by Savanna Fox
“He’s all man,” Terry said, “and he has a talent for telling sports stories and making them come to life.”
As Georgia typed that, Viv leaned forward. “All man is good. A masculine edge is great. But crudeness isn’t. Nor swearing.”
Georgia nodded firmly.
“I don’t swear in interviews. They teach us not to.”
“I saw an interview where you did,” Georgia said. “Repeatedly. You had blood dripping down your face and the censor’s bleeper could barely keep up with you.”
He winced. “Yeah, I know the one. Got reamed out for it.”
“The game with the Flames?” Terry asked.
Woody nodded. “It was the last few seconds and I could’ve tied the score. Asshole defenseman slashes me across the face and hipchecks me into the boards. Buzzer goes off; we lose. Skating off the ice, someone sticks a mike in my face. Yeah, I was steamed; didn’t watch what I said.”
“Beaver fans were steamed too,” Terry said. “They were swearing too.”
“Which doesn’t excuse it,” Georgia said.
Woody shook his head. “Nah.”
“We can help you with communication,” Viv said. “So you can talk articulately and not offend anyone.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all the stuff we’re supposed to say. Mostly, I do it.”
“True,” Viv said. “Terry can help you make it sound more fresh and genuine.”
“Really don’t like talking to the media,” Woody grumbled.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to,” Georgia said. “And we’ll set up public appearances with sports and recreation groups.” She glanced at Terry. “I guess they’ll want him to talk about hockey, his career, sportsmanship, things like that?”
“And the Olympics and Stanley Cup,” he added. “We’ll figure out the kinds of questions people are likely to ask, then work out good answers and rehearse them.”
“Rehearse?” Woody asked grimly.
They certainly didn’t want to rely on him to say the right thing. While Georgia struggled for a polite way to phrase that, Terry spoke up. “Think of it as training camp.”
She shot him a grateful look.
“He should be able to talk about more than sports,” Viv said. “Politics, world affairs, culture.”
“Oh, is that all?” Woody asked sarcastically.
“You’re a jock,” Terry said. “No one’s going to expect you to talk like a rocket scientist or a foreign diplomat or a Pulitzer Prize– winning author.”
Georgia muttered, “Thank God,” under her breath. She did a quick mental review of what they’d covered so far, and reached a conclusion that appealed to her about as much as putting on one of those huge, ugly hockey uniforms and skating onto the ice. Still, this was her campaign, her responsibility. Billy had given it to her over Harry, her competition, and she was determined to prove herself. “Viv’s handling appearance and Terry’s handling the sports end, so I’ll take the other communication aspects.”
“Can’t think of anything I’d rather do than communicate with you,” Woody said in a tone that was half taunt, half protest.
“And deportment,” she added.
“Deportment? Jesus, it sounds like a girls’ finishing school.”
She ignored him. “Moving on. We’ve talked about scheduling sports interviews and appearances. Let’s think more broadly.”
For a few minutes, she and Terry and Viv batted around ideas like TV interviews, talk radio, podcasts, YouTube, Twitter, and so on.
Woody listened, looking unhappy. “If I gotta do this kind of stuff, how ’bout The Ellen Show?”
“Ellen?” Georgia asked.
“You know, DeGeneres.”
What was the man thinking? “That won’t work. It’s American, and we’d never get you on.” He really did have an inflated idea of his own importance.
“Oh, okay.” Woody frowned. “Guess I misunderstood. Thought you said brainstorming meant discussing, not ruling things out.”
Georgia glared at him.
A chuckle escaped Viv before she cut it off.
He was right, and Georgia hated it. “I stand corrected,” she said grimly. “Fine, let’s discuss The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
Viv said quickly, “Lots of Canadian women, even a number of men, watch it. I think it’s a good idea, Woody, but I’m afraid Georgia’s right and it might be difficult to get you on it.”
That was what Georgia should have said. Woody did not bring out the best in her. Probably because her body was so aware of him, tingling like there was an electrical charge in the air.
Woody smiled at Viv. “I met Ellen at a charity event. She’s nice. We talked about her doing a show on how women view sports like hockey and football.”
He had to be blowing hot air. The urge to call his bluff was irresistible. “I think that’s an excellent idea. Are you willing to give Ms. DeGeneres a call, Woody?”
“Sure,” he said offhandedly.
“Do let us know how that goes.” The thought of his ego being taken down a notch made her smile with genuine pleasure.
To her surprise, he returned the smile. “You got it, sunshine.”
She frowned. Earlier, he’d called Viv “sunshine.” Was it some generic thing he used for all females? Probably he called the puck bunnies sunshine too. It might work on them, but Georgia didn’t find it the least bit flattering.
Viv said, “Let’s talk about the schedule. I’ll arrange a wardrobe fitting with VitalSport, and custom tailoring for suits so Woody will be comfortable, and for hair—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get a haircut,” he said.
Viv’s blue eyes told Georgia, “Leave this to me.” The other woman smiled sweetly. “There’s a wonderful man I’d like you to see, Woody. Many of my clients go to Christopher Slate, and I do myself. He’s very talented. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
Georgia pressed her lips together to hold back a chuckle. She caught Terry’s gaze, also full of suppressed amusement. The poor sucker hasn’t a clue what he’s in for, their eyes telegraphed.
