Hearts at Play (Love in Bloom: The Bradens, Book 6) Contemporary Romance (3 page)

“ALMOST READY SWEET girl?” Brianna zipped her knee-high black boots that Kat had given her for her birthday over her skinny jeans and gave her outfit a once-over in the hall mirror. The gray boatneck sweater hung loosely over her slim figure, stopping just short of her hips. Her wrist bangles clinked as she brushed her hair from her face.

“You look really pretty, Mom,” Layla said.

Brianna kissed her cheek. “Not as pretty as you do, princess, but thank you. I’m helping Claude with a photo shoot this morning. Do you have your invitations?”

Layla shook her head, tossing her two long brown ponytails from side to side. “I’ll get them. Can we get a pony for the party?” She ran into the kitchen in her black leggings and blue long-sleeved shirt and grabbed the bag of birthday invitations Brianna had written up the night before.

“A pony? That’s like a million dollars. I think we have to skip the pony. But we can have ice cream and cake,” Brianna said.

Layla looked at the invitations. “These are so cool! You taped lollipops onto them! Now everyone will come for sure.”

“Everyone will come anyway, because they all love you. Put them in your backpack so we’re not late for school.” Layla had many friends, though not many playdates because of Brianna’s schedule.

Brianna remembered what it was like when she was gathering a bundled baby in her arms and rushing out to the sitter’s before work only to come back ten hours and two jobs later to pick her up each afternoon. After her mother’s initial freak-out about Brianna’s pregnancy, she’d eventually realized that having a baby wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a girl—despite her own experience with a husband who’d left her when Brianna was only eight—and she’d come around. And although Brianna’s life wasn’t what she’d envisioned for herself when she was eighteen, she was happy. And so was Layla. That was all that mattered.

Her mother had helped when she was able, but she had also worked full-time when Layla was born. Her mother had recently rearranged her hours to work earlier in the mornings, freeing her up to watch Layla after school while Brianna worked. Now, as Brianna pulled up to the school and Layla unhooked her seat belt and climbed from her booster seat, Brianna leaned over the backseat to kiss her goodbye, and she felt like those exhausted days had taken place a lifetime ago. Somehow, between Layla becoming more self-sufficient and Brianna throwing herself into motherhood and accepting that this was her future, things had become easier.

“Have a good day, princess. I’ll pick you up after school and take you to Grandma’s. And I forgot to tell you, Grandma wants you to spend the night tomorrow night.”

Layla drew in a loud breath. “Really?”

“Yup. She said there’s a play at the theater that she wants to take you to see. Is that okay? I’ll come get you Saturday after the play.”

Layla climbed over the seat again and hugged her. “Yes, yes, yes! Oh, I love plays so much, and Grandma always takes me to lunch. This is gonna be so fun!” Her smile faded. “What about you? Don’t you want to come?”

Brianna made a mental note of another mommy moment that she wanted to remember forever. She had so many of them now, she needed to learn mental shorthand. “I might have to buy a certain little girl a birthday present.”

“A kitty?” she asked hopefully.

Brianna pretended to zip her mouth closed and toss the key out the window.

Layla groaned.

“Love you, princess. You better get going so you’re not late.”

“Okay. Two Musketeers?” Layla said with a smile, exposing the dark hole where her front tooth would hopefully soon grow in.

“Always,” Brianna said, and blew her a kiss. Layla had started calling them the Two Musketeers two years earlier. She’d asked about her father—again—and Brianna told her that sometimes God gave children just one parent because the child was too special to share. Layla had looked at her with a serious stare and said, “Then we’re like Grandma says. We’re the Two Musketeers.”

She watched Layla run up the walkway and join two of her friends before disappearing through the front doors of the school. Her mind drifted to the Patrick Dempsey look-alike. Despite herself, she let herself recall his name with a silent sigh.
Hugh
. Just thinking about his sexy voice sent a flutter through her stomach. Layla was doing great, and Brianna knew that entertaining the thought of anything else in their lives would only add confusion to their already chaotic schedules.
Who am I kidding? I’ll never see the guy again anyway
. The thought was strangely comforting and upsetting all at once.

“BREE, CAN YOU please tweak the lights one more time? I’m getting a shadow again.” Claude Delaney moved with the grace of a swan as he glided around the young, scantily clad couple on the bed. They’d been shooting the Regency Linen commercial for five and a half hours, and Brianna wished it would go on forever. Gorgeous didn’t begin to describe the couple on the bed with their perfectly sculpted and tanned bodies. Just watching them was more action than she’d had in years. If she didn’t count her bouts of self-gratification. A woman had to survive somehow. In reality, it was Claude’s photographic techniques that held her interest.

