The Guardian Groom_Texas Titans Romance Read online

  Bree glanced down at the long-sleeved, lightweight but sturdy lavender shirt with the delicate gather at the neckline that softened the sturdiness of the garment. It was genius in outdoor wear for women. “You could put this shirt on a pig and sell a thousand of them. In fact, that’s not a bad idea. You could do a video of the pig in the shirt and show how well it holds up under rigorous use as well as how easily the fabric washes clean.”

  Mom gave her a black layered look. They had the same black hair and brown eyes and were often asked if they were sisters. “My clothing will not be worn by pigs.”

  “I didn’t say the pigs were worthy of it …” Bree hedged. She’d pushed too far. This was a big day for Mom and her business. If she did well here, she could secure shelf space in major retail outlets.

  Feeling contrite, she reached up to remove the elastic in her hair. Her hair hung limp against her cheeks, so she flipped her head over and flipped back up again. The room spun for a moment, and when her vision cleared, all she could see was a hot guy in a beard made of several different colors of blond and brown and a set of dimples just waiting to make an appearance.

  Her face flushed faster than … than … well, she couldn’t really think of anything, because he was coming her way. “Oh no.” Her fingers went to her freshly painted lips.

  “What?”

  She hooked her mom’s elbow and spun them both around so their backs were to the guy. “It’s him,” she hissed.

  “Who him?”

  “The guy—the one on the bike.”

  Mom angled herself so she could see out of the corner of her eye. One glance had her head swiveling around and her eyes popping out as she drank in the guy’s physique. “That’s one grade A side of beef.”

  Bree lifted her mom’s chin and closed her mouth.

  “Are you sure? He looks way too nice to be the guy you were telling me about.”

  Bree allowed herself another look. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and his brown hair stood up straight on his head, the tips a light golden brown like he spent a lot of time in the sun. However, his smile gave him away. The way his cheeks pulled out instead of up. “I’d know that smirk anywhere.”

  Their eyes met, and a jolt ran through her body. He held her gaze as if saying I’m coming for you. The room seemed to stretch between them, making the distance between them all too long and not long enough in an instant.

  Bree put her hands over her chest in shock. There was no way he was coming for her. No way.

  Mom sighed. Bree yanked herself out of his hypnotic, heart-pounding staring contest. “Don’t look at him.”

  “Wh—?” Mom was interrupted by their first customer of the day.

  “Excuse me, how much are the hats?” The woman wore hiking boots and a ragtag bandana around her white hair. Not Mom’s target customer, who was a hip thirty-something with money to burn and enough vacation days built up to head to the wilderness for a few days a year. A sale was a sale, though, and perhaps the retired market was one Mom could branch into.

  “They are thirty-five plus tax. If you like that one.” Mom didn’t give the woman a moment to absorb the sticker price before showing her several styles.

  Bree shook her head in admiration. Mom was a selling machine. It was all Bree could do to model the clothing and hand out coupons that could be used next week in the online store. Talking to strangers was hard. Reading books? Easy-peasy. Answering questions about books? Like making homemade caramels disappear—pleasurable and sweet.

  When she finally pulled her attention away from her mom and the woman who bought two hats, the guy was gone. Her heart tumbled like a shoe in the dryer. Disappointed? Over him? No way. He wasn’t the type of guy she should set her sights on. He was the jock and she was the mathlete. Okay, maybe not mathlete—numbers weren’t her favorite. But books! Books were a girl’s partner, playmate, and chum all wrapped up in a leather cover.

  “Hello.” She handed a flyer to a mom with a baby in a wrap of fabric that twisted around her body in all directions. At least, she hoped there was a baby in there—otherwise this woman had a strange sense of fashion.

  “Fifteen percent off with coupon.” She handed another one out. The older man slid his greasy hand along hers and grabbed her fingers, before he took the flyer and let go. He grinned, one tooth missing, and winked.

