On the Fly (Crimson Romance) (26 page)

Warmth returned to her face in a rush, and she gasped. How could they be so stupid?

“Yeah … you might want to meet with them today and have a PR chat. I’d do it, but believe it or not, they’re more afraid of you. Might want to have Nealy sit in on it too, though I’m sure she’ll give them hell at practice.”

She nodded numbly. “All right. Schedule the three musketeers at one and … would you mind — ”

“I’ll talk to Phlynn.”

“Thanks.”

• • •

Carter took a long drink from his water bottle and squeezed his eyes shut on the elevator ride to the arena’s executive level. Two aspirin had proven unworthy adversaries to a hangover from hell and practice with Nealy. It was small consolation that she’d directed the majority of her wrath toward the T-shirt trio. Apparently kissing a waitress paled in comparison to offending the team’s family-oriented fans.

Still, his ass couldn’t be out of the fire entirely because he too received a summons to see the boss. Part of him itched for a fight. Could she really be upset? She was the one to break things off. He hoped she
was
upset. Any emotion from her would be better than the apathetic glances she shot him any time they were in the same room.

The elevator opened. Before he took three steps, Madden appeared from the conference room and blocked his path.

“Hey. I’m — ”

“Yeah. Meeting’s with me.” Madden angled him into the boardroom and closed the door. The younger Vaughn sat at the head of the table and motioned to the adjacent chair. Carter stood where he was.

“She won’t even see me?” Anger flared, but beneath it swelled a strong wave of disappointment and ache.

“She has other obligations.” Madden’s expression was blank, but his eyes were hard.

“Your sister’s learned how to delegate. She’ll live longer.”

“If you don’t keep taking years off her life.”

Carter barked a flat laugh in exasperation. “You want to hate me? Fine. But I threw myself at her feet, and she walked all over me. Last night was a mistake, but for the record, the waitress sat in
my
lap.
She
kissed
me
. I didn’t ask for that. Should I have pushed her away? Maybe. But my judgment was pretty impaired by then. I’ll never do it again. Okay?”

Madden stared at him. “She really believes she did what she had to.”

“Yeah? What do you believe?”

“This stuff with the league is serious. She loves this team.”

“I know. She made her choice.”

“But maybe you were right too. She’s still afraid of getting hurt.”

Of
course
she was. But Carter was tired of paying for someone else’s mistakes. “You know, for someone so afraid of pain, she’s sure good at inflicting it. I’m not gonna be her punching bag anymore. We done here?”

Madden looked like he had more to say, but after a brief hesitation, he nodded. Carter let himself out and ignored the curious stares on his way back to the elevator. Oh, yeah. He was done.

Friday, May 25th

Jacey skated around the bumpy, post-practice ice, rounding up loose pucks with the blade of her Mario Lemieux stick. Displaying it in her office had been a good move. A girl never knew when she’d need to blow off some steam with five feet of carbon fiber composite power.

Nealy must have been working the team hard. The surface had more divots and snow than it did after twenty minutes of overtime. It took supreme concentration not to fall on her face. She ground her teeth in frustration at every wobble. “I’m good at this, damn it.”

Her words echoed a little in the empty arena. Even with the players back in the locker room, the cold air still stank of sweat, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except hitting the little rubber discs as hard as she could. With a nice pile of pucks behind her, she lined one up and took a golfer’s stance but placed her hands the way she saw the guys do it.

No wonder a lot of hockey players liked to golf in the off-season. The motions were very similar. Keep your eye on the puck. Pull back. Swing as hard as you can.
Thwack!
It shot across the ice and pinged off a goal post. She growled and stomped her skate. Lined up another puck.
Thwack!
This one hit the back of the net and stayed.

The repetition and physical exertion brought her stress level down a little, and the fist around her heart eased its grip. Much better use of her lunch hour than eating in the break room and listening to office gossip. She so did not need to know which of the team’s dancers was sleeping with which player.
Thwack!
Good thing she went for the pantsuit today. Cold arena air seeped into her skin, but the physical exertion kept it from taking hold. The pile at her feet dwindled, and after her last shot, she looked for the closest puck, hoping to not have to risk life and limb to collect them all again.

