Busted (Promise Harbor Wedding)(29)

Jackson gripped her shorts, tugging them all the way down. She reached for his zipper, and everything inside aching at the thought of him sliding inside her.

A sound registered at the back of her mind, but it took a second for her to notice the house phone was ringing.

“Ignore it,” Jackson pleaded, the words barely audible between their mouths.

His button was undone and she ran her hand along his lower belly, following the faint arrow of hair that disappeared into his boxers. Her shorts pooled around her ankles, his hand still teasing and stroking along her slick center.

She yanked at his boxers, and he didn’t even wait to shove them down before he tucked the tip of his cock against her, sliding along the seam of her.

“Hayley!” Her grandfather's voice boomed through the answering machine. “I need to see you. Now. It’s important.”





“Forget the damn robe. I’m not here to fulfill your Hugh Hefner fantasies.”

Hayley stopped in the doorway of her grandfather’s hospital room. Gramps stood opposite Trudy, a four-foot-eleven nurse. His cheeks were flushed, his big bushy eyebrows slanted in a fierce frown. Although he’d lost nearly thirty pounds since his chemo treatments, he was still just as overbearing and grumpy as ever.

Trudy was used to it, though. Even though Gramps towered over the fortyish nurse with her meaty arms, wide hips—which had accommodated seven children and she didn’t let anyone forget it—and wicked mean streak, Hayley’s money was on Trudy.

“Maybe you can reason with him.” Sighing, Trudy walked past Hayley.

Gramps looked at her. “She wouldn’t let me watch the NHL draft, and I’m the unreasonable one?” His voice rose on the last part, guaranteeing Trudy heard him, along with everyone else in this wing.

“I’ve got Ativan and I’m not afraid to use it,” came the threat from down the hall.

To prevent her grandfather from engaging in a verbal sparring match, Hayley closed the door. It wasn’t the first time she’d walked in on him giving one of the nurses a hard time. Usually it stemmed from boredom on his part, and torturing the nurses was how he entertained himself. Trudy had caught on long ago and dished it out as much as he did.

Gramps sat on the end of his bed, staring at the blank TV screen.

“Matt is recording the draft for you.”

“Not the same,” he grumbled, then focused all seventy-two years of weathered face and perceptive eyes directly at her. “You haven’t been by the last couple days.”

“I dropped by yesterday. You were napping.” Granting her another reprieve from talking about the bar fight at Stone’s and taking Jackson away in cuffs. The longer she could avoid the subject, the better, as far as she was concerned. Her time looked to be about over though.

“Hmmph.” He took a sip of water from his glass, crunching on a piece of ice. “Heard you arrested Jackson.”

She’d known it was coming, but she still winced. One of his friends had probably called him on speed dial the second she left the bar with Jackson in cuffs.

“Hayley Delilah Stone.”

Sighing inwardly at the use of her middle name, she squared her shoulders. “No charges were filed.”

His brows crumpled together in a familiar expression that usually preceded a threat to take the stick and show the kid which end he was supposed to be shooting with. Instead he surprised her by bursting out laughing.

Wondering if she’d slipped into the Twilight Zone, Hayley could only stare. He was amused by that? His laughter triggered a nasty cough that rattled his chest hard enough to break a rib.

She handed him the glass of water, and he sipped from it until his coughing subsided.

“That’s my girl.”

“You’re not mad?” She had assumed he would be at least disappointed. Annoyed had been more likely, and it turned out she was wrong on both.

“Boy probably had it coming.” Gramps sounded anything but surprised.

“Wasn’t his fault, really.” She’d seen Jackson dive into fights with far less provocation, and although most of those had been on the ice, at least he hadn’t been the first one to make a move this time.

“He always did think with his fists first.”

Hayley shook her head. “The other guy got in his face, Gramps. Didn’t leave him with much of a choice.” Hadn’t left her with much of one either.

Gramps amused smile vanished. “It’s true then.”

“Yeah,” she answered vaguely, unsure if they were talking about the same thing.

“Goddamn it.” He bolted to his feet, moving faster than Hayley had seen him go in years. He nearly knocked her backward in his rush to get to the small closet across from his bed.

He riffled through his clothing more efficiently than a fashionista at an outlet store.

“Trudy has eyes in the back of her head and will be shooting you full of Ativan if she thinks you’re trying to make a break for it.” Gramps had always insisted on staying in the hospital, refusing to be a burden to her or Matt, or any private nurse her mother would have hired for him. She couldn’t imagine it was the NHL draft that had him so determined to go now.

“Slippery son of a bitch.”

“Who, Gramps?” Hayley frowned, trying to figure out how she was going to get him back in bed before he hurt himself. Her fingers hurt just watching him slam the hangers along the rod that threatened to give under the force.

“Boy needs his ass kicked.”

Jackson? “What are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t be defending him unless he seduced you. I’ll cut off that All-Star pecker of his for nailing my only granddaughter.”

Hayley wasn’t sure whether she should cover her ears or laugh. Though she and Jackson had come close before the phone call, they’d managed to pull away from each other. Or she’d managed to pull away from him. She’d been so caught up in the moment, so hungry for the waves of pleasure his touch unleashed, she hadn’t thought about the fact that neither of them was prepared for sex until they’d been interrupted.

“Jackson is not nailing me.”

Gramps paused, mulling that over. “Didn’t think he was the submissive type.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not nailing him either.”

He stared at her, waiting for an explanation.

“Eric is back in town and Jackson was just helping me out.”

“That one definitely needs to have his pecker cut off.” He went back to rummaging through his clothes, tossing a shirt and pants on the bed.

“Gramps?”

He shot her a disbelieving look, his face more flushed than before. His blood pressure was probably skyrocketing.

She scrambled to find a way to reassure him that Jackson wasn’t out to make her another notch on his bedpost. There was no way she was letting him leave the hospital looking for a fight with the one player he’d always been so proud of. Even after the accident, Gramps had been confident Jackson would get back on his feet, and she refused to be the reason Gramps lost faith in him.

“We’re dating,” she blurted out.

“Dating?” He wasn’t buying it. “He just got back in town.”

“We have a bit of a history.” One kiss qualified as a history, right? She despised the thought of lying to him, but she knew how stubborn he could be if he thought anyone was hurting his family.

If he refused to let her mother help with his medical bills, even if it meant selling the home he’d built from the ground up, she knew full well he wouldn’t let anything like a terminal illness stop him from confronting Jackson.

Gramps searched her face. “Is it serious?”

Hayley hesitated, torn between telling the truth and saying whatever she had to, to keep Gramps from taking off. “More serious than anything I’ve felt before.” At least that part was true in terms of the way Jackson made her feel whenever he touched her.

Not entirely convinced, judging by the heavy set of his brows over his eyes, Gramps allowed her to put the clothes back in his closet and lead him back to bed.

Relieved that no one would be losing a pecker tonight, she held the covers back and waited for him to settle back against the pillow.

“Jackson hasn’t been by to see me.”

She had a feeling Jackson was having trouble accepting that Mitch Stone was dying. Though she wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening more days than she could count, she didn’t have that kind of luxury when Gramps was counting on her.

“He’s been helping out with stuff. At the house.”

“He is?” Gramps closed his eyes, apparently a little worn out from his run-in with Trudy and getting fired up to turn the town’s golden boy into a eunuch. “Bring him to see me.”

“I will.” Even if he was kicking and screaming the whole way.