Viv gave Woody her most charming smile. “Will you do this for me?”
“Uh, sure, I guess.” He shifted in his chair, then flashed her a grin. “Anything for you, sunshine.”
Georgia’s amusement vanished. “Woody, did you bring your schedule of games and travel?”
His guilty expression told her he hadn’t.
Terry took over the laptop, pulling up the game schedule on the Beavers’ website, then typing it into a spreadsheet along with the practice and travel times Woody provided from memory.
Georgia frowned at the screen. “So, Woody is heading out of town tomorrow, Thursday, and won’t be back until Monday.” She turned to him. “It’s going to make things difficult, you traveling so much.”
“And once the Beavers win the Western Conference,” Terry said, “they’ll be into the finals for the Stanley Cup, against whoever wins the Eastern Conference.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Woody said, shifting restlessly.
“And that means another travel schedule to work around,” Georgia said. “On the other hand, it will certainly work better for the campaign if the Beavers win the Stanley Cup.”
Woody shot her a nasty look. “I’ll be sure to tell the coaches and my teammates. It’ll really help motivate them.”
“I’m just saying—” She stopped herself. She was in charge, and didn’t have to justify herself to this man. “Terry, for the next couple of days, can you work on a tentative schedule for interviews and appearances, and some interview questions and suggested answers? Let’s you, Viv, and I get together on Friday to discuss them.”
Staring at the dates projected on the screen, she accepted the inevitable. “Woody, we need to start working on communication and deportment. The only possible time before next week is today. Are you available?”
Something sparked in his eye. Something very masculine, that made something very feminine inside
her respond. “Available?” he drawled. “Guess I could be available. For you.”
That spark, that drawl, and all she could think of was sex on the table. But no, that would never happen again. She only hoped she and Woody could be civil, and work productively together. “Great,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
The four of them left the conference room together, and Terry and Viv branched off toward their offices.
Woody said, “So, Georgia, your car’s okay, right?”
“My car?” She stopped dead. “Oh, damn, I forgot about it.”
Nine
Women. Abandon a broken-down car, then just forget? Georgia closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. “I’ll get it later, see if it starts, call for a tow or whatever. Our priority is the campaign.”
Yeah, she’d made that clear in the meeting. Interviews, rehearsals, deportment lessons, haircuts, clothes fittings. They wanted to twist him all out of shape and force him to talk to the media. And model gonch.
Nervous energy coiled in his body and the idea of sitting and talking for another hour about his own inadequacies drove him nuts. He needed to move, to do something.
Georgia might be the head coach, but sometimes a guy had to take charge. “We’re supposed to be working on communication. We can communicate while we deal with your car.”
A rare smile flashed. “Are you saying you can do two things at once?”
That smile transformed her. The stiffness left her face as her lips curved and her eyes danced. Man, she was pretty.
Starting to feel better, he said, “Been known to happen.” A fact she’d have known if she had the slightest understanding of hockey.
He reached toward her, intending to cup his hand around her upper arm and head her in the direction of the elevator.
She leaped away before he could touch her, saying in a falsely hearty voice, “You win—the car it is.”
This morning, there’d been tension between them. Sometimes, like yesterday, tension meant sex. Now the way she reacted to his touch told him that wasn’t going to happen again. He’d had his chance with her, and he’d blown it when he blew his cork like an adolescent.
So yeah, he’d try to put that humiliating experience behind him.
He exchanged a few words with Sandra, the receptionist; then he and Georgia took the elevator down to street level. They walked in silence to the lot where he’d parked his Porsche Carrera—a car he’d have had to sell but for the VitalSport deal. He opened the passenger door, but, rather than get in, she stood studying his car.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked defensively. All morning, she’d criticized him. Was she going to pick on his car too?
“Nothing.” She sounded surprised. “It’s classy rather than flashy. Black was a good choice. Yes, I’d say it’s distinctive but not pretentious.”
Relieved, he winked at her. “Drives fast too.”
Her eyes flared in what looked like fear. What was that about?
The thought vanished as she maneuvered herself into the car, and he enjoyed the way her navy skirt rode up to reveal delicate knees clad in sheer hose.
He slid behind the steering wheel, very aware of how close she was. The last time he’d been this close to Georgia, he’d been screwing her. His cock pulsed to life, and again he was glad of the loose jersey that covered his fly.
“It’s awfully small, isn’t it?” she said, a little breathlessly.
“Excuse me?” Now she was insulting his cock?
She gestured, and he realized she meant the inside of the car.
“Kinda like the cockpit of a plane,” he said. If he’d been on his own, he’d have put the top down, but he figured she’d complain about the wind messing up her hair. “Where’d you say you left your car?”
“I was coming down Burrard and it was in the intersection of Robson, so I pulled into the nearest loading zone around the corner. Let’s see, uh …”
“You don’t know the name of the street where you left it?”
She shot him a nasty look. “I know exactly where it is. Drive and I’ll direct you.”
