Blue Lines: The Assassins Series: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance (47 page)

Whenever Elli’s dad came to visit, he would always say that it was like he was standing
in sunshine because it was so bright. She smiled just thinking about it. She was so
proud of both her studio and home. They showed the world that she was doing something
with her life. They proved that she didn’t need her family’s money, that she was successful
after losing her stint on Broadway, and that she could live without Justin, her ex.

She pulled in to her round driveway, grabbing all of her bags. Even before getting
to the door, she heard her pug running down the hall, and then the barking started.

“I know, Adler. I’m home, darling, hold on.” Elli opened the door and her forty-pound
pug attacked her. Well, he tried to, at least. She laughed as she threw her keys in
the basket by the door. She bent down to her puppy, who was struggling to breathe.

“Oh, my goodness, Adler, honey. Breathe, darling.” Elli petted him until he calmed
down, kissed the top of his head, and then locked the door as her house phone rang.
She didn’t answer it. She knew it was her mother, and Elli was not in the mood to
talk to her. The machine picked up and her mother’s voice rang out over the machine,
telling her to call her. She pushed delete before going to the kitchen for some dinner.
She decided on a frozen dinner, since she didn’t feel like cooking. She went to get
her laptop while her food cooked in the microwave.

Elli walked through her bright yellow living room. She loved the décor in here. The
gleaming walls accented the black wraparound couches that had matching throw pillows.
The couches brought the room together. Her extremely large TV, a gift from her father
because she loved watching the away games in HD, hung above a mantel that held pictures
of her nieces and nephews. She smiled as she passed them to get her laptop. She loved
her nieces and nephews, and couldn’t wait to take them to the park next weekend when
they came for their monthly visit.

After getting her laptop and returning to the kitchen, she loaded the pictures from
her camera as she got a fork and napkin. She sat down at the bar, food and laptop
in front of her. She had taken more than three thousand shots of the Assassins, which
meant she had lots of work ahead of her. She inhaled her frozen pasta meal. She realized
she was hungrier than she thought as she looked over the pictures. They were good
shots, really good. Only a few were crappy. But with Photoshop, she could fix them
with no problem.

As she went from picture to picture, Elli kept going back to Shea Adler’s photos.
Gosh, he was so stinking gorgeous. He had the most spectacular blue eyes she’d ever
seen. They were such a dazzling shade of blue: so bright, and so happy. He probably
had a beautiful girlfriend, a dog, and a nine-bedroom house with all the fixings.
He just looked like he was happy. When she
came to the pictures of him in the suit, he took her breath away. The suit was black,
with a purple vest underneath. The hockey stick that he held was so slick-looking.
But you really didn’t look at the stick or the suit, you looked at his eyes.

Good golly, they were mesmerizing.

Not that Elli would admit this to anyone, but while she worked that night, she kept
flipping back to the pictures of Shea, looking at his beautiful eyes, his hard body.
She wished that she was the girlfriend at his house waiting for him to get home so
they could sit on the couch, cuddling as they watched highlights from the games that
night, while Adler lay beside them.

Elli smiled at the thought, and then rolled her eyes.

As if that would ever happen.

* * *

“Not only did I run into the goal, but the wall, too!”

Shea Adler sat with the side of his face in his hand. His glasses were crooked, but
he didn’t care. He was beyond embarrassed about what had happened at the Assassins’
photo shoot earlier that day.

“I can’t stand it when I get new contacts. They affect my eyes all to hell. God, it
was so embarrassing, Grace. So embarrassing.”

His twin sister laughed on the other end of the phone as Shea rolled his eyes, dropping
his hand from his face to get up for a drink of water.

“I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed, Shea. It was only the guys.”

“And the staff!”

“Okay, and the staff. So what?”

“And the photo people!”

“So? You’re never embarrassed about anything. What aren’t you telling me?”

Shea didn’t say anything. He wasn’t telling Grace about the beautiful brunette with
the biggest and brightest green eyes he had ever seen. She had eyes that took his
breath away when he looked into them, something that had never happened to him before.

