The strong hands part she knew after watching him and Garrick play pool for the past half hour. His long, lean fingers worked the cue like a seasoned pro, his smirk at the beginning of the game warning her he was about to hustle Garrick.
She hadn’t expected Garrick to be so good either.
They’d retired from the stuffy formal dining room as soon as the last course was cleared. The food had been amazing, the service frighteningly efficient. But the biggest surprise had been the company.
Reese, as he insisted they call him, had been nothing but surprises. As had his companion, the estimable Mr. Rupert Smythe. From the moment they shook hands in the foyer, it was clear Mr. Smythe wasn’t just Lamont’s business manager. He was also Reese’s best friend.
So here they were, in the Billiards Room—she hadn’t known those existed outside the game of Clue—watching Reese and Garrick try to whomp each other, both now long past the realization that no one would be hustling anyone.
Savannah stood next to the bar with Rupert, sipping her beer and laughing at the banter between the two men and Rupert’s dry commentary on his friend’s strategy. The atmosphere was friendly, though an undercurrent existed that she had been trying to put her finger on since dinner.
Garrick smiled up at Reese, his cheeks pink from wine and laughter, and winked at their host. She almost choked on her beer as she finally figured it out.
Garrick was flirting. With Lamont.
Their host didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
She laughed at yet another surreal twist to their evening. Rupert grinned. She was more uncertain than ever about what the hell was going on, but she couldn’t deny she was having a good time.
When Garrick’s intended—and supposedly insane—double-banked shot struck the twelve and pocketed it in the corner, Savannah whooped.
“Determined is right. Reese, my friend, you’re going down,” Rupert said.
“Thank you so much for your support,” Reese said dryly.
Rupert lifted his wine in salute. “What friends are for?”
Reese harrumphed and stepped out of the way as Garrick walked around the table to take his next shot. He took aim, but Reese leaned against the bumper, putting himself in the way. Garrick stood, the cue sliding through his fingers to rest on the floor, and cocked his head.
“Why are you here?” Reese asked, not unkindly, but with a hint of suspicion.
Garrick opened his mouth, twice, before snapping it closed.
Rupert put his glass down on the bar and muttered, “Always was a bad loser.”
Reese waited patiently for Garrick’s answer.
“I’d like to speak with you about the Ice Cats.” Garrick’s voice was calm, but she knew him well enough to know he was nervous. He wasn’t moving.
“I’m selling them, as I’m sure you know,” Reese said coolly.
Savannah stepped forward. “I heard you were thinking about shutting us down.”
Reese and Rupert exchanged a quick look and her heart sank. It was true.
“It seems your management hasn’t been discreet.” Anger heated Reese’s voice.
“No,” she said quickly, “it was me. I mean, I was eavesdropping and I overheard a conversation I wasn’t privy to.”
Reese’s shoulders went down a fraction, but he still looked pissed. His face remained neutral. Rupert’s too. But there was something there, the flirtation gone, their gazes narrow.
“Why would you shut us down?” Garrick asked, sounding more curious than angry.
She had to give him credit. It was difficult to reconcile this stone-faced Reese with the warm and funny host they’d laughed with not two minutes prior.
“I don’t really have a choice. We’ve been losing money for a while. I had hoped Mark would be able to turn things around, but there has been little improvement.” He went on to detail what they’d tried. The marginal successes, the outright failures. His recitation was clinical, though not without compassion. Savannah found little comfort that he obviously didn’t want to put people out of work, since he wasn’t going to let that change what was, to him, a business decision.
Garrick listened, nodding occasionally and giving Reese his undivided attention. Then he started asking questions.
Savannah smiled, silently cheering on Garrick as he tacked Reese down at every turn. Just a hockey player, my ass. He countered each issue with a suggestion. If it had been tried, he offered an alternative. If it was glossed over, he picked it apart. Reese took it well, rising to the debate, his responses getting more passionate. He referred to Rupert for facts and figures. Rupert was not just a business manager in title, but an absolute wizard with numbers and statistics. His memory for the details was impressive, bordering on frightening. The man could quote, with confidence, the smallest minutia about the team and its finances.
During one of his recitations, Savannah realized Rupert was subtly supporting Garrick’s arguments, not Reese’s.
“Do you think the Ice Cats can be made profitable?” she asked Rupert, cutting into the conversation.
All eyes turned to him. He glanced at Reese, who rolled his eyes but remained silent.
“Yes,” Rupert admitted, his voice quiet compared to the heated debate seconds before. “I do.”
“How?” she asked.
“He doesn’t know,” Reese said, his smile kind. He turned back to Garrick. “He actually had already argued most everything you have as far as the arena and how to expand its markets.”
Garrick smiled at Rupert. “Great minds.”
“But,” Reese continued before the men could bond over their shared ideas, “he admits that in order for the team, as well as the arena, to be more profitable, there would need to be some changes.”
Garrick’s brows drew in. “What kind of changes?”
“You need to win more. A championship.”
Garrick winced. The Cats did all right, but they hadn’t won a championship in all the time Garrick had been on the team, nor for almost a decade before that.
