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‘And it only makes things worse. Plus he’s underage. If he can’t cope, then he’ll have to leave the team,’ Archie said with a sigh. ‘I can’t have him being a bad influence on the rest of the lads.’
‘Or,’ Bailey said, ‘you could give him another chance. We could talk to him and tell him what damage he’s doing to himself—in graphic enough terms to make him stop.’
‘And I can give him an extra training programme to help him brush up his skills and make him feel that some of the pressure’s off,’ Jared said.
‘If the papers get hold of this, the muck will really hit the fan,’ Archie said, and shook his head. ‘No. He’ll have to go.’
‘Archie. It’s happened twice. That’s not so bad—he’ll be able to stop. Give the boy a chance to come good,’ Bailey urged.
‘And what message does that give the others? That I’m soft on the kind of behaviour that destroys a team?’
‘No. It tells them that you understand they’re still very young and some of them need a bit more guidance than others,’ Jared said.
‘Lyle won’t be happy about it,’ Archie warned.
‘But you can talk him round. You’re the team coach. He’ll listen to you,’ Bailey said.
Archie didn’t look totally convinced. ‘And what if Darren does it again?’
‘Then there are all kinds of disciplinary options,’ Jared said.
‘But if we all give him the right support,’ Bailey added, ‘he won’t do it again.’
Archie went silent, clearly thinking about it. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll square it with Lyle. But I’m going to read young Darren the Riot Act and make sure he knows that if he puts a single toe out of line from now on, he’ll be out.’
‘Thank you,’ Bailey said.
‘Everyone deserves a second chance,’ Jared added. ‘I think he’ll make the most of it.’
Everyone deserves a second chance.
Could that be true for them, too? Bailey wondered.
Jared had clearly been thinking about it, too, because later that evening he called her. ‘Are you busy?’
‘I’m studying,’ she said.
‘Have you eaten yet?’
‘Yes.’ A sandwich at her desk. But it counted.
‘Oh.’ He paused. ‘I wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me.’
Was he asking her on a date? Adrenalin fizzed through her veins. Strange how Jared made her feel like a teenager. ‘As colleagues?’ she asked carefully.
‘No.’
So he did mean a date. Excitement was replaced by skittering panic. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Is my company really that bad?’ he asked.
‘No—no, it’s not that, Jared. Not at all.’ She sighed. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘I can take a hint.’
She would like to have dinner with him; it was just that the whole idea of dating again scared her. How could she tell him, without dumping all that baggage on him? Telling him what had happened to her, and why her marriage had ended? She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. ‘I, um, haven’t dated in a while,’ she said.
‘Me, neither,’ he said, surprising her. ‘I’m seriously out of practice, too.’
Something else they had in common. Who, she wondered, had hurt him?
‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘we were a good team, this afternoon.’
‘Yes.’
‘And I was thinking,’ he said, ‘maybe we should give ourselves a chance to see if we could be a good team outside work.’
‘Maybe,’ she said.
‘I could,’ he suggested, ‘cook dinner for you.’
‘You can cook?’
He coughed. ‘Don’t be sexist. Especially as your brothers are both chefs.’
She smiled wryly. ‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘So—how about it?’
‘If I say yes,’ she said, ‘then it’s just between us?’
‘You want to keep it a secret?’ He sounded slightly hurt.
‘I want to keep life simple,’ she said. ‘Can I think about it?’
‘It’s just as well I’m a sports doctor. My ego could really use some liniment right now,’ he said dryly.
And now he’d made her laugh. He was the first man to do that in a long while. Maybe, just maybe, she should give this a try. Maybe everyone was right and it was time she learned to live again. And Jared might just be the man to help her do that.
‘All right. Thank you, Jared. I’d like to have dinner with you. I don’t have any food allergies and I’m not fussy about what I eat.’
‘That was a quick decision.’
And she still wasn’t sure it was the right one. Part of her really, really wanted to do it; and part of her wanted to run. ‘When do you want to do it?’ Oh, and that sounded bad. She felt her face heat. Worse still, that was a definite Freudian slip. Because any woman with red blood in her veins would want to go to bed with someone as sexy as Jared Fraser. ‘Have dinner, I mean,’ she added hastily.
‘Tomorrow night?’ he suggested.
‘That’s fine.’ Big, fat lie. Now they’d actually set a date, the panic was back. In triplicate. ‘I’ll need your address.’
‘Got a pen?’
‘Give me two seconds.’ She grabbed a pen. ‘OK, tell me.’ She scribbled down his address as he dictated it. ‘What time?’
‘Seven?’
‘Seven,’ she confirmed. ‘Can I bring anything? Pudding, maybe?’ She could get Rob to make something special. Then again, Rob would tell their mother, and Lucia would go straight into interrogation mode. OK. She’d cheat and buy it from a top-end supermarket instead.
‘No, that’s fine. Just bring yourself,’ he said.
And how scary that sounded.
Bailey was feeling antsy the next morning, and she was really glad that she was busy all day in clinic. There were the usual sprains and strains, although she did feel a bit sorry for the middle-aged woman who’d managed to give herself tennis elbow from taking her weightlifting training too hard and was horrified to learn it could take several months of rest before the tear in her ligament healed.
‘Rest, ice it every couple of hours, take painkillers and use a support bandage when you exercise and whenever it’s really sore,’ Bailey said. ‘And when you do go back to using weights, you’ll need to drop the weights right down and take it very steadily. And don’t do anything above your head before it’s healed fully, or your rotator cuff in your shoulder will overcompensate for your elbow and you’ll have to get over the damage to that, too.’
