Wells stared down at the green-eyed girl who was—very inconveniently—even prettier than he remembered, a corkscrew winding into his chest cavity. He kept his jaw tight, gaze unconcerned, but let’s face it, he was starting to get pretty damn concerned.
Unusual for him. To say the least.
Wells Whitaker didn’t need anybody. After his parents got jobs on a cruise ship and started sailing nine months out of the year, he’d been raised by his NASCAR promoter uncle, who didn’t take much of an interest in his nephew beyond allowing him to sleep on the pullout couch in his one-bedroom apartment in Daytona Beach. Wells had engaged in a lot more than the typical childhood mischief growing up, shoplifting and fighting his way to two school expulsions, and his behavior only escalated when his parents decided he wasn’t worth the constant aggravation.
After getting caught with a stolen bike he’d intended to pawn in order to buy a new pair of sneakers, he’d ended up in juvenile court and the judge had given him one more chance to turn his act around. Since he was sixteen, that included getting a job. Looking back, that judge could have come down a lot harder on Wells, and he appreciated what the man had been trying to do. Getting that job shagging balls at the local course had led to his career, his mentor-apprentice relationship with Buck Lee, and eventually his spot on the PGA tour.
And he’d let himself begin to need that friendship. That bond.
He’d allowed himself to need the roar of the crowd after sinking a putt.
But their attention had been quickly diverted to the newest hotshots on the tour.
At the end of the day, though, Wells was pissed only at himself. For believing that people were capable of anything unconditional. There were always contracts or understandings that allowed your colleagues and “friends” to wiggle out, if you turned up lacking one day. He’d fallen victim to the classic has-been plight and that, more than anything, pissed him off.
This fierce girl, who’d gone from holding back tears to looking like she wanted to grind a golf cleat into his guts, couldn’t be any different than anyone else. She’d dropped him, too.
Something inside Wells refused to let him put her into the same category as the ones who’d come and gone, though. Josephine was in a class by herself and goddammit, she wouldn’t seem to budge from it. Not an inch.
I’m not your fan anymore.
“Yes, you are. You’re just having a bad day.”
She started to blink very rapidly. He shuddered to think what she might have said to him if a series of beeps hadn’t filled the room in that moment. She sighed, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small plastic tube, emptying two quarter-size tablets into her mouth.
“What’s beeping? What are those?”
Absently, she lifted her arm until her elbow was pointing up at the ceiling. For the first time since he’d “known” Josephine, he noticed a small, gray, oval-shaped button on the back of her arm. “The beeps are letting me know my blood sugar is low.” She dropped her arm. “I’m a diabetic. Type one.”
“Oh.” He should have known that. Why didn’t he know that? Wells searched his mind for any knowledge whatsoever that might be lurking about diabetes and came up empty. They weren’t supposed to eat anything with sugar, right? “Are those things . . . all you need right now?” he asked, tipping his head toward the tube as she stowed it back into her pocket.
“Yes. Right now.” Under her breath, she added, “Better to have low blood sugar than high.”
“Why is that?”
She pushed a hand through her hair, turning away from him slightly to survey a damaged display rack. “High blood sugar requires me to give myself insulin to come down and I need to spread my supply out.” A slight flush appeared on her cheeks. “My health insurance isn’t up to date at the moment.”
“Oh.”
The knowledge that this person was so much more than his most loyal fan came crashing down on Wells’s head like a ton of bricks. Josephine had problems to contend with. Serious ones. Her family’s shop was underwater and she had to worry about blood sugar going up and down. And he’d ripped her fucking sign in half? What kind of a monster am I?
Wells cleared his throat hard. “Health insurance seems like it might be pretty vital when you’re a diabetic.”
“Trust me, it is. But . . .” Her throat worked. She paused, coughed, and kept her voice even. Brave? Or was she just trying to avoid getting emotional in front of him because he’d demanded it? Both? “Everything just snowballed so fast, you know. Ironic in Florida.” Why did that joke make him want to splash through the water and . . . hug her? Jesus, he was not a hugger. He wasn’t even a shoulder patter. “I fell behind on rent payments for the shop. At first, it came down to paying for rent or the commercial insurance . . . like, flood insurance? I paid the rent.”
A weight sank in his stomach. The shop wasn’t covered.
“Shit, Josephine.”
“Mega shit.” She closed her eyes, shook her head a little. “Last year, I put my health insurance on pause so the payments wouldn’t be a burden on the shop. Started taking on more golf lessons, so I could just buy my medical supplies out of pocket. But like I said, everything just seemed to snowball and . . .” She trailed off. Took a breath, lifted her chin, and pasted on a determined smile. “I’m going to figure it out, though. I always figure it out.”
He hadn’t deserved to have this girl in his corner for the last five years.
That fact was growing more obvious by the moment.
Someone should have been cheering for her, instead.
“I can give you the money,” Wells said, easing the worst of the pressure in his chest. Okay. Yes. He had the solution. She wouldn’t have to spread out her insulin or be forced to take any other measures to remain healthy. He might not be the number one golfer in the world anymore, but he had tens of millions banked from those earlier, successful days. Might as well give the cash to someone who needed it, before he spent it all on scotch. “I’ll write you a check. Enough to repair the shop and cover your health insurance for a year. Just until you’re back on your feet.”
She stared at him like he’d suggested they take a vacation on Mars. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
Silence passed. “Neither do I. So believe me when I say, there isn’t a single chance I’m taking your money. I’m not a charity case. I can take care of myself. And my family.”
“What is this? A pride thing? You’re too stubborn to accept?”
“Are we really pointing out each other’s flaws, because I don’t think you have that kind of time on your hands.”
“I have nothing but time on my hands.”
