Wanted Distraction

Chapter One



“I have the perfect angle for my arena football article,” Taylor Whitney told me as I approached her desk in the newsroom of Scottsdale Live magazine. Her fingers stopped clicking madly on the keyboard. “Hotshot quarterback from the San Francisco 49ers just signed with our Rattlers and is making his big debut in the arena next week. Added bonus—he’s freakin’ gorgeous.”

My stomach twisted. “I know. I want the article.”

“Like hell, Cherish,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been pulling my hair out over writing a sports feature. But as it turns out, this guy’s a local who used to play high school ball here. I get the sexy quarterback and the ever-popular ‘Hometown Hero Returns’ story all in one fell swoop. I’m golden.”

I cringed. When Taylor set her mind to something she was damn-near impossible to sway. But I had my own reasons for wanting to write about the return of Carter Davis. And I didn’t intend to give up easily.

“Look, this would be a huge favor,” I told her. “One I will pay back tenfold, I promise.”

Yes, that was desperation in my voice. I couldn’t help it. I’d waited an entire decade for this opportunity and I refused to be stonewalled because my best friend was the most stubborn person on the planet.

“Will you please swap assignments with me?”

“Oh, Cherish, come on. That’s totally uncool. I know absolutely nothing about baseball—that’s your story to cover.” She reached for the newspaper sitting on the corner of her desk and held it up. “Did you see Sunday’s sports section of the Arizona Republic? This is just a feel-good, welcome back article. I still have tons of opportunity to delve deep and find out why this guy is switching over to arena football following an illustrious career with the NFL. There’s a story here. I can smell it.”

Indeed, Taylor never took anything at face value. That made her a fantastic writer. And a huge pain in the ass to negotiate with.

“As it happens,” she continued, “I’ve already contacted his agent and set up an interview at T. Cook’s. Seems Davis is staying at the Royal Palms Resort and Spa until he finds a permanent pad.”

I sighed, perhaps a bit too melodramatically, because Taylor’s dark brows knitted together.

I said, “The thing is, I sort of know him.” Uncharacteristically, I wrung my hands as I pleaded my case. “Actually, that’s not true. I don’t ‘sort of’ know him. I went to high school with him. We were very good friends and I’d really like to see him again.”

“So give him a call,” she said, narrowing her eyes, obviously finding my apprehension curious.

“No, I can’t just call him out of the blue. I need to see him in person. Or, rather, I need him to see me.”

“Because you’re so hot?” she asked in a serious tone.

I groaned. “Hardly.”

“Oh please,” she said, following it up with a snort. “You are so Kristen Chenoweth, with your long, bouncy blonde curls and itty-bitty body.” Her gaze dropped to my chest, because Taylor Whitney didn’t have a couth bone in her own curvaceous body. “I’d call those Ds, but I’d think anything more than a solid C cup would make you topple over.”

“A stiff breeze makes me topple over,” I deadpanned. Of course, given the reminder of my size, I stood a bit straighter in hopes of adding a few centimeters to my posture. Out of my four-inch heels, I barely reached five-foot-one.

“What’s really going on here?” Taylor challenged me. “If you have a good reason for wanting my story, I’ll give it to you. So dish.”

I’d agonized over this all day yesterday and well into the evening, after I’d read the brief story on Carter. With my senior yearbook in hand, I had curled up on the sofa and flipped through it, constantly returning to the photo of him as Prom King, which he’d signed, saying some very sweet things about me. But we’d always been two ships passing in the night, though I’d always dreamed of changing that scenario.

Another long breath blew through my parted lips, sounding decidedly long-suffering and self-deprecating.

Plunging in, I said, “What you see before you is not the girl I was in high school. Back then, I was tiny—”

She lifted a brow, which made me smirk at her.

“Okay,” I amended, “I was tinier than I am now. No boobs, no nothing.” I inhaled sharply as I geared up for my big admission, then said, “The kids at school used to call me Tinkerbell.” I winced at the remembrance of how much I’d loathed the nickname.