Love, Tussles, and Takedowns Read Online Free PDF Page A

she clarified in the silence that followed.
    Okay. Still strange though. “Hi Dani. Can I…help you with something?”
    “No, no. I’m calling to help you. You called earlier about my bouncer friend, Lia—the woman you saw at the wedding, right?”
    “Yeah. But that’s alright, I already—”
    “I just wanted to tell you more about her,” she cut in again, sounding hushed and hurried. “And also where you could—ˮ
    “ Woman, where are you hiding with my phone?! We’re on our honeymoon for godssakes; leave the poor man alone,” came Luke’s voice bellowing over the phone line in the background.
    Dani’s laughter was immediate, as was the sound of her running, and clearly getting caught and swept up in the air a few seconds later.
    Valiantly, Dani proceeded to still call out some fun facts about Lia while the phone was jostled around and then held at a distance where Hudson could only just barely make out what she was saying.
    Apparently, Lia liked watching old kung-fu movies for fun.
    And by the by, she was temporarily living in Dani’s old apartment over the brewery if he wanted to stop by one day for a visit.
    She preferred really good coffee over flowers.
    Two creams and three sugars.
    Geez, and he thought his friend Fiona was a meddler.
    Not that he wasn’t appreciatively taking mental notes of all this info.
    A laughing, audibly doting Luke came on the phone line following what was most definitely a pillow to the face. “I’ll call you when we get back next week, man,” called out Luke amidst what sounded like a pretty serious tickle fight. “But if you can’t wait, just head over to Cactus Creek and ask the town folks about her. I have to warn you though, she’s got some insanely protective brothers. Good luck.”
    And with that, the phone cut off.
    When he looked up to see the very brothers in question staring him down, he pocketed his phone and settled in for the next scene in this bizarre off-Broadway play.
    The guys left a short, highly intrusive while later, and at exactly the six-minute mark, Hudson heard a soft, slightly awed voice say quietly, “You stayed.”
    “Of course, I did.”
    She looked around as if she could smell something suspicious in the air. “Did my brothers find you here?”
    “Of course, they did.”
    With a tired sigh, she surmised, “Let me guess, Caine took a photo of your driver’s license, while one brother borrowed your phone for a minute, and the other just glared at you in silence.”
    The woman knew her brothers well. “Don’t forget the part about Caine getting a text message from your friend Dani to let me pass go.”
    Lia’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, that one’s new.”
    “Really? Because it kind of sounds like it’s her thing to meddle.”
    “Oh, it is. But she’s never tried to meddle into my life before. Weird.”
    Huh. Clearly, he’d managed to upset the balance of her world order.
    Well now they were even.
    “That could have something to do with my calling Luke’s phone earlier today…in search of you.”
    Her smile was radiantly pleased, and then just plain amused. “You have no idea what you just got yourself into.”
    Tell him about it.
    He cupped her cheek gently. “I have a feeling you’re worth it.”
    She gazed into his eyes and asked softly, “Do you want to go back to my place?”
    “Are you just trying to get a rise out of your brothers?” he asked, and then smiled. “Because that’d be okay with me. But that will only be okay with me until we get to your apartment. Your brother is right, you’ve been drinking and you have more pain hidden in you than I think even this whole town realizes, as protective as they are.”
    Her brows shot up in surprise.
    “And while I’m not drunk, sweetheart, around you I may as well be. So I can be whatever guy you need me to be tonight…except for the one you regret tomorrow morning.”
    When she peered up into his eyes, he was surprised to find she looked almost