Off the Hook

by Laura Drewry

  It was a price he’d pay, though, because the last time he clocked himself, his fastball was still coming in at only a dismal eighty-eight miles per hour, which was a damn sight worse than what he used to throw before injuries and arthritis slowed him down. Sure, there were plenty of active pitchers who threw under ninety, but they had the ability to throw that consistently. In Liam’s case, all the therapy and practice he’d put in since he’d torn his rotator cuff still didn’t get him over eighty-eight more than a couple of times in a row.

  If he had any hope of making it back, he was going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that, and without access to his trainer now, he had to make damn good and sure he was pushing himself hard enough.

  One more reason not to leave the sweatbox, even if Kate was in there.

  Besides, Jessie was right: With only six weeks to opening, they needed Kate’s help, so it wasn’t as if he could ignore her forever; he was going to have to make the situation work somehow, but how? He had no idea what to say to her, and as the minutes ticked by in silence, it got harder and harder to figure out.

  It was Kate who finally broke the silence.

  “So,” she said, glancing down at her watch. “You and Jessie. Is that a thing?”

  “What?” he choked. “No!”

  “Okay,” she scoffed. “Relax; just making conversation.”

  Right. Conversation. And since the only thing he and Kate had in common that he knew of was their past relationship, it made sense that relationships would be her go-to conversation.

  Lying flat on the weight bench, he bent his knees, adjusted his grip on the barbell above him, and brought it down toward his chest. If he rolled his head back, he’d have been able to watch her run, which was why he stayed perfectly flat, staring up at the ceiling. The last thing he needed was to be distracted by her in that damn spandex.

  “The old man hired her right out of high school. She started out helping with the kitchen and the housekeeping and ended up basically running the joint, until the old man sent everyone packing.”

  “So she’s not with Finn or Ronan, either?”

  “Uh, no. My brothers and I might not be the sharpest tools in the shed when it comes to women, but we’re not crazy. It’ll take someone a hell of a lot tougher than any of us to take her on.” Lift, hold, down. “What about you? Are you and that Josh guy…?”

  “No. The whole hooking up with co-workers isn’t really my thing.” She sounded a little winded as she laughed lightly. “Besides which, Josh is getting married in a couple months to a great guy named Kyle, so even if I was interested in him it probably wouldn’t work out very well for us.”

  Liam didn’t know why that made him smile. Must have been hearing her laugh. Whatever it was, he needed to concentrate, before the barbell ended up on his head. Normally he liked it quiet when he worked out, but there was something oddly relaxing in the steady thump of Kate’s running. In fact, he found himself setting his own rhythm to every fifth step she took.

  Up for five, down for five.

  “Did you, uh, ever remarry?”

  When she didn’t answer right away, he twisted just enough so he could see her, but all she was doing was sipping water out of her water bottle, so he straightened out and gave up on her answering.

  “Nope,” she finally said. “You?”

  Liam’s grin faded. It wasn’t as if he’d ever held celebrity status like some ball players did, but a quick Google search would have given her all sorts of information. When he hesitated, she chuckled perceptively.

  “If you’re thinking I’ve wasted the last ten years googling you, then you need to get over yourself, Sporto. You might have turned out to be some hotshot pitcher in the major leagues, but after you bolted, I had no choice but to pick my sorry ass up and leave you in Vegas where you belonged. So that’s where you stayed.”

  Ouch. He’d googled her lots of times—hell, the last time he’d done it was about three weeks ago, on the day he flew home when Da died. As he sat at O’Hare, waiting for his connecting flight, the lineup at the next gate was heading to Vegas, and before he knew it, he’d typed her name into his phone’s browser again.

  No surprise: Just like every other time he’d done it, the only things he found were links to her neglected social-media sites and a couple of pictures of her at a friend’s wedding. He couldn’t be sure, but the bride could have been one of the other girls she’d been with in Vegas.