He threaded the Porsche through traffic-clogged downtown streets until, after a few misses, they arrived at the right place. Except there was no car. He’d expected that. “Towed.”
“Oh no.”
Woody slipped the Porsche into the loading zone, clicked off the ignition, and turned to her. “You left it in a commercial loading zone. Didn’t you figure it’d get towed?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she flared. “I had to get to the meeting. Well, damn. Where would they have taken it?”
“How should I know? I’d never let anyone get their hands on this baby.” He stroked the leather dash. “Terry might know. Give him a call.”
“Good idea.” She reached down for her briefcase, then groaned. “My cell’s in my purse.”
“Where’s your purse?”
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “In my car.”
He stared at her, and another thought struck him. “Did you take your keys?” Maybe her car hadn’t been towed, but stolen.
“Of course I did,” she snapped. “And yes, I locked the car.”
He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out his cell, and said, “Crap. Mine’s dead.” Coming home hammered last night, he’d been lucky to make it into bed, much less charge his phone. But he did have a battery charger in the glove compartment. He reached over to open the compartment and his hand grazed Georgia’s leg.
She jerked. “What are you doing?”
He yanked his hand back. “Jesus, woman, don’t be so jumpy. You do it, then. Open the glove compartment and dig out my cell charger.”
“Sorry,” she muttered. She fumbled with the release button and the compartment sprang open, the contents cascading out in a mad, noisy tumble.
With quick reflexes, Woody grabbed the cell charger while the rest of the items landed on Georgia’s lap and the floor at her feet.
“Sorry,” she said again, beginning to collect them and put them back. A package of tissues, miniature flashlight. Corkscrew. Swiss Army knife. She bent and scrabbled around at her feet, coming up with a bunch of condoms.
She dropped the cellophane packages like she’d picked up a handful of worms, and they cascaded back to the floor.
Woody wasn’t going to try leaning across her again, and she made no move to retrieve them. In fact, she’d pretty much frozen into a block of ice.
He plugged in the charger, and in a few seconds the phone was functional again.
She gave him her office number, he got through to Terry, and then he pulled away from the curb. “The lot’s near the Main Street SkyTrain Station.”
She rubbed her neck again, something she’d done a number of times yesterday and today. “We really don’t have time for this.”
“You okay?”
“Just a bit of a headache.”
“You get ’em a lot, huh?”
She stretched and he heard the crinkle of condom wrappers under her feet. He hoped her shoes weren’t trashing them. He relied on condoms. Had since he’d first had sex at age fourteen. In fact, he had condoms stashed—
“Do they occur frequently?” she asked.
“Huh? What? Condoms?”
“What?” She sounded shocked, outraged. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a laugh spluttered. “I meant headaches,” she managed to say, giggling. “I was trying to”—giggle—“work on communication skills.”
Now he got it, and laughed too. When he glanced over, his eyes met her dancing ones. “You mean like this?” He put on his best imitation of a snotty upper-crust English accent. “It occurred to me to wonder whether your headaches occur frequently, Ms. Malone?” By the time he finished, his voice had disintegrated into laughter again, and she was chuckling.
This was good, the two of them laughing together rather than her picking on him or ordering him around. Man, she was pretty when she laughed.
She shifted position, an
d wrappers crackled under her feet.
Pretty Georgia, animated and laughing.
Condoms.
And his growing hard-on. “We’d better get a move on,” he said gruffly. He accelerated to catch the tail end of a yellow light, and heard a soft gasp beside him. When they’d cleared the intersection, he glanced at his passenger. Her hands gripped the seat belt, knuckles white.
“I’m a good driver. Never had an accident.”
“I believe you.” She gritted the words out between clenched teeth. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d slow down.”
He sighed and obeyed. “Yeah, okay, but it takes all the fun out of it.”
He slid the driver-side window down and rested his arm on it, driving with just his right hand as he took the Georgia Street Viaduct toward Main.
“Do you have to drive with one hand?”
Ticked, Woody lifted both hands from the wheel. “Guess not. She’s a good little car; she can manage on autopilot for a while.”
He repented when he saw Georgia’s face. Her normal skin color was pale, but now she’d gone as white as his Egyptian cotton sheets.
“Sorry.” He put his hands at ten and two, eased off on the gas, and puttered along like a little old lady out for a Sunday afternoon drive.
He found the lot, stopped the Porsche, and climbed out.
Georgia clambered out awkwardly, clearly not a woman who had experience with sports cars. “I wonder if these people only tow away parking violators,” she mused, “or if they do other towing? I’ll need to get the car to my repair shop.”
“Hold your horses. First we’ll find out if your car’s here, and what’s wrong with it.”
“How would we know what’s wrong with it?”
Woody rolled his eyes and stomped over to the claim window, with her scurrying to catch up. When she gave her license number, the pimply kid in the booth said, “Yeah, it’s here. Over in that corner.” He pointed.
“So what happened?” Woody asked Georgia as they headed in that direction. “Run out of gas?”
“I did not. No, I think the engine caught on fire.”
“What?” He stopped abruptly and grabbed her arm. “Fire?”
