“Yeah, Stella. That’s what happens when you run through the woods in a hunting area. They think you’re a deer. Stop!” Van says, and a man lets loose a string of colorful profanities. I glance up at Van. We hear another body thundering toward us through the underbrush, and suddenly, a man-bear holding a rifle is towering over us. Van gets to his feet and offers me a hand up. I take it, but only because I have no desire to fall on my ass in front of the big scary hunter.
“What the hell were you two thinkin’, eh?” The hunter points his finger in my face and then Van’s.
“Hey, don’t you talk to her like that, and don’t point your goddamn finger at my girlfriend.” My head snaps so fast in Van’s direction I’m surprised I don’t pull a muscle.
“I almost shot you two. I can’t afford to go shooting no humans when I’m just out here looking for a bull.”
“You shouldn’t hunt,” I say. “Animals aren’t sport.”
He turns angry black eyes on me. “Excuse me?”
“Babe, that’s enough.”
“Wait, I know you,” he says to Van. “You’re the Crushers’ center, aren’t you?”
“You’re a fan?” Van smiles, and he seems to deflate. For a half-second, I’m afraid of being recognized too, but this guy doesn’t really scream country music fan. More like classic rock, or death metal.
“I’m a Toronto fan.”
“Shit,” Van mutters.
“You beat the shit out of Cote and put him in the hospital. He was our best player. You’re the reason we didn’t make last year’s playoffs.”
“Come on, now, that’s a pretty big claim. Besides, he cross-checked my face. Way I see it, he had it coming.”
The hunter tightens his grip on his gun. Van must see it too, because he takes my hand. “Stella, babe, run.”
“What?” I say, and then he’s yanking me along behind him. We dash through the trees, back the way we came, collecting Emmett along the way. When we make it to the Hummer, I bend double, rest my hands on my knees and attempt to catch my breath. “Is he going to shoot us?”
“Nah, we lost him about a half a mile back. Damn, girl. I thought you worked out.”
“I do.” I hold my hand up to indicate he should wait. “But I’m not normally wrapped up like a marshmallow and running through the Canadian Rockies while some terrifying hockey-hunter whack job chases us with a rifle.”
Van laughs, and the bastard isn’t even out of breath. “You should see your face.”
“Oh my god, you’re an asshole, Van.”
“He is an asshole,” Emmett agrees, seemingly as out of breath as I am.
“Get in the car, Brother,” Van says. Emmett pokes his tongue out.
“What happened to the moose?”
“He ran right into a tree. Fell and didn’t get up. I flew right by him, and he didn’t even notice me.”
“You didn’t want to use the rifle in your hands and shoot him while he was chasing me?”
“No. I would have killed you.” He smiles sheepishly. “I’m a fucking terrible shot.”
My blood turns cold when I realize that I could have been slain by more than one hunter today. Oh my god. Let’s go hunt moose, he said. It’ll be fun, he said. That jackass. I frown at Van, and take a closer look at the gun in his hands. “Well, it don’t help that you bought the cheapest rifle on the market. There’s your first mistake right there.”
“What?” He gapes at me in disbelief.
“I know how to shoot a gun, Van. I grew up in Tennessee. Why the hell do you think I’m a vegetarian? My granddaddy shot anything that moved. I didn’t like it, and I especially didn’t like eating them after I’d seen the poor things skinned and strung up while the blood drained out of them.”
He has this glazed expression on his face. “I am all kinds of turned on right now.”
“Because I’m a vegetarian?”
“Because you know how to shoot a gun. Chicks with guns are hot.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh my god.” I throw my hands up in exasperation but Van moves closer. I take a step back and find myself leaning against the Hummer. He slides his hand into my hair, his huge palm grazing my cheek. Van leans in, and . . . Emmett slams his fist on the horn. “Come on, Van. I’m freezing my nuts off in here.”
Van chuckles. “Saved by the bell.”
