"Well, taking back designer dresses to places like Saks with big armpit stains was always embarra.s.sing. Picking up prescriptions for various s.e.xually transmitted diseases was mortifying, and breaking up with someone else's girlfriend or boyfriend was sad."

"Oh." Bo sighed and reached for some cottage cheese.

Her sister looked so relived, Chelsea had to ask, "What did you think I was going to say was worse? That I was working for a madam in the Hollywood Hills?"

"No." They continued beneath the fluorescent lights of the Safeway. "I just hoped that you never had to do anything illegal."

There was illegal. Then there was illegal. She'd mostly just committed your ordinary illegal stuff. Run a red light. Drove too fast. Hopped aboard the ganja train at a few parties in the past. "Do we need some b.u.t.ter?" she asked, purposely changing the subject before her sister could ask any specific questions.

Bo shook her head and checked milk and cottage cheese off her list. "Jules never came back after lunch."

"Hmm." Chelsea picked up several containers of fat-free cherry yogurt.

"Did he go to the Spitfire with you?"

"No." She dumped the yogurt into the cart. "Do you want string cheese? We used to love string cheese."

"I don't want any." Bo moved to the eggs. "What do you think of Jules?"

"I think he works hard to look good." She grabbed some key lime yogurt too. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Except he's full of himself."

Chelsea hadn't gotten that impression. "If you work hard on your body, you kind of have the right to brag about it. If I worked out, I'd brag. But I don't, because I hate pain."

"He's rude too." Bo opened the egg carton and checked for breakage. "And obnoxious."

A harried mother with three kids hanging out of her cart wheeled past, and Chelsea looked at her sister. "I didn't think so. Maybe he's a little cynical."

Bo looked over at her as she shut the carton. "Why do you say he's cyn-ical?"

"Because he said something about love not working out. My guess is that he's had his heart broken a few times." She leaned forward and rested her forearms on the handle of the cart. "But haven't we all?"

"He used to weigh a lot, and I think he still sees himself as the fat kid in school."

"You're kidding. He doesn't have an ounce of fat on him now," Chelsea said as Bo put the eggs in the seat of the cart next to their purses. "He's ripped and he has those beautiful green eyes. You should date him."

"Jules?" Bo made a gagging sound.

"You should. He's very cute, and you two have a lot in common."

"What are you planning to do tomorrow?" her sister asked and changed the subject.

"I'm not sure." Chelsea recognized the maneuver and let her. "I've never worked for someone who doesn't have a list as long as my arm and expects the impossible. Mark said something about wanting to move out of Medina. So maybe I'll start looking at real estate options for him. His house is too d.a.m.n big for one guy anyway."

"Most of the athletes around here live downtown, or on Mercer, or in Newport Hills." She pushed the cart toward the butcher block. "At least I think a lot of the Seahawks and Chinooks still live in Newport. That's how it became known as Jock Rock."

Chelsea made a mental note to check real estate listings in those areas. "What movie are we going to watch tonight?"

"How about something with aliens?" Bo suggested and grabbed a package of hamburger.

Chelsea reached for a produce baggy above the chicken. "Something not cheesy, like Independence Day? Maybe a little cheesy, like Men in Black? Or heavy on the cheese, like Critters?"

"Heavy, like Mars Attacks!"

"Good call. A little black comedy and with a dash of political satire, all wrapped up in B-movie parody. Gotta love Tim Burton."

"You aren't going to quote dialog throughout the whole movie are you?" Bo sighed. "I just want to kill you when you do that."

Chelsea grabbed a package of legs and thighs. In L.A., she and her friends had recited lines during movies. It had been part of the fun. At least for them. "You mean like, 'Little people, why can't we all just get along?'"

SIX.

Though it wasn't easy, Chelsea controlled herself during Mars Attacks! and didn't recite dialog. Afterward, she grabbed her laptop and climbed into bed. She placed the computer in front of her crossed knees and turned it on. A picture of Christian Bale, all duded up in 3:10 to Yuma, popped up on her desktop. She'd never met Christian Bale but she admired any actor who could play Jesus in one movie and Batman in the next and do both roles justice. Sure, he had a bit of an anger problem. So did Russell Crowe, but that didn't make either of them bad actors. Although she did have to admit that if Christian didn't learn to control himself like Russell had, she'd have to find someone else to love from afar.

