Game Changer

by Melissa Cutler

  She propped the rifle against the wall and touched a weathered brick near the door, a brick that had been set by a mason a hundred-and-twenty years ago and would remain, stalwart and strong, for many years to come. The brick’s surface was cool and gritty beneath her fingertips.

  “What television show?”

  He swallowed. His gaze slid away. “Meet the Groom. I’m the next groom on the show.”

  Her ribs squeezed painfully, forcing the air from her lungs. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, you have to be. Because you’re the most anti-marriage person I’ve ever met. Hell, you screwed three women tonight and you pull that kind of shit all the time. You’ve told me over and over that you’re never going to settle down.”

  “I know what it looks like, and I haven’t changed my mind about marriage, but I can’t pass up an opportunity this big.”

  She’d seen Meet the Groom once at Presley’s house. The premise of the show was as ridiculous and vapid as the lineup of prospective brides. It was one of those shows in which Harper could actually feel her IQ plummeting the longer she watched.

  “What opportunity? To date dozens of women at a time while Hollywood foots the bill? Is that really what you’re going for?”

  “No. Of course not. This is the opportunity of a lifetime to spread the word about the issues veterans face and show the world what amputees are capable of. Even if my appearance on the show only inspires one vet who’s down on himself, or one kid with a disability who sees that life can be pretty sweet even if you’re missing a limb, then that’s reason enough to put myself out there.”

  Now that she considered it, the Meet the Groom producers probably cast him in order to elevate the show from its campy roots by lending it the credibility that came from featuring a highly decorated, disabled veteran.

  “You’re not worried that the show’s going to exploit you and your story?”

  His gaze snapped back to her face, his expression defensive. “I won’t let them. The good I can do for vets on a national platform of this scale is too important.”

  She nodded. What else could she do? The American Hero card trumped all. “Then I guess congratulations are in order. You’re going to inspire a lot of people. You always do, with every new challenge you overcome.” Damn, she sounded like a speaker at a high school graduation. “Miami isn’t going to know what hit it. You’re going to do great down there.”

  His defensive expression held strong. “Thank you.”

  “What about your clients? All those poor housewives at the gym. They’re going to be positively bereft without you. You were the hottest personal trainer there.”

  “They’ll manage fine. Ramos already took my clients. He needs the extra hours, so it’s all good.”

  “And Gabe?” Gabe had been his roommate since the beginning in Destiny Falls and his friend for even longer.

  “Gabe and I talked right away. I wanted to give him time to find a new roommate. I’ve got one last modeling gig in Buffalo tomorrow and I’ll play one last Bomb Squad game on Thursday, then say my good-byes over the weekend and drive to Florida that following Monday.”

  How long had he been planning this? How many times since he’d been asked to appear on Meet the Groom had they seen each other, with friends at Locks or at the ice rink, and he’d opted not to tell her the truth?

  She pressed her palm against the door behind her and traced the carvings on it with her fingertip. In a flash of memory, she saw herself as a child facing her father at the kitchen table, his deep, unemotional voice telling her that he was going away again on deployment the next morning. He hadn’t seen the value in sentimentality or lengthy good-byes. Neither, it seemed, did Brandon.

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  His nose and lips skimmed the back of her head. “You know what? You should meet me in Miami, fly down there and stay for a couple nights. You haven’t taken a vacation the whole time I’ve known you. It could be a final fling for us. A last good-bye.”

  It took a moment for his suggestion to sink in. Two nights in Miami with Brandon. A final fling. Frustration coursed through her veins. Did he really expect her to jump at the chance for a two-night fling with him after breaking it to her that he was moving on because this town wasn’t worth his time anymore? That she wasn’t. And, to top it all off, after telling her for years that he was philosophically opposed to monogamy, he was going to be getting engaged soon—on national television, no less.

  She curled her hands into his sweatshirt. If he hadn’t used those lips of his on three coeds tonight, she’d take from him a sliver of her due, of the years of pleasure he’d denied her because of that damned restless heart he’d been cursed with.

  “Brandon,” she croaked, her gaze sliding to the shadowy hollow of his throat. “You can’t ask that of me.”

  He hunched into the arm he’d propped against the door, refusing to let her break eye contact. “I already did. Life’s too short; it’s time you started living it. Come stay with me in Miami.”

  His usual refrain sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Harper. Life’s too short. Carpe Diem. You only live once. Those were the mantras Brandon threw around like get-out-of-jail-free passes. But to Harper’s way of thinking, life was too short to waste on flights of fancy and meaningless flings. On television brides. Harper had had enough temporary while growing up to last a lifetime.

  And yet . . .

  What if she did agree to his proposal? What if she didn’t turn him down? All this time, he’d only wanted Harper because he loved the chase. So what if she stopped making him chase her? What if she changed the rules of their game and made herself attainable? That would end the chase. Maybe she would finally find closure.

  A rush of sensation rippled through her. What if she ditched her responsibilities and spent three days in paradise with a hunky younger man—a professional model, no less? So very tempting, even though there was no way she could break away from the bar on such short notice, especially not with the trouble buzzing around the place.

