How to Score

by Robin Wells

Genres: Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

HER LIFE COACH Museum curator Sammi Matthews isn't just in a dating slump, she's putting men on the injured list. After giving one date a black eye and cracking another's rib, Sammi decides she needs professional help. Enter life coach Luke Jones, who advises Sammi on how to overcome her klutziness. And their phone sessions work! Sammi soon meets a sexy FBI agent who seems to know just what she needs. IS CHANGING HER LIFE When his brother Luke goes into federal protection, FBI Special Agent Chase Jones agrees to cover for him. Then Sammi's hot voice sizzles down the line, and the usual "phone only" rule is out. With "Luke" coaching her by day, and Chase dating her by night, Sammi's confidence soars, along with her appeal. Chase falls hard, but how will Sammi feel if and when he comes clean? Chase would rather she break all his bones than risk breaking her heart. IN WAYS SHE'S NEVER IMAGINED!

Release date: May 11, 2009

Publisher: Forever

Print pages: 404

Sample

I only stayed out until nine, but Mother was in a tizzy when I got home,” Horace whined. “She said she’d carried me for nine
months and suffered through sixteen hours of labor, and I was a terrible son because I didn’t want to stay home and keep her
company.”


Chase Jones rubbed the bridge of his nose as he listened to Horace’s nasal whine through his brother’s cell phone, wondering,
for the umpteenth time, how Luke managed to listen to losers like this all day long without going bonkers. More to the point,
how was he going to listen to them for the next six weeks? He must have been out of his mind, telling Luke he’d fill in for him as a
life coach.


“I tried to explain to Mother that I needed some time to myself, just like you said, but she wouldn’t listen.” Horace’s voice
trembled.


Shaking his head in disgust, Chase gazed down at the open file sprawled on the dining table of his Tulsa apartment. According
to Luke’s notes, Horace was forty-four years old, lived with his mother, and never made a move without her approval.


“I just don’t know what to do, Coach,” Horace whined.

How about growing a pair? Unfortunately, the words weren’t on the list of conversational prompts his brother had left for him to use. Instead, the
page was filled with namby-pamby, touchy-feely phrases such as “How did that make you feel?”

Chase stifled a groan. Feelings made people act irrationally; he’d seen plenty of proof of that growing up, and as an FBI
agent now, he saw more proof every day. In his opinion, the world would be a better place if everyone kept a lid on the primal
stuff and just stuck to logic. His brother’s let’s-talk-things-out, tell-me-how-you-feel approach only made things worse.



This right here was a prime example. Horace had spent more than four decades wallowing in his feelings, and it had gotten
him nowhere. The poor sap needed his butt kicked off the pity pot and into action. A few weeks of Quantico-style basic training
and Horace would be a new man.


Chase was itching to tackle the project, but he’d promised to follow his brother’s instructions. With a sigh, he swallowed
his distaste and forced out the lame-assed question “How did your mother’s reaction make you feel?”


“Frustrated,” Horace said woefully. “And upset. Like I don’t have a life of my own.”

That’s because you don’t, Chase thought dourly. He glanced back at his brother’s notes. Follow up with an empathetic statement, such as “Those are understandable emotions.” Hell. Much more of this and he was going to gag.


“So, Coach, what should I do?” Horace whimpered.


Chase had a few suggestions, but none of them would have met with his brother’s approval. He scanned the conversational prompts.
When he asks you a question, turn it around and make him answer it himself. “Well, Horace, what do you want to do?”


“I’m not sure. That’s why I hired you to be my life coach.”

Actually, Horace, old buddy, you didn’t hire me; you hired my younger brother, Luke. I’m an FBI agent, not a sports psychologist
turned life coach, and I don’t buy into this nursemaid crap. I’m filling in for Luke for a few weeks because thanks to me,
he witnessed a mob hit and is temporarily in the Witness Protection Program. But I can’t tell you that, Horace, my man, because
you’re such a quivering mass of jelly-bellied insecurities that you’d never believe it, and you’d think Luke was giving you
the brush-off, and if you thought that your life coach was rejecting you, you’d feel even more inadequate than you already
do, and you’d probably never seek help again. Which is why I’m sitting here like an idiot, wasting a perfectly good Thursday
evening, impersonating my brother on the phone.

