Chapter 24
For the first time,Booker had silenced his phone and blocked out the world.
And spent the night spooning with Hellcat.
He didn’t recognize himself, and it made him smile.
Because it wasn’t half-bad.
But the chef and bartender were coming, so his hellcat had gone downstairs to get them set up. Since then, he’d been catching up on work. He checked on the player’s brother in Memphis and arranged a discreet tow truck for an athlete who ran his car off the road and plowed through a fence on private property.
“Dude, road head,” the football player had said. “You’re not gonna pass that up.”
Now, he was showered and dressed and heading downstairs. Because, frankly, he’d run out of excuses. Today, the guests would start arriving. Including his high school friends.
He shouldn’t be this anxious about it. Enough time had passed that it shouldn’t matter.
And even if they’d tried to stay in touch, it wouldn’t have amounted to anything. Booker had moved away. In any event, he had more important things on his plate than worrying about guys he hadn’t seen in nearly thirteen years.
He’d been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he only noticed the quiet as he crossed the living room. He checked the time. Shouldn’t they have a full house by now? Low conversation came from the kitchen, and he entered to find Stevie, her grandparents, and Hellcat.
Buds of happiness bloomed in his heart when he saw her holding a spoon to their daughter’s mouth. She was so pretty. And that blush reminded him she was well-fucked.
Which sent a surge of desire roaring through him.
She glanced up. “Oh, hey.” She stopped talking as they held a knowing gaze, her cheeks burning, and a smile brightening her features. “We’ve got a change of plans.”
Stevie ignored her because she was busy voicing a conversation between a fork and a spoon.
“Honey, come on.” Hellcat grew exasperated. “The sooner you eat, the sooner we can get to the festival.”
“Wild West Days?” Booker headed for the French press. “Aren’t the guests showing up today?” They’d planned a spa day.
Hellcat abandoned the spoon and got up, leaving her parents to deal with the preoccupied toddler. “Ginty’s teammates can’t come till later because they’re working the festival.”
“Working?”
“Yeah, he forgot about it because he was supposed to be in St. Lucia right now. It’s the travel hockey team’s annual fundraiser, and the team raffles off signed jerseys, sticks, and pucks. So, we’re going to meet everyone at the fairgrounds. It’ll be fun. We’ll spend the afternoon there, grab some dinner?—”
“Cone doggies!” Stevie shouted with glee.
“There won’t be any corn dogs if you don’t eat your lunch.” Her grandpa held the spoonful of yogurt to the little girl’s face, but she was distracted by Ginty coming in through the back door.
He clapped his hands. “Noa’s looking for a hat to match her outfit, so we should be ready sometime next week.”
Everyone laughed. “Let the woman have the right disguise,” Hellcat said. “Unless you want her to sign autographs instead of winning the baseball toss for the second year in a row.”
Ginty held up both hands. “Whatever makes her happy.” He clapped Booker on the back. “Hey, man. Had an idea. What if I called the Canadian kid’s family and told them my experience as a client? Might help.”
“What a good friend.” Hellcat had her gaze on Booker.
“I’ll tell them how your primary concern is your clients’ well-being and not the bottom line,” Ginty said.
“Let me see how it plays out, but I appreciate it.”
“One bite, okay?” Stevie’s grandpa said.
Booker headed to the table. “What kind of yogurt is that?”
Stevie looked to her grandpa, who said, “Vanilla.”
“Cool. You know what I like in my vanilla yogurt?”
She clutched the table as she swiveled her whole body back and forth to say no.
“Banana. It’s good. Want to try it?”
“No.” But her expression remained open and interested.
He shot Hellcat a questioning look. Is this okay? She nodded. He grabbed a knife and a banana from the fruit basket, and then sat down next to her. After peeling it, he sliced right down the middle and stuck the stalks in the bowl. “Now, you’ve got trees. And you know what dinosaurs do with trees, right?”
She lowered her face and gnashed the bananas. When she lifted, he spooned yogurt into her mouth.
“You like it?” her grandpa asked.
