by Anya Nowlan
There was no malice in Heath’s tone. He legitimately did like the fact that the world knew that he could screw his way through San Francisco one day and then conquer LA the next. But that same energy made him a hell of a fine sniper, too.
“That was me,” Kimberley said with a nod, the faintest blush on her cheeks again.
Had to admire a woman who could dish it out and admit to it. Cannon grinned, cleaning up his plate with quick scoops.
“Good. More of that. Really play me up, will you?” Heath said, giving her a wink and getting a glare from Cannon in return.
Heath looked surprised for a moment, but the small nod he offered in reply was enough to clear the air. Cannon had never been picky about Heath hitting on whoever he was with, or vice versa. But Kimberley was different. Kimberley was all Cannon’s and he wouldn’t tolerate any funny business.
“So, can I have my home back or what?” Heath asked, leaning against the counter and drinking his coffee. “Or are you two love birds nesting? Oh, and are we still up for snowboarding today? The whole team’s going. Gotta try to break some clavicles before the next game, you know.”
“Snowboarding?” Kimberley queried, flicking a look between the two men. “The Shifter Grove Shovelers are going snowboarding? Oh, this I have to see!”
Cannon paused for a moment, mulling over his options, but then shrugged good-naturedly. Snowboarding meant messing around in the snow, and messing around in the snow meant he could end up in close quarters with Kimberley again while she got some scoop on the team. It also meant that he wouldn’t have to broach the subject of their past for another day, and a reprieve was exactly what he needed.
“Sure, snowboarding. We’ll find you some of those dainty girl’s boots and you can fall down the mountain like the graceful California girl that you are,” Cannon promised, receiving a quick elbow in the side for it.
“Hey, I’m up in Montreal now. I can snowboard circles around you. Want to bet?”
Incidentally, yes, Cannon did want to bet. Didn’t matter if he won or lost, he’d still be a winner for getting to spend time with his mate.
CHAPTER NINE
Kimberley
Kimberley wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened, but she’d been spending day after day with Cannon now and it had been… good. Better than good, actually. It’d been fantastic and she couldn’t exactly wrap her head around how it could possibly happen.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t aware that the time she’d spent dating the man had been some of the happiest of her life, but Kimberley had been more than sure that being around him now would be nothing but pain. Several times, she’d found herself wanting to reach for her bag and go somewhere, anywhere, where she wouldn’t be in his immediate presence. Where she could smack some sense into herself and remind herself that she was steaming angry at getting tricked into coming to Shifter Grove for a man who was both nothing and everything he claimed to be.
But she hadn’t gone anywhere. And she was still in Shifter Grove.
And worst of all, she was pretty damn sure she’d fallen in love with Cannon Wright all over again.
Her hands balled into fists in her lap as she watched the game with only lukewarm interest, her stomach twisting inside of her. The Timberwolves were no pushovers, but the Shovelers, still a completely ridiculous name and one that had been debated heavily at every meal she’d shared with Cannon or any other team member including Coach himself, were in fighting form. They’d really taken to this grittier way of playing, one that had to remind many of them of how they used to skate when they were kids or teens, when frozen lakes were the only things they could practice on.
Kimberley’s heart really wasn’t in it. She only perked up a little as Cannon passed the puck to Heath and the powerful sniper raced past past the fourth line of the Timberwolves and scored a goal that left the stands cheering with deafening enthusiasm. Kimberley didn’t even get up. She was slouched over with one elbow on her knee, listlessly watching and not noticing a damn thing.
Her bag was packed for good now. She was supposed to leave after the game ended, getting on Slate’s little plane again and heading back to Montreal and away from Cannon. At this point, Kimberley couldn’t even count how many times she’d willed herself to start talking about their past, to finally clear the air, and then she’d choked on her own damn words. It had become so frustrating after the first day that she’d pretty much given up.
The thought of tearing those old wounds open absolutely terrified her. Watching him play now, it all felt so fresh, as if it had only happened yesterday.
He’d been nineteen and she’d been eighteen. They’d known each other for a while through message boards because they were both active in the local leagues, but they only started dating when Kimberley had moved to Cannon’s hometown of Chicago due to her father’s relocation. Karl Thomas was a respected old-hand playmaker himself, who’d played for non-shifter teams in his youth, and had continued his career as a coach specializing in plays.
Everything had been absolutely amazing. They clicked, they could talk for hours and hours, they shared the same passion for hockey, and it soon became evident that they couldn’t keep their hands off of one another. But the deeper the relationship got and the more ravenous they got for one another, the more distant Cannon seemed to become.
By the time he was getting ready to be drafted, Kimberley had decided to go to college to study media and public relations, and they barely saw one another. They’d admitted their love for one another several times and Kimberley had no doubt that Cannon was devoted to her, so when he dumped her, over text of all things, it was like someone had ripped her heart right out of her chest.
To add insult to injury, he’d gotten picked up by a minor team in Chicago and became an overnight sensation the first time he played for the pros, with endless pictures of him with countless women appearing on the blogs. It started only days after they’d broken up, without Cannon giving any more of an explanation than “Guess it wasn’t meant to be,” convincing her that he must have been seeing someone on the side even before.
