The Dancing Groom: Royal Palm Resort (Brady Brother Romances Book 3)

by Taylor Hart

  Boston sat.

  Ty didn’t, moving to the back of the chair. “I’ll stand, thanks.” It wasn’t often that Ty was serious, but right now, he was all business.

  Dr. Cruz moved to the other side of the desk and sat. “I’ve been reading your file.” He met Ty’s eyes. “I’ll cut to the chase, Mr. Brady. I’ve spoken with your other doctors. Of course, they think I’m a quack, but …”

  Neither Boston or Ty spoke, but Boston gained respect for the man. He hated small talk; he wasn’t good at it, and he liked it when other people leveled with him.

  “They don’t think you have a chance.”

  The words hung there in the air, and they gave Boston a creeping feeling that he always got before going into a game where all the bets were on the other team.

  Ty scoffed and straightened. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He had his fighter face on.

  Boston steeled himself, wanting to pound the doctor who was taking all hope away from them.

  Dr. Cruz took his glasses off. “I wasn’t going to tell you that.” His tone was level, professional. It would be almost standoffish if Boston weren’t here in the room with the man. As it was, Boston could see the intensity of his eyes and how his expression had flashed to anger briefly. Dr. Cruz’s cheeks had taken on a blotchy red. If Boston was carrying the ball, Cruz would run lead block and take out anyone between him and the end zone. “I never said I don’t have hope.”

  Ty glared at him.

  Boston wanted to intervene, but this whole thing wasn’t about him.

  “I believe I can help you. I believe … that this treatment could give you extra years.” Dr. Cruz sighed. “Note I didn’t say it could cure you, but it will help you.”

  With a light laugh and a step back, Ty said, “Right, no cure, but you’re willing to take the money my brothers are handing over. The money that’s likely going to fund your next research project after I’m dead.”

  Ty wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t losing it. He was serious.

  Boston’s pulse spiked, unprepared for the truth in his brother’s words. He and his other brothers had convinced themselves Ty would live, that they would find a cure. Make a cure. #bethecure. Hadn’t Ty read the freaking hashtag?

  Dr. Cruz put his glasses down on the desk and clapped his hands together, looking more like a calm priest than a doctor. “I lost my wife to this disease.”

  “I know,” Ty said quietly.

  Dr. Cruz let out a breath. “Of course I want a cure. Of course I will always be looking for the cure. I don’t deny that.”

  “I get that, but if you can’t give me any guarantees of what the treatment will do for me, why I would go through a treatment that will definitely make me sick?” There were tears in Ty’s eyes.

  Boston stood. “How sick?”

  The doctor frowned. “We have to slow the spread of the disease. That includes compromising your immune system for a little while as we target the destabilizing nerve cells.”

  Ty pointed at him. “That means I get sick, and getting sick while I’m sick means I could die sooner.”

  Boston said nothing. He knew everything that they were saying was true, but he hadn’t ever dealt with Ty acting like this.

  “You have to believe I’m not just sucking money out of your family. You have to believe that I will never lead with my research as the priority. You are the priority. Your life. Your body. Your needs will be my every priority.” Now Dr. Cruz’s voice was loaded with gusto. He smacked the desk with his fist. “But it’s going to be hard. You’re going to feel like crap, and you’re going to go crying to your mama because the fight is real. It was real for my Vera.” He smacked the table again, and a tear trickled down his face. “It was real for John and Michael and Joan and Sam and Shelia, to name just a few.”

  Boston felt chills rush over him.

  “It was real for every. Single. Person who agreed to these trial treatments. It was real as I sat by their beds and I checked the labs every hour and I …” Dr. Cruz choked a bit, then sniffed, tugging a tissue out of the box on the desk. “If you think this is about the money, then you can just go.”

  Silence filled the space between them.

  “Your life is not about money. It’s not about anything I’m going to tell you or give you as treatment. Your …” Dr. Cruz stood and stared out the window, dabbing at his eyes with clear reluctance. “It’s about being part of something greater than yourself.”

  Ty looked younger, like the little brother Boston remembered. He’d been pensive and somewhat shy and the one who never wanted to play football for hours on end. His mother had worried about in high school because, as she’d said, he thought too much.

  “I’ll do it,” Ty said quietly. “I will lead this path for others.” He nodded and brushed at his tears. “And I would be honored to do it with you.”

  The center of Boston’s heart was breaking, and all he wanted to do was punch something. A tear slipped down his face, and he stubbornly batted it away. He moved to Ty’s side and put his arm around him.

  Ty leaned into him.

  Dr. Cruz turned around, meeting Boston’s eyes.

  “Brady Five,” Boston said, as more tears washed over his cheeks.

  Ty squeezed his eyes shut. “Brady Five.”

  Boston held him and remembered something he’d forgotten for a moment earlier. He wasn’t just a football player; he was a brother. And he had the potential to be so much more than just the Freight Train.

  Something broke free inside of him, something that had been deep down inside of him and had been trying to rise to the surface for a long, long time. He didn’t even know how to explain it. All he knew was that his life needed a new direction.