“Nice shootin’, Tex.”

She gasped and pivoted. Almost toppling on her ass, Jacey regained her balance, arms out and less than graceful. Carter leaned against the opening that led to the locker room, arms folded across his chest. The posture suited his ability to appear out of thin air like a genie.

Even in the freezing rink, her face heated up. She straightened and used her stick for support as nonchalantly as possible. As far as appearances went, she had to be one-upping him there. He’d lost the helmet and gloves, but the rest of him was still dressed for practice. His hair poked out every which way except for the strands plastered to his forehead with sweat.

“Can I help you?”
Please, no. Please just go away.

“No, but it looks like I could help you. You have good form, but your aim is off. If you just — ”

“I don’t need the lesson, thanks. I was just … releasing some tension.”

Still in his skates, he glided toward her as easy as if it were a fresh sheet of ice. The dark look in his eyes and tight set to his mouth said he was thinking of how they used to release tension together.

Jacey swallowed hard and held her stick in front of her like a shield, angled across her chest. She pointed the toes of her skates together and pushed back and out, sliding away from him a bit. It was almost imperceptible, but it was necessary. If he got any closer, they might end up making another headline. Being off limits didn’t make him less appealing. In fact, it had the opposite effect.

“How can you be out here, anyway? It’s the middle of a workday.”

“I own the team. I can shoot a few pucks on my lunch break if I want to. And … I brought Gus a sub from Piscarelli’s Deli so he’d give me twenty minutes to myself before he Zambonied the ice.”

Those devilish golden brows rose. A hint of amusement flickered in his eyes, but poorly veiled pain dragged it under the surface.

Her heart hurt. She’d avoided him for this very reason. Guilt and regret were dragons too big to fight on a daily basis. “Carter, what do you want?”

He hesitated. His jaw worked as he chose his words. “You couldn’t even be in the same room to yell at me? That doesn’t seem like you.”

She fought back a flinch. Okay, delegating him to Madden had been cowardly. But clearly, close quarters didn’t work for them. Even though they appeared to be alone in the rink, she lowered her voice. “I … fine. You’re right. I could make excuses about being busy, but I just didn’t want to talk to you. It would have been too hard to lecture you about sticking your tongue down a random waitress’s throat. Is that what you want me to say?”

• • •

Carter didn’t know what he’d wanted her to say, but her words paralyzed him for a minute. He honestly didn’t know what had possessed him to come out on the ice once he realized she was the sound he’d heard from the locker room. He’d only meant to watch. Jacey firing pucks into an empty net captivated him more than any Vegas showgirl act. But watching wasn’t enough. It never would be.

Something she said finally sunk in. “Why would it have been too hard?”

Her turn to go speechless. Her eyes widened and her full lips parted slightly. He already knew the answer, but she needed to say it.

“Why would it have been hard, Jacey?”

Defiance replaced the shock in her gaze, and she lifted her chin.

That’s my girl.

She glided toward him and lowered her voice further. “I cared about you, okay? We can’t be together, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel anything. Didn’t you think
maybe
it might hurt me to see you making out with a complete stranger on the front page of the newspaper?”

“You
cared
about me? You
felt
something? This is a pretty visceral reaction for past-tense emotions. If that’s all dead and buried, why would it have hurt to have that meeting with me yourself?”

Oh, if stares could burn, he’d be a puddle and the rink would be a pond.

Seeing her angry was better than cold and distant. “You
still
care.”

Her grip tightened on the stick, turning her knuckles translucent white. Her voice went down to a whisper. “You clearly don’t. You claim I meant so much to you, but obviously nothing a busty blonde couldn’t cure.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re the one who said our relationship wasn’t worth it. Why do you care if I kiss one waitress or a hundred?”

In one vulnerable second, misery flashed in her eyes. He regretted the taunt, but she rebounded fast. “I don’t. Who you kiss is your business. Not mine, and not the res of the world’s, so just try to keep it off camera.”

