Cami’s Georgia Patriots Romance Collection Page 4

  Hyde swigged the rest of his shake, rinsed the cup, and put it in the dishwasher. He quickly put away all the ingredients for his shake and the pancakes. It was six-forty-five. “I’d better get going. I have a training appointment at seven.”

  “With whom?” his mother asked.

  Hyde lit up. His mom was interested? It was Allie who asked all the questions and made sure he was doing all right. It was Allie who’d brought Mom to the hospital to visit when he’d been admitted with pneumonia and then brought him home the next week. He’d tried to hire Allie as his mom’s caretaker, but she wouldn’t hear of it, so instead he’d tricked her husband, Lon, into telling Hyde who their mortgage carrier was, and then talked the bank officer into letting Hyde pay off the entire thing. His mom had confided in him before she got sick that Lon and Allie had a decent retirement for when Lon decided to quit accounting full-time, but no debt would help. Allie had been ticked when she realized what he’d done, but she’d forgiven him.

  “A lady down at the Fitness Academy,” he told his mother. “She worked me really hard yesterday. Even my eyeballs hurt.”

  Allie laughed. “Maybe the two of us should pay her to whip us in shape.”

  “Yes, you should.” He hid a smile at the thought of these two in spandex trying to do burpees. Allie was determined enough she’d do it. His mom would tell the trainer that it was unladylike to sweat and that the floor was probably covered with germs, so no way was she planting her face on it.

  “We’ll just dig in the flower beds today,” Allie said. “That should be enough to work off these pancakes.”

  Hyde paid a gardener and a housekeeper and had a chef deliver whole food dinners four nights a week, but these two didn’t seem to notice. They went on playing in the dirt, cutting flowers for arrangements, baking with Crisco, and wiping everything they could with Clorox wipes no matter how clean the housekeeping service kept it.

  He also paid the gardener and housekeeper to stop in at Auntie Allie’s once a week. The woman was a saint, and Hyde wasn’t sure how she kept up with everything. Her husband was a quiet guy who never complained, but Hyde wondered if he wouldn’t rather be vacationing with his wife rather than watching her take care of her best friend. It was probably the reason Lon wouldn’t retire for a while.

  “Bye, Mom.” Hyde walked around the large peninsula and gave her a hug and a kiss.

  “Have a good day, sweetheart.”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Okay.”

  Auntie Allie took his hug and kiss, but kept a hold of him and walked with him through the large laundry room to the garage entry. “You go do whatever you need to do. I’ll be here with her. Since you came home from the hospital, you’ve spent too much time playing nursemaid to an old woman. Go take some pretty girl to lunch or play ball with some friends or something.”

  Hyde didn’t know how to tell her that all of his high school friends had grown up and moved away. His college friends were busy with their lives, and his football friends were off enjoying their own break from the season. He was a loner at the moment. “Thanks for being here,” he said. “I don’t like her being alone.”

  “Me neither. Have you heard from your waste of a father?”

  “Just postcards since the Super Bowl.” His dad had never missed a game. He coached Hyde through Little League from seven years old on up. His dad had retired from being a running back with the Texas Titans after seven seasons and moved back to his hometown of Golden. He’d done well for himself, but there wasn’t the money in it back in his day like there was for Hyde and his teammates. Dad started a company filming high school games and making highlight films for players hoping to play at the next level. It had worked out well for Hyde, especially with his dad’s connections.

  His dad had arranged his schedule with work to never miss anything throughout high school, college, and pro ball. Hyde made sure all the travel for his parents was taken care of, and he loved the support, but his dad liked to wander. The day after the season was over, his dad had gone MIA with only a short letter for his mom. It had happened before, but it made Hyde sad and irritated. He knew his parents didn’t have the best relationship, but they’d provided a great childhood for him and his older sister. His sister was living in Washington DC with her husband and three girls, and Hyde didn’t expect her to uproot herself and move here. She’d offered to have Mom come live with her, but the doctors agreed with Hyde that it would be a setback to leave the home and neighborhood she was comfortable in. Plus, how would she leave Auntie Allie?

