True Love and Other Disasters (Chinooks #4)

by Rachel Gibson

  From the back of the plane, someone complained loud enough for everyone to hear, “The son of a bitch tried to shove his stick up my ass.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time you walked around with a stick up your ass,” someone else said. This triggered a lot of deep manly laughter followed by numerous “up your ass” commentaries and speculations.

  “Listen up,” Coach Nystrom said from the front of the plane. “Mrs. Duffy is traveling with us to San Jose.” As if someone pushed a PAUSE button, all laughter and butt jokes abruptly stopped. “So keep it clean.”

  The coach took his seat and Faith was suddenly the focus of several dozen startled male faces. From one row back, Ty Savage looked up from the USA Today sports section he held in his hands. The light above his head shined in his dark hair, and his eyes locked with her for several long seconds before he lowered his gaze to the paper once more.

  Jules waited for her in the third-row window seat and she took her place beside him. “How long is the flight?” she asked.

  “Less than an hour.”

  Behind her she heard a few low whispers and a couple of deep chuckles. She buckled herself in and, except for a few bits of conversation too low for Faith to hear, and the rustle of Ty’s newspaper, the fuselage remained quiet as they taxied to the runway and took off. Once they punched through the thick, gray clouds, the stabbing rays of morning sun flooded the oval windows. Almost as one, the shades were all pulled down.

  Faith wondered if they were quiet because they’d played a grueling game the night before that had ended in a 3–4 win in overtime and it was suddenly catching up to them, or if it was because she was sitting in the front of the jet.

  Once the snow-covered summit of Mount Rainier was behind them, Darby Hogue leaned across the aisle and asked, “How are you doing?”

  “Okay. Are they usually this quiet?”

  Darby smiled. “No.”

  “Are they uncomfortable flying with me?”

  “They’re just a little superstitious about traveling with a woman. A few years ago, a female reporter traveled with the team. They didn’t like it at first, but they got used to her. They’ll get used to you, too.” He turned and looked into the seat behind him. “Got that tape, Dan?”

  He was handed a DVD that he plugged into his laptop. Then he turned the screen for Faith to see. “This is Jaroslav Kobasew. We’re looking at him to fill the hole in our second-line defense. We need more size in the back, and he’s six five and two thirty-five.”

  She hadn’t known they had a hole in the second line or anywhere else. “I thought we couldn’t make any trades.”

  “Not until after the season ends, but we’re always scouting new talent,” Darby told her.

  She looked into the screen across the aisle as a huge man in a red jersey battled for a puck in the corner. The huge guy won by knocking the other player off his skates. “Good Lord.”

  Jules leaned over her. “How does he hit?”

  “Like he has cement in his gloves,” Darby answered.

  “How does he skate?”

  “Like he has cement in his shorts.”

  Normally, Faith would have thought cement in shorts was a bad thing. But this was hockey and she didn’t know. Maybe that meant he could take a hit. “And that’s bad. Right?”

  Jules nodded and sat back.

  “He’s just one of the players we’re considering,” Darby said and turned the screen to face him. “When I narrow it down, I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay.” She turned to Jules and asked out of one corner of her mouth, “Do they have to discuss trades with me?”

  He nodded and set his briefcase on his lap. “Did I forget to tell you that?”

  “Yeah. You did.” And it was kind of important, although she couldn’t complain. If not for Jules, she’d be lost. Well, even more than she already was lost.

  He pulled out a stack of Hockey News magazines and handed them to her. “Dig in.”

  She flipped past various copies and settled on the February issue, with Ty Savage on the cover, his face beaded with sweat as his vivid blue eyes looked at the camera from beneath his white helmet. He looked intimidating and intense. The caption on the left read “Can Ty Savage Deliver Lord Stanley to Seattle?”

  The magazine had come out a month before Virgil’s death, and she thumbed past a story on Jeremy Roenick to the center of the magazine. On the right side was a color photo of Ty appearing bare chested. He had his hands behind his head and his chest was rippled with clearly defined muscles. In black ink, his last name was tattooed down his side from just below his armpit to the waistband of his jeans. She had a Playboy bunny inked in the small of her back. It had hurt like crazy, and she couldn’t imagine getting a tattoo the size of Ty’s.

