Copyright 2013 by Ginger Rapsus
This is a work of fiction. All names, places, events, and organizations in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ISBN: 9781483516578
Dedicated to the 2013 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks, who had the best season any hockey fan could ask for.
Prologue.
Brandon Taylor’s body never hurt so bad.
His shoulders felt like they were on fire. The muscles in his upper back throbbed as he stood there, spent, exhausted after giving his best effort. The pain radiated down his back, his spine. He didn’t know how he could stand upright, and for how long. His legs, usually toned and powerful, were weak and rubbery. His knees trembled; from exertion or from the pressure and excitement of this day, he wasn’t sure.
The sound of his heartbeat was almost audible, at least to him, as he stood there in the dark. His chest rose as he breathed deliberately, in and out, trying to regain his bearings. He was ready to drop right where he stood. But he couldn’t. Not with so many people watching him, watching the sweat shine on his face. He felt damp and sweaty all over. But he didn’t really care how he looked, not at this moment.
Even his hands and fingers hurt. His arms were weak from his efforts, and he didn’t know if he could lift his arms, even if he were offered a big new contract to sign.
And his legs. Every fiber and sinew in his toned and muscular legs screamed for relief, just to stop, just to lie down and try to relax, after this, the greatest testing of his strength, on the biggest day of Brandon’s life.
The lights went up. The audience cheered. God only knows how many people were watching on TV. And all eyes were on Brandon and his mates, definitely all eyes in Canada. Most definitely, all eyes in Pickle Lake, Ontario, his hometown.
Brandon was not too tired to look around the packed arena where the gold medal hockey game had just been completed, in overtime, with Team Canada winning the gold. Team USA put up a good fight. But Team Canada won. They won the gold. Within minutes, Brandon Taylor, defenseman, would feel the heavy gold medal placed around his neck.
He wondered how heavy the medal was, and what it looked like. He didn’t care if it bore an elaborate design, or if it was blank. It was a gold Olympic medal. Brandon was a member of Team Canada that won their game and did his home country proud.
Zach Lambert, his longtime teammate on the Chicago Ice Bandits, received his medal as he stood next to Brandon. Brandon was next.
He arched his neck to receive his prize.
Brandon stood tall and proud, as tall as he could, given his state of exhaustion. Then he reached out to pick up the medal for a better look.
The gold medal gleamed in the lights of the stadium. He couldn’t make out the design. Some kind of fancy artwork. But it was his. He’d earned it, with his hard work and dedication.
He sneaked a look at Zach. He was examining his medal, too.
“What is that design on the medal?” He asked Brandon, pointing to his gold. “Do you know?”
Brandon shrugged his shoulders. It hurt.
The anthem “O Canada” began to play, and a hush fell over the jammed arena.
Brandon’s eyes burned as they began to water. He closed his eyes. Don’t, he told himself. Don’t. You’re a big boy now, and a tough hockey player.
The arena erupted in applause and cheers for the hometown team. Brandon, Zach, and their teammates waved to acknowledge their big ovation.
Time stood still for Brandon. Don’t let this moment end, he thought. This is glorious.
Hours later, Brandon found himself walking back to his room at the Village where all the athletes stayed. What a celebration post game. The tiredness and aches disappeared as every member of Team Canada toasted each other, joyful after their big win.
Many of the guys called home, their wives, their families, on their cell phones, giving their loved ones details. Some had followed the team to witness the Games in person, and root for their family members. And then, the players had to talk to the press, too. Brandon remembered saying something to some reporter from Ottawa. Not his most profound statement, but it had words in it.
Brandon saved his talk for when he got back to his room. His fiancée Terri would be there, waiting for him, hanging on his every word, and they would have their own private celebration.
He even had a gold ring to give to her, his grandmother’s gold ring, a precious heirloom, to seal their engagement. A gold ring for her, a gold medal for him. What a day.
She said she’d be at the gold medal game, to watch him and cheer for him, but she was too tired to attend the post game party.
She was tired? Brandon thought that was funny. He was the athlete. But he didn’t argue. He was too worked up about the game to argue.
He stumbled on something as he opened the door to his room. Did he leave a shirt laying around, as he usually did? Terri would nag him about leaving all kinds of…
Wait a minute. This was a white shirt, with pale blue trim. He picked up the shirt to see what it was. He didn’t own anything like this.
It was a jersey from Team Sweden, the team eliminated a few days ago.
What the hell was that doing in his room?
Brandon switched a light on.
He saw clothes strewn about the room, men’s and women’s. He saw Terri’s red nightgown, the one he liked, the one he kept asking her to wear.
Then he saw her, his fiancée Terri, in the bed, and she wasn’t alone.
She was with a big blond man, with bruises on his massive arms. His arms were wrapped around Terri.
Brandon recognized him. The star forward for Team Sweden.
He felt as if he’d been struck, smacked in the face with a stick. He gulped, and caught his breath.
Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the light on. He slammed the door. That should wake them up, he thought.
Too bad he didn’t wake up sooner. Terri, sweet and lovely Terri, the girl he’d met at a charity fund raising event, who flirted with him and chased him and made him feel like a king.
