When he’d asked Marie where she’d been spending her time, she’d answered, “The mall.” When he’d asked her why, she’d said, “Everyone at that school hates me. I don’t have any friends. They’re all stupid.”
“Come on, now,” he’d said, “you’ll make friends and then everything will be okay.”
She’d started to cry, and like always, he felt bad and totally inadequate. “I miss my mom. I want to go home.”
After he’d hung up with Marie and Mrs. Jackson, he’d called his personal manager, Howie Stiller. When Luc returned home Tuesday night, several brochures from private schools would be waiting for him in a FedEx mailer.
Now the music from the piano drifted to where Luc sat in the corner of the lobby bar. He lifted a bottle of Molson’s to his mouth and took a long drink. For Marie, going home wasn’t an option. Her home was with him now, but she obviously didn’t like living with him.
He set the bottle on the table and relaxed in the wing chair. He had to talk to Marie about boarding school, and he hadn’t a clue how she’d respond. He wasn’t certain she’d like the idea or see the logic and benefit in it. He just hoped she didn’t gel hysterical.
The day of her mother’s funeral, she’d been beyond hysterical, and Luc hadn’t known what to do for her. He’d hugged her awkwardly and told her he’d always take care of her. And he would. He would see that she always had everything she needed, but he was a piss-poor substitute for her mother.
How had his life become so complicated? He rubbed his face with his hands, and when he lowered them, he saw Jane Alcott walking toward him. It was probably too much to hope that she’d walk on by.
“Waiting for a friend?” she asked as she came to stand beside the chair opposite him.
He had been, but he’d just called and canceled. After his conversation with Marie, he wasn’t in the mood for one-on-one time. He was thinking that he might catch up with some of his teammates at a sports bar downtown. He reached for the bottle and looked at her over the top as he took a swig. He watched her watching him, and he wondered if she was assuming-wrongly-that because he’d been addicted to pain medication he was just as naturally an alcoholic. In his case, one didn’t have anything to do with the other.
“Nope. Just sitting here alone,” he answered as he lowered the bottle. Something was different about her tonight. Despite the dark clothing, she looked softer, less uptight. Kind of cute. Her hair, usually held back in a controlled ponytail, fell in a tangle of unruly curls to her shoulder. Her green eyes were kind of dewy like wet leaves, and her bottom lip appeared fuller and the corners of her mouth were turned up.
“I just finished a dinner meeting with Darby Hogue,” she provided as if he’d asked.
“Where?” In his suite? That would explain the hair, the eyes, and the smile. Luc never would have guessed Darby even knew what to do with a woman, much less put that soft dewy look on her face. And he never would have thought Jane Alcott, the archangel of gloom and doom, could look so warm and sexy. Damn.
“In the hotel restaurant, of course.” Her smile fell. “Where did you think?”
“The hotel restaurant,” he lied.
She wasn’t buying it, and as he’d come to expect in the short time he’d known her, she wasn’t going to let it go either. “Don’t tell me you’re one of the guys who think I slept with Virgil Duffy to get this job.”
“No, not me,” he lied some more. They’d all wondered, but he didn’t know how many actually believed it.
“Great, and now I’m sleeping with Darby Hogue.”
He held up a hand. “None of my business.”
As the last strains of the piano died, Jane slid into the chair opposite him and blew out a breath. Damn, so much for a little peace.
“Why do women have to put up with this crap?” she said. “If I were a man, no would accuse me of exchanging sex for a promotion. If I were a man, no one would think I had to sleep with my sources just to get the story. They’d just slap me on the back and give me high fives and say…” She paused in her rant long enough to lower her voice and her brows at the same time. “ ‘Good piece of investigative journalism. You’re the man. You’re the stud.’” She ran her fingers though the sides of her hair and pushed it from her face. Her sleeves fell back and exposed the thin blue veins of her slim wrist, and the material of her sweater pulled across her small breasts. “No one accused you of sleeping with Vigil to get your job.”
He lifted his gaze to her face. “That’s because I’m the stud.” They all had their crosses to bear, and after the day he’d had, he didn’t have the energy to pretend sympathy and understanding. Luc Martineau didn’t have the time or energy or inclination to worry about a pain-in-the-ass reporter. He had his own damn problems, and one of them was her.
Jane looked over the table at Luc and crossed her arms over her chest. The light overhead picked out the blond in his short hair and settled on the broad shoulders of his blue chambray shirt. The color of his shirt brought out the blue of his eyes. After the two martinis she’d had during dinner, everything was surrounded by a nice cheery glow. Or at least it had been until Luc insinuated that she and Darby were sleeping together.
“If I had a penis,” she said, “no one would think I was having sex with Darby.”
“Don’t be too sure about that. We’re not altogether sure of the little weasel’s sexual orientation.” Luc reached for his beer and Jane’s lungs squeezed a little. He’d left the top two buttons of his shirt undone and the soft material fell away from his chest, exposing his clavicle and the top of his muscular shoulder and neck.
She could set Luc straight on that score, but she didn’t bother to inform him that Darby had wanted dating tips over dinner. “How’re your knees?” she asked as she rested her forearms on the table.