It wasn’t even the break-up itself so much that hurt her, but the betrayal. He’d been her best friend, her closest confidant, and he hadn’t respected her enough to even give her an explanation? It was a wound she’d been fighting to patch up for years, and even now she wasn’t entirely sure if she’d managed it.
And now she’d been stuck in snowy Idaho with the same man, who sounded like him, who even looked like him, but who could still fill her heart with happiness. It was that which was twisting her into pieces, both the realization that she had to leave before he sucked her in completely, and the fact that leaving him was the last thing she wanted to do.
“What’s with the long face?” a familiar voice called, Slate hopping onto the bleachers next to her. “Isn’t this what you hockey nuts live for?” he asked, spreading a hand over the crowd, twice as large as it had been for the last game.
News had traveled lightning-fast, and Shifter Grove had been packed all of a sudden with hockey tourists heading in to see how the Chicago Bluehawks were doing in their new and rather more rural settings. This time, it felt a bit more like a big game and less like some backwoods local tournament, but Kimberley hadn’t really had the time to enjoy it. Moping around took a lot of energy, after all.
“We do,” she admitted with a weak smile, looking up to see Cannon wave at her from the ice as he sped past. “But my heart isn’t in it today.”
Cannon knew as much as Kimberley did that she would have to go after the game. But she’d gotten the sneaking suspicion that he had something up his sleeve to prevent that. The thought both excited and terrified her all at the same time.
“Listen, I’m heading back to the plane early to set it up. If you’re done with this, I can drive you up there now. You can beat the traffic, as it were,” Slate offered, giving her a tentative look.
Kimberley whipped her face around to look at him. Was this it, the
life preserver she’d been looking for? A way to get out of the inevitable teary goodbye, or even worse, going against everything she’d promised herself and staying with Cannon regardless of what had happened between them, which she’d managed to ignore throughout her stay in Idaho? She couldn’t do that to herself. One look at his eyes and she’d be putty in his hands again.
“That… that actually sounds like a great idea,” she said, feeling genuinely relieved as she grabbed her bag. “Let’s go!”
“Right away? Uh, okay!” Slate said, slipping off the seat and ducking his head as he got off the stands and helped Kimberley along, who was now clad in Sabres gear once more, much to the chagrin of both the Shifter Grove and the Seattle fans.
Kimberley paused at the end of the stands, looking out on the ice. The crowd was up on their feet again, screaming their heads off as the Timberwolves went on the offensive, and she could see the very moment that Cannon decided he wouldn’t let the puck get anywhere near their goalie. She couldn’t suppress the little smile that rose to her lips at the sight of him. Whatever she could say about him, she could never deny that he was a damn good hockey player.
But that smile turned into a frown a second later as she turned her back on him, suddenly feeling like her body was icing over with every step she took toward the parking lot and Slate’s truck. It was like she was leaving a part of herself behind again, a part she was sure she’d never regain once she got on that plane.
By the time she tossed her bag in the back seat of Slate’s big pickup and she crawled into the passenger seat, she felt completely numb, like someone had sucked the joy and life right out of her.
“Ready to go?” Slate asked, making the engine roar.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Kimberley said, biting her lip.
She couldn’t stay and she didn’t want to go. She could feel the bitter tears in her throat at the lack of her own strength, and possibly his, for confronting each other on what had transpired between them. But maybe that was for the best. Have this one last good memory of him before she shoved all her feelings for the gorgeous, impossible man into a box and tossed away the key.
Maybe that was how it was supposed to be?
CHAPTER TEN
Cannon
Cannon couldn’t quite put his hand on what felt off all of a sudden, but just a minute or so after successfully defending a Timberwolves attack, Cannon felt like something was very, very wrong. There was a small lull in the game where another crater was quickly patched up on the ice, which were subject to appear with aggressive skating and lake ice that really wasn’t primed for this kind of stuff, giving him a moment to look around.
Immediately, his eyes went to Kimberley’s seat. Which was no empty.
Shit.
He whiffed at the air out of instinct more than anything else, knowing that he would smell a hint of her floral scent even in the biggest crowds, but he could only find the tiniest note. Cannon hadn’t really noticed it before, but as soon as Kimberley had shown up at the previous game, her scent had flooded back to him with all the connotations his subconscious had clearly remembered.
But now, it was dissipating in the air again. And that could only mean one thing.
Kimmy, don’t do this to us, he thought with gritted teeth, knowing full well that the only one to blame here was himself.
He skated to the bench, throwing off his gear as quickly as he could. Cannon’s skates were off and his boots on before Heath could even really get pissed off, and Logan and Leo hopped off the bench with eager grins.
“Cannon…” Coach’s voice was a low growl, making the hackles on the back of Cannon’s neck stand up.
“I’m sorry,” was all he said, clapping the aged man on the shoulder before he burst off in a run, a sight that must have been becoming way too familiar to the Shifter Grove hockey-watching public.