  “I did watch a few of your games,” she admitted, never slowing down as she talked. “But I usually had the sound down, because who can stand listening to all those stats and completely useless pieces of information? I mean, honest to God, yeah, I get why they’d want to keep track of something like how many errors Derek Jeter made in his rookie season—”

  “Two, but he only played fifteen games that season.” Liam grunted when he heard her snort. “What? It’s Jeter; the whole world knows his stats.”

  “Okay, fine, bad example. But there’s no reason to know things like…like…I don’t know…the name of the guy who caught Roger Maris’s home-run ball when he broke Babe—”

  “Sal Durante.”

  “Oh my God, forget it.” Her breathing increased, became loud as her pace increased. “Back to the original question. D’you ever get married again?”

  The barbell slipped in his suddenly sweaty grip, forcing him to grunt under the adjustment. “No. I never should have done it the first time.”

  The steady thumping of her feet stopped as abruptly as he realized he’d said that out loud. Cursing quietly, he set the barbell back in the yolk, stood up, and swiped his sleeve across his cheek, but by that time she’d already given her machine a quick wipe down and was reaching for her thick gray sweatshirt and the silver flashlight he’d left at her front door last night.

  “Kate, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s all yours, Sporto.” With a quick smile, she lifted the flashlight and waved it back and forth as she headed to the door. “Thanks for this.”

  “Kate.”

  She didn’t even slow down.

  “Jessie’s waiting for me,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  What the hell was wrong with him? Why was he being such a dick to her? As soon as the door closed behind her, he fell back against the wall, pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets, and groaned.

  She’d only been there…what? Twelve, fourteen hours? And so far he’d done nothing but make himself look exactly like the asshole she already thought he was. Already knew he was. How was he ever going to survive having her around for a couple of months?

  Shoving off the wall, he hopped on the treadmill and pounded out ten clicks faster than he’d ever done, then headed straight to the lodge for a shower. By the time he was done, the darkness had almost lifted outside, which meant anytime now—yup, there it was, the welcome whirring of the approaching Helijet outside. Thank God.

  Grabbing his coat, he hustled out to the dock just as it landed on the far end. The pilot pulled two duffel bags and a rod tube out of the cargo hold, slapped Finn on the shoulder, and climbed back behind the controls.

  “Is this it?” Liam asked, lifting the closest bag.

  “Yeah.” Finn nodded, then waved off the Helijet, and they started toward the lodge. They were about halfway there when he asked, “Did that Josh guy show up?”

  “Well,” Liam drawled, “funny story about that.”

  Finn didn’t stop walking, but it only took a couple of more words from Liam before his pace slowed to a crawl.

  “You what?” He croaked. “Married?”

  “Divorced, actually.”

  “And she’s here?” There was no judgment in his voice, just disbelief. He set his foot on the bottom step leading up to the front door and stopped long enough to scratch his three-day-old beard. “Holy shit, man.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she bitch out or were you just a dick?”

  Liam didn’t even hesitate. “
I was a dick.”

  “Great,” Finn muttered over a heavy sigh. He started up the stairs, then stopped and turned back to Liam, who was still at the bottom step. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “Good.” Unlike Ronan, who would no doubt push for details on the whys and the what-the-hell-were-you-thinkings, Finn simply whistled quietly and lifted his brow in a “what can you do” kind of gesture. “This is gonna be…interesting.”

  They set the bags outside the kitchen, then Liam left Finn searching through the biggest bag and headed straight inside the room, where the coffee was percolating on the stove. No regular old drip coffee today.

  “How come you only make perked coffee when Finn comes back?” he asked, pulling the cream out of the fridge and setting it on the table in front of Jessie. “I like it, too, you know.”

  “I know.” She wagged her brow at him as Finn walked in and handed her a couple of paperbacks. “But he always brings me books. What have you ever brought me?”

