by Mignon Mykel
Copyright © 2016 by Mignon Mykel
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a media retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book, excepting of brief quotations for use in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 1535221615
ISBN-13: 978-1535221610
Cover Design and Formatting: oh so novel
Editor: Jenn Wood
ECover/Back Image Source : © Gpagomenos | Dreamstime.com
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Two
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Coming Soon
PRESCOTT FAMILY SERIES
From the Beginning {Pre-Story}
Interference
Note about the Enforcer teams:
When I first began this Prescott journey, there was not a Pacific Division League within the American Hockey League. This new division was announced January of 2015, 7 years after the Prescotts and their affiliation with San Diego and Beloit began in my mind. When I finally sat down to write the boys’ stories (moving them from the safety of my head into written word), I could not find a way to move around the teams – the Prescott series evolved to a huge series with subseries, and all the towns and connections simply worked with where I’d put them. The NHL Enforcers and the AHL Enforcers had lived in their respective places for so long in my mind, the scenes and homes and activities these characters go through… I couldn’t manage to change the cities.
So while the NHL and AHL have managed to put some of their west coast AHL affiliates closer to their NHL counter parts, and now there is an AHL team based out of San Diego (as well as a few other AHL teams scattered up and down that coast) I chose to keep ‘my’ teams in the cities they originated in.
To all those who feel they’re not good enough.
Someone out there lives for your smile.
Late April, 14 years ago
Being ten sucked.
It sucked major balls.
Noah Caleb Prescott, Caleb unless he was in real big trouble, sat in his family’s box seats at Beloit Arena, leaning forward on crossed arms. Just the cement half-wall separated him from the rows of seats below the box sections. His birthday was a few weeks before and usually he would have had a party with his friends—hockey themed, of course—but they’d just moved to Wisconsin a few months ago and his mom didn’t quite trust the kids in his class yet.
Whatever that meant.
His dad was NHL great (and no, that wasn’t an exaggeration) Noah Prescott. He brought the family back to Wisconsin (‘back’ because he guessed that’s where they lived before moving to San Diego right after Myke was born) for a coaching job for Beloit’s hockey team, who his dad once played for.
His dad coaching was fine, really, it was…
But that meant Caleb had to sit up in this dumb box while his brother and sisters bounced around. He’d much rather be playing hockey, but mom’s rule was if he or his siblings weren’t playing or at practice, they’d be at their dad’s games.
It was no fun up here in the box.
His eleven-year old sister, Myke, sat down beside him.
Plopped in the chair beside him, was more like it.
“How’s it goin’?” she asked him. Myke was cool for a girl. She played hockey too, and was almost better than him.
Almost.
With his chin resting on his crossed arms, he merely shrugged his shoulders once, letting them drop immediately.
“You excited about the baby?” she asked with a smile.
That was the other thing that was the pits. Their mom was having another baby. Probably another girl. There was just Jonny and him, and sure, Jonny was fun and all, but…another girl was just not something he thought he could handle. He already had four girls in his life, including his mom. There was simply not enough room in the Prescott household for another one. No room at all. Four was just way too many.
He kept his eye down on the neutral zone; the puck was about to be dropped. Maybe if he ignored her enough, Myke would leave him alone.
When he became a professional hockey player, because he would, he’d have no time for girls, for coaching, for moving. He was going to play hockey and only play hockey.
Just hockey.
None of that…extra stuff.
When Avery screamed out, telling their mom in her babyish way that she needed something (her juice, probably), he rolled his eyes.
No extra stuff at all.
April, Present Day
Sydney
After a stressful day of exams, I was ready for a glass of chocolate wine. Whoever decided to put chocolate and wine together in one glass was a freaking genius.
I opened the door to my cozy, some would say quaint, apartment and tossed my keys in the bowl I kept on the table there. I quickly closed the door behind me, bolting and chain-locking it, before haphazardly dropping my messenger bag from my shoulder to the floor.
I’d move it in a little bit. The only thing in it was notes upon notes, and those puppies could burn. That class was done; finito, sayonara, adios senior-year marketing. Just a set of grades between me and a degree.
The classes were a breeze. I was just having a hard time narrowing my final direction down. I’ve always wanted my hands in everything; from wedding planning, to advertising, and even theater management.
Couldn’t act worth a damn, but I loved all the behind the scenes stuff.
Last summer, I interned with a local wedding planner and had a blast. I definitely could see myself in that business. Granted, I hadn’t experienced any bridezillas but I certainly heard the stories. While that route seemed to be my direction, a classmate of mine told me about a paid internship he was doing with a semi-big production company and it left me more than a little curious.
