A Bear Goal

by Anya Nowlan

  “I’m sure. Let’s not do anything any of us regrets later, okay?”

  “Okay. But I’m only doing this because you asked me to,” he said, his whisper so quiet that it remained between Sable and him despite their close quarters with her twin stepbrothers.

  “Yeah, you better fucking walk away,” Cayman huffed as Heath peeled away, heading straight for the door, only grabbing his jacket on the way out.

  Sable let out a quick breath, and when she looked around, giving an awkward smile, she could see that there had been more than one local ready to jump in. Shifter Grove didn’t fuck around with confrontations like that in a public place. She could see the sheriff, Diesel, slowly sitting back down, and the guys who were responsible for building most of the town, the Warfang twins, turned back to their meals as well.

  “Let’s just settle down here, okay?” Sable asked, shooing her brothers to get their asses back in the seats. “Try not to beat someone to death every time you think they’ve wronged you.”

  “I’m serious, Sable. If you’ve been fucking around with him, you better stop. I won’t promise to be nice to that motherfucker on or off the ice,” Cayman said, his jaw still clenched and his body practically vibrating with rage.

  That way, he sort of looked like a very large, very pissed-off toddler. But Sable knew that this guy could punch through concrete if he had to, making his fussy spells a lot more dangerous.

  “Right,” she said, pushing her plate away and grabbing her phone off the table. “I’ve suddenly lost my appetite. I wonder why that is.”

  The game couldn’t come fast enough. Both because the Predators and the Shovelers might rip one another apart in a town Shifter Grove’s size, and because Sable was losing her mind staying away from Heath for so long.

  Who the hell am I supposed to root for now?

  She grabbed her coat and got out of the diner. Life had a really crappy way of going from bad to worse lately and she wasn’t particularly appreciative of it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Heath

  “This is a motherfucking shitshow,” Jax commented in a leisurely fashion as Heath and he came to a stop during a slight lull in the game.

  The scoreboard read 2–2, Shovelers versus Predators, and the small crowd was so amped up that any little thing could set them off. Heath, however, was sort of okay with everything. The fact that he hadn’t been able to get a moment away with Sable for a few days again was weighing on his mind, but he knew it was for a good enough reason.

  Just have to win this. Then we’ll be able to get together again, he reminded himself.

  “Can’t argue with that,” Heath agreed, looking at the too-small jersey Jax was still wearing and the fact that he himself had brought one of his own hockey sticks.

  Their supply team—or Jake as he could currently be called, as the team consisted of one guy who couldn’t possibly be expected to handle everything—wasn’t exactly on the ball yet. Heath couldn’t help but think that if Sable was doing this job on her own, everything would be ship-shape. But then again, just about every thought he had recently was about Sable, so that was hardly surprising.

  “You’re damn serene for a guy who’s getting his ass kicked on live television,” Jax snorted as the ref got in place again and the game was about to go on.

  “Fuck you, man,” Heath scoffed with a grin, shoving his mouthguard back into place and skating up front past the first line of defenders on the Predators’ side.

  It wasn’t like Jax wasn’t right, though. The Lynderly twins had been on him like a bad cold since the faceoff and Heath was starting to wonder if perhaps the brothers didn’t want to date him more eagerly than Sable did. He’d commented about it to Caleb and Heath had been surprised that the guy’s eyeballs didn’t pop out of their sockets for how pissed off he got.

  More fuel to the fire. An angry player is a player who makes mistakes—a mantra that had been repeated to Heath time and time again.

  So far, Heath had been on his best behavior. He’d barely even decked anyone. His mood was just too damn good, thinking of what was likely to follow after he got off the ice that day and could pull Sable into his arms and properly kiss her again. Maybe even show her what he could do on a vertical space, say a bed, instead of cooped up in a closet or in a car. He couldn’t wait.

