Page 109 of Putting Out
Reilly bit her lip against a swell of emotion that almost had her using the L word. Luke hadn’t said it, never once. Pride being what pride was, she felt she couldn’t use it, either. Not that she was the type to throw the word around anyway. Pop and Grams had instilled the idea that love was too important to be bandied about as nothing more than a casual word. It should be saved and used when it could be truly expressed because it was deeply felt.
That she wanted to use it now might be scarier than the idea she was going to have to stand up in front of the world tomorrow and hit a golf shot.
“What if I fail?”
“You mean lose?”
“I know I’m going to lose, I mean fail. I mean hack it up bad. Like eighty-two bad. And the crowds boo me and the LPGA shuns me. I end up with nothing but a heavy dose of humiliation. Are you still going to want to ‘try’ us?”
Luke leaned up on his elbow and scowled at her. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
Reilly rolled onto her back, pulling away from the contact of his body. An emotional weight settled on her chest but it was hard to know where it was coming from. The easiest way to alleviate it was to either have sex, or pick a fight with Luke. They’d already had sex.
“I’m still trying to understand how all of this happened between us. If it was a result of me being in the American, what will happen to it when I’m out?”
“You are trying to piss me off.”
He rolled away from her and off the bed. Then walked over to the French doors overlooking the river.
“You think I’m trying to glom onto your fifteen minutes of fame?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
Luke whirled around to face her and she could see he hadn’t been lying about being pissed off. She wished he wouldn’t look so sexy angry, it was sort of distracting when she was about to engage in a fight.
“I told you why I came. I’m tired of playing around. It was time we ended this dance and if you had been ranked as the fifty-first player on the tour and none of this had happened, I still would have shown up at your door.”
“You mean it?”
“Why are you doubting me?” he asked. “What have I done to make you think I’m some kind of fly-by-night schmuck who’s looking to get laid for a while?”
Luke winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “And don’t say it’s because we’ve only ever had one-night stands and I’ve been married three times to other women.”
“Okay, but we’ve only had one-night stands before and you have married three other women.”
“I gave you my reasons for why that happened.”
Reilly got up and walked up behind him, resting her chin on his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“I’m not doubting you’re sincere, Luke. I’m not. I guess I’m afraid that what you think you want now, and what you might want after all this is over, are two different things.”
“What I want now and what I want when this is over is you. It’s very simple.”
“To you!” she charged as she let him go. “You’ve been thinking about this a lot longer than I have. But now I’m starting to think about this and it’s scaring the crap out of me. What if after this is over I’m some woman who made a statement she couldn’t back up? What if this destroys everything for me? You might not want me then. Hell, I don’t even know who I’ll be then.”
“You’ll be Reilly.”
“I’m not Reilly if I’m not a golfer. The best golfer on tour. If I blow this tomorrow, I lose that. Even if I still can beat the women, everyone will know the ranking was nothing more than a sham.”
“You think being a golfer is all that there is to you?”
“Isn’t it?”
Luke wrapped her back up in his embrace and kissed the top of her head.
“I know where your head is, babe. I was there a few years ago when I realized what I had been working toward was something I'd actually achieved. Only as soon as I did, I didn’t know where it left me. I didn’t know where to go or what to do next. I figured out I had to spend time off the course.”
“I can’t give up the game,” Reilly whispered.