Reese nodded, smug. He clearly believed he’d just dealt the coup de grâce.
Savannah couldn’t let it stand. She stepped forward.
“That’s completely doable.”
Chapter Eight
Everyone turned to Savannah.
She crossed her arms and tilted her chin defiantly in the face of three disbelieving stares. When she shifted her weight over one leg, the other stretched endlessly to one side. God, Garrick thought, those legs are amazing.
He tore his gaze away before he rightly earned the caveman label.
“The team could win more, but you’ll have to invest,” she informed Reese. She lifted one eyebrow and pinned Reese with her bright green stare, daring him to dismiss her.
Garrick smiled. The legs were great, sure, but they weren’t the best part.
Reese shifted, crossing his arms and returning her challenge. “Every time I invest in someone new and expensive, I lose them to the NHL or one of their feeder teams, Ms. Morrison. It can be profitable, but not sustainable for building a championship team.”
“You don’t need better players, Mr. Lamont. You need better talent management. You need to cut your dead weight and invest in better training, management, and coaching.”
“Excuse me?” Reese’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his perfectly trimmed hair.
“You’re counting too much on the raw talent,” she explained, “and not enough on the people who can and will develop that talent if you let them. What you need is discipline. If you get it, you can build a winning team that also generates NHL talent—two profitable outcomes for you.”
Reese’s huff of laughter was somewhere between patronizing and insulting. Garrick forced himself to remain silent, confident Savannah could still fight and win this battle.
“You don’t believe me?” Savannah said with a little smile. “Fair enough. How about an example? You kept the last trainer on board even though he did jack-shit to strengthen your
players, and in some cases made systematic errors that probably shortened their careers.”
Rupert’s mouth fell open.
Garrick grinned. He was actually getting a little turned on. She was magnificent.
“Look at Sanders,” she went on. “He was gold in the net and gone by twenty-five because he had no stamina. No discipline. And Gorensky, who practically limped out of Moncton, only to go on and kick ass in Vancouver after proper rehabilitation and a move to special teams to maximize his talents.”
Rupert and Reese appeared slack-jawed as they continued to stare at Savannah. If either of them so much as insinuated that a woman shouldn’t be taking them to school about how to run a good hockey team, Garrick would happily punch them in the nose.
Savannah glanced at him, her eyes widening when she noticed his wide smile. He winked at her. Her lips twitched before she turned back to their hosts.
In the blink of an eye, she launched into a complete breakdown of the current team—each player, their strengths, their weaknesses. Then the coaches. She strode across the room and they parted like the Red Sea before following in her wake, gathering in front of the dart board. She used the scoreboard chalk to draw out special team weaknesses in crisp white on green.
Garrick wanted to laugh. Fuck, he had a raging hard-on now.
Reese and Rupert were a rapt audience, asking questions that proved she’d long-since dispelled any doubts about her acumen for the business. She had them hooked and was slowly reeling them in.
Arguing with Lamont had been exhilarating and Garrick could see the same thrill in the flush on Savannah’s cheeks, the light of determination in her eyes. He knew what he and Savannah argued made sense. These were sound options. Maybe he didn’t have the business-side experience, but he’d watched the business of hockey for a long time and done his homework. Read the articles, the analysis, watched which teams flourished and which failed. He’d always been curious why and tried to find the answers.
He could only hope Reese Lamont would listen to what he’d learned.
Savannah was winding down her arguments, having now fully detailed the weaknesses of their key rivals—and damned if Garrick didn’t feel stupid for not seeing so much of this before now—when she turned back to her audience and paused.
Rupert immediately went to her side. “That was fantastic!”
She smiled.
“It certainly is a lot to consider,” Reese allowed, thoughtful.
She shot Garrick a nervous glance.
“Are you thirsty?” Rupert asked.
She put a hand to her throat. “Yes. I left my beer on the bar.”
“It’s gone warm by now. I’ll get you a fresh one.” Rupert strode to the bar with Reese close behind.
The minute their backs were turned, Garrick threw his arms around Savannah and lifted her into a great big bear hug. He didn’t even care if she felt the steel bar in his pants.
He let go and she stumbled back, blinking.
He just grinned and jammed a hand in his pocket to hide the evidence of just how fond he was of her at this moment.
Reese called from behind the bar. “What are you having, Savannah?”
She looked at him blankly.
“What do you want to drink?” Garrick prompted softly, trying not to chuckle at her bemusement.
“Oh. I uh…I love Moosehead.”
Garrick looked at the ceiling, schooling his features, but a snort still escaped.
“What?” she asked.
Reese’s groan carried from behind the bar. Rupert rolled his eyes as he delivered the beer.
“What?” she asked again.
Garrick sighed, resigned, and smiled down at her. “How can you tell that someone loves Moosehead?”
She looked at him, adorably confused. “How?”
“Antler marks on their thighs.”
Garrick held Savannah’s jacket for her. She didn’t bother to protest the chivalry. Sliding her arms into the sleeves, she looked around the Lamont foyer one more time before she turned back to Garrick and buttoned up.
“Really? Moose head?” She shook her head.
