The Sport of Romance: A Multi-Author Box Set

by Cari Quinn

  Well, not just any girl. Hailey.

  And yet she remained a mystery. For a place that was supposedly one of her favorites, she’d appeared to be on the verge of tears yesterday. Watching her curl up on the hood with her eyes glistening had hit him harder than he’d expected. The overwhelming urge to comfort her had slammed into him with as much force as the mucker who’d torn up his knee. But instead of knocking him off his feet and leaving him stunned, it had propelled him closer to her, had given him the courage to pull her into his arms and ease her pain.

  And the kiss that followed… Well, he wasn’t ready to dissect that. All he knew was that it felt as natural as breathing and yet still left him breathless at the end.

  He held the skate up in front of his face. “You’d better not be playing me,” he said before dropping it back into his bag.

  The sun was starting to set, illuminating the western peaks in gold. What would it look like from the ridge Hailey had taken him to? Even more awe-inspiring than yesterday? He rubbed his jaw and wondered if he could find his way back up there without her while he watched the sun disappear behind the mountains and bathe the valley below in shadows.

  He wanted to see her again.

  Correction—he needed to see her again, if only to get her out of his mind for a few hours afterward.

  He grabbed his keys and drove to the Sin Bin, figuring that would be the most likely place to find her at this time of night. The parking lot was as empty as the bar. Two women sat on the stools, chatting with Cindy, but the place was otherwise deserted.

  “Howdy, sugar.” Cindy flashed him a brilliant smile and waved to him from behind the bar. “What brings you in tonight?”

  “I was looking for Hailey.”

  The two women giggled, forcing Cindy to shush them with a wave of her hand.

  Unease crawled up his spine. Was he caught in another one of those locals-versus-outsiders practical jokes like the meatloaf the other night?

  “Hailey’s playing tonight, sugar. You can find her down at the rink.”

  “Thanks.” As he turned to leave, three pairs of eyes burned holes in his back. He didn’t doubt he’d be the topic of the ladies’ conversation for the next hour.

  Unlike the Sin Bin, the parking lot of the barn was overflowing, forcing him to park two blocks away. It was only when he got out that he realized he’d left his cane at home. His knee protested the first few steps, but by the time he reached the rink, the pain had faded.

  The entire town seemed to be packed into the bleachers when he went inside. A din of shouts and stomps buzzed in his ears, the locals all cheering one of the two teams playing. As he made his way closer to the ice, he caught a glimpse of the jerseys. Erikson’s Sin Bin was playing McInnis Hardware, but the local game had this small town as excited as any NHL matchup.

  It didn’t take him long to find Hailey. She was one of the smaller players on the ice, but her stick handling left the others in the dust. She whizzed past him with the puck, making a sharp cutback to miss one of the other team’s defensemen before circling the net and dumping a little wrap-around wrist shot in on the goalie’s blindside.

  The crowd erupted in a mix of cheers and moans, and Ben found himself clapping along with them.

  Hailey was good. She deserved to be on the Canadian team. And maybe there was a way he could help her.

  He continued to descend the stairs to where Gus stood with a small video camera. “Taping the game?”

  “Yeah,” the coach replied, his eyes never leaving the ice. “I’ve got some boys who are hoping to make the junior leagues, and I want to make sure I have plenty of footage of them to give the scouts.”

  Ben raised a brow. He doubted any of the players on the ice were young teenagers. “And Hailey?”

  That got Gus to turn around. “Yeah, her, too.” He squinted at him. “I still can’t shake the feeling I know you from somewhere.”

  A roar from the crowd immediately drew him back to the ice, where one of the Sin Bin players had snatched the puck from the opposing team and passed it to Hailey. A brute of a kid moved in front of her, clearing the way across the ice.

  “That’s my boy!” Gus shouted, keeping the camera on Hailey as he pumped his fist in the air. “Way to bruise them up, Moose.”

