She wasn’t so sure Sam loved her. Not after their last conversation. She wasn’t sure like her brother seemed to be.
“I don’t want you to worry about me either.”
She looked at him standing there, her big hard-nosed brother. The back of her throat hurt, and her eyes watered. Again. She didn’t want to make his life hard for him. Harder than it already was. “What wil I do without my big brother?”
“Don’t cry.” He enfolded her in his big arms. “I’m not leaving forever.” He leaned back and looked into her face. “Maybe Sam isn’t as big an idiot these days.” He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. “He’l look out for you and Conner.”
She was confused and scared for Vince. “You like Sam now?”
“Hel no, but the bigger question is, do you like him?”
Of course she liked Sam. She loved him. She couldn’t help it. She loved the sound of his voice and the smel of him on her pil ow. She loved that under al that muscle and enormous ego, there was a kind man with a giving heart. She nodded.
“Then you have to think about forgiving him, because sometimes a person needs to hear you forgive them so they can start to forgive themselves.”
She looked into her brother’s troubled green eyes and wondered if he was talking about Sam or himself. Sam walked into his loft and knew something was different before he turned on the lights. It was 3:00 A.M., and Conner’s jacket was tossed across a barstool, and his door was ajar. He looked inside at his son curled up in his bed, asleep.
Sam was exhausted, and sore as hel . He’d played the shittiest games of his career consecutively because he hadn’t been able to clear his head of Autumn. He was living in a gray fog, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t his night to have Conner. Not unless Autumn needed someone to watch their son. Natalie’s door was shut, and he moved into his room and flipped on the light. In the middle of his dark blue quilt, Autumn lay curled up in his bed. Her red hair fanned out across his pil ow. If he hadn’t been standing up, with his duffel in his hand, he might think he was dreaming the whole thing.
“Autumn?”
She stirred, and her green eyes fluttered open. A smile tilted up the corners of her mouth.
The duffel hit the floor. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Why? What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to see you, and you’re obviously avoiding me.”
He looked around. “How did you get in here?”
“You have your ways. I have mine.” She stretched her arms, and it looked like she was wearing a white hockey jersey. “And aren’t you glad you didn’t come home with some other woman?”
“There is no other woman.”
“I know.” She sat up, and the quilt fel to her lap. She was wearing that damn Pittsburgh jersey. “Vince left town.”
He shrugged out of his blazer. “Why?”
“He said he had something to do. I’m very worried about him.”
“He’s a big boy.” Were they real y talking about Vince? “He’l be okay.”
“Why did you bail him out?” She swung her bare legs over the side of the bed. “You hate Vince.”
“But I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
His chest felt like he’d cracked a few ribs. Sore like someone caught him in the corner and punched the wind out of him. He pointed at her. “Then why are you wearing Crosby’s jersey?”
“ ’Cause the last time I wore it, you threatened to tear it off me if you ever saw it again.”
He smiled. “Is that what you want?”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck.