Rachel's Redemption by Jennifer Maitlen Read Free Book Online Page B

What? Had she never had a steak and baked potato before?
    “Hey, Coach. Oh, sorry.” Rachel and Logan both looked up from their plates. Charlie and his other coaches, including Tom, stood by their table. “Didn’t know you . . .” Charlie gave Rachel the once over, “. . . were still eating.”
    Logan had been so caught up in Rachel and her mouth on her fork, on her wine glass, her contented sighs, that he’d completely forgotten he’d asked his coaches to meet him later to go over the playbook. How he’d let a gaming session slip his mind was further testament to why this event and Rachel needed to go far away. They both were proving to be the distraction he knew they would be. Worse. Now thoughts of her soft sighs and closed eyes would haunt his days . . . and nights.
    Logan cleared his throat. “Hey, guys. We’re a . . .”
    He cast a glance to Rachel who was staring longingly at the remainder of her potato but regrettably—for both of them—put her fork down, and placed her napkin on the table. The sultry show was over. And, damn if a part of him, the southern part, wasn’t depressed. “. . . just finishing up.”
    Rachel studied the guys crowding around the table, expectantly. Logan did introductions. “Charlie, grab a table in the back and I’ll be right there.”
    Then Rachel said, “I better get going.” She slid from the booth and rifled through her bag. She pulled out two twenties, but before she could drop them on the table, Logan’s arm snaked out and grasped her wrist.
    Rachel looked at him, alarmed. He loosened his grip slightly.
    “What? Do you still take me for the poor kid? The one without a dime to his name?” He firmly rolled her fingers over the unwanted money. “This one’s on me.”

Chapter 7
    Logan sat at the table across from Charlie. He listened as Charlie proposed a new running play. Developing plays, strategizing, formulating the game plan, were usually something Logan enjoyed. But, all he could think about was Rachel Delaney-Tolbert.
    He’d watched her stride out of the bar. Maybe he’d been too abrupt, too forceful about the money, but it’d struck a chord. All the time he’d grown up here, it’d been the Delaney’s or the Tolbert’s or the Delaney-Tolbert’s giving money for this, giving money for that. A new building named after one of them, a park named for another. You basically couldn’t piss in Redemption without hitting a monument to the noble family.
    And now that family—namely one very sexy granddaughter—had her sights on his territory for their latest Delaney-Tolbert proclamation.
    Well, over his dead body. And, after watching Rachel melt over her food tonight, he had no doubt he was very much alive, willing, and ready to go.
    “Logan?”
    He met four sets of expectant eyes. He blinked. “Yeah?”
    Charlie pointed at the laminated sheet on the table. “I think if we run with two backs in this scheme, we can use the safeties down field to draw the defense off the line.”
    Logan watched as Charlie’s index finger touched each ‘X’ and ‘O’ on the sheet. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, reads like a good play.”
    Charlie continued staring at the diagram, tapping the marker on the table. Larry licked his thumb and removed some of the dry-erase ‘X’s then he pulled the marker from Charlie’s fingers and started drawing.
    Logan watched the imaginary “players” disappear and reappear and soon they were a blur again as his thoughts went back to Rachel and why this event was such a big, hairy deal. There was the rec center, the library, the elementary school. Hell, she could have it in the mayor’s backyard, for all he cared. Just not his territory.
    Of course, he’d blown setting her straight on that count tonight. Nope, he’d been too busy gawking. And dreaming. Something, he had no doubt, would plague his thoughts tonight. And the next.
    “You know, maybe we should continue this another time.” Larry nodded to Charlie then waited to