Best Man for Hire (Entangled Lovestruck) (Front and Center) (7 page)

Dammit.

A hard-on was the last thing he needed right now. He took a steadying breath and reached for another branch. He tugged hard, making sure it could support his weight.

Thunk!

A falling coconut smacked hard on the top of his helmet, bouncing off and tumbling toward the ground.

“Watch out!” he called.

“Caught it!” Anna yelled. “Come down in one piece and I promise to make you my famous coconut-lime pie.”

“Deal.” Grant shook off the ringing in his ears and stretched upward again.

Still gripping the trunk between his feet, he pushed himself up once more. He caught another branch in his left hand and yanked. The branch held, and no coconuts came raining down. He pulled himself up and let go with one hand.

“Let’s try this again,” he murmured to the cat. “On three. Ready? One, two—”

He stretched his fingers up and gripped the cat’s scruff between his fingers and palm. “Three!”

He pulled back, peeling Rumpymuffle’s claws off the trunk with an audible
scritch.
The cat yowled in protest, but didn’t struggle. Thank God for small miracles.

“Here we go,” Grant cooed, shoving the cat behind him into the bag. He couldn’t see what he was doing, but he felt one set of claws snag in the fabric. He glanced over his shoulder, relieved to see Rumpymuffle’s head had cleared the top of the bag. He let go of the cat and yanked the drawstring, cinching the bag shut.

Mrwow!

Twenty feet below, Anna and Mrs. Stein stretched the sheet out between them, holding it open like a net.

A net he probably hadn’t washed for a couple weeks. God, if he made it down alive, he needed to seriously reevaluate how often he washed his sheets.

Don’t think about that now.

Behind him in the bag, Rumpymuffle squirmed and hissed and sank a set of claws through the fabric. They connected with the back of his thigh, and Grant gave a yelp of pain.

“Dammit, cat. I’m trying to help you here!”

Slowly, cautiously, trying not to think about rabies shots, he began his descent down the tree. He slid both hands around the backside of the tree, hugging it tight as he released the pressure on his lower legs. He slid downward, letting his hands move with him. The cat was wriggling in the bag, making it tougher to balance.

He kept going, dropping faster than he probably ought to, but too damn eager to be back on solid ground.

Mrwow!
the cat screamed again, sinking its fangs through the bag and into his right butt cheek.

“Shit!” Grant snapped, fighting the urge to unclip the carabineer from his belt and just let the cantankerous creature drop. “I mean
shoot
.”

“You’re almost to the ground,” Anna cheered, her voice closer now than it had seemed minutes before. “Great work.”

Grant inched his hands down again, leaning back a little as he slid his feet down the trunk again. The instant his feet touched the grass, Mrs. Stein was on him.

“Oh, baby! Oh, sweetie, Oh, honey, my precious little muffin.”

Grant let go of the trunk and unclipped the bag from his belt, hoping like hell she was talking to the cat and not him. Mrs. Stein grabbed the bag and hugged it to her chest, tears streaming down her face as she began to loosen the knot at the top.

“You might want to wait till you’re safely inside to let the cat out of the bag,” Anna said. “I don’t think Grant’s going back up that tree if Rumpymuffle gets loose again.”

“How can I ever repay you?” Mrs. Stein sobbed. “You saved my baby.”

Grant smiled in spite of himself and tried to subtly rub the bite mark on his butt cheek. “Just doing my part to help out,” he said. “I’m glad he’s okay.”

“Just let me get my checkbook. I owe you—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Grant insisted, his voice a little harsher than he meant it to be. “Just get that cat inside and give him a can of tuna. And a rabies shot.”

“If you like, I can have my friend Kelli come take a look at him when she’s free,” Anna offered. “She makes house calls for friends.”

“What would I do without the two of you?” Mrs. Stein sniffed again, while Rumpymuffle yowled from inside the bag. “Thank you. I mean it.”

She turned and waddled back to her house, leaving Grant standing there in her pink shirt with a throbbing bite mark on his rear. When he turned back to Anna, she was studying him with an expression he couldn’t read. It was either admiration or dismay, or some bizarre mix of the two.

She shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

“What?”

“You’re amazing. A true fucking Boy Scout.”

He grinned and peeled off the pink shirt. He’d wash it later, fold it neatly, and return it to his neighbor. For now though, he had other things on his mind. He leaned close to Anna, his lips brushing her ear.

“In that case,” he murmured. “Don’t you think I deserve a merit badge?”

