I’d walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball.
—Pete Rose
For the umpteenth time since takeoff, Kate looked down at her shoes and sighed. All she would have needed was five minutes to wash off her makeup and change into something a little more appropriate, but no. Due to a hiccup in the boss’s schedule, they’d pulled her out of the late-afternoon reception two hours early and whisked her straight to the waiting seaplane so they could get her to the lodge in time for the Cessna to get back and pick up Paul.
She couldn’t even reach her suitcase, because it had already been stowed.
So there she sat, staring out the window and wondering what was the most ridiculous thing about her right then. Was it the tight red cocktail dress and six-inch platform heels that made her look like she’d just stepped off the set of Real Housewives of Vancouver? Or was it the fact that with less than twenty-four hours’ notice, she had willingly agreed to leave everything behind to go live and work at a fishing lodge, when the only thing she knew about fishing was that George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg had made that movie about it?
And they’d both died in that movie. Great.
Two strikes against her going in, but neither mattered right then. The only thing Kate cared about was making sure she proved herself on this project so Paul would have no choice but to let her run her own show.
For the last eight years, the Foster Group had paid her to research potential investors, arrange receptions for those people, and then glad-hand and charm them into signing on to Paul’s next real estate venture.
It wasn’t what she wanted to be doing, but, still, it wasn’t a bad gig for a high school dropout whose previous occupations included such glamorous highlights as cleaning woman, construction-site lackey, lumberyard gofer, and dog walker. She hadn’t had two cents to rub together back then and went home every night smelling like grease, dirt, or wet dog, and while she didn’t miss any of that, at least she hadn’t had to dress up and walk around in ankle-breakers while creepy old rich dudes made inappropriate suggestions, each of which she rebuffed with firm politeness.
It wasn’t all bad, though, because her job for the Foster Group had afforded her the chance to get a degree in hotel management while she worked. For the last few years Paul had been promising to give her a boost in the company, to put her in charge of one of his smaller hotels, but so far Paul’s promises had been nothing but words.
It was funny how things worked out, Kate mused. Paul’s go-to guy, Josh, was supposed to be the one going to the lodge, not her, but from the little Paul had said when he’d called last night, Josh’s fiancée had carried on as if he were going to the moon instead of on a quick hour flight up the coast in the Cessna. Needless to say, Kate jumped at the chance to fill in.
She might not know diddly-squat about fishing, but she’d always been quick to pick up new things. She’d dig in and get her hands dirty on whatever jobs they had for her, especially when Paul started throwing around words like “promotion” and “general manager.”
The previous owner of the lodge had closed its doors a few years back, but since his recent passing, the family was working to reopen it. According to Paul, who’d been friends with the owner, their intentions were good but, given what Paul knew about their financial situations, there was little hope they’d be able to reopen in time for the upcoming fishing season, never mind pay off the significant tax bill that had gone unpaid for years. From the sounds of it, they couldn’t even afford to hire workers, so in their desperation they’d been only too happy to jump at Paul’s offer.
And to Paul’s credit, his offer really was nothing short of brilliant. Since he’d been such good friends with the previous owner, Paul offered to send Josh to help with repairs and what all. If the family still couldn’t make the July 1 tax deadline and chose to sell the property, they’d give Paul first refusal. He’d been looking at a few different fishing properties lately, so if it turned out these people didn’t have to sell, Paul would take his offer to the Hewetts’ place over on Langara, which was also for sale. Either way, Josh (or, rather, Kate now) would have hands-on experience and would be able to walk in and run either lodge with minimal hiccups.
The only hiccup in the plan was that Paul didn’t want the Hewett place. He wanted the Buoys, and what Paul Foster wanted, Paul Foster generally got.
“That’s it ahead there.” From behind the controls, Walt pointed out Kate’s side window toward a triangular-ish island in the distance. Technically, that long narrow strip of land connecting it to the mainland made it a peninsula, but it still looked like an island.
Walt banked the plane a little to the right, then evened out and headed straight in.
“Wait. What? No, that’s not—” Pushing her face closer to the window, Kate peered down, frantically searching the area for another building somewhere—anywhere—in the vicinity. Nothing. But that place there—that wasn’t the lodge she’d seen in the pictures. “That’s the Buoys?”
Walt nodded. “Fished there once myself fifteen or twenty years ago. Had some young kid as a guide and damn was he good; think he was the owner’s son.”