  Heath grinned to himself as the puck was passed to him by Memphis, the big defender slicking it across the ice with a smooth wrist shot. Heath caught it on the stick and forced it down on the ice, keeping it in front of him as he burst into action. He weaved between the Predators’ defenders, faking past one of them to come face-to-face with the goalie, his old friend and the guy standing between him and Sable as far as Heath was currently concerned.

  He was lining up the shot when suddenly he felt like he got hit by a semi-truck. Heath was slammed down on the ground full force from behind, sliding past the goal and colliding with the partition with a loud thud. He could distantly hear the gasps from the crowd as he scrambled to get on his feet, his head ringing, but as soon as he could get on his knees he got punched in the face by someone he couldn’t quite make out.

  “Motherfucker,” Heath hissed, hopping back up in earnest now to see Cayman and Caleb staring at him with wide, mocking grins.

  “Can’t take a little tough love, huh?” Caleb asked.

  Heath glanced at the rest of his teammates, who were getting into scuffles with the Predators when they were trying to make it over to him. The ref was trying to tear apart Memphis and Remy, which was a daring feat considering the size of those two. But what it meant was that Heath was left to fend for himself against the Lynderly twins and no help was immediately forthcoming.

  He shucked off his gloves as the Lynderlys did the same, dropping their hockey sticks with their lips pulled back in almost matching snarls.

  “Fuck, guys, you’re both so ugly I don’t even know who to start with. I guess I’ll have to write your parents a letter later, saying no thanks are necessary for improving on your looks because honestly, whatever I do can just make it better.”

  He grinned darkly and apparently neither of the werewolves particularly appreciated that. With a noise that could only be defined as a hiss, Caleb threw off his helmet and lunged at Heath. The big bear sidestepped easily, in time to catch Cayman’s fist and lock it in his grip, twisting it around so Cayman had to turn his back to Heath. With a merciless shove, Heath sent him tumbling down on the ice.

  Caleb had gotten back up on his feet and came for Heath, fists swinging. He caught Heath on the side of the head, making him growl and flip around so he could match the punch. He wound it up and when he hit, he could feel something cracking against his knuckles as Caleb was thrown back viciously, the back of his head slamming against the plastic partition and his eyes going wide.

  He slumped down on his ass and Heath shook his hand for a moment, his eyes dark brown and filled with irritation.

  “Fucking chumps,” he muttered, glancing up to see if he could find Sable in the crowd and try and figure out whether he’d just increased or decreased his chances of having a good evening with her now.

  Considering the kind of assholes her brothers were, he couldn’t imagine him beating one or both of them up to be anything but a boon to his attempts at wooing the difficult Miss Lynderly. But it also meant that he was distracted for a fraction of a second and Cayman could grab him by his jersey and wrestle him down to the ground. By the time the referees got to them, they had their hands around each other’s necks and Heath was this close to shifting and wreaking havoc on the goddamn wolves.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time it had happened. The closer to nationals it got, the more likely it was for someone to lost their cool, shift in the middle of a game, and try to rip out someone else’s throat. It was probably why they got such high attendance numbers during the games the further into the season things got. Everybody loves some unexpected but entirely welcomed carnage.

  ”Break it up or I’m going t
o suspend all of you for the rest of the season.”

  The magic words were spoken and Caleb and Heath let go of one another immediately. Grumbling, they both got up and Cayman helped Caleb as well, who was clutching his jaw. Heath could see something on the ice that looked like a tooth, and a quick check of his own confirmed that he’d managed to keep all of his. He grinned.

  The Lynderlys didn’t match his smile.

  “I appreciated the date, boys. Next time, bring me flowers when you want my attention, will you?” he taunted as he skated toward the timeout box.

  But despite his cool demeanor, inside he was burning up. He wanted nothing more now than to be back on that ice and show those wolfy fucks how things were done, most notably by cracking a few skulls that belonged to them. His hands twisted around his stick and his brows were knit, aggravation and aggression hanging around him like a cloud.

