Hot Puck (A Rough Riders Hockey Novel Book 2)

by Skye Jordan

  One of the guys had plugged his phone into a speaker, and an eclectic mix of alternative rock, modern country, hip-hop, and rap played through the space. The Y had opened the huge kitchen they used for cooking classes and events to a series of other rooms where tables and chairs had been set up for diners. Hundreds of patrons had come through the line, been served breakfast by the seven Rough Riders here today, then stayed to snap, chat, sign, and donate.

  “This is the last bucket.” The female voice drew Eden’s gaze. Faith, Grant Saber’s girlfriend, plopped a five-gallon bucket half filled with pancake batter on the counter beside Eden.

  She sighed. “Oh, yippee.”

  Faith started laughing, making Eden smile. The woman was beautiful and had an extra sweetness about her. With long blonde hair and blue eyes, she drew a lot of attention, most of which she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Are you sure these are going to freeze?” Eden asked. “I understand they don’t want to waste it, but…frozen pancakes?”

  “Sure. You just pop them in the microwave or the toaster.”

  “If you say so.” Eden shrugged. “I don’t eat much of anything that isn’t prepackaged or premade nowadays.”

  “You’re a trouper. I wouldn’t have been so mellow if Grant had introduced the mob to me like this.” Faith meant the other Rough Riders, and Eden scanned the crowd between ladling pancake batter on the griddle and tossing on a handful of blueberries. The plastic bracelets created for the event slid along her forearm. She and Faith had donned one of every color, and seeing the rainbow made Eden happy.

  Faith sang along with Train’s Marry Me as she returned to the job she’d been doing before she’d gone to fetch batter and wrapped cooled cakes for freezing. A male voice picked up the lyrics and came up behind them.

  Grant pressed a kiss to Faith’s neck, and she smiled over her shoulder at the dark-haired Rough Rider. He was a little younger than Beckett, and the love in Faith’s and Grant’s eyes both softened Eden’s heart and terrified her on some level.

  Grant set down two stools. “Rest your feet, ladies.”

  “Oh God, thank you.” Eden slid onto the stool and sighed. Tate came toward the grill, still wearing the same grin he’d been sporting since she’d first seen him two hours ago. “Doesn’t your face get tired? Smiling like that?”

  He reached past her and grabbed some blueberries. “Takes more muscles—”

  “To frown,” she finished with him, then added, “That doesn’t account for gravity,” as he tossed the berries into his mouth.

  “Smarty-pants.” Andre stepped around Tate and grabbed a pen from the counter. His thick Russian accent always made Eden smile, no matter what he was saying. “What the hell you doin’ with Beckett?”

  “Thank you,” Tate said to Andre. “I’ve been wanting to know but had too many American manners to ask.”

  “You are welcome,” Andre said, serious. “Any time you need my thick Russian skull, you only need to ask.”

  Laughing, Eden threw a blueberry at Tate. With moves as quick as lightning, he opened his mouth and caught the berry.

  “Whoa,” Eden said, truly impressed.

  He grinned, curled his fingers, and brushed his nails on his jersey.

  “Throw me one.” Andre told her.

  Eden tossed a berry high. Andre bent his knees, opened his mouth, and jockeyed for the perfect spot to catch it. At the last second, Tate slammed the other man with his shoulder, knocking him out of the way to catch the berry himself.

  Faith, Grant, Eden, and Tate laughed. Andre was grinning when he shoved Tate. “Cheater. You Americans are a bunch of cheaters.” He turned to Eden. “Another. I’m going to show this cheater how to play.”

  “Game on,” Tate said.

  Both men crouched in a ready position, just outside the main kitchen area. Before Eden even tossed the first berry, the men were throwing shoulders and grinning like idiots. Eden couldn’t help but laugh as she watched the two full grown men turned four-year-olds battling to catch fruit in their mouth. And she got a different view—a positive view—of that competitive spirit all these men embodied. Of course they also kept score and continued upping the ante—three out of five, five out of seven, seven out of nine—until Eden ran out of berries.

