Shutout

by Jami Davenport

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1—New Beginnings

  Chapter 2—The Puck Brothers

  Chapter 3—A World Turned Upside Down

  Chapter 4—Holding All the Cards

  Chapter 5—Just Do It

  Chapter 6—The Hardest Thing

  Chapter 7—The Truth

  Chapter 8—Tattered Courage

  Chapter 9—Bad Game

  Chapter 10—Not Ready

  Chapter 11—Complications

  Chapter 12—Not Alone

  Chapter 13—Show Me

  Chapter 14—Mr. E

  Chapter 15—Delusional

  Chapter 16—Shameless

  Chapter 17—Ice Cream

  Chapter 18—Not Rushing

  Chapter 19—Up to the Task

  Chapter 20—In Motion

  Chapter 21—Eggnog Toasts

  Chapter 22—Dog Days

  Chapter 23—Flames in the Fireplace

  Chapter 24—A Big Step

  Chapter 25—Space Needed

  Chapter 26—Control

  Chapter 27—At an Impasse

  Chapter 28—What I Wanted

  Chapter 29—Good Morning

  Chapter 30—Routines

  Epilogue

  Complete Booklist

  About the Author

  Shutout

  A Seattle Sockeyes® Puck Brothers Novel

  The Scoring Series #1

  GAME ON IN SEATTLE

  By Jami Davenport®

  Copyright © 2020 by Cedrona Enterprises

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Jami Davenport. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with others, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Cover by Kim Killion

  Image by Wander Aguiar

  Cover model is Ben Smith

  The Seattle Sockeyes®, Seattle Steelheads®, and Seattle Skookums™ are fictional sports teams. Game On in Seattle™ is a series of sports romance novels The names and logos are created for the sole use of the owner and covered under protection of trademark.

  Jami Davenport®, Seattle Sockeyes®, and Seattle Steelheads® are registered trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

  This book is a work of fiction. While references might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning

  This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-age readers.

  Email: jamidavenport@hotmail.com

  Website: https://www.jamidavenport.com

  Twitter: @jamidavenport

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  Blurb

  Easton:

  Hockey isn’t forever.

  The money, excitement, and glory of being a professional hockey player meant more to me than a family, a home, and a forever. Another man has my forever, and I have hockey. I thought making the big bucks and playing against the best in the world would feel better than this. Instead I’m empty and hollow, like a big piece of my heart was hacked off. There's something missing. Something big. Something I can never get back.

  Caroline:

  I loved him, but he wasn’t the love of my life.

  My husband died too young, too suddenly, too tragically. I was unprepared with no education, no job skills, and no future plans. When a DNA test reveals my twins' true parentage, I have no choice but to do the right thing. I turn to the one man who’d turned his back on me all those years ago.

  I'd been shut out from his life, and I'd shut him out from mine. Can two strangers make a family? Do we have what it takes to forgive and move on?

  Dedication

  To Tera, my fabulous editor, who always does her best to make my books better.

  Author’s Note

  While starting a new series is exhilarating and motivating, it’s also daunting and scary. An author never truly knows how a series will be received by their readers. All we can do is write the best book we can and hope and pray it hits the mark.

  “The Scoring Series” is a continuation of the Seattle Sockeyes®. Shutout takes place the season following the team’s championship season. These are the young guy on the team, many of them rookies. I hope you’ll follow their stories as they fight to score in professional hockey, life, and love.

  Thank you for following me on this journey. It’s been an incredible ride so far, and I hope we’ll be together for many years to come.

  Prologue

  Two Years Prior

  ~~Easton~~

  Being a stalker was new to me, but I was a quick learner.

  I wasn’t able to find her on social media. Either she didn’t have a profile or she’d locked it down, which wouldn’t be unusual for a cautious single woman who always thought stuff through rather than flying by the seat of her pants like I had the tendency to do.

  Once I’d made my decision, I’d tracked Caroline down via an online service and paid forty dollars to get her address.

  I hadn’t seen her in years.

  I’d never been a huge hookup guy. More of a guy who dated a woman exclusively. I’d been dating the same woman all through my first few years of college, and we’d recently broken up. The split had been mutual. The relationship had run its course. I found myself looking for something I’d lost, something I’d walked away from, and wondering what could have been.

  I guess I was feeling melancholy.

  Hockey had always been enough for me, but lately it wasn’t. I was searching for that elusive thing called happiness, and eventually I turned to Caroline.

  Chalk it all up to loneliness.

  Caroline and I had enjoyed each other for a couple months when we were both teens. I’d been in Chicago for a summer hockey program taught by a well-known, highly respected former professional player. She’d just finished high school one year early and was working at the rink where I was skating.