  Moose checked the right blueliner, knocking him out of the way and giving her a straight shot at the net. And just like the other day, she fired a slap shot off the top bar and into the net.

  “Oh, she’s killing them,” Gus said with a grin.

  Hailey barely had time to celebrate her goal. One of the hardware store players got up in her face and shouted at her. The crowd drowned out his words, but based on the way her jaw tightened, it wasn’t a friendly conversation. The player nudged her with his shoulder, then his hand, still mouthing off at her as the other players gathered around them. She dropped her stick and narrowed her eyes.

  “Oh, shit,” Gus whispered just as Hailey’s fist connected with the other player’s face.

  The cheer the crowd had made when she’d scored seemed like a polite clap compared to the standing ovation they gave the fisticuffs erupting on the ice below.

  His stomach clenched as the other player swung at her, his bare fist narrowly missing her nose. Hailey managed to land one well-placed punch in the guy’s gut before the refs pried them apart and directed each of them to their respective penalty boxes. She plopped down with a huff and chewed on her mouth guard as the ref whistled the game back into action.

  Ben tagged along with Gus as he made his way to the sin bin. “Erikson, you’ve got to control that temper. Nobody wants a hothead on their team, especially when it comes to the Olympics.”

  “But he started it, Gus.” Her mouth remained open like she wished to say more, but her justification ceased when she saw him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Catching a local game.”

  She popped her mouth guard back in, but not before he caught a hint of a smile from her.

  A tingle raced along his skin. He was finally making some progress with her. Encouraged by her reaction, he leaned closer. “And Gus is wrong. I saw plenty of fighting penalties during the last Olympic games.”

  She turned around and held his gaze. Envy flickered across her face before she snapped her head back to the game. “Yeah, well, Gus has a point. I already have enough stacked against me. I don’t need to be labeled a troublemaker.”

  The penalty clock ticked down, and Hailey jumped back on the ice as soon as it hit zero, scoring another goal in less than a minute.

  “And that’s a hat trick.” Gus grinned, his camera following her. He glanced over to Ben. “Hey, I think I finally know where I’ve seen you before. You’re Ben Kelly, aren’t you?”

  So much for hiding out. “Yeah.”

  The top of his bald head turned red, and his lips twitched with a nervous grin. “I thought so. Are you going back to the Whales next season? Because they sure as hell need you.”

  Before he could reply, Moose checked another player, knocking him to the ice. The ref blew the whistle, and play halted as the downed player struggled to get on his knees. The ice turned red under him as blood dripped from his face.

  Cold panic seized Ben as he watched the other players swarm around the injured player. A sharp, stabbing pain flared in his knee, and his heart pounded. Sweat prickled his skin. Memories of the night he was injured flashed through his mind, and his head swam. He forced himself to look away and sank onto the nearest seat before he lost the contents of his stomach.

  “Oh, come on, Moose didn’t hit him that hard,” Gus yelled at the ref as he escorted his son to the penalty box. “They’re taking all the fun out of the game.”

  Easy for him to say. He’d probably never been on the receiving end of a blow. Ben focused on his breathing, taking one deep gulp of air at a time until his anxiety ebbed.

  Gus said a few words to Moose before coming back to Ben. “You’ve sure been showing a lot of interest in Erikson.”
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  “Maybe it’s personal.”

  A scowl twisted the coach’s mouth. “Don’t even think about it. Hailey’s already missed out on one trip to the games because she got mixed up with the wrong sort of guy, and I’m not going to let you ruin her chances this time.”

  Ben let that slip of information roll around in his mind a moment before asking, “What did he do to her?”

  Gus snatched the camera down and closed the gap between them. Even though he was a good seven inches shorter than Ben, the coach’s temper made up for what he lacked in height. “Listen, I meant what I said. Stay away from our girl.”

  “Understood.” Ben raised his hands, palms out, and backed away. Unlike Hailey, he had no desire to engage an irate opponent. “I’m just curious about her.”

