Because she was watching him, she saw him point at Cat and then make some kind of hand gesture. The girl grinned and nodded before resuming her laser focus on the ball.
Kevin served and as the ball soared high and fast toward the net, Brian crouched. Cat was there, stepping into Brian’s locked hands. Siobhan had maybe two seconds to appreciate the way every muscle in his body rippled andflexed as he launched Cat into the air before she spiked the ball straight into the groom’s head and chaos erupted.
“Not his face!” Steph screamed.
“Foul!” Kevin yelled.
“It’s okay,” Kyle called out, rubbing the side of his head. “It didn’t get my face.”
“Still a foul,” Ron grumbled. “You can’t use other people to hit the ball.”
Siobhan was still watching Brian with wide eyes. He’d caught Cat around the waist and set her on the ground before pointing at Kevin and laughing. His uncle was pointing back, but he wasn’t amused and she thought it was probably a good thing everybody was yelling, so she couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Buckle up,” Terry said. “This one’s coming our way.”
Siobhan wasn’t sure what that meant until everybody on the grass seemed to turn in their direction at the same time. Right. It was line judging time, or whatever they called it. The other women seemed content to shout out their opinions, so she just sat quietly, hoping they’d go back to playing before she had to say anything.
“Siobhan’s the tie-breaker, then,” Leo boomed, and all eyes turned to her.
“Oh. Oh, no.” She knew nothing about volleyball. She had no idea what the score was or how important this ruling would be. She didn’t even know if therewasa score being kept.
Her gaze flew to Brian, who was her best hope for getting some help, but that was a mistake. He was the one being ruled on, of course, so just a little bit of bias there. But also, he seemed to land on a judge manipulation tactic pretty quickly.
He gave her that smile. Those blue eyes crinkled andthat crooked grin asked her how she could possibly say no to him. Her pulse quickened and she folded her hands in her lap to keep from crossing her legs as heat pulsed between her thighs. The man’s charm was potent. She’d give him that.
But she wasn’t giving him the point. “That’s totally not legal.”
As his team groaned and the other cheered, Brian put his hand over his heart and gave her a wounded look.
She grinned. The man had underestimated her ability to say no to pretty blue eyes and cheeky grins. But right before he turned back to his teammates, she saw something else in his expression.
Amusement. And a challenge. There was going to be some kind of payback for this, and a thrill of anticipation sizzled through her.
“Well done, Siobhan,” Hannah said with a chuckle. “That’ll keep them riled up for a while.”
Riled upwas a good expression for it, Siobhan thought. And they weren’t the only ones feeling it. She probably should have let Brian score the point.
“Do you need help with that?”
Brian looked down to see Siobhan standing near the foot of the ladder, watching him. She was wearing a loose V-necked T-shirt, and he guessed she wasn’t aware the angle gave him a generous glimpse of cleavage. Clearing his throat, he lifted his gaze to her face and was thankful she was looking at the lights he’d finished stringing and hadn’t caught him staring.
Not that she had a lot of room to talk when it came to staring. He had exceptionally good peripheral vision and Siobhan had done her fair share of staring at him duringthe volleyball game. Playing an extreme version of the sport on a warmer-than-forecast day wasn’t the only reason he’d left the field hot and bothered.
He cleared his throat and started down the ladder to derail that train of thought. “I’m about done, but thanks.”
She turned but didn’t walk away. Instead she looked at the fairy lights they’d strung through the trees on either side of the dirt road leading from the field where the wedding would take place to the bride and groom’s cabin. “Your brother will be able to get beautiful pictures of them here.”
“That’s what we’re going for. Of course, the first time we didn’t get enough lights, so we had to wait for more to arrive and then redo the whole thing. And we did all that without really testing them, sothenwe learned we couldn’t get the solar collectors in a good enough spot to power them. Emma’s now the proud owner of a ton of barely used solar-powered fairy lights, and these plug in to the outlets in the site on the corner, which means we have to credit the camper for the power we use. One of the many aspects of this wedding that sounded simple in the group chat, but turned into a pain in the ass for me and Rob.”
“It’s worth it. They’re magical.”
He believed her, because standing here in the dark with the tiny lights warming her face and reflecting in her eyes did feel magical. His fingers twitched, desperate to touch her, and he curled his hands into loose fists.
“Ellie went and got Nora a little bit ago and she said Oliver was out like a light on Steph’s bed,” she told him. “I was on my way to get him earlier, trying to avoid that, but then Emma was telling me how she and Sean met and that’s not really a story you can walk away from.”
“Once the family stories get rolling, there’s almost never a good time to duck out, but I think everybody will head inside early tonight. The volleyball game took a lot out of us.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “Especially those of us who didn’t win.”
“I think the word you’re looking for islost,” she shot back, and her grin lit a fire in his blood.
