Authors: Rachel Gibson
The cell phone in the front pocket of his black wool pants rang, and he pulled it out. Veronica’s number flashed across the screen, and he sent it to voice mail. He was tired and not in the mood to talk about Milan or Paris or wherever the hell she was staying. If by chance she was in Seattle, he wasn’t in the mood for that either. Sometimes he just wanted to crash by himself. Tonight was one of those times.
He set the big blue finger and puck on a coffee table and moved to the fireplace mantel. He reached past a photo of Vince with Conner on his shoulders and grabbed a photograph of Autumn sitting on a swing in a park somewhere. Conner sat on her lap, grinning. Conner was young, perhaps a year. His mother looked young, too. Maybe it was the smile. He hadn’t seen her smile like that in a long time. Five years or more. He put the photo back and looked up at a grouping of photos that hung above the mantel. Each individual photo was framed with black-and-white matting, and the theme seemed to be Halloween.
Conner at the age of three dressed as a mouse standing next to Autumn dressed up like a cat. Not a sexy kitty, either. Just a black cat. In another photo, Conner in a little cow costume and Autumn was a milkmaid. Again, not a sexy milkmaid. When Conner had been a baby, Autumn had dressed him as a monkey, and she wore a banana suit. At every Halloween party Sam had ever gone to, the women put the goods out on display. Sexy Snow White. Sexy cop. Sexy devil. Sexy harem girls and sexy nuns. That was what Halloween was about.
“He’s out like a light again,” Autumn announced as she walked into the living room.
He looked over his shoulder, then back at the photos. “What is Conner going to be for Halloween this year?”
“He hasn’t made up his mind yet. The latest is a vampire, but I’m sure he’ll change his mind several more times before the thirty-first.”
“I think I’m going to be in town this year.” Which wasn’t always the case and one of the reasons he never made a fuss about not seeing Conner on Halloween. He was fairly certain he’d be in Toronto on the thirtieth, but back in town the thirty-first. He remembered because Logan had said something about hitting a bar downtown known for their wild costume contests. A few years ago, he’d been a guest judge and recalled a certain Alice in Wonderland who’d forgotten her underpants. For some reason that he never understood, but certainly appreciated, Halloween seemed to give normally reserved women permission to dress slutty and make out with each other.
God love ’em.
“I put Conner’s finger and puck over there,” he said, and pointed to the table. “I think he had a good time tonight.”
“I think he did.” She raised her arms and pushed her hair back, gathering it in her hands and twisting it into some sort of loose knot that immediately fell apart. “He’ll probably sleep until noon.”
There wasn’t anything overtly sexy about Autumn. Not what she wore nor how she stood. Not even the way her shirt pulled across her breasts and distorted the wiener dog on front, kind of lifting his back end higher up her chest while his head was stuck under her right breast. In her dog shirt and slippers, she looked like a mom, and Sam had never been attracted to moms. Moms had baggage, and he didn’t mean kids. He already knew this mom’s baggage. Knew that when she got together with friends and talked about “that son of a bitch,” she was talking about him. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if she still liked to be kissed in the crook of her neck. Right where the collar of her shirt touched her warm neck. “I’m a little surprised to see you living in a house like this,” he said to change the direction of his thoughts. Fast before his mind wondered down that dangerous path. A path leading down her chest to her cleavage.
Autumn folded her arms beneath her breasts. “What’s wrong with my house?”
A lot.
Starting with the carpet that looked a good ten years past warranty. Not to mention the hideous wallpaper border. He could see her eyes getting all squinty like she was about to get worked up. He didn’t want to fight, so he said, “Nothing. It just seems like it might need a little work, and I never figured you for a fixer-upper.”
“That’s probably because you don’t really know me.”
He could point out that he knew she had a little birthmark shaped like Oklahoma on her ass, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t the “you don’t really know me” she was talking about. “Are you handy with a hammer and nails?”
She relaxed a bit, and her hands dropped to her sides. “No.” She shook her head, and her red hair brushed her shoulders. “I can manage a hot glue gun, and I rock at table arrangements.” She cast her eyes about the room and let out a breath. “When I bought the house, I thought I’d have it completely renovated by now, but I just haven’t had the time.”
