Wells did a double take. “No, there wasn’t.”
“Yes. There was. I screamed bloody murder, and it ran in the opposite direction.”
“It’s starting to make a lot more sense why you’re not intimidated by me.” This time, she couldn’t quite hold in her laugh—and the briefest of smiles carried across the lips of Wells Whitaker, before he quickly went back to frowning, heaping more shades of sexiness on top of what was already a veritable mountain. Even in a barber’s chair, while having shaving cream dolloped onto his jaw, he looked more like an angry gladiator than a golfer.
“Is it your goal to intimidate people?” Josephine asked.
He didn’t answer right away. “It’s not something I think about.”
“Your impenetrable darkness just comes naturally.”
“Sort of like your brightness.”
That caught her off guard. “You think I’m . . . that I have brightness?”
“Better . . . better . . . ,” murmured the barber.
“I . . .” He opened his mouth and closed it, making an irritable gesture that sent the edge of the cape flying. “You would have to have a certain brightness. On the inside. To keep showing up with a smile on your face for a losing player. Not that I was paying attention.”
Josephine felt an unwanted, possibly dangerous tug in her throat.
She rubbed the spot to make it go away.
“Of course not,” she said.
“Maybe, initially, I intimidated people on purpose. I grew up without a dime, walked to school when everyone else was getting dropped off by parents, lunches packed. Birthday invitations in their backpacks to hand out at recess. I wanted them to know I didn’t give a shit.”
This time, there was no ridding herself of the throat tug, so she didn’t bother trying to massage it away. “But you did? Give a shit.”
He stopped just short of confirming, visibly uncomfortable with the direction they’d taken. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He transferred his glare to the barber. “Could you please stab me in the neck to get me out of this conversation?”
“Texas ought to be fun,” Josephine said cheerfully.
“There’s no fun in golf, Josephine.”
She swiped a finger through the shaving cream and tapped the dollop onto his nose, trying valiantly not to consider the perfect slope of it. “You’ve never played with me before.”
Chapter Seven
Wells swiped a gym towel down his sweaty face, tossed it onto the bench press, and took another lap around his home gym. All week, he’d been subjecting himself to grueling workouts. Seven days later, the alcohol was still seeping out of his pores. Apart from the overall need to get himself back into playing condition, he’d been using exercise as a means of distraction. A way to stall. It was now or never, though.
The tournament started in two days and Wells wasn’t yet back on the roster.
He needed to call Buck.
Otherwise, he’d hired Josephine as his caddie for no reason and his new set of clubs had been shipped to the resort in San Antonio in advance of nothing.
“Quit being a coward,” he commanded himself, picking up the towel once more to wipe away the perspiration on his chest. “Make the damn call. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Buck could tell him to fuck off.
Technically, his mentor had already done that. There was nothing to lose here. Nothing but his pride.
Wells stared at his reflection in the wall mirror for long moments, caught off guard by the trepidation in his face. When had he become so indecisive? Before he’d been lauded as the next Tiger Woods, he’d never second-guessed himself. He’d made every decision, even the bad ones, with full confidence. What the hell happened to me?
Wells didn’t know. But apparently when he’d told Josephine that golf had stolen his soul, it wasn’t an exaggeration.
Josephine.
His other reason for distracting himself with exercise.
Women didn’t usually get under his skin. It was fucking annoying, was what it was. Last night, while in the shower, he’d had an imaginary conversation with her. Out loud. Defending his backswing. When he thought of the tournament, she was the first thing that popped up in his mind. How she’d be wearing a caddie uniform with his name on it in big, block letters. And how he liked that image a little too much.
Wells had no time for romantic bullshit. Occasional, casual hookups were part of his bachelor lifestyle, but anything beyond that only led to making plans, enduring long-winded phone calls, and taking on responsibilities he’d never asked for. He’d learned that early on in his career after three very short-term relationships. Being on television, making millions of dollars, had made him something of a magnet for people with a single motive: get a slice of that money pie. Relationships tended to move very quickly in the golf world. Because players were on the road so often, they were pressured into making commitments. To offset the doubt.