Perhaps some would call me an overachiever.
I would say I just liked to keep busy.
And because, you know, senior year classes and college graduation weren’t keeping me busy enough, on top of my job at the college bookstore, mind you, I asked for more information. So now I was getting meagerly paid to study under some talent director out of LA. Not a bad gig, right?
Did I mention I live in Utah..? Yeah, Utah. Not California. So the
logistics of this understudy thing were a little wonky to me, but in the age of the internet and Skype meetings, it seemed to be working well.
I essentially just did research for David, the guy I was working under. He gave me a name; I Googled the heck out of said person. He gave me a scripted location; I found a way to make it come alive in some back-lot studio—that I’ve never been to.
I was pretty sure that anything I emailed him was getting sent to the trash bin and whenever he appeared to be taking notes during our Skype meetings, he was actually just doodling…I don’t know, cars or something…but I enjoyed this digging into stuff.
Maybe I should have gone into intelligence…
I digress.
It’s been a few days since David last talked to me. He said he’d have a bigger project for me the next time we spoke, so I made sure all my ducks were in a row, school-wise, but the way it was looking, I was going to have a weekend to read anything that wasn’t a textbook.
Or maybe I could go to a movie.
Not that there was anything out…
After toeing off my ballet flats, I walked through my white on white apartment toward the little kitchenette, pulling my long red hair off my neck and into a high messy top-knot. I grabbed a wine glass from the rack before opening up my fridge to grab that delectable chocolate wine I’d been thinking about since turning in my last exam. Just as I was about to pour though, the sound of Adam Levine singing about being locked away, in that sexy…sexy…voice of his, broke the silence, muffled as it was.
Putting both the glass and bottle down on the counter, I treaded back to my messenger bag to grab my cell from the side pocket.
The bag may have ended up back on the floor by the door.
Like I said, I’d move it later. For being such an organized person, I sure had little care over my bag. It was the one thing I tended to toss wherever.
Glancing at the screen showed me David was calling. Looked like he was making good on that so-called ‘bigger project’. I slid the unlock bar over to answer the call as I fell onto my couch, surrounded by my gold and brown pillows. “Good afternoon, David. How are you?”
“I have that assignment for you,” he said, cutting straight to the chase.
I sat up a little straighter from my seat on the couch and tried not to grin. I was super curious as to what he managed to put together for a student like myself. It wasn’t like you needed a degree for this particular field, but if this did turn out to be the avenue I’d pursue, I wanted all the knowledge I could get.
I always kept a notebook and pen on the coffee table in front of my couch. I reached for them, narrowly missing the trio of candles that also sat there. I crossed one leg over the other, clicking the pen in place and securing my cell between my shoulder and ear.
“Ok, shoot.”
“I’m going to have you do some casting. Your research ability has been pretty impressive, and I’d like to see how you fare with casting. Obviously, the final casting will go through me, but you do great leg work.”
“Alright, awesome. What type of show are we looking at?”
“Dating show.”
And just like that, my mega-watt grin faded a little.
Or a lot. It wasn’t like I was looking in a mirror. A dating show was not what I was going for. One, dating shows were a dime a dozen and aside from the ones that had a solid fan following, they didn’t do too well in the ratings. And two, the guys and girls on these shows were terribly fake.
Who the hell finds love in a few weeks? And who wants to share her man with fifty thousand other girls, as they stick their tongues down his throat? Certainly not me.
No. Thank. You.
David continued on, so I paid attention, scribbling notes as he spoke. “The single guy is going to be an athlete. We’ve come up with a short list of men we’d like to try out, and your job is to find them, talk to them, talk them into the idea. Get a gist for what they’re looking for in an ideal partner. You know, that kind of thing.”
“And the athletes?” My pen was poised and ready.
“Well, the one we really want is Caleb Prescott.”
Didn’t ring any bells.
“…and?” He did say athletes, did he not?
“Just work the Prescott angle for now. See what you can get; talk him into it.”
“Who exactly is this…Caleb Prescott?”
There was a pause on the other line, followed by a slight sigh, and I imagined David running his hand down his face in frustration. “He’s a hockey forward—”
…and that would be why my bell hadn’t rung. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hockey game, outside of flipping past one during the Winter Olympics.
“…plays for the San Diego Enforcers. His father played NHL, won a ton of awards. Currently coaches in Wisconsin. Caleb is one of six kids. Huge hockey family.”
“And if he says no?”