“So what do you think I should do?” Horace whimpered.

Besides grow some gonads? Chase blew out a sigh and forced his gaze back to the list. Ask him to visualize his ideal life. “Let’s talk about what you’d like your life to be like.”


“You mean—if I were a superhero or something?”

Chase rubbed his forehead. “Why would you be a superhero?”

“Because I love comics, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah.” This was the first Chase had heard of it.

“Superheroes can do anything, and they’re never afraid.”

Chase wasn’t sure just how sick this dude really was, and he damn sure didn’t want to encourage him to see if he could fly
or something. “For the purposes of this exercise, Horace, you don’t have any superpowers, but you’re the kind of guy you want
to be, and everything in your life is just like you want it. I want you to describe it to me.”


“Oh, golly—I don’t even know where to start.”

How about with dropping the word golly from your vocabulary? Man, this guy was pathetic. “Let’s start with your mother. If everything in your life was ideal, would you still live with
her?”


“Oh, no,” Horace said emphatically. “I’d have my own place.”

“Well, what would it look like?”

“Gee… I don’t know. It’d just be a little apartment, I guess.”

Press for details, the notes said. Engage his senses. “Can you visualize it?”


“Not really.”

“Come on, Horace—work with me here. What color would you want the walls to be? White? Gray? Beige?”

“Red.” Horace’s voice perked up. “A bright, shiny red—Corvette red. Mother hates red. And I’d have a black leather couch, and black satin sheets on my bed, and a huge TV, and I’d have the remote all to
myself. And there would be no knickknacks or dolls or doilies anywhere in the place.”


Now they were getting somewhere. Chase leaned back in his chair and stretched his long jeans-clad legs out in front of him.
“Good,” he told Horace. “What else?”


“I’d have Cheetos in my pantry, and beer in my refrigerator.”

Nothing like dreaming big.

“And I’d have pictures of cars hung all over the walls, and maybe a bearskin rug on the floor.” Enthusiasm fueled Horace’s
thin voice. “It would be a real bachelor pad.”


Chase looked around the large room that comprised the dining, living, and kitchen areas of his apartment. His place was a
real bachelor pad, but it damn sure didn’t look anything like what Horace was describing. His walls were plain vanilla and
completely devoid of pictures. His floor was covered with ordinary tan carpet, and his furniture was some basic, sturdy stuff
that he’d picked out during a twenty-minute visit to a furniture store seven or eight years ago. His gaze rested on his giant
plasma TV against the central wall. The TV was the only thing in the place he’d recently purchased, and he wished he hadn’t
done that, because it was indirectly the reason his brother was in hiding and he was here on the phone with Horace.


“If I lived by myself, I’d drink milk straight from the carton,” Horace continued. “And I’d put my feet on the couch whenever
I felt like it, and I’d stay in the shower until all the hot water was gone.”


Wow. Let’s not get carried away, Horace, my man. “Anything else?”


“Yeah. I’d play my accordion whenever I wanted, and I’d play the kind of music I like to play.”


Chase’s eyebrows rose. “You play the accordion?”

“Yep. But Mother only wants me to play organ-grinder music.”

“What do you like to play?”

“Rap.”

Chase stifled a laugh. “Accordion rap?”

“Yes. I’ve written some lyrics, but they’re really awful.”

“Well, lay some on me.”

“Oh, I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“Well… ” Horace drew a deep breath, then lowered his voice into a bad imitation of Snoop Dogg:

I went to the store to get some Cheese Whiz,

and I ran into a pretty girl named Liz.

She said, ‘Hey, Horace, you’re lookin’ real fine.

Would you like to shoot your cheese on these crackers of mine?’

Chase let out a loud snort.

“I told you it was awful,” Horace said mournfully.

“Hey, I think it rocks.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s hilarious.”

“But it wasn’t meant to be funny.” Horace’s voice grew small and wounded.

Uh-oh. Whatever you do, don’t hurt his feelings, Luke’s notes said. “Well, funny is good.”


“Really?”

“Sure. Everyone likes a laugh. And women love a guy with a sense of humor.”

A sigh floated wistfully through the phone line. “That’s what I’d really want in my apartment—a woman.”

