Chapter 8

EIGHT

Canyon

I think about her the whole damn morning.

How interesting our conversation was over dinner.

How much we seem to have in common.

How beautiful she looked, standing in her kitchen half-naked, kissing and touching me. Letting me kiss and touch her.

How scared she'd been when she'd gotten the call about her gallery.

How humiliated she'd been when she'd seen that word spray painted on the wall.

And how vulnerable she'd been when she'd reluctantly admitted she needed me to stay. To sleep beside her. To make her feel safe.

I'm nobody's hero, but fuck, I wanted to be last night.

Maybe I had been.

What is it about her that makes me want her?

I'm not stupid.

It's probably because she's a fucking supermodel and the most gorgeous woman I've ever been that close to. And there have been a lot of beautiful women since I'd turned pro at nineteen. But Saylor is different.

What I need to do is fuck her a couple of times and get it out of my system.

I can say I've done it—fucked an honest-to-goodness supermodel—and call it a day.

Except…

WHORE .

The image of that word spray painted on the wall flashes through my psyche and pisses me off again.

She isn't a whore, no matter who she sleeps with, and I hate the connotation of it. It's also frustrating that there is someone out there who thinks that about her.

If it's that Russell guy, I'm seriously going to find him and teach him a lesson.

Honestly, I'm more worried that it isn't him. He's a wimpy, overweight dude who doesn't seem to be the type to have to balls to commit a crime like breaking into a secure building like Saylor's. My gut tells me he wouldn't know how to do something like that. He could have hired someone to do it, but again, his aunt has a close relationship with Saylor and that seems counterproductive.

No, this feels angry and vindictive. Like an ex-boyfriend or something.

And it worries me.

Saylor isn't your problem , I tell myself firmly.

But I've never been the kind of guy who listens to reason.

Because I'm going to stop by the gallery on the way home from practice, see if she needs help, see if she needs…anything.

"Hey. How was your date last night?" Marty meets me at the lockers while I'm pulling on my equipment.

I shake my head. "It didn't go the way I planned, that's for sure."

He cocks his head, curious. "No? Weren't you taking Saylor out to dinner?"

"Yeah. But?—"

"Were you with Saylor last night?" Gabe interrupts, coming over to join us. "Were you with her when she got the call about the gallery?"

I nod. "How'd you know?"

"I guess she called Harper this morning. I was walking out the door, so I didn't hear the whole story, but Harper was planning to rally some of the troops and go over there to help her clean up."

"What happened?" Ivan asks, walking over to us.

I give them a quick overview, leaving out the part about how we were half-naked in her kitchen when she got the call.

"So you were together?" Marty asks.

"I'd just brought her home from dinner," I reply. "Her security firm called, and we turned around and went right back out. She was pretty upset, so I didn't want her to drive." I'm also not going to mention she'd been without a car since the plan had been for me to sleep over. Why I'm suddenly worried about her reputation is beyond me, but I don't want to delve into that right now.

"You guys are dating?" Gabe asks in confusion.

"It was a date. Singular. But what was I supposed to do—just leave her in the middle of a crisis like that? And thank fuck I stayed. I mean, what that ass wipe wrote on the wall…" Shit. I don't want to say it, but they're going to find out anyway.

"What did it say?" Marty asks, frowning.

I hesitate, hating to put it out there.

"How bad is it?" Gabe asks.

"Whore." I say the word in a flat tone of voice. Quietly. Trying not to give the guy who wrote it, whoever he is, any power over Saylor. Especially not here in this room.

"Oh, fuck." Gabe looks horrified. "Saylor is the nicest, sweetest lady…"

"She was so embarrassed," I say. "I just wanted to hurt someone for doing that to her."

Marty glances at me. "Feeling a little protective, are we?"

"Come on. She's one of our boss's friends. She's friends with a few of us on the team, as well as wives… hell, she's extended family. And like Gabe said, she's so damn sweet. If you'd seen the look on her face, believe me, you would've felt protective too." I'm man enough to admit to having these kinds of feelings. Romance is different, but protecting someone who's been hurt? Fuck that. They can bite me if they find it emasculating.

"Does she need anything?" Gabe asks. "I should ask Harper. We could go by after practice if she needs some muscle to move things, hang pictures back up… I don't know the extent of the damage."

"There wasn't a lot of damage," I say. "They made a mess of the back counter, threw flyers all over, stuff like that. I think one painting had some spray paint on it, but we don't know if they took anything. She didn't have a chance to do inventory last night. And I haven't talked to her today."

"You going to call her after practice?" Ivan asks.

"I was planning to swing by the gallery. See if she needs help cleaning up."

"I'll come with you," Marty nods.

"I'm in," Ivan agrees.

