by Kate Meader
Well, damn.
4
JORDAN SMILED at Harper’s assistant for maybe the fifth time.
The woman with big eighties hair and friendly hazel eyes, smiled back. Now, that’s how you front an organization.
“I’m sure she won’t be long now. Someone showed up unannounced.” She added an eyebrow raise to signal that this was generally unacceptable behavior in the world of CEO appointment scheduling.
“No worries!” Jordan went back to wringing her hands, though she had no good reason to be nervous. Harper was a fellow ovary-possessor, a woman in a man’s business. They had plenty in common, but she was also kind of scary.
“I’m a big fan of your podcast,” the assistant said. “Never miss an episode.”
“Oh, thanks so much. Always great to hear from people who actually listen.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “So is there anything you’d like to hear more of on the show? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Casey. Casey Higgins. PA to the superstar CEO of the Rebels.” She did a jazz hands move, then seemed to think better of it and put her palms down with a shake of her head.
Jordan laughed. “Nice.”
“Sorry, sometimes I can’t believe I work for this organization. It’s really cool, especially when you love the sport.” She looked at Harper’s door. “It might be nice to do a feature on female fans. On your podcast.”
“That’s a good idea.” Jordan wasn’t saying it to be convivial, either. Female spectator numbers were growing and had plenty of room left to run. “I—”
The door to Harper’s office opened and out walked the woman herself shaking the hand of … whiskey tango foxtrot! Coby Dawson from ESPN.
“Harper, thanks so much for making time for me before I catch my flight back east.”
Back east. Who said that? Big shot losers like Coby Dawson, that’s who.
“I always have time for you, Coby,” Harper said, loading on the saccharine. Her gaze flicked to Jordan for a nanosecond, then back to Coby. “Have a safe trip.”
“Will do.” Coby caught Jordan’s eye, surprise pleating his brow. “Hello. It’s Jordan, isn’t it? Fancy seeing you here.”
Yeah, fancy that. For once in her life, Jordan found herself with nothing to say. Dawson was stepping on her turf, trying to finagle his way into her story, and she was feeling less than charmed.
She stood to let everyone know that she was here to be counted. Unfortunately, her heel chose that moment to wobble, but she managed to right herself and caught Harper’s assistant, Casey, eyeing her with interest.
“You didn’t mention your connection to Hunt last night, Jordan,” Coby said.
“Can’t give away all my secrets.”
The man’s smirk made her blood boil, and an awkward moment passed before he broke the silence. “Well, I should be going. Ladies.” With cocky swagger, he walked off down the corridor toward the exit.
“Come in, Jordan,” Harper said, appearing amused in the way of a Roman emperor viewing gladiators in the Coliseum.
A subtle nod from Casey gave Jordan a much-needed boost as she followed the Rebels’ owner into her office. Instead of the leather, mahogany, and hints of cigar she expected, the room was bright and airy, with French décor influences such as grosgrain ribbon wallpaper and ornate mirrors.
“Wow, this is gorgeous!”
“Thanks. My mother-in-law’s doing, Cajun-French-New Orleans inspired. I find it’s best to let her do her thing.”
Harper gestured toward a pale blue velvet-tufted sofa where a coffee service had been set out. No sign of a used cup for Dawson, so Jordan comforted herself with the notion he might not have been offered.
However, she had to know. “What did Dawson want?”
“What men like that always want: for things to be handed to them on a platter.” Harper cocked her head. “Let’s talk about the Hunt profile. Tell me what you had in mind.”
All business, then. “Levi is obviously a very hot story. He checks a lot of boxes. War hero. Second act. Self-sacrifice for the common good, given that he put a potentially lucrative hockey career on hold to serve his country. Of course, the worry is that his time away from the game has left him a step behind. Can a thirty-year-old newbie compete with the college grads? If he doesn’t play much—and worse, doesn’t perform—then that dims the story’s impact.”
“The ideal, for both of us, is that with care and feeding we have a war hero-turned-goal-scoring phenom on our hands. Coffee?”
