“Hello, Mr. Kawczynski,” she said, her heels sinking into the thick mats. Frankie was in his late twenties and built like a tank. At the moment, he stood in a pair of sweatpants, low around his hips, and a pair of flip-flops. He had a pit bull tattoo on his bare back. Her attention was drawn to the play of muscles as he heated his stick. “How are you?”
“Great.” His dark beard had gone full Mountain Man, and he flashed a brash, cocky smile. Faith was suddenly very aware that she was surrounded by men. Big, tough men who towered over her and Jane. Some of them were half naked. “Are you going to practice with us this morning?” Frankie asked.
Walker Brookes walked from the locker room and grabbed his skates off the sharpening rack. She fought the urge to whip her head around for a better look. “I forgot my gear.” Within her soul, Layla fought to get out. She kicked and screamed for just one little peek. Just one, but Mrs. Duffy did not stare at men’s asses. At least not when a reporter was around. “Perhaps some other time.” And she kept her gaze glued to Frankie’s face.
Vlad Fetisov walked out of the locker room with his helmet in one hand and stick in the other. A wide smile curved his mouth as he moved toward them on his skates.
“Hi, little Sharky,” the Russian greeted Jane.
“Hi, Vlad,” Jane said. “How’s it going?”
“Life iz good. How iz Lucky?” he asked, referring to Jane’s husband.
“He’s good.”
As soon as Vlad moved onto the ice Faith asked, “Why did he call you ‘Sharky’?”
“That’s the name the guys gave me because I beat them all at darts. They’re very competitive at everything they do.”
They stopped at the end of the tunnel and Faith looked out across the rink. The men on the ice were divided into two groups. Offense practiced at one end; defense drilled at the other. They appeared even more scruffy and unkempt, but they skated with well-timed precision and skill, weaving in and out and passing the puck. There were about fifteen men on the ice, all dressed in dark blue practice sweats and white helmets, but as if pulled by an invisible force, her gaze landed on a pair of broad shoulders and dark hair curling up from beneath the white helmet of the man standing with his back to her at center ice. She didn’t need to see his face to know it was Ty. Something warm in the pit of her stomach recognized him.
“Vlad is a little warped,” Jane said, thankfully pulling Faith’s attention from center ice.
Faith had never gotten a creepy vibe from the Russian. Still she asked, “Is he a perv?”
“No. He’s just never been shy about dropping his towel in front of women. He used to like to shock me, I think. They all liked to shock me.” Jane shook her head and adjusted the strap of her briefcase. “They didn’t want me traveling with the team. A woman on the jet is considered bad luck.”
Perhaps that’s why they’d been so quiet when she’d traveled with them. “That’s stupid and sexist.”
“Exactly.” Jane laughed. “They’re hockey players.” The two of them watched the assistant coach lay a series of pucks on the red line and Jane said, “Tell me about Ty Savage.”
She thought about the morning she’d stood in the conference room pulling up her shirt. Of his hot blue eyes and the day she’d lost her mind and let Layla out for the second time. The day she’d pulled up her shirt like a stripper, slow and deliberate just to prove him wrong. The day she’d slid her hand across her belly toward the button of her jeans, just to see the heat in his eyes burn a little hotter. “What would you like to know?”
“Do you think he has what it takes to lead this team to the final round?”
“Well, I think the numbers he puts up speak for him.” She watched Ty take off from one end of the ice, skating like he was on fire. Wind flattened the Chinooks logo on his sweatshirt against his chest as he raced toward the red line. With the blade of his stick on the ice, he turned at the center line and one-timed the row of pucks at the goalie. The goalie twisted and contorted to stop each shot. He caught one puck while the others hit his pads with loud thwaps. One of the pucks got through and hit the inside of the net. “He’s a very intense, serious guy.” Except when he was trying to use reverse psychology to get her to give him a lap dance. “Very disciplined and in control. I wonder what he would be like if he ever let go.” What she hadn’t anticipated that day in the conference room, while he’d sat there acting like he was bored, was the way his hot, steamy gaze on her body had turned her all hot and steamy inside.
