by Avery Flynn
“You said forty-eight hours, Maddie. Unless I fell into a time warp, it’s been twelve.” She paused, listening. “We’re talking basic human decency in letting me warn Petrov and Christensen this was coming. You said we’d have the opportunity to respond.” She waited again, grinding her teeth. “Oh yeah? Fuck you and the Post. You’re gonna regret this, Maddie Peters. Just you fucking wait.”
She hung up and looked like she was ready to fling her phone across the room. Then Ian’s gaze locked with hers and she let out a deep breath before shoving her phone into her purse. “Ian, Alex, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe they ran with it so fast after overhearing it. And to cite The Biscuit as a source? Such bullshit. I thought we had time. I was told we had time to prep you both for this coming out. I’ll figure out how to set this right.”
Right? Was that even fucking possible? No, it sure as hell wasn’t. They were so far beyond setting things right that it was’t even a flicker in his old man’s eyes.
Coach stood behind his desk, glaring at Christensen and Petrov. “And while she’s doing that, I need to know from both of you that what I witnessed in the locker room isn’t going to happen again.” He yanked his chair out and sat down in it, the lack of height not doing one little thing to make him less of an imposing presence. “I can sympathize about this being a shit show, but we can’t afford to have you act like it. You are professionals, and I expect you to act accordingly. Your team expects you to act accordingly, especially with the playoffs about to start.” He eyeballed them both. “Can you do that?”
There wasn’t a choice. He had to. His entire life he’d been in his dad’s shadow, the journeyman player who went late in the draft—and rumor was he only made it then because of his last name—who’d finally come into his own. This run for the cup was his chance to prove once and for all that he deserved to be here. He refused to let his dad fuck this up for him. He’d worked too hard for that shit.
“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, ignoring the man standing next to him.
Christensen nodded but kept his mouth closed.
“Good,” Coach said, picking up his mug of sugar and milk with a hint of coffee. “So figure out how to make this work because it has to. Team dinner tonight. Don’t be fucking late, either of you. And don’t fuck anything up.”
Yeah, it was a little too late for that. Everything was FUBARed into next week, and he had to win a championship despite all of it. They’d find a way to do just that, no matter what it took.
Chapter Three
Present Day…
Ian’s injured thumb, with its short line of stitches from the surgery to repair the ligaments, hurt like hell, which suited his mood just fine as he glared at the massive piles of snow outside the big bay window on the south side of the kitchen. The drifts were frickin’ huge. He strolled closer to the glass, warm bowl of strawberries-and-cream oatmeal in his good hand, and sat down so he could do the awkward-eating-with-his-nondominant-right-hand thing.
“You need some help?”
“I can eat breakfast by myself.” Of course he bobbled his spoon just enough for a glob of oatmeal to drop back into his bowl.
She nodded at the coffeepot, filled to the brim with sweet beautiful black gold, and lifted a sharp jet-black eyebrow. He shrugged a shoulder. Whatever. As long as she left him the hell alone, then he’d be golden.
Still, he watched her out of the corner of his eye as she poured half a cup of coffee, then filled the mug the rest of the way up with lukewarm water from the tap. She was hard to peg. Skinny without any hint of hips or tits or an ass, she was what his grandma would have called “a slip of a girl.” But that face… He stared at her mid-bite, his spoon hovering in the air halfway to his mouth. She wasn’t soft and pretty. She wasn’t seductively beautiful. Instead, everything about her was sharp and tough, from her fuck-you half-shaved hair to her high cheekbones that looked like they could cut you as quick as the blade on his skates, but not as fast as the look in her dark-brown eyes.
Fuck. Way to get caught staring, Petrov.
He dropped his gaze and shoved the spoon into his mouth, the oatmeal burning the roof, of course. He just ground his teeth together and took it, the pain a useful reminder to keep his mouth shut and his eyes off her.
“You got something you want to say?” she asked, her tone a little too close to amusement for his taste.
