Any Man of Mine

by Rachel Gibson

  Which brought his thoughts around to Conner’s mama. So, maybe he should have called Autumn and told her they were going to be late. Honestly, he hadn’t given it a thought, and it hadn’t occurred to him until he’d seen how many times she’d called his cell. By then he figured the damage was done. He hadn’t needed to see her flying down those steps toward him to know he was in trouble. Hell, he’d known it before he’d turned onto her street. What he hadn’t counted on was her looking so wild and hot. All that red-and-gold hair flying about her head and her green eyes on fire. If she hadn’t opened her mouth and started bitching, he might have found himself in the uncomfortable situation of remembering the last time she’d looked like that. All crazy and wanting to do damage. Only that time she hadn’t been angry. She’d torn at his clothes until he was naked, and her mouth was all over him, doing her worst, leaving him gasping, spent, and wanting more.

  The first time he’d seen her, she’d been dancing by herself, one hand over her head, the other on her stomach, and moving her hips slow and seductive. He’d been on his feet walking toward her before he’d had a coherent thought in his head. He’d moved up behind her and put his hands on her waist. The second he’d touched her, he’d felt something. A spark of some little something hit him in the belly.

  She’d thrown a sharp little elbow into his stomach, right about where he’d felt that little spark of something, then she turned to face him. Her eyes had rounded with fear, and she looked like she was thinking about running. He hadn’t blamed her, but he hadn’t been about to let that happen either.

  Autumn hadn’t fallen into bed with him that first night, but once he got her there, they hadn’t left. Seeing her fly at him today, brought back memories of her naked against him. Of her white skin and firm white breasts in his hands and mouth. Autumn might not have his perfect body type, but her body was perfect. And for those few days in Vegas, when nothing had been real, she’d seemed perfect, too.

  Sam raised the bottle and took a long drink. Then he’d woken up, hungover and wrung out and wondering what the fuck he’d done. He’d married a girl he had just met and didn’t know. Hell, he hadn’t even known where she lived.

  The month before that disaster in Vegas, he’d signed a five-million-dollar, three-year, contract with the Chinooks. With one reckless act, he’d put it at all risk. With one reckless act, he’d changed his life forever. Autumn’s, too.

  He had never been sure what had pissed Autumn off more—him leaving her alone in Caesars without so much as a good-bye, the way he’d handled the divorce, or his insistence on a paternity test. Out of those three things, the only one he would change if he could was the way he’d left. He’d man up and say good-bye. It would have been the hard thing, but it would have been the right thing to do.

  Sam placed the heels of his palms on the arms of the chair and rose. He wasn’t as bad a dad as Autumn portrayed him, but he wasn’t as good as he needed to be either. All that had to change. He had to do the right thing. He had to go as hard at seeing his son as he did at playing hockey. He looked at his watch and took one last pull from his beer. Some of the guys were getting together at Daniel’s for poker night. Sam was down three thousand and would love the opportunity to win it back.

  Getting more serious about his personal life didn’t mean he had to give up everything else. Didn’t mean he had to give up poker night.

  Chapter Five

  Any Man of Mine:

  Likes a Good Buffet

  “I want a renaissance faire wedding. With a castle and moat and magicians.”

  Autumn looked down at the tip of her ballpoint pen and forced herself to write renaissance faire in the theme heading. It was a little after six on a Saturday night, and she was in her office planning the Henson/Franklin wedding. Renaissance, apparently. In the office next door, she could hear Shiloh clicking on the computer and talking on the phone. “You have to keep in mind that the venue you’ve chosen is fairly small.” She rose from behind her desk and straightened the red-and-black floral dress she’d bought at a vintage store in downtown Santa Cruz the last time she and Conner had gone on vacation to California. The soles of her red leather flats barely made a sound as she closed the door. Shiloh was a great assistant, but she tended to dial up the volume when she was excited. “I don’t know if we have room for a moat.” This was her first face-to-face meeting with the couple, but she’d had several phone conversations with the bride.

  “Oh. Well how about snake charmers and jesters?”