  She wiped her hand on her khaki hiking pants and pulled a face. When she looked up, she caught sight of spiky light brown hair and her breath caught in her throat. “No way.” She stood on her tiptoes to see over the crowd. Three women in shorts that showed more cheeks than a squirrel in the middle of winter preparations parted, giving her a view of Biker Man. His eyes were tight and his shoulders hunched as he talked with the people gathered around the sports drink booth.

  He caught her looking, like he had some sort of radar to detect when her eyes were on him. Recognition wrote a letter of recommendation and he winked.

  He. Winked. At her. Plain Bree.

  Okay, so no one had officially called her Plain Bree in her life—no one except her. You know, in those moments when she’d try to use things like liquid eyeliner and ended up looking like a villain in a Batman comic. Or when she tried to ride an ancient mountain bike to work and some muscled superman comes alongside for conversation and all she can say is “yep.” Yeah, those times were when she was Plain Bree.

  “He probably winks at everyone,” she said. “He knows his boyish dimples are delightful.”

  A teenaged girl overheard her personal and private conversation with herself and moved away from the shirt display as if being weird was a contagious disease. Yeah, I don’t think so, honey. I was born this out of whack. No imitators, only impersonators. She mentally snapped her fingers in a Z formation.

  Bree glanced over her shoulder to find he was still looking at her.

  Well, that just wouldn’t do. Especially because her heart raced and her cheeks were heating up to rival the surface of the sun.

  She wished she’d taken a second look in the mirror this morning, because she had no idea what her butt looked like in the hiking pants. Were the pockets too small? That always made her hips look like a hippopotamus’s. Then again, pockets too large made her look like a balloon butt. Ugh! There was no good way to check her backside without him seeing her check her backside.

  Profile. Switch to profile. She whipped sideways and smacked a man in the lower back. He grunted and fell onto the tank tops.

  “Sorry. So sorry.” She handed him a coupon. “Here, we’re extending the already low prices from the trade show to our online store next week.”

  He scowled and walked away without the coupon.

  Those deep blue eyes were still watching her. She could feel them. Not in a creepy way, but in an I’m-totally-aware-of-you way.

  “Sweetie, can you try not to knock over our customers?” Mom said through her own tight-lipped grin. “It’s better for our image if you actually look happy to wear the clothes.”

  Bree brightened immediately. For her mother—the woman who raised her on her own, the woman who worked a dead-end job all day to make the bills and then sketched and designed until the wee hours of the morning to follow her dream—for that woman, Bree would do just about anything.

  The next hour passed quickly as she handed out coupons and answered questions. She took every chance she could to brag about her mom, the designs, and the clothing itself. And, in all of that, she managed to only check on the growing line of women in shorty-shorts awaiting the opportunity to talk to her bike-man a quarter of a million times. Whoever he was, he was a big deal.

  Best forget him, Plain Bree. A wink was just a wink.

  Chapter Four

  Owen glanced at his Breitling watch. He and London had taken over for Demetri and Torin at the signing table. The stint with the sports drink sponsor was almost over, and then he could find out if that model was the same girl he’d seen on the bike ride.

  Seeing her here in Dallas would be a huge coincidence—
if he believed in coincidences. Which, as a general rule, he did not. A man made his own path and his own fortunes in life.

  Still. That could be her … couldn’t it?

  Her hair was the same color of black that he remembered, but she’d let it loose. The silky locks framed her face, which had gone pink at his wink, although it was not nearly as red as a couple days before. He wondered what it would take to bring out that deep of a blush without the heat and physical exertion. Maybe a kiss?

  Had it really been two days? The moment he laid eyes on her, it felt as if time was a blink. Like his life was a DVD and it just skipped over the other parts and got right to the events that were pertinent to his story line. Like she was pertinent. He needed to talk to her.

  “I’m going to take off.” He bumped fists with London Wilder. They had lockers next to each other in the clubhouse. London was cool. He didn’t pressure Owen to talk, didn’t say much himself. He had recently reconnected with his high school sweetheart. If Owen was the friendly type, he’d like to hear that story. Maybe one day.