“Nope.” He shoved in another hot bite, relishing the burn.
“Well, I do.”
Taking the risk, he glanced over her way again. She held the cheery red snowflake mug cupped between both hands, her gaze going past him to the snowy scene on the other side of the bay window. She looked completely out of place in the country winter wonderland kitchen with her ripped black jeans, oversize black sweater with its ragged edges on the sleeves, and detailed leaf tattoo climbing up her arm, visible beneath her pushed-up sleeves.
But that wasn’t what made his muscles tense all the way from his toes to his shoulders. It was that she had that little bit of a lost look in her eyes that he had to steel himself against. This wasn’t just a person in the kitchen—this was the woman who’d blasted his life apart.
“Haven’t you already said enough?” he asked. “I realize you’re just trying to build your reputation even more, maybe snag the opportunity to renegotiate your brand new contract for more money, but I’m not now nor am I ever going to open myself up in front of the world.”
She closed her eyes, her jaw flexing, and let out a huff of frustration.
“Counting to ten?” he asked. “Or twenty?”
“Neither.” She glared at him. “I’m reminding myself why I should bother to apologize to you.”
“Oh yeah?” He snorted. “You gonna butter me up and then pump me for how I’m feeling, so you can sell that bit of information off for fun and profit?”
Wouldn’t that just be the poisoned cherry on this shit sundae. Everyone wanted to know how he was feeling, how he was dealing with the news. Fucking angry and by getting drunk—hopefully soon—were the answers, but he sure as fuck wasn’t sharing that with the world.
“You’re a real jerk,” Shelby said, her voice quiet and a little bit trembly.
He shrugged. “What can I say, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For my dad’s wandering dick and my lying best friend? How sweet of you to share. Can we go back to absolute silence now?”
“No, I’m sorry that I was a giant chicken and took my mom’s call so I wouldn’t have to walk into that media room, that I didn’t better check to make sure no one else was in the bathroom because my mom is a very loud talker, that when Maddie overheard my mom, I didn’t have a Men in Black memory destroyer thing to zap her with, and, most of all, I’m sorry that this is how you found out.”
He froze. Mom. Overheard. Bathroom. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s how the news got out and I’m sorry, but I had no idea what my mom was about to say or that her friend was even telling the truth.”
“You didn’t tell the Post on purpose?”
“No. Who in the hell would do that?” When he didn’t answer, she looked up at the ceiling and muttered something he didn’t catch. “Oh yeah, that would be me. Someone who doesn’t know you beyond your playing stats but who took a deep dive into your past to find the one secret you didn’t even know you had, just so I could expose it and make a name for myself.” She marched over to the doorway leading out onto the porch, her voice growing louder and tinnier with each step, and shoved her feet into snow boots—black, of course—and grabbed a dark puffer coat off the hook. “Of course, I’d probably end up getting fired from my brand-new job and become a hockey pariah in the process, but you know nothing is too high a price to pay to expose you. That sounds totally legit.” She shoved her arms into the coat, zipped it up, and snapped the bottom of the
hood together until the only parts of her face visible were her eyes and pointy nose. “Not everyone in the world is here to screw you over, you big, mean jerk.”
And with that, she stormed out of the cabin. He watched as she slip-stomped down the snow-covered steps and swiped a shovel that was leaning against the railing, his mind trying to unravel what she’d just said.
How was it suddenly his fault Shelby was the loud mouth who’d leaked to the press just because it wasn’t on purpose? Who could blame him for being upset, what with the press being on his ass since he hit juniors? They loved to report about how he was good but not great like his dad—that he never would be. For years he’d fought against it. Then he’d sort of learned to accept it. The stories comparing him to his legend-on-the-ice of a father kept coming, though. Ian had come to his suspicion and loathing of the press and all media types, including places like The Biscuit and Shelby herself, honestly. These were people who lived to fuck other people over and knock them down. End of story.
