The Guardian Groom_Texas Titans Romance

by Lucy McConnell

  His heart cramped at the memory of lying on a picnic blanket and watching the leaves shift in the breeze, the sunlight filtering through to warm Tammy’s skin before he kissed her shoulder. They were perfect for one another—except her family didn’t think so and told her as much, repeatedly. In fact, they repeated it so often that Tammy started to believe it too.

  He tossed his groceries into the trunk of his Benz, not caring that the bananas were bruised or the potatoes punctured by his cleats. He would not kiss Bree. There was no telling what a kiss from her could do to him, and he wasn’t ready to open a bottle that had been placed on a shelf for a reason.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bree strode across the tile mosaic floor, her hands clasped behind her back as she studied the intricate leaf design in the ceiling paint. Owen stood four feet away, his chin lifted as well. This was the third church on the tour loop. While they’d had cordial interactions, their previous comradery was absent, leaving her to wonder if she’d forced her way into this outing. Maybe he didn’t know how to tell her he’d rather be alone and had let her come out of a sense of chivalry or something.

  Instead of his bike, Owen drove them in his fancy black car. While Bree appreciated the air conditioning, she was disappointed. On the bike, she got to sit close to Owen and hold on to him. In the car, she got to hold on to the leather door handle. Not even close to the same thing.

  At least she had something to hold on to, because Owen’s mood had shifted between the supermarket and picking her up, and she wasn’t sure what she’d done.

  “I heard that the priest applied for a grant to have the ceiling restored,” she said in a whisper. Her pastor said the Holy Ghost talked in whispers, and in a church, she didn’t want to drown out inspiration.

  “That would be nice. The paint’s faded.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Probably not as much as we think. When the artwork was commissioned, pastel shades were all the rage.”

  “Huh.” He made his way to the confessional to inspect the woodwork.

  “The carvings were all done by hand,” she supplied. “By the priest who lived here over eighty years ago. There’s a joke that his sermons would put the Devil to sleep, but people came back week after week to see his handiwork.”

  He ran his fingertips across the arch. “Did you grow up here?”

  “I did.”

  “What was it like?”

  She studied him. “It was … I’m not even sure if I could come up with one word to describe the experience.” She began to meander down the side of the pews, her hand brushing the well-worn wood backs. Owen stayed on her right and just behind her. “My dad left before I was born—said he didn’t want to be a dad.” Her voice sounded hollow in the deserted building, though that might have been the echo of her father’s abandonment in her heart. “So it was just me and Mom. Mom worked and I would read.”

  “It sounds—”

  “Lonely,” she finished for him.

  His eyebrows drew together. “I was going to say quiet. But it’s interesting that you said lonely.”

  She should have been embarrassed to have her deepest feelings revealed, but she wasn’t. Not with Owen. His face was open and his eyes accepting. “I was lonely—except for when I was reading. Then I had dozens of friends to go on adventures with. I know, I’m such a nerd.”

  He chuckled. “You wear it well.”

  She took that as a compliment. “What about you?”

  “I was raised in a big city, but my family was dirt-floor poor. I hated it. I hated wearing my brother’s shirts, hated not having Twinkies in my lunch like all the other kids. Hated being different.” A steel look of determination glinted in his eyes, daring Bree to contradict him—to tell him he should have been more mature. Or that he should look at how far he’d come and be proud of himself. Or be thankful to have siblings when she had none.

  “I can’t say I enjoyed wearing Goodwill dresses and sleeping on a mattress with holes in it because we didn’t have money to replace it.” She reached the end of the pews and faced him, her hands clasped in front of her.

  The steel melted away and his defenses came down. He nodded once, as if accepting her into some sort of club. She hadn’t done anything to earn entrance except be honest about her feelings, and yet she had revealed a part of herself that she usually kept hidden, and that took courage. “I left my parents’ house the day I graduated and I haven’t been back.”

  “Do they know you’re a big star?”

  One cheek lifted and his eye crinkled, almost closing. “They’re too proud to ask for money and too poor to come to a game. Mom calls every few months, but there isn’t much to say—we live in different worlds now. She has enough to worry about with my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  He sighed heavily. “She got pregnant at sixteen and there was a big deal about who the father was, and then she got pregnant again at seventeen with someone else. So they’re raising her kids and still trying to raise her.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “It sucks. I stay away because the press would laugh over them, and while they aren’t the best parents in the world, they aren’t bad people.” He tucked his thumbs into his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

  “And your nickname?” she prompted. “How’d you get that?”

  “I-I don’t hang out with the guys on the team. People have this picture of a football team and think we’re all best friends and hang out at each other’s houses. While that’s true for a few of the guys, it’s not for all of us.”

  His words carried a heavy case of regret. She shoved his shoulder. “Am I your only friend?”

  He rolled his eyes. “There’s Kyle.”

  “So I’m your only girlfriend.” As soon as the words were out, she wished she had them on a fishing line and could reel them right back in. “Not girlfriend girlfriend—just friend that’s of the female persuasion.”

