by Skye Jordan
Hot Puck
A Rough Riders’ Hockey Novel
Skye Jordan
Joan Swan
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Dear Reader
About the Author
Also by Skye Jordan
Copyright © 2016 by Skye Jordan
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
1
Beckett Croft angled to stop just inches from the referee, spraying ice over the prick’s skates. This guy had been favoring the Anaheim Ducks since the first puck drop.
Leaning in, Beckett pinned the ref with all the frustration that had built up over the first two periods of the game.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Beckett kept his voice down, but it took more control than he thought he had left. This guy had been favoring the Anaheim Ducks all goddamned game. “Donovan wasn’t even close. Decker faked that trip. You ought to at least call him on embellishment.”
As the Washington Rough Riders’ captain, Beckett was the only player who could talk to—or in this case, challenge—the ref’s calls. Normally, he handled his job with stoic intensity. Setting an example for his teammates was an important part of the position, one he took seriously. But so was calling bullshit.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” The ref grabbed the puck from another member of his four-man team. Before he skated away, he warned, “If you want to stay on the ice, Croft, lose the attitude.”
“Fucking A.” He blinked sweat from his eyes as he skated into the face-off formation. “This is bullshit.”
Tate Donovan, one of their highest scorers, glided past on his way toward the penalty box with “Even it up, Beck.”
“You know it.”
Beckett had two major jobs on the ice—protection and punishment. He was one of the team’s two designated enforcers. And Donovan was right, this was a good time to even up the score—if not on the board, where they were already tied with the Ducks two-two—certainly on the ice, where the ref had fallen short.
There was more than one way to seek justice.
With twelve minutes left of the second period, Fall Out Boy blasted over the arena’s speakers, background to the announcer’s voice hyping the Rough Riders’ lineup. And while the fifteen thousand fans filling their home stadium in downtown Washington, DC cheered with steadfast belief in their team, Beckett’s chest tightened with each second that ticked past.
His team was approaching the middle of their season and the acclaimed Winter Classic. They needed this win to advance into the finals. Beckett himself was approaching the end of his contract with his team, and he needed this win just as badly to secure his personal and professional goals.
The puck dropped. Savage chipped it to Hendrix. Hendrix smacked it to Saber. Saber swept toward the Ducks’ goal and passed to Beckett.
Decker appeared on Beckett’s flank, blocking the goal. And goddammit, he was fucking sick of this guy. He faked left, drove right, and flew behind the net, passing to Savage.
Savage took the shot. The smack of the puck echoed off the ice. A sound that pumped adrenaline through Beckett’s blood.
The Ducks’ goalie, a fresh young hotshot from Canada, blocked the puck, and Saber grabbed the rebound while Beckett bullied the Ducks’ defenseman out of his teammate’s path. He pushed toward the opposite end of the rink in time to witness Hendrix out-skate one Duck, out-stick another, and swing toward the goal.
Energy buzzed like live wires between the players. Everyone’s focus was honed and intense. Cheering in the stands had faded into white noise. All Beckett heard was the rasp of his breath and the beat of his heart or the occasional call from a teammate.
In split-second intervals, Beckett saw Hendrix set up, take stock of those around him, pull his stick back—
Decker’s angle of approach shifted, and the Duck drove toward Hendrix. Beckett pushed every ounce of power he owned into his thighs, driving his skates forward. But he didn’t reach the men before Decker slammed Hendrix against the boards so hard, the Rough Rider came off his feet, banged his head on the glass, and broke his hockey stick.
Yet the refs remained silent. No roughing call.
Before Hendrix had even gotten back on his skates, Decker was driving the puck toward the Rough Riders’ goal.
This was fucked. It was also over. Beckett was done watching the other team pummel his teammates without consequences.
Fury put speed into Beckett’s skates. Donovan blasted out of the penalty box and immediately crowded Decker toward the wall. Beckett angled toward the bastard, lowered his shoulder, and threw all two hundred pounds of himself—along with a decent amount of momentum—into the Duck.
The clatter of equipment filled Beckett’s ears a split second before Decker hit the boards. Then the thunder of the Plexiglas rumbled through his ears and rattled his brain, followed by ravenous spectator approval.
Adrenaline gushed through Beckett’s system, and he used it to catch up with his teammates. He traded the puck a few times with Saber and Donovan as they jockeyed for an opening between the Ducks’ pipes. Decker intercepted a pass between Hendrix and Donovan and ran the puck toward the opposite end of the rink. The fans howled in disappointment.
“No fucking way,” Beckett said under his breath.
He sprinted across the ice as Decker set up for a play. Beckett saw three moves ahead, the way a chess master spied a checkmate in the near future with perfect accuracy. He pushed every ounce of strength available into his legs. In his peripheral vision, Beckett saw Donovan come up on his left. Savage on his right. Perfect positioning to grab the puck and go.
