Page 30

MERIT

“Craig, are you all right?” I lean against a shelf, studying my delivery guy as he brings the last load of boxes through the back door. He’s definitely been acting odd today.

“Yeah, absolutely.” He stacks everything in the corner and leans on the hand truck. “So, I was just wondering… well, what I mean is…” he stumbles over his words.

“Craig, what is it?” I politely urge.

“Is it true you’re dating Holt Hill?”

Why’s he asking? “Yeah. Actually, I am.”

The awkwardness in the air is dissolved by his smile. “Oh, wow. That’s amazing.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his feet. “I saw him play in the National Championship during his senior year of college. It was in Miami, so me and some buddies went. Best game I ever saw.”

“Would you like to meet him?”

For a split second, I think Craig’s about to faint.

“Are you serious? Really?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Of course, I’m serious.” I nod my head in the direction of the storefront. “He’s out front.”

His eyes nearly bug out of his head. “Right now?! He’s out there right now?”

I don’t want him to think I’m making fun of him, so I just nod.

“Oh, Merit, that would be freakin’ awesome. Let me lock the truck, and I’ll walk around front. Is that okay?”

“Sure.” Locking the back door behind him, I make my way upfront. Leaning against the doorframe, I look around, taking in the beauty of the setting before me. It was a very busy morning, but this afternoon has been fairly slow. We haven’t even had a customer in close to an hour. Kyra’s sitting at the front counter, doing homework on her personal laptop. Holt and Heidi are sitting next to each other in the chairs, completely engrossed in the movie playing. Every time she giggles, Heidi playfully slaps his arm.

And who can blame them? The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is a classic.

I take the packing slips over to Kyra so she can scan them in the system when I’m immediately distracted by what’s on her computer.

And it’s definitely not homework.

“If you watch that video one more time, I’m gonna throw you out of my store.”

She props her elbows on the counter. “I can’t help it. It’s like soft-core porn. Which is sometimes better than the hard stuff because you get to use your imagination.”

Needless to say, when we were at the bar, Holt and I were completely oblivious to the fact that someone had their phone out and had videoed our entire dance, make-out session, and subsequent hasty retreat. And it goes without saying that our intimate moment was viral internet fodder by the next morning.

I scoot closer to her so Heidi won’t overhear us. “You know Emily made a pass at Holt the other day.”

Kyra’s jaw drops. “You’re kidding me? I hope you fired her ass.” She shuts her laptop, mumbling underneath her breath, “What a moron.”

“Holt said she apologized and immediately backed off when he turned her down.”

“So, you didn’t fire her?”

I shake my head. Right then, the front door buzzes, and Craig timidly walks in. I could be wrong, but it looks like he combed his hair and put on a clean shirt.

Holt and Heidi stand up, thinking a customer has come in and it’s time for Heidi to work. Craig immediately starts to fangirl, bouncing from one foot to the other.

Walking around the corner, I grab his elbow and force him to walk within arm’s distance of Holt. “Craig, this is my boyfriend, Holt. Holt, this is Craig, the best delivery man in the county and my friend.”

It’s one of the funniest interactions I’ve ever seen. I have to take four-thousand pictures with Craig’s phone. He even asks Holt for a penny.

They’re talking about football when my cell phone rings. I show Holt my home screen with my mom’s picture flashing and point to the back room. He nods, understanding I’m leaving him alone with the needy fan. He should be used to it, though.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, sweetie. How are you?”

We chat for a few minutes, talking about each other’s days.

“Well, what are your plans for this weekend?” she asks.

“Nothing really. We had Holt’s football game last night. His team won again, of course. I think the kids are coming over tomorrow afternoon to swim. This will be the last weekend for it because the nights are starting to get pretty chilly. It’s been a long and hot summer. In fact, I don’t really remember any other summer in which we’ve still been able to swim in October. Do you? I was gonna come in and do some work, but I wanna see them, so I’ll just save it for Monday. Why?”

“So, no bar visits?” I can hear the laugher in her voice.

Red hot flames of embarrassment fire in my body, like an engine combusting. “I knew it! I knew you knew! We’ve talked every daggum day, Mom, and you haven’t said anything.”