He asked what he thought was an obvious question. “Why not buy a house you don’t have to renovate?”
She shrugged. “Several reasons. One of which is that I wanted a nice, safe place for Conner to play.” She started toward the kitchen and motioned for him to follow. “I’ll show you what attracted me to this property.”
He moved past an oak dining-room table with fresh roses in a pink vase in the center. The kitchen was surprisingly updated and shockingly without those knitted cozies that some women favored.
She flipped on the outside lights and lit up a huge backyard with one of those play sets that had a fort, slide, four swings, and a climbing wall. “Conner loves it back there,” she said.
“Does he climb the wall?”
“Oh yeah, but I think he prefers to climb up the slide.”
Were they really standing this close to each other and not yelling? So close that her shoulder almost touched his arm? The last time they’d stood this close without yelling, they’d been naked.
He looked at her profile. At the smooth white skin of her forehead, straight nose, and full red mouth. They might be standing close, so close he could smell her hair, but there was a big distance between them.
“You can’t really see it, but behind the fence is a nice wooded area.” She raised her left hand and pointed outside. “Sometimes we have lunch in the woods on a little table Vin made for us.” She laughed and said something else. Something about slugs, but his attention was on the pair of angel wings tattooed on her wrist. The wings were blue, outlined in black, and totally covered what had been there before.
“–and ran screaming into the backyard as fast as his little legs would carry him. I told him—”
She’d tattooed over his name. Good. That was good. He’d tattooed over her name years ago. He should be relieved. He was relieved. Yeah.
She chuckled about something. A breathy little sound that made him antsy, and he backed away from her for no apparent reason. “I gotta go. I left the truck running.”
“Oh.” Autumn turned and looked up at Sam. He had a red mark on his cheek, probably from the fight she’d seen earlier, and his hair was slightly damp as if he’d recently showered. She’d been telling him about Conner’s funny little slug phobia. Trying to be
nice
to him. Trying to prove to herself that she could be civil to the jerk. “I’ll show you out.” Typical of Sam not to care about stories concerning his own child.
The cell in his pants pocket rang, and he shoved his hand inside and turned it off without looking. “I’ll be in town until Wednesday. After that, I have a grueling six-game grind,” he said, as she followed him through the living room. “My next home game isn’t until Friday, the twenty-third. I’ll have Natalie look over my schedule and call you.”
She wanted to tell him that Conner’s life did not revolve around his schedule, but during the long hockey season, it did. As a result, so did hers. “That’s fine.”
He opened the door, then turned to look at her. She stood on the step above him as the cool night air leaked inside. She folded her arms around herself and waited for him to leave. He didn’t. Instead, he tilted his head to the side and looked at her. His gaze moved across her face as if he was looking for something.
“Huh,” he said, just above a whisper.
She untucked one hand and held it palm up. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” He turned on the heels of his Prada loafers and shut the door behind him.
Autumn took a step down and flipped the dead bolt. Okay, so she didn’t know for sure that his shoes were Prada, but she figured it for a fairly safe bet. Sam liked the best, in everything from his shoes to his women.
Which was why she didn’t fit into his life any more than he fit into hers. Never had. And was probably the reason he didn’t like her house. It wasn’t new and flashy. The latest model.
She chuckled as she moved downstairs to her office at the back of the ground floor. According to what she’d read online, Veronica Del Toro was Sam’s latest model. Tall. Big lips. Bigger boobs. Typical Sam.
And yes, she occasionally read articles about Sam and his latest escapades. She was Conner’s mother. It was part of her job. A tiny part, but still part of her job was to know what sort of women Conner was exposed to although she never heard her son mention anyone but the “assistants.”
Autumn walked to a big leather chair, spun it around, and sat. An event binder, several bride magazines, and a red laptop sat on her desk. When she googled Sam, she found articles that usually started off with: “When Sam LeClaire winds up for a slap shot, defenders duck, forwards flee, and goalies pray to God the puck hits them in a well-padded place.” Or links that led to stuff like “Greatest Hockey Fights” or “Hockey Brawlers” or “Sam LeClaire vs. Domi or Brown or Parros or whoever.” It was ridiculous, and she tried her best to teach Conner that violence was never the answer. That it was much better to be nice to people.
