by Elise Faber
He kissed her, felt her body relax for a half second. At least until she seemed to remember they were bickering and pulled away.
Damn, he’d have to work on that.
“Don’t change the subject,” he said when she opened her mouth, probably to bitch him out. While he didn’t want to fight with her, he wanted her to be able to confide in him, not bottle it up. “What’s got you as ornery as a pissed-off cat?”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“Sara.” He pressed her back against the door, not stopping until she had to tilt her head back to look — or rather, glare — at him.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s something.”
She sighed. He smiled because, even though he’d rather be having naked fun time with her, every moment with Sara was a good one.
Two hands came up, shoved at his chest. Not that the action budged him an inch.
“Mike.” Another sigh.
“I can stay here all day.”
Sara shook her head, but her lips were finally curving, and the irritation in her expression slipped away. “I bet you could.”
“Did I not give you enough orgasms today?”
Her mouth dropped open, and he had to resist the urge to kiss it, to thrust his tongue inside and—
“I don’t think there’s such a thing.” She gave him the smile, the trademark Sara Jetty grin, except this one reached her eyes.
She was smiling from the inside out.
He puffed up, couldn’t help it. Especially when she said, “And no, that’s not the problem, Hot Shot. You gave me plenty.”
Nuzzling into her neck, he asked, “Then what?”
“I’m nervous.”
“This is you nervous?” One of her legs had come up, wrapped around his knee.
Shit. He wanted to hitch it higher, to push her pants down and his fingers inside her wet heat. He—
—stepped back.
“You get horny when you’re nervous?”
A wry smirk. “Apparently.”
“Come on, Trouble,” he said, lacing his hand with hers, the other adjusting his situation south of the border. At this rate, they could hire him to hammer nails into that wall the president wanted to build. “I’ll give you the gossip on the drive, make you feel like you’re part of the crowd before you even get there and have to hear it all over again.”
“Again with the nicknames.” She shook her head but followed him to her car. “You’re incorrigible.”
“That’s why you love me,” he teased as he opened the passenger side door.
Fuck. He realized what he’d said when she froze halfway into the car.
“Shit, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I was joking. Don’t worry about it.” He was rambling, couldn’t seem to stop. “I—”
She straightened. “Here’s the thing.” A deep breath. “I think I do love you. That’s part of what makes this so hard. The last time I cared about something as much as you, I screwed it up.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want to ruin us, Mike.”
His heart swelled so big it could have been a balloon, a ball of helium right on the precipice of too much air, just about to burst.
“Sit down, Sara girl. There’s something I want to show you.”
When she didn’t move, he gently pushed her shoulder down and lifted her legs into the car. He closed the door then walked around the hood and slid into the driver’s seat.
Silence. Complete and utter silence greeted him, but he knew that before he said anything else that he had to show her.
Had to make her understand.
The glove compartment opened with a soft click, and he reached inside, shifting the registration and proof of insurance to the side. Because beneath that was a box.
A box he’d had for a really long time.
“I don’t know if you know this, but I came to your house two nights before you were supposed to leave.”
Sara turned her head, eyes wide and damp with tears. “You did?”
Her voice, steady, calm, laced with hurt, gave him the courage to go on. She was strong, but she also needed to know. And just as important, he needed her to grasp exactly how deep his feelings went.
“Yes. At that point we’d spent two years in a car together, five mornings a week. More than five-hundred hours by ourselves, and I was ridiculously in love with you.”
“Was?”
He nodded, hating the way she curled in on herself when he spoke. “Was. But at the same time, I didn’t want to interrupt your training, I’d convinced myself to wait until you came back from Italy. Then I got the call.”
“Juniors.”
“Yeah. I went to the store. It was ridiculously stupid, I see that now, but I—” He gritted his teeth, pressed on. “I picked this out. Had this notion that I’d give it to you as a promise. Your parents were there, made me understand just how stupid of an idea it was.”
“My parents?”
“They were right. You didn’t need any more distractions, least of all from me and my family.” Mike yanked at his tie. “Hell, I was all ready to argue with them, and then I got the call.”
Her hand rested on his thigh for a second. “What call?”
“The police had busted my mom. She got caught trying to buy OxyContin from an undercover cop.” He laughed, and it was bitter. His family had cost him so much. “She needed detox and rehab, and I didn’t need to bring that shit into your life.”
“I would have been there for you.”
“I know you would have.” Turning, he stared at her, beautiful even in the pale light of the garage. “I wouldn’t have let you, and your parents were right. You didn’t need my family messing up your chances. It didn’t matter anyway. You were gone, and by the time I got everything sorted so I could go too, I was ready to leave it all behind.” He tapped the box against his leg. “Thing is, I was convinced then that you were better off without me. Hell, all this bullshit is my mom’s fault, so the logic is there—”
“That’s not—”
“Shh. I’m too selfish to live without you again. You make me feel whole, Sara girl. I’ve loved you since that first morning in my car, and nothing is going to change the way I feel.” He opened the box and held it out. “And the thing is, I think you could use an ally at your back.”