“That’s really all that matters to you?”

She answered him with a silent stare.

“Fine. Whatever.” He skated away a few feet then turned back. “For the record: I didn’t want to kiss that waitress. I was drinking with Reese, and she came up and plastered herself to me. I sat there. My biggest crime was I didn’t stop it, but you dumped
me
. You can’t have it both ways.”

Jacey blinked and opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She shook her head.

It felt good to get that off his chest. He left her standing there. Part of him expected —
wanted
— her to put up some kind of fight. The woman he knew and loved would have given him hell. But she didn’t say a word. The finality of it hit him hard. At least the locker room would be empty when he got back to it.

Thursday, June 14th

Game six. Game six. Game six.
The two words played on loop in Jacey’s brain as she took the elevator to basement level. From the second she’d woken up, she’d had a steady flow of coffee. Usually caffeine slowed down her racing thoughts and soothed her frazzled nerves. That was what happened when you drank so much of it that you were ninety percent latte, ten percent water. She needed to keep the coffee coming to maintain homeostasis. Today, however, transfusing her blood with java wound her so tight being confined in the small elevator for thirty seconds felt like thirty minutes.

The suffocating steel box opened, and she burst out, sucking in a deep breath and putting off the locker room ritual a little longer. The concrete hallway was still and quiet, though the guys’ muffled conversations came through the door. New Jersey’s arena basement looked shockingly like theirs back in Las Vegas. If it weren’t for the Devils emblem on the wall, it’d be easy to forget where she was.

She’d spent her stalling time, but the thought of having to see Carter after their last encounter turned her stomach sour. He’d been harsh and arrogant and … right. He’d come to her how many times with his heart on a platter?

The arena announcer introduced New Jersey’s dance team. Two minutes until the guys had to be out there. No time to lecture herself. The team needed it more. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat to summon strength then closed the distance and pushed into the locker room. Every head swiveled in her direction. Even Nealy paused mid speech and nodded, giving Jacey the floor.

Her heart fluttered from the intensity of Carter’s stare, but the unchecked excitement in every other face buoyed her. “I want you to know how proud I am. We made it. We built this team up in one year, and look where we are — one win away from the Stanley Cup. We could end this tonight.”

Hoots and cheers echoed off the walls. Players smiled at each other, bumped shoulders, and slapped backs. Nealy stood by the tunnel, arms folded, but a smile twitching at the corner of her lips. Big emotion for the little woman. Jacey grinned.

“Good luck. Now get out there and bring it home!”

The noise level rose ten decibels as the team lumbered toward the ice. Carter passed her without a glance. She bit the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood and blinked back unexpected tears.
Not now. Break down later.

Part of her wanted to hang back and find a quiet corner of the main concourse. Watching the game would only push her closer toward a stroke, but if she didn’t watch, she’d spontaneously combust. Her inner worrier and inner control freak battled to the death. In the end, inner control freak remained standing, holding the flaming sword. With a sigh, Jacey trailed after her team and stood next to her brother by the players’ box.

New Jersey fans booed the Sinners as they warmed up. It was nothing new — happened every time — but it triggered reflex anger that still surprised her. How dare they taunt her guys?

“Jace? You’re wearing War Face, and I gotta tell you, it’s a little terrifying.” Madden eyed her warily.

“How can they say these things? Collier’s a diver? Seriously? And I suppose their Larios just likes the feel of the ice on his stomach.”

Madden’s eyes crinkled at the corners as a grin split his face. “Listen to you. It actually happened.”

“What?”

“You’re one of them now. A fan. The game got to you.”

Hard to believe, but even harder to deny. The evidence definitely pointed that way. Warmth blossomed in her chest and spread through her veins even in the cold rink. It felt like the final piece of her dad’s legacy clicking into place. “Yeah, well … ”

“I like it. Suits you.”

And it did. A year ago, she never would have believed she could be a frothing-at-the-mouth, diehard fan, but if the foam finger fit …