“Who is she?” Grace asked with a knowing voice. “Hopefully not some dumb blond
bimbo who will suck you dry.”

“Hey, no one has sucked me dry!” Shea said defensively.

“They tried.”

“Now, you know that’s not true. I won’t even let them close enough to suck me dry.”

“Whatever. You bought the last chick, Marie, a diamond necklace!”

“Because I unknowingly slept with her sister. I felt bad, and since I had no intentions
on starting anything with her, it was a sorry present before I stopped talking to
her.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, the sister should have told you she was Marie’s sister, who does
that? So who is this new girl?”

“How do you know it’s a woman?”

“Because, like I said, you don’t get embarrassed. So shut up and tell me.”

“I don’t know who she is. She was the photographer today.”

“Okay, and …?”

“And she was beautiful.”

“Did you ask her out?”

“No, she is kind of different,” he said sheepishly.

“What the hell, Shea? You are not making sense. Who am I talking to?” she said teasingly.
“This isn’t my brother, big, scary Captain Adler, because my brother’s motto is ‘I
came, I saw, I conquered.’ ”

Shea let out a booming laugh, which caused her to laugh.

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. She was shy, cute.”

“Hmm, sounds like a winner in my book,” Grace said.

“Maybe.”

“So, anyway, the party for this weekend is almost done, planning-wise.”

“Great!”

“I’m excited. The guys are gonna have a ball.”

“That’s why I hired the best party planner in Nashville.”

Grace giggled and went on with the details, as Shea stood in his stainless-steel kitchen.
Grace had decorated the whole condo for him when they came to Nashville four years
ago. He had just been traded to the Assassins from the Flyers and couldn’t be happier
to be moved to a team that was going to pay a hell of a lot more than the Flyers ever
did. Plus, Grace had hated
Philadelphia. Probably as much as Shea did. Luckily, they both loved Nashville, since
Grace would never go anywhere without Shea, and he wouldn’t go anywhere without her.

The joy of being twins!

Grace had helped pick out the condo, and even lived with him for a while to finish
decorating, before looking for her own. Then she met James Justice. After being together
for only a couple of months, she got pregnant. Now Grace lived ten minutes from Shea
in a beautiful $1.2 million house, blissfully married, with two of the greatest kids
in the world, Ryan and Amelia, while running the biggest party-planning business in
Nashville. Shea couldn’t be happier for her, but he always got nervous at the thought
that one day he might be leaving her, if he got traded again.

“Does that sound okay?” Grace asked, bringing him back to the conversation.

“Of course. Do you have a photographer?” Shea found himself asking. Grace started
laughing.

“No. You never said you wanted one.”

“Well, maybe it would be a good idea. With all the new players and their families,
don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Do you have a certain photographer in mind, Shea?”

“Oh, hush, and get her.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know, but find her and get her. Offer her a price she can’t refuse.”

“You have no idea what her name is?”

“I think I heard Elli, but I’m not sure. Call Melody, she would know.”

“Fine. I’ve got three days to find this chick. Jeez, Shea.”

“I love you, Gracey,” he cooed. She laughed.

“I love you, too. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He hung up his phone, tucking it into his pocket with a grin on his face. He went
to his fridge, smiling at his niece’s and nephew’s pictures before opening it to get
a beer. He popped the top as he walked to the dimly lit living room. He sat down on
his leather couch and turned on the TV to catch some of the highlights before turning
in for the night. He had an early practice in the morning. Plus, he would be volunteering
with the team tomorrow afternoon over at the
Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.

As Shea drank his beer, he found himself grinning. If Grace came through, he would
be seeing the beautiful photographer by this weekend.

And this time, he would conquer.

Fallon Parker had done it.

Even with all the negativity from her parents and sister about leaving Nashville to
go to school out west, she had done it. Fallon had completed her first year at Stanford
University. Yeah, she had gained the dreaded freshmen fifteen, but it didn’t matter.

She had done it. Without anyone’s help—not her parents’, her sister’s, her friends’—she
had kept her 4.0 grade point average.