She plugged in her Verizon PC card and logged onto the Internet. She purposely didn't click on her bookmarks. She didn't want to know any of the Hollywood gossip or read what producer was looking to fill what roles in what movie. When she returned to L.A., she'd contact her agency and tell them she was back and to send out her portfolio again.

Everyone in her family thought she had stars in her eyes. Maybe she did, but her feet were firmly rooted in reality. She knew that in Hollywood, landing a role after the age of thirty was about as easy as landing a man. But that didn't mean that her only option was to slide her feet into Crocs, get a cat, and give up.

While she searched properties in the Seattle area and bookmarked the homes and condos she thought Mark might be interested in seeing, she thought about her life in L.A. Parts of it had been exciting and really fun and she missed hanging out with friends. But there was a dark side too. The horror stories of s.e.x and drugs were too numerous to count. Young actors arriving in town, dreaming of making it big, only to be used and discarded like garbage. The desperation at casting calls was truly sickening, and she didn't miss scrambling for bit roles and walk-on parts. She didn't miss standing around movie sets for twelve hours, dressed as a serving wench with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s hanging out for a period film. She'd liked working on horror films. She liked being part of a cast. She liked playing a part and becoming another person for a few hours. It was fun and exciting. She looked forward to getting back to L.A. and getting the chance to score roles other than the s.l.u.tty bimbo.

First, though, she had to stick it out for three months with a crabby hockey player.

She clicked on a few more sites and found several very promising real es-tate options. She bookmarked them also, then she decided to Google Mark himself. One of her brows lifted in surprise as she looked at over a million results and a dozen fan sites dedicated to "the Hitman."

"Geez." It wasn't like he was Brad Pitt.

On his official Web site, she watched video clips of him scoring goals, skating with his stick held above his head, or dropping his gloves and throwing punches. In interviews, he laughed and joked and talked about how much winning the Stanley Cup would mean to him and the rest of the Chinooks. Each site was filled with various still photos of him, looking all rough and sweaty while he shot the puck. The photos ranged from him having blood on his face to looking clean-cut and smiling in his head shots.

She clicked on a link and she watched a Gatorade commercial of him dressed in nothing but a pair of hockey shorts hanging low on his hips. On her computer screen, he slowly tipped his head back, brought the bright green bottle to his lips, and downed the sports drink. A color-enhanced, neon-green drop leaked from the corner of his mouth and slid down his jaw and the side of his throat. Dark hair covered his big chest, and Bo had been right. The man had an eight-pack. What her sister hadn't mentioned was the dark happy trail that ran down the center of his smooth, flat belly and circled his navel before diving beneath those shorts. Oh baby. Chelsea had worked in Hollywood and she'd seen a lot of hard male bodies. Mark's was one of the most impressive she'd seen outside of a body-building contest on Venice Beach.

She read his goals and point averages, not that she had a real clue what any of that meant, but even Wikipedia said it was impressive, so she supposed it was. She found a fan site with a photo of him tearing down the ice, and she clicked on a link t.i.tled "Bressler quotes."

Her gaze skimmed a few quotes about playing hockey before stopping on "I don't celebrate coming in second place." She didn't know him well, but she could imagine him saying something like that. When asked what it was like to be the captain of the Chinooks, he'd answered, "I'm just one of the guys. On the bus or airplane, I just sit in the back, play cards, and try to take the guys' money." The quote that surprised her the most was, "As a kid, I knew I wanted to play professional hockey. My father worked a lot to afford my skates, and Grandmother always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. I believed her and here I am. I owe a lot to them both." Most people thanked their parents, but his grandmother? That was different and unexpected. A smile curved one side of her lips. Mentioning his father and grandmother almost made him human. In fact, in all the pictures and video clips he appeared more human than the guy she knew. There was just something different about him now. Something more than the different way he walked and the way he used his right hand. Something dark. Hard.

On another Web site, the owner had put up three different photographs of Mark's mangled Hummer. This time both Chelsea's brows lifted in surprise as she looked at the twisted wreckage. The man truly was lucky to be alive. A fourth photo of him being wheeled from the hospital appeared on a second page. The picture was somewhat blurry, but there was no mistaking those dark eyes glowering from his face.

There.

That was him. That was the guy she worked for. The hard, dark, gloomy man.