  When Andre fought off Tate for the last berry, raucous applause surprised Eden, and while Andre and Tate bowed for their audience, Eden took in the spectators with embarrassed heat in her cheeks. But when she found Beckett in the crowd, he was watching with the same joyous smile, as if he’d found her juvenile behavior with Andre and Tate just as entertaining as the others. When he locked eyes with her, she had three startling and profound revelations—one: he wasn’t a jealous man; two: he didn’t mind sharing the spotlight; and three: it pleased him to see her enjoying herself.

  Those had all been problems in her life for as long as she could remember, with either her father, her boyfriend, or both.

  “Mmm,” Faith hummed at her side. “I know that look.”

  “What?” Eden said, pulling her gaze from Beckett with butterflies in her gut. “What look?”

  Tate and Andre had wandered back into the audience, continuing with photographs and signatures. Eden refocused on the pancakes Faith had saved while she’d been playing blueberry catch.

  Faith’s blue eyes darted to Beckett and back. “That one. It’s the same one I see in Grant’s eyes.”

  Eden almost choked on the berry she’d popped into her mouth. “No. That”—she lifted her gaze toward Beckett—“is not even close to that.” She cast her eyes backward to where Grant was washing dishes.

  “Maybe not yet. But that,” she said with another glance at Beckett, “is how it starts.”

  “Pffft,” was Eden’s response.

  “It’s good to see and about damn time,” Faith said, then continued before Eden could respond. “Look at him, hauling in the cash. Mr. Smooth.”

  That made Eden laugh. Beckett was shaking a man’s hand while taking a check in the other, his smile on full blast. “At some things, maybe.”

  “Oh, really?” The interest in Faith’s voice drew Eden’s gaze back to the griddle. “Tell. I never get enough dirt on that man.”

  Eden lifted her brows, “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Why?” Faith asked conversationally.

  Eden shrugged. “I guess because of the things he does on the ice.”

  “That’s work. They don’t take it home.”

  Her gaze darted to Faith. “No?”

  She made a face and shook her head. “Uh-uh. Great, great bunch of men. Definitely a second family.” She looked up and smiled as she took in the room. “My dad died several months before I met Grant…”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. “It’s okay. He was sick for a long time. He was ready. I wasn’t.” She finished wrapping a set of six cakes and paused to watch the crowd, a soft smile on her face. “He was my only family. My mom left when I was young, and I didn’t have any siblings. Grant has a tense relationship with his parents, so it was just us. Until he brought me into this family. Man, it’s really one of a kind. And it only gets better. I think the cohesiveness of the team and their great standings has a lot to do with Beckett’s leadership. He’s all-inclusive. Ridiculously generous with everything—time, resources, support.”

  Faith smiled and wrapped more pancakes. “He recruited his sister, who has two young daughters, to be a support contact to Andre’s wife, Nika. They’re so young and already have one son, another on the way. Nika’s told me a number of times that Andre worships Beckett and all the extra time he’s taken to mentor him. And I know Nika would be lost without Sarah.”

  Faith sighed. “This group has completed my life in a way I didn’t even know I needed completing.”

  “Hey.”

  Beckett’s voice startled Eden, and she jumped. Her hand went directly over her heart, and she whispered, “Shit.”

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was sof
t, his hands sliding down her arms. “I’ve got to get better about that. I’ll shuffle my feet or something. Are you ready to go?”

  “Now? I don’t want to leave Faith with—”

  “I’ve got Faith covered.” Grant came up to Eden’s side and took the spatula from her hand. “Beckett told us you didn’t get much sleep on your shift. Thanks for coming out.”

  “Thanks for having me.” Eden hugged Faith and said good-bye to the rest of the Rough Riders, then let Beckett pull her into his side on the walk to the car. She held the wrist he slung over her shoulder and toyed with the red rubber bracelet he’d been wearing since they’d arrived.

  “So,” he said. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad was it?”