The flash of heat in her eyes made Grant forget all about the scratches on his wrists, the pain in his feet, the throbbing bite mark on his ass.

“You want a merit badge, huh?”

“Or something else.”

She smiled. “The fact that your fly is already undone should facilitate the
something else
.”

He looked down, appalled to realize she wasn’t kidding. “What the hell?”

“Sorry, my fault.” She grinned, not looking all that sorry. “I’m the one who unzipped it. I noticed when you started up the tree, but I didn’t want to distract you.”

Grant fumbled with the zipper, then stopped. “I don’t suppose leaving it undone would be effective foreplay?”

Anna laughed. “I do want to get your pants off, but maybe not for that reason. Cat bites are vicious. You seriously need to have that looked at. Are you current on all your shots?”

“I can’t vouch for Rumpymuffle, but the Marines keep me pretty up-to-date on my physical,” he said. “Of course, it might not hurt to have you check it out.”

She grinned and took a step back. “Tempting though that is, don’t you think this is a bad idea?”

“Not particularly.”

“The photography thing,” she said, licking her lips. “If we might be working together, hooking up could make things awkward.”

“Photography,” he repeated, a little thrown to realize he’d completely forgotten the reason he’d invited her over.

Well, one of the reasons.

“I haven’t even gotten to see your photos yet, but I’m sure they’re amazing,” she said. “Pretty much everything you do is flawless.”

There was a slight edge to her voice now, a sound he hadn’t heard before when she was purring in his ear. Grant studied her, trying to understand the sudden change.

“Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” She shook her head. “God, I sound like such a bitch. I guess I’m just a little discombobulated by you.”

“Is discombobulated the same as turned on?”

She laughed, but the laughter didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’re a little hard to believe, you know?”

Grant felt something sharp lodge in his throat. He tried to swallow it down, keeping his expression impassive. “What do you mean?”

“I just can’t believe it—you cook, you read, you renovate homes, you do phenomenal woodwork, you serve your country, you donate to charity, you leap tall palm trees in a single bound to rescue a helpless animal and help an old lady. Is there anything you’re
not
perfect at?”

Grant blinked, trying to decide if she was paying him a compliment or accusing him of something awful. Of what?

Trying too hard.

Being a complete and utter fraud.

Failing to make up for what you did.

He took a breath and folded his arms over his chest. No. She couldn’t know any of that.

“I have a bite mark on my ass cheek and claw marks in my thigh,” he said slowly. “If that’s your idea of perfection, I hate to see what screwing up looks like.”

She shook her head and smiled a little sadly. “Seriously, you’re kind of unreal. Name one thing you’re bad at. I’ll bet you can’t do it.”

Grant froze, her words hitting him harder than she probably realized. He could think of a lot of things. So many failures, one in particular—

“I’m stubborn as hell,” he blurted. “I have a terrible sense of fashion and home decor, so my sister helps me choose all my clothes and my dishes. I’m an obnoxious neat freak. I care too much what other people think of me—to a crippling degree, actually. I know absolutely nothing about wine, and can’t distinguish between a two-dollar bottle of rotgut and an eight hundred dollar Pinot Noir. I am a hopeless procrastinator and overly ambitious, which can be a deadly combination at times.”

He stopped, having run out of breath. She was staring at him with an expression he couldn’t read, and Grant felt his heart stop.

At last, she smiled. “That’s quite a list. I take it back. You really are a horrible person.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

His words hung there between them for a moment. She watched him, probably wondering if he was joking.

It’s no joke. There’s nothing funny about this at all.

Grant swallowed. “I suppose you’re right.”

“About what?”

“About the fact that we probably shouldn’t sleep together. It would certainly complicate things. We’ve got my sister’s wedding coming up, and if I might be working for you on several other weddings—”

“Right,” Anna said, taking a step back. “That would be complicated.”

“How about we just go back inside to look at the photos and call it a night?”

She glanced at the house, then back at him. “Here’s the thing: if I go in there with you right now, I’ll have my clothes off in five minutes.”

All the blood drained from Grant’s brain. “Remind me again why that would be bad?”

“And I’ll be on my knees in front of you with my hand on your fly and—”

“You know, this blunt thing shouldn’t be such a turn-on.”

She smiled. “I’m just saying. If we’ve agreed to keep things professional, me going into that house with you right now would be a really dangerous thing.”

“I’m a Marine. I’m used to danger.”

