Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven (2 page)

BOOK: Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven
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Yes, she knew the exact date the truck had crossed the center line on the mountain road and forced Bryan and Ty off the edge. Because it had happened four months after she had started running. Ty had messed up his knee. Bryan had messed up his spinal cord. He had a partial spinal cord injury that now required crutches for most of his mobility and a wheelchair for long distances.

She’d first read his blog before the accident but she’d been glued to it after the accident so she could follow his recovery. He’d blogged throughout his hospitalization and rehab. He hadn’t wanted visitors while he was in the hospital and rehab in Denver and she’d respected those wishes. Barely. But she’d been right there with everyone else who gathered around him when he’d come home for the first visit after his injury. Until then, the blog was the only connection she’d had. But the whole thing had proven he was every bit as driven, hopeful and amazing as she’d always thought.

His posts about finding your inner strength, motivating yourself and appreciating the moment you’re in had impacted her most, even before the accident. When her friend Peyton had wanted help getting healthier, Tess had suggested they try running. Peyton had lasted about a month—and the last week had been almost constant bitching—but Tess had fallen in love.

And now she was able to run ten miles, bike twenty, and she was ready to see the world.

Also because of Bryan and his travel diary that he’d kept as a page on his blog. He’d traveled to races around the globe with Ty and always taken time to enjoy wherever they were for a few days. He’d documented hiking, biking, running and boating all over the country and world, and Tessa wanted to see it all for herself.

But she also wasn’t going to tell him
that
. Just because he’d inspired her didn’t mean she was in love with him. Anymore. He was just the source behind some of the words and ideas that had made her want to be better and try new things. She just liked his philosophies. He was like…Maya Angelou. Or Oprah.

Yes, Bryan Murray was like her Oprah.

She looked at Ty. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to his chair.

He grabbed his beer and stretched to his feet. “Please,” he said with a grin.

Tess put a boot up on the rung of the bar stool and boosted herself up onto the seat. Then she got to her feet. The stool was made to swivel, and it did so slightly until Tucker grasped the back of it, steadying it for her. And
then
she realized she had a skirt on.

Well, crap.

She smoothed it down, pressed her knees together and straightened her back. Ty and Tucker wouldn’t look up her skirt. Not with their wives, Hailey and Delaney, right there. As for the others… She needed to get this over with.

“Excuse me,” she said loudly.

But not loudly enough. Conversation, music and laughter continued around her.

Dammit.

She took a deep breath. “
Excuse me!
” she shouted.

That did the trick. Everyone in the room stopped talking and turned toward her. The jukebox continued to play Eric Church, but she didn’t mind. Eric was one of her favorites.

“I just wanted to make a quick public service announcement,” she told everyone.

She wasn’t used to being the center of attention. She was the woman
behind
the people who were the center of attention. She had been Hailey’s assistant for three years while the other woman had been mayor, and Tess now worked for the current mayor, TJ Bennett, Ty and Tucker’s older brother. Her other jobs also put her behind the scenes most of the time. At the bakery, she stayed in the kitchen. When she helped Delaney with her home remodeling jobs, Delaney was the front woman. Tess taught yoga at Hope Bennett’s studio, but being in front to lead a group through yoga poses wasn’t the same thing as standing on a bar stool in the midst of the Come Again on a busy Friday night.

“It has come to my attention that some people have been misinformed about my dating habits,” she said, feeling her chest and throat flushing pink. “I just wanted to clear up the misconception that Bryan Murray is in no way in charge of my relationship status, and if anyone has questions about what I’m doing socially on any night of the week, you should contact me directly.”

She breathed deeply and started to lean over to get down but realized just in time that if she bent over, her skirt would pull up in the back and give Bryan an eyeful. She squatted instead, and grabbed the back of the stool. She felt a hand at her waist and she gave Tucker a grateful smile as he helped her down. Tess smoothed her skirt, licked her lips and headed for the door to the bar.

There was a moment of silence—except for Eric—in the room. Then…

“Grab her.”

Tessa heard Bryan’s grim command, but she kept walking.

“I don’t know if that’s a great idea,” Ty told him.

She kept walking.

“Dammit, Ty.
Someone
fucking grab her,” Bryan said.

She turned back to tell him that he could go
grab
himself, but he was busy grabbing his forearm crutches and moving from behind the bar.

The starch went out of her spine instantly. He was coming after her, but he couldn’t do it on his own because he had his hands full with his crutches.

She was amazed whenever she watched him move around, whenever she thought about what he’d overcome. For a moment, she forgot she’d been trying to leave.

Of course, Bryan’s life had been the one most impacted by his accident and injury, but he honestly seemed less affected by it than the people around him were. Tess knew that his sister, Caitlyn, and his mother had had their lives turned upside down by it. She knew that Ty had changed his whole life after the accident, though he hadn’t been as seriously hurt. She knew that all of the people in Denver who had trained with Ty and Bryan missed them both a lot. She knew Bryan’s clients were feeling a huge loss.

But Bryan had continued to smile and laugh and inspire people through it all. He’d worked his ass off in rehab to the point where he could leave his wheelchair behind and get around on one crutch most of the time, and he could go without anything occasionally. All the while being the same happy, optimistic, live-in-the-moment Bryan she’d always known. And loved.

He really seemed to be looking at the whole thing like just another challenge to be met, and he was meeting it head-on with a new life plan.

She really was quite proud of herself for
not
still dreaming about marrying Bryan Murray. Because he was definitely pretty great.