She laughs so hard she can hardly breathe. “I was just letting it soak in.”

I flop down at the small table in the back. “Oh my gosh, everybody saw? Daddy? Granny?”

She snorts. “Of course, everybody saw. We live in the sticks…not in a cave.”

A small river of shame runs through me, making me feel weak. Making me feel like I used to feel. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You take that tone right out of your voice, Merit Eliza. Why are you sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for.” She pauses for a second. “Besides, he looks like a great kisser.”

I slap my hand against my forehead, but I’m unable to hide my laugh. It may be gross to know that my mom is thinking about Holt’s kisses, but her comment does pull me out of my funk, instantly making me feel better. “And what about Daddy?”

“Well, it took him a few more days to come around. I mean, he did see his daughter dry-humping someone on the evening news.”

“It was not on the evening news,” I scoff.

“Might as well have been.” I hear her take a drink of water. “Just so you know, he called your father to apologize.”

“Who called?”

“Holt.”

“Holt called Daddy?”

“Yep.”

It takes me a minute to formulate a response. “What for?”

“To apologize for the video. He wanted your father to know that he respects you and would never objectify you to the world as just some plaything. He told your father that his intentions are pure.”

“What intentions?” I whisper.

“Don’t be stupid, girl. This is going somewhere, isn’t it? Somewhere real?”

“Yes.”

“You love him?”

I think before I answer. But it doesn’t matter how hard I think, it doesn’t change my mind. It doesn’t make me regret what I’m about to say. “Yes.”

“Have you told him?”

“No.”

“And just why not?” Mom asks.

I fiddle with an ink pen, clicking it open and close. “Because I’m scared.”

“What about him? Does he love you?”

“Yes. He’s told me on more than one occasion.” I get choked up just thinking about him saying the words. They’re beautiful and overwhelming and sacred.

Mom sighs. “Merit, the past is the past. There’s nothing you can do to change it. All you can do is move forward. Live a life full of happiness. Don’t waste another single second being unhappy. That’s power you are giving to Edward that he no longer deserves. It’s your turn to be happy, sweet girl.”

I jump a mile in my skin when Holt’s arm snakes around my shoulder. “Hey, Marie,” he calls in the phone.

I drop the phone, and it skitters across the table. I fumble around, getting it back in my hand. “Aghh. Sorry, Mom, I dropped you.”

“Tell Holt I say hi back.”

I roll my eyes and give Holt the message.

“Well, I better let you go. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

Holt sits down in the chair next to mine. “Scared of what?”

My brow furrows. “Huh?”

“When I came in, I heard you saying you were scared of something.”

I jump from my seat. Walking over to a shelf, I straighten a shoe box. “Oh nothing.” I quickly switch the subject, “How did it go with Craig?”

Holt grabs the hem of my T-shirt and pulls me. Guiding me backward, he forces me to sit on the tabletop. Sliding his chair between my legs, he lays his head down on my stomach. “I’m mentally exhausted. He was a super-nice guy, but it felt like I was in the middle of a press junket. He just wouldn’t stop talking.” He lifts up, looking at me with his deep blue eyes. “And he’s very happy to be the new owner of one of my shiny pennies.”

“Thank you. I’ll have the happiest delivery driver in the Southeast.” I lick my lips, studying his beauty. His blond waves are a little longer than normal. He said he’s going for a haircut next week. He knows I like the sexy scruff along the line of his firm jaw, so he hasn’t shaved in two weeks. His bronzed skin is highlighted by the slight sunburn on the apples of his cheeks. My finger traces the freckles painted across the bridge of his nose. I drag my hand down his neck and circle his small scar.

“Did it hurt?”

“What? My injury?”

I nod. “I just realized that we’ve never talked about it. I’ve never told you how sorry I am, sorry that you had to stop playing the game that meant so much to you.”

He sighs, and one side of his mouth tilts up. “So, ask me.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Hurt like hell. But that’s not the question you need to ask.”

“What question do I need to ask?”

“ What happened ,” he says.

The Internet has thousands of pieces of information about Holt, and no matter how you search, articles about his career-ending injury pull up first. It’s always at the top of the list. As always, the bad outweighs the good, at least where human curiosity is concerned.

