Still blushing, she turned back to face me. “Come out with you where?”
“Your choice. We can go with the big group to dinner and be surrounded by people. Or we can go, only the two of us, back to Shari’s and share a slice of pie.” I tried hard not to let my preference show too much. Either way, I’d be with her.
“Shari’s,” she said, grinning. “But only if you agree to the coconut cream.”
“It’s a deal.” And a date.
She hurried over to fill in Jonny and Sara about our plan, and then we headed out before anyone could stop us.
“I WISH WE didn’t have to head out on the road so soon,” Levi said, taking another bite of our shared pie.
“But you do. It’s part of the job.”
“I know. But I don’t like the idea of your brother and me both being gone right now.”
I fought to keep from rolling my eyes, but I barely succeeded in that battle. “It’ll be fine. Sara and I will be careful. We’ll call the cops if anything fishy happens. Anthony and Ellen are both fully aware of the situation, and they’re going to be looking out for me, too.”
“But what if it isn’t enough?”
I started counting items off on my fingers. “I’ve got pepper spray. I can kick a guy in the balls. I’m signed up to take Krav Maga classes starting in a few days. The security guys for every facility I’ll be spending much time at have been informed.”
Levi grabbed my fingers to stop me, and I shot my eyes up to meet his.
“I know all this,” he said. “But I’m allowed to worry.”
“You are?” The knots of annoyance in my belly gave way to butterflies because of the look in his eyes.
“I am. Because you said I’m your man, right?”
I wasn’t sure I’d said it exactly, but I might as well have. “Right,” I croaked.
“I’m your boyfriend.” He sounded a lot more confident about it than I was.
“You are.” My heart squeezed when the words came out.
“So you’re my girlfriend. I’m allowed to worry about my girlfriend when I’m away. That’s part of the deal.”
“Who made up these rules?” I asked, cutting off another bite of pie to try to hide the fact that my face had rapidly filled with heat.
“Someone, somewhere, a heck of a long time ago.” He speared most of the bite I’d been going for.
I gave him the evil eye.
“You snooze, you lose.” He popped my pie in his mouth and winked at me.
“You’re as bad as Anthony.”
“Are we as adorable as Anthony and Jesse are together?”
I laughed. “You think they’re adorable?”
“What, you don’t?” He raised a brow. “Come on. The way they were at ChocolateFest…” He reached for the last bite, but I snagged it before he got there.
“Speaking of Anthony and Jesse,” I said, popping it into my mouth, “they’ve finally set the date. Valentine’s Day. I can bring a date.”
Levi scraped up the last dregs of the coconut cream. “Does this mean you’re asking me?”
“I suppose so. If you want to come.”
“I can think of worse ways to spend my day.”
“Gee, what a compliment,” I said, laughing.
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
“I won’t tell Jesse that last part, or he’ll try to hold you to it.”
He paid our bill and left a tip for our waiter before we headed back out to his car. He opened the door for me, but before I could climb in, he leaned in for a kiss. Not a wild and crazy one like the first had been. This one was slow and hot—scorching, almost—with the kind of heat that bubbled up from my belly and left me desperate for more. One of his arms slipped behind my back, holding me close to him, but not as close as I wanted to be.
“What was that for?” I murmured against his lips when he broke it off without backing away.
“Because, since I’m your man now, I can kiss you and all that other gross stuff.” He trailed the tip of his finger over my lips a few times, leaving me panting. Breathless. Then he pressed his lips against mine again, hard and fast and hungry. “I could get used to this, Cadence.”
“So could I.” Every time he kissed me, I felt a bit tipsy. Almost drunk, but from lust instead of alcohol. It was addictive. I bit my lower lip, and his eyes went straight there.
“Every time you do that, I think about biting you.”
“Do you?” I could barely speak, because my lungs weren’t working anymore.
