by G. K. Brady
“Dory.” He dragged out her name as if test-driving it.
“Like the fish in Finding Nemo,” she explained.
“Uh, you’re named after a fish?”
“More like the fish was named after me,” she tee-heed.
“Oh, right. Because it’s so”—don’t say ditzy—“so cheerful. Like you.”
This earned him a series of eyelash bats. Soon she was shimmying against him, and she dropped her hand on his thigh, draining some of his brainpower. Playing in his own backyard was a danger he tried to avoid, but he liked his odds tonight. This girl seemed to have lots in common with his “regulars,” the women he routinely hooked up with: enjoyed sex as much as he did, weren’t clingy, and didn’t care if he slept around. Love ’em, leave ’em, return occasionally to love ’em again, but never let things get serious. That shit was okay for guys like Nelson and his other favorite teammate, T.J. Shanstrom. Those dudes were totally committed and happy about it. Good for them, but it wasn’t for him.
As Dory glued herself to him and he pretended to listen to her chatter, an annoying inner voice sounded off: Where’s the challenge?
“Hads!”
Quinn looked up, and Nelson gave him a wave from across the booth. “We’re heading out. Catch ya later.”
When Nelson turned to leave, Sarah placed her hand on Quinn’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Looks like someone’s getting lucky tonight. Enjoy your lube and tune, Sparky.”
Da fuck? Did she just say what I think she said?
A beat passed before his brain pulled itself together. Unfortunately, the best he could muster was, “Oh, you bet your sweet ass I will.”
She gave him a wink and walked away. He didn’t have time to give it much thought because his phone vibrated. When he glanced down at the screen, panic bloomed in his chest. He mumbled an apology in Dory’s direction and lurched out of the booth.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
Chapter 2
Welcome to My World
Sarah slouched in the backseat beside Daisy and stared through the window at lights streaking against an ultramarine backdrop. Winter in Colorado. Harsh. Was she really doing this? What choice did she have?
Lily sat behind the wheel, Gage next to her in the passenger seat as she drove them home from the bar. He threw Sarah the occasional concerned look over his shoulder.
“I’m okay,” she reassured him. Her brother was ultra-protective, and she didn’t want to worry him. After all, she was the big sister, though she sure didn’t feel like one now.
“Can’t fool me, Sar-bear.”
“I’m just tired, Bro. I drove over mountain passes in lousy weather to get here. I’ll be fine by morning.”
“Yeah, about that.”
“About what?”
“The sleeping arrangements. You okay sleeping in Daisy’s room while she’s on the couch?”
Oh shit. Sarah had been in such a panic to flee Seattle that she hadn’t considered how disruptive her presence in Gage’s and Lily’s lives might be. She’d just blindly run to her safe haven, which was her brother. Of course, she hadn’t realized at the time that he’d just sold his big-ass house and was squeezed in with Lily and her daughter in a two-bedroom, two-bath box.
She straightened in her seat and glanced over at Daisy. “No way. I’m not kicking you out of your room, Crazy Daisy. I’ll take the couch tonight and find an Airbnb tomorrow.”
“But I want to sleep on the couch, Aunt Sarah!” Daisy protested from her booster seat. The grin on her cute six-year-old face telegraphed she wasn’t really upset.
Lily glanced at Sarah in the rearview mirror. “We want you staying with us, Sarah. And Daisy’s been looking forward to her big adventure on the couch.”
Gage turned in his seat, his eyes on Daisy. “We’re turning it into a fort when we get home, aren’t we, kiddo?”
Aw, damn! He’s so good with her. Sarah felt a hot tear prick her eye. There’d been too much of that lately, she admonished herself.
Daisy’s head nodded vigorously. “Yes! My babies are having a sleepover. And Archer’s coming too.”
Gage flicked his eyes to Sarah. “Well, I’m not sure the fort will be big enough for all your babies and a dog. Besides, I think Archer will want to be with Aunt Sarah tonight, especially since he’s in a strange place.”
