Hockey Christmas (A Holiday Sports Romance Love Story)

by Naomi Niles

  After the match had finished, I hung around a little in the stadium, actually wanting him to see me at that point, and although it took him a while before his eyes actually found me, he eventually saw me just as he was about to head into the dressing room.

  “Oh my God,” he screamed, instantly rushing towards me. “Danielle! You’re here!”He reached over to me, and pulled me in for a hug, allowing the love to flow through me, before asking me what I was doing. “Why are you here? You didn’t tell me you were coming. How long are you staying for?”

  Of course, he instantly assumed that this was going to be another flying visit. I took in a deep shaky breath, and then told him everything. “I’m actually here full time,” I said to his confused face. “I know that this is crazy, and I’m not sure where this is going to take us, but I want it. I want to know where this is taking us, and I’m willing to take the plunge to find out.”

  “What are you saying?” he gasped, clearly just wanting to be sure. “What are you telling me right now?”

  “I’m telling you that I transferred my course, that I’m here in Minnesota, that I’m here for us, to really give us a go.” I knew out loud that sounded mad, but at the same time, from the way his eyes lit up, I felt like it was all just going to work out.

  “Are you serious?” he yelled, pulling me over the barrier, and spinning me around in the air. “Are you really telling me you did that?”

  “I know you didn’t ask me,” I laughed, hugging him tight. “But I know you wanted it, so I did it. That’s what I want to. I just want us to have a chance.”

  He kissed me hard, making those familiar fireworks burst all over my body once more. It was only him that could make me feel that way, it was only him that had me flying higher than air, and I knew for a fact that I’d done the right thing.

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe it,” he laughed as he slid me down to the ground. “This is amazing, the best thing ever. What an amazing Christmas gift: one that keeps on giving. A beautiful woman that I get to keep in my life forever more.”

  We giggled together like crazy teenagers in love, and kissed for a little longer before he pulled back to look deeply into my eyes. “There’s something I want to tell you, and it’s something that I’ve been meaning to say for a while now, but I haven’t quite worked up the confidence to do so,” he stroked my cheek gently and I did my best to ignore my racing heart. “But now that you’ve made such a huge gesture I can’t hold it in any longer. I love you…I really do. I love you so much, Danielle Fisher; you make me the happiest man alive. I’m so glad that you made this crazy move, and I’m really appreciative because I know that you did it just for me.”

  I sucked in a few deep and calming breaths for a few moments, trying to cool down my body that was currently freaking the hell out, before telling him that I felt the same way. “I love you too,” I said with a shaky voice. “I think I have done for a while now, and as crazy as it is, I’m so glad that we’re here now.”

  “Me too,” he kissed me lightly, filling me with an intense warmth. “Now we can really start to have the future that we’ve always wanted.”

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  SEAL’S BABY

  By Naomi Niles

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Naomi Niles

  Chapter One

  Dylan

  I could feel the sting of heat from the explosions going off around me. Sweat dripped down my forehead into my eyes, but I ignored the uncomfortable sensation and kept them open and alert. We had broken off into factions, forced apart by the tirade of gunfire that had been hurled at us.

  “Malcolm!” I yelled. The moment I had his attention, I signaled to him to stay down.

  My peripheral vision caught sight of Antony crawling through the sand to take cover behind an obtuse rock sticking out of the beach. The moment he was covered, he looked at me and signaled that the others were some distance away.

  I looked at the distance between Antony and me; I needed to get to him without being hit. On the heels of that thought came another explosion that sent waves of sand swirling into little tornados that danced in cacophonous chaos before settling back into the ground. I scanned the terrain and weighed my chances of getting to Antony before another explosion went off.

  Everything was engulfed in stillness, but I knew from experience that this was simply the calm before the storm. I looked around me and made a calculated decision. I needed to get to Antony and Malcolm so that we could reunite with the rest of the unit. They had succeeded in separating us, but they would not succeed in keeping us parted.

  I took one more cursory scan and then I jumped out of my hiding place and zigzagged across the open space. Instantly I heard the roar of gunfire as it met my hurried run. I didn’t run in a straight line; the worst thing to do in this situation was to be predictable. I was only a few feet away from Antony when I jumped towards him and belly crawled into place beside him. The gunfire continued for seconds afterwards, and then silence descended again.

  “Were you hit?” Antony asked urgently.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied panting hard. “Where’s Malcolm?”

  “He’s covered; don’t worry,” Antony replied. “We need to find the rest of the unit.”

  I nodded. “Our best bet is through the abandoned shed two metres from this spot … it’ll give us some coverage.”

  “It’s risky.”

  “I know,” I nodded. “But it’s less risky that attempting to walk through this minefield.”

  As I checked my arsenal, Antony nudged me and gestured over to where Malcolm was hiding. “The kid doesn’t look so good,” he observed. I glanced over at Malcolm and took in his chalky skin and shaky expression.