  Chapter 10

  One Week Later

  Addison stood on the beach, the moon hanging in the sky once again. Tonight, it wasn’t a late practice that had kept her up. She’d decided to try out a solo routine. That wasn’t her strength, but it would be okay.

  Even though she wasn’t mad at Christian—she knew his sister needed him—she wished she had a partner. It didn’t help that the past week of lessons with Boston Brady had proven how foolish she’d been to preemptively reject him. He was every bit as good as she and Christian had given him credit for.

  They hadn’t spoken at the dance lessons much, but there had been this crazy tension between them. The fact that he was good made the tension even worse, like he was trying to prove to her that he could do the tryout with her if he wanted to.

  She stood waist deep in the ocean in front of the rich people’s rentals—specifically the same house that she always came to. It was easy because there was never anyone out here when she was here.

  She’d shut off her phone because Christian kept texting her. She knew he felt bad about it, and he’d exhausted his resources looking for a replacement partner. He had been trying to compensate for it by spending more time with her, but tonight she needed space.

  Boston’s face flashed into her mind, and the intensity she felt when she just let go and danced with him filled her chest. She clenched her hand into a fist. The man was so frustrating. What if she hadn’t pushed him away so hard? Would he have been her partner, given her the time and focus that Christian had invested?

  She’d been obsessed with the guy for the past week, using Shelly’s computer to perform her own searches. And yeah, what she’d found was that he was pure diva. A guy like him cared only about himself; he’d never commit to her.

  He was cocky and always in a fight with someone, most recently his gorgeous supermodel girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. Honesty, she couldn’t tell. It seemed like they both had some sick fascination with bantering on all social platforms.

  That was only the beginning of the drama. There were rumors that he was talking about how he wanted to be traded from the Surf. He wanted to go the Los Angeles Wave and be with his brother, Ocean, who looked like a ferocious demon himself.

  Fine. Not demon. Just … really big.<
br />
  Then she got lost in the recent cause for ALS with Ty. She dived into the No Regrets Tour YouTube videos with his brother Ziggy and Ziggy’s soon-to-be wife, Sophia. Man, there were some brutally honest clips of their recent trip to Wyoming. Messy and real.

  Ty was always so sweet at dance lessons. He freely told the class about his treatments, and all the old ladies kept tabs on him. Mrs. Baxter, Mrs. Olsen, and Mrs. Smith all took turns making sure the Brady brothers had dinner appointments.

  It was a bit comical, and she could tell that Boston didn’t really like being told every day after class whose house they would be going to dinner at, but he clearly put up with it. Mrs. Hamilton was trying to match-make him, trying to set him up on dates, but Boston always politely refused.

  Addison walked out of the water, grabbed her things, and turned to head back to her place. Thoughts of not getting picked to dance with Jive filled her mind. What would she do? Go to Missouri and live with her dad again? No, she couldn’t stand the thought of that. Her father had made the military his career, and when she’d gone home briefly after Jason passed, there had been this nagging feeling that she was getting in his way in the tiny home.

  She knew it wasn’t his intention, but she missed her mother. An unwanted tear washed down her face. She’d only been sixteen when she’d lost her, and it had been too soon.

  In the blurry corner of her teary eye, she saw someone. A man was sitting in a lawn chair, right at the edge of the bushes, palm trees around him, next to the path that led out of the bushes to the sand.

  Fear spiked into her. She didn’t like being watched, and the surprise didn’t help. She turned back toward the clubhouse and speed-walked quickly down the beach.

  “Wait!” she heard him call out.

  She increased her pace, finally bursting into a run, thinking about all the bad things that happened at night to women alone. She’d been warned about those situations, and she tried to never be caught in them. Her husband, Jason, had been fierce about warning her because he said she didn’t pay enough attention to her well-being.

  “Hey!” The man was following her!

  She went into a full-out run. Jason had been right.

  The man blazed past her and blocked her path. “Just hold up. It’s me.”

  She filled her lungs so she could let it out in a scream, then stopped. She recognized him. “Boston?”

  “Sorry,” he said, letting out a light laugh. “I didn’t want to scare you, but you ran so fast.”

  “Because you were chasing me!” She swiped at him, but he easily dodged it.

  Boston put his hands up defensively. “I thought you would recognize me quicker.”

  “You were watching me,” she accused, wits finally starting to gather back in.

  Exasperated, he backed up. “I don’t mean to; you’re on our part of the beach.”

  That was true, but it ticked her off. She glared at him, out of breath. “Whatever.” She moved past him.

  He fell into step with her. “Listen, just stop. I want to talk to you.”

  She stopped, but not because he’d told her to—something he’d said just clicked. “You’ve been watching me every night?”

  He sucked in a breath. “Not every night.”

  “How many?” she growled.

  His face turned sour, and he stared at the ground. “I … three, maybe.”

  She felt exposed. He’d been staring while she swam in her leotard and danced like no one was watching.

  “Sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t swim there.”

  Addison felt a surge of self-righteous anger. “Did you video it for YouTube? Stick it on Snapchat for your fans?”