He didn’t hear the yells or questioning mumbles behind him as his bear led him straight toward the parking lot. Somehow, he knew she had to be leaving, that she was skipping out on the conversation both of them knew they had to have. Honestly, at that point, he wasn’t even hoping for much more other than the fact that he could man up and finally apologize to her like she deserved to be apologized to, while realizing that it meant the likely end to them. But he needed to do it.
It was the fear that it would all be over that had kept him paralyzed, but that time was over now. As soon as he reached the parking lot, he knew Kimberley wasn’t there anymore. He didn’t even think when he let the bear take over, the powerful, muscular body of one of the best hockey players in the country suddenly warping and changing mid-step, until it towered as a huge grizzly bear, a steady snarl on its lips.
He burst into the forest off of the parking lot, giving the animal all of the control, all of the decisions. The man had failed him one too many times, after all. Wolf’s Eye Lake was circular, the roads leading to it treacherous and surrounded by drops and thick forests. On his runs, Cannon had come to know the woods and he knew just the path to take to cut through them the shortest possible way and reach the point where the backwater road fed onto the highway.
He ran like there were demons chasing him, massive muscles and the dizzying speed of a bear at peak physical condition taking him quickly through the snowy forest. He was like a tank, trudging through, almost flying across the mounds of snow despite his fantastic size. This time, he had something to run toward and he wasn’t going to fuck up again. He couldn’t afford it.
The trek through the woods seemed to take forever, and when the road came into view, he almost feared it would be too late. He didn’t even know what car she was in, but he had to take a chance, to try.
He reached the dirt road, iced over as it was, only a few moments before a big truck came barreling down the road. The driver slammed on the brakes hard, tossing the truck slightly, but staying in control easily enough. Living in a place like Shifter Grove made for damn good drivers, especially with shifters constantly running around.
Slate, Cannon recognized with a start, rearing up on his back legs for a moment, to see Kimberley in the passenger seat.
The frantic beating of his heart steadied for a moment as he allowed the shift to take him again, wrestling power out of the paws of the grouchy bear and into the hands of the man once more. The bear gave it up more than a little reluctantly. No wonder. The man had been losing the puck at every turn lately.
Cannon stood, pushing his shoulders back and squaring his jaw as his blue gaze met Kimberley’s green eyes. She looked more than a little shocked, but Cannon figured her surprises were only beginning.
He held up a hand in apology to Slate, recognizing the pilot from a few pick-ups he’d done for the team now, and walked to the passenger side of the truck. Cannon pulled the door open.
“Cannon, what the hell are you doing?” she demanded, her voice shaky.
“I need to talk to you. Now.”
“Now? Fucking now?!” Kimberley asked, and Cannon was damn sure he could see the shimmer of tears welling up in her pretty eyes.
Guilt hit him like a ton of bricks.
“Now,” he repeated sternly, reaching over her and undoing the belt.
“Kimberley, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Slate said, giving Cannon a dubious look.
Sizing the man up, Cannon figured he could take him in a fight if he needed to, tiger or no tiger—it was easy enough to smell it on the man—but even the fact that he came to this thought felt ridiculous to him. He’d never do something like that. Or would he?
Guess I’m willing to go to any length for her, he thought glumly, once more disappointed in himself that it took so damn long to come to this understanding.
“It’s okay,” Kimberley said, glancing at Slate before she slipped out of the seat, though Cannon got a good glare for his forwardness.
He didn’t care. He deserved far worse than an angry look from her, after all. Walking in the opposite direction of the highway, they strolled in sil
ence a few paces as Cannon tried to gather his thoughts. The whole run there, he’d been so sure that he knew exactly what to tell her, but now he found himself stuttering and stumbling over thoughts that wouldn’t even form words.
Feeling that she was becoming antsy, he turned to face her, taking her hands in his and feeling the warmth of her skin, sending little flashes of bliss through him where they touched.
“Kimberley, I’ve been a fucking douchebag,” he said, giving up on finding the perfect words and settling for the ones that came naturally. “I’ve been meaning to explain to you why I did what I did when we broke up. I’ve been trying to make sentences that would make sense this whole time and failing miserably. That’s why I brought you here, so I could apologize and set things straight. And I know it’s taken me way too long.”
He took a breath, his ice blue eyes imploring her to understand. Kimberley’s brows were knit in confusion now and there was no doubt anymore that those were tears in her eyes.
“I was just having such a good time with you. I didn’t want to destroy it. I wanted… I was being egotistical, I know, but I wanted the happiness to last, even though I knew it wouldn’t. When we broke up, I thought… I thought I was going to hurt you. Hell, I knew I was. Do you know how werebears or any shifters get very hormonal when we come of age?”
Spirits above, the question felt awkward even now, and he was far older and more secure in his sense of self now than he had been back then. And still it made him blush a little.
“Yeah? But what does that have to do with anything?” Kimberley asked, her lips pressed thin.
“I got it in my head that everything that I’d been feeling for you, all of that love and desire and need, was just the hormones. I kept reading about it, how young shifters tell someone that they’re their mate and the shifter is completely convinced about it, but then it turns out not to be true and it’s the mate that suffers.