He raised the Molson’s to his mouth and said, “One hundred percent.”
“Completely pain-free?”
He lowered the bottle and sucked a drop of beer from his bottom lip. “What? You don’t know? I thought you made digging into my past your calling in life.”
His conceit was outrageous and a little too close to the truth. For some reason she could not even explain to herself, Luc intrigued her more than the other Chinooks. “Do you really think that I don’t have anything better to do than to spend my time thinking about you? Digging up a little of the goods on Luc Martineau?”
Fine lines appeared at the corners of his eyes and he laughed. “Sweetheart, there is nothing little about Luc’s goods.”
The Jane who wrote the Single Girl column would have a sophisticated comeback and dazzle him with her wit. Honey Pie would take him by his hand and lead him to a linen closet. She’d unbutton the rest of his shirt and place her mouth on his warm chest. Breathe heavily the scent of his skin and melt into his hot hard body. She would see for herself if he told the truth aboot those goods. But Jane was neither of those women. The real Jane was too inhibited and self-conscious, and she hated that a man who made her catch her breath was the same man who looked through her and found her so lacking.
“Jane?”
She blinked. “What?”
He reached across the table and the tips of his long fingers brushed hers. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” It was the slightest of touches, maybe not even quite a touch, but she felt the tingles from it travel through her palm and up her wrist. She stood so quickly the table rocked. “No. I’m going to my room.”
The combination of alcohol, Luc’s molten mojo, and the grind of the last five days sloshed about in her brain as she looked around for the bank of elevators. For a few seconds she was disoriented. Three different hotels in five days, and suddenly she couldn’t remember where the elevators were. She glanced toward the registration counter and spied them off to the right. Without a word, she walked from the lobby bar. This was not good, she told herself as she moved across the hotel lobby. He was so big and overtly male, he made her wrist tingle and her brain go numb. She st
opped in front of the elevator doors, her cheeks hot. Why him? She didn’t like him. Yes, he intrigued her, but that wasn’t the same as liking him.
Luc reached around her from behind and pressed the elevator button. “Going up?” he asked next to her ear.
“Oh, yeah.” She wondered how long she would have stood there like a fool before she realized that she hadn’t pressed a button.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Why?”
“You smell like vodka.”
“I had a couple martinis with dinner.”
“Ah,” he said as the doors opened and they stepped into the empty elevator. “Which floor?”
“Three.” Jane looked down at the toes of her boots, then moved her gaze to his blue and gray running shoes. As the doors closed, he leaned against the back panel and crossed one foot over the other. The hem of his Levi’s brushed the white white laces. She lifted her gaze up his long legs and thighs, up the bulge of his fly and the buttons of his shirt to his face. Within the cramped confines of the elevator, his blue eyes stared back at her.
“I like your hair down.”
She pushed one side behind her ear. “I hate my hair. I can’t ever do anything with it and it’s always in my face.”
“It’s not bad.”
Not bad? As compliments went, it ranked right up there with, “Your butt’s not that big.” So why did a tingle in her wrist travel to her stomach? The doors opened, saving her a response. She stepped out first and he followed.
“Where’s your room?”
“Three-twenty-five. Where’s yours?”
“I’m on the fifth floor.”
She stopped. “You got off on the wrong floor.”
“No, I didn’t.” He took her elbow in his big hand and moved with her down the hall. Through the material of her sweater, she felt the warmth of his palm. “When you stood up in the lobby, you looked like you were about to fall over.”
“I haven’t had that much to drink.” She would have stopped again if he hadn’t kept moving her along the blue and yellow carpet. “Are you escorting me to my room?”
“Yep.”
She thought of the first morning when he’d carried her briefcase, then told her that he wasn’t trying to be nice. “Are you trying to be nice this time?”
“No, I’m meeting the guys in a few and I don’t want to have to wonder if you made it to your room without passing out on the way.”
“And that would ruin your fun?”
“No, but for a few seconds it might take my attention off Candy Peeks and her naughty cheerleader routine. Candy’s worked real hard on her pom-poms, and it would be a shame if I couldn’t give her my undivided attention.”
“A stripper?”
“They prefer to be called dancers.”
“Ahh.”
He squeezed her arm. “Are you going to print that in the paper?”
“No, I don’t care about your personal life.” She pulled her plastic room key from her pocket. Luc took it from her and opened the door before she could object.
“Good, because I’m yanking your chain. I’m really meeting the guys at a sports bar that’s not too far away.”
She looked up into the shadows of his face created by her darkened room. She didn’t know which story to believe. “Why the BS?”
“To see that little wrinkle between your brows.”
She shook her head as he handed her the key.
“See ya, Ace,” he said and turned away.
Jane watched the back of his head and his wide shoulders as he walked down the hall. “See ya tomorrow night, Martineau.”
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Are you planning on going into the locker room?”
“Of course. I’m a sports reporter and it’s part of my job. Just as if I were a man.”
“But you’re not a man.”
“I expect to be treated like a man.”
