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Nothing But Trouble
by Amy Andrews

Copyright © 2019 by Amy Andrews. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

CHAPTER ONE

     There were some days Cecelia Morgan would gladly shove her boss off the top of Mile High stadium in downtown Denver. This was one of them. Wade The Catapult Carter may be QB royalty but he was lousy at relationships. Allergic to them, actually. And that was a pain in the ass for her.

“But I thought he really liked me.”

     “Of course he did.”

CC used her best soothing tones as she comforted the slightly hysterical woman on the other end of the line. Her name was Annabel. CC knew that because Annabel had rung her frequently the last few weeks chasing Wade because, god forbid, he should ever give out his cell number.

Plus she’d supplied it to the florist this morning. The florist who had a standing order for a letting-her-down-gently floral arrangement. And a draw full of cards that all said the same thing.

I’ve enjoyed our time together. Unfortunately I can’t commit to further dates. Thanks for your company.

WC.

For crying out - the man didn’t even personalize it with his damn name!

“He took me to that flashy new restaurant three nights ago. You don’t take just anyone there, CC. There’s a wait list.”

CC stifled a sigh. Wait lists didn’t matter when you were more famous than God and John Denver in Bronco’s country. Celebrity opened doors. Wade didn’t use his obnoxiously but he didn’t have to.

People knew who he was.

Restaurants ushered him to tables, fancy watch companies send him exclusive timepieces, car salesmen handed over keys. 

And women opened their legs.

“Oh god.” There was a long groan on the other end of the line. “He was just using me for sex, wasn’t he?”

CC blinked at Annabel’s candor. She drew in a deep breath and thought about a warm So Cal beach. The Pacific Ocean. Blond surfer dudes with tans and abs.

Six months. Just six more months.

No more twenty-four seven availability. No more midnight runs to the nearest gas station for Wonka Nerds. No more phone calls from emotional women she barely knew.

“Wade doesn’t discuss his dates with me.”

CC stuck to the company line instead of saying what she wanted to say which was – ya think? And also, weren’t you using him, too? Bagging a famous jock for some social capital?

Bragging rights with the gal pals?

Because she knew Wade would have given Annabel the usual spiel. He didn’t go out with any woman unless he had.

He wasn’t interested in anything more than a date or two.

He wasn’t interested in anything long term.

He wasn’t interested in a wife.

How many times has she heard Wade say that either over the phone or face-to-face, “Don’t fall for me darlin’, I don’t do past next week.”

And as much as CC really hated this part of her job and she thought Wade needed to stop treating the women of the world like he was in a candy shop and they were the buffet, he was always up front with them.

Always.

But...as usual, there were a handful of women who thought they’d be different.

They’d be the one.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was really freaking awesome sex. I mean...holy cow, CC, that man knows things about a woman’s body. Like knows things.”

Oh God! Palm trees. Seagulls. The sound of the surf.

“He does this thing with-”

“Oookay!”

Too. Much. Information. CC might pretty much run Wade Carter’s life but there were some things she just didn’t want to know about the man. Some things you just couldn’t unhear.

“I’m telling you, that man has stamina.”

Well yes. He’d been a star quarterback for the Bronco’s for thirteen years. There were three Super Bowl rings in his safe to prove it. He had stamina.

Throw the man a parade.

“Okay, well...thank you for calling.”

     “No. Wait! CC?”

     CC sighed. She’d never perfected the art of the polite hang up. Wade was excellent at it but these women broke her heart.

“You know the man. What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently?”

A humorless laugh rose in CC’s throat and she quashed it ruthlessly. What could she have done differently?

How about not putting out.

It was that simple. Her boss was a man – one with stamina and apparently crazy good skills with some part of his body she did not want to know about. One who used sex for recreation with absolutely no intention of follow through.  

In other words, he was a total, unashamed, card-carrying horn dog.  

What did a woman do differently with such a man? How did she get that guy’s attention? She said the one thing Mr Hotshot Quarterback wasn’t used to saying. The one word no woman had ever said to him.

No.

Sure. He might walk away without doing that thing he does with his whatever. But it might just make him work a little harder too.

Seriously, what was wrong with these women?

She’d known treat-them-mean-keep-them-keen since she was five years old. But maybe that was just a result of having five older, very protective brothers. 

     Not that she’d had a chance to treat anyone mean since she’d taken up this job. Being Wade Carter’s PA-cum-slave for the last five years had pretty much decimated her social life and killed her sex life dead.

