Time of Possession (Seattle Lumberjacks #5) (6 page)

“Lead by example: relax yourself, and
they’ll follow.” She reached for his hands and twined her fingers
with his, soft and warm, her voice passionate.

Brett held on to her and nodded. She had a
point.

He gazed into her eyes, saw the fire there,
that same fire he’d seen in her brother’s eyes when the odds were
stacked against him, and Tyler wouldn’t ever let that stop him.
Only her fire was for him, as if she could walk on that field and
play that game for him.

Brett needed to find his own fire, that same
fire that had kept him alive in the Middle East, yet still eluded
him on the football field. Until his teammates saw that he had
it
, they’d never trust him to be that guy.

He stared at their fingers intertwined
together, her soft flesh against his calloused skin, loving the
feel of her hands in his, loving how she squeezed his hands tight
as if she could transfer confidence through their linked hands into
his head and his heart.

“You’re still listening to them, aren’t
you?” Estie’s gaze cut through all the bullshit and burrowed right
into his soul.

“Them?”

“Yeah, all those people who said you’re too
short, and you’ll never make it, not NFL caliber. Prove them wrong.
Prove yourself wrong.”

Brett smiled. “Have you been doing this
long?”

“What?”

“Cheerleading. If I had sisters like you,
I’d have a completely different attitude.”

“You wouldn’t want a sister like me. Trust
me.” Estie laughed.

Her laugh warmed his heart and lit up the
darkness inside him.

Suddenly her face colored and she pulled her
hands away, as if she’d just realized they’d been holding hands.
“Sorry, sometimes I get carried away with my passion.”

Oh, God, he’d love to see her carried away
with passion, naked, and in his bed. His dick hardened almost
painfully, and he bit back a groan. They were friends. Nothing
more. He needed a safe subject, needed time to process everything,
not just about her, but football, too. He switched the subject to
animals. “So about this Yappy Hour charity thing you have
planned.”

“Why don’t we save that for Tuesday?
Remember, I’m buying pizza.”

“You’re not going to buy one of those girlie
pizzas with chicken and weird stuff that should never be on a
pizza, are you?”

“Not me. I’m a traditionalist. Mostly. Half
ham and pineapple for me and half pepperoni?”

“Yeah that works for me.” Anything would
work for Brett that involved more time with her, stupid as it was,
but then he’d never been overly intelligent when it came to
beautiful women. “So why aren’t you with your fiancé tonight?”
Brett pointed at her ring finger.

“Oh, him.” Her smile dropped off her face.
She tensed and closed him off as if she’d tapped a garage door
remote and shut him outside.

“Yeah,
him
.” Brett hated asking, knew
it was none of his business, but couldn’t stop himself.

“He’s a big golfer, and I hate golf. I went
to the game, and he went golfing.”

“Not a football fan I take it?”

“No, not at all. He was never raised around
sports. He’s much better with his mind than his body.” She rushed
to defend him, seemed to realized how her words sounded and
immediately her face flushed.

Brett wanted to be better with his body
and
his mind. “You must have other things in common
then?”

Estie frowned and sloshed her wine around in
the glass, studying the candlelight reflecting off the glass
surface. “We’ve been friends since college.”

She looked up at him, and his heart stopped.
Something in her expression telegraphed resignation to him.

“He’s stood by me through every twist and
turn in my life. He’s loyal, and we get along fine.”

“Sounds like you’re talking about a dog,”
Brett blurted out. “Sorry, that was out of line.”

She waved her hand in the air. “It’s okay. I
suppose it did sound like I was describing my relationship with a
dog.”

He’d pushed her too far, asked too many
questions. Brett decided to get his footing back on safer ground.
“Tell me about your work with the animal rescue.”

Her smile came back full wattage,
illuminating those blue eyes. She reached for a piece of garlic
bread. “I grew up with animals. They weren’t just pets, they were
family. All of us loved animals, from horses to dogs to cats—though
Tyler is a recent convert in that area.”

“Your brother likes cats?” Now that was
fucking hard to imagine.

“You’ve never been to his condo, have
you?”

“No, I haven’t.” Not that he hadn’t been
invited a time or two, but he avoided Harris in social
situations.