She knew that head injuries could change a man or woman's personality. She wondered if it had changed his. If it had, she wondered if he'd ever get those laughing, joking pieces of his life back. Not that it really mattered to her. She was only sticking around for three months until she got that ten grand.

On the official Chinooks' site, the organization had put up a guest book for fans who wanted to express their best wishes for Mark's recovery. More than seven thousand people had signed in to the book to wish him well. Some of the notes were very nice, and she wondered if Mark even knew that so many people had taken the time to write. She wondered if he cared.

Before she closed her laptop and turned off the bedroom light for the night, she Googled plastic surgeons in the Seattle area. She paid attention to where they'd gone to school and how many years they'd been in practice. Mostly though, she looked at before and after pictures of breast reductions. She wasn't a jealous person, but envy stabbed her soul as she studied the photos. For many different reasons, she wanted so badly to be reduced from her double-D cups to a C. She wanted to run and jump without pain. Not that she would, but it would be nice to have the option. She wanted to be taken as seriously as average-sized women. In Hollywood, she'd been hired to fill out the costume, not so much for her acting ability. And in L.A., everyone automatically a.s.sumed she had implants, which had always kind of irritated her.

She'd like to have s.e.x without her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s bouncing around. As she was now, she preferred to have s.e.x with a bra on. It was more comfortable, but not all the men she'd been with liked it.

She'd been a double D since the tenth grade. It had been humiliating and painful, and probably the reason Bo had such a difficult time finding men she trusted. Even now, sometimes men and women took one look at her and Bo and a.s.sumed they were nymphomaniacs. It still baffled her to this day. She didn't know what having large b.r.e.a.s.t.s had to do with s.e.xual promiscuity. The truth was that because of the size of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she was more uptight about s.e.x than other women she knew.

One of the biggest reasons she wanted a reduction was that she'd like peo-ple to talk to her face, not her chest. She'd like, just once, to meet a man who didn't stare at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A man like Mark Bressler.

A frown dented her forehead. Mark Bressler might not stare at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but he was a jerk in many other ways. Many just as offensive ways. Like insulting her clothes, her intelligence, and her driving skills.

"Hey." Bo stuck her head in the room, and Chelsea shut her computer so Bo wouldn't see the breast reduction befores and afters on the screen. "Jules just called and wanted me to ask you if Mark was going to play in the Chinooks' celebrity golf tournament in a few weeks. He's always played in the past."

"Why doesn't Jules ask him?"

"Because Mark doesn't always answer his phone." Bo smiled. "But now he has you."

"Yeah. Lucky me."

"Last night I visited a Web page that the Chinooks set up after the accident. Your fans can log on and send you a special message. It's really nice."

Mark sat at his desk and looked over the real estate property that his a.s.sistant had pulled up on his computer. He was only going along with her plan because he actually did want to move. He'd spent more time in this house in the last month than he had in the last five years. Or at least it seemed like it. The house was a constant reminder of his past and the walls were closing in on him.

He scratched the stubble on his chin with his left hand as he leaned forward for a better look at the square footage of the house on the screen. He'd showered earlier, dressed in his usual T-shirt and jogging pants, but hadn't bothered shaving because he wasn't planning on leaving the house today.

"Did you know about the page?"

He shook his head as he maneuvered the mouse. It was difficult with the bulky splint on his right hand. Maybe someone had told him about the page. He didn't recall. Whether from the drugs or from the hit to his head, his memory of the last six months was sketchy. "Like a memorial page?"

"No. Like a place where they could send you their best wishes for your recovery. Over seven thousand hockey fans have written letters and notes to you."

Only seven thousand? Mark glanced up from the computer monitor on his desk. He looked over his shoulder and raised his gaze past his a.s.sistant's big b.r.e.a.s.t.s covered in shiny gold ruffles, up her throat, and into her blue eyes. Today she wore a short, crazy-colored skirt, probably "Pucci," and a pair of big wedge sandals that clunked across his floor when she walked. Her clothes were toned down, for her.

"Are you going to answer them?"

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate hockey fans, he certainly did, but he hated writing a short grocery list let alone seven thousand e-mails. "No."

"You could send out one ma.s.s thank-you. I really think it's the decent thing to do."

