Making The Save (The Locke Brothers #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Summer

Wyatt Locke

M y brother, Liam, and I stood outside the bar in Boston and stared up at the sign.

Brother’s.

“Subtle,” Liam said, knocking me with his elbow.

I knocked him back out of habit.

“I’m nervous,” he said with a laugh. “Are you?”

“No.”

He rolled his eyes at me

“What is there to be nervous about?” I asked.

“I don’t know, man. We’re meeting a brother we had no idea existed,” he said.

“It’ll be fine.”

“Just saying it will be fine doesn’t actually make it fine,” Liam said, like he was warming up for an argument, but I wasn’t going to give it to him just because he was nervous.

“Oh my god!” A woman walking by with her two young sons stopped, mouth agape, to stare at my brother. I stepped back into the shadows. Trying to be unnoticeable at six foot four, two hundred fifty pounds was impossible, but I kept trying. “Are you Liam Locke?”

“Last I checked,” Liam said, grinning, like being recognized on the street was the best thing ever.

“You were fantastic in the finals,” she said, and started rummaging through her purse. “Your hat trick in game one?”

“Thank you, I am very proud of that hat trick,” Liam said, the diamonds in his ears catching the sunlight and nearly blinding everyone.

“Is the Stanley Cup heavy?” one of the boys asked.

“It looks heavy,” chimed in the other one, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“It’s pretty heavy,” Liam said. “It was hard work getting that thing over my head.”

Liam did this stupid thing like he was lifting an imaginary Stanley Cup over his head. The kids loved it.

Mom finally found some kind of receipt and asked for his autograph. There were pictures.

“You’re Wyatt Locke,” the kid with glasses said, eyeing me up and down.

“I am,” I said.

“You lost.”

“I did.”

“Sucks huh?”

“Kinda.”

“Can we get a picture with both of you?” the mom asked.

“Absolutely,” Liam said, and muttered out of the side of his mouth to me. “It wouldn’t kill you to smile.”

“It might,” I said, but I grinned anyway. A couple of pics later, the mom and the boys were gone without attracting any more attention.

“They were nice,” Liam said.

“You think everyone is nice.” I pulled open the door and we walked through the bar. Inside, no one gave us a second look. Which was kind of a miracle.

My brother and I were currently kind of a big deal. His hockey team just beat my team in the Stanley Cup finals. Brother playing brother in the finals wasn’t that big a deal in hockey circles, but people had gotten a little obsessed.

I hated that the Peaks lost. But I was glad the attention was off us. I hated attention.

“So what’s the plan?” Liam asked, once we were seated in a booth in the back. A server brought by glasses of water and didn’t look twice at us.

“For what?”

He blinked at me. “For telling the brother we never knew about that our mom died and he’s suddenly related to two hockey stars and his world is gonna get turned upside down.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“That’s your answer? We’ll figure it out.”

“Wing it.”

“Wyatt…” he groaned.

The dark inside of the bar was split by the front door opening and in walked a man in jeans and work boots.

He was tall, with sandy brown hair.

He had Mom’s eyes.

“Holy shit,” Liam breathed.

“Be cool,” I muttered. But seeing the guy was kind of shocking. A version of us. He didn’t have Dad’s height. But he had my build. My brother’s hair. Our chin.

Something painful lodged in my throat and I took a chug of water to ease it down.

“Try not to scare him off,” Liam hissed at me.

Liam stood up and lifted his hand in a wave.

“That’s not being cool,” I muttered.

Nick nodded his head once as if to say, calm the fuck down, I’m here.

“I like him already,” Liam whispered.

“You like everyone. That’s how you got fleeced out of your rookie check.”

My brother was currently in a ridiculous situation with the daughter of a financial investor who stole several hundred thousand dollars from him.

Did I mention my brother was a drama magnet?