“He has an orange tabby that owns the
place.” Amusement twinkled in Estie’s eyes.

“Tyler has a cat?” Brett had never seen this
side of the asshole quarterback, but the guy couldn’t be half bad
if he loved animals as much as Estie claimed.

“Oh, yeah, and once he moves out of that
condo, I’ve no doubt he’ll have dogs, too. Lavender loves animals
so she fits right in with the rest of us.”

Unfortunately, Brett thought he fit in
pretty well, too. “I would’ve never guessed Tyler liked
animals.”

“Horses, too. We all have horses. Keep them
at Derek’s farm next door to my place. That’s why I bought that
house, so I can help take care of the animals.”

“You have horses?”

Estie nodded. “Yes, I do. Tyler and Derek
used to rodeo—calf roping, stuff like that. Junior champions one
year in team roping.”

“No shit?”

She nodded. “Do you ride?”

“I’ve never tried it, but I’d love to.”

“I’ll teach you. You can ride Mac or Moe.
They’re both steady guys who’ll take care of you without being
plugs.”

“I wasn’t inviting myself. I mean—I, uh,
don’t mean to be presumptuous.” Heat rose from his neck to the tips
of his ears. He tamped down his excitement, even though being with
Estie as she taught him to ride definitely appealed to him. Only
two problems: time—he had none—and her engagement ring.

“You aren’t. Trust me. I’d love to do it.”
She gazed at him through lowered lashes. “I like you. We have tons
in common. I think we’ll be great friends.”

“I like you, too.” Like her, hell. He was in
love with her, obsessed with her, and fucking crazy about her.
Brett sat there, stunned at the realization. He’d never put what he
felt in those terms, never fallen like this for any woman, never
been in love before, but he was pretty sure this was what it felt
like.

This just was not him. Not one fucking bit.
He’d be damned if he knew what to do about it, except to try to
keep seeing her any pathetic way he could.

Chapter 4

Estie checked in the mirror for the
bazillionth time. She put her hair back in a ponytail, opting for
the casual look, then took it out again, fluffed her hair and
applied another layer of candy frost lipstick. Any more and she’d
be mistaken for an eighties, big-hair version of cotton candy. She
was a freaking emotional mess for no good reason. After all, Brett
was nothing but a friend, actually an acquaintance, as she barely
knew him. Only it didn’t feel that way, not to her. So maybe he was
just a potential good friend, a sympathetic ear, a person who
shared her mutual love for animals. She always had room in her life
for another animal-loving friend.

Her phone rang, and she dove for it.
“Yes.”

“Estie, Mom wants us to join them for dinner
about six.”

Disappointment flooded her as Richard’s
voice came across her phone, and she instantly felt guilty.
“Can’t.” Even if she didn’t have plans, spending the evening with
Richard’s judgmental parents didn’t work for her. Besides, tonight
was about doing something for her and her animals. Tonight was
about seeing Brett again, even though it shouldn’t be about that at
all.

Silence filled the dead space until it
seemed noisier than the fans in the stadium during a close game.
Estie waited Richard out. Finally he started talking. And talking.
And talking. When he was on a roll like this, nothing stopped
him.

Putting the phone on speaker, she sat it on
an end table and did some last-minute tidying as Richard talked.
Dozer watched her with one eye open but decided being awake was too
much work. Groaning, he rolled onto his side and snored with gusto.
Marilyn gnawed on her ball, watching Estie to see if an opportunity
to play might present itself. Spock and Jim shared the cat bed like
they had from day one as kittens, their bodies wrapped around each
other.

Marilyn dropped the ball on her feet. Estie
patted the dog on the head. “Not right now, old girl. We have a
guest on his way.”

She picked up a magazine from the coffee
table and stowed it in a drawer then gazed around the room, pausing
to listen to Richard’s voice still droning on. Estie added another
log to the parlor stove. She swept up the ashes from the hearth and
stopped, hearing Richard call her name. She snatched up the phone,
sounding way too breathless. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Richard harrumphed like an old man. “We
haven’t gone out together in about a week, and my mother thinks
you’re avoiding her.”

No, shit, Sherlock.
“Can’t tonight.
Sorry, I have plans.”

“Estie, is something going on I should know
about?”

