Power Play (Crimson Romance)

by Nan Comargue

  It was over. Her marriage and whatever threads of it she and Cahal had been holding on for the past few weeks without any reason. The reason for keeping up the charade had vanished back to Chicago. The ball was going to be their last night together. No, she thought, looking over at the pure hard profile of her husband in the driver’s seat, this was their last night. It was still going on.

  “That dinner didn’t fill the holes in my bridgework,” Cahal said into the dim interior, even that mild statement causing her body to jerk against the back of the seat. “Those charity affairs are always the same. What do you say to a quick run through the drive-in?”

  “Sure,” she said as the familiar sign came into view. Then, “I don’t care.”

  He ordered for both of them, far more than she could eat, and as he retrieved the bag from the pickup window she saw the impersonal leer of the teenaged server. The kid probably saw all kinds of fancy dress at this hour of the night when the nightclubs discharged their bleary patrons onto the city streets.

  Holding the greasy paper bag in one hand and Lila’s slender waist in the other, Cahal somehow managed to get them both safely into the condo without mishap. The cheap fatty food and Lila’s brilliant white dress remained at a safe distance from each other.

  “Go change,” her husband ordered, propelling her into the bedroom. “Then we’ll eat and talk.”

  The last word was spoken on a note she didn’t recognize, one of near anxiety … or was it excitement? Why would he be excited? Lila’s depressed mind couldn’t work its way around that essential question.

  By the time she made it back to the living room, wrapped in her most worn robe, Cahal had devoured the greater part of his meal.

  “Sorry.”

  She sat down with him on the floor with a brisk arrangement of folds and flounces. “For what?”

  “For starting without you. I was starved. I feel like I haven’t eaten a proper meal in a year.”

  Her eyes shifted beneath the intensity of his stare. “That’s okay, I’m not really that hungry.”

  Polishing off the last of his double cheeseburger, her husband said, “Let’s talk then.”

  Nibbling at a French fry — golden crisp and salty — gave her something to do.

  “Can’t it wait?”

  But they were both settled down and she knew that it, whatever it was, wouldn’t wait. Not tonight.

  He wiped his mouth on a paper napkin and balled it up and threw it into the bag. Wariness replaced the former … restlessness … anticipation?

  “No.” He took her hand in a convulsive movement. “We’ve been living on borrowed time for the past week. With Victoria gone, the reason for our charade disappears. That particular complication no longer matters.”

  What about Janet Parker, she wanted to ask. What about that complication? She kept her lips shut on a mouthful of half-chewed potato.

  “Knowing what you know now — ,” a quick silver glance, “ — we can start again.”

  She swallowed. “Just like that?”

  “Why not?”

  It wasn’t really a question, it was a statement of intention.

  She withdrew her imprisoned hand.

  “I can think of a few reasons,” she said.

  He shifted, uncertain for once of what to do with his dexterous limbs. “I think those reasons are rightfully mine and I choose not to exercise them. With counseling and — ”

  “We’ve been over this before.” Her voice rose. “The mistakes we’ve made aren’t the kind that can be counseled away.”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  He was being too reasonable and it made her want to lash out.

  Suddenly she remembered what Chris had said earlier. Cahal had sent him out to find her at the ball. Cahal knew. He obviously thought she needed counseling after what Chris did to her and he was willing to make the personal sacrifice of restarting their marriage — for real this time — if it could help her heal.

  Lila searched the chiseled face and found a tenderness that could easily be either sympathy or pity.

  “It won’t work.” She faltered. “I-I can’t do it again. It was bad enough … pretending.”

  “Lila.” In a swift fluid movement, he was standing over her, his face filling her field of vision. “Now that you know the truth, doesn’t it make any difference?”

  Slowly, she shook her head. Now that he knew, he pitied her. It made sense. She was tempted into self-pity.

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  Cahal straightened. “It’s still just sex?”

  He’d probably said the same thing to hundreds of women in dozens of hotel rooms. Just sex. She wanted to agree, to turn the lie into truth. But it wasn’t just sex. With Cahal, it could never be.

  Her eyes fell to the frayed hem of her robe. “It was more than just sex,” she said, adding quickly, “but that’s still not enough. A marriage needs more.”

  “If you want to talk about love … ” he began.

  He said the word with such cool distaste that she knew it was over. The discussion was finished. They could go over the same tired ground for the rest of the night but nothing he said could erase the memory of that cold voice and hard eyes.

  “I don’t want to talk about love,” she told him in a voice that echoed his chilliness.

  His features were more than cool, they were frozen with enmity. It was a look she knew from between the bars of his goaltender’s helmet, of determination and defiance. A “vanquish or be vanquished” pose which seemed to work well against oncoming teams. She told herself that she was fortunate not to be either. He would not destroy her, only the depths within her, flattening them so that never again would she hate so strong or love so fierce.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. But it didn’t mean anything either. “I can be gone in an hour. I’ll pack a few things and you can send the rest later. I’ve still got my apartment.”

  And her life. She still had a life … of sorts.

