You're the One That I Want (23 page)

To her own eyes, Scotty’s neck suddenly seemed impossibly delicate, her eyes insanely huge, her lashes dark and long, her lips glistening with just a touch of pink.

Eden came back with a makeup brush. “Hold still,” she said and blushed Scotty’s cheeks. “Not that you’ll need it when Owen takes a look at you but . . .” She winked.

Scotty just stared. “I can’t believe . . .”

“That’s you? It is, but if it’s too much
 
—” Grace suddenly wore chagrin on her face. “We didn’t mean to take over.”

“I like it,” Scotty said. “I just have never . . . I never had a reason to wear makeup.”

“What, you never went to prom or homecoming?”

“No. Red was . . . Well, I wasn’t allowed to date. Ever.” Scotty
caught her lip in her teeth, turning away from the girl she didn’t recognize in the mirror. The girl who seemed pretty, feminine even . . . maybe marriage material. “Besides, who wants to go out with a girl who smells like crab or spends more time learning how to hunt than flirt?”

“You don’t need to flirt. Just be yourself. Because one thing Grace and I both forgot is that you
 
—the fisherwoman, police officer version of you
 
—are exactly the person Owen fell in love with. You don’t need any of this to get his attention. This is . . . icing on the cake.” Eden had gone to the closet. “How about a dress?”

“Ah, I think this will do,” Scotty said before things got too far out of hand.

“Okay, listen, I’m going to go downstairs and distract Max. Eden, you do the same with Jace, and you’ll have Owen to yourself,” Grace said.

“And then what do I do?”

“Let Owen handle the rest.”

Oh, boy.

Grace came up to her, turned her to face the mirror again. “Let’s say tonight you throw out your rules.”

“Within reason,” Eden added. “This is Owen we’re talking about.”

Scotty shook her head. “Owen’s changed. He’s not . . . He’s a gentleman. You should have seen him on the boat. He didn’t swear, kept the other guys from talking crude around me. And when he had a chance to kiss me, he didn’t. I didn’t even think he liked me until . . . well, the raft. And that was just because he was freaked out. Pure emotion, and . . . that’s not . . . real.”

She sighed as she looked in the mirror. “Neither is this. I can’t help but feel like I’m manipulating him.”

“You are,” Eden said. “That’s the fun part about being a girl
 
—
having your man look at you like you turn his world inside out. Have you never read Song of Solomon?”

“Song of what?”

“Ignore her,” Grace said. “Listen, you’re not manipulating anyone. And emotion is a good thing. Emotion gives meaning to your actions. Love, fear, duty
 
—they’re the power behind every sacrificial act, every grand gesture, the reason men go to war and women die for their children and yes, why Owen threw himself overboard. Don’t be afraid of it, Scotty. No, you don’t need any makeup to attract Owen
 
—my guess is you already have his heart. You had it before he jumped into an ocean after you. But . . .” She reached over and grabbed a bottle of perfume. “It doesn’t mean you can’t wow him.”

She raised an eyebrow and Scotty gave a nod, letting Grace mist the perfume onto her skin. Grace added it to her own wrists, then pulled up her hair, reached for the lip gloss, and spread it on with her pinkie finger, smacking her lips.

Across the room, Eden had pulled on a hockey sweater over her belly. “It’s Jace’s.” She winked and reached for the perfume.

“Yulia, you go to sleep,” Grace said, covering her daughter with the quilt, then kissing her forehead. “I’ll be back later.”

Then she hooked her arm through Scotty’s. “C’mon. They’ve seen enough of that stupid hockey game anyway.”

The Minnesota Wild were in the last fifteen seconds of a two-minute power play, trying to score against Arizona.

“That has to be over twenty shots on goal, and they still can’t get it under the crossbar.” Owen sat propped on the edge of the sofa, nearly on his feet. “
C’mon
, man.”

“Smith is an amazing goalie,” Jace said. He leaned forward in the recliner, his arms folded. “We’ll need to learn to clean up on the rebound if we want to score against these guys.”

