Page 4 of Finding Out

My stomached dropped. Damn. I wasn’t an asshole. I wouldn’t throw a fit about Larry’s absence. I couldn’t imagine the fear of having a child in the hospital. My little girl, who, at twenty-eight, wasn’t little anymore, had been my world.

My chest twisted at the thought of her. Avery was getting married next month. Her fiancé, although not what I would have picked for her if I’d had the privilege, was a good man. She’d fallen in love with one of my baseball players, which wasn’t ideal. I’d been with the Boston Revs for years, first as a pitcher and eventually working my way up the coaching chain, until ten years ago, when I was named head coach. And the biggest pain in my ass in the whole franchise? Naturally, it was my soon-to-be son-in-law.

I roughed a hand down my face and sighed. I couldn’t even be mad about it, because Christian Damiano worshipped the ground my daughter walked on.

Our lives were changing, because for years it was baseball and being Avery’s dad. That’s all I was. Now I had to figure out what else there was out there for me because she was moving on.

When my phone buzzed in my hand, I shook away the thoughts.

Pat: Don’t worry. We have our best headed your way. You’ll love her.

I winced at theher. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe a woman could do this job as well as a man. The issue was that this meant I’d be spending the night in New York with a woman. And not just in New York, but in the same two-bedroom suite. Larry and I had arranged it this way in order to keep two sets of eyes on the art. We’d planned to order roomservice, and from there, I was sure he’d pick my brain about the upcoming baseball season. The guy loved the Revs, and I was happy to entertain him for a few hours.

This, though, changed things. Who was the woman Pat had mentioned? If Erin Stanbright, the head of the auction house, were the one accompanying me, she would have texted me herself. She and I went way back. But any other woman had the potential to be chaos, and I liked order.

“I would love that.”

At the sound of that sultry voice, my entire being lit up.

On instinct, I turned to my left, following the sound. But when I locked on its source, I froze.

No.

My every muscle tensed, and it took conscious effort to fight the sensation that swamped me. The same sensation I’d warred with for years.

I pulled a hard breath in through my nose and took her in from beneath the brim of my cap.

She wore a tight white sweater and high-waisted black pants. The look was rounded out with silky dark hair and plush, pouty lips.

My living, breathing nightmare had appeared in front of me, just as sexy as ever as she smiled at the man who’d probably tripped over himself to help her hoist her bag into the overhead compartment. For a few beats, I got to watch her, unnoticed, as she thanked her good Samaritan.

As the man stumbled to his own seat, she turned my way, a smile at the ready. “Hi, Mr. Brown. I’m thrill…” The words trailed off, and her smile melted away as recognition flooded her deep onyx eyes. She cleared her throat, hardly missing a beat, and continued. “Thrilled to assist you this weekend. I guarantee this adventure will be painless for you.”

Holding my breath, I pressed my phone into the armrest. Painless? Nothing about being in the proximity of Wren Jacobs would be painless. The woman might be my daughter’s best friend, but I had no doubt that she had been put on this earth to torture me.

“Sit,” I gritted out.

In a very un-Wren-like move, she listened. Silently, she dropped into the seat next to me. The move sent her expensive scent wafting over me, filling my nose and haunting me as it had every time I’d seen her for the last few years.

“Mr. Brown?—”

“Wren.” I cut her off. We weren’t doing this. I would not spend the next twenty-four hours with someone I’d known for more than fifteen years pretending my name was Mr. Brown. “Cut the crap.”

She cocked her perfectly sculpted brow and leaned so close, the heat of her body radiated through me, causing my heart to pound in my ears. “Would you prefer Daddy Wilson?”

Those words rocked through me like an electric jolt. Just like they did every time they left her lips. I hated myself for the inappropriate reaction. I’d known Wren since well before she was old enough to be thought of in the way I was right this second. She had grown up with my daughter, and when Avery left for college on the West Coast, nineteen-year-old Wren left my life as well. During the six-year gap, I’d been busy with baseball, and when she returned as a twenty-five-year-old woman, breezing into my kitchen with my daughter, she was unrecognizable. Sleek, confident, gorgeous. And when theDaddy Wilsonslipped from her lips like it had a million times before, my body had buzzed in a way that was absolutely inappropriate in response to a woman nineteen years my junior.

“Mr. Wilson,” I corrected through gritted teeth. Although, fucking hell, that was only slightly better. “Better yet, this weekend, I’m Tom.”

“Okay.”

Jesus, if I’d known she’d respond so reasonably to my first name, I’d have suggested it years ago. “Good.”

She shrugged, the move shifting her closer once more. “I should be shocked, but this makes so much sense. Our conversation aboutStonehengelast spring should have been the only clue I needed.”

In vivid detail, my brain ran over that night. Wren seated across from me at O’Hannigan’s, her hand tucked under her chin as she talked about the swirl of each brushstroke that created the haze of gray clouds. God, I’d been hypnotized by her passion about my favoritework of art. So much so that I’d totally missed the way my colleague was flirting with my daughter two seats away.

Wren cleared her throat, pulling me back to the present. She lifted her chin a fraction, making it difficult not to focus on the smooth skin of her neck. “For the record, I understand that it’s probably hard for you to trust the kid who was always getting your daughter into trouble to be lead on this project.”

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