Page 58 of Score to Settle (Oakwood Ranch #1)

DYLAN

The driver’s out before I’ve even thrown my car into park.

She’s tall. Long legs, black tank top, denim cutoffs that should be illegal.

Hell, they’d be stopping traffic if we weren’t already jamming it up.

The kind of athletic build that says she’s no stranger to hard work, her tanned skin glowing like it soaks up the sun on a daily basis.

Dark blonde hair flies down her back as she stalks to the bumper like she’s ready for a fight.

Just watching her makes my dick stir in my jeans, like it’s forcibly reminding me that I’ve spent the best part of two years focused on recovering from the knee injury that’s kept me from playing in the NFL for the Denver Stormhawks. Women—dating—have been the last thing on my mind.

I climb out, biting back a curse. My meeting with Coach Allen starts in ten minutes.

I don’t have time for this. The woman blows out a long sigh, raking a hand through her hair.

She must be a few years younger than me—twenty-six or twenty-seven, I’d guess.

Her face is free of makeup and I find my gaze snagging on the cute spray of freckles that run across the bridge of her nose.

But it’s the green eyes that grab me. Bright and sharp—sunlit leaves after a rainstorm.

The kind of eyes that on any other day might make me wonder if this is a sign I should prioritize dating again.

The thought is cut short as those green eyes fix on me.

“Seriously?” Her tone drips with sarcasm. “Were you trying to climb into my backseat or is tailgating just your style?”

Frustration pulses through my veins. It’s the first day of the rest of my life and I don’t have time for this.

I rub a hand over my jaw, expecting to feel the scratch of my dark beard and connecting instead with smooth skin, remembering the clean shave and haircut I got this morning, now I’m finally back to full strength and ready to play pro football again.

I’m ready to get my life back, and the high-altitude Stormhawks training camp in Arizona in two weeks is my ticket back to it.

I force my tone to stay even. “The light was green and you stopped.”

“And you were way too close.” She jerks her thumb at my truck. “Maybe ease up on the gas next time, big guy.”

Big guy? I’m thirty-one, six five, built like a defensive linebacker, and she makes me sound like I’m a clumsy kid with their first trike. If I weren’t seriously annoyed at how late I am right now, I might laugh.

“Maybe don’t stop without warning, little lady,” I shoot back, not even bothering to hide my smirk as her eyes narrow.

She must be five eleven, with curves in all the right places, but if we’re resorting to name-calling, I’m all in.

Whatever charm and magic with women my younger brothers, Jake and Chase, inherited, it skipped right over me.

On the road behind us, a truck blasts its horn, and a second later the traffic starts to move, vehicles weaving around the blockage we’re causing.

The woman jams her finger at me again. “This is on you.”

I follow her gaze to where the nose of my truck is jammed up against her car, and for the first time, I look beyond the bumper hanging loose and take in the rest of the vehicle. “Hey, I’ve seen more life in a junkyard. This thing was on life support long before it met me.”

She lets out a short laugh. “Wow. Way to own your mistake. Did they teach you that kind of charm in jerk school, or is it just natural talent?”

The first ripple of annoyance pulses inside me.

I bite it back. No way am I letting some stranger get under my skin.

I woke up this morning with a buzz in my veins and a smile on my lips.

No doubt a welcome change for my family.

Even I know I’ve been grumpy as fuck these past twenty-two months, but who can blame me?

As the oldest Sullivan boy, I’ve grown up leading the plays.

I spent my teens hauling Chase from parties and Jake out of trouble, making sure their sorry asses got to every practice and class on time.

Then nine years ago, all my dreams came true when I was drafted to the Stormhawks.

Wearing the red jersey for my home team was everything.

Until one bad tackle took it all away. To go from being top of my game to standing on the sidelines, watching my little brothers carry on playing the best football of their lives without me, hurt as bad as my injury. But all that changes today.

I can already hear Coach Allen’s voice in my head: You’re back, Dylan. You’ve made the team. They’re the words I’ve lived for. No way am I missing this meeting. If I leave right now, I can still make it.

I pull two hundred-dollar bills from my wallet and push them into her hands. “Here, blondie. For the damage. It should be more than enough.”