July was the second anniversary of his injury. Apparently, he was at home in North Carolina and was attempting to change a light bulb when he fell off the interior, second-story balcony of his condo. He landed on the wooden coffee table in his living room. He broke a vertebra in his neck and tore nearly everything in his knee.

My brow furrows. “But I know what happened.”

He pulls his chair closer and squeezes my waist. “Do you?” His voice is filled with an unusual urging, laced with surprise and anticipation.

My heart beats a little faster, and for some strange reason, worry shadows over me. “What happened?”

“I didn’t fall off a balcony while changing a light bulb.” He pauses, gauging my reaction. “I jumped off a cliff.”

Huh? “You jumped off a cliff?”

“Yep.”

What the hell? “Willingly?”

He laughs, gliding his hands across my thighs, making me shiver. “Yes, willingly. Very willingly, as a matter of fact.”

A deep-seated fear covers my heart in concrete, weighing it down. My whisper is broken and strained. “Did you try to kill yourself?”

He jumps in shock. After a split second, he bursts out laughing. Wrapping his hand around my neck, he softly kisses me. “No. I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” Leaning back, he stares at me, adoringly. “You probably don’t know this, but Ridge’s family has a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. His grandparents retired there, and his family inherited it when they passed. We’ve all been there for vacation. It’s beautiful. It’s in a private, gated community that has its own hiking trails cut in the mountains. There’s even a branch of the Little Pigeon River that runs through there.

“Well, that’s where Anna wanted to go for her fifth birthday. Raylee was pregnant with Ty, so we wanted to make it special for her since it would be her last birthday as an only child. One day, we all went hiking. It’s a trail we’ve all been on a thousand times. It’s on a bluff, leading to the river, and the top has the most amazing views. What none of us knew was that heavy rains had been happening nearly every single day for the two weeks before our trip. The ground was soft.”

I watch as his eyes cloud with painful memories of the past. A frown plagues his face. “She ran ahead of me. I should’ve stopped her, but I didn’t.” He shakes his head and his voice breaks. “I could see her, you know? I could see her so I thought she was safe.”

My throat clenches, and my breath catches in my lungs, refusing to come out.

“She saw a flower that she wanted to pick. She was close to the edge of the ravine, but not so close I was worried about her falling. And then… the whole side just gave way and she fell.”

I gasp, covering my mouth with my hand.

“She was there one second and gone the next.” He swallows. “Like I said, we’ve been there a lot. I knew that trail. I knew what was below that trail’s edge. About twenty feet down, there’s a rock ledge that sticks out—part of a massive boulder, part of the mountain itself. It’s about three feet wide. I raced up there, and there she was. Curled in a little ball and about to roll off the side.”

He pulls his bottom lip against his teeth. “I jumped. There wasn’t time to wait so I just jumped. Pulled her into my arms right as she was about to roll off the ledge. I mean, we were on a mountain. The next drop would’ve killed her.”

Sighing, he drags his hands through his hair. When he doesn’t say anything, I press him. “Was Anna okay?”

He smiles and makes a sweet little noise. “Kids are resilient. Ridge has seen a lot as a firefighter and paramedic, and he always says kids are like rubber bands. They bend and flop, and it takes a lot to break them. Well, he’s right. Besides a few scratches and bruises, she was fine.”

I shake my head at the truths he’s just shared. “But you weren’t,” I state the obvious.

“Not exactly.”

My finger reaches back out and traces his scar again.

He turns his neck, giving me a better look. “Blew the disc between C6 and C7.” He lifts his leg and hitches his foot against the table. He rubs the tangle of scars on his left knee. “Shredded my ACL, PCL, and MCL.” He sets his leg back down and stares at me.

He’s literally just blown my mind. It takes me a minute to gather my thoughts. “How did you get out?”

“Ridge was there, of course, so he took charge of everything. He had rappelling gear at the cabin. We got Anna out of there, and then he got me.”

“I don’t understand. I mean, I watched a press conference about your injury. You did interviews after your medical retirement and talked about falling off the balcony.”

He tugs on my ass, pulling me closer to him. “I lied.”

“You lied?” My voice hitches, rising an octave.

“I promised not to lie to you. Reporters?” He chuckles, “Well, I made them no such promise.”

