by RJ Scott
The Heart
Ice Dragons Hockey #2
Copyright ©2017 RJ Scott
First Edition
Cover design by Meredith Russell
Edited by Rebecca Hill
Published by Love Lane Books Limited
ISBN 978-1-78564-077-3
What happens when someone is trying to destroy everything you love?
Alex Simard, captain of the Ice Dragons hockey team, didn’t intend on rescuing a baby from a burning car. Doing what anyone else would’ve done doesn’t make him a hero. Add the press hounding him to on-ice injury, warring Russians, and the season from hell, and he’s losing focus. Getting his team to the Stanley Cup is his priority; falling in love isn’t even a footnote on his to-do list.
Jo Glievens, rookie firefighter, never meant to fall in love with a hockey player. Her career is everything to her, and right now she doesn’t want to add a man to her life. She has a plan and is sticking to it. But someone is out there planting bombs, destroying lives, and she has to make choices when this criminal’s actions hit way too close to home.
Neither of them meant to fall in love, but they’ll fight tooth and nail to protect what they have.
All Rights Reserved
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer-to-peer program, for free or for a fee. Such action is illegal and in violation of Copyright Law.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Dedication
For Lace, always. For Vicki and our Railers. For Meredith Russell, for her beautiful covers.
To my army of beta readers and proofers: I love you all; thank you for the hard work you put into this.
And always for my family.
In addition, thank you to Katerina Ross for her assistance with all things Russian. All mistakes are mine.
Chapter 1
November
“Are you sure you want a closed-door meeting about this, Simba?” Coach looked equally pissed and worried. “No coaches? Not even me?”
Alexandre Simard nodded confidently even though the tightness in his chest warned him that he wasn’t really sure at all. Half of his job seemed to be fronting confidence when inside he felt like everything was going wrong. But he’d run every scenario, and nothing else made sense. He needed to get the entire team in one room, and they had to talk openly and honestly about what the hell was going wrong.
This was the nuclear option, and inevitably news outlets would find out what the Dragons had done. The fact that the team had locked themselves in a room to talk would be page one news on all the blogs and lead to all kinds of questions.
Rumors would begin to spiral out of control—of potential trades to fix the mess they were in, of a team tanking even though the talent was there. They could lose sponsorship deals and key players. But hell, what he wanted to do here with the team couldn’t be worse than the playing-like-crap they’d been managing. Closing the room to everyone but the players, talking this shit out, was a calculated risk, but one he had to take. A 6–1 loss to the Sabres was the nail in the coffin; the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Dragons were exposing their forwards, fucking up their defense, and leaving Drago in the net looking like he couldn’t save for shit.
“I have to do something; this is my responsibility,” Alex said. He realized he sounded on the edge of defeat, and drew his shoulders back. It wasn’t about feeling beaten—it was about getting the team, his team, to pull their heads out of their asses before they were completely screwed. “I have to do something,” he repeated in a firmer, more purposeful manner.
“I’ll be in my office,” Coach said, and patted Alex’s shoulder in reassurance or relief; Alex didn’t know which. Coach’s job was on the line as much as any team member out there; a badly performing hockey team wasn’t just about the players, but the coach, the rink, the owners. Any single part of it could be wrong; the men were Alex’s responsibility.
He stepped inside the locker room and closed the door behind him, turning the lock and seeing all the expectant faces. Forwards, defense, goalies. Not a single man who’d dressed for tonight was missing.
For a second, Alex looked around the room, inhaling the familiar post-match funk of sweat. Drago had removed his pads, but Alex didn’t blame him for wanting to be free of the weight of it all. After tonight’s shitty performance, Drago had to be beyond angry, but the big Swede wasn’t showing it; if anything he looked impassive. Icy, even.
“We owe Drago a huge apology,” Alex began, and waited for a response. The room was quiet. Their captain telling them they were having a closed-door meeting was enough to have everyone looking anxious.
The rookie, Thomas Arkin, in only his third game with the Dragons, was wide-eyed, his gaze flicking from his captain to Drago and back. He’d fallen straight into a team on the edge, and slap-bang into the middle of them falling down the rankings.
“Where do we start?” Alex said, although he wasn’t expecting any answers or comments, and he didn’t get any. “We were a fucking mess out there.”
He realized he was still standing, and he walked to his place in the team, right under his name and the number 25. The team relaxed a little at the action.
“I’ll start,” he began, and scanned the room.
His best friends, Ryan and Loki, nodded. They’d tried, Ryan taking so many hits in front of the net that he’d be black and blue by tomorrow. He was holding an ice pack to his ribs, a hit late in the game that could have been worse had his partner, Max Karlsson, not dropped his gloves and stopped the focused hits dead in their tracks. Ryan and Karly were solid, but that was where Alex knew to begin. Ryan nodded again, knowing that was where everything needed to start.
“Ryan, Karly, you can’t do it all,” Alex began. “You’re our best D-pair, but you’re spending too much time watching everyone’s backs to be effective.”
