Hot on Ice: A Hockey Romance Anthology

by Avery Flynn

  Something Matt was just coming to realize, to his chagrin and dismay.

  His mother couldn’t seem to stop hugging him. Finally, he eased from her grasp and sat down in one of the chairs.

  “Are you alright?” she asked. Then she bit her lip. “I probably shouldn’t ask, right?”

  That made him feel bad. When he was raging in the hospital room, he’d told them in no uncertain terms he never wanted to discuss his injury, his surgery, and his career, or more specifically, the end of it. He’d thought about that on the drive from New Orleans, and knew that was a situation that needed tending to, also.

  “It’s okay, Ma. And I’m okay. Really. Doing fine. You can ask any time.” He wondered if he’d ever really be able to make up for the shitty way he’d treated them when they came to the hospital after his surgery. “I could sure use a cup of coffee, though.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you get hold of Brenna?” He looked around. “Is she coming over?”

  “Yes, I called her.” His mother nodded. “As a matter of fact, she should be here any minute.”

  The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the back door flew open and Brenna rushed in, shiny black hair flying, eyes sparkling, and her mouth curved in a welcoming smile.

  “Be warned,” she told her brother. “Whether you like it or not, I’m going to hug you.”

  And she proceeded to do just that. With his arms around her, Matt had to wonder again why he’d been so crappy to all of them at the hospital. They’d been there for him every year, attending as many of his games as they could, even in the minors. Supporting him. Cheering him on. And what had he done? When adversity struck him down and ended his career, he’d taken it out on them as if it was their fault. He really wished there was a do-over in life.

  And there was the question again, that had plagued him ever since his epiphany. Why had he thought he needed to separate himself from everyone? It was becoming more and more clear to him that all these years he’d had his head firmly up his ass.

  Apparently that’s what he’d done with Lizzie, too. His arrogance knew no bounds when he decided to put his career first and her second, expecting her still to be available when he was ready.

  He looked at the Cup still sitting in the middle of the table and thought about the next part of his plan. He had possession of the trophy for one day. One twenty-four hour period. He intended to use it to his best advantage, and oh, the plans he had for it. He only hoped it worked.

  “Coffee, honey.” His mother pressed a mug onto his hands. “And I have cinnamon twists from Zimmerman’s.”

  “Thanks, Ma, but just the coffee will be fine.”

  Brenna sat down next to him. “How long are you home for?”

  “I’m home for good, Brenna. Whatever happens next, I’m here to stay.”

  “And do you have any idea what does happen next, Mattie?”

  He wished she stop calling him that. It made him feel ten years old. Then again, the answer he had to give wasn’t much more mature than that.

  He shrugged. “No idea yet. I haven’t really thought about it.” Because he kept hoping he’d get medical clearance to play again, something he now realized was self-deluding and stupid. He frowned. “I do need to call my agent today or tomorrow. He says he has some personal appearances lined up for me, although I can’t imagine who wants a has-been.”

  “Stop that.” Brenna slapped his arm. “You aren’t a has-been. You’re a hockey star whose team won the Cup. That makes you very special. I’ll bet there are a million opportunities out there you haven’t even considered.”

  “Even if I can’t skate anymore?” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Then he mentally bit his tongue. He wasn’t going to whine anymore, remember?

  “Matt.” Brenna leaned toward him until her face was inches from his. “Hockey isn’t what you are, it’s what you do. What you are is what you make of yourself off the rink.”

  He blinked. Such a simple truth he’d missed all this time. He’d given up, sacrificed so much, to get to this point. Had this injury been Fate’s way of telling him he needed to heal the other areas of his life? He just hoped Fate didn’t desert him as he put his big plan into play.

  He looked at Brenna. “You know, you’re exactly right. And I’m going to start on that as soon as I finish this coffee. I have a lot to make up for with you and the folks.”

  “You know we love you, Mattie. That never changes.”

  “Thank god,” he breathed, and leaned over to give her a one-armed hug.

