by Penny Dee
“No, really, please, tell me what you really think.”
Kit fixed me with a stern look. “So it was a bet. So what!” She leaned on the table. “You need to get over it.”
“Get over it? Just like that?” I reached for a napkin from the napkin holder by the window and busied myself with some absentminded origami awesomeness.
“Yes! Just like that. You love her, and by the sounds of it, she loves you.”
“It was all a lie,” I reminded her.
“How?” Kit challenged. “How was it all a lie?”
I looked up from my napkin origami. “She used me to satisfy some stupid need in her to prove to her father that she was good at her job. Oh, and let’s not forget the little bet she had with her cousin: get Jake Pennington back on top and she would get to manage Purgatory.”
Kit looked impressed. “The MMA fighter? Boy, he’s hot.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Not helping.”
“Because you’re being a little bitch. Crying into your cereal like a toddler.”
I’d forgotten how well Kit could kick my ass.
“You’re so not on my side with this, are you?”
“Are you kidding me? Every cell in my body wants to throat punch her for hurting you. But it wasn’t deliberate, Jake. Yes, her intentions were a bit thoughtless at the beginning but it sounds like that all changed when she got to know you.” Her face softened. “Sounds like she fell head over heels in love with you.” She reached across the table and closed her hand over mine. “And it sounds like you fell head over heels in love with her.”
I didn’t even bother trying to deny it. Instead, I sighed. “How can I trust her again?”
She folded her arms and leaned them against the table. “Look at what she did for you? She never gave up on you, Jake. Right from the very beginning, it seems. Because if she didn’t see something in you she would never have made that bet.”
Good point.
I threw the screwed-up paper swan on the table and sat back.
“Do yourself a favor and get over it,” Kit said, and the look she gave me was pointed. “Don’t be sitting there in your post-win glory and have any regrets. I’m telling you now, Jake, if she isn’t by your side when you kickass at the playoffs, you will regret it.”
* * *
Mackenzie
I arrived back in NYC on the day of game six. I hadn’t planned it that way. In fact, I would have preferred not to be in town, knowing Jake was only miles away.
But at least I was home.
Meg and Anna had gone out of town for a girls’ weekend to Atlantic City and had already left a couple of messages on my cell phone. I’d been home two minutes when they rang again. Drunk.
“Hey, girl, get on a bus and meet us out here!” Meg yelled enthusiastically through the phone. I could hear slot machines zinging and pinging in the background.
“Yeah, baby!” Anna yelled over her shoulder. “Get your crazy ass down here!”
I couldn’t help but grin. I loved my girlfriends. And as appealing as a girl’s trip sounded, I decided not to make the two-hour trip to New Jersey.
“Next time, I promise.”
Instead, I went for a walk, hoping that the smells and sounds of the city I loved so much would ease the heavy sadness in my chest. But the city was alive with playoff fever because the beloved NYC Ice Cats were set to take home the Stanley Cup glory, and every nook and cranny of the city seemed to hold some kind of reminder of the hockey match about to take place.
I told myself I wasn’t going to watch the game. But when the game started I was sitting at the bar in a dark, wood-paneled Irish pub on 7th Avenue, nursing an untouched glass of wine and staring at Bob and Jim on the TV screen behind the bar. Here, the hockey fever gripping the city seemed quieter, although there were two tables of Ice Cat jerseys behind me and a table of Fury fans to my right, so I had no doubt it would get rowdy once the game started.
Which took all of two minutes after the faceoff between Jake and Salazar, when the Ice Cats got the puck past Jupiter and Cowboy, only to be denied by the rapid deflection of Loki.
Despite my heavy heart, I couldn’t help but smile at Loki’s Chewbacca helmet. I knew how proud that crazy kid would be. It didn’t make him look as formidable as his Loki mask, or the Lucifer helmet, but it looked very, very cool.
