The Guardian Groom_Texas Titans Romance Read online

  The Guardian Groom

  Texas Titans Romance

  Lucy McConnell

  Orchard View Publishing LLC

  Copyright © 2018 by Lucy McConnell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  The Guardian Groom

  Invitation

  To stay up-to-date on the latest releases from bestselling author Lucy McConnell, and receive a free book, go to https://mybookcave.com/d/290d4f96/

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Excerpt from “The Miracle Groom”

  Now Available from Bestselling and Award-Winning Author Lucy McConnell

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Sometimes, I have the dumbest ideas.” Bree Phelts wiped a trickle of sweat off her cheek as she struggled to move forward on the world’s most cumbersome bicycle. The mountain bike was not made for streets. It was made for going over rocks and down dirt trails and avoiding mishaps with moose and bears.

  She huffed three times in quick succession, the helmet’s chinstrap cutting into her throat. Was it supposed to be tight enough to cut off her airway? It hadn’t felt that tight when she started out on the nice flat road in front of her house. The hill was going to kill her. She would be the only bike-hill fatality in the history of Schulenburg, Texas.

  Maybe she should just get off and walk the stupid thing up the hill. Over the ridge and around the large oak tree was a level piece of ground that called to her like heaven itself.

  “There’s always gonna be an uphill battle,” she gasped out in an effort to motivate herself with some good old sister music. “I’m always gonna …” There was no point in continuing the song. Conserve. Oxygen. The sound of her breathing drowned out the sound of her thunderous heartbeat. That was wrong. So wrong.

  Her left leg wobbled. Poor old Lefty—she wasn’t as coordinated or as developed as her twin sister, Righty. Bree braced her right arm against the handlebar and pushed harder with her right leg, the thigh arguing substantially.

  Take one for the team, she silently admonished her unhappy muscle group. If you’re still around at the end of this, I’ll buy us all the world’s biggest Blizzard at the Dairy Queen with marshmallow on top to help rebuild you.

  Righty stopped screaming—she was officially numb.

  Great. Progress.

  Walking was becoming a serious possibility. The only reason she hadn’t climbed off the bike was pride. Bikers—cyclers?—stayed on, even on the tough climbs, and she was going to be a cyclist.

  Sweat gathered everywhere. Was it possible to gather everywhere? It had to be possible, because it was happening right here, right now.

  Perhaps she should stop and regroup. But then, she’d lose her momentum—which wasn’t much of a loss, really.

  Just past her asthmatic yak noises was the sound of wheels on pavement. A car. She moved over as far as she could without hitting the loose gravel on the side of the road to make room for oncoming traffic.

  Instead of a car coming alongside her, it was another biker. The front tire was thin—road-racing thin—and humming along like they weren’t on the worst hill in Schulenburg. This place wasn’t called “Hill Country” for nothing.

  She concentrated on keeping herself upright as the rider came into her peripheral view. He slowed down, being just in front and to the side of her now, and she got a good look at his red, white, and black biking pants with built-in padding on the rear end. Now there was a good idea! Her bottom was never going to be the same.

  The stranger had a set of well-developed and beautifully defined muscles easily seen in his tight clothing. Men should not have chests bigger than hers. She didn’t have much of one, but still … Although his chest wasn’t shaped anything like a woman’s. Oh no. He had a chest like a cartoon character with his muscles clearly outlined under his shirt.

  With considerable effort, her eyes lifted to his face. He’d turned to the side, dropping one hand from the handlebars and smiling at her. His attention allowed her to take in his trim beard in a variety of browns and blonds. Not that there were patches of color, but that the hairs were all individual colors.

  Dark sunglasses covered his eyes, but even without seeing into them, she got the gist of his patronizing thoughts: Aren’t you cute for trying.

  Would it be bad form to ram his back wheel right now?

  He braked more, bringing them side by side. “Nice day for a ride.” His voice was deep, the kind of deep that women swooned in the wake of.

  “Yep.” She could barely get the word out and loud enough for him to hear. Move along, muscle man. She kept her eyes on her handlebars, hoping he’d get the hint that she wanted to be antisocial.

  “You could shift and get more torque.”

  She glanced up, wondering if her shy personality type was meeting its archenemy: Outgoing Optimist Man.

  Just below the beard line on his cheeks was a set of dimples. Why a person would hide dimples was beyond her. Dimples were meant to be displayed and adored by the entire world.

  He smiled a perfectly straight smile. His lips didn’t curve up as much as they stretched to the sides. If she had the ability to do more than keep herself upright on this two-wheeled death trap, she would have told him his smile reminded her of the pumpkin she’d carved in the third grade.