“Please.”
Harper poured from a tall porcelain pot with blue flowers on it while Jordan made her case.
“Mac would like me to do a weekly check-in and post to the CSN website, kind of a ‘Diary of a Rookie’ deal.”
“Where you write the diary,” Harper said.
“Right, but I think I’d prefer to do something long-form, resulting in a final in-depth profile. It would give me more time to develop a relationship with my subject. I’d schedule sit-downs with Levi and pump him for information about his background, how he found hockey, why Special Forces, hopes and dreams, that kind of thing. I would still do my regular gig of game reports.” Something stopped her from telling Harper her sob story: that the entire job was dependent on getting the profile. She was still determined to snag this scoop on her own merits.
“Okay, that could work.” Harper waited a beat. “I want to hear more about you. How long have you been reporting on hockey?”
Stirring a spoonful of sugar into her coffee, Jordan gave her hockey journo origin story. “I was playing and reporting as soon as I could skate. While my brothers were on the ice I was giving the commentary. Wrote for my school newspaper, then majored in journalism at Syracuse.”
“But you didn’t start immediately. You got married and put aside your goals for a while.”
So Harper had done her research. “My husband was based out of Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Establishing myself in journalism, especially sports journalism which requires more mobility, wasn’t foremost on my mind. I wanted to make my marriage work and that was the way to do it. When he died, I thought long and hard about where I should take my life next.”
Throwing herself into her career had filled a void and helped heal the ache of Josh’s death. So many people had implied that her marriage was so young, such a whirlwind, and in the words of her mother, “mercifully short.” Mom had intended her words to soothe, and true, with his deployments, they’d only spent a total of seven months together over two years. But she and Josh had something special, and the brevity of their marriage didn’t make it any less real.
“I’m sorry about what happened to him,” Harper said. “It must have been a terrible time for you.”
“It was, but I have a good support network. After a few false starts, I moved to Rockford to cover the Midwest regional hockey beat and now I’m working for Chicago SportsNet, though just a temp gig at the moment. This is where I’m meant to be.” Her last statement emerged from her throat—and heart—with a vehemence than surprised even herself.
“I didn’t mean to imply your marriage wasn’t the right move.” Harper looked uncomfortable for the first time since Jordan had met her. “A little projecting on my part, perhaps. I thought any man I was with wouldn’t be able to compete with my empire-building ambitions or would want me to be less me, I suppose. And of all the men to catch my eye …”
“The veteran center you brought on to save the team shouldn’t have been it.”
Harper shook her head, possibly in amazement at how it had all turned out. She’d inherited the team jointly with her sisters after the passing of their father—legendary player, coach, and owner, Clifford Chase. Immediately the knives came out, everyone ready to slash through her dreams. Engaging in a taboo affair with Remy DuPre, one of her players, had opened Harper and the organization to ridicule. Making the playoffs lowered the volume of the chatter.
Winning the Cup shut them right up.
Harper went
on. “What I’m saying is that love can make us do crazy things. As long as you feel that you’re still you, then any decision you make in support of that love is valid.” She took a cleansing breath, evidently setting that part of the sermon aside. “I’ve read your work and listened to your podcasts. You have a good take on our sport but better than that, you know Levi already.”
Those last few words might have sounded casual to any other ear, but not to Jordan’s. Kinsey’s voice echoed in her brain: Who cares how you got the job? Just take it, then prove it belonged to you all along.
“He and my husband were both Sergeant Engineers in the Green Berets. I met him a couple of times when the team was stateside but we’re not friendly.”
Harper eyed her over the lip of her coffee cup. “That’s a curious way to put it. You could’ve said ‘we hardly know each other’ or something like that. ‘Not friendly’ is more of a … statement.”
Jordan fought the heat flushing her skin. “There’s nothing there.”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “I thought I picked up on some tension between you two last night.”