  “I’ll keep praying that piece of dung wakes up and comes home to his woman. Until then, she’ll have me. You hear? You go live your life. A couple more months and you’re going to have to move back to Atlanta. If your dad hasn’t shown up yet, we’ll have your mom come stay with us.”

  “I can’t do that to you. I’ll hire a caretaker to stay with her, and you can just come visit to enjoy her.”

  Allie’s face drooped. She’d lost a best friend as much as Hyde had lost a mother. She pasted a smile back on and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “So, is this trainer a hot one?”

  Hyde’s eyes widened. Only Allie would think to ask that. He thought of Lily and smiled. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “Oh, good. Go have her work your buns off, and then you ask her out for tofu veggie sandwiches or whatever crap you’re eating now. If she’s a fitness freak like you, she might not think you’re too strange pounding all those chicken breasts and only eating sugar and dairy one day a week.” She tsked. “I love ya, but that’s just unnatural, boy.”

  Hyde laughed. He didn’t eat as crazy as his mom and aunt assumed. He avoided sugar, processed food, and some dairy, but besides that, he ate a lot and he ate well.

  “Well, are you going to ask her out?”

  “She’s my trainer, Auntie, not my date.”

  “Hmm. Give her a chance—I’ll bet she would be both.”

  Hyde could have cussed Allie for planting these ideas in his head. He gave her one last squeeze, winced as he went down the garage steps, then climbed into his Lexus RX 450. He couldn’t quite cuss Allie when he’d had similar thoughts about Lily all throughout the day yesterday. He liked her being his trainer, and it wouldn’t take a ton of persuasion for him to like her being his date.

  * * *

  Lily always got to the gym before six, but today she was there at five, excited to see what the day had to bring. I get to train Hyde Metcalf, she’d been singing over and over again in her head. Even though he was an ultra-athlete, he was going to be sore today. Two hours of nonstop weights, plyometrics, and sprints on an incline would make anyone’s muscles ache. She’d told him to take a bath, right? She giggled, remembering he’d said that real men didn’t take baths. Ha. Her dad had loved a bath after being out on the trails all day as a forest ranger in Colorado’s beautiful mountains.

  “What are you laughing to yourself about?” Malee asked, her beautiful slanted eyes increasing to an even higher angle. Most women who came into the gym were jealous of Malee’s exotic look.

  “Hyde.” Lily bit at her lip, not ashamed to admit it.

  “He’s really something, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Malee took a swing at her. “Hey, are you going to be able to keep this professional?”

  “Yes. There’s a lot riding on this for me.” She bowed her head and admitted, “My family could really use that money.” She would do anything she could to guarantee that her siblings had a better childhood and teenagerhood than she had.

  “What’s the deal with you getting Hyde Metcalf’s training?” Ike strutted into the office like he owned the place. Typical. He had the blond, blue-eyed surfer look, and his build was incredible. He regularly competed in bodybuilding competitions. Lily appreciated how hard he worked, but didn’t find him as attractive as the rest of the female population at the gym seemed to.

  “I’m just that good.” She thrust a hand
on her hip and tossed her long hair, daring him to contradict her.

  “I believe it.” Ike came closer. “You want to show me how good sometime?”

  “Keep it professional, Ike,” Malee demanded.

  “Sure thing, boss.” But Ike stayed much too close to Lily and looked her up and down. “That’s pretty cool Hyde Metcalf came asking for you. Congrats.”

  Lily managed a smile. Malee obviously hadn’t revealed to anyone else that she’d set up Lily’s slam dunk, and Lily wasn’t going to tell Ike—that was for sure. “Thank you.”

  Ike flashed her a smile before strutting back out of the office.

  Lily turned to Malee and smiled weakly.

  “Don’t worry,” Malee said. “You are the best and exactly what Hyde needs right now. I wouldn’t have given him to you if I had any doubts.” She nodded encouragingly. “Oh, and in other good news: last night, after you left, you had twenty new clients book training packages over the next week, and I have moved your base rate to a hundred per hour. No reason to have Hyde think we were deceiving him.”

