by G. K. Brady
.~ * * * ~.
After Katie had left for the day, Paige was hard-pressed to focus on work—or pretty much anything besides Beckett Miller. It was as if she’d hauled out a stack of old picture albums or yearbooks and was pawing through them, meandering a crooked path down memory lane where she saw Beckett’s face at every turn.
She poured herself an extra-large glass of cabernet and, with a sigh of futility, sank into the couch. Staring out the window, she zeroed in on a bare tree that looked as though it had been sketched in charcoal against the evening’s indigo sky. She sipped her wine and let memories flood her, transporting her back to her first DU Pioneers hockey game.
On the concourse in Magness Arena, where they’d been jostled amid a sea of animated people bundled in DU’s crimson and gold, Gwenn had plucked Paige’s sleeve and led her to their seats. Paige had swiveled her head like a child on her first visit to an arcade.
After they settled in, Paige’s eyes fastened on the ice, where DU players skated in loops, under bright lights at the opposite end of the rink from their opponents, the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs.
A sasquatch of a defenseman—Beckett, as she later learned—skated to a stop and beckoned an opponent over. The Bulldog met him from his own side of the red line and swung his stick low, whacking Beckett’s legs. Teammates from each side swarmed and pulled the two back while Beckett laughed and taunted the Bulldog—to the crowd’s enthusiastic cheers.
Gwenn grinned. “And this is just warm-ups!”
The game had started twenty minutes later, and it was all dizzying speed and action. Paige was mesmerized by players flying up and down, passing the small black disk between themselves with impossible precision; by crushing hits followed by players popping right back up again; by goalies’ contorted, sprawling saves that would have made a Cirque de Soleil acrobat applaud.
She locked on to Beckett Miller whenever he took the ice, marveling that such a big body could glide so effortlessly around and through opponents. Many a Bulldog lay spread-eagled in number twenty’s wake. The guy also displayed a knack for stealing the puck and putting it on a teammate’s stick or shooting it himself. But despite his stellar play, the game ended in a win for the Bulldogs.
It was later that evening—at an after-game party she attended with Gwenn and Zack, a DU player and Gwenn’s then boyfriend—when she got a closer look at Beckett. Though it had been ten years ago, she could still recall every detail of that night. He’d been across the room, flashing a smile he used with practiced ease on each of five young women surrounding him like the petals of a sticky geranium. The guy had won the looks sweepstakes, and Paige worked at not gawking like every other female there—and a few of the males. Added to his striking appearance was his presence, which electrified the room just by being in it. Despite the space between them, the voltage coming off him sizzled along her spine.
As if he felt it too, he looked over and winked. In spite of herself, Paige’s pulse skyrocketed, and she tried to hide behind her hair—an anemic tactic that proved fruitless.
Reading her thoughts, Gwenn elbowed her. “It’s hard not to get all moony-eyed over Beckett Miller. He’s a god,” she said. “Adonis, specifically.”
Adonis sauntered over, and Paige’s mouth went dry as Zack introduced them. How she’d managed to untangle her tongue and croak a “Hi” was still a mystery to this day.
Talk about the game followed, Zack musing over Beckett hitting everyone in sight and how his mouth had never stopped running.
“What did you say to get number eleven so pissed off?” Zack asked.
Beckett grinned, showing off perfect white teeth. “Not a conversation for mixed company. Some things are better left on the ice.”
Laughing, Zack turned to Gwenn and Paige. “Trust me when I say you wouldn’t want him kissing you with that mouth if you knew half the shit he says out there.”
But Paige wasn’t so sure she didn’t want Beckett Miller’s mouth on hers. He was gorgeous.
Later they’d stood alone, and he offered to get her a beer. She looked around, sure Adonis was speaking to someone else. But then he tapped her shoulder, surprising her. “I meant you, Red.”
She mustered attitude. “It’s auburn, not red.” Grabbing her cup, she waved it in front of him. “This is red, and it’s full. I’m set, thanks.”
He chuckled. “So are you a freshman?” Adonis paused for a sip. “Or still in high school?”
