Defensive Zone

by Catherine Gayle

  In all honesty, I wasn’t convinced he was only responding to the way we’d played in our previous game. Something told me he was channeling his frustrations over my upcoming marriage to his daughter into leading us through an overzealous practice.

  Beside me, Chris Hammond and Leif Sorenson kept churning their legs, huffing for breath. They were both older than me, and there was no chance I’d let them beat me. Yeah, I allowed 501 and Coop to zip on ahead, not that there was anything I could do to slow them down. The kids were still young enough they could run on fumes, not like us older guys.

  Ghost and RJ made it to the final blue line first, so close together in reaching the stopping point that it was impossible to tell who had beat whom, although they both immediately started bragging that they’d won. Jo-Jo, 501, and Coop weren’t far behind them. Honestly, Coop might be the fastest guy on the team, but it seemed he was taking it easy today. Or maybe he just wanted the two best friends to have a go at each other.

  If I wasn’t about to have a coronary, I would have told them to shut the fuck up and stop bragging. Cocky bastards. Someday—and that someday probably wasn’t too far off, now—age would start to catch up to them. Then they could argue over who crawled out of bed faster or something, even though it might take them ten minutes to get moving in the morning.

  I was almost to the blue line when my skate blade caught a rut in the ice. I’d been thinking about the aforementioned cocky bastards and how bad my lungs hurt, and therefore wasn’t paying enough attention to what I was doing. Yeah, I took a nosedive and landed flat on my face, the ice making unwelcome contact with my jaw.

  Shit. I threw off my glove and felt my skin where I’d cracked against the ice. No break, but there was some blood. I put some pressure against it to stop the flow. Dani wouldn’t be very happy with me if I showed up to our wedding with a huge bandage on my face, but there wasn’t much I could do about it now. If I hadn’t been wearing a visor, I might have broken my nose. At least I’d only cracked open my jaw.

  But because of taking a spill, I lost any momentum I might have had and finally crept up to the finish.

  “Looks like Harry’s last,” Webs drawled.

  I glanced over at where he was standing by the bench, dreading whatever punishment he had up his sleeves. Because even though he’d given in about me and Dani getting married, since he had no legal say in it, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would rather skin me alive than invite me over for a family gathering.

  I couldn’t read his expression, though, which had me far more anxious than I was prepared for. I skated over to the bench and tried to brace myself for whatever was coming, taking a knee next to Babs. Our captain gave me a consoling look, not that it helped ease my nerves. I wished Dani had let me reveal our relationship to Webs, instead of jumping the gun and doing it herself. Not that I thought it would have softened the blow for my future father-in-law or anything of that nature—but maybe I could have kept all his animosity focused squarely on myself instead of it spilling over onto Dani.

  Hell, who was I kidding? It was focused on me…me and no one else. And the way he was looking at me now left no doubt about all the things he wanted to do to me.

  I was in for a hell of a time for the next several decades, and he intended to start the torture now.

  But then again, he had always given Babs a hard time in the early days. Not so much anymore. Lately, the worst Webs did was tell Babs not to be an asswipe. Yeah, he did that with increasing regularity, but nothing ever came of it.

  Dani had been telling me all along that her father was all bark and no bite. Could she be right about that? At least I had Jim Sutter’s reassurance that he wasn’t going to trade me anytime soon. That didn’t mean he would prevent Webs from making my life hell, but I’d take anything he threw my way. Because I loved his daughter more than I knew how to handle.

  “So, what’s it going to be?” I asked, getting up again. “More suicides? Want me to carry everyone’s bags on the next road trip?” That was a task usually reserved for rookies, but Webs could force it on me, if he wanted, along with thousands of other things. I thought through the numerous ways he could make my life hell, sure I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything as devious as he would.

  “Nah,” Webs said, and I inwardly groaned, thinking of all the ways he could make my life miserable. He chuckled, crossing his arms in front of him. “Someone toss him a towel so he can stop the bleeding. Seeing Dani’s reaction to you having a bashed-up face at her wedding’ll be good enough for me. Serves you right, asswipe.”

  Babs threw a towel in my direction, which I pressed to my wound. So, I was an asswipe, too? Apparently, I was part of the family now.

  I’d take it.

  THE TINY ROOM at the courthouse we were using to get dressed in was chock full of the women in my life: Katie, Bea, Megan, and Shelby. The only reason there weren’t more wives and girlfriends of Cody’s teammates surrounding me was that there just plain wasn’t any room for them. They were all downstairs in the courtroom waiting for the ceremony to begin.

