Estie cleared her throat. Finally, she slid her hand from his grasp, giving him an odd look. He’d been hanging on too tight and too long. The heat rose to his cheeks and ears to rival the heat in the rest of his body. Way to go, Gun. Make an idiot of yourself with the first woman who’s interested you in eons.
Estie walked across the room like an angel gliding through clouds and stopped in front of a birdcage. She pointed at the large parrot inside, who had cocked his head and was watching them both. “And the name of your foul-mouthed friend here? Lavender was in such a hurry to fly to San Fran to be with Tyler, she never told me this guy’s name.”
Estie laughed again, and her voice took on this breathless quality as if he affected her as much as she affected him. Her deep-blue eyes—so much like her brother’s, but he wouldn’t hold that against her—mesmerized him. All that romantic shit he’d heard over the years from his sisters hit him like a speeding car on the freeway. His brain did a free fall into a self-induced coma, his feet became one with the floor, and his heart pounded louder than a series of bombs dropping on an enemy target.
“The parrot? What is his name?” Estie frowned as she repeated her question, and her neatly plucked brow furrowed. Brett blinked several times in an attempt to signal his brain to snap out of it.
Obviously tired of waiting for his dumb-shit owner to get a grip, the African Gray took matters into his own wings, “Bongo, pretty lady. Bongo. Bongo wants to see you naked.”
Her eyes grew big, and she stared at the parrot with her gorgeously sinful mouth hanging open. To her credit, she recovered quickly and peered inside the cage, a smile once again tugging the corners of those pink lips. “You’re a little devil, Bongo. I’ve been asking you your name all evening.”
“Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.” Bongo rang a little bell attached to his perch for emphasis.
This time Estie laughed, an amused tinkling laugh. “Did you say you left him with my brother?”
Brett nodded. “You can tell, huh?” Tyler Harris was known for his fondness of the F-word, a bad habit he’d passed on to the bird, or more likely trained into the bird.
“Absolutely.” Again, the Mona Lisa smile. Damn, he was going to have to get a print of that painting and hang it in his bedroom, but then he’d never get any sleep.
“I can’t leave him alone, especially not for a few days; he gets lonely and destructive. I used to put him in animal daycare, but they kicked him out for bad behavior and worse language. Then I left him with a neighbor kid to babysit. His mother had a fit when Bongo told her husband that she was messing around with the college student next door.”
“Was she?”
“I have no idea,” he chuckled.
“So you put it back on my brother to provide babysitting since he taught the little guy some naughty words.”
“Something like that. Lavender loves animals, and she didn’t mind. I really appreciate you stepping in to help me out.”
“It’s all for the animals.” She walked into the living room, tastefully furnished with overstuffed furniture covered with neatly folded blankets, most likely for her furry children. Oh, lord, a woman after his own heart, with the comfort of her animals coming first. Despite the animal comforts, nothing was out of place, nothing like his messy house, nor did it smell like animals lived there. In fact, it smelled wonderful, like a combination of spring blossoms and a mountain meadow. The hardwood floors gleamed, not one fluffy cloud of dust or cat hair anywhere, and he was pretty sure she had a cat based on the pictures on her mantel.
Brett followed her, his eyes dropping to her blue-jeans-clad ass. A really, really nice ass, and those long take-me-to-heaven legs. Any guy in his right mind would fantasize about those legs.
Brett tugged on his collar and wiped his brow. He cleared his throat and swallowed. He was hooked, but judging by that impressive diamond ring, so was she. Leave it to him to fall for an unattainable woman—wouldn’t be the first time. As the Steelheads’ backup quarterback, he was used to women looking right past him to the starters. It was the story of his life, and he was used to it. Not that he’d grown complacent, but being pissed about the hand life dealt you wasn’t his way. He was first and foremost a fighter.
Brett rushed to help her as she lifted the cage and handed it to him. Their fingers touched again, sending a Taser shock through him. She steadied the cage when he almost dropped it.
