by Lee Kilraine
“I agree.” Beck referred to the list. “Okay, what about Phil Smith?”
I immediately shook my head. “I’m voting no on Mr. Smith. He has this laugh…a very loud, nasally laugh. I don’t want to imagine working on design plans or studying for my exams with that laugh booming down the hall. It’s a no for me.”
“I concur,” Eli said, nodding. “Nice man, but the laugh was annoying after a twenty-minute conversation. I think we’d all go crazy long before the year was up.”
“Okay. Next up is Beth Yellin.”
Beth Yellin…Beth Yellin. She wasn’t coming up in my memory. Beth—ah, got her. “Bookkeeping service. She seemed nice enough. Eli?”
“Very nice.” Eli agreed, but his gaze whipped over to Ash’s. “Except she mentioned she’s a huge Boston Barracuda fan. And that might get a little tense during hockey season, seeing as how we’re all diehard Roughneck fans.”
“I’m going to have to put the kibosh on that.” Ash crossed his arms over his muscled chest, looking personally insulted. “Yeah, I know I’m only very part-time around here, but I vote no on someone who roots for our archrival.”
“Probably for the best,” Beck said as we all nodded in agreement. Ash was the best forward defenseman in the American Hockey League, and we were rabid Roughneck fans.
“That leaves Rhia Hollis.” Gray leaned forward, glancing at both myself and Eli. “Her sister was a little unique, but Ms. Hollis seemed fine. Wyatt? Your take?”
“She was very nice,” I said as the memory of Ms. Hollis floated up swiftly. “Ms. Hollis came across as nice, quiet—maybe even a little shy. Very pretty eyes.”
No one said anything else, and I glanced around at my brothers’ faces. There were raised brows, quirked eyebrows, and grins.
“What?”
“You noticed her eyes?” Gray asked, his own eyes looking amused.
“Well, only because one was swollen shut,” I responded, maybe a bit defensively, because I didn’t even know I’d noticed her eye color until I’d opened my mouth. “Ms. Hollis made it to the expo to fill out the application even with laryngitis. So, I’d say she’s very motivated.”
“She’s a yes from me,” Ash said without hesitation. He was leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, elbows splayed out and wearing a small grin as he stared at me.
Beck and Gray were also quick to agree.
“Don’t you even want to hear my impression of her?” Eli asked.
“I think everything we’ve heard from Wyatt makes it clear Rhia Hollis is the one,” Beck said. “But sure, Eli, what was your impression?”
“She seemed very nice. I didn’t notice her eyes, though, so I can’t comment on them,” Eli said. “Motivated with a calm demeanor. She gets my vote.”
“So Rhia Hollis it is.” Beck nodded with satisfaction. “I’ll call her and give her the good news.”
Ash stared across the table at me, grinning.
“What are you grinning at?” While it was true that all my brothers had looked out for me over the years in a big way—what was also true was they also enjoyed torturing me the way older brothers had since probably history’s first set of brothers. It was part of the deal. Never cruel. Just a pain in the ass sometimes.
“Not a thing,” Ash said, grinning even more. “I’m just sitting here wishing it was the off-season, so I could be around the office more, that’s all.”
“Wrapping up,” Beck said. “Any grievances to bring up?”
“Someone ate my leftovers in the fridge, so I had to go out to lunch,” Gray said, his gaze firmly on Ash.
“Dude, I was hungry.” Ash shrugged. “I’ll stock up the break room fridge to make up for it. Good enough?”
“Yep.” Gray nodded. As a pro hockey player, Ash pulled in a nice salary, plus he was a foodie. When he stocked the fridge, he always stocked it with the good stuff. We’d be eating like kings for the next week.
“Anything else?” Beck looked around the table. “Okay. Last item: Sinclair called me late last night. He’s driving to Arizona to check out the address he found for Hope. He’ll make contact if it checks out, and the plan is to convince her to come here to meet us.”
The room went silent, except for the restless shifting in our chairs.
“This still feels surreal. I mean, nothing like hiring a P.I. to find our missing brother and turning up a sister we never even knew about instead.” Not that we were giving up finding Ryker—not at all. But wow, a sister. Crap this felt strange.
