“Look, Annabeth, if you came here about Will, I can’t help you . . .”

“I didn’t come here about Will.” She took two steps toward him. “New Jersey is about Will. I came here, to you, because you were right. Because I want to be more,” she whispered as she tentatively placed a hand on his heart. Immediately, his hand covered hers, cocooning it in the warmth of his skin. “I came here because I’m done hiding.”

Moving her body closer to his, she stretched up on her toes and kissed him. It was a sweet kiss, one in which she tried to apologize for the way she’d hurt him the other day. But Hank would have none of it. His hands went to her hair as he delved deeper into her mouth, their tongues sliding against one another. She moaned as his mouth left hers, finding its way to her sensitive neck.

“God, Annabeth, I thought I’d never see you again,” he murmured against her skin. “I’ve missed you.”

She pulled his mouth back to hers and kissed him with a slow hunger that threatened to completely obliterate her plans. Somehow, the backs of her thighs had come in contact with the Chippendale table and her dress was now bunched up at her waist. Hank’s hands squeezed her bottom as he lifted her onto the table. When she wrapped a leg around him, her calf came in contact with his bare ass. Annabeth drew her hands over his sides, and then his back, reveling in the muscles bunched beneath her fingertips.

With a soft moan, she pulled out of the kiss. Hank rested his forehead on her shoulder as both of them struggled for breath.

“We can’t do this right now.” She traced her finger down his rib cage. “We have to go to New Jersey first.”

“The Jersey Turnpike will be a parking lot at this hour.” He stroked a thumb over her pebbled nipple.

“We have to. For Will.”

Hank let out a long-suffering groan in protest. She felt his erection jump between their bodies. He took a step back, reaching down to the floor to retrieve his towel.

“I’m not going to New Jersey for Will.” He tied the towel around his waist as Annabeth’s heart stopped in panic. “I’m going for you.”

She sucked in a relieved breath. “Thank you,” she whispered. “And if you still want me after what I have to do there . . .”

Hank closed the space between them, bracketing her face in his hands. “Annabeth, I’ve wanted you since long before the morning I saw you standing in my library.” He placed a tender kiss on one side of her mouth. “I’ve adored you since you first stuck up for Sophie.” Gently his lips brushed her mouth’s other corner. “I fell in love with you on a ferryboat. Nothing you can do could make me want you, adore you, or love you less.” He kissed her fully this time with the promise of wicked things to come later, while totally annihilating any brain cell activity Annabeth had left. When his mouth reluctantly left hers, her lips nearly whimpered in protest.

“But we’ll do it your way. We’ll go to New Jersey.” He pinned her with an arresting glance. “But afterward, you’re mine.”

Annabeth was grateful to be still sitting on the small table as she met Hank’s azure eyes, now blazing with passion. She gnawed on her bruised lip before nodding.

“Coffee’s in the kitchen. You’ll find the travel mugs in the cabinet. I’ll be ready to go in five minutes.”

Annabeth watched him disappear up the long staircase as she tried to calm her thundering heart. Her body felt slightly bereft and a little agitated that they hadn’t finished what they started. But she was still grappling with the heady concept that he loved her. Adjusting her dress as she slid off the table, she had trouble holding back her grin. Hank Osbourne loved her. Her. Annabeth Connelly. The thought made her giddy. She wandered to the kitchen for the promised coffee, thinking her day was starting off better than she hoped. Now all she needed was for the rest of it to go as well.

* * *

“Okay.” Hank slipped his cell phone into its charger. “The two NFL attorneys are going to meet us there. Since you’ve asked for witnesses, I assume you aren’t taking me to a mafia hit. Or are you, Annabeth?”

She laughed at him. They’d ended up taking Hank’s car, a sleek little Audi that slipped easily through the rush hour traffic. Hank drove like he did everything else, with authority. Annabeth curled up on the leather seat, her legs tucked beneath her, her torso turned to face Hank’s profile.

“Nothing that nefarious. Although I can’t rule anything out.”

“Just tell me this, are we expected?”

“No. I’m counting on the element of surprise.”

Hank took Exit 18W toward Fort Lee. They traveled through the center of town before finally entering a suburban neighborhood of tree-lined streets and quaint Craftsman houses. He parked along the curb across from their destination, the car purring to a halt as he killed the engine. Leaning his head against the headrest, Hank took a swallow of his coffee.

“This is Coach Zevalos’s house,” he said without preamble.

Annabeth tried to hide her surprise. “You’ve been here?”

