PULLED-PORK SLIDERS or Thai ribs?
Charlie Woodruff didn’t know what the hell she was doing.
Even with a degree in public relations from Pepperdine and four years as a college athlete, it had taken Charlie about two weeks at her job at Prestige Media Group to realize she’d made a huge mistake.
Because what did public relations have to do with choosing menus for signing parties? Charlie knew how to write a press release. She knew how to orchestrate a media blitz. She knew how to turn a misdemeanor into an opportunity.
But she didn’t know how to plan a menu.
How could she? She lived on strawberries and low-fat cottage cheese. Tuna and celery sticks. Grilled chicken salad. On the days she ran, she treated herself to a square of Ghirardelli chocolate — her favorite was flavored with sea salt. And that was it.
Lean and clean.
That was Charlie’s motto when it came to food. It had served her well as a Division I track and cross-country runner, and she had no intention of changing it now. Sure, the Atomic Taco food truck she passed on her way home every night made her go weak-kneed with the scent of spicy ground meat and corn tortilla shells, but restaurant-grade ground meat had something like fifteen grams of fat per serving. And one tortilla shell was the caloric equivalent of her entire breakfast. That didn’t even include the guacamole and sour cream.
Guacamole and sour cream…
Charlie ignored the pity party in her stomach. It was five o’clock; she was still at the office, and she wouldn’t be able to get home to her new apartment and her grilled chicken salad until she finalized the menu for the signing event. And it had to be right. Organizing the party was the first task her boss, Kurt Vincent, had entrusted her to complete on her own. Charlie liked Kurt; she liked working for Prestige, a young but successful sports agency whose San Francisco office served more than three-hundred athletes, and she had to nail this.
She sighed, flapping the stupid catering menu in frustration. Why couldn’t Kurt have put her in charge of a press conference instead? And why did the trendy rotisserie restaurant have to use such big pictures on its menu? Charlie could almost smell the Thai barbecue sauce.
“What’s wrong, sugar lamb?” Darius DeMarco, Kurt’s assistant, sashayed up to her desk in their open-concept office. In the two weeks Charlie had been with Prestige, Darius had decided to make her his “foster child” and steer her away from “all the haters.” Darius made it a point to stop by her desk a few times a day, and they ate lunch together most of the time. Their conversations weren’t so much about the work culture at Prestige as they were about the latest guy to catch Darius’s eye, but Charlie didn’t mind. Darius was funny and sincere, and she loved him.
She held up the menu. “Kurt thinks I’m a party planner.” She gave him a pleading look. “I have $20,000 in student loans. I can’t screw this up, but I don’t do food, and I definitely don’t do parties. How is this PR, Darius?”
Darius flared his eyes and draped a hand over his chest. “But, darling Charlie, what else is a party but public relations?” The fingers on his chest rose and executed a mid-air swirl. “There’s no reason for Prestige to throw Hutch Barlow a party for signing with the Raiders except for public relations.”
“I—”
Darius shot up his hand to silence her. “Yes, he is the yummiest wide receiver to ever squeeze into a pair of football pants, but we don’t need a party to celebrate that,” he said, waving as if shooing away a fly. “It’s so all of his new huddle buddies will come to the party and see just how well Prestige treats her athletes. And they’ll say to themselves, ‘My agent didn’t throw me a signing party. Why does Hutch get a party and not me? What else is Hutch getting from Kurt Vincent that I’m not getting?’”
Charlie was beginning to feel more than a little stupid. Of course. It wasn’t PR for Hutch Barlow. It was PR for Prestige. Which meant that Kurt was entrusting her with much more than simply planning a party. Her insides shriveled.
“Then which do I get?” she asked, holding up the menu in distress. “The pulled-pork sliders or the Thai ribs?”
Darius took her face in his hands and gave her a pitying expression. “Darling Charlie, weren’t you listening?”
She just blinked at him.
“You get both.”
THE MENU WAS finalized, the band booking confirmed, and the flowers ordered. Charlie left the office just after six, walked to the BART station at Market and New Montgomery — avoiding the tempting assault from Atomic Taco, and took the F train to the Guerrero Street stop. It was just two blocks from her apartment — a converted garret atop a two-story Victorian on Hermann Street.
She shared her tiny place with her roommate Annie, who was the assistant manager of a beer garden six blocks away. Annie worked until two a.m. most nights, but she was great about not making too much noise when she came in. Charlie returned the favor every morning when she woke up to get ready for work. The two had made the most of the small, open space, each setting up their beds on opposite corners where the roof pitched low. Charlie had created a kind of wall out of two bookshelves, and Annie had done the same with a folded screen so that a living space emerged in the center with a couch, a glass coffee table, and cushioned stool. Across from this was their postage stamp of a kitchen and the bathroom, which was smaller than the closet Charlotte had grown up with in her parents’ house in Goleta.
