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Some called her overzealous. She didn’t care. There wasn’t much she could hold on to in her life. She was single, her parents were always busy with other things, she had no siblings, and she hadn’t had a significant relationship since college. Her passion for protecting the river was about the only thing to keep her warm at night. A state some would consider depressing if they didn’t consider her reasons.
The Ridgeport area was her home. She’d inserted herself in the community, made connections with residents and other activists there. What she did to protect the people hurt by industries like Clear Water, and their appreciation for her efforts, was the only proof she had that she mattered to someone.
“Come on, Danielle. We’ve got courtside seats. We have to go.”
Danielle did a quick count in her head. It had been over a month since she’d done anything remotely fun that had nothing to do with raising money for the River Watchers. “Why not?”
Debra did a quick shimmy of her hips and grinned. “Yay! It’s going to be so much fun. Hey, we’re right behind the bench. Maybe you can put that unassuming girl-next-door charm on blast and snatch a towel from one of the players.”
“Really, Debra, how am I supposed to do that?”
“They won’t suspect you of stealing a towel,” Debra said with a wiggle of her eyebrows. “Try to go for one that Jacobe Jenkins uses to wipe the sweat from his brow. Since you salivate every time you see him on television or on a billboard.”
Danielle waved a dismissive hand, but her heart wasn’t so indifferent. It jumped with a secret thrill of excitement. “I do not salivate.”
Debra’s smirk screamed, Yeah, right. “Yeah. You do. You both were at the University of Miami at the same time. Did you drool over him then, too?”
Drooling over Jacobe Jenkins was an understatement. Hiding how much desire gripped her whenever he came near had become her number-one priority. Except for that one night. Danielle tried to force the long-ago encounter from her mind and focus on the myriad of ways Jacobe Jenkins had irritated her, when he wasn’t sending her estrogen levels through the roof.
“Every time I was around Jacobe he was being a cocky jock who thought the world was his to command, or he was on his way to a party.”
Debra held up both hands in front of her body. “Shut the front door. You did not tell me you know Jacobe Jenkins!”
“I don’t know Jacobe. I knew him. A hundred years ago when we were freshmen in college. I tutored him a few times in Biology 101. He left for the draft right after freshman year, and I never saw him again. A few brief interactions do not count as knowing him.”
One night of fast and hot sex the night before the draft could count as knowing him, but Danielle was taking that secret to her grave.
“It’s still cool that you kinda know him. It’ll be fun to sit right behind him and the rest of the team at the game. Maybe he’ll see you and recognize you. Then he can introduce me to one of his sexy teammates. That team is full of grade-A, prime-choice, hot-guy sexiness.”
“First of all, I doubt he’d recognize me. Second, if he did I doubt even more that he’d speak to me. Third, prime-choice, hot-guy sexiness? What is that?”
“Um, every single man on that team.”
Debra and Danielle both laughed. Someone cleared their throat. They both stifled the laughter and turned toward the door. One of the female interns who took water samples along the river stood there with a cooler in her hand. “I’m going to take some samples on the beach today. You need anything before I go?”
Danielle shook her head and tried to look professional. Hard to do after being caught talking about prime male sexiness. “No, Marie, we’re good.”
As soon as the young woman walked away, Danielle bumped Debra. “We’ve got to stop talking about the men of the Jacksonville Gators like they’re pieces of meat. It’s not professional in front of the interns.”
“The interns drool over those men, too,” Debra said, grinning. “So, are you really good to go? Don’t you want to see the super-hot men on this team up close?”
A shiver of anticipation raced through Danielle. Seeing Jacobe up close and in person would be fun. Based on media reports, he was cockier and even more arrogant than she remembered. Shortly after joining the league he’d gotten into some trouble for fighting and partying hard. The team that had drafted him had traded him to Jacksonville two years before. Jacksonville had been a laughingstock of the league until Jacobe joined and they picked up a few more free agents and draft picks. Some were even talking play-offs this year. Of course he wouldn’t recognize her, but she was a fan of the team, and seeing him again even if from afar would be kind of thrilling.
You seriously need to find a man.
Danielle pushed that thought aside. She didn’t need anyone to validate her. She had her work. People moved on. The cause remained the same.
She looked at Debra and nodded. “I’m in.”