  In fact, he was so pissed he almost didn’t notice when Sable came to stand next to the timeout box, rasping her knuckles against the plastic. When he did finally look up, it took a moment for his vision to clear from the haze of anger.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, though the corner of his mouth quirked in a smile.

  “Hey, I just wanted to tell you to chill the fuck out,” she said, her voice sounding strained.

  “I didn’t fucking start it. It was your goddamn brothers,” Heath began defensively, but the look in her eyes told him that she wasn’t scolding him about his behavior.

  “I get that. I’m just saying, you play like shit when you’re pissed off. Don’t play like shit. There’s a game to win here,” she said, her last few words urgent and hushed, as if she thought someone was going to overhear her and burn her as a witch on the stake for saying something so… anti-patriotic to someone on the opposing team!

  Heath frowned, and then his expression cleared when the realization of what she was telling him hit him. She was worried about him. The way her lips were drawn thin and her cheeks flushed with pink should have tipped him off immediately. Despite the rage still boiling inside of him, he smiled wide.

  “Calm down, will you?” she said, a bit flustered, before turning around and hurrying off before someone caught them talking.

  “Yes ma’am,” he whispered with a chuckle before turning his attention back to the game.

  Hell, if Sable was telling him to get it together, then who was he to deny her wish, right? The flame of anger turned into something much softer and more pleasant within him, heating him with a glow as he sat on the bench like a fool in love.

  But that was what he was, a fool and most definitely in love. It was that small gesture that had made everything click into place. He loved her. She was the one he hadn’t known he was looking for, and he’d found her at a hockey game of all places.

  I’m going to win this and then I’ll win her.

  Nothing was going to stop him now. When he got the signal that he was allowed back on the ice, Heath Locklear took the rink like a bat out of hell, grinning. The Predators wouldn’t know what hit them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sable

  Where the hell are they? Sable wondered to herself, tapping her foot as her arms were crossed over her chest.

  She checked her phone for about the tenth time since the game, finding no message from Heath. The plan was to wait until Cayman and Caleb got on the bus and then tell them she’d be catching up in a car later, just to make sure that her destructive brothers were out of town before she went to talk to Heath again. The Predators were in no mood to joke around after their 4–3 loss to the Shovelers, sufficiently ending their bid for regionals and nationals as well.

  She’d been tiptoeing around the rest of the players, who’d changed with record speed after the final horn was blown and shuffled into the bus, morose and quiet. But she would have expected to find Cayman and Caleb to be right among their teammates, cursing and generally letting off steam. The fact that they were both missing and that Heath hadn’t hit her up on SassyDate yet was starting to get a little bit weird.

  “Coach, are we about done here?” Sable asked, seeing Jefferson milling around outside the bus, having a smoke. He looked like he wasn’t enjoying Idaho, the crisp mountain air, or anything else for that matter.

  “Just waitin’ on your damn brothers,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, taking a toke from his cigarette which was hanging lazily from the corner of his mouth.

  “I’ll go see what’s keeping them,” Sable said with a sigh, shoving her hands in her pockets and hunching her shoulders up against the cold.

  It was dark out now and it got real cold real fast in Shifter Grove that time of the year, even when packed into some warm clothes. Or it might have also been the chill of excitement that kept her buzzing and feeling either too much or too little, Sable wasn’t entirely sure.

  Stalking out of the parking lot, she went to round the corner behind where the team entrances were, the large, looming Shifter Grove Ice Arena almost ghostly now that most everyone had left. As soon as she stepped into view of the entrances, she skidded to a grinding halt.

  There, in the middle of the dimly lit area in front of the entrances stood a large, pissed off grizzly bear, staring down two werewolves. Werewolves who looked very, very familiar.

  Oh no they fucking didn’t, Sable thought, dread filling her up like ice in a cocktail glass.

  She burst into a run immediately, but there was a fair amount of distance between herself and the three large beasts. It didn’t take much to realize that the bear Cayman and Caleb were facing was none other than Heath, and her stomach sunk at the thought of what could happen next.