You and me both, buddy. It had been nearly a year since Chase had broken up with Sara. Like all the women Chase had ever dated, Sara had wanted
to move things to the next level. Not that he had anything against commitment—in fact, marriage was part of his Life Master
Plan, and according to his LMP timetable, he should be in the marriage-execution phase right now—but Sara just hadn’t had
all the attributes he was looking for.


He had yet to meet a woman who did. He had very specific criteria. He called the search Operation SCABHOG, because he wanted
someone who was smart, competent, active, beautiful, honest, organized, and goal-oriented.


“Lots of girls have those qualities,” Luke had told him when he’d complained about it over a beer at their favorite watering
hole a couple of weeks ago.


“Not as I define them.”

Luke’s dark eyebrows, a mirror image of Chase’s, had quirked up. “That’s because when you say ‘smart,’ you really mean ‘rocket
scientist.’ ”


“No,” Chase had said defensively. “Just sharp. Quick on the uptake. Perceptive. Level-headed. Knowledgeable. Able to think
on her feet and come up with creative solutions. ”


“Uh-huh.” Luke had taken a pull on his bottle of Coors. “In other words, brilliant. And what’s your definition of ‘competent’?”

“A woman who has her act together and has the track record to prove it. Someone efficient and stable and capable and reliable,
who always follows through and doesn’t come with a lot of baggage. Someone who won’t disrupt my life.”


Luke had rolled his eyes. “Like that’s gonna happen.”

Chase had bristled. “Hey, there’s no reason I can’t find a woman who doesn’t turn my life upside down.”

“There’s a very good reason. She doesn’t exist.” Luke had taken another sip. “I’m not even going to ask about your definition
of ‘beautiful.’ ”


“Well, I’ve got to find her attractive, don’t I? I mean, there’s got to be some sizzle.”

“Which means she needs to look like a supermodel.”

“No. Supermodels are way too skinny.”

Luke had shaken his head. “Want to know why you can’t find the right girl? You’re setting the bar too high.”

“I refuse to settle.”

“Which really means you refuse to settle down,” Luke had said in that annoying I-know-it-all-because-I’m-the-psychologist tone of his.


Horace’s whiny voice interrupted Chase’s thoughts. “For some reason, women just don’t seem attracted to me.”

Golly gee—I wonder why not?

“I bet you don’t have that problem,” Horace said.

As a matter of fact, Chase didn’t. His problem was keeping non-SCABHOG women from trying to drag him down the aisle.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Horace asked.

Chase closed his eyes. He hoped to God Horace wasn’t about to disclose details about his master-of-his-domain status.

“I’ve never even kissed a girl,” Horace blurted.

Wow. Chase was talking to a real-life forty-four-year-old virgin. He scanned the list of comments in the file, searching for
something appropriate to say. Use lots of sports analogies, Luke had told him. My clients love it. Chase sincerely doubted it, but his brother was a sports psychologist and his speech was peppered with sports terminology.
If Chase were going to pull off this impersonation, he’d better step up to the plate.


Chase reached for the list of sports comments on top of the stack of files and rapidly scanned the page. “Well, you’ve got
to shoot before you can expect to make a basket.”


“Huh?”

“If you want to win at the game of life, you’ve got to know how to score.”

“But I don’t know how to score. I can’t even get a date.”

Chase searched the list for something more appropriate. “As you gain self-assurance in the outfield, you’ll become a better
batter.”


“What?”

Apparently Horace wasn’t a big sports fan. “If you get better in one area of your life, the other areas will improve, too.”

“Oh. You think?” Horace said eagerly.

Not really. I think you’re a hopeless mess. “Absolutely.” Chase glanced at his Seiko chronograph wristwatch and blew out a sigh of relief. “Our time is nearly up, Horace.
So here’s what I want you to do before we talk again.” He flipped to the page of assignments his brother had outlined for
Horace. “I want you to read the classified ads and pick out three apartments that sound like places you might like to live.”



“But-but—I can’t!” Horace’s voice squeaked with alarm.

“Why not?”

“Mother would have a conniption.”

“Sounds like she has those on a regular basis anyway.”