Nick – our brother, holy shit, our brother – slowly approached until he was standing next to the booth. I found myself weirdly speechless. Looking at him, the way his eyes narrowed in the corners, how he clearly didn’t trust us one bit, all I could think about was how our mom hurt this guy. Left him.

And yeah, she stayed with us, but that hadn’t always been a picnic.

But compared to just walking away?

Fuck. This was complicated.

I wasn’t great at complicated. I was great at hockey and that was about it.

Now, I was nervous.

“Nick Steffens?” Liam said.

“Name is Renard now. Nick Renard.”

“Please sit,” Liam said, gesturing to the side of the booth he’d just gotten out of. Nick sat and Liam scooched in next to me. Elbowing me so I would give him more room, but there wasn’t any. We were two professional hockey players wedged into a booth.

This was getting worse by the minute.

Liam was looking at me like he wanted me to say something, but I had nothing, really. Nothing that was going to make this any easier. I’m sorry, I could say. She hurt us too. But then I realized he didn’t know she was gone.

We hadn’t wanted to write that in a letter.

Liam smiled, the same smile that had been on last month’s cover of GQ. Crooked. Cocky as fuck. Easy. “You a hockey fan, Nick?”

“Our mom is dead,” I said without any hesitation or preamble. Rip off the band-aid style.

“Jesus, Wy,” Liam groaned, hanging his head.

“What?” I asked.

“You could… I don’t know, ease him into it?”

I scowled, because yeah, probably. But we were here now and we just had to deal with things. “There’s nothing to ease. He’s a grown man, not a child.”

Nick sat there like the news didn’t even affect him.

“We didn’t know about you,” Liam jumped in to fill the void. “Until after the funeral. She left a letter.” Nick nodded. Still silent. “We hired an investigator to find you. That’s why it took so long for us to get ahold of you.”

Liam was doing this wrong. We didn’t need excuses. We needed to get him talking so we could get to know him.

“You grew up with your father?” I asked.

“Until I was fourteen,” Nick said. “Look, I get why maybe you thought you should contact me. And obviously, I was curious enough to come meet you both, but I think this was a mistake.”

He shifted, about to pull himself out of the booth. Then my brother did something smart for once, and stuck out his leg, blocking his way.

“Come on,” Liam said. “One beer. It’s not every day you find out you have a secret brother.” He caught the bartender’s eye and lifted three fingers.

“Stop,” Nick said, shaking his head. “This isn’t going to be a thing. I have my life. I have my family. It’s all I need.”

“We’re brothers,” I declared.

The word brother clearly affected the guy. It was like he’d gotten blown back for a second. Mouth open and a little dazed. I imagined there’d been times in Nick’s life when all he wanted was a brother. Someone to share the load. I remembered all those days when it was my brother and me against the world. Holding each other up in the storm our mom created.

It was – no exaggeration – the most important relationship in my life.

And Nick didn’t have it when he needed it most.

Broke my fucking heart.

“You’re not my brother,” Nick said, his voice low, his emotions raw. “We share DNA. That’s all.”

“Don’t you want to know about her?” I asked.

She wasn’t well. She hurt us too. There was a reason she walked away from you.

“I know what happened,” he said, his hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles were white. “She took off and left me behind. My father used me as a punching bag when he felt like it, until I stole a car to get away. A few foster homes later and I found my way to Calico Cove. That’s my home. Those people are my family.”

“That’s…I mean, I’m sorry she left you,” Liam said.

“I don’t know. Seems like it might run in the family,” Nick said, turning his focus on Liam.

“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked, because I did not like Nick’s tone, and brother or not, I would not hesitate to teach him a lesson.

“Wasn’t there a story just a year ago about a woman telling everyone you abandoned her when she was pregnant with your kid?” Nick said, with a raised eyebrow.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growled.

Liam put a hand on my arm, telling me to keep my shit together.