"Let me text her first," I say. "We don't need ten guys showing up and she's not even there."

"Good plan. Let us know." Gabe claps me on the back before heading to his locker.

* * *

I text Saylor after practice, and she admits there's more of a mess than she'd noticed last night. She and the girls have been busy scrubbing the walls and floors, but she could use help hanging and rearranging paintings, because some of them are heavy.

Apparently, whoever did this hadn't stolen anything, but they'd moved a bunch of her art to different parts of the gallery and even put some of it face down on the floor.

It makes no sense.

If that has some deeper meaning, I don't know what it is, but I'm happy to help her fix it.

And see her again.

Maybe take her to dinner again.

I don't have back-to-back nights off very often, so it's the perfect opportunity to spend more time with her.

Gabe, Ivan, Marty, and our team rookie, Connor Brooks, join me.

We walk in en masse, and probably are a bit of a motley crew descending on the gallery, but Saylor looks up with a grateful smile.

"Hi! You guys didn't all have to come."

"Sure we did." I look around. "Tell us what we can do. We're here to do the heavy lifting."

"There isn't a lot but thank you for coming. Okay… let's start back here." She moves into the smaller room on the side, where she keeps a few of her more expensive pieces—including the one I want—and I immediately notice it's gone.

"Where's my painting?" I blurt without thinking.

She grins over at me. "I moved it into the back room for you. Since last night's uninvited guest decided to do some redecorating, I figured I'd take that one out of the equation anyway."

"Oh. Well, thank you."

We exchange a look I can't quite decipher, but then she turns away and is all business.

The guys and I spend the next hour lifting, holding, maneuvering and hanging her beautiful pieces of art. Even Connor comments how much he likes them.

"I love the one that looks like a haunted cathedral over there," he says.

"It's modeled after the cathedral in Strasbourg, Germany," she replies. "But not exactly. I wanted the gothic vibe, but I didn't want it to be a real place. So kind of a combination of the real one and one I dreamed up in my mind."

"Can I buy it?"

We all turn to stare at him in surprise.

"Of course. I'll even give you a discount for helping today."

"Excellent." He beams at her, apparently as infatuated with her as I am.

But I got here first.

And he'd just turned nineteen, so he's way too young for her. Besides, he's been dating a model named Effie. It's on and off, I guess, because they both travel so much, but I'm fairly confident he isn't actually going to make a move on Saylor.

Which is a good thing, because my protective side is threatening to emerge again, and I don't even know that guy so I'm going to need him to settle the fuck down.

"Hey." I find her in the back washing her hands at an industrial sized sink I never noticed before.

She's deliciously disheveled. Her hair in a messy ponytail, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and her jeans and T-shirt dusty as well.

"Hi." She smiles. "I can't begin to thank you for helping today."

"It's no problem," I say, realizing I mean it. "And anyway, I wanted to see if you wanted to have dinner tonight. We leave on a road trip tomorrow, so I won't be back for a week."

"Oh." She looks down, wrinkling her nose. "I'm such a mess and?—"

"I need to go home to shower too," I interrupt. "But I could pick you up at six thirty. Dinner somewhere low-key, like a jeans and T-shirt kind of place, and then…" I let my voice trail.

She meets my gaze with a hungry one. "And then we pick up where we left off last night?"

"Maybe."

"You don't have to buy me dinner again."

"But I'm hungry and I want to."

One side of her lips quirks up playfully. "What, exactly, are you hungry for?"

"I really wish we were alone right now," I rumble through a laugh. "Because then I could just show you."

She snickers, and we share a look that tells me tonight is going to be fun.

"Six thirty then," she says, drying her hands. "And we're dressing down?"

"Well, I mean, you can wear anything you want, but if you have a plan, just give me some warning so I don't look like a scrub. Gross hockey player out with a princess. Makes me look bad."

"Believe me, after the last twenty-four hours or so, I'm all in for dressing down. Hell, I'd be down for takeout on my back porch, and watching the sunset with a bottle of wine."

"That sounds—" I'm cut off as Gabe comes around the corner.

"We're going to take off, Saylor. You need anything else?"

"No. Thank you." She hurries over to him and hugs him tightly. "I so appreciate your coming today. Thank you."

"Don't thank me—it was Canyon's idea. But we were glad to help. I'm always here for you."

"I appreciate you." She goes over to say goodbye to everyone, thanking each of them personally, some getting hugs.

"Harper and I are going to fix up the back counter," Saylor says, coming over to me. "So, how about six o'clock at my house?"

I want to protest, but she seems intent on staying low-key tonight, and if I'm honest, that works for me.

"Six o'clock," I repeat.

She winks and turns back to Harper.

I'm dismissed.

But six o'clock is only two hours from now.

And I whistle as I walk out to my Ferrari.