He glanced at Rafferty, their newest defenseman and the most unpredictable player on the entire team, watching the man’s reaction to that statement. He was new to the team, but he wasn’t stupid. Rafferty knew he was good, but he had to accept that he wasn’t carrying enough of the defense along with Ryan.
“Rafferty?”
“What?” Rafferty asked with hostility.
Alex kept his cool. “Do you have anything you want to add to the defense summary?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
Rafferty looked mutinous for a moment, then sighed noisily. “I can’t work on my team game when Coach doesn’t even put me on the freaking ice.”
“You’re already pulling nearly thirty minutes a game,” Alex pointed out.
“I’m riding the bench and I see the team make mistakes—” Rafferty began. Then he stopped. “Never mind.”
Alex inclined his head in understanding, and was impressed that Rafferty hadn’t lost it there and then and ranted about how the team was complete shit. Which was how Rafferty had worded it, loudly, after a particularly bad turnover in the neutral zone. Alex wanted to say that Rafferty needed to keep his summary to the locker room, but he didn’t. He wasn’t standing there pulling up everyone’s mistakes; he wanted an honest and open discussion.
“Our power play sucks,” Loki murmured when no one else spoke.
“I agree,” Alex said
, taking responsibility for his part in the first special team. “We’re a mess—chaotic, undisciplined—and the power play is all about structure. Our special teams aren’t cohesive, so what can we do about that? How can we fix this?”
No one answered, and he guessed no one wanted to challenge the captain’s perspective. Alex opened his mouth to encourage them to talk, but Rafferty interjected before he could get a word out.
“Not sure it can be fixed,” he said.
A couple of the guys stared at Rafferty in shock. “Fuck you,” Ryan muttered.
“No, fuck you,” Rafferty snapped, “I can’t believe I was traded from a good team with an actual fucking chance to make the playoffs to this one. Seems to me, you should offload me to free cap space and get some kids who actually want to play on this shitty team.”
“Asshole,” Loki said.
There was a lot of muttering at that point, and some very pointed curses; Rafferty wasn’t endearing himself to the team with talk like that.
“Okay Raff, you tell me, what do we change, and how do we do it?” he asked Rafferty directly. “Team building?”
Rafferty shook his head and let out a sharp laugh. “Team building? What? Where we fall backward and hope our team catches us? That’s bullshit. Just fucking cut me loose.”
He sounded resigned, sad almost, and everyone else was looking at him like he was dirt on their shoes.
How the fuck do I handle this?
Inspiration hit him. Rafferty made these off-hand jokes about contracts and how he’d be off as soon as the Dragons needed the money for someone else. Maybe that was the key to solving the Rafferty issue? Was that one of the things he could fix right here and now?
“Jesus, Raff, you’re one of the best D-men in this division,” Alex began, and watched as Rafferty’s expression changed from resignation to surprise. “When they transferred you in, I wasn’t sure about how your personality would fit in. We’re a fast team, not the heavy-hitting kind that uses only your strength. But you have a depth of knowledge we can count on, and you see the ice with a perspective that we need.”
“Agreed,” Loki said.
Alex couldn’t fail to notice the sharp look that Rafferty gave Loki; almost like he didn’t believe what Loki was saying.
“I need everyone to stop talking like our season is done.”
“But it is done,” Rafferty said.
Alex shook his head. “I’ve been talking to Coach about you, Raff—he wants you paired with Arkin, and I agree.”
“The fucking rookie?” Rafferty cast a disbelieving look to his left, where Arkin sat with his mouth open.
“Yeah, you got a problem with that?” Alex asked.
“I’m not a babysitter.”
Rafferty wasn’t quite getting it.
“Look, Arkin is fast. You’re solid, and you see plays before they even happen. You’d work well together. This year could be good with you as one of our D-pairs. It’s momentum we could carry into the playoffs.”
Rafferty seemed surprised by that. “You actually want me here for a playoff run?” he asked, then immediately frowned and refused to look at anyone. He’d just shown his underbelly to a room full of hockey players.
But it was a subdued room, a losing room, and the team needed to pull together. Not one man in here was joking about this shit.
“I’d need some ice time and the D-coach to work with me,” Arkin piped up, then he elbowed Rafferty. “We’ve got this,” he said.
Rafferty scowled, but then he nodded sharply. Alex made a mental note to talk to Coach about schedules and extra practice for those two.
“Well that’s one D-pair fixed,” Cody muttered under his breath.
“What was that, Cody?” Alex asked encouragingly.
Cody looked at him dead on. “You need to tell one of your D-men to stop sitting on my ass.”
Alex looked at Connor James, Cody’s twin. He’d noticed Connor was spending way too much time protecting his brother, and couldn’t get his head around why.
“Connor?”
Connor looked miserable; Cody was sitting way over on the other side of the room. That was unusual in itself. The twins usually fucked up the separation of seating lines by always being next to each other. The team had worked around that—it fitted, and they were strong anchors in the room—but lately something had changed.
“Nothing to say,” was the succinct reply from Connor.