“We’ll work on it from there, but I really want Caleb on the show.” When David shot off Caleb’s agent’s phone number, I wrote it down. “Give him a call. Let me know by tomorrow, six p.m., the status. If you need to head out to him, tell me. We’ll pull strings and get you there.”
Six?
I put my pen down so I could pull my phone from my ear, the time flashing on the screen. I had less than twenty-four hours to figure this guy out, call him, talk him into the show…and what if he didn’t have an answer for me? What would I do then? Make a side trip to San Diego?
But then again…did I really have a choice? It really didn’t sound like it. Talk about a tight deadline.
When I put my phone back to my ear, David was going on about the premise for the show. I didn’t bother to write it down. A dating show was a dating show was a dating show. It sounded clichéd—like every other show of its type. While he continued on, I mentally flipped through my calendar. I always took the week of exams off from the bookstore, as well as the following week to regroup. I wouldn’t have to worry about work, and I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything else I had planned.
When all was said and done, and my call with David was complete, I tossed my notebook down on the couch beside me. Pursing my lips, I puffed out my cheeks in frustration. Besides random doodling, there wasn’t a whole lot going on on the page. ‘Dating show’ and ‘Caleb Prescott’ were the bolded items. The lines should be reading characters, wants, looks, actions…anything and everything more than…
…dating show stuff.
This was not going as I’d hoped.
For a first casting assignment? Quite frankly, it sucked.
Caleb
I shouldn’t have gone to O’Gallaghers with Jonny last night.
I pulled my pillow from under my head and, face planting into the mattress, pushed the sides as close to my ears as possible. Anything to block out the annoying ring of my cell phone.
Last night, San Diego won. As was tradition, Jon Jon and I went out on the town. Sometimes the other guys on the team would come along but for the most part, it was just me and the kid brother. Back in our peewee hockey days, mom would take us to McDonald’s; in college, the one year he and I attended at the same time, we would party in my dorm. Now, we went out, partied long and hard, and of course, shut it down. Most of the bartenders looked the other way with some of the younger athletes in town, and we could always count on Conor O’Gallagher. Rumor had it the O’Gallaghers were a little rough around the edges. Probably why Conor was willing to overlook Jonny not quite being twenty-one yet.
Both Jonny and I had been drafted to the San Diego Enforcers. During my senior year of college, Jonny’s freshman year, we both walked into training camp as college kids with great stats, and walked out with spots on the roster. Sure, the Prescott name means something to the organization, but Jonny was a damn good goaltender, and my stats were better than dad’s in the respect he didn’t touch majors until he was in his mid-twenties, having played in the American league for a few years beforehand.
Last night’s win meant the
Enforcers were that much closer to Sir Stanley and his Cup. Finals were well within our reach. All we had to do was win Tuesday night’s game and we’d make it into the next round. It was a close series, but the odds were in our favor. With Jonny in net, Vegas had to pull all the punches to get the puck past him.
I sighed blissfully when my phone finally stopped ringing, but just as I was about to drop off that sharp edge of sleep, Jonny slammed my bedroom door open. I lifted the pillow enough to look over my shoulder at the intrusion, watching as my boxer-clad brother tossed the cordless house phone onto my bed, bouncing off my hamstring–a little too close for comfort.
“Fucking asshole.”
Jonny merely raised a dark blond brow. Oh, the perks of sharing a condo with your younger brother.
I guess it could be worse. My sisters weren’t exactly the easiest to live with.
“Next time, wake up and answer your damn phone,” Jonny grumbled. “There’s a lady on the other end, and I don’t think she much appreciated my sarcasm.”
I reached back for the phone with one hand as I tossed the pillow aside with the other, before shooting Jonny the bird. As I put the phone to my ear, I watched my twenty-year old brother shuffle back toward his own room. “Caleb,” I said on the exhale of a tired sigh.
“Um, hi,” came the voice on the other end. Female, like Jonny said. Not high pitched, but not as sexy and throaty as some female voices were. Nervous, maybe. I didn’t think I knew her voice, and the landline number was pretty locked down, so she couldn’t be some weird stalker chick. I squeezed my eyes shut briefly. Way too much thinking for this hour.
“I’m so sorry that this seems to be an inopportune time. I figured you’d be up and moving, as it’s ten.” Was it ten already? “I thought that was the time you started practice on game days. I’m on a tight deadline and was really hoping to just leave a message.” Ah, she didn’t expect to actually talk to me.
“And this is…” I stated, not asked, before yawning.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized again. “My name is Sydney Meadows and I’m calling on behalf of Sorenson Media Group. I tried to reach you through your agent, but he directed me straight to you.”
