“You could have contacted me when you returned home.”
“I tried. Your voice mail box was full.” He pointed to the dog. “Does that thing bite?”
“She’s not a thing, and no. She doesn’t bite.” She paused. “At least not yet.”
He glanced at Lexie. “What is it?”
“Yum Yum isn’t an ‘it’ either. She’s a Chinese crested.” Lexie brushed her fingers through the long hair on her tail. “Please watch what you say in front of her. She’s very sensitive, and her feelings are easily crushed.”
“What the fuck?”
“And no cursing. She doesn’t like it.”
“Does she have a fucking swear jar?”
“No, but that’s a good idea. You and Dad can help contribute to her chew-toy fund.”
“Jes—sus.”
A big frown wrinkled her brow again. “Harsh voices upset her.”
“But that pink thing you make her wear isn’t upsetting?”
“It’s from my Woo-Hoo Tutu line of dog couture. Hot pink makes her feel better when she’s sad.”
He wasn’t about to ask how she knew her dog was sad. Mostly because he didn’t give a shit, and because he was already sorry he’d asked about the stupid tutu. “It’s getting late.” Was he really having a conversation about a dog’s sad feelings? “Let’s cut through the bullshit. Why did you stuff a note in my pocket?”
“We need to talk about the picture.”
There was only one picture she could be referencing. “What about it?”
“It’s ruined my life.”
“I doubt your life is ruined.” What a drama queen. “And if it is, you ruined it the day you ran from your wedding.”
She shook her head, and her little dog inched closer. “Before the picture came out, I’d managed to repair my reputation and salvage my business. Now it’s all ruined again because of you.”
“Me?” The dog whipped out her thin black tongue and licked her pointed muzzle. “I wasn’t the only one standing outside that motel.”
“Now you have to fix it.”
Sean had never responded well to demands. He kept his eyes on the dog and said, “I don’t have to fix anything. I didn’t leak that photo to the press.” He could swear the thing was licking her chops in anticipation of snacking on his jugular. He wasn’t afraid. He could take her out, but she was unnerving.
“I have a proposition that is mutually beneficial to us both and will fix everything.”
He couldn’t imagine anything that would benefit both of them. Not unless she changed her mind and wanted to get naked. He pulled his gaze from her dog and gave her his attention. “What is that, princess?”
“You have to convince everyone that you are madly in love with me.”
Nope, he wouldn’t have imagined that. Her eyes looked into his, steady and serious, and he started to laugh.
“It’s the only way that I get my reputation back and you don’t get a stick up your ass.”
His laughter turned into a deep chuckle.
Her brows lowered and she got all squinty-eyed like her mutt. She might have looked unattractive if she wasn’t so damn pretty. “I’m serious.”
“I can see that.” He rubbed the lower half of his face and tried to wipe away his smile. “How long did it take you to think up this ridiculous scheme?”
“It’s not ridiculous.” She sat back against the couch and folded her arms across her breasts.
“That’s what I thought. You’ve given it the same scrutiny you did when you agreed to marry a man you didn’t know.” He leaned forward and grabbed his beer. “Even less than you did when you signed on to the show that fucked up your life.”
“It’s going to solve our problems.”
“I don’t have a problem.” He pointed the bottle to himself, then took a drink. He wasn’t worried about anyone on the hockey team literally shoving a stick or anything else up his ass. He took a few swallows and lowered the beer. He was more worried about a figurative stick. The one that could skewer any progress he’d made with the Chinooks and especially John Kowalsky. Maybe he and Lexie could come up with something. Something about them having met and being friendly. Nothing about being forced or coerced into anything. Maybe he could work it and come out looking like a hero.
“How’s your mama doing?”
“Why?” The hairless dog caught his attention as she crept even closer.
“Just wondering.”
Sean doubted that as he watched the mutt belly-crawl, tutu and all, close enough to put her pointed nose next to his shoulder on the couch.
“Some elderly people flock to Florida or Arizona this time of year. It’s better for their health.”
Geraldine was exactly where he needed her to stay. “My mother’s health is just fine.” In fact, the last time he’d spoken to her, she’d made a miraculous recovery. He figured he had another six months before she was facing certain death again. Six glorious—chaos-free—months that he needed to focus on the Stanley Cup finals.
“Sandspit can’t be good for a woman in your mother’s delicate condition.” She sucked air between her teeth as if in pain. “Her heart palpitations are worrisome. Not to mention her skin lesions.”
“My mother would never move someplace where she doesn’t have friends or family to complain to. She could never be a little fish in a big pond. It’s just not in her.” She didn’t have much family left, just a cousin or two in Saskatoon. She did seem to have a few friends left in Sandspit—for now. “She doesn’t know anyone in Florida or Arizona.”
“She knows someone in Seattle, though. Admittedly, Seattle isn’t as warm as Sun City, but it has great hospitals and access to wonderful health care, too. I’m sure she would love a long visit with her only child.”
Sean’s gaze met hers. Her eyes were no longer squinty from anger, but filled with the triumph of a poker player who’d just shown a royal flush. He’d been about to give some thought to her plan. Rework it a little. Negotiate terms so that he’d come away looking like he kept her safe from the media horde. There had been no need to drop the gloves.