  She retook her seat and looked up at the young woman across from her. Carmen the bride appeared so normal with her clear blue eyes and straight black hair. She wore a sweater set and little brooch, but the ear tapers sticking out of her lobes like black spikes were a tip-off that some kind of freakiness lay beneath that demure sweater set. “I’m not sure we can get the permits for exotic animals at your venue.”

  “Bummer.” Carmen snapped her fingers. “Juggling dwarfs. We saw that at a faire in Portland.”

  Autumn hoped the bride was talking about little people who juggled as opposed to little people who were juggled. It was probably the former, but she’d heard of stranger things. “We might have better luck getting jugglers if we didn’t put height restrictions on them,” she suggested.

  Carmen turned to her groom, Jerry. “What about pirates?”

  “Pirates can be fun but totally unpredictable,” the groom answered as if they were talking about real pirates. “Grandma Dotti and Aunt Wanda are uptight and might have a problem with the pirates.”

  Thank God for an uptight aunt and grandma. Autumn wanted all brides and grooms to have the weddings of their dreams. She wanted them to have everything they wanted, but she knew from experience that simple was always better. “If you have too much going on, it takes the focus off the bride and the groom. It’s your day, and the two of you need to be the center of attention.”

  Carmen smiled. “That’s true. I’ve dreamed of my wedding day all of my life.” Traditional or alternative, all little girls had that in common.

  “We want the servers in fools hats and masks,” Jerry added.

  “And wearing our wedding colors.”

  Which were blue and gold. She tilted her head as if she were giving the suggestion serious thought. While she wanted to give the bride and groom what they wanted, it was her job to keep it within their budget, too. “Well, those sorts of costume would have to be especially made for the reception. As opposed to rented, and your budget is…” She flipped a page like she’d forgotten and needed a reminder. “Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand is barely going to cover your catering, flowers, photography, and venue.” Twenty thousand was a lot of money unless you were talking about planning a wedding. “If you want the servers to have specially made costumes, we can always cut back on the food. Perhaps serve chicken as opposed to a roasted pig.”

  The bride sat back in her chair and bit her lip. “Jerry and I met at a renaissance faire in Gig Harbor. We’ve always envisioned our wedding with a renaissance theme and a roasted pig.”

  Autumn gave the couple her most reassuring smile. “And you can and will have a great wedding with a renaissance theme. I’ll talk to some of my vendors and see what kind of deals they can give you. In this economy, they are a lot more open to giving price breaks. And I’ll contact the local Society for Creative Anachronism and see what they can do, too. I think we can come up with something fabulous and still stay within your budget. I’m looking forward to helping you with this wedding. It’s going to be fun.” At least it wasn’t a pink princess theme, which was Autumn’s least favorite. “Have you picked out a dress,” she asked Carmen, and by the time the bride and groom left her office, they’d signed a contract, put down a deposit, and were upbeat and optimistic about their June wedding.

  Autumn tossed her pen and pressed the heels of her palms against her brows. She wasn’t going to get rich planning weddings with budgets of twenty grand. Every little bit helped, and she was grateful for each
job. But the commission off Carmen and Jerry’s wedding would barely pay the lease on her office for two months, which was why a lot of planners worked out of their homes, but not Autumn. She’d always believed that the image of success attracted success. Her office wasn’t anything big and splashy, just a seven-hundred-square-foot space she rented in a strip mall not far from her house; but it did give her the appearance of professionalism that a planner just couldn’t get from meeting clients in her home.

  Autumn depended on the big events and big weddings, like the Savages’, to survive the leaner times and keep her business going. To put food on the table and pay the utilities. Although she hated to admit it, the money she got each month from Sam went above and beyond helping to pay her personal bills. She and Conner lived modestly, and she’d like to be able to say she didn’t use any of the child-support money Sam provided. She’d like to throw it all back in his face, but she wasn’t a martyr, and raising a child was expensive. She’d like to say she was socking the money away for Conner’s education, but Sam had that covered, too.