“I do. Like this.” His lips pressed against the side of my jaw. His tongue followed, and then he nipped me, sharply enough to make me gasp for air, but not hard enough to cause true pain. “Only I want to do it everywhere,” he said.
“Everywhere?” My head was swimming, and I felt dizzy, so I grabbed hold of his biceps to keep from falling back into the car. It was too soon to back away from him, too soon to lose that contact. His touch steadied me even as it left me lightheaded.
He brought his hand forward until the backs of his knuckles brushed the side of my breast, making me shiver. “Everywhere.”
It sounded like a promise. I latched on to it, determined to hold him to his word.
“Get in the car, Cadence,” he said, his forehead bent down until it pressed to mine. “I need to take you home before I forget everything about how I’ve told myself this has to go.”
“Do you always follow the rules?”
“Usually.” He grinned at me, but his eyes were still dark with the same heat surrounding and filling me. “But you make me want to break them.”
I laughed as I lowered myself into the car. Levi closed the door and went around the front to climb in on the driver’s side. After he started the ignition, he froze, staring out the window on my side.
“What?” I asked, turning to follow his gaze.
“Doesn’t that look like Guy’s car? The silver one under the light. I remember it from the parking lot at the rink.”
My heart stopped. “It does.” It didn’t simply look familiar. There was no doubt it was Guy’s car. Which meant Guy was here.
Levi pressed the button to lock his car doors. “It was parked down the street from your brother’s house last night when I left, too.” He put the car in reverse. “Take out your phone and call the police.”
KRAV MAGA CLASSES WERE no joke. Neither was my determination to learn how to protect myself. Seeing Guy’s car in the Shari’s parking lot had left me more shaken than I’d ever been in my life. By the time the cops had arrived at the diner, he and his car had been gone.
They told us they were going to stop by wherever he was staying today and give him another warning, but so far he hadn’t done anything to warrant his arrest. Right now, I wasn’t sure I wanted him arrested. Deported back to Canada would be much better. Nothing short of at least having him in jail would help me feel safe again, though, and it didn’t matter how many people I had surrounding me or how many weapons I had with me. I wanted Guy out of my life, once and for all.
Aside from all that, even if I wasn’t fond of Cam and Hammer’s tactics the other morning, they’d proven one thing—something I’d already realized but maybe hadn’t been ready to admit to myself. If Guy decided to physically attack me in some way, I was going to have to fight tooth and nail to escape. He could easily overpower me. Nearly any man in the world could, for that matter. Which meant I needed to learn ways to fight back that he wouldn’t expect.
So, even though I was spending hours every day on the ice with Anthony and working out in the gym like I always did, then spending several more hours teaching Sophie and the handful of other figure skating students I’d picked up along the way, I was giving it everything I had in Krav Maga.
Especially now, while the Storm was out on the road. I didn’t have my brother and Levi here as distractions, so I was able to fully devote myself to my training.
Not that I was doing it alone. Anthony and Jesse came with me sometimes, taking
the classes alongside me. One night, Sophie’s mom, Paige Bergstrom, suggested that she and her daughters should all join me. That had been quite the adventure, but Sophie had proven to all of us exactly how strong she was. She actually took me down a couple of times, and not because I was going easy on her. Katie had tagged along a couple of times, dragging her mother with her. Some of the other players’ wives and girlfriends were starting to pop in on the classes, all saying it was a good idea for each of us to understand how to protect ourselves in case anything were to happen since the guys were on the road so much. Sara had even left the kids with one of the other guys’ wives on a few occasions to come with me, not that I understood why any of them would agree to keep an eye on Connor. None of them were related to the tiny terrorist.
By the time I got home at the end of each night, all I wanted to do was soak in a hot bath and melt into bed, but my nephew typically had other plans. He liked to jump on me, especially since Levi wasn’t around to be used as a jungle gym.
That was how Jesse and Anthony discovered me when they came over for wedding planning one night after the team had been gone for almost a week. But at least I hadn’t seen any signs of Guy stalking me in that time. Maybe the additional warning from the cops had been enough.
