by Elise Faber
She didn’t really care about being married . . . except it was Blane and she wanted all the things with Blane.
A wedding and a white dress. Little hockey players running around their house.
Plus, he’d said—
“It doesn’t matter,” she reminded herself and turned into the arena parking lot.
The lot was full, but she managed to snag a spot right in front. Rushing, she grabbed her purse and hauled ass down to the PT suite, which—
Was finished?
Her breath caught as she walked in and she blinked back tears. The room was so pretty and full of so many tools.
Gabe stood to one side, his cell in his hand, a smirk on his face.
She crossed to him. “You jerk. I was panicked.”
“Don’t blame me,” he said. “Blame him.”
And then he pointed behind him.
Blane strolled out of the newly expanded weight room, along with every current Gold player and some of the former. Even both Rebeccas, Monique, and Sara were there.
“What—?”
They crowded into the room, each holding a rose, huge grins on their faces.
Blane was wearing a suit, a huge bouquet in one hand, a ring box in the other. He walked over to her.
Mandy was crying already. She could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry it took so long, but I wanted to wait until everyone could get back together. I wanted all of your family here with you.”
Her family. Yes, these people meant more to her than her own family ever had.
“Oh my God. Blane.”
He handed her the flowers and, robotically, she took them, but could hardly spare the bouquet a glance. Her eyes were on Blane.
Who had kneeled before her and opened the box.
It held a huge princess cut diamond ring.
“Mandy,” he said. “When I open my eyes in the morning and see you there next to me, I think I’m the luckiest guy in the world. You are so fucking smart and beautiful, and I can’t imagine a world that doesn’t have you in it.” He took her hand, pressed it to his chest. “This beats for you. Only you. Will—”
“Yes!” she cried and launched herself into his arms.
Everyone crowded around, cheering and chirping in equal parts.
“You didn’t let me finish the question,” Blane teased, wiping the tears from her cheeks after he’d slipped the ring on her finger. “What if I had been asking for extra ketchup?”
She squeezed him tight. “No matter the question,” she said, “the answer would have always been yes.”
The team let them hold each for approximately one more second before they tugged her and Blane apart, and congratulatory hugs and back slaps were shared all around.
Which was just the way it should be.
The Gold was her family.
It was as simple as that.
Epilogue
Max
* * *
Max stood on the perimeter of the crowd, edging toward the door.
Yes, he was an asshole to escape in this moment, but Blane and Mandy wouldn’t miss him.
Plus, he’d been here for the big moment, after all.
No one would even know he’d gone.
He cracked the door and slipped out into the hall.
Then nearly mowed down a tiny little fairy.
Okay, not a fairy, but a woman with pale amber hair and a curvy little body. Some players were about the statuesque model type, but not Max. He liked them curvy, and he certainly didn’t mind them small.
That meant he could more easily lift them up and they could wrap their legs around his hips while he—
Fuck. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman.
And this tiny, voluptuous angel was trying to make a quick getaway.
“Hey,” he said, snagging her arm when she would have slunk down the hall. “You lost, sweetheart?”
Shoulders straightened and she ripped out of his grip. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, keeping her back to him, and fuck, even her voice made his cock twitch.
“Okay. No problem.” He slid around to her front. “But this area is off limits.”
Her gaze stayed on the floor, her jaw clenched tight. “I was invited.”
“Oh?” Max crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall. Sexy voice, banging body—he was desperate now to see her eyes, the shape of her nose, her lips. Please let her be as pretty as she sounded. “By who?”
Finally, she looked up.
Max sucked in a breath as though he’d been gut-punched.
Those eyes. They were—
“Mandy Shallows,” the woman said. “I’m . . .” She hesitated then lifted her chin and said, “I’m her sister.”
Mandy had a sister? Holy shit.
But something was off. Max took a step closer to her, noted that the tip of her nose was slightly rosy, her lids reddened and puffy. “Why don’t I think those are happy tears for her engagement?”
The woman pushed around him, striding down the hall before stopping and hanging her head again. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” she said. “I—” Her voice caught. “She said anytime, but I should have called first. This wasn’t mine to witness.” A sigh. “If she saw, if she’s upset, tell her I’m sorry.”
She started walking again, this time faster.
“Wait,” he said and caught her arm again. “I’m sure Mandy will be happy—”
“No.” She yanked out of his grip, her purse slipping down her arm and falling to the floor. The contents went every which way.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.” He knelt to help her, but she batted his hands away.
“Just go, dammit! Just leave me the fuck alone.”
“Okay—” he began but didn’t get the chance to leave.
Because she’d snatched up her things and was gone.