Archer, Sarah’s lovable lab, had been a big hit with Daisy from the moment Sarah had arrived hours ago. But then, he was a hit with everyone who met him. A service-dog school dropout, he was a well-behaved pup who’d captured her heart when she’d gotten him a year ago. And if she hadn’t had Archer in her life, she would’ve shattered into irretrievable pieces. Eager to please, loyal, dependable. Trustworthy. Too bad those traits were absent in men—besides her brother.
“Lily,” she pleaded, “I never intended to displace anyone. It just didn’t occur to me that Gage would’ve sold his house, and now I’m kicking myself for not asking before I came plowing into your lives.”
“Don’t argue, Sarah,” Lily said. “You’re staying in Daisy’s room. Period.” Lily’s fake sternness warmed Sarah.
An unexpected laugh bubbled up, and it felt good. “Okay. I know when I’m beaten.” She patted Lily’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Gage dangled his hand over the back of his seat. “We’re moving into the new place in a few weeks, and it has a guesthouse in back. It’s yours if you want it.” His usual calm demeanor was in full sway, and Sarah glommed onto it like a life preserver in a boiling ocean. Where he was all chillax, she was constantly abuzz. They were opposite sides of the same coin. He’d gotten more of their grandmother’s personality, while she’d wound up with their mother’s—and the realization terrified her. Not only was their mother the poster child for “overbearing,” but she was certifiably nuts.
“Any chance I can see the new house?”
“Absolutely,” Lily said. “You remember Paige Miller from last summer’s Stanley Cup party?”
Sarah chuckled. “You mean the one where you and my brother were scouring each other’s throats in front of dozens of people?”
Gage shot her a lowered-brow warning and slid his eyes toward Daisy.
“What? She saw you guys kissing.” She elbowed Daisy. “Didn’t you, Daze?”
Daisy squirmed and crinkled her nose. “Everyone saw them kissing. And they still kiss. All the time.”
Gage’s mouth quirked. In the rearview mirror, Lily’s face had turned crimson. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Paige is meeting us there tomorrow. Why don’t you come with and check it out?”
“I’m in.”
For the rest of that evening, Sarah sat back and observed the little family in their comfortable cadence. Gage’s “girls” had brought so much richness to his life, and Lily was his perfect match. Sarah had never seen him happier. If it hadn’t been her brother’s life she watched from her front-row seat, the ache inside her might’ve blossomed into unrelenting envy. Instead, soaking up the loving vibes gave Sarah hope and, by inches, lightened the burden her own devastation had brought. But she didn’t want to think about that anymore. Sleep—oblivion—was what she craved, and when she finally climbed into Daisy’s neon-pink bed, she did something she’d never done before: she urged Archer out of his bed and into hers, then curled herself around him.
The smell of bacon greeted her when she stepped into the kitchen the next morning to let Archer into the backyard. She’d slept like the dead and found herself trying to catch up to the buzz of a fully awake household.
She slurped the eye-popping coffee Lily deposited in front of her. “Ooh, I’m liking my soon-to-be sister-in-law more and more. Where’s Crazy Daisy?”
“I took her to school,” Gage replied, “and you’ve got about a half hour to get ready to see the new house. You and I are riding together, and Lily will drive on her own because she needs to measure stuff. Then I have to drop something off for a teammate. Why don’t you bring Archer? Our cat hasn’t come out from
under the bed since you got here—this’ll give her a little reprieve.”
“Oh shit. I’d totally forgotten about Hobbes.”
Gage raised his eyes to hers. “Language?”
“Fuck. That’s right. Except Daisy’s not here, so I can say shit out loud, right?”
Lily burst out with a laugh. “Sarah, you can damn well say shit anytime she’s not in fucking earshot.”
Sarah held up her cup in a toast. “Lily, you and I are going to get along fucking splendidly.”
Gage rolled his eyes.
An hour later, they stood in a circular driveway facing what could have passed as a golf course clubhouse. Petite, auburn-haired Paige waited at the front door and waved.
When they reached her, she hugged everyone, ending with Sarah. “So I hear you’re moving to our beautiful state.”
“Moved.”
Paige pushed open one half of a double front door and motioned them inside. “Is this for a job?”