“Yeah, but—” With less than a day’s notice that she’d be filling in on this job, Kate hadn’t had time to do her own research on the lodge, but Paul had told her not to worry, that his secretary, Lorraine, had all the information Kate would need. And sure enough, when Kate got on the plane an hour earlier, the red Foster Group binder Lorraine had put together was right there on her seat.
And Lorraine had proved time and again that she was nothing if not thorough.
If it hadn’t made Kate queasy during the flight, she might have done more than flip past the first couple of pages, but instead she’d taken a quick look at the gorgeous glossy photos in the brochures at the front and closed the binder before her stomach revolted. Sure, she knew brochure pictures lied; the photos were always taken on the most perfect day of the year, the scenes always set just right, so she didn’t expect the actual lodge to look exactly like the photos.
But this…
As they loomed closer, she had no choice but to look through the binder again, because those gorgeous glossy photos she’d seen the first time clearly weren’t taken at the Buoys.
Apparently Lorraine had filled the front of the binder with specs and details on the other lodges—the ones with spas, the ones Paul wanted to steal ideas from—not the one he wanted to buy.
Pictures and specs of the Buoys were tucked in the back of the binder, behind property assessments and the last three dismal financial statements, and it didn’t take a genius to see it was night-and-day different from the other lodges. No spa, no masseuse…Oh, for the love of God, was there even…whew…yes, there was indoor plumbing. Internet, too, but it was sketchy, and cell service was nonexistent.
Good God, it sounded scarcely better than prison. Kate skimmed the text quickly as Walt nosed the plane down toward the water, each word making her wonder what she’d agreed to. There wasn’t a building on the property that didn’t need repair; apparently the dock also needed work, and of the three boats at the lodge, two of them hadn’t been serviced in over three years.
The Buoys had been run by a James O’Donnell…
O’Donnell? No, couldn’t be. Keep reading.
…owned it thirty-plus years…shut down a few years back…taxes in arrears…recently deceased…yada yada yada…contacts at the Buoys were his son, Ronan, and someone named Jessie Todd.
“O’Donnell.” It was a fairly common Irish name, and there were plenty of Irish people in this part of the country, weren’t there? Of course there were—hell, she even had a little Irish blood—and yet in all her life, she’d only ever actually met one other O’Donnell, and he’d flipped her whole life upside down. It was ten years back, and she hadn’t even known him a week, but those days had been…wow…right up until the morning she’d woken up to find herself alone in that Vegas motel room.
Yup, in the huge pile of screwups that she’d built her life on back then, he’d been the bright shining star on top of the heap. He’d left her not only alone in that room but broke, too, having spent almost every penny she’d had, and unemployed, as well, because at some point during their last night together, when she’d obviously still been glowing in the aftermath of the best sex she’d ever had, she called her boss at the lumberyard back home and told him to shove his stupid job up his ass.
Kate still cringed at the memory. Her language had been more than a little colorful during that phone call, but once she got home, she’d been too embarrassed to call back and apologize. Like every other job she’d had before it, her work at the lumberyard had been nothing more than a part-time minimum-wage soul-sucking crapfest, but at least it had been a job, which was more than she had when she woke up that morning alone.
She’d managed to scrounge up enough change in her purse for bus fare to the airport, but when she’d arrived back in Vancouver, she had to beg another dollar off a perfect stranger to get transit home.
Not exactly a shining moment in her life, but it wasn’t like there’d been many shiny moments before it, either.
That whole trip had been a massive mistake. She hadn’t even wanted to go, but Laurel and Jeanette wouldn’t let up about it, so, being the sheep she was back then, she’d maxed out her credit cards, packed the nicest clothes she owned (which were all pretty sad), and honestly tried to enjoy herself.
To make matters worse, the first night they arrived, Laurel’s fiancé was injured in a car accident, so she and Jeanette had immediately changed their tickets and flown home the next morning. Kate, of course, had booked her trip the cheapest way possible, which didn’t include travel insurance, meaning she couldn’t switch her ticket without paying a couple hundred bucks she didn’t have.
So she’d stayed in Vegas for five of the most amazing days of her life, had bet everything on those five days and ended up losing spectacularly. But, as the saying went, what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas, and that’s where she’d left her O’Donnell and all his cute blue-eyed, Kelly Clarkson–singing, hand-holding ways.
