Up by Five (32 page)

And it was his house. His rules. If he wanted his table to sit out of the tournament, he could do that.

Good thing that being a good Knight in Shining Armor meant having a backup plan.

Conner slid his phone from his pocket and texted
Go
to Shane, Cody and Ryan, then turned up the volume.

“If you’re worried about Conner’s ego, he can take losing,” Gabby said. She looked at him as if waiting for him to reassure Ricky of the same thing.

“Oh, honey, I’m not worried about Conner,” Ricky said, leaning in closer. “But I was thinking this game could be about something more
interesting
than money.”

Conner’s eyes narrowed.

“More interesting than money?” she asked.

“Yeah, like I would bid a weekend stay at my dad’s cabin in Cabo.”

Gabby raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have a weekend vacation home to counter with.”

Ricky’s grin grew. “Right, so you’d have to bid something comparable. Like a weekend at the Britton.”

“A weekend at the Britton is comparable to a weekend in Cabo?” Gabby asked.

“If the weekend’s with you, I’m sure it would be,” Ricky said, running his hand up her arm.

Suddenly a shout came from across the room. “Peanuts? Fucking peanuts! I need my EpiPen!”

They all turned. Mac was out of his chair, pulling at his tie and yelling.

“Gabby, where’s my pen?” he shouted.

Mac Gordon was a big guy and when he started throwing his elbows around and hollering, people noticed.

“I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die!” He pulled his tie off and shrugged out of his jacket, throwing it to the floor. His eyes were crazy.

Gabby and Conner looked at one another. Mac didn’t have a peanut allergy. Conner was sure of it.

But no one other than Gabby knew that.

They both shoved their chairs back and sprang into action. Or fake action anyway.

They were paramedics. If someone was having an allergic reaction to peanuts, they knew exactly what to do. They could fake this, no problem. There had to be a reason for this.

Gabby pretended to dig in her purse for the imaginary EpiPen as they jogged toward Mac.

“Lie down,” Conner ordered him as they got closer.

“Oh god, honey, what happened?” Gabby asked, as she knelt next to Mac.

“We’re going to need some space here,” Conner said to the crowd, motioning them all back.

“Do you need an ambulance?” someone called out.

“I’m a doctor!” someone else shouted.

Gabby and Conner looked at one another again, then at Mac. He was on his back on the floor on the other side of the table from most of the room. He shrugged.

Gabby grinned, then called, “No, we’re fine. He’ll be fine. I’ve got the pen right here.”

Conner knelt on his other side.

She jabbed him in the leg with the ballpoint pen she’d pulled from her purse.

“Hey,” Mac protested.

She stifled a laugh.

Conner grinned. “Okay, what’s going on?” he asked quietly. “You eat peanut butter cookies all the time.”

“Just needed a diversion and a way of getting you both in a powwow,” Mac said. “What’s the plan here tonight? Do
I
need to win the big money while Ricky feels Gabby up and Conner fights the urge to kill him, or what?”

“So far
you’ve
touched her more inappropriately than he has,” Conner told him.

Mac grinned. “She smells really good tonight.”

“Give me that pen, G,” Conner said, scowling at Mac.

But he didn’t mean it and he knew Mac knew it.

Gabby stuck the pen back in her purse. “I don’t know what to do. I need to play for money, but maybe I should say I need to take Mac home. I’ll enter a different tournament.” She glanced over her should with a frown. “A
real
tournament. I don’t want to play for romantic weekends with Ricky, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe
I’ll
win,” Conner told her. “We could take the weekend in Cabo.”

She looked at him. “Conner, I love you. But there’s no way you could win in poker against Ricky Donovan.”

Hearing those three words from her in person made everything in him shout
yes
!

He started to lean across Mac, but the big man put a hand on his chest. “I don’t think so.”

Conner looked down at him. “What?”

“You kiss her, leaning over my poor, sick body, how’s that gonna look for
me
?”

“Seriously?” Conner asked.

“Seriously.”

He blew out a breath. “Fuck. Fine.”

Gabby sighed. “Okay, let’s get you home,” she said to Mac. She started to stand. “At least this way I can get to bed earlier.” This she directed at Conner.