  The amount Sam paid for one child was ridiculously high, but she was the only one who seemed to think so. Neither her lawyer nor Sam’s or even Sam himself seemed to think he should pay less. Which, she supposed, showed how much money the man made a year. She didn’t need half that much, and she’d put a lot of it aside so that when it had come time to buy a house, she’d paid cash. The house was thirty-five years old, but it was her and Conner’s, and they’d never be homeless. Never have to move around to avoid landlords and eviction notices like when she’d been growing up. Never moving from town to town, one step ahead of the repo man.

  If Autumn did have a weakness, it was traveling. Every year, she took Conner on an awesome vacation. Usually in January because Januaries were notoriously slow months in the planning business. But with Conner in school now, they would have to take minivacations and wait until spring break to head off to St. Barts or Atlantis.

  “Hey, Autumn.” Shiloh, Autumn’s twenty-five-year-old assistant stuck her dark head into the office. “I talked to Tasty Cakes, and they’ll do the cake for the Kramer anniversary for a thousand if we use them for the Peterson birthday party.”

  “Fabulous.” The Kramer’s fiftieth wedding anniversary was planned for the second week in November and included three hundred family members and a five-tier wedding cake. “We can use the savings on better wine.” She flipped her wrist over and looked at her watch. Seven thirty. Free weekend nights were rare. “Don’t you have a date or something?”

  Shiloh raised one dark brow over her brown eyes. “Don’t you?”

  Autumn laughed. “Yeah right. I have a five-year-old.”

  Shiloh rested a shoulder against the doorframe. “Not tonight you don’t.”

  True, Conner was at the hockey game watching his dad skate around and punch people in the head. Sam had actually come through this time. Of course, it wouldn’t last. “No one asked me out tonight.”

  “That’s because of the repellent.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your man repellent.”

  She blinked. “My what?”

  Shiloh’s mouth fell open. “I thought you knew. I thought you did it on purpose.”

  “Did what on purpose?”

  “Put on the man repellent. You know, sprayed yourself with ‘stay away’ vibe. If my friends and I are out, and we don’t want to be bothered, we put out the vibe.”

  “I have a vibe?” She put a hand on her chest.

  Shiloh shook her head, and the light caught in the sparkly headband she favored. “No! Geez, sorry.” She walked farther into the room. “Forget it. Forget I said anything.”

  “That’s like saying my face looks like a dog’s butt, then telling me to forget you said it.”

  “Your face doesn’t look like a dog’s butt. You have a really pretty face and a smoking body—and I mean that in a totally nonlesbian way.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Which is why I thought you put on the repellent. To purposely scare men away. We all do it sometimes.”

  She scared men away? Seriously? When had that happened? She’d thought she wasn’t dating by choice. Not because men found her repellent, but come to think of it, she hadn’t been asked out in a really long time.

  “I’m soooooo sorry, Autumn. Are you mad?”

  “No.” She wasn’t mad. Just a little shocked and a whole lot confused. She couldn’t even recall the last time a man had even flirted with her.

  Shiloh gave a weak smile, then asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject and fill the awkward silence, “So, what’s your brother doing tonight?”

  She reached for an empty binder and pulled the rings apart. “Out somewhere.” She’d have to ask Vince if she had a bad vibe. He’d tell her the truth, maybe. “Why?”

  “I thought I might call him.”

  “You know he’s a dog?” She reached inside a desk drawer and pulled out a planning packet. She looked up, and added, “Right?”

  “Sure.” Shiloh shrugged. “I don’t want to marry him. Just maybe have dinner.”

  Uh-huh. Vince didn’t do dinner. “Shi—” She should warn her assistant. She liked Shiloh, and Vince wasn’t relationship material. He had issues.

  “Yeah?”

  Shiloh was a nice woman, and Autumn didn’t want to lose her as an assistant, even if she did think she sprayed man repellent on herself, but who was she to give anyone advice? “Nothing. Have a good night.”

  “See ya Monday,” Shiloh said over her shoulder as she walked away.

  “Lock the door on the way out.” She placed a business card in the binder sleeve, a packet inside, and snapped the rings shut. She hadn’t had a date in a really long time. She’d thought it was because she was just too busy. That she wasn’t ready. That it was her choice. Was there more to it? Did she really give off some sort of vibe?

