Playing for Keeps: A Scorching Hot Romance (Game Changers Book 2)

by A. C. Arthur

  “Okay, okay, I see what’s happened here.” He father took her by the shoulders. “You listen to me. I’m gonna go right over to Del’s place and clear the air. I’ll tell him what I told Sheriff Johansen and why. I’ll fix this for you, babygirl. I will.”

  But Rylan’s eyes were already welling with tears. She took deep breaths and shook her head willing those tears not to fall. “No. There’s nothing for you to fix for me,” she told him. “I’m not the one in trouble with the law.”

  “No,” her father said, “But your heart’s in trouble. I can see it on your face. And now you’re shaking. It’s my fault and I’m gonna fix it.”

  “No, Daddy. It’s not your fault. Del didn’t have to come storming in here saying the things he said to me.” If he’d loved…no, if he’d trusted her, he wouldn’t have.

  She was a fool. Del had never said those words to her and she hadn’t thought she wanted to hear them. Sure, he’d been hurt and confused himself, but he’d also been intentionally mean and judgmental and that’s what bothered her more. A part of her wanted to run over to his place right now and tell him what a colossal ass he’d been blaming her and believing she could do such a thing, but she wouldn’t. Pride kept her from doing anything else to make a fool of herself for a man she should’ve never been with in the first place.

  “I’m gonna go home now,” she said with a wavering smile to her father.

  “Listen to me, Rylan. I’m gonna go and clear the air with him. If what I said did something to get him into trouble, I want him to know why I said it. That’s what a man does when he makes a mistake.”

  “You didn’t make a mistake, Daddy. You had no idea what Mal was up to. Hell, I’m not even sure I know all the ins and outs to what happened.” She blinked furiously because those stupid tears definitely wanted to fall. “And you know what, it doesn’t matter. This feud between Mal and Del has nothing to do with me.” And whatever she’d thought was between Del had been a mistake, his actions today had made that perfectly clear.

  Rylan was home alone on Christmas Eve.

  The medium-size tree Del had purchased for her stood in between the dining and living room portion of her apartment, decorated with multi-colored lights and ornaments. The all-day, all-Christmas radio station played holiday tunes and she’d turned it up when The Christmas Song had come on about half an hour ago. So, her music was loud when she answered the door wearing thermal winter wonderland pajamas and thick red socks.

  “Merry Christmas, babygirl.”

  Her father stood on the other side of the door smiling at her. Rylan didn’t return the smile. She wasn’t in the mood for company. Hadn’t been for the past couple of days.

  “Hi Dad,” she replied because to continue standing there in silence was rude.

  “Can I come in?”

  Rylan stepped to the side. She hadn’t wanted any company and had hoped that he would come to that conclusion by her lack of invitation. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.

  “I’m really tired,” she began as she closed her door and noticed her father going deeper into the apartment until stopping in the dining room. “I was going to finish wrapping a few things and then turn in early.”

  “I won’t take much of your time,” he said and dropped a folder onto the round table.

  Rylan tried not to sigh with exasperation. She really was tired of talking to people this week. No matter how well meaning they thought they were being, she was just talked out.

  “I thought about some things you’ve said in the past weeks,” he told her.

  She stopped a few feet away from him, folding her arms over her chest. “And what was that?”

  Rylan had said a lot to her father since that awful day last week. She’d already questioned him after Del left the shop in a rage that day and she’d gotten most of the answers to a very unfortunate situation. In the time since then Camy had come to her apartment, then to the shop and she’d called numerous times a day giving her bits and pieces of more things they’d found out about Mal and his twisted intentions against Del. But she sensed her father was talking about something different.

  “You’ve said a lot,” he replied and then chuckled. “Most of it I needed to hear. And some I guess you were saying out of hurt.” Will lowered his head. He stared at his feet for a moment and then looked over to the Christmas tree. “This used to be the most wonderful time of the year,” he said.

  Boy did it, she thought but refused to speak.

  “I talked to my lawyer and the finance man on Friday, just like I’d planned,” he continued. “I had them draw these papers up. Told them I needed them right away, before Christmas.”

  “If you want me to review the sale papers, Dad, that’s fine but I can’t do it until next Monday. I’m taking this week off.”

  She needed a month or two off, in another town, or perhaps another country.

  “No. I don’t need you to go over the papers. I told the finance guy what I wanted to do and he gave me some numbers. Then I had the lawyer draw up these papers transferring the body shop to you.”

  Rylan wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. “What did you say?”

  “I’m giving you the body shop,” he said. “Minus a few of those older tools I liked to use while you preferred to work strictly with the computer on some problems. And the Pontiac.”

  She was shaking her head as she moved to the table and lifted the envelope. Rylan pulled out the stack of papers and flipped through them. They were deed transfers for the land and corporation transfers.

  “Wait, you sold the Pontiac?”

  The 1969 GTO had been one of her father’s first cars. He’d pampered that car more than he had his children.

  He nodded. “Yep. My finance guy bought it,” he replied with a chuckle. “Those proceeds were enough to pay off all the body shop debt. I still have to work on my personal debt, but at least the body shop is free and clear.”