  “Depends. Are you asking on a date scale or a getting-to-know-you scale or sheer-enjoyment scale, or…?”

  “You ask such difficult questions.”

  “Well, I really liked your teammates and Faith, so that was a ten. The fun of it would have to be down there somewhere below six, but take that with a grain of salt. Had I gotten more sleep, that score might have been higher. And I think I learned a lot about you, though you learned nothing about me, so I’d have to even that out at a five.”

  “Not true. I learned a lot about you too.”

  “Like I can flip pancakes?”

  “Like you’re easygoing and you have a great sense of humor. You’re spontaneous and flexible. You don’t hold bad-date judgments against a guy, and you seem to make friends wherever you go.”

  “That’s quite a bit considering we may have spoken a handful of times in the last two hours.”

  “Observation.” They reached the car, and he opened the door for her. “I also noticed you stayed away from the kids. Don’t you like kids?”

  “A hot grill in a kitchen isn’t a safe place for kids.” She steered the conversation in another direction. “Shouldn’t they have been in school?”

  “The event was considered a community outreach, so the kids who could come with their parents earned school credit.”

  “Man, you really have this dialed in. Did you bring in some good donations?”

  “A lot. We won’t have totals until tomorrow, but I feel really good about it.” Hanging on to the door with one hand, he asked, “What did you learn about me?”

  She breathed deep and looked through the windshield, remembering. And she smiled a little when she said, “I learned your ass looks even better in jeans than dress pants.”

  He laughed, and she met his eyes again.

  “I learned you and your teammates are, indeed, like a motley crew of brothers, and they love you fiercely.”

  His grin softened, and he nodded.

  “I also learned there’s a huge heart hidden in here.” She patted his chest.

  “How’s that?”

  “You were incredibly patient and attentive to fans. And since you weren’t in a kitchen with a hot grill, you got a lot of time with kids, and you’re really good with them.”

  He grinned. “I like kids.”

  “I also heard how your leadership has pulled the team together into a cohesive unit that’s ruling the ratings this season. Overall, I’d have to say I was damn impressed, Mr. Croft.”

  He stroked her cheek, his gaze lingering on her mouth. “Maybe it wasn’t such a bad date idea after all.”

  “No,” she said, “it was still a bad idea.”

  That made him laugh, and instead of closing the door, he pulled the seat belt over her and leaned in to buckle it. A sweet pang tugged inside her, and she threaded her fingers through his hair. He smelled good, and he was warm.

  “There you go,” he murmured and pulled back.

  Eden reached out and cupped his face with both hands. “You may have questionable taste for date locations, and I did think you showing up at my work was creepy at first, but you managed to pull it out of the fire and make it fun. So thanks for saving me from myself and taking that extra step to corner me.”

  He grinned. “That has to be the strangest yet sweetest thank-you I’ve ever received.”

  “I like to be different.”

  She pulled him to her for a kiss, and the moment his lips pressed hers, she sighed. And then she needed more. And he kept giving her everything she asked for until their hands were tangled in each other’s hair and Eden pulled back, breathless.

  He pressed his forehead to hers. “Baby, you are definitely different.”

  A few hours ago, she’d been ready to write him off. A few hours ago, he’d made her so nervous, she couldn’t speak. But now, her craving for him was so strong, it felt like a physical entity inside her body. Now, she wanted to get naked and get him inside her.

  “Do you have somewhere to be?” she asked.

  “Not until this afternoon.”

  He kissed her again, forcefully pulled away, and closed her door. Then he paused a moment, hands braced against the car, gaze cast down, as if he were thinking. But he shook his head, met her gaze through the glass, and pressed a flat hand to the window, letting it linger there as he seemed to lose himself in thought another second. Finally, his fingers slipped away, and he rounded the car to the driver’s side.

  After he’d started the engine, he said, “Okay, where to? Back to your work, or did I quell the creep factor enough to let me drop you at home?”

  “Home.”

  “Yes,” he said, grinning. “I’m finally doing something right.”

