Power Play. Nancy Warren

a high five, and her aunt smiling broadly, already taking credit for the match.

      She jumped to her feet and headed for the exit, too fast for anyone to catch up with her. On the way she pulled a tissue from her bag and wiped her mouth. Yuck.

      4

      “HI, HONEY. YOU’RE HOME EARLY,” a gravelly voice said when she threw open the door to 318 a short time later. “Did you have a good time?”

      “Don’t even get me started.”

      Jonah glanced up from the hockey game he was watching on television. “Wow, you look mad. What happened?”

      “Cousin Buddy happened. He got drunk and hit on me and—” Unable to adequately describe how gross the entire escapade had been, she said, “Eeew.”

      “Got it. Want a beer?”

      “Desperately.”

      He popped the top of one and handed her a cold can.

      “Thanks.” She took a grateful swig, hoping it would erase Buddy’s taste. “Why are you here? I thought you were boozing with the boys tonight.”

      He pointed to his leg and she now saw the ice pack wrapped around his thigh.

      “Uh-oh.”

      “Yeah. I pulled something. Hurts like a bitch.”

      “How long have you had the ice pack on?”

      “I don’t know.” He squinted at the clock. “Forty minutes or so?”

      “Take it off. Give it a rest.”

      “Can you do anything for me? In a professional capacity?”

      “Depends. If you’ve torn the muscle, then no. If it’s in spasm, then yes. You want me to have a look?”

      He nodded.

      The room phone rang. Jonah leaned over and answered it. “Yeah?” A pause. Then he glanced up at her, looking sheepish. “No, you got the right room. She’s right here.”

      He passed her the phone.

      “Hello?”

      “Who was that?” Leanne asked her.

      Damn. “Why didn’t you call my cell? You always call my cell.”

      “I had to lend Derek my phone since his died. I’m at my mom’s and I couldn’t remember your cell number so I called the hotel.” Her voice grew low and intimate. “I guess you’re busted. Was that Buddy? Did I interrupt something?”

      “No! It’s not Buddy. He is a disgusting drunk, only interested in his fabulous cars and amazing stock picks. Did I tell you what he told me about his portfolio?” She thought if she babbled on enough about Buddy she could get Leanne to forget about the man who had answered the phone in her hotel room.

      Her plan didn’t work.

      “If that’s not Buddy in your room, then who is it?”

      “It’s…well, it’s kind of complicated,” she started, trying to think of something fast, words that would explain a strange man answering her phone, while at the same time not including the word bedbugs or making her seem like a skank. Seconds passed.

      “I’m listening.”

      “His name is Jonah.”

      “Nice name. And?”

      “And, he’s…” Jonah was looking half guilty, half amused as she stumbled her way through half phrases. “He’s—” What? Why was it that whenever she needed to think fast on her feet her brain froze over. Only one idea came to her and once it had lodged in her brain nothing better came along. “He’s…my boyfriend,” she ended in a rush.

      She didn’t know who was more surprised when the words came out of her mouth, her or Jonah.

      Or Leanne.

      “Your boyfriend?”

      “Yes.” She turned her body slightly so she was no longer looking at her brand-new boyfriend. “His name is Jonah.”

      “You already told me his name. What I want to know is if you have a boyfriend in town why you never said anything. How come he wasn’t at dinner tonight?”

      “It’s sort of complicated.” She tapped her nails on the beer can wondering how she could possibly have come up with such a ridiculous story. “He’s in town for the hockey tournament, so he couldn’t come tonight.”

      “And you never told me about him because…?”

      She felt her cheeks beginning to heat. She really wished her unwanted roomie would go somewhere else for five minutes and give her some privacy, but he’d even muted the TV so he could eavesdrop better. He seemed as fascinated by her halting explanation about him being her boyfriend as Leanne was.

      “I guess I didn’t want to share him.” Now that she’d settled on an explanation, it was easier to embellish. She could absolutely see herself hiding a boyfriend from her family—if she actually had a boyfriend. “You know what the family’s like. Dad would be asking him his intentions and Mom would be pricing wedding invitations and Aunt Alice would probably grill him on his sperm count.” A choke sounded behind her. “That’s why I keep my private life private.”

      “Wow. You could have told me, though.” Leanne sounded a little hurt. “How long have you two been going out?”

      “Not long.” In fact, she could count her relationship in minutes.

      “You left so early tonight, I was worried about you. Now I know why.”

      “Yeah. You know how it is at the beginning of a relationship.”

      In her peripheral vision she noticed Jonah settle back against his stacked pillows, obviously enjoying her predicament hugely. A certain speculation in his eyes.

      Leanne sighed, the sigh of a true romantic. “You mean when you think about them all the time and can’t wait to be together? When you think about sex all the time?”

      “Uh-huh,” she agreed weakly. “All the time.”

      “How is the sex?”

      The whole situation was so ridiculous, with Leanne rhapsodizing about her made-up love life and Jonah doing his best to listen to every word, that she found herself giggling. She turned to Jonah and said aloud, “My cousin wants to know how the sex is?”

      His grin was instant and wolfish. The way he looked at her made her suddenly realize it was not smart to tease a wolf. “Tell her it’s fantastic.”

      She rolled her eyes. Leanne was cracking up on the other end of the phone. “I definitely want to meet this guy, when you’re not too busy having fantastic sex.”

      “I’m sure you will.”

      “I’ll meet him at the wedding, anyway, right?”

      “Um, it depends on his hockey schedule.”

      “No way. He has to come. Tell him.”

      “Okay.”

      “Now. Or put me on the phone and I’ll tell him.”

      She held the phone away from her ear once again, and wished she was home in Portland in her pajamas watching a chick flick on DVD. Anything but this.

      Since it was his fault for answering in the first place, she held out the phone to him and smiled sweetly. “Leanne wants to make sure you’re coming to the wedding.”

      JONAH ALMOST FORGOT THE PAIN in his thigh watching his roomie trying to explain why a man was answering her room phone. He’d never seen a more incompetent liar. And hadn’t she dropped herself right in it?

      “You can stop smirking,” she