by McBain, Mara
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” he said, boosting her easily into the seat before jogging back to the driver’s side.
“Are you planning on getting me drunk?” she asked, pointedly peering into the box from the liquor store.
He laughed. “You didn’t really say what flavor of vodka you liked so I just bought a handful of the most popular ones and a few mixers that the girl at the counter suggested. I hope one of those will work.”
“Several of them actually,” Eden said with a smile and a little shake of her head. “You’re such a sweetheart.”
He grinned; shrugging off the compliment and the blush he knew came with it. Gunning the truck up his long drive, he went over a mental list of the things he needed to pack for the afternoon. He wanted everything to be as perfect as possible. He hadn’t wanted to impress a girl this bad since Junior High. He snorted, remembering the little red-headed girl that he’d mooned over until his parents had started calling him Charlie Brown.
He frowned as his cell phone rang. Snatching it off the dash, he glanced at the display and silenced it.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered, pulling the truck into the grass and up in the shade near the cottage.
“Don’t be. I understand. I had to shut mine off.”
“Good idea,” he agreed, holding down the power button. The grateful smile she gave him made him want to pitch the damn thing in the lake. Shoving it in his pocket instead, he gathered up the supplies and gave her a little wink. “Let’s load it up and get out there.”
The wind whipped her hair, and the spray coming up over the bow felt fantastic as the sun climbed overhead. Grady handled the powerful boat with an easy confidence that was attractive. For some reason her gaze kept going back to his big hands on the steering wheel. His long, blunt fingers were sexy. Scars marked his knuckles, stealing away any chance of mistaking him for a soft professional. She reached over and traced a finger over one of the more prominent wounds.
“What do you do?”she shouted over the engine and wind.
He eased off the throttle, letting the bow drop back down in the water and turning to her with a grin. “I’m retired.”
She blinked at him and then laughed. He couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than she was. On the other hand, at twenty-eight she was practically over the hill in the modeling world. As handsome as she found him, he hadn’t picked up those scars on a photo shoot.
“What did you do to earn these?” she asked, tapping his marked knuckles.
“Some of those are football injuries, some from construction or working on the farm. I played football in college and then eight years professionally. I busted my leg up pretty good and decided I’d better retire while I could still walk and enjoy it,” he said, rubbing a large scar that ripped across his thick thigh.
Eden winced, hiding behind the veil of her hair. “I’m sorry. I like sports, but I don’t get much of a chance to follow them.”
“No worries. I played left tackle. Offensive linemen aren’t exactly rock stars,” he said with a chuckle. “If I made it through a whole game without the public address announcer saying my name or number, that was considered a good thing. It meant I hadn’t fucked up, or at least that I hadn’t got caught.”
Eden laughed with him. He was so humble. It was charming and refreshing after dealing with the arrogance that permeated modeling and acting.
“What about you?” he asked, reaching over to get a beer from the cooler.
He cocked a questioning eyebrow at her cup before closing the lid at her little head shake. She turned the tumbler in her hands, tracing a nail through the beads of condensation. Biting her lip she silently berated herself. She’d been right. He didn’t know who she was. It had been nice. Now she’d opened herself up to this with her blatant curiosity about his hands.
“Modeling mostly,” she murmured, not meeting his gaze.
“I kinda figured. You’re a real knockout.”
“Thank you,” she said with a shy smile. Why did it seem a compliment coming from his lips when she heard the empty praises all the time?
“Just the truth, darlin’,” he said, turning on some music and stretching his long legs out. “Do you enjoy it?”
Her head jerked up and she looked at him in surprise. No one had ever asked her that question. People’s response was generally envious and star struck or dismissive and condescending of her career choice. Even her father snorted when she mistakenly referred to it as a career in front of him.
“Do you miss football?” she asked, steering the topic back to him.
He looked at her for a moment, but then nodded. “I miss the camaraderie of the game. I miss the adrenalin and the competition. In Texas you can start playing in a league at the age of five. So it has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. Football and 4-H,” he said with a chuckle.
“4-H?” she asked uncertain of the acronym.
“You’ve never heard of 4-H?” he asked. At the shake of her head he laughed. “Damn. You are a city girl!”
Her mouth dropped open at the slam, and then she started to laugh. So much for him treating her differently if he knew she was a model. She loved his honesty.
“Don’t just sit there and laugh at me, country boy. Educate me.”
“In a nutshell, 4-H is a youth organization that develops life and leadership skills. A lot of farm kids are involved in it. It covers everything from the arts to raising and showing vegetables and livestock,” he explained, his blue eyes still sparkling with amusement. “I can’t believe you’ve never been to a 4-H fair and walked through the exhibition and livestock barns. If nothing else, you have to go for the carny games, deathtrap rides, and the fair food.”
Eden frowned, trying to picture what he was talking about. She shook her head a little wistfully. They were from two different worlds. “Sometimes I think I grew up in a bubble,” she said with a forced laugh.
“New York City is a lot different than growing up in the rural south. I can’t say as I blame your parents for being protective,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “Your daddy must have had to whittle a big stick as beautiful as you are. Do you have sisters?”
“I have an older brother.”
“Are you close?”
“As different as night and day,” Eden admitted with a shake of her head. “He followed in my father’s footsteps, going to Harvard and joining the family business. What about you?”
“I have four sisters. I’m the oldest.”
Eden’s eyebrows shot up. “Four?”
“Four beautiful, blonde, headstrong O’Grady girls,” Grady confirmed with a laugh. “The one good thing was that meant in a four bedroom house, I was the only one that got a bedroom to myself. Of course, it also meant getting in the bathroom was hell.”