  “What?” Lily always had a decent clientele, but it was hard to keep busy even forty hours a week as a trainer. She taught the boot camp classes to bring in a little extra money. She loved her job and would be happy to work well over forty hours if she could.

  Imagining that ten-thousand-dollar bonus from Hyde at the end of two months had her salivating. After the gym took twenty percent, she’d put a thousand in savings, buy herself some new running shoes, and then the rest would go to her mom and dad no matter how they complained. With six children still at home and living on a Forest Service salary, things were tight. She could just imagine Mary and Trudy wearing new clothes instead of hand-me-downs from Lily and Sariah that were years old and hadn’t been in style when Lily was in high school six years ago. Maybe Caleb could play on the competitive lacrosse team he’d been begging for, or Brandon could actually take a piano lesson. The boy was a music prodigy, but some training would bring him to the next level.

  The really huge thing was helping Sariah get started at the massage therapy school. Her twenty-one-year-old sister lived at home and drove up to Blackhawk to clean hotel rooms at the casinos every day, trying to save money for tuition. This money would be enough with what Sariah already had saved to pay her tuition. She could still work on the weekends for spending cash and gas money. She’d have to live at home, but it wasn’t a horrible drive down the mountain. Sariah had been through so much, with a fire disfiguring her ear, neck, and shoulder when she was only five, and then getting some horrific publicity for it a few years ago. Lily wanted to help her move on and forget all of that.

  Lily’s mom would balk about the money like she always did, but she’d take it and either gently inform her dad or hide it from him. Lily didn’t want to cause secrets between her parents, but her siblings needed help and she would give it, to heck with her father’s pride.

  “I guess word spread that you were training Hyde pretty quick,” Malee said.

  Lily’s chest expanded. “Thanks, Malee.”

  Malee shrugged. They were friends, but not besties. Malee was still her boss. “It was the right fit. Thank me by kicking him into shape so we get that bonus.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Malee rolled her eyes. “Don’t go all Ike on me.”

  Lily laughed and went to prep for the morning boot camp class. As soon as the class was over, she hurried downstairs to meet Hyde. At seven sharp he walked in, looking every inch the elite athlete he was in a fitted Under Armour shirt and knee-length silky shorts. His chest and arms would make most women sigh, but she reminded herself she wasn’t most women. She worked around and with fit people every day. She was a professional and wasn’t going to let his ultra-fit body affect her.

  His arm flexed as he grabbed the door and held it open for an older lady. Okay, it shouldn’t affect her. He turned Lily’s way and smiled. Yeah, that was going to affect her. She almost did her Hyde Metcalf dance again.

  Legs weak, she started toward him. “How you feelin’?” Oh my goodness! Being affected by his smile was one thing but talking like a hick from the backwoods was quite another.

  “The hot tub didn’t help much. I’m walking like an old man.”

  “Means I did my job.” Hyde was so classy he didn’t even flinch at her “how you feelin’”.

  “You don’t have to do it quite so effectively.” He grinned, and she knew he was teasing. How could you not like a guy this chill?

  “Up for a little run to get warm?”

  His eyebrows arched. She walked toward the door, and even with his legs sore, he beat her to it and swung it open. They walked out into the crisp morning. Lily loved springtime in Colorado, especially days like today that were warmer than usual.

  They started at a slow jog to warm up, cruising through the streets of Golden. Within minutes, they were running past Colorado School of Mines and had increased to a comfortable eight-minute mile.

  “I like this campus,” Hyde said, breaking the silence.

  “Did you go to school here?”

  “Um, no.” He half laughed. “I went to Oregon.”

  “Oh, dumb. I knew that.” She was being really dumb. She knew his stats from University of Oregon. “Two-time Pac Ten offensive player of the year, right?”

  He glanced at her askance, his eyes a little suspicious. “You seem to know a lot about me.”

  “Didn’t I already tell you that I’m your biggest fan?” Oh, crap. Now she looked like a stalker. Honestly, she kind of was, but it was just because she loved football so much. That was her excuse, at least. “Does that weird you out?”

