Page 29 of The Maverick's Homecoming

CHAPTER Four

As soon as Kenzie shut the door, she turned around and sagged back against it.

She’d kissed him…again. And it had been even better than that kiss on Central Avenue last spring. Closing her eyes and resting a hand on her growing belly, she drew a slow, careful breath as she relived what had just happened. She remembered the lovely press of his hard body to her soft one, the feel of his lips on hers…

A silly spurt of gleeful laughter escaped her and she clapped her hand over her mouth. She sounded ridiculous. She wasbeingridiculous.

And at the moment, she didn’t even care.

She’d kissed Finn good-night and that kiss had been perfect.

But then later, after she’d changed into a giant sleep shirt, when she stood at the bathroom sink brushing her teeth, she stared into her own eyes in the mirror and watched her face turn beet red.

The kiss had been great. True, it meant nothing. But it had been beautiful, nonetheless.

It was what she’d done before the kiss that bothered her. Before the kiss, she’d overshared in the worst way. The last thing Finn Monahan needed to know was the most pitiful, humiliating truth about her marriage. She’d married a guy who’d not only lied from the first, said he wanted kids when he didn’t, but had also cheated.

Repeatedly.

“TMI,” she growled and shook the toothbrush at her own beet-red face in the mirror. “Never again.”

But later, in bed with the light out, it was Finn’s kiss that she remembered. He’d always been the best kisser, alternately tender and possessive, playful and intense.

A long sigh escaped her as her hand strayed downward under the covers.

* * *

In the next week, Finn saw Kenzie every day at football practice. When their gazes met, she would smile and wave.

And that was it, the whole of their interaction Sunday through Friday. There was no time for more—not at practice, no way. Not during that particular week. That week, every single second at practice had to be about making the Titans the best they could be. Because Friday night, they would be playing their first game of the season, at home.

As for after practice, well, then there was work. He scrambled to show houses, write offers and close sales. More than once when he finally got home in the evening, he grabbed his phone to check in with Kenzie…and hesitated.

He thought of the previous Saturday night and wondered if she might be thinking about it, too. About the things she’d revealed to him. About that kiss at her front door…

They were getting closer, he and Kenzie. At least it felt that way to him. Did she feel the same?

He realized he was a little bit afraid to find out.

So he never did call her, and she didn’t call him.

But hewouldcall. No doubt about it. As soon as the Titans won their first game Friday night.

Until then, he was all about the team.

Those boys worked hard. Tenacity was not only the name of their town and their school, but it was also who they were. They got knocked down. But they never gave up.

As each practice went by, Finn felt better about the opening game Friday night.

The Titans would play Bronco Valley High.

Barrett said, “Bronco Valley will definitely give us a run for the money. But our boys are better now than last year, or any year in more than a decade. I’m thinking positive. We just might squeak by with a win.”

Finn was thinking the same thing.

Oscar, who had his own system now to organize the stats he loved so much, wasn’t so confident. He offered the names of several of the Bronco Valley players who had considerably more skill and experience than the corresponding players on the home team, twisting the knife in his calm, supremely logical way by rattling off performance metrics as well as physical attributes and performance data.

“Numbers don’t lie, Coach,” Oscar warned.