“But how? How could something like this stay secret?”

“Will and Raylee immediately took Anna to the local hospital. But I went all the way back home to North Carolina.”

“You drove home with a broken neck and a jacked-up knee? Weren’t you in pain?”

His eyes widen. “Unbearable. But Ridge drove me. I just sat in the passenger seat writhing in agony.” He snorts, “I didn’t have any painkillers so I drank nearly a fifth of whiskey on the ride.”

“Good lord, you’re lucky alcohol poisoning wasn’t added to the list. Why would you do that? Why not go to the hospital?”

“I spent my whole career trying to shield my family from the craziness of the paparazzi. If they knew what really happened, they would bombard them. They would be pounding on Raylee’s door wanting interviews with Anna.” His lips thin in anger. “There’s no way I was allowing that to happen.”

He brushes a hair from my face and twists it between his fingers. “So, we went to my condo. I took a shower, washed the mountain dirt off, and sobered up. We cooked up the story of falling off the balcony.” He chuckles. “I think breaking my coffee table with a sledgehammer was Ridge’s favorite part. And then…we called an ambulance.

“I lied to the doctors, but I told the truth to my coaches and the team owner. I didn’t want anything to come back on me and affect my medical payout. It was determined that how I got my injury didn’t matter, the outcome was the same. I couldn’t play. So, knowing that my medical retirement was intact, they agreed to use the balcony fall as the official story. They knew I didn’t want my family involved.”

I sit, absorbing everything he said.

“I was in a neck and knee brace for two months. Then, I kicked ass in physical therapy. Lived in the gym. Got in the best shape of my life. I moved back here the following January and got my teaching job that summer. I was terrified I would hate coaching. Terrified it wouldn’t be as fun as playing. But it is. I love it.”

He licks his lips. “And I wouldn’t have met you if I hadn’t come back home. If I hadn’t gotten injured, I’d still be in North Carolina. Playing, winning, trying to find peace with a life in the spotlight.”

“Dating models?” I quip.

“Nah, I think this season was supposed to be a Grammy award-winning singer,” he jokes.

I look down, watching his hands as they skim up and down my legs. The calloused graze of his fingertips is mesmerizing. Sliding off the table, I straddle him on the chair. I lean forward, kissing his scar. “I can’t believe you did that. You risked your life for your niece. You could’ve died trying to save her.” Holt’s fierce love of his family makes me love him even more. I want him. Forever and ever. “I’m sorry you got hurt. But I’m not sorry that it made you mine.”

As soon as I finish my sentence, his mouth is on my own. Exploring and tasting and branding me.

“Hey, Merit, do you have any more of the pink and yellow tie-dye socks back here?” Kyra’s voice interrupts us. She says oops, but she doesn’t really sound sorry.

There’s a growling rumble deep in Holt’s chest. His words fog against my neck, leaving moisture in their wake. “And what’s the status on those new friends we’re supposed to be getting?”

I laugh and snort. Pushing myself off him—despite my desire to do nothing but kiss him for the rest of the day—I dig in one of the new delivery boxes for socks. “I’ll be there in a minute, Kyra.”

When she turns the corner, walking back into the front, Holt hollers after her. “Make that a couple of minutes, Kyra.”

I open my mouth to object, but the playful gleam in his eyes has me locking my jaw and biting back a smile. In one swift movement, he’s by my side, hauling my body against his. Tingles fire from the top of my scalp to the bottom of my toes. His tongue darts out, licking the column of my neck. The moan falling from my lips is completely involuntary. My response to Holt is a reflex; it’s a part of who I am now. It’s imprinted into my soul and will last for the rest of my life and into eternity.

“The thought of having to wait until tonight before I can have your naked body beneath me is pure torture. I wanna spend all day wrapped in your love, baby.” He suckles on the soft skin below my ear. “But I guess I’ll have to settle for the next two or three minutes.”

I grind myself against his erection. “And tell me, sir , what does the famous Holt Hill think he can do in the next ninety seconds?” Gifting him with a mischievous grin, I wink at him, giving him a dose of his own medicine.

“Oh, let me fucking show you.” And with that, his mouth crashes back into mine.