* * *
The Jacksonville arena buzzed with the excitement of the rivalry game. The same energy pumped full throttle through Danielle and Debra. Danielle had only been to two other Gators games. Each time she’d sat in the nosebleed seats. The Gators had almost made it to the play-offs last season, but had lost in overtime. That was the last game she’d come to. She and the rest of the fans had felt the team’s disappointment that night. This year they’d played each game as if it were a rematch of that heartbreaking loss. With each win, ticket prices increased. Nosebleed seats were getting to be out of her budget. Courtside had only been a dream before Mr. Springfield’s gift.
Debra gripped Danielle’s arm. “Oh, my God, there he goes again!”
“Are you going to do that all night,” Danielle said, swatting at Debra’s hand. Every time Jacobe came anywhere near the bench Debra went into a fit of hormones. They both wore Gators T-shirts and jeans. Debra’s proudly included Jacobe’s number, 06, on the back. Jacobe wasn’t on the bench often. He’d spent most of the first half contributing to his team’s six-point lead over Miami. The few times he did come to the bench, Debra’s enthusiasm rivaled that of someone who’d just won the Powerball jackpot.
Debra released Danielle’s arm. “I can’t help it. He’s so damn fine.”
Danielle couldn’t argue with that. Instead, she took stock of Jacobe’s fineness herself. And, boy, was that man fine. Six feet and four inches of long, lean muscle, smooth, terra-cotta skin and walnut-colored eyes. He played point guard and led the team with ease and confidence. His large body was a thing of grace and beauty. He handled the ball with self-assurance, ran up and down the court without hesitation and effortlessly faked out the opponent defending him. Since he’d been traded to the Gators she’d seen images of him everywhere, but being this close to him in action proved how inadequate billboards, television commercials and nosebleed seats were at portraying his skill and hotness.
Danielle alternated between greedily studying his powerfully built body and jumping up to cheer with the rest of the fans every time he scored. When she’d first come into the arena she’d considered keeping to her seat to try not to draw any attention to herself. That idea was immediately dropped after she was swept away by the buzz of electricity in the crowd. What did it matter if he did happen to look behind the bench? Jacobe had more than likely forgotten about her. Even if he happened to remember the tutor he’d slept with one night in college, she doubted he thought of her often or remembered much about her.
That night she’d known she would be treated as just another groupie, but knowing that hadn’t kept her away. Despite the attraction that sizzled between them, Jacobe had never tried to hook up with her. He’d been dating a girl named Christy, and, unlike many of the jocks she knew, he’d been faithful to her. Getting Jacobe to stray from the girl he’d started dating in high school had been a game for so many girls. A game Danielle had prided herself on staying out of. Then she’d heard that Jacobe and Christy had broken up.
To this day she couldn’t believe her audacity, but a switch had gone off in her head after hearing about the breakup. A part of her felt that if he was single she wasn’t being just another girl trying to steal him away. The thought of that day crept into her head, dulling the noise of the crowd as she remembered how she’d lit into him for keeping her waiting for another tutoring session.
“Yo, I said I was sorry. I have a party to prepare for,” he’d said.
“You know what, go to your party and quit wasting my time,” Danielle shot back. “I’ve got better things to do than babysit jocks.”
“You know what, I’ve got better things to do than get lectured by you,” he’d said, then turned to his roommate, who’d come with him to the library. “Come on, man, let’s get out of here.”
His roommate had snickered and tapped Jacobe on the arm. “Dude, why don’t you two just hit and get it over with? You know all that fighting is just foreplay.”
Jacobe’s sexy brown eyes had raked over every inch of her body. “I’d love to. She doesn’t want to handle all this.” He’d given her a cocky smile before turning and leaving.
That one simple statement had made her blood boil, though not from rage. She hadn’t known if he was truly interested or just wanted to tease her, but she’d gone to his pre-draft party that night wearing a sexy black dress she’d bought on a whim a month earlier. She’d gotten her answer. He had been interested, and she was able to handle what he offered.
They’d left the room in an awkward silence. Jacobe had promised to call. She hadn’t believed him. The next day he’d flown to New York for the draft, and she’d never heard from him again. Through the grapevine, she’d learned he’d reconnected with Christy.
She didn’t regret their time together. Over time she’d gotten over him never calling. She’d gone over there to discover if he’d felt the same attraction she’d spent the year trying to ignore, and she’d gotten her answer.