“It may not pan out,” Beck said.
But it might.
Chapter 3
Rhia
“What’s the fastest way to sober up a drunk clown?” I asked into my phone. I’d called Steph first, but her phone was off. Cole was my next go-to for any medical question. Surely, my brilliant brother would have the answer.
“Uh… Is this one of those party games?”
Party game? Oh, I hoped not, since I’d booked Mr. Giggles the Clown for a one-year-old’s birthday party. A party that had been running beautifully up until a few minutes ago. I’d handled the simple decorating myself with pink balloons and streamers, overseen the caterer while he set up, and then stayed out of sight by helping in the kitchen as needed.
Until it was time for the scheduled entertainment. I’d come out in front of my client’s cute Cape Cod house in search of my clown. The good news was he hadn’t stood me up. The bad news was I found him highly inebriated and singing “Karma Chameleon” in the passenger seat of his car. Thus, my emergency call for help to my brother.
“No, Cole. I’m asking a serious question here. Coffee? Can I pour coffee down him to sober him up?”
“All coffee does is give you a wide-awake drunk. Who are you trying to sober up?”
“Mr. Giggles,” I answered distractedly while I fought the clown for the bottle of bourbon he’d pulled out of thin air. Quite the magician, but I doubted the adults at this party would enjoy his magic trick in front of their children.
“Are you at a strip bar?”
A strip bar? With Mr. Giggles? I didn’t even want to ask what my brother did in his downtime now.
“No, I’m not at a strip bar.” His question distracted me, giving Mr. Giggles the opportunity to pull the bottle into his chest. Tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder, I wrapped a second hand around the bottle and pulled back.
“I’m not sharing! Go get your own bourbon.” We tugged back and forth until suddenly he let go and the bottle went flying end over end over my head before landing in the grass behind me. Oh, Mr. Giggles generously shared his bourbon. All over my blouse and face and hair. Basically, I had a bourbon shower.
“Rhia, who are you sharing bourbon with at one in the afternoon?”
“No one. I’m busy with work right now, as a matter of fact.” The struggle over the bottle must have been too much for Mr. Giggles. He was now passed out, thank goodness. Reaching across, I grabbed the keys from where they dangled in the ignition. There was no way I wanted him to wake up while I was wrapping up this birthday party and drive off under the influence. Not on my watch, you dumb clown.
I looked down at the damage, wrinkling my nose at the eau de bourbon that wafted up. Wonderful. But I had a bigger problem: I had to figure out how to replace my passed-out clown in the next ten minutes, and I only had one option.
“You shouldn’t lie to your brother. Dad said you’re between jobs. Like you always are.”
“I do so have a job. I started my own event planning business two months ago. Only I haven’t told Mom and Dad about it yet.” I really didn’t want to hear about another one of Rhia’s flighty whims.
“An event planning business? I heard you mention parties and balloons last week, and I thought you were reminiscing about your party days in college.”
“Jeez o’ flip. Y’all act like
I’m the only college kid in the history of the world to have had fun.” I left Mr. Giggles snoring away and opened the trunk of his car in search of supplies. Jackpot. He had two stuffed duffle bags. A spare clown suit, multiple red noses, colorful handkerchiefs, balloons for making animals, face painting supplies, and bags of confetti. I had no idea how to perform clown tricks. My clown knowledge was weak, but my imagination was strong. I could work with this.
“Well, in our family you are.”
“Have you ever considered that I’m not the odd duck here?” I let my head drop back and stared up at the white, puffy clouds rolling by. It was possible my family would never understand. Was it that unusual to still be trying to find your destiny at twenty-five? Fine, twenty-six. “I mean, not everyone shoots out of the birth canal knowing exactly what they want to do, you know.”
“Everyone in our family does.”
Except you, Rhia. I was an anomaly in my own family. Like they were from Mars and I was from, well, not Mars. Whatever planet was on the other side of the solar system. I was the puzzle piece that wouldn’t fit.