“He’s always given me the impression that he’s not my biggest fan. I used to tease him because he was grumpy and moody, kind of robotic, always shooting daggers every time I opened my mouth. He obviously thought I wasn’t right for Josh and anytime we met, his disapproval was like another person in the room.”
And then there was the night of Josh’s funeral when I kissed him like I needed oxygen and he was the only dispenser in a ten–mile radius. Where exactly was she going with this again?
“And now I’ve revealed that Levi and I have a history that might not be conducive to digging deep for a profile, I guess that changes things.”
Harper shook her head, her eyes bright with excitement. “Are you kidding? If you’re already annoying him for whatever reason, I would think that’s exactly what you want.”
“It is?” That kiss had certainly annoyed him. For the briefest moment, he’d not been a robot. He’d been a warm, giving, sexy man with excellent kissing skills.
And he’d hated her for taking him there.
Possibly still did. Last night, he’d not been happy to see her. That had bothered her, but only because she was human and wanted to be liked. No other reason.
“Any man can play the stoic card if he doesn’t have skin in the game. Indifference is a killer to intimacy,” Harper said. “A little friction is the best way to pull out a few secrets and open up those channels of communication. With Hunt, it’s not just about performance on the ice but getting to the heart of why he’s a good fit for this team. I don’t know if it’s a Jersey boy thing but he seems a little … closed off. Not that any of these guys are paragons of communication.” She grinned. “But with a couple of recent retirements, it's important that Levi becomes part of a cohesive unit sooner than later. We agreed to the profile because it’s good PR. But it would be wonderful if it had the additional benefit of opening Hunt up and getting him better acclimated to his new role as a Rebel.”
Harper wasn’t telling the whole story, but Jordan didn’t push for now.
“You mentioned this long-form piece idea,” Harper went on. “To truly make that work, I’d like you to embed with the team, travel with us, get to know us.”
Travel with them? Oh, Levi would hate that, but Mac would love it, and right now he was the only man she had to please.
“That sounds fantastic.”
Harper pressed her lips in a tight line. “The lawyers said I should make you sign a non-disclosure agreement, but I think that defeats the purpose of this. Instead, I need a guarantee from you.”
Jordan wasn’t in the habit of making promises to the subjects of her stories or their bosses, no matter how powerful they were. She remained silent, waiting for Harper’s request.
“You’ll be traveling with the team, getting up close and personal, likely hearing risqué comments and inappropriate jokes.”
“I have tough skin.”
“I don’t doubt you do. But if you come across anything that could hurt Levi, another player, or the reputation of the team, I ask that you share it with me first.”
Curious. “I can’t promise I won’t publish or report on anything that the public wants to read.”
“I’m not asking that. I just want a chance to assess and come up with a plan that minimizes any potential damage. Mostly, I don’t want to see any of my boys hurt.”
There was no missing the steel in Harper’s tone. This woman ran a successful professional hockey franchise while raising three kids under the age of four. Of course she had Remy at home clocking the house husband hours, but still.
Harper Chase was a badass in this season’s Prada shoes.
“I think I can agree to those terms. And can we agree that I’m the only reporter on this story? In other words, Dawson is out.”
Harper smiled, clearly appreciative of a fellow cut-throat. “You’ll have exclusive access. Do we have a deal?” She thrust out her hand.
“Deal.”
Jordan took it and shook, thinking on what Harper had said about hurting Levi. True, she would be coaxing words from him he’d likely never spoken to anyone else. That was her job. But the idea that Jordan had the capacity to hurt Levi was ridiculous.
The man was a robot. One with deliciously kissable lips, but a robot all the same.
* * *
“LOOKS like your friend’s back for more of those gourmet huevos rancheros.”
Levi rolled his eyes at Lucy, who thought she was so funny, and got a laugh in return. “They weren’t that bad, were they?”
Her smile popped bright against her brown skin. “I’m not kidding. Joe and a couple of other guys have been in here asking for those eggs every day for the last week. You’re putting the rest of us to shame, Levi.”