And he knew exactly whose bed she was talking about—and his plan B went to plan C. Or so. The new plan B included writing her a check for the money she needed, shaking some sense into her brother and then keeping her naked for the next week or so.

He could do that. It would fix everything.

But there was something just as important as getting this fixed…and that was proving to Gabby that she had
lots
of people who would help her when she needed it.

So instead of,
Here’s a check, let’s get you out of that dress
, he said, “I have an idea.”

She dropped back to her knees. “You do?”

“I don’t want to step in here, though,” he said. “I’m honestly just here tonight for you. To cheer you on, or comfort you if it doesn’t go well, take you home early…” he was still pretty in favor of that one, “…or whatever.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “But you have an idea about how to salvage all of this?”

“I do.” Two ideas, actually. His checkbook was out in the car.

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Conner?”

“Yeah?”

“What is your idea?”

“You sure? I’ll do whatever you want—”

“Conner,” she said between her teeth, “tell me.”

“I don’t want you to think—”

She reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt. “I need you, okay? I’m thrilled you’re here. Seeing you sitting at that table took my breath away and made me love you even more. But right now I need your help and if you don’t tell me your idea I’m going to…” she glanced down at Mac, “…French kiss Gordon for the next five minutes and tell everyone it was CPR.”

Conner looked at Mac, who grinned, then stretched his arms up, linked his fingers and put his hands behind his head—the picture of absolute arrogance.

“You had me at ‘I need you’,” Conner told her. “I’m on it.”

She let go of his shirt and sat back, taking a deep breath.

“Damn.” Mac sat up. “Well, it was a nice idea.”

“Follow my lead,” Conner told them both.

“Everything okay?” the physician in the room asked as they all got to their feet.

“Wasn’t a peanut after all,” Mac told him. “Garbanzo bean.”

Conner heard Gabby’s soft snort.

“Okay.” The doctor looked at each of them. “Well, good. Let me know if you need anything.”

Yeah, like help for the side effects of an accidental injection of norepinephrine. But Conner kept his mouth shut. Maybe the guy was a podiatrist or something and wouldn’t know that giving an EpiPen injection when it wasn’t needed was kind of a bad idea.

“Will do,” Mac told him. “Thanks.”

Mac reclaimed his seat at the table and picked up the hand of cards he’d been holding prior to his emergency, as if nothing had happened, apparently choosing to ignore the strange looks from the other players.

Conner steered Gabby back to their table with a hand on her lower back.

That was all the touching he could do.

It was killing him.

“So…” she said quietly.

“Yes, I am going to save your pretty butt,” he told her. “And no, no one else is going to be touching it but me.”

She smiled up at him. “You really love that you’re getting to be the hero here, don’t you?”

He stopped several feet from the table. “I meant what I said, G. I don’t need to be the hero here. If you—”

She stopped him. “I want your hands all over me. I want to pull you into the coat closet and not let you out until you…” she glanced around to see if anyone was listening—they weren’t, but she lowered her voice anyway, “…until you can’t stand up.”

Heat hit him low and hard and he glanced around for the nearest coat closet.

He never had gotten that blow job.

“But most of all I want you to be my hero, Conner,” she said, pulling his attention back to her—and away from the blow job. For now.

“Walking up to the table, my heart pounding, not knowing if I could actually pull this off or not, and then seeing you sitting there…it was like everything else dropped away. I knew it didn’t matter how the game turned out, that everything would be okay anyway. Knowing that you were there, no matter what happened, meant something. A lot. More than I ever realized. And now, knowing that when I’m out of ideas you’ll be there, that I can lean on you…” She put her hand against his cheek. “Save me, Conner.”

Chapter Twelve

He was a strong person. He could keep his focus when his entire football team was counting on him to make the last-second-it’s-our-only-hope play work, when victims were bleeding faster than he could bandage, when one of his sisters was going on and on about why the dented fender wasn’t her fault. But at the moment, it was taking everything he had not to throw Gabby over his shoulder and carry her straight out the front door.

She could get out of this herself. She’d come up with something.

But she wanted his help.

And suddenly the original plan B seemed like a lot of fun.