He braced himself and hit Decker hard, driving them both into the boards. Their bodies slammed with thundering impact, drowning out their curses and the cheering crowd. The puck was long gone, swept down the ice by Beckett’s teammates.
Decker’s frustration finally exploded. Instead of heading back into play, the Duck twisted and hammered a right hook at Beckett’s face. He dodged the punch, and the momentum swung Decker ninety degrees. His skate blade caught on Beckett’s, and before he could untangle himself, Beckett went down hard, hitting the ice on his ass. The impact nailed his tailbone, driving a steel shaft of pain straight up his spine. Every molecule of air in his lungs froze. Beckett hadn’t even reclaimed his breath before Decker shoved him backward. Beckett’s helmet cracked against the ice.
Hard.
So hard, a burst of black filled his vision, immediately followed by blinding white light and s
tabbing pain.
Beckett tried to push Decker off, but his arms wouldn’t move. He ordered his body to twist and roll. Still, he didn’t move.
His brain hurt. Bad.
His head felt wobbly. And light. Like it was floating off his neck.
Overhead, the goal siren echoed through the arena. The dome erupted in earsplitting applause. And even though the sounds came to him from a distance, like he had cotton stuffed in his ears, Beckett felt a sliver of gratification.
We’ve got the lead was his last thought before his mind went dark.
Eden Kennedy frowned at one of the dozens of EKG strips her boss had collected for her to study.
She sat cross-legged on the gurney pushed up against a cement wall in the lower level of the Verizon arena and laid the tape above her textbook, where she flipped through the pages dedicated to EKGs and the pathology found within the various strokes.
Her partner on the ambulance tonight, Gabe, a die-hard hockey fan, had his face all but pressed up against the glass that surrounded the rink. That left her free to focus on all these squiggly lines.
She rested her elbow on her knee and her forehead in her hand. “This is way too much like reading ink blots.”
Eden barely heard her own words over the noise rocking the stadium. She’d gotten pretty good at tuning out almost everything and everyone when she needed to focus on the job or her studies, but this noise was wearing on her concentration and her nerves. And as each hour of study time for tomorrow’s midterm dwindled away, her stress mounted. She was now at the tearing-her-eyelashes-out tension level.
“I think we’ve got something.” Gabe’s yell barely registered beneath the dense foam plugs she’d stuffed in her ears upon arriving at the stadium.
Eden lifted her gaze from the EKG strips to shoot a glare at Gabe, who stood ten feet away, but he was still focused on the rink. The only reason she’d agreed to work this extra shift was because he’d promised her nothing ever happened. He’d promised her she’d get all sorts of extra study time. But since he wasn’t looking at her, Eden followed suit and ignored him. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than that vague warning to get Eden to take him seriously.
The announcer’s voice rose over the noise and seemed to vibrate inside her body.
Eden cringed, squeezing her eyes shut and holding her head with both hands. “God, I hate hockey.”
Her words were once again sucked into the chaotic void beneath the metal dome.
“Eden,” Gabe said again, louder this time as he turned toward her. “I think we’re going in.”
“I doubt it,” she muttered.
The teams had physical therapists and team physicians. Gabe hadn’t hauled a guy in yet this season, and it was already November. Besides, these were professional hockey players. A notch above MMA fighters in her book only because at least they played a game in between fights that required some skill. Considering their brutal tendencies, Eden couldn’t fathom a reason to bring them in, barring a heart attack, stroke, broken bone sticking through the skin…
“Eden.”
“Jesus.” Eden slapped her textbook closed, pushed off the gurney, and wandered toward the mouth of the tunnel running beneath the stadium to meet Gabe. As she neared the rink, the cold wrapped around her, and she pulled her uniform jacket tighter.
The stadium had filled since she’d last looked, and a sea of royal blue created a thick tiered ring around the ice. “Damn. There are way too many people in our society who will pay to watch a fight.”
“They’re paying to watch hockey,” Gabe told her. “The fights come with the territory.”
Whatever. “This shift was supposed to be a cakewalk.”
“This never happens…” He trailed off as a man in slacks and a Rough Riders warm-up jacket stepped onto the ice in dress shoes. With a referee on either side of him, he held their arms for support as he jogged across the ice to the group huddled near the arena’s far wall. “That must be the team doc.”
Before Eden could ask what happened—hoping this was all a dog-and-pony show for the fans—the announcer spoke.
“Beckett Croft took a hard fall in a scuffle with the Ducks’ Andrew Decker.”
Jeering rumbled through the crowd.
“Look.” Gabe pointed to the Jumbotron where a replay flashed over the screen.
The announcer continued to commentate. Eden didn’t understand the hockey language, but she did understand fight language—unfortunately so.
