Game Breaker (Portland Storm Book 14)

by Catherine Gayle

  Dani rolled her eyes, and I made a mental note to further investigate whatever was going on between her and Cody Williams. Before I could get too far with that, though, Cassidy Johnson toddled over and climbed into my lap. She reached up and shoved something sticky into my mouth.

  I scanned the room quickly to see if there was anyone to come to my rescue without disturbing everything that was happening, but no luck. I was on my own.

  At least it was kind of sweet, whatever it was. Applesauce? With a hint of yogurt.

  Shouldn’t kill me, in any case.

  I was so distracted by the little girl in my lap, though, that I lost track of the conversation between the sisters. By the time I looked up again, Dave had switched to filming the pair of them instead of Johnson and his son. I tuned out all the noise and focused in on their words. They were talking much more quietly than before, so it wasn’t easy to make them out. Especially not with the toddler’s babble right by my ear.

  “Dr. Oliver keeps stressing that we shouldn’t get our hopes up,” Katie said. “And I’m not, honestly. I mean, if we can get pregnant, awesome. But if we can’t, it’s not the end of the world. But I don’t think Jamie sees it that way. He seems to think it’s going to happen.”

  “Probably because there’s something in the water with his teammates,” Dani murmured. “Every time I come home, someone else is knocked up. They’re breeding like bunnies. You’d think they’re all old enough to know what’s causing it…”

  Both sisters laughed, but Katie quickly sobered. “But he’s known all along that it wasn’t likely for us. After all the chemo, there’s just not much chance.”

  “Apparently that isn’t enough to stop him from dreaming.”

  “Apparently not,” Katie said. Her eyes flickered over and landed on me. She blinked a couple of times, then seemed to realize that her conversation wasn’t private. She stared at me for a moment.

  “So now what?” her sister asked. “Fertility specialist? Will you talk about adoption?”

  “The last thing I want is to go to more doctors.”

  Dani reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand.

  I glanced up to be sure Dave was capturing every moment. Then, one more time, Nate’s words from earlier fluttered through my mind. I’m not keen on the idea of getting the story when it’s something I don’t think should be a story. Was I about to turn what should be a private moment, something that should stay within the family, into my latest story? This wasn’t news. This wasn’t something that the public had a right to know, unless Jamie and Katie Babcock decided to tell the world about their struggles.

  Oh, sure. In my head, I knew all the arguments the guys would give me about why I had to use the footage. I needed to save my job. They’d signed off on all the releases, and they’d invited us into their home with the knowledge that we’d be filming and potentially using anything that we witnessed. Legally, we had every right to use the footage in any way we saw fit.

  But was that enough?

  Maybe Nate had more of a point than I’d like to concede.

  With every day that passed of working in this job, I questioned myself and my motives more than the day before. I’d known when I took this job that I was either setting myself up to fail spectacularly or succeed beyond my wildest dreams.

  I’d never imagined I was walking into a crisis of conscience, but here it was, staring me in the face. Laughing at me.

  Now what?

  WE’D ONLY BEEN home for a few days—just long enough to take Max and Lola to the dog pool, take Anne out for coffee and dinner, for me to catch up on the first two episodes of Anne’s behind-the-scenes production about the team, and to beat the Sharks in Game Five to go up three games to two in the series—and already we were on our way back to San Jose.

  With any luck, we could take complete control of Game Six from the drop of the puck and not have to worry about playing the seventh. We could all use a couple of extra days to rest before the next series started. Almost every guy on the team was playing through some injury or another, large or small. My knee hadn’t gotten any worse, but it hadn’t gotten any better, either. I still had no intention of talking to the trainers about it. Hell, Babs had broken two toes in Game Three, but he refused to come out of the lineup. They shot him up with some stuff to kill the pain before each game, and he forced his foot into his skates without a word of complaint. If he was playing through that, I would play through anything that didn’t kill me.

