by Lee Kilraine
“Popped it up. Easy out.” Eli leaned against the fencing. His gaze landed on me again, and maybe it was my imagination, but it was a bit accusatory. “His swing’s off. Beck normally has a perfect swing. So sweet all the recruiters were after him back in the day.”
“Zip it, Eli.” Beck swung, smacking the ball straight out that time.
“Beck played baseball in college?” Not that Beck and I had spent a lot of time together, but it suddenly dawned on me that he never talked about his past.
“Nope,” Gray said, frowning. “None of us played sports in school. But Beck’s a natural athlete. He could have.”
“But I didn’t,” Beck said. He stepped out of the batter’s box and then exited the cage, the gate clanging shut behind him. He held the bat out to me. “Your turn.”
I felt the stares of all the brothers. Maybe it had something to do with Eli’s announcement that Beck had never brought a woman to the batting cage. Probably the fact that I was wearing a figure-hugging sundress and wedges caught their attention.
“Thank you.” I accepted the bat but turned back to Eli. “Why didn’t Beck play baseball in college if recruiters were after him?”
Beck shook his head and went back into the cage to load up another round of balls into the machine.
“He went to an open try-out and pretty much had them all drooling. But he didn’t have any high school stats. They wanted him but wouldn’t risk offering him a full scholarship. So instead he went to work full-time and took classes at night.”
I looked at Beck and he only shrugged.
“How did you not have high school stats? Did you get injured and sit on the bench?”
“Never played high school sports. None of us did.” Beck couldn’t have looked more bored with this conversation. What the heck was his problem about talking about himself?
The brothers all shuffled their feet and a couple crossed their arms; one even coughed. How was playing sports in high school some weird untouchable topic?
I opened my mouth to ask, but suddenly I had a team of Thorne brothers coaching me on how to hit the baseball.
“So, Samantha, have you ever been in a batting cage?”
“No. But I—”
“Okay, so what you’re going to want to do is this.…”
They proceeded to dispense tips on the proper batting stance. Stand feet parallel and shoulder-width apart. Square to the pitcher. Keep your knees bent. Line your knuckles up on the bat.
Jesus, like you needed a penis to hit a ball. I sighed, not even listening to all the advice they bombarded me with, and entered the batting cage. It was too frustratingly similar to what I’d heard from my stepbrothers and father during my high school days. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t impress my father.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Beck said, waving the remote in his hand so I could see it while his brothers kept on sharing instructions.
“Hold your hands and knot of the bat in the top of the strike zone.”
“Slice down and under the ball. Take a deep breath.”
I blocked out their voices and stood in the batter’s box. I had to shimmy my skirt up a few inches to get my feet close to a shoulder-width stance. I was sure I looked a sight with my skirt bunched up on my thighs and my cute black and white polka dot wedge sandals with the wraparound ankle ties.
“Ready!” I called.
“Okay. It pitches every ten seconds,” Beck said.
I watched the first ball shoot out of the machine, tracking it until it flew past me, hitting the back end of the cage.
“Don’t be afraid of it.”
“Just stick your bat out there; you’ll make contact.”
“It’s okay. You’ll get a piece of the next one.”
I didn’t just get a piece of the next one. I got the whole thing. And the same with all the other pitches. Perfect line drives. I’d forgotten how satisfying it was to swing a bat. Beck was right. It did alleviate tension.
Stepping back away from the batter’s box, I turned around to the silent lineup of Thorne brothers. They looked at me like I was a new species they’d never seen before.
“You were sandbagging us,” Gray said.
“No. You made assumptions.” I leaned the bat against the nylon fencing and tugged my skirt back into place before stepping out of the cage.
Wyatt frowned. “You said you’d never been in a batting cage.”
“I haven’t. But I played on the varsity fastpitch softball team in high school for three years.”
“That was excellent.” Eli held up his fist to me, and I met it with mine.
“Thank you. You were right, Beck. It does feel good to hit something. Really good.”
Beck looked at me with definite heat glowing in his blue eyes. “That was some damn fine hitting.”
Darn if my knees didn’t go weak at his compliment. A man could tell me I looked pretty as a peach all day long and it didn’t make my heart flutter. But when a man noticed a skillset or talent I’d spent time and effort on… That got to me.
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” Gray said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “We could use you on our co-ed fall softball team. You could be our secret weapon.”
“Gee, I don’t know. Beck and I might drive each other crazy before fall rolls around.”
Beck frowned over at Gray until Gray’s arm fell from my shoulders. “Speaking of driving each other crazy, let’s get back to it.”
“Beck, don’t piss Samantha off!” Gray called as Beck and I walked to his truck. “We need her for our team.”
I almost didn’t want to go back to work. I’d seen a brand-new side of Beck that I liked. A lot. He had a good sense of humor with all the razzing his brothers heaped on him. And there was a level of love and respect for his brothers—that the brothers had for each other—that felt good to be around.
