Tackled by Lisa Suzanne

CHAPTER 6

“We leave for Denver next Sunday,” Jack says the next morning. He’s standing by the refrigerator with an orange Gatorade, and I just walked in from the family room, where I was catching up on the lessons posted today while he promised he’d behave himself as he got some work done in his office. I mean I can’t be literally on top of him twenty-four-seven...even if I’m starting to want exactly that.

Besides, I’ve studied his pattern. He’s gotten into trouble when he heads out to the bar and drinks the night away with his buddies. The middle of the day seems to be far less problematic.

“Thank you,” I breathe, and I sort of tackle him as I toss my arms around his neck.

He presses his lips together as he clutches me with one arm around my waist, holding me closer to him a beat longer than he probably should. His eyes are hot on mine. “I know how much it means to you to be at Shannon’s wedding.”

I tip my chin up and we’re at the perfect angle for him to just lower his lips right down to mine. God do I want him to kiss me. My knees knock together and I feel a little dizzy this close to him, especially when my brain recognizes his scent. It’s like it fires off all these crazy synapses and I’m powerless against it. My stomach is flipping all over the damn place and I really think he might do it when someone clears their throat.

And it’s not Jack. Or me.

I jump back like we were doing something wrong, but Jack just laughs...probably at my rather dramatic reaction.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Brenda says.

“We weren’t doing anything!” My voice is immediately defensive, and I realize too late that only makes us look even guiltier...but the truth is we weren’t doing anything. I hugged him out of thanks and I felt a little heat but clearly he didn’t because he’s all calm and cool over there as he smirks at me.

Ugh, that goddamn smirk.

“I have more work to do in my office,” Jack says, not even acknowledging that we might’ve been caught in some sort of compromising position. “My brother and sister-in-law are coming over for dinner tonight. Brenda’s making tacos.”

My eyes light up even though we had tacos for dinner last night, and he laughs as he walks out of the room. I don’t know why, but it feels less like an announcement of his plans and more like an invitation to join them.

Tacos? Hell yeah I’ll be there. “I’ll bring the margaritas,” I call after him, and his laughter echoes down the hall.

I head to the store to buy what I need for margaritas once Brenda assures me twelve times she’ll let me know if Jack needs anything. I’m only making one pitcher for the four of us, so it’s not like we’re going to get drunk or anything...but we’re entertaining—or Jack is, anyway—and the sweet and salty deliciousness of a margarita accompanying the tacos just sounds like perfection.

Jack’s still in his office when I return, and Brenda heads out shortly after that. Michelle is going to some nightclub with friends, Savannah included, and the doorbell rings a little before seven. I open it to Luke, Ellie, and their sweet newborn, who’s asleep in his carrier.

Ellie greets me with a hug, as does Luke. Brooke bounces down the steps and takes their boy upstairs where he can sleep while we have our dinner, and if he wakes, she’ll tend to him.

“You keeping our boy in line?” Luke asks me.

I giggle as I nod. “Oh yeah. I’m whipping him right into shape.”

“The hell she is,” Jack’s voice booms behind me. “Like any woman could keep me in line.” He shakes his head as he smirks.

Luke and Ellie both laugh as my eyes widen and my hand flies to my chest. “Oh! I didn’t know you were there!”

“Obviously,” he says dryly, and I find myself mortified once again.

“I was just kidding back there,” I scramble to say, suddenly worried I’ve undone the small little bits of progress we’ve made.

“It’s fine, Kia.” His words are light.

I grit my teeth again as I hiss at him. “Kate.”

“Welcome to our fiesta,” Jack announces, and we sit down to the spread Brenda prepared for us.

Ellie and Luke declined the margaritas, so it’s just Jack and me drinking. He continuously tips that pitcher over our glasses as we drink so they’re never less than half-full. It’s both dangerous and delicious. “Tacos are my favorite,” I announce after I finish my first one.

“Like out of all the foods?” Ellie asks.

I nod. “First place, hands down.”

“I’d go with bacon,” Luke declares.

Ellie nods. “Pizza for me.” She glances at her husband. “With bacon on it.”

“I think I’d go with tacos, too,” Jack says, and the heat in his gaze as he looks across the table at me is positively dangerous. I think he’s making innuendos again but I’m not positive.

I hide behind my margarita.

I make a second pitcher, and Ellie and I laugh as the brothers recount stories from their childhood. The tightness around Jack’s eyes seems to loosen a bit as they reminisce, and it’s nice to see Jack in an element that’s a little lighter than his normal day-to-day operations.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Ellie asks me, and I shake my head.

“Nope. Only child.” I point to my chest. “You?”

“Just my older brother, Josh,” she says. “He’s a wide receiver on the Aces.”

