“Sure was, especially coming from you,” she admonished.
Rhian almost blurted out that he wasn’t gay, desperate to confess the truth before the hole he was digging got any deeper, but he didn’t want it to sound like he was making an excuse for saying something idiotic. He shouldn’t have assumed Kieran was straight, regardless of whether or not he himself was gay.
He was still trying to figure out when exactly he was going to set Savannah straight—so to speak—when she drove past a beautiful village with a huge inn and a handful of shops, then put on her blinker and turned down an even windier, narrower street.
A half mile later, they parked behind a line of cars in a long driveway.
“We’re here!” Savannah declared needlessly.
He stared at the white picket fence. Figures.
Dragging his ass from the car, he followed her up the path to the wide front porch. She hadn’t even knocked before the door was thrown open and an attractive older couple rushed out.
“Mom! Dad!”
Savannah hugged her mother and her father embraced them both.
Rhian’s legs twitched with the desire to run down the driveway and to the street. There had to be a bus station somewhere.
Savannah’s mom pulled away and they all turned to him. Rhian plastered a smile on his face.
“Mom, Dad, this is my friend, Rhian Savage.”
Mr. Morrison thrust out his hand. “Hello. Welcome to our home.”
Rhian shook Mr. Morrison’s hand, surprised by the sheer force of the older man’s grip. Not rude, but unexpected for a man his age. Mr. Morrison radiated good health and kindness.
“You did great this season, son. It’s a pleasure to meet you. The B’s were embarrassing us until you came along.”
Rhian blinked at the hint of a Scottish accent and Mr. Morrison’s enormous smile. “Thank you, sir.”
“Call me Bruce. This is my wife, Mary,” he said, putting a hand on her back.
She smiled, and Rhian was looking at a silver-haired version of Savannah. “Ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having me to your home.”
“Oh, good lord,” Mary said with a delighted laugh. “Don’t call me ma’am. It’s Mary. Or Mom. You have to be the politest young man we’ve had here in a long time. And I am counting my own children in that.” The last sentence was called over her shoulder to anyone listening through the door.
Rhian smiled. How could he not? She was as sassy and beautiful as her daughter. “Thank you, Mary.”
“Oh, you are just adorable. It’s so nice to meet you.” She had him in a hug before he knew what hit him.
Rhian blinked, taken aback. God help him, the Morrisons were like Garrick and Savannah. She’d suggested he could call her Mom, for God’s sake. He might as well have been vacationing on Mars.
Savannah put a hand on his arm. “Uh, Mom …”
Rhian heard Savannah’s concern and for reasons he wasn’t going to spend a lot of time dwelling on, he embraced the beautiful woman in his arms. Mary’s hold tightened, her hand rubbing between his shoulder blades as if she sensed he needed comfort.
Which he didn’t.
She stepped back and smiled up at him, her green gaze warm, her hands lingering on his shoulders. She had the same clear-eyed look as Savannah.
But while Savannah saw more than she should, Rhian was certain her mother saw every damn thing.
Savannah sat with her mom at the old, scarred kitchen table, tucked in a corner with their plates and mugs of tea. It was always a comfort to retreat to this house, this room in particular. Savannah had grown up here. At this table. She wished she’d had more time to come home since. She always felt at peace here. Safe.
Not that the house was peaceful right now. The air rang with howls of victory and defeat from the family room, where the guys were watching the playoffs. Savannah fought the urge to get up and check on Rhian.
Rhian was a professional hockey player. He’d watched big games from the bench. Even her family couldn’t replicate that kind of noise.
She smiled into her tea when her mom popped up and peeked through the door.
Her mother smiled reassuringly when she came back. “He’s fine.”
“I know.”
“You do? Because I was beginning to worry that he was going to spend the entire weekend doing that deer-caught-in-the-headlights thing.”
Savannah laughed, the sound drowned out by Callum’s roar of displeasure.
“Goddamn it, Evanson, you always screw that up!”