She bristled. “I’m a junior.”
“Really? Could’ve fooled me. You must go ninety, a hundred tops. How tall are you anyway? Are you even five feet?”
“Five-two.” She fumed. “And you must be, what, thirteen?”
“Funny.” He grinned, the cocky jerk. “Twenty-one. I’m a senior.” He looked around then, and a bevy of beauties waved at him and glared at her. “What’s your name again?”
“Paige Anderson.”
“Paige? What kind of name is that?”
“What kind of name is Beckett?” she retorted.
He took a long drink of his beer and casually said, “Old family name. My brother’s a car. Cooper.”
“And people call you Beckett?”
“Unless they’re mad at me, and then it’s all kinds of other names.”
He asked her if she wanted to leave with him, and she gave him a flat “no.” His full mouth curved into a lethal smile, and his eyes glinted like moonlight on a dark sea. “Why not?”
“You appear to have a pretty big fan club already.”
He shrugged. “Girls like me. I like girls. We’re charter members of a mutual admiration society.”
“Wow. How do you fit your head through the door?”
“Big doors. So what do you say?”
She shook her head vigorously. “I’m guessing you need a lion tamer, not another conquest.”
He raised an eyebrow and laughed. “You’re feisty. Maybe it’s the redhead thing. What the hell’s your name again?”
She blew out an exasperated breath. “Paige.”
“I’m sorry. I’m fucking awful with names,” he said. “Anderson, right? I’ll call you Andie. I can remember that.”
Hours later, she’d ended up among a group heading to breakfast, somehow seated beside him. They talked the entire time. Or rather, she tried to keep up with his dizzying thought pattern—if she could’ve called it that—as it bounced from floor to ceiling to wall like a rubber ball.
From that night forward, he called her Andie, all while she puzzled over the enigma he was. A total flirt and hard-core partier, he nonetheless made the dean’s list. How a playboy-hockey-player-party-animal maintained a grade average that landed him on the dean’s list was baffling, but she eventually—yet grudgingly—admitted to herself he had a brain beneath those blue eyes and all that muscle.
In the months after meeting him, she sometimes studied Beckett’s moves from afar while he was in action with the latest adoring fan. His sizeable personality would roar to life when an audience—especially female—gathered, and though Paige couldn’t say why, she found it fascinating and repelling at the same time. Both compelling reasons to avoid him, which she’d executed well. For the most part.
Wineglass empty, Paige pulled herself from the couch and strolled into the kitchen, eyeballing the open cabernet bottle on the counter. “What the heck,” she said aloud. “Tonight’s already shot.” With that, she refilled her glass, traipsed back to the couch, and curled up in the same spot, her body heat still trapped in its cushions.
And she was right back on campus during a blinding spring snowstorm, wending her way to her apartment, her arms overflowing with the contents of a backpack that had just split and spilled everything onto an icy sidewalk. A battered gray pickup pulled up beside her. The passenger door flew open, and there was Beckett, leaning across a blanket-covered bench seat. “Get in. I’ll take you home.”
She turned him down. He rolled his eyes.
“It’s daylight, it’s not that far, and I d
on’t bite,” he insisted.
As if the gods who cheered for him were busy manipulating dials in their celestial viewing chamber, two books slipped from her grasp and under his truck. He jumped out, unburdened her of her armful, and threw it into the truck before retrieving her betraying books. She reluctantly followed her contents into the warm cab.
He slid in behind the wheel and gruffly said, “Seat belt.”
As she buckled up and he pulled away from the curb, he glanced at her. “You don’t like me one bit, do you? You’d rather get stuck in the snow than in a car with me. And all I’m trying to do is be nice. Have you got so many friends you don’t have room for more?”
Tiny thrusts of guilt stabbed at her. Paige had never gone for the popular guys, the ones all the other girls wanted. She’d gone for the mature guys, ones off the beaten path whose faces were etched with lines of character. When her friends foamed at the mouth for Chris Evans or Jake Gyllenhaal, she picked Hugo Weaving because his take-charge Elrond oozed a steadiness and comfort that reverberated in her.