This latest twist only served to prove his point. Fan comments that all the hockey talent in the family must have gone to the son who’d been picked in the first round, the one whose plus/minus average had been among the best in the league since his rookie season, the one who’d known the truth and had never said a damn word. The press loved to see someone get laid low and report all the gory details. It got clicks, that was for sure.
He took another bite of oatmeal, all the bitterness in his brain affecting the taste and turning the strawberries sour, as he watched Shelby—her hood down now—try to shovel out a subcompact. The wind pushed back her hood, whipped at her short hair, and turned the tips of her ears red. The snow went past the tops of her snow boots and nearly up to her knees as she worked to clear a path for her itty-bitty car.
How in the hell had that speck of a car managed to make it up the mountain in the first place? There was no way with all the additional snow, which was starting to come down in ever faster waves, it would be safe for her to attempt the twisty roads. He couldn’t let her do that. It was too dangerous. He was up and out of his seat before he knew what in the hell he could do about the situation. Then a gust of wind strong enough to make the roof rattle blasted the mountain. The falling snow went sideways, the trees bent under the pressure, and a large limb snapped off, slicing through a power line before hitting Shelby and sending her flying back onto her ass in the snow.
He was out the door before her shocked scream sounded, racing toward her like he was on a breakaway.
…
One second Shelby was lost in a snowdrift, her upper arm aching, and the next she was tucked securely against Ian’s chest as he carried her inside the cabin. Even with as fast as they were hustling up the steps to the porch, her being buffeted by unyielding biceps and pecs, she didn’t move a millimeter.
“What are you doing?” The words were barely out of her mouth before her brain clocked how dumb they were, but Ian smelled good, like, really good, and it was distracting as hell.
Her senses must be heightened by her near brush with getting beaned by a tree limb the size of a Louisville Slugger. Why else would she be noticing that warm, spicy scent that clung to him? Or that he had a very nice chin under his dark scruff, and his eyelashes were a billion miles long? The tingly, breathy thing she had going on right now, making her chest tight, was no doubt left over from the adrenaline rush of dodging the limb mixed with the oh-shit-that’s-cold jolt from landing in the snowbank. That had to be the reason why she didn’t demand to be put down and instead had asked such a duh question.
“I’m helping you,” he said, gaze forward, body stiff.
“Why?”
He turned sideways and used his hip to nudge the front door the rest of the way open. “Because I’m not a total dick, and you’re hurt.”
She lifted her arm, testing it as they crossed the threshold, passed the kitchen, and hustled straight into the living room with its ginormous stone fireplace that looked like it just might have been here centuries before the house. The clock on the microwave had gone dark, the lightbulbs in the deer-antler chandelier were off, and the heat that had been pumping out of the vents was no more. Oh shit. Any hope that the wire the limb had taken out before landing on her wasn’t the power line vanished.
“I’m okay,” she said under her breath, willing it to be true.
“Well, then,” Ian said, unceremoniously dumped her onto the couch, and kept walking, flexing his hands as if carrying her had stung. “I’ll get started on the fire.”
Okay, obviously Ian did not take that the way she’d meant it. She sat up, slipped off her boots, then clutched a pillow to her chest and practiced her deep breathing. Panic attacks weren’t really her thing, but neither was being trapped without power in a cabin with someone who seemed to hate her even as he rushed to her aid.
While her annoyed knight-in-ass-hugging-jeans squatted down in front of the fireplace, Shelby took off her coat and pulled her arm out of the sleeve of her sweater to get a better look at where the limb had hit. A purple bruise was already starting to bloom, but that seemed to be the worst of it.
Finally, something was going right. Really, at this point something had to land on her side of the ledger.
“Why are you getting undressed?” Ian asked, his voice gruff.
Glancing up from the monster bruise forming on her arm, she rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not.”
He gestured at her bare arm.
