“Bye.” Country dropped the phone from his ear and noticed a message had come through from Polk.
Hey bud. How’d the meeting go? That feed order invoice is past due. They accidentally addressed it to Dad again and . . .
Country clicked his phone off and swore under his breath. He snatched the jersey from the bench and flipped the flimsy latch. As soon as he pushed the janky door open, he stopped. Tyler and Jack were both leaning against the wall scrolling on their phones in the ugliest jerseys since the 2001 Nashville Predators alternate shirts.
“It fits?” Tyler flicked a glance at the jersey balled in Country’s fist.
Country glanced down. “Yeah. Perfect.”
Chapter Five
Jenna’s fingers danced across the keyboard in a staccato rhythm. The office outside her door was pure chaos with ringing phones and chattering interns, each scrambling to finish up their tasks before clock-out. She barely registered it.
The madness was a predictable progression. They had Mondays off, thank heavens, and on Tuesdays everyone walked in sleep-deprived and groggy. Interns and lower-level staff sat in front of game tape and stories like kindergartners watching Saturday morning cartoons, slogging through the content weeds and probably eating Cheerios. Wednesdays and Thursdays they selected, refined, and collaborated with the writers.
Energy levels were measured in cups of coffee, and that half of the week only required three out of five. By Thursday afternoons, they were battening down the hatches for the hurricane to hit.
Jenna’s monitors were both paused on raw footage of ice rink brawls flanked with post-its along their edges, fluttering like moths.
"J, did you get those stats from last night's game?" hollered an assistant editor from across the room.
"Uploaded a few minutes ago!" she called back, then turned off the computer. She’d pick up at the same point with highlights in the morning. The script revisions for the highlight reel would also be pounding down the door first thing, but surprisingly, she’d succeeded in ticking off most of the tasks on her to-do list. Despite the fact that Gentry Maddox, with his country boy physique and liquid brown eyes, had been weaving through her thoughts every three-point-five seconds.
She brushed a loose strand of blonde hair from her face and pushed her geode paperweight back into place. Jenna froze with her fingers on the edge of the stone. It’d been years since she’d thought about its origin story, but now the memory unlocked and exploded through her mind like watercolours from the end of a soaked brush.
Jenna bobbed in the crystal water, so deeply blue it looked like it could stain. She shivered and scowled at the pair of waterskis bobbing next to her.
"Come on, city girl," Gentry teased, leaning over the side of the boat.
“I don’t think my legs were made for this kind of brute force!” Jenna reached for the rope as it looped around her, dragging behind the circling watercraft.
He laughed. “You’re fun-sized! Just relax and you’ll pop right up!”
Jenna rolled her eyes. He knew she hated when people called her that. Yes, she was petite, but soon approaching her nineteenth birthday, being mistaken for Gentry’s kid sister was getting old. She slung the plastic bar over her wrist and wriggled her feet back into the skis. “One more time, and then I swear?—”
Gentry’s whoop of excitement swept away the rest of her words. She tried one more time. Then three more after that because of his cajoling, and finally got up for a thirty-second ride before letting go of the rope and sinking back into the lake.
Her legs ached, and her shoulders felt like they’d been yanked from their sockets. As the boat circled back, Gentry dove in and swam to her.
He pulled her, life jacket and all, against his chest then kissed her straight on the mouth. “I love you, Jenna McAllister.”
“I suck at waterskiing.”
He laughed and swiped her tangled hair from her cheeks before kissing her again. “I’ll make it up to you.”
He’d kept that promise. More than once that night, if she remembered correctly. Jenna lost herself in the memory of rain pattering on the cabin roof, Gentry’s sun-kissed skin almost caramel in the glow from the porch light, his fingers trailing over her spine then releasing the clasp of her favourite black bikini, and?—
She jumped at a knock on her door. “Mm?”
Gentry leaned against the doorframe. He wore a crisp button-down shirt and tie. “Am I early?”
Jenna spun to hide her burning cheeks and grabbed her purse and tablet. Holy hell he looked good in a monkey suit. “Nope, sorry. Just finishing up.”
“It looked like you were napping on your feet.”
She scoffed. “That’s not a thing.”
“Cows do it.”