She nodded with enthusiasm and took the next mouthful.
“All right, I’m ready.” Noa burst into the kitchen. With her sequined jeans, platform wedges, and sunshine yellow tank top, she looked radiant.
“Way to make an entrance,” Margot said with admiration.
“Way to go incognito,” Hellcat said with an appreciative grin.
“There’s no hiding this personality.” Ginty came up behind his bride and wrapped his arms around her.
“She’s irrepressible.” Hellcat handed Booker a cheese stick. “Try to get her to eat this, too, and then, she’s all good.” She kissed her daughter on the cheek. “Grandma and Grandpa will take you to the festival, and I’ll meet you there. Does that sound good?”
“Hosey ride?” Stevie asked.
“Yep,” Hellcat said. “You’ll get a stagecoach ride, and you’ll visit the petting zoo.”
“I pet aminals?”
“Yes.” Hellcat smiled adoringly at her daughter. “Goats and sheep and chickens and cows.”
“Shickens?” Stevie kicked her legs out.
“But we can’t leave until you finish lunch,” her grandpa said.
She took a giant bite of the cheese stick. With a full mouth, she said, “I weady, Gampa.”
“Okay, sweetie.” Her grandpa wiped her fingers with a napkin while Margot grabbed the diaper bag. “Let’s go.”
“See you soon.” Hellcat pointed a finger at Noa. “Don’t you dare go axe throwing without me.”
“Wouldn’t consider it.” Noa hooked her arm through Ginty’s and followed the grandparents out the back door.
The moment they were alone, Booker popped out of the chair and scooped Hellcat into his arms. He kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in a month. And somehow, it felt like he hadn’t.
She scraped her hands through his hair?—
“Oh.”
They both straightened and pulled apart at the sound of Noa’s voice.
“Ginty forgot his?—”
The groom came in behind her. “I forgot my phone.” He looked between the three of them, obviously confused.
Guilt washed through Booker, and he didn’t know why.
He’s my client. My private life is none of his business.
“Are you two hooking up?” Noa asked.
“What’d I miss?” But it only took a second for Ginty to make the connection between his bride’s shock, Hellcat’s embarrassment, and Booker’s rigid posture. “No, Booker would never do that. He doesn’t date, but he wouldn’t sleep with your maid of honor.” He sounded certain of it.
In that moment, Booker knew. Even though he didn’t confide in Ginty, the man knew him. “We met a couple years ago.” He rubbed his chin. “It’ll be three years this Christmas.”
The room went silent.
“Wait, you’re Cabin Guy?” Ginty stepped forward, hands curled into fists. “What the fuck?” He moved toward him.
But Hellcat blocked him. “He didn’t know. I told you that. He was long gone when I found out.”
“Wait a fuckin’ minute.” Ginty shook his head in disbelief. “Stevie’s your daughter?”
The look of betrayal in the man’s eyes socked him in the stomach. “Yes.”
His client looked like Booker had traded him behind his back.
But he wasn’t just a client, and it was time to stop pretending.
Right then, it became clear as day. Everything Hellcat had been trying to tell him.
What hurt the most when he thought about seeing his old friends was knowing they had a special camaraderie. That they were living the life he’d imagined with cookouts and New Year’s parties, big family gatherings. He was shut out from that.
But it wouldn’t hurt if it wasn’t something he craved.
I’m the reason I can’t have the friendships I want because I remove the possibility.
Ginty was a great guy. He was loyal.
How many times has he asked to get a drink, to talk about real stuff?
And what have I done? I’ve shut him down. Kept him in the “client” box.
I don’t want to do this anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Booker said. “I didn’t want to distract from your wedding.”
“My wedding?” Ginty shouted. “You find out you have a kid, and you’re worried about my wedding?”
Just as Hellcat had anticipated, the man was angry. Booker stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Well, that, and I wanted to keep you in the ‘client’ box.”
“Why?” Ginty threw his arms up and let them flop back down.
“This is between us, right?” Booker asked.
“You’ve protected me from a family that sells the location of my wedding. You think I don’t know about discretion?”