But now she had her
own
bliss. She thought he’d be proud of her actually. He was all about finding your “inner genesis”, as he called it. The thing that made you start every workout, that got you going at the beginning of every run, that reason for doing what you were doing. She had that inside her now.

Kyle was beside her a moment later, his hand on her upper arm. “Come on, Tess. Give him a chance,” he said. “Don’t make him hobble down the street after you.”

That right there was part of this whole thing. Kyle mentioning Bryan hobbling was said so matter-of-factly because Bryan had encouraged that. He never shied away from talk of the accident or his resultant injuries and his permanent disabilities. He talked about them candidly and with humor and encouraged others to do the same. Everyone was very respectful, and no one felt uncomfortable around him. She admired that too.

How could she walk out on him now?

She sighed. “Fine.”

Bryan came up beside Kyle a moment later. “Does he need to carry you into my office?” he asked her with a frown.

Bryan frowning was about as unusual as Tess standing up on a bar stool and making a public announcement about her personal life.

“No,” she said shortly.

“Then let’s go.” He turned and started for his office door.

Tess had no choice but to follow. And because she was behind him, and a red-blooded, heterosexual female who had loved him most of her life, she couldn’t help but notice how wide his shoulders were and how hard his arms were and how not being able to run and bike like usual didn’t seem to have taken one iota of tightness from his ass.

It was a partial spinal cord injury, so that meant he still had muscle activity in his lower body. From what she could see, it was an impressive amount. She knew he was doing a lot of swimming and working with what weights he could to improve and maintain his strength. He used the crutches, but he took fairly normal steps and moved quickly and with surprising grace. Using the crutches and wheelchair were no doubt a great workout for his upper body, but his butt and legs in the fitted, faded blue denim were certainly worth appreciating as well.

At the door, he stopped and turned the knob, pushed it open and stood to the side, waiting for her to pass in front of him.

She did, reluctantly.

She did
not
want to be alone with him. Even if there were fifty people on the other side of the door, being closed in his tiny six-by-six-foot office was a bad idea.

Because thirteen-year-old Tessa was never
that
far below the surface, and that Tess still loved Bryan Murray deeply.

* * *

Bryan spent almost zero time in his office. A bartender’s job was behind the bar. Sure, owning the place meant a few duties besides bartending, but he liked to do his paperwork and phone calls out in the bar as much as possible as well.

Besides, the tiny office was not ADA compliant. He couldn’t get his wheelchair inside, and even the forearm crutches made the fit tight.

But at the moment, he was thrilled that his office was essentially a storage closet the prior owners had shoved a desk and a filing cabinet into.

It meant he’d have to get nice and close to Tessa Sheridan.

And even if she was ticked at him, she smelled damned good.

He followed her in and pushed the door shut behind him.

She got as far across the room from him as she could, putting the desk between them, and then turned, her arms crossed. With her arms like that, her amazing cleavage got even better. Tessa was a curvy girl, and her breasts were downright glorious.

“You have to stop telling guys they can’t ask me out,” she said without preamble.

No, he didn’t. “Can’t do that, Tess.”

Her cheeks were pink, and he didn’t think it was from anger, even if she wanted that to be the reason. They hadn’t been in this close proximity in a long time, but Bryan knew it affected her. Every time they’d been alone in a car, alone in a room, hell, even in a room or car with other people but within a few feet of one another, there had been chemistry.

She wanted him, and he was addicted to her wanting him.

Tessa had been his girl since that first day of kindergarten. Bryan had seen Tyler Bennett talking to her and had decided he needed to intervene immediately. He’d walked up to Ty and Tess and told her he liked her hair, then he’d asked Ty to be his best friend.

Ever since then, Ty and Tess had been permanent fixtures in his life.

At age five, he hadn’t known that the bro code decreed that once Ty was his best bud, Tess was off-limits for Ty. But when he had figured that out, he’d been even more impressed with his decision that day.

Bryan hadn’t dated Tessa. But he’d kissed her. A few times. After she’d broken her arm when they were eleven. On her sixteenth birthday. New Year’s Eve their senior year. And when she’d been drunk as a skunk at the festival when they’d been twenty-one, and when
he’d
been drunk as a skunk when they were twenty-five.

Hell, he’d proposed to her when they were nine.

But he
hadn’t
done a lot of the things he’d wanted to do with her over the years. Because she was sweet. She was a forever kind of girl, and he’d always known, in the back of his mind, that he would eventually end up in Sapphire Falls, with Tessa. Until it was time, he couldn’t do anything about his feelings for her except be her friend.

Now it was time.

“You
can
do that. I know you feel kind of big brotherly toward me, but you have to stop. You’re messing around and it’s not funny,” she told him.

“I do
not
feel big brotherly toward you,” he said firmly. Jesus. “And I’m not messing around. You don’t want to date any of those guys.” Tessa had loved
him
since they were five.

Exasperated, she let her arms drop. Which really didn’t change how great her breasts looked in that sundress.

“You don’t know that. And even if you
did
know that, you don’t get to tell them what they can and can’t do when it comes to me, Bryan. You’re not my…whatever.”

She pressed her lips together.

But he
was
her whatever.

He moved around the edge of the desk. “I’m here now. I’m ready.”

“You’re ready for what?”

“For…you know. Everything…”

He trailed off. He didn’t have a great excuse for why he was just now telling her how he felt even though he’d been back in Sapphire Falls for over a year. All he could say was that he knew the moment he told Tessa he wanted her, it would mean the end of, well, everything else. So he’d waited.

That didn’t sound great in his head, so he was pretty sure out loud it would sound like he was a jackass.

BOOK: Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven
3.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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