  London twisted his lips. “I’ve got another hour. Be cool.”

  “Later.” Owen stood and the handler that allowed the crowd through held back several women who tried to rush the line. He kept his eyes down and worked his way around the back of the booth. If he could slip behind the curtains, then everyone would assume he’d left and wouldn’t be looking for him to pop out a few booths down.

  The black, heavy curtains tried to grab at him, tangle him up. He had to push them aside and step with care. A hot knot formed in Owen’s stomach at the idea of talking to the mystery woman. She was all he’d thought about for the last two days.

  He took a moment to peek between the curtains. No one was watching so he slipped between the Alaska fly fishing booth and the Canadian hunting booth. Now that she was so close, he couldn’t get his feet to move. She was prettier than he remembered. Of course, she wasn’t wearing a helmet. He looked prettier without one too. He ran his hand over his spiky hair and waited for a break in the streaming line of people to dash across the walkway.

  He finally landed within hearing distance and blurted, “Do I know you?”

  Her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  Shoot, it wasn’t her. But no, it had to be her. Even with the large rectangular glasses perched on her nose, he could see her charming brown eyes.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” she mumbled, and handed a flyer to a mom pushing a stroller.

  “Do you ride a black Windsor?” He’d never forget that bike. Popular in the 90s, the Windsor full suspension was still in production, though the newer models were edgy and sharp.

  She sighed in resignation. “Only the one time.”

  He snapped his fingers while his heart snapped to attention. “That was you. So, are you a model or something?” She had the thin body type, the kind ballerinas and gymnasts prayed for, but she lacked the height of a runway model. He should know, he’d dated several.

  “Or something.”

  “Cool.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, at a loss as to how to draw more than two-word answers out of her. She hadn’t said much when she was on the bike either. He’d attributed that to her heavy exertion. If she didn’t say something soon, he was going to think she didn’t like him.

  “Here.” She handed him one of the 4x6 glossy pages. “If you’re interested, there’s an online sale next week, but you can get the same prices here and take home your purchase today.”

  He scratched at his chin as he glanced over the ad. “I don’t usually wear ladies’ hiking shorts.”

  Her cheeks glowed with embarrassment, even as her eyes dragged all the way from his knees to his torso. “I don’t think we carry your size.”

  The manager of the booth appeared at her elbow. She’d been hustling for the whole two hours he’d signed autographs. “Hey, if he wants a shirt, we’ll make him a shirt,” she joked. Speaking out of the side of her mouth, she added, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  “He’s not my—we just met.”

  Owen held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Owen Mattox.”

  “Nice to meet you, Owen,” she said to him, before speaking out of the side of her mouth again. “See, he has manners.”

  “You know I can hear you, right?” he teased.

  The woman brightened like a megawatt bulb, ignoring his lighthearted pestering. “I’m Doris, and this beautiful young lady is my daughter, Bree.”

  Her daughter looked like she wanted to duck under a table and not come out.

  “Daughter?” he asked as her words overruled the becoming way Bree’s hair fell across her cheek. He took in Doris’s arm around Bree’s shoulders and the way her hand clamped onto her arm as if holding her in place. He watched Bree’s discomfort, and his survival instincts sprang to life. Time to run. “It was nice meeting you both.” He spun, sidestepped around a fishing pole, and kept going.

  He overheard Doris ask, “What was that all about?” and wished he could hear Bree’s answer, but a mother-daughter combo was too much to take on again. He’d been sideswiped by that play before, and he wasn’t going to fall for another woman who couldn’t break free from her parents’ grasp.

  Chapter Five

  “What’s this?” Brent Sawyer asked Bree bright and early Monday morning.

  The library bustled with activity. The first few weeks of the summer were like that—parents had all sorts of good intentions. As the lazy days dragged on and the temperatures rose, motivation was harder to come by. Bree had worked hard to create a summer reading program she hoped would inspire children to prod their parents for a library visit each week.