Pushing the whole thing into the back corner of her mind, where it should have stayed in the first place, Kate stared down at the photos in the binder, then squinted out the window again as the plane skimmed down onto the water.
Not only was the Buoys about half the size of the other lodge in the pictures, there were no grand marble pillars at the entrance nor was there a ten-man hot tub anywhere on that huge wraparound porch.
The three-level timber-frame building was anything but fancy, but Kate had to admit there was something about the way it sat snuggled deep into the cove that made it look cozy, inviting. Sure, it clearly needed work, but a little elbow grease never killed anyone, right?
She was no stranger to hard work, and even though she hadn’t really done it in a while, she was ready. And more to the point, she was ready for the rewards at the end of it. Hell, she could already see the name tag she’d wear on her shirt this time next year: KATE HADLEY, GENERAL MANAGER. And first thing she’d do when she scored that job was add a spa.
“Hope you brought bear spray.” Walt cocked his brow as he turned the plane against the current and eased it toward the dock, where a woman in a black-and-gray wool sweater stood ready to tie up. “Are you okay to carry your bag up? Mr. Foster’s waiting on me.”
“Of course,” Kate muttered.
When Paul Foster was waiting for you, you didn’t dillydally, so she didn’t think twice when Walt left her to deplane on her own. She wouldn’t have worried about that normally, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that platform heels and snow-dusted docks did not a good pair make.
Kate scooted her butt to the edge of the seat and cast another wary glance down. It had been a trick and a half getting into the plane in that dress and those shoes, and that was when she’d been dealing with a smooth, dry dock. Now…yeah, there was no way this was going to be pretty.
Screw it.
With a sigh, she tugged off both her shoes and climbed out in her bare feet, her shoes tucked under her arm. Curling her toes against the frosty wood, Kate tugged the collar of her thin raincoat a little higher and tried to steady herself with a slow breath. Walt had already relocked the cargo door and had set her suitcase down when the woman—who looked to be around Kate’s age—slowly reached out her hand.
“Jessie Todd,” she said.
“Kate Hadley. Nice to meet you.”
“You’re early. We weren’t expecting you until later tonight.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” With a quick jerk on the bag’s zipper, Kate pulled out her bright-yellow gum boots, which were clearly built more for style than function, unlike Jessie’s thick green boots, which were clearly not a fashion statement of any kind. Neither was her black toque, but Kate would bet everything she owned that Jessie’s ears were a hell of a lot warmer than hers just then.
“There was a scheduling conflict with the Cessna, so…” Kate chuckled quietly as she waved her hand down the front of herself. “Clearly I wasn’t expecting to be here this early, either.”
“No problem,” Jessie said. “It’s just that I would have had the dock cleared if I’d known you were coming early.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“Okay, but…uh…should I be worried that your suitcase is full of cocktail dresses and heels? ’Cause we might have ourselves a problem if it is.”
“Oh. Um…” Kate deadpanned until Jessie’s eyes started to widen, then Kate laughed. “Kidding. Don’t worry, I’m good.”
“Take care.” With a quick nod, Walt hopped back into the small plane and fired it up, then waved his thanks when Jessie untied him and helped Kate push the plane away from the dock.
The whine of the engine drowned out every other sound as the two of them turned and headed up the dock, Kate taking two steps for every one of Jessie’s.
Damn dress.
“Is everything all right with Josh?” Jessie asked. “Foster’s secretary didn’t say much when she called this morning.”
“He’s fine, but he’s planning a wedding, and you know how that is.”
“No,” Jessie laughed. “I don’t, but I’m guessing his fiancée wasn’t keen on him being out of town for any stretch of time.”
“Does make it a little more difficult to do fittings and things like cake testing, especially since the wedding’s in a couple months.”
“And you’re sure you’re up for this? It’s going to be long hours and the work isn’t very pretty.”
“Ha!” Kate snorted. The small wheels on her suitcase were already caked in snow, forcing her to yank harder so she could keep up with Jessie. “Don’t let the outfit fool you; back in the day, I spent the better part of a year working for a cleaning company that specialized in hoard removal, so as long as I’m not doing that again, I’m good to go. Just let me get changed and you can put me straight to work.”
