All that mattered was that about an hour after they’d walked into the lodge, Kate had suddenly disappeared.She’d been gone almost ten minutes, which wasn’t long, but he hated that she’d just up and left without saying anything. He’d tried again and again to cut his brothers and Jessie off so he and Kate could get out of there, but none of them were having it, which was made clear again when Jessie slid another fresh pint of Gat toward him.They wanted to know everything, wanted to hear every detail of every game, and he felt obliged to answer, since they were part of the reason he’d gone to Oakland in the first place.“I forgot how hot it gets down there. And standing up on the—”The door between the kitchen and the pub swooshed open, and there was Kate.“Holy shit.” Liam tried to swallow and couldn’t. He tried to breathe and couldn’t. Shit, he couldn’t even blink.“You about done here?” she asked, her wide smile rendering him even more useless than he already was.In the couple of minutes that she was gone, she’d let her hair down, so it fell all loose and wavy over her shoulders, and she’d changed her clothes.