Wade always seemed to know when she was about to get lucky in those rare moments of free time he allowed her. It was like he’d shoved a GPS tracker under her skin one day when she’d been too exhausted to protest.

“CC?” 

     CC dragged her attention back to the woman waiting on the other end of the phone. She should have pulled out her usual line about not discussing Wade with anybody. But she didn’t. There was something in the pitch of Annabel’s voice that tugged at CC’s heartstrings.

     She sighed. “Annabel, you’re perfect just the way you are. Don’t change for any man, okay.”

     And she hung up the phone. Wade would be proud.

     Wade glared at the blinking cursor on the blank screen. It’d been doing that for the last three hours. Sitting there. Blinking. Defying him.

Not too many things defied Wade Carter. Mostly they just saw him coming and got out of his way. Everything from a two hundred and fifty pound linebacker to a two hundred and fifty pound hog.   

Well...everything except his mother. His PA. And this fucking annoying cursor.

When he’d been approached by a publishing house immediately after his retirement three years ago he’d dismissed it out of hand. But so any people had asked for it since – fans and sports commentators and NFL execs – that he’d started to think about it seriously. The publishing house, who had coughed up a million dollar advance, had offered to get a ghost writer but Wade had refused.

He might not have graduated summa cum lade but he wasn’t an idiot. He’s read all the great American classics and could get his head around algebra. He’d actually been a reasonable student – he just hadn’t seen the point wasting time inside the classroom when he could be out on the field where his true vocation lay.

And now here he was. Just him and the cursor.

Wade had no idea why it was taking him so long to write the first word. He and CC had prepared copious, detailed notes about his life and career to be included in the book.

But he didn’t know where to start.

Where was he supposed to start? At the beginning? Back on the hog farm in Credence? Or when he started playing for the Buffaloes at the U of C? Or when he was drafted to the Broncos? He’d had a long and illustrious career in the NFL before his knee had blown out for the last time a few years back.

And he couldn’t figure out where to start.

He glanced up from his screen, seeking inspiration through the floor to ceiling windows throwing summer light into his office. From his Cherry Creek apartment he could see the gleaming curves of the horse-shoe shaped bowl belonging to Mile High. Even now he could still hear the roar of the crowd inside his head.

Behind that, in the distance, stood the jagged outline of the Rocky Mountains. They rose majestically - strong and indomitable. As strong and indomitable as the spirit within Mile High on game night. 

It was a view that always overawed him. The juxtaposition of the modern and the ancient, the man made and the natural. Both of them had shaped him. And the sight of them both humbled and strengthened him.

It was inspirational stuff. Except today. Today he had nuthin’.

He groaned as he plonked his head on the desk, disturbing one of the many piles of neatly stacked papers that CC had meticulously printed out and compiled, each marked with post its and labeled clearly in her legible, no-nonsense hand writing.

That handwriting annoyed him more than usual right now. 

“You should have got a ghost writer.”

Wade lifted his head off the desk and shot an annoyed look at his PA lounging in his open doorway. She was in her regulation blue jeans and red stripy t-shirt. She thought it made her look Parisian. He thought it made her look like a tiny female version of Where’s Wally.

“There is nobody more equipped than me to write about me.”

Wade tried and failed to keep the exasperation out of his voice. It was the same argument he’d had with the publisher. And won. And he was in no mood to have it with CC – again. 

“Yes. But.” Her eyebrows beetled beneath the feathery bangs of her pixie cut. “Writing is a different skill to throwing a ball.”

Leave it to CC to point out the fucking obvious. But still, Wade hated how this was already kicking his ass. He succeeded at everything he did. Nothing defeated The Catapult.

Not even the blinking cursor of death.

“So I should spend weeks talking to someone else so they can tell my story?”

“Sure, why not” She shrugged. “You do like talking about yourself.”

Wade grunted as he returned his attention to the screen. “Why do I pay you so much money, again?”

“Because I’m the only PA on the face of the planet who doesn’t quit after you wake me at three in the morning to go and buy you Wonka Nerds and condoms.”

He grinned at the memory. Yeah, she’d been really pissed about that. But...it’d been the deal they’d made. Six years of twenty-four seven. He paid her a shit load of money and her time was his.

What the hell he was going to do without her in six months when she left for So Cal he didn’t even want to contemplate.

 “That was an emergency.”

“The apartment burning down is an emergency.”