“Please tell me that there was more than one bathroom,” Eden pleaded in amused sympathy.
“I was a freshman in high school when my daddy and I added a second bathroom off the utility room. It was supposed to be ours, but we found ourselves standing in line outside that door too,” Grady said, shaking his head.
Eden lost her battle. The long suffering look on the big man’s face was too much. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks and her ribs ached. Grady rescued her cup as it tilted haphazardly. He winked at her as he turned to the cooler to refill it.
“How many bathrooms are in the plans for your new house?” she asked, still giggling.
Grady laughed. “There are five bedrooms and six bathrooms in the blue prints for the new house. Do you think I need to revise that?”
“That should be sufficient unless you decide to outdo your father.”
“I guess that would partially be up to the woman that marries me. She is the one that has to do the hard work,” he said with a little shrug.
“But you would be up for five kids?” Eden asked, cocking her head to the side in question.
“With the right wom
an, I’d be up for anything she wanted.”
“Double entendre intended?”
“Absolutely, darlin’.”
His words and the deep thrum of his voice made heat coil low in her belly. Damn, but he was hot. He knew just what to say, and Lord did he know how to say it. She blushed and turned away from his intense stare.
“How hard is this thing to drive?” she asked
“Not difficult. It just takes a bit of finesse, knowledge of the lay of the land, and respect for the power at hand.”
“Are we still talking about the boat?” she whispered hoarsely.
“Of course we are. What else would we be talking about?” Grady asked with a chuckle. He patted his lap. “Hop on over here and take it for a spin.”
Biting her lip, she gave him a sidelong glance. He regarded her calmly, blue eyes sparkling. A tawny eyebrow raised in challenge. She stood and slipped into his lap, her hands gripping the steering wheel. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. His hand covered her right and moved it to the throttle. The way his arms bracketed her was comforting and sexy and…distracting. She shifted nervously.
“Relax,” he murmured against her ear. “Just push up on the throttle smoothly. I’m right here.”
She took a deep breath, trying to remember why she’d thought this was a good idea. The man would kill her if she damaged his boat.
“You aren’t going to hurt a thing. Just keep it away from the pier and the shore,” he whispered, as if reading her mind. His hand tightened over hers on the throttle and inched it up. The engine hummed, the bow of boat lifting out of the lake as they picked up speed. She turned the wheel and they lurched hard to the side. Her heart hammered. He corrected it smoothly, his strong arms holding her in place as he showed her how to ease into the turn.
He brushed her whipping hair off her neck, coiling it in his hand. She laughed realizing that it had to have been flying in his face.
“Sorry!” she shouted over the wind. He kissed the side of her neck in response and she laughed, pushing the throttle up a little higher. The feeling of freedom was intoxicating as they flew across the water. Sweeping around the end of the lake where her aunt lived, she straightened it out and pushed the lever up all the way. The cottage and pier were a blur and something inside of her broke loose. She screamed her pure joy, and she felt his laughter vibrate through her as he held her close to his chest.
His hands were sure over hers as they circled the lake, and they didn’t slow until she reluctantly pulled back on the handle. She brought it down leisurely until finally the powerful toy floated silently in the water. She turned, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“That was amazing,” she whispered.
He returned the embrace, his long fingers stroking the nape of her neck.
“That could be addictive,” she said, pulling back from him with a shaky laugh. “I can’t tell you the last time I felt that free.”
“Anytime you feel the need to fly, come on over, little girl,” he said, finger combing her hair gently.
She laughed. He was perfect. She hugged him again, relishing in the way his arms closed around her. She loved the way he just held her. There was no groping, no expectation, just easy warmth. His white t-shirt molded to his barrel chest and was soft against her cheek. Her fingers traced the curve of his powerful pectoral muscle as she listened to the steady beat of his heart. She’d never felt this comfortable with anyone, ever. It was unfathomable that she’d only known this man a matter of hours. Grady was like no one she had ever met.
She was all too used to dealing with powerful men and their egos, but this was no arrogant asshole with an Ivy League degree or a polished pretty boy with a Hollywood star. Grady was different. He seemed comfortable with who he was rather than how he was perceived. He was refreshingly honest and had a great sense of humor. There was none of the entitlement that generally accompanied professional athletes. The big man was humble, even self-deprecating at times, and he was such a gentleman. His southern manners were so sexy.
Pushing back from him, she leaned against the steering wheel. He stayed where he was. Though his eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, she could feel him watching her as he lounged in the sun. She tilted her head back, welcoming the rays as they reflected off the water like the frantic flash of the paparazzi cameras. She shrugged off a shiver. That was one aspect of her career that she had never come to grips with, and Neil’s insistence on pushing her into Hollywood had only made it worse. They terrified her.
Pushing aside the negative thoughts, she stole another peek at her gentle giant. His head was moving with the country tune playing on the radio, and his lips were curved in a contented grin. Her slender shoulders lifted with a sigh of happiness. She loved it here. There were no car horns, no droning voices, no madness and bustle. The only sound she heard was the gentle splash of waves as they broke against the side of the boat. It was a little slice of heaven.
You can find the remainder of Grady and Eden’s tale on Amazon in paperback or eBook!
~ About the Author ~
Mara McBain grew up in tiny LaGrange, Indiana, population under three thousand. With little in the form of entertainment in the farming community, she haunted the quiet corners of the local Carnegie library. A love of reading soon led her to writing short stories and novels. She still calls the rural area home and when not writing or reading she enjoys spending time with her husband of twenty odd years and their son. You can check out her other books on Amazon or on her website at MaraMcBain.com !
Table of Contents
~ Dedication ~
Books by Mara McBain
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
Excerpt from Southern Eden
~ About the Author ~