For the second time that day, Brandon closed his eyes and told himself not to cry. He was a big boy now.
Chapter 1.
“This job sucks. Why did I major in Art?”
Greta Patton sat in her work area, looked at her latest project and frowned. She just couldn’t get it to work. Her customers were counting on her, and she couldn’t make this work.
She picked up her loupe and studied the piece carefully.
The gold bracelet looked good from a distance, to an average person, but Greta was not an average person. She was a professional jeweler and designer, and it was her job to see where a bracelet didn’t meet standards. And she had high standards.
A woman who had been a customer for years wanted a gold bracelet for her daughter, a gift for her graduation from law school. The mother knew a little about jewelry, and she definitely knew what she wanted, in detail. She gave Greta a sheet of paper with a drawing of the way she wanted the bracelet to look, the engraving, and the exact way she wanted the piece to rest on her daughter’s wrist. Oh, and her birthstone—a ruby—was to be included.
Greta took pride in her work and tried to give her customers what they wanted, but this lady was so demanding. She had to be satisfied. Make that, both the customer and the designer had to be satisfied.
Because of the lousy economy, business was down. No one wanted fancy jewelry when they were losing their home, or out of a job. This was what her boss kept saying. But many days, the staff bought old gold and silver, sometimes platinum, necklaces, school rings, even grandma’s gold teeth. People came in with mounds of the yellow metal. Some days, there was a line, and Greta remembered one d
ay last month when the line was out the door. But her boss, Mr. Blakely, never looked happy.
Greta felt sorry for those people who came in to sell their jewelry. She knew so much of this material had sentimental value, besides the gold value. The price of gold was over thirteen hundred…
“Hey, Greta. What’s up?” The front door opened, and a nurse in pale green scrubs strolled in.
“Nothing special.” She looked up from her work. “Aren’t you working today, April?”
Greta’s best friend sat on a stool across from her and her bracelet. “I’m on lunch. I had to leave the building. Too stuffy. And I don’t just mean the air.”
“Is that new head nurse still giving you a rough time/”
April fidgeted in her seat, and twisted a lock of her short dark hair. “She is so unreasonable. I had six patients on day shift, and she yelled at me, in front of a patient, for not helping to pass trays. One of my patients wasn’t breathing right. What was I supposed to do, let him stop breathing, so I could pass trays?”
“Sometimes I’m glad I do what I do. They pretty much leave you alone.”
“Don’t be surprised if I walk in one day and ask for a job. I can sort the gold and silver. I can do something.”
Greta laughed. “Hey, aren’t you going to eat anything?”
April unzipped her large black purse and pulled out a can of energy drink. “Here’s my lunch. I want to lose a few pounds. I sure get enough exercise, running around the damn floor all day.” She pulled the tab and drank a big swallow. “What about you?”
“I have no time to eat. Maybe later. I have work to catch up on.”
“That’s why you stay so skinny, my friend.” April was a bit shorter and a bit heavier than her friend, but April carried it well. “Want to go anywhere for a bite to eat?”
“I can’t leave. And the way I look?” Greta was dressed for work, with a simple blouse and her favorite pair of jeans, much worn but neat and still a crisp blue. Her long blonde hair was pulled back tightly. She couldn’t have hair falling in her face as she worked. And she wore a minimum of makeup at work.
Not like April. She wore full makeup if she was just taking out the garbage.
“When I get caught up on my projects, maybe we could go out for lunch. Or I could meet you at the hospital. Don’t you have a cafeteria?”
April laughed. “Yeah. Eat at your own risk.”
Brandon woke up late that morning, alone, with one whale of a hangover. He blinked at the bright Chicago sunlight streaming through his bedroom window.
Where was he, anyway? He had to think a moment. He was at home, his Chicago home, near the Loop. Near everything, all the social life.
Social life, all right. Last night, as soon as he arrived back in town, he hit his favorite watering hole on Rush Street, and picked up the first little doll who smiled at him. Brandon was used to female attention, being an Ice Bandits player, but he usually kept cool, remembering Terri, thoughtful Terri, who said she’d always wait for him.
But she didn’t wait for that Swedish forward.
Before he knew it, Brandon and the doll were headed to his place for the night. She sweet-talked him, fell all over him, flattered him, and Brandon ate it up. He looked into her big brown eyes and listened to her line, probably a line she fed to more than a few pro athletes in town, but he didn’t care. He wanted female companionship that night, of all nights. They were both full of drink, and climbed into bed almost as soon as the door closed behind them.
And now Brandon was alone. The doll was gone. He could still smell her perfume, but he struggled to remember what she looked like. And what was her name?
She left her purse on his nightstand, where he’d placed Terri’s gold ring. Rather, the ring he planned to give Terri when they returned home, and…
Where was the ring?
Brandon snapped awake, fully awake now, when he realized the ring was gone. His grandmother’s gold ring, a family heirloom. It was right here, on the nightstand. The doll’s purse and all her things were gone, and so was the ring.
He jumped out of bed, rummaged through all the stuff in the nightstand, almost knocking over his big lamp.
Then he had a really bad thought.
