Caspian: A Carolina Reapers Novel, page 1
Caspian
A Carolina Reapers Novel
Samantha Whiskey
Contents
Also by Samantha Whiskey
Now Available in Audiobook!
1. Caspian
2. Ryleigh
3. Caspian
4. Ryleigh
5. Cassian
6. Ryleigh
7. Caspian
8. Ryleigh
9. Caspian
10. Ryleigh
11. Caspian
12. Ryleigh
13. Caspian
14. Ryleigh
15. Caspian
16. Ryleigh
17. Caspian
18. Ryleigh
19. Caspian
Epilogue
Connect With Me!!!
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2021 by Samantha Whiskey, LLC All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Also by Samantha Whiskey
The Seattle Sharks Series:
Grinder
Enforcer
Winger
Rookie
Blocker
Skater
Bruiser
Wheeler
Defender
The Carolina Reapers Series:
Axel
Sawyer
Connell
Logan
Cannon
Sterling
Briggs
Caspian
The Raleigh Raptors Series:
Nixon
Roman
Hendrix
An Onyx Assassins Novel:
Crimson Covenant
Crimson Highlander
Crimson Warrior
A Modern-Day Fairytale Romance:
The Crown
The Throne
Now Available in Audiobook!
Grinder
Enforcer
Winger
Rookie
Let the Seattle Sharks spice up your morning commute!
For all the girls next door
1
Caspian
“You don’t have to do that,” I said for the fourteen-thousandth time since I walked into the house last night.
“Caspian Foster, you are my one and only son, so if I decide to make you a sandwich or three, having to has nothing to do with it. We both know I do as I damn-well please,” Mom quipped back over her shoulder, giving me the kind of raised eyebrow that would have sent London and I running for the fields when we were kids.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, leaning back against the counter of the kitchen I’d grown up in.
“You can at least make yourself useful and get us something to drink,” she muttered, but there was a smile on her face.
She’d been smiling since I’d come through the door, and it only served to remind me that I needed to visit more often. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my parents—I did. Life just had a way of getting busier every year, even during the offseason.
Hell, the only reason I was home for the grand total of ten days was London’s wedding next week. My baby sister was marrying one of my teammates, and in true London-style, she’d forsaken the glitz and glamor of the million-dollar wedding Sterling had offered her and chosen to swear her undying love in the same little chapel our parents had, right here in Cherry Creek, Iowa.
“Apple juice?” I asked, getting several glasses out of the cupboard.
“You know it.” She kept at the sandwiches, but her attention jumped to the clock as I poured us a few glasses of juice. London and Sterling were in town doing something that had to do with the cake, so it was just Mom, Dad, and me for lunch.
“Are you sure he doesn’t need help out there?” I asked, looking into the fields where Dad had disappeared a couple of hours ago.
“We both know he’s just out there killing time.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s called a hobby farm for a reason, Caspian. I go to bridge club with the ladies, he pretends he knows his way around a combine on the weekends. We all have our little diversions.”
By bridge club, she meant margarita night, but I didn’t say a word.
Dad was a CPA and the only accountant in town, and Mom had been running his office for just as long as she’d been running our house—forty years.
“Time to ring the lunch bell,” she muttered, taking out her cell phone and hitting the green button. Mom and Dad had refused to let me buy them a new house, or even pay this one off, but they had let me put in a cell signal booster when I signed with my first NHL team. It was the least I could do to repay them for the early morning practices and late-night games over an hour away in Des Moines. “Get in here and eat. You’re just getting in the way out there.”
She hung up without another word.
I’d also hired a few farmhands for Dad, who was certain that his improved crops of soybeans had everything to do with his talent to grow shit. It didn’t. But I didn’t tell him that, either.
My parents had something I had rarely seen and always marveled at—happiness.
Dad came in from the field and hung his baseball cap on the hook near the kitchen door. “It’s a hot one out there. Sent the men home about an hour ago. Hey, it’s about time you were up,” he teased me as he washed his hands.
A hundred degrees in Iowa wasn’t the same as Charleston. The heat was suffocating here without the ocean breeze.
“I went for a run at five a.m. You were still sleeping,” I joked, helping Mom carry the sandwiches to the table where I’d already put the apple juice.
I fucking loved this table. It was dinged up and scarred, burned in places from the numerous school projects London and I had made on its uneven surface, but it was home, and far more precious than anything my interior designer had moved into my Charleston house.
“Yeah, yeah.” He grinned, and I got a glimpse of what I’d look like in another thirty years. We had the same thick hair and square jaw, same smile and laugh. I just happened to have a few more tattoos.