With the wind still flattening his sweatshirt, he shoved his stick beneath one arm and looked at the laces on his glove. “Really let go,” she added, thinking of him walking away from her at the Marriott. “Maybe he wouldn’t be so rude and surly.”
“He makes rude and surly look good,” Jane said.
That was an understatement.
“He’s a very good-looking man.”
Faith smiled. “I hadn’t noticed.”
As if he’d heard them, Ty looked up as he came to a hockey stop near the goal. From half the length of the rink, she felt his gaze as cool as the ice on which he stood. It froze her in place even as it heated her up inside.
“A lot has been made out of the fact that you have a contentious relationship with your captain. Is that true?”
As his eyes stared into hers, he grabbed a water bottle from the top of the net and lifted it to his mouth. The water shot between his lips and then stopped. He swallowed then rubbed one big gloved hand across his mouth. For the past month her life had been a whirlwind of activity and change. Sometimes she couldn’t recall what she’d done from day to day, but she remembered every hot detail of Ty’s mouth on hers. “I wouldn’t call it contentious.”
“What would you call it?”
What did you call a hot, overwhelming attraction to the one guy on the planet for whom it was completely inappropriate to lust after? “Complicated.” Impossible. A disaster waiting to happen.
“There you are,” Jules said as he moved through the tunnel toward Faith. A man with red hair and a mustache walked beside him.
“We need to get a photograph of Faith with the team,” Jane said.
“Now?” She looked at the shorter woman.
“Yeah.”
“We have a whole PR campaign with Ty, so why don’t we shoot with some of the other players?” Jules suggested.
“Faith, this is Brad Marsh.” Jane introduced the stranger. “Staff photographer for the Post Intelligencer. Brad, this is Faith Duffy.”
“Pleased to meet you, Faith.” He took her hand in his. “I’m a huge Chinooks fan.”
“I’m thrilled to meet you. Especially since you love my team.”
Jules stepped out onto the ice and pointed to the defenders. “I need some of you guys to volunteer to take a photograph with Mrs. Duffy for the Post Intelligencer.”
Sam and Alexander Devereaux were the first to skate toward her, but the rest followed close behind.
“I’ll do it.”
“Count me in.”
Soon eight big defensemen, including Vlad, had volunteered.
“Let’s take the picture at center ice,” Brad suggested. “I’ll try and get some of the logo in the shot.”
Faith carefully stepped onto the ice, and Blake Conte offered his arm. “Be careful, Mrs. Duffy,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to fall and hurt yourself.”
Sam offered his arm on her other side. “Someone might have to give you CPR.”
“I know mouth-to-mouth,” Blake added, and Faith sincerely hoped she would never have to take him up on the offer. For some bizarre reason, he’d shaved his playoffs beard into a reddish blond strip of hair beneath his nose. It ran down his chin, too. Kind of like he’d gone in for a wax and come out with a Brazilian on his face.
“And chest compressions,” Sam said, whose playoffs beard was blond and kind of patchy.
Faith placed her hands on their forearms and smiled. “It’s good to know you boys are worth more to me than just looking
good, shooting pucks, and spitting.” Being the female owner of a hockey team had a few nice perks. Being escorted by two very hot hockey players was a good one.
“Look at those bastards,” Ty said from his position halfway across the ice from Faith. “You’d think they’d never been around a woman before.” The last time he’d seen Faith, she’d pulled up her shirt, then told him she was bored. Sure, he’d said it first, but he’d been lying.
First-string goaltender Marty Darche pushed the front of his helmet up and revealed his impressive facial hair. “You’ve got to admit, Saint, there aren’t a lot of women around who look like her.” He leaned back against the pipes and shook his head. “Damn.”
The photographer pointed to a few of the guys and called out, “Why don’t one of you men give Mrs. Duffy your stick?” The whole blue line rushed forward.
“I wouldn’t mind giving her my stick,” Marty said through a chuckle.