Though Paige asked innocently, the question jabbed Sarah in an uncomfortable place—like poking at an open sore. “No. Just wanted a change of scene. I’ll start job hunting tomorrow.”
What Sarah didn’t tell Paige was that the job she’d up and left was one she would have a hard time replacing. Not only had it been a promotion, but it had been a prestigious one that promised an express elevator ride to the top. When she’d discovered, however, that she hadn’t gotten the job entirely on her own merits, the luster had rubbed off quickly and, along with the rest of her sham life in Seattle, had gone into the crapper.
She lingered with Paige in the foyer while Gage and Lily wandered off.
“What do you do?” Paige asked.
Sarah let her eyes travel around the interior. Though architects drove her nuts, she appreciated their artistry, especially loving the lines of living spaces like this one. “I’m a structural engineer.”
Paige’s green eyes lit. “Ooh. So can you look at an old house and configure weight distributions for moving a load-bearing wall? That sort of thing?”
Sarah shrugged. “Totally. Those are usually pretty straightforward.”
They ambled toward a monstrous great room. “Would you be interested in consulting on some remodels I’m contemplating?”
From around the corner came Lily’s disembodied voice. “Paige hires all of us.”
Sarah’s confusion must have shown because Paige gave a little shrug and said, “I only hire the best, so I hired Lily and Natalie.”
Sarah followed Paige into a to-die-for kitchen where Lily stood behind a stone counter, grinning. “We’re becoming an all girls’ club. We should call ourselves something like Paige’s Petunias.”
“Oh God no!” Paige laughed. “That’s too close to ‘Pansies.’ We need a more kick-butt moniker. Maybe Paige’s Powerhouse Playermakers. P-Cubed.” She swiveled her head from side to side. “Is Gage where I think he is?”
Lily flicked her hand. “Yep. Checking out the basement. Again.”
“Good. Let’s plan a girls’ night out so we can pick an official club name.”
Gage entered from a doorway that led downstairs. “What are you three plotting?”
“Paige’s Plotters!” Lily and Paige sang together.
Sarah never hung with women—too whiny, too catty—but she felt a tug to be part of this career girls’ club. “I may not be part of the club—”
“Yet,” Paige interrupted, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
“Oh boy,” Gage muttered. “Look out, Denver.”
A half hour later, Gage and Sarah had left Lily and Paige behind and pulled up to the teammate’s house. Correction, mansion. Castle. The teammate turned out to be Quinn, the babe-magnet engineer from the bar. So what if he had smarts? He still was a jock hockey player. Emphasis on player, judging by the hair and the take-no-prisoners dimples he flashed repeatedly at members of the opposite sex. He was one of those guys who knew how he affected women, and he was skilled at working it—practice makes perfect and all that.
Like Wolf. Prick.
“Hey, Bro, I’m just gonna stay out here so Archer can do his business and have a sniff-around.” She leashed her dog and led him out of the backseat.
“You sure you don’t want to see this house? I hear it’s got a swimming pool and a racquetball court and a home theater almost as big as a real theater.”
Nothing worse than an entitled player. “No, thanks. I’m good.”
“Suit yourself,” Gage called back. “If you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
The gonging doorbell startled Quinn. It always did, even though he’d been in this ridiculous house over a month now. He threw open the door to Nelson’s grinning face. “Hey. C’mon in.” Over Nelson’s shoulder, he spotted a woman walking a dog along the grass median. When she turned, he caught the flash of electric-pink hair. “Your sister’s welcome to come in too.”
Nelson glanced over his shoulder. “She’s gonna hang with her dog.”
Fine by me. Quinn wasn’t in the mood for Sarah Nelson’s acerbic tongue today anyway, especially not with the hangover mercilessly pounding his skull.
“Quinn,” came his mother’s shrill voice from somewhere. Hell, the house was so big it was hard to tell which wing she might be in. Not so far away, judging by the telltale thumping of her approaching wheelchair. She rounded the corner into the foyer. Her eyes landed on Gage, and she smiled. “Who’s this?”
Quinn made the introductions. “He’s just here to drop off some new gear from one of the companies that sponsors him.”