  Looking at his photo, if she didn’t know better, she’d think she was staring at a “hunk of the month” calender. The shot was from the waist up and only the hint of a smile curved his mouth. The left side of the center spread was filled with columns of career stats with the byline “Saint or Traitor?” superimposed on the impressive list going back to his days in the minors. The article began:

  Without a doubt, Ty Savage is one of the NHL’s best and toughest players. He’s known for laying on the big hits on open ice. As a result, he makes opponents keep their heads up and think twice about going up against this Selke winner.

  He is, as everyone who follows the game knows, the son of hockey great, Pavel Savage. A relationship he is reluctant to talk about.

  “My father was one of the best players in NHL history,” he says in his best surly Savage.

  Faith smiled. She knew exactly what the reporter was talking about. No one did surly better than Ty.

  “But I am not my father. We play different games. When I hang up my skates for the last time, I want to be judged by my skill on the ice. Not by my last name.”

  Enough said.

  Unless he commits an unpardonable sin, history will judge this former Art Ross Trophy winner with the same respect it reserves for the likes of Howe, Gretsky, Messier, and dare we say it, Pavel Savage.

  Although there are those in Canada who’d like the younger Savage deleted from their national archives. This stems from Ty’s defection from the Vancouver Canucks to the Seattle Chinooks this past month. To many Canadians, the name “Savage” is sacred, like Macdonald, Trudeau and Molson. Perhaps unfair, this native son who once was hailed as a hero is now considered a traitor. In the past weeks, the Vancouver media has vilified him, even going so far to burn him in effigy. At which Savage merely shrugs. “I understand their feelings,” he says. “Canadians are passionate about hockey. That’s what I love about them, but they don’t own me.”

  When asked about his reputation for playing a hard physical game, he laughs and responds, “That’s my job.”

  Faith looked up from the magazine. Ty laughs? She’d been around him several times in the past few weeks, and the man had barely cracked a smile.

  She returned her gaze to the Hockey News in her lap and turned the page. She looked at the photos of Ty colliding center ice with a Flyer, and of him scoring a goal against Pittsburgh.

  “Some might say your hard physical style hurts people. That you’re not a very nice person.”

  “I play hard physical hockey. That’s my job, but I never go after anyone who doesn’t have the puck. If that means I’m not a nice person, I can live with that. I’ve never been interested in the Lady Byng Trophy, and I’m not going to lose sleep worrying about whether people think I’m ‘nice.’ If I’m a dick sometimes, no one will ask me for money or want to borrow my truck to move their crap.”

  “Has that happened to you?”

  “Not so much these days.”

  Speaking of money, the Chinooks paid $30 million for their captain, and there were a lot of people, including those in the Chinooks organization, who thought the money would have been better spent on their defense. But owner Virgil Duffy knows the wisdom of acquiring a player the ca
liber of Savage.

  “Every time he steps on the ice,” Duffy is quoted as saying, “he increases the value of the Chinooks franchise.”

  A few rows behind Faith, she heard the shuffle of newspaper mixed with the low hum of deep male voices. If Virgil had thought Ty was worth 30 million, then he was, and more.

  Traitor or Saint doesn’t matter much to Ty Savage. He just wants to play hockey his way and win the cup. “I have no doubt we’ll make it into the final round. We’ve got the talent to get us that far. After that, it’s going to come down to who hits harder and puts the most points on the board.” He flashes a rare smile. “And what a guy’s got in his sac.”

  Enough said.

  Faith closed the magazine. Somehow she doubted Ty had been talking about those Sac poof chairs.

  A warm breeze blew through the San Jose airport, bringing with it the smell of asphalt and jet fuel. Ty climbed down the steps of the BAC-111 and walked across the tarmac. He unbuttoned his team blazer, shoved his hands into the pockets of his wool pants, and made his way to the chartered bus.

  “That’s my Louie hatbox.”

