by Anya Nowlan
“I need to go finish up right now,” he said, sounding more than a little reluctant to let go of April. “But I have the evening off. Can I cook for you two ladies? At my place? You wouldn’t say no to a bear who’s just become victorious in your name, would you?” Memphis queried, flashing her a puppy-dog look that looked both ridiculous and endearing on him.
“I… yes! Sure. I mean, we don’t have any other plans, I think,” April stuttered and stammered, blushing a deep beet-red now.
“Of course we’ll come!” Nicky piped in, looping her hand around April’s arm and squeezing it a little too hard.
“Okay, great! I’ll text you, April. I’ll be looking forward to it,” Memphis said with a wink, pushing away from the railing and skating toward where his team were patting each other’s backs and generally being loud and boisterous.
He almost skated into one of the enforcers because he was straining his neck, looking back so hard. April giggled a little and Nicky jabbed her in the side again.
“Oh my God! He’s so hot! You’re so lucky and I’m so jealous!” Nicky gushed.
“We’re just here to get to know each other a little better. Nothing’s going on. I mean, he’s a hockey star, I can’t take this too seriously, right?” April said with a shake of her head, the smile clinging to her features no matter how much she tried to shake it off.
“Sure. Totally not serious,” Nicky said, rolling her eyes as she carted April off toward the cars again.
April was glancing over her shoulder to catch glimpses of Memphis until trees obscured her field of vision. She couldn’t wait for the evening to come and a part of her was beginning to think she could have even made the trip to Idaho on her own. But having a friend for support could only do her good, right?
CHAPTER FOUR
Memphis
Dinner was as lavish as one could expect from a polar bear shifter trying to woo a woman. Fresh salmon cooked in the oven with herbs, spices, and lemon, potatoes, and a homemade sauce, along with beer and wine depending on the drinker’s preferences. In Memphis’s completely unbiased opinion, it was the best damn meal anyone could have in Shifter Grove that evening!
Well, anyone not married to a chef or a baker, anyway.
“So, how are your lodgings? I guess you’re stayin’ with the Hamiltons, right? I heard they opened up one of their additional houses as a makeshift bed and breakfast until an actual one gets built around here,” Memphis asked, looking for conversation topics that wouldn’t immediately end with him thinking about his bed or the couch and how April would look sprawled out on it.
“Oh, yes! The Hamiltons are all such dolls!” Nicky said, swirling the white wine around in her glass and giving Memphis far too much eye-contact. “Rose is lovely and the brothers are all, well, as they are,” she added with a wicked grin.
“They’re somethin’, yeah. I think Royce would have made a decent goalie in another life,” Memphis commented idly, his gaze constantly going back to April, who had mostly been quiet throughout the dinner.
It was cute, really. She was shy and he had seen as much when he talked with her the first time in Wyoming. It took her a little while to come out of her shell, but this time Memphis found the whole coaxing process that much more difficult because Nicky was there and April wasn’t exactly the type to fight for her right to say a few words here and there.
Should have gotten her to come alone, he thought somewhat grimly, with Nicky’s constant chattering and giggling veering far too much into the world of puck bunnies for him to tolerate it for too long.
At least not when he knew that he had better company available, who was just too quiet to butt in. There had been a time when girls like Nicky were exactly Memphis’s type. Enthusiastic, happy, and always down to party, they were easy to hang out with and even easier to discard when he got bored. But he was nearing thirty now, and he felt that it was time for a change. The regular crowd of hockey superfans looking to do looking to do anything to add another hockey player-shaped notch on their belt hadn’t done much for him lately.
“How do you like Shifter Grove? I hadn’t heard anything about this place but now I’ve read up extensively after it came out that you guys moved here. It’s a really small place to move a whole professional hockey team, isn’t it?” Nicky asked, pointing out the obvious.
“It is,” Memphis agreed with a nod of his head, taking a swig of his beer and shaking himself out of another line of thought that couldn’t make him any happier. He should have told his housemate Bale to stick around to keep Nicky preoccupied.
I’ll do that next time, he decided, giving April a long look that almost took him off of his train of thought again.
“We have a mystery investor. Someone here apparently really wanted a hockey team and we were his favorite one. Coach was lookin’ to move us out of Chicago anyway so we ended up here. The guy paid a fortune, but he promised to get all of the necessary amenities built up as well. The ice arena is comin’ along well enough and we should be in there by the end of the month and the gym’s gettin’ set up too.”
“So you don’t even know who pays you?” April asked with a modicum of surprise in her voice.
“That’s right,” Memphis said, popping his last forkful of potatoes into his mouth and chewing before continuing. “But I don’t mind. I wasn’t thrilled in the beginnin’ and I don’t love the fact that I have to bunk with someone else until they catch up with buildin’ more cabins around here, but the mountain air does me good. My bear’s fuckin’ thrilled and I’ve never felt quite this centered, you know? I think it shows with the whole team. Just missin’ one thing.”
He let the silence hang between them for a few moments as he caught April’s gaze, smiling at her. If they’d been alone, he would have gone in for a kiss, at least a peck on the cheek, but they weren’t and apparently Nicky wasn’t all that interested in giving them a breath of privacy.