Beckett Miller was solidly in the Chris Evans category.
“I always have room for a friend, but not one with ulterior motives,” she sniffed.
He let out a humorless laugh. “Wow. You’re pretty damn sure of yourself, aren’t you? What if I just enjoy watching you take hummingbird sips of beer? What if I have no fu—flipping designs on you whatever? I mean you’re cute and all, but what if I’m not into girls?”
She arched an eyebrow at him.
He shrugged. “Could be an act. Maybe I use them as a cover to check out guys. You ever consider that?”
“I can honestly say the thought never crossed my mind.”
She pointed out where she lived, and he parked his truck in front of her building.
He craned his neck and peered out the windshield. “I used to visit this building. I was seeing a girl on the third floor.”
Paige gave him a sidelong glance. “Oh my God, that’s right above ours. Was that you making all that racket? Gwenn and I used to wonder what made the girl scream like that.”
He rubbed a finger over his chin before meeting her gaze with deadly seriousness. “Part of my cover.”
Laughter had bubbled up and burst inside her. Beckett had joined in, clutching his stomach. She could still hear his laugh. Warm and rich.
“You are so ridiculous!” she’d gasped.
“Am I? I guess I am,” he chuckled, wiping his cheeks with the heels of his hands. “Okay, so be my friend and keep me in line.”
She rubbed moisture from an eye. “Way above my pay grade. I’m no lion tamer.”
He cocked his head. “Who says I need a lion tamer? Although I would enjoy a thorough fur-ruffling once in a while.”
She belted out a horselaugh. “Intuition tells me you have plenty of volunteers on standby ready to ruffle your fur.”
One eyebrow lifted to his rumpled hairline. “Then be my study partner, Andie.”
She shook her head, and his blue gaze sank into her, making her heart rate soar.
“I’m not giving up. I’ll think of something you can’t refuse,” he promised with a wink.
The promise had mattered little. Within days after graduating, he’d signed with the LA Kings and left for the big league, entering the high-flying world of fame and money. She’d never seen him again. Like the rest of small-town, she’d no doubt blurred into an insignificant memory in his mental archives.
.~ * * * ~.
Beckett glanced at his phone: 10:13. No missed calls, no texts. No different from when he’d checked it at 10:10 or 9:54. He stared out his car window, now parked across the street from his dark restaurant. No one could see him, but he saw them, the multitudes who walked up, paused, stared at the sign, shook their heads, and walked off. What was he doing here besides getting more depressed? Hoping Jackie would return to the scene of the crime and … what? Apologize?
He’d checked the restaurant’s bank account on his phone app and confirmed his worst fear: a large withdrawal yesterday afternoon had taken the balance to zero. The police had barely kept from laughing when he’d filed a complaint. Their smirks hadn’t escaped his attention. “Sure, Mr. Miller, we’ll try to track down your manager. In the meantime, can I have your autograph for my kid?” How they loved to stick it to guys like him.
What he needed was a distraction after this day. Sitting alone in his car wasn’t going to do it for him. He looked at his phone again and scrolled through the contacts. Few women made it into Beckett’s phone, and those that were there were professional acquaintances or ones he hadn’t gotten around to deleting.
He dialed one. “Hey, Monica? It’s Beckett. It has been a while, huh? What? Hey, wait. Monica?” She hung up. Delete.
He dialed another one and got a recorded female voice saying she was out of the country and she’d be easier to reach through email. Beckett looked at his phone before disconnecting.
“Third time’s the charm.” He dialed again. A man answered. “Uh, is Heather there?” Beckett asked, then held his breath.
“Who is this?” came a gruff reply.
“Sorry, man. I must have the wrong number.”
A few minutes later, his phone rang. Heather. “Hey, Heather. I wasn’t sure I called the right number. Who was—oh. When did you get married? I hope I didn’t cause any—yeah, you too. And congratulations.” Delete.
Beckett stepped from his car and shrugged on his suit jacket. The tie had come off long ago. After feeding the meter, he headed down the street to prowl the local haunts for the diversion he was after—one powerful enough to haul his mind out of the crapper.