On cloud nine, Fallon jumped into her Charger and drove down to San Jose to meet her
friends. They were all going out to celebrate and she couldn’t be more excited about
the fake ID in her purse. She had been such a good girl her freshman year, but now
she was a sophomore and she was gonna live this summer. Fallon was on a mission.

Get drunk, find a guy, and hook up. Maybe not sex, but at least make out some. It
was simple really, and Allison, her roommate, had said that the Trails Pub was the
place to do all three.

After parking her car beside Allison’s, Fallon headed inside.

“ID, please,” said a big black man, as tall as a giant and named Pinky, according
to his nametag. Fallon had no clue what was so pinky about him, but she had learned
quickly that in California ya kinda just go with it. Fallon smiled nervously as she
opened her clutch and pulled out the ID she had made. “Thanks, Amanda, have a nice
night,” Pinky said with a grin as he handed her the ID.

Fallon looked confused but then remembered the name on the ID. “Why, thank you so
much, have a nice night yourself.”

Pinky smiled again as Fallon made her way into the bar. She spotted Allison with Hannah
and Kristin, the girls from the dorm room across the hall from hers, at a corner booth
by the bar. The Trails Pub was packed wall to wall with every type of person imaginable.
As Fallon made her way toward her friends, she noticed guys glancing her way with
appreciative looks on their faces. She smiled confidently, knowing the short jean
skirt and dark red tank that matched her boots was a great combination for man-catching.

“Damn, Fal, looking good!” Allison said when Fallon reached their table. Hannah and
Kristin smiled and waved as Fallon sat down. They weren’t used to sexy Fallon. The
Fallon they knew walked around campus in sweats all the time.

That was freshmen Fallon; sophomore Fallon was sexy.

“Thank you, thank you,” Fallon gushed as she looked around the bar.

“A round of tequila, Teagan!” Allison exclaimed.

The bartender smiled over at the girls before very efficiently pouring four shots
and handing the drinks to a waitress. As the waitress set the shots on the table,
the girls picked them up, bringing the glasses to the middle for a toast.

“Here’s to the first of four years done!” Allison exclaimed, as all three girls joined
in with her, clanking their glasses together and downing the shots quickly.

It burned Fallon’s throat. She wasn’t sure what the awful liquid was, but, Lord, it
was
disgusting
. Fallon looked off to the side, noticing that there were some good-looking men in
the bar that night. She was giddy with excitement at trying to pick one up—she had
become used to keeping to herself over the past year but now she was ready to branch
out.

As Fallon’s eyes skimmed the bar, they met with a pair of smoking gray ones. She blinked
twice as her eyes were held hostage by his. He was gorgeous. Shaggy, dark brown hair
framed his face, his nose was wide but fit his face perfectly, and his lips were thin,
she noticed as he bit his bottom lip. He had a very boy-next-door kind of look to
him but with an edge. A dangerous edge, Fallon decided as he slowly stood. He was
tall and had powerful arms, one covered in tribal tattoos, the other bare. His eyes
never left hers as he got up, away from the table of equally huge guys, and came around
to lean against the bar, watching her.

He didn’t seem to care who noticed him staring or if it was rude. It was as if he
saw what he wanted and was waiting to pounce. The craziest thing ever! Fallen thought.

“Jeez, that dude is staring at you hard, Fal,” Hannah said.

“Like, really hard,” Kristin added.

Fallon looked back at her friends for a second before turning back to the mysterious
guy at the bar. He was wearing a nice tailored suit but had left his jacket at the
table. His shirt was a pale green, rolled up to his elbows to show off his tattoos,
and the first couple of buttons were open at the neck so she could see that there
was writing on his chest. She wondered what it said, and she wondered why his friends
were wearing suits, too.

Who were these guys?

“Go talk to him, Fal!” Allison yelled. “He’s flipping hot!”

He sure was.

“I don’t know,” Fallon said nervously, as thoughts from the freshman Fallon intruded.
What if he’s some guy with the mob, or something? He’s muscular and dark and sexy
and … mmm …

“Don’t be a wuss! Go!” Allison said, interrupting Fallon’s thoughts.