She looks down at the money then up at me, those green eyes still blazing. “You can’t just…” she starts. “This isn’t about the money, you?—”

But I’m already walking back to the truck, my mind on the meeting with Coach Allen.

The past few months of practice have gone well.

It felt damn good to lace up my cleats, feel the weight of the pads on my shoulders again.

Even if Jake and Chase didn’t hold back, knocking me flat on my ass a few times just to prove I was ready.

Now I finally am. I won’t be returning to tight end.

That’s Jake’s position now. Watching Jake—just a year younger than me—step into my old role as tight end after my injury nearly killed me.

But I’ve been training in my old college position as fullback and it’s working for me.

I’ll be the lead blocker, clearing a path for the running back, taking hits, protecting the quarterback too sometimes when the defense comes charging.

A fullback is less speed but more grit. And that quarterback I’ll be protecting? My little brother, Chase.

His move from the Kansas City Trailblazers was one of the biggest trades of the offseason—a headline-grabbing deal that brought him home to Denver, to the Stormhawks. Now the three Sullivan brothers are suiting up for the same team for the first time.

Yeah. It’s perfect.

The roar of my V8 engine fills the air, and I swear it sounds like freedom.

But as I drive away, I can’t help a final glance in the rearview mirror.

I feel a tug of guilt that I should’ve stayed to make sure blondie’s engine started.

I’m about to pull over and reluctantly offer to help quickly when she raises her hand and flips me her middle finger.

A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. Looks like I’m not the only one who went to jerk school, but right now I’m late for the start of the rest of my life and nothing is going to hold me back.

“I’m sorry, Dylan.”

The words hit me like a blindside tackle—vicious and impossible to swerve. Coach Allen’s gray hair and matching handlebar mustache blur before me as I dip my head. The floor feels as though it’s crumbling beneath my feet. Not just the floor—my whole world. Obliterated.

“I’ll cut the crap,” Coach Allen continues, his usually gruff tone edged with regret.

“Your fitness is good. Your strength is good. I’ve never seen anyone recover from an ACL tear like you have.

But you’ve lost your speed, and you hesitate for a fraction before a tackle.

That fraction matters. I can’t give you the fullback position or any other space on the team.

It kills me to do this, but your time playing for the Stormhawks is over. ”

A roaring noise builds in my ears. My mouth is as dry as the dirt track leading to the ranch. The silence draws out. I know I should fill it. Tell Coach I understand. It’s what he wants to hear. But football is my life.

I still remember how alive I felt in that last game against the Indianapolis Riverrunners.

As tight end, my job was to stir up plays, make the win.

I was unstoppable. Right up until I wasn’t.

Until the third quarter and the moment their linebacker made a late tackle.

I tried to swerve and jump, but his helmet connected with my knee and I went down, the pain blinding.

The diagnosis was a complete ACL tear that meant operations, physical therapy, and months of sitting on my ass.

Every grueling stretch. Every icy bath in the lake on Oakwood Ranch last winter. Every vitamin and superfood smoothie. I did it. All I cared about was getting back to football. I don’t know who I am without it.

Coach leans forward from where he’s perched on the edge of the desk in front of me, his strong hand clasping my shoulder. “I’m truly sorry, son. I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear.”

Despite the crushing weight of disappointment, I force my head up. This is Coach Allen—the man who played a decade as a Stormhawks offensive lineman before joining the coaching staff and making his way up the ranks to head coach. He’s a man who commands respect, and he’s got mine.

“You had a great run,” Coach continues, moving around the desk and returning to his chair. It squeaks with his shifting bulk.

“Nine years,” I reply, ignoring how the last season and most of the one before were spent injured. “Your first draft,” I add.

Coach nods, the regret evident in the lines of his face.

Like me, he’s probably thinking back to the year he took over as head coach.

The year I was drafted in the first round, pick twelve.

Fresh out of college. Coach Allen has been on the sidelines for every win and every loss of my pro football career.

He’s the closest thing to a father figure I’ve had since Dad died in a ranching accident when I was eleven.

Even now, as Coach crushes the last of my dreams, I respect the man.

Which makes seeing the pity in his eyes like salt rubbed in an open wound.