Until We Touch

Larissa sprang to her feet, crossed to the door, then stopped and turned back.

“I’m not hiding from falling in love.”

Taryn raised her eyebrows.

Larissa frowned. “Not completely. I just... I’m not in love with Jack.”

“Prove it. Go fall in love with someone else.”

“Not everyone wants to get married.”

“What does that have to do with being in a relationship? Don’t you want more than friendship? Don’t you want passion and sex and romance and knowing there’s someone you can call at two in the morning and he’ll be there, no matter what?”

Larissa nodded because it was the answer Taryn expected. The truth was more complicated. Yes, she wanted passion and sex and romance. But if she needed to call someone at two in the morning, she knew all four Score owners would be at her side in a heartbeat, with Jack leading the way. Was that what Taryn was trying to say? That the reason Larissa hadn’t found the one was because she didn’t need to?

She doubted the truth was that simple.

* * *

HUNAN PALACE WAS conveniently located in Larissa’s neighborhood. The vegetables were fresh, the sauces delicious and Jack had to admit they had the best egg rolls he’d ever tasted. As he wasn’t the kind of guy who cooked and Larissa was too busy saving the world to provide a meal, their regular Tuesday-night dinner meant takeout. They met at her place. He brought the food. She provided the beer or wine. It was nice. Easy.

As he crossed the street, he nodded at the people he knew, or at least recognized. Fool’s Gold was that kind of town. You were expected to get involved. Hell, even Sam was teaching finance classes for small businesses a couple of times a month. Kenny would be sucked into something before long, Jack thought. Which meant being asked to help find a new coach wasn’t much of a surprise. Plus, it was the kind of thing he would enjoy. Even though he couldn’t still play, the love of the game had never gone away.

He reached Larissa’s apartment building. She had an upstairs unit in a place without an elevator—which was just like her. He happened to know she could afford something much nicer and larger, but that wasn’t her way. She wanted her money to go toward her causes. His money, too, he thought with a grin. But what the hell. He had enough.

He knocked once, then opened the door. Larissa wasn’t one for locks.

“It’s me,” he called and he stepped into her small one-bedroom apartment.

Larissa looked up from the book she’d been reading. “Hi. Meet Dyna.”

He glanced down and saw a cat hurrying toward him. She had long hair and almost-human blue eyes.

“You really got a cat.”

“I told you I did.”

“I know, but I thought you were kidding.”

Dyna wound her way around his legs in a tight figure eight, depositing light-colored cat hair on his suit pants with every step.

“Nice,” he murmured, making a mental note to change into jeans before visiting again, even if that meant keeping an extra pair at the office.

Larissa stood and crossed to him. “Don’t whine. Isn’t she beautiful?”

She picked up the cat, who immediately relaxed in her arms.

Dyna’s fur was a creamy white in the front of her body, darkening to a taupe-beige, then darkening even more until it was a deep brown on her tail.

“She’s great,” Jack said.

“She intimidates me a little,” Larissa admitted. “I’ve never had a cat this gorgeous before.”

“Your eyes are the same color. That’s a little weird.”

Larissa laughed and set down the cat. “Afraid we have an otherworldly connection? That together we can move objects and read minds?”

“It’s never good when a woman can read my mind,” he said honestly. “By whatever means.”

She took the bag of food from him and led the way into her small kitchen.

The eat-in table was already set with two place mats, plates and flatware. A vase filled with a few carnations sat in the center. The pink petals were turning brown on the edges, he noted. Probably because Larissa had bought them at 70 percent off at the grocery store. You wouldn’t want to waste money on something like flowers at full price. What if there was a mad squirrel in need of therapy?

She picked up a bottle of merlot. “Wine or beer?”

He considered the question. “Beer.”

She carefully put the bottle back into the rack on her counter. It was one he’d brought over, along with the inventory of a few of his favorite merlots. While he trusted Larissa to buy beer, he was not willing to drink the cheap wine she favored.

She pulled two bottles of beer from the refrigerator, then nudged the door closed with a bump of her hip. He set down the bag of food and crossed to the drawer to pull out the opener. While he was there, he also grabbed a few serving spoons for their dinner.

