Barrel of Scorpions
LILA
Silence.
Peter’s face goes totally blank. Celia refills her wine glass. My father removes his reading glasses slowly and sets them on the desk.
My mother, literally clutching her pearls, speaks first. “Your what?”
“We’re getting married,” I say. “That’s why I called. I wanted to invite you to the wedding.”
More silence. I resist the urge to fill it, taking my cue from Slade’s careful quiet. I can already tell he uses it as a power move, letting everyone chatter while he waits to strike.
I’m aware of every inch of him. The stillness of him. He doesn’t shift or fidget, just remains a solid, steady, immovable support behind me.
Then Peter: “When did you meet?”
“September.”
“It’s the beginning of October,” he says.
“Yes, that is how time works,” I say pleasantly.
“Lila.” His voice drops into something that wants to sound like concern and doesn’t quite make it. “That’s extremely fast. Under the circumstances—”
“What circumstances?” Slade says. It’s the first time he’s spoken. There’s an edge to his tone. He’s making no attempt at ingratiating himself to my family, which doesn’t surprise me.
I appreciate it.
He doesn’t come from the circles that would care about the Sherwood family name, and something tells me that even if he did, it wouldn’t intimidate him.
“The financial circumstances,” Peter says, already sounding annoyed. “I’m sure you’re aware there’s a trust involved.”
Slade’s eyes harden. “Might be a difficult concept for you to understand, but I’ve made money of my own. I don’t need anybody’s trust fund.”
Peter’s rears back, not used to being spoken to so directly. “I wasn’t implying anything about your finances.”
“Sure you were.” Slade cracks his knuckles. “It’s fine. I’d be suspicious too, in your position. Of course, my concern would be for my sister.”
Peter’s face goes red. Celia sets her wine glass down.
“Lila,” she says, with that smooth, contemptuous certainty she’s had since we were children. “Nobody is saying it isn’t lovely that you’ve found someone. Unlikely as it ever seemed that you would land a husband.”
My fingernails curl into my palm. She learned all her little cutting comments from the best, a.k.a. our mother, and she’s never hesitated to sharpen her claws on me.
“But let’s be honest with each other,” she continues. “The timing is…”
“Perfect?” I supply.
Celia’s smile doesn’t waver. “I was going to say miraculous. Which I suspect you know.”
“What I know,” I say, “is that I met someone wonderful and I’d like to marry him. I’m sorry that’s inconvenient for you.”
Slade squeezes my hand, out of view of the camera.
Celia’s mouth thins.
My father clears his throat. “What is it you do, young man?”
“Hockey,” Slade answers. “Professional. Going on fifteen years now. And ranch work between seasons.”
My father sighs heavily, clearly unable to decide whether the hockey or the ranch work is more worthy of his contempt.
“Mr. Rhodes,” he says, “let’s speak plainly.
Crudely, if we must. Since that is clearly the method by which you prefer communicate.
This money is protected in a trust. It will be solely my daughter’s, legally speaking, marriage or not.
” Coolly, sliding his glasses down his long aristocratic nose, he adds, “Now, how does that affect your desire to marry her?”
I flinch, physically flinch, at the implication. My own father acting like I’m so worthless that no one would marry me except if they were doing it for the money.
I’m used to this, I remind myself. I need to let it roll off me like water off a duck.
Slade’s entire body tenses.
“Sir,” he says coldly, “my mama raised me better than to respond to an insult like that the way I want to. So I’m going to politely look past what you just implied about me and my beautiful fiancee here.
” His voice has picked up just a touch more drawl than usual.
“I’ll say this plainly enough for you: Where I come from, a man provides for his wife.
He doesn’t leech off her. Or her family. ”
My father’s eyes are blue and hard as ice chips as he stares down his future son-in-law. Or tries to. Because Slade has the stone-faced expression of a man who’s faced down the most lethal, aggressive, vicious fighters in professional sports. An old man in reading glasses is nothing to scare him.
