Sassy Blonde: USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

by Stacey Kennedy

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at her finger that was bent in the wrong direction. Her eyes flicked to his and became distant. “Uh-oh.” Then she cried out in pain, those same eyes rolling into the back of her head.

  He dropped to his knees, placing a hand on her head.

  The door whisked open and Amelia rushed in, breathless. “Oh my God, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s safe to say that no matter how bad you think your day is, Maisie’s is worse.”

  2

  “You’re fired.”

  Maisie balked at Clara, trying to ignore the dinging alarm coming from the hospital room across the hallway. She’d been in the hospital for six terribly long hours now. After she’d been knocked out, and an orthopedic surgeon realigned the fracture fragments, they’d given her a horribly ugly splint. While that all sucked, the worst part was that she had hurt her dominant hand. No painting. No drawing. No creating. For…weeks? That was bad. But this? “You can’t fire me,” she implored.

  “You and Amelia gave me full control of running the business, so I obviously can,” Clara said, placing her hands on her hips. “Even before your accident, I seriously doubted you could do this. Now? Maisie, let’s be real here, you can’t handle the festivals.”

  Defeat sank in, and even Maisie doubted herself, but yet, she still asked, “Who says I can’t?”

  Clara waved at the saline bag attached to Maisie’s hand and then pointed at Maisie’s broken finger. “I’d say today is evidence enough this isn’t working out.” Her sister’s expression softened, and she took Maisie’s uninjured hand and squeezed tight. “I know you wanted to do something more for the brewery than the logos and signage, and you tried. We’re proud of you.”

  Amelia nodded and gave a soft smile. “So proud.”

  Clara added, “But you’ve been struggling at this before you even hit the ground running. We’ll just have to find you something else to do within the company.”

  But there wasn’t anything else for Maisie to do, and they all knew it. Clara was the brains of the operation. Amelia was creator of the beer. Even, Penelope, their cousin, had taken over the brewery tours since Maisie, well…sucked at that too. Maisie was the painter, the dreamer, the woman trying desperately to fit into the box that she didn’t fit in. “Okay, I know having the keg fall on my hand wasn’t my finest moment,” she hedged, “but I can fix this.”

  Clara’s brows rose. “How?”

  “I’ll figure that out soon,” Maisie said with a smile.

  Clara frowned. “That sugary sweet smile has gotten you many, many chances, but I’m afraid you’re out of them.”

  No! No. This couldn’t happen. Clara and Amelia had been fulfilling their end of their bargain. Maisie may have broken her finger, but she was determined to do the same. To help fulfill Pops’s final wish. “Just give me one more try,” she pleaded. “Please.”

  Obviously taking pity on Maisie, Amelia cut in, nudging Clara’s arm. “It’s not going to hurt anyone to give her one more chance.”

  A muscle near Clara’s eye twitched. Like, maybe a few of those gray hairs she dyed lately were because of Maisie. She finally huffed, then said to Maisie, “I don’t even pretend to know how you’ll pull this off, but fine, one more chance. That’s it, though, Maisie. Our reputation is riding on these festivals.”

  “Got it,” Maisie said with a firm nod.

  Clara loosed another breath and stepped closer to the bed to drop a kiss on Maisie’s forehead. “I’m sorry about your finger.”

  Clara wasn’t all tough. She had an incredibly soft heart. It was just that her heart had thorns around it, ready to hurt, if need be. Maisie couldn’t blame her. Clara had Mason to think of, and being a single mom was a big weight. The brewery had to succeed.

  “Thanks,” Maisie said, studying her finger in the splint. “It actually doesn’t even hurt anymore.” She smiled at her sisters. “But maybe that’s the morphine talking.”

  Amelia chuckled, her eyes twinkling. “Probably, but since you are feeling better, how about I go see about getting you out of here?”

  “Lord, yes, please.” Maisie had been stuffed into a semi-private room, the blue curtain separating her and the next bed. She didn’t want to be there when that next person came in.

  Clara grabbed her purse off the seat. “I need to pick up Mason from the sitter. She’s probably wondering where I am.” When Clara reached the curtain, she turned back. “You’re really okay?”