Jessie’s eyes narrowed a little, but then she nodded slowly. “All right, then. Let’s get you settled. You’re welcome to stay in the lodge for now, but if you’re still here when the season starts, you’ll have to move out to one of the cabins in the back. They’re not much, but they’re warm and dry and they’re a little more private than the lodge, which is something you’ll learn to appreciate once this place starts filling up.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
Head down so she could pick out the less slippery spots on the dock, Kate didn’t look up until they were on solid ground, and by that time a man had started toward them from the main lodge. He was still a good couple of hundred meters away, but for a second there Kate thought he sort of looked like…No. It couldn’t be. Was probably nothing more than the power of suggestion because she’d just been thinking about him, albeit briefly.
It had to be the son mentioned in the paperwork. Ronan? Wasn’t that his name?
And yet…something in Kate’s brain twitched. Granted, she hadn’t spent more than a few days with her O’Donnell, and it had been ten years ago, but she didn’t remember him ever mentioning anything about his family owning a fishing lodge. Come to that, he hadn’t shared anything about his family other than the fact that he had a couple of brothers, one older, one younger. Pretty much all she’d known about him back then was that he was cute as hell, sweet and funny, he was a pitcher on the Detroit farm team with an intense determination to make it to the show, and hands down he was the best kisser she’d ever met.
Truth was, she’d never met another guy who could cause such complete and total pandemonium inside her with the mere brush of his lips. Oh sweet Lord, those lips…
Shake it off, Hadley; it’s been ten years.
Sure, she might not have spoken to him since he’d left her in that motel room, but it was nearly impossible not to know what was going on with him once he made it to the show. On principle, of course, she’d refused to cheer for him when he pitched his first big-league game against the Diamondbacks, but she couldn’t help feeling a little bit bad for him when his team got swept in the World Series a few years back. It wasn’t just that they got swept: They lost the last game in extra innings at home, and if that didn’t suck enough, he’d spent the entire post-season on the DL and hadn’t thrown a single pitch.
She couldn’t imagine how frustrating that must have been for him, and if she hadn’t still been forcing herself to hate him, she might have shed a tear or two for him. Maybe.
If that actually was him heading toward them, this was going to get really interesting really fast, and while she probably should have been a little nervous, the whole thing made her want to laugh. Could her luck truly be that bad?
As Jessie led her closer, Kate sneaked another peek, trying to keep her face hidden until she could get a better look at him, hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe…he had a twin?
The idea hadn’t even settled in her brain when the first whistled notes of “Since U Been Gone” hit her ears. Really? All this time and he hadn’t switched loyalties to some other pop star—Taylor Swift, maybe?
Shit. This wasn’t funny. So why couldn’t she stop snickering?
After all these years of working her way up, both personally and professionally, of finally turning her life into something good—no, better than good—the gods were going to dig up the biggest mistake she’d ever made and dump it on her like this without any warning?
What. The. Hell.
The woman she’d worked so hard to become over the last decade knew that while she’d been epically stupid down in Vegas, so had he—the difference being she hadn’t been the one who’d taken off in the middle of the night, leaving nothing but a quickly scrawled note and a half-eaten bag of Doritos behind.
Even so, the old Kate, the one who’d sat alone in that damn room for hours, wallowing in self-pity and kicking herself for continuing to do such stupid, asinine things—yeah, that Kate—suddenly surged forward, dragging every single one of her old insecurities along for the ride.
No.
She couldn’t afford to be that Kate anymore, especially now. She needed to be Strong Kate, Resourceful Kate, Get-the-Job-Done Kate. She’d worked her butt off to get where she was, and this lodge was going to be her pièce de résistance. She was going to get that general manager job, and she wasn’t about to let the best kisser in the world or anyone else screw it up for her.
There was a teeny tiny possibility he wouldn’t remember her; after all, they’d only been together for those few days, and…well…he’d obviously been with other women since. But even before Jessie slowed to a stop, Kate knew that was ridiculous. There were some things, no matter how short-lived, you just didn’t forget.
Biting down hard on her lip, Kate managed to keep the nervous gurgling laugh at bay awhile longer—barely.
Okay, Hadley, get a grip. The only way in and out of here was by boat or by air. She couldn’t even begin to guess how to start a boat, never mind drive one; Walt was already gone, and there was no way in hell he’d turn around for her when Paul was waiting for him.
All she needed to do was lift her head and look him in the eye, show him that she’d done just fine after he’d dumped her like last week’s compost. So, inhaling a slow, steady breath, Kate lifted her face just as Jessie started the introductions.
“Hey, Liam,” Jessie started, stepping aside a little as the whistling stopped abruptly. “This is—”
“Kate?”