“But-but… ”

Reassure him that he doesn’t have to do anything he’s not ready to do. “Whoa, there, Horace. Calm down. This is a practice session, not the actual game. No one’s asking you to really move. You
just have to read the classifieds.”


“But Mother always watches me read the newspaper.”

“So take it into your bedroom.”

“She won’t let me. She says everything has a place and there’s a place for everything, and the newspaper is always read at
the kitchen table and then put in a basket for exactly three days before it goes into the recycle bin. And she watches everything
I do.”


This guy wasn’t just living with his mother; he was living with Big Brother. “Well, then, buy a newspaper of your own on your
lunch hour.”


“After I’ve already read ours at home? That would be wasteful.”

“So splurge a little.”

“Oh.” Apparently the concept would never have occurred to him. “Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you on Tuesday. And Horace… ”

“Yeah?”

“I’d love to hear some more rap lyrics then, okay?”

“You really liked them?” Horace sounded like an eight-year-old boy desperate for a parent’s approval.

The neediness in his voice dredged up an old memory in Chase’s mind.

He’d been eight years old, and he’d had the role of the lead elf in the school Christmas play. His dad never came to school
events, but Chase had begged him to come to this one, and Chase’s mom had made it happen.


Chase had practiced and practiced, and the night of the play, he’d acted his heart out. Behind the curtain, his teacher and
the play director had raved about his performance, but it wasn’t their praise he was after.


Chase had eagerly run up to his father. “What’d you think?”

His dad had swayed, the bottle of cheap booze sticking out of his coat pocket. His breath had reeked of whiskey. “You looked
like a little fag up there.”


“Richard!” Chase’s mom had gasped. “You don’t mean that.”

“I sure as hell do. Can’t believe you made me miss the game for that.”

Yeah, Chase knew what it was like to yearn for approval.

“You were great,” he told Horace now. “I’m looking forward to next time.”

“Really? Golly, wow!”

Chase shook his head as he hung up the phone and pushed back his chair. Pitiful, just pitiful—and in Chase’s opinion, his
brother’s approach to coaching the poor bastard was pretty pitiful, too. Horace had already wasted forty-four years of his
life, and at the rate Luke was inching him along, it would be another forty-four before he ever moved out on his own. What
Horace needed was a swift kick out of his comfort zone. If he were thrown into a sink-or-swim situation, he’d be forced to
grow a backbone and earn some genuine self-confidence.


But Chase had agreed to handle things Luke’s way, so he’d keep his mouth shut and follow his directions. After all, this whole
situation was his own fault.


Chase rose from the table, put Horace’s file on the short stack next to the mountain of files he was sorting through, and
glanced at that damned wide-screen TV. It had all started when he’d bought it last spring and invited Luke over to watch the
Yankees play the Red Sox. “I’ll call in a pizza and you can pick it up on your way over,” Chase had said. “I found this great
little place that makes real Chicago-style ones.”


As it turned out, pizza wasn’t the only thing being ordered at Giuseppe’s that night. The local mob had ordered a hit on a
rival crime boss, and Luke had seen the whole thing—including the shooter, the getaway car, and the man in the passenger seat.


“Holy mother of Christ,” Luke had said later, after the ambulance and police cars had cleared out and Luke was thumbing through
a book of mug shots at Chase’s desk at the Tulsa FBI office. “How the hell did you find that restaurant?”


“My partner and I were doing surveillance there a couple of weeks ago,” Chase had admitted. “We had a tip it was a mob hangout,
but we never saw any action, so we figured it was a false lead.”


“Yeah, well, guess what?”

Chase had looked across his desk at his little brother—who at six-foot-one was just an inch shorter than Chase and not really
all that little—and felt his chest tighten. He’d promised his mother that he’d look out for Luke, and he’d always done his
best. He’d skipped high school sports to babysit him, gotten between him and the old man’s fists, and worked two jobs to support
him after their mother had died. The thought that he’d now put Luke’s life in danger made him feel like he’d been kicked in
the gut. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”


“Don’t even try.” Luke had raked a hand through his hair, which was the same shade of dark brown as Chase’s, but shaggier.
“Just do me a favor.”


“Name it.”

“Next time you want pizza, just call Domino’s.”