The buzzer for the end of the second quarter sounded. Danielle jerked out of the past. Debra was too busy cheering to notice Danielle was distracted. The crowd clapped as the Gators ran off the court. Danielle joined in. Jacobe walked over to the chair right in front of where Danielle stood, snatched up a towel and wiped his face.
He looked up into the crowd, spread his arms wide and waved them up and down. “This is our house!” he yelled, getting the crowd hyped even more. His intensity burned off him in waves.
A tiny shiver ran through her. His gaze lowered from the upper stands and landed right on hers. Most of the air evacuated her lungs. He held her gaze barely a second before looking away.
He took a step, paused, frowned and then turned to stare directly at her again.
Danielle’s heart thudded, and the remaining air in her lungs dissolved like cheap tissue paper. Her stomach clenched right before a thousand feathers tickled her inside. His eyes lightened, maybe with recognition—she couldn’t tell—but the smile that spread his lips sent a bolt of lightning straight to her core.
Then he turned and walked with the rest of the team into the locker room. Danielle stood there, stupefied. Had the moment happened, or had she just imagined that? He couldn’t possibly remember her, could he? No, not after all these years.
“Danielle, what was that?” Debra’s excited voice zipped Danielle to the present.
“What was what?”
“He looked at you, and he looked happy to see you.”
Danielle pushed her glasses farther up her nose and shook her head. “No, he looked into the crowd. He wasn’t looking at me.”
“I saw the look.”
“Forget the look. The look means nothing.” She was going to make it mean nothing anyway. “Let’s go to the concession stand. I want some popcorn.”
The lines were so long that the trek for popcorn and sodas took most of halftime. By the time they made their way back to the seats, the teams were running onto the court to warm up. Danielle staunchly avoided watching Jacobe. She may have enjoyed that second of eye contact, but that didn’t mean she had to visually stalk him for the rest of the night.
Debra chocked on her popcorn and grabbed Danielle’s arm. “He’s coming over.”
No need to pretend she didn’t know who she was talking about. “His chair is right in front of us.”
“No, he’s looking at you and coming this way.”
“Will you stop it, Jacobe Jenkins isn’t—”
“Danielle?” A male voice that didn’t sound quite sure if he was getting her name right interrupted.
Danielle’s hands became slick. Her heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings against her ribs. Oh, wow. It was him.
She slowly pivoted in her chair to look into a pair of sexy brown eyes. He smiled at her with a hint of unsureness in his gaze.
“Oh...hi, Jacobe.”
“Danielle Stewart...right?”
She nodded. “That’s me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Enjoying the game.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. What have you been up to?”
Danielle glanced around. Some of the courtside reporters were looking their way. A few even snapped some pictures. Danielle squirmed self-consciously in her seat. “I work for the St. Johns River Watchers.”
“You live around here?” Sweat ran down his face, to his neck and into the jersey covering his wide, muscled torso.
Why in the world was a sweaty man so damn sexy? “Yep.”
He ran the towel over his face, thankfully removing the distracting sweat. Unfortunately, the movement brought attention to his fantastically sculpted arms. “This your first game?”
“No. My first courtside seat, though.”
He nodded. “Cool. What are you doing after the game?”
She blinked, thrown off by the question. “Going home.”
He shook his head, dismissing her statement. “The guys from the team usually meet up at a pool bar downtown called The Hall. Meet me there after the game.”
Debra’s leg bounced like a supercharged Chihuahua in Danielle’s periphery. “The Hall?” Had her voice really just squeaked? She cleared her throat.
“Yeah. You know where it is? They’re usually selective about letting people in after a home game because the team hangs out there afterward, but I’ll call ahead and tell them you’re cool. Come by. Let’s catch up.”
One of his teammates called. Jacobe looked over his shoulder to acknowledge him, then looked back at her. “I’ll see you there later.” Not a question.
She was too stunned to get angry at his direction or think of an excuse to say no. “Um...yeah. Sure, we’ll stop by.”
He grinned. “Cool.” He spun and rejoined the team.
Debra leaned in. Danielle lifted her hand to stop her from saying anything. “Stop. The reporters are still watching. Save the gushing for after the game.”
“Fine, but there will be tons of gushing in the car.”