Callum would know. They’d been on the US Team together.
Her mother rolled her eyes. “You’d think he’d stop being surprised.”
“He likes being surprised. It gives him something to shout about, since he’s not in the playoffs.”
Callum was a goalie for the Colorado Avalanche. At thirty-four, he was a veteran of the league. He was also, along with their brother Duncan, and Garrick, one of the partner-owners of the Ice Cats.
Savannah hoped Callum would focus on his new role. Enjoy it. The entire family did. They all wondered when he would give up the NHL and start having a life. He claimed he wouldn’t retire while he was still playing at the top of the league.
She smiled at her mother when Rhian’s voice joined the barrage. “Rhian will be okay. It’s just going to take him a while to get used to us, I think.”
Her mother cocked her head. “So he’ll be back? I thought you and Garrick were serious.”
“What? We are. No…oh, no. Rhian and I are just friends.”
“Okay...” Her mother paused. “And not that he’s not welcome, but how did he end up with us for the weekend?”
Savannah glanced at the doorway to make sure no one was listening before speaking softly to her mom. “Rhian found a lump, and he’s waiting for the results. The biopsy was yesterday. I couldn’t leave him alone in Boston for the weekend.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” her mom agreed, casting a long, worried glance at the family room door. “Does he have family? Do they know?”
Savannah shook her head. “No, he has no one.”
“At all?”
“Mom, the story would break your heart.” It sure as hell had put a dent in hers.
Her mom laid her hand over Savannah’s on the table. “Well, that explains why you’re so tender with him. I’ve never seen you so attuned to someone.”
Savannah sat back. Was that true?
“Are you sure Garrick doesn’t mind?” her mom asked carefully.
Savannah laughed. She could barely imagine what her mother would say if she knew the whole story.
“No, Mom. Garrick is cool. And, for what it’s worth, Rhian is gay.” She wouldn’t normally air other people’s business, but she didn’t want her mother sticking Rhian in one of the boys’ rooms, either. She wanted to keep him close.
She pictured him sleeping in one of her matching white canopy twin beds and grinned. The decor wasn’t as pink and frilly as it had once been, but he would definitely stand out in her girly room.
Her mom cocked her head. “He’s gay? Really?”
“Why are you surprised?” Her parents didn’t have any issue with anyone being gay. Ever. They had two gay sons—three if you counted Chance, who they all thought of as one of their own—and hadn’t batted an eye over it. In fact, it drove them crazy that one of their sons insisted on living at the very back of his closely guarded closet.
“No reason,” her mother said with a shrug. “I just got a different impression.”
“You did? How?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He just looks at you like…well, nevermind.” Her mother waved it away. “The important thing is that he’s here, and we’ll help you take care of him.”
“Thanks.” She squeezed her mom’s hand and pretended not to notice her continued close scrutiny. A tactical retreat was definitely in order. She stood. “I’m going to go watch the game with the guys.”
Her mother’s eyebrows
rose higher and she opened her mouth.
Savannah fled the kitchen before her mother could say another word.
Chapter Fifteen
Rhian watched, wide-eyed, as mountains of breakfast food disappeared before his very eyes. Somehow eleven people—most of whom were tall, broad-shouldered men— enjoyed a lively meal around a kitchen table designed to seat eight.
He was smashed between two of the Morrison brothers, having finally convinced Savannah that she didn’t have to hover like a mother hen. She was probably worried about his reaction to the fact that everything the Morrisons did together was loud and rambunctious. It was a little overwhelming, and he’d been quieter than usual since arriving while he tried to acclimate to the insanity.
A piece of wheat toast flew past his nose and beaned Angus in the side of the head.
Rhian gave up. He would never get used to this. But he did, surprisingly, enjoy it. The Morrisons were pretty hard to resist.