That had been nearly four months ago. Luke had ID’d the shooter, as well as the man in the getaway car’s passenger seat—who’d
turned out to be Marco Lambino, the local kingpin Chase and his partner had been trying to nail for months, and Lambino’s
brother, Gianno. Both Lambinos were indicted and held for trial, and everything had been fine until last week—when the Tulsa
district attorney had been forced by law to give the defense their witness list for the trial and, not coincidentally, when
the Lambinos would have learned Luke’s identity. The very next day, someone took a shot at Luke as he walked from his house
to his car.


Which meant Luke was a marked man. Chase had damn near blown a gasket. He’d rushed his brother to the FBI field office in
Oklahoma City and pulled every string available to get his brother into Witness Protection.


“You’ll only need to stay in the program until after the trial,” the craggy-faced regional commander had told Luke as they’d
sat across from him at his mahogany desk. “We’re sure the shooter was the Lambinos’ nephew, Johnny, and we’re confident the
uncles will give him up in exchange for lighter sentences. Once that happens, you’re home free.”


“If you know who shot at me, why don’t you just arrest him?” Luke had asked.

“We don’t have any evidence,” the commander said.

“So how do you know it was him?”

“Johnny is none too bright. If it were a real hit man, you’d be dead.”

Luke had absorbed that silently for a moment. “What’s to keep other members of the mob from coming after me?”

“This is the Calabrian Mafia, not the Cosa Nostra,” Chase had explained. “It’s made up of small family groups—usually just
seven or eight operatives. Except for the nephew, we have the whole family in custody.”


“What about the new family that’s moving into town?”

“They have more reason to give you a medal than kill you,” the commander said. “You’ve made it possible for them to take over.”

“But what’s to stop the Lambinos from hiring a hit man?”

“Money. We’ve confiscated all their loot.”

“How do you know they don’t have some hidden somewhere?”

“Because their first priority is keeping their asses out of jail, and they’re so broke they’re using public defenders. Once
they’re all convicted, you’ll be in the clear.”


Luke blew out a resigned sigh. “So where will I be while I’m in Witness Protection?”

“I don’t know, and if I did, I couldn’t tell you. You’ll be out in the boonies—probably out west somewhere.” The commander
had leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingertips together. “You won’t find out until you get there.”


All in all, Luke had taken it pretty well—until the commander had left the room and Chase and his partner, Paul, had filled
Luke in on the terms of the Witness Protection Program.


“What do you mean, I can’t call my clients?” Luke had demanded.

“You’re not allowed to have any contact with anyone you know,” Chase had explained. “Not even me. And I won’t have a clue
where you are.”


“Why?”

“Witness Protection policy,” Paul had explained. The stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair had handed Luke a document outlining
the rules. “You have to be untraceable. It’s part of the deal.”


“But I can’t just bail on my clients!”

Chase had shrugged. “Tell them you’re going on an extended vacation and refer them to someone else.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Luke’s chin, so much like his own, had jutted out to a stubborn angle. “Some of these guys spent
years working up the courage to reach out to someone. It’s taken months for them to trust me, and they can’t just transfer
that trust to someone else. This could stop their progress dead in its tracks.”


“How much progress do you think they’ll make if you’re stopped dead in your tracks?”


Luke had slumped low in his chair, his eyes filled with such utter defeat that Chase’s heart had twisted. An idea had flashed
through his mind—a bad idea, an idea so awful that it should have been immediately discarded. And yet, against his better
judgment, he found it coming out of his mouth.


“Look—I’m responsible for getting you into this mess, so I’ll stand in for you.”

Luke’s head had jerked up. “What?”

“I’ll talk to your most desperate clients and pretend to be you.”

“Oh, right,” Luke had scoffed. “Like that’ll ever work.”

Paul had laughed. “Yeah. Not very likely.”

Chase had felt vaguely offended. “Why not? Your sessions are conducted on the phone, and people always say they can’t tell
us apart on the phone. And I’m great at giving advice.”


“They need good advice.” Luke had looked at Paul, and both men had snickered.


“Have I ever steered you wrong?” Chase demanded.

“I can’t believe you’re even opening that door,” Paul said dryly.

“Including or excluding your choice of pizzeria?” Luke asked.

Paul had roared.