She’d been filling in for Claude’s assistant, Stella, on an as-needed basis for the past two years, picking up hours while Stella was on vacation or too sick to work, and she hoped to one day secure a full-time position with Claude. Brianna was a realist, though, and she knew that was a pipe dream. No one left Claude’s employ. Stella had been working with Claude for fifteen years, and he was sought after by all the major commercial players on the East Coast.

“Two-twenty, Claude,” Brianna reminded him.

He pursed his lips and lowered his eyeglasses to the bridge of his nose. “It’s a good thing I love you.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose with his index finger. “Five more minutes. Then we’ll wrap, so Bree Bree can go get little Layla.”

She saw his cheeks rise behind the camera and knew he was teasing.

“Had a fab shoot yesterday. Wish you were here. The guy was hunkier than hunky,” Claude said as he climbed a stepladder.

Brianna listened to the
click, click, click
of the shutter, longing to be the one behind the camera. She found the sound as soothing as Layla found rubbing the ear of her stuffed Piglet doll and as inspiring as a writer’s muse.

“Did you hear me, Bree Bree?” Claude asked.

“Yes, sorry.”
I was busy fantasizing
. “Not interested. Thanks.”

Claude sighed and waved his hand at the models. The contrast between his cream-colored linen shirt and his coffee-bean-brown skin made Brianna wish once again that she had her camera in hand. It would be a long while before she would be able to replace her broken camera, but she held on to the dream of one day seeing the world through the safety of the filtered lens once again.

“Great job. Thank you for a hard day’s work,” Claude said to the couple before turning his back to them and whispering, “Beauty makes for a tough life. What I wouldn’t give to roll around on the sheets with that one.” He nodded to the lithe male model crossing the floor wearing nothing but black bikini briefs.

“You’re terrible. You say that about all the male models.”

Claude pulled his glasses down again and peered over them. The lights reflected off of his pointy bald head. “Good. Maybe some of my lusty leering will wear off on you.”

“Okay. On that note, I’m going to take off and get my lovely daughter from school. Is Reba coming by to help put things away?” Reba Wilkes was the sweet fiftysomething woman who ran his cleanup crew.

“Always,” Claude said. “I meant what I said. I really do wish you were here for that shoot. This guy had soulful eyes, and you could just tell he was a good one, despite his fame.”

Brianna waved as she walked toward the door. “Daughter, daughter, Claude. Talk to me in twelve years.” She hesitated at the doorway. “Love you for thinking of me, though.”

“Fine. Twelve years it is, but I need you on Saturday. Can you make it? Ten o’clock.”

Brianna bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. Saturday was going to be her first full day off in two weeks, and she’d planned on shopping for Layla’s birthday gift and taking Layla to the park later in the afternoon. They hadn’t been in ages, and Brianna had wanted some one-on-one time while the weather was still warm enough to enjoy it. She’d made enough in tips last week to splurge on lunch out, too, but the extra money from Claude would help toward her birthday party. She hadn’t told Layla about the park yet, so…

Claude must have seen her hesitation. “Stella won’t be back in time. I’ll throw in a little extra bonus.”

“Sure. Yes.”
Sorry, Layla
.

HUGH ROUNDED THE racetrack at one hundred and eighty miles per hour. He’d been at the track since eight in the morning, after spending an hour at his home gym and going for a three-mile run. This was his last practice run. The world outside his windows went by in one thick blur, but Hugh didn’t see the bleachers melding into one another or the blob of fans standing outside the fence with their noses pressed against the gate. His vision was focused on the hood of the car, the road just beyond, and the curve of the track. His body, completely in tune to the vehicle, felt a slight drift to the right around the bend, and beyond the pristine roar of the engine that vibrated through his body, the only thing Hugh heard was his own mind noting the drift and calculating the strategy for the next race. There was no bigger thrill than race day, but practice came pretty damn close.

He downshifted on the straightaway and pulled into the pit. The pit crew flew around the car at lightning speed.

“Fix that drift,” Hugh said as he stepped from the car and felt the familiar sensation that everything around him was still moving. It took a few minutes for the hum of the engine to leave his body, and when it did, it stole a flash of the exhilaration from the ride.

“We’ve got it, Hugh. No problem,” Art assured him.

Hugh stood to the side as his heart calmed and the earth stopped moving under his feet. “Art.” He waved him over. Art was thirty-five with short, sandy hair and honest green eyes.

“Boss? Listen, we’ve got thi—”

Hugh put his arm around Art’s shoulder and walked him away from the crew. “Art, no more of that shit like last night, okay?”