“Yeah, it was a story,” Liam said, and I could still hear the sadness in his voice, because at the time the lie had gutted him. “But it wasn’t true. I wasn’t the father and she just…she needed help. Okay? So I helped her out and now she’s doing better. Lives with her mom, has a good job and is raising her son.”

“You weren’t the father but you helped her anyway?” Nick asked.

“What can I say?” Liam smiled. “I like to help people.”

“Fine,” Nick snorted. “You’re not an asshole. Now if we’re done here…”

“We’re not done,” I said. This was not going the way it should and I didn’t know how to get it back on track. Wing it? That was a terrible idea. “I get you’re hurt. Pissed even. But this is shit you need to hear.”

“You don’t know fuck all about me,” Nick snapped. “Look, I came, I met you. You let me know she’s dead. I assume that’s why you wanted to meet? Mission accomplished. We can forget this ever happened and just go one with our lives.”

“Not going to happen. You may not like it, but we’re in your life now and we’re staying there,” I said. If Liam had charm and a smile, I had pure determination and hard-headed stubbornness. It wouldn’t win any prizes, but it worked in a pinch.

“You don’t get it. I don’t want any part of the two of you,” Nick said. “Glad it all worked out for you both, but I don’t need you. Because it all worked out for me too. I have amazing parents. Siblings. A thriving business…”

“You got kids?” Liam asked. “Fuck! Am I an uncle?”

“No.”

“A woman?” I pushed.

Nick paused.

Oh… there’s absolutely a woman.

But Nick said: “No.”

I nodded, I wasn’t going to push on that particular button. “It’s not about needing anything or wanting for anything. It’s about fixing something that was broken. That’s what Mom wanted. That’s what we’re going to do.”

“I’m not some fucking missing piece of your life puzzle. I said we’re done, and we’re done.”

With that, Nick slid out of the booth, stepped over Liam’s leg and didn’t look back.

“Well, that didn’t go well,” Liam said, after the door Nick had sprinted out of had shut behind him and the bar was dark again.

“He’ll come around,” I said. The beers were delivered. Cold lager, spilling over three pint glasses.

“Again, Wyatt. Just saying it…”

“Doesn’t make it so. I know. You’ve said.”

“He wants nothing to do with us. I mean, I can’t say I would feel differently if I was him.” Liam took one of the glasses and drained half of it. Clearly, still on his high from the Bruisers winning the Cup.

When the Peaks won it years ago, it had felt like I was floating for a week.

“Family is family. It’s what Dad taught us. You don’t leave anyone-”

“Behind,” Liam sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. We should have been Marines instead of hockey players. If only we didn’t skate so well. So what happens next?”

I picked up my beer, but set it right back down. Our team lost the Stanley Cup and I wasn’t interested in drinking. Or celebrating. I wanted to wallow and feel bad and maybe punch someone.

“We let it sink in a little bit, then we hit him up again. We got all the time in the world.”

“At least until the season begins again,” Liam said, and picked up the beer Nick left behind. “So? What do we do now?”

I knew Liam had dreams of me coming to the Bruisers victory parade in Portland, but he needed to celebrate with his team. Not worry about his grumpy older brother. Besides, I had plans. “You’re going to drop me at the airport,” I said. “I’ve got that celebrity golf bullshit in Vegas this weekend.”

“Oh right,” Liam said. “That should be fun.”

“Bunch of drunk athletes and celebrities driving around in golf carts taking pictures with a bunch of drunk bros who wish they were athletes and celebrities. Sounds like a fucking nightmare.”

Liam grinned at me, his teeth as blinding as his earrings. He needed to lay off that whitening toothpaste he was the face of.

“Wyatt, I love you, but you are a killjoy. You are the villain of fun. The killer of all good times. You should have a costume and a cape.”

I pushed him out of the booth and slid out behind him.

“We need to get going. You can drop me and drive my truck back to your place. I’ll pick it up later.”

“Hey,” Liam said as we headed for the door. “Please try to have a good time in Vegas. Remember, anything can happen.”