Meanwhile, my mother has been studying me this whole time. “You’ve gained weight,” she says suddenly. “And that top is doing you no favors. Only small-busted women can get away with that. On you it simply looks tasteless. Haven’t you learned?”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
Slade’s hand, which has been resting on the back of the chair next to me, drops to my shoulder. Warm and steady. He gives it one brief squeeze, turning his focus to my mother next.
“I think Lila looks absolutely stunning,” he says. “She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
Warmth swells through me.
Then my mother smiles tightly. “Well. Love is blind, as they say.”
A brief silence.
“Twenty-twenty vision over here,” Slade says, a little more sharply now. The drawl is thickening by the minute. “Crystal clear.”
Peter rubs his forehead. “I’d like to go over the timeline again. You met in September. It’s now October. You’re telling us you’re engaged after what, four weeks? How did you even meet?”
“Slade rescued me—and our dog—from the side of the road.”
I think of his words. We’ll tell them it was love at first sight. I try them out now.
Aloud, I say, “It was love at first sight.”
Slade’s hand, still resting on my shoulder, tightens.
Peter looks to the lawyer. “Aldrich, are you getting this all down?” He turns back to Slade with a frown. “Lila may not look like an heiress, but surely you researched her and found out who she is. What she stands to gain. What’s the plan, get married and split the profits?”
I glance at Slade, who’s scowling. He looks the way he looks in those videos I’ve watched of him on the ice. Like a force of nature. Something not to be trifled with.
I have a sudden visceral memory of watching footage of him bodyslam another player en-route to the goalposts, dragging him like he was like a ragdoll. Slade didn’t even break a sweat.
My family has no idea what they’re dealing with.
A dangerous glitter of malice appears in Slade’s eyes.
He maneuvers me in front of him in one smooth motion, his arms coming around me, my back against his chest, and then his mouth finds my neck and every coherent thought I have dissolves all at once.
His stubble is a rough drag against my skin. His lips are warm. His arms are solid around me and I can feel every breath he takes. I lean into him before I’ve decided to, my hand coming up to close around his forearm.
Even though my brain is very aware that this is performance, my body hasn’t gotten the same memo.
Slade says, “Funny you say that, Pete.” The drawl is low and thicker than ever. His breath is warm against my skin, his heavy stubble a sensual rasp against my skin. “Truth is, we thought for a minute there I knocked Lila up.”
He kisses my neck as his hand splays against my ribcage. I suck in a breath as sensation courses through me.
“Sadly,” he says, “not this time. Working on it now, though. Day and night.” He slides that hand over my stomach and murmurs, still very much in earshot of everyone on screen, “You know I can’t wait to put a baby in you, darlin’.”
My whole body flushes hotly.
On screen, Celia’s wine glass is halfway to her mouth and freezes there. Peter looks like he’s swallowed his tie. My father is staring at a point somewhere above the camera like he’s asking God for patience.
“We’re very happy,” I manage.
Slade just keeps kissing up my neck. My breathing is turning shallow. My whole body feels like it’s on fire.
“Mr. Sherwood, Mrs. Sherwood,” Slade says, looking into the camera even as he kisses my neck. “Hope you wanted grandkids. Because we’re working on a whole hockey team’s worth, me and your daughter. We’re thinking at least five. Maybe six.”
“Six?” My mother goggles, openly appalled.
Slade smirks. “You know us country folk. Breeders. Big families. Big ranches to work. Hell, everything’s bigger out West.” He practically licks his lips as he looks down at me. “Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”
My cheeks burn as his dark eyes gleam.
There’s the sound of glass breaking from the screen and I tear my eyes away from Slade to see Celia has accidentally knocked over her wine glass.
My mother purses her lips, but makes no comment. She’s no stranger to the mid-morning glass of wine herself.
Slade’s speech has stupefied every single member of my family. I have to roll my lips together to stop from bursting into giggles, even as my whole body is tingling from where he’s touching me.
“Aldrich,” Peter abruptly demands of the lawyer. “Is this legal? She’s a Sherwood. She can’t just marry some roughneck who picked her up off the side of the road.”