  I’d ended it and most likely broken her heart. I hadn’t given her much thought until lately. Oh, there’d been moments when she’d invaded my sleep or crept into my daydreams. We were both older, hopefully wiser, and I was curious what’d happened to her.

  So here I was. Prepared to see if the old spark might still be there.

  I parked my rental car with the heavily tinted windows across the street from her address and waited, praying her neighbors wouldn’t notice and call the police. She lived in a nice subdivision near Chicago comprised of newer homes. The kind of subdivision families lived in, not normally a place where singles lived. I ignored that red flag. She probably rented a room with a few other women, or maybe she was a nanny. The Caro I knew had ambitions. She was going places. Her life was
completely mapped out, while I’d just stumbled through life with only one goal in mind—playing professional hockey.

  Hours later, I’d consumed most of my sandwich and soda with no sign of Caro. I was ready to give up when the front door opened. An average-sized guy walked out holding the hand of a little girl with blonde curls. I wasn’t good at judging kids’ ages, but she couldn’t be more than a few years old.

  This had to be the wrong address.

  I was about to turn the key in the ignition when the door opened again. A beautiful blonde woman hurried out the door, chasing a little boy, who barreled toward the man. The man picked him up and spun him around, while the woman smiled up at them. I heard their laughter through my rolled-up windows.

  Pain slammed into me harder than a sucker punch by the best enforcer in the league. Agony burned through my veins to every part of my body until the anguish was so great I went numb. I didn’t know how my lungs continued to breathe in the air around me or how my heart managed to keep pumping. Surely, it’d formed multiple cracks in the last several seconds.

  My strong reaction caught me off guard. Yeah, what we’d had had been fucking hot, and I’d like a do-over on ending it, but to have it affect me like this? I shook off the unwelcome emotions and denied their existence. Ours had been a young love, nothing more.

  I stared, willing my mind to make sense of what I was seeing, to tell me this wasn’t her but an apparition. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself this woman wasn’t Caroline Jones, I knew the truth. I knew her smile, her laugh, the way the sun glinted off her golden hair, the way she tilted her head when she was listening intently. I knew the way her body moved with the grace of a gazelle. Yeah, I knew it all.

  And there was one more thing I knew.

  This guy had Caro and his kids, while I had hockey.

  I’m not sure which one of us was luckier.

  Chapter 1—New Beginnings

  ~~Caroline~~

  He might not have been the love of my life, but I loved him.

  And now he was gone.

  Mark was buried in a hole, and I was left to raise six-year-old twins on my own.

  That fatal night over three months ago seemed like yesterday. The knock on the door, the policeman standing on my porch at one a.m., the panic rising inside me at the grim look on his face. Mark had been late getting home from work. Nothing unusual there. My husband had been a workaholic. He’d apparently fallen asleep at the wheel and perished in a fiery crash. He’d only been a mile from home.

  Ours had been a comfortable relationship, not a white-hot passion, not even in the beginning. He’d been a good provider, a great father, and a decent man. He’d treated me well. I had no complaints.

  For three months, I’d struggled with my new reality. Now it was September. My six-year-old twins were in first grade, and I was a twenty-four-year-old single mother without a career. I needed to fight past my grief and devise a plan for my future and my children’s. It was time.

  I’d struggled my entire life with a niggling doubt I’d never be good enough. I’d depended on Mark and his family to take care of me, while I’d done nothing to take care of myself or have personal security if the worst should happen. And the worst had happened.

  I was the daughter of an alcoholic father who couldn’t hold down a job and a mother who went through men as quickly as she changed outfits. I’d been told my entire childhood that I was worthless and screwed up everything I touched. The summer after I’d graduated high school and gotten a full-ride academic scholarship, I’d found out I was pregnant and proven them right again.

  For the next six-plus years, I’d concentrated on being the best wife and mother possible, and I’d pulled it off. Without Mark to depend on, those insecurities came flooding back.

  Mark had a small life insurance policy, which covered our living expenses for about a year. The clock was ticking, and I’d wasted three months already. I needed a career plan, and I needed it yesterday.

  Not knowing what else to do, I drove to my in-laws’ house. They’d become the parents I’d never had. Howard Mills had recently retired with intentions to move to a warmer Arizona. The only things holding them back were the kids and me.

  Fran opened the door before I knocked and wrapped me in her arms for a warm hug. I hugged her back and squeezed my eyes shut to stem the tears that were so close to the surface every time I saw Mark’s parents.

  Fran stood back and ushered me into her inviting house. Soon I was seated on the patio in the afternoon sun with a glass of wine in my hand.

