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  At Arm’s Length

  Copyright © 2016 Amber Nation

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language, and sexual situations. It is intended for adult readers.

  Cover Design by Najla Qambar Design

  Edited By Silla Webb & Jennifer Hensley

  www.ambernationauthor.com

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Other Books by Amber Nation

  “Damn it, Reed!”

  The sound of my coach’s anger rattled through me, and not just because of the thundering boom of his voice; although that tone would have the toughest of men rethinking their actions. You could clearly see the murderous rage radiating off of him as his face transformed into a violent shade of red. It really was an unattractive color, clashing with the rest of his complexion. If Jimmy Knox, head coach of the Carolina Panthers, didn’t need me so badly, I knew he’d be tempted to put a stop to all of my continuing discretions.

  Permanently.

  As in he would be on the hunt for the shovel, and no one would ever find my body.

  I settled back into the plush leather chair opposite of Knox, a large secretary desk separating the two of us, as I casually rested my ankle across my knee. The way Coach looked, I knew that even the thick hunk of wood wouldn’t stop him from grasping his hands around my throat and not stopping until he squeezed the life out of me.

  Not that the particular action was running through Knox’s mind, it was just an educated guess. Shit, for all I knew he had a mental checklist of 1001 ways to kill Holden Reed. And those would just be the ones he could rattle off of the top of his head without putting much thought into them.

  You think that I’d be terrified, but it was nothing that hadn’t happened before. And I was still here, along with that same cocky smirk gracing my otherwise flawless face.

  This was the same old song and dance that occurred whenever I fucked up. It happened often, way too often, in fact. You’d think after numerous times of being called in here, I’d learn to rein it in and control my temper. I was a hothead pure and simple. I let the words and actions of others get the best of me.

  Normally, I would have to sit back and listen to his long, torturous bitch fest, promise to do better and get on with my life, but for some reason today I didn’t think that my vacant words would suffice.

  As the starting running back, more specifically, the halfback, I was virtually untouchable.

  He knew this.

  I knew this.

  So I would nod and comment where appropriate, making it seem as if I was learning from whatever mistake I made and whatever bullshit advice he was doling out and get the fuck out of here.

  Knox held a newspaper firmly in his grasp before tossing it onto the surface of the desk. As it skittered in my direction, my attention snapped directly to the face splashed all over the front page.

  My face.

  Fuck.

  In big, bold print was the headline reading: “Running back who doesn’t hold back.” If that wasn’t incriminating enough, the subline did the trick. “Someone needs to teach the old Beast some new tricks.”

  How original.

  Someone thought they were clever, using my nickname against me. As if that had never happened before. Originality at its finest.

  Nevertheless, seeing this as yet another end result of one of my monumental fuckups made my heart freeze in my chest.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, feeling the urge to be sick.

  “Oh yeah, Reed, you’re fucked.”

  My eyes quickly darted from this morning’s trash newspaper to the face of my coach for the last four years. Jimmy was seething, and at first glance, I thought he was ready to spit nails, but it wasn’t nails that were going to come spewing from his thin-lipped mouth. When his eyes narrowed on mine, I knew the words that were going to fly my way weren’t ones I was particularly going to like.

  I definitely wasn’t wrong, but for once in my life I wish that I was.

  “You’re done…”

  Two words coated with such finality and venom it was uncanny, albeit, a bit ironic.

  My hands wrapped around the arms of the chair as I felt the corded muscles in my arms flex with anger now coursing through my veins. Nothing good would come out of my reaction.

  “What do you mean I’m done?” I roared, my voice rough, dripping with disapproval.

  I had a temper, this was no secret to anyone who knew me, hell for anyone who knew football. I knew that I needed to rein it in before I committed to an outburst that really wouldn’t do well for my career, but the anger coursing through my veins couldn’t be contained.

  “Just what I said. You. Are. Done.” Coach Knox lifted himself out of his chair as he circled around to stand in front of me. This man was either really brave or had a death wish, and my vote was for the latter. He pointed back to the stack of newspapers he was now blocking from my vision, “You’re lucky he didn’t press charges and send you to jail.”

  “He deserved what he got.” And Dennis Yates did deserve to be on the receiving end of my fists, even if he was a member of my own team.

  Knox folded his arms over his chest as he sat back against the desk. “I don’t care if he deserved more than the broken nose and busted lip, he’s your fucking teammate! Jesus Christ, what the hell has gotten into you?”