Hank turned his head to face her. “Of course I have. When the whispers started to include Will’s name, I came here to try to make sense of all of it. Will wouldn’t talk to me, so I tried to get Zevalos to tell me. Obviously, I wasn’t successful.”

“Well, maybe you didn’t have the right incentive to make him talk.” She undid a button on the bodice of her sundress.

Hank sat up in his seat. “What the hell are you planning on doing here, Annabeth?”

She made note of the fact that the tops of Hank’s ears got red when he was angry. Or jealous, whichever the case might be. Annabeth pressed a hand to his chest. “Relax. He wouldn’t talk to you because you wear pants. Trust me. He’ll talk to me.” She leaned across the console and kissed the corner of his mouth. “You’ll see.”

A blue American-made sedan pulled up and parked behind them.

“Ah, the cavalry has arrived,” Annabeth said as she grabbed her purse and hopped out of the car.

Standing on the sidewalk outside Coach Zevalos’s house, Hank made the introductions, but Annabeth wasn’t paying attention. There wasn’t time to waste if she was going to preserve her son’s name. Smoothing down the skirt to her dress, she marched past the pots of carefully planted zinnias and geraniums up the concrete steps. The door opened before she knocked, startling her.

“Mrs. Connelly?”

Annabeth had met Marie Zevalos several times during the years Will had played at Yale. In her late sixties, the woman was a throwback to the housewives of the mid-1900s, treating her husband with deference, acquiescing to his every whim. With her big, overbleached hair and round body, she was the perfect foil to the arrogant, macho coach whose ego knew no bounds.

“It’s Miss Connelly,” Hank clarified from where he stood beside her.

Annabeth brought her elbow back, slightly making contact with his ribs. He took the hint and stepped back, the message received that she was running the show.

“Mrs. Zevalos, how nice to see you again,” Annabeth began. “I believe you’ve already met Mr. Osbourne?”

Marie broke out into a bright smile at the sight of Hank before her face registered her confusion. “Yes, he came to visit Paul a few weeks ago. But Paul told him not to come back.”

“We’re actually here to see you, Mrs. Zevalos.” Annabeth answered with a grin of her own, hoping that behind her, Hank was treating the woman to one of his more charming smiles.

“Oh . . . well . . . I can’t imagine what you want with me.” Flustered, Marie stepped back from the doorway.

Not wasting the opportunity, Annabeth stepped across the threshold. “I wanted to speak with you, woman-to-woman,” she said, letting her voice carry throughout the small house.

“Oh!” Marie wrung her hands as the three men behind Annabeth crowded into the foyer.

“This will only take a minute,” Annabeth reassured her. The last thing she needed was a panicked Marie Zevalos. Her plan wouldn’t work if the woman collapsed on the floor. Gently taking the woman’s elbow, she steered her toward the airy kitchen at the back of the house. “We have so much to catch up on,” she said loudly.

A spasm of coughing from a nearby room grabbed Marie’s attention.

“Marie!”

Annabeth’s knees nearly buckled with relief at the sound of the raspy bellow. Coach Zevalos had heard her, just as she’d planned.

“Oh!” Marie reached for a tray with a can of ginger ale and an empty glass on it. “Just let me give this to Paul and we can have some tea.”

“Tea would be lovely. And please tell Coach Zevalos I said hello.” Annabeth poured on the saccharin.

As soon as Marie disappeared with the tray, Hank gestured for the two league representatives to sit on the sofa in the living room. He turned to Annabeth, a sly smile on his face. “Well played,” he mouthed.

She beamed under his praise but silently worried what he’d think of her after the second act. Marie shuffled back to the kitchen, flustered once again.

“Paul said he’d like to see you. Right now. Before we have tea.” The poor woman clearly didn’t like the idea of anyone upsetting her ill husband, and Annabeth wondered what it was like to love someone so blindly.

“Sure, but I’ll only keep him a minute. Then we girls can chat.” She patted Marie’s shoulder. “Mr. Osbourne is going to go with me to apologize for upsetting Coach during his last visit.”

Before Marie could protest, Annabeth grabbed Hank’s hand, towing him behind her as she made her way into the small sitting room where Coach Zevalos was holed up. The sight before her nearly stole the wind from her sails. The man in the oversized recliner looked nothing like the one she’d met thirteen years ago. Coach Zevalos was now a haggard shell of himself, lung cancer from his pack-a-day habit diminishing what had been a tall, robust, athletically built man. His ashen skin sagged at his jowls and his once-haughty dark eyes were now just angry; whether it was from the sight of her or the fact that his time on this earth was short, she wasn’t sure. Nor did she care.