When one of the Ice Cats stick checked Michel Angelo and tousled with him up against the boards, the table of Fury fans yelled furiously at the TV screen, while the Ice Cats banged their palms on the table. Then the Ice Cats fierce enforcer, Lou Peedy, set his sights on Cowboy and the two went to town with their fists. The three tables of hockey fans went wild. The barman, who had given up trying to keep them under control, glanced up from drying glasses and then turned back to his task with a shake of his head.
I listened to Jim Keeper and Bob Murdoch.
“They’ve got this game tied up so tight even Christian Grey would have a hard time getting this one untangled.”
“Did you seriously just reference Fifty Shades of Grey, Jim?”
“Why, yes, Bob, I did. Saw the movie on a recent visit to Canada.”
“And did you grow a vagina while you were there?”
During the third period, when the Fury were leading one to nothing, a huge Fury fan in a hockey jersey and a Stetson slid up next to me. He was a hundred-foot tall and signaled to the barman for service.
“Another round for me and my buddies,” he said with a heavy Texas drawl. He turned to me while he waited, his jovial face beaming with a smile. “What about you, lil’ lady? My team is winning and I’m feeling generous, how about I buy you a drink?”
I shook my head and indicated my untouched glass of wine. “I’m still working my way through this one. But thanks, anyway.”
He winked at me. “Tell me, sweetheart. You an Ice Cat fan? Or a Fury fan?”
“I don’t know much about hockey.” I don’t know why I lied. Well, kind of lied, because let’s face it, I still didn’t know that much about hockey. I guess I didn’t want to talk about t.
“Well, let me tell you, sugar. The Fury are the best goddamn hockey team in the world. And tonight they are going to mop the floor with those dang Ice Cats, you mark my word.” He was theatrical in his delivery. “With Pennington playing, they’re unstoppable as a freight train.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “That boy is a special kind of something.”
I nodded regretfully. “So I’ve heard.”
Tex paid for his drinks then lifted four bottles of beer off the bar. “You have yourself a great night, you hear.”
“You too.” I gave him a big smile. “And go Galveston Fury!”
He winked again and rejoined his friends at the table, while I toyed with my glass of wine and listened to Jim Keeper and Bob Murdoch on screen.
“And here we are, Loki the Destroyer faces off with Salazar, Salazar flings a slingshot to Tex and—awwwwww, he takes a slamming bodycheck from Cowboy. And it’s like a massacre out there, folks. Little Big Horn has got nothing on this hockey game. The Fury are annihilating the Ice Cats, Bob. It’s what I call a pussycat bloodbath. How on Earth are the Ice Cats going to comeback from this, Murdoch?”
“I’m suggesting a couple of aspirin and a career change, Jim.”
When the Galveston Fury took out the game to win the Stanley Cup championship, I watched with mixed emotions. Around me, the Ice Cat fans were vocal in their disappointment while Tex and his Fury fans started to get raucous in their joy.
I quietly got up from my barstool and walked home.
Jake felt farther away from me than ever.
* * *
Chapter Forty-One
Jake
We won.
We goddamn won.
The Galveston Fury were the Stanley Cup champions and no one—no one—could change that.
After months of hard work we had done the impossible and climbed that leader board to take out the top position, and I coul
dn’t be prouder of this team if I tried.
No one thought we could do it.
Well, maybe one person. And she wasn’t here.
As I sat there in my sweats after my shower, Kit’s words echoed in my head. It was wrong that Mackenzie wasn’t here; after all, she was the reason I was here in the first place. She had predicted all of this. She had believed in me, believed in matching me with the Fury and knew we could get to the playoffs.
Damnit.
I stood up and put my hockey bag back in my locker.
I might not like her a lot right now, but I wasn’t going to let Mackenzie miss out on celebrating our Stanley Cup win after she had believed in us when no one else had.
I ran into Casanova and Cowboy walking into the locker rooms.
“Hey, buddy, you ready to celebrate mopping the floor with your old Ice Cat buddies?” Cowboy asked with an excited post-game high.