  No one on this team cared whether we ended up facing Chicago, who had snagged one of the Wild Card spots in the Western Conference, or LA, who had finished first in the Pacific Division. No one but me, at any rate, but my reasons were entirely selfish—especially now that I’d heard there was a demonstration planned in Chicago for next week. A bunch of people were going to march through downtown, protesting the fact that the cop who’d shot Marcus Jameson had only been put on probation and wasn’t even being formally charged. I just wanted to stay the hell away from all the racial tensions, and there wouldn’t be much chance of that if we had to play against the Blackhawks in the next round.

  Game Six in that series was ongoing as we boarded our plane, with Chicago putting on quite a show in front of their home crowd in an effort to tie the series and force a seventh and deciding game. They’d scored three goals in the first ten minutes of the game. The boys and I had all been watching on a big screen in the locker room before they’d ushered us out to a charter bus bound for PDX.

  As expected, Anne and several of her guys were coming with us to continue filming her show. She was up ahead of me, climbing the stairs on her crutches. She looked like an old pro at it now. Must have been using them like she was supposed to lately. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning.

  In fact, I seemed to do that almost any time I saw her or thought about her lately. Couldn’t help it. She brought that side of me to the forefront and kept any thought I might have had of pushing her away well outside of my mind.

  Koz bumped into my shoulder—intentionally. “Playing poker on the way. Sit by me and I’ll try not to take all your fucking money.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a deal.” It also didn’t sound like how I wanted to spend the flight.

  RJ gave me a knowing look, rolled his eyes, then turned to Koz. “I’m in. Lover boy here is going to be too busy making fucking googly eyes at Anne to play.”

  “Which means he won’t be paying fucking attention and we can get all his money,” Koz argued, starting the climb to our chartered plane.

  RJ laughed and followed him, putting some distance between me and my obnoxious line mate. Once I got inside the cabin, I spotted Anne in a window seat not far behind the coaches, her laptop out and headphones covering her ears. The seat next to her was empty.

  Not for long, though. As soon as the guys ahead of me got out of my way, I snagged it.

  She whipped her head around and removed the headphones from one ear, looking slightly annoyed. “I’ve got about seven hours’ worth of work to get done and probably only forty-five minutes to do it in, since they’re going to make me put this away for takeoff and landing.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  She blinked at me like I was an idiot. “No. How could you help?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.” I glanced at her screen. She’d paused video footage of Katie Babcock and Dani Weber hanging out at what appeared to be Babs’s house. “More focus on the guys’ lives away from hockey for this next episode, then?”

  “You watched?” she asked with a skeptical raising of one of those perfect brows.

  “Promised you I would. We made a deal. You let me buy you dinner, I watched your show.”

  “And?” She removed the headphones completely, letting them rest on her shoulders, draped around her neck. “What did you think?”

  I didn’t miss her anxious tone, and I couldn’t stop the smile from coming to my lips. “Impressive. The first episode wasn’t as hard to watch
as I feared it would be. The second gave a more complete picture of the team as a whole, what the guys are about, and didn’t focus on me so much. Other than hanging out with RJ and his dogs. Which, I’m guessing, there will be more of in the third episode.”

  A softness had started to come over her, gradually replacing the stressed-out, frazzled look of annoyance she’d given me when I’d first sat next to her. “We’ve already pieced that section together. My editor’s pulling an all-nighter here in Portland to work on tonight’s game while I finish off a couple of segments with the other guys away from the game. Then tomorrow, we’ve got to put the whole thing together, write and record any narrative bits, and upload the completed webisode.”

  That sounded like a hell of a lot of work, and I wouldn’t have the first clue how to do any of it. Good thing I had no intention of ever trying to do her job or anything like it. “And you think you can get your part done on this flight?”

  “If you’ll stop flirting with me and let me do it.”

  I chuckled, but I reached over and settled her headphones over her ears again. “Get to work, slacker.”

  She winked at me.

