“Nothing like door-to-door service,” he said to himself.

Chapter Five

THE MINERS’ GAME in Seattle was a disaster, and it was up to Kendall to get things back on track in her organization. She needed to find a way to accomplish this, as well as to make a dent in the typical workload on a Monday during football season, all without her typical phone. The throwaway phone wasn’t cutting it by any stretch of the imagination. Once again, she wished Drew had texted her the tracking number for the overnight delivery. For all she knew, the delivery box was sitting on her front porch right now in full view of passersby who’d want to help themselves to anything important enough to justify overnight delivery.

If she wasn’t having enough fun already, she was hungry. And tired. The tired part probably had something to do with the fact that she had lain awake long into the night, thinking about Drew. She went up into the team suite at halftime of Sunday’s game because she was staring at him like a twelve-year-old. She’d prefer to keep the drooling over him private.

She needed to wrap things up at the office and go home, but there was too much work still, which wasn’t getting done while she continued daydreaming over Drew.

Kendall’s assistant, Sydney, skidded into her office with a bakery bag and a paper coffee cup.

“You have to get out of here unless you want to spend the evening waiting at the FedEx place to claim your package,” Sydney said. “If you had had it sent to the office, I could have signed for it while you were in the meetings.”

“I know.” Kendall wasn’t sharing with Sydney exactly why that was impossible. She frowned at the updated salary cap numbers on her iPad screen. “There’s too much work to do.”

Sydney put the bag down on Kendall’s desk. “Turkey on whole wheat, thanks to that guy at the deli who has a crush on you. He also made you a triple-shot latte.”

“He must have read my mind,” Kendall said as she dug her handbag out of her desk drawer. “How much do I owe you?”

“The sandwich was six dollars. The coffee is on the house.” Without being asked, Sydney grabbed the soft-sided briefcase Kendall brought to the office each day and started loading it up with Kendall’s throwaway cell phone, iPad, and various printed reports to take home. “Eat your lunch while I finish this. You don’t want to be sitting on the freeway chowing down.”

Sydney was going to graduate from Stanford and rule the world. Right now, Kendall was grateful she’d had the foresight to hire her before some other company snapped her up.

“Is it too soon to give you another raise?” she joked.

“Yeah,” Sydney said. They both laughed. “I just paid off my tuition bill for this quarter.”

Sydney was in her next-to-last quarter at Stanford. Kendall was hoping that Sydney would choose to stay on with a somewhat reduced work schedule while she went to grad school. She’d need to have a chat with Sydney about her future plans. It was one more thing to add to Kendall’s towering to-do list.

Kendall wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and extended her hand across the desk. “Thank you again for saving my life every day.”

Sydney’s smile was brilliant as she shook Kendall’s hand. “It’s my pleasure.”

Kendall let out a huge sigh of relief an hour later as she drove into the garage of her townhouse. Traffic was a nightmare as usual. Unless the guy had hidden it in the bushes, she didn’t see the tell-tale FedEx box leaning up against her front door. Her delivery hadn’t arrived yet.

She hurried up the flight of stairs to the main living area of her house, dropped her briefcase on the kitchen table, and kicked off her high heels. She hadn’t been home this early on a workday for a while. She could make a big salad for dinner, pour herself a glass of wine, and do some work on the sunny patio in her postage-stamp sized backyard. She’d pulled the refrigerator door open to grab a bottle of pinot grigio when the front doorbell rang.

“Just in time,” she said to herself as she crossed the living room to answer the door. She took a quick look through the peephole before answering; the delivery guy was tall and blond. He also wasn’t wearing a FedEx uniform.

She was suddenly breathless.

“Drew,” she said.

DREW HAD PULLED up in front of Kendall’s townhouse development twenty minutes ago after driving through the streets of Santa Clara. He was more of an LA guy after spending four years of his life there, but he glanced around at a tidy, upscale community drenched in sunshine as he drove. He loved playing for the Sharks and he’d almost got used to Seattle’s weather over the past couple of years, but the warmth and blue skies lured him again. He wouldn’t mind spending some time here again soon.

He knew the chances Kendall was already home from the office were slim to none. He’d brought a book along to keep him company. He could hang out here on the other side of the street for a little while before the neighbors called the cops.

Minutes later, a late-model, latte-colored Lexus crossover turned the corner onto Kendall’s street, and he recognized her behind the wheel. He waited until she drove into the garage and the door lowered behind her car before parking his rental car in her driveway. He reached out for the bouquet of flowers he’d bought and patted his front jeans pocket to make sure her phone was still there before opening the car door.

He climbed the flight of stairs to her front door, rang the doorbell, and waited. He heard her voice a minute or so later through the door.

“Drew.”

She pulled the door open. Her eyes flew wide. He saw a flush moving over her cheeks. She looked a bit startled, but she smiled at him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Special delivery.” He held out the bouquet of flowers. “I have your phone too.”

She took a deep, appreciative sniff of the bouquet and said, “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” he said. They stared at each other for a few seconds, or an eternity. He told himself to breathe. “May I come in?”

“Oh! Oh,” she said. “Of course. Please.”

She moved back, pulling the door open enough for him to step inside. He moved over the threshold into her house. They were still staring at each other, and she licked her lips. He tried and discarded twenty things to say to her in his head. Maybe he should keep things light. He reached into his pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and handed it to her.

“I believe this belongs to you,” he joked.

Her fingertips lingered as she took the phone out of his hand. He felt the tingle all the way up his arm.

“It does. Thank you so much,” she said. The phone vibrated with an incoming call, and she shook her head a little.

“It was going off the entire time I was walking through the airport,” he said. “You’re popular.”

He glanced around her house while he attempted to come up with something dazzling to say. She liked medium blues and celery green. The somewhat formal furniture in her living room flowed into a more casual dining area, bathed in sunlight. The flowers he’d brought would look perfect in the vase on her table. She bit her lip a little, as if she didn’t know what to say. At least she hadn’t said, “Go away.”

“Nice place,” he said.

“Thank you.” She sniffed her flowers again. “I . . . I can’t believe you’re here.”