Page 39 of Wicked Player

Or one of my sister-in-law’s. They were always down for a good male-bashing session and I never minded they were bashing my brothers. Two of them were married and they’d given me so much grief when I was growing up, it was nice to know they still gave the women in their lives headaches from time to time.

“Okay. Well, if you need someone to kick his ass—”

“I’ll call Blake or Jax,” I assured him.

Will was a good guy but a little too sweet to kick anyone’s ass. Although the offer was appreciated.

Jax would be first on my list. He was former military, operations unknown to all of us and he now ran his own security firm. He was the guy you didn’t want to mess with. Hell, he was my brother and he still terrified the shit out of me. He was also the only one of my brothers who wasn’t married.

Blake was an electrician. Blue collar through and through who loved his wife something fierce. They’d been high school sweethearts. He walked up to her one day when he was seventeen years old, right in the middle of the lunchroom, stared directly into Haley’s green eyes and declared, “Someday, you and I are gettin’ married.”

He made it happen two years after they graduated high school. I was twelve when they started dating and could barely remember an important moment in my life without Haley in it. But Blake was big, a linebacker in high school with no desire to go to the next level. He was the brother who threatened all my high school boyfriends with bodily harm if they so much as laid a finger on me in an unappropriate way. If I went to him and so much as mentioned Connor’s name, Connor would be in the hospital with several broken bones, minimum, and Blake would be locked behind bars.

Which was exactly why I wasn’t telling any of them anything.

“Enough about me and my drama.” I waved my hand in the air as if clearing the air could clear my mind, my distraction. “What’d you do this weekend?”

He ran a hand through his perfectly styled hair and made a face. “Ugh. Heather’s family came into town.” I’d heard stories about his in-laws. The dad wasn’t so bad, but the mom? She was vicious, constantly throwing out digs and jabs at how their house wasn’t clean enough, Heather’s hair wasn’t done right. She was overly critical and lacked acceptance. Whenever Will spoke about his in-laws, I was baffled.

How a mom could be so intentionally rude to her grown children was beyond me and anything I experienced in my own life.

“You want to talk about it?” I asked.

The look he shot me was all man.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“It’s a no.”

“Okay then. How’s the summer travel series going?”

He was visiting beaches on the North Carolina coast and traveling down through South Carolina over the course of two weeks. It meant a lot of day and overnight trips for him, and if I hadn’t been giving this hospital story, I would have been pissed Shane took the travel stories from me.

“Splendid. I was in Wrightsville Beach last weekend…” He kept talking and we spent a few minutes chatting about his trip to Wilmington before his phone rang.

He answered it and I checked my emails, and when it was time, I went in search of Jason so we could head to the hospital.

Thirteen

Elizabeth

I was near the back of the small group following Gage down the hall. On the way to the hospital in the news van with Jason driving, I’d asked him a huge favor.

Let me hang out with him and the videographers instead of being up front. He peered at me strangely and shrugged. “Whatever. Yeah.”

We planned on cutting and editing the story in the van afterward. I’d do voice-overs and I’d record my intro and closing after the tour as well. The segment was set to show as a teaser late afternoon and show in its entirety for the evening news.

I didn’t exactly need to be front and center.

Small blessings would have been appreciated. Like maybe Connor ate some bad sushi and was at home suffering from food poisoning.

Unfortunately, the universe decided not to work in my favor.

There were far few reporters today, just four of us from the local stations and one from a national syndicate morning show. Apparently Gage Bryant made quite the splash on the morning shows where two women cackled and giggled while they drank wine at eight in the morning and dished about all the fun pieces of celebrity gossip.

I stayed sandwiched between Jason and another guy with a video camera hitched on his shoulder. There were far few places to hide today and if Connor dared speak to me at all I couldn’t guarantee my fist wouldn’t end up in his face.

Gage showed up in slightly distressed blue jeans, and a Rough Riders T-shirt, logo-stamped and placed perfectly on the curve of one of his pecs. He was menacing and so heart-stoppingly beautiful, last night’s dream flashed in my eyes and made my skin flush down to my toes.

---