Sighing, he turned back toward the PT Suite. He should probably face the music. Congratulate the couple, break the news of Mandy’s sister running off.
He took a step and the crinkle made him freeze.
Max bent, picked up the paper that must have fallen out of the woman’s purse. It was an email addressed to . . . Angelica Shallows.
Fuck, if that wasn’t the perfect name for the beautiful fleeing angel he’d just met.
—Breakout, Gold Hockey, book 4 coming June 23rd, preorder your copy here.
Bonus Material
Did you miss the first two books in the Gold Hockey series? If so grab them here (Blocked, book 1 and Backhand, book 2) or read on for a sneak peek from each!
* * *
BLOCKED
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
Brit
* * *
The first question Brit always got when people found out she played ice hockey was “Do you have all of your teeth?”
The second was “Do you, you know, look at the guys in the locker room?”
The first she could deal with easily—flash a smile of her full set of chompers, no gaps in sight. The second was more problematic. Especially since it was typically accompanied by a smug smile or a coy wink.
Of course she looked. Everybody looked once. Everyone snuck a glance, made a judgment that was quickly filed away and shoved deep down into the recesses of their mind.
And she meant way down.
Because, dammit, she was there to play hockey, not assess her teammates’ six packs. If she wanted to get her man candy fix, she could just go on social media. There were shirtless guys for days filling her feed.
But that wasn’t the answer the media wanted.
Who cared about locker room dynamics? Who gave a damn whether or not she, as a typical heterosexual woman, found her fellow players attractive?
Yet for some inane reason, it did matter to people.
Brit wasn’t stupid. The press wanted a story. A scandal. They were desperate for her to fall for one of her teammates—or better yet the captain from their rival team�
��and have an affair that was worthy of a romantic comedy.
She’d just gotten very good at keeping her love life—as nonexistent as it was—to herself, gotten very good at not reacting in any perceptible way to the insinuations.
So when the reporter asked her the same set of questions for the thousandth time in her twenty-six years, she grinned—showing off those teeth—and commented with a sweetly innocent “Could’ve sworn you were going to ask me about the coed showers.” She waited for the room-at-large to laugh then said, “Next question, please.”
—Get your copy at books2read.com/Blocked
* * *
BACKHAND
CHAPTER ONE
* * *
Sara
* * *
The light was perfect . . . until it wasn’t.
Sara glared up at the large, brick-wall style shadow that was marring her perfect view.
Did the person not understand just how freaking long she’d had to wait for the moon to peek out from behind the fog, to gild the rotunda at the Palace of Fine Arts and reflect off the water in perfect symmetry?
She clutched her pencil—the same one that had been sketching furiously just seconds before—and leaned to the left, trying to get one more glimpse of the scene, to commit it to memory before it was . . .
Gone.
Son of a—
“I know you.”
The male voice was chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and marshmallow fluff, warm sand sifting between her toes, the perfect ending to a dramatic rom-com all rolled into one.
The hairs on her nape rose, and she shivered, wanting to snuggle into the sound, to pull it close like a cuddly sweatshirt—
At least until alarm flared to life, and she remembered she was totally alone.
Suddenly, skulking around the Marina District in the middle of the night seemed like a horrible idea.
Her sketchbook fell to the ground, the book light that had been clipped to the top making a sickening crack as it hit the concrete and went out. She blinked, trying to get her eyes to adjust, but darkness descended as fog swallowed the moon back up. She gripped her pencil like a knife and held it threateningly . . . or at least as threateningly as a pencil can be held. “Back off.”
Her attempt at a growl, a warning.
And not a very scary one at that, if the man’s reaction was anything to go by.
A soft chuckle was the only thing she heard before the pencil was plucked from her fingers. Sara opened her mouth to scream, but instead of jumping her like she’d half-expected, he sank into a crouch and handed the pencil back.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” he said.
“Noted,” Sara muttered and shoved it into her pocket before bending to grab her sketchbook and light. “And you shouldn’t ruin a perfect setup.”
A flash of white teeth penetrated the darkness. “Noted,” he said and put a palm to his knee, as though to push himself to standing.
Her eyes dropped. They’d adjusted enough to see his hands. And those hands were gorgeous. Long, lean fingers and neatly trimmed nails with enough character to make them interesting. She flipped to a blank page of her sketchbook, flicked the switch on the light, and spread his fingers on her thigh. The contrast, the shadows, the scars on his knuckles. His hand was the perfect juxtaposition and she had to get it on paper.
“Umm—”
“Shh.” Her pencil flew across the page. It made a soft scratching sound as she worked, outlining, shading in the image, blending and building until his hand was captured on paper.