Callum sat on his right, powering through a pile of scrambled eggs and bacon. It was weird to witness his long-time hero doing something so utterly mundane. Rhian had been dangerously close to having a giddy fan-boy moment of stupidity when Callum introduced himself. He was still shocked that Callum knew who he was, had watched him play. Had sat with him while they ate dinner and talked like they were friends. They were friends, or fast on the way to becoming so.
Rhian was absurdly grateful to Garrick for showing him he could have friendships. A year ago he would have kept his distance. For a lot of reasons, he still should, but Callum Fucking Morrison was asking about his career. Giving him advice. Teasing him about the fight he’d started. How the hell could he refuse that?
On his other side sat Lachlan, the brother who appeared to be Callum’s opposite. Where Callum was loud and brash, bordering on antagonistic, Lachlan was quiet and affable. He still argued and bantered—he was a Morrison, after all—but sometimes he stood back and watched the melee with an affectionate smile.
Rhian had caught Lachlan studying him a couple times, a thoughtful expression on his face—particularly when Savannah was nearby. That made Rhian nervous, but whenever he spoke with Lachlan, he felt at ease, as if he’d known the man for years, not hours. It was disarming. He’d never met anyone as smart or educated as Lachlan. It should have made him hard to talk to, but the opposite was true.
Squashed between these two men, Rhian focused on being polite and not eating as if someone was about to steal the food off his plate. This wasn’t like the foster houses, where there had been only so much to go around and often it hadn’t been enough for the athletic kid who skated every second he could. This morning there was sufficient food on the table to feed an army, and he had little doubt that if they ran out, Mary, Chance, and Angus—the team responsible for this morning’s feast—would simply make more.
He glanced around the table and caught more than one brother eying him speculatively. He smiled at each of them and went back to his breakfast. The looks had started last night when he’d gone to sleep in Savannah’s room. Rhian couldn’t imagine what they thought would happen on one of those silly princess beds, but it sure as hell hadn’t been more than sleeping.
No one would ever know that he’d dreamed of doing all kinds of freaky things beneath eyelet-lace canopies.
It had made for a long night, and he was tired, but he still was in much better condition than he’d been yesterday or the day before. The effects of the biopsy were definitely wearing off.
Which was good. He needed his strength. Because, god help him, if Savannah paraded around in her underpants in front of him one more time, he was going to have heart failure.
Smiling around his bite of toast, he caught Savannah’s curious gaze and winked. Callum shifted, leaning into him, glaring at Rhian with narrow eyes and more than a hint of warning.
Savannah rolled her eyes and Rhian smirked. These guys didn’t mess around. It was a miracle Savannah dated at all, let alone had the guts to bring a man home. And Rhian was just a friend. Garrick, as the boyfriend, was going to be put through the wringer.
The idea made Rhian downright gleeful.
Maybe if he was feeling generous someday, he’d warn Garrick to reserve a room at the inn down the street. Kieran and Chance had stayed there last night, forsaking the bunk beds in Kieran and Duncan’s old room. The rest of the brothers had mocked them for bailing out, but Chance was unapologetic. He’d told them, in no uncertain terms, that he was too old to crawl into a top bunk and his husband’s shoulders were too damn broad to share a twin bed.
None of the brothers seemed the least bit bothered by Kieran being gay or Chance joking about their sleeping arrangements. Indeed, their suggestions for workable sleeping positions had been nothing short of graphic—and often physically impossible. It was a good thing neither parent had been in the room at the time. Mary and Bruce spent lot of time and energy affectionately reminding this rowdy crew to behave themselves.
He scraped every trace of food from his plate with his last corner of toast.
Mary smiled at him. “Would you like more?”
“Yes, please. This is all wonderful. The eggs are terrific.”
“Oh, here she goes,” groaned someone down the table.
“What a nice boy you are, Rhian Savage.” Mary jumped from her seat and shot dirty looks at her children. “Did you hear that, kids? He complemented my cooking. He was polite and charming. Can you imagine?”
Seven pairs of eyes rolled.
Angus muttered, loudly, “I made the damn eggs. She made the toast.”