  Brent was as smart as a whip and a cute little stinker to boot. His blond hair hung in his eyes—by choice. His mom had confided in Bree that Brent proclaimed haircuts were not a summer activity and refused to go near a pair of scissors. He was six, so pick your battles, right?

  Bree reached for the plastic baggie filled with mini marshmallows and toothpicks. Kids clambered to her desk to collect their prizes for reading 20 minutes a day—or more. She loved to track their progress with them and encourage them to keep reading.

  “It’s a construction kit.” She flipped the baggie over to show a paper with several different buildings made out of the contents. “You can build one of these. And then you can take it apart and build another one. When you find one you like, let the marshmallows dry out and it will stay that way.”

  “Sick.”

  Bree blinked. She heard the word sick from the YA readers, but this was the first time she’d heard it from someone under ten. Funny. The evolution of a word for the dictionary maestros.

  Brent’s mom rolled her eyes. “Now he’s going to want to use our marshmallows and toothpicks to build stuff. I’ll be stepping on them all summer long.”

  “What a great way to spend the summer,” Bree chirped. “He could be a future award-winning engineer, and when he gives his acceptance speech he’ll tell them he owes it all to his mom and the marshmallow summer.”

  “Maybe,” she mused. “What’s the grand prize this year?”

  Interested in the answer, Brent looked up from tracing his finger over one of the pictures.

  Bree’s throat tightened, warning her not to lie. “It’s a surprise.”

  “It’s never been a surprise before. I’ve brought three kids through summer reading programs, and we always know what we’re working toward.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what it is just yet.” Because I don’t know! She kept her smile in place and hoped the deception didn’t show through her eyes. She’d never been good at lying, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t improve. Her smile stayed until Brent tugged his mom out by the shirt hem to go for an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen.

  Bree deflated like a four-day-old balloon.

  “Still don’t have a grand prize?” asked Audrey, the inter-library loan specialist and Bree’s closest friend.

&
nbsp; “Shhh.” Bree spun around and placed her hands on her hips. “Do you know how hard it is to fund a summer reading program on my budget?”

  Audrey gave her a sympathetic tilt of her head. She had one of those faces without an identifying feature. Her blonde eyebrows practically blended into her face, her eyes were basic blue, and her nose and lips were well proportioned, but she had a rockin’ bod. Barbie was jealous of Audrey’s curves. The only difference between the plastic doll and Audrey, besides what they were made of, was that Barbie knew how to work those curves and Audrey did her best to hide them in square tops and baby-doll dresses. “If anyone can do it, it’s you. I don’t have the patience to count 37 toothpicks and 21 marshmallows a hundred times over.”

  Bree waved the compliment away. She loved her job. Where else would she be paid to talk to children about books, plan fun projects, read with moms and tots, pick themes for check-off sheets, introduce preteens to Nancy Drew and The Dork Diaries, and count toothpicks? Seriously? Best. Job. Ever. “Do you want to grab a double chocolate milkshake later?”

  Never one to turn down ice cream, Audrey grinned. “Sure.”

  “Great.” Bree headed down the short hallway to the children’s section. Three children under five ran past her, their mother hustling behind. Bree grinned at them. Yes, libraries should be quiet places, but the children’s department should be fun.

  Her desk was up front with everyone else’s, but her section was in the back where the noise from happy children wouldn’t “bother” the other patrons. Since when did the sound of children’s laughter become a nuisance in the world? Tragic.

  She stopped in the doorway and ran her hand through her hair. This room was tragic. While she’d been discussing Brent’s future accomplishments, a gaggle of toddlers had torn through here like a Texas tornado.

  She stacked the books on top of the chin-high bookshelves; she’d get to putting them away as soon as she could walk without tripping over a block. She righted the tic-tac-toe board and placed the Xs and Os in the squares. The stacking blocks were next, and she made a pyramid. Finally, the magnetic squares that stuck together were rounded up. She mindlessly pulled them apart and let them snap back together. The click triggered a memory of the guy at the expo. The big one with all the muscles. He was polite. Better than when he’d practically accosted her for conversation in the middle of her cycling breakdown.