Garrett (29 page)

I’d like to dedicate this book to two very important people who helped me tremendously with my manuscript. First, my friend Jeanne Frazer, who has bravely battled through follicular B-cell lymphoma. I’m happy to say she’s in remission, having kicked said cancer in the ass. She provided me with so much personal insight on what it’s like to suffer this disease, and I cannot thank her enough for her candidness and support.

Second, to my friend Dr. Mark Yoffe, preeminent oncologist and fellow lover of Bernese mountain dogs. He patiently lectured me on follicular B-cell lymphoma, helping me to make this manuscript as medically accurate as possible. He even kindly invited me to his clinic to observe a bone-marrow aspiration and biopsy, but before I took him up on that offer, I watched a YouTube video of the procedure. Let’s just say after the dizziness and queasiness passed, I had to, in turn, kindly decline.

Jeanne and Mark…you are both inspirations to me, and this book would never have been possible without you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I’ve lived through both of my parents having cancer. Serious cancer…both stage four…both given a very grim prognosis. My dad is still kicking twenty-three years later, and my mom is still kicking nine years later. I wanted to write a book where one of my main characters had cancer, because I wanted to point out that survival is possible…many times even probable. Cancer today is not always the big “C” that we have always feared. I wanted to show that there is hope and there can be a happily ever after.

While the particulars of follicular B-cell lymphoma and the treatment that Olivia underwent are medically accurate—and yes, her particular type of treatment often does not cause hair loss—I have had to take some minor liberties in the medical story line to make it all work.

Alex

Garrett

Zack (coming soon)

If I Return

Uncivilized

Off Sides

Off Limits

Off the Record

Off Course

Off Chance

On the Rocks

Make It a Double

Sugar on the Edge

With a Twist (Coming Soon)

Shaken Not Stirred (Coming Soon)

Objection

Stipulation

Violation

Mitigation

Reparation

Affirmation

Confessions of a Litigation God

Forever Young

USA Today
bestselling author S
AWYER
B
ENNETT
is a snarky southern woman and reformed trial lawyer who decided to finally start putting on paper all the stories that were floating in her head. Her husband works for a Fortune 100 company that lets him fly all over the world while she stays at home with their daughter and three big, furry dogs who hog the bed. Bennett would like to report that she doesn’t have many weaknesses, but can be bribed with a nominal amount of milk chocolate.

sawyerbennett.com

Facebook.com/bennettbooks

@BennettBooks

[email protected]

February is the month for romance, especially at Loveswept…because this month we have a little something for everyone.

Sure to please fans of erotic romance, Lea Griffith’s All or Nothing series returns to the deepest places of longing and obsession—don’t miss
More.
In Sidney Halston’s latest sizzling MMA romance,
Below the Belt,
a former title contender turns the tables on his knockout trainer with a lesson in seduction.
New York Times
bestselling author Tracy Wolff is back with another Ethan Frost novel, featuring the irresistible leading man from the
New York Times
bestsellers
Ruined
and
Addicted
in
Exposed
.
USA Today
bestselling author Sawyer Bennett hits the ice with the story of a playboy athlete whose winning ways lead him to a beautiful woman with a lot to lose. You don’t have to love hockey to enjoy
Garrett,
the next book in Sawyer’s Cold Fury Hockey series. Another of our Loveswept
USA Today
bestsellers, Mira Lyn Kelly, cranks up the heat for two lifelong friends whose most secret longings come true in every delectable way in
Touch & Go
. And later in the month, in Lavinia Kent’s luscious, erotic historical romance, a free spirit learns her true desires from a master of the heart, of the body—and of the sweetest discipline. Check out
Bound by Bliss
. Ashlyn Macnamara finishes up this month of romance with a blazing hot novel,
What a Lady Requires,
the story of mismatched newlyweds who discover a simmering connection.

Be our Valentine this month and every month—read Loveswept.

~Happy Romance!

Gina Wachtel

Associate Publisher

by Sawyer Bennett

Available from Loveswept

The overhead lights go out, and the club would be in total darkness if not for the recessed lights that edge the perimeter of the stage. I slouch down in my seat, pulling my ball cap lower over my forehead. This causes me to have to tilt my head back a little bit farther to watch the show but keeps my face better obscured. The beard I’d been growing for the past four months helps to hide my fame as well.

