Page 1 of Love Shots

CHAPTER ONE

“What. The. Fuck.” Teddy seethed, “I can’t believe you just threw a fucking lamp at me!” He could hear his voice getting louder and louder by the second. “What the hell is wrong with you, Summer?”

“Me?” Summer’s shriek easily matched his volume as her hazel eyes narrowed on him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

A second later, something else was hurtling toward him, only just missing his head. An ear-piercing smash later, he spared a glance at the floor to his left and couldn’t help but scowl. This had to be a bad dream. Dark liquid was now seeping into his hardwood floors while crooked shards of glass stood to attention.

“Have you lost your damn mind, woman? That was an eight-hundred-dollar bottle of whiskey!”

“Oh no,” she mocked, bringing her chipped red nails up to cup her face. “Sucks when someone takes something that isn’t theirs ... doesn’t it?”

He’d had enough. “For the last goddamn time, Mickey wanted to sell, and I wanted to buy. End of story. You weren’t in the country ... You’re never in the country! How on earth was I supposed to know Mickey promised you the bar? I’m not a damn mind reader, Summer!”

Really, this is all my fault, Teddy thought as he mentally cursed himself. It was too late for this bullshit. Why on earth did he even answer the door? He was old enough and ugly enough to know that nothing good ever came from answering your door after midnight.

He certainly hadn’t been prepared to see Summer Willis. Mickey’s granddaughter. It had been five long years since he’d seen the beautiful, blonde, pain in his ass. And now here she was, using the contents of his shelf and his living room wall for target practice because, apparently, Mickey had at one point in time offered her the bar Teddy had just purchased.

After muttering some imaginative expletives under her breath, she took a step toward him. Then another. He finally had a chance to study her, something he hadn’t been able to do since she’d barged her way into his apartment and started yelling. Something was off. The Summer he knew was always so put together. Composed. Perfect. Even when the words coming out of her pretty little mouth were anything but.

Errant strands of hair hung down from the messy knot at the top of her head. Her short-sleeved blue blouse was slightly crumbled, and he noticed mud stains streaking the knees of her jeans. But it was the skin above the black bracelets covering her wrist that his eyes zeroed in on. Bruises.

What the hell is that?

Before he had time to think, he was reaching for her arm to get a better look. “Who did this to you?” His forceful demand was a direct contradiction to the gentle way he circled her wrist as he held it up.

He didn’t miss her flinch. Or the flicker of sadness in her deep green-brown eyes—a rare display of vulnerability there gone so fast ... if he’d have blinked, he would have missed it. Her expression had quickly defaulted back to hard as she wrenched her hand back. “None of your business.”

Teddy didn’t think Summer noticed that she had just basically admitted to a person being responsible for those marks. But he had. And he wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon. He wasn’t about to push her for more information right now though. Not unless he wanted his apartment trashed even more than it already was.

“What can I do?” He kept his voice calm, even though he was feeling anything but. Someone had hurt Summer. His Summer.

She was never yours.

“Give me back my bar.” She retorted.

“You know I can’t do that. I know you’ve not been back for a while, but ... ever since I left the Navy, Mickey’s has come to mean a lot to me.”

Her expression betrayed her again. Instantly going from rage to shock to concern at his revelation. “You left the Navy? Why?”

There she was. There was the woman he remembered. It was good to know she was still there. “Yeah, dollface, I left. Three years ago. Moved back here. Your grandaddy set me up with a job at Mickey’s, and now ... well, you know the rest.”

“Don’t think I missed you ignoring the why, Teddy.” The sass was back.

“That’s right, doll. I am ignoring it. Because it’s a long damn story, and I’m too damn tired. So, if you’re done redecorating my apartment”—he gestured around the small dark room, even more dark since she smashed one of the two lamps that he had—“I think it’s time for me to head back to bed.”

Summer gulped. How she could look both scary and vulnerable at the same time was a complete mystery.

“I need a job,” she blurted. “I planned on working at Mickey’s.”

A laugh escaped before he had time to swallow it. “Jesus Christ, Summer. This is how you ask me for a job? Barging in here at two A.M., throwing my shit at me, and calling me an asshole?”

The corner of her lips curved up into a smirk. He was reminded right then and there what a smile from Summer Willis could do to him.

“I need somewhere to crash too. I’m assuming that since you’re living here, the apartment above the bar is vacant?”

His body was vibrating now. This chick was something else. “You’re batshit fucking crazy, you know that?”

A full-blown smile had now blossomed across her face. Her hand went in front of her, palm facing up. “Keys?”

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