She glanced down at the ring, and he winced. He should have had it cleaned, or added a giant diamond or something. Instead, it was just the same as it had always been.
A simple silver band, a trio of small emeralds.
“I… uh… I — don’t—”
Fuck. He was fucking this up. Quickly, he closed the lid. “I’ll get you something different.”
“It’s not that. I—” she blew out a breath “—I’m confused.”
He was proposing, and the woman in front of him was confused.
“It’s okay,” he said, the words rushed as he shoved the box into the glove compartment and slammed it closed. “We can talk about it later.”
He started the car and began backing out of the garage, had to slam on the brakes when he realized he hadn’t hit the opener.
“Mike.”
“Later.” The door rattled up, and he zipped down the driveway.
Fuck, but he wanted to hit someone.
Luckily he could do that on the ice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HOLY SHIT, HAD that been a proposal?
Dumbstruck, Sara stared out the window as Mike navigated his car down the driveway and through the gate.
It couldn’t have been a proposal.
That didn’t make any sense, not yet—
Flashes blinded her as they pulled into the street.
“Fuck,” Mike muttered, swinging wide to avoid the paparazzi on the sidewalk. The group of men in dumpy sweatshirts and torn jeans crowded near the car, shoving those black lenses up to the windows, clicks echoing through the glass.
“Make sure the gate closes,” she murmured, when he started to drive away before it
had shut the last few feet.
A nod, though he didn’t respond with words. Then the gate was barred, and they were speeding down the road. They’d hit the freeway and the typical 101 slow-down, silence reigning in the car before Sara wrapped her mind around the fact. “You proposed?”
Male shoulders hunched. Big, strong hands that could touch so gently clenched on the steering wheel.
“Not exactly.”
“Then want to tell me what that was?”
A car cut in front of them, and Mike muttered a curse. “Stupidity?”
She sighed. “Want to try again?”
“Not really.”
Well, clearly this was getting her nowhere. She reached for the glove compartment and pushed the button to open it.
“Don’t.”
Too late.
Her fingers found the soft velvet box and extracted it. The brass hinges made a little squeak when she opened the lid. “This is an engagement ring.”
Eyes flicked to hers then back to the road. “It wasn’t intended as one. Not then.” She opened her mouth, but he spoke before she could ask what the hell that meant. “I wanted to give you a promise ring. I wasn’t stupid enough to think we were old enough to marry.”
Her heart pounded. Mike had wanted to give her a promise for more.
Holy flipping shit-on-a-stick.
In the two years he’d driven her to practice, she had never thought he’d noticed her as anything more than an obligation. He’d been borrowing her parents’ car, after all. Oh, they’d had some good times together, shared many a laugh about his teammates and her coaches, once they’d gotten past his early morning grouchiness, but he’d never touched her.
Like not ever.
Except, her mind didn’t let that lie stick.
She remembered him hugging her when she’d had a terrible practice and ended up bruised and bloodied, having landed hard enough on her knee to tear through fleece legging and skin alike.
He’d rolled her bag to the car for her when her hands ached from the frigid cold rink.
He’d helped her into the passenger seat when she’d twisted her ankle.
A hundred examples of his caring flew through her mind. She remembered what she’d blocked away, what she hadn’t understood as a young and inexperienced teenager.
Her love had come in the form of a Minnesota Wild sweatshirt, in homemade cookies, a quick sketch of his team’s logo — and not a very good one at that.
She stared at the emeralds, watched them twinkle in the late afternoon sunlight. They were small by today’s standards, but that didn’t mean any less to her heart. “Why did you give me the ring today?”
Mike jumped, and Sara realized that she’d been inside her head for a while, long enough that they were turning into the parking lot for the rink.
The car slowed; the window whirred down a crack. Which was enough to hear a cacophony of shouts and yells, shutters clicking, and faintly, a male voice, “Go straight through, Mr. Stewart. Security has you covered.”
With a snick, the sound was gone, and they moved forward again.
Another gate. More reporters.
And then quiet.
Was it possible for a parking lot to give her nostalgia?
Because this one was. The slightly worse-for-wear metal door, the mix of SUVs and sedans, albeit of a nicer breed than those from her childhood rink.
“I haven’t been to an ice rink since—”
Mike parked the car, shut off the engine, and faced her. The frustration seemed to bleed out of him, replaced with understanding and compassion.
“Well, this one is a little bigger than ours at home.”
“I bet that’s what all the boys say.” Her smile was tremulous.
He reached out an arm, pressed his thumb to her bottom lip. “I want you in my life, Sara girl.” A brush of his mouth against hers. “Know I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
Leaning back, he unbuckled her seatbelt.
“And the ring?” she asked, for some reason slightly breathless.
“It means whatever you want it to,” he said, opening his door and stepping out.
“Whatever I—?”
Mike popped her door and gestured toward the rink. She shoved the ring into her pocket and trailed after him, absolutely bewildered.
Whatever she wanted it to mean.
Fuck, and men said women were complicated.
“Hey!”
This time it wasn’t a mob of men shouting at Sara, but a single female voice, and a familiar one at that.
