by Brooks, Abby
“This is a piece of me that belongs to you,” Wyatt said as he slid a thin band into place on my finger. “And a piece of you that belongs to me.”
I repeated the line as I slipped his ring over his knuckle, smiling as years of our life together paraded through my mind. Wyatt was a thread in the tapestry of my life, weaving through my memories and reaching out for our future.
He was my rock and I was his everything, two halves of the same whole, and finally, finally…
…we were one.
Epilogue
Wyatt
I stepped over the threshold into the office, grunting under the weight of a massive desk. “I swear you’re making it heavy on purpose,” I said to Caleb, who was supposed to have the other end.
“Who? Me?” he asked, a devilish smile lighting up his face. “I’m hurt you would assume something so devious of me.”
“Who’s assuming?” I grunted and Caleb threw his head back and laughed.
Sunlight streamed through the open windows and my family scurried around, helping to arrange the new furniture. All the dark, dominating pieces my father loved so much were gone because his era was over. I was taking his place and it was time for this room to look like me, not him. We let the light in to chase out his ghost and as the room transformed, so did we.
Kara beamed at me as she helped Harlow hang a painting she did just for this occasion. Dad would roll over in his grave, knowing some of her art was on his wall, but my sister’s work was beautiful. It was well past time for her to feel like she belonged here, just as much as the rest of us.
Caleb and I got the desk situated, then I pulled up my chair and sat down. My younger brothers laughed as they bickered. Lucas snuck kisses from Cat when he thought no one was looking. Harlow chatted happily with my wife, and Mom stood in the doorway, a smile on her face and tears glimmering in her eyes. She pressed a hand to her heart when she caught me watching and I grinned.
We were going to be okay, stronger because we were together.
We were Huttons, after all.
That’s what we did.
* * *
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Wounded Sneak Peek
Chapter One
BAILEY
The security guards stationed outside his room smile and stand as I come near. I know they do it out of politeness, but it unnerves me every time. I want to throw up my hands and remind them I’m just me.
Gary, a tall man with one hell of a potbelly, holds up a hand. “Why don’t you hold off a beat?”
Just as I open my mouth to ask why, a loud crash sounds from inside the room.
“Damn it, Brent! I am not going back to LA. End of story!” Liam’s words come blaring out into the hallway, with the hushed response of Brent—his manager— low, oily, and too quiet to understand, following quickly after.
I give Gary a weary nod and then smile at Josh, a much younger and thinner version of his partner. “Has he been like this all day?” I ask.
Josh lets out a low whistle. “This is an improvement.”
Great. Liam is a challenge when he’s on good behavior. When he’s in a mood? It’s just bad all around. “Wish me luck,” I say as I prepare myself to enter the lion’s den.
“I’ll cross my fingers for you.” Josh smiles a little too widely, the space between his teeth glaring at me like a jack o’lantern carved by a five-year-old.
“And where the fuck is that nurse? I hit the call button an hour ago!”
I cringe. “There's my cue,” I whisper, squaring my shoulders and adding steel to my spine before entering the room.
Liam is up and out of bed, the alarm on his IV pump beeping away. “Took you long enough.” He glares at me and folds his arms over his chest. “You need to make this machine stop beeping. Now.” I can tell by the way his hospital gown flutters at his waist that it’s open in the back. Good god. Does the guy have any modesty?
I roll my eyes and bite my tongue as I hit the alarm mute button. A quick investigation shows me that the cord has been pulled out of the wall. “These things have a really short battery life.” I bend to plug the thing back in. “You shouldn’t pull the cord out of the wall or the alarm will go off like this,” I say, twisting to look him in the face and give him my best don’t mess with me or I’ll cut you look.
Liam sets his jaw and scowls, looking unfortunately sexy despite his shitty attitude. “Yeah, well, I can’t sit still anymore because I’m losing my mind in here. That thing’s going to have to figure out how to hold its charge longer.”
Right. Because that’s even a possibility.
I hold my tongue and study Liam. His auburn hair is bleached blond and somehow, even in the hospital, is swept back away from his face and gelled to perfection. Both ears are pierced and he has enough tattoos to make me wonder what exactly he’s trying to prove. The bandage covering half his face does very little to take away from his looks, and even I can admit he’s gorgeous.
Well, that is, until he opens his mouth and ruins everything.
Keeping it professional, I put on my blandest smile and stare up at him. “Since I’m here, I’ll go ahead and check your bandage. Please have a seat, Mr. McGuire. I’ll get the things I need and be right back.”
He glowers down at me. “I’d prefer to stand.”
I stifle a growl. He’s such a petulant child. If this is how they treat people out in Los Angeles, I’m more than happy with my simple life here in Ohio.
“And I’d prefer not to have to climb up on a chair to do my job.”
He glowers down at me, determined to get his way.
This guy has no idea what he’s getting into. I put my hands on my hips and shift my weight back to my heels, lifting my chin to stare him straight in his face. There’s no way in hell I’m standing on a stool to change his bandage. If he wants to see which one of us has the widest stubborn streak, I am more than ready to dig in my heels until he backs down.
