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nodded again, then said, “I know. I just wished she knew how much I miss her.”
    “She knows,” Annabelle assured her. “She misses you just as much.” She gave her mother’s shoulders a soft squeeze. “Now please go sit down and let me take care of this.”
    “So bossy,” Ruth commented with a crooked tilt of her mouth.
    Annabelle straightened. “I had to get it from someone.”

FOUR
    B lake paused as he stepped into the locker room, twenty minutes before he was supposed to meet with Matt West for extra practice. It wasn’t the dark interior that gave him pause, nor was it Cameron kicked back in Blake’s office, watching game film. It was the muted conversation coming from the weight room. The deep rumbling of one of his players, mixed with soft laughter. A woman’s laughter.
    And not just any woman. A woman who’d barged into his life and threw his hormones into all kinds of chaos. A woman he didn’t want or need hanging around and telling him how to deal with his players and run his team. But here she was anyway, when no one else was supposed to be around, sending his automatic suspicious meter haywire.
    Blake set his bag down, sending Cameron a quick glance before heading toward the weight room. The voices grew louder as he neared the door. The kid, who sounded like Matt, said something to Annabelle, prompting a giggle from her.
    A carefree bubble of laughter like that of someone who had no ulterior motive. No agenda lurking in the shadows, waiting to pull a fast one on him. Even if Annabelle Turner didn’t really strike him as manipulative or sneaky, Blake had yet to make the final decision for himself.
    He stood in the doorway of the weight room and watched as Annabelle performed some kind of neck exercise on Matt. The kid was lying on his back on a bench, with Annabelle standing at his head, cradling the kid’s neck in her hands. She spoke to him in a low, comforting voice, telling him to relax.
    “I’m going to give your head a gentle tug,” she told Matt. “Just take a deep breath for me, and then slowly let it out.”
    Matt’s eyes dropped closed and Annabelle performed the stretch, with her petite hands gripping Matt’s jaw and chin.
    “How’s that?” she asked the kid.
    “It’s good,” Matt muttered.
    Annabelle adjusted her stance. “Okay, I’m going to pull a little harder this time.”
    Matt cleared his throat. “Just don’t dislocate my head from my shoulders,” he joked. “I don’t think Coach would be too happy about that.”
    The corners of Annabelle’s mouth curled up and Blake was hit with the new and odd sensation of lust. New because…well…he hadn’t had it this bad for a woman in a long time. And odd because he’d never had such a powerful reaction to a woman quite like Annabelle Turner. Opinionated. Headstrong. Stubborn.
    Kind of like him. Totally opposite from the type of woman who usually floated his boat.
    Blake didn’t know how to handle it, nor did he like it.
    “You should give your coach some more credit,” she told Matt. “He may push you hard, but it’s with the best intentions.”
    Blake hung back, not sure how to take her words but damn sure they’d shifted something inside his chest.
    “My dad says a lot of the stuff people said about him isn’t true,” Matt commented. “He says Blake’s not that kind of guy.”
    Annabelle shifted her hold on Matt’s head. “I suppose your dad would know, being his cousin and all, wouldn’t he? Also, the media has a way of exaggerating the truth.”
    Blake was just about to turn and leave, not wanting to eavesdrop on their conversation any more than he was, when Annabelle said, “Coach cares about you, you know. He hasn’t exactly had a warm welcome from some of the parents, so he has a lot to prove.”
    His skin prickled along the back of his neck as Annabelle finished the stretch and motioned for Matt to sit up.
    “What about you?” the kid asked. “What do you think?”
    Blake could