She didn’t know how long she worked, just that when she’d finished, her neck ached and her legs were stiff and . . . a strange man had his hand on her thigh.
Her breath caught, and she looked up.
He was beautiful. Oddly familiar with his face half-illuminated in the lamplight, eyes as dark as ink, several days of scruff on his cheeks and chin, nose just slightly askew, as though it had been broken a time or two. And was that a bruise just above his right cheekbone?
Sara didn’t have a chance to look closer.
His fingers flexed on her thigh, and every one of her thoughts beelined straight for that particular body part. She was in jeans, so it wasn’t like he was touching her skin. But he might as well have been.
The warmth of his palm seeped through the thick material, made her quads flex. He was huge, his hand spanning the width of her thigh easily, and just the kind of man she liked. Big and strong, tall and wide-shouldered. Here was a man who could do all the clichés: protect her, shelter her, weather proverbial storms.
“You done?” The soft question held just the slightest hint of amusement, except there was a bite to the humor, as though that piece of his personality hadn’t been used in a good long time.
No. She wanted to sketch his face, flip his hand over and draw the lines of his palm, but she’d submitted enough to her artist-crazy for the evening. And her hand was sore.
“Yeah,” she said, ignoring the slightly breathless quality to her voice and standing.
Sketchbook into her pack, light off and into her pocket, stiff and aching hip, ribs, and shoulder from sitting too long on the cold, hard ground. Yup. All was as it should be.
The man stood as well. His size on the ground hadn’t done his real breadth justice.
He. Was. Ginormous.
Okay, so she was petite, barely five feet three, but this man towered over her.
Yet she didn’t feel scared. Embarrassed, maybe, that she’d hijacked his hand for—she pulled out her phone and glanced at the time—an hour and a half. But definitely not scared.
And she’d focus on that at a later time. For now, she should probably make an escape before she looked even more crazy cakes.
“Sorry I messed up your sketch,” he rumbled.
She nibbled on the side of her mouth, biting back a smile. “Sorry I stole your hand for so long.”
He shrugged. “My mom’s an artist. I get it.”
Well, there went her battle with the smile. Her lips twitched and her teeth came out of hiding. If there was one thing that Sara had, it was her smile. It had been her trademark in her competition days.
Which were long over.
Her mouth flattened out, the grin slipping away. Time to go, time to forget, to move on, to rebuild. “Thanks,” she said and extended a hand.
Then winced and dropped it when her ribs cried out in protest.
“You okay?” he asked, head tilting, eyes studying her.
“Fine.” And out popped her new smile. The fake one. Careful of her aching side, she shrugged into her backpack. “I’ve got to go.” She turned, ponytail flapping through the hair to land on her opposite shoulder.
“That—” He touched her arm. “Wait. I know I know you.”
She froze. That was the second time he’d said that, and now they were getting into dangerous territory. Recognition meant . . . no. She couldn’t.
There had been a time when everyone had known her. Her face on Wheaties boxes, her smile promoting toothpaste and credit cards alike.
That wasn’t her life any longer.
“Thanks again. Bye.” She started to hurry away.
“Wait.” A hand dropped on to her shoulder, thwarting her escape, and she hissed in pain.
“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t release her. Instead, he shifted his grip from her aching shoulder down to her elbow and when she didn’t protest, he exerted gentle pressure until Sara was facing him again. “It’s just that know I know you.”
No. This wasn’t happening.
“You’re Sara Jetty.”
Her body went tense.
Oh God. This was so happening.
“It’s me.” He touched his chest like she didn’t know he was talking about himself, and even as she was finally recognizing the color of his eyes, the familiar curve of his lips and line of his jaw, he said the worst thing ever, “Mike Stewart.”
Oh shit.
—Get your copy at books
2read.com/Backhand
Acknowledgments
Thank you so much to my fabulous editors, Julie, Kay, and Christine for helping me bring this story to life. I can’t tell you how much I rely on you guys to make my stories palatable
To my family. Thanks for supporting me, for letting me bounce different sentence structures, commas, synonyms, and plot points off all of you. I couldn’t write without your help and also your help in leaving me alone so I CAN write. I love you very much.
To my fan group, the Fabinators. Thanks for being so awesome and loving my books and just generally brightening my day. Jaci and Johanna, thanks for keeping the group lively and engaging.
And to you, my fabulous reader. I hope you all enjoy the Gold family as much as I do. I’ve always found my hockey teams to be a second family and I love how the boys and girls of the Gold have evolved over the books to represent that. There’s nothing better than being out on the ice with your buds!
Love you all!
XOXO,
E