“She already thinks we’re soul mates.” She reached for her beer and smiled. “Thanks to you.”
“How long?”
“Have we been soul mates?” She shrugged. “Since before I signed on with Gettin’ Hitched.”
That wasn’t what he’d meant.
Lexie took a drink, then looked up at the ceiling as if she was giving it some thought. As if she didn’t have it already worked out in her pretty little head. “We were star-crossed lovers. Fate was against us. My father is the Chinooks coach and you played for the Penguins. We didn’t believe it would work out and we didn’t have enough faith in our love.” She returned her gaze to his and smiled. “I was so heartbroken when we broke up, I acted too impulsively. You didn’t know I’d signed on to do Gettin’ Hitched, and I didn’t know you accepted the trade to Seattle so you could be near me.”
That was so sappy and really did make him look like a nancy-pants. “Let me guess, I got ahold of you before you could walk down the aisle and declared my undying love.”
Her grin got bigger. “Isn’t it romantic?”
The little dog lifted her head and placed her nose on his shoulder. He got a strange whiff of corn chips and roses as her beady eyes stared at him through the part in her hair. He figured both owner and dog were pushing him to see how far he’d let them go. “As romantic as a slap shot to the groin.”
“I prefer Romeo and Juliet.”
For now, he’d let Lexie think she had him by the short and curlies because it was to his advantage for people—specifically his teammates—to think they’d known each other before she’d ended up in Sandspit with him. It was to his advantage for her father to believe he had feelings for her beyond irritation. And lust. Lust and irritation were an odd combination he’d never felt for a woman. Usually it was one or the other. If he could tamp down the lust and use the irritation, he could work it
to his advantage. “Romeo and Juliet killed themselves.”
“The good news is that you don’t have to drink poison and I don’t have to stab myself.”
If he played out this charade, he’d probably want to kill her. Or himself, he thought as he folded his arms across his chest.
She took his silence for acquiescence. “It’ll all be painless, I promise.” She returned her beer to the table, and her ponytail fell over one shoulder.
“What about your father?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“No.” He couldn’t let John think he was a pussy more than he already did. “I’ll talk to him.”
“We’ll talk to him and my mother.” She straightened and turned toward him, her eyes still shiny with victory.
“Before a word of this goes public.” He glanced at the dog licking the shoulder of his navy blazer like he’d dropped food on it.
“No problem.” She stood as if her proposition was a done deal. “I’ll get a notepad and we can outline terms.”
She could outline all she wanted, but that meant nothing to him. “Hold on there.” She didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to schemes. “I have one condition before I even start to consider your plan.”
“What is that?”
“And it isn’t up for negotiation.” He stood and stared down into her deep blue eyes.
“Okay.”
“No shit storms.”
“No problem.”
He watched her turn and walk across the room. “Just relax,” she said over her shoulder. “We’ll work it all out beforehand. I have a plan.”
“No offense, but I don’t trust you to plan anything for me.”
“I’m an excellent planner,” she said as she opened a kitchen drawer. “I learned to outline for term papers and business plans at Kent State.”
He didn’t know she’d gone to Kent State, but he didn’t know much about her.
“It’s kind of my thing.” She took out a notebook and a pen. “We need to plan different scenarios in order to mitigate risk,” she said as she walked toward him.
His gaze slid from the top of her blond hair and down her pretty face. The only scenario he wanted to work out was putting his mouth on her lips and running his hands all over her body, but not bad enough to mess up his career with the Chinooks. Sex with any woman wasn’t worth that, but especially not with Lexie. She was beautiful and tasted sweet. A beautiful, sweet package that tempted a man to take a risk, even when he knew it was bound to blow up in his face.
Chapter 10
•no love lost; no love found
The first shit storm blew the next morning while Lexie spoke with the contractor renovating her store. Before Sean set foot in Arizona, an “anonymous” source contacted the Seattle Times with Lexie and Sean’s star-crossed-love story. Within an hour of the “leak,” the story appeared on the paper’s online site and was quickly picked up by the gossip sites. Each added their own brand of snarky commentary with headlines like:
Sean Knox Out Pete Dalton
Hitchin’ Bride Ran Away With Hockey Star
Pete Dalton Put on Ice for Sean Knox
Lexie Kowalsky Scores With Hockey Player
TMZ stoked the flames and fueled the story with a photograph of Sean stepping onto the ice at Gila River Arena in Glendale.
Before Sean had left her apartment the night before, he’d reminded her of their agreement to talk to her parents first. He didn’t want any distraction while on the road and demanded that the news not happen until the Monday after his return. Lexie tried to negotiate the leak date, but he’d been totally stubborn and wouldn’t budge.
Too bad everything got mixed up.