  He was so lucky she was out of breath and suffering. If she had any breath, she would have used it to breathe words of fire at him. He’d pedal quickly away after she told him those tight shorts were callipygous for his figure and almost made it appear as if he was gasconading in them. Nothing like throwing a thesaurus at a person to get them to go away.

  As it was, she could only gasp and respond, “Yep.” Her face was red, a pulse pounded under the skin covering her forehead and cheekbones.

  The curve in the hill wasn’t much closer than it had been before. If the guy would spin those beefy thighs a little quicker and disappear around the bend, she could get off the bike and walk up the hill like God intended. Obviously when the good Lord created Bree, He didn’t plan for her to ride a bicycle. If only He would have told her that before she got the fool idea in her head to decrease her carbon footprint.

  Instead of riding off into the sunrise like a good little uninvited guest, the muscle man looked at her hand to see if she’d shifted gears.

  She stubbornly moved her thumb away from the lever.

  His eyebrows peaked over his glasses. “Well … have a nice day.”

  “You …” Pant, pant, gasp. “… too.”

  He leaned over the handlebars and pedaled like he was cutting through a slab of butter with his foot. He was the type of person Karl von Drais had pictured when he built one of the
first workable bicycles. Fit. Attractive. Encouragingly pushy. He had all the qualities of a spin instructor with none of the pay.

  She tracked his progress up, up, up, around … and gone.

  Shuddering to a stop, she panted like a hound dog lying on the front porch in the middle of summer. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a seat on the porch right about now. One she could fall onto, let her arms flop to the side, and let her “brilliant” idea die a perfectly honorable death. Instead of porches, she was surrounded by fields. Fields had snakes. Death by snake was the least preferable way to go. Even less than dying by bike.

  There was no way she was going to make it to the library on this contraption. With a sigh, she penguin-walked in a circle, pointing the bike down the hill. She glanced at her blouse, the one she’d carefully chosen for work today, and found it soaked in perspiration. She was going to be late for work.

  “Me and my stupid ideas,” she muttered as she kicked off and began coasting down the hill toward home. The breeze cooled her off and her breathing slowed. However, the embarrassment over her encounter with Bike-Man grew with every passing minute. Hopefully he was a tourist and she’d never have to see him again. One could only hope.

  Chapter Two

  Owen Mattox hung his bike from the hook in the garage. The thing only weighed 7.2 pounds, and hanging it up was like lifting an overnight bag into the overhead compartment. He lightly touched the back tires of his other two bikes as he passed. One was a racing bike and the other a mountain bike … like what that woman was riding today.

  He’d almost said something about her wide tires, just a tease and a little flirting. He’d checked her left finger before she even knew he was close. Then again, he’d come upon her so quickly that she didn’t have much warning. Better him than one of the trucks they used to haul grapes from the winery to the processing plant on the other side of town.

  Maybe he should have stayed with her longer—to keep her safe. He frowned. He certainly wouldn’t stick around for the less-than-stimulating conversation.

  He entered the house and headed straight for the kitchen to pound some protein and carbs. The twenty-mile ride was a cakewalk, and the curving hills made for beautiful country. They’d sucked him in on his first visit and he’d vowed that when he signed his contract with the Texas Titans, he’d buy a home in hill country.

  His dream was finally a reality. The spacious 4500-square-foot home had everything he could ever want, including but not limited to an infinity pool, a home theater room, a game room that needed a billiards table, a large but cozy kitchen, a hot tub, a library, an office, several guest rooms, a master suite, and a music room that he never used because he didn’t play an instrument. He could learn if he wanted to, because now he had a room for it. For a kid from a suburban life that grew up wearing hand-me-downs and skipping haircuts to save money, this home was a declaration to himself and the world that he’d made it.

  “‘Sup?” Kyle came in, his hair sticking up and pillow marks on his face. His eyes were puffy, like he’d stayed up too late again last night.

  “How’s the cyber world?” Kyle was working on a computer program that was going to revolutionize stat tracking for football, with applications for other sports rolling out in one to three years after the launch of this initial program. Or so he said. All Owen could make of the lines and lines of text on the screen was that Kyle was typing something. Computers weren’t his thing. That’s why he had to pay his childhood best friend to do his social media promotions.

  “Progressing. In fact …”

  Owen’s brain fuzzed out as Kyle discussed the option of an app that would report stats in real time to fans that would correspond with his program.

  Without any prompting, Owen’s thoughts went back to the girl on the bike. She wasn’t big, probably too small for the bike she’d borrowed, or inherited, or bought at a garage sale. People still had garage sales, didn’t they?

  She had a small frame, small enough that she could have rolled into a ball and been smaller than the front wheel. Thinner, too. One stiff breeze and she would have toppled over.