The buzzer for the end of the second period sounded. Max threw his hands up, sat back at the other end of the sofa. “Not that I care about the Wild winning, but sheesh.”

It felt easy, like old times, to be sitting with his teammates, watching the Wild
 
—or any team, for that matter. Dissecting shots, deflections, checks, hits.

Owen could almost forget that his life had derailed.

That’s about enough of that.
His father’s words hung in his brain. Yeah, he’d managed not to dredge up the past with Max. Had managed to talk hockey with Jace, his hero, like he hadn’t nearly cost the guy his career the last time he was on the ice. Sometimes, the image of Jace taking the check for him, the one that would have destroyed his eye, the one that nearly killed Jace, still shook him.

In truth, maybe he
had
cost the guy his career. But both Max and Jace seemed to have moved on, and if his dad’s words were right . . .

And I’d bet they each thought God couldn’t use them before His grace tracked them down, brought them back to His purposes. You can never outsin God’s love, Owen. Or limit what He can do with you if you let Him.

“I feel a little guilty sitting here watching the game with Casper in jail,” Owen said.

Jace glanced at him. “We went by to see him on our way here. He’s hanging in there but is pretty freaked out. Of course, your mother is keeping him well-fed, and I think Raina has just about camped out there, but yeah . . .” He clicked Mute on the remote. “This feels a little sacrilegious.”

“Listen, we’ll all be in court in the morning, and he knows we’ve got his back,” Max said. “Trust me, I know about not wanting people’s pity. The last thing Casper needs is us over here crying for him.”

Owen frowned at him. Pity? “What are you talking about, Max?”

Max shot a look at Jace, then at Owen. “You don’t know? Your parents didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? You’re still playing for the Blue Ox, right?”

“For now.”

“You up for a new contract?”

Max shook his head. “Three years left. And I’m praying I can play all three.”

“You’re at the top of your game, Max. You’re the last person I’d feel pity for, trust me.” He gave a harsh laugh that seemed to echo against the silence in the room. Jace looked down, his jaw tight.

“What am I missing here?”

“I’m going to die, Owen. Sooner rather than later.”

Owen froze, examining Max’s face for the joke, the
Just pulling your leg, bro.
His voice fell. “What are you talking about?”

“I have the gene for Huntington’s disease. It hasn’t kicked in yet, but my brother is showing symptoms and I figure I have about six, maybe seven years before I start getting shaky, needing help walking. And then it’s a long, downhill slide toward . . .” He looked at his hands. “I know I shouldn’t have married your sister, but . . . I guess I’m weaker than I thought. I need her.”

Oh. Owen felt the air empty from the room. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. But we all have our handicaps. You made yours look pretty boss.”

Owen reached up, touched the eye patch. “Grace never said anything.”

“Grace is living in the now, hoping I never get sick. We’ll just keep it that way, okay?”

The now. Talk about not wanting to look ahead. Owen might have decimated the future before him, but at least he still had one, even if he didn’t exactly know what it would look like.

“I’m getting some of those cookies Grace and the girls were making today,” Max said abruptly. “If I’m relegated to sleeping on a bunk bed tonight, I’m going to need cookies. By the way, I call dibs on the bottom.”

“Oh, right, like I’d even fit on the top bunk? Not a chance, pal. I’m pulling rank,” Jace said.

Max rolled his eyes. He turned to Owen. “Maybe you should sleep in the basement, let me and Grace have the den, and Jace and Eden have the boys’ room.”

“What, so she can sleep on the top bunk? No, we’ll be fine here for the weekend,” Jace said. “We’re not here for . . . We’re here to support Casper.”

Max grumbled something and was getting up when he stopped, eyes on the door. “Oh, we’re in trouble now,” he said. “Are we being too loud?”

Grace came into the room, looking pretty, her blonde hair up. She put her arms around Max’s neck. “Way too loud,” she said and kissed him.