It sucked to be yelled at—especially in front of the woman he was falling in love with—but Ginty had every right to call him out. “It’s not your issue. It’s mine.”
Everyone waited, and while part of him wished they could talk alone, another part knew Ginty deserved his honesty. “Jaime, Declan, Cole, and I used to be friends. I got injured?—”
“I know about the accident,” Ginty snapped. “Because I read about it.”
He gave a curt nod. He deserved that. “They took me to the hospital that night, and I never heard from them again.”
Ginty cocked his head. “Declan? He’s one of the best guys I know. He wouldn’t do that.”
“He did. Same with Jaime and Cole. And I guess friendships don’t hold the same meaning for me anymore. I tend to compartmentalize everyone.”
“And I’m the ‘client.’”
“I wanted you to be, but you wound up being more than that.”
“You’re fucking right about that. You’re planning my wedding, dickface.”
“He’s offering you friendship now, hon,” Noa said quietly. “So, maybe tone it down.”
Booker cracked a smile. “Well, to be honest, this is less about our bromance and more about trying to win her heart.”
Hellcat sucked in a breath, but Noa said, “I’m not sure I can forgive you for walking away from a woman you had sex with. Protection isn’t a hundred-percent reliable. If you’d left your number, she wouldn’t have had to go through it all alone.”
“I did. I left her a note.” He pulled out his wallet, found the note, and tossed it onto the counter. “She just never saw it.”
Their friends watched with wide eyes.
“And then, fast forward to now. I’m your maid of honor,” Hellcat said. “And he’s your best man...”
“I can’t believe that first day, when Stevie sat on your lap, you didn’t even know she was your child,” Noa said. “That’s crazy.”
“It is. I didn’t have a clue,” he said.
“So, what’re you going to do?” Ginty asked.
“From the looks of it, get on with making baby number two,” Noa said.
But her attempt at humor didn’t break the tension in the room.
Booker came up to Ginty. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You’re a good friend. I’ve just had my head up my ass.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Ginty said.
“All right, we have to go.” Noa slid her arm through her fiancé’s. “We’ll talk more tonight.”
After they left, Hellcat asked, “But it’s not now?”
“What’s not now?” He tried to replay the conversation to see what he’d missed.
“Have you pulled your head out of your ass now?”
He shut her sassy mouth up with a kiss. “If I win you a stuffed animal at the festival, will you be my girlfriend?”
“Yeah, Slick. I’ll be your girlfriend.” She grabbed her purse. “But it better be a big one. The biggest.”
He shoved his wallet back in his pants. “There’s nothing small about me.”
“There sure isn’t.” They headed into the garage, and she clicked the remote door opener.
He got into the passenger side of her Land Cruiser and buckled up.
As she backed out, sunlight flooded the car. “So, those friends you told me about in the cabin, they’re Renegades?”
“Yeah. Declan’s the coach, and Jaime’s the goalie. Cole used to be the forward, but he retired, and now, he owns the team. Well, actually, I do, too. I just don’t want it, so I’m a silent owner.”
“Are you telling me the door is wide open for you to be back with your friends, but you’re rejecting it? The thing you want most in the world?”
He reached for her hand. “That’s not even close to what I want most.”
With a soft smile, she headed down the long driveway. “So, the next few days will be tough for you. You’ll get to watch them being best friends, telling their inside jokes, seeing their wives hang out, living the future you always imagined with them. And you’re going to feel like a total outsider.”
“Okay, let’s walk this back.” He grinned. “I’m the owner of an NHL team. Pretty cool, right?”
She laughed. “Oh, you big, strong, man with a tender heart. How can I make this easier for you?”
“You can’t. It is what it is.”
“This is going to be hard.”
“Yeah.” He wouldn’t lie about it. “But we were kids when I moved away. And you know, college, law school, busy job… Nobody did anything wrong.”
She set her hand on his thigh. “You know I can relate, right? I gave my love and loyalty to people who didn’t value it, and it made me shut down, too. I wasn’t going to expose myself to that kind of hurt again. But you know what? We’re not all cut from the same cloth. You and I, we love deeply.”
