by Anya Nowlan
Was that such a bad thing?
Probably, if he’s in Idaho and you’re stuck in Montreal with Viper and her deathly glares, she thought glumly.
“So, are you going to go?” Serena asked after a length of silence that apparently Kimberley was supposed to break, but had failed to.
“Go where?” Kimberley shot back, trying to remain blissfully ignorant.
“Idaho, duh.”
“Why would I go to Idaho?”
Okay, so it wasn’t working. It had been a valiant effort and Kimberley Thomas could pat herself on the back for giving it a go at denial and playing dumb. With a sigh, she took a sip of her coffee, preparing for the inevitable loss in this round of friendship Jenga.
“Because a possibly fuck-hot hockey player wants to take you out on a date and as far as I can tell, you don’t have anything better to do for a week than field tweets from disappointed fans and write press statements. Not exactly something you need to be in the office for.”
“Stella would never go for it,” Kimberley said with a shrug. “And! And, he isn’t even a pro. And I haven’t seen a full facial pic, just his chin and chest.”
“Which was totally dreamy,” Serena said with a grin. “Don’t lie, I saw it. He’s cute. No way he can’t be cute.”
“Yes, way! What if he’s missing all his teeth? Or he’s broken his nose fifteen times and now it’s at an upward angle?”
The excuses sounded good, but Kimberley was far too aware that injuries were a common thing in the sport she loved, and any guy worth their salt got themselves patched up at least well enough. And Pucky seemed like far too intelligent of a guy to just screw around with his health and looks. Not that physical appearances were everything.
But they’re definitely something, she mused.
“What if! You’ll never know unless you go. If he’s a creep, you’ll fly back the same evening, or the next morning. Didn’t he offer you a ticket?”
“He did,” Kimberley said guardedly, trying to hide behind her coffee cup from Serena’s eager enthusiasm. “But I get free flights anyway if it’s hockey related. Seeing any team is ‘related.’ I could probably put together a fluff piece on the up and coming wannabes for a blog post or something…”
“Right! So go see him!” Serena squealed, clapping her hands together. “Oh, it’ll be beautiful! I bet you’ll have gorgeous skating-bear babies. Your wedding colors will be violet and ivory,” Serena said with a grin, moving her hand over her head like she was envisioning the entrance to the reception now, decked out in flowers and decorations.
“So we got from maybe going to see him play a game with his shitty local team, to having a purple and white wedding? You think you might be living vicariously through me right now, Serena?” Kimberley teased, though her heart wasn’t in it.
The pit of her stomach was doing somersaults and that was not something that aided with the whole staying calm and calculated thing that she’d been trying to play with Pucky over SassyDate chat. He’d popped up randomly over a month ago, making a lame joke about how her picture in which she was wearing a Sabre jersey made her look like she was rooting for the wrong team and he could show her a much better group to root for. Mainly himself.
It had been stupid and cute enough to warrant a half-hearted reply and since then, they’d been texting each other incessantly. It was cutesy and a little combative and entirely snarky… and Kimberley couldn’t get enough of it. Just then, her pocket buzzed again, jerking Kimberley out of her reverie and making Serena lean forward.
“Well?” she asked. “What does hockey boy say now?”
“He’s asking me how many more times does he need to ask me before I cave in and realize that I can’t live without him,” Kimberley said, shaking her head with a smile.
“That’s a perfectly warranted question,” Serena said, checking the time on her watch. “Shit, but I have to go now. I have a one-on-one with Serena. But trust me on this, as one friend to another, I haven’t seen you this excited about a guy since… well, ever. If he can make the Ice Queen of Montreal smile like that, he’s worth a visit. In and out, real fast, just go see a game. He won’t even have to know you’re there! If you don’t like what you see, get out of there before he spots you. Think about it!”
Serena hovered for a moment, one finger pointed at Kimberley and her eyes squinted in her best rendition of the best friend evil eye, until Kimberley grinned and nodded lightly.