The cramped garret was all she could afford, but it was worth it to live and work in her favorite city.
Racing against the setting sun, Charlie peeled off her work clothes, tugged on her running gear, and swept her blonde hair into a ponytail. Even though she was tired and hungry, Charlie was determined to get in a run on the streets of San Francisco before calling it a night. Her big Tuesday night plans were to take a shower, put on soft clothes, and Netflix Friends while she ate dinner. She zipped Albert’s CLIF bar into her pocket and, placating her own growling stomach, she allowed herself a bite of Greek yogurt. Then she grabbed her ear buds and pepper spray and dashed out the door.
After being in the office all day, it felt good to stretch her legs on the hills of Lower Haight. The Panhandle of Golden Gate Park was just a mile from her place, and she headed straight there, warming up and slowly gaining speed.
The base of Albert’s tree was empty. It had only been three weeks, so she hadn’t learned all of his habits, but she knew by the time she returned home, he’d be sitting there, and for a week now, she’d been giving him a CLIF bar. The chunky kind, not the skimpy ones. She’d passed him for two weeks before she started buying the nutrition bars for him. He never asked for anything. Albert seemed content to sit at the base of his tree and smile at the world. He only told her good evening and to “Keep running! You’ll catch what you’re after one day.” And when she’d started bringing the snack, he tacked on “Bless you, angel!” his smile growing as he nodded. He always took it from her with shaking hands, arthritis making his knuckles knobby and liver spots showing through his fair skin. A CLIF bar didn’t feel like enough, but at least it made it easier to pass him every day.
Charlie shook thoughts of Albert from her mind as she moved through the Panhandle and into the park proper. With the sunset igniting the sky in a blaze of orange, it seemed like the whole city had come outside to enjoy the late May evening. People walked their dogs, young parents pushed strollers, and Charlie passed other runners.
No one passed her.
That is, not until she’d entered the main park and traversed the Conservatory of Flowers. That’s when she heard the telltale cadence of an approaching runner.
Charlie listened to music while she ran — Elysian Feel was her selection du jour — but she only ran wearing one ear bud so she could hear traffic or anyone on foot drawing near. At the sound of a runner, adrenaline surged through her veins.
Not because she felt afraid. The park teemed with people, and though twilight approached, the world was still lit in a soft, orange glow. No, Charlie’s adrenal glands went to work because the race was still in her blood.
Moving from her steady pace into a sprint, Charlie pumped her quads until the sound of her challenger faded to nothing. And then she made herself redline for a full minute before she downshifted her gait and let her lungs have their fill.
The oxygen was sweet, but the taste of victory sweeter.
She missed it. It had been a year since her last track meet as a college athlete. A long-distance runner, Charlie lived for the steeplechase and 10K competitions, and while she knew that a lot could happen on the track in thirty-odd minutes, she loved to psych-out the other runners by jetting ahead just as someone tried to flank her.
Turning off Crossover Drive onto Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Charlie was smiling in remembrance when the unmistakable patter returned. Shocked, she almost turned around to lay eyes on her contender when she heard the gruff labor of what could only be male breath, and Charlie again sped ahead.
“Dammit!”
The muttered curse behind her made her almost giddy, even as her thighs burned and her lungs ached. But she held her posture upright and regal, hoping against hope that her surge appeared effortless.
She pushed harder this time, holding onto the insane pace for another minute, passing Stow Lake and dropping a curse or two herself when she finally let her body slow. But her breathing had only just returned to normal when she heard him again.
This time she did turn back, scowling at his audacity. But when her eyes landed on the challenger, her stride faltered. Her breath stuttered. Because the man running her down with the merciless glare looked like an avenging angel — or a Viking raider.
Hair as fair as her own streamed behind him, loose and wild. In gray running shorts and a black, sleeveless Under Armour shirt that hugged the peaks and valleys of his muscled torso, he raced toward her with frightening speed. In her brief backward glance, her eyes locked with his — long-lashed and evergreen — and she watched them narrow as he gave her a wicked smile.
Charlie couldn’t help it. She squeaked.
The confidence in that wicked smile did it. Charlie whipped her gaze back to the path ahead of her and ran like she hadn’t run in twelve months. Whoever this guy was, she was not about to let him pass her.
A peal of masculine laughter — almost alarming in its depth — broke out behind her, and despite her determination to gain ground, Charlie might have laughed, too. But she reined in her humor. Laughing would only slow her down. Let him slow down, the big oaf.
Well, he wasn’t really an oaf. He was kind of beautiful. More like truly beautiful.
As she pulled away, Charlie called up the picture she’d snapped in her mind during that one glance. Long muscles roped down his arms. The line of his broad shoulders and his tapering waist suggested a triangle, one that smoothed into tight hips and defined thighs.