  Maisie nodded. “The only thing hurting right now is my ego.”

  Clara’s brow wrinkled, obviously disbelieving. “Okay, call me if you need me. I’ll stop off at the pharmacy and pick up your painkiller prescription”

  Maisie often felt bad for Clara. The burden of responsibility always rested on her shoulders. Maisie couldn’t remember the last time Clara ever did anything for herself. “Thanks. Love you.” She forced a smile, giving her sisters a quick wave before they shut the curtain closed behind them.

  The moment they were gone, tears pricked Maisie’s eyelids. One more chance, and then what? Before she broke her finger, she had doubts she could pull off the beer festivals without epically screwing up. Now? Even she knew the finish line was near impossible to reach. She couldn’t even move a damn keg without it falling on her.

  This was beginning to feel like a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. Being a disappointment to her sisters was normal. She’d always been Maisie, the baby who always got caught sneaking out and never followed the rules. But disappointing her grandfather, not seeing his final wish for the girls he’d raised come true, was harder to stomach. She slowly breathed through the pain, knowing one thing for certain—she could not fail.

  Voices stirred next to her as nurses rolled a bed in. A moment later, a high feminine voice snapped, “Sir, you need to stay in your bed.”

  “I’m fine. If you’d just let me go, I’d show you.”

  There was a muffled creak as the person adjusted in the bed before the nurse practically growled, “I’m going to sedate you if you don’t stay put.”

  Maisie fought her laughter at that low baritone voice. Only one man would cause someone so much grief. She slid off the bed, grabbed the curtain, and whisked it open. First, she met the nurse’s scowl. Then she met Hayes’s whiskey-colored eyes. He practically filled the hospital bed with six-foot-two feet of pure, hardworking muscle. And just the sight of him warmed Maisie’s belly.

  That was a problem lately. Hayes had always been Laurel’s guy. Then Hayes had become a friend. But over the last few months, something had shifted between them, and Maisie still couldn’t figure out why her heart suddenly wanted him. But there was no denying the draw there, the want, the need. She’d tried to fight her growing attraction, feeling horribly guilty, but there was no point. Her heart demanded Hayes. While she knew Laurel would want them to be happy, Hayes hadn’t acted on the attraction, and neither had Maisie. Yet. To keep things light, she joked, “Aw, you felt so bad I was in here, you wanted to join me.”

  Hayes’s mouth twitched, his eyes warming when they met hers. “Didn’t want you feeling left out,” he said.

  A snort came from the doorway. Maisie glanced up, catching Beckett’s bemused expression. “I told him to wear armor. He didn’t listen.”

  Maisie smiled at Beckett, but her smile fell when she glanced at Hayes. “What happened?”

  Hayes looked more than annoyed, his eye twitching. “After your sisters brought you here, I went back to the farm. I had little a disagreement with a horse.”

  “No,” the nurse said. “He fell off a horse, and that’s why he needs to stay in this bed.”

  Maisie gave Hayes a totally fake chastising look. “You’re not being a terrible patient, are you?”

  Hayes set his jaw. “I don’t want to be a patient at all.”

  The nurse frowned at him. “You might have a concussion. The doctor wants you to stay overnight, just to be safe.”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening.” Hayes sat up, his larg
e frame filling up the small space. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sand falling off his cowboy boots.

  Maisie took in the dirt covering his worn blue jeans and black T-shirt, realizing he most definitely did have a fall.

  When he went to stand, she grabbed him by the arm with her uninjured hand, desperately aware of the muscles stretching and flexing beneath her fingers. “Don’t be stupid.” She pressed her hand to his chest and he willingly let her push him back on the bed. When the warmth of his eyes returned to hers, time stopped. She became instantly lost, trapped by the intensity she saw on his face. He slowly wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and maybe because it was the anniversary of Laurel’s death, or something else altogether, but she remembered the last time his fingers wrapped around her wrist.

  “Maisie. Go home.”

  Maisie stood in the dark bedroom in the empty house. She had no idea how bad Hayes’s depression had gotten, when she’d been so deep in her own. Then Beckett called and begged her to help. Now, here, with Hayes, she couldn’t believe her eyes, and yet, she understood, having been so lost herself.