Ty liked Marty. Usually, he’d laugh at the stupid shit that came out of Marty’s mouth. Most of the time he’d add his own stupid shit and say something about eight to ten inches of good wood. Today he didn’t find any of it amusing, for some unknown reason. Maybe he was tired or dehydrated or something. He tended to lose his sense of humor when he was tired or dehydrated.
“Have you seen the pictures of her?”
“Yeah.” The damn pictures. But today he didn’t see the damn pictures when he looked at her. He saw her teasing smile and her smooth belly. He saw her eyes as she’d looked back over her shoulder and said she was bored.
The defense crowded around her for the photo and she laughed. The sound rippled across the ice. It brushed across his skin and tightened his chest. Surrounded by big, hulking men wearing skates and shoulder pads, she looked small and so beautifully female.
When he looked at her across the ice, he didn’t see the Playmate. He saw the woman he’d kissed in a hotel in San Jose. He could almost feel her sexy mouth beneath his and her hands in his hair. He could see the lust in her eyes and feel the need in her kiss. He’d kissed and been kissed by a lot of women in his life, but he’d never been kissed like that. Like an all-consuming desperation that was so hot, it made his gut clench.
“Some of you guys come out a bit,” the photographer said. “That’s good.”
Pavel was on a kick about Ty meeting Valerie, but Ty had no interest in meeting his father’s latest. Especially when chances were good that he’d have a different girlfriend in a month or two. Especially if it meant hanging out with the woman across the ice who was having a great old time laughing and giggling and turning a bunch of hockey players into slobbering idiots.
He’d rather be fed his lunch by a 250-pound enforcer with something to prove. He might walk away from that encounter bruised and bloody, but a few cuts and a black eye was a hell of a lot better than another set of painful blue balls.
“Oysters are a natural aphrodisiac of the gods.” Valerie reached for an oyster from the iced plate in the middle of the table and slurped it down. “You should have at least one, Faith. It wouldn’t hurt. Might even help.”
“No thanks, Mom. More bread?” She picked up the white plate and held it across the table. Could her mother be any more embarrassing? Sadly, the answer was yes.
“No, thank you.”
“Pavel?” Within the booth of the Brooklyn Seafood Steak and Oyster House in downtown Seattle, Faith’s stomach rolled as she held the small plate for her mother’s boyfriend.
“No. Thank you,” he answered as he held a rough shell to his mouth. He tipped it up and an oyster slid into his mouth and down his throat.
Faith turned her face away and swallowed hard.
“More than your eyes look a little green,” Ty said next to her ear.
She set the plate on the table, which was covered in white linen. “I hate oysters.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because my mother wanted to come.” It had been Valerie’s big idea that they should all go out to dinner together, and Faith had reluctantly agreed. If she’d known she’d have to watch her mother and Pavel slurp down oysters, she would have stayed at home with her feet up. Even if it meant spending time with the evil Pebbles.
“I notice you’re not eating any,” she pointed out to Ty.
“I don’t eat anything that looks like that.” One corner of his mouth lifted in an actual smile. He lowered his voice and said next to her ear, “At least not in public.”
“Was that some sort of inappropriate sexist comment?”
His eyes met hers. “That depends. Were you offended?”
“I probably should be.”
He let his gaze slowly lower from her face, down her bare throat to the top button of her pink shirtdress. “But you’re not—eh?”
“No. You seem to bring out inappropriate behavior in me.” She licked her lips and shook her head. “We should stick to safe subjects.”
“Too late.” He raised his gaze to hers. “I’m having some inappropriate thoughts.”
“You are?”
“Oh yeah.”
“What?”
“Kissing your mouth like I did a few weeks ago and working my way south.”
He was thinking all that? She squeezed her legs together against the tight ache pooling between her thighs.
“What are you talking about?” her mother wanted to know.
“The weather.” Faith looked across the table as the waiter cleared the oyster plate. “I just asked Ty how he likes Seattle.”
He reached for his glass of wine, and the sleeve of his dark-blue dress shirt brushed her bare arm. “It’s not that much different from Vancouver.” He took a drink, then set the glass back on the table. “Scheduling a round of golf is dicey.”