  “The pleasure of my company.” Liam snorted over a chuckle, then turned to his little brother, who’d already poured himself a big mug of the fresh brew. “And, you! I wouldn’t mind a good book once in a while, either, you know.”

  “I know.” Finn tried to hide his grin behind his mug as he shot Jessie a quick wink. “But she always perks the coffee for me. What do you ever do?”

  Laughing, Liam filled his own mug and leaned back against the counter to enjoy every last sip before he tackled the day’s list. Finn took a slow step away, then another, grinning the whole time.

  “So where’s the little missus?”

  “Son of a—” Liam set his mug down hard and whirled to swing a punch at Finn, but Finn ducked just in time, dodging the fist but sloshing some of his coffee before he got the mug safely to the table.

  “Sorry!” Laughing, he yanked one of the chairs out to block Liam, then darted around the table behind Jessie. “I meant the ex–little missus.”

  Liam lunged across the table for him, but, damn, Finn was fast; always had been. And before Liam could lunge again, Jessie was between them, pressing a hand against each chest.

  “Stop! I don’t have time to clean up blood today.” Her stern expression held almost as long as it took her to say that, then broke into one of her indulgent smiles. “Unlike you two lazy slobs, Kate started work half an hour ago; she’s up in the guest rooms.”

  Liam was the first to back up and reach for his coffee again, but it took a second for Finn to do the same, because if he stepped too close too soon, Liam would take another run at him, which was why they both stood there grinning at each other now.

  “I’m going to start mucking out the office,” Jessie said, thumbing over her shoulder toward the tiny room where she used to spend so much time. “I don’t know what the hell Jimmy did in there after I left, but holy crap.” She started toward the office, then turned back. “Oh, and I got us spots on a few tourism sites, but tops on the priority list should be a proper website of our own. I know Jimmy thought it was a waste of money, but it’s about time this place took a flying leap into the twenty-first century.”

  “Okay.” Liam shrugged. “So make us a website.”

  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” she said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Me and all my computer-programming experience.”

  “What about Kate?” Finn asked. Both he and Jessie turned their questioning looks on Liam, who couldn’t do anything but shrug again.

  “How would I know? I haven’t seen her in ten years.” Back in Vegas, she’d told him that she was a high school dropout, but who knew what had happened since then? Hell, for all he knew, she might have a degree in nuclear biology.

  “Well, let’s go find out.” Finn was out of the room and headed for the stairs before Liam realized what he’d said.

  They followed the sound of an Elvis song, playing from what turned out to be Kate’s phone, and found her up on a chair in the far guest room, taking down curtains. For about half a second, Liam was almost thankful she’d changed out of her spandex, until he realized she looked even better in those jeans. They weren’t tight like the ones he remembered from Vegas. No, sir. These were…better.

  Much better.

  And going by the way Finn’s eyes widened, he noticed how good she looked, too. Fighting back a growl, Liam cuffed his brother across the back of his head, then cleared his throat from where they stood in the doorway.

  “Uh, Kate?”

  She turned on the chair, and her gaze flicked straight past Liam to Finn. While he knew it shouldn’t bother him, Liam would be lying if he said it didn’t.

  “This is Finn. Finn, Kate.”

  Finn shoved past Liam, knocking him almost into the doorframe, and headed straight at Kate, hand extended as she climbed off the chair.

  “Kate. Good to meet you.” He tipped his head a little closer to her, then cast a quick glance back at Liam, who hadn’t budged from the doorway. “I’d like to say I’ve heard a lot about you, but I’d be lying.”

  “Nice to meet you, too.” Kate’s initial look of surprise smoothed into a halting smile as she shook his hand. “I guess I have a bit of an advantage, because at least I knew he had brothers.”

  “Nice. Well, trust me on this, you were smart to get out of that marriage as quick as you did, because you can do a hell of a lot better than him.”

  Joke or not, normally Liam would have taken Finn down for saying something like that—put him in a headlock and wrestled an “uncle” out of him—but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Hell, he could barely manage to blink.