“Fine! Then your backswing is timid.”
“My—” His neck locked up like a prison cell. “What did you say?”
“I said . . .” She stomped through the water and got right in his face—and damn. It had been a very long time since he’d wanted to take a woman to bed this badly. In fact, maybe he’d never wanted that outcome more in his life. At this exact point in time, it would have been the angry kind of sex that ended with nail marks down his back and her in a stupor, because yeah, she’d just taken a shot at his technique. And she wasn’t done. “You used to swing like you had nothing to lose. It was glorious to watch. Now, you handle the driver like you’re worried the ball might yell at you for hitting it too hard.” She stabbed him in the chest with her index finger. “You swing like you’re scared.”
No one had spoken to Wells like that. Not since Buck.
Not since those early, early days when he’d picked up the club and felt magic race all the way up into his shoulder and a sense of purpose in his fingertips.
It was like coming up through the surface of the water and taking a deep breath.
Her honesty was oxygen.
But breathing it? That part was terrifying.
“You think you could show me better? I had no idea you were a professional.”
“I might not be a professional—”
“No. Because if you were, you would know that once you lose your stroke, getting it back is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I’ve looked, Josephine. One day, a player has formula and the next, he’s forgotten how to pronounce the ingredients. That’s why these greats go on winning streaks that seem endless, but they always end. Success in golf is finite.”
“Do you really believe that or are you just making excuses to be a quitter?”
“I don’t need this shit.”
“Then leave.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I will.”
He didn’t move an inch. The dumbest, most harebrained idea of his life was occurring to him and the more he allowed it to invade his mind, the more oxygen he breathed. Her oxygen. She was an endless supply, standing right in front of him and, Jesus, he couldn’t walk out of there knowing the obstacles she’d have to face by herself. Leaving her to deal with everything alone would haunt him day and night, along with her . . . mouth. God, her mouth. It was the most stubborn and kissable mouth he’d ever seen.
Whatever you do, don’t voice this ridiculous idea out loud.
It probably wasn’t even possible. The longest of long shots.
But maybe . . .
Maybe one last time, he’d swing like he had nothing to lose.
“If I can get back on the tour, if they’ll allow me back on, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and caddie for me? Since you know so goddamn much.”
Josephine went so perfectly still, she might have transformed into a mannequin. “Wait . . . what? Wh-what did you say?”
“You heard me. Next stop on the tour is San Antonio. You in?” He crossed his arms in defense of her shock. Hell, his own shock. “If you won’t just take my money, earn it, instead.”
She stepped back from him, her chest rising and falling. “Are you messing with me?”
“Let’s get one thing straight, belle. You will never wonder where you stand with me or if I’m bullshitting you. You get exactly what you see. I don’t mess around with people, but especially you.”
Heat singed the back of his neck.
Fuck.
That last part had slipped out.
“Because I’m potentially going to be your caddie,” she tacked on, mercifully. “There can’t be any secrets or pretenses between a golfer and his caddie. A caddie is a chauffeur, coach, and priest all in one package.”
“Is that a yes?” Wells asked gruffly, holding his breath.
“I . . .” She looked around the flooded pro shop, as if searching for someone to talk her out of his wild idea. “I mean, I would have a couple of conditions.”
“Name them.”
“I can’t caddie for you indefinitely. When and if I make enough money to remodel the shop the way I’ve always wanted, I’ll have to . . .”
Wells waited. And waited. “You can’t even say the word ‘quit’ can you?”
She made a face. “I’ll have to come home, is what I’m saying.”
“Got it. What else?”
Green eyes zeroed in on him and he sensed the gravity of what came next. “I meant it, Wells. I won’t be pitied. Okay? I’ve been coddled and treated like a charity case many times before, all because of my T1D. But I’m not one. If we make this agreement, it’s because it’ll benefit us both. Not just me.”
Whether this arrangement would benefit him remained to be seen—nothing he’d tried to bring his game back on line had worked, so why would this? But he’d bite. Hell, he didn’t want her to feel like a charity case, either. “Done.”
“Then . . . I don’t think I can say no.”
Wells tried not to be obvious about his breath escaping. “Fine.” He shrugged. “Good.”
“Do you really think you can get back on the tour?”
“You let me worry about that. You just show up and carry the bag.”
Several beats of silence passed while she looked at him, almost appearing bewildered.
“What is it, Josephine?”
“You didn’t even . . . consider that diabetes might make it hard or impossible to carry your bag all over a golf course for eighteen holes.”
“You’ve done harder things than carry a bag. Haven’t you?”
God help him, the sheen that appeared in her eyes made him utterly fucking determined to get his ass back on the tour, even if it meant swallowing his pride—and he’d be doing that by the mouthful. “Yes,” she finally answered. “I . . . yes. Thank you.”
Before Wells could do something out of character, like ask if she perhaps needed a tissue or a comforting shoulder pat, he turned and stomped out of the water.
“Wait!” She splashed after him. “I have one more condition.”
“What now? A kidney?”
“Maybe later,” she responded, without missing a beat. “For now, let me take you to get a haircut and shave. I’m not being seen on national television with a guy who looks like he just survived six months in the Amazon.”
Wells cast her a dark look over his shoulder, despite the bubble of amusement lurking near his collarbone. Honestly, he shouldn’t have given up any more ground, but the PGA wouldn’t allow him onto the green looking like an ungodly mess, anyway, so might as well concede the point to Josephine. “Is that the final item on your list?”
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Fine. Let’s go. I’ll give you a ride.”
“A ride? Didn’t you say you walked here?”
“What did I say about questions?” Sliding on his shades, he unlocked the door of his Ferrari with an expensive-sounding beep. “Get in and hold on.”