Charlie Woodruff didn’t make a point of cataloging men’s bodies as she ran, but sometimes exceptions had to be made. Tonight was one of those times.
Her reverie was short-lived. As she passed the Academy of Sciences, she could feel heaviness seep into her legs. If he caught up to her again, she likely wouldn’t be able to rally a fourth time. But as she reached the tennis courts, her legs weren’t just heavy. They were leaden. Slowing her pace to a mere jog, Charlie wiped the sweat from her face and tried not to beat herself up about losing the edge she’d held a year before.
But a moment later, even jogging was too hard. Every part of her body felt weighed down. Except her head, which seemed ready to lift off her shoulders like a helium balloon. The moment she decided to walk, her knees gave, and the ground rushed toward her.
“Whoa!”
A hand wrapped around her elbow — catching her mid-plummet — and Charlie found herself on the curb, her legs as useless as a doll’s.
“You okay?”
She looked at the hand that still gripped her. It was a nice hand. Strong. Long-fingered. Broad, but not beefy.
A hand that would feel good to hold…
“I think you overdid it on that last one,” the stranger said. “Feel lightheaded?”
She stared up at him, and the darkening sky behind him seemed to swirl. Charlie nodded.
“Yeah, you look it. Head down for a minute,” he said, gently pressing against the back of her neck and folding her over until her head was between her knees.
She stared at their feet. Next to hers, his looked enormous.
“Have you eaten recently?”
“Um…” She stalled. She didn’t want to actually say she’d just had a bite of Greek yogurt before hitting the road.
“Here.” Charlie looked up to see him pull a shiny foil packet from the fuel belt at his waist. He tore it open and pressed it to her lips.
Before she could ask what it was, the sweet mocha flavor met her tongue, and she found herself grabbing the packet and swallowing hungrily.
“Mmm…” The sugar and caffeine hit her system like a wave, and the rush sped through her veins.
“Yeah, I thought so,” he muttered. “I bet you haven’t eaten since lunch. You shouldn’t sprint like that on an empty stomach.”
Charlie, who was squeezing the last of the contents into her mouth, looked up at the guy and froze. What the hell was she doing?
“I need to go,” she said, pushing herself up, her unsteady legs protesting beneath her, the horizon seesawing in front of her.
“Wait,” he said, taking off with her and keeping pace as she started to jog. “I don’t think you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” she said, shrugging off his concern and keeping her eyes on the road. Her balance was already leveling out. Who was this guy anyway? The sun had nearly set, but the park was far from empty. Charlie wasn’t exactly worried about the stranger beside her, but embarrassment spurred her to move from his relentless gaze.
His green eyes seemed to watch her with unblinking focus, and though his amused frown was friendly enough, it still unnerved her.
“But… you almost fainted back there,” he said, matching her easily now, stride for stride. “And that Huma I gave you was only like a hundred calories.”
“A hundred calories?!” She looked up at him in horror.
So much for the square of dark chocolate she was planning for dessert.
The guy quirked his brows, giving her an apologetic look. “I know. It’s not enough.” He reached into his fuel belt. “I have another one if you wa—”
“I don’t.” The words came out a little sharper than she intended, so she tried to soften her tone. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”
“You… um… you don’t run with fuel?” he asked, refusing to take the hint that she wanted — no, needed — to get away from him.
He’d run her down like a deer. Her pride stung. She was tired. She was hungry.
And she wasn’t thinking straight.
Charlie didn’t know if it was because maybe her blood sugar had dropped or she was low on electrolytes, but the stunning stranger beside her seemed much too alluring. Instead of telling him to get lost — like she usually did when guys tried to chat her up on a run — she found herself wanting to stop and stare up at him until she could memorize every golden hair on his avenging angel head.
And she could still feel a band of warmth around her arm where he’d grabbed her to keep her from crumpling onto the pavement.
“I do,” she heard herself say, “when I go long distance.” He didn’t need to know about Albert’s CLIF bar. That wasn’t for her anyway.
He blinked in surprise, and then twin dimples appeared as he smiled. Dimples. Two of them. “I’ve been chasing you for three miles. If that’s not long distance, what is?”
Charlie didn’t hesitate. “Anything past ten.”
She watched his jaw drop. “Wow. And I thought I was badass getting in five three nights a week.”
The tickle of pride shouldn’t have felt as good as it did, but maybe that was because it had been so long since she’d really competed. In college, the adrenaline of the race had been her life force. Maybe she just needed to find someone to try to beat to fill the void that graduation had left.
“Fifteen miles a week isn’t bad,” she said, suddenly wanting to tease him. His eyes really were the color of sequoia leaves.