  This was going to be a very different wedding than what most of the guys on the team were used to. They tended to have big weddings with tons of guests. Someone would spend months planning out every tiny little detail, and they’d spend a fortune on putting the shindig together.

  Our wedding had been planned in less than two weeks, and we weren’t spending much money on it at all. Most of the guys from the team were coming with their significant others, but otherwise it was mainly family and a few close friends.

  I’d made my own dress, a white, lacy thing that emphasized my curves. Cody was wearing one of the many suits he usually wore on game days—navy blue, because I’d told him it would bring out the color of his eyes. Yes, he’d rolled those very eyes at me when I’d given him that reason, especially because he had a nasty gash on his jaw right now that he claimed everyone would be looking at instead of his eyes, but he’d still agreed to it.

  I was pretty sure I could get him to agree to anything.

  It was going to be a quick, simple civil ceremony, and then we were all heading to Burnzie’s mansion on the river for a party. We didn’t even have a traditional wedding cake. Instead, Rachel had bought a few dozen cupcakes from a local bakery, including a couple of sugar-free ones so that Bea could indulge along with the rest of us without making herself sick.

  Katie kept fussing with my hair, trying to get it to curl just so, while Bea and Megan put the finishing touches on my bouquet. I couldn’t focus on any of that, though, because I was thoroughly distracted by the fact that Mom and Dad hadn’t shown up yet.

  “You’re sure they’re coming?” I said in a hushed tone to my sister. I didn’t want anyone else to overhear. The last thing I needed was for everyone in the room to realize I was freaking out, because they might assume my freak-out was over marrying Cody. Not even close. This freak-out was courtesy of my father, thank you very much. But asking her that was all it took to cause a rush of tears to spring to my eyes, which I had to fight down because I didn’t want to ruin my makeup. There wasn’t time to redo it.

  “Promise. Mom’s not going to let him ruin your day. Not that he would. He loves you, and that’s all there is to it.” Katie paused with a grimace that had me near panic.

  “What’s wrong?” I demanded. “You know something. Dad came up with another reason to object to the marriage, or he’s out buying a shotgun, or—”

  “I do know something,” Katie cut in before I could get up an even bigger head of steam. “But I’m not telling you. It’s their surprise, not mine.”

  “Good surprise or bad surprise?” Knowing Dad, it was a bad surprise. Had to be. And I was almost positive it involved firearms. I would absolutely murder him if he tried to put a stop to my wedding.

  Katie rolled her eyes. “Good surprise. Chill out, okay?” But then she put a hand on her abdomen, and the last thing on earth I’d be able to do was chill out.

  “It
’s the baby, isn’t it?” I demanded in a hushed voice, so no one would overhear. “Are you miscarrying? Do we need to go to the hospital?” Just like that, I jumped out of the chair and was rushing for the door to grab my purse and haul her away to the hospital.

  But she put a hand on my arm and stopped me. “Knock it off. I think it’s just gas or something. Nothing to worry about, okay?” She tugged me back toward the chair so she could finish with my hair.

  “You swear? I mean, feel free to fart up a storm if you need to, but if you’re lying to me and it’s something serious—”

  “Sit.” She shoved on my shoulders, giving me a Bossy Big Sister look. “Today’s all about you, and you’re not getting out of it by turning it around on me, okay?”

  I gave her a good scowl, but I sat like she’d ordered me to do and let her finish styling my hair.

  A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Bea scurried over to answer it since I was otherwise occupied having my face slathered with all sorts of creams and powders and whatnot. I expected it to be Mom and Dad. I did not expect it to be my brother, Luke.

  But that was exactly who came walking through the door, looking all tall and dark and handsome and cocky, the jerk.

  I leaped out of the chair and practically flew into his arms, blubbering like an idiot. Then I smacked him on the shoulder. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You’re messing up my makeup.”

  “Not to call the bride a liar or anything, but you’re the one screwing up your makeup. We wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “And it’s a good surprise,” Katie said.

  “No, it’s bad!” I grumbled. Because my tears just wouldn’t stop. I could feel the black streaks tracking down my cheeks, and if I wasn’t careful, the mascara would stain my dress. I gave Luke another smack on the shoulder for good measure. “I’m getting married in twenty minutes, and I look like a freaking zebra. You’re going to have to fix this,” I told him.

  He just laughed and squeezed me tighter, lifting me off my feet and spinning me around until I was dizzy, like the obnoxious big brother he’d always been. “Whatever, kiddo. You don’t want me doing your makeup.”

