Blitzing Emily Read online

  Blitzing Emily

  A LOVE AND FOOTBALL NOVEL

  JULIE BRANNAGH

  Dedication

  To my husband, Eric

  To have and to hold, from this day forward

  For better, for worse, for richer or for poorer

  In sickness and in health

  To love and to cherish

  As long as we both shall live

  You are my happily ever after.

  Acknowledgments

  * * *

  WRITING A BOOK might seem like a solitary activity. It’s actually anything but. I have lots and lots of thank yous, so let’s get started.

  Thank you to my wonderful agent, Sarah E. Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency, who went above and beyond to make sure my dream of being a published novelist became a reality. I could never thank her enough.

  Amanda Bergeron is my equally terrific editor at Avon Impulse. I am so lucky she chose me. She makes my work sparkle. Plus, she doesn’t laugh at my (many and egregious) grammatical errors. Thank you so much!

  This book started as the result of a “writing exercise” at Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ former message board. She wrote the first contemporary romance I ever read. I’m thrilled to be following in her footsteps. Thank you, SEP.

  Thank you to Kristan Higgins for beta reading and early edits of this manuscript. She offered great help and advice.

  My husband Eric encourages me, reads manuscript pages, listens and helps with plotting issues, and supports our family so I can follow my dream. Thank you, honey. I love you.

  Thanks to the brilliant Susan Mallery, who cares enough to tell me the truth. I could never repay you for everything you have done for me.

  Thank you to my fantastic critique group, the Cupcake Crew, who also cares enough to be honest. Amy Raby and Jessi Gage, you want my best work, and I am grateful for that. The cupcakes are on me today!

  Thanks to the Bellevue, WA Cupcake Royale for harboring the Cupcake Crew each week.

  I’d like to thank both the Greater Seattle and Chicago-North chapters of Romance Writers of America who encourage me, instruct me, and share their chocolate with me.

  I’d like to thank Gari for suggesting a wonderful title. Thank you so much!

  Thanks to the public relations department of Seattle Opera, especially Jonathan Dean. They were more than generous with research and answering my (endless) questions.

  I would be remiss if I did not thank several of the Seattle Seahawks (past and present) for interviews they’ve given in multiple media sources which were a huge help with my research, especially Patrick Kerney.

  Last but not least, I’d like to thank the real-life Dr. Su of Evergreen Hospital Sleep Disorders Clinic, who saved my life.

  Brandon is a character created in my imagination. I did not base him on any person currently or formerly playing in the NFL. Any mistakes in the research are mine. Any artistic license is mine as well.

  I hope you’ll enjoy Blitzing Emily! If you’d like to visit my website, I’m at www.juliebrannagh.com. I’m also @julieinduvall on Twitter.

  Contents

  * * *

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  An Excerpt from Rushing Amy

  About the Author

  By Julie Brannagh

  An Excerpt from All I Want for Christmas is a Cowboy by Emma Cane, Jennifer Ryan, and Katie Lane

  An Excerpt from Santa, Bring My Baby Back by Cheryl Harper

  An Excerpt from The Christmas Cookie Chronicles: Grace by Lori Wilde

  An Excerpt from Desperately Seeking Fireman by Jennifer Bernard

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  * * *

  EMILY HAMILTON PLANNED to kill her sister. She just had to figure out where to hide the body. After that, she’d have to explain to Mom and Dad why Amy didn’t attend Sunday dinners anymore. Right now, though, that was all secondary.

  Emily parked in front of the Seattle Sharks’ headquarters on a cold, windy Valentine’s Day afternoon, wrestling the biggest balloon bouquet known to mankind from the back of her Ford Escape.

  Couldn’t this guy’s girlfriend choose a better method of saying “I wuv you” than seventy-five personalized Mylar balloons, five pounds of Fran’s Chocolates, and a teddy bear the size of Sharks Stadium? A greeting card would work. They’re portable. They’re tasteful. Well, most of them are. The mailman would even pay a visit to one’s very own mailbox to ensure that the Valentine in question found its way into the paw of some neckless, muscle-bound football player in plenty of time for the big day. Then again, Emily didn’t actually know any football players, and maybe she was being a little harsh.

  She gazed at the profusion of balloons reading “I love you, Brandon.” Brandon would also be the only man in America who might find such an over-the-top display compelling.

  Emily carefully tugged, rearranged, coaxed, and swore under her breath for what felt like a half-hour, and the balloons wrapped themselves around the bear. The bear wedged under the huge box of chocolates. She’d opened all four car doors in an attempt to push or pull the whole thing out. Moving the box was frightening. Even better, it had been an unseasonably cold February in Seattle. The parking lot resembled an ice skating rink courtesy of the last (surprisingly deep) snowfall. Replacing a five-pound box of expensive Fran’s Chocolates meant one less pair of Jimmy Choos in her closet, which was always unacceptable.