  With a resigned sigh, Knox ran his hand through his cropped hair, and I could just tell his tension was getting ready to hit me square in the solar plexus. Hurting me worse than the damage I could’ve ever done to Yates. “You have an appointment with the team therapist to try and sort out your anger bullshit.” I tried to open my mouth with a rebuttal, but his icy glare had me snapping it quickly shut. “Your suspension will only be for two weeks, but if this shit continues I’ll have no other choice but to suspend you indefinitely. You need to straighten yourself out by whatever means necessary. Now is the time to actually own up to your mistakes and outbursts and change things. Get out of town for a while, hell, go on vacation.” He lifted his hand in warning. “One that doesn’t end with your ugly mug plastered all over the news. Damn it, Holden, you’re almost thirty-years-old. Don’t you think it’s about time you grow up?” Hearing the disdain in my coach’s voice, a guy I had looked up to in so many
ways, didn’t diminish a single ounce of the animosity I had tensing up my muscles.

  By this point, I was surging to my feet and out of my chair gearing for a fight. My hot-headed status always getting the best of me.

  My voice still low and menacing, I ground out, “You can’t do this.”

  Knox smirked, hitching up the side of his mouth with the smallest hint of a smile. “It’s already done.”

  He was bluffing. He never followed through on his threats no matter the extent of my actions. But a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind told me that this time was different, that my get out of jail free card had just expired.

  And it was my own damn fault.

  “Honey, before you go, don’t forget to bring in extra firewood once you get to the Manor. You need to make sure you’re stocked up before the storm hits.” I was bending down tying my snow boots as my dad fussed, reiterating the same thing for the fifth time in as many minutes.

  I straightened my stance, tightened my scarf around my neck and made sure that my knit hat was pulled low covering my ears before I began slipping my hands into my gloves. The warmth instantly wrapped around my fingers as I got each of them situated in place. “Daddy, you worry too much,” I said with a smile. “I know what I’m doing. After all, I did learn from the best,” I added, trying to placate him. I cupped his cheeks and leaned forward placing a brief kiss on his forehead. “Besides, you should be in bed, getting your rest and building up your strength.”

  “Nonsense,” he croaked, pulling out of my embrace. He turned toward the coat rack that occupied the corner of the entryway right beside our front door. “Maybe I should go with you, make sure you get everything settled.” He successfully retrieved his coat from the hook and was thrown into a coughing fit before he was able to plunge his arm into the open sleeve.

  My father was one of the most hardworking men I knew, but that wasn’t to say that he wasn’t also the most stubborn as well.

  “Now, George,” my mother rushed to his side, curling her hands around his shoulders and guiding him toward his recliner, throwing his forgotten coat onto the couch. Ever since he was diagnosed with pneumonia two days prior, my mom and I have done our best to accommodate him so he wasn’t gallivanting about. “You need to leave Marlee to the Manor and get your rest. The faster you recover, the quicker you can go back to work.”

  His hard work ethics was making recuperating a very stressful event. So being ahead of the game and at his mercy was our last ditch effort to get the old man to sit still. We knew what he’d want before he did, and by the time he would have the footstool of the recliner back in position, ready to stand up, we would be right at his side with what he needed. Mom said that being married for over thirty years would give you that sometimes unwarranted sixth sense.

  “Gosh, woman,” he grumbled as she arranged a blanket over his legs and handed him the remote. He may complain, but the sly flash of his grin and the wink he just gave me, told me that he rather enjoyed being doted on.

  “Right,” I readjusted my hat and slung my overnight bag over my shoulder. “Don’t worry about anything, I have it all covered.”

  “Of course you do. Like you said, you learned from the best, obviously meaning me,” he joked.

  On that note, I rolled my eyes and opened the front door bracing for the burst of frigid wind that would hit me as soon as I stepped outside.

  The bite wasn’t as aggressive as I originally prepared for, but it was still enough to make me quicken my steps.

  Our house was too far from Tate Manor, the Bed & Breakfast that we owned, to make it the entire way by foot, so I walked along the snow shoveled sidewalk in order to wait for the bus.

  Tate Manor, in Gunnison, Colorado, was founded by my great grandad, who passed it down to his son, my grandpa. And in turn, he passed it down to his son, my dad. For as long as I could remember, my dad had been teaching me the lay of the land, conditioning me for the day it would be passed down to me. What he didn’t take into consideration was that I had plans for myself. Big aspirations and dreams that didn’t include running a Bed & Breakfast in a small town.

  In the end, he needn’t have worried anyway, because here I was, back in Gunnison. To stay, so it seemed; leaving my life in the bustling big city of Riverside at the first sign that my parents needed me. And although I missed the fast paced action of California, I could never bring myself to regret my decision to drop everything and come back to the one place that would always be my home.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Franklin,” I exclaimed as I passed by, smiling sweetly to the little old lady who no matter the temperature was always sitting on her front porch watching the happenings of town.

  “Hi, dear,” I heard her mutter as I continued on my journey.

  After stopping by Coffeeholic and picking up a steaming cup of their amazing hot chocolate and a huge slice of their town-wide famous iced lemon pound cake, I made a quick trip into the local florist, Flourish to get a small bouquet of assorted flowers.