  “Good.” She gave him a sly look. “Are you by any chance going to see if you can mend fences with Lizzie?”

  Matt felt his stomach clench with nerves. “I’m going to give it my best shot. That is, if she’s not with someone else, and if she’ll even talk to me after everything I’ve done.”

  “She’s not with anyone,” Brenna confirmed. “I have a feeling if you do this right, everything else might fall into place, but that’s just a guess. You’ll have to fight that fight yourself.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “Also, don’t call her Lizzie. She now goes by Liz. She’s not a kid anymore.”

  “I’m sure she’s not.” He’d seen her grow into a mature woman over the years, and battled fierce jealousy at the thought of someone else in her life.

  “And she’s not at An Affair to Remember.”

  “She’s not there?” God, he hoped she hadn’t gotten fired or anything. “What happened?”

  “She and her friend, Dara, opened their own place a year ago.” Her lips curved in a sly smile. “I hear they’re doing very well. In fact, they just did a special event for Shelley Crowell, the anchor on the six o’clock news. I hear it was a smashing success.”

  Matt wasn’t sure if he was happy or not at the news. Lizzie—Liz—had definitely moved on with her life. And while his was falling to pieces, hers was taking off like an eagle. What if she didn’t even want to see him? What if, despite what Brenna said, she was with someone else? The thought of it all made him suddenly ill.

  “Mattie?” His mother frowned at him. “You okay, honey? You don’t look so good all of a sudden.”

  He inhaled sharply and let it out through his nose.

  “No, I’m fine. Fine. Really. Listen, can I get some pictures of all of us with the Cup?”

  There was a flurry of activity while the women primped and everyone arranged themselves. Matt stood in the center, holding the Cup, and held his phone out on a selfie stick. He took a bunch of pictures, just to make sure he got good ones. He also got pictures of Brenna alone with it and his parents holding it between them.

  Everyone hugged and kissed him. His mother tried to pin him down for dinner, but he said he’d call later. He hoped he’d have other plans.

  “And, Matt?” Brenna rested her hand on his arm.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t go for any grand gesture. You’ve got a lot of fences to mend with her, and grand gestures won’t do it.”

  “Okay.” But he had a grand gesture in mind he was sure would at least break the ice. “I’ll check in later.”

  “With me, too,” Brenna reminded him.

  Everyone wanted one more hug. Then it was time to get going.

  4

  Liz St. John unlocked the door to their tiny suite of offices at nine o’clock on the dot. Dara had texted she’d be late because she had a stop to make to check on some decorations for an event that weekend. That meant Liz was on phone duty. Their budget didn’t yet extend to a secretary, even part-time.

  She hung up her jacket in the little room in the back that served as catchall for everything and fixed herself a cup of coffee from their single serving machine. Setting the mug on her desk, she booted up her computer and opened her calendar to see what her list was for today. They had four events coming up—she did a little mental jig—and she wanted to make sure everything was in order. Then she planned to call the people who’d given her their car
ds and see what kind of events they had in mind and when.

  She had just taken her first sip of coffee when there was a knock on the office door. She frowned. No one ever knocked. Especially since on the frosts glass it said, Please come in.

  “It’s open,” she called. When no one entered, she called out again, “You can come right in.”

  Still no one entered, but there was another knock. Finally, exasperated and annoyed, she got up and opened the door, and—stopped dead in her tracks. An enormous silver-and-nickel alloy cup, like the kind given at sporting events, stood front and center, the bowl-shaped top filled with more roses than she’d ever seen in one place before. Their scent drifted up to her, and she drew in a deep breath.

  Then she froze. Only one person had ever given her roses and could now afford them by the dozen. And only one person would have a trophy like this. She stared at the iconic item, mesmerized. So this was the famous Cup, the damn piece of metal for which he’d walked away from her. The thing that had driven him to walk away from everything but the challenge of the game.