It was a fact that I came from a large, loving family. Except my family spoke a foreign language that I couldn’t understand. Science. They didn’t understand me, and I often felt in need of an interpreter to understand them half the time too. I grew up feeling a bit like an exchange student trying to live with a host family in a foreign land.
My red hair and average IQ were remnants of the genetic material my family had hoped had been bred out of the Hollis family tree a few generations ago. I was a fanciful, daydreaming, right-brained girl in a family packed with left-brained Mensas. My mother was an orthopedic surgeon. My father was a nuclear engineer. My brother Cole was a materials chemist, and my other brother Paul was a molecular biologist specializing in cancer treatments. Steph was a genetic scientist and inventor. I had aunts, uncles, and cousins who were dentists, vets, civil engineers, computer analysts, and university professors.
I hadn’t given up my dream of finding my place in my family. I was tired of being the outsider looking in.
“Cole, I’m seriously trying to fit into the Hollis clan by figuring it out. To that end, I need to focus on my job right this minute.” I rested the phone on the back bumper and slid the silk clown top over my head. This could work. I tucked the phone back between my shoulder and my ear. “Hey, promise you won’t mention my business to Mom and Dad yet.”
I’d just gotten a phone call yesterday from Beckett Thorne at SBC telling me I’d been selected for the Pay it Forward grant. Not having to pay rent for an office was the confidence boost I needed right now.
“I promise, but you’ll owe me one. I need test subjects for my ne—”
I hung up on him. Not only was I tired of being a human lab rat for my sibling scientists, but I had a bunch of kids to entertain. I needed to make it the best kids’ party ever in the history of kids’ parties.
Oh, heck. Speaking of kids, I didn’t want the children to see Mr. Giggles in this condition when they left the party, so I called the police and reported him. Lucky for me they had a unit only a few minutes away. Perfect. I told them to look for the car with the two red clown shoes sticking out. Follow the shoes and they’d find one passed out, snoring-like-a-buzz-saw, bourbon-soaked clown.
I was short on time, supplies, and knowledge. Using the side mirror on Mr. Giggle’s car, I drew round red circles on my cheeks and a red heart shape over my lips. No time for anything else. Besides, clown faces were creepy, so no. I didn’t want to scare the kids. I pulled my long auburn hair up into a bun and squeezed into a rainbow wig. Ouch.
Heck! I almost forgot the clown pants. I attempted to pull the clown pants up over my jeans. It was a no-go. Holy cow, Mr. Giggles had skinny thighs. I slipped into the back seat of the car, struggled out of my jeans, and slid the clown pants on. That was the good news.
The bad news was apparently Mr. Giggles had a big waist to go with his skinny thighs, which I discovered when I tried to walk into the backyard. Drat and darn. I couldn’t entertain the kids with one hand holding up my pants. I would need a belt.
And for the first time in an hour, something went right. Because a man was exiting the party and heading straight toward me. He had a button-down dress shirt, Docker pants with peanut butter and jelly handprints, and a belt.
I’d never had to sweet-talk a man out of his belt before. And I didn’t even have time for the sweet talk. I sidestepped on the walkway, putting myself right in his path.
“Hey, there. I hope this doesn’t come off weird but”—I stared at his belt, trying to count the holes in it, hoping I could get it small enough to work—“can I borrow your belt?”
“Excuse me?”
It wasn’t the voice that caught my attention first. It was his scent. He smelled like an early spring morning on a sailboat. Like a fresh ocean breeze, sandalwood, and oranges. But that smooth, deep voice rang a bell too. My gaze jerked from his leather belt up to his face. “Jude Law.”
“No. Wyatt Thorne.” His blue gaze ran up and down the garish satin costume and up over the wig, dancing around my face before settling on my eyes. A small wrinkle creased his forehead. “Ms. Hollis?”
“Mr. Thorne! Hello, hi. Fun party I hope? I’m surprised you recognized me from the expo…with the clown nose and all.” I popped off the nose, hoping I’d be more convincing without it. “Thank you, by the way. For the grant. Your brother called with the fantastic news. I’m looking forward to moving into the office and getting to work. Office buddies, yay! Fun, right? But, um, right now—I need your belt.”