Fine, a lot more tattoos.
We took our seats and started our lunch. Mom grew quieter by the second, glancing up at the clock every minute or so.
“What has you stressed out?” I asked her, devouring the last of my potato salad. I never ate like this during the season, but Mom’s potato salad was magical, and I sure as fuck wasn’t missing out. I’d just have to run a little farther tomorrow to make sure I didn’t take an extra ten pounds back to Charleston.
“Oh. Um. Nothing.” Her cheeks flushed.
Just like London, that was her tell. It was fitting since London pretty much looked like a younger version of our mother.
Dad flicked his gaze between my mom and me. “Elizabeth?”
Mom grimaced.
I polished off my apple juice as Mom shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“You haven’t asked him yet, have you?” Dad’s brows lifted toward the ceiling.
“He’s only been home eighteen hours, Howie. When did you want me to ask him? While he was sleeping? Or running?” She stood quickly and grabbed our empty plates, heading for the sink.
“Mom?” I cleared the rest of the table, taking everything to the counter. I knew better than to ask her to do dishes. Even when she let me, she’d just rearrange the dishwasher after I was done.
“It’s almost one,” she muttered, glancing out the window toward the driveway. “Amy and I are going to run over to Julie’s to finish up my alterations for next week.”
“And somehow seeing your best friend has you stressed?” I leaned back against the counter as she finished loading the dishwasher.
“You may as well ask him,” Dad said, leaning back in his chair and watching us like we were currently the best show going.
Mom sighed.
“Just ask me,” I said softly. “You know I’ll give you whatever you need.” Money, time, effort—Mom could have whatever she wanted when it came to me. She and London were the only women who could say that.
She dragged her blue eyes to mine. “You don’t happen to have a date for London’s wedding do you?”
I blinked, then glanced at Dad. Of course I didn’t have a date. I’d only been in town since yesterday, and even though Rose Howell and I usually had a thing going when I came to town, we weren’t exactly an item…just a convenience.
Dad shook his head quickly, giving me the correct answer.
“Nope,” I said. “No date.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” She visibly relaxed, tension oozing out of her shoulders. “It’s just that Amy has had the hardest time—”
“You want me to take Mrs. Dunham?” My eyes flew wide. Mom’s best friend was her age—not that I was against older women, but I wasn’t really looking for love at bridge club…or looking for love anywhere.
“What? Amy?” Mom busted out a laugh that doubled her over. “No!”
She kept laughing.
Dad cracked a grin, but gave me a look that told me there was more to come.
I smiled. It was hard not to when Mom was laughing. She was contagious.
“She’s going to die when she hears you thought she needed—” She started laughing again, then finally finished, wiping her eyes as she stood to her full five-foot-nothing height. Every inch of my six-foot-five had come from my dad. “Not Amy,” she repeated. “It’s Ryleigh who’s giving her mom a run for her money.”
“Ryleigh?” My brow puckered. “That’s the youngest daughter, right?” I grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the fridge.
Mom nodded. “She’s a year younger than London, and Caz, I tell you, she’s a show-stopper.” She did everything but clap her hands together.
“Ryleigh,” I muttered, thinking back. “I don’t think I’ve seen her since she was twelve.” I’d been eighteen, desperate to leave for college in the fall, and Ryleigh Dunham had dogged my every step. The awkward little urchin with the red curls and overalls had been the reason I’d never scored with Shelby Miller. The only time I’d gotten close, she and London had zip-lined into the barn’s hayloft, sending a shirtless Shelby into a frenzy over her clothes.
“Well, she’s twenty-two now, and she’s just had the most horrible breakup. I mean horrible. And Amy can’t go anywhere without someone sticking their nose in it.” She shook her head.
“She could probably leave Cherry Creek,” I muttered, then flashed a fake smile and threw up my hands when Mom glared at me. “Just joking!” It was true, though. Cherry Creek was its own little universe. The entire town could fit into Reaper Arena a few times over, and yet it somehow felt smaller than the ice hall that had become my second home.
Everyone knew everyone’s business here.
Mom swatted at my shoulder. “Just promise me you’ll take her to London’s wedding.”
“Whatever you want, Mom.” How bad could one night with an awkward tomboy be? If it relieved some of Mom’s stress about the wedding, then it was worth it.
“Watch what you’re offering, Caz.” He laughed.
“You mean it?” Mom’s eyes danced.
“I mean it.” I took my ball cap from where I’d hung it on the back of the chair, and put it on, turning it backward.
“Oh good, because, you know the wedding isn’t just a day—”
“It isn’t?” My hands froze on my hat.