He found it as he was checking out the action in a club on Blake Street. Or rather, it found him when a certain number lit up his phone.
Hours later, he woke up in a LoDo loft apartment with a sweeping nighttime view of the Denver skyline and the Platte, riding a numbing wave of oblivion not unlike the one that had gotten him into trouble in Minneapolis. A hand was stroking him. Weaving in and out of consciousness, he pieced the night together. Yamila. Hey, baby. I’m in town for the night and wondered if you wanted to …
At first, he’d said no. Didn’t you just get married? But she’d pulled out all the stops, telling him everything he wanted to hear: how sex had never been as good since him, how she had a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve Bourbon, and what she’d do to him when she got him naked. He’d let her lead him along like a puppy with his tongue hanging out. After countless bourbon pours, which he put in the six-hundred-dollar range—each—he’d loosened up and she’d pulled out some high-grade cocaine. He hadn’t touched the stuff since Minneapolis, hadn’t wanted to, but he’d let her seduce him into that too, kicking what was left of his self-restraint to the curb. It was just for one night.
At this moment, she was arousing him for round three. Or was it two? She’d left nothing to chance, insisting he pop a Viagra before they’d started; not that he’d needed it before. But who was he to argue over a little insurance? He reached for more coke and condoms.
By the time the sun came blazing through her windows, he’d forgotten the night’s finer details in a haze of alcohol, cocaine, and sleeplessness. A new detail blared at him: he was supposed to report to Greeley, sixty-five miles northeast, in a half hour. And he still had to pack.
Beckett dragged his rumpled ass to his car, looking and smelling like he felt: shit. No matter how fast he went, it wouldn’t get him there in time, so he took it easy. Not a stellar start with his new teammates or his coach, who was probably younger than he was.
His hands gripping the wheel, he sang along to 888’s tune about letting the ocean carry away critical mistakes. Yeah, I need some of that.
CHAPTER 6
Time for a Cool Change
On leave from riding the pine with the Hawks, Beckett walked up Curtis Street in Denver to his attorney’s office. He’d been in Greeley for what felt like years but had, in fact, only been a few months. Durin
g that time, he’d been trying to square with the state, the IRS, and Lacy Delgado’s family, who had filed a hefty lawsuit. Maybe today Tom had good news; maybe today someone would meet him partway and settle. He wanted the evidence of his mistakes behind him so badly he nearly vibrated with it.
Jackie had hoodwinked him for a long time, and he seethed when he thought of her sipping a mai tai, baking in the tropical sun somewhere, spending his fucking money.
Paying his employees had been a priority for him, but not for the authorities who’d frozen his bank accounts, so he’d sold off personal belongings for cash to make them whole, plus extra for the shit-storm he’d put them through. The restaurant was a total loss, which didn’t bother Beckett as much as stiffing his employees or losing the sports memorabilia he’d decorated it with—stuff he’d collected since he’d entered the NHL. Irreplaceable stuff.
“Beckett!”
He stopped at the sound of his name. Lifting his sunglasses to his forehead, he looked around, scanning faces. The sidewalk was crowded, but he saw no one he recognized—until a familiar dark-haired woman slinked toward him in royal-blue high heels. She wore a big smile and a zebra-print skirt that barely covered her ass and showcased long, bare legs. Shit.
When Yamila reached him, she draped one hand over his shoulder, grabbed the back of his head with the other hand, and laid an open-mouthed kiss on him. Her familiar spicy, heavy perfume overpowered him.
“Where have you been, baby?” she whispered.
Beckett pulled back and looked at her. “What are you doing back in Denver?”
“I’m here to see you, baby. I can’t get our night together out of my head.”
“What, so you’re stalking me?”
A slow cat-smile curved her lips. Both hands clamped on tight, pulling his head back to hers. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and bit it. Hard. Beckett yanked back, rubbing his hand across his mouth.
He checked for blood. “What the hell?”
She parked her hands on her hips and narrowed her dark eyes. “Why haven’t you returned my calls or texts, you bastard?”