She’d put her anonymous source, Marie, in charge of the leak, and Marie being Marie overthought her assignment. Her friend insisted that they needed a layer of plausible deniability and had handed it off to her anonymous source, Jimmy. Jimmy being a nincompoop jumped the gun five days before Sean’s return. From the road, he’d sent a “What the fuck?” text to her prepaid phone. She’d explained the mix-up but wasn’t sure if he believed her. She’d received pretty much the same text from her mother and father. She’d texted them back with a lie, “I love him,” and they’d agreed to table the discussion until the team returned that Sunday night, giving Lexie time to make a detailed memo. Of course they’d discussed the plan, but she always felt better when everything was written out. She created sections and subsections, complete with highlights and bullet points, then she’d sent it in a file to Sean’s phone. By the time the Chinooks returned from the road, and she met Sean in the belly of the Key Arena, she was feeling almost confident of the plan. The only weak link was Sean himself, but as long as he stuck to the script, everything would turn out fine.
“Has my dad been hard on you?” she asked next to Sean’s ear as they embraced the night of his return. His hair smelled like woodsy shampoo and fresh air, and if anyone was watching, they looked like a couple in love. “Has he yelled or cursed at you?”
“No more than usual.” They stood just outside the Chinooks locker room. “But the I’m-going-to-pound-on-you glare has returned to his eyes.” He pulled back and looked down into her face. “The guys on the team discovered Gawker and TMZ, and their chirping is relentless.”
That was bound to happen with hockey players, who considered chirping a moral obligation. “Did you read the memo?”
“I glanced at it.”
The memo needed to be absorbed, not glanced at. The anxiety pounding in her heart kicked up a notch. She took his hand and tried not to look worried as they walked into her father’s office. She didn’t know what scared her more, the frown on her father’s face or that she and Sean might contradict each other.
“Explain this to me.” John Kowalsky waved a hand toward them as she and Sean took the chairs across his desk. “The story on the Internet is crap.”
Looking at her parents added a heavy dose of guilt to her anxious heart. “It’s not crap.” Section one outlined the story they would tell her parents. It was always best to stick as close to the truth as possible. Unless the truth needed to be covered with a big fat lie. “I love Sean.” She turned to her mother sitting beside her father. “We met in Pittsburgh, and it was love at first sight.” She squeezed Sean’s hand so he paid attention to the story. Instead he untwined their fingers and loosened his blue striped tie.
“The two of you?” Her father pointed at her, then at Sean. “You want me and Georgeanne to believe this fairy tale?”
It wasn’t entirely a fairy tale, at least not like the one she’d carefully detailed and planned to tell the press the next day. She turned her gaze to her mother. “You fell in love with Dad the first day you met.” She’d been conceived on that day, too. Very few people knew that her mother had once been a runaway bride, too. A runway bride who’d jumped into John “The Wall” Kowalsky’s little red Corvette, but now wasn’t the time to talk about the first seven years of her life and the impact her parents’ own bad choices had made in her life.
Her mother’s green eyes worried over Lexie’s face and piled on even more guilt. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me that the man in the picture played for your dad.”
Because she hadn’t known. “I’m sorry. Everything was so crazy and confused.” That much was true, and she glanced at Sean to see if he was paying attention. He looked straight ahead as he unbuttoned the collar of his blue dress shirt, and she couldn’t tell. “I didn’t know if my feelings for him were real.” That was close to the truth if she stretched it a bit. “Then Sean sent a note to me at the Fairmont and I just knew I was still in love with him.” She hated lying to her parents, but needs must. According to the terms and conditions she had sent Sean, they’d “break up” in May but remain amiable. She’d wanted to give the story time and credibility, but in one of the few texts Sean had actually returned, he’d insisted on the third week in March, three weeks before the Stanley Cup playoffs. He di
dn’t need any distractions and wanted enough time for the story to completely die before he and the Chinooks made a race for the cup.
Lexie had agreed because she didn’t have a choice. She needed Sean more than he needed her. One more lifeline had been tossed her way. She wasn’t about to let this chance to save herself and her business slip through her fingers. This time she gripped it in a stranglehold and wasn’t about to let go.
“We love each other.” She reached for Sean’s hand resting on the arm of his chair. Their declaration of love might be more believable if he didn’t look like a dead man walking and she was the executioner leading him to the gas chamber.
The legs of her father’s chair hit the floor and his gaze locked on Sean. “I’ve heard Lexie mention love a few times now. I haven’t heard Sean mention it. In fact, Knox, you haven’t said much of anything.”
If he blew it, she would punch him. Knee him really good, too.
“It happened pretty much like Lexie said,” Sean finally spoke up. Now, all he had to do was recite subsection two from the outline. “I waited aboard the Sea Hopper, not knowing if she’d even show up. Then I saw her running toward me, and I just knew. I checked her in to the Harbor Inn so she wouldn’t feel pressured and took her to meet my mother the next morning.” It wasn’t exactly what she’d outlined, but close enough. He covered her hand with his and gave a little squeeze. “The two have a lot in common and really hit it off.”
The last was not part of section two and set off alarm bells in Lexie’s head.
“You haven’t mentioned the word ‘love,’” her father persisted.
Sean looked down at her and smiled. “There are so many things to love about Lexie.” That wasn’t in any section or subsection, either. She’d made it simple and really didn’t think she could have made it easier:
I love her. a. Never stopped loving her.
The Art of Running in Heels Page 14