  I reached into my carry-on bag and took out my textbook for Financial Accounting and Analysis and flipped to the right chapter. I had finals coming up in the middle of the next round, and some of the accounting concepts I knew would be involved still made my eyes cross and my head throb every time I had to look at them.

  Ten minutes later, the whole team had boarded and the flight attendants started their safety spiel. Instead of paying attention to them or working on editing her film, Anne’s eyes kept straying over to me and my textbook.

  There wasn’t any point in denying it. I was paying a hell of a lot more attention to the fact that she was checking me—well, technically, checking my book—out than I was to reviewing the Going Concern Principle. Like it or not, Anne was more into me now than she had been before.

  I, for one, definitely liked it.

  ONLY A MINUTE and twenty-three seconds remained in regulation. We were up by a goal, but the Sharks had already pulled their goalie in a last-ditch, season-on-the-line move. They had my line hemmed into our zone, along with 501 and Thor on D, and the five of us were completely gassed.

  I could hardly move, let alone take a good breath.

  Former Sharks captain Joe Thornton had the puck on his stick. He passed it back to Dillon, one of his teammates, on the blue line. Dillon hesitated just long enough for me to close the gap between us. He still hadn’t decided—shoot or pass—so I had half a second to make a move. I lunged for the puck.

  Missed it and fell flat on my face.

  By the time I got to my skates again, Dillon had sent the puck toward the net. Our goaltender, Nicky Ericsson, had stopped it, but he didn’t control the rebound. Now half the guys on the ice were converging on him, and it was a mad scramble.

  I raced as fast as I could to get over there. Nicky was down in a full split and trying to reposition himself, 501 was literally inside the net, and Thor was bashing everything in teal that came within his considerable reach. I’d barely joined the fray when the puck squirted free from the pile, heading out toward the right-side face-off dot.

  It had taken every bit of juice I had to get back into the play, but there wasn’t a single teal jersey between me and that little black piece of vulcanized rubber. I dug in and found another gear, zipping over to pick up the puck and race toward the other end of the ice with it.

  Grabbed it with the tape on my stick and shuffled out toward center ice, with Dillon right behind me. Not a surprise. The guy had half a foot on me and a powerful stride. I was speedy in general, but this shift had gone on way too long.

  Still, I gave it all I had. Got close to the blue line. Felt him gaining on me, but there was a gorgeous, wide-open net at the other end calling my name. Inched past the blue line, but now his stick was whacking at my skates. Needed to get past the red line at center before shooting, in case my aim was off. We couldn’t afford an icing call right now. Not when my guys were this tired.

  But then Dillon was almost completely alongside me, and his stick was longer than mine. And he poked at the puck, nearly knocking it away from me.

  Red line or not, I had to shoot.

  So I did, putting so much behind my wrister that I fell over in the process.

  Dillon dived for it, but he missed.

  The puck rolled on its end, bouncing around and acting like it might just squeak inside the goal post. But at the last second, it angled to the left and stayed out.

  Another Sharks player was racing in an attempt to stop it. Even though he wouldn’t get there in time, that was enough for the refs to call icing. Now the Sharks could get a line change and put out fresh players, but the five of us had to stay on the ice.

  I got to my feet and skated back to the circle to Nicky’s left as slowly as I could without the refs calling a penalty for delaying the game or some other bullshit. Koz and Jo-Jo were both bent over at the waist, their hands resting on their knees as they tried to suck in as much oxygen as possible. Thor tapped me on the back of the calves with his stick and nodded, which was as close to him saying, “Nice effort,” as he’d ever come. The guy hardly ever said a word since his arrival at the trade deadline.

  No matter how bone-tired the five of us were, though, I knew that Nicky was the one who would truly be tested here. I glanced back at him long enough to see that his eyes were sharp and focused. Hell, he even winked at me. The guy was fine. Confident to the point of bordering on cocky, which was about as close to perfect as you could get as a goaltender. I sure as hell knew I wanted a goalie back there who believed in himself even if no one else did, and that was exactly what Nicky was giving me. His body language said he had this in the bag, as long as none of us did anything to fuck it up for him.