Oh for the love of— “I’m wearing a tank top under my sweater and it’s literally just my arm. Why are you being weird?”
Instead of answering, he just grunted and turned back to the fire.
Okay, Mr. Chatty.
After slipping her arm back in her sweater, she took her phone out of her coat pocket and swiped the screen. Just as she had the night before, she only had half a bar. Well, it was worth a try. She dialed Lucy’s number and waited as a message reading “connecting” appeared above the keypad and stayed there. Moving the phone in hopes of catching the elusive second bar, she walked around the living room with no luck. Without giving Ian a second look—okay, much of a second look, he was wearing a Henley for God’s sake and had biceps for days—she stuffed her feet into her unlaced snow boots and went out onto the porch. She got as far as the railing before the call started to ring through.
Thank you, snow fairies.
“Hi, you’ve reached Lu—” Static ate away the rest of Lucy’s greeting. “Leave a mess—” More aural fuzz. “Call you back.”
The beep came through loud and clear.
“Lucy, I’m at the cabin and Ian Petrov showed up—but you know that already. Long story but the power just went out. Our cars are buried in all this snow. If anyone can figure a way to get us out of here, it’s you. And you owe us for setting this up.”
In an effort to block the icy wind blowing in all directions that sent the quicker-falling snow swirling around her, she turned and ended up facing the large living room window. Ian stood on the other side, his feet planted hip-width apart and his arms crossed over his muscular chest, glaring straight at her. Again. What was with this guy? He rushes to pluck her out of the snow and carries her back to the house like something straight out of a movie but then gets sulky the moment she says her arm isn’t about to fall off? Did he want to play hero or watch her writhe in pain? Falling back on the skills she learned as an angry, disaffected teenager, she itched her nose with her middle finger while scowling right back at him. Mature? Nope. Satisfying? Yes.
“If we kill each other, I’m going to come back as a ghost just to haunt you,” Shelby said into her phone as she turned away from the man who totally discombobulated her. “Call back and send help, please.”
Sending up a prayer that the message wouldn’t be totally garbled, she squared her shoulders and walked back into the cabin. The heat from the now-crackling-to-life fire hit her as s
oon as she walked in the door, a welcome blast of comfort after the frigid ice fingers of the wind reaching through her sweater. It was like getting out of the shower and wrapping a fresh-from-the-dryer towel around herself.
Closing her eyes, she let out a long, satisfied sigh. When she opened them again, Ian was staring straight at her, and she would have sworn she’d caught a glimpse of something softer for a whole half a second before his body tensed and he went back to his usual lump-of-stone posture.
Okay, then.
“I left a message for Lucy,” she said, taking off her boots and heading straight toward the fireplace, hands tingling in anticipation of the heat. “The connection wasn’t the greatest, but hopefully enough of it got through.”
He nodded and did that growly grunt of his again before stepping away from the fireplace as she approached it, his moves hurried. His heel caught on the corner of the rug. His eyes went wide with surprise and he flung his arms out for balance as he started to tip over. Shelby didn’t think, she just reacted, calling up on that adrenaline-spiked quick reflexes and reached out, catching his hand and pulling him forward, helping to hold him steady as he fought to stay upright in a long, drawn-out moment that was probably all of half a breath long. Then he was stable, looking down at her, the muscle in his jaw working overtime as the air crackled around them.
“Thanks,” he said, a tinge of pink hitting his cheeks. They were so close, the heat from his body rivaling what the fireplace was kicking out. “You’re stronger than you look.”
“Have you ever met a woman before?” she asked, mentally warning herself not to notice the flecks of green in his brown eyes or the tiny scar across the bridge of his nose or the way her pulse was kicking it up a notch or four thousand. “Of course we are. We have to be.”
He ran his thumb over the back of her knuckles—soft and tentative, as if he didn’t understand why he was doing it. Then he exhaled a harsh breath, lifted his thumb, and scowled at her. “You can let go now.”