Talking Dirty With the Player(25)

The expression on Joseph’s face was serious. “Go easy on him, huh? He doesn’t have many in the way of genuine friends these days.”

“Perhaps if he wasn’t so arrogant all the time he’d have more.” A sulky, childish response, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want her feelings toward him to change. Not liking him was easier and far less complicated. When he was arrogant and cocky and fake she knew exactly how to deal with him, but when he looked after her, when he pushed her hair back from her forehead, when he said things like “you’re welcome”, things got a whole lot less simple.

Joseph’s eye roll was obvious even with the choppy video. “Give him a break. He’s looking at the end of his career approaching, okay? That’s not easy for anyone.”

Oh. Well, that she didn’t know. “What do you mean the end of his career?”

“What do you think? You don’t keep playing rugby until you’re of retirement age.”

She frowned. “He’s not that old.”

“He’s thirty-one and he’s already had a couple of injuries. That’s getting old for rugby players. He’s only got at most a couple of years of playing left.”

An uncomfortably guilty feeling spread through her. She hadn’t realized. It would be like someone had told her she only had a couple of years left before her photography career ended. The thought gave her hives.

“I didn’t know that,” she said slowly. “Is he bothered by it?”

“Yeah,” Joseph said dryly. “He’s bothered. He hides it well, but believe me, he’s bothered.”

The conversation moved on from Caleb after that even though her brother’s comments stayed with her after they’d ended the call. She wished he hadn’t told her. Fate seemed to be bent on making her change her mind about Caleb Steele and that was not allowed.

She didn’t want to remember the guy he’d been. Didn’t want to wonder if that guy still existed beneath his ‘Abs of Steele’ exterior. Because if he did, then it would make resisting the pull of their chemistry so much harder.

On the coffee table, her phone buzzed.

She reached over and picked it up. Speak of the devil.

The charity liked the pic. They’ve given me the go ahead. We need to meet to sort out the photography side of it.

Judith frowned, noting the absence of babycakes, darling, or even honey pie. Or any of his other irritating endearments. He almost sounded…God forbid, professional. She flicked off a response.

That’s great news. What’s your schedule?

He didn’t reply immediately and it wasn’t until a couple of hours later, as she was getting into bed, that his response came back.

Sorry. Busy. I’ve got a training session at Eden Park first thing Friday morning. Why don’t you meet me there? We’ll talk then.

Still no babycakes. Strange she should notice and even stranger that she almost missed it. Because she hated the way he called her that. Hated it. Didn’t she?

She scowled at the screen and typed in a reply.

Okay.

Then paused and added, Studmuffin. Just to annoy him.

Five minutes passed with no response. Ten minutes. Nothing. Half an hour and she realized that he probably wasn’t going to send her a reply.

Irritated and disturbed and unsure of why, it took her a whole hour to finally get to sleep.





Chapter Five


Way too early Friday morning, Judith stood out in the rain watching a bunch of big blokes run up and down a soaking wet rugby field in pursuit of a muddy ball. Not exactly somewhere she’d ever thought to find herself, since what she knew about rugby could have fit on the head of the smallest pin in the world.

Cold, wet, and dripping, she wasn’t much keener on finding out more now.

A crowd of other people were also standing on the sidelines since it was a public training session. Fans, from the looks of it. A few kids, too, watching their idols before school. Lots of cheers erupted as the knot of men in the middle of the field broke up and one tall, powerful figure, holding the ball securely, began to run down the field toward the try-line.

It took her a while to work out that the man was Caleb. Difficult to tell when they were all covered in mud. And now that she’d seen him, it was hard to imagine how she could have thought he was anyone else.

He was so fast. Moving with power and a grace she’d never expected, he dodged and sidestepped everyone in his path, much to the delight of the onlookers who whooped and cheered as he approached the end of the field.

She almost cheered herself because he was magnificent. Really, truly magnificent. And then, from nowhere, a huge guy stepped into his path and took him down into the mud in a brutal tackle.