Rhian’s lips twitched.
“I’ll tell you what, Bruce.” Mary raised her voice above the growing commentary. “I’d like to snap this one right up and keep him for myself. You’re lucky he plays for the other team.”
Kieran sat up and beamed at Rhian. “Go team!”
Rhian gurgled around his orange juice.
“Mom!” Savannah shot Rhian a horrified look. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
Everyone stared at him with varying degrees of surprise and amusement. Rhian’s face heated.
He’d been outed, which was bad, really bad, but now he was also effectively lying to the entire family.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Ummm…not really.”
Savannah blinked. “What?”
“Well, yes…” He hesitated, not sure how to say this in front of her mother. “For that team. But also…you know, for the other.” He pointed vaguely as if the teams in question were sitting on either side of him, his face hotter with every word.
Mary’s hand patted his shoulder. “You mean you’re bi, dear.”
Kieran’s shoulders convulsed and milk shot out his nose.
Duncan dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter. “Ma!”
“What?” Mary asked innocently. “That’s what it’s called.”
Rhian was now, without a doubt, beet-fucking-red.
Not that anyone would notice. Most of the brothers had their heads in their hands or down on the table, having dissolved into hysterics. Kieran coughed, repeatedly, trying to clear his sinus cavity while his husband pounded on his back and roared with laughter.
Savannah’s father slammed his fist on the table so hard their dishes jumped. “Enough! You’re embarrassing our guest.” Rhian could tell he was trying to look stern, but it was obvious how hard he fought not to laugh.
Rhian tried to smile gratefully, but it ended up more like a wince and a grimace. Swallowing, he smiled weakly at Savannah. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you thought that until…well, until recently. I thought you knew. I mean, hell, I asked you out once, or did you forget?”
She didn’t look pissed off. That had to be some kind of miracle.
“Of course I remember, but when I heard about you and Gahhhh…” She barely stopped herself in time. She swallowed. “When I found out you were gay, I figured you were just looking for me to be your beard.”
Rhian shook his head. “I’ll a
sk you all to keep this to yourselves,” he said, raising his voice enough to be heard over the lingering chuckles. Everyone nodded immediately. “But it’s cool. I wouldn’t fabricate some elaborate lie just to fool people.”
In the span of one breath, everyone went dead silent.
Savannah’s eyes bulged, and Rhian was pretty sure she mouthed oh shit. Her gaze flickered between him and Callum. As did everyone else’s. Rhian’s stomach plummeted to his feet.
What have I done?
Thirty seconds too late, he pictured countless photographs of Callum and celebrity model Michaela Price. They’d been dating for years, and the media speculated constantly on when they would marry.
But she wasn’t here. And Callum hadn’t mentioned her once.
Rhian tried to stand. Lachlan’s hand clamped on his arm and kept him where he was.
God, he was an idiot. Why didn’t he keep his mouth shut? He didn’t know how to be with these people. Now he’d insulted one of them. A man he’d admired for years and whose kindness he’d cherished.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why wouldn’t Lachlan let him leave?
The excruciating silence stretched.
Savannah bit her lip and looked at him with such pity, he wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. Then she narrowed her eyes. “I cannot believe you let me walk around in my underwear in front of you!”
As distractions went, she’d picked a winner. The room exploded, half the men leaping to their feet, everyone shouting their outrage. Brothers, father, brother-in-law all skewered him with death-ray glares.
Rhian had never in his life been so fucking happy to be thrown to the wolves.
He just wished Callum would do something other than sit in his chair, silent.
Rhian laughed when Bruce leaped to his defense only when someone threatened parts of Rhian’s body Bruce considered necessary to play hockey. The list of sacred parts was a lot shorter than Rhian liked. There was one in particular that seemed to be under constant threat that he’d really like to keep.
God help the man who ever truly hurt Savannah. Her family would squash that son of a bitch like a bug.
The Hat Trick Box Set Page 54