  “No, you don’t,” Katie agreed emphatically. “Sit. We can fix this.” She shoved my shoulders until I complied and took a seat in the chair, then she dabbed at my cheeks with a tissue.

  They had a point, so I sat and did my best to stop crying so my sister could make me look presentable. Luke pulled up a chair next to me and started chattering nonstop, telling me all about playing hockey in Germany. He demonstrated his awful understanding of the German language and had me in stitches with his poor attempt at speaking in Russian. I supposed he was just trying to calm me down so I wouldn’t start crying again, but it worked.

  Before I knew it, Dad had arrived to collect me. Everyone else but Luke slipped out of the room to take their places in the main courtroom, leaving us alone. We hadn’t been alone since the night I’d blown up at him, telling him I was going to marry Cody and he couldn’t stop me.

  I honestly wasn’t sure how this would go. My nerves threatened to eat me alive.

  “So,” Dad finally said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his pants.

  “So,” I repeated.

  But he didn’t say anything else.

  “You know I love him, right?” I said when the silence threatened to squeeze all the air out of my lungs. “And he loves me. And that’s all that really matters.”

  Dad gave me a grudging nod. “I know. I just want the best for you. For all my kids.”

  “We know that. But maybe I know what’s best for me.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” He scuffed his shoe along the floor, then looked up and met my eyes. “Just remember what I said about your brother and the German hockey players, all right? Actually, let’s make that all hockey players. I don’t care if they’re German.”

  Luke raised a brow in question, but I shook my head and mouthed Later in his direction.

  There was no stopping my grin. I stretched up on my tiptoes and kissed my father on the cheek. “I can’t make any promises about that. You’ll have to take that up with Luke, yourself.”

  “But you can promise me Harry’s good to you?”

  “Better than good. He loves me, Dad. And I love him.”

  He ground his teeth together a couple of times, but then he nodded. “I guess that’ll have to be good enough.” Then he held out his arm for me and led me into the courtroom full of my friends and family.

  Regardless of how many people were present, I only had eyes for Cody. Not even the scar on his chin could mar this day for me. It wasn’t all that long ago that I thought I only wanted a little kinky sexytimes with Dirty Harry. And maybe that was all I wanted then, but now I knew better.

  I wanted everything.

  And Cody gave me that and more.

  Catherine Gayle is a USA Today bestselling author of Regency-set historical romance and contemporary hockey romance. She’s a transplanted Texan living in North Carolina with two extremely spoiled felines. In her spare time, she watches way too much hockey and reality TV, plans fun things to do for the Nephew Monster’s next visit, and performs experiments in the kitchen which are rarely toxic.

  If you enjoyed this book and want to know when more like it will be available, be sure to sign up for Catherine’s mailing list. You can find out more on her website, her blog, at The Sin Bin, at Facebook, on Twitter, at Instagram, and at Goodreads. If you want to see some of her cats’ antics and possibly the occasional video update from Catherine, visit her YouTube account.

  DEFENSIVE ZONE is Book 15 in the Portland Storm hockey romance series written by USA Today bestselling author Catherine Gayle. If you enjoy it, look for the other books in the series.

  BREAKAWAY

  ON THE FLY

  TAKING A SHOT

  LIGHT THE LAMP

  DELAY OF GAME

  DOUBLE MAJOR

  IN THE ZONE

  HOLIDAY HAT TRICK

  COMEBACK

  DROPPING GLOVES

  HOME ICE

  MISTLETOE MISCONDUCT

  LOSING AN EDGE

  GAME BREAKER

  DEFENSIVE ZONE

  POWER PLAY

  NEUTRAL ZONE

  FREE AGENT

  There are also currently two boxed sets of books within the series, if you would prefer to purchase them in that way. A third will release soon.

  PORTLAND STORM: THE FIRST PERIOD (Contains Breakaway, On the Fly, Taking a Shot, and Light the Lamp)

  PORTLAND STORM: THE SECOND PERIOD (Contains Delay of Game, Double Major, In the Zone, Holiday Hat Trick, and Comeback)

  PORTLAND STORM: THE THIRD PERIOD (Contains Dropping Gloves, Home Ice, Mistletoe Misconduct, Losing an Edge, and Game Breaker)

  Also, join Catherine’s mailing list to receive ICE BREAKER, a Portland Storm short story prequel that you can’t get anywhere else.

  Want to join in the Portland Storm discussion? Join the Facebook group at Cat’s House.

  Interested in buying your own customizable Portland Storm and Tulsa Thunderbirds jerseys, T-shirts, and more? Find out how here.