This new side of Beck was going to make it harder to ignore the pure sexiness of the man. And I did need to ignore it. Beck and I needed to stay focused in order to find a way to meld our designs. We needed to hit this design out of the park.
Chapter 10
Beckett
“Hey, Beck, you got a minute?” Wyatt asked from the doorway to my office.
I pulled the pencil out from between my teeth to answer, without taking my eyes from my computer. “Yeah sure, come on in.”
Wyatt entered my office, shutting the door quietly behind him before moving to sit in the chair in front of my desk. I only knew that because I heard it all, since I hadn’t taken my eyes off the computer. It felt like the first quiet time I’d had all day to work, after listening to Sam list reasons why my ideas wouldn’t work but hers would. I needed to get this design on the page so she could see it. Not that that was going to make any difference.
“I covered your schedule, like I said I would,” Wyatt said, clearing his throat afterward.
“Thanks, Wy.”
“You’re welcome. The meeting with the accountant was enlightening.”
Uh… The meeting with the accountant. Crap. The accountant. That got my attention away from my computer and over to Wyatt. How could I have forgotten about the meeting with the accountant? Sometimes a person thinks they have all the time in the world to get around to dealing with something, and then they don’t. That’s where I was sitting right that second. That damn loan. The damn loan had been hanging over my head and pressing down on my shoulders, crushing me under its weight for three years. You want to know what a shit I am? I was actually a little bit relieved that someone had found out. Not at all what I wanted to happen, but there it was.
“What’s going on, Beck?” Wyatt’s face was a mix of worry, confusion, and anger. And Wyatt never got angry, so it only reinforced how much I’d fucked up.
I let out a sigh and tried to ignore the pressing weigh
t crushing my chest. I hadn’t given up yet on trying to fix this, but a big part of me felt like a failure as Wyatt’s eyes searched my face.
“When we started this company five years ago, I had to get creative with the financing to get us off the ground. The first few years I had to take some risks I’d never in a million years take today. So, I took out a big loan—”
“You sure did. I guess I was still in school then, but we all figured as much. But the numbers I saw when I sat down with the accountant look like something a whole lot bigger.”
“Right. Well, we used the first loan for startup costs, plus I rolled some of your student loans into it. But three years ago, we needed more capital to buy better equipment and expand or we couldn’t handle the bigger jobs.”
“That was right after I graduated.”
“I got a lucky break, or so I thought. I got a call out of the blue letting me know my foster dad had left his house to me.”
“I thought you didn’t get along with him. The way I recall it, he hated you.”
“He did. But he hated his wife more and didn’t want her to get it after he died. He probably didn’t think he was in any danger of passing away, so he willed it to me. Man had a heart attack on his riding lawn mower.”
“So, you got the house.…”
“Yep, and used it as collateral for another loan. This time a high-risk loan so I could get more cash. The prognosticators had said we were sitting on the cusp of a housing boom, and I knew if we caught that wave, it would put SBC firmly in the black. And then the subprime mortgage crisis hit seemingly out of nowhere. Which triggered the collapse of the housing market, and the industry fell over a cliff for the next year and a half.”
“That explains how you got into it, but not why you didn’t tell us. That part is going to be a big issue around here. Gray and Eli especially are going to be pissed.”
I got that. That’s what I’d been avoiding. When the housing market had picked up again, I’d thought I could set aside enough to start paying it off. I was hoping I’d get it handled and not have to tell any of my brothers, but it wasn’t often luck was on my side.
I ran a hand down my face, thinking of what words would take that look off my brother’s face, and couldn’t come up with any. And Wyatt was the practical brother. The others would be an even tougher audience.
“I didn’t want to shove this on you all. This was a problem I created, so it was up to me to fix it.” Those loans were the only risks I’d ever taken. The first one had worked, so when I had the chance for a bigger pay-off, I’d taken it. I guess I’d been too greedy, but living paycheck to paycheck back then had made me nervous.
Wyatt frowned at me. “I don’t think that’s how any of us feel, Beck.”
We’d been through some hard times. We’d been abused and neglected. We’d gone without electricity, water, and even food. It had sucked. As the oldest, there were times when I had to be the one making decisions because the others were just too little to know what was going on. So hell yes, I wanted to protect my brothers from another crisis. Especially one I’d orchestrated.
“When are you going to tell everyone?” Wyatt asked. “You need to tell them. This is not something that you should be handling on your own.”
“I know. That’s why securing Lila’s job was so imperative. I just want to get far enough along with the job so I know it’s going to work. When I know that working with Sam isn’t going to create a problem with the job, I’ll sit everyone down and tell them. Fair enough?”
“I think you should do it now.” Wyatt’s hands gripped the arms of the chair. “It’s a bad idea to keep something like this from all of us. It’s bound to stir up questions and resentments about whether we’re really all equal partners in this business if you’re keeping us out of the loop.”
“It’s been a situation for three years, so I’m just asking you for a little more time, until we have a clear, viable revenue stream to make paying it off seem easily feasible. A month or two more won’t matter to them.”