  He was right, that’s what she read during her quick perusal of the papers. “But why? Why would you sell the Pontiac now, when you didn’t do it to bail yourself out before?”

  He shrugged. “Pride, I guess. I kept thinking I could fix things without sacrificing what I already had. But then I lost my wife and Naomi, she hasn’t really talked to me much since I moved out. After you and I talked about that misunderstanding with Del, I knew that if I went forward with the deal to sell the place that I might lose you too.”

  Rylan’s chest hurt. She set the papers down and touched a hand to her father’s arm. “I told you that stuff with Del wasn’t your fault, Daddy. Besides, you can never lose me.”

  Will leaned in and kissed her on top of her head. “I almost did. I saw it in your eyes that day. You felt like you were losing everything, all the things that had made you happy, and I didn’t want any part of that.”

  “Last week, well on that day last week, it wasn’t about you. Del had said some things and…” she stopped. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “Thank you! Thank you so much for trusting me with this.”

  She wrapped her arms around her father’s shoulders and hugged him tightly. Will hugged her in return. “Thank you for wanting it as much as I used to,” he whispered.

  When they pulled away, Will tweaked her nose the way he used to when she was younger.

  “Now, why are you sitting in here alone on Christmas Eve? Didn’t you tell me you had plans to be with Camy tonight?”

  Because he still had his arms around her Rylan couldn’t turn away. She could, however, shake her head. “No plans.”

  “No plans, or you canceled the plans because of what happened with Del?”

  Rylan didn’t respond.

  “Uh huh, I thought so. Look, babygirl, I told you that Del and I spoke. We ironed everything out. That arrogant little snot, Mal ran straight to the sheriff twisting our conversation around to make it seem like Del had asked us to hide the car for him.”

  Rylan nodded. “I know. Sheriff Johansen came to see me to tell me
that’s how he got the warrant so quickly. Because Mal had talked to you and knew that Del’s truck and the Wimbley car was there. He didn’t question it since news of the Wimbley murder had just come through. But later after they found nothing at Del’s house, he sat Mal down and threatened him with perjury.”

  “That lying little weasel,” Will said.

  “And Camy told me that Mal’s father had been in contact with Del’s boss for a while because he’d wanted to check up on the real reason why Del left the DEA. And since Del’s boss was afraid of what Del might say on the witness stand, he shared his own version of what happened to make Del resign.” She sighed because it had all been so much. For days she’d felt like she was involved in some type of drama reality show.

  “Hope they toss all the liars in a jail cell, starting with Mal,” Will said with a huff.

  She shrugged. “They might. The sheriff said he was going to get to the bottom of everything. I heard the FBI’s involved now too.”

  “And none of this has anything to do with what you and Del were building together,” her father added.

  “That’s done,” she told him in a resolute tone and moved out of his grasp this time.

  “Doesn’t have to be.”

  “He doesn’t want me. He never did. It was all just a…misunderstanding,” she said quietly. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You want some hot chocolate?”

  Will nodded and took off his jacket. “Let me just say this one thing and then you can go into that kitchen and fix us some hot chocolate. When you have love, real and true love, in the palm of your hand. You need to close up your fingers and hold on to it as tight as you can.”

  He’d crossed to her, taken her hand and demonstrated his words.

  “Don’t let it slip away, Rylan. Don’t ever let it slip away.”

  Del was in a room full of people on Christmas Eve. And yet he’d never felt as alone as he did at this very moment.

  He blamed that on the fact that he was the weakest link on his team and they were down fifteen points in the trivia game Camy had insisted they play. When Noah, Jeret and Rock finally got tired of him missing the answers they unanimously decided to evict him from the team. So, he’d left the living room where everyone was sitting around laughing, drinking and having a good time, and went into the dining room.

  He sat at the old cherrywood table and toyed with the same white lace tablecloth that his mother used to pull out at Christmastime. When he grew tired of doing that, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone. No text messages. He logged into the social media app. No messages.

  He sighed heavily.

  “You two have got to be the most stubborn people in all of the state of Virginia,” Camy said when she walked in carrying a tray with empty glasses.

  “Not now, Camelia,” Del snapped.

  He should’ve known better.

  Camy set the tray on the table hard enough to make the glasses clink.

  “Listen here, Delano Gerald Greer,” she said putting her hands on her hip.

  Del groaned and let his head fall back. He was in trouble now. She’d pulled out the full name and followed up with hands on hips. If Lance were in his position, Del would laugh with glee at the tongue lashing he knew was coming. As his brother wasn’t the one on the hot seat right now, Del could only sit there and take it since it was his fault for coming over here when he knew he wasn’t in the mood for people.

  “I’m not the one who kept a lot of the details about the situation with this Wimbley guy and the court testimony a secret. If you’d trusted Rylan enough to tell her what was really going on, she probably would’ve been better prepared when the police showed up at the body shop. And maybe if you hadn’t run to the body shop after that, shouting accusations at her, she wouldn’t be ghosting your ass right now. But no, that’s too much like right. You always have to do things your way, which a good amount of time isn’t the right way. And now, you’re gonna sit here and wallow in your broken heart instead of heading over to Rylan’s place to talk to her.”