Last week he’d cooked up his best egg recipe at the Uptown Mission, a homeless shelter on the north side of Chicago where he volunteered once a week, usually for the breakfast shift. As soon as he’d moved to Chicago a month ago, he’d signed on for kitchen duty. Cutting a check—which he did anonymously, anyway, because he now had more money than he knew what to do with—wasn’t quite enough. He was used to getting his hands dirty.
This morning, he’d arrived at six and worked with the crew to prepare breakfast for one hundred and twenty guests, seventy-five percent of whom lived on the streets. The rest were in temporary housing here at the Mission, part of a holistic program to get them clean, fed, employed, and reintegrated.
Joe—Levi’s new buddy—approached with a tray, overlong hair in his eyes and his head dipped, but clearly seeking out Levi. Last week, Joe had shared with Levi some details of his army service about three years prior. They’d bonded over it. Well, bonded was a stretch. They’d acknowledged their common frame of reference and didn’t think the other person was an asshole.
“Hey, there,” Levi said.
Joe offered a shy grin. “Got any of those eggs?”
“It’s French toast and bacon today, I’m afraid. I had to let someone else pick the menu”—disapproving cluck from Lucy—“and even though it can’t beat my eggs, it’s not bad.”
“Bacon’s good, I s’pose. French toast, too. You got syrup?”
“Sure do. Over on that counter.” Levi loaded a few slices of the thick, egg-battered toast on his plate and extra strips of bacon. “Come back for seconds if you’re still hungry.”
Nice going, idiot. Hollow bellies were these guys’ normal.
A brief nod was Levi’s reward. Ten minutes later, the entire line had been served, and the dining hall was abuzz with the sound of cutlery scraping against plates and the low murmur of conversation.
“I have to change my day next week,” Levi said to Lucy, who was the shelter’s director and handled the scheduling. “I’ll be out of town.”
“Somewhere nice?”
“Philly. Business.” It was the first away game of the season against the Liberty, one of
the Rebels’ age-old foes. No one here had figured out who Levi was and he was hoping to keep it that way for a while longer.
Because as soon as people figured it out—and by people, he meant intrepid cub reporter, Ms. Sunshine herself—there would be the inevitable questions. Why this? Why here? Why now? Which would lead to puzzle pieces being moved around and slotted together into whatever mosaic suited her damn profile. Moretti had informed him yesterday that Jordan would be “embedded” with the team for the next month, whatever the fuck that meant, and Levi should cooperate with her “to the best of his ability.” No doubt she’d be shining a light into the dark crevices of Levi’s life, looking for creepy crawlies to give her story background color.
“Can you do Monday?” Lucy asked.
“Shouldn’t be a problem.” He thumbed over his shoulder toward the seating. “Mind if I join Joe?”
“As long as you’re back in ten for dishwashing duty.”
“Yes, boss.” Levi grabbed a cup of mud-awful coffee—better come up with a plan for donating a decent stash of beans—and headed over to one of the tables with a few strips of bacon on a small plate.
“Hey, need more?”
“Won’t say no.” Joe wrapped the offering in a napkin and put it in his pocket.
Levi took a sip of his coffee and settled into a comfortable silence. From what he’d gleaned, Joe had left the army on a Big Chicken Dinner—better known as a Bad Conduct Discharge—after going AWOL during a visit stateside. Clearly suffering from some form of untreated PTSD, he’d been offered one of the beds upstairs, but preferred the streets. Levi wondered why. He could get away with that in October but the cold descended on Chicago pretty quickly.
“You sleep under the viaduct on Wilson last night?”
Joe nodded. “Rumor has it they’re gonna clean it up. Move people on.”
“Got somewhere else?”
“A few places. Viaduct’s better, though. Good cover.”
Levi wished he could do more to help, but throwing his weight around was probably not the ideal move despite the special connection he felt with a man who had served his country and now lived under a train bridge. Too many veterans got left behind in this, the supposedly best country on God’s green earth.