She slugged him in the shoulder, not hard, but enough to leave him craving more of her touch. She sighed. “Seriously, how about you just email me some photos or something?”

“Tell you what,” he said, trying to regain control of his libido. “You wait right here. I can dump a bunch of photos on a thumb drive for you. You have a laptop here in Hawaii?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “You can take the photos with you and look them over tonight. If you like what you see and you want me, I’m yours.”

He heard the suggestive edge to his words the second they left his mouth, but he didn’t take them back. Anna nodded, finding her voice at last. “That sounds good.”

“Okay then,” he said, stepping away from her and moving toward the house. “I’ll grab your tote bag, too. You want to take home some leftovers for your sister?”

She shook her head. “You really are the perfect fucking host.”

“Sorry. I’ll work on being a bigger asshole.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

Grant nodded and turned toward the house. He felt her gaze on his back and for an instant wondered if she could see right through him. See everything—the secrets, the lies, the betrayals.

He shook off her gaze and stepped through the door.

Chapter Six

Anna stood in the kitchenette of the little rental condo and began pulling things from her tote bag, her brain still reeling from her evening with Grant. Had she really walked away from the promise of hot sex with a perfect guy?

Is he really all that perfect, or is it an act?

Across the room, Janelle stood up and stretched as she made her way into the kitchen. “A coconut? A flash drive? A Tupperware container?” She studied the pile Anna had made on the counter. “Is that a handbag or a clown car?”

“The slaw is for you. The coconut is for pie. I’ll give you a piece if you’re nice.”

Janelle grinned. “From the beard burn on your throat, I’d say Grant must’ve been very nice. Did you give
him
a piece?”

Anna swatted at her sister with a dish towel, but Janelle danced out of the way, laughing. “Oh, come on—dish!” Janelle urged. “I want to hear all about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Anna said, turning her back as she shoved the slaw into the fridge and tried to cool her flaming face. “Yeah, we might have fooled around a little, but we decided it was a bad idea.”

“Why on earth would it be a bad idea to tongue-wrestle with a sex god?”

“Because we’re trying to maintain a professional relationship.”

And also because I’ve got the world’s worst track record when it comes to judging men and relationships,
Anna amended silently as she busied herself trying to find something she could use to crack the coconut.

“So he’s going to be our wedding photographer?”

“I’m not sure yet. I need to look at his photos.”

Janelle quirked an eyebrow at her. “You’ve been gone three hours. I thought you went over there to look at his portfolio. What the hell were you doing that whole time?”

“Touring his house, eating dinner, watching him scale a thirty-foot palm barefoot with his fly undone.”

“Okay, now I’m intrigued. You didn’t even mention the tongue-wrestling in there, so I know you’re leaving stuff out. Come on, tell me everything.”

So Anna did, omitting few of the more intimate details of their near-miss hookup, but covering nearly everything else. When she finished, her sister was gawking at her.

“Holy shit, I take back what I said about him being a sex god. I think he might actually
be
God. Did you happen to see any white robes or a big gold scepter?”

“I didn’t look, but I’m not taking any chances. I think sex with the Almighty might actually kill me.”

“Yeah, but what a fun way to go. Maybe after all the weddings are over—”

“No.” Anna’s voice came out a little too sharp, and she tried to cover it with a smile, but Janelle hadn’t missed it.

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

“That’s the other thing—his bookshelves were lined with things like Shakespeare and Plato. How could you ever fart in front of a guy like that?”

Janelle frowned. “I think I missed something here.”

“I’m just saying,” Anna said, giving up on the coconut and palming the flash drive instead. “Being with a guy who’s too perfect would be exhausting. I don’t have it in me.”

“Speaking of having it in you—”

“Cut it out, you little pervert. Let’s look at the sex god’s photos.”

Janelle shrugged and padded over to the little table where they’d left the laptop charging. She flipped it open and held out her hand for the flash drive. Anna handed it over and dropped into the seat beside Janelle, not sure why she felt so fluttery inside. It was ridiculous. She was a grown woman who’d dated plenty of smart, creative, professional men with—

“Wow, that’s a really long one!”

Anna blinked, her libido surging traitorously at her sister’s words. “What?”

“Exposure. A long exposure. That’s what he must’ve used to get this shot of the night sky.” Janelle looked up from the monitor and grinned. “What did you think I meant?”

“Exposure, obviously.” Anna cleared her throat and pulled the laptop closer to her so she could have a better view. “Wow, that really is a great shot.”

