Page 40 of Skins Game

She shrugged, switched the computer back to the golf sim software, and then proceeded to hack her way around the first hole. “I’m a materials science engineer. I had offers from Sidewinder Golf and Electric Boat when I graduated, among others. The nuclear submarine market is nine billion dollars. Golf is over a hundred billion. I went where the money is.”

“You didn’t want to work at EB?”

She threw him a sharp glance. Usually, only people who worked there used the acronym. “What do you know aboutEB?”

“I live in Connecticut. Electric Boat sails its new subs down the Thames River when they’re launched. It’s a big deal. Why Sidewinder instead of EB?”

She shrugged. “I like golf better than nuclear war.”

“Okay, valid. But Sidewinder? How much money can this place be making?”

“Oh, alot.”

“And yet it very nearly went bankrupt. This isn’t really a money laundering operation for a cocaine cartel, is it?”

She chuckled. “As far as I can tell, as long as I’ve been working here, we make golf clubs and sell them for an exorbitant amount of money. Joe just kept buying ridiculous ‘investments’ like these golf simulators. Besides, if Sidewinder was a cocaine money laundering operation, it would havemademore money, and the lab and simulators would never have actually been built.”

Kingston nodded thoughtfully, staring up at the ceiling. “Money laundering is generally thought to be a profitable business model. Okay, it’s probably not a mob business, then.”

They stepped onto the second tee box at Pebble Beach Golf Links, seven hundred miles north of Sidewinder Golf. The insanely long par-five had a waste area before the green that Kingston shot over just fine. After three hacks, Nicole finally overrode the software and electronically kicked her ball onto the green to putt out.

She hoped she didn’t die of embarrassment while they were locked in the building. Kingston might have a hard time explaining her corpse to the police the next day.

Her postmortem grimace of mortification might save him, though. Every golfer would recognize that pathetic hangdog expression after you shank every shot out of bounds.

Okay, every hit of the golf ball was a new game. She just had to stop sucking so much.

Yeah, she’d like to?—

No, no. She was not going to think about Kingston in that way. They were locked in for the night, and hankering after something and somebodyshe shouldnothave was just a recipe for frustration.

Nicole stepped up to the tee, calmed herself down, breathed slowly, and smacked another ball directly off the side of the golf course.

Her game didn’t get better from there.

Kingston chatted about golf and club design while Nicole deeply considered breaking every darned club over her knee and throwing the bag off the digital cliff and into the electronic ocean beside the fourth tee box. Maybe the software would catch the bag and show the stupid thing falling onto the rocks far below.

After four agonizing holes in which Nicole shanked every single shot way off the course into the rocks and deep grass, and Kingston knocked each of his hits onto fairways and greens and then tapped a few short putts, scoring pars and one birdie, he asked her, “Would you like a tip or two?”

She wanted more than just the tip.

No.Nicole wasnotgoing to get involved with the new sales guy who, it had been confirmed, wasnotmoving to California but staying in Connecticut.

Long-distance relationships were always doomed to heartbreak.

She didn’t need any more heartbreak.

Not that he was offering her anything, really. All golf terms just sounded dirty.

But when she turned around to look at him standing back by the computer, the mischievous glint in his blue eyes made her laugh.

14

The Tempo of a Golf Swing Is a Waltz

NICOLE LAMB

Kingston was still watching her, a smile growing on his lips.