Mrs Curtis grimaced. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have done that last set. I just wanted to finish the last few reps, but I should’ve just admitted that I was tired and stopped there.’
‘You’ll know next time,’ Bailey said. ‘Come back and see me if it’s not any better within a couple of weeks. It should heal on its own, but if it doesn’t then a corticosteroid injection could help.’
‘Thank you.’ Mrs Curtis smiled wryly. ‘That’ll teach me to remember how old I am, not how old I feel.’
Bailey patted her shoulder. ‘We all do it. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
She bought wine and chocolates on the way home, and changed her outfit three times before deciding that smart casual was the way forward—a little black dress would be way too much. Black trousers and a silky long-sleeved teal top would be better. She added her nice jet earrings to give her courage, put on a slightly brighter shade of lipstick than she would normally and then stared at herself in the mirror.
How long had it been since she’d gone on a first date? Or since someone had cooked for her? How did you even behave in these sorts of situations? She thought about calling Joni and asking for help—but, then again, it would make Joni think she was really serious about Jared, and … No, it was all too complicated. She had no idea how he made her feel, other than that he put her in a flat spin.
‘It’s dinner. Just dinner,’ she told her reflection. ‘Treat him as a friend. A colleague. And then everything will be fine.’
Except she knew she was lying. Because since that kiss, she hadn’t thought of Jared as a colleague—or as a friend. And he hadn’t asked her to dinner as a colleague or friend, either.
Would he kiss her again tonight?
And she wasn’t sure if the shiver down her spine was anticipation or fear.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ua494eb00-dfea-56d1-8a9f-d4f6192707bc)
BAILEY’S PANIC GREW as she walked up the path to Jared’s door. She almost didn’t ring the bell and scuttled home to safety instead, but she knew that would be unkind and unfair. He’d gone to the effort of cooking her a meal, so the least she could do was turn up to eat it—even if she did feel way more jumpy than the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof.
She took a deep breath and rang the bell.
When he answered the door, she was glad she’d opted for smart casual, because he’d done the same. He was wearing black trousers and a dark blue shirt that brought out the colour of his eyes. She could feel herself practically dissolving into a puddle of hormones, and her social skills had all suddenly deserted her.
How had she forgotten just how gorgeous the man was?
And his biceps.
Don’t think about his biceps, she told herself. Concentrate. Friends and colleagues.
She handed him the wine and chocolates. ‘I forgot to ask you if I should bring red or white, so I played it safe—and I should’ve asked you if you like milk, white or dark chocolate.’ Oh, help. Now she was gabbling and she sounded like a fool.
‘These are just fine, and you really didn’t need to bring them—but I appreciate it,’ he said.
And, oh, that smile was to die for. The butterflies in her tummy went into stampede mode.
‘Come in.’ He stood aside and gestured for her to enter.
How come he didn’t look anywhere near as nervous as she felt? How could he be so cool and relaxed when she was a gibbering wreck?
She followed him inside, her tension and anticipation growing with every step.
‘We’re eating in the kitchen. I hope that’s OK,’ he said, obviously trying to put her at ease.
‘That’s very OK, thanks.’ His kitchen was gorgeous: a deep terracotta tiled floor teamed with glossy cream cabinets, dark worktops and duck-egg-blue walls. There was a small square maple table at one end with two places set. ‘I really like the way you’ve done your kitchen,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid it’s all my sister’s idea rather than mine,’ he confessed. ‘When I bought this place and did it up, she offered to paint for two hours a day until it was done if I would let her choose the kitchen.’
It sounded as if he was as close to his family as she was to hers. ‘So you’re not really a cook, then?’
‘Given that you come from a family of restaurateurs and chefs, I wouldn’t dare claim to be a cook,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I promise I won’t go into food critic mode.’
He pretended to mop his brow in relief, making her smile. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Yes, please—whatever you’re having.’
He took a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the fridge and poured them both a glass. Bailey noted that all his appliances were built-in and hidden behind doors to match the rest of the cabinets. Efficient and stylish at the same time. She liked that. It was how she organised her own kitchen.
‘Have a seat,’ he said, indicating the table.
‘Thanks.’ She bit her lip. ‘Sorry. As I said, it’s been a while since I dated.’
‘Me, too. And it’s hard to know what to say. We could make small talk about the team and work—but then it wouldn’t be like a date.’
‘And if we ask each other about ourselves, it’ll feel like—well—we’re grilling each other,’ she said.
‘Or speed dating.’ He grimaced. ‘I let my best friend talk me into that one six months ago. Never, ever again.’
Speed dating was something she’d never done—along with signing up to an online dating agency or letting anyone set her up on a blind date. She’d made it clear to everyone that she was just fine as she was. ‘Was it really that bad?’
‘Probably slightly worse,’ he said. ‘But how do you meet someone when you get to our age?’
‘You make us sound middle-aged.’ She laughed, even though she knew what he meant. By their age, most people had already settled into a relationship or had a lot of baggage that made starting a new relationship difficult. It wasn’t like when you were just out of university and there were parties every weekend where most of the people there were still single.
‘I’m thirty-five—and sometimes I feel really middle-aged,’ he said wryly, ‘especially when I hear the seventeen-year-olds talking in the changing room about their girlfriends.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘They don’t do that in front of me. Probably because they think I’ll tell them off.’ Then she groaned, ‘Which means they think I’m old enough to be their mother, and at thirty I’m not quite that old.’
