Free Game On by Tracy Solheim Page B

him, hands on hips, his interrogator’s face clearly in place.
    “There is no ‘me and Carly,’” Shane answered. Trying his best to project nonchalance, he locked eyes with the former Marine, challenging him to say otherwise.
    Donovan held his ground for a moment, before finally shaking his head and looking away. “Look, Shane,” Donovan said. “What you do is your business. But Carly . . . she’s been through a lot, you know? She comes across as all poised and sophisticated, but underneath, she’s still pretty tender and raw. I just wouldn’t want to see her hurt.”
    Shane tried not to wince at Donovan’s words. Obviously, his friend bought into the public’s perception of him. The implication that he would somehow hurt Carly rankled. People’s opinions of him hadn’t mattered before, so why were they becoming important now? And why did the idea of Carly being hurt—by him or someone else—bother him so?
    “You ready to head back to your place?” Donovan asked.
    “Yeah, I probably should get this guy a drink.” Shane gestured to the large chocolate-colored dog lolling in the shade of a large tree, his pink tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.
    “A beer sounds good to me, too,” Donovan said with a grin as he jogged down a side street.
    Shane lived in one of the team’s rental properties in the elite, gated community. The four-bedroom house sat on over a half an acre on a cul-de-sac at the very back of the neighborhood. He and Donovan navigated a maze of smaller row houses to get to the more exclusive area of the community.
    “You’re lucky you got a place in here, man,” Donovan said as they rounded a corner. The tree-lined street was quiet in the early evening. “A few of the Blaze staff live in here and they say it’s pretty quiet. I guess you’ll be running into Carly in here, too.”
    Shane stumbled, but he was able to right himself without Donovan taking too much notice.
    “Carly lives
here
?” he asked, the words escaping his mouth before he could temper his reaction.
    “Yeah.” Donovan looked at him sharply. “In fact, that’s her place up ahead.”
    Shane looked farther down the street to where the object of his distraction stood gesturing to another man. The trunk of her Saab convertible stood open. It looked like she’d been disrupted in the act of carrying in groceries. The man was obviously offering to help haul in her bags, but Dorothy was having none of it.
    “Shit!” Donovan swore, picking up his pace. Shane followed suit, his pulse beginning to shoot up again. He wasn’t sure if it was from seeing Carly again or from Donovan’s apparent concern.
    * * *
    The cloying smell of Joel Tompkins’s cologne first alerted Carly to his presence behind her.
God, this guy is a pest,
she
thought to herself as she turned from the trunk of her car to see him reaching in to grab a grocery bag. It went against her nature to be openly hostile to another person, but she was beginning to think today might be an exception.
    She was still reeling over her encounter with Gabe’s wife earlier.
That woman was a nutcase!
What could have possibly possessed Gabe to marry her? Okay, Carly
knew
why he had married her—for the publicity—but the little bridezilla obviously did not. Carly actually sympathized with Chloe; right up until Chloe accused her of being involved with her husband. The little scene in the lobby of the training facility had propelled Carly’s pity into annoyance. Damn Gabe for sending the tabloid princess to do his dirty work anyway. The fight for his signing bonus was going to get messy, but Carly knew she had an iron-clad contract on her side.
    Escaping her office early, she’d sought solace in a Pilates class at her health club. She’d been looking forward to an evening of kicking back with a glass of wine and watching
Downton Abbey
reruns on PBS. Instead, she was staring into the hooded, dark brown eyes of Joel Tompkins.
    When she’d first met him, Joel