  She loosened her grip on his sweatshirt and smoothed out the material. “Three days of monogamy. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t handle it.”

  He threw his head back in a triumphant bark of laughter. “I’m taking that as a yes.” His hand cupped her hip, his fingers edging toward her backside. “Baby, I’m going to take such good care of you in Miami.”

  It set her teeth on edge, the way he crooned the word baby as though she were really something special to him. “I didn’t say yes. This isn’t a good time for me, with the bar. I told you there have been some incidents lately. I have too many responsibilities to leave.”

  He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, frowning. “All work and no play. Don’t you ever get tired of that?”

  She felt every one of her thirty-nine years when she said, “Sometimes, absolutely. But weariness doesn’t make my responsibilities or problems go away.” Weariness wasn’t going to save her bar or get her doctor off her back. Neither were empty platitudes about seizing the day.

  He nodded, and she thought she’d broken through to him when he said, “I have another idea, then. A friendly wager.”

  Oh, hell no. He knew she was a sucker for taking bets, no matter how dismal her odds. Which was how, the year before, she’d ended up owing him kisses every time he scored the winning goal for his men’s league ice hockey team, Bomb Squad. The near-weekly make-out sessions had done a number on her heart, and when that bet collection ended along with the NHL season, she vowed to never again enter into a wager with him.

  “I’m serious, Harper. I solve your crime problems at Locks, and in return, you fly down to Miami and stay with me. Two nights.”

  As far as bets went, this was a safe one. No way could Brandon solve her problem in less than a week because there wasn’t an easy-to-pinpoint issue to fix. Even if there had been, one man couldn�
�t single-handedly end crime in Destiny Falls like he was friggin’ Dirty Harry.

  Brandon shifted. His right shoe knocked into her sneaker, a reminder of the prosthetic limb he wore. She’d never seen him without it until she’d gone searching for photographs of him online. Even on the men’s health magazine cover his image had graced last June, he’d worn the prosthetic he used for playing hockey. But buried in the search engine results, she’d found a handful of photographs he’d done in the first few months of his modeling career. No clothes, no prosthesis. Just Brandon in black and white, his hand loosely covering his groin and his right leg ending below the knee as though the rest of it had been airbrushed out. She’d stared for a long time, assimilating the image into her mind, wondering.

  What did he do with the prosthesis during sex? He had to take it off, didn’t he? Did he enjoy having his leg and scars touched by the women he slept with or did the area still hurt? How did he shower, on one leg or seated? Did he leave the prosthesis on when he was home alone, or did he peel it off like Harper shed her bra after a long day? So many times she’d pondered the intimate details of his daily life, details that the trio of coeds had probably learned offhand, as had dozens of other women over the years. An ache of frustration settled like a tight ball in Harper’s throat.

  He couldn’t solve her crime problems, but it might be worth taking the bet to have him close to her for the week while he tried. Maybe she’d invite herself into his bed before he moved to Miami and satisfy all her questions while she had that one last chance to.

  The more she considered the idea, the more she liked it. She was never going to have a relationship with Brandon in any real sense, but with him moving away, she’d be spared the pain of constantly being confronted with the fact that she hadn’t been worth a venture into a monogamous commitment for him. Besides, he was right—she was overdue for some fun.

  She sidestepped away from his body and thrust her hand between them for him to shake. “Bet’s on. If you solve the bar’s problems before you leave, I’m yours for two nights in Miami.”

  He took her hand, but rather than shake it, he brought it to his lips for a lingering kiss. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Then he flashed her a smile full of devilish charm and triumph, which got her wondering if maybe she needed to start thinking with her brain because her heart was stupid as shit. In typical Harper fashion, she’d probably miscalculated the odds and, dollars to donuts, she’d just agreed to yet another sucker bet at the hand of the one man she couldn’t risk losing herself to.

  Chapter Two

  Brandon had no problem being nearly naked save for a pair of dark purple bikini briefs that showed every ridge and bulge of his family jewels, but he did mind the makeup, even though he looked damn good in it. The photographer, Mutt, had gushed about the black eyeliner adding to his air of intensity and making his blue eyes pop. Brandon agreed.

  Then Terrance, his agent, said, “Damn, man, I hate to say this, but you look pretty.”

  He hated that Terrance had said that, too, because Brandon had zero interest in getting in touch with his feminine side. But he was getting paid a pretty penny for this gig, so whatever.

  It wasn’t like the makeup artist had painted him up to be a drag queen. He wore no eye shadow and only a neutral shade of lip balm. Yes, highlights had been added to his cheekbones and his whole body was slick with baby oil, but he had enough experience in the biz to know that none of that shit except the eyeliner would be apparent in the finished photographs. Even still, if his Bomb Squad teammates would have been at the shoot, they would have laughed themselves unconscious.

  “Hook your finger into the bottom of your briefs like you’re tugging them back into place,” murmured Mutt, a gruff man in his fifties with a salt-and-pepper goatee, his eye glued to the camera.

  With a confident smirk pasted on his lips, Brandon reached around and slid his index finger between the cotton and his skin, then tugged.