“I don’t play golf, but the summer is much drier,” she answered, trying like hell to ignore the flush of lust warming up her skin. “Jules told me that there’s a Chinooks celebrity golf tournament some time this summer. The money goes to help injured players, like Mark Bressler.”
“That was tragic.” Pavel shook his head. “Such a loss to the team. Losing a captain is like cutting out the heart of the team.”
Ty’s jaw tightened. “Captains are traded all the time, Dad. It’s not like when you played.”
An almost imperceptible tension settled over the booth. “That’s true,” Pavel conceded. “Now there is no loyalty.”
The salad course arrived and Faith waited until fresh pepper was ground on everyone’s salad before she said, “Well, I know that everyone in the Chinooks organization is thrilled to have Ty. If that upsets our neighbors to the North…” She shrugged and tried to take her mind off the man sitting next to her. “They’ll get over it. I mean, they got over the defection of Jim Carrey.” She reached for her linen napkin on her lap. “Although Canada should probably give us a big, fat thanks for taking Jim off their hands. Did you see The Cable Guy?” She speared a bite of her roasted beet and butter lettuce. She looked across her shoulder at Ty, who was almost smiling. “What?”
“
Cable Guy?”
“It sucked.”
He shook his head. “No more than Me, Myself and Irene.”
“It might be a toss-up.”
“I like Jim Carrey,” her mother confessed. “He was on that In Living Color show with J.Lo.”
“I used to love The Rockford Files,” Pavel added.
“Oh,
The Rockford Files,” Valerie cooed. “I loved Jim Rockford’s Firebird. My third husband had a Firebird. Do you remember Merlyn, Faith?”
“He drove too fast.”
“You’ve been married three times?” Ty asked as he spread his napkin across the lap of his dark wool pants. The back of his hand brushed Faith’s hip and she would have scooted over if there’d been room.
Valerie paused with a bite of salad halfway to her lips. She looked at Faith and then at her boyfriend. “Five times, but only because I was young and vulnerable.”
It had been
seven times, but who was counting. Obviously, not Valerie. “Are you going to join us in the skybox tomorrow night for the game against Detroit?” Faith asked to change the subject.
“I would love to. Thank you, Faith.” Pavel ate a few bites and said, “The Chinooks are going in as underdogs, but sometimes that is the best position to be in. If our guys can get them to draw penalties, I think there’s a very good chance we’ll advance to the final round. Which I predict will be against Pittsburgh.”
“I don’t know, Dad.” Ty grabbed his fork and planted his free hand on the seat beside Faith’s thigh. “Pittsburgh’s playing without two of their power forwards.”
Father and son talked and argued about everything from power plays to penalty killers. Well into the main course, they talked about the best games ever played and Pavel’s glory days. Several times during their conversations, Ty’s hand accidentally brushed her hip. His touch spread fuzzy tingles to the back of her knee and tightened the hot, liquid knot in the pit of her stomach.
“Once I fired that puck into traffic, I lost sight of it,” Pavel said as he cut into his steak. “I didn’t know I’d scored until I heard it hit the back pipe.”
“I wish I could have seen you play. I bet you were something,” Valerie gushed and took a bite of chicken.
“My mom used to love to watch my dad play.” Ty raised his wine to his lips and his free hand slid to the top of Faith’s thigh. “She used to buy me a hot dog, and we’d sit in the middle row behind the goal because she thought those were the best seats. The old Montreal Forum had the best hot dogs.”
Faith’s eyes widened and she gasped at the heat of his palm spread across her lap. This time his touch was no accident. “I hate hot dogs,” she said.
He looked at her and his grasp tightened a bit. “How could you hate hot dogs? You’re American.”
“I ate too many of them growing up.”
“Faith was crazy for hot dogs back then.”
Faith’s breath caught in her chest and she couldn’t respond. She took a bite of salmon but had a hard time swallowing. Especially when his thumb brushed across her leg back and forth. She gave up trying to eat and reached for her wine.
True Love and Other Disasters Page 15