On the screen, the guy in blue rammed the guy in white against the glass with so much malice and intention and force, Eden’s stomach coiled into a knot. White retaliated, shoving back Blue, who then tripped over White’s skate. Blue hit the ice tailbone first.
Eden tensed and winced. Her hand instinctively moved from her hip to the base of her spine. Then White followed Blue to the ice and shoved him back. Blue’s head hit so hard, his helmet bounced. Referees stepped in, blocking sight of the players on the video.
Eden crossed her arms, trying to squeeze ugly feelings from her body. “Did I already mention that I hate hockey?”
Gabe didn’t answer. He was riveted to the replay.
“Guess there’s job security in perpetual human stupidity,” she muttered.
“Bet he shakes it off,” Gabe said, never looking away from the ice. “He’s one of the toughest in the league.”
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Gabe knew all about these East Coast winter sports and was a rabid Rough Riders fan. When their employer, Capital Ambulance, won the contract to transport Rough Riders players to the hospital in the event of an emergency, Gabe had jumped at the chance to staff as many of those shifts as he could grab. And then started begging, borrowing, and stealing the rest.
After working for the company for nearly two years, Eden had seniority, but she’d taken a huge step back and let the others claim these light-duty runs. She didn’t need any unnecessary exposure to violence or reminders of how it could slip into a life and ruin everything.
She heaved a sigh and looked at the scoreboard but couldn’t tell what any of the numbers meant. “How long until this is over? I’ve still got a lot of studying to do.”
“Excuse me.” Gabe and Eden turned. A man in his mid-forties came toward them from the tunnel. He wore nice slacks with a dress shirt, a tie, and a royal-blue warm-up jacket emblazoned with the Rough Riders’ logo. “I’m Paul, one of the Rough Riders’ assistant coaches. Doc Danbar wants Beckett to go in.”
Perfect. Eden heaved a breath but shoved her midterm to the back of her mind.
“Fine.” She returned to the gurney, grabbed the rails, and pushed it forward, then took one handle of the backboard and picked up the C-collar. “Let’s do this.”
The thought of having fifteen thousand pairs of eyes on her while she packaged this so-called elite athlete onto the backboard and then the gurney gave her butterflies. But, hell, she had to do what she had to do, right? And the sooner they dropped this loser at the emergency room, the sooner she could go home and find some peace to study.
She glanced at Paul. “Do you have those grates for our shoes so we can walk on the—”
The crowd broke into cheers so loud, the noise drowned her words. She glanced toward the glass and found this Beckett guy gliding to the sidelines with the help of the team doctor and a referee.
“What the hell?” Eden threw the hand holding the C-collar out to the side. Her accusatory gaze shot to Paul. “He shouldn’t be on his feet. He could have a spine injury.”
A smile broke out over Paul’s face. “No one keeps Beckett Croft down if he doesn’t want to stay down.”
Eden had dealt with her share of uncooperative and even combative patients over the years, but she really wasn’t in the mood to deal with one tonight.
If the idiot wanted to risk becoming a paraplegic, who was she to try to save him from himself?
She tossed the board and the C-collar back onto the gurney. “Where do we pick him up?”
/> “Locker room.” Paul gestured for them to follow and started into the tunnel.
Gabe took control of the gurney, and Eden fell in beside him.
“Start your mental recorder,” she told Gabe under her breath. “We don’t need some big shot coming back later, blaming us because this Beckett guy’s in a wheelchair. I want every detail of this call in the report.”
Gabe gave a single nod. “Got it.” They slowed as Paul paused at a door, entered a code, and stepped through. “Hey,” Gabe asked Eden, “think I could ride in the back with him?”
Eden shot him a you-can’t-be-serious look.
Gabe shrugged and smiled. “I’m dying for his autograph.”
“And I’m dying for my paramedic’s license.” Which included a certain number of patient cases or hours as an EMT. Eden had opted for cases over hours since she worked at one of the busiest ambulance companies but couldn’t give a lot of hours.
“I’ll give you the call on paper,” Gabe offered, hopeful.
“Which would require you to lie.”
“I would never lie.” He pushed the gurney through the doorframe and shot a smile at Eden over his shoulder. “I’d just very carefully word my report.”
She was grinning at his excitement as she stepped into another hallway.
“I’m fucking fine, goddammit.”
The man’s bellow erupted from the next room and echoed off the concrete walls, startling Eden to a stop. Unease prickled over her skin. The fear response was automatic and still came now and then when she least expected it. Less and less as time passed and Eden’s life moved on, but the paramedic program was wearing her out. Fatigue kept her from compartmentalizing as well as she used to. Stress broke down her professional barriers more easily.
Eden rolled her gaze to the ceiling, searching for strength and patience.
“This is fucking bullshit. They need me on the ice. Do I look like I need to go to the fucking hospit— Ah, goddammit.”
Eden heard the pain in the man’s voice and smirked at Gabe. “Still want to ride in the back with him?”