Bongo glared at him. “You fucking asshole. Fuck you. Fuck you. Dumb shit.”
Brett sighed, feeling like a parent with a delinquent child.
Estie wasn’t smiling now. “African Grays are high-strung and neurotic.”
“Tell me about it.” Brett set the cage on an end table, reluctant to leave.
“Are you experienced with handling these birds?”
By the frown on her face, she thought he was a total moron, and he had to tell the truth. “No, not at all. He was brought into an animal rescue group I work with. No one else would take him, so I fostered him. That was six months ago. I still haven’t been able to find a suitable home for him.”
“Do you realize these birds have the intelligence of a four- or five-year-old?” Estie studied Bongo for a moment, who preened under her watchful eye. She turned back to Brett, no longer frowning. Her eyes sparkled like the lights of New York City on a clear night when she talked about animals.
Brett was one-hundred-percent enamored. Stupid of him? Yeah. Especially for a practical guy like him, but sometimes practical guys rocked the crazy, just like he had in the Middle East. Then again, in his former Army career, you had to be a little crazy to survive.
But he digressed.
Estie was a model-perfect woman who currently didn’t give a shit that blond dog hair clung to her sweater or dog slobber was smeared on her sleeve, which seemed in opposition to her spotless house. Her blue eyes were soft and warm, like a beach on a sunny day. Like her brother, she had thick, dark hair, only hers fell in waves around her shoulders despite her messy ponytail.
“I enjoyed having him here. Let me know if you need a bird sitter again.” She started to walk toward the door, his cue to leave.
“Thanks, I really appreciate it. If you mean that, I’ll need someone for the next away game.” With a sigh, Brett picked up the cage and followed with heavy feet.
She waited next to the door for him. “Let me see your hand.”
Puzzled, he held out his hand. She turned his palm up and scribbled her number on it with a black Sharpie she pulled from her pocket.
“Thanks.” Brett turned and ran into the door, which brought about a litany of profanity from Bongo.
“Clumsy idiot. Clumsy idiot. Clumsy fucking idiot.”
Before the obscenity-obsessed parrot unleashed more abuse, Brett opened the door and escaped, Bongo still berating him.
Estie’s soft giggle faded with the click of the door as she closed it behind him.
“Lovesick fool. Lovesick fool.”
When did the damn bird learn to read minds?
Estie Harris stifled a yawn, as her fiancé, Richard Michaels, and his father, Gary, droned on and on about the country club’s newest applicants for membership, Seattle’s premier golf courses, and God knew what else. Those two could put a hummingbird to sleep.
Meanwhile, Richard’s mother, Eunice, flitted around table to table in the upscale country club restaurant chatting up her friends.
But like a dutiful fiancée, Estie pasted an interested smile on her face and pretended to give a shit, but she didn’t. Not about that crap. She loved football, family, and animals. She loved making her brother money and making up for the financial crash she hadn’t anticipated that almost ruined him a few years ago when the market dived along with his portfolio.
She secretly called that time in her life the Shadow Period. Not as dark as when her father died suddenly, but still in the shadows. That was when doubt had started to creep in. She should’ve seen the financial crash coming, should’ve protected Tyler like any goo
d financial advisor would have. Through it all, Tyler still placed his trust in her, and she’d vowed she’d never again betray that trust.
So when longtime friend Richard suggested a partnership in a boutique firm, she’d jumped at the chance. Two heads were better than one. Richard had an eye for risky investments that paid off, which perfectly complemented her superior organizational skills and attention to detail. Her ramped-up caution kept a client’s financial investments safe from Richard’s somewhat reckless risk-taking. Between the two of them, Tyler’s investment portfolio climbed through the roof, and they’d become so popular they found themselves turning away clients.
The teammate she’d met yesterday wasn’t one of their clients. She almost wished he was. Brett Gunnels intrigued her on several levels, from the obvious care he took of his feathered friend to the sadness lurking behind the smile. His sorrow reached out to her, made her want to rescue him, just like she’d rescued countless animals over the years.