“All right,” I said as Connor dug his toes into my ribs and flung himself across my shoulders. “Venue for both the service and the reception are taken care of. Officiant has been arranged. What’s next on the agenda?” I did my best to hold on to my pen and note pad, despite Connor’s efforts to get all my attention on him.
Three voices answered at once, each with a different response.
“Flowers and photographer,” Sara said.
“Wardrobe,” Anthony insisted.
“Cake,” Jesse said with way too much enthusiasm.
“Flowers and photographer are two separate items,” I replied.
“Not necessarily.” Sara tossed a platter of fruits, veggies, meats, and cheeses on the coffee table between us. “Mia Quincey offered to shoot the wedding for you at a very fair price. And she’s got a friend she works with sometimes who’s a florist. They’ll give you a package deal. She gave me a quote, based on everything you’ve already decided.” She dug a couple of flyers and a price list out of her purse and passed it over to the guys.
“Not bad,” Anthony said a moment later.
“Not bad at all,” Jesse put in. “In fact, it’s good enough that we can splurge a bit on the cake.”
I held up a hand. “Hold on. One thing at a time. Are you two happy with using Mia and her friend for photography and flowers? Or at least happy enough to set up a meeting to talk with them?” There were only a couple of weeks left before their date, so we didn’t have any time to waste on jumping from one thing to the next without settling on anything.
They looked at each other for a moment, then turned back to me and nodded. “Yes,” they said simultaneously.
“Done.” I marked a few things down on my note pad before looking up at Jesse again. “The cake? What are you thinking? Did you go sample—”
“I didn’t. Because I have a better idea.”
“This sounds like trouble,” Sara said.
“This sounds expensive,” Anthony corrected her.
I waved a hand at the two of them to be quiet. “Go on,” I said to Jesse. “What’s your idea?”
“Well, you two remember the chocolatier from ChocolateFest, the one who made the chocolate-covered bacon?” He ignored his fiancé’s groan and kept going. “I grabbed her business card while we were there, and I gave her a call. She said she can make chocolate-covered-bacon roses to use as decorations on an ice cream cake. All of our favorite things! All together!”
“I’m not quite sure chocolate, bacon, and ice cream were meant to go together,” Anthony said warily.
“Honey.” The single word came out as a whine. “Please. Do it for me.”
“What’s she going to charge?” Sara asked, bringing us back to the details.
“I’m glad you asked,” Jesse said, whipping out a scribbled note on a used napkin covered with coffee stains. He passed it over to Anthony, who made some faces. After some hemming and hawing, he gave in so we could move on to the next item on the agenda.
Half an hour later, all the details for the wedding had been settled upon. Everyone knew who was responsible for arranging which services. Sara excused herself to take the kids up to bed, thankfully relieving me of my small-but-deadly-to-my-kidneys burden.
“So what are you doing this weekend while we’re gone?” Jesse asked me once Connor’s bedroom door thumped closed upstairs. He had a skating competition in Cleveland, and even though Anthony and I weren’t ready to start competing yet, Anthony was traveling with him for moral support.
“I’ve got lessons with Sophie and a couple of other students, and Krav Maga classes. Katie invited me over to her place with a few of the girls to watch the Saturday afternoon game.”
“Keeping busy,” Anthony said.
“As busy as I can.” It was the only thing that kept my mind off of the two men who otherwise consumed it. Levi would be back in town on Monday, at least. That would help. Or at least it would mean I could see him. Maybe kiss him some more.
A lot more.
And, maybe, we could do a lot more than just kiss.
I understood why he wanted to take things slowly—he was trying to be sure we followed through with what I’d said I needed—but something had clicked for me. Levi was funny and patient, humble and outrageously kind. He was everything that Guy could never be, and he’d shown me time and again exactly how right for me he was. I didn’t have to trust Cam’s and Sara’s judgment any longer. I saw it for myself.