  She supposed to the athletes who won it there was glory and exhilaration and a sense of achievement attached to it. But she had a hard time not resenting it. She still couldn’t understand why he had to put everything they’d had between them on hold to chase after it.

  She stared at the roses again, their delicate scent floating up to her nostrils. She knew only one person could have done this; only Matt could have delivered roses in the Cup to her door. But when she looked up and down the hall, it was empty.

  What the hell?

  She was sure he wouldn’t just leave something so valuable to him sitting out here in the hallway. Then the elevator dinged.

  Oh, good. He’s here. I can give him a piece of my mind.

  But it wasn’t Matt who exited the elevator. Instead, she saw George Flanagan, the attorney in the offices across the hall from her, walking down the hallway toward her.

  “Wow.” He stopped in front of her and nodded toward the flowers. “Someone must think a lot of you.”

  “Uh, well, maybe.”

  Then he stooped to take a closer look at the container.

  “Wait a minute. Isn’t that the Cup? The one the Cajun Rage won this year?”

  She swallowed. “I, uh, guess so.”

  His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline. “You guess so? Liz, if you know someone who plays for the Rage you’d better get me his autograph. I am a huge fan.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I lived in New Orleans when they got the franchise, so I have a special feeling for the Rage.” He looked at the piece of metal statuary again and snapped his fingers. “Wait. Matt Vorchak plays for the Rage, right?”

  Liz tried to appear as nonchalant as possible. “Yes, he does.”

  “Rumor has it you and he were pretty tight at one time.”

  Liz kept the bitterness out of her voice. “Yes. We were.”

  George’s face took on a sober expression. “Terrible what happened to him. He was a killer defenseman.”

  Since Liz actually knew only the bare details of Matt’s injury, she just nodded. “Yes. Too bad.”

  And again the question formed in her mind: Was that why he’d come crawling back?

  “So, then, you must know him, right?” George drawled.

  “Uh, we’re friends.” Maybe.

  He nodded at the roses. “Obviously he thinks so. When he comes to get the Cup back, don’t forget about that autograph.”

  She laughed, sounding phony even to her own ears. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Before he could engage her in further conversation, she picked up the Cup and carried it into her office, kicking the door shut on the way. For a moment, she just stood there, holding the giant iconic award. She was barely an average hockey fan. In fact, when Matt Vorchak chose hockey over her, she came to bitterly resent the game. But here she was, holding his dreams in her arms.

  So this was what he had focused his entire life on. She supposed the famous award symbolized being the best of the best, and she could empathize with that. She had her goals, too. But to shut out everything else in your life to achieve it? To walk away from someone who loved you?

  Loved? Wait a minute.

  Okay, so they’d never actually said the words. But they’d had something going she knew in her heart was special. She’d never understood how Matt Vorchak could expect her to put everything on hold and sit around waiting while he chased a dream. Maybe she’d misread it. Maybe that was it. Except, in her heart of hearts, she knew that wasn’t so, at least on her end.

  She’d certainly tried hard enough to fill that void with someone else. Too bad the men she thought might do it for her turned out to be dull and boring compared to the wildness that was Matt Vorchak.

  She lifted one of the roses from the bouquet and inhaled. A warm feeling wriggled through her that, after all this time, Matt still remembered roses were her favorite. Oh, of course they were from him. No note, but who else that she knew would have possession of the Cup?

  Then, like a flash of lightning searing her brain, she remembered a night, just before he was drafted, when they’d had dinner on San Antonio’s famed Riverwalk, that well-known eclectic collection of restaurants, shops, and iconic sites like Honeymoon Island. They were waiting for their dinner to be served when she looked up and saw one of the regular horse and carriages that gave rides to tourists in Alamo Plaza stop at the top of the stairs down to the Riverwalk.