I don’t want to be recognized.

I don’t want anyone to see me and realize just how low Zack Grantham has fallen from grace.

A sexy techno beat starts thrumming low, gradually building in decibels. A few whistles pierce the air, one redneck sounding a catcall. A rolling tide of mechanical fog slithers across the black, lacquered stage and then swirling spotlights from the corners of the club start rotating. A slight flutter at the pitch-black curtains that sit closed tight is the only indication that something is about to happen.

A quick glance down at my phone that rests on the table in front of me shows me it’s almost midnight. Time for the grand finale of the evening, the moment all the drunk and horny patrons of The Golden Box have been waiting for.

I ignore the phone, just as I ignore the glass of ice water sitting in front of me, my eyes sliding back up to the stage. When the music crescendos, a slim but toned bare leg sporting an obscenely high-heeled red shoe peeks through the slit of the curtains, thigh parallel to the floor…calf muscle taught, with toe pointing downward. The whistles and catcalls increase, but I watch dispassionately.

The owner of that bare leg raises the knee up higher, then stretches it out fully, gracefully, and holds it there, just as the music lulls to a slow grind.

She holds it for just a second.

Just a moment, when everyone waits to see what comes next.

The curtains fly apart just as the bass thump of music crashes through the club and a stunning woman with glorious curly blond hair bursts through. My brain processes a starched white button-down shirt and black fedora on her head, then just as quickly processes the fact that she reaches to the dipping gap at her chest and rips the shirt open. Beautiful, round, and by the looks of them real boobs pop forth…spectacularly bare and bouncing.

A hundred horny men start cheering, and I’m sure the majority of dicks go to full mast.

The stripper, who I happen to know goes by the name Candi Apple—and, yeah, that’s Candi with an
i
—struts confidently up to the silver pole lodged firmly at the edge of the stage.

Hips swaying, tongue licking at her full bottom lip, hair wild and blowing from some kind of cheesy wind machine built into the stage flooring.

Her right hand reaches out, grabs the pole, and she bends her knees…squatting way down until her ass is almost on the floor. Her legs are spread wide and the rotating strobe lights cause sparkles to bounce off the silver sequins that cover the scrap of material between her legs. Candi gyrates her hips, fucking the pole…right in front of me. Her dark eyes scan the men surrounding the stage, calculating who might be the biggest tipper. Her gaze passes right over me because she doesn’t see green clutched in my fingertips, waving back and forth with zeal to stuff them in her G-string.

The show goes on and I watch it all…willing for my body to feel something. I’d hoped for a hard-on to prove I wasn’t dead, but even a slight fluttering of lust deep in my groin would have been welcomed. Hell, I’d probably kill for a gurgle of indigestion…just fucking something…anything, to show I could react.

I come up fucking empty.

The slight ache in my right wrist pulls my attention away from the tits and ass, and I open and close my fist several times to ease the cramp, finally giving it a hearty shake. Overall, my wrist has healed well over the last four months. The plates and screws have been removed, physical therapy has been completed, and I’m feeling physically strong. Yeah…my wrist is aching right now, but only because I realize I’ve been gripping the armrests of my chair too tightly while I waited to see if Candi Apple might be the one to bring me back to life.

I’ve been cleared by the team orthopedic, Mark Godson, and cleared by Coach Pretore as well. Starting next week, I resume practice with the team, and if I’m lucky, it won’t be long before I’m back in the game…starting, second-line left winger for the Cold Fury.

My insides feel dead, my capacity to care for much of anything seems lost, but there are two things that still keep me functioning. It’s the prospect of playing hockey again and, more important, my son, Benjamin.

Subtle movement catches my eye and I see my phone vibrating. I pick it up and see an angry text from my sister, Delaney.

WTF, Zack? You left an hour ago to get some milk and you’re not back yet? Where are you?

Guilt suffuses through my body, and it’s not lost on me that I’m actually feeling an emotion. But then again…guilt is all I ever seem to feel anymore nowadays.

I wonder what Delaney would say if I texted her back,
I’m at a strip club. Hoping Candi Apple turns me on…proving I’m still alive.

She’d shit a brick, that’s for sure.

I stand up from the table, ignoring Miss Apple on stage. I fish a five-dollar bill out of my pocket and throw it on the table, a tip for the delicious glass of ice water the waitress brought me not but fifteen minutes ago.