“Fine, I’ll think about it. But no promises!”
“That’s all I needed!” Serena exclaimed, rushing to put her cup in the dishwasher and then practically springing out of the rec corner, leaving Kimberley all alone.
Setting down her mug on the coffee table, Kimberley put her attention to the phone again, scrolling through some older messages with Pucky. It was amazing how easily they connected. She’d been working for the Sabres for three years now, but she’d been a hockey fan all her life.
There was no lack of guys around to talk about her obsession, though the Los Angeles native had found settling in with the overtly friendly Canadians to be a bit of a chore when she first moved. But no one kept her interest or captured her imagination like the faceless guy behind a generic dating profile on SassyDate.
She knew he was a bear, obviously, and that he knew his stuff as far as hockey went. They could rattle off stats at one another for hours and then smoothly jump onto any other topic and find the conversation just as easy. They were texting daily now, flirting a little, and getting to know one another, and despite better judgment, Kimberley found herself entirely enthralled.
But what if he’s some crazed psycho who wants to chop your head off and put it on his mantelpiece as a trophy?
She rolled her eyes. Pucky wouldn’t do that. Nuh-uh.
But if he did have those tendencies, then Serena’s plan was brilliant. Just ask him casually about when and where he was having his next game and show up. His jawline wasn’t that distinctive, though definitely ruggedly handsome, but he had a picture up on his profile with a partial shot in training gear with his back turned, the makings of a tattoo on the back of his neck partially visible.
If fate didn’t immediately point him out, she could at least try and distinguish him based on that. Kimberley bit her lower lip.
You must be insane to consider this.
She’d made a promise when she was eighteen years old that she would never date another hockey player. Not after what the first one did to her. And yet, here she was, at twenty-five, seriously considering retiring that notion and picking up a whole new one. Maybe one that went “dating sexy-as-sin hockey bears is fine as long as they’re not assholes.”
With a sigh and a grin, she scrolled back down to the last message.
MontrealSabres4Life: So when are you playing?
PuckBear: I thought you’d never ask
CHAPTER THREE
Kimberley
Contrary to what Pucky’s teasing messages over the SassyDate chat had been, Kimberley was in fact not wearing a Sabres jersey the day she stepped out of the tiny airplane that took her to Shifter Grove. Or, well, close enough to it.
She was bundled up in a Minnesota Grizzlies hoodie and cap, with a jacket thrown on for good measure. Hovering on the steps leading out of the plane for a moment, she looked around, immediately taken by the rolling mountains in the distance and the lush greenery of the forest that started not far off from the airport itself.
Not that it could really be called an airport if you’d ever been to a real one, as this one barely had a runway and the shack that could have doubled for a terminal seemed rather deserted.
“Here for the game? The bus will pick you up,” a chipper voice called behind her, the tall, muscular form of the pilot coming up behind her with a friendly smiled.
He fished her heavy bag out of the cargo hold, where Kimberley had forgotten it, and when she reached to take it from him, he waved his hand dismissively and motioned for her to trundle on down the stairs. N
ever one to turn down a cute guy doing something nice for her, she gave him a slight smile and skipped down the steps, being the last one out of the airplane other than the pilot himself.
“Yes, I am! The plane was pretty packed, so I guess I’m not the only one,” Kimberley said, walking toward the bus idling at the end of the runway.
The small group of fifteen or so people who could actually fit on the tiny plane already milled around it, putting away their stuff and getting on.
“Oh yeah, this is my third and final flight today. I did four yesterday. I’ve never seen so many people come to Shifter Grove than to see this hockey game! I wonder where they’re all staying. We don’t even have a hotel,” Slate said with a chuckle.
They made it about twenty steps from the plane, the wide-shouldered pilot still carrying the bag, before Kimberley found herself frowning and glancing back at the airplane.
“Hey, shouldn’t you like… lock down your plane or something?” Kimberley asked, the snow scrunching beneath her boots.