“Isn’t it?”

She scrolled through a folder of landscape photography, admiring Grant’s skill at capturing sunsets and lakes and raindrops on blades of grass. She hadn’t pegged him as the artistic type, but he sure as hell had a knack for composition.

“Let me drive,” Anna said, seizing control of the computer and clicking to a subfolder labeled “bugs.”

She expected photos of insects, maybe beautiful butterflies or lightning bugs at sunset.

“What the hell is that?” Janelle asked.

“Surveillance equipment of some sort. That’s what you get when a Marine counterintelligence expert labels a folder ‘bugs.’” Anna tapped on a close-up image of some sort of microchip stuck to the bottom of a saltshaker. It was surprisingly artistic, rendered in black and white with great contrast and detail.

“The guy could take a creative shot of a bowl of potato soup,” Janelle said. “He’s got an amazing eye.”

Anna nodded and clicked on another photo, transfixed by a breathtaking image of a shirtless man in combat fatigues cradling an infant to his chest while a smiling woman peered over his shoulder. That one was in a subfolder labeled “friends,” so the guy in the photo must be a fellow Marine holding his new baby. Anna clicked another picture, spellbound by the detail and character and personality Grant had managed to capture in each image. A woman in a raincoat on a misty street corner. A soldier offering water to a bedraggled dog. Dirty, dark-haired kids dancing in the spray from a fire hydrant.

“He’s really good,” Anna murmured, not sure why she was surprised. The bastard was great at everything.

“I want to see those pictures of your friend—Kelli? The one who married Grant’s brother. You said Grant took the engagement photos?”

“Right, I’m sure he threw them in here somewhere.” She clicked a folder marked “family” and spotted a subfolder labeled “Mac and Kelli engagement.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess this is it,” she said, clicking it open. “Here, look at this one—notice the way he captured the light on her face.”

“She looks so in love.”

“Kinda what you want in a wedding photographer. Check this one out—it’s one of the only times I’ve ever seen Mac without sunglasses.”

“Wow,” Janelle breathed. “Can you imagine what it would be like to have a guy look at you like that? Like you’re the best, most amazing thing that’s ever happened to him.”

Something caught in Anna’s throat, and she found herself blinking hard against the glare on the computer screen. At least she thought it was the glare.

“I can’t imagine,” she said softly and clicked the folder closed. “Let’s see what else he’s got.”

“What do you think is in that one?” Janelle pointed to a folder marked “Desiderium.”

Anna shrugged, hovering the mouse over the folder. “Is that a woman’s name?”

“If it is, it’s a weird one.”

“The Patton family is funny with names. All the kids are named after military generals, but maybe he’s got cousins who are all named with Latin words for body parts or something.”

Anna began through the images in the folder. At first, they seemed not to match the rest of the shots on the zip drive. Many of them were grainy, looking like poorly scanned versions of old Polaroids. In one shot, two young boys with matching gray eyes stood shoulder to shoulder in red-and-white baseball uniforms. One held a bat and the other held a glove. Both were missing a front tooth, which wasn’t the only thing about their smiles that matched.

“Grant’s brothers?” Janelle guessed.

“Grant,” Anna said, not sure why she was so certain. “He’s the one on the left. The other one must be a brother, but I don’t think it’s Mac. Mac has brown eyes like Sheri and their mom.”

She clicked the next one in the series and opened an image of the same two gray-eyed boys looking a little bit older.

“Oh, wow!” Janelle laughed. “Is that Grant’s homecoming picture?”

“He must have double-dated with his brother,” Anna said, studying the poofy-haired blonde girls flanking them like bookends. “Geez, even their dates match.”

Anna kept clicking, watching as Grant’s high school years unfolded before her eyes, always with his brother beside him. The images moved through their college years, then into a series of shots showing the young men in military attire.

“That’s not Mac in any of those?” Janelle asked.

“No,” Anna said, clicking open a photo that showed two young men in military garb. “Mac’s hair is darker. Besides, that’s an Army uniform. Mac was a Marine, just like Grant is.”

“So who—”

“The other brother. One they don’t ever seem to talk about. Grant mentioned him over dinner.”

“He’s in the Army?”

“I have no idea. Grant didn’t tell me much. Just that he’s not in touch with the family a whole lot. I guess if he’s the black sheep of the family, it would make sense he’d pick a different branch of the military than Mac and Grant did.”