Only Brett wasn’t a homeless animal, he was a fine-tuned athlete in his prime, and whatever dark places lived in his head, she’d be smart to keep her distance. Dark places were messy and couldn’t be controlled. Estie was all about neat, orderly, and controlled. She’d been to those dark places a time or two in her thirty years and didn’t plan on buying a ticket to go back, round-trip or not. Richard didn’t have any dark places. He was shallow and controllable, and she liked it that way. Or so she’d convinced herself.
Estie’s stomach growled so loudly a blue-haired lady turned in her chair to stare at her. Estie smiled in apology and stared at her seafood lunch, the food perfectly presented and almost too pretty to eat, but not appealing. She missed the down-home meals she’d had in her childhood on a small cattle ranch in North Central Washington. Estie was a woman who loved her beef. Not to mention, she could rope and ride with the best of them, just like her brother and sister—a little-known fact they’d just as soon she kept to herself.
She signaled the waitress for more coffee before she fell asleep. She lifted her gaze to her fiancé, but Richard didn’t even notice; he and his father were so busy discussing whether or not a high-tech billionaire with humble roots was a viable candidate for membership in the country club.
Lord, was she the only person ever annoyed by their snobbish attitude?
Estie’s mind drifted to pale-blue eyes, the same color as the summer Seattle sky. Brett Gunnels had a nice smile, even though it seemed somewhat rusty from disuse. Aware of his military background and the time spent in the Middle East, she wondered if he’d seen too much of what the world had to offer and didn’t necessarily believe in the good in it anymore.
Brett wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous like Estie’s brother, Tyler. He didn’t wear his alpha trappings like a Superman costume for all to see. Instead, his quiet demeanor gave off a sense of strength—laced with insecurity, at least around her—that she found dangerously alluring. She suspected he was a guy you could depend on in a crunch even if he didn’t believe it himself.
And he loved animals.
She turned to her fiancé, a man who pretended he liked her animals but wasn’t the least bit comfortable around them. Richard didn’t get her attachment to her furry family, though he swore once they got married, and he lived with her babies, he’d grow to love them. She was skeptical. Why would marriage make a difference in his feelings?
“Estelle, have you set a date yet?”
Estie snapped herself out of her daydreams and faked a smile at Eunice, who’d returned to their table.
“July tenth at Harris Mansion in the San Juans.”
She had Richard’s full attention now, along with his father’s.
Eunice pursed her lips in disapproval, as if Estie were a small child who didn’t understand the lay of the land. “The country club is perfect for a wedding, and everything can be catered here.”
“I made all the arrangements around getting married at the Mansion. The place is important to my family and to me. The San Juans are beautiful, and the view from the mansion is unequalled. I have it all planned.”
“Of course you do.” Richard smiled indulgently at her. “Mother, I’m sure Estie will enlist your help.”
“Right now, I don’t know what that would be,” Estie said.
Eunice huffed, arms crossed over her skinny chest, and gave Estie one of those I’m not done with this subject yet glares. Estie knew that look all too well. Nothing she did pleased Eunice, but this wasn’t Eunice’s wedding, and Estie had it planned to the nth degree, just like she planned everything else in her life.
They ate their lunch in tension-laced silence, and Estie breathed a sigh of relief when Eunice and Gary excused themselves so Gary could make his tee time. Richard gazed after them longingly, obviously wishing he could join them instead of going back to the office. Typical Richard.
“My mother doesn’t have any daughters. It’d be nice if you’d let her help you.” Richard almost pouted.