I glance up at this gorgeous enigma of a man and sigh as he pulls away. I’m pretty sure it’s not the cold that’s making my face flush all over, and I have no doubt that he’s all too aware of it. I laugh nervously as Van smiles down at me with a knowing grin, and he backs away. I lean my head against the car and take several deep breaths. From a rampaging moose to hot hockey players, the Canadian wilderness is a dangerous place for a girl from Tennessee.
“Hey,” Van says, as he and Emmett come back from practice two days after our hunting trip. Emmett heads to the kitchen without so much as a hello, and I wonder if the novelty of having me stay has worn off already. As nice as it is to get away from the crazy of Nashville and the paparazzi, it’s almost too quiet, and I’m going out of my mind with boredom while Van and Emmett attend practice. So much so that I wouldn’t say no to another moose chase. I’d been here four days, and it is the longest I can ever remember not working. I’ve started a handful of songs only to scrap them all, and I’m still avoiding the TV like the plague.
“Hi. How was training?”
“Painful.” Van flops onto the couch beside me, but he winces and shrugs his shoulders up and down, as if he’s trying to smooth out the kinks.
“Are they working you too hard?” I frown. “I mean, shouldn’t you be resting if you have an injury?”
“You’d think that, but no. Working through it is the only way to heal. We call it rehab.”
“Sounds like hell.”
“It is.” He yawns and sits up. “You wanna get out of here?”
I make a face. “Where would we go?”
“Not hunting.” He grins, and I can’t help but get swept up in his good mood. “It’s on the property.”
“Sure.”
“You’ll need to bundle up, though. You’re a size six, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your shoe size? Emmett had to Google it.”
I frown. “Wow, that’s not creepy at all. Can you Google my bra size, too?”
“I don’t know, you want me to see? Then at least I’d know what size to get you.” He pulls out his phone, and I snatch it away.
“God, there really is no limit to the useless crap people want to know about you because you’re famous.”
“I guess I’ve never thought about it that way. I’m used to having hockey stats broadcast for everyone to see, including my height, weight, and fat-to-muscle ratio. But I don’t look too hard at all the other shit that’s out there. I don’t care what people think—let them believe what they want. I know the truth. The people I care about know the real me. Everyone else doesn’t matter.”
“I wish I could see it that way.”
He shrugs. “Singing is what you do. It doesn’t mean you have to give your fans all of you. They can own that part, but only you get to own what’s in here.” He presses his hand to my heart, and for a beat I’m taken aback by how sweet a sentiment that is, but when his gaze turns to a leer I narrow my eyes.
“Be honest. You said that line just so you could cop a feel, didn’t you?”
“Not just because.” I shove his hand away, and he chuckles. “Now, come on. We’re taking you skating.”
“What? No! I can’t skate.”
“Everyone can skate,” Emmett says, coming out of the kitchen with a sandwich in his hand. “It just takes practice.”
“But I’ve never done it before.”
“Then you don’t know you can’t.”
“Van—”
“Do you trust me, Stella?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“You do?”
I stare in disbelief. “Was I supposed to answer no to
that question?”
“Of course not. I’m just surprised. You don’t seem that trusting of many people.”
“I’m not.”
A slow smile spreads across his face and I’m greeted by those glorious dimples. “Then maybe I can help with that.”
Against my better judgement, I bundle up and follow both boys out into the frigid afternoon air. We walk through the trees, downhill for at least a couple of miles, and just when I’m about to suggest that we stop for a break, the forest thins on a small frozen pond. It’s surrounded by spruce and maybe only half the length of a football field with a hockey net at one end. Emmett and Van set their hockey sticks down in the snow, and then they switch out their shoes for skates.
“We’re skating on that?”
“Of course. What did you think—there was just going to be a rink magically appear?”
“No, obviously.” I furrow my brow and asses the ice. “How do you know we won’t fall through?”
“I don’t.”