“Here? There’s no one who could fly the damn thing, let alone anyone who’d be interested in stealing anything. Maybe when we have a few pilots retiring here I’ll be more mindful of my gear. But this is the boondocks, Miss. Only people who move out here are the ones who want to get away from the mess of regular city living. No stealing, no violence, no bigotry. At least that’s the way we try to keep it,” he said with a mild shrug as they came up to the bus and he put away her bag, helping someone with theirs on the way as well.
That sounds kind of nice… even if I am comparing it to Canadian standards, Kimberley thought with a little smile, though she was damn sure she’d missed half the stuff he’d told her because she was too busy imagining what Pucky might actually look like and how long it would be before she saw him.
“Your name was Slate, right? I’m Kimberley,” she said, reaching out her hand to him.
“Yup, that’s my name. Feel free to wear it out,” Slate said with a grin, taking her hand in his warm palm and shaking it firmly, every bit the country boy that he sold himself as.
She’d noticed the ring he wore right away and in all honesty, she didn’t have any deductive capabilities to really figure out if anyone was attractive or not because she was so focused on the thought of seeing Pucky finally. But she imagined that if she did, she would have found the first Shifter Grove native she met rather pleasant.
If everyone around here’s like he is, then it might be a nice place to live, Kimberley thought idly as she clambered into the bus, Slate having found himself in quick conversation with a burly guy driving.
Before the bus rolled off, Slate gave her a toothy smile and a wave, one that Kimberley found herself matching quickly, with a smile of her own forming on the corners of her lips and her gut starting to twist with anticipation. Okay, so Shifter Grove inhabitants seemed nice. Maybe the hockey team would be okay too then?
She coaxed her phone out and checked it, a little disappointed to see no recent messages from Pucky, but considering that the cell reception appeared to be non-existent, then it was no real surprise. The bus was packed with Grizzlies fans, the kind of people who go everywhere to see their favorite team, even if it is just a friendly practice match, which this one definitely was.
How did they even know about it? The Grizzlies didn’t announce it on the website or anything… and why would the Grizzlies come to the middle of nowhere and play some no-name team, Kimberley wondered, thumbing her phone once more as if to will it to have another message for her.
Pucky had given her three dates when he was playing and some clever snooping had deduced that the first one was another tiny local team, the second one was the Grizzlies game she was heading to, and the third was against the Seattle Direwolves. Whoever these guys were, they had to be some team, because both the Direwolves and Grizzlies were NSHL teams and they didn’t drive out for just anybody.
Especially to play on a lake, Kimberley thought with a gentle roll of her eyes as the bus rattled on, turning off of the highway and into some rocky backwater roads, which seemed barely wide enough to allow a truck through, let alone a bus.
The drive was pretty long and by the time the bus driver hollered over his shoulder that they were almost there, Kimberley was getting more than a little antsy. The game must have started about ten minutes ago and it took another five to actually arrive, much to the chagrin of everyone on the bus. But no one was really complaining.
When the roads were so narrow and sported a cliff on one side and a rocky fall into nothing on the other, no one was too keen on rushing the driver along, who already was going way faster than Kimberley would have dared.
When the bus pulled into a stop at a parking lot that was really just an open space among the trees, Kimberley was the first one out of the bus, only grabbing her shoulder bag and flying through the snow toward the sound of the screaming and skates hitting the ice. The circular lake, pristinely cleaned but still very much just a lake, opened up before her, with freshly erected stands on one side of it, half-full of cheering fans.
She counted about sixty, maybe seventy people there, clearly some locals and a bunch of Grizzlies fans from out of state. Many of them had flown in with Slate, she was sure. Pulling on a big pair of shades and the bill of her cap down over her face, she wiggled up into the middle of one of the two stands, excusing herself until she found a seat between two big guys entranced with the game.
Taking a breath of relief, she settled in, fussing around a bit with her bag as she tried to catch up with the game.
“Excuse me. What’s the score?” she asked from the guy to her left, a tall, wide man who seemed like he could be a quarterback in another life.