  He glanced toward the cargo hold of the plane, where Mrs. Duffy stood, the wind whipping the tails of her black coat about her knees.

  “And that’s the matching wheelie,” she added, pointing into the bay.

  Jules took a big Louis Vuitton suitcase and a round case with a loop handle from one of the equipment managers who stood at the cargo bay unloading bags and equipment.

  Ty glanced at the faces around him. Through the lenses of his sunglasses, he could see the guy’s confusion. He felt it too. Why did a two-day trip require two pieces of luggage? Especially a hatbox? How many hats could one woman wear in forty-eight hours?

  He boarded the bus and took an aisle seat toward the front. Until she’d walked onto the plane in Seattle, he and the guys hadn’t even known she was traveling with them. Outside the window, Ty watched her move across the tarmac toward Darby. The loop of her hatbox circled one wrist and she shoved a pair of big sunglasses on her face. Her blonde hair slid across her cheek and she raised her free hand to push it behind one ear. The flight from Washington had been quiet. Too quiet for a group of guys who excelled at talking trash at 35,000 feet. If she hadn’t been on the flight, they would have questioned the paternity of several San Jose players, and they would have broken out the cards for air poker. Frankie was down five hundred bucks, and Ty was sure the sniper wanted a chance to get some of it back. Little had Ty known that when he’d suggested they all play poker as a way to bond, it would turn into a never-ending game.

  “I’d pay a lot of money to see her on a stripper pole again,” Sam said as he slid into the window seat next to Ty. “Maybe busting out of a short little nurse’s outfit.” He sighed like he was in the middle of some porn fantasy. “And those clear plastic shoes they all wear. And an ankle bracelet. I love a lady in an ankle bracelet.”

  “You should probably give up on that dream, Rocky,” Ty said, using Sam’s nickname. “Especially since she owns you, eh?”

  Sam unbuttoned his jacket. “I don’t mind that she owns us. Not like some of the guys. She’s surrounded by a lot of smart people who won’t let her make a huge mistake. I remember Jules from five years ago. He knows a lot about hockey. Back then he was a pudgy guy with a mullet. He hadn’t come out of the closet yet.”

  More players piled on the bus, and Ty looked out the window as Faith nodded at something Jules said to her. “He claims he’s not gay.”

  “Really.” Sam shrugged. “I had a cousin who dressed like that in the nineties. He wasn’t gay either.” Sam shrugged. “But he was from Long Island,” he added as if that explained it. He turned his face and looked out the window. “What do you suppose she’s got in the box? Handcuffs? Whips? French maid uniform?”

  Ty chuckled. “I’d guess hats.”

  “Why would a woman need that many hats?”

  Now it was Ty’s turn to shrug. “I’ve never been married.” In fact, he’d only come close to it once. That is, if he counted the time his old girlfriend, LuAnn, had proposed to him. Though he didn’t know if that even counted, because he’d run screaming in the other direction. He wasn’t against marriage. For other people.

  “Well, my ex never carried a hatbox around when she traveled.”

  “I didn’t know you were married.” He looked up as Coach Nystrom and goalie coach Don Boclair stepped into the bus.

  “Yeah. Been divorced five years. I have a little boy. His mamma just couldn’t handle the life, ya know.”

  He knew. The divorce rate for hockey players was high. They were gone for half of the long season, and it took a strong woman to stay at home while her man was on the road working hard, living large, and fending off puck bunnies.

  Or not. Being married to a hockey player had made Ty’s mother crazy, or so she’d claimed. Or perhaps she’d already been crazy, as his father claimed. Who knew? The only thing for certain was that she’d died of a toxic cocktail of Klonopin, Xanax, Lexapro, and Ambien. The doctors had called it an accidental overdose. Ty wasn’t convinced. His mother’s life had always been one long emotional roller coaster, and whether she’d been born with a mental illness or had been driven to it, the result had been the same. Ty’s mother had battled depression that had ended her life. He wasn’t worried that he’d end up sad and depressed like his mother. He worried that he was too much like his father to care.