She flipped open the event binder she’d put together for the Willy Wonka party and reached for a pencil. She adjusted the catering cost and looked for some place to cut.
The last thing Autumn wanted was for Conner to grow up and be like his dad. It was up to her to make sure Conner treated people better than Sam did. Treated
women
better. No superficial supermodels. No revolving door in his bedroom. No getting married to girls he didn’t know in Vegas. Best just to stay out of Vegas–maybe the whole state of Nevada—altogether.
Once she’d popped the top on her Coppertone sunscreen that day by the pool at Caesars, her life changed forever. Once she’d run her hands all over those washboard abs and hard chest muscles, she’d fallen head over heels in lust. He was a gorgeous man who’d thought she was an exotic destination. Looking back, she’d like to say she’d put up some resistance to the deep desire pulling her under, but she hadn’t.
Instead of grabbing her beach bag and backing away from that smorgasbord of sin laid out in front of her, she had knelt beside his chaise and squirted sunscreen into her palms. “Are you here alone?” she asked, and dropped the tube on the ground. Beneath the brim of her hat, she glanced at his ring finger. It was bare, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married or had a girlfriend.
He shook his head and turned his face to the sun. “I’m here with a couple of buddies.”
That didn’t mean anything either, but this was the second time she’d seen him alone. She rubbed the lotion in her hands, then touched his abdomen. The heat from his skin warmed her palms and tingled the pulse at the base of her wrists.
“Are you here with friends?” he asked, his voice all calm and cool as if her hands on him had no effect. Like she was the only one getting all tingly.
“No. Just me. I asked a friend, but she didn’t want to come.”
He looked at her, the intense Nevada sun cut through the leafy palms overhead and bleached the corner of his mouth and a patch of his left cheek. “Why?”
Autumn shrugged, and her thumbs brushed the trail of hair on his hard stomach as she slid her hands to his heavily defined chest. She wondered if he was in town for some muscleman competition. “She said she doesn’t like Vegas.” Which was the excuse that her friend had given, but Autumn suspected that the truth was she’d grown in a different direction than the friends she’d had before her mother’s illness.
“But you came anyway,” he said matter-of-factly. Still sounding unaffected, but the muscles beneath her fingers bunched and turned hard.
“Of course.” She’d had a rough few years. “I made a to-do list.”
“Really?” One corner of his mouth lifted. “What’s on it?”
“Different things.” Good Lord was she really rubbing lotion on a gorgeous stranger. “Some of them I’ve already done.” Apparently she was.
“Like?”
And having a good time doing it, too. “Like I watched the Bellagio fountains and bought a flamingo from the Flamingo.” She rubbed lotion onto his solid pecs. Beneath the brim of her hat, she stared at defined muscles and tan skin and swallowed the drool in the back of her throat. “And I went to Pure last night.”
“I remember.” Her thumbs brushed across his flat brown nipples, and he sucked in a breath. “What’s left?”
She smiled. “I really want to see Cher’s Farewell Tour here at Caesars, but I can’t get tickets.”
“Cher? You have seriously got to be kidding me.”
She shook her head and slid her hands down to his belly just above his board shorts. “Don’t you like Cher?”
“Hell no.” He let out his breath as her palms slid along the waistband. “Only gay guys like Cher.”
“That’s not true.” She tilted her head back and glanced up into his face. Her hat dipped over her left eye. His blue gaze stared back at her, kind of hot and smoldering. Heat shimmered across her skin. The kind of heat that had nothing to do with the Nevada sun.
“I can pretty much guaran-goddamn-tee it.”
She returned her attention to his corrugated belly and fought a sudden urge to fall face-first onto his warm abdomen and kiss him there. To let her hands and mouth go on an exotic vacation and suck him up like an
all-you-can-eat buffet
. “Not all guys at a Cher concert are gay.”
“Maybe there are a few straight bastards that let themselves get dragged to a Cher concert.” He cleared his throat. “But I can also guaran-goddamn-tee that they’re only sitting there, listening to Half Breed and watching a shitty light show because they’re desperate to get laid.”