He turned in the small kitchen and handed her the opener. She walked back to the table.

The windows were open and a nice breeze drifted through the kitchen. Dyna had settled on the back of the sofa to watch them from a safe and regal distance. Larissa opened both bottles, then unpacked the containers of food. She turned to him and smiled.

“You got the crispy shrimp,” she said happily. “Thank you.”

“You like it.”

“You don’t.”

“Yeah, whatever. Eat the rest for lunch.”

“Real men don’t eat shrimp?” she asked.

“I love shrimp. Just put it in a butter sauce and drop it over pasta. Is that too much to ask?”

She sat down and motioned for him to do the same. Jack started to move toward the table, or at least he planned to, but suddenly he found it difficult to move.

From this angle he could see Larissa’s bare shoulder. She’d replaced her usual work T-shirt with a tank top. One of those cottony, billowy ones with little ruffles around the arm and neckline. The soft fabric dipped low enough for him to be aware of feminine curves.

He shook his head. So Larissa had breasts. She was a woman—it wasn’t unexpected. Only he wasn’t sure he’d ever noticed them before. Or how long her legs were in her shorts. She had great legs. Tanned and toned.

No, he corrected himself. Lanky. She was lanky. His gaze drifted to her bare feet. She’d painted her toes a dark purple and added little pink dots. Who did that?

“What?” she asked. “You okay?”

“Ah, fine.”

He sat across from her and reached for one of the containers. It was the damned crispy shrimp and he quickly passed it over to her.

“How’d you get her?” he asked, motioning to the cat.

“Mayor Marsha mentioned she knew an older lady who had passed away. Her family couldn’t keep Dyna—everyone’s allergic. So I took her.” Larissa lowered her voice. “I think she’s starting to like me. When I pet her, she purrs.”

Jack wanted to point out that liking or not liking wasn’t the issue. Larissa was Dyna’s meal ticket and the cat was smart enough to know that. But the words sounded harsh, even in his head, so instead he said, “What’s not to like?” and then wondered why he felt weird saying that.

Something was wrong. Or different. Or both. And he didn’t like it. He was comfortable around Larissa. He understood her. They were friends. So what was off tonight?

“Speaking of Mayor Marsha, what did she want with you?”

Jack told her about the need for a new coach and a football program, and how he was going to be on the committee.

“That will be fun for you,” Larissa told him. “College kids are great. So much enthusiasm. And you have a good eye. You’ll be able to see who has real talent.”

“Don’t get carried away. I’m not mentoring anybody or paying for their mother’s goiter surgery.”

Her blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “You sure about that?”

He sighed. “I won’t tempt fate by fighting with you on that. Besides, you know what I mean. I’m helping with a committee, not getting involved.”

“You like getting involved.”

He picked up his beer. “No. You like getting involved and dragging me with you. There’s a difference.”

“You’re an excellent role model.”

Only in her eyes, he thought as he took a drink. He knew the truth. In his heart, he was about as selfish as the average Joe, only with more resources.

Larissa chattered on about her various causes and he half listened. This was what he liked, he thought. Just being with his friend. Their relationship was uncomplicated, although apparently a mystery to the outside world. Why else would Mrs. Owens have made such a bonehead statement? Larissa in love with him? Impossible.

Jack relaxed back in his chair and watched Larissa’s hands move as she talked. Her face was expressive. He supposed on a purely impersonal basis he could admit she was pretty. Her skin was smooth and soft-looking. She never wore makeup, as far as he could tell, which was a change from the other women in his life. The long hair was nice, especially when she wore it down. At work it was always back in a ponytail. He remembered a client spotting her and asking if it was bring-your-daughter-to-work day. Because she could look kind of young.

He grabbed another egg roll and bit into the crispy shell. Yeah, he was a lucky man, he thought. Good friends, good food and very few problems.

“Mary’s not doing well,” Larissa said with a sigh.

“Who’s Mary?”

Larissa’s mouth twisted down. “She’s the little girl who got the liver transplant last year. She’s been running a fever on and off for a few weeks now. Her parents are worried and the doctors are running tests.”