My eyes widen in horror. “What?”
“That’s part of the fun.”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Come on, Stella,” Emmett says. He’s already gliding on the surface of the ice as if it’s as natural as walking.
“Please tell me he’s not going to fall and break his neck.”
“We’ve been doing this since we were kids.” Van laughs, shaking his head. “What’s the matter, country? You can run in heels across a parking lot, but you can’t skate across the ice?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I watched the video of your great escape. Pretty impressive.”
I slap my hand across my mouth. “Oh my god. There’s a video?”
“Yep.”
“Oh no, no, no, no,” I say, burying my face in my hands. “Where—”
“On YouTube. It was hilarious.”
“Oh my god.”
“Stella look at me,” he says. “You can’t change it; you can’t take it down. You can’t do anything about it, so who cares? Let them upload their videos. Concentrate on the things you can control.”
“Like what?” I snap. “I have no control over any of it.”
“Like skating with me and Emmett.” He holds out the skates they bought me. “You know I’m right.”
It’s true; he is. There’s nothing I can do about it. Even if I was there to explain my actions, what would I say? My mother’s voice comes back to haunt me again. “You made your bed, kiddo.”
I’m sure Lana is already working on having the video taken down, but what does it matter? I did this, and eventually I’ll have to face the consequences, but for now, for right this minute, I only have control over whether I take the skates or not.
I snatch them from his outstretched hands and plonk my ass in the snow to remove my shoes. I attempt to pull on the first skate, but I struggle with the fit and almost slice Van’s pretty face when he comes closer to help me ease into them.
“Woah, there.” He holds his hands out in a placating gesture, as if I were a wild animal ready to tear out his throat. “I come in peace. Here, let me help. They’re a little tough to get on at first.”
He wraps his hands around my calf and tugs me closer. Those big hands help to work the leather boot on, and I can’t help but wonder what they’d feel like on my skin instead of the outside of my jeans. And when he looks at me the way he is now, with eyes burning with lust and just a hint of that ever-present humor, I have a hard time containing my thundering heart. I lace up my skates and take Van’s hand, because no way in hell am I attempting to stand without having him there to catch me if I fall.
He pulls me toward the ice, and I wobble like a little girl in her mother’s heels. Both of my legs go out from under me. Van laughs.
“Stop laughing at me.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
He chuckles darkly, and I let go of his hand, falling back into the snow. A little of it sneaks down the front of my shirt, and I scream and scoop my hands into my cleavage to dig it out, though it’s already melting with my body heat. “Fucking Canada!”
Emmett skates over, probably to see what the devil is going on, and both Ross boys just stand there, laughing at me. I fume. I don’t even bother with the skates—I just try crawling away on my hands and knees because I don’t trust my legs. This is uproariously funny to both men, and the more they laugh, the angrier I get.
“You know, not everybody grew up skatin’ on frozen lakes,” I snap, my southern accent twanging all over the place when I’m mad. “Some of us had summers, and local swimming holes, and ice cream. You can’t even have ice cream here because it’s too goddamn cold. Screw you guys.”
“Come on, Stella, where you gonna go?”
“I’ll crawl home.”
“That might be quite the trek uphill and all.”
“Don’t get lost in the woods,” Emmett calls. “Or eaten by a cougar.”
“They don’t usually attack adults, Em, but she is pretty small. Fun-sized.” Van chuckles and I turn around to glare at both of them. Emmett’s doubled over, slapping his knee, while Van just smirks, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Come on, country. I promise we’ll stop laughing.”
“You know, it’s no wonder the Predators are way more popular than the Crushers. At least we have some southern hospitality going for us.”
“Oh no she didn’t,” Emmett says.
Van stalks toward me, digging his skates into the snow, getting closer by the second. He offers me a hand up, and I grudgingly accept it. “Hospitality, huh? What do you call me letting you stay at Lodge Ross?”