Brent, the manager from hell, saunters toward us, his hands outstretched as if to avert the war he sees brewing on the horizon. “Come on, Liam. Do you really want to have to wait for this girl—”
“Woman.” I glare at Brent.
“Whatever.” He waves a manicured hand at me. “Do you really want to wait for her to find a stool?”
“Nope,” I say. “I will most definitely not be finding a stool. You’ll take a seat so I can do my job and go check on my other patients.”
Liam and Brent’s jaws drop in unison and I turn on my heel to leave the room. As soon as I’m out of sight, I pause and blow a puff of air out from between my lips.
“He is such a pain in the ass,” I say to Gary and Josh.
Josh gives me a thumbs up, a cheesy grin lighting up his face. “You’re doing amazing.”
The guy means well, but his awkwardness just adds fuel to the fire of frustration in my belly. I return his thumbs up, looking decidedly less enthusiastic than he did, and head off in search of the supplies I need. When I come back into Liam’s room, Brent is still talking a mile a minute.
“When that bitch comes back—” He looks my way as I walk in, a greasy smile sliding across his face as if he wasn’t just talking about me.
I raise my eyebrows to let him know I heard, but bite my bottom lip to keep in the response that’s stomping its way up my throat. They can think whatever they want to think about me as long as I never have to see them again once they check out of the hospital tomorrow.
“Shut up, Brent,” says Liam, and for the first time since he was admitted here, I feel like thanking him.
Liam m
eets my eyes, and, taking extreme care to exaggerate his movements, he grabs his IV stand, turns, and crosses the room to sit in an armchair, stretching the power cord to its limit.
Yes, his hospital gown is open in the back.
No, he’s not wearing anything under it.
I am more than certain he thought he’d embarrass me by giving me a view of his admittedly magnificent backside, but he’s going to have to try harder than that if he wants to unsettle me. I’m a nurse, for heaven’s sake. I see people’s butts all the time. If he’s looking for a flustered girl with red cheeks, he’s looking at the wrong woman.
“Thank you,” I say as I come to stand at his side.
Liam stays silent as I pull on a pair of gloves. I pick at the edges of the tape around the gauze and he turns to look at me.
“Eyes front, please.” I don’t meet his gaze. The last thing I want to do is give him another reason to complain about something.
He flops back in his chair, ripping the bandage from his face with the movement. The thing dangles from my hand and I stare at it in surprise. So much for being gentle.
“See?” he says, flaring his hands and glaring at Brent. “She won’t even look at me. Can you think of any other time a female has been this close to me and not lost her fucking head trying to get my attention?”
Being rude back won’t get us anywhere, but he’s got one more chance to be an ass before I won’t be able to keep my mouth shut anymore. I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.
Brent waves a hand in my direction. “She is obviously not in your target demographic.” His gaze sweeps over me, assessing and dismissing in one smooth movement. “She’s too old and not nearly trendy enough to matter. If I were you, I would take it as a good sign that she’s not trying to engage. This is not the kind of girl you’re looking for.”
I dab antibiotic ointment on his wound, biting the inside of my lip so hard I taste blood. “I’m right here,” I mutter.
Liam shakes his head and pulls away from me. “Holy shit, Brent. Do you ever shut the fuck up?”
I lean in with my ointment and Liam waves me away. “They’re all going to act this way.” His dark eyes flash as he gestures towards me. “You and I both know that my brand is all about sex. The body. The face. No one cares what I sing as long as I look good doing it.” He rests his ankle on his knee and looks me full in the face. “Be honest. You can barely stand to look at me. You’re not going to like my music as much now that I look like this.”
“All I want to do is change your bandage so I can check on my other patients. As your manager suggested, I’m not in your target demographic.” I almost tell him I never liked his music in the first place, but I swallow the words. Two wrongs don’t make a right and just because he’s an ass doesn’t give me a reason to be awful in return.
“What the hell happened to you?” Liam stares me right in the face and laughs. “It looks like you swallowed something nasty. Face all screwed up. Nostrils flaring. Not your prettiest look, sweetheart.”
So much for being professional.
“First of all,” I say, my words carefully carved from ice and stone. “I didn’t swallow something nasty, thank you very much. I just get a little sick to my stomach being around you. Second of all, I can barely stand to look at you because you’re an asshole. And third of all, I never liked your music. You can rest assured that’s not going to change now.” I put a finger on his dropped jaw and turn his head towards the wall. “Now, if you’d just keep your face pointed that way, I can get you bandaged up and get out of here.”
Liam does not look at the wall like I just asked him to. He brings his gaze right back to me and there’s a flash of emotion on his face that I recognize. It’s only there for a moment, one tiny little millisecond of feeling, and then it’s gone. Whisked away with a sniff of his nose and a shake of his head. But it doesn’t matter. I saw it and I recognized it for what it was.
Despair.
Brent goes off like a windup toy, a slew of words sliding from between his overly balmed lips.
