“I’m aware of that.”
He hadn’t realized Tyler was friends with these geriatric clowns but wasn’t surprised, either, considering the fact that everyone knew everyone on the island.
Alex bought the guys’ breakfast and left them to debate which ferry was faster on the San Juan run. He couldn’t care less.
He walked leisurely down the sidewalk, enjoying the warm summer day. The sun reflected off the water in Sunset Harbor, while sailboats bobbed in the nearby marina. He breathed in the fresh air and marveled at how clean it was. He’d never been much for relishing nature, never been a hiker or a sightseer, but he was changing. It was so subtle he hadn’t noticed it before. Instead of craving the nightlife, he was spending time reading on the long, wide porch overlooking the water. He’d stop to watch the seals or the seagulls, even saw an eagle swoop down and pull a fish out of the water. Maybe he’d buy a beach house for the off-season.
Such a thought would’ve sent him into an attack of nerves in the past, seeing such settling down as a sign of old age, and Alex never wanted to be old and boring. Perhaps he’d been equating old and boring with avoiding parties. There might be another life out there just as rewarding and exciting in a more subtle way. Interesting thoughts, but he still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced he’d survive long with a quieter lifestyle. He had to try or not be part of team leadership, which had become unthinkable. The more he considered the possibilities, the more he wanted the validation of being a team captain. He craved one more feather in his hat, more proof of his success. If that made him seem insecure, he probably was at some level.
He hesitated in front of Rosalind’s store. He should leave her alone, but he did need a new book to read, something different, something entertaining and insightful with a positive ending.
He spotted her at the cash register, and his pulse sped up. He frowned, irritated at his continual reaction to this woman, but he was hard-pressed to prevent the way his heart rate sped up and his dick twitched when she was near.
He pushed open the door, and the little bell over the door rang, alerting Rosalind to his entrance. He hated that little bell. He preferred to be more stealthy until he got the lay of the land, and the damn thing ruined that possibility.
She looked up and smiled, as she did for every customer, until she saw it was him. Her smile slipped off her face, and she clenched her jaw, preparing for another battle with him.
He grinned and approached her. “I need another book.”
“You finished that one already?”
He shrugged. “I am fast reader.”
Her skeptical grimace irritated him. She thought he was an idiot, just another pretty face with no brains. Who said only good-looking women had a problem with being stereotyped because of their looks?
“Do you need help finding something?” The last thing she wanted to do was help him. He could tell.
“I can look myself.” He flashed her one of his panty-disintegrating grins guaranteed to have even a happily married woman eating out of his hand.
She nodded curtly and turned back to the pristine desk behind the counter. Not one piece of paper littered the desktop. Even the sticky notes were carefully arranged according to size and color. This woman was his antithesis. They were fire and ice. Water and oil. Sugar and vinegar. Yet he still couldn’t stop thinking about her or lusting after her.
Shaking his head, he sauntered to the fiction area in the back of the bookstore, ignoring the table of current bestsellers. He wanted something different. Alex perused the extensive bookshelves lining the walls in Rosalind’s small but cozy bookstore. He paused at the romance section. A hot romance might be just the ticket for his restless heart. He’d read several when he was learning English and had found them satisfying and uplifting. One thing he’d noticed about independent bookstores was that they rarely carried romance novels. He’d never understood why. He still liked a romance now and then, just as he liked his classics.
One title caught his eye, and he pulled it off the shelf.
Love on Ice by USA Today best-selling author RoAnn Graves.
On the cover was a ripped guy wearing only hockey shorts and skates and holding a stick.
He turned the book over and read the back. Interesting. It was a romance featuring a professional hockey player. In fact, looking at the inside, he saw this author wrote an entire series of books featuring a fictional hockey team in Chicago. He had no idea this was a thing, and the theme intrigued him. He’d never read this author before, nor had he read a romance novel based on a hockey team. He couldn’t pass it up.
He carried the book to Rosalind at the cashier counter. Her eyes grew big when she spotted the book in his hand. Her expression was one of abject horror.
~ ~ ~ ~
Rosalind stared at the book—her book—clutched in Alex’s big hands and rued the day she decided to sell her own books in Turning Pages. Her mother had pestered her for a long time about carrying her own books, and Rosalind had finally acquiesced. Her parents were her biggest supporters, but they respected her wishes to keep her author career and pen name secret. Very few people knew she wrote the steamy and sexy RoAnn romances.
Rosalind rushed to do damage control. Alex could not read this book. If he read those hot sex scenes and found out she’d written them—
“I will buy this book,” Alex repeated. His strong jaw jutted out stubbornly.
“You want to read a romance novel?”
“Yeah. Is there problem?” he challenged her, sounding irritated at defending his reading choice.
“Uh, nothing, but men rarely read romance.”
“That is sexist. Men like romance as well as women.”
“I suppose it is,” she conceded. “But there are many other romance novels you might enjoy more. Could I help you find one?”
“No, I want this one with hot, shirtless hockey player on cover. That is how we all dress on ice. Did you know that?” he teased and pointed at the cover.