  He really should have stayed with her to make sure she was safe.

  “… and that’s why I think your new mascot should be a unicorn.”

  “Wh-what?” Owen came back to the conversation. “Unicorn?”

  Kyle laughed, batting his hand through the air. “I was just messing with you to see how much you were paying attention.”

  “Sorry.” Owen awkwardly cleared his throat. “There was a woman on a bike this morning.” A picture of her flushed cheeks and the determined set to her mouth invaded his head. She had a nice mouth, not injection big and not pencil thin. Just nice. With two bumps on her top lip and a bow curve to the bottom one.

  “And …” Kyle prompted as he poured himself a bowl of cereal. He liked the sugary stuff with cartoon characters on the box. Owen had lost his taste for things like that when he started training hard and eating to feed his workouts. Having them in the cupboard was comforting, though, like keeping a piece of the good old days.

  Owen shook his head. “And what?”

  “And did she fall down, give you her number, mace you? What?”

  “Nothing like that. She was just …” He searched for the right word. “… cute. Her face was bright red and she was struggling to get up the hill, but she was still going. Ya know?”

  Kyle tipped his face down as if looking over a pair of glasses at Owen. “So she was all sweaty and hot and cute.”

  “Never mind.” Owen trashed his snack wrappers. He couldn’t explain to himself why he’d stopped to talk to her. He should have ridden right past and not looked back, but there was something … just something that urged him to pull the brake.

  “You going to see her again?”

  “Naw—she’s not my type.” His usual response echoed like a forewarning in his ears. “I guess I could, if she lives in town. But not on purpose.”

  “Ah.” Kyle’s eyes popped open and he dropped his spoon into his bowl, splashing milk on his hand. “You’re smiling about her.”

  Owen lifted one shoulder. “She was cute.”

  “Cute?” Kyle twisted his lips like cute was another word for being beaten with a stick. Normally, Owen would agree with him. But this girl had a quality that called to him. He just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

  Whatever drew him to her, he was done talking about it. “Let’s get to work.”

  “Why? You got somewhere you need to be?”

  “No, but you do. Isn’t your flight in a couple hours?”

  Kyle checked his phone. “Yeah. You were invited too.” Kyle was headed to his mom’s birthday party in Vegas. It wasn’t that kind of a Vegas birthday party. Kyle’s parents lived there and the family was as wholesome as wheat bread.

  “Thanks, but I don’t do family.”

  “So you’ve said.” Kyle punched him in the arm. “And yet you pay for me to see them as often as I want. Why is that?”

  Owen pasted on his amused smolder that read nice try. “I don’t need a reason.”

  “One of these days you’re going to have to get over what she-who-will-not-be-named did to you.”

  “It wasn’t her.” She was perfect. The best girlfriend a guy could ever ask for. They should be married with several kids by now. They should be happily living in his dream house instead of him living with his best guy friend.

  “Whatever.” Kyle headed for the office where all the techie toys and their respective wiring lived. “Did you take any pictures on your ride this morning?”

  Owen handed over his phone. “I got a great shot in front of the vineyard.”

  “Alright, the Lone Ranger rides solo once again.”

  Owen smirked. He wouldn’t have been riding solo if that woman had shifted gears. The fact that she didn’t, that she purposefully moved her thumb away from the gear shifter, itched like a piece of fiberglass insulation under his practice pads and stuck with him for the rest
of the day. Besides being cute, she had spunk. He liked spunk.

  He’d be better off not thinking about her.

  Chapter Three

  Several days passed since Bree’s failed bicycle experiment. Her thighs still protested when she bent her knees. A little pain couldn’t keep her away from the Dallas expo center.

  The sportsman’s expo was the hottest off-football season ticket in Dallas. Taking place over three days, the expo brought in vendors from all over the country. The giant room was the size of four football fields and was an engineering masterpiece because there were no support columns marring the open floor plan.

  The crowds were heavy and people continued to stream through the entrance doors on the other end of the room like movie theater candy spilling from a box. The booths were arranged to move people through the maze and they ended at the biggest booth of them all. Bree went up on her tiptoes to see the big seller and dropped back to her flats when she saw the sports drink logo.

  Bree’s mom had secured a primo, but smaller, spot. She’d scrimped all year to afford this booth, and Bree was so proud she could burst.

  “For heaven’s sake, take out that ponytail.”

  “Mom!” Bree grabbed for her hair before her mother could free it from the elastic. Hauling boxes in from the parking lot was hard work and Bree’s long hair clung to her neck, making her sweaty and sticky.

  “Come on, Bree. I need you to work that adorable face—that cute little body—or I’ll never sell enough of this stuff to pay for my next shipment.”