Estie glanced up at the man she’d decided—after much cajoling on his part—to marry. He fit in her carefully orchestrated life. He never asked for much in the way of an emotional commitment from her any more than she did from him. This would be a practical marriage of two parties. They’d been friends for years, since college, business partners for a couple years, and engaged for three months. It seemed like the natural progression of things. Estie knew chances were slim she would have the devoted, lifelong passion her parents had had, so why not have a mutual partnership with a good friend? There were no surprises with Richard. She knew exactly what she was getting, good and bad, and when it came to the bad, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
Even if he didn’t make her feel with one look—the way Brett made her feel. She rubbed her eyes and sighed wearily, finally answering Richard. “She’ll take over.” Frowning, she sipped her water. She never drank during business hours. It dulled her thinking.
“Let her help, Estie. Please,” Richard said, tapping his right index finger on the table, a mannerism that annoyed the hell out of her.
“I’ve worked out all the details. I don’t know what would be left for her to do.” How did you tell your fiancé that you didn’t want to spend one extra minute with his overbearing mother?
“How about flowers? She could help with flowers.”
Over Estie’s dead or dying body. She shook her head.
“Do we really need to get married in the San Juans?” Richard’s voice started to take on that annoying whine that set her teeth on edge.
“It’s all planned.” She called forth her Harris stubborn streak, refusing to back down.
“Our guests don’t want to travel to the San Juan Islands and watch us get married in a ratty old mansion.”
Okay, now that pissed her off. “That mansion is not ratty. We’re remodeling it as money allows. It was built by my great-great-grandfather in the early 1900s. You know that.”
“It looks like it was built in the Middle Ages.” Richard liked things nice and new, with hard angles and stark whites and blacks. Somewhat like the way he thought in blacks and whites.
“We need to get back to work.”
Richard sighed his usual martyr sigh. “It’s a great day for golf.”
“We have clients counting on us.” Sometimes she questioned Richard’s work ethic, but she never questioned his brilliance when it came to sniffing out lucrative financial investments.
Estie stood and motioned to Richard, who stayed in his chair like a petulant child. “Let’s go. We have work to do.” She headed for the door, glancing back to see Richard dutifully following behind.
And that irritated her more than if he’d defied her for once and done his own thing.
Chapter Three
Delay of Game
Brett waited three days—three long days—then he decided to call Estie. After all, she was Harris’s sister, and he was a concerned teammate. Even worse, he could not get her out of his head with that sweet yet sexy smile with those
perfect white teeth and hair like polished mahogany.
He should’ve been too busy to think of her, and he was until he flopped onto his lonely bed about midnight, exhausted and ready to fall into a deep sleep. A few seconds later, his eyes snapped open, and there she’d be, challenging whether or not football should be the most important thing in his life. Her deep-blue eyes were etched onto the backs of his eyelids and her smile engrained in his heart, and every time he shut his eyes, she floated into his mind and wouldn’t leave.
She made him apeshit crazy in more ways than one. He had a game to get ready for, and she was engaged, bound to someone else, and that someone would never be a guy like him who fought in the trenches rather than stood on the hill and shouted orders. Yeah, in his lovesick mind, Estie Harris was destined for greatness, and he was destined for…what? He’d be damned if he’d go down in flames as the guy who ruined the Steelheads’ latest chance at a Super Bowl, not to mention their future Hall-of-Fame linebacker’s last hope for a ring.
Zach never said as much, but everyone knew it was the linebacker’s last year in the NFL. The defense looked at their captain with a mixture of respect and pity. No one who gave his heart and soul to football like Zach Murphy should retire without a ring. Even worse, Brett had two and had never played a down in either championship game or the playoffs for that matter.
Fucking hell.
That was about to change, or he’d die trying.
How did Harris deal with the pressure? The guy seemed to suck it up, take it in, wallow in it, and convert it to constructive energy, while the pressure all but smothered Brett as he struggled with self-doubt. Inside his head, those old, familiar voices mingled with new ones and repeated too-often heard criticisms: too old, too short, not talented enough, and his personal favorite—doesn’t have it—that elusive quality that separated the great ones from the rest. Brett was definitely tagged as one of the rest.
Hot Read: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 5) Page 2