  That alone was enough to get the oxygen flowing more freely through my body. I took my position at the face-off circle with one goal in mind.

  I was going to put this game—and series—away, whether my lungs wanted to cooperate or not.

  THE WHOLE TEAM leaped over the boards as one as soon as the final horn sounded to end the game, racing out to tackle Nate. He ended up at the bottom of a massive, sweaty dog pile of his teammates. Once they dug him out, he came up with an enormous grin.

  As he should. He and his line had been out on the ice for the final two-plus minutes of the game, unable to get off for a change while the Sharks had thrown everything they had at them. Through it all, Nate had managed to score not one but two empty-net goals. To call him a hero in his teammates’ eyes right now would be putting it mildly. The other guys on the ice with him hadn’t been slouches, either, but Nate was the one to put the game completely out of the Sharks’ reach.

  I made sure the guys on my camera crew were all well positioned to get the shots of the handshake line I wanted. It was a tradition in hockey, and one I had no intention of neglecting in the show, especially since this marked the end of the first-round series against the Sharks. In a couple more days, the Portland Storm players would find out who they would be facing in the second round, but for now, they could relax in the knowledge that they were moving on.

  Apparently, I didn’t have enough control over myself to watch the whole team as they shook hands with the Sharks players. My eyes stayed rooted to Nate, so I didn’t miss the fact that, when he reached for Brent Burns’s hand, the big Wookie-esque Sharks defenseman picked him up in a bear hug, lifting him a foot or two off the ground. I busted out laughing and couldn’t get myself under control again until Ben said in my ear, “Got that for you, Anne.”

  “Great work, guys,” I finally said once I sobered. “Everyone knows where to go once the team clears off the ice, right? Dave, make your way to Golston’s stall. I’m sure that’s where the reporters will want to start.”

  They all gave me murmurs of assent. Now that we’d been at this for a few weeks, I didn’t have to direct them too much. My team almost al
ways knew what I wanted, and they gave it to me, frequently before I asked.

  Jim Sutter, the team’s general manager, poked his head into my control room once most of the players were heading down the tunnel. “Coming down to the locker room?” he asked.

  I reached for my backpack and shoved a couple of items inside it. “On my way.”

  Before I could sling it onto my shoulders, Jim took it from me. “You bring yourself,” he said. “I’ll get everything else.”

  I didn’t want to waste the time it would take to argue with him that I could do it all on my own. Instead, I grabbed my crutches and followed him, allowing him to hold doors open for me on the way. “Your team did well for you tonight,” I said as we arrived at the elevator bay.

  “The boys always do.”

  I couldn’t help but smile as the elevator doors opened and he ushered me inside. “You sound like a proud papa.”

  He winked without confirming or denying my assessment. “Rachel tells me you want to set up some time with me. Maybe involving her and Brenden, too.”

  “I would.” I leaned back against the wall, thankful to allow my aching armpits a reprieve, even if only for a few moments. Getting around on crutches wasn’t for the faint of heart. “I’m trying to highlight some of the relationships on the team. I understand you used to play with Campbell’s father.”

  “That I did. I owe Mark Campbell more than I could ever repay. I have to say, I’m impressed that you haven’t focused on the hoopla surrounding Golston any more than you have.”

  “In my opinion, there’s a lot more going on with the team than just that. I’m trying to give a bigger picture.”

  “And I’d say you’re succeeding.” The doors opened again, and he pressed the button to keep them open while I made my way off into the bowels of the arena. In no time, he was walking alongside me. “I think we could work something out getting us all together. In fact, Rachel said that Eric and Dana Zellinger are planning on a trip to Portland during the next series so all the cousins can spend some time together. I bet we could even get the two of them to agree to be involved.”