“Then take my advice and keep your gaze up,” he said as he turned once more and walked away. “That way you won’t blush and your jaw won’t hit the floor like a woman.”
The next night Jane sat in the press box and watched the Chinooks battle it out with the Los Angeles Kings. The Chinooks came out strong and put three goals on the board in the first two periods. It appeared Luc would have his sixth shutout of the season until a freak shot glanced off defenseman Jack Lynch’s glove and flipped behind Luc into the net. At the end of the third frame the score was three-one, and Jane breathed a sigh of relief. The Chinooks had won. She wasn’t a jinx.
At least not today. She would have a job when she woke in the morning.
She remembered in horrid Technicolor detail the first time she walked into the Chinooks’ locker room, and her stomach twisted into a big knot as she passed through the doorway. The other reporters were already there questioning the team’s captain, Mark Bressler, who stood in front of his stall taking questions.
“We played well in our own end,” he said as he pulled his jersey over his head. “We took advantage of power plays and put the puck in the net. The ice was soft out there tonight, but we didn’t let it affect our play. We came out knowing what we had to do and we did it.”
Keeping her gaze on his face, Jane felt around in her purse for her tape recorder. She brought the notes she’d been taking throughout the game up to eye level. “Your defense allowed thirty-two shots on goal,” she managed between the other questions. “Are the Chinooks looking to acquire a veteran defenseman before the March nineteenth trade deadline?” She thought the question was quite brilliant, if she did say so herself. Informed and knowledgeable.
Mark looked through the other reporters at her and said, “That’s a question only Coach Nystrom can answer.”
So much for her brilliance.
“You scored your three hundred and ninety-eighth career goal tonight. How does it feel?” she asked. The only reason she knew about the goal was because she’d heard the television reporters talking about it in the press box. She figured a bit of flattery would get a quote out of the captain.
“Good.”
So much for a quote.
She turned and headed down the row of towering men, moving toward Nick Grizzell, the forward who’d scored the first goal. Long Johns fell and jocks snapped as if on cue when she walked passed. She kept her eyes up and her gaze forward as she clicked on her tape recorder and let it record questions asked by other reporters. Her editor at the Times wouldn’t know that she hadn’t asked the questions. But she knew, and the players knew it too.
Grizzell had just returned the week before from the injured list and she asked him, “How does it feel to be back in the game and scoring the first goal?”
He looked across his shoulder at her and dropped his jockstrap. “Fine.”
Jane had had about enough of this crap. “Great,” she said. “I’ll quote you on that.”
She glanced at the stall several feet away and saw Luc Martineau laughing at her. There was no way she would walk over there and ask him what he was laughing about.
She just didn’t want to know.
Chapter 5
Ringing the Berries: When the Puck Hits a Player’s Cup
Jane leaned back against her seat, pushed up her glasses, and studied the laptop resting on her tray table. She read what she’d written so far:
Seattle Checkmates Kings
The Seattle Chinooks crowned all six Los Angeles power-play chances and Goalie Luc Martineau blocked twenty-three shots on goal in a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings put a goal on the board in the last few seconds of the game when a freak shot glanced off Seattle player Jack Lynch’s glove and flipped into the Chinooks’ net.
On the ice, the Chinooks play a fast, fearless game, aggravating the opposition with skill and brute strength.
Inside the locker room they seem to love to aggravate journalists by dropping their pants. I know of at least one reporter who would love to put “the big hurt” on them.
/> She reached forward and deleted the last paragraph. It had only been six days, she reminded herself. The players were leery and superstitious. They felt she had been forced on them, and they were right: She had been. Now it was time for them to get over it so she could do her job.
She glanced at the snoring players sacked out in the team jet. How could she earn their trust or their respect if they wouldn’t speak to her? How to resolve this issue so her job and her life were easier?
The answer came in the form of Darby Hogue. The night they arrived in San Jose, he phoned her room to tell her that some of the players were getting together at a bar somewhere downtown.
“Why don’t you come with?” he said.
“With you?”
“Yeah, and maybe wear something girly. That way the players might forget you’re a reporter.”
She hadn’t packed anything girly, and even if she had, she didn’t want the players to see her as a girly girl. While she needed them to know she respected them and their privacy, they needed to respect her as they would any professional journalist. “Give me about fifteen minutes and I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she said, figuring interaction with the players away from the game might help and couldn’t hurt.
Jane dressed in stretch wool pants that had two rows of buttons up the front like a sailor, a merino sweater set, and boots. All in black. She liked black.
She moved into the bathroom and gathered her hair at the back of her head. She didn’t like it hanging in her face, and she didn’t want Luc to think his opinion mattered. She looked in the mirror and dropped her hand to the counter. Her hair fell to her shoulders in dark shiny waves and curls.
He’d walked her to her hotel room. He’d thought she was sick or drunk, and he’d walked her back to make sure she got there safely. His one act of unexpected kindness affected her more than it should, especially since he’d only walked her to her door so he could thoroughly enjoy himself at a nudie bar. Or to yank her chain. That one simple gesture slid within her chest and warmed her heart, no matter if she wanted to be warmed or not. And she didn’t.
See Jane Score Page 7