  The beautiful, expensive property that Hayes bought when he moved back to River Rock had been gorgeous when she’d come for the spreading of Laurel’s ashes on the weeping willow hanging over the creek. Now, without him mowing the lawn or tending to the property, everything was overgrown. The three-bedroom house had no furniture. Hayes slept on a camping mat on the floor, the curtains on the windows were drawn. The darkness of the place was near stifling.

  She’d been right where he was. Until her sisters’ love brought her back to life.

  Determined to get Hayes there too, she moved to the curtains and whisked them open, letting the sunlight spill inside. She turned back, finding Hayes lying curled on his side, looking thin, his hair long, his beard far past scruffy. “You’re getting up,” she told him. “We’re going outside.”

  When he didn’t move, she dropped to her knees next to him. He rolled onto his back and she placed her hand on his chest. “Laurel would be devastated if she saw you like this. You’re going to get up and face each day, with me here, until we both have some kind of life worth living.”

  Tears welled in his eyes. His fingers wrapped around her wrist tight. “I’ve got nothing left.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, hearing the raw emotion in her voice. “You’ve got me.” She grabbed the blanket and yanked it off, paying no attention to the fact that he was naked. She tossed him the jeans that rested in a heap on the floor next to him. “Get dressed. I’m making you breakfast.”

  Maisie blinked away the memory of the day Hayes had become her friend, instead of just Laurel’s husband. They’d come through dark times together, and they had history together. So much history. Some good. Some bad. Some unimaginably painful. But this new thing that had sprung out of nowhere over the last few months made her cheeks hot, and she averted his gaze. What was once friendly between them had become taut with tension that seemed to get tighter every day. This man staring at her wasn’t broken anymore. Hunger lived in his eyes. “You need to stay here,” she told him. “Let them look you over.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice lower than before.

  Not wanting to, but knowing she had to, she slowly took her hand off his chest, watching her fingers drag against the hard muscles, feeling like touching him wasn’t all that friendly anymore. “I’ve been here all day,” she pointed out. “You can endure getting looked over.”

  He held her stare. “Fine, I’ll get looked over. But there”—he glared at the nurse—“is no way in hell I’m staying the night.”

  The nurse turned away, but even Maisie saw her roll her eyes as she left the room.

  Beckett laughed.

  Maisie nudged Hayes’s shoulder. “Be nice. You’re really annoying her.”

  Hayes snorted, lying his head back against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling, that muscle in his jaw twitching again. “Believe me, the feeling is mutual.”

  Hayes counted the tiles on the ceiling to calm the erection he sported from Maisie’s touch. Maisie smelled like sunshine and wildflowers, and he hadn’t realized how much he liked that smell until one day a couple of months ago. The day that changed everything. His eyes shut as that pleasing scent wrapped around him, bringing him back to the day he realized Maisie was breathtakingly beautiful.

  “Right there,” Maisie said, standing in Hayes’s living room, watching as he moved the couch against the wall across from the big window. “Yup, that’s perfect.” She smiled and approached. “Dare I say, you actually have a gorgeous living room?”

  He laughed. “Yes, I think you can.” For the last six months, she’d been helping him shop for furniture. He’d put it off for over a year, but slowly, she helped make his house a home. When he’d moved from Denver, he sold his house with everything in it, except for one box holding all his memories with Laurel. He couldn’t go back in the house, not after Laurel’s murder.

  Maisie plopped down on his new dark gray couch, and the movement caused her cleavage to bounce. His cock, he thought long dead, twitched. “Come on,” she said. “We must celebrate with a movie.”

  His mind went to thoughts of celebrating on his couch…but doing something else entirely. He shoved the thought from his mind and grabbed beers from the fridge before he returned to her, finding her settled back against the pillows. He was certain she wasn’t thinking sexy thoughts, but she looked like a French model laid out, ready for him to paint. And he wanted to paint her.

  He cleared his throat. “What are we going to watch?” He handed her the beer and then took a seat next to her.