“No offense, bro,” Luke said, “but you don’t exactly give off the sympathetic, supportive vibe my clients are looking for.”

It was probably true. They looked alike and sounded alike, but that was where the similarity ended. Luke believed in talking
things out, while Chase was all about action. Luke said they’d developed different coping tactics while growing up in a dysfunctional
family. Since Luke had studied all that psychology crap, Chase would take his word on it.


“So I’ll fake it.” Hell, it couldn’t be as hard as Luke was making it out to be. After all, Luke was doing it, wasn’t he?
And there were no licensing requirements for life coaches, so Chase wasn’t technically unqualified.


“I just ran a new ad, and I’m booked solid,” Luke had said. “It’s a full-time job.”

“So I’ll refer the newbies to someone else and coach your worst cases in the evening,” Chase had said. “Write down what you
want me to say. I’ll follow your directions.”


Luke had snorted. “That’ll be a first.”

Ultimately, though, Luke had agreed, because he didn’t have a choice. Paul had retrieved Luke’s files, and Luke had spent
several hours at the Oklahoma City bureau office, writing detailed notes, lists of things to say, and instructions about his
six neediest clients. He also jotted down a list of sports terms.


“Most of my clients call me Coach, and they expect a lot of sports talk,” Luke had explained. “I use a lot of sports references,
such as ‘To win at the game of life, you have to learn how to score.’ ”


Chase had rolled his eyes. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“No. I relate everything to plays and practice and strategy and skills.”

When the transport team arrived, Luke had handed Chase an enormous cardboard box filled with files. “Promise you’ll take good
care of my clients.”


Chase had taken the box and nodded, a hard lump in his throat. “Don’t worry. I won’t fumble the ball.”

So far, so good, Chase thought as he gazed at the three stacks of files on his table—the tallest stack for the clients he’d referred to other
coaches, the medium-sized stack for the clients he’d try to put on hold for six weeks, and the short stack for the clients
he was actually coaching.


The next client was due to call in ten minutes. He strolled into the kitchen and grabbed a Coke from the fridge. So far tonight
he’d coached a man who hadn’t left his house in two years, an obnoxious braggart who couldn’t understand why he had no friends,
and Horace. He’d bitten his tongue so many times it was a wonder it was still attached. It was excruciating, having to listen
to these morons whine and moan, then respond with nothing more than pansy-assed, sports-laced suggestions. What these folks
really needed—and probably really wanted—was a hard kick in the end zone. Left to his own devices, Chase would straighten
out these gutless wonders in a few short weeks. Too bad he wasn’t going to get a chance to prove it.


The apartment felt stuffy. Chase blew out a restless breath and strode toward his terrace, wanting to grab some fresh air
before he got tied up with another pathetic loser. Popping the tab on his Coke, he opened the sliding door and stepped outside,
leaving the door open so he could hear the phone.


It was September, but the night was hot. In Oklahoma, autumn didn’t really kick in until mid-October. Still, Chase sensed
a change in the air. The breeze carried the scent of rain, and the wind was brisker than usual.


Chase inhaled deeply, leaned against his terrace railing, and gazed out at the Tulsa skyline. Lightning zigzagged over the
Williams Tower as a strong gust of wind plastered Chase’s maroon OU T-shirt against his chest.


A noise like a small avalanche sounded behind him. Chase turned to see his brother’s files crashing to the floor, the tall
stack pushing the other stacks like dominoes, the papers tumbling out of the folders, the wind blowing pages and manila folders
around the room like autumn leaves. With a muttered oath, Chase quickly stepped back inside and closed the door, but not before
another gust scattered the papers like confetti.


The phone rang.

Great—the next client was calling, and Chase didn’t have the file. Hell, he didn’t even know the client’s name. It took him
two more phone rings to locate the appointment book from the heap of papers on the floor. He snatched up the receiver half
a second before voice mail caught the call. “Hello?” he said gruffly.


“Luke?” purred a sultry female voice.

Out of habit, he almost said no, then caught himself. “Uh, yes.”

“I took your advice about how to handle Joe, and it worked!”

“That’s great, um… ” Chase quickly flipped through the appointment book, looking for the name of his brother’s 7:30 client.
“… Samantha.”