Her head shot up and her eyes widened.
“I am teasing.”
Her face burned from embarrassment. “Oh, of course you are. Honestly, I could help you find a book more suited to your reading habits.”
“You do not know my reading habits. I want this book. If you don’t like this author, why do you carry her in your store?”
“I… Uh…” Rosalind hesitated. For a moment, she considered refusing to sell him the book. Finally, she heaved a resigned sigh, rang up the book, and took his money, handing back his change.
He clutched the book to his chest and gave her a cocky grin. “I think I will read right now.”
Before she could respond, he plunked his butt down onto the couch, put in his earbuds, and opened the book, shutting her out, as was his intention.
She was fuming and annoying her had become his favorite pastime. Bending her head, she attempted to concentrate on a catalog of new releases.
Several minutes later, Alex growled, removed his long legs from the coffee table, and slammed the book down. He wore that annoyed expression she’d witnessed many times before, usually directed at her.
She wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out. He hated her book. She should’ve tried harder to talk him out of buying it. Mired in self-doubt, she pasted a neutral smile on her face and crossed the room to where Alex glared at the offending book as if the author had somehow insulted him. There were no mentions of Russians in the book that she could recall. Maybe that was his issue.
“Is there a problem with the book?” She prayed she wasn’t exposing how upset she was at his reaction.
He met her gaze, and his irritation softened somewhat. “I hate when authors do not research. It’s obvious this…this”—he checked the book again—“RoAnn person has never been inside hockey arena or bothered to watch one game on TV. Nor did she Google hockey.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Rosalind restrained her gut reaction to argue with him. She’d done painstaking research on the subject
of hockey.
“She does not know hockey.”
“Well, I’m sure she doesn’t know it as well as a professional player, but she does painstaking research.” She wanted to slap herself for her snarky tone. He had no idea she was the writer. He wasn’t knowingly criticizing her.
“And you know this how?”
“She is a friend.”
His blue eyes narrowed to cold pieces of ice. “Tell your friend she did not do her research. Hockey facts are messed up.” Arrogance seeped into his tone and further ruffled her feathers.
“I’m sure she did the best she could with the information available to her.”
He rolled those gorgeous blue eyes of his. “She mentions halftime. Hockey has no halftime. It has three periods with intermission.”
She winced. She knew hockey had three periods and inadvertently called it halftime. “I’m sure it was an oversight.”
“There is more.” He behaved as if RoAnn had personally affronted him and all hockey players.
“Like what?” She placed her hands on her hips and glared down at him.
He scooped the book off the table and riffled through it until he found what he was looking for. With undisguised triumph, he held the book out to her and jabbed his finger at the offending passage.
Rosalind hoped he didn’t notice her shaking hand when she took it from him, but he was so in love with himself he’d probably assume she was nervous because of his hot body or something equally ridiculous. She read the paragraph he’d pointed at, then the one above and below it.
“I don’t see anything wrong with this.”
“You’re not hockey fan. Have you ever watched hockey game?”
“I don’t like sports.” A niggling voice berated her for writing stuff she knew nothing about and didn’t actually like, but hockey romances sold, and she did enjoy writing a strong, competitive alpha male.
“This RoAnn person has goalie sitting in penalty box.”
“That doesn’t happen?”
He blinked at her as if she were too stupid to be believed. “If it did, there’d be an empty net. How fair would be that be?”
She had no idea and decided not to answer. This was stuff she’d never thought about Googling.
“It would be like penalizing football team and not allowing them to have kicker or quarterback.”
“Oh.” She knew football more than she knew hockey though that wasn’t saying much. She’d always prided herself on her research and accuracy in her novels. It appeared she couldn’t even get that right.
“There’s more.”
“Spare me.”
He squinted at her, as if not understanding the underlying anger and humiliation in her tone. “It is not like you wrote this novel.”
Could he tell she was hiding something? This was the closest she’d come to being exposed, and she didn’t know whether to run like heck or stand and defend the indefensible.
“You did not, did you?” He watched her like a cougar watched its prey, waiting for that opportunity to pounce. Being pounced on by him might be fun, but in this situation…not so much.
“As I said, I know the author quite well. That’s why I carry her books.”
“Well, tell her that her research sucks.”
Rosalind’s humiliation simmered until anger began to boil inside her. “She does the best she can.”
He rolled his eyes. “If she knows nothing of the sport, she should have subject expert read book.”
She conceded he was probably right about that. “And you’re an expert?”
“I would hope so. I have played since little. I came to Canada at sixteen to play hockey and never went back. I have been professional for many years.”
“I remember. You said you were an orphan.”
In her bumbling way, she’d accidentally found his most vulnerable spot. His expression grew thunderous yet deeply saddened. “That is correct.”
Rosalind looked down, not knowing what to say. Thick and oppressive silence spread between them like fog spreading across Rosario Straits on an early fall day.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “No need to be sorry. It is not your fault.”
“Would—would you be willing to mark the incorrect hockey facts for me— uh, her?”
“Yes, why not? I have nothing better to do, unless you want to go to dinner again tonight?”
