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Taking a solidifying breath, Sean rang the bell. The music abruptly stopped. Unless someone was standing poised with a remote pointed at the stereo, he suspected that music wasn’t recorded, but being played by a real person. Was Mase’s wife a musician?
The door opened and he froze. His mind blanked and filled with numbers and calculations. Thirteen years. If Mase moved on right away he could have had a child in that time, but she would be no older that eleven or twelve. This beauty in front of him, although appearing very young, was no child. She also bore no resemblance to Mase. Fuck, was this the missus?
“Can I help you?”
That voice. He recognized that voice. “Mrs. Davis?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Sean O’Malley. Is your husband home?”
* * * *
Liberty couldn’t help but step back. The stranger standing on her porch was enormous and no one she had ever seen before. He didn’t look like a solicitor, but for some reason a curious, self-preserving instinct awakened inside of her. She had the sense that this man could harm her, in more than just a physical sense. A foreboding impression unnerved her. It somehow signified the one thing she never dealt with well. Change. This man was more than just a stranger passing by. The disquiet thrumming through her veins was palpable.
Liberty held the door securely in a position so she could shut it quickly if need be. “Can I help you?”
The man shifted awkwardly on enormous booted feet and rooted his hands farther into his pockets. The sun had set and, like most Carolina nights on the coast, the temperature had dropped significantly. He only wore a threadbare white T and was likely cold. However, that threadbare T did nothing to hide his enormous arms, corded with muscle and decorated with some sort of tattoo peeking past the cuff.
“Mrs. Davis?”
Her searching eyes jerked from his thick arms to his face. How did he know her name? “Yes.”
His gaze moved over her as if analyzing her as she’d been analyzing him. Who the hell was this guy and how dare he look at her and make her feel as if she somehow didn’t measure up to his expectations? She pressed the door closed a little more and braced her bare foot behind it.
He cleared his throat. “I’m Sean O’Malley. Is your husband home?”
Sean O’Malley? Sean O’Malley? Why did that name sound familiar? “You called last night.”
“Yes, I’m the man that called.”
She didn’t want to admit Mason was out, let alone that he wouldn’t return until morning. Not to this towering pile of muscle and tattooed flesh, but she couldn’t lie and then fail to produce her husband. “He can’t come to the door right now. Can I pass along a message?”
He frowned at her as if he knew she was lying. She stood a little taller, daring him to challenge her. He most likely found her attempt to intimidate him with her five foot stature next to his probably six and a half foot build laughable. Something seemed to click in his mind and his expression softened.
He held his hands out as if in peaceful surrender. “Uh, I know you probably don’t know who I am, but I’m an old friend of Mase’s. We went to Duke together.”
Her shoulders sagged a little in relief, but she wasn’t wholly convinced this guy wasn’t out to do her family harm. As a doctor, anyone could look up Mason’s records and see where he went to school.
“When? He’s never mentioned you.” She probably shouldn’t have said that. It seemed to poke a sensitive nerve. If this was in fact her husband’s friend, she’d just said something incredibly rude.
“Thirteen years ago. He lived at Brier House with me. We were in the same fraternity. I played football there, but hurt my knee junior year and my grades weren’t enough to keep me in. I ended up leaving when I was twenty-one and finishing up at State back in Arizona.”
Libby supposed the slight lilt to his accent was what someone from Arizona would sound like. She eyed him critically. He looked about Mase’s age, maybe a few years younger. He definitely could have been an athlete. Even under his loose fitting jeans she could detect heavily muscled thighs.
He smiled at her kindly, exposing a mouth full of perfectly straight pearl white teeth. Wow, that must have been some popular fraternity. His smile softened his hazel eyes and upgraded him from attractive to gorgeous. A big hand ran through his dirty blonde hair causing it to stand on end and distract Libby.
“Look, Mrs. Davis, I assure you, your husband and I were friends, very good friends. I’ve been driving for days and I’m in need of a hotel and a bed. Do you know when a better time to stop by might be? I hate to be a pest, but I’m kind of just runnin’ on empty right now and didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see how he was doing after all these years.”