I know Josh Nolan, but I hadn’t realized he was Ellie’s sibling. “Is that how you two met?” I ask, nodding between Ellie and Luke.

They glance at each other and laugh, like they’re sharing a secret. “Pretty much,” Luke says.

“Jack was sure the two of us were faking our relationship at the beginning,” Ellie teases as she smiles at Jack, and something clicks in my brain. He mentioned something to his agent about his brother faking a relationship.

“But you weren’t?” I guess.

“Originally, yes,” Luke admits. “But it shifted pretty quickly when she couldn’t keep her hands off me.”

Ellie snorts and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, that’s how it went down.”

“And I almost lured her away when I was trying to get her to admit the truth,” Jack says proudly, and both Ellie and Luke turn to look at him like he’s insane. He holds up his hands innocently. “What?”

“You didn’t almost lure me away. Not even close.” Ellie looks at me and cups a hand over her mouth like she’s telling me a secret. “I mean, he tried. But nobody was ever going to steal me from this guy.” She jerks a thumb toward her husband, and he reaches an arm around the back of his wife’s chair and gives her shoulder a squeeze.

“He tried?” I ask, a little curious as to how he tried to lure her away...and why he’d try that.

“All right, all right. Enough of all that,” Jack jumps in.

Ellie raises her brows. “Oh no, mister. If Kate is here to get into your head, she deserves the full story. Every single detail.”

“I like her,” I announce, and both Luke and Ellie laugh.

Jack does not. Instead, he flattens his lips as he piles meat onto another tortilla. “What’s the full story as you see it, then?”

Ellie and Luke both laugh, but it’s Luke who jumps in. “Let’s see, you invited her up to your hotel room when we were fighting, you came onto her several times, and you told her she could ride the stallion hung like a horse.” He air quotes the last part of his statement.

My brows shoot up. What sort of asshole says things like that to his sister-in-law?

Though I can vouch for the whole hung like a horse thing.

I don’t mention that for obvious reasons, but I can’t pretend like I don’t want to check out that horse-like appendage again.

Jack’s expression doesn’t change. He’s not embarrassed by any of that even if he should be. “It was all in good fun.”

“I didn’t find it overly fun at the time,” Ellie mutters. She looks at me again. “But now that I know him better, I understand why he did it.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

Jack jumps in with the answer. “I keep a tight circle, and I have to make sure anyone entering it is trustworthy. So I pulled out the big guns.”

“You were a total asshole.” Ellie shakes her head. “You even went so far as to bribe Luke by offering to triple your donation to our charity event if he divorced me.”

“I was wrong. And I’ve apologized profusely since then,” Jack says. “But here’s one more. I’m sorry. Truly. I thought you were just in it for my brother’s money. For the Dalton name. I took it upon myself to get to the truth in the way I work best because we’ve got enough money grubbers hanging around the family.”

“Like your fiancée?” Luke mutters.

Jack shakes his head and presses his lips together like he’s trying to bite back some insult, and while I’d like to dig more into that particular topic, I sense from the way his shoulders seem to dip that he doesn’t want to talk about Michelle. We’re having such a nice night, and something tells me going down the path of Luke’s ex and Jack’s current woman won’t end well even though it is awfully interesting that he’s marrying someone like Michelle when he was trying to stop his brother from marrying someone like Ellie...someone who appears to be Michelle’s complete opposite.

I jump in with a subject change. “Does that hung like a horse line actually work on women?”

Ellie shoots me a grateful look.

“No worse than, say, someone pushing her friend down in order to get a quarterback’s attention.” Jack turns a pointed gaze in my direction.

Our eyes lock, and my cheeks redden. I hide it behind another sip of margarita.

“Did that really happen?” Ellie asks.

His eyes move off me and toward her. “Shit like that happens all the time,” he says with an easy laugh.

I really should slow down on the margaritas. I should’ve learned by now that alcohol and Jack Dalton are a bad combination.

But I was that kid who jumped on the bed day after day. I loved jumping on the bed. I started doing little handstands and backflips, and my mother told me to stop. She begged me to stop. I did it anyway—usually when she wasn’t around.

My mother told me I was going to crack my head open. I kept jumping anyway.

And you know what? Eventually, I did fall. I did crack my head...sort of. I ended up with a gash on the left side of my forehead when the dresser stopped my face’s fall, and I had a nasty concussion and a permanent little scar as a daily reminder of what happened every morning when I put on my make-up.

And what did that teach me?

It didn’t teach me to listen to my mother.

It didn’t teach me to stop jumping.

It didn’t even teach me to jump with care.

It taught me that I could take the risk ninety-nine more times before I’d crack my head open again.

That little scar is my secret superpower. It’s a reminder that I’m tough. I can get through anything.

And it’s a reminder that ninety-nine percent of the time, the risk is worth it.

But it’s that one percent that could really hurt.