  “One, I do not have a broken heart and two, I’m right more than half the time,” he said.

  Camy tilted her head and lifted her lips into a smirk. “In your mind. Look, Del, Rylan is in love with you.”

  “How do you know that?” He and Rylan had never talked about their feelings for each other. Not before the Mal and his attempt to have Del tossed in jail, and certainly not after all that crap went down.

  “Because she’s my best friend. And if you could see past your own foolishness about relationships and work, you would’ve seen it too. You blindsided her with all your accusations and you hurt her by saying you should’ve known not to get involved with her as if her and her father had somehow embarrassed you,” she said. “That was low and it was bullshit. You’ve known Rylan and her family all her life. Besides that, she’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister. Did you really think she could do something like that to hurt my brother knowing how that would affect me and our friendship?”

  He felt like an ass. Actually, he’d had a week to get used to that feeling. From the moment he’d left the body shop that day, after seeing the dismissive look in her eyes, he’d realized his mistake. Now, he could only shake his head because most of everything Camy had just said, he’d already told himself on more than one occasion. “That wasn’t how I meant it,” was all he managed to say.

  Camy frowned. “Then you should’ve stayed there and told her that.”

  “She wanted me to leave.” She’d said it twice and each time the words had sliced coldly through his heart because he’d known she meant for him to leave the place he’d taken up in her life, not just for him to physically get out of her shop.

  “And you wanted to leave?” Camy didn’t wait for his reply, but instead came around the table and sat in the chair beside him. “You want to be with her, I can see it. Everybody in this house right now can see it. And I know she wants to be with you even though I swear that girl gives a new meaning to the word stubborn. Why do you think she’s not here now?”

  Del scrunched his face. “That doesn’t make sense. If she wanted to be with me, why not come to where she knows I am.”

  She punched him in the arm.

  “Ow, what was that for?”

  “For breaking a record and saying the dumbest shit in the past week. She’s not here for the same reason you haven’t crawled back to her with apologies dripping from your mouth.”

  Del sighed because he knew his sister was absolutely right. “It’s too late. I screwed up and she has every right not to want to see me again. So, we’ll all just go back to the way we were before.”

  “You think it’s that simple? It’s not,” she said.

  Portia came into the room at that moment. “She’s right. It’s not that simple.”

  He looked from Portia to Camy wondering how the hell women could do that secret communicating thing.

  “Then I don’t know what else to do,” he admitted and heard the hush that immediately fell over the room.

  “Is that the captain admitting he doesn’t know what to do?” Ethan came in wrapping his arms around Portia’s waist and pulling her back against him.

  “Wait? Del’s admitting defeat? I gotta see this for myself,” Jeret said.

  Before he could blink again, everyone who was in the living room was now in the dining room with him. He would’ve huffed and got up to leave, but it felt good to look into the faces of the people who loved him most in the world. It felt damn good.

  “Yeah, okay, I’m admitting it. I want her back, but I don’t know how to do it. So, since you’re all standing here professing to have some sort of knowledge in matters of the heart, let me hear it,” he said. “But I’m warning you, if you make me look bad, I’ll never forgive any of you.”

  “How can we possibly make you look any worse than you already do?” Lance asked and then cracked up laughing.

  The others followed suit, until Camy quieted
them down and began talking seriously. Del listened. He contemplated and he planned. He was going to get Rylan back because life without her just wasn’t worth living.

  15

  Two days after Christmas, Rylan walked into Game Changers at a little after two in the morning. She hadn’t been here in almost two weeks and was resigned to keep it that was for even longer, until she’d received the text from Camy.

  Camy: Had way too many Candy Cane Vodkas at the bar. Need a ride home cause the guys are being mean to me.

  The guys probably weren’t being mean at all, maybe chastising because they didn’t like Camy or any woman at their bar getting pissy drunk. Rock had several Uber drivers on speed dial so that anyone at the bar, especially women, who weren’t able to drive, could get home safely. Where Camy was concerned, any one of the brothers would’ve gladly taken her home and preached to her about the stupidity of drinking too much the entire time, which was probably why Rylan had received the text.

  Why she’d been awake and staring at her ceiling so that she’d grabbed her phone as soon as it buzzed, was nobody’s business.

  She got out of her car, closed and locked the door and walked across the almost empty parking lot toward the side entrance of the bar. They were closing in a few minutes, but the door was probably locked so she was prepared to bang on it when it opened for her instead.

  “Hey,” Del said a quick smile on his face.

  That smile, his eyes, the breadth of his chest and the scent of his cologne were all things she hadn’t seen or smelled in while. It took her mind and her body a moment to adjust to the surprise and the memory. Truth be told, she’d been living with the memories of Del daily as if they were her new uninvited houseguest. “Hey,” she said back to him. “I’m here to pick up Camy.”