  “Isn’t he always that pale?” I joked.

  Antony snorted. “It’s his first mission.”

  “We survived it,” I said without sympathy. “And he will too. Now put your helmets on and keep your shields up; we’re going in.”

  Antony communicated the information to Malcolm and both of them got to their feet the moment I did. Their bodies were hunched down low, in an imitation of mine so that we weren’t obvious targets. “Move fast,” I mouthed to both of them before I launched myself into open space with single-minded purpose.

  They were on my heels and we jogged through the shaky sand that seemed to want us to sink into it. The gunfire started up again when we were half way there and I launched myself into a defensive position without ever slowing down.

  “Cover yourself,” I yelled over the noise.

  Within seconds, we scrambled into the abandoned shed and Antony closed the door shut behind us. It was larger than I had anticipated. In fact, it was not a shed at all but a base of some kind, cordoned off into separate rooms that we couldn’t see.

  Malcolm came forward but I threw my fist up to stop him. “Hold your ground,” I said, sensing danger. “This is not what we expected.”

  I walked around; my boots were covered in sand and they left a trail of dust behind me. I covered the left side of the room, Antony covered the right and Malcolm stayed in the middle. “Something’s not right,” I whispered.

  Malcolm took a step forward and his boot made a loud, crunching sound against the floorboards. Instantly a sound came through from the closed door of the next room.

  “There’s someone in here,” I mouthed to Malcolm and Antony. We converged together in the centre of the room. “We’re going in.”

  I moved towards the door slowly and placed my ear up against it. I couldn’t hear much, but instinct tol
d me that whoever was on the other side of it was hostile. I looked back over my shoulder and nodded once. Then I slammed open the door and we were through it in seconds, my eyes open and my body was ready to respond to whatever we found.

  Chaos was the only way to describe what we met, and yet, within the chaos, I knew I needed to be calm and ordered in how I met the situation. There were four men in the room and the moment they saw us, they acted with fury. Each had a different weapon, but it didn’t matter to me. I had been trained to deal with every kind of assault.

  Two men charged at me; one had a gun in hand and the other had a knife. I disarmed the man with the knife easily and knocked him out before the second one had closed in on me. I dodged his aim and tackled him to the floor before he could fire. He was screaming something but I didn’t care to find out what. Once he was down, I rose and glanced behind me. Antony and Malcolm had managed to stop the remaining two men.

  “Are we clear?” Antony asked breathlessly.

  The room was as plain and empty as the one before. “They were guarding something,” I said with conviction. “I think what we’re looking for is in the next room.”

  “Or it could be a trap?” Malcolm said coming forward.

  “It could be,” I agreed. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  I saw the panic flit across Malcolm’s face and I recognized the feeling all too well. I had experienced the same mindless fear on my first mission too. I knew that in time, with training and experience, that would pass. “Stay behind me,” I said before I kicked the second door open.

  Dust created a translucent curtain before us for a moment before finally settling. We were not met with hostile enemies or gunfire. All was quiet, and so I slowly entered the room and scanned the area. There was a chair in the centre of the space and in it sat a man whose hands and legs were tied. A brown sack had been placed over his head so that his face was hidden from us.

  I felt a wave of triumph overtake me as I moved towards the man to pull off the bag from his head. He blinked his eyes open and looked at me with a smile. “Hi, Dylan,” he said with a congratulatory note in his tone.

  “Hi Vic,” I replied before I turned to Malcolm. “What now?”

  Malcolm hesitated for a second. “You’re the bullfrog in this mission.”

  “And I’m asking you,” I insisted.

  “E and E? Malcolm said, and then he continued with confidence. “Escape and Evade.”

  “That’s right,” I nodded as Antony started to untie Vic from his binds.

  At that moment, the door opened and in walked the captain with his discerning eye and commanding presence. He was six feet tall, two inches shorter than I was, and yet somehow he still seemed taller and bigger than me.

  “Well done, boys,” he said as he nodded to them. “This Body Snatch mission is a success. The training drill is complete.”

  Instantly I felt the veil of suspense fall and I was once again in a safe environment surrounded by my friends. We walked out to the cheers of the rest of the unit and I nodded at Malcolm, who was standing beside me. “Good job, kid; you did good.”

  “I didn’t do much,” Malcolm replied.

  “You didn’t get killed or hurt,” I reminded him. “That’s saying something.”

  Malcolm looked at me as though he was trying to figure out if I was joking or not. “It was a training drill,” he said slowly. “I wasn’t in any danger of being killed.”

  “You have no idea how many SEALs before you have been hurt in training drills. Trust me, they may not be life threatening, but they’re certainly not safe.” I looked around at the rest of the unit. Everyone had streaks of dirt and sweat that had left patterns on their faces.