“Oh no! You know your sister had to shove everything into this next week. Their shower is co-ed. Have you ever heard of doing a co-ed bridal shower?”
“Yes,” I answered, well aware that Mom had already moved on.
“And there’s the bachelorette party, and the picnic, and all the people your age are doing that skating thing—”
“We’re going to Des Moines for a pickup game,” I clarified. Half the Reapers were flying in for Sterling’s wedding. We were secondary family.
“Right. So she’ll need you to take her to all that.” Mom nodded enthusiastically, glancing out at the window where a trail of dust could be seen over the field.
Someone was coming.
My smile faltered. “You want me to spend all week with Ryleigh.”
“Not all week, silly.” Mom scoffed. “It’s not like she’s sleeping here or anything.”
A sedan parked behind Dad’s truck, but I was too busy staring at Mom to see who it was. “Okay,” I agreed with a slow nod of my head. My first and only rule when it came to my mother was if it was in my power, I gave it to her, and this was easily givable. So what? I spent a week escorting Ryleigh around. It wasn’t like I was giving up my life or anything.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come on in, Amy!” Mom called out.
“And that is my cue to be somewhere else.” Dad grabbed his hat from the peg and passed Amy on his way out, muttering something about the combine acting up.
It was June for fuck’s sake. What was he even using the combine on?
Amy walked in, her smile bright when she saw me. “Caspian!” She crossed the kitchen and hugged me like I was still five, instead of twenty-eight.
“Hey, Mrs. Dunham.” I hugged her back before releasing her. Other than a few silver strands through her hair, she hadn’t aged much. Nothing ever seemed to change around here, now that I thought about it.
“It’s so good to see you!” She beamed up at me as the screen door was pulled open behind her. “And I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing for Ryleigh.”
Mom smiled so wide I was pretty sure her face might split from it.
“Happy to help,” I said, moving back to the corner of the kitchen and bracing my palms on the counter.
“What is he doing for me?” A voice came from the doorway.
I looked up.
My jaw went fucking slack.
That was not Ryleigh Dunham. No way. The woman standing just inside my kitchen had mile-long legs that ended in a pair of tiny white shorts, and a body that just didn’t quit. Her waist was small, and the V-neck shirt she was wearing couldn’t hide those breasts even if it wasn’t fitted…and it wasn’t. But her face—holy shit—her face, was…
I couldn’t even think.
She was beautiful, all plump pink lips, and wide, green eyes framed by waves of auburn hair under a Detroit ball cap.
There, at least something was wrong with her. No one in their right mind liked Detroit. Hell, Cannon was from there and didn’t even like it.
“Ryleigh, honey, you remember Caspian,” Mrs. Dunham said, linking her arm through my mother’s.
“Of course,” Ryleigh said, flashing me a closed-lip, fake smile. “Nice to see you, Caspian.”
“My friends call me Caz,” I replied out of habit, thankful that I had the counter for support. When the hell had she turned into a siren?
“Well, we were never really friends, were we?” She shrugged and this time, the smile was genuine.
“True. I remember you being a lot…shorter.” I remembered her being a lot less everything, if I was being honest.
“People grow.” Another shrug. “It happens.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and the light shifted, revealing deep purple shadows under her eyes. “Mom, are you ready to go?”
“Oh, honey, you don’t have to drive us. Why don’t you stay here and catch up with Caspian?” Her mom asked hopefully.
Ryleigh’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she kept smiling. “Because Caspian and I aren’t really friends. We just covered that. Come on, let’s get you to your dress fitting.”
Mrs. Dunham and Mom exchanged a look that immediately set my teeth on edge. My stomach pitched a little as the pieces fell into place.
“I just thought it might be nice for you to get to know each other before the wedding,” Mrs. Dunham continued, leaning into Mom slightly.
I picked up my water and took a deep sip.
“Right! I mean, we’re so thankful that you’re willing to escort Caspian to London’s big day! It’s not like he knows many people,” Mom finished.
I spit the water all over the kitchen floor.
“Caspian Foster!” Mom gawked at me.
I slammed my hand over my mouth and managed to set the glass on the counter.
“Sorry,” I said through the cracks in my fingers, then immediately grabbed a dish towel to wipe up the mess.
“I thought we already talked about this,” Ryleigh whispered just loud enough for me to hear it.
Apparently, Mom hadn’t been completely honest with me. Apology flashed in her eyes as she yanked her best friend past her daughter and out the door. “We’ll just be in the car!”
The screen door slammed behind them, leaving Ryleigh and me alone in the kitchen.
Color bloomed in her cheeks, and my mind immediately skipped to wondering if she flushed like that all over when she came.
