Any Man of Mine
Page 22
Sometimes he was so secretive, it drove her crazy. “When will you be back?”
“Soon.” He pulled out a thick envelope. “Give this to Sam.”
The envelope was filled with money, and she gasped. “When did Sam loan you this much money?”
“Just tell him thanks.”
“What did you do?” She looked at the envelope in her hand and wondered why her brother would need so much money. Had he gotten kicked out of his apartment or gambled or hired a soldier of fortune from the back of one of his magazines? No, Vince wouldn’t hire someone to do his dirty work.
“Sam bailed me out of jail Monday.”
“What?” The possibility of jail hadn’t entered her head. Sam hated Vince. Why would he bail him out? “What happened? Are you okay?” she asked through a haze of stunned disbelief. Then she listened as Vince told her about getting into a fight with a bunch of bikers and getting arrested.
“Why didn’t you run away?”
He frowned. “I don’t run.”
“But that was three days ago. Why didn’t either of you tell me?” Okay, so Sam wasn’t speaking to her but, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Sam doesn’t want you to know. I think he loves you and doesn’t want you to worry about me.”
She wasn’t so sure Sam loved her. Not after their last conversation. She wasn’t sure like her brother seemed to be.
“I don’t want you to worry about me either.”
She looked at him standing there, her big hard-nosed brother. The back of her throat hurt, and her eyes watered. Again. She didn’t want to make his life hard for him. Harder than it already was. “What will I do without my big brother?”
“Don’t cry.” He enfolded her in his big arms. “I’m not leaving forever.” He leaned back and looked into her face. “Maybe Sam isn’t as big an idiot these days.” He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. “He’ll look out for you and Conner.”
She was confused and scared for Vince. “You like Sam now?”
“Hell no, but the bigger question is, do you like him?”
Of course she liked Sam. She loved him. She couldn’t help it. She loved the sound of his voice and the smell of him on her pillow. She loved that under all that muscle and enormous ego, there was a kind man with a giving heart. She nodded.
“Then you have to think about forgiving him, because sometimes a person needs to hear you forgive them so they can start to forgive themselves.”
She looked into her brother’s troubled green eyes and wondered if he was talking about Sam or himself.
Sam walked into his loft and knew something was different before he turned on the lights. It was 3:00 A.M., and Conner’s jacket was tossed across a barstool, and his door was ajar. He looked inside at his son curled up in his bed, asleep.
Sam was exhausted, and sore as hell. He’d played the shittiest games of his career consecutively because he hadn’t been able to clear his head of Autumn. He was living in a gray fog, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t his night to have Conner. Not unless Autumn needed someone to watch their son. Natalie’s door was shut, and he moved into his room and flipped on the light. In the middle of his dark blue quilt, Autumn lay curled up in his bed. Her red hair fanned out across his pillow. If he hadn’t been standing up, with his duffel in his hand, he might think he was dreaming the whole thing.
“Autumn?”
She stirred, and her green eyes fluttered open. A smile tilted up the corners of her mouth.
The duffel hit the floor. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Why? What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to see you, and you’re obviously avoiding me.”
He looked around. “How did you get in here?”
“You have your ways. I have mine.” She stretched her arms, and it looked like she was wearing a white hockey jersey. “And aren’t you glad you didn’t come home with some other woman?”
“There is no other woman.”
“I know.” She sat up, and the quilt fell to her lap. She was wearing that damn Pittsburgh jersey. “Vince left town.”
He shrugged out of his blazer. “Why?”
“He said he had something to do. I’m very worried about him.”
“He’s a big boy.” Were they really talking about Vince? “He’ll be okay.”
“Why did you bail him out?” She swung her bare legs over the side of the bed. “You hate Vince.”
“But I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
His chest felt like he’d cracked a few ribs. Sore like someone caught him in the corner and punched the wind out of him. He pointed at her. “Then why are you wearing Crosby’s jersey?”
“ ’Cause the last time I wore it, you threatened to tear it off me if you ever saw it again.”
He smiled. “Is that what you want?”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“What else do you want, Autumn?”
“Me and you and Conner. I want us to be a family.” He sucked in a breath as she unbuttoned his shirt. “I want to always be here when you get home. I want to hear about your day. I want that for the rest of my life.” She kissed the hollow of his throat.
“If you want that for the rest of your life, you have it.” He grabbed her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “I want you to always be here when I get home. I want to hear about your day. I love you and I will love you for the rest of my life.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to choke up. He didn’t want the woman he loved to see him cry like a girl. “You and Conner, that’s all I’ll ever need.”