“1–1, the Shovelers have the puck,” he said, motioning loosely at the ice where the Grizzlies were in their trademark black and red. The other team were wearing training jerseys, with no logo and just a black number on white.
“The Shovelers?” she asked, quirking a brow. “Really?”
“That’s what they’re calling themselves right now,” he said with a chuckle, hunching his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s as good of a name as any considering how they have to clean this thing every morning with the snowfall we’ve been getting. You’re sitting in the Shoveler section though, Miss. Better look out. We might not take kindly to Grizzlies fans.”
The man gave her a friendly wink and a grin, before looking back to the ice. Kimberley hadn’t quite digested the jab yet when the stands erupted in a cheer around her, Thermoses with coffee and sandwiches nearly flying out of the hands of several of the huddled-up viewers. She looked up with a jolt, standing up as well as number twenty-one seemed to be practically flying toward the Grizzlies’ goal.
Finally, she could focus on the game and more importantly, the players. She scanned them quickly, noting even at a cursory glance that the guys were putting the Grizzlies through their paces, essentially skating circles around them while the Grizzlies sometimes stumbled and staggered, not knowing the imperfections of the ice.
The Shovelers, as they were calling themselves, were fast, agile, and the guy in front who was getting the puck passed to him more than the others showed some very quick fancy dangling, screwing with the Grizzlies’ defenders. Despite her first and ultimate goal being to find Pucky in that mess of male testosterone and snarling, she couldn’t help but keep staring at the game itself.
There was something so… familiar about twenty-one. Not only him, but the whole team. A sinking feeling took hold of her just as twenty-one plowed past the last defender and went one-on-one with the goalie, feinting behind the goal before swooping the puck in practically on his stick. The crowd went wild and Kimberley’s face went completely pale as number twenty-one pulled off his helmet in a cheer, getting piled onto by his teammates, who were hooting and grinning.
She saw the flash of black on his neck, the telltale sign she’d been looking for.
Pucky.
But it wasn’t just that. She would have
recognized that face anywhere. That wide grin, those sparkling blue eyes and the mess of dark hair she knew felt like satin under her fingertips. The One Who Must Not Be Named.
Cannon. Cannon fucking Wright.
Kimberley sank into her seat, which was really just a sanded wooden plank, with her knees shaking, hands quickly going to her face to make sure that the shades still covered her expression. But she forgot that she was in a group of shifters. With her mind screaming at her to get out, reminding her that it had always been a horrible fucking idea to come to Idaho to begin with, she suddenly felt a heavy hand on her shoulder as the man she’d been talking to before leaned in.
“You okay, honey? It’s just 2–1, not the end of the world,” he said, patting her shoulder in a bracing way.
“N-no, it’s not… do you know where the team’s from? Who are they?” she asked, feeling herself vibrating all over.
It can’t be him. He can’t be Pucky! Why would Cannon do this to me?!
“You don’t know?” he asked with a quirked brow. “Man, they must have been keeping this shit on lockdown. It’s the Chicago Bluehawks. They just relocated here, but the ice arena isn’t ready yet, nor are their accommodations, so Coach Wiley came down with his starter team first and now they’re doing practice games. You’d think with the Grizzlies coming down here everyone would figure it out, but I haven’t seen a single reporter yet…”
He frowned, though, squeezing her shoulder a little.
“You okay, honey? I think I saw Kacey, the town nurse here somewhere. Do you need me to go find her? You don’t look so good.”
“No, I’m fine! I just need a little bit of air,” Kimberley croaked, knowing full-well how ridiculous that sounded, while flashing a weak smile.
She hopped up, pressing past the kindly man and then jumped off the end of the bleachers. She didn’t need to look back to know that the man was watching her go with a small frown on his face. But what was worst of all was that she was pretty sure she’d seen a jolt of movement on the ice when number twenty-one came forward to the side of the ice as she rushed back toward the parking lot.