  “Uh, thank you, I think,” Kate said, sounding a little uncertain. “And while I’d be happy to take credit for it, I should probably confess that the divorce wasn’t exactly my idea.”

  “Yeah, I know, he told me he was a dick.”

  “Did he, now?” Still grinning, she tipped her face toward Liam, causing every signal in his brain to misfire.

  “Yeah,” Finn started. “But—”

  “Shut up, Finn.” Clearing his throat again—what was up with that anyway?—Liam finally managed to move into the room. “We were wondering if, uh, if you know anything about building websites. We need to put one together for the lodge, and none of us have a clue.”

  “Sorry.” She looked down at Finn’s hand, still wrapped around hers until Liam reached over and slapped his brother’s away. “Can’t help you there, but I know someone who does it as a side job; I could get some information from her.”

  “That’d be great.”

  Without looking at Liam, Finn elbowed him sharply, tipped his chin toward Kate, and said, “Thank you.”

  “Right. Thank you.” Liam grabbed the back of Finn’s jacket and jerked. “Come on, we’ve got roofing to do.”

  He shouldn’t care that Finn kept smiling at Kate, and he shouldn’t care that she kept smiling back, but he did, so the sooner they got out of there, the better.

  Stumbling backward, Finn tripped after Liam, chuckling the whole way. “We’ll talk later, Kate. Maybe compare notes on what a dickwad this guy is.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  The last thing Liam heard as he dragged his stupid brother out of the room was the sound of Kate laughing. Now that Finn had seen and talked to her, albeit briefly, he’d no doubt have something to say, but he held his tongue until they were both up on the roof of the Orange cabin.

  “She’s way too good looking for someone like you.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Well, come on,” Finn laughed. “You might’ve wanted to think twice before bailing so fast on someone who looked like that. I mean, hell, bro, it’s not like that ugly mug of yours has been bringing them in hard and fast lately.”

  “Screw off.”

  “Am I wrong?” Still chuckling, Finn slid his pitchfork under the first strip of shingles. “I mean, yeah, obviously marriage is a bad idea at the best of times,
and it sounds like yours was flat-out batshit crazy, but still.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.” Liam had yet to do anything other than lean on his pitchfork and stare down at his boot.

  “Did she look like that when you married her?”

  “Pretty much.” Truth was, Kate had been a pretty girl, but now…well, shit…now she was all woman, and “pretty” didn’t even come close to describing her. Her milk-chocolate-colored hair hung over her shoulders, a little longer than it had back then, her hazel eyes were a little more golden, and her shape…

  It was all Liam could do not to groan. He remembered her curves well enough, but he didn’t remember her seeming as comfortable in them as she did now. It was almost as if she hadn’t quite fit them ten years ago, but she sure as hell did now.

  And even after all this time, she smelled like sunshine. He’d noticed it yesterday when she walked by him on the path and slapped him on the shoulder, and then again, up in that guest room, her scent lingered.

  “Hey!” Finn’s bark jerked him back, blowing away the remaining images of Kate as Finn waved his pitchfork in front of Liam’s face. “You gonna stand there holding down the shingles all day or are you gonna help?”

  Liam didn’t move for another couple of seconds, just continued staring at the back of Finn’s head before huffing out a sigh and getting down to work. For a long time, the surrounding silence was disrupted only by the scraping of the shingles and the ocean lapping the edge of the cove, which gave Liam plenty of time and room to think.

  But why did he have to use up all that good thinking time on Kate? There were other things he should be thinking about, like his career, like how much work they had to do if they had any hope of opening for the first of June, and then there was the constant nagging worry that, even if they did manage to get open, they didn’t have a single reservation yet.

  And still, thoughts of Kate pushed everything else into the back corner of his brain, until he finally gave up and let her take over completely. The second he did, it was as if a dam broke in his head, and for some stupid reason, the relief of that pressure made him chuckle quietly.