  “That’s it. Pull the fabric away from your skin. Show us that famous ass.”

  Brandon’s ass was many a splendor thing because he tortured himself at the gym every day to make sure it was. Of course, if seven years ago, while he’d been lying in a hospital bed staring at the spot where his right foot should have been, someone had told him that his ass was going to be famous someday, he would have buzzed the nurse to request a psych exam.

  Mutt straightened, lowering the camera. “Your eyes are distant. Get out of your head.”

  Brandon cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. How about we try something fresh? Shift your weight to your left leg and scoot your right leg back toward the camera. Yeah, give us a view of that bionic foot.”

  He shifted on command, jutting his hips, tightening his right glute, and giving the camera a great view of his artificial foot.

  Brandon had to believe that he wasn’t exploiting his disfiguring injury by modeling or appearing on Meet the Groom, as Harper had worried. Was it twisted that Brandon enjoyed it—not just the attention and money but, despite the occasionally frustrating drawbacks of being an amputee, the prosthesis itself? How could he not, with its sleek, state-of-the-art technology and its ability to get him any girl’s number, any time? Maybe that was twisted of him or maybe not. The only thing he knew for sure was this: there was a specific reason he’d survived the IED blast that had killed nine other soldiers that night seven years ago. Nine of his brothers-in-arms.

  If Brandon had been riding shotgun in the deuce-and-a-half he’d been assigned to near the front of the CLP—combat logistics patrol—or if either the Husky or gun truck in front of the deuce had been going a few klicks per hour faster, then the explosion would have turned him into vulture food, too.

  So Brandon knew there had to be an important reason that God or whoever was up there pulling the strings had left Brandon alive, the only survivor of those first three vehicles in the forty-plus vehicle convoy. If only the Powers That Be had bothered to spell out that reason for Brandon, then he’d be golden. Piece of cake. But there was no such instruction manual for discovering and fulfilling the purpose he’d been kept alive for, and he was starting to feel like this whole trial-and-error method was bullshit.

  All he had to go on was the fire inside him telling him to live full throttle, to not settle, and to keep following the serendipitous path he was being led along. From Walter Reed Hospital to a rehab facility near his parents’ house in Connecticut, then to Destiny Falls to play ice hockey with a bunch of other wounded vets and reboot himself as a personal trainer, then into the public eye after his discovery by a prominent photographer. From there, it was magazine spreads, interviews on national television, and now Meet the Groom. It was a straight, tidy line of opportunities that built on one another and that didn’t include being trapped in a small town, pining over a woman who refused to give in to the attraction that sizzled between them every time they were near each other.

  “Get out of your head,” Mutt commanded low and cool, as though he was reluctant to break the mood set by the smooth, sexy R&B coming from the speakers on the side table.

  Brandon rotated his jaw. “Sorry.”

  “No worries.” He lifted his eye away from the camera and twisted to look behind him. “I need everyone else to clear the room. Terrance, April? You, too.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Brandon said. His career couldn’t afford for word to get around that he was high maintenance, or that he couldn’t perform on demand.

  “I know. We’re just trying something new.” As soon as the room cleared, Mutt walked to the speakers and, with a press to his smart phone, stopped the music. He ambled to a set of shelves that lined the back of the studio where Brandon noticed an old-fashioned record player. Mutt set the needle on the record that was already there.

  A trumpet crooned the opening notes of a jazz song from the speakers that flanked the record pla
yer. With a few thuds of a drum, the melody broke wide open into a beat-heavy, exotic jazz number that reminded Brandon of tropical places and cultures he hadn’t yet explored, like Mexico or South America or an island in between.

  Mutt returned to position and lifted the camera to his eye. “Let’s start over. Face forward and close your eyes. Get into the Cuban jazz. Relax and clear your mind.”

  Cuban jazz? Okay then. Yet another place on Brandon’s bucket list. He let his eyes drift closed. The jazz melody was laid over a jagged-edged, driving beat that evoked in Brandon a visceral feeling of tropical humidity, as if he were walking the streets of Havana at sunset during the dog days of summer, the whole world washed in sepia tones. Holding that image and feeling in his mind, he exhaled in a slow stream through his nose and forced his shoulders to relax.

  “Good. That’s it,” Mutt said. “Now slide your hand down your chest, nice and slow. All the way down.”

  Brandon obliged. Cocking his hips just so, he set his hand at his clavicle and dragged his fingers over his flesh.

  “Whose hand is that?” Mutt’s voice was a gravely murmur. “Who wants to fuck you right now? Can you see her in your mind?”

  The vision of Havana was shattered by Harper’s image and the almost-real sensation his imagination evoked of her body touching his. He could feel her glossy pink fingernails scratching over his abs, then combing through the neatly manicured hair below his navel, the hair he’d insisted on keeping despite Terrance’s strongly worded suggestion that he wax. She was wearing her typical black tank top for work, the one that sometimes tugged down enough that a hint of a black lace bra showed along the swells of her breasts. She’d been wearing that same tank top the night before, accessorized by that rifle she’d practically strangled in her grip, and accompanied by a look of betrayal that radiated from her features as she’d stared him down in the parking lot.