Once all that was clear to me, I didn’t see any more need to keep putting Levi off.
Now I just needed to convince him of that.
Jesse picked up an apple slice and dunked it in caramel dip. “You could come with us,” he said, crunching. “Your man’s not here. It might be good to get away for a while.”
“Tempting as that may be, I think you two will be better off without a third wheel.” Besides, I wasn’t convinced that Guy had given up. If he tried something while I was away from home and all the safeguards we’d put in place so far… That wasn’t something I wanted to think about. “I think I’ll pass.”
Jesse pouted. “No midnight pizza-and-PJ parties?”
I tossed a throw pillow in his direction, laughing. “Not this time.”
He knocked the pillow aside, his eyes crackling to life. “Ooh. Next time you come, we’re doing a pizza-PJ-and-pillow-fight party.”
“I’LL SEE YOU two next weekend,” I said to Devyn and Kaetlyn Griggs, sisters who’d just completed their third skating lesson with me. They giggled and waved as they rushed out of the rink with their mother.
Usually, I left with my students, but they were in a big hurry to get to their older brother’s basketball tournament, which was all the way across the city and due to start in ten minutes, and I wasn’t quite done sorting myself out.
I finished putting all my gear in my gym bag. Then I slipped my feet into my boots and tugged on my coat. I took my phone out of my pocket before heading out into the cold. There was a text message from Levi. Simply the thought that he was messaging me before his game sent warmth spreading through all my limbs. I slid the bar to read it.
I think about you nonstop. Can’t wait until I can see you again. In person, not only on Skype. I’m falling hard for you, Cadence.
He was falling for me. That was probably a good thing, since I was almost positive I’d already fallen for him, whether I’d been intending to do that or not. I jotted off a quick response, trying to keep my thoughts to myself for the time being—telling him something like that would be much better done in person—and then headed out myself.
Gord, one of the guys who worked at the front desk, smiled when I got to the entry hall. “Why don’t I walk you out?” he suggested.
&nb
sp; “Oh, I…” This wasn’t normal, but then again, I wasn’t often all alone when I left. I smiled at him and nodded. “That would be really nice of you, Gord. Thanks.”
“Just making sure you’re all right,” he said, taking my gym bag from me and holding the door open. He was an older man, probably past retirement age, and always behaved like a true gentleman, even though they were rare in today’s world. “Gotta jump-start that Zamboni, now that you and those girls are gone. There’s a midget hockey game in a few hours.”
“Jump-start it?” I laughed, fishing for the sunglasses buried in my purse.
Gord winked at me. “It’s almost as old as I am. Needs a good jump to start up in the morning.” He glanced out into the parking lot and slowed his pace enough to catch my notice.
“What is it?” I followed his gaze. Guy’s car was parked in the same spot it had been before, but I didn’t see him in it or anywhere else.
“That the car of the man who’s bothering you?” He inched closer to me and put a knobby hand on my elbow.
I nodded.
“Thought so. You get in your car. Lock your doors and go. I’ll call the police as soon as I get back inside. Tell them he’s here.”
“Not yet,” I said. I wanted evidence this time. “Come with me. I want to take a picture of his plates with the building in the background as proof that he’s here and shouldn’t be.” I shifted the keys in my hand until my pepper spray was in position and ready to be fired.
“I could do that,” Gord argued. “You just go on home and let me—”
“Not this time.”
He stayed with me as I took pictures and emailed them from my phone to the officer in charge of my case. The whole time, he kept scanning the lot, looking for Guy to return. Thank goodness that didn’t happen. Then I dutifully walked beside Gord back to my car and got in as directed.
I locked the doors and started the engine, waving Gord back into the building so he’d be aware I was fine.
I wasn’t fine, but I didn’t need him to worry. That wouldn’t help anything.
Losing an Edge Page 16
