Read Online Out of Bounds by Ellen Hartman - Free Book Online Page B

and wadded it up behind him. “Let’s talk about what just happened.”
    She jerked backward. “I said I was sorry.”
    “No, I meant what happened between us.”
    She was on her feet almost before he finished speaking.
    “I got caught up in the game,” she said. Her eyes were fixed on a point just over his head.
    “I got caught up, too,” he said. But it hadn’t been in the game.
    “Listen, I have to go. My mom will be in touch as soon as she gets back. A few days at the most. You have my cell, but texting’s better. Or email. Email is fine.”
    He pushed himself up.
    “We don’t have to talk about what it was. But I had a good time.” He wanted to be sure she heard him. “Thanks.”
    She shrugged, picked up her bag and gave him a quick wave over her shoulder.
    “Hey, Posy,” he called. She stopped. “We’re doing an Equipment Day on Sunday. It’s this thing the Fallon centers do where they give sports gear away to kids. My brother and his wife will be here and we’d really like to thank the folks who ran the fundraiser. You think your mom will be back by then?”
    “I’ll find out,” she said before walking away.
    Well, he thought, that was instructive. Posy Jones was an enigma. A tall, aggressive, fierce enigma.
    With really sexy taste in bras.

CHAPTER SIX
    P OSY LEFT THE PLAYGROUND with as much dignity as she could manage. Luckily, her role in quality assurance required her to occasionally act a part. She didn’t look back at Wes as she walked to her Jeep. As soon as she was around the side of the building out of his sight, she picked up speed until she was jogging when she reached her parking spot.
    She pulled out, allowing herself one glance toward the court where she saw Wes, stretched out full-length on the foul line. She shivered because, God help her, she wanted very badly to be stretched out under him.
    Her cell phone rang and she grabbed it, hoping it would be her mom telling her everything was settled.
    It was Maddy.
    “I’m so glad you called. I just made a huge mistake.”
    “Did someone find out about the money?”
    “No.” Posy banged her fist on the steering wheel. “Not yet.”
    Maddy didn’t answer right away. “Can you come out here to the Knoll?”
    “I’d love to see you. What’s up?”
    “I’ll tell you when you get here.”
    The Knoll was about ten minutes outside Kirkland. It was a pretty drive, but Posy spent the whole time reliving the debacle of her game with Wes.
    She asked at the desk and was told she could find her cousin in the grotto carved into the hillside under the main chapel. She took the outside route, walking down the shallow stone stairs while watching a pair of sisters pushing hand mowers across the lawn in front of the visitor center.
    The air inside the grotto was cool and infused with the scent of the thousands of candles that had been burned there over years of services. Posy inhaled deeply. Ever since she’d been a little girl following the responses in the missal, the familiar traditions of spiritual ritual had calmed her.
    “Posy,” Maddy called softly. “I’m up here.”
    Her cousin, dressed in the loose woven pants and smock the sisters wore for work, was kneeling in front of the small altar at the left side of the grotto. Visitors lit candles there for special intentions and several were flickering in the dim light. Maddy had a case of candles open on the floor next to her and she was gently prying spent stubs off the stone and replacing them with fresh ones. She and Maddy were the same age and had always been as close as sisters.
    Maddy handed her a thin, metal paint scraper. “You want to help me work on these?”
    Posy grabbed the tool and set to work on a candle stub in front of her. It wasn’t as hard to remove as she’d expected and it flipped in the air when she shoved the scraper under it.
    “Sorry,” she said as she gathered the fallen candle and put it into the discard bucket.
    Maddy slid her own scraper under a