Free Hard to Hold by Katie Rose

trepidation she’d felt about the upcoming trip, maybe it would be okay.
    Maybe Logan and Cinnamon could learn to be a family.
    —
    The road trip wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought it would be. Logan assumed his ’Vette wouldn’t accommodate them all, so he rented an SUV. Isabella had offered her car, but he didn’t want to put the additional miles on her vehicle. But it all worked out. The SUV rode better than he would have thought and had plenty of room for Cinnamon’s things.
    In fact, if he had to be perfectly honest, it was turning out to be kind of cool. Isabella looked fucking incredible, dressed in a little blue-and-white-striped sundress and sandals. She let that blond hair fall loose around her shoulders for a change, and it fell like pale silk. The only problem was she wore a shade of red lipstick that made him want to kiss the hell out of her.
    But he was able to restrain himself and to simply appreciate her company. Normally when traveling with the team for a local game, they were bused from Cherry Hill to New York, Washington, or Baltimore. They’d bring a cooler of beers, plenty of pretzels and other snacks, and they’d watch videos to help pass the time. But over the years, Logan discovered he wasn’t crazy about road trips. Some of his peers weren’t too diligent about personal hygiene, and more than once he had to crack his window to keep from smelling his neighbor.
    And there were always a couple of guys who got out of control, like Jorge Rodriguez, who actually boarded the bus dressed in his boxer shorts. Apparently he’d had a late night out on the town, raced out of the house in what he had on, and saw nothing wrong with traveling in his underwear.
    It was also difficult being in close proximity to some of the players who were arrogant jerks. Logan was pretty laid-back, but listening to some of these major league assholes for hours at a time threatened his patience.
    So he was finding this excursion very different. It was actually…pleasant.
    When they lost the local radio channels, he turned to Isabella. “Okay with you if I sync my iPod? I have a lot of classic rock.”
    “Perfect,” she said, sinking back into her seat with a smile. “My fave. I hope you have Dylan.”
    “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
    He started the music, pleased to see that she was singing along. He didn’t know too many women who appreciated music from the sixties and seventies, but Isabella was obviously one of them.
    Cinnamon had fallen asleep almost immediately. Logan glanced in the rearview mirror to check on her. “Looks like someone is MIA.”
    “That happens a lot,” she said. “Sometimes I used to do this with a child that was really colicky. I would put the infant in the car seat, and drive around the block a few times. It worked like magic. I don’t know if it’s the motion or what, but they almost always went right out.”
    “Seems like you’ve learned a lot about kids,” Logan commented as they navigated the New Jersey Turnpike. The congestion around exit eight was always a bitch, and sure enough, traffic slowed to a crawl. He glanced sideways and saw Isabella quickly look away.
    Damn. Had she been staring at him?
    “So did you grow up around here?” Logan cleared his throat, struggling for normalcy. He really did want to know more about her; this woman intrigued him on a million levels.
    “Actually, yes. In New Jersey. And you?”
    “Me too. But from the time I was a teenager, I lived all over the place. Europe. Italy. England.”
    “I can’t even imagine,” Isabella said.
    “Yeah. But some of it was cool. I really liked it that I was the only Hart interested in soccer. It made me feel different, special. And I liked the travel, seeing the way the rest of the world treats the players like fucking royalty. I knew then, that’s what I wanted.”
    “That’s so cool to have had that experience, to know what you wanted so young.”
    There was something in her voice…“So I gotta ask. How