“What’s that?” she asked, batting her long lashes as if she hadn’t understood that Memphis very clearly meant April.
“Oh, you know, my own place would be nice,” Memphis said with a sigh that rung of frustration, standing up and picking up Nicky’s plate as she was sitting to his left while April was at his right. “Do you wanna help me with these, April?” he asked, looking for any way to give them a moment alone.
“Sure,” April said, perking up quickly and scooping up a few dishes.
“Can I help?” Nicky asked, sounding a tiny bit annoyed at having been cut out of the circle so smoothly.
“How about you pour us another drink? I have some pie in the freezer, courtesy of Cerise at the diner, but I think we need a moment to really appreciate my wonderful cookin’,” Memphis called over his shoulder, leading April into the kitchen that stood separated from the dining room and living room combination in his little cabin.
He dumped the dishes on the counter and pulled open the dishwasher, starting to stack them there. April did the same and their hands were hovering close to one another as they worked, Memphis hiding a private grin as he was finally allowed to look at her without her overbearing friend hovering somewhere in the immediate background.
“I don’t think I’ve told you yet how beautiful you are,” he said in a low murmur.
“You have,” April said, but that little blush of hers came back, making Memphis entirely pleased that she could incite that in her.
“I mean today. You deserve to hear it every day, sugar,” he said with a soft growl, making her smile and shake her head.
“Is that what you usually do? Hit on women shamelessly and lure them back to your lair?”
“Lure?” he asked, cupping a hand over his chest as if she’d hurt him mortally. “At best I coaxed! And no, I don’t make a habit out of stalking women I met during training camps on SassyDate if that’s what you’re implying. Despite my reputation, I’d like to think I’m a nice guy.”
“Your reputation?” April asked, quirking her brow as she shoved some knives into the ma
chine before Memphis closed it up.
“Uh, you know. Hockey bears and whatever that comes along with us,” he said absently, cursing himself for bringing it up.
He turned to wash his hands and when he moved out of the way so she could do the same, he didn’t miss an opportunity to grab for the towel on the rack by standing right behind her and reaching for it around her shoulders. She gasped and he grinned, stepping back so he wouldn’t crowd her. Dammit, she was so delicious that keeping his composure around her was hard as hell and keeping his hands off of her even harder.
April turned to face him after drying off her hands and her lips parted in the sweetest way, those hazel eyes shimmering with the kind of excitement that made him have to work really hard to convince his bear that they shouldn’t just bend her over the countertop and take her then and there. Nicky might not appreciate her friend getting thoroughly fucked while she was in the next room, flicking through endless sports channels on the TV.
Still, he leaned in slightly, determined to steal that kiss from her that he couldn’t at the rink, but right at the moment when their lips were just about to touch, Nicky’s footsteps sounded down the hallway and April pulled back, biting her lower lip. True to form, Nicky appeared at the door wearing a quizzical expression that immediately had a flash of anger to it when she deciphered what was going on.
But as soon as that look had fallen on her face it was gone as well, leaving Nicky her usual grinning self as April scooted past her.
“I need to go freshen up,” April said, avoiding looking at Nicky, probably because she was blushing again.
Memphis sighed, leaning against the counter. “Down the hall to your left,” he called after April, shaking his head.
“Everything all right?” Nicky asked, dancing into the kitchen with lithe steps, coming to stand across from Memphis.
She was far too close and he was thankful when she hopped up to sit on the counter, intense eyes seeming to track him like a hawk would a rabbit. It was a ridiculous analogy because he was easily three times her size, the diminutive African-American girl standing five foot six at best and generally being as unthreatening as could be.
But something about her eyes and the way she kept looking at him made him feel a little bit uncomfortable, which was some feat because he’d stared down guys on and off the ice who literally wanted to kill him and he hadn’t so much as flinched.
“Sure. You know how things go, it’s a bit awkward gettin’ over the move from text to face-to-face again if time’s passed,” he said with a noncommittal shrug.
But another thought came to him and he narrowed his eyes slightly with a smile, realizing that before him sat perhaps the best treasure trove he could wish for in regard to knowing more about the delightful Miss April Whitaker.
With polar bears, choosing a mate, or being chosen by one as it were, didn’t work as easily as with some shifters. Though they did get a very strong inclination as to whether a person might be the right one for them, polar bears tended to have a slower burn. Memphis’s father had always liked to say that they needed to “sleep on it,” which usually meant a whole hibernation cycle to twist themselves up about their fated before really sweeping them off their feet.
It made polar bears some of the more frustrating shifters to date, but also some of the most rewarding, because when their mind was made up, a polar bear would go through anything for their mate. They could reach levels of ferocity in their protectiveness that would be bordering on scary if the mate didn’t know how to handle them and channel their possessive natures into safer outlets, which most mates learned to do quickly.
The highs were high as hell with polar bears and the lows dark and broody, which made polar bears that much more careful with their hearts as well as asking others for theirs. But April had been driving him nuts for more than a month now and he was as sure as a shifter could be that she was the one for him. But he’d been burned before and the memory was not an easy one to digest, so he needed to be certain before really putting his heart on the line again.