“Holy fuck, Brent. Shut up,” Liam says without looking away from my face.
Brent does not shut up. “This is ridiculous, Liam.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and smooths back his perfectly shaped eyebrows. “I don’t know who she thinks she is, saying those things to you, but we’ll have you on the first plane to LA as soon as I get my assistant on the phone. And you…” He levels a finger at me. “You can rest assured that I’ll have your job for this.”
Liam sighs and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they’re trained on mine, and for the first time since he’s been here, he looks real. “You might be the first person to ever be honest with me in my whole life.”
A million sarcastic remarks want out past my lips. Little caustic things, venomous revenge for every awful thing he’s said to me over the last couple weeks. A minute ago, I would have let them fly in a glorious display of self-righteousness. And in all honesty, I’m not convinced he still doesn’t deserve a solid dose of the truth. But that look in his eyes. The despair. I can’t say any of those things after seeing that.
I finally settle on: “I’m sorry.”
“I might be, too,” he replies. And then he blinks and the moment’s gone. “Now, finish whatever it is you’re doing to my face—” he waves a hand over his cheek and turns away from me, “—and get the hell out of here.”
“Gladly.” I bite off the word, instantly sorry I didn’t let my sarcasm fly when I had the chance.
I’ve never liked Liam McGuire. His music is vapid. Soulless sound designed to showcase his sex appeal. Combine that with the ridiculous headlines smeared across the tabloids—the temper tantrums, the womanizing, the utter asshattery—and you can bet that I’ve considered him a scourge on this Earth for the better part of a decade. But seeing that despair in his eyes just now? That bothers me. This guy has everything money could possibly buy, a lifestyle that anyone would be crazy not to lust after, and yet he still knows the cold, dark, empty pit of hopelessness. There’s something profound there. I’m just too pissed off to dwell on it.
I gather my things and leave the room. Liam and Brent start in on another argument as I pass Gary and Josh, pausing to blow a puff of air past my pursed lips once again. Whatever it is that Liam’s dealing with that hurts him like that, I’m sorry for him. I really am. But I sure will be glad when they ship his spoiled ass back to LA.
Chapter Two
BAILEY
“Have you seen him naked yet?” Lexi Stills, my best friend since the first grade, leans forward, resting her elbows on the table in the crowded hospital cafeteria.
“Seen who naked yet?” I ask, feigning confusion.
Lexi purses her cherry-colored lips. “Liam McGuire, you ass.” She picks at the crust of her sandwich and pops a bite into her mouth. “You know, the super-famous singer who just happens to have been admitted here at Grayson Memorial.”
“Oh yeah. Him.” I shrug, playing it cool just to drive her crazy.
“Yeah, him.” Lexi stops chewing and lifts her eyebrows. “So?”
“So, what?”
“Have you seen him naked?”
Laughing, I sit back in my chair and scrape my spoon around the sides of my yogurt cup. “Nope. No hot nude scenes with famous musicians for me,” I say, even though it’s kind of a lie.
Liam has a habit of leaving his hospital gown open and I’ve seen his ass more times than I can count. I just don’t feel like opening that particular can of worms with Lexi right now. Of all the fangirls in the world, she might be the fangirliest and I'm not in the mood for the slew of questions that will follow the admission that yes, I have seen his ass, and yes, it really is as magnificent as she thinks it is.
“Don’t give up hope.” Lexi looks so crushed I almost tell her the truth. Almost. “I think he’s staying here one more day,” she says. “After that, I bet they ship him right back to Los Angeles for some kind of plastic surgery miracle only som
eone that rich and famous could afford.” She rakes a hand through her honey-blond hair, pulling little wisps back off her face. “It’s such a shame. The accident and all that. I wonder what will happen now that he’s all scarred up.”
“Maybe he’ll learn some humility. That man is every bit as bad as the tabloids make him out to be.”
Lexi rolls her eyes. “Only you would be immune to the awesomeness that is Liam McGuire.” She balls up her napkin and throws it onto the table next to her mostly eaten sandwich.
“So, how’s Gabe?” I ask, carefully enunciating my words so she knows I’m changing the topic now and have no intention of letting her change it back. Being Liam McGuire’s nurse is bad enough. He doesn’t need to become the sole topic of every conversation on top of it.
“That boy is going to be the death of me.” She’s trying to sound exasperated, but the look of sheer adoration gleaming in her eyes ruins the effect. “He’s as hard-headed as he is sweet. Do you know what he said to me yesterday?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.” Lexi’s stories about her five-year-old son Gabe never disappoint.
“He was playing with his truck on the table and then he looks at me, as serious as can be, and says he’s going to need me to talk to him before I find a husband because he wants to make sure the guy’s truck is good enough for me.”
I laugh as we stand and gather our trash. “Sounds like he’s already on his way to being more man than boy. A little bossy, a little protective, and interested in his truck above all things.”
Lexi lets out a long sigh. “Lord help me,” she says, looking towards the ceiling as if expecting an answer.