Off the Hook Read Online Free Page B

gorgeous and funny and he’d been instantly smitten. Wasn’t a word he’d ever use outside his own head, but there really was no other way to accurately describe her effect on him.
    Smitten . It had never happened before that night and it had never happened since.
    “Okay,” Jessie said, waving her hand in a circular motion as if that would hurry him along. “And?”
    “Her friends ditched and went home early, so she and I spent a few days together and ended up married.”
    “Ended up married,” Jessie repeated, her voice flat. “You O’Donnells sure are a romantic lot. How long did it last?”
    “The marriage?” Liam exhaled slowly. “Most of the night.”

    “Most of the—” Jessie gaped. “One night? You were married less than a day? What are you—a Kardashian?”
    “I know, all right? But I’d just turned twenty-one and I was still fighting to get my shot in the big leagues.”
    “Yeah? So?”
    “So I wasn’t moving to Vancouver, Jess. I had a career going in Detroit.”
    “Ohhh,” she said, drawing the word out over a slow “you’re such an idiot” nod. “Right.”
    Anyone else who talked to him that way probably would’ve wound up on the business end of his boot, but this was Jessie. She’d worked at the Buoys for so long they considered her more of a sister than an employee. Even when Liam, Ro, and Finn left, she’d stayed; she’d put up with the old man’s bullshit and black moods, she was the one who got him into AA, and she was, without question, the only reason the lodge had continued running as long as it had.
    They owed her. It was that debt, on top of the debt he owed his brothers, that made him agree to stay at the Buoys. Growing up, Ro and Finn had been forced to pick up the slack every time Liam was off somewhere playing ball. Sure, they’d bitched about it, and you could bet your ass there’d been a few punches thrown, but they’d still done it.
    And as much as Liam wanted the Buoys to reopen, he wasn’t ready to give up his career. Sure, he’d been out of a contract for over a year, and, sure, his arm wasn’t what it used to be, but his agent wasn’t trying to sell him as a starter anymore. He was just trying to get Liam a deal as a relief pitcher, but so far every nibble they got turned out to be a dead end. If—no, when —he got another offer, he’d be on the first Helijet out, debt or no debt.

    Until that happened, though, he’d do his level best to get this place in running shape again, because at the end of the day, it was home. Always had been.
    “Earth to Liam.” Brow raised, Jessie wiggled her fingers in a “come on come on come on” way. “Vancouver? Detroit? Let’s hear it.”
    “There’s not much to tell,” he said. “I’d worked too damn hard to get where I was and I wasn’t about to change for her or anyone, especially when it was probably going to end in disaster anyway. I mean, shit, Jess, look what Mandy did to Ro, making him give up everything and trying to turn him into something he didn’t want to be. The guy’s as miserable as a guy can be and it’s all because he bent to whatever Mandy wanted, and if he didn’t, she cried until he finally gave in.”
    “Hang on a second.” Jessie lifted her hand and squinted back at him as though trying to work out what he’d said. “You and Kate got married ten years ago, that’s what you said, right? Were Ro and Mandy even married by then?”
    “Just.”
    “So how in that screwed-up mush of a brain of yours did you think it was reasonable to use her as an example of what your ten-minute marriage might turn out like?”
    Liam didn’t have a good answer for that, but if he didn’t say something quick, she’d probably figure him out.
    “Finn and I knew Mandy wasn’t right the first time we met her. Shit, Ro’s the biggest carnivore this side of Medicine Hat, and she wouldn’t even allow meat on the table. What the hell? And then he traded in his truck for a MINI? I mean, come