  Emily pulled on the balloons again as she slid around on pavement that felt like it was greased. She wasn’t exactly dressed for balloon wrangling. The stiletto-heeled boots she’d bought during her last trip to Rome and couldn’t wait to wear looked great at rehearsal. But they didn’t work well in an icy parking lot by any stretch of the imagination. The dress trousers and lacy silk cardigan she had on today weren’t made for flexibility, either.

  Emily wasn’t a floral delivery driver by profession. She typically spent her days, and several evenings a week, being rescued from evil spirits, pursued by noblemen, or falling in love with entirely inappropriate scoundrels as an opera singer. Rehearsal was done for the day, however, and she was helping her sister out. Amy’s floral shop had opened less than six months ago, and Valentine’s Day was the biggest delivery day so far. Amy needed the money. After all, her business loan balance was the financial equivalent of Shock and Awe.

  Emily needed a stiff drink and an evening with George Clooney, but she didn’t see either materializing anytime soon.

  She could free the bear, but that would send the candy box flying. She couldn’t get through the mass of balloons to push the candy box aside. The bear watched her through beady and unmoving eyes as she stopped swearing and started praying. She wasn’t Catholic, but reciting a couple of Hail Mary’s wouldn’t hurt.

  Maybe she imagined devil horns sprouting through the bear’s thick plush.

  Valentine’s Day was the first night off she’d had
in quite some time. Even more than a date or any extravagant Valentine’s observance, Emily wanted a peaceful evening alone in her cozy, early 2000’s up-market townhouse. Besides, she had no use for the holiday. She’d learned long ago that men really couldn’t be trusted. Instead of getting winged by Cupid’s arrow, she’d take a bubble bath with the expensive French freesia-scented bath gel she bought but never had time to use, she’d read her copy of last year’s hottest bestseller, still gathering dust on the nightstand in her room—better late than never—and she’d open a split of Perrier-Jouet champagne. It sounded perfect. All she had to do was finish this, make sure Amy didn’t need any more help, and she could go home. The thought cheered her.

  Five sweaty-looking, disheveled men gathered around the front door of the square, three-story team facility, watching Emily’s every movement. Each wore multiple items of clothing bearing the Seattle Sharks’ logo. Did they offer to help her? Hell, no. She saw cash change hands. Of course, she could only imagine what they were betting on: who this crap was for. Whether or not the gigantic balloon bouquet would propel her into the flight pattern at Sea-Tac Airport.

  She braced one foot against the car’s back bumper, gingerly tugging yet one more time. She resisted the impulse to cross herself before heaving the box of candy under one arm. She wrestled the evil red teddy bear into a headlock under her other arm.

  She extracted the balloons from the back of her car with sheer force of will, gripping them in three-and-a-half fingers, and minced toward the staircase leading to the front door of the facility.

  The ice crunched under Emily’s feet. Only a couple more steps to that staircase, which appeared to rival the slickness of Vaseline. She hitched the candy box a little higher against her side. The teddy bear would survive a spill, but the candy wouldn’t. Every step proved she’d make it up those damn stairs, delivery intact. A little frostbite wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

  She braced the candy box against the metal stair railing. If she wrapped her arm around it, she could slide her way up. Perfect.

  “Get that the hell out of here!” an obviously angry male shouted.

  It felt like slow motion. The stiletto heel on her boot snapped off as she jumped. The candy box slipped from her grasp. She let go of the railing as she tried to grab it. Both feet slid out from under her, and she had the sickening realization that she was falling. Adrenaline shot through her system. This would leave a mark. Emily tried to grab on to anything at all. The only thing to hang on to was the huge bunch of balloons.

  She landed flat on her back. The candy flew in all directions, the bear landed squarely in the middle of her chest, and she heard a loud thunk as everything went black.

  EMILY HEARD A voice as she came to. He was close, and he was murmuring to himself. “Shit. Please don’t be dead.”

  She felt a weight resting on her chest. She wriggled her toes. They worked. She spread her fingers. They worked, too. She tried to take a breath.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you. This is all my fault. I don’t want any more crap from—oh, hell.”

  Oh, God. Imagining how she would explain this to Amy hurt worse than her headache.

  “Hey.” He patted her cheek. “Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t speak. Whoever he was, his Southern drawl dripped like thick, sweet, warm honey into her ear. She smelled magnolias and fresh beignets. She must have been dreaming.

  “You hit your head. Let me feel for bumps.” Emily felt the back of her head cradled in a very large hand. Long, warm fingers slipped through her hair and over her scalp, moving effortlessly. “You got the wind knocked out of you. Take a breath.”

  “Mmph,” Emily mumbled.

  “There. You’re breathing.” He continued rubbing her head, his fingertips roaming as he spoke. The ice and snow burned against her back and legs, but she’d give him an hour to stop. “And you have a cut on your head. It’s bleeding.”

  Oh, God.

  “It’s pretty dumb to wear spike heels in an icy parking lot.” He sounded angry. She heard the balloons rustle. He must have grabbed one to look at it. “How the hell did she get my name on them?”

  Emily opened her eyes to see the evil red bear sitting on her chest, and the puckered brow and concerned blue-green eyes of the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

  Amy would kill her when she found out how messed up the delivery was, unless she expired on the spot from sheer embarrassment first.