Art smiled and held up his hands in surrender. “I heard you last night. No more setups. Got it.” He looked out over the track and then back at Hugh. “Was she really that bad?”

“Worse.” Hugh smiled. “The only good thing that came of it is that I found a place I can hang out without being recognized.”

“No shit?”

“Yup. Hell, if I’m here for a week or two, I might as well have a place to grab dinner.”

Art pointed at him. “See, now, that’s why you need a wife.”

“Oh hell no. That’s why they make restaurants. I’m off the market, remember?” There was a time when Hugh would have fought to the death to protect his bachelor status, but now, as the words left his lips, his vehemence deflated. He didn’t want a wife to cook for him, but every day he was growing more certain that he wanted to have a real relationship with a woman. Something more than
wham, bam, thank you, ma’am
with women he barely remembered ten minutes after they were done in the sack.

“Hey, you told me to tell you when it was three. It’s three fifteen. Sorry.” Art held up his arm for Hugh to see his watch.

Hugh patted him on the back. “Thanks, man. Let’s go over the notes for tomorrow; then I’ll take off.”

HUGH SHOWERED AND dressed in a pair of distressed jeans and a white T-shirt beneath a black cashmere sweater. He splashed on Eros by Versace cologne and slid his feet into his favorite pair of black boots before heading out to his garage.

He drove his Roadster to Old Town Tavern, contemplated parking behind the building, where Brianna had said she parked the night before, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to take a chance that she’d think he was a stalker, even if he was there for a second day in a row specifically to see her as she arrived at work. He mulled over not going in and taking a chance in a day or two. As with everything else in Hugh’s life, he was less than patient.
The hell with it
. He drove down the street and around the corner and parked in the public parking garage.

As a thirty-one-year-old race car driver, it took a lot to make Hugh nervous, but as he pulled open the heavy wooden door to Old Town Tavern, his nerves were on fire. One quick scan told him Brianna wasn't there. He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and disappointment settled heavily on his shoulders.

The blond waitress he recognized waved from behind the bar. “Hey there.” She pointed at herself. “Kat, remember?”

“Of course. How’s it going?” he asked as he climbed atop a barstool. He hadn’t given much thought to Kat’s looks the evening before, and now, without the distraction of beautiful Brianna or fluorescent Tracie, he noticed that she was quite attractive with big blue eyes and a tall, slender frame, though she wore a splash too much makeup and too tight of a push-up bra. Hugh had never been into blondes for more than a roll in the sheets, and tonight was no different as his mind drifted back to Brianna.

“Can’t complain,” she said with a smile. “Nice to see you again, Hugh. Sidecar?”

“No, thanks. Water would be great, thanks.”

She opened a bottle of Perrier and set it on the bar beside a glass of ice. “Who comes into a bar and orders water?”

“You’re right. Give me a sidecar, too.” He checked his watch. It was four forty-five.
Where is she?

“Now you’re talkin’.” Kat made his drink.

“It’s pretty dead in here, huh?” he said, hoping she’d say something about Brianna. “Will it get busier when the game comes on?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s still early.” She leaned against the counter behind the bar. “So, Hugh, did you just move to town?”

He laughed. “Not really. I’ve owned my house for a few years, but I travel a lot.”

“Oh, what do you do?”

Hugh took a sip of water, trying to form an answer other than the truth. He really didn’t want to out himself in the one place he could let his guard down.

The door flew open, and Brianna hurried across the floor, looking down as she stuffed her keys in her purse. “I’m sorry. I swear I hate my stupid car. It wouldn’t st—” She stopped cold. Their eyes locked.

Hugh’s pulse kicked up a notch as he drank in the rest of Brianna—all the lovely curves he had missed the night before. Brianna didn’t just have a nice body. She was smoking hot. He couldn’t help but drag his eyes down to her perfect round breasts, slim waist, curvaceous hips, and long, luscious legs in tighter-than-tight jeans that disappeared into knee-high black boots. Hugh felt a smile stretch across his face. He drew his eyes back up to her face and knew that it didn’t matter what kind of killer body she had. It was those thoughtful, intense eyes that drew him in.
Shit
. She wasn’t smiling.

“Hi, Bree,” he said.

Brianna looked at Kat with her lips set in a tight line. Kat, on the other hand, sported a playful grin and raised her eyebrows.

“Um. Hi…Hugh,” Bree said before training her eyes on the floor and hurrying toward the back of the bar.

Despite his better judgment, Hugh felt himself turning on his stool, and watched her disappear through a door marked
Employees Only
. In thirty-one years, he’d never been drawn to a woman’s face the way he was drawn to Brianna’s, and for the first time ever, Hugh had no idea what to do next.