Wade laughed. He loved the dryness of CC’s wit and how she didn’t try to flatter him or pussyfoot around him. And he appreciated it. His mother always said men needed someone to call them on their horseshit.

Well, his mother never said horseshit because not even fifty years in rural Colorado could coax the southern Texas lady out of her. But when she said balooey they all knew what she meant.

CC wandered into his office. “I also don’t complain when I have to provide regular phone counseling to distraught women.”

Wade flicked his gaze up from the damn blinking cursor. “It sounds like you’re about to, though.”

“Seriously Wade.” She sighed as she pulled to a stop on the opposite side of his desk, crossing her arms under her breasts.

She totally wasn’t his type. He was the full jock cliché - into tall, busty, blondes. And CC was his PA and he’d promised her all those years ago, when he’d seen her knee her then boss in the balls for making a pass, that he would never go there with her.

But you couldn’t beat biology. He was a man, he was genetically wired to notice boobs.

“Just give them your damn cell number already.”

Hell no. One of the advantages of having money was having someone else take care of stuff you didn’t want to do yourself. Being able to abdicate all the unpleasant things was one of the perks of being seriously fucking rich. “Annabel?”

“Yes. Annabel. And before that it was Chrissie. And before that, Shondra.”

Yeah. He’d been picking some doozies lately. It didn’t seem to matter how many times he told the women he took to his bed he wasn’t looking for a wife, they were getting more determined. It had taken a lot of fun out of dating.

Between them and this book he was going a little stir crazy. Maybe he was losing his mojo?

“Can’t you be a little more...discerning?”

He propped his legs up on his desk and raised his arms up to tuck his hands behind his head, the back reclining slightly. “What can I say, women like me.” Then he smiled that smile he knew would make her roll her eyes.

She didn’t disappoint.

Thankfully his cell rang cutting her off from any further observations about his reputation with the ladies. He reached for it, noticing the word mom displayed on the screen as he pushed back in his chair again. Few people had this number. His parents, his brothers, some old NFL buddies and CC.

He put her on speaker. “Hey mom.”

     “Wade.” The soft lilt of her southern accent was as soothing as it’d always been. “How’s my baby?”

CC rolled her eyes again and Wade stifled a laugh. He was thirty-eight years old, filthy rich and about as close to sporting royalty as was possible for an ex quarterback to be, but he’d always be her baby.

“Same old, same old.”

“Staying outta trouble?”

“Always.” CC snorted.

“You’re going to church.”

“Every Sunday.”

CC mouthed, “You’re going to hell,” and Wade grinned.

His mother laughed, obviously not fooled by that one. “Well, now listen, darlin’, don’t go getting all worked up, just ringing to let you know your dad had a bit of a...funny turn and he’s in the hospital.”

Wade sat up abruptly. “What kind of a funny turn?” His father was as strong as an ox but he was almost seventy. Sure, Wyatt, his older brother did most of the heavy lifting on the farm these days but his Dad was still in the thick of it.

CC took two steps to the desk, her forehead furrowed, her cell already out of her pocket.

     “My dad’s in the hospital.”

     “He went all dizzy and short of breath yesterday. He had some kind of arrhythmia or something. But Doc McNally sent him to Denver to be sure and the heart specialist here says he needs a pacemaker.”

     “A pacemaker.”

Wade felt a little dizzy himself. And maybe like throwing up. His father had something wrong with his heart. His father who’d first tossed a ball to Wade when he’d been three years old.

“You’re at St Lukes?”

“Now, darlin’, there’s no need to rush over, your father’s right as rain. Cussin’ up a storm.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

Wade stood, his gaze meeting CC’s. “Fuck.”

     She nodded. CC’s father had walked out on her mother when she’d been three and she’d made damn sure Wade had kept in close contact with his these past six years. Three days ago a post it on his desk in the morning had reminded Wade it was his father’s birthday. And he’d got distracted and forgot to call.

     Fuck.

“Just ordered an Uber. It’ll be here in five.”

     He shook his head. “I’ll drive.” It’d give him something to do. Something to concentrate on.

     “Okay. I’ll cancel.” Her thumbs got busy on her cell. She glanced up from the screen. “Go.”

     Her urging sliced into his inertia. Right. Yes. Go. And he was moving. “I’ll call from the hospital.”

     “Yep.”

     He was at the door when CC called his name and he turned back. She tossed him a packet of Nerds she’d just pulled from her pocket. He caught them in his right hand, out of pure instinct.

     “Thanks.”

What was he going to do without her?