  “Good job, boys,” I said, raising my voice so that everyone would be able to hear me. “This was the fifth training drill in a row that was completed successfully. I think that calls for a little down time. Let’s hit the bar tonight!”

  My words were met with a roar of cheers as we moved back into the main encampment to wash ourselves off and change back into civilian clothing. My body started cramping the moment it was free of clothes and all I wanted was to stand underneath a burning hot shower and feel the knots in my back loosen. Hot showers were an almost mythical privilege to me at this point considering the camp never had anything but cold water.

  I stood in the shower for longer than necessary, dreaming of the weekend that awaited me. I longed for those two days, for the comfort of a strong drink and the feel of a woman’s body. That was the only therapy I needed and it gave me enough fuel to last the week. I had just finished dressing when Malcolm emerged from the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. The kid was in his early twenties, but in terms of training and experience he might as well have been sixteen.

  “Hey,” he said when he caught sight of me. “I thought I was the only one still around.”

  “I like my showers long.”

  “Me too,” Malcolm nodded. “Well, not really. I just needed to … reflect.”

  “On training?”

  “On everything, I suppose,” he replied as he sat down opposite me. “This is much harder than I expected, and then some.”

  “They train the very best here,” I replied. “That reputation doesn’t go with lenient training methods.”

  “No, I get it,” Malcolm said. “It’s just that it doesn’t matter how much you prepare mentally for this kind of thing, it’s always so much worse when you’re actually in it.”

  “I felt the same way my first time,” I admitted.

  “But you continued anyway?”

  “Yes I continued,” I nodded.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “It was the decision I had made; it was the life I chose and I was going to stick with it no matter what.”

  “How old were you when you joined?” Malcolm asked.

  “Eighteen,” I replied.

  “Eighteen,” Malcolm repeated with some shock.

  I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was trying to figure me out. I smiled internally; I had been trying to do just that for the last ten years and I hadn’t gotten very far. This kid certainly wasn’t going to get much further.

  “Do you like it?” Malcolm asked with some hesitation.

  “Do I like what?” I asked, pretending as though I couldn’t understand his question.

  “Do you like this life?” Malcolm asked. “Do you like the life of a Navy SEAL?”

  “You know what I like?” I asked as I rose. “I like bars and I like alcohol and I like women. In fact, I really, really like women. So why don’t we go get ourselves a little bit of both and start this weekend off right?”

  Malcolm seemed a little taken back but he nodded belatedly and started to get dressed. I turned back to grab my own things but my mind was still preoccupied with Malcolm’s last question. Did I like this life? Was I really happy? The truth was that I had enjoyed it at one point, but something had changed in the last few years.

  I was struggling to find the same sense of exhilaration that I had experienced early on in my career. Now I just waited for the weekend to come around so that I could forget for just a few moments where I was and what I was doing. Malcolm’s question forced me to think of an answer and the only answer that rang true was that I was bored and unhappy.

  And I didn’t want to be either anymore.

  Chapter Two

  Elizabeth

  When I was a kid, I loved the idea of being surrounded by books. I always thought that if I were lucky enough to grow up one day, I’d want to do something that involved books and stories describing one exciting adventure after another.

  The irony of life, however, is that even when things work out the way you wanted, they’re never really the way you imagined them to be. I looked around the library that I had spent the better part of a month cataloguing and wondered when that particular childhood dream had lost its charm. Probably around the time I started to realize that my life would never be lik
e the stories I read about. I was doomed to live a life of quiet boredom nestled in the bosom of a small town filled with people I had known my whole life. The only people who were remotely exciting had left a long time ago.

  People always assumed that the person you were depended on the kind of life you led, but I had always wondered if perhaps it was the opposite. Perhaps the kind of life you led depended on the kind of person you were. Maybe some people were just marked for monotony. Maybe some people were just fated to live un-extraordinary lives and I was terrified I was one of those people.

  I had to set aside my brooding thoughts as a line of kids walked into the library, shuffling their feet and poking each other in the back as they were herded in by their teacher. I smiled at Jenna as she led the kids in and had them sit down at the circular tables settled at the front of the library.

  “You may each choose a book and then I want you all to sit down and read it in silence.”

  A groan went up among the students and I had to suppress a smile as I moved forward to stand beside Jenna.

  “Why can’t Ms. Miller read to us?” Johnny asked loudly. He was one of the more outspoken kids and he loved challenging authority. “She always picks good books.”

  Jenna turned to me with a worn look in her eye. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “But Ms. Miller has a lot of work to do.”

  Another collective groan went through the students and that was all the persuasion I needed. “You know what? I need a break,” I said quickly. “And I love reading on my breaks.”

  Immediately bright smiles replaced the sour expressions and I felt a little beat of satisfaction knowing that I was wanted in some capacity, no matter how inconsequential. I moved to the back of my desk where I kept a supply of books that could win over any elementary kids and picked one out. I sat myself between the two tables so that everyone could see me and I started reading.