Jack nodded as if he knew what Larissa was talking about, but in truth, he didn’t. Mary was just one more kid his money had helped.

“I’ve been checking in with her family regularly,” she added. “I sent her an American Girl doll book. Kit Saves the Day.”

Okay, now he was lost. “Who is Kit?”

“Kit Kittredge. She’s one of the American Girl dolls. I showed you them before.”

“Was I paying attention?”

“Probably not.” Some of the sadness left her eyes. “You never were into dolls.”

He winked. “Not unless they were anatomically correct. What other causes should I prepare for?”

“There’s going to be a chiweenie rescue.”

“A what?”

“Chiweenies. They’re a Chihuahua-dachshund mix.”

“Someone has a sense of humor,” he murmured. “And this is my problem how?”

“A breeder is being investigated. There’s concern it’s not a good situation. That she has more of a puppy mill than a healthy program.”

Jack could figure out the rest of it pretty easily. If it was a puppy mill or a hoarding situation, then there would be an intervention and Larissa would get involved. Which meant somehow he would end up involved, as well.

“Don’t bring any to my house,” he told her, but without a lot of energy. Telling her no didn’t help and for the most part, he didn’t really mind whatever she dragged into his life. It always made for interesting conversation.

“I don’t always get you involved,” she protested.

“What about the butterflies?”

She wiggled in her seat. “That was a special situation.”

Yeah. One that required him to not make noise or turn on lights for several days. Of course, butterflies in a cage had been a lot easier to take than the fighting dogs that wouldn’t let him in his own house.

“You’re never boring,” he told her. “I’ll give you that.”

Later, when they were done eating and he’d helped her clean up, he gave her a brief hug goodbye and left. Once on the sidewalk, he breathed in the cool night air and started back for his place.

Yup, he had it all, he told himself. His Score coworkers were his family, Larissa was his best friend and, when he got the itch, there were plenty of women to be had. Best of all, he could go back to his quiet, empty house whenever he wanted. He was a blessed man. Most days it was very good to be Jack McGarry.

CHAPTER THREE

SCORE STAFF MEETINGS were generally short and to the point. Because of that, no one tried to get out of them. Larissa sat at one end of the big conference table and took notes on the items that affected her or Jack. She also had a short presentation prepared for when Kenny called on her.

The areas of expertise were delineated by ability. Jack and Kenny brought in new clients, Sam took care of the money and Taryn handled the existing clients, while keeping her “boys” in line.

The day-to-day management was mostly shared between Sam and Taryn, but Kenny had an active role in most of the hiring and he ran the staff meetings.

Larissa listened to him now and idly wondered how many people would be surprised to know the former receiver had a degree in English. A degree he’d earned the hard way—by going to class and writing papers. As a star football player, there had been easier options for him, but he hadn’t taken them. He’d earned his B+ average by studying and doing well on his tests. Kenny joked that his first year of college, his teammates had been forever stealing whatever he’d been reading on the bus or plane, convinced there had to be secret porn hidden in the pages of his book. They couldn’t understand that a guy who could play like Kenny might also like to read.

Taryn shifted in her seat. Larissa smiled, thinking how her boss sort of reminded her of Dyna. Sure the coloring was different, but they were both beautiful females, confident of their place in the world. Dyna had adapted well to the small apartment and had spent the past two nights sleeping on the bed. Progress, Larissa thought happily. This morning Dyna had awakened her with happy purrs and snuggles.

Like the cat, Taryn had mellowed when she’d found security in her personal life, i.e., when she’d fallen in love with Angel. The sharp edges that kept the world at bay had softened a little. Larissa supposed it wasn’t a surprise. Everyone was different when he or she fell in love. Or so she’d observed. It wasn’t as if she’d ever felt the emotion herself.

Someday, she promised herself wistfully. If she was lucky.

“Larissa’s going to report on the golf tournament,” Kenny said.

She drew herself back to the meeting and glanced at her notes. “The charity event is a fund-raiser. Raoul Moreno’s foundation runs it and you three are on the schedule to play.” She went through a few more details.

