But Gus said nothing, he only ran the length of the field and crossed the goal line, with both the football and Alaina.
“That doesn’t count,” Wolf said.
“If you say so.” And he almost smiled. Or at least, it was one of the closer things Elsie had ever seen to a smile on his face.
Play resumed and finally, Hunter got the ball, and she saw her opportunity. He wouldn’t see her coming. He was on his guard for Wolf, Sawyer or even Travis. And she could see his attention focused there. She came around behind while he was running, and dove straight for his knees.
She shrieked in glory as he went down, and the two of them rolled in a violent ball of fury.
And landed so that she was sitting on his chest, staring down at him.
He was breathing hard, and she could feel his heart pounding against her.
Right against her...
Her eyes suddenly widened as she realized.
She was sitting on him. And she was just suddenly very aware of all the parts of her that were making contact with him. She had never...in her life thought of anything this way.
Especially not...
Their eyes met, clashed. That was the best way she could describe it because it was almost as if it made a sound. A crash. As if it had impact.
Her heart leaped up in her throat. And she scurried off of him. “That’ll teach you,” she said, trying to disguise how breathless she sounded.
“Yes,” he said. “I feel very taught.”
Everything was sideways after that.
The Garretts and the Sullivans got completely thrashed. And by the time Elsie limped off the field she realized she had spent the entire game obsessing over scoring points against Hunter, and not really paying attention to Travis being on her team.
And she didn’t really know what to make of that in the end.
There was a small first aid effort made after the game, but Elsie bypassed it. Sawyer was wrapping a brace around his wrist, and Gus put a Band-Aid on Alaina’s upper arm, in the back where she couldn’t reach.
Elsie went straight for refreshments. And not coincidentally, Travis.
“Have a beer,” Travis said as the sun went low, and they got a bonfire started down the beach.
Elsie blinked. “Thank you.”
Alaina started to head their way, post bandaging.
“You can have one too,” Travis said, holding a can out to Alaina.
“Sure,” she said, walking over.
“Hunter never tackled me,” she whispered. “Lucky.”
“He’s lucky,” she said, looking back over at him, “that I didn’t kill him.”
“I think he always considers himself lucky that you don’t do that,” Alaina said, laughing.
“You all do this every year?” Travis asked.
And Elsie chose to focus on his easy manner. Because he was easy to talk to. He had such nice blue eyes, and he wasn’t...intense or foreboding or anything like that.
“Yes,” she said. “Though sometimes it feels a little more evenly balanced.”
“It would be,” Alaina said, “if Fia didn’t refuse to be paired with the Kings. We could mix up into more combinations then.”
“What is her deal?” Elsie asked.
“Love affair gone wrong?” Travis asked.
“Probably,” Alaina said. “Though honestly, when you look around here, you would expect there to be more of those than there have been.”
“Yeah, you would,” Travis said. “Nobody else...”
“Oh, I think they do. Pretty often,” Alaina said. “I just think mostly they keep it casual.”
Travis grinned, and he directed it right at Elsie. “I like the sound of that.”
Elsie took a sip of her beer. And she thought maybe they had almost flirted. But she hadn’t done a very good job of that. She didn’t know what to say back. So she smiled. And it seemed like it was good enough.
When the evening ended, Lena slipped her a small high five, and that made Elsie feel immensely satisfied.
And things were only going to improve. Because she and Hunter were going to Vancouver. He was going to teach her everything she needed to know, so that next time Travis talked to her, she could keep it going.
Hunter.
She thought back to that moment. That one that was so alarming she didn’t even really want to reflect on it. Because of all the parts of her it had made her aware of.
That didn’t matter. He was just Hunter. That was all. He irritated her. It was why she had gone after him like she had. Other people had tackled her during the game, but only Hunter had infuriated her.
But the payoff for that would be that he was going to teach her what she needed to know.
Everybody had their uses.
Even Hunter.
And she was not above exploiting him.
CHAPTER FIVE
“SO TODAY IS Vancouver day?”
Hunter looked over at Sawyer, who was standing in front of the hay truck with bales he was delivering to McCloud’s Landing.
“Yes, it is,” he said, feeling a strange tightness in his chest.
“Condolences.”
“Oh, Elsie’s fine,” he grunted.
“She’s not still sore about her epic football defeat?”
Hunter didn’t want to think about that day. He didn’t want to think about the moment he’d realized he’d made a mistake in tackling Elsie. Right when he’d had her body beneath his he’d remembered what he’d said about her figure.
Commenting on her figure hadn’t been anything he’d ever thought he’d do. Thinking about it was even lower on that list of Likely To Evers, and yet he had. And then when he’d been on top of her he’d been...
Unbearably conscious of it.
He hadn’t really thought that through when he’d said that it was cute in the first place. Because she was Elsie. Because she was Elsie, and it hadn’t seemed like it would be a problem to weigh in on her outfit choice or anything like that. It had just seemed like a natural offer. Then she’d shown up in her gray T-shirt and black jeans, looking like she always did. That was the thing. She looked like she always did. But by asking her to show up as a woman looking to pick up a guy, it forced him to look at her like a man who might want to pick up a woman.
And he’d been forced to concede that, while she wouldn’t be the flashiest girl in the bar, men would notice. She had a neat little figure. Small boobs, she’d said it herself, and a lean waist that was strong from all the hours she spent riding horses. Her hips were only gently flared. He hadn’t been lying when he told her that her body was cute.