Blue Lines: The Assassins Series: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance Read online

  After handing out business cards and vouchers for free bottles, Fallon spotted Elli and Shea standing with an older guy holding an empty glass. He looked like he had money, so Fallon made her way toward him. She liked to schmooze the big-money guys, knowing that if she got lucky, they would hire Rocky Top to supply the wine for their company parties.

  “He has a bad rep. Money, booze, females, I don’t know,” the older guy was saying when Fallon had reached them.

  Elli didn’t seem very happy. “He’s clean, I feel good about him,” she said sternly.

  But the gentleman shook his head. “I don’t know, Mrs. Adler. Brooks is a fighter.”

  Fallon blinked a few times, totally stunned. It had been a long time since she had heard that name.

  “Yeah, but he’s second in the league for goals,” Elli insisted.

  “And first for penalty minutes. He’s got a huge chip on his shoulder,” the man added.

  “I’ll knock the damn chip off it for him, if I need to. Or, hell, maybe we’ll get Fallon to sophisticate him,” Elli said and grinned, noticing Fallon just standing there and staring at them. “Ricky Owen, Fallon Parker with Rocky Top Wine. She is one of our biggest sponsors.”

  “Who?” Fallon asked, ignoring Ricky’s hand, and hoping like hell that there was another Brooks in the NHL who fought a lot.

  Because she knew only one.…

  “You probably don’t know him. Lucas Brooks? He was just traded in from the Sharks.”

  Fallon wasn’t sure how the bottle of wine slipped from her hands, but the next thing she knew it was in pieces around her beautiful boots. Cabernet Sauvignon was everywhere, and Fallon’s face was beet red as she tried to catch her breath. Everyone stared down in shock, then back up at Fallon’s stunned face.

  Shea started laughing and said, “Or maybe she does.”

  Oh, Fallon knew Lucas Brooks, all right.

  He was coming to Nashville? she wondered. Great, that was just fucking great.

  * * *

  “You know, back in the day, we would be hung over, not moving into a new house, on New Year’s Day,” Levi Moss said.

  Lucas Brooks looked over at Levi, his best friend since childhood and personal assistant, and laughed as he nodded in agreement. Levi was right—five years ago they both would still be facedown in their own puke, or on some female’s breasts, on New Year’s Day.

  “You’re right, but I would probably be broke and without a job, too,” Lucas added.

  “True, very true indeed,” Levi said, nodding his head.

  Lucas smiled as he piled the boxes that needed to go upstairs by the steps. The new house he had bought was huge. He had asked for a simple home and had gotten this—nine bedrooms, six baths, two dens, and, to top it off, an ice rink on the lower level. Lucas had to admit that was the best part of the huge house, but still.… It was too big for just him and Levi.

  After living in San Jose for the past nine years, Lucas still couldn’t believe he had actually left the Sharks and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. He had loved his team, but he needed a new set of faces and a new team, no matter how much he knew he would miss the guys. Lucas was getting into too much trouble in San Jose, and if he wanted to stay sober he had to leave the temptation. And everything in San Jose was a big temptation.

  Lucas knew the trouble spots, he knew the women, and the past four years had been hell trying to be good, so he had to leave. He just had to. Thankfully, Levi supported him, uprooted his own life, and followed Lucas to Nashville with no questions asked. Lucas figured that Levi knew they had to get out of San Jose or Lucas was gonna relapse. Lucas’s mom was happy, too—he was now only eight hours from his hometown of Eaton Rapids, Michigan, and that made Molly Brooks a very happy woman.

  So all around, moving to Nashville was going to be great as long as he got along with his team. Lucas had played the Assassins many times and hated playing defense against them. They were intense, hard-hitting assholes, and a game didn’t happen without him fighting someone. Now he was going to play for them.

  After taking all fourteen boxes up to his room, Lucas looked around and nodded his head. The home decorator, Beth King, had done a great job giving him what he wanted. He wasn’t sure about which colors to choose, but after talking to her, she seemed to know what he liked. She based them on the color of his eyes: the walls were a perfect shade of gray, and the bedding was gray with black and white accent pillows. The headboard to the massive California king bed (something he couldn’t leave in California) was black and reached all the way to the ceiling. He had always liked big beds, and luckily the room was still enormous even with the bed in it.

  Along the walls were black-and-white portraits of him as a kid—him with his mom and dad, some of just his dad—and then a lot of him during his younger years, playing hockey. His favorite picture, on the wall across from his bed, was of him when he was four with his dad, James, on the first day he had ever played hockey. James’s face was bright with excitement, and Lucas’s matched it—it was one of the best days of his life, and he loved waking up to that memory.

  Tearing himself away, he looked over at the closet, holding every stick he had ever played with, and smiled. When Beth had said, “I’d be damned if there is going to be a room just for your old sticks. I will think of something,” he didn’t think twice about it. What was she going to do with forty-six sticks? She had surprised him with the closet, having cut and glued each stick around the walls. He decided that Beth King was pure genius, and he couldn’t wait for his mom to see it.

  Now all he had to do was unpack his personal stuff. He was hanging up his clothes when Levi came in with a box in his hand. Lucas didn’t pay attention to him until Levi said, “Please explain to me why you brought Fallon Parker’s stuff with us to Nashville.”

  Lucas turned quickly, seeing the blue box in his best friend’s hands. He could have sworn that he had hidden that box away. Shit.

  He walked over, took the box from Levi, and placed it on the floor of his closet.

  “I’m waiting,” Levi said.

  Lucas rolled his eyes. “What was I supposed to do with it? Leave it in California?” he asked with a shrug.

  “Yes! Or hell, here’s an idea, throw it away!”

  Lucas ignored him as he went back to hanging up his clothes.

  “I just don’t understand it. It’s been a billion years since she left. You haven’t seen her or talked to her. Why keep her things when we both know it still bothers you?” Levi asked.

  “Nothing in that box bothers me, it’s just memories.”

  “Memories you need to throw away. There is no reason why you still have all the clothes she left, or her hair supplies, or …”

  Lucas turned and glared at Levi. “You went through the box?”

  “Yeah, like five years ago. Come on, dude. It’s crazy! Why do you need her hairbrush?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because it’s weird and I think you need help.”

  Lucas rolled his eyes again and turned back toward the closet. “I’m fine, I just like having them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I do, don’t worry about it. Don’t you have something to do?”

  Levi laughed as he shook his head. “Jeez, Luc, still sensitive after seven years? Maybe you do need help.”

  Lucas shot Levi a maddening look just as Levi walked out the door, leaving Lucas with thoughts of Fallon and her box of things. He had thought about her from time to time, but finding the box when he was packing had opened—again—a can of worms that he had tried to seal a long time ago. Losing Fallon was his epic failure, more so than even his alcoholism. How he could have fucked up something so beautiful and perfect would disturb him for the rest of his life.

  Lucas looked back at the door, making sure Levi wasn’t around, then pulled the blue box out of the closet and opened it. The first thing he saw was a picture of him and the caramel-eyed beauty on the beach outside his house. Fallon was so beautif