  Ty pulled back the thick sleeve of his coat and looked at his watch. It was a little after eight o’clock in Seattle and he wondered what his dad was going to do while he was gone. Other than what he always did: drink all Ty’s beer and watch ESPN. It had been two weeks now since Pavel had shown up at his door. Over two weeks of his father practicing his backswing or hanging out at strip clubs. Over two weeks, and it didn’t seem like his dad was planning on leaving anytime soon.

  The door to the bus opened and Jules entered, followed by Faith. The assistant moved to sit by the window, while Faith took a seat across the aisle and two rows up from Ty. She set her hatbox on her lap and placed her hands on the sides. The light caught on her huge platinum and diamond wedding ring and shone on her red nails.

  Just as before, when she had stepped on the plane, silence descended like a heavy brick wall. Singly and collectively, every hockey player on the bus had been around a lot of beautiful women. They’d been around a lot of strippers. Some of them had even been to parties at the Playboy Mansion. But for some reason, this former stripper turned playmate made all those cocky hockey players tongue-tied. Probably it was because she had so much power over them. More than likely it was because she was stunning. Or it was both.

  “Listen up, boys.” Coach Nystrom stood at the front of the bus. “We have practice this afternoon and then you’re on your own until light practice tomorrow morning. We have an important game tomorrow night; I don’t need to tell you all to stay out of trouble.” He sat in the first row. “Okay, bussie,” he said. “Let’s move out.” The driver closed the door and the bus rolled across the tarmac.

  The San Jose Marriott was in the heart of downtown and not far from the HP Pavilion. On the short drive to the hotel, Ty folded his arms across the front of his wool jacket and watched the sun hitting the buildings and lighting up rows of palm trees. It was still early in the playoffs, but a win against the Sharks tomorrow night was very important. After practice today, he wanted to review game tapes of the San Jose defense and their goalie, Evgeni Nabokov. In last night’s game, Nabokov had stopped twenty-three shots on goal. He was cool under pressure and consistent, but even cool, consistent goalies had bad nights. Ty’s job was to make him wish they’d sent in the rookie.

  A few rows up, Faith slid her hand up the sides of her hatbox, over the top, and then back down. Her long thin fingers brushed the Louis Vuitton monogram, back and forth, caressing it like a lover. Her shiny red nails scraped the hard surface, and Ty’s scalp got tight, as if she’d touched him again.

&nbs
p; “Jesus H,” Ty whispered and leaned his head back. He was tired and his right ankle hurt like a bitch. He had a game against the Sharks to think about, and his old man was making him nuts. And thanks to Sam, one prevailing thought pushed everything out of his head: What the hell was in the damned hatbox? Sam might fantasize about nurses, but Ty was a lingerie man. He loved lacy garters and thigh-high stockings on a pair of smooth thighs.

  Chapter 8

  Being a trophy wife had been hard work. It had been more than champagne wishes and caviar dreams. It had been always looking perfect and going to country clubs and parties that you learned to enjoy. It meant sometimes socializing with people you might not like and who might not like you. Although Virgil had become Faith’s best friend, he’d always been the boss. There was never any doubt about it, but after being responsible for her own survival for so long, it had been nice to let someone else take care of her. To kick back and not worry about paying her bills. To have her biggest concern of the day involve which dress to wear to the Rainier Club.

  Virgil had never made her do anything she’d felt strongly against, but he’d been in charge. The captain of his life, and for the most part, hers. She’d dressed to fit into his life, and she’d learned about perception and image. She’d learned subtlety. That sexy had more to do with what you covered up than what you let hang out. It was more than skintight clothes and flashy makeup—something her mother had yet to learn.

  For the first time in years, Faith went shopping that afternoon to please herself and no one else. She hit the streets of downtown San Jose and shopped at Burberry and BCBG and Ferragamo. She shopped the more edgy designs by Gucci and a new, up-and-coming French designer. She bought casual clothes from Diesel in colors she hadn’t worn in years. She bought soft cotton T-shirts and jeans. She bought hoodies that she intended to wear for occasions other than to work out. By the time she was finished, it was six hours later and her feet hurt.