  Beneath the frozen mask, the face she had known and loved struggled. He stood suddenly; unlike her, he’d taken the time to change into jeans and dressed, he was nearly as formidable as in his uniform.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “There’s no — ” At his flat gray glance, she bit off the rest of the refusal. “Um … okay. Thank you.”

  For the next hour, she could hide in the bedroom, packing. That left only a short ride to her apartment. Ten minutes, perhaps fifteen. For that long a time she could hold back the tears and keep herself together. For fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. In the privacy of her own home she could let go — and she would worry afterwards about how to pick up the pieces.

  Chapter Twelve

  Stepping out of the squat brick library, Lila turned her face up to the fluffy flakes of snow drifting down over the street. The very first snowfall was magical in its ability to wash away the dingy-drab autumnal air of dead and dying things, the white drifts preparing the earth for change and rebirth.

  The wind whipped her hair around her face and the soft snow into her eyes. But that was not the reason she had to blink.

  Another winter. Another hockey season.

  She’d learned not to turn on the television at half past the hour when the sports broadcasts all led off with talk of power play superiority and championship chances. It didn’t matter that the championship series was six months away or that this first unseasonable snowfall would barely coat the roads, the city was hockey mad and last year’s win made it hungry for another.

  She averted her eyes from the figure of a teenager in a Toronto jersey. Most of the hockey jerseys she saw on the street nowadays carried Cahal’s number and name emblazoned across the back. It was on his shoulders the city had battled its way to the number one spot atop the league and a trophy every Torontonian recognized.

  She wondered what he had done with the trophy when it was his turn to take it. Every summer the members of the winning team took turns bringing the trophy home, tak
ing pictures of it with their family, pretending to win it in street hockey tournaments, sleeping with it in their beds. The championship trophy went around Canada, to the hometowns of each individual player, and around the world to Russia, Sweden and the United States.

  Lila’s turn to touch the silver goal of every hockey player’s heart would have to come with the rest of the public at the Hall of Fame, where the trophy usually stood during the regular season.

  The excitement of the new season was impossible to avoid. Waiting for the bus, the team was on the lips of everyone in line and in her seat near the back, Lila could hear two elderly men talking excitedly about trade rumors. Lila had to smile. This early in the season, with the first few games of the year just under their belts, and the managers, coaches and players were already itching for change. Of course, Toronto was the last on that particular list; members of staff and the team itself would do anything to stay on with a winning team in the hopes of the same success repeating this year.

  A familiar name stung her out of her listless contemplation of the advertisements.

  “Cahal Wallace?” The second elderly man was repeating the name in stark disbelief. “What would he want a trade for? Doesn’t he know when he’s got a good team in front of him? Where else could he go and play with the same talent? Where could he get more money?”

  Lila strained to hear his companion’s response.

  “I don’t know that he wants more money or more talent.”

  “What then?” The second man was becoming quite angry with his companion, according him the usual treatment for a messenger.

  “Personal reasons,” was the first man’s reply. “Rumor has it he wants a trade as far away as possible. I hear Montreal was interested but that wasn’t far enough for him. Wallace is looking for a deal with Florida or Los Angeles.”

  “But why?” The question was plaintive.

  A young man a couple of seats away leaned back to address the older men. “I heard it’s because of his wife. You know, that little bitch that left him last year. He asked for a trade to Toronto to be near her and now that there’s no chance between them, he wants out.”

  “That little bitch” flinched. Cahal wanted to get away, not just from her but also from the city that loved him. It was all her fault.

  “Humph,” the first old man said. “Isn’t this city big enough for the two of them? Plenty of other people live in the same town as their ex-wife. Why can’t he?”

  “They were high school sweethearts,” the young man explained. “You know, his one and only. When she left, it broke his heart.”

  “Hey,” the young man’s female companion exclaimed, “Cahal Wallace, isn’t that the guy who was being stalked by that heiress? He’s gorgeous! What woman in her right mind would walk out on him?”

  Unable to hear anymore, Lila pulled the bell for the next stop and got out although it meant a slippery twelve-block hike to her apartment building.

  In the safety of her apartment, it took her two hours to convince herself not to react unwisely to the news she’d just heard. It took the rest of the night to realize that she couldn’t allow herself to do nothing.

  • • •

  At seven o’clock in the morning, three hours before her shift at the library was scheduled to begin, Lila was still groggy. Even so, she remembered her manners.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Billy.”

  The man seated across the table regarded her. “Don’t thank me. I have a duty to follow my client’s instructions.”

  “Cahal told you to see me?” Her question ended on a squeak of dismay.

  An air of distasteful reluctance surrounded the sports agent. “Your husband gave me standing orders where you are concerned. Several times during the last year I have asked him to … confirm those directions.”

  She caught the hesitation. “You mean change them.”

  A quick frown marred the man’s face.

  “I say what I mean, Mrs. Wallace.”

  She had called him by his first name and the deliberate use of the formal means of address seemed to be his way of knocking her down a peg. Wrestling with her options, Lila decided to be direct.