Aldrich shuffles papers nervously. “There’s no language in the trust describing a, er, required courtship period prior to marriage.”
“Oh, I’ve been courting Lila proper,” Slade drawls.
Fingertips running up and down my arm. “Got a house ready for her to pretty up. Acres of land. We even got a dog. And I put a ring on it, of course.” He takes my left hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles, flashing my engagement ring for all of them to see.
My mother’s eyes widen just briefly at the sight of the massive rock on my finger, and then her mouth pinches. “Was something subtle and tasteful not an option? Not that you would have chosen it, I suppose.”
“I picked it, ma’am,” Slade interrupts. Though he’s speaking softly, it’s almost a growl. “And I picked the biggest damn diamond I could, because I want it to be visible from the fucking moon that my wife is taken.”
I have to stifle another burst of laughter.
My family has spent generations perfecting the art of the cutting remark delivered with a smile.
They have a whole arsenal of finely honed weapons: the pointed pause, the backhanded compliment, the question that isn’t really a question.
They’ve been deploying all of it against me my whole life and I’ve never had anyone standing next to me absorbing the fire.
Let alone coming right back at them, guns blazing.
Until now.
Slade hasn’t even flinched. He’s taken their little barbs and stomped right over every single one, grinding them into dust.
Barrel of scorpions, meet cowboy boot.
“So anyway,” I say sweetly into the stunned silence. “Montana’s not too far away. Hope to see you all there,” I lie. “October fifteenth. I’ll send the address. Rent something with four wheel drive.”
As if any of them are going to show up.
I end the call on six identical expressions of stupefaction.
As the screen goes dark, Slade is still holding me from behind. His hands are warm at my waist and his lips were just on my neck and my whole body is still humming from all of it
And my nipples are hard. Visibly hard, through the fabric of my top, which is a problem because his hands are at my waist and his eyes are right there.
Partly to hide my body’s response to Slade’s touch, and partly because the laughter is already rising inside me, I turn around and put my face against his chest. He’s solid and warm and smells like cedar.
His heartbeat is steady under my cheek and his arms come around me without hesitation, like this is something he’s done before, like I fit there.
I laugh until my shoulders shake and tears run down my face.
His hands land on my shoulders. “Lila.” His voice is tight. “Did I go too far? Are you crying?”
I lift my head. His face is genuinely worried, those green eyes searching mine.
“Yes,” I gasp, a tear streaming down my cheek. “I am crying. Crying with laughter. Because their faces…” Laughter tumbles out of me helplessly. “Breeders. Oh my God. Where did you even come up with any of that?”
Relief etches his features. “Well. You don’t play hockey as long as I have without figuring out how to push your rival’s buttons. And growing up with my brothers, you learn how to roll a stick of conversational dynamite into the room.”
I look up at him. We’re still tangled together, my hands resting against his chest, his at my waist, and from this angle I have to tip my chin up to meet his eyes. He’s looking down at me with that steady green gaze.
The laughter fades.
“You didn’t have to do any of that,” I say softly. “I mean, it was amazing, don’t get me wrong.”
“I didn’t like their attitude.”
“My father looked like he was going to need a defibrillator.”
“He’ll be fine. I know a tough old bastard when I see one.” He coughs. “Not to insult your family. That is to say—”
“No no, perfectly said. That is the most…” I can’t finish the sentence because I’m laughing again. “You are so…”
“Effective?”
“I was going to say unhinged.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
The hysteria is fading and leaving something warmer in its place. I’m still pressed against his chest and his arms are still around me. He smells heavenly and his body is strong and solid and he just spent twenty minutes being feral on my behalf.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. “Really.”
His arms tighten slightly. “Least I could do,” he says. “Considering the shit they said to you.”
“I’m used to it.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s the part that really pisses me off.”
I smile a little against his chest. “Nobody’s ever defended me against them before.”
“Better get used to it. You’re marrying a professional defenseman.”