“Nicky, you know April pretty well, right?” he began.
“We’ve been roomies for three years now! I know everything,” Nicky said with a giggle, pushing some hair out of her face and batting her lashes again in a way that Memphis was sure was supposed to be sexy, but it was doing nothing for him.
Ever since meeting April, he had been having a really hard time finding anyone else even remotely as attractive.
“Okay, so help a bear out here. Do you think I got a shot with her?”
“Well…” Nicky said, twirling a lock of curly hair between her fingers and pursing her lips, looking more than a little apprehensive. “I dunno… I mean, you know she does this, right?”
“Does what?” Memphis asked, confused.
“Collects hockey players!” Nicky blurted, her eyes going wide as saucers. “Oh, you didn’t know? It’s totally her thing! She has this whole sweet and innocent thing going on and you guys fall for it so easily! I mean, she probably knew the Bluehawks were in Cheyenne that night and that’s why she was at that bar. You were there with your whole team, right?”
“The defense players, yeah,” Memphis murmured, his brows knit in confusion and his arms crossed on his chest now.
What she was saying made no sense to him, but how well could he claim to really know April?
No, that doesn’t sound like her at all…
“Well, there you go then. They have these message boards where they update one another on what teams are where so they can catch them. Puck bunnies, you know?”
“And you’re saying April’s a puck bunny?” Memphis asked, shaking his head a little.
“One of the best!” Nicky said, looking apologetic. “Sorry, I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t,” Memphis confirmed.
“Didn’t know what?” April asked, appearing at the door, looking just as innocent and lovely and completely intoxicating as she always did.
“Nothin’,” Memphis said with a wave of his hand, peeling himself off the counter and walking past April on his way to the living room. “Nicky was just tellin’ me about Cheyenne. Let’s get back to our drinks!”
He really needed that damn beer. As much as he didn’t believe Nicky, he didn’t really have a reason to doubt her. But one look at April made his insides twist with worry regardless of the uncertainty, while at the same time his bear threatened to kick his ass if he didn’t go and get that girl alone as soon as possible.
The fuck am I gettin’ myself into, he wondered, feeling the sting of a ghost of a relationship where he’d trusted more than he should have as well, and gotten kicked for it.
One thing was certain: he needed to get April alone to figure out what was really going on. And he needed to do it fast.
CHAPTER FIVE
April
It was a cold day in Shifter Grove and April had pulled her fur hat low over her ears, her nose getting pink as she cradled a Thermos mug between her knees, warming her hands against it. Regardless of the biting cold, she couldn’t help but smile as she watched the action on the ice, the Shovelers doing endless speed drills just a day after the game.
Groups of four went on the ice, racing against a whistle, practicing sharp turns and trying to get from one end of the marked area to the opposite end before Coach Wiley, a scraggly old man who seemed to glare at everyone with equal ferocity, blew on the whistle.
There were men who were far faster on the ice than Memphis was, but his power could not be denied. Every time he ground to a halt, shards of ice and snow flew in his wake as he sped back, seeming far more determined to work out his aggression that day than most others. While some of the guys looked a bit ragged from the game, Memphis looked like he could dive into another round and barely break a sweat.
“This is so great,” Nicky said, bouncing up and down, probably to get warmer as much as she was just boiling over with energy, as usual. “It’s not every day people get to see a NSHL team p
ractice like this. I mean, the whole Shovelers-Bluehawks thing is so damn insane! A team practicing on a frozen lake? Cleaning the snow off every morning themselves, no Zambonis in sight? It’s ludicrous!”
“If you say so,” April commented with a grin, though her gaze was still strictly tracking Memphis and really paying little attention to anything else.
Her lungs were filled with the fresh mountain air and despite the fact that it was cold, she couldn’t really remember when she last felt so at home somewhere. Raised in Cheyenne, she’d traveled a fair bit with her parents, but most places left her feeling distant rather than as a part of something new and exciting. Shifter Grove felt like home more than her actual home ever had. It was an odd sensation.
The little town was an oddity through and through, really. Started only a few years ago, it had slowly and steadily built itself from a few guys deciding to set up businesses into a growing haven for humans and shifters alike. Anyone and everyone looking for a new start was welcome there and it seemed to attract a very colorful bunch of shifters and humans, both running from their pasts and rushing toward better futures.
In a way, April couldn’t help but feel a certain similarity of spirit with what Shifter Grove stood for, as she herself had struggled for a long time to find her own voice, and she was still in the process of it. Much the same as Shifter Grove seemed to be.
You’re getting all needlessly romantic, April reminded herself with a soft sigh, focusing her attention again just as Nicky bounded down the stairs to go talk to Heath and Cannon, the Shovelers’ killer first line, who were taking a small break down and to the left of where April was sitting.
She wasn’t entirely sure if she was imagining it or not, but Memphis seemed to make a beeline for her the moment that Nicky engaged in conversation with Heath and Cannon, coming to rest at the partition and giving her a clever look. He motioned for her to come down, while taking his helmet off and scruffing a hand through his rich blond hair.