Anna clicked another photo, this one showing Grant and his brother shirtless on a beach, tossing a football between them. Both were glorious specimens of masculinity, tan and muscular with the close-cropped hair and the rippling muscles of young, professional soldiers.

Janelle eyed her curiously. “Since when are you an expert on military families?”

“I got to know Mac when I worked on his wedding to Kelli. As well as anyone knows Mac, anyway. Kelli calls him Tall, Dark, and Detached from Humankind.”

She clicked another photo, this one of the two brothers in more formal military attire. Each had an arm slung around the other’s shoulders, and they were laughing at something outside the reach of the camera’s lens.

Anna clicked the last photo in the series and froze.

It was a shot of the mysterious brother alone. This photo was more artistic than the others, rendered in black and white with dark shadows everywhere. The brother was hunched on a battered chair, his body turned away from the camera. His hair was a disheveled mess, and one hand was clenched in a fist at his side. He had several days’ worth of stubble on his jaw, and a frown that formed harsh brackets around his mouth.

The image looked candid, and he must have turned his head toward the photographer just as the shutter clicked. There were lines in his face that hadn’t been there in any of the other photos and a haunted look in his eye that made Anna shiver.

“Wow,” Janelle said. “There’s something really depressing about that one.”

“No kidding.”

“He’s beautiful though,” Janelle murmured, her voice a little trancelike. “
It’s
beautiful, I mean. The photo. Well, so is the man. Where did you say he lives?”

“I didn’t.” Anna swallowed. “I don’t know anything else about him.”

“That’s one dark and broody man.”

Something in Janelle’s voice made Anna tear her gaze off the photo and focus on her sister’s face.

Janelle blinked. “What?”

“Nothing. You look a little—transfixed.”

“I can’t help it. There’s something about this guy.”

“Right.” Anna swallowed and reached for the mouse.

Janelle cleared her throat. “So Mac is the stoic, badass brother and this guy in the picture is the tortured-looking black sheep. What does that make Grant?”

Anna clicked the photo shut and watched it vanish from the screen. She’d known Grant less than twenty-four hours, but she could list at least a dozen adjectives to describe him. Smart. Kindhearted. Helpful. Heroic. Charitable. Cheerful. Accomplished.

But something about that photo made her think there was another side to him.

“Full of secrets,” she said, feeling uneasy. She pushed the laptop closed, wondering if she’d find out what lay behind Grant Patton’s perfect, polished surface.

…

Anna was brushing her teeth before bed when her phone rang. She glanced at her watch, surprised to realize it was earlier than she expected. Apparently she hadn’t adjusted to the three-hour time difference between Portland and Hawaii.

Her phone was half covered by a hand towel, and the sight of “Patton” on the readout made her heart do a pitiful little leap in her chest.

She shoved the towel aside, switching gears when she saw “Sheri” instead of “Grant.”

“This is Anna,” she said, cradling the phone between her shoulder and cheek.

“Hey, Anna, it’s Sheri. Sorry to call so late, but I wanted to let you know Sam and I finally made a decision on the cake.”

“You went with the white cake and buttercream frosting, filled with layers of strawberry?”

Sheri laughed. “You’re a psychic wedding planner as well?”

“Nah, the bakery called and told me you two stopped by. Excellent choice, by the way. I’ll make sure the bakery has everything set up that afternoon just like you want. I just checked the tracking info on your custom cake topper, and that should be here by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll call the bakery tomorrow to make sure they have it.”

“Thanks, Anna. God, this is so much easier having a wedding planner. I’m so glad Kelli recommended you.”

“Not a problem. It’s my job to make your life easier so you can enjoy your big day.”

“I’m determined to do that this time around. My first wedding was a disaster, with my mom and me staying up all night to make a million of these stupid little bows for the back of the guests’ chairs while my ex snored in the other room. That probably should have told me something right there, huh?”

“I’m glad you’re getting a second shot to do things the way you want,” she said, not sure whether she was talking about the wedding or the marriage.

“It’s so nice to leave the wedding details to someone else so I can focus on enjoying the groom.”

There was a muffled giggle on the other end of the line, and a baritone voice mumbling something salacious about enjoying the groom. Sheri laughed again, and a ridiculous pang of jealousy nipped at the corner of Anna’s brain. She pushed it aside, forcing a smile into her voice.

“I’m so happy for the two of you. Grant mentioned Sam asked him to be the best man, so I assume we’re all squared away on the wedding party now?”

“Yep. Totally fitting, don’t you think?”