“No, I can’t. I’m busy. I’m sorry. I’ll call
you tomorrow.” Estie touched the end button. The familiar feelings
of guilt settled in. She’d been a shit to the man she was about to
vow to love and cherish forever. How many kinds of messed up was
that? Or was her insistence on marrying him what was really messed
up? Especially when she couldn’t wait to see Brett tonight.

But Brett was just a friend, a guy she had
tons in common with. It was opposites that attracted. Right? Wrong,
in Brett’s case. Very wrong. But then so was her ridiculous crush
on her brother’s temporary replacement, a man who’d be a free agent
at the end of the year, most likely signing with a different team
and moving far away in a few months.

She couldn’t destroy her future plans for a
temporary fling.

Estie rubbed her eyes, but the pressure
behind them didn’t subside. God, her problem had to be cold feet.
It had her fixating on another man, a man that didn’t figure into
her ordered life or her carefully laid-out future plans.

Yeah, that was definitely it. Her feet were
encased in blocks of ice, and she needed to get over it and get
beyond the Harris sibling curse, the one put on her and her sibs
because no one could top their parents’ years of happy marriage.
Why get married at all? Why try when you’re destined for
failure?

For a woman who’d spent her entire life
second or third at everything, stuck in the middle of the family
hierarchy, just one time Estie wanted to be first at something.
This wedding would do it. She’d be the first Harris sibling with
the guts to say “I do.” Once she succumbed, the next two would
follow along with a passel of kids and animals and—

They’d all retire to the Harris estate in
Washington’s San Juan Islands and live happily ever after?

Who the fuck was she kidding?

A powerful car engine rumbled in the
distance, and she peeked out the window. Brett’s large SUV rumbled
down the long driveway to her little home. Unbidden, a smile spread
across her face and anticipation lifted the gloom. Okay, so she
might be harboring a harmless little crush on the Jacks’ backup
quarterback to go with her cold feet. So what? She was entitled to
look, even fantasize. She’d never take it further. Not her.
Nuh-uh.

Estie rushed to the door and opened it wide,
standing on the porch as Brett got out of his car. She hurried down
the steps to greet him.

“Hi,” she said, sounding way too breathless
and excited.

He gave her a shy smile. “Hi.”

Estie looked past him through the tinted
windows of the blue SUV, the same blue as the Jacks’ uniforms. “Oh,
you brought a dog?”

“Yeah, that’s Risky. He loves to go for
rides, so I take him when I can. Besides, my cat beats up on
him.”

Estie laughed. “Risky? There must be a story
there.”

“There is. To make it short and sweet, I
took a big risk rescuing him, but it paid off.”

Estie started to ask more, but the guarded
expression in his pale blue eyes stopped her. “Does he get along
with other dogs?”

“Yeah, sure. He’s pretty passive.”

“Let him out then. Unless he’ll run
off.”

“He won’t run off. He doesn’t leave my side.
He’s scared of strangers, but I’m sure he’d like to get out.”

Just then Dozer bounded down her front steps
followed more leisurely by Marilyn, butt swaying like her namesake,
ball firmly clutched in her mouth. Brett knelt down and let Dozer
barrel into him, covering him with sloppy dog kisses. Brett just
laughed and hugged the dog.

“He’s wonderful. What’s his name?”

“Dozer, as in Bulldozer.”

“It fits.” Chuckling, Brett stood and wiped
his face off with the bottom of his sweatshirt. Estie’s gaze
dropped to the man’s washboard abs, and she swallowed. Dang. He was
gorgeous with the kind of muscles a guy gets from hard work, not
just in a gym.

Marilyn sauntered up, and Brett stroked the
top of her head. The golden leaned against his legs and stared up
at him as if he were Joe DiMaggio. The ball dropped from her mouth,
unnoticed.

“Hey, old girl, how are you?” Brett
scratched under her graying chin.

“That’s Marilyn.”

Brett raised one eyebrow. “Marilyn. As in
Monroe.”

“You guessed it. Tyler named her.”

“Sounds like a name Tyler would pick.”

“It
so
is.” Estie gestured toward the
SUV. “Would you like to let Risky out? I can put the kids in the
backyard so they don’t overwhelm him.”