  She’d watched, mesmerized, as the driver stepped down and then helped a woman to alight, turning her over to a man in a mariachi outfit. The woman carried a single rose in one hand, her other held by the mariachi man, who led her down to the very restaurant where Liz and Matt were eating. As soon as she was seated, at a table near them, the band began to serenade her. At the end of the song, a man, obviously her lover, stepped forward, got down on one knee, and asked her to marry him.

  Liz had actually cried as she watched.

  “That’s so beautiful and romantic,” she’d told Matt. “So special.”

  “If that’s want they want,” he’d commented and taken another hit of his beer.

  She’d been so irritated with him, angry, telling him he had no romance in his soul. Now that same anger raced through her. Anger and the resurgence of the hurt she still felt after all these years. Years in which she’d had to deal with the fact she’d been second best to him. How dare he think that, after all this time, he could come swooping into her life like he hadn’t relegated her to the backseat while he pursued his dream. A tiny stab of pain in her finger made her realize she had gripped the stem of the rose in her fist. She lifted her hand and sucked on the place where a thorn had pierced the skin. It reminded her of the way he had pierced her heart when he’d walked away from her.

  If she were smart, she’d take the roses and toss them in the trash. Then get someone to deliver the Cup to Matt’s parents’ house, and he could pick it up there. She was still contemplating what to do when the door to their offices opened, and Matt himself stood there. Liz took a good look at him and almost forgot to breathe. He’d put on some muscle since the last time she’d seen him. Were his shoulders broader, or was that just her imagination? His jeans clung to long legs and narrow hips. His dark-brown hair was a shade lighter, and longer than he used to wear it, coming just to the collar of the green shirt that—damn it!—matched his eyes.

  He still had the damn square-jawed look to his face, a face now showing lines of maturity. And a teasing sprig of chest hair darker than that on his head peeked at her from his open collar. Did he still wear that aftershave that smelled so great, its outdoorsy scent making her hormones rise up and sweep through her body?

  Holy shit!

  After all these years and all the pain of rejection she’d dealt with where Matt Vorchak was concerned, one look at him and her body and her emotions were doing a happy dance. Just the sight of him brought back multiple erotic ima
ges, made her nipples tighten, and the pulse in her sex throb like the beat of a jungle drum.

  This was so not good. She had to swallow twice before she could get any words out.

  “Uh, hey, Matt.”

  She did her best to untangle her brain as it shuffled through the stored images of Matt naked, heat flaring in his eyes, his cock thick and hard. His lips unbelievably soft as he trailed them over her body, his strong fingers caressing every inch of her—

  Stop!

  It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. She couldn’t afford to let him back into her life. Her heart might not have healed, but at least it had scarred over. No way could she rip open those scars and lay her heart bare for him again. So why had her nipples suddenly hardened into painful tips? Heat flashed over her, and the pulse between her thighs pounded harder than the Anvil Chorus. All these years and all it took was one look at him to set her off.

  God. She hoped her face wasn’t red and she wasn’t drooling. How was it possible, after all these years, after his cavalier dismissal of their relationship, one look at him and she melted into a puddle?

  Get hold of yourself, Elizabeth.

  “Hey, Lizzie.” His voice was deeper, the words spoken softly.

  “It’s, uh, Liz, now.” Geez. Could she sound any more stupid?

  “I heard.” That deep voice just rumbled through her. “But, to me, you’ll always be Lizzie.”

  Okay, she had to get control of this situation. No way was he just going to walk back into her life and think a big bunch of roses was going to make up for the hurt she’d been nursing all these years. Swallowing hard, she conjured up images of ice cubes and snow. Anything to cool down the fire that one look from him ignited just as it always had.

  He hurt you, she reminded herself. That should do it. Unfortunately, all she could remember was the last night they’d been together, and she didn’t mean the part where he walked out of her life. Mentally, she pulled up her big girl panties and reached for the oh-so-cool Liz St. John, event specialist.

  “The flowers are a nice gesture, Matt, but they don’t do much after all this time.” She flicked a fingernail against one petal. “Especially from someone who walked away from me without so much as a backward glance.”