“My belt?”
“If you don’t mind.” I glanced at his face, and it was easy to see he minded, but I honestly didn’t have a choice. “I’m having a slight issue with my clown suit. And I could really use your belt to hold up my pants. Without it, I’m picturing one of those famous wardrobe malfunctions, which—trust me—I want to avoid more than the parents do.”
“You need my belt?” Those blue eyes dropped down to where my hand held on to the pants for dear life.
“Yes, please.” I saw Sarah, the birthday girl’s mom, peeking out the back gate in search of me. Instinctively, I squatted down in front of Wyatt. I didn’t want to freak out Sarah any earlier than I had to. “Look, the clown was supposed to start five minutes ago. You’d be doing your friends a huge favor.”
It was right then I realized where I was. My face was about twelve inches from Wyatt Thorne’s crotch. If I’d had the time, it might have been awkward. Instead, I looked up at him and begged. “Please?”
A muffled groan escaped from Wyatt’s lips. He shook his head once and sucked in a breath. “Okay, sure.”
We both reached for his belt, and Wyatt made some noise I couldn’t interpret.
“I’ve got it,” he said, his voice sounding tight like when a person catches their finger in a door. He unbuckled the belt and whipped it off before holding it out to me.
“Thank you so much.” I stood up from my crouch, sliding the belt around the waistband of the costume and pulling it tight. The belt was too big. So much for saving this hot mess. “Cheese and crackers, it won’t work.”
“No, I’ve got it.” Wyatt reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pocketknife. He crouched down in front of me and proceeded to poke a new hole in the belt to make it fit. Yep, his head was right there, right where warm, delicious heat was pooling and trying to tug me under.
His hands froze, and he cleared his throat, standing quickly. His gaze met mine, and I couldn’t look away from his navy-blue eyes and thick frame of dark lashes. And then his nose twitched, and he frowned.
“Shit. Have you been drinking?”
“Darn it. I forgot about the bourbon.” I dug around in my purse for my atomizer of Midnight Poison and spritzed my hair, my neck, and even down the front of my shirt. When I’d decided to become an event planner, I
never imagined it would involve drunk clowns, bourbon showers, and tearing belts off super-hot men. Martha Stewart never once mentioned this. I leaned into him. “Do I still smell like bourbon?”
“Bourbon? You can’t go back there with the kids if you’re drunk.” Wyatt grabbed my elbows and pulled me up against him, our faces only inches apart. And then he leaned down, getting right in my face, and sniffed.
“I’m not drunk!” I had one quick surefire way to prove to him I hadn’t been drinking. I kissed him. Pressed my lips to his for a soft, bone-melting second before pulling back to look into his frowning face. “See? Not a drop. But I found my clown pre-gaming in his car, and I got doused when I attempted to relieve him of his bottle.”
I went up on my tippy-toes, getting my neck closer to this face. “So, seriously. Do I smell better?”
“Yes, better.” He stepped back again with one last careful examination. I must have passed, because he took my purse and bag of supplies from my hands and headed us both toward the backyard. “So, you’re filling in. You’re also a clown? You perform at parties?”
I wasn’t sure what the best answer was in this situation. Lie and say yes so he didn’t think I was ripping off his friends with a fake clown act? Or admit the truth and let him know I was about to BS my way through the next thirty minutes so he’d know I was ripping off his friends? I went with door number three: a loose interpretation of the truth.
“I’ve performed at a few parties.” Not a lie exactly. I’d sung karaoke and done a keg stand or two in college. I shoved my clown nose back on and grabbed the bag from his hand while my mind scrambled wildly over what I could do to amuse these overexcited, sugar-buzzed kids. “I’ll have your belt back in thirty minutes. I’m up.”
I needed to block out Wyatt Thorne standing in the back, looking all hot and serious. Challenging, considering he and his brothers were about to help me in a big way. We’d be sharing the same office space for a year. Bumping into each other every day. Which meant those killer eyes of his were off-limits. Wyatt Thorne was a no-go zone. Like the shoe department at Nordstrom’s during their annual sale week.