  “I’ve come about some rumors I’ve heard. Trade rumors.”

  Her rush of words was followed by a long pause.

  Finally, he spoke. “They’re more than rumors, Mrs. Wallace.” From his desk, Billy Avery produced a thick pile of papers. In doing so, he dislodged several photographs sitting on his desk. “Those are the draft terms of a contract with the Los Angeles team.”

  But Lila was looking at one of the fallen photographs. It showed a blonde woman she recognized — from the photographs Chris had sent her. This was the woman who’d been in Cahal’s hotel room at midnight.

  “Who is that woman?”

  “What?” Billy followed the direction of her gaze. “Oh, that’s my associate, Carrie. She’s also my daughter.”

  “Your daughter?”

  The agent nodded happily as he passed her another photograph. “That’s a more recent one of her and her family.”

  The photograph showed Carrie Jones, a pair of grinning children, and a tall handsome African-American man, all standing before the spreading ocean.

  “She’s based out of L.A.,” Billy said. “Her husband’s a basketball player there. I guess love of sport must run in the blood.”

  The room seemed to lose all of its air suddenly. Cahal had been telling the truth. That woman was a business contact and an employee of his agent. Everything she knew of Billy told her that his daughter would be just as respectable and upstanding as he was.

  He put the pictures away then plucked the draft contract from her fingers.

  “Once the details are hammered out, your husband will be on his way to California — at a substantially reduced salary.”

  “Reduced?” Lila repeated. After a winning season, it made no sense. If there had been any doubts about the matter before, Cahal had proven that he was the best goaltender in the league.

  Billy Avery’s eyes were sharp as he measured her reaction. “Your husband wants out of Toronto. At any price.”

  Glancing down at the papers, dotted in several places with pen marks, Lila said quickly, “But it’s not a done deal, is it? Cahal hasn’t signed anything.”

  “A formality,” the agent dismissed, although his gaze was still measuring.

  Lila placed unsteady fingers over the pile of sheets. “Do me a favor and don’t send these off yet. I want to talk to him first.”

  The agent checked his wristwatch. “It’s early yet so you might catch him at the practice arena.”

  She was already on her feet, snatching up her purse. “Thank you! I have to hurry.”

  As swiftly as she exited the office, she failed to see the wide grin that transformed Billy Avery’s broad face.

  • • •

  At first glance, the arena appeared empty, the wide halls echoing only the sound of her hurried steps. Although few cars remained in the parking lot Lila had recognized the dark gray sedan, austere and powerful, its wealth understated in the same way Cahal was modest about his talents. The car stood out between an SUV and a low-slung sports car that screamed unnecessary expense.

  Not daring to test the arena’s security, she waited in the small alcove formed around the side entrance, watching parents and kids with figure skates slung around their shoulders stream in until she was convinced that she was waiting in the wrong place. Only her distant view of the dark gray car kept her from moving.

  A tall figure walked by, carrying a long bag. Lila strained to see a face beneath the brim of a pulled down baseball cap. It wasn’t him.

  The man got into the sports car, leaping away in a burst of noise.

  Lila shivered. She would give him one more minute.

  Two minutes later, he pushed through the double doors, the action explosive. One of the doors bounced against the concrete wall outside and careened back. The other escaped hitting her.


  “Watch out.”

  The raspy voice was flat and uncaring but even so the averted accident made him pause and she took advantage of the chance to say his name.

  His swift downward glance revealed her face but his expression didn’t change.

  “Who’re you waiting for?” The query was cool. “The only ones left back there are Efflin and Donovan.”

  Flushing, she took his point. Both players were married.

  For some reason she was unable to say the most simple words: I was waiting for you.

  “Billy told me that you were thinking about a trade.” She didn’t mention the photograph she’d seen of Carrie Jones. She couldn’t. Not yet.

  He pushed the bag behind him in an impatient gesture, making way for a harried looking woman with a set of twins in tow.

  “It’s more than just a thought at this point.”

  The low words made her stomach clench.

  “I saw the contract,” Lila said, not knowing what else to say. He looked so distant; the sole indication of his awareness of her was contained in the depths of his silvered eyes.

  “Then you know all about it.” Those piercing eyes moved away from her face. “The contract will be signed by the end of the week. I should be in L.A. by Monday.”

  Lila pushed a hand through her tangled hair and found it chilly and damp.

  “Why? Why Los Angeles? Why at a reduced salary?”

  A corner of his mouth moved upwards. “You are well informed.”

  “Cahal.” His name was both protest and plea.

  Looking around them, he said, “Not here. If you want to talk then I prefer to do it some place where we aren’t risking illness.”

  “You never get sick,” Lila said, moving to follow as he stepped out of the alcove.

  Cool gray eyes rested on her sodden head. “I wasn’t thinking of myself.”

  In the dark sedan he passed her a towel from his bag with a curt, “It’s clean.”

  Feeling like a wayward child, Lila rubbed her hair vigorously; yet with slightly less wet locks she was still shivering.