  “You can be curious about her after Sochi.” He turned the video camera back on and continued recording the game.

  Ben lingered, noting that the small screen jutting out from the camera showed only Hailey’s movements. Gus was recording footage of her and no one else. Then he replayed the coach’s threat. He’d referred to her as “our girl,” restating what Hailey had told him about the town being like an extended family. They were all doing what they could to make her Olympic dream come true, including trying to scare him off. But maybe there was something he could do.

  “Hey, Gus, how much footage do you have of her?”

  “Hours. Why?”

  “Are you planning on editing it all?”

  “She’s lucky I know how to record her games.”

  Eureka! He’d found a way to help her. “I’m pretty good with video editing software. Think you could send me a few of the files so I could put together a highlight reel of her best plays for the Canadian team?”

  The camera dropped again, but this time, Gus’s face was slack with disbelief. “You’d be willing to do that for her?”

  Ben nodded. “I want her to have a shot at Sochi as much as everyone else here.”

  Gus’s beady eyes gave him the once-over. “Let me see what I can get to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  A horn blasted, signaling the end of the period, and Ben made his way out of the rink. He needed to make sure his computer was up to the task he’d just volunteered to do. Plus, he needed to check with his contacts to see if there was a way for him to get Hailey’s footage into the right hands.

  As he drove home, his thoughts kept returning to Gus’s comment about Hailey getting mixed up with the wrong guy. Dozens of scenarios drifted through his mind, none of them good. But it might explain her tears on the ridge yesterday and why she’d changed from the girl he’d met nine years before.

  He just hoped that maybe one day, she’d trust him enough to share her story.

  * * *

  Ben eyed his gear bag like it was rattlesnake poised to strike. He’d thrown it in the Land Rover this morning with the intention of catching Hailey at the rink and making good on his end of the bargain. But after sitting in the parking lot for the last ten minutes, he still wasn’t sure he was ready to don his skates again.

  It wasn’t that his knee hurt. Yes, there was the occasional twinge, but nothing like the pain he’d experienced after the accident. He’d played through worse. It was the possibility of pushing too hard, too soon, and never being able to play the game again that held him back. He’d seen that happen to too many great players, and it was that fear that had triggered his panic attack last night when he watched the injured player.

  He pulled his attention to the car sitting next to Hailey’s and wondered who was in the rink with her. Curiosity mingled with a trickle of jealousy and finally gave him the momentum he needed to get out of his SUV. On an afterthought, he grabbed his gear and entered the ice rink through the back door.

  Hailey was on the ice with Moose, the big kid from last night’s game, doing some sort of puck-control drill. She stood in one of the face-off circles, shooting passes to him as he wove in and out of a zigzagging line of cones. Once he reached the end, they traded places. Unlike her bulky teammate, Hailey was light and swift on her skates, handling the biscuit with razor-sharp precision. When she reached the end, she dumped the puck into the net with a sharp flick of her wrist.

  “Impressive,” he said as he came down the stairs.

  Moose moved in front of her like a bodyguard, the pimples on his face undermining the sparse beard on his cheeks. Despite his size, the kid couldn’t be much older than fifteen or sixteen, and yet he looked ready to rip Ben to shreds if he got too close.

  “It’s okay, Moose.” Hailey skated around him and came closer to Ben. “I know him.”

  “Is his name really Moose?” he asked as she stopped in front of the boards.

  She grinned and shook her head. “It’s Ryan, but everyone in town calls him Moose.”

  “I can see why. He’d make one hell of a checker.”

  “That’s what we’re hoping.” She pointed to his gear. “Here to tend the goal for us?”

  His insides tightened. “No, not today. But I did want to take a few laps when you’re done.”

  She raised her brows but said nothing before she skated back to Moose. After a whispered conversation, they started picking up the cones. “Time to get those skates on, Ben,” she shouted.

