Wade and Henry scooted in and made room, and that was that. A foursome. Terrific. With a sigh, Pace held out a chair for her and gave in, after which his two teammates spent the evening telling her stories, like the time they’d hidden all of Pace’s luggage when he’d been in the shower at Houston.

“He was forced to come through the clubhouse butt naked in front of a pack of reporters,” Henry told her with glee. “Fun times.”

Yeah. Fun times. He looked over at a laughing Holly and found himself smiling. “You think that’s funny?”

“I do.”

After dinner, the guys faithfully stuck around in the parking lot until Holly kissed them each on the cheek and drove off, leaving Pace with the urge to strangle each of them.

And then Gage.

“Think of it this way,” Wade said, putting a hand on his good shoulder as they watched Holly’s taillights vanish into the night. “She’s the first woman you haven’t been able to have at the snap of your fingers when you wanted. She’s also the first woman to stick on your mind for more than a split second. That’s a good thing, right?”

“What are you getting at?”

“That this is new for you, this slow dating-ritual dance. And different. And maybe, it’s also something really great.”

“Which I would know by now if I was allowed to be alone with her for even a second.”

“Maybe she’s worth the wait.”

Yeah. Yeah, maybe she was. He went home alone to channel surf for a while, then gave in to temptation and called Holly to make sure she got home okay.

And to hear her voice.

When she didn’t answer, he left her a voice message, a stupid, stuttering, rambling message that came from acting without thinking, which he was most definitely doing. After hanging up, he promptly fell off the wagon and drank two Dr Peppers.

The next morning, he woke up to find that the sports world was filled with rumors of the real nature of his injury, that it was far more serious than reported, that it wasn’t just a strained rotator cuff but a severe tear that could be the end of his career.

Gage blew an even larger gasket and had Sam working night and day trying to figure out where the hell the rumors were originating from, along with all the other rumors they’d been battling for weeks, needing to know who the hell was always one step ahead of them.

Pace lay in bed that night and knew who it could have been.

Holly.

Except for one thing—he didn’t believe it. Refused to believe it.