  She snuggled a little closer to him, obviously an innocent move, but it didn’t feel innocent anymore. He looked around the house. A house that Maisie had helped him put together. She’d been there for him during the darkest times in his life. Until he could actually breathe again, fully. Until he could walk outside and not want to hide. And as she moved closer, he caught her scent, a mix of sunshine and wildflowers. He stared down at her smooth, bare legs, and Hayes knew one thing for certain.

  Maisie was no longer just his friend. He wanted more, and he didn’t know how to reconcile that with his love for Laurel.

  “Today is weird.”

  Hayes blinked out of his memory, frustrated his erection had only hardened. He turned toward Amelia’s voice. His gaze then fell to Beckett, who couldn’t take his eyes off Maisie’s sister. Beckett and Amelia dated during Amelia’s senior year of high school, and Hayes knew for certain the reason Beckett didn’t date seriously was because he still loved Amelia. But Amelia had a fiancé now, Luka. Her high school romance with Beckett long behind her. “I agree,” Hayes said, glad for the interruption, if only for his hard-on to finally soften. “Today is weird.”

  Amelia strode farther into the room. “What happened?” she asked, sidling up the bed.

  “He fell off a horse and hurt himself,” Maisie said before he could answer.

  Hayes sighed in exasperation. To Amelia, he explained, “No, I didn’t hurt myself. I don’t have a single bruise, cut, or anything, but Nash’s insurance company requires that when we take a fall, we get looked over by a doctor to get cleared for work again. I’m fine. This is protocol, nothing more.”

  Maisie’s eyes squinted, lit with an inner twinkle of mischief. “He keeps saying that he’s fine.”

  “Which means he’s not fine at all.” Amelia laughed.

  “Ladies,” Hayes cut in with a frown, “when I’m say I’m fine, I’m actually fine.”

  Both of them burst out laughing. Either at him, or with him, Hayes wasn’t sure.

  Coming to his rescue, Beckett’s cell rang.

  “It’s Nash,” Beckett said to Hayes, then lifted the phone to his ear. “Hey, Nash. What’s up?” His voice faded as he strode out into the hallway.

  Amelia turned to Maisie. “All right, Maisie-Moo, you’ve been discharged. Ready to go home?” Amelia was the only one to call
Maisie that nickname, and as much as Maisie said she hated it, Hayes knew she liked it. Even loved it.

  “Thank you, all that is holy,” Maisie replied eagerly. Though her attention soon snapped to Hayes. “Unless you want me to stay with you.”

  He lost himself in the concern in her eyes. Christ, that felt good. A little too good. “Nah, you’ve been here all day. Go home.”

  Her mouth twitched. “Because you’re fine, right?”

  “Smart ass.” He snorted. “And yes, I’m fine.”

  She regarded him for a good long moment. Nurse Maisie giving him a quick assessment. She must have finally believed him since she nodded. “Okay. Call if you need anything.”

  He inclined his head in response, having no intention to call. What he wanted was to get the hell out of there. The smell of astringent, hand sanitizer, and cleaning supplies were giving him a headache that had nothing to do with the fall. The doctor was being cautious. Hayes knew his body. He hadn’t hit his head when he’d fallen from the gelding that bucked him off. Nothing hurt. He’d barely even hit the ground before he bounced back up. “Next time we see each other,” he said with a smile he hoped was reassuring, “let’s avoid ending up in the hospital?”

  Maisie laughed. “Sounds like a plan. Hope you get out of here soon.” She gave him a little wave, showing off her finger that had been splinted, and left the room, followed by Amelia.

  Hayes dropped his head back against the soft pillow. Today sucked, and when Beckett returned to the room with a deep frown, Hayes knew it wasn’t about to get any better. “What is it?” he grumbled.

  Pity shone in Beckett’s eyes. “Nash said to consider yourself on vacation. Ten days.”

  “Fuck that,” Hayes snapped, pushing up off the bed, his cowboy boots hitting the floor. “Did you tell Nash the doctor is just being cautious?”

  Beckett nodded. “He wouldn’t listen. It’s a new policy, I guess. Symptoms of a concussion can show up seven to ten days later. His insurance now requires this for any fall.”