  She put her address into her phone and turned on navigation so she could relax and soak him in. With Siri guiding Beckett to her house, Eden reached across the console and combed her fingers through his hair at his temple. Suddenly, there was so much she wanted to know about him, she didn’t know where to start. She thought about the family he was so close to and the team that considered him their center. She thought about what Faith had said about the group taking her in and becoming her family. And, though Eden had never regretted walking away from her own family in the last two years, her intimate view of Beckett’s tight-knit life made her feel lonely.

  “You’re lucky.” The words floated out, melancholy. “You’ve created a really amazing life for yourself.”

  “I feel incredibly lucky, but it’s not just the life I built. It’s more like the life everyone helped me build. Sometimes I think it takes a village to create an NHL player.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s an enormous commitment,” he said, his voice heavy with the burden. “In the beginning, it was my parents hauling me to the rink every day, traveling with me on weekends and during the summer. Once I showed promise, there were special coaches and camps and equipment, which cost a hell of a lot of money. There’s a sacrifice your siblings make in their lives and your parents make in their marriage and careers because they’re pushing you along this path. There are medical bills, long waits in the ER, occasional hospital stays. That’s all before I went pro.”

  He glanced at her, then back at the road. “I only spent a year in the minors before I got picked up by the Rough Riders. Now I have a freaking community of professionals that keeps me moving forward. On the hockey side, I’ve got coaches and trainers and sports psychologists, always there, always pushing, always honing. I’ve got the people who hold everything together for me so I can focus on the game—equipment managers, physicians, physical therapists, nutritionists, travel coordinators.”

  “Jeez.” This opened up a whole new window into his life.

  “And then there’s the personal side,” he went on. “To keep me organized and together on that end, I’ve got an agent, a business manager, a financial planner, an accountant. I’ve got a housekeeper, who often doubles as a cook and leaves me healthy meals a few times a week so I’m not scrounging and shortchanging my body.”

  He shook his head. “So, no, I don’t do this on my own. This awesome life is in large part due to my amazing family. The other part is due to my professional support. Somewhere in there, yeah, I was born with some talent. And yes, I did spe
nd the majority of my young life on the ice. And I also worked my ass off, and continue to work my ass off. But honestly, none of that would matter without all these other people. They’re the ones who created the perfect storm.”

  “The perfect storm,” she repeated, a smile lifting her lips. “I like that.”

  “That’s how it feels. There are a lot of talented hockey players out there, but not all of them have the support network they need to get to this level. When I look back, I swear the stars and planets had to align to get me where I am. I’ve done my best to try and compensate my family for their sacrifices along the way, try to show my appreciation to my support staff, but it never feels like enough to me, at least not with my family. I can pay my support staff what they deserve, but no matter what I do, I can’t give my parents back that time they spent on me. I can’t give my sister back my parents’ attention.”

  “So what do you do for them?”

  “My first pro paycheck went to buy my parents a house. A nice house, you know? Everything they’ve always wanted.” He huffed a laugh. “And, man, what a fucking struggle to get them to let me do that. You’d think I was asking them to bathe in boiling water. I put college funds together for my nieces. Helped Sarah and her husband buy a house—yet another battle. I spend my holidays with all of them, get them to the games as often as they can make it. In the off-season, I try to take my nieces off my sister’s hands when I can.” He glanced at her. “Her husband is overseas, and it’s tough having the girls on her own.” He shrugged. “I try to alleviate some of their stresses and concerns where I can. So, yeah, that was the long version of it takes a village to make an NHL player.”

  She sighed and repeated the words he’d said to her the week before. “Just when I don’t think you could impress me any more, you do.”

  He must have recognized them, because he laughed, and the grin that spread across his face made crazy things happen inside her. Crazy-uncomfortable, thrilling, terrifying things. Then he reached over and closed his hand over her thigh, giving it a little squeeze. The red bracelet still on his wrist seemed to highlight the tan color of his skin and the masculine cording and muscle in his arm. Somehow, that stupid bracelet made him a touch sexier. As if he needed any help.