“No, that isn’t all.” She brushed his hair from his forehead. “I love you, Sam. I fell in love with you five years ago, and you broke my heart. For a long time, I couldn’t get past that, but I’ve fallen in love with you again. Only harder and deeper and more maturely this time. You don’t need my forgiveness for the past. Like you said, we were different people then, but if that’s what you want, if that’s what you need, then I forgive you.”
He lowered his face to her neck and breathed in the scent of her warm skin. He hadn’t realized how long he’d waited to hear those words. Didn’t know how much he wanted to hear them until she’d spoken them. He ran his hands down the back of her jersey and grabbed two bare cheeks. “You seem to have lost your panties again.”
“Oops. I bet that happens around you a lot.”
“Not anymore.” He slid his hands up her smooth back. “You’re the only woman I want around. The only woman I want to see drop her panties. The only woman I’ve ever really wanted.”
She leaned back and looked up at him. Her green eyes smiling with laughter. “Up until a few months ago, I wasn’t even the kind of woman you dated.”
“No.” He pressed his forehead into hers and brushed his mouth across her lips. “But you’re the kind of woman I marry. If I’m really lucky, you’re the kind of woman who will marry me twice.”
Epilogue
Any Man of Mine:
Gives a Good Lei
The setting sun hung just above the white sands of Lahaina Beach in Maui. Orange and red beams caught in the curls of Autumn’s hair and touched the side of Sam’s square jaw. Dressed in a simple oyster silk sheath, Autumn wore a lei of white orchids that Sam had given her that day. She’d pinned roses in her hair, and a slight breeze ruffled the veil attached to the back of her head. Sam and Conner wore matching black tuxedos with white orchids in their lapels and white bow ties.
When it came to planning her own wedding, Autumn had opted for small and intimate. Sam’s mother and Vince stood within the wedding party to the bride’s right. The Ross twins and their husbands just back from their respective honeymoons and Ty and Faith Savage, their baby girl asleep on her daddy’s big shoulder, watched Sam take Autumn’s hand and raise it to his lips. He kissed the backs of her knuckles and smiled just before he said the vows he’d w
ritten.
“I’m a hockey player,” he began. “I’m not romantic, so I asked Conner what I should say to you today. He suggested a few knock-knock jokes.” He laughed. “Mostly, he wanted me to tell you that you’re the best mommy in the world. And that’s true, but that is only one reason why I love you so much. I love the way you make me feel when you walk into a room. You fill my life with light.” He paused and looked into her face. “Autumn, I love you because I can’t imagine my life without you. I don’t want to even try.”
Autumn gazed into Sam’s eyes as the sinking sun streaked his cheeks with smears of orange and lavender. “I love you Sam. You healed my heart and taught me that forgiveness is about love. I used to think that any man of mine had to live up to a list of my expectations.” She shook her head and her veil brushed her bare shoulders. “I was wrong. Love has no list.” A tear splashed past her bottom lashes. “You are the pinch in my heart. The catch in my breath. The reason my stomach tumbles and why I lie awake at night just to look at you. And every time I look at you, I know that I want to look at you forever.”
Sam brushed her tear with his thumb and lowered his face to hers.
“We’re not to that part yet,” the minister reminded him.
Sam grinned into Autumn’s face. “Get there. I’m not a patient man, and Conner tells me he wants a baby brother.”
About the Author
With the publication of New York Times bestselling author RACHEL GIBSON’s first book, readers discovered one of contemporary romance’s freshest voices. Four of her novels were named among the Top Ten Favorite Books of the Year by Romance Writers of America. She has won numerous awards, including Borders Bestselling Romantic Comedy, National Reader’s Choice, and two RITA® Awards for the Best Single Contemporary Romance Title of the Year. Readers can write to Rachel Gibson at P.O. Box 4124, Boise, Idaho 83711-4124, or visit her website at www.rachelgibson.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Also by Rachel Gibson
Any Man of Mine
Nothing But Trouble
True Love and Other Disasters
Not Another Bad Date
Tangled Up In You
I’m In No Mood For Love
Sex, Lies, and Online Dating
The Trouble With Valentine’s Day
Daisy’s Back in Town
See Jane Score
Lola Carlyle Reveals All
True Confessions
It Must Be Love
Truly Madly Yours
Simply Irresistible
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ANY MAN OF MINE. Copyright © 2011 by Rachel Gibson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition May 2011 ISBN: 9780062079169
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Rachel Gibson
Copyright
About the Publisher