"Good thing I don't care what you think."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I've also been asked if you plan on playing in the Chinooks' celebrity golf tournament this summer?"

She was like a gnat buzzing around his head, annoying the h.e.l.l out of him. Too bad he couldn't swat her. If he thought for one minute that a good swat on her a.s.s would offend her and she'd go away, he might be tempted. It was just after eleven A.M. and he was tired as h.e.l.l. His physical therapist, Cyrus, had stopped by earlier and they'd worked out for an hour in the gym upstairs. But that wasn't the only thing causing his fatigue. He hadn't slept well the night before because he hadn't taken his sleeping medication. Partly because he wanted to see if he still needed it and partly because he didn't want any more freaky dreams where the a.s.sistant popped up.

She tilted her head to one side, and the ends of her bright reddish-pink hair brushed one side of her soft neck. "Did you hear me, Mr. Bressler?"

"Unfortunately, yes." He turned back to the monitor and looked at the real estate property in Newport Hills. It was on the water and he wasn't interested. Living close to any water was d.a.m.n buggy. "I'm not playing this year."

"Why? You've always played in the past."

"I can't play one-handed." Which wasn't necessarily true. If he wanted to play, he'd play holding a club with his teeth.

"I could help."

He almost laughed, and clicked on the next property she thought might interest him. "Yeah? How?" Stand in front of him and hold the club with her right hand while he held it with his left? He thought of her back pressed against his chest, his nose in her hair, and his hand just above hers on his nine iron. His brain skidded to a halt at the double entendre, and an odd weight settled at the top of his stomach.

"I could look into special clubs."

The weight was so unexpected it disturbed him. Probably because he recognized it. He hadn't felt anything like it in a long time, but he knew the heavy pull for what it was. "A club for disabled players? No thanks." The last thing he wanted was to feel any sort of anything for the a.s.sistant. It wasn't like he was opposed to feeling desire for a woman again, just not this woman.

She leaned forward and pointed to the condo on the screen, and he was forced to look at her small hand and the smooth skin of her fingers and palm. She kept her nails short, and without any sort of color. Usually he liked color. His gaze slid to the delicate blue vein of her wrist. She was so close that if he wanted, he could press his mouth to the inside of her bare elbow. She was so close that he was surrounded by the scent of her perfume. It was kind of flowery and fruity, just like her.

"The view out the windows is spectacular," she said and leaned a bit closer. Her hair fell forward and her soft breast brushed the back of his shoulder. The weight in his stomach slid a few inches lower and if he didn't know better, he'd suspect that he was about to get turned on.

"I don't want to live downtown. It's too noisy."

"You'd be high and wouldn't hear it."

"I don't get the good drugs anymore. I'd hear it," he said, and brought up a house in Queen Anne. Maybe the feeling in his stomach had to do with his medication.

She laughed next to his ear. A soft, breathy little sound that tickled his tem-ple. "I meant high as in elevation."

He almost smiled. Showed where his mind tended to reside these days.

She leaned forward a little more, pressing into him. "This house is almost four thousand square feet. It has a great view of the bay and is all one floor. I thought it might be perfect for you."

He wondered if she was doing it on purpose. Women had been pressing and rubbing up against him since his rookie days. Letting him know they wanted s.e.x in not so subtle ways. But he didn't really think his little a.s.sistant was rubbing up against him because she wanted him to push her down on his desk and have s.e.x with her right there.

Or did she?

"The kitchen has been completely renovated and modernized. What do you think?"

What did he think? He thought of her sitting on his desk in front of him, his hands pushing the skirt up her legs, because as much as Mark loved spending time with a nice pair of b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he was ultimately a thigh man. A woman's smooth inner thighs were his favorite parts. He loved sliding his palms up soft, warm skin, getting softer and warmer as his hand moved up higher.

"What do you think, Mr. Bressler?"

The weight slowly lowered to just beneath his navel and stopped before reaching his groin. "I don't cook." Six months ago, he would have had a full-blown erection by now.

"You don't have to cook."

The warm heaviness was the most of anything he'd felt in a long time and the very last thing he wanted to feel for the woman pressing into him. "Tell me again? Why am I looking at real estate?"

"Because you want to move."

He placed his left hand on the desk and stood, balancing most of his weight on his right side. He didn't need her b.u.t.ting into his business and trying to run his life. "I never told you that."