  “Where’s Howard?” I asked.

  “Golfing. Where else?” Fran smiled kindly at me. These people had been my rock since Mark had died. They’d been there for me at every turn, and guilt rose inside me with the knowledge they were postponing their retirement plans because I was an emotional mess wandering without direction.

  “Of course.” I took a sip, savoring the simple pleasure of a good bottle of wine.

  We chatted about nothing for several minutes. She told me about their search for an Arizona house. Throughout our conversation, the underlying current of sadness floated below the surface. Fran, who’d always been proud of her appearance, had aged at least ten years since Mark had died, as had Howard. My heart bled for them, just as it bled for my children. We were all struggling to deal with our grief in the best way possible.

  “How are the kids doing?” She’d seen them a few days ago, so she was well aware, but always hopeful, she lived for the day I’d say they were doing well.

  “Not much has changed. Heath is noncommunicative and sullen except when he’s playing hockey. Hailey is the opposite, acting out and demanding attention.”

  “I’m so sorry they’re going through this. If I could take on their pain, I would.”

  “I know. We all would. Only time will heal the wounds for all of us.” If I had a dollar for each time I’d said those very words in the past three months, I’d be a wealthy woman.

  “Mark’s life may have ended, but ours continue on,” she said.

  “Fran,” I said, saying the one thing that’d been on my mind for the past month. “I don’t want to hold you guys back. Don’t stay here on my account.”

  “You’re family, the only family we have left. We’re here for you because we want to be. Your happiness and the twins’ are our number one priority.”

  I so wanted to be worthy of their devotion, but I also had to stand on my own two feet and find my way in this world. “I appreciate your concern. You know I do. I can’t let the two of you continue to sacrifice for me. I’m a big girl. Mark’s life insurance will cover expenses for a while until I get things on track.”

  “I wish Mark had left more or that there was something we could do.”

  “You gave birth to and raised an outstanding man who cared for us, made sure we didn’t lack for anything, and kept us safe. You’ve done more than most parents.”

  Fran’s stricken expression caught me off guard. I searched my statement for something that might be upsetting to her and came up with nothing but confusion.

  “Fran? What’s wrong? What did I say?”

  Fran stared at the hands clenched tightly in her lap. When she met my gaze, her expression was guilt-ridden. “I never gave birth to Mark.”

  “What?” Her voice had been so low I’d barely heard what she said and had obviously misinterpreted her words.

  “There’s something you should know, something we never told Mark, and I live with that mistake every day.”

  I frowned, and my stomach clenched as my imaginative brain ran through the possibilities. “What is it?”

  “Don’t look so stricken. It’s not bad, just something you should know. Mark should’ve known, too, be we never found a way to stop perpetuating the lie.”

  “What lie?”

  “We aren’t his birth parents.”

  “You aren’t?” My mouth fell open, and I gaped at her in absolute surprise. “But he looks so much like you an
d Howard.”

  “That made our secret so much easier to keep. We adopted him as a newborn. His real mother never saw his face, never got to hold him. We understand she was very young, and the father wasn’t in the picture.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Nor did Mark.” Fran’s face was lined with guilt. “We denied Mark the right to know his family. I don’t want that to happen to the twins. They have a right to a relationship with people who share their genetics.”

  “No matter what, you’ll always be their grandparents, genetics be damned.”

  Fran’s eyes were unusually misty, and she dabbed at them with a napkin. “As a nurse, I’m fully aware genetics play an important part in a person’s health.”

  I nodded, not sure what she was getting at exactly. Being a worrier, I immediately jumped to the worst conclusion. Had Mark had some kind of hereditary health issue I wasn’t aware of?

  “Don’t panic, Caro.” Fran reached out and patted my hand, guessing accurately what I’d been thinking. “There’s one half of the twins’ relatives we know nothing about. I’d been meaning to have this conversation with Mark, but I’d put it off until too late. Now I can only fix it for his children. I think you need to have them DNA tested. I’ve looked into it, and via DNA testing on a popular genealogy site, you’ll be able to find out close matches for relatives, background, and possible genetic health concerns.”

  “I don’t know,” I hedged, not sure why I was balking at this idea.

  “Heath and Hailey most likely have another set of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… They deserve to know them, especially considering we have such a small family unit. Why not expand that unit?”

  “What if they’re not interested in knowing them?”

  “Then that will be that. No harm done. Wouldn’t you rather know than not know? What if Mark has parents out there who wonder about him? Howard and I always thought there’d be time to tell Mark he was adopted. We waited for the right moment, and we waited too long. I don’t want to make such a mistake with his children. They deserve to know, and we need to know.”