Page 84 of Penalty Kiss
Almost.
Chapter 14
The Family Blitz
Tara
Dr. Erik Wilder studies me like I'm a particularly challenging surgical case, and honestly? I'm starting to sweat like I'm about to get dissected without anesthesia.
The man radiates authority that could make trauma residents weep into their scrubs. He’s very tall—definitely where Cam gets his height from. And stoic, with pale blue eyes that catalog everything from my coffee-cup grip to the way I unconsciously straighten my shoulders when nervous.
I feel like he's running diagnostics on my suitability to be let into the careful perimeter he’s built around his son.
Luke Wilder is his father's son in all the ways that matter—clinical precision, sharp intelligence, the ability to make you feel like a specimen under a microscope.
Where I’d expected another Cam, Luke looks like he stepped out of a Scandinavian architecture magazine. All pale angles and clean lines. Striking, yes, but in a way that symmetry pleases the mind.
If Cam is the storm—the dark-eyed gravity you feel before you even see him—Luke is the clear sky after.
Same bloodline, completely different weather.
AndI’ve never been the type to chase sunshine when thunder calls.
Then there’s Hana, Cam’s mom.
Sweet, petite, absolutely lethal Hana Wilder told us she’d rerouted a work trip when she heard the boys were gathering. “I miss my firstborn,” she'd said, and flew in together with husband and son.
She’ll only be here for a day before she flies out tomorrow; Erik and Luke are staying a few more days to ‘observe.’
Since our lobby hello, she’d hugged me, shown off appreciatively, a photo from her Texas staff—the flowers we sent—artfully posed in a vase that screams “family heirloom.”
Hana continues to beam at me like she’s discovered a very precious and delightful miracle, watching me with an eagerness and maternal openness I’ve never experienced.
She’s also been squeezing my shoulders, cupping my face, patting my arm—either to confirm I’m not a hologram, or checking for skeletal integrity. If only she knew how thoroughly her son has already tested this chassis; she’d quit checking for structural soundness.
“Tara, sweetie,” she says, sliding into our reserved booth with a smile that could talk down a boardroom. “Call me Auntie. It pulls hearts closer—makes family out of strangers.”
I nearly stumble into my seat.Family?We're twenty minutes into breakfast and she's already planning the wedding?
"I... absolutely, Auntie," I manage, and her face lights up like I just agreed to let her name our future children.
Cam shoots me a look that screams ‘sorry my mother is planning our entire future,’ but there's tension bracketing his eyes. He's been different since his family walked through Skyridge Hotel into Cedar Grounds—quieter, more guarded—definitely bracing himself for a medical intervention.
"So, Tara," Erik begins, "Cam mentioned you've been... helpful during his recovery."
Helpful. I want to be more than helpful to his son, but I'll take what I can get.
“She'sbeen incredible," Cam says, his voice landing on that rough protectiveness that makes heat pool low in my belly.
His thumb traces across my knuckles under the table—a deliberate claim his family can't see but I feel everywhere.
"She’s important to me."
The words hang there—solid, deliberate. Not convenient. Not temporary. Important.
Erik's eyebrows climb slightly—the first crack in his composed facade. "Important how?"
And here’s where it gets dicey. Try telling a trauma surgeon his son’s recovery plan includes a runaway heiress with enemies. There’s no world where that looks like good medicine.
