Jake saw it all, processed none of it.
“Coach,” he said after putting the phone to his ear, “just give it to me straight.” He’d been out with a broken arm for a good chunk of the previous season, but he’d played his heart out for his regional team—the Harriers—in the months leading up to selection for New Zealand’s upcoming championship series against Argentina, Australia, and South Africa.
The Harriers had taken the regional championship, though their archrivals, the Southern Blizzard, had made them earn the trophy. The pundits were predicting a heavy Harrier and Blizzard presence in the national squad, along with several standouts from teams that hadn’t shone as a group.
That squad was being announced on Wednesday.
Danny’s selection was a certainty, his current form phenomenal. According to all three of his brothers, Jake was the best first five-eighth in the world right now, but the New Zealand selectors had a deep pool in which to fish—and the shadow of injury haunted him. Also, no one usually called the players ahead of the official announcement. Legend was, Coach only called when it was bad news… like if a player was being permanently dropped.
“I figured you’d say that,” Coach Lincoln Graves said. “Short version: you’ve done a fine job getting back into fighting shape, and you’re playing the best I’ve ever seen you play. Safe hands and magic feet. Well done, Jake—you’ll be in the squad we announce next week.”
Jake slumped against the white wall of the villa.
“I’m giving you an early heads-up because I wanted you and your brothers to feel free to celebrate the wedding without this hanging over your head,” Coach continued, his voice barely penetrating the buzz in Jake’s skull. “If anyone but Gabriel, Sailor, Danny, or your parents ask, you know nothing.”
Jake managed to get out a few words. “I won’t tell anyone else.”
“Right. I’d better head out or Neeta and I’ll be late to Gabriel’s wedding. Talk more at the reception.”
Jake just stood there in the sunshine after Coach hung up, gulping in huge lungfuls of the crisp winter air. He hadn’t known how terrified he’d been until this moment. Rugby was the only thing at which he’d ever truly excelled—the one thing he could use to build the kind of future he wanted for Esme. He might’ve started off as a teen parent, but he was well on the road to making sure she’d never be disadvantaged because of that.
No one would ever make his daughter feel small or a mistake; the children of rugby professionals got treated with respect. That went double for the children of those who played in New Zealand’s famous black jersey; Esme would be a little superstar on the playground.
“Flippin’ flip!”
He frowned at the sound of that husky female voice, a strange sense of knowledge murmuring at the back of his mind. That hadn’t sounded anything like Sailor’s wife, Ísa, but he’d been a bit zoned out, so it wasn’t as if he’d been paying full attention. What reason would any woman but his brother’s wife have to be here right now? All the women in the family—his and Sailor’s daughters included—were with the bridal party.
Stepping away from the wall and through an arbor of fragrant purplish-pink blooms, he said, “Ísa? Did you forget...?” His eyes landed on the woman currently balancing on one foot while she slid her black stiletto heel back on the other foot.
That heel had grass and dirt on it.
Not only was her footwear inappropriate for a garden, her dress was… Narrowing his eyes, Jake hauled his primitive male brain past the sensual impact of her lush body, the heavy weight of her breasts revealed by the vee of her midnight-blue dress—a dress that wasn’t dealing well with her current precarious position. It was also of a soft, satiny material that made his palms itch to touch.
Itch or not, if a rugby groupie had managed to get past the property’s locked gates, he’d throw her out on her shapely rear. He’d permit nothing to ruin Gabe and Charlotte’s day.
Silky black hair streaked with bronze and red shifted over her shoulders as she lifted her head, her skin a creamy shade of brown. Dark eyes full of fire and annoyance smashed into his.
“Juliet?” His neurons misfired, his brain white noise. “What are you doing in my brother’s backyard?”
A roll of those wildly vibrant eyes as she finally lowered her foot to the ground. Her dress fell over her curves to reveal a wrap design that was technically decent, but—on that spectacular body—was the definition of indecency.
Wrangling his mind into some sense of order, Jake scowled and squared his shoulders against the visceral sexual heat in his gut. For Juliet.
“Esme broke her glasses.” Her body might no longer be all pointy elbows and gangly bones, but her voice was that same low contralto with an edge. “Ísa said you’d have a spare set in your car.”
Jake still had no idea what the hell this ghost from his past was doing in Sailor’s backyard, but his paternal instincts trumped any and all other questions. “Is she hurt?”
“No, she’s fine.” Red-lipsticked mouth glossy and full, a hand with manicured nails featuring tiny glittering stones. That hand held a set of keys. “She and Emmaline were playing and she tripped—right onto a bunch of cushions. Glasses just landed wrong.”
Jake was already moving to where his gray SUV was parked in Sailor’s drive. The electronic gate was open at the other end, a hot-pink compact blocking the exit. The number plate read: S3X11.
His lips tightened as he unlocked the SUV and reached into the glove box. Grabbing the glittery white glasses case his daughter had chosen with glee, he handed it over. He’d long ago become used to keeping a spare—having a little girl who wore glasses and who was despondent when the world became a blur was a quick learning curve.
“Thanks.” With that, Juliet sashayed back down the drive, her skyscraper heels making any other form of movement impossible. Her hair was longer than he’d realized, reaching almost to her lower back. His eyes caught on her hips, on the curves of her butt, before he realized what he was doing and flushed.
“You’re not wearing that to the wedding are you?” he asked in desperation.
A hitch in Juliet’s stride, then a scalding glance over her shoulder. “Still got that stick up your butt, I see.” Sliding into her car with a slammed door, she zoomed off down the street.
Jake slumped back against his car.
And his brain finally connected the dots.
“You’ll get to meet my friend Jules at the wedding,” Charlotte had said. “The one from pastry class. You two apparently went to the same high school.”
As that high school’s roll of students had been well over a thousand, Jake hadn’t really thought anything of Charlie’s statement. Neither had he seen Juliet when he dropped off the wine and champagne. She’d either not attended the festivities or had been in another part of the apartment.
And never, not once, had he connected Charlotte’s pastry-making friend Jules with snarky and tough Juliet. Why the hell would he? The Juliet he’d known had been all detentions and trouble and a messy braid.
Now she was making pastry? And he’d been checking out her breasts?