Danielle nodded and took a sip from her soda. She had to keep her composure for the reporters still looking her way. She knew they had to be wondering who she was.
For the entire third quarter, she replayed the conversation and wondered what it meant. He’d seemed almost happy to see her. Happy? Had he thought of her over the years? Maybe she’d jumped the gun in assuming he could so easily forget her and move on. Maybe Jacobe wasn’t as self-centered as she remembered. Maybe the whole bad-boy persona that the media portrayed was just that—a persona.
All those maybes floated away when, halfway through the fourth quarter, Jacobe pushed a referee aside so he could deliver a right hook to an opposing player and left the guy knocked out cold on the floor. He smirked, then stepped over the downed opponent. Danielle sighed and shook her head. Apparently, Jacobe was still the arrogant, cocky jock she’d taken him for.
Chapter 2 (#u27c5340a-5bde-5b23-b15b-9c6c2b5350ad)
Typically, when Jacobe entered The Hall after a game and heard the drum of old-school hip-hop and smelled the Buffalo wings the place was known for, he was instantly ready to party. Tonight, the tension that had taken over his neck and shoulders since he’d knocked out Rob Jackson wouldn’t go away. He shouldn’t have done that. The league would probably suspend him for that. Not what he needed right before the play-offs. Taking the Gators to the play-offs would secure his place as one of the best players in the league, which was something he knew, but the trouble in his past kept others from admitting it. It would also make the final argument for him to be signed by Phoenix next year. They were building a superteam, and Jacobe was aiming to be on that team.
He could see the years of winning the finals in his future if that happened. The chance was now a big if. His agent had already called and told him not to talk to any reporters while he tried to smooth things out with managers of both teams.
He shouldn’t have hit Rob, but he damn sure didn’t regret it. How’s your son? Oh, wait, you don’t have a son.
Rob had tossed out the low blow right before Jacobe knocked him out. Jacobe kept his private life private, but Rob had been his teammate four years ago when Jacobe had learned that the woman he’d dated since high school had played him for a fool.
Tossing aside thoughts of Rob, suspension and the worst mistake of his life—Christy—Jacobe scanned the crowded room. After home games The Hall was typically brimming with people. The team came there to play pool and celebrate after a win and the locals had figured that out. The high-top tables were filled with people, along with the chrome stools around the bar. There were people at the pool tables that lined the room, as well, except for the empty table at the end. That’s where the Gators played.
His search wasn’t just to check out the crowd. He looked for one person in particular. It wasn’t long before his gaze landed on Danielle Stewart and the friend she’d been with at the game, sitting at the end of the bar sipping on fruity-looking drinks. His tension eased.
Danielle Stewart. Just thinking of her brought a smile to his lips. His prim-and-proper tutor who had lectured him about the importance of recycling and saving the planet while simultaneously giving him a raging hard-on. If it weren’t for that one night in college, he never would have believed she’d felt any of the attraction that always bubbled up in him like molten lava when she was around.
“That’s the girl from the game, right?” His teammate Kevin Kouky asked from his right. At six foot seven, Kevin was taller than Jacobe’s six-four. His golden-brown skin was hidden behind a myriad of tattoos and one-inch plugs filled his ears.
“That’s the girl,” Isaiah Reynolds, another teammate, said from his left. Where Kevin’s appearance made old ladies cross the street when they saw him coming, Isaiah made them smile and want to pinch his cheeks. He and Jacobe were the same height, but the similarity ended there. Isaiah had “boy you could take home to mama” down pat with his prim-and-proper attire, right down to his signature bow ties.
Will Hampton nodded and grinned. “That’s the girl alright.” The mischief in Will’s eyes sparkled brighter than the diamonds in his ears. The shortest of the group at six one, Will was also the jokester of the team.
Jacobe hadn’t called any man a friend in years. Outside of accepting the mentorship of movie star Irvin Freeman and singer Dante Wilson, Jacobe kept most people at arm’s length. History had taught him that. Away from the stadium, the only people he preferred hanging with were Kevin, Isaiah, and Will. They were cool, though he still wasn’t sure if he could trust them.
“Her name is Danielle,” he said. “We knew each other in college. I haven’t seen her since the night before the draft.”
Kevin bumped him with his elbow. “You seemed pretty happy to see her.”