There was only one thing that was more important to me than mopping that ice up with Ayton Salazar’s face. And that was making sure Mackenzie got to celebrate me doing it.
“I was born ready,” I replied.
Casanova stopped me. “Then where you going? The locker room is this way.”
“I know, I just have to do something first.”
Both my teammates looked alarmed.
“Wait? You’re leaving?” Casanova asked.
Cowboy frowned. “Dude, the party is just about to begin!”
“I won’t be long.”
“What’s so important that you’re going to run out on your team?” Casanova asked, and then stopped himself. “Mackenzie.”
Cowboy looked at me like I was insane. “Dude, you’re leaving us to go and get a chick?”
“She should be here,” I said, ready to defend my decision. But I didn’t have to because my two teammates didn’t seem to need much convincing.
“Yes, she should be.” They both agreed.
“Here.” Casanova shoved his motorcycle keys into my palm and his helmet into my chest. “It’s insanity out there. You’ll never get back unless you ride.”
I grinned. “Thanks.”
He feigned annoyance. “Yeah, yeah. You scratch it, you buy it.”
Outside, the traffic was ridiculous but it was easy to maneuver through the gridlock of cars on Casanova’s Ducati, and within ten minutes I was away from the post-game traffic jams and on my way to Mackenzie’s apartment.
I had no idea what I was going to say to her. No idea how I was going to feel seeing her when she opened that front door. No idea how I was going to stand next to her and not want to touch her or kiss her. What I did know was that I was going to suck it up, stop being such a pussy and do the right thing.
Bounding up the stairs to her apartment, post-game nerves frizzed and zipped through me, colliding with a sudden anxiousness to see her. But I ignored them and hammered on her door. When she didn’t answer, I hammered again.
“Come on, Z, answer the door.”
Still nothing.
“I know you’re home.”
Again nothing.
I dropped my forehead to the door.
“Come on, Z,” I said quietly. “Please open up.”
Call me crazy, but I knew she was home because I could feel her presence on the other side of the door, and now I was determined to see her so I wasn’t about to be deterred by her attempt to ignore me. I flattened my palm against the green timber door.
“Just give me two minutes and then I’ll go,” I murmured.
The sound of the chain sliding across the lock filled me with renewed hope. But when Mackenzie opened the door, I realized she’d been putting the chain on and not taking it off, meaning she could only open the door so far.
“What do you want, Jake?” Her sad eyes wouldn’t look at me.
“Just give me a couple of minutes.”
“Why aren’t you celebrating with your team?”
“Because you’re not and you should be.”
For the first time since opening the door, she looked at me and I could see she had been crying.
Alarm flared in my chest. “Z, what’s wrong?”
“You should go,” she said and started to close the door but I wedged my foot against it.
“Let me in.”
“I said no, Jake. Go away.”
“Not until I talk to you.”
She looked up at me pleadingly. “Please . . . just go.” Light sparkled in her beautiful eyes but something about her seemed off. “We’ll talk later.”
Rejection tugged at my stomach. I frowned and bit back my hurt. “You’ve been begging to talk to me and now that I’m here you’re turning me away?”
“We’ll talk later.” Her eyes found mine. “Go celebrate beating those pesky Philly Penguins.”
“Z—”
“Goodbye, Jake.”
When the door closed I remained rooted to the spot. Then feeling dismissed, I turned and walked away.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Two
Mackenzie
When I closed the door on Jake panic flared in my chest and from the corner of my eye I could see my fingers trembling as they quietly replaced the chain.
Goodbye, Jake.
I swallowed hard as terror filled every pore of my being.
“Nicely done, mon cherie,” Derek whispered in my ear. His breath was warm and soft against my cheek, while his gun was cold and hard against my ribs. Exhaling deeply, he licked my lobe and pressed his lips against my temple in a big kiss that made my stomach churn.
“You know, if you had let him in I was going to shoot him,” he said, his lips lingering on my skin.
I squeezed my eyes closed. “I know.” Of course I knew. He had warned me the moment Jake had knocked on the door. You get rid of him or he’s dead.