“Think what we could have done with the Stallions if we’d had Moreno,” Sam mused.

Larissa looked at Taryn and rolled her eyes. Taryn nodded in agreement. They went down this same path every time they talked about the tournament. The humor of the comment was that Jack had been the Stallions quarterback while Kenny and Sam had been with the team and they’d done just fine. Including a Super Bowl win. But they liked to joke that if they’d had Raoul Moreno, a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, everything would have been better.

Kenny leaned back in his chair and sighed. “That would have been great.”

“You don’t deserve as good as you got,” Jack told him. “You’re lucky I was willing to play with you at all.”

He kept talking, but Larissa wasn’t listening. Her part of the staff meeting was over. She had a massage in twenty minutes and there was prep work to do.

She collected her notes and stood. Taryn looked at her.

“Run while you can,” her friend murmured.

Larissa grinned and did just that.

After dropping off her notes in her office, she walked toward the locker rooms. Her space was between the two, down a short hallway. Once inside, she clicked on the lights and turned up the thermostat.

When she wasn’t working, the room adjusted to the ambient temperature of the building, but when she was with a client, she liked the air to be warm. Less comfortable for her but better for the massage.

Her ritual was always the same and she found that soothing. First she warmed up the room; then she turned on the music. Jack was up first today, so she chose his MP3 file and pushed the start button. She started the countertop machine that heated the thermal packs. When she took them out for use, they would be about 160 degrees.

She cleaned the massage table when she was done for the day so that when she began her work, she only had to put the heating pad in place, cover it with a thick padding, then tuck in the linens on top. She did that next, securing the sheet.

For Jack, she used moist heat on his shoulder. That was where he hurt all the time. He had a lot of general aches and pains, but his shoulder was where she concentrated her work. Kenny had injuries all over. He’d been hit the most and there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t cause him pain every now and then. Sam, as the kicker, had the fewest injuries.

Larissa found it interesting to work on them. They were athletes, yet so different from each other. Especially Taryn. She was smaller. Muscled, but compared with the guys, she was puny. Her massages were always later in the day. If all three guys needed Larissa in one morning, her hands, arms and shoulders were tired for hours. By contrast, massaging Taryn was practically a vacation. There weren’t any thick ropes of muscles to manipulate. No scarred cartilage to break down, no stiffness to ease.

Larissa crossed to her cabinet and pulled out the bottle of oil she used on Jack. Everything was personalized. That was the advantage of only having four massage clients, she thought. And the point of them having her on staff. She knew what they liked. She and Taryn talked about girl stuff. Sam never spoke at all. Kenny was friendly enough. He would mention a book he was reading or a movie he’d seen.

But with Jack it was ninety minutes of hanging out. They discussed everything from current events to restaurant reviews to the various causes he was supporting through her.

She glanced at the big clock on the wall and saw it was nearly time. She turned down the lights, then checked the temperature of the heating pad on the table.

Perfect, she thought, feeling the warmth through the soft sheet. She folded the top sheet back, and then pulled open a drawer and picked up her brush. She smoothed her long hair, then pulled it back into a ponytail. She pushed the drawer shut as Jack walked into her massage room.

“Hey,” he said by way of greeting.

“Hey, yourself.”

Jack wore a white terry-cloth robe, as he always did, along with shower shoes. Everyone came to her like that. She politely turned her back so he could hang the robe on the hook and slip onto the table.

In a spa setting, she would step out of the room. After all, during a massage, her clients were naked. But the first time she’d tried that with the guys here, they’d told her not to bother. As Kenny had put it, “None of us have anything you haven’t seen before.” There was also the fact that she was frequently called into the sauna to rub aching muscles and they were all naked there. It was weird, but she’d gotten used to it.

During her massage training there had been plenty of instruction on how to handle the awkward “you’re naked and I’m touching you” part of what she did. There were specific laws and codes of ethics that had to be followed. Not that her guys ever pushed the boundaries. They weren’t like that.

