Read Time of Possession (Seattle Lumberjacks #5) for Free Online Page B

course, found they loved the
same type. He shouldn’t have been surprised. It was like God made
this woman for him. Only he couldn’t have her. Look but don’t
touch. Damn, it was tough. Not only was he doing a lot of looking,
but his imagination was running wild when it came to touching. Even
her hands were sexy with those pink nails.
    She almos t made him forget about his
shitty game.
    Oh, God, but now that he remembered, even
Estie’s beautiful face couldn’t completely negate the rest of his
day.
    Brett stared hard at the menu without seeing
it. He’d get his life figured out, starting first with
football—because right now all that could matter to him was
football. He’d spent too much time this past week with his mind
elsewhere, and today’s game reflected his misplaced priorities. He
had a shot, a shot to prove them all wrong, a shot to show the NFL
what he could do given the chance, and today he’d taken that chance
and shot himself in the foot.
    “Brett?”
    He glanced up and stared into those
sapphire-blue eyes. Her concerned gaze flipped a switch inside him,
turning off his ability to keep his distance. “Yes?”
    “Do you want to talk about it?”
    He frowned, feeling like he’d missed the
point of this conversation. “About what?”
    “The game.” She sipped her wine and studied
him over the rim of the glass.
    “Not much to talk about other than I have
some work to do.” Now there was an understatement.
    “You had some good moments. Trust me, I know
football.”
    That he didn’t doubt. After all, she was
Harris’s sister. “And those would be?”
    “You’re staying in the pocket the majority
of the time, not getting flushed out too soon. You played one of
the top five defenses, and your receivers had a hell of a time
getting open.” She leaned on the table, candlelight flickering
across her face.
    God, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Her
eyes lit up as she talked about the game he loved, hitting home to
him one more thing they had in common.
    “I’m not blaming my performance on my
receivers.”
    “I’m not telling you to do that, but don’t
take it all on your shoulders.”
    “I’m the quarterback. It’s all on me. Ask
your brother.”
    “Well, my brother has an ego bigger than it
should be. Stuff rolls off him.”
    “Sometimes I wish I could do that. Building
relationships and timing takes time, and that’s one thing I don’t
have. The guys are trying their damnedest to help me, almost too
much. They’re overcompensating for my lack of experience by trying
too hard, which makes them tight. When you’re not relaxed, you miss
things, make mistakes.”
    “Lead by example: relax yourself, and
they’ll follow.” She reached for his hands and twined her fingers
with his, soft and warm, her voice passionate.
    Brett held on to her and nodded. She had a
point.
    He gazed into her eyes, saw the fire there,
that same fire he’d seen in her brother’s eyes when the odds were
stacked against him, and Tyler wouldn’t ever let that stop him.
Only her fire was for him, as if she could walk on that field and
play that game for him.
    Brett needed to find his own fire, that same
fire that had kept him alive in the Middle East, yet still eluded
him on the football field. Until his teammates saw that he had it , they’d never trust him to be that guy.
    He stared at their fingers intertwined
together, her soft flesh against his calloused skin, loving the
feel of her hands in his, loving how she squeezed his hands tight
as if she could transfer confidence through their linked hands into
his head and his heart.
    “You’re still listening to them, aren’t
you?” Estie’s gaze cut through all the bullshit and burrowed right
into his soul.
    “Them?”
    “Yeah, all those people who said you’re too
short, and you’ll never make it, not NFL caliber. Prove them wrong.
Prove yourself wrong.”
    Brett smiled. “Have you been doing this
long?”
    “What?”
    “Cheerleading. If I had