  No. Yes. Maybe. She reached inside another desk drawer and pulled out a remote. God, I don’t know. She turned on the television across the room and clicked around until she found the Chinooks’ game. She watched for a few moments, hoping to see Conner’s face in the crowd. She was a single mother. A small-business owner. A very busy woman. Way too busy for a relationship just then, but that didn’t mean she wanted to repel men.

  “The puck is shot up ice by LeClaire, who tries to pass to Holstrom,” the hockey commentator announced just before the whistle blew. “Five and a quarter left in the second period, and icing is called.” The camera zoomed in on Sam’s jersey. On the Chinook swatting a puck with its tail, then the lens panned up to his face beneath the white helmet resting above his brows. His blue gaze looked up at the scoreboard. The Dallas Stars were up by a goal. “That man right there is a huge part of the Chinooks’ cup-winning defense,” the commentator continued. “He’s always one of the biggest, most intimidating guys on the ice.”

  A second commentator laughed. “If you see LeClaire coming, it’s best to get out of the way. With his team down by one, he’ll be looking to put the big hurt on someone.”

  Sam skated into a face-off circle to the left of his own goal. He put his stick on the ice and waited, his steely blues focused on the opponent across from him. The puck dropped, and he fought for domination, battling it out. He shot the puck up ice, but it was stopped by a Dallas player who had the audacity to skate along the boards toward the Chinooks’ goal. The “big hurt” Sam put on him lifted his skates a foot off the ice and rattled the Plexiglas. A Star slammed into Sam, who turned and threw a punch. Several players from both teams piled on, and Autumn couldn’t tell if they were hitting each other or holding each other back. Gloves and sticks hit the ice, and two referees finally blew their whistles and skated into the middle of the scrum. Sam pointed to the left and argued with the ref, but in the end, he straightened his white jersey, picked up his gloves and stick from the ice, and skated to the penalty box. His eyes narrowed, but a smile twisted one corner of his lips. He wasn’t at all
sorry.

  Of course, Sam was rarely sorry about anything.

  She remembered the first time she’d looked up into those blue eyes. She’d been so incredibly naïve, and he’d been so impossibly handsome. She’d been alone in Vegas. All alone in Sin City. She’d been a small-town girl, and Vegas had been foreign and like nothing she had ever experienced. Maybe if she hadn’t been alone, she wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to Sam’s evil ways.

  Maybe if she hadn’t paid nonrefundable money for the seven-day, five-night vacation package to Caesars Palace, she would have taken one look at the debauchery in those beautiful eyes and run home. Maybe if her mother hadn’t warned her about the decadence in Vegas, she wouldn’t have been so intrigued to see it for herself.

  She’d spent the previous two years caring for her mom and taking care of her affairs after her death and she’d needed a break. A vacation from her life. She had a list of everything she wanted to do in Vegas, and she was determined to wring every last dime out of that vacation.

  That first day by herself she’d spent walking up and down the Strip, staring at all the people and collecting stripper/hooker cards. She’d window-shopped at Fendi, Versace, and Louis Vuitton. She’d found a pink bead bracelet at a sidewalk vendor and played a few slots in Harrah’s because she’d read somewhere that Toby Keith stayed at Harrah’s. But she’d only fed the slots until she lost twenty bucks. Even then, she’d been very tight with her money.

  She’d lounged by the pool, and that night she put on a white sundress she’d bought at a Wal-Mart in Helena and hit Pure. She’d heard about the nightclub inside Caesars. Read in People and Star magazines that celebrities hosted parties in the bar.

  At first, things inside Pure were slow. She sat within the stark white interior and rolling pastel lights, nursing a few drinks and wondering, “Is this it?” Is this what everyone raves about? But by eleven, the bar picked up, and by midnight she was dancing and having a good time. By 1:00 A.M., the dance floor was a crowded mash of warm bodies, and she was in the middle of it, moving her butt to Jack Johnson, letting go, being young, and having more fun than she’d had in years.