Owen averted his eyes, glancing at Jace, only to see Eden slide onto his lap, her arm around him.

“What’s going on?” Jace said.

“I want to take a walk,” Eden said.

Jace leaned around her to pick up the remote. “We have twelve minutes before the next period.”

Owen smiled at that. It was always all about hockey with Jace.

Then Scotty entered the room, wearing her jeans rolled up and a pink T-shirt. She sat on the ottoman. “What’s the score?”

Score? Words fled as he took in her long neck, her dark hair dripping down, thick and full, from a messy tangle at the back of her head. Her lips glistened as she smiled gently in his direction. Her eyes
 
—something about them could pin him to the sofa.

He couldn’t breathe.

She raised an eyebrow as if expecting something, and shoot, if she wasn’t completely annihilating his resolve to follow her rules. Those stupid rules that held him hostage and kept him from doing something ridiculously impulsive like kicking Jace and Max from the room and pulling her into his arms.

He turned to the television.
Just don’t look at her.
“The Wild are up, two to one. Uh, we netted a power-play goal in the first period, and then Parise got a wrist shot in just inside the left post, but Arizona came back with a quick goal. We’re not getting the rebounds, and it’s been pretty messy, so we’ll have to pull ourselves together in the third period.”

He looked up to find Eden smiling at him. “C’mon, Jace,” she said, climbing off his lap.

“Where are we going?” He glanced at the television. “Okay, but we have ten minutes
 
—”

“Shh.” Eden took his hand, and Owen nearly laughed at the power his sister had over the six-foot-four former enforcer who could still make grown men cry with a growl. Eden cast a look at Scotty as she left.

“Max, how about a cookie?” Grace said, tugging him out of the room. Max caught her at the door, one hand going around her waist.

“Max doesn’t want a cookie,” he growled, pressing his lips to her neck, and she giggled as they left.

Awkward. Owen blew out a breath, ran his suddenly wet hands over his jeans. He shot another look at Scotty. She was barefoot and his gaze caught
 
—too long
 
—on the sight of her toes all dolled up with siren-red polish.

Huh.

“Sounds like a good game.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He tore his gaze away and focused back on the television, where the announcers were rounding up recaps of other games around the league.

He didn’t even hear her move, just felt the sofa dip, the sense of her beside him. He stiffened, glanced at her, sitting so close to him that he could lean a little her direction
 
—

Oh, man.

“Did you have fun with my sisters? We thought we heard you singing.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. She met his gaze, her mouth tipping up in a smile.

Lips. Pert, shiny lips.

He found his voice. “They’re a little . . . Well, Eden has this tendency to never mind her own business. I lived with her for a while during my early years, and she’s like the queen meddler.”

“She’s nice. I like her.”

“And Grace is a dreamer. She seems to think that if she makes cookies, everyone will live happily ever after.”

“Not a bad way to solve the world’s problems.”

“I think you’d really like Amelia. She’s the most levelheaded, or well, she’s . . . Actually, I don’t know. Amelia was only fourteen when I took off for the juniors, and even then we didn’t hang out that much.”

“Owen, about today, on the rink
 
—”

“Oh no, let’s not talk about that, thanks. In fact, if you could go ahead and forget the entire thing . . . Just leave it, okay?”

She fell silent beside him.

Now he felt like a jerk. A jerk whose heart seemed to be lodged in his throat. “Not that I wasn’t . . .” He cleared his throat, trying. “Glad, you know, that you were there. And . . . thanks for . . .” Wow, was she wearing perfume? It reached out to him, sweet and floral, and gave a little tug.

He couldn’t take it. “Are you okay? There’s something . . . Is there something different about you?”

Her jaw tightened, her smile vanishing. And it had the effect of the cold ocean washing over him.

He knew he should be scrambling here, for something, anything. “Scotty
 
—”

“No. This is stupid. I
knew
this was stupid. I’m not like your sisters. I’m just not . . .” She got up.

What
 
—?