  His cheeks spread. He picked her up and hugged her. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

  She smacked his arm hard and kicked her dangling feet. “Don’t call me cute.” She spoke much louder than a whisper.

  He laughed, the sound bouncing off aged tile and empty seats.

  The priest appeared in his black robes and three chin moles and shooed them out. “This is the Lord’s church,” he scolded them, which only made Owen laugh harder. Bree slinked out of the building.

  Owen was still holding his sides when they landed in the car.

  “What is wrong with you?” She poked him. “We just got kicked out of church! Do you know what the penalty for that is?”

  He composed his face, barely holding it together. “What?”

  Bree searched her vast memory for the answer. “Purgatory?”

  He scoffed.

  She went to poke him again. He grabbed her hand, and electricity shot up her arm. She stared at their hands. His touch was like walking into a warm waterfall.

  His gaze deepened and his hand brushed a stray hair from her cheek. “What are you doing to me, Bree?”

  “The same thing you’re doing to me?”

  His eyes dropped to her mouth and back up again. She moistened her lips in anticipation, hoping he meant to follow through with his unspoken promise to kiss her. He leaned closer.

  Bree’s breath hitched. She could count on her fingers the number of men who’d kissed her over the years. Each kiss an experience, but none of them had blown her away. Owen’s kiss would set up a wind that had the power to knock her off her feet, she could feel it, and she wanted to fall.

  “Can I ask you a question?” His voice was hoarse and gravely and delicious.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Why do you wear those shoes?”

  “What?”

  He dropped her hand and the waterfall abruptly cut off. “Your shoes. They’re … not cute.”

  She glanced down at the white and brown oxford-style shoes she’d thrown on as she ran out
the door. How had this become about her shoes? “I don’t know. I thought they looked smart.” She clicked the toes together.

  He shook his head.

  She leaned across the console to look at his feet. The smell of his body wash tantalized her senses. She would love to fall asleep with that smell in her head. Though if he was close enough to smell when she was supposed to sleep, she wouldn’t be able to blink a wink. He’d wanted to kiss her; the signs were all there. Why he didn’t was beyond her. She’d have let him.

  He wore sneakers, shiny ones. Black. Expensive. He started the car and pulled out of the lot.

  “I definitely can’t afford those.” She plopped back in her seat and breathed the non-stimulating air from the vent. “Besides, I always thought I had ugly feet.”

  “Not possible.”

  “You’re such a guy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You have no idea what women go through to wear open-toed shoes.”

  Models. Actresses. He knew. “I think I have a slight grasp on the concept.” With a sudden burst of inspiration, he headed into town.

  “The next church is the other way.”

  “I know. We’ve had a change of plans.”

  Bree settled back into the seat. She didn’t care where they were going as long as she was going with him.

  * * *

  “If I’d known you were going to expose me to this torture, I would have insisted you take me home.”

  Owen folded his arms across his chest. Bree’s gaze dropped to his biceps and then went back up to his face. She sat on a small bench, several boxes open, exposing the tissue and plastic coatings on the new boots awaiting her approval, and her shoes sat a good three feet away.

  He’d almost kissed her in the car. Almost.

  “It’s a boot store—not an open-toe shoe store.” In a town this size, they were lucky to have the boot store.

  “But I don’t wear cowboy boots.”

  He lifted a finger. “Yet.”

  She groaned. “You’re impossible.”

  “Thank you.” He took a knee and sorted through the options. The red weren’t Bree’s style. She was adventurous but not showy. The black were bad-A, but still not quite her. Although he wouldn’t mind her in those on the back of his bike. Finally, he settled on a brown pair with emerald stitching up the side. “Try these on.”

  She glared. “Bossy much?”

  “Much.” He pushed the box closer to her.

  “I didn’t know my shoes offended you this badly.”

  He sniffed at them in disdain. “Shoes say a lot about a person.”

  “And what do my shoes say about me—dare I ask?”

  He cringed. “Let’s just say that they don’t speak to your true nature.”

  She rolled her hands, encouraging him to continue.

  He kicked one of her shoes with the toe of his sneaker. “These are boring, uninteresting. You are neither.”

  She stared at him. “You think I’m interesting?”

  “Excruciatingly.”

  “I’m not sure that means what you think it means.”

  He caught the quote from The Princess Bride, and it made his heart light. However, he’d picked that word because he meant every syllable. She was so interesting that it was unbearable. A man could lose sleep thinking about her—he’d lost sleep contemplating Bree. Therefore, he didn’t respond.

  She lifted her foot and slid it inside the boot. “I feel like my toes are being strangled.”

  “It’s a pointed toe.”

  She frowned. “It’s a pinching apparatus.”

  Owen had to turn away so she wouldn’t see his you’re-cute smile. No one on earth talked like Bree. Pinching apparatus?

  She rustled through the tissue and came up with a darker brown leather boot with a black fringe. He hadn’t pointed to that boot when talking to the salesgirl, who now hovered hopefully near the register. She was the same girl who’d helped him and Kyle when they came in for polka-appropriate wear. He hoped she worked on commission, because he would pay lots of money to get rid of Bree’s ugly shoes.