Sure, writing a check would work and be easy but…it was like the difference between watching the Times Square New Year’s celebration on TV or being there in person. Sometimes, being in the middle of the chaos was the perfect place to be.

“Okay,” he told her. “But to warn you, things might get a little crazy.”

She grinned. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Conner resisted grabbing her hand as they started for their poker table again. Ricky was slouched in his chair, checking his phone.

“Hey, Dixon, have you seen Twitter?” he asked.

Conner glanced over to where Mac was playing poker. Had Ricky noticed the whole saving someone’s life thing he’d just been involved in?

“Uh, not lately. Why? What’s up?”

Gabby reclaimed her seat and Ricky gave her a grin before looking at Conner. “A bunch of your buds are looking for you.”

“Oh yeah?” Conner didn’t smile as he pulled his phone out, but it looked like plan B was in motion.

Ryan, otherwise known as @Hawks81, had tweeted him, Shane and Cody,
@HawksQB @Hawks63 @Hawks25, what’s up tonight?

Shane, @Hawks63, had replied,
@HawksQB owes me a rematch. @Hawks25 @Hawks81.

Cody had tweeted,
Let’s do it! Tonight! @HawksQB @Hawks81 @Hawks63.

“A rematch at what?” Ricky asked, looking up.

“Oh, they’re just talking about how I killed Shane in Call of Duty the other day,” Conner said. “I’d better tweet them that I’m busy with you.”

“You and your buddies play Call of Duty?” Ricky asked.

Conner fought his grin. They did. Once in a while when things were slow at work. And not well. Ricky and his friends, on the other hand, were big gamers. He supposed that guys who had nothing else to do could only play so much poker.

“Yeah. We’re not great, but we have fun.”

“Oh man,” Ricky said. “We should so get your friends and mine together for a Call of Duty tourney. You should see my game room. Fully equipped. It’s awesome. A big game would be epic.”

Epic. That’s what Conner was hoping for. “Well, it is
tough
to get all those guys together,” he said. “It used to happen all the time, but now they’ve all got girlfriends and work and stuff.”

“But they’re all free tonight,” Ricky pointed out.

“Yeah, my sisters have some shower thing going on tonight.” They didn’t. They were probably sitting there telling the guys what to tweet. Conner looked around the room. “Too bad we couldn’t do it tonight. They’d love your house.”

“You’re saying that the Hawks would come over here and play Call of Duty with me and my friends tonight?” Ricky asked. “Seriously?”

Conner nodded. “Sure, why not? You have a good setup?”

“My game room is amazing,” Ricky promised.

“Too bad about the poker thing though,” Conner said.

Ricky looked around. “Yeah, I guess. But damn, we play poker all the time. Call of Duty with the Hawks… That’s…epic.”

Conner glanced at Gabby. She was watching him, clearly amused. She lifted an eyebrow. He nodded. Yep, this was his idea.

“Well, if you can tear your friends away from the cards, I can get the guys over here,” Conner said.

Ricky blew out a breath. “My friends won’t care, but it will leave the tables short.”

Conner looked at Gabby. She looked back. He raised both eyebrows. She frowned and shook her head. He widened his eyes and nodded. She glanced at Ricky, then back to Conner.

“Oh.”

She finally caught on.

Ricky looked at her. “Oh?”

“Oh, I just know some people who would love to come fill in at the tables.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “I thought Josh was sick.”

“He is. But I have two other brothers. And a bunch of cousins. They all play.”

“Are they as good as Josh? I don’t want to bring pros in here but I don’t want to bring in a bunch of hacks. That would insult my other guests.”

She chuckled. “They’re okay. They can play.”

“They can be here in a half hour or so?”

Gabby glanced at Conner. He gave her a nod.

“I’m sure,” she told Ricky. “I doubt they’re doing much.”

Ricky started nodding slowly. “Okay. This might work.”

“Want me to call them?” Gabby asked.

“Dixon, you want to call your buddies first?”

Conner held up his phone. “I just tweeted them. They’re on board.”

Ricky glanced down and read the newest tweets, his smile growing. “Okay. This is awesome.” He looked at Gabby. “Yeah, call them.”

Ricky and his two friends at the table got up and headed for the other tables to inform the rest of his gang of the agenda change.