  He fished them out of his bag and took a deep breath. It wasn’t a game. There wouldn’t be any contact. It would just be a chance to test out his knee and see how it handled on the ice. He gave a bitter laugh as he laced them up. He used to jump at a chance to put his skates on and get on the ice. Now it was almost akin to bungee jumping off a high bridge into a deep ravine.

  Moose stopped in front of him as he got off the ice, blankly staring at him in a way that made Ben wonder if he wasn’t called Moose for a reason other than his size. After half a minute, he gave a grunt and sat down to take off his skates.

  Ben kept him in the corner of his eye in case the brute decided to charge.

  “Ready?” Hailey asked, pulling his attention back to her.

  He stood up and checked his balance on the thin blades. So far, so good. “Ready.”

  “Then come on out.” She offered her hand to him and waited.

  A torrent of emotions warred inside him. Embarrassment and anger at the fact she thought he needed help. Fear that it might be too soon. Bruised pride. And finally, a tiny spark of gratitude that she wanted to help.

  He took her hand, telling himself that it was only because he wanted to touch her, to hold her close. Then he gathered up his courage and stepped out onto the ice.

  His ankles immediately wobbled, and he grabbed the boards.

  A deep laugh came from the bleachers. “Bender,” Moose said with a snort.

  Ben’s skin burned as he stiffened and regained his balance. He’d show that little punk.

  “Careful,” Hailey whispered in his ear, her words as soothing as her concern. She squeezed his hand. “It’s been a few months since you’ve done this, and it’s going to take time for your body to adjust to being on the ice again. Just take it one step at a time.”

  He nodded and let go of the boards, but not her hand. Dear God, it felt like he was three years old all over again, and his dad was teaching him how to skate. He pushed off with his good leg and glided forward. Then he pushed off with his bad leg.

  The sting from his knee made him suck in a breath through clenched teeth.

  Hailey tightened her grip on him. “You okay?”

  He closed his eyes and nodded. “Just got to push past this.”

  “If your knee is hurting—”

  “It’s fine,” he growled, and kept moving forward. The stiffness lessened with each stride, and by the time he got to the opposite side, the pain was next to nothing. He leaned back against the wall and took some of the weight off his knee. “There.”

  Hailey guided his face toward hers. “What are you trying to prove?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the one who wants me back in front of the goal.”

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nbsp; Her blue eyes softened, and she ran her finger along his jaw. “Not at the expense of you hurting yourself again.”

  He gave a rueful laugh. “So does this mean you’ll go out with me without me having to block one of your shots?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Then you leave me no choice but to skate.” He let go of her hand and started skating along the corners.

  Hailey pulled up beside him, matching his slow pace. “Gus told me about your offer.”

  “And I suppose you’re going to tell me not to bother.”

  “Actually, I wanted to thank you.”

  He skidded to a stop, his pulse jumping. “You mean you’re actually going to be nice to me?”

  Her dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Don’t get all excited, Kelly. There’s being nice, and then there’s being polite. We Canadians are masters of both.”

  “But you’re not going to be nice enough to go out to dinner with me.”

  The other dimple appeared as she shook her head. “I don’t want to make things too easy for you.”

  “Good, because I don’t want this to end like it did last time.”

  Her smile fell, and he knew he’d trodden upon a sore spot for her. Her voice was a haunted whisper when she replied, “Yeah, neither do I.”

  She added some distance between them. “Care to pick up the pace?”

  “I’m not ready for speed drills, but I can try to go a little faster.”

  He lost count of how many laps they made around the rink. Hailey stayed by his side, her eyes down. Neither of them said a word. Moose had long since departed by the time he looked up in the bleachers and realized they were alone. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

  “Yes, I do.” She pointed to the Zamboni. “I have to clean up the ice before I leave.”

  The muscles around his shins and ankles ached, but he wanted to give himself one final push before quitting for the day. “Care to do a sprint with me?”

  She cocked one brow. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” He glided to the back of the rink and stood in front of the goal line like a speed skater waiting for the starting gun. “Let me know when you’re ready.”