“Brit,” she said and slowed.
The Gold’s starting goalie strode confidently across the parking lot in a silk blouse, blazer, and jacket. She wore heeled pumps and looked like a model’s take on a powerful attorney.
Mike whistled. “Looking good, Plantain.”
“Shut it, Stewie.” She punched his arm.
“It’s true,” he said, opening the door and holding it for them. “I’ve never seen you look so—”
“I’d be very careful about how you finish that sentence, Hot Shot,” Sara chimed in.
Brit cackled. There was no other word for it, just exploded into evil laughter.
“You breathe one—”
“Don’t bother with threats, Hot Shot.” Blue eyes cut to Sara’s. “You have more embarrassing material to provide me with, right?”
“Loads.”
More laughter, this time from both of them.
Mike groaned. “I was trying to give you a compliment.”
Brit got herself together. She reached up — because even though she was tall for a woman, Mike was still taller — and patted his cheek. “I know. I’m touchy because Stefan got me a personal shopper.”
“He what?”
Her eyes rolled up. “It’s not entirely his fault. I complained about not knowing what to wear, since I didn’t really do the suit thing, and he’s a man.”
Seeing that Mike didn’t follow the sentiment, Sara explained. “She had a problem. Stefan went all caveman and wanted to fix it.” She touched his arm and softened her tone. “It’s kind of what you guys do.”
“Exactly!” Brit said. “So I couldn’t be mad at him and anyway—” she patted her hips “—I think it works.”
“Plus, those shoes,” Sara said.
“These shoes.” Brit sighed happily.
Mike frowned as he glanced down at her feet. “What about the shoes?”
They were pointed, a polished metallic black with specks of gold. They were also totally killer, with a burnished metal heel and bright red soles.
Sara sighed too. “You’d never understand.”
“Apparently not,” he said and captured her hand. “Now come on. I’ll show you where you can hang out until after the game.”
They called their good-byes to Brit, and Mike led Sara to an elevator.
As the doors slid closed, a thought occurred to her. “Don’t NHL teams usually have a separate practice rink?”
“Left field, much?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “But I remember skating at Nationals. It was on the Blues’ home ice, and I feel like all of their practice stuff wasn’t at the arena, but at a smaller rink nearby.”
“It’s true. Sometimes the team will have a pregame skate on the big ice, but the rest of the practices are held elsewhere. The Gold are different. Or at least for the rest of this season.” He pushed a button to select the floor. “Barie’s father is building a rink, but it took some time to secure the land and permits, I guess.”
“Why not just continue to practice here?”
“Bad business,” he said. “Our former owners were real fuck-ups, to be honest. They embezzled money, made questionable financial decisions, negotiated with players using underhanded techniques. Arenas make money from concerts and other events.”
Oh. That made sense.
“If there are no events, then use the facility, but the Gold Mine is in a prime spot of San Francisco.” A shrug. “T
he owners don’t make money from our practices. They’d be much better off filling the stands with Beyoncé fans.”
“The Beyhive in the Gold Mine.”
He snorted. “Something like that.”
“So a practice rink?”
“They’re doing a huge multi-sheet skating center. It’s good press, and the Bay Area is in desperate need of ice.”
The elevator doors dinged open, and Sara let Mike lead her down the hallway. “Why so big? It’s California, not Minnesota, after all.”
A nudge of his elbow. “Wouldn’t let the powers that be hear you say that, sweetheart. Hockey is up and coming in California, and San Jose actually has the largest adult hockey program in the States.”
She tried to correlate that in her mind. Ocean waves, redwoods, flip-flops and cargo shorts and tree huggers.
“I can hear your mind working from here.” His hand slid up her back to tug her ponytail. “Trust me on the need and want.”
Wasn’t Kristi Yamaguchi from San Francisco? Or nearby? She’d never really put two and two together before, but really, she’d lived in the city for five years. She should know better.
Northern California was not Southern California.
It kind of had seasons, if summer in San Francisco could be considered a season. And it even rained and stuff.
She snorted, and Mike’s fingers slipped to the back of her neck. He kneaded the muscles there as he turned them down a hallway.
“Care to share with the class?” he asked, eyes twinkling. He’d obviously put the earlier ring debacle away for the present and—
Dear God, she didn’t need to be thinking about that right now.
Later. Rings and maybe proposals she would put off to think about until later.
“Just that you’d better come get me after the game. I’m thoroughly turned around.”
“Bwahaha!” he mock-evil-laughed. “My plan is working.”
A smack to his chest. “You’re a dork.”
“And you’re here.”
They stopped in front of a nondescript door. A panel was on the wall outside it, one of those placards that gave the name and number. Mike didn’t give her a chance to read it.
He turned the knob, and they walked straight into chaos.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MIKE WAS USED to the sight and sound of a dozen women talking and laughing in the Family Suite — their voices echoing off the walls, mingling with the sound of several blaring televisions as well as the clinking of silverware against plates, music playing in the background, toy cars being run across countertops, but Sara flinched as he tugged her across the threshold.
