LITMIR.BIZ

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even more gorgeous than his brother Rick.

      On the tape, Mark’s eyes narrowed in on the fight as he walked fearlessly into the fray, pulling his players out of the pile as though they weighed nothing. A fist flew near his face and he deflected it, leveling the sender of said fist a long, hard look.

      The guy fell backwards trying to get away.

      “That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Lena murmured, watching the clip over Rainey’s shoulder.

      Yeah. Yeah, it was. Rainey had seen Mark in action before, of course. He and Rick were close. And once upon a time, she’d been just as close, having grown up near the brothers. Back then, Mark had been tough, smart, and fiercely protective of those he cared about. He’d also had a wild streak a mile wide, and she’d seen him brawl plenty. It’d turned her on then, but it absolutely didn’t now. She was grown-up, mature.

      Or so she told herself in the light of day.

      On the screen, hands on hips, Mark said something, something quiet but that nevertheless had the heaving mass of aggression screeching to a halt.

      “Oh, yeah. Come to momma,” Lena murmured. “Look at him, Rainey. Tall, dark, gorgeous. Fearless. I wouldn’t mind him exerting his authority on me.”

      Rainey’s belly quivered, and not because she’d inhaled three pieces of pizza with the teens an hour ago. Mark was no longer a wild teenager, but a tightly controlled, complicated man. A stranger. How he “exerted his authority” was none of her business. “Lena, you’re dating his brother.” Just speaking about Mark had twisted open a wound in a small corner of her heart, a corner she didn’t visit very often.

      “I’ve never gotten to see the glory that would be the Diego brothers in stereo.” Lena hadn’t grown up in Santa Rey. “Mark hasn’t come home since I’ve been with Rick. Being the youngest, baddest, sexiest head coach in all the NHL must be time-consuming.”

      “Trust me, he’s not your type.”

      “Because he’s rich and famous? Because he’s tough as hell and cool as ice?”

      “Because he’s missing a vital organ.”

      Lena gasped in horror. “He doesn’t have a d—”

      “A heart! He’s missing a heart! Jeez, get your mind out of the gutter.”

      Lena laughed. “How do you know he’s missing a heart?” Her eyes widened. “You have a past! Of course you have a past, you grew up here with Rick. Is it sordid? Tell me!”

      Rainey sighed. “I was younger, so Mark always thought of me as a…”

      “Forbidden fruit?” Lena asked hopefully.

      “Pest,” Rainey corrected. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “I do!”

      Knowing Lena wouldn’t leave it alone, she caved. “Fine. I had a crush on him, and thought he was crushing back. Wrong. He didn’t even know how I felt about him, but before I figured that out, I managed to thoroughly humiliate myself. The end.”

      “Oh, I’m going to need much more than that.”

      Luckily Lena’s cell phone chose that very moment to ring. God bless AT&T. Lena glanced at the ID and grimaced. “I’ve got to go.” She pointed at Rainey. “This discussion is not over.”

      “Yeah, yeah. Later.” Rainey waved her off. She purposely glanced away from her computer screen, but like a moth to a flame, she couldn’t fight the pull, and turned back.

      Mark was shoving his players ahead of him, away from the run-down L.A. bar and towards a black SUV, single-handedly taking care of the situation.

      That had been three days ago. The fight had been all over the news, and the commission was thinking about suspending the players involved. Supposedly the two head coaches had stepped in and offered a solution that would involve giving back to the fans who’d supported the two teams.

      She looked into Mark’s implacable, uncompromising face on her laptop and the years fell away. She searched for the boy she’d once loved with all her sixteen-year-old heart, but couldn’t find a hint of him.

      * * *

      TWO HOURS LATER, they’d gone through a satisfying amount of cars, fattening the rec center’s empty coffers, and Rainey was ready to call it a day. She needed to help the teens clean up before the bus arrived. Many of them still had homework and other jobs to get to.

      The parking lot was wet and soapy, with hoses crisscrossing the concrete, and buckets everywhere. With no more cars waiting, the teens were running around like wild banshees, feeling free to squirt and torture one another. Rainey blew her whistle to get their attention. “We’re done here,” she called out. “Thanks so much for all your help today. The faster we clean up, the faster we can—” She broke off as the county bus rolled up and opened its doors. Dammit. All but a handful of the kids needed to get on that bus. It was their only ride.

      When the bus pulled away, Rainey stared at the messy lot and the two kids she had left.

      “More pizza?” Todd asked her hopefully. He was a lanky sixteen-year-old who had either a tapeworm or a bottomless stomach.

      Rainey turned and looked through the pizza boxes. Empty. She opened her bag and pulled out her forgotten lunch. “I’ve got a PB&J—”

      “Sweet,” he said, and inhaled the sandwich in three bites. His gaze was locked on Sharee, a fellow high school junior, as she began rolling hoses. Sharee was all long, long mocha-colored limbs and grace. Another fire victim from the same neighborhood as Todd, she currently lived in a small trailer with her mother. When Sharee caught Todd staring, she leveled him with a haughty glare.

      Todd merely grinned.

      “Go help her,” Rainey told him. “She can’t do it all alone.”

      “Sure, I’ll help her,” Todd said, and the next thing Rainey knew, he was stalking a screaming Sharee with a bucket full of soapy water.

      Sharee grabbed a hose and wielded it at him like a gun. “Drop the bucket and no one gets hurts. And by no one, I mean you.”

      Todd laughed at her and waved the bucket like a red flag in front of a bull.

      “Okay, okay,” Rainey said, stepping between them. “It’s getting late.” She knew for a fact that Todd still had to go work at his family’s restaurant for several more hours. Sharee, on the cusp of not passing her classes, surely had a ton of homework. The girl also had a healing bruise high on one cheekbone and a set of matching bruises on both biceps, like someone had gripped her hard and shaken her.

      Her father, Rainey guessed. Everyone knew Martin was a mean drunk but no one wanted to talk about it, least of all Sharee, who lived alone with her mother except for the nights her mother allowed the man into their trailer.

      “He called me a scarecrow,” Sharee said, pointing at Todd. “Now his sorry ass is going to pay.”

      “Language,” Rainey said.

      “Okay, his sorry butt. His sorry butt is going to pay.”

      “I said you have legs as long as a scarecrow,” Todd said from behind Rainey. “Not that you are a scarecrow.”

      Sharee growled and lifted the hose.

      “Stop!” Rainey said. “If you squirt him, you’re leaving yourself wide open for retaliation.”

      “That’s right,” Todd said, nodding like a bobblehead. “Retaliation.”

      Rainey turned to shut Todd up just as Sharee let it rip with the hose and nailed him.

      Rainey gave up. They had worked their asses off and deserved to let off a little steam. She stepped aside to leave them to it, but stopped short as a big, shiny black

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