  The walk to the bus stop took a bit longer than I anticipated, but being that Gunnison was a town on the smaller side, it was to be expected. Everyone knew everybody along with everything going on in their lives. So naturally, I would get stopped and bombarded with questions regarding how Daddy was feeling. My heart always swelled with how caring people were. It was one of the things that I missed while I lived in California. I often said that since the city was so large people lost their manners or forgot where they came from. Not me, I couldn’t begin to count the times where people turned their noses up at me for asking how their day was. It didn’t take me long to learn to keep to myself.

  Once I hopped off the bus, I climbed the steps to the old Bed & Breakfast and put my hot chocolate cup in the crook of my arm that held the flowers so I could turn the knob and open the door to my family’s livelihood.

  The front door creaked on its hinges as I forced the old wood closed. The years have actually been rather kind to the seasoned structure of the house, but it wasn’t without imperfections. The small defects such as the stiff hinges and creaks in the original wood floor just added to the overall feel and character that I loved. The Manor was built to feel like it was from the Victorian Era, and while my dad and grandpa did fix it up, there were just some things that you didn’t touch. The grand staircase had access to two different sets of stairs, one leading to the east wing, the other obviously to the west. But at the top of both sets of stairs was a platform with a banister that overlooked most of the ground floor. Directly above the banister was the original chandelier that was adorned with crystals and lighting.

  It was beautiful.

  No, it was more than that. It was glorious and a real sight to behold.

  That being said, it was also a real pain in the ass to deal with when one bulb burned out. But the overall beauty and the magical ambiance it created more than made up for the time spent on the thirty-foot ladder we needed to use. Added to the fact that it was Christmastime so the entire foyer was decked from top to bottom with lighted garland woven around the banisters. Poinsettias and Mistletoe as far as the eye could see. And to top it all off, a twelve-foot tree nestled on the second-floor landing.

  The second-floor landing was my second favorite thing about the Manor, coming in close only to the library. What woman wouldn’t swoon over rows upon rows of books? The smell of the pages and the fantasies each book held within them.

  “Marlee, is that you?” I heard my oldest and dearest friend, Trudy holler from around the corner. She owned Coffeeholic, but was helping fill in at the front desk while my dad was out of commission.

  “Yeah, Tru. I’m here,” I said, finally coming into view of the reception area. The overall management of the Manor took place in a little nook stationed at the bottom of the west wing staircase. The space wasn’t much but big enough for an oversized plush chair and a small television for my dad. I took the time to place my paper coffee cup on the counter and unwrap the colorful array of flowers from
their paper, arranging them in the empty vase on the corner of the desk. The opaque glass vase was a new addition I added a few weeks ago that would now be a permanent fixture. I knew my dad couldn’t care less about sprucing up the entryway, but the smallest touches could warrant the warmest reactions. Just because it was cold beyond reason outside and we were expecting a rather substantial snow storm on top of the snow we had already accumulated, there was no reason we couldn’t brighten up a customer’s day with the vision of brightly bloomed beauties. I felt that the smallest touches could make the biggest impact on someone’s stay and how welcomed they felt.

  We won’t even get started on how my dad felt regarding the Christmas decorations and poinsettias.

  “Sorry I took so long. First I got the rundown from Dad as he rattled off a million different things to do before the storm hit. Then, of course, I got stopped by everyone wanting to know how he was doing. I know if he doesn’t stop fretting and finally relax he won’t ever recuperate.” I fussed. “He’s such a bullheaded man,” I added almost under my breath.

  Trudy chuckled and tapped her finger on her chin as if she was thinking. “You know, I know a woman who is just as adamant, if not more.”

  I paused, my fingers wrapped around a flower stem and looked at my friend since childhood out of the corner of my eye. “Who?”

  With that, she threw her head back, her strawberry blonde hair spilling down as she burst out laughing. “The apple doesn’t fall far from your family tree. Like father, like daughter.”

  “You’re so funny,” I deadpanned then rolled my eyes. I wasn’t stubborn, not me. No way.

  I released a long drawn out sigh.

  Okay, maybe I was.

  But only just a little bit. “I’d rather think of it as being determined.”

  I removed my scarf and hat before hanging up my coat in the closet next to the desk. “Did we have any check-ins?”

  I grabbed the ornate vase and wound my way through the doorways to the kitchen, knowing that Tru would follow closely behind.

  When I first graduated from college, I set the Manor up with a website, one that would take online reservations. Dad didn’t believe in the modern-day technology, and the very idea of people not using the telephone to call in a reservation didn’t bode well for a man set in his old-fashioned ways. So for years it went unused. But since moving back home, I took it upon myself to bring the Manor well into the twenty-first century, and being able to make online reservations has really amped up business. People were all about doing things fast and efficiently. And with the simple ease of online reservations, it was exactly what Tate Manor needed.