  Heath was far larger than the two vicious werewolves but if Sable knew anything about her stepbrothers then it was that they wouldn’t back away from a fight, especially one that they themselves had orchestrated. The low, hissing growl of Cayman snaked right through her so loudly that she could hear it from afar. Caleb snapped his jaws at Heath, the two werewolves splitting up and trying to distract Heath on either side so the other could lunge at his neck or soft belly.

  Heath looked sullen, almost defensive, though Sable had read up about him enough to be sure that if he wanted to, he could plow through the werewolves easily enough. It must have been a sign of how violently pissed off the Lynderlys were to even attempt this, as usually they had at least some sense when picking their enemies. Heath Locklear was just a bit too much bear to bite off, though.

  “Stop! Don’t you fucking dare!” Sable screamed at the top of her lungs, the cold air scratching her throat as she heaved in breaths. “If any of you lays a goddamn tooth on the other I’m going to disown both of you. I mean all of you!”

  Her high-pitched yelp was loud enough to get the bear and the wolves to look at her, all of them thrown for a moment. But Heath’s eyes seemed to grow soft as he looked at Sable, and it was a moment too late that she realized that she’d actually helped her stepbrothers. As if controlled by the same mind, the two werewolves burst forward, their maws twisted with snarls, their teeth sinking into Heath’s neck.

  Heath roared, rearing up on his powerful back legs and trying to shove the wolves off. His claws hooked into Caleb’s side and with a whine, the wolf was thrown off, leaving only Cayman to still hold on. Sable watched in horror as Caleb slumped to the ground, trying to get back up. She heard footsteps behind her back and looking over her shoulder, she could see Remy, Solo, Coach Jefferson, and a couple other team members running toward the action.

  “Oh thank God,” she whispered.

  When she looked back to Heath and Cayman, she caught the exact moment when Heath slammed Cayman into the ground, crushing him underneath his massive weight. But Heath hopped up a second later, seeing the Predators draw near, and took several steps back. Sable found her bearings again and sprinted to him, stepping between him and the Predators like she had at the diner.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I saw everything.”

  “What the fuck is going on
here?” Coach Jefferson demanded, Caleb and Cayman both shifting back. “Who started this?”

  Caleb had a deep gash in his side and Cayman was disoriented, clutching his head and trying to breathe with more than tight wheezes.

  “It was him,” Caleb said, pointing at Heath.

  “What? Fuck you, man,” Sable snarled back, glancing back at Heath, who was now back in human form, towering over her with a stern look on his face. “I saw you two going for him. No way he started this. You were supposed to be out of here ten minutes ago and I’m damn sure you two assholes were waiting for him here.”

  She looked to Heath for confirmation and he shrugged his shoulders mildly, his lips sealed. Goddamn men and their odd sense of “honor.” Even when the wolves were determined to gut him, Heath wouldn’t rat them out to their coach. Any fighting like that could mean getting kicked from a team or benched. The only scuffles anyone wanted to see had to take place on the ice. Off of it, they were supposed to be one happy, cuddly family of professional ass-kickers.

  “This true?” Coach Jefferson asked, turning his attention to the Lynderly twins, strewn out on the snow.

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Cayman wheezed.

  “I bet you don’t,” the scraggly coach said. “Fine, load these two fuckers on the bus. I’ll deal with you later. And you,” he said, pointing at Heath, who raised up his hands like it was a stick-up. “You better bet I’ll talk to Wiley as well about this. I don’t care who started it, you’re supposed to be smarter than this. All three of you.”

  Sable bit her tongue, wanting so bad to butt into the conversation again, but she waited patiently until the Predators scooped up her growling, pissed-off stepbrothers, carting them back to the bus.

  “I’ll catch up,” she yelled after them, getting a half-hearted wave from Solo in response.

  Then she twisted around, coming to face Heath, and slammed both her palms into his chest in apparent aggravation. He didn’t move an inch. Damn hot, strong hockey player, impervious to her annoyance.