“Oh, it’ll matter.” Wyatt’s jaw clenched a few times before he stood and moved to the door where he paused and turned back to me. “Have I ever told you sometimes you take this oldest brother thing too far?”
“You have, yes.” Along with all my other brothers.
“I’ll stay quiet, but not for long,” Wyatt said, staring at me with his serious eyes. “The sooner the better, Beck.”
I sat back in my chair, letting his look grab me around my throat and squeeze. Hell, yes I felt guilty about the whole mess I’d created. But three years ago it was take a risk or surely fail.
I felt like shit holding on to a secret like this, but this was what I had to do. To hold off the guilt. To hold off the fear that I was failing at the one thing I never wanted to fail at. Protecting my brothers. Keeping us together. And having the money to keep looking for Ryker.
None of us talked about Ryker too much. It hurt not knowing where he was. But I had to believe in my heart we’d find him one day; we had to. We fucking had to. The guilt of not finding him years ago ate at my gut when I’d gathered all the rest. I still remember the bittersweet emotion of that first meal we ate sitting around a cramped, beat-up Goodwill table. Finally together after too many years apart. Except that one chair that had stayed empty.
Dammit. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to focus on this job. I needed to figure out how to get Sam to cooperate so we could create the showcase house we needed for the success of both our companies.
I glanced at the time on my computer screen. Shit, the morning had flown by. I was supposed to leave five minutes ago for my next head-butting session with Sam over at Lila’s house. If the two of us didn’t find a way through this, a compromise, we might be jeopardizing our chance to meet the timeline. The gala was an annual event, so the date was set. It was always the first Friday in December. Missing the deadline wasn’t an option.
Chapter 11
Samantha
I was in the zone. I had to be, because if I looked up and saw Beck moving around the house whistling away and acting like all-my-designs-are-better-than-yours for one more second, I might just stab him with my colored pencils. So instead I was working on a rendering for the kitchen. Oh my, this was going to be a dream kitchen.
I sat in a metal folding chair where I could watch as the morning sun reached through the windows and slowly dazzled. Lila wanted a serious kitchen, one caterers could come into and find worthy, but also still have it feel like the heart of the home. Obviously we’d go with top-of-the-line appliances, but clean lines and natural wood. I could envision a freestanding island like in an old kitchen in France. Open shelves below it. The kitchen was so big there would be plenty of storage in the cabinet runs along the two walls that we could afford to lose some of the storage in the island.
“There you are! I was beginning to think the rumor I’d heard was just that.”
My hand froze on my drawing pad and my shoulders tensed. I turned my head toward the voice, hoping against hope I was daydreaming the whole thing. Nope. What the heck was my father doing here on my jobsite?
“Hi, Dad,” I said, my gaze moving around his face, trying to gage his health. He looked tan and still robust, although the circles under his eyes were a sign he probably still lived, ate, and breathed his job. Yes sir, Devine and Sons Builders was his life. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“When a father hears his daughter’s gotten the job to renovate Denver King’s house, he wants to come and see it for himself.” He stood in the kitchen doorway, his head on a swivel, taking it all in. Probably calculating the renovation cost per square foot and coming up with his own plans. “Stunning. The house has amazing potential. How in the hell did your little firm get a job like this one, Sam?”
“Oh, you know, we’ve been working hard for two years and have been sl
owly building a reputation.” Why did he look like he didn’t believe me?
“Since I heard the rumor over in Greenville, I’d say this job has already brought you great visibility. You can’t pay for free marketing like that.”
The bratty daughter in me wanted to point out if you paid for free marketing it wouldn’t be free. I refrained with a stiff smile.
“If you can carry this off, this is going to look well on the Devine name. This will reflect well on our reputation.” He’d wandered over to the windows to check out the backyard. “Is the yardscape part of the job? That pool’s going to need some work. I’ve got a guy you can talk to.”
Right. Because my job and work were all about him. My jaw clenched at the “if you can carry this off” part. Had he already forgotten the good work I’d put in for the family business? Or had he never given me credit at all? He totally knew that the work accomplished in the post-finishing division was because of me and not my stepbrother. Or did he make up his own reality in order to keep bragging about the stepsons that were going to continue the family business?
“Yes, the yardscape is included. And I’ve got my own guy, but thank you.” I might have growled that last part, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Your confidence in me warms my heart.”
“Seriously, who got you this job? Are you dating one of the hockey players on King’s team?”
Oh. My. God. He did not just say that. I just—I couldn’t—I just didn’t understand that kind of thinking.
“No, Dad, I didn’t sleep with anyone to get this job. Is that how you get jobs?”
“Nice to see you still have that smart mouth, Sam.” He finally turned to look at me, sizing me up, calculating what would be best for him and Devine and Sons, I bet. “You know, Sam, if you do pull this off… This could make me see your place in the family business in a whole new light. This would give me a solid defense to put your name in for a job on the level with your brothers. There’d be no way the board could turn you down after this job. I mean, think of the attention you’d garner for us with this.”