He did love deeply, thoroughly. He was a loyal guy. When he gave his heart, it was for life. He just had a hard time believing it could be reciprocated. So to hear her say she was built the same way... It cracked open the part of him that craved that kind of relationship.
“And it sounds like your friends were just good-times guys. There’s nothing wrong with that. They’re just not the right people for you. You need more out of your relationships.”
He wasn’t sure about that. Something wasn’t adding up. They weren’t good-times guys. At least, not that he remembered. “I like that, though. That you and I are cut from the same cloth.”
In the middle of the long driveway, she braked and leaned across the console, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face in his neck. “God, Slick. Of all the ways I imagined us running into each other, the things we’d say…none of it was as good as this. With the way you left, I thought I’d built it up in my head. But I didn’t. It’s real.”
The air in the car was charged with static electricity. “Yeah, Hellcat. It’s real.”
He’d thought he had a great life. A great job, top-notch roster, enviable apartment in New York. He got to travel the world, and he had money in the bank. He hadn’t seen how empty it was until Hellcat and Stevie filled it.
But the fact remained. He lived in New York. Hellcat wouldn’t live there, and his contract bound him to the city.
Maybe luck brought them to that cabin, but he’d need to pull out a miracle to keep them together.
Man, he hadn’t been to the fairgrounds in years. To the left, white tent flaps fluttered in a breeze as people dressed in Wild West costumes roamed from one stall to the next, checking out the jewelry, pottery, and artwork. To his right, rows of food trucks filled the air with scents of sugary fried dough, barbecue ribs, and kettle corn.
Two horses pulled a shiny red-and-black stagecoach past them. “When I was a kid, my dad and I used to dress up as gunslingers.”
“I wish I had a picture of that,” Hellcat said.
A child leaned out the window waving and smiling. In the past, he might’ve ignored them, not giving them much thought. But this time, he could imagine it was Stevie, and it jabbed at his heart. So, he waved back.
Because it would hurt his daughter’s feelings to look into the eyes of some detached, uncaring man.
“Did your mom dress up, too?” Hellcat asked as they passed a family dressed like homesteaders, the mom and daughters in long dresses, the father and sons in suspenders and dusty boots.
“Not that I remember.” Since Stevie was in a teepee with her grandparents and they didn’t want to interrupt the storyteller, they headed over to the Battle of the Brews tent to meet the bride and groom and some of the guests.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. “Why not?”
“Just not her thing, I guess. But I don’t know. I stopped coming with them in middle school.”
“After that, you and your friends were the assholes terrorizing the crowds with skateboards and cutting in lines?”
“You have a terrible impression of us.” Us. He hadn’t said that word in a long time. “We weren’t bad kids.”
“Right. Just thrill-seekers.”
“We started out as a pack of boys, but as the years went by, more and more dropped out. They got girlfriends or decided to focus on band or football or whatever. Eventually, it was just the four of us because we made the hockey team.”
“I would never have dated you back then.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I was a good-looking kid.”
She grinned at him. “Who didn’t have time for me.”
The revelation struck right between the shoulder blades. That was the core issue. The one he needed to address.
She was told her dad didn’t have time for her, but her mom sure did. Her mom’s entire life was about Lorelei Calloway—and for all the wrong reasons.
If he didn’t get his partners to rework the contract, he’d lose her. He saw it clearly.
She needed to be his priority.
But how did he reconcile that with a career that demanded so much of him? “Is your mom’s last name Calloway?”
“Nope. We made it up.”
“So, you’re really Lorelei Gentry.” Would she change her name when they married?
Whoa. Way to leap ahead in time. He didn’t even know if she wanted that from him.
Come to think of it…had she ever said anything about a future with him? She’d said she wanted his heart but nothing about giving him hers. She wanted him to be all-in, but she’d never talked about her investment.
In fact, he couldn’t think of a single thing she’d said to indicate her feelings for him.
Oh, fuck.
You’re not doing it again, are you?
Thinking a relationship is more than it really is?