“Cody?”
“Jesus, Con, you need to back off,” Cody snapped.
“Stop,” Alex said. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you two, but Connor, you’re not yourself. Can any of us help?”
“No.”
Connor looked mutinous, and Alex’s temper spiked.
“Connor, you’re not a forward, yet all your ice time seems to be up and around Cody. Why?”
Connor said nothing.
Alex sighed heavily. He hadn’t wanted to get personal, but maybe that was what the captain of an NHL team had to do.
“Cody doesn’t need you dogging his steps, Connor.”
Something was going on with the twins—he didn’t know what, but Cody was slow, Connor covering for him whenever they shared the ice. Neither twin responded to the implicit question from their captain. Hell, they didn’t even do that weird twin thing they had going on where they looked like they could solve the mysteries of the universe with one look or word.
“Anything?” Alex said, talking right at Cody.
“My bad,” Connor interrupted. “Won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t, asshole,” Cody snapped, then subsided into silence.
What the hell? The twins were inseparable, in tune; often on the ice at the same time because they had a freaky connection and could blind pass in the power play like there was no one else on the ice. Everyone stared at Cody, but no one said a word.
“Sort out your shit,” Alex instructed. “Talk to me, talk to Coach, talk to the fucking hot dog vendor outside, but talk to someone.”
Connor mumbled something, Cody remained silent.
Gooly raised a hand, which under normal circumstances would have lightened the tension in the room. Nikita “Gooly” Gulin, one of the alternate captains, wasn’t the quietest of men. He was a confident and brash Russian, who centered a very strong second line, and wore the A on his chest with pride. His opinion mattered, even if a lot of the time the people listening couldn’t decipher his awkward mix of gruff Russian vowels.
“Gooly?” Alex prompted.
“Many turnovers,” Gooly began, his accent thick until he coughed. His English was passable. Alex mostly understood what he was saying, other than a few dropped tenses, until he lost his temper, and then the dense Russian vowels were back. “Losing puck on forecheck, no D-assist.” He sat back in his seat.
That got Ryan’s attention immediately. “You saying our problem is just defense?” he snapped. “Let’s talk about those turnovers by your line, Gooly.”
Gooly held up a hand. “Sorry I’m upset you, sometimes my English—”
“Bullshit,” Ryan snapped. “You know exactly what you’re saying.”
“Gooly’s right,” Alex interjected, and shook his head quickly at a mutinous-looking Ryan.
Just give me a few moments to explain, Ryan.
Ryan subsided.
“Gooly is right, our D is hanging Drago out to dry, but we wouldn’t need to worry about Drago in the net if the forwards weren’t turning over on the forecheck in the first place. It’s not one particular reason, we just don’t have cohesion, we’re not keeping the puck, we’re not talking on the ice. Hell, does anyone in here think those six goals by the other team were Drago’s fault in the net? He was fucking standing on his head, and he took thirty-three shots, boys—we only managed sixteen on the other side.”
He paused and waited for someone, anyone, even a rookie, to blame the loss on Drago. Not a single person said a word.
He turned his attention to the forwards
. “Do you want Loki out for another four months?” he asked, but he wasn’t expecting a reply, and launched into what he wanted to say without waiting. “Because if he’s out there alone, then you’re exposing him. And Loki, it’s not your job to carry the fucking team, so stop trying.”
Loki opened his mouth to say something, looking affronted and then relieved. Finally he shrugged. “Yeah, okay,” he said. His hand was on his knee, massaging gently. Alex had seen him favoring it during the game, his gait off, his expression tight. If there was any chance of the Dragons getting a place in the playoffs, then they needed Loki, they needed Ryan, Rafferty, the twins, Drago…hell, they needed him and a cohesive fucking team.
“Someone talk to me. Tell me what we need to do to stop playing like individuals and play more like a team.”
No one spoke. Some wouldn’t meet his eyes. You didn’t show weakness in hockey: you got hurt, you played through the pain; if there was blood, then you wiped it off; you were six down, it didn’t matter, because you played like you could score six goals in the last two minutes. To speak up now would be admitting weakness, and he needed to show them it was okay in that room, away from the press, and the coaches, and management.
“I’ll go first.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t pass enough tonight. I was holding the puck, because I didn’t trust some of you would keep control of it if I passed to you. It was up to me to score, and I didn’t think any of you would be able to if I didn’t.”
Everyone looked at him, some with guilty expressions and others looking insulted. That was what he wanted—talking, anger, resolution.
“I feel the same way,” said Dmitry Semenov, the other Russian on the team and Alex’s linemate “I also attract the D to me too much.”
Alex nodded. The D on the opposing team had been taking their eyes off Alex and pushing it all on Dmitry. And why was that? Apparently they didn’t rate Alex as needing their focus.
“I’m not playing well,” Alex admitted. “Other teams are seeing that, and I’m not perceived as a threat they need to manage. For what it’s worth, I know I’m worrying too much about the team as a whole and not enough about my part in the team at the grass roots.”