None of them wanted to be covered at all when they were facedown. Larissa had fought that battle and lost the first year. When they turned over, she draped a towel across the, ah, private areas. Taryn didn’t even want to bother with that. As for the natural male reaction to a woman touching his body...Kenny sometimes got an erection, but he laughed about it. His humor made her completely comfortable with the situation. Sam rarely got hard. The man had a will of iron. And Jack, well, he seemed to fall in the Sam camp.

Now she waited until she heard Jack slide onto the massage table.

“Why do you always put out that stupid sheet?” he asked.

“Because it’s my job.”

She turned and saw the top sheet had been kicked to the floor, just like always. The regularity of the event made her smile.

She picked up the sheet and tossed it in her dirty linens bin, then collected the moist heat pack. She worked quickly to slide it into its cover, then wrapped the ribbed warmth around Jack’s right shoulder. There it would loosen the muscles and scarring while she worked on the rest of his back.

She began the massage by touching his upper arms, then moving across his back. She felt for any new tension, any areas of tenderness. Her touch was sure as she lightly kneaded familiar muscles. She worked her way down to the small of his back before retracing her steps.

“Taryn’s keeping a stash of bridal magazines in her office,” she said conversationally. “But when I asked her if she and Angel had set a date, she wouldn’t say. I think she’s weirded out about what to do.”

As she spoke, she dug into his left shoulder. While it was nowhere near as beat-up as the right, he’d suffered plenty of hits on that side.

“Taryn can’t figure out if she wants a big wedding or to run off,” Jack said, his voice slightly muffled.

“I know. A couple of days ago she announced she’s having a big wedding. Yesterday she said they were going to elope. I hope she decides on having a wedding. She would totally rock a great designer dress. It would be like theater.”

“You’d have to dress up, too,” he pointed out.

Not her favorite thing. “I could manage for a day. Would you give her away?”

She asked the question without thinking, then remembered Jack and Taryn had been married briefly. She’d gotten pregnant and he’d insisted they do the right thing. When she lost the baby a few weeks later, they’d gotten divorced. As far as Larissa knew, they’d never been in love and the topic of their marriage wasn’t the least bit sensitive. At least not on the surface.

“Taryn wouldn’t appreciate the idea of being given or taken,” he said. “My guess is if she goes the big wedding route, she’ll hustle herself down the aisle.”

Larissa began to work on his back. His skin was warm and the oil she used allowed her hands to slide easily. The rhythm of her movements anchored her in place. The music was nice. Soothing, she thought.

“I got another call about the chiweenies,” she told him. “They’re going to make one more visit to talk to the lady. They’re pretty sure it’s a hoarding situation. The animal-rescue people are working with local law enforcement to get her to surrender the animals to avoid charges.”

“You’re not bringing dogs to my house.”

She smiled. “Would I do that?”

“In a heartbeat.”

* * *

JACK DID HIS best to give himself over to the massage. Much of the time, being worked on by Larissa was the best part of his day. His shoulder provided a steady ache and as he wouldn’t take drugs for it, he’d learned to live with the pain.

The heat pack she used eased some of it. Later she would dig her needle fingers into the joints, searching out scarring and grinding it into submission. That part wasn’t fun, but the result was relief—at least for a few hours.

Her voice washed over him. She told him about her causes and what was happening in town. Sometimes he listened and sometimes he didn’t. He’d learned that if it was important, she would tell him again.

But today he couldn’t relax. Not the way he usually did. Something was off. Not the massage table. It was the same, as were the sheets and the music. Even the oil she used was familiar.

But there was something. He tried closing his eyes, but that didn’t help. Her hands continued to move on his body, sliding down his back. Lower and lower. She worked his shoulder last—leaving it until he was ready to turn over. That way she could attack it from both sides. That’s what always happened. She put heat on his shoulder, did the whole back of him, then his shoulder. He turned over, she did the front of the shoulder, wrapped it in heat and then tackled the rest of him. They had a routine. It worked. So what was his problem?

Her hands stroked lower and lower on his back. He knew what was next. She would slide down his hip, then come up to the side of his butt and dig in to some pressure point. She would grind until he was about ready to come off the table, and then suddenly it would ease. Pain would flow out of him as if she’d pulled the cork on a bottle.