“Oh, please. You’re just keeping me there because . . . well, because . . .” I cast my gaze around and realize that while my eyes have been firmly locked on his, we’ve been moving. We’re now on the ice. I glance back at the bank I sat on just a second ago, but my legs wobble and slip out again. Van wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me closer. My body is flush with his.
“Don’t panic. I’ve got you.”
I stare up into pretty blue eyes and plead, “I wanna go back.”
“You trust me?”
“Van, no. I can’t.”
“Sure, you can. I’m right beside you.”
“No! Don’t let go.”
He places his gloved hand in mine and steps back. Slowly, he begins to move forward, taking me with him. I wobble, thrusting my other arm out for balance. We skate this way across the pond, and then, as he picks up speed and the cold air rushes over my face, a smile forms on my lips and I shriek, half in fear, and half with excitement. He laughs, but it isn’t mocking like before. I know he genuinely loves this, and I guess a part of me can see why. It feels like flying.
“You wanna try on your own?”
“No! Don’t let go.”
“You looking for an excuse to hold my hand, country?”
“No. I’m afraid of falling.”
“But that’s the best part.” He grins, squeezing my hand tighter, and I have a feeling he’s right.
“Hey, give me a ride?” Eli Boucher, my right wing and closest friend, says as I make my way from the locker room after training.
“I can’t. I have to go across town before heading home.”
He shrugs. “So? I’ll come with you.”
“Where’s your car?”
“In the shop. Don’t be a dick,” he says, in a Quebec French accent that makes his consonants sound all fucked up. “It’s not like I’m asking you to drive an hour out of your way. Some of us don’t live in the mountains.”
“Fine, but you’re staying in the Hummer while I run errands.”
“Pfft. What-the-fuck-ever, man. I’m not a damn dog.”
We exit the rink and walk over to my truck. “How the hell did you get here?”
“A bunny dropped me off.”
“Oh, Jesus, you didn’t?”
“What? It’s not like she couldn’t come watch anyway. You can phone ah
ead and Dolores will tell you what time practice begins.”
“Yeah, but no one is stupid enough to bring a bunny along after fucking her the night before. She’s gonna be pretending she’s your girlfriend now just to get through security at games.”
“Relax. She’s not that kind of bunny.”
“Huh. That’s funny.”
“Why is that funny?”
I shake my head. “Because they’re all that kind of bunny, Eli, otherwise they wouldn’t fucking be bunnies.”
“Whatever. Security won’t let her in on game day anyway.”
“Just make sure she doesn’t turn into a bunny boiler. Remember the one that went psycho?”
“Sweetest ass I ever had. Tellement dommage qu'elle soit folle.”
“Oui, crazy,” I say, making out only two words in that sentence. I hate it when he speaks French. For the most part, he’s pretty good about sticking to words I understand, unless you put him in a room with a fellow Québécois. Then it’s hard to get him to switch his brain back to English.
I climb into the beast. I have half a mind to lock the doors so he can’t get in, but that would just make him suspicious, since he knows I’d never leave him stranded. We might have only been friends since he got traded to Calgary from Ottawa three years ago, but he’s my brother from another mother. He spends holidays with me and my family, since he can’t stand his own, and when he looks at Emmett, he doesn’t see his disability either. He can be a real shithead when it comes to women, and he’s had my back more times than I can count, but I can’t have Eli knowing about Stella. The dude never could keep a secret, and this is one I want to hold onto for a while longer.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drop you off first?”
“What are you hiding, Ross?”
“What? Nothing.” I take a sip from my Gatorade bottle and start the engine, peeling out of the lot. “I’m not hiding anything.”
“Bullshit.” He grins, resting his feet on the dash. “You’re up to something . . . or someone.”
Half hour later, we pull into the drive of a music store in Calgary. “Dude, you thinking about buying a tiny violin?”
“Guitar, actually.”
“Since when do you play?”
Puck Love Page 6