  He shrugged and focused on the tree-lined streets, well-maintained open spaces, and beautiful campus buildings around them. “It’s something I’ve had to get used to. Most people either act awestruck around me or they grovel for attention. The women who pretend they don’t know who I am and think I’m going to chase them because they act dumb are the really odd ones.”

  He took a long breath, and Lily worried about his oxygen capacity for a second, but she wanted to hear what he had to say, so she didn’t interrupt.

  “It’s so easy to see through, but they think playing hard to get will be attractive, I guess. Then, when I ignore them, they go overboard the other way, all gushy and embarrassing.” He gasped in some more air. “Sorry, I’m rambling, but I’d take someone who’s honest about knowing my stats, like a ten-year-old boy, any day.”

  “Great. You just compared me to a ten-year-old boy.”

  He chuckled. “You’re shaped a lot different than a ten-year-old boy.”

  Lily’s eyes widened and she had no good comeback for that. “Um … Are your legs loosening up a little bit?”

  “Yeah. It’s going to kill when we stop, though.”

  She smiled at him, knowing she could keep this up for hours. She’d never run an actual marathon because of how expensive they were, but she regularly ran twenty-plus-milers on Saturday mornings. “Let’s not stop, then.”

  They upped their pace as they reached the trail south of Main Street. It took them along the river and past the Clear Creek RV Park. Then they hit the hill above the city water supply and they were both too out of breath to talk. They pounded over the bridge crossing the highway, then up one more hill, and there was a park she liked to take a break at.

  “Let’s grab a drink,” Lily managed, impressed with his stamina after being hospitalized. She’d never had pneumonia, but coming back from a cold was hard sometimes.

  “Okay.” He waited for her to take a drink from the fountain first.

  As he took his turn, she couldn’t help but admire his build again. “It’s fun to train someone who’s built like you.”

  He grinned, wiping moisture from his upper lip. “Why do I feel like I’m a test subject instead of a human being?”

  “I can tell you’re human.” Lily bit at her lip. Oh, could she tell.

  He laughed. “Such a com
pliment.”

  “I told you I was your biggest fan, right?”

  “Yep, and now I’m a test subject and only my stats matter. You probably want me to wear my helmet to work out,” he teased.

  “No. I like to see your face.” She ducked her head. Hyde Metcalf was seriously flirting with her. Right? No. She was insane and dreaming that he was being cute with her. She didn’t know enough about what he liked in a woman. She’d seen plenty of pictures of him with beautiful women all dolled up in formal wear, some of them well-known in their own right. Was he a flirt and just teasing her? Probably. She had to keep it light, especially so she didn’t offend him and lose this money train. “Your stats and fitness level are the most impressive thing to me, though.”

  His eyebrows shot up, and then he laughed. “Good to know.”

  She turned and ran toward the jogging trail. Hyde caught her quickly, and they continued up the hills through a beautiful neighborhood where the trail ended and they ran on the road for a while.

  “That road’s a dead end,” Hyde said as she turned onto a tree-lined street.

  “Oh?” How did he know that? There was usually a no outlet sign if a road was a dead end, but it was missing. “Let’s run to the end, then turn around and head back,” she decided. “I’d like to focus on some more core and speed training today.”

  “Didn’t we do enough planks and incline sprints yesterday?”

  “Never enough.” She winked and took off at a near sprint. “Keep up, Metcalf,” she barked.

  He groaned but followed her up the street, pulling ahead of her about halfway through the block. Lily gave it her all, but she couldn’t catch him. He was Hyde Metcalf, and last year he’d been clocked running over twenty-one miles per hour. What did she expect?

  Lily slowed to a walk, catching her breath and admiring the lovely homes. At the end of the cul-de-sac was a huge two-story brick home. Lily loved the dormer windows decorating the second story and the high pitched roof. They must’ve added on a huge apartment above the garage, but it flowed nicely with the original house. The main floor had so many windows she could see straight through the house. So cool. The yard was fabulous too, with landscaped flower beds and grass that belonged on a golf course.