  “No!”

  “Whatever.”

  “Listen, I’m not a stalker. Pathetic, maybe—well, I haven’t decided—but I …” He turned away from her, mumbling something. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “What about Lana? Is she going to see the video and think I’m your new thing? Was that your intention?” she blurted, not knowing where the question had come from and not knowing why she’d asked.

  “What?” He looked shocked. “No!”

  She turned away, walking down the beach toward the clubhouse again.

  He tagged along. “I thought you weren’t on social media?”

  “I’m not a dummy.” She pinched her lips. “I might not have known who you were that first day, but between Shelly’s blubbering and my binge on your social media sites this week—” She clamped her mouth shut and walked faster, even more upset with herself for admitting that.

  He let out a light laugh, keeping pace with her. “So you looked me up?”

  “Did you look me up?” she countered, stopping. She already felt vulnerable after being spied on, and it kept getting rawer with every moment. The whole thing between them was stupid and irrational because she was a widow and he was a star. And she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his question—Do you want me to do it?

  “I … yeah.” He shrugged. “Social media is kind of what I do.”

  She grunted at his admission. It flattered her, but it also made her feel a bit like an animal in a zoo to have him delving into her sad past. “Yeah, your social media presence is kinda crazy.” She walked faster.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Would you just stop?”

  She slowed. “What? You can’t keep up?”

  He let out a laugh. “Oh my gosh, woman, you’re impossible. Listen, I need to tell you I’ve been awful. I was a jerk that first time we met. The second time, I wanted to impress you, and the truth is that all week I’ve been trying to impress you.”

  She stopped, surprised at what he was saying. “You wanted to impress me?” The words came out quieter, and she tried to remain calm and tell the part of herself that was getting dizzy from so many heartbeats to calm down. No. She was married, or had just been. She didn’t feel things like this anymore. Not to mention …

  He took her hand. “I’m sorry about your husband.”

  His warm touch stunned her. His tone was sincere and kind and nothing like she’d expected from him. “I …” All she could do was look at his hand on hers. This was unexplored and unexpected territory.

  “And I wanted to tell you that all week. I wanted to tell you so many things, which is stupid, because I usually don’t have all these things I want to say to anyone, but I’ve just been thinking about you so much: your dancing, your husband, the way you gave so much to the people you were helping on those other episodes …”

  It was strange that he’d been almost standoffish the entire week during lessons and now he was telling her all of this. She pulled her hand back. “Please don’t take my hand.”

  Their eyes held, and he nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  She noticed she’d stopped walking.

  “What I wanted to tell you was that, like I said, I was immature. I’ve been playing chicken with you, wondering who would be the first to break down and admit that we were both petty and dishonest a week ago when Christian brought up the tryout.”

  “What are you talking about, Boston? Enough drama; just say what you mean.”

  “I’d be honored to be your dance partner if you still need me.”

  Her mind felt like it was on a tilt-a-whirl at some carnival. “Say what?”

  Boston rushed on. “I was talking the whole thing over with Ty and Christian earlier at Mrs. Olsen’s.” He put his hand on his stomach. “Best meat loaf I’ve ever had.”

  She laughed.

  “Anyway, Christian said you’d be better if you had a partner, because that’s your strength—partner dancing. And I want to do it.”

  “So the meat loaf was really that good?”

  He grinned back. “So good.” He wagged his finger at her. “But that’s not what we’re talking about. You know Christian feels really bad he can’t do it, and he knows you’re kind of mad at him.”

  Why did this man
believe he deserved to put her on the hot table? “You need to tamp it down a notch with the guilt.”

  Boston sighed. “Sorry. I just have to make up for all the moral superiority you’ve had on me.”

  Addison suppressed a grin and poked him in the chest. “It’s not petty to not want your heart to get pulverized. Dancing is my life, now that …”

  His face softened, and he looked at her with as if seeing something he hadn’t realized before.

  She didn’t want it to get any more serious, so she let out the light laugh that she felt in her chest. Hope surged inside of her, and she couldn’t believe it. “You’re really going to be my partner?”

  “If you’ll have me.”

  “What changed, Mr. I’m a Football Player?”

  His eyebrows went up. “Your words, not mine.” He shrugged. “The cover story is that I really do need some agility work. I got some professional stuff going on, and I have to be in good shape.”

  She hesitated. “Then what’s the true story?”

  Boston looked out over the ocean. “I’m not used to something so … real. I think I’ve been living in digital land so long I can hardly tell the difference.”

  The sentiment hit Addison right in the heart. She wanted to tease him and ask who he was and what he’d done with the real Boston Brady, but the dancing had been real all week. Emotion threatened to engulf her like a tsunami, so she hurried to change the topic back to his fake reason. “Are you really going to leave the Surf?”

  A smile played at his lips as he looked into her eyes. “How come it makes me so happy you know this?”

  She laughed, but she did have an opinion about this. “It’s silly, but my dad has always liked the Surf; he grew up in Florida. I remember going to Florida to visit my grandmother before she passed a couple of years ago. When I was younger, I went to a Surf game.”