  Bree’s eyes danced right along with the fringe on the boots.

  “See?” He pointed at her. “That is why shoes are important. They make you happy.”

  She giggled. “I can’t believe I’m even trying these on!” She slipped her feet inside both boots and pranced back and forth. “They’re surprisingly comfortable.”

  Caught up in her enjoyment, Owen grabbed her around the middle as she pranced by. “But can you polka in them?”

  Her eyes sparkled with challenge. “Let’s find out.”

  He bounced twice and they were off, galloping around the clothing racks and belt buckle display cases. When they finished their loop, Bree was breathing hard and smiling so big her glasses lifted.

  Not thinking, Owen leaned down and kissed her. It was a fast kiss, the kind that a husband gives his wife when he comes home from work or a boyfriend gives his girlfriend knowing her father is on the other side of the door, but it slammed into him like a 350-pound defensive lineman.

  He froze in place. Bree pressed her palm to her forehead, not breaking eye contact. “What was that for?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. I—I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” Her nose crinkled in concentration.

  He snatched his hands away from her, leaving a gaping hole between them. “I crossed a line. It won’t happen again.”

  “Okay.” She dropped to the seat and leaned over, fiddling with the fringe on the boots.

  “Okay?” She was okay with not kissing again? He barely resisted taking her by the arms and testing her resolve. “Bree?” He sat next to her, careful to keep several inches between them. “I really am sorry. Please don’t let this get weird between us.”

  “Is there an us?” She lifted her warm brown eyes, and his heart pounded against his ribs—as if it would rather be in her hands than in his chest.

  He applied his cereal-box grin. “I thought we established you’re my only friend of the female persuasion.” Really, with how much Kyle worked, she was his only friend. And Kyle was out of town with family obligations again. This week it was his parents’ anniversary.

  Bree’s phone rang. She frantically dug it out of her purse and glanced at the screen. “It’s my mom. I have to take this.”

  There were no other words in the English language that could have doused his desire for more than friendship with Bree faster than it’s my mom coupled with I have to take this. “Of course.” He rocketed to his feet, propelled by the fuel of past hurts and a spurned heart, and moved far enough away to give her some privacy. The distance wasn’t enough to forget that kiss—however brief. Because within those precious seconds, his soul had rejoiced and his heart expanded beyond anything he’d ever felt for Tammy.

  The kiss had taught him something about himself: he wasn’t immune to love.

  He flipped up the arm of a sleeve and stared at the size tag. He wasn’t in love with Bree. That would be stupid. He couldn’t fall for someone he’d known for such a short time. Love was a lifetime kind of experience. You had to know someone for years before real love developed. And then you had to live in that love for years longer before you could know if they were the one. There was no shortcut. Like in football. You drilled, you ran stairs, you lifted, and you paid your dues, and if you did everything just right, you made it.

  There were no shortcuts to success in football or in love.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “He kissed you?”

  “Yep.” Bree lay on the circulation desk the next night after closing, her legs dangled off the edge, her boots swinging. Audrey was creating new labels for the books that had come in with the mail that afternoon. The two of them usually went through the selection and pulled their favorites—that weren’t on hold for a patron, of course. Unless there was a book that translated football player into librarian, Bree wasn’t interested.

  “And then b
acked off.”

  Bree dug her fingers into her scalp. “Basically said it was the biggest mistake of his life, he just wants to be friends, and could I forget it ever happened.”

  “What did you do?”

  She sighed. She straightened her leg and pointed at her newly beloved fringe-covered boots. “I let him buy me a new pair of shoes.”

  Audrey laughed. “I’m impressed he got you in the store in the first place.”

  “Followed him in like an innocent child who was offered candy.”

  “He is eye candy.”

  “That he is.” Bree dug her fingers into her stomach to strangle the butterflies that fluttered at the very thought of Owen’s lips sweeping across hers. The movement was so natural, like they’d kissed a thousand times, and yet the impact was brand-new.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Bree relaxed heavily onto the counter. “I don’t know!” Silence followed her pronouncement, which wasn’t unusual in the library after hours. This, however, was the silence of a friend holding back words that simply must be said. “Lay it on me. I can take it.”

  “I don’t think you can.”

  Bree flipped upright. “I can.” She brushed the hair out of her face. “Truly. Lay it on me.”

  Audrey looked both ways. Bree mimicked her. They were alone, the stacks cleared and the computer screens black. “You like him.”

  Bree dropped her head back to the counter, threw one arm over her face, and groaned. “I think I must.”

  Audrey patted her arm in sympathy. “Unrequited.”

  “Tragic.” Bree threw both her arms over her head. “My life was not meant to be a Shakespearean play. Juliet I am not.”

  Audrey gasped. “Let’s hope not.”

  Bree pulled herself together both metaphorically and literally. She straightened up, smoothed her hair down, and tidied her shirt. “The time for lamentation is over.”