He found his travel bag, left alone and unpacked since his return, and looked through it until he found the big red box containing his gold Olympic medal.
It was still there. Whew.
But the gold ring was gone, no doubt in the hands of that little doll he’d brought home last night, who wanted to sleep with a hot Chicago athlete.
Brandon was angry enough to bite the head off a cobra. Money couldn’t replace that gold ring. It had been his grandmother’s wedding ring, with her initials carved inside. And it was 14 karat gold. He once looked inside the band and saw the hallmark.
Would the bitch sell that ring? To some crummy pawn shop? How would he ever get it back?
Brandon’s hangover pounded harder, and he felt nauseous.
Greta’s long day was coming to an end. She’d had her share of crabby customers, and a young couple who walked into the store just before quitting time and asked to see every diamond ring in the place.
Just before she signed out for the day, she spotted another customer coming up the walk. A young man, with long dark hair, unshaven, looking like he’d just tumbled out of bed. He wore a denim jacket that looked about fifty years old, and jeans to match.
He wasn’t paying attention to where he was walking, and stepped right into a wad of well-chewed gum that someone had left on the sidewalk.
He swore, and scraped his foot against the rough walkway. His favorite shoes gummed up. The lost ring. What else could happen this day?
Greta watched him enter, and hoped he wouldn’t stick around. She wanted to go home.
“Look what I stepped in!” Brandon said to her.
Greta stared at him. “Er, can I help you with…”
“Yes, I’m…well, I am looking for a ring. A lost ring. A gold ring.”
“This isn’t a pawn shop. There’s one on the next block, at Archer and…”
“Look, I need this ring back. It was my grandmother’s.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have sold it.” Greta didn’t like his demanding attitude, and she really wanted to leave the store now.
“I didn’t sell it. It was stolen.”
“Did you file a police report?”
Brandon didn’t think of that. “Not exactly.”
Greta sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do you have this ring? Maybe she sold it, or…”
“She? Do you know who stole it? Maybe you could just ask for it back.”
“Yeah, right. I’ll go out and hit the bars on Rush Street every night to look for her.”
Greta rubbed her head. “Let me get the story straight. You picked up a girl in a bar, took her home, and she left with a valuable ring?”
Didn’t this guy have a brain?
Brandon came up close to her face. “Yeah. That’s right. I need that ring back. Did she sell it?”
“I have no idea. This store has plenty of gold rings. Can you describe it?”
“Fourteen karat gold.”
“That really narrows it down.” Greta had enough of this guy, and began turning off the light, preparing to lock up. She wanted this guy out, and fast.
“Can I look at…”
“Look, you’ll have to come back some other time. This store is closed.”
Brandon rolled his eyes, and sighed. “I need to…”
“You need to leave right now, before I call security.”
Chapter 2.
“It smells in here. Zach, when did you last shower?”
“About an hour ago,” Zach replied, in his Canadian accent. “Look who’s talking. Vyto, don’t they have soap and water in Lithuania?”
The Chicago Ice Bandits’ big Lithuanian goaltender laughed at him, showing a mouthful of missing teeth. “You make me laugh. Big shot. Came back f
rom the Olympics.”
“And here’s my partner in crime. Morning, Brandon. You look none the worse for wear.”
Brandon yawned. He hadn’t had much sleep since returning from the Winter Olympics, in all the excitement of losing both his fiancée and his prized ring.
“Wake up, dude. Back to work today. Lots to practice. We have appearance to make tomorrow, and big game that night.” The goaltender grinned again. “Both of you wear your medals tonight, and fans go crazy.”
“Eat your heart out, Vyto.” Brandon looked around his locker. He hoped that maybe he’d misplaced the ring, that it was somewhere in his locker. But he wouldn’t leave a gold ring in his locker, here, at the Arena.
“What you looking for? Your teeth?”
“No, Zach. It’s…it’s a long story.”
Zach put on his Ice Bandits sweater, the home version in deep blue, with silver trim. “Get with it, Brandon. Like Vyto said. Practice today, morning skate tomorrow, then the three of us go out to that hospital to visit the kids. And a game at seven.”
Brandon dug out his equipment and slowly got dressed. “Busy day. Again. Where is that hospital, anyway?”
“South side of Chicago,” said Vyto, lacing up his skates. “To see sick kids is sad and depressing. But they good to us. They ask for autograph, and hug you and kiss you.”
“Too bad we can’t find a hospital with all young ladies,” added Kyle MacDonald, the Ice Bandits’ team captain.
Zach prepared to go out on the rink. “Snap it up, Brandon. Duty calls.”
Take your mind off things, Brandon, he told himself. Get dressed. Skate. Go visit sick children. They have worse problems than you do. Keep busy. Play your hockey games and lose yourself in the heat and the competition. The Ice Bandits had the best record in the NHL, by two whole points, with the rest of the season to go, not to mention the playoffs.
Lose yourself in your games, Brandon, and you’ll be okay.
Brandon felt better as soon as his skates hit the ice. He loved to skate. Game or not, he loved the feel of skates, perhaps more than he enjoyed walking on his own two feet. After all, he could skate practically before he could walk.
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