I felt the rough calloused pads of Derek’s fingers as they pressed into my jaw. “You did well, mon cherie.” He ran his nose through my hair, inhaling deeply and moaning. It took everything I had to keep the vomit down and my knees from buckling. I had to keep my calm if I was to get through this.
Thirty minutes earlier, I had been in the kitchen pouring a glass of wine. That’s where Derek had cornered me. He had stepped out from the shadows and revealed himself to me with two simple words, “Hello, Mackenzie.”
That’s when I had run, tipping over a lamp, a bar stool and a side table in my attempt to make it to the front door. But Derek had been too fast for me and had tackled me less than a yard from the freedom of my front door. We’d crashed to the floor, hard, and Derek had used his bulk and strength to overpower me. He’d straddled me while I had squirmed and fought beneath him, kicking the timber floors with the back of my ankles until he had pressed his gun to my temple and told me to stop.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Mackenzie,” he’d sputtered. “But it doesn’t mean that I won’t.”
That was when Jake had banged on my front door. My instinct had been to scream for help but Derek had clasped a hand over my mouth and pressed the gun deeper against my skull.
“He’ll survive this,” he’d whispered darkly. “If you do exactly what I say. Do you understand me?”
I had nodded.
“Good. Now I am going to take my hand away and you are not going to make a noise. Because if you do . . . if you do . . . I will kill him and make you watch.”
Again, I had nodded, then forced my body to relax so he would see I would do as I was told.
When Jake hammered on the door again Derek had gestured for me to get up.
“If he knocks again I might just shoot him,” he said with an amused smirk on his lips.
Terror tore through me. “I can get rid of him!” I’d said quickly.
Derek had eyed me suspiciously.
“Please . . . Derek.”
My use of his name had struck some kind of chord with him and he had relaxed a little. He’d gestured toward the door. “Make him go away.” He’d held up his gun. “Or I will.”
&n
bsp; Come on, Z. Please open up.
Swallowing deeply, and trying desperately to stop my fingers from shaking, I’d reached for the door chain.
Just give me two minutes and then I’ll go.
I’d put the door chain on to stop Jake from storming in; hoping it might save his life because if he did I had no doubt Derek would try to hurt him. Then holding my breath I had opened my door.
Seeing Jake brought tears to my eyes and in that one moment I was terrified. Terrified that he would get hurt. Terrified that he wouldn’t go away and end up being shot. Terrified that he would go away and what that would mean for me once he was gone.
When I was alone with my captor.
I didn’t know what Derek had in mind. He’d once said that he’d never hurt me. That I was his angel. His sole reason for breathing. That a world without me would be like a world without oxygen. Yet, according to the police and the slew of psychologists involved in the case afterwards, Derek had planned on killing me the night he had kidnapped me. A murder suicide . . . or so they said. So I had no idea what nefarious plans he had for me once Jake was gone.
Oh, God.
“I love you, you know that, right?” Derek said softly.
I inhaled my sob and turned to face my intruder. “Then let me go,” I pleaded.
He shook his head. “It’s just you and me now, Mackenzie.”
In that moment I was grateful that Meg and Anna were out of town. Because if they had been here this would still have happened, and Derek would have hurt them both.
I dropped my gaze to the floor because I couldn’t bear to look at him. “What are you going to do?”
Standing right in front of me, he used two fingers to lift my chin and I had to swallow back my fear as his eyes met mine. “We’re meant to be together,” he said tenderly, as if we were two lovers and this was an intimate moment.
“No,” I sobbed desperately. I couldn’t take it. My fear was palpable. “We’re not meant to be together.”
Derek raised my chin again, this time harder. Rougher. “Why?” he asked sharply. But before I could answer he seemed to spiral into an emotional vortex. “Why do you do that? Every time I think you’re finally getting it! Every time I think I can trust you—” He took two frustrated steps back. “Why, Mackenzie? Why?”