Page 15 of The Pickleball Girl Finds Her Match

“Like I said, I’m just a visitor, so by all means.” Sebastian put the golf cart in reverse. “You might want to hold on.” He stepped on the accelerator, throwing her off balance and making her grab hold of the dashboard, sending Endy into a giggling fit.

At the farthest end of the country club’s land, the cart climbed a small hill and then came to a rest. Looking northeast toward mountains shadowed in gray-blue, they watched a freight train crossing in the distance, pulling car after car loaded with huge metal shipping containers. Around them, towering palm trees reached sky-high, their fronds trembling. Sebastian and Endy breathed in the dry, dusty air, the sultry breeze caressing their skin.

While Endy was taking in the view, she felt Sebastian’s eyes on her and she felt her face flush again. She popped up from the passenger seat and turned her head away from Sebastian, willing her blush to fade.

“Here, let me set these up.” She lifted the chairs and cooler, then placed them facing the view.

Sebastian hauled himself from the golf cart and then limped to a chair, lowering his strong, lean body down. He reached out to the cooler, lifted up the top, and pulled out a bottle of wine. He handed it to Endy and then pulled out two plastic cups, a sheepish look across his face, but Endy just uncorked the bottle and poured.

“Classy,” Endy teased, eyeing the plastic cup. She took a sip, then smiled, appreciating the wine Sebastian had chosen. “Hey, this is actually really good. Very sweet of you to bring it.”

Sebastian pulled the cooler closer, then propped his foot on top. “It’s more for the pain in my knee,” he said, grimacing.

“You’re sure milking that injury,” Endy replied with a twinkle in her eye.

“What, you’ve never had an injury?” asked Sebastian.

“Not rea—”

“—maybe hurt your face?”

“My face?”

“Because it’s killin’ me,” Sebastian finished, chuckling and eliciting a groan from Endy. They continued joking around, keeping the conversation light, until the bottle of wine was empty.

Music drifted on the warm breeze from a cover band at the nearby Marriott playing “Brown Eyed Girl.” Sebastian quietly sang along, his voice smooth. And when Endy looked up and caught Sebastian’s warm gaze, her lips lifted in a small smile.

Sebastian reached over and put his hand on Endy’s leg. “Maybe we can do this again. Sometime soon.” He squeezed her knee softly, causing goose bumps to erupt across her entire body.

Endy worried when she recognized the fluttery feeling … the feeling of falling head over heels for someone. Seriously, how could she already be so smitten with Sebastian when they’d only been around each other for a few hours?

The answer was obvious. Sebastian was dreamy. Besides those mesmerizing light blue eyes rimmed with his dark eyelashes, and his mop of tousled, chocolate-brown hair that caressed his cheeks and curled around his ears, the way he carried himself was just plain sexy.

Even with an injured knee, his body moved with a fluidness that seemed almost animal-like. When he lowered himself into the camp chair, his arms had taken the brunt of his weight, and she’d once again noticed his strong biceps straining the sleeves of his T-shirt. Endy felt her breath hitch when she thought about what those arms and biceps would look like if he were holding her hips.

“Yeah, maybe we can do this again sometime soon,” she repeated, trying to be casual, but fighting the urge to tumble blindly into love.

Endy’s last relationship—the big one, the long one, the important one, the one with Bennett—had started with her tumbling blindly into love. But when it ended, the heartbreak it caused her was immense. So much so that Endy had vowed to never ever again let herself fall for someone so hard and fast.

And that’s what had her worried now with Sebastian.

10

Fingers snapped in front of her face, startling her from her reverie. Endy blinked quickly and found herself at the water dispenser in the hallway near the gym, holding her bottle under the spigot, the cold water almost cresting and overflowing.

“Someone is in la-la land,” said Paul Rothman, his eyebrows raised. He nudged her away from the cooler and started filling his tumbler. “If you’re anything like me, you’re either thinking about the sexy new golf pro the club just hired … or what you’re going to have for lunch.”

Endy giggled and turned to Paul with a wide smile. “Neither,” she replied. “But not far off.”

“Ooh, do tell.” Paul sipped from the straw poking out of the lid of his tumbler.

“There’s really nothing to—”

“Liar,” Paul said accusingly with a pout. “But it becomes you. Makes you seem mysterious.”

Endy blew a kiss to Paul as she walked away. He was one of her favorite members at Whisper Hills. In fact, he was a favorite among many of the club’s employees. Well-known for his clever wit as well as his generosity, Paul seemed to make every situation simply a bit better.

A couple of years earlier, when Endy had just started as the brand-new assistant director of racquet sports at Whisper Hills, she was surprised to receive an invitation to a happy hour gathering at Gary Lombardi and Dean Fuller’s home. After all, she’d only been on the job for a few weeks. But never one to pass up an opportunity to network with the possibility of good food and drink, Endy readily accepted the invitation.

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