. Tim wants me in London ASAP to oversee everything while they figure things out and find a replacement.”