As soon as I get out of the club and into the silence of my car, I dial Delaney.

She answers on the first ring. “You scared the shit out of me. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I murmur as I start the engine and wait for my Bluetooth to connect. When I hear the subtle click telling me she’s on speaker, I put the car in drive and say, “Just driving around…thinking.”

I hear her blow out a gust of sympathetic frustration, but her voice is gentle. “Okay. Just get home.”

“Is Ben okay?” I ask.

“He’s still asleep. Have you gone over the applicants I picked out for you?”

My hands tighten on the steering wheel, a tiny pain shoots through my wrist…a pain I’d never admit to the team doctors…so I ignore it. “Not yet.”

“Tomorrow,” Delaney says sternly. “You have to make a decision tomorrow.”

“I know,” I mutter, realizing my time for dragging my feet and procrastinating is over. “I promise. Tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she says softly. “That’s good.”

I don’t say anything else, my mind already starting to shut down. I abhor the thought of culling through her final recommendations for a nanny for Ben. Because that means that this is final…that Gina is really dead and Ben’s mommy is definitely not coming back.

“I love you,” Delaney says…almost desperately, into the phone.

I bite my lip, hard, and feel my tooth slice down into the delicate flesh. “Back at ya,” I say, my voice harsh and raspy. Words of love to my older sister…the woman who has been my rock-solid support the last four months since Gina died…unable to materialize.

I disconnect the call and stare blankly out the windshield. I’m practically on autopilot as I drive home.

An unbidden, sarcastic snort bursts forth from me, and then I start snickering to myself.

Home.

What a fucking joke.

My four-bedroom house on Marchand Street feels like a prison, the walls closing in on me and causing me to seek out strippers named Candi Apple at midnight. I can’t escape my memories there, my guilt swallows me up as I look at Gina’s pictures throughout the house, and every day, rather than rise above my pain, I get swallowed in it a little deeper.

If it wasn’t for Ben…beautiful, blond-haired, blue-eyed Ben…the spitting image of Gina. My little boy who seems to have bounced back fine after losing his mother, giving me toothy grins and cuddling with me on the couch at night. If it wasn’t for him…

No, I don’t even want to think about where I’d be if it wasn’t for Ben. Let me just appreciate the fact that I have the most wonderful child in the world, and it’s only because of him that I at least have some sort of desire to want to feel again.

I can’t seem to feel outside the bounds of pure and unconditional love for my child, but it doesn’t mean I want to be this way. I’m smart enough to know that Ben will look to me for guidance on how to live this life without his mom, and I’m savvy enough to know that if I don’t get my shit together, for his sake, that I stand a really good chance of fucking his head up.

So I try the only way I know how, by seeking out the Candi Apples of this world, and start trying to dig down deep for something to interest me in this life outside of my child and my hockey career…which should be enough, right?

Taking a deep breath, I pull onto the outer belt line that circles around Raleigh, and let it out slowly. Yeah, tomorrow I need to start the process of removing my head from my ass. I also know the first step is to do as Delaney says and choose Ben’s nanny. Delaney has been down here in Raleigh for the past week, interviewing prospects and checking out references. She’s narrowed it down to a choice of three, and while I really don’t want to make this decision, I know that for the sake of my son, I need to be satisfied they are right for the job. I trust Delaney implicitly, but I also know that I need to show some interest…at least for her peace of mind. She heads back to Manhattan the day after tomorrow, where she works as a financial analyst, and I can’t let her leave with undue worry over me and Ben.

Pisses me off I have to hire a nanny. It feels like I’m replacing Gina…hiring a new mommy for my boy. Deep down, the rational side of me knows this isn’t true. While I’ve been able to handle Ben just fine on my own the last four months while I recovered from my wrist injury, there was no way I could be a single parent to Ben when much of my career is spent on the road. I would need someone to be with him full-time when I was gone, and it had to be someone trustworthy.

Again, I trust Delaney and her choices, and I’ll do my duty tomorrow and give them thoughtful consideration. Then I will make my decision, and start the process of introducing a new woman who would become a provider and mother figure to my son. Because that is what a nanny really is, at least that is how I see it right now.

That thought causes pain to shoot through my chest, and while I know it’s unfair, a little part of me already hates this woman because she would be taking Gina’s place in that respect.