SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,7

well.

By every objective measure, her mother was a fine-looking woman.

“Gone out on any hot dates lately, Mom?” she asked on impulse, though her mother never spoke of such things.

Instead of answering, Rebecca unzipped the duffel on the twin bed, grabbed up a stack of clothes, and walked them toward the pine dresser.

Harper’s stomach clutched. “There’s no need to unpack, Mom.” Removing the shirts from her mother’s hand, she redeposited them in her canvas bag.

“Well, you should at least hang this in the bathroom,” her mom said, handing over the toiletries bag.

“Sure. Okay.” Harper walked it to the tiny bathroom they’d installed for her when she was twelve. Ducking behind the door, she slipped the hook over one towel rack.

“You’ll want these there as well,” Rebecca said, and passed over her nightgown and lightweight robe. “Oh, and there’s clean towels in the cupboard. I forgot to get them out.”

Harper put the nightwear on the hook behind the door then pulled out a towel and washcloth from the built-in cabinet and arranged them on the second towel rack. The shower was barely big enough for a single person, but through the glass door she could see there was body wash in the soap niche and a new scrubbie hanging from the hot water handle.

Everything here just waiting for her return.

Those dumb tears pricked her eyes again.

She blinked, and tried redirecting her thoughts. “I’m serious, Mom, you’re not too old for romance, you know.” Her mother shouldn’t let her heart stay tied to Harper’s father, who had left town before she’d been barely more than a baby promise beneath Rebecca’s Sunnybird Farms T-shirt.

That would be too, too sad.

“Did you hear me, Mom?” Stupid to press the issue, but coming home and immediately seeing Mad had jarred some old feelings loose. She emerged from the bathroom to see her mom fussing with the starched white curtain framing the small window.

That crisp fabric sent her mind straight back to her first boyfriend, his lean, muscled body, his white shirt, his striped tie—

Her whole body froze. What the hell had she done with his tie? He’d handed it to her for safekeeping while he changed the tire. She didn’t remember returning it. But she recalled jumping into her car to escape him, tossing her hat into the half-zipped duffel. And the tie…?

With a flutter of panic in her throat, she looked wildly about the small room.

The duffel bag, empty.

The small bureau upon which her ball cap now rested.

One drawer, partly ajar, showing her clothes unpacked after all.

And that piece of Maddox Kelly’s wardrobe, a length of silk that had felt warm between her hands, that had held his particular, delicious scent, now hung looped around one finial at the corner of the white-painted iron bed.

Mad adjusted the custom table cover his sister had made him two Christmases before, the one that converted his large dining table into a proper, felt-covered poker surface. He’d bought the piece of furniture along with the bungalow that he lived in from his grandparents when they’d retired to Hawaii. About ten years before that, they’d downsized to it from a larger house outside of town, so this two-bedroom, two-bath home in one of the older Sawyer Beach neighborhoods suited him just fine.

He walked through his house, making sure he was ready to host a Sunday night poker game. He and his six friends enjoyed a weekly get-together, and had since high school, but they’d had to move their usual night this time. Thursday hadn’t worked for a couple of them and when his vacation plans had been destroyed by that damn hurricane, he’d offered to take over from Eli King. That man’s life always operated on the edge of chaos, thanks to four sisters, a fiancée and her little girl—soon to be his, too.

Mad had wanted the distraction. The truth was, after running into Harper Hill, he’d considered going on a solo vacation right then—strapping his boards on his vehicle and taking Highway 1 north as evening turned to night. But he’d be the first to admit he wasn’t impulsive, and really, there was no reason to think he’d encounter her before she took off again. There was plenty of room for the both of them in Sawyer Beach.

It was a great place to live and he didn’t have a single itchy inch on his feet despite having been born and raised in this exact zip code. Though he was sure someone from a California big city like San Francisco, LA,