“It’s a rite of passage,” Garrick said. “Every New Brunswicker has to tell someone that joke at least ten times in his life or his citizenship is revoked.”
She chuckled. “Oh really? I’ll have to bear that in mind as the single most compelling reason I’ve heard to date for not applying for citizenship.”
Garrick was still grinning when Rupert and Reese arrived to say goodnight. They all shook hands. She genuinely hoped to see them again—and not at the official sale or dismantling of the Ice Cats.
“Will you think about what we said?” Garrick asked, his hand still clasping Reese’s.
Reese nodded. “I will. Though, to be fair, I should tell you that if a reasonable offer comes in, I’m going to take it.”
Hope and frustration were a familiar mix of emotions tonight. He wasn’t talking about shutting them down, at least, but Savannah wanted more. A renewed commitment from Reese. A new owner would bring a host of unknowns, though at least it would mean jobs for them and a lot of other people for a while longer.
“Thanks,” Garrick said.
“Yes, thank you,” she added. “For listening. And for a lovely night. I hope we see you again soon.”
Reese’s warm smile slipped, his brow drawing down. Her heart ached at his obvious confusion, and only then did she remember that this man reportedly never left his house. They had been having such a lovely evening, and he’d been such a gracious host, she’d completely forgotten. Why ever would a man as handsome and charming as Reese sequester himself?
Reese regained his composure, his momentary lapse only evident in the now-visible lines around his eyes. His smile returned, albeit tentatively. “I hope you’ll consider coming to see us again next time you’re in town.”
Rupert abruptly stopped speaking to Garrick and peered at Reese as if he’d grown an additional head.
“We’d like that,” she said.
“Wonderful,” Reese said, shooting a dirty look at the still wide-eyed Rupert before ushering them to the door. “Hodges will see you back to your hotel. Good luck at your game tomorrow night.”
They’d accepted the offer of a lift back into town from Reese when the hour had grown late and their town car had been ready to go off-shift. She hadn’t really thought Reese would drive them himself, of course, but the sleek black limo and liveried driver hadn’t been expected either.
With a final wave, she and Garrick slipped through the door and into the waiting car. She climbed in first, sliding across the soft leather seat to make room for Garrick. The door clicked shut behind him and sealed them into a warm cocoon.
Garrick turned to her in the intimate darkness and something tightened deep in her core. She’d been harmlessly flirting with all three men most of the night and hadn’t given it a moment’s thought until Garrick had hugged her in the billiards room. She’d felt his erection against her hip and her blood had heated, running thick through her veins. She’d struggled to recover her composure, grateful for jokes about fellatio-performing moose to distract her.
Until now.
“Thank you.” His voice was soft, rough along her skin.
She clamped down on her body’s betrayal and scolding herself for being foolish.
Crossing her legs, she shivered as her bare thighs skimmed over lacy stocking tops. The press of her tightly clenched legs did nothing to stop her growing need.
God, what is the matter with me? She stared at her hand clutching the leather seat between them and counted her breaths.
The heat in the car was high, forcing back the bitter cold outside and carrying the scent of Garrick’s cologne. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and inhale deeply, until she was dizzy from the heady musk hiding beneath the smooth hint of pine.
He watched her, no doubt waiting for her response, hopefully unaware of how ferocious it truly was.
&
nbsp; She met his gaze, determined to say you’re welcome or something equally inane and nothing like touch me please. The words wouldn’t come. Not even the plea, though she suspected he could see it written in every line of her face.
She felt drunk, but her spinning head had nothing to do with the two beers she’d sipped, and everything to do with her pounding pulse and swelling body. Warm liquid arousal pooled between her thighs.
He was forbidden fruit. Untouchable by her own rules, and yet had proven more desirable than any man she’d known. He was her friend. Trusted.
And fucking beautiful.
She saw the questions in his patient eyes. Was aware of how unlike his nature it was for him to sit so still. It didn’t take a glance at the increasingly poor fit of his trousers to know he held back. It was just there, on his face, in his gaze.
She turned away, her eyes fixed on the blank wall of the privacy screen. They were alone, behind dark tinted windows and thick sound-proof barriers, shielded from the rest of the world.
A small pocket of time and space all to themselves.
It was this thought, this reckless belief that she could steal a few minutes from a life, a career, a friendship that should prevent her from stealing any such thing, that made her turn back to Garrick.
Chapter Nine
Garrick watched, wide-eyed, as Savannah slid across the bench.
His hands shook with the need to take, to claim, to feel her touching any part of him with any part of her. He was already delirious with the hint of her arousal in the still, hot air of the car. Drunk on her scent. Intoxicated by her heavy-lidded eyes—smoky green flashes in the pale street lights before they fluttered closed.
Her lips touched his and he opened to her. His heart thunked wildly against his ribs while his cock strained ferociously against his briefs and the zipper of his dress slacks. He wanted to free his erection. He wanted to haul her up over him and grind her down on top of him. He wanted so many things, he could do little more than let her kiss the breath out of him as he tried to figure out what the fuck was happening.
Fair Play (Hat Trick, Book 1) Page 7