“You don’t mean that,” he said, grinning back. “You’re a running snob.”
Charlie shook her head. “Not a snob. Just an addict.”
His eyes glinted in the gathering dark. “No,” he drawled with mock disbelief. “I never would’ve guessed.”
She couldn’t help her laugh. She usually hated to laugh while she was running. It stole her breath and slowed her down. But it felt good now, like her lungs opened wider. The sluggishness had left her legs, and the pace came easier. They ran in silence for a quarter mile until they moved through the deepening shadows of the panhandle.
Charlie peeled off the path when she spotted Albert.
“Hey, where are you going?” the guy called after her.
She heard his footfalls on the grass behind her, and when she stopped in front of Albert, he stopped by her side, looking between her and the man camped out among the roots of the eucalyptus.
“Hi, Albert. I brought you a snack,” she said, pulling the CLIF bar from her pocket and handing it to him. As he had every other time, Albert took it with a smile, his gentle eyes glittering as he nodded.
“Bless you, angel,” he said. Albert’s voice was phlegmy and hoarse as usual, but he still looked as joyful as a child. Seeing him smiling didn’t make it hurt any less. A man his age shouldn’t be sitting on the ground under a tree as night fell. He should be living with a wife or his grown children, comforted and loved in his last days.
Charlie made herself swallow.
“You take care of yourself, Albert,” she said.
Albert nodded. “And you keep running! You’ll catch what you’re after one day.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed, and she turned to find the guy’s eyes on her, wide with astonishment. Charlie just turned, started running, and headed back toward the path. He followed until he was beside her again.
“You just gave that guy food,” he said, looking down at her like she had two heads.
Charlie nodded. “Yep. I think he’s hungry.”
“Yeah, but you almost passed out back there for lack of calories… and… and you had food.”
The look of disbelief he wore made her smile. “I was saving that for Albert.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Albert who was opening the CLIF bar like a holy treasure. Charlie’s smile grew as her heart swelled.
“Well, he sure looks like he’s enjoying it,” the guy muttered.
They ran in silence, settling into an easy rhythm. When he spoke again, Charlie heard a fresh eagerness in his voice.
“So, are you going to tell me your name now?”
She looked at him askance. Was he flirting? “Should I?”
This time he laughed. “Yes, you should. You definitely should.”
Yes. He was flirting. And Charlie liked the way it felt. A lot.
In the three weeks she’d lived in San Francisco, Charlie had gone out exactly once. With Darius. Dancing and margaritas had been a blast, but it hadn’t exactly put an end to the dry spell she’d endured for the last six months. Work kept her pretty busy, but that didn’t mean the heated look he gave her didn’t send tingles across her skin. She could make room in her life for a little tingling.
“It’s Charlie.”
“Charlie? As in short for Charlotte?” There were those dimples again. Lethal, they were. Tingle City. She couldn’t help but grin back, even though he spoke her old-fashioned, ill-fitting name.
“Yeah, but I’ve never really liked Charlotte.” She strode over the curb and onto the sidewalk on Oak Street, half wondering where he would peel off. If he lived in her neighborhood, maybe they could run together again.
He was silent for a moment, and she glanced up at him, taking in his amused frown. “What?” she asked.
He gave a little shake of his head. “Why don’t you like Charlotte?”
Charlie felt her cheeks color.
“Charlotte is the name of a girl who wears a Victorian collar and a bustle and dreams of one day having the right to vote.”
His bark of laughter echoed down Oak Street, and Charlie found it contagious.
“Wow… that’s some imagination,” he said, chuckling. “So, you don’t like old-fashioned names?”
She shook her head. “It’s not just old-fashioned. Some old-fashioned names are gorgeous. Estelle… Olivia,” she said, enjoying the way the names danced on her tongue. But she was enjoying talking to him even more. “Charlotte is stuffy and prudish.”
He frowned down at her, his eyes still lit with humor. “Hmm… then I probably shouldn’t tell you my name. I have both of my grandfathers to thank for it. Talk about stuffy and prudish.”
Curiosity made her smile. They were getting closer to her street. She definitely wanted to find out his name before they had to part ways.
“Go on. Try me.”
He gave a little eye roll and a sigh of exasperation, and Charlie noticed he wasn’t even winded now.
“Harold Houghton.”
Charlie bit down on her bottom lip and tried to freeze her smile in place. No one should be named Harold, but especially not modern-day Vikings who looked like avenging angels. It was a sin against nature.
“Um…” Charlie gulped, hoping the pity she felt wasn’t leaking out of her eyes.
Watching her struggle, his smile grew, and those two adorable dimples winked at her.
If anybody can pull off a name like Harold, it’s this guy.
“Yep. Awful, huh? Harold Houghton Barlow,” he said, grinning. “But everyone calls me Hutch.”