SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,9
the sister of Cooper, Sophie Daggett, arm-in-arm with some long-haired guy, sleeves ripped from his T-shirt, arms tatted up with colorful symbols. The pair strolled through the crowd ahead of them, weaving from one side of the aisle to the other, glancing at the booth selling artisan breads and then the one with handmade soap.
“He doesn’t look familiar,” Mad said, then couldn’t resist baiting the hook. “I don’t think I’ve arrested him.”
“Shit.” Hart narrowed his eyes. “Come on, let’s find out who he is.”
“What? She has a big brother. Sophie won’t thank us for interfering in her life.”
“You said you didn’t think you’ve arrested him,” Hart said. “That leaves room for doubt.”
“I was kidding.” Mad stared at his friend. Yeah, he seemed unusually agitated and Sophie wouldn’t appreciate them dogging her heels, but it was the most animated he’d seen Hart in a long, long while. If worrying about the sister of one of his best friends made the guy come alive again, then he wasn’t going to argue any further. “But sure, let’s go catch up with them. If we get his full name I can do a records search through the department’s database.”
Hart took off, without even seeming to realize that Mad wouldn’t do any such thing…because, yeah, against the rules.
His friend was four strides ahead of him and Mad was so focused on keeping up that he didn’t look ahead to see that Sophie and friend had turned into another of the booths, a double-wide with a canopy top and long tables set up with baskets tilted to attractively display their wares.
Through the throng of customers, he glimpsed rosy tomatoes and shiny green peppers. Some corn and avocados. With a feeling of inevitability, he took in the bright sign advertising Sunnybird Farm and the familiar woman standing right beneath it, smiling as she made change.
Harper Hill.
She wore a pair of jeans that looked as ancient as Friday’s cut-off overalls along with a T-shirt advertising the farm that he thought she’d had six years before, the ribbed neckline cut out to reveal her delicate collarbones and the color faded to a soft butter. Her dark hair was again woven into a long braid that hung over her shoulder, but this time a green ribbon bound the end. When she looked up, her gaze meeting his, he saw that it matched the exact shade of her eyes.
His abdominal muscles tightened, his gut clenching to ward off a blow.
“Hart,” he said, his voice urgent. “We should—”
The woman who’d just been handed change—Sophie, he noticed now—turned, as if alerted by Harper’s shift of attention. “Hey, Mad! Hart! Look who’s back in town.”
God. Too late to run the other way. His feet planted, he raised his hand in a greeting of sorts. “Yeah. Hi,” he said, his salutation lost in the general babble around him. Could he retreat now?
Hart moved into the booth, proving he needed a refresher course on proper wingman etiquette. When the principal player didn’t want to engage, the helper was supposed to assist the principal in avoiding the undesirable situation, not plunge toward it.
Maybe he could have drifted away anyhow, but Mad refused to surrender to cowardly impulse. So what that they’d run into each other again? He could exchange a pleasantry and then move on to more years of his life without her in it.
Harper was already in conversation with Hart. As Mad drew up, she shot him a glance and a smile played at her mouth.
That fucking, perfect, tempting, sweet mouth.
“I can’t believe you seven guys are still playing poker after all these years.”
“A lot of things change,” he said, “but not that.”
“You were always loyal,” Harper said, still smiling.
Unlike yourself. Maybe his expression communicated the words for him, because her smile wilted at the edges and she directed her attention to Sophie. “Remember when we named them the 7-Stud Club?”
“I hate that name,” Mad said, scowling.
Sophie threw him a laughing look. “Why do you think we came up with it?”
“She still uses it whenever she wants to get a dig in,” Hart told Harper. “More of what never changes, Sophie being the pesky little sister to the entire crew.”
In response to that, Sophie laughed and moved closer to Tatted Arms who appeared bored with their conversation, even though he slid his hand in her back pocket, a proprietary gesture that Mad saw had caught Hart’s attention too.
A customer nearby held up a bag of lemons and requested a price, and Harper gestured the person forward