“No.” Her abrupt answer caused a smug smile to tug at the corners of his sexy mouth.
“Cannot take the heat?”
“It’s not that. I’m busy.”
“Uh-huh. You are busy. I can see how busy you are.”
“I am.” Her dad had probably told him about the single-male situation on the island. Her father accosted every available bachelor on the island and hit them up on her behalf. Thank her lucky stars, there were very few bachelors.
“You and I—we are just friends, or enemies who like to spar with each other. Nothing physical. No pressure. I am lonely for human company my age. The Brotherhood and my cat are poor substitutions, though entertaining at times.”
“I’m sorry. This not a good idea.” She wanted to, oh, how she wanted to, which made zero sense. He wasn’t her type, and there were oh-so-many issues with spending more time with him.
He frowned and sighed as if disappointed. “Perhaps another time.”
She doubted that but merely smiled. “Perhaps.”
He studied her closely as if assessing his chances next time. A pair of customers walked in the door, effectively rescuing her. When she glanced back in his direction, he was gone. Her heart sank a little, and her day seemed less bright. She sighed and wished she was sitting on her deck, drowning herself in penning a new book rather than stuck inside doing paperwork and dealing with customers.
Even better, she wished she’d told Alex yes.
~ ~ ~ ~
Alex left the bookstore, bought a few groceries, and walked back to Parker Mansion. He made a sandwich and sat on the deck to watch the sun slip behind the adjacent island.
He was losing his touch. He couldn’t get a lonely woman to go to dinner with him. Instead of partying all night long and returning home in a drunken stupor, he was sitting alone on a remote island with a cat in his lap and a glass of milk in his hand.
And in a weird way, he was enjoying it, though he’d prefer if Rosalind were sitting here with him.
If the guys could see him now—
He’d never live it down. The ultimate party boy of the NHL reduced to a boring sightseer and a card-playing opponent of men old enough to be his grandfathers and, in some cases, great-grandfather.
A random memory of his dedushka—or grandfather—flooded him with sadness. He’d been the rock of the family, the patriarch, the guy who’d always been there. And then he wasn’t there. None of them were. In a few brief moments, nothing was the same. Some of Alex’s early memories were of sitting in the old man’s lap as he told one of his tall tales in his usual dramatic fashion. There was nothing boring or old about his dedushka.
Alex swallowed the lump in his throat, shoving that lid back on the despair clawing to get out and devour every moment of happiness Alex might experience. If he could call his life happy. He wasn’t sure it was. He’d been happier sparring with Rosalind or walking along the beach on a low tide than he’d been at an A-list Hollywood party.
Maybe it was the little things, as his mother had been fond of saying.
He glanced up as a figure strode onto the patio. For a moment, the sun blocked his view. He squinted to recognize who the looming outline belonged to. Ah, shit, Jasper “Caveman” Flint, his teammate and partner in all things wild and crazy, swaggered toward him with a smirk on his face. He was possibly more arrogant than Alex had been before the team had clipped his wings.
“Hey, I heard you were here.” Cave dropped into the vacant patio chair and pulled two microbrews out of the sack he’d been carrying. He produced a bottle opener from the bag and popped off the tops, h
anding one to Alex.
“Do you always carry around a bottle opener?”
“Never leave home without it.”
Cave tipped back his head and gulped down half the bottle. When he noticed Alex watching him, he hurried to explain, “Fuck. It was a long-assed trip getting here.”
“It is like Siberia, only warmer,” Alex joked. He stared at his beer. Just a short time ago, he’d have guzzled this one and be reaching for another. What was stopping him? It wasn’t like Ethan had cameras on him twenty-four seven. He glanced around to make sure he didn’t see any cameras. There weren’t any. Besides, that wasn’t how the team owner operated. He’d rather tell you up-front and trust you to make the necessary changes. Alex appreciated his straightforward and honest way of doing business. Well, with the exception of when he’d originally bought the team. His purchase and subsequent move to Seattle were kept hush-hush until the season ended. He’d gone all undercover boss on the team and pretended to be a consultant, but it wasn’t like the league had given him a choice.
Cave leaned over and grabbed the novel off the end table. He blanched at the cover with the shirtless hockey player and flipped it over to read the back.
“What the fuck are you reading? A romance novel with a hockey player? This is a thing?” Cave had caught him reading multiple times on road trips since they usually hung out together.
“Yeah, it is thing. It is also surprisingly good. The author does not know shit about hockey, but story is good, and sex scenes are hotter than fuck.”
“Sex scenes?” He had Cave’s interest now. Cave was more of a horndog than Alex, if that was possible.
“Yeah. Explicit sex scenes.”
“I think I’ll get a copy myself.”
“You? Read a book?”
Cave attempted to look hurt. “You wound me. I can read.”
“Porn maybe.”
“How are romance novels different from porn? Same thing in my book.”
Alex stiffened, fighting the urge to defend the genre and losing the fight. “They have good story and plot along with sex. Even better than porn.”
Deflected: Game On in Seattle (Seattle Sockeyes Book 9) Page 8