  He studied her. He still knelt beside her. “What’s your name, sugar?”

  Any other man would have gotten the full force of her offended feminist sensibilities at that point, but all she could manage to breathe was, “Emily, but not for long.”

  She still clutched the balloons. They’d been threaded through a metal weight that looked like an oversized Hershey’s Kiss, but the sheer amount of helium involved threatened to pull her off the ground. Thank God the wind had died down a bit.

  Brandon slipped his arm around her shoulders and helped her sit up. “Emily. Let me take those.” He pried her fingers off the tangled, several-inches-thick bundle of ribbon, and put his foot down on it while he spoke. He didn’t have to work very hard. Her fingers went slack at his touch.

  “You might need to see a doctor for that cut,” he suggested.

  “Looks like it was for you, McKenna,” yelled one of the five guys who’d been watching. They crossed the sidewalk to see what was happening. Emily found herself surrounded by six sweaty and disheveled men, one of whom still checked her for injuries.

  “A little help?” A tall guy—hell, they were all tall, but this one had close-cropped black curls—said: “Hey, baby, what’s your name?”

  “I’ve got this,” Brandon told them. He still supported her with one arm. “Back off.”

  “Ooh, I’m scared of you,” the dark-haired one shot back.

  Brandon gave him a look that should have liquefied the parking lot. “You should be.” He shielded her from the other men with his body.

  “Emily, I hope you won’t be mad about this, but it’s for the best.”

  He stripped the weight off the huge bunch of balloons and let them go. They shot what she imagined to be several hundred feet into the air. The bear on her lap started to spin. Now she was dizzy as well.

  “I . . . You can’t do that!” she cried and clutched her pounding head. “Do you know how long it took my sister to inflate those balloons? The customer wanted them delivered.”

  “I probably should have donated them to Children’s Hospital or something. I wanted them gone. Sick kids don’t need some stupid balloon that reads, ‘I love you, Brandon.”

  “The FAA’s scrambling jets as we speak,” one of the guys said. They continued staring at Emily as if they hadn’t seen a woman sprawled on her back in a public parking lot before.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” one of the guys said as he stepped forward. Brandon glared at him, and he rapidly stepped back.

  “I said, I’ve got this,” Brandon told him. “Show’s over. Get lost.” He picked up the evil red teddy bear and threw it at them. This brought on a chorus of responses from the guys still standing around her.

  “McKenna, you cranky bitch,” one of them said. “That’s what happens when you go without.”

  “Dawg, I like her better than the last one.”

  “At least she’s got curves. Junk in the trunk. Hey, pretty lady, have dinner with me.” The guy with the black curls, eyes like a melted Hershey’s bar, whipped out his smart phone. “I’ll get us a table at Seastar at eight.”

  “Go fu— She’s not going anywhere with you, dirtbag,” Brandon snapped. He took her elbow and helped her up.

  She swayed toward him, still dizzy. All she had to do was get in her car and drive away. She would put a Band-Aid on whatever was bleeding. Lying in a bubble bath would fix it all. She’d explain to Amy later.

  She couldn’t seem to move.

  “You’re not okay,” he said. “I broke it, now I have to fix it.” To he
r amazement, he scooped Emily up in his arms. “Do you feel sleepy? Dizzy? How about double vision, or a headache? Nausea?”

  He was walking away with her. She could hear voices as the guys followed them.

  “Well, that’s one way to get a date for Valentine’s Day.”

  “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

  “Hey, Balloon Girl, I’ll give you a ride.”

  Brandon’s lips compressed into a thin line, and a flush spread over his cheeks and the tops of his ears. “Sorry about that,” he told her. “They don’t know any women they can actually be seen with in public.”

  Her stomach lurched and rolled with each footstep Brandon took. She was not going to throw up. She tried not to think about how much she weighed as Brandon carried her. He did not slip and slide on the ice. He wasn’t even breathing hard as he settled Emily on the passenger seat of her Escape.

  “Hang on.” He hurled himself into the driver’s seat.

  “What are you doing? You can’t drive my car. The insurance—” she cried out. She clutched her aching head in both hands.

  “You need to get looked at, and you’re not driving yourself to the hospital.”

  He pulled away from the curb. Emily saw the other five guys on the sidewalk, debris at their feet, receding in the rear-view mirror. All that chocolate . . . Somebody was going to have a mess to clean up.

  She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  Brandon’s voice was sharp. “Don’t go to sleep. You have to stay awake till we get to the emergency room.”

  He held the steering wheel as he reached out and shook her shoulder. He glanced over at Emily as he maneuvered in and out of traffic. “Emily, I mean it. Open your eyes and look at me.”

  Obviously he was great at multi-tasking. She forced her eyes open.

  “Good girl,” he said.

  Her car would need a detailing when this was all over. She was bleeding. The t-shirt and shorts he wore were drenched in sweat from what must have been his workout. Even sweaty, he smelled wonderful. Clean, with the faint scent of Old Spice. It was surprising to her he wore such an old-fashioned aftershave, but it fit him.