It had been awhile since she’d seen his face on SportsCenter—apparently they didn’t give airtime to ball players who didn’t play; go figure—but as was the way with a lot of men, time had been overly generous.
His eyes were still the color of the ocean, his thick brown hair cut short above his ears, and the thin scar that ran from the inside corner of his left eyebrow up toward his forehead was still there. It was the exact same face, and yet it had a maturity now that it hadn’t before.
Standing in a pair of old army-green rain pants with patches of silver duct tape across both knees, a similar-type jacket zipped halfway up his chest, and a ratty, old Tigers ball cap on his head, he looked like shit. And God, was he cute.
There.
That moment right there made Kate very happy she hadn’t had time to change before getting on the plane. Sure, her dress was completely out of place, but if she had to see him again when she was completely unprepared, she wanted to look good, and if her stupid dress hadn’t been covered up by a raincoat or if she hadn’t been standing there in yellow gum boots, maybe she could have pulled it off a little better.
Crap.
Nope, it didn’t matter. Exude confidence and people will believe it, right? It was the tactic she’d used every time Paul gave her a new assignment, and this one would be no different, except this time she didn’t bother flashing her standard bright smile.
“Hello, Liam.” The first time she met him, those blue eyes of his had sparkled like crazy whenever he looked at her. This time, the sparkle lasted about two seconds before it was replaced with disbelief, caution, and…yup, a wee bit of panic.
“Wait.” Jessie frowned. “You two know each other?”
“You could say that.” Kate had never whispered a word about him to anyone, not even after he made the big leagues, and since she’d never had a reporter stick a microphone in her face, she was guessing he’d left what happened in Vegas back in Vegas, too. If someone had wanted to go digging, they could have found out, but Liam had never been one of those players who lived his life on the covers of magazines.
Not that she would have read those magazines if he had.
Kate’s mind tripped over itself trying to figure out what to do. She could out him, tell this Jessie person exactly how they knew each other, but what if he and Jessie were a thing now? Besides, telling anyone about what happened would only shine a spotlight on her own stupidity, and she wasn’t exactly keen on doing that, either. No, this was Liam’s turf, and pissing him off could very well end up with Kate being sent back to Paul empty-handed, and she wasn’t having that, so she’d wait to see how Liam wanted to handle this.
He hadn’t moved an inch since seeing Kate, and when he did finally speak again, he never took his eyes off her, even though he was clearly speaking to Jessie.
“What is she doing here?”
“Foster sent her.”
“What? Oh no.” Liam shook his head as he dragged his gaze away from Kate and focused on Jessie. “The guy…the…you know…him. He was supposed to come. John. Jack. Whatever the hell his name was.”
“Josh,” Jessie corrected. “And he had to back out at the last minute, so Kate’s taking his place.”
With her hands wrapped around the handles of her bag, Kate stayed right where she was, her mouth shut tight.
“But she can’t—” Liam stopped, swallowed hard, and exhaled. After a second, he tipped his face slightly, not enough to look at Kate but enough that it appeared he was talking to her. “Give us a second?”
It wasn’t funny, except it kind of was, so, fighting back a smirk, Kate acknowledged Jessie’s apologetic shrug with a shrug of her own and then stood there looking around as the two of them headed a short ways up the path.
They didn’t go very far, and even though Liam spoke in a low whisper, Kate didn’t need to hear him to know what he was saying: The tightness of his jaw and way he jabbed his thumb back toward the dock were a pretty good indication.
Jessie’s whispers, on the other hand, weren’t quite as quiet as his.
“You and your brothers jumped at the idea when Foster offered to send Josh over here to work; remember that conversation? Free help for us, which is all we can afford right now, and lodge experience for his people. You agreed to it, Liam.”
“Yeah, I know,” Liam said, obviously forgetting to whisper. “That was when they said they were going to send Jack. Josh. Whatever. Not…her!”
“What’s wrong with her?” Jessie growled. “And God help you if you even think about saying something stupid like she can’t do the job because she’s a woman.”
Kate twisted her mouth tight, but the snicker still escaped. She knew that wasn’t what Liam meant, but it sure was fun watching him squirm a little. And this Jessie woman—if that was how she spoke to Liam all the time, then, oh yes, she and Kate were going to get along just fine.
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Liam said, his voice a harsh whisper.
“Good, then what’s the problem?”
“She and I—” His broad shoulders heaved. “There’s history.”