“Oh.” Her eyes darted out the front door, and her face lit up. “Who’s the girl with the dog?”
“That’s my sister, Sarah,” Gage answered.
Mom practically flattened Gage on her way to the front door. “I love dogs! Yoo-hoo! Hey, doll! Come in! Bring your dog.”
Quinn suppressed his eye-roll. It would’ve only added to the thudding in his head anyway. Instead, he offered Nelson an apologetic shrug. Nelson answered with a no-big-deal shrug of his own.
Judging by the way Sarah Nelson’s head swiveled on her shoulders, she was surprised his mother was cajoling—no, roping her in. And who the hell wouldn’t be? Sarah didn’t know his mother, nor did she know that once Elizabeth Hadley set her mind on something, you’d better get out of her way. And even though he didn’t particularly like Miss Sunshine, he inwardly wished her luck.
“Yes, you,” his mother called to Sarah. “I’d like to meet your dog.”
And just like that, Sarah Nelson and her big, yellow, panting dog crowded into the foyer with them. Well, not that the foyer was small enough to become crowded with a mere five souls, but everyone was clustered together. The dog seemed to zero in on his mom, thrusting its head into her lap. She patted it and crooned, “There’s a good boy. Oh, aren’t you a beauty!”
The dog responded with an enthusiastic tail wag.
Sarah smiled at his mom—a genuine, eye-brightening smile. Green eyes? “His name’s Archer.” Her voice held a huge dose of pride.
“Like the cartoon character?” Quinn and his mother both said at the same time. Though his mother didn’t seem to notice, his chin probably hit his chest. How did his mom know about Archer?
Sarah bobbed her head, her pink strands fluttering around her face. “Yes, that Archer.” That’s when Quinn noticed only the very front strands were pink. The rest of her short do was dark brown, a rich color that caught the light and reflected it in reds.
He managed to cough out, “You’ve watched Archer, Mom?”
“I own every season on DVD,” she murmured, though all of her attention was riveted on this Archer.
Suddenly, the dog backed up and out of her grasp and sat on its haunches, doing a canine version of standing at attention. It seemed to sniff the air, then glanced over its shoulder at Sarah and let out a whine.
Sarah’s dark brows knotted in a frown. “What’s up, Arch?”
Another little cry and he
fidgeted like he wanted to jump up and take off. Sarah pointed. “Seek.” The dog loped toward the kitchen, and they all fell in line behind, coming to an abrupt stop when it parked its furry butt once more and stared up at the kitchen island. It was making a whiny-pant sound, its head swinging between Sarah and the island.
His mom gasped and pointed. “Oh my God! I forgot to take my pills this morning.”
Quinn snatched a little zippered cloth bag where his mother kept all her meds. As soon as he handed it to her, the dog seemed to settle down.
“Good boy, Archer,” Sarah sang.
Baffled, Quinn said, “What just happened?”
Sarah’s eyes danced with excitement. Gray? “I’m not sure, but I think … He was trained to be a diabetes alert dog. They can smell when something’s off with their human—like their blood sugar level is too high—and they alert a family member. I’ve never seen him actually use that skill, though.” A little laugh escaped her. “Ironically, he flunked his training, and that’s how I ended up with him.”
“Well, he gets an A-plus from me,” Quinn’s mother said, causing his mind to whir. Most of their arguments were over caregivers he hired and she fired. Could he hire a dog as a caregiver? How much kibble would it demand in payment?
He filled a glass with water for his mom while she fiddled with the paisley pouch. He held out his hand to help her open it, but she ignored him and fought the zipper. Fine motor skills were eluding her today, but as usual her stubborn streak was sharp. Sarah also extended her hand, and to his surprise his mother relinquished the bag. He bit back the sting, telling himself at least his mother was willing to let someone help. As Sarah finessed the zipper, his mom told her which pill container she needed. Sarah plucked it out, uncapped it, and tapped out a pair of pills into Mom’s open palm. Just like that. If only he could get the same cooperation.
After downing the pills, his mother looked from Sarah to Nelson and back again. “I’m Liz.”
“Oh shit, I’m sorry. I should’ve introduced you.”