“Noooo! You don’t say.” Jessie’s mocking made it nearly impossible for Kate to keep a straight face. “News flash, buddy. We’re not in the eighth grade, so whatever history you have, get over it, because we need her.”
A loud sigh, then Liam turned and took a couple of steps back toward Kate, indicating Jessie should follow.
“Look, I know we had an agreement with Foster.” He stopped, cleared his throat, and inhaled slowly. “But I think Kate’ll agree with me that this isn’t going to work, am I right? Kate?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kate said, blinking up at him with a straight shot of passive aggression. “Were you talking to me?”
“Uh, yeah!”
“Well, you can understand how that might be unclear, since you’ve pretty much done nothing but talk at me, about me, or around me until now. But if you’re asking me how I feel about working here with you, then my answer would be simple. I don’t have a problem with it, because even I made it out of the eighth grade.”
Kate tipped her head a little to the left and waited him out. Given the financial state the Buoys was in, he’d be stupid to send her packing, and yet Kate wouldn’t blame him one bit if he did it anyway. She would if she were Liam. In fact, a tiny part of her kind of hoped he did send her away, because then there’d be absolutely no chance of her making the O’Donnell mistake again.
The other part of her, the part that knew she needed to nail this job, was already kicking and screaming and begging her to keep her mouth shut before Liam got on the phone and called in a Helijet to pick her up.
She wasn’t going to let him think she cared either way, though; better for him to believe she was indifferent to the whole thing and that by sending her packing he’d be the one losing out, not her, that he needed her more than she needed him.
The moment dragged on until Jessie finally huffed out a sigh and moved so she stood between them, with her back to Kate.
“Clearly I don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” she said. “What I do know is that we’re out of options. We’ll never get an operator’s permit with this place in the shape it’s in, and without that permit, we can’t open. If we can’t open, we can’t raise the money to pay the taxes, and if we don’t pay the taxes—”
“I know,” he said, his voice hard and tight.
“Good.” Jessie nodded. “Then you also know it’s just you, me, and Finn, unless Ronan can score some time off to come help, and with opening day a little over six weeks away, there’s no way the three of us’ll get everything done before the start of the season. Truth be told, we’ll be damn lucky to get everything done even with her helping. No offense, Kate.”
“None taken.”
“Jessie.” Her name came off Liam’s tongue in a long, low growl. He’d growled Kate’s name a couple of times back in Vegas, too, but there’d been none of that anger in those growls, just a low, sexy—oh, stop it!
“Finn will be back from the mainland tomorrow,” Jessie said. “Should we call him and Ronan right now and tell them to forget all this because you want to turn away the free help we need?”
She gave him almost a full second to answer, and when he didn’t, she kept right on going, and once she got rolling…wow.
“We don’t have time to go ten rounds on this, Liam, because I just walked away from my paying job—which came with some pretty great benefits, I might add—to come back here on a freakin’ float plane to do this with you guys.”
The way Jessie tipped her head at him made Kate think that must have meant something huge.
“I don’t give a flying rip if you don’t like her or if she doesn’t like you; we need her help to avoid having this place go up for auction. Like it or not, all that matters right now is getting the work done, so unless she’s some kind of serial killer who’s going to hack us all up with a chain saw, she’s staying.”
Jessie had him and they all knew it, but at least she gave him the courtesy of waiting for him to blink before she turned to Kate.
“What do you say?”
Kate took her time before answering.
“Well, for starters, I’m sorry to say that in my rush to pack last night, I forgot to throw in my chain saw, so there’s no worry about me lopping off anyone’s appendages, though I will admit it was something I considered a few times back in the day.” Kate looked straight past Jessie and locked her accusing gaze on Liam. “And besides that, I committed to doing this job, and I, for one, don’t walk away from my commitments.”
“Oh, for—” Liam stopped, ground his jaw tight, then shook his head. “Whatever.”
“Great! Then let’s do this.” Jessie’s grin wasn’t all relief; there was a good dose of caution in it, too, as she started toward the lodge again, indicating for Kate to follow. “So do I want to know what the history is between you two?”
Giving Liam a not-so-friendly clap on the shoulder, Kate laughed right out loud as she moved past him. “You want to field that one, Sporto?”
The look he gave her was almost as comical as it was venomous.
“According to the Clark County recorder’s office in Las Vegas,” he said, his voice tight, each word dragged from his tongue, “she’s my ex-wife.”