Making a Play
Victoria Denault
New York Boston
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Table of Contents
An Excerpt from The Final Move
Newsletters
Copyright Page
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For Jack, my very own French Canadian soul mate
Acknowledgments
My heart is always so full when I write acknowledgments because it reminds me just how many people helped me get to this place and how grateful I am to be here. Thank you, Kimberly Brower, my amazing agent, for all your wisdom, guidance and support. I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have you in my corner. To my editors, Dana and Leah, thank you for your guidance and support—especially during the revision process. Luc and Rose’s journey was made infinitely more exciting, angsty and fulfilling because of your influence. And thank you, Marissa, for all the hard work doing PR for me and the books.
My family—mom, dad, Alan, Ken, Sonia, Lisa, Kelly, Tim, Max and Zoe—thank you for always being there for me even when we’re thousands of miles apart. Merci to my amazing French Canadian in-laws. I’m so lucky Jack came with such a big, rowdy, loving bunch. Go Habs! Thank you, Jack, for supporting not only my writing but my passion for hockey, even when it means watching Canucks games.
To my beta readers Slim, Pheebs, Sarah, Crystal R. and Jen K., your support and enthusiasm keeps me going. To UCLA Extension, in particular Linda and Sally, thanks for being so supportive of my writing career. Crissy, thank you for helping me kill Damien the hamster whenever he hops on his wheel (note to PETA: it’s a metaphor; no actual hamsters have been killed). Mike H, thank you for always emailing me about shoelaces when I’m stressed or worried. There’s nothing better than a twenty-five-year-old inside joke to take the edge off.
Last but not least to you—the reader, the book blogger, the ARC reviewer, the hockey romance fan—who read One More Shot and liked it enough to pick up Making a Play, thank you so much.
Prologue
Luc
Six years earlier
She’s drunk. She thinks it’s just tipsy but it’s full-on, will-probably-puke, massive-hangover-guaranteed drunk. I should be panicked, worried and—more than anything—unsupportive of her behavior but… she’s just so damn cute.
I watch her as she concentrates really hard on the lines she’s drawing in the sand. Her eyebrows are drawn together, her lips are slightly parted and the tip of her tongue is sticking out ever so slightly as she uses her index finger to create a masterpiece. Well, a bunch of random crooked lines and uneven divots in the sand she’s declared is my portrait.
I’ve been avoiding Rose lately, but when she called and left a message slurring her words, going on about my best friend, Jordan, breaking her sister’s heart and ruining everything, I knew I had to come. She’s fifteen, three years younger than me, and although my life has been far from perfect, hers was much rougher. And she was there for me when I needed someone, so I’ll always be there for her. I’ve been avoiding her because I think she’s developing a crush. I’m a born flirt. I can’t help it. It’s like breathing air, so of course I’ve been flirting with Rose—but with Rose’s ideals, it was playing with fire. Rose Caplan is sweet, smart and definitely beautiful, but she has all these fantastical ideas about love. She’s a romantic and she dreams of an epic love story with a Prince Charming and a happily ever after. She deserves nothing less, but I’m not at all interested in that.
“Hrmpf.” She makes this weird sound, like a sigh, a huff and a grunt all at once, and uses her palm to smooth away the sand drawing. “I can’t do you justice.”
I smirk and tilt my head so I’m in her sightline. She’s sitting in the sand at my feet. Her back between my legs, against the log I’m sitting on. In front of us the bonfire, built by friends and high school classmates, is in the final stage before becoming nothing more than smoldering ash. The minimal light dances over her skin, making it sparkle. Her cheeks are flushed from what she says was only three beers and “maybe a wine cooler thingy.”
“Justice?” I repeat and her near-black eyes catch mine.
“You’re too pretty for a sand drawing,” she says with a frown and a glare, like she’s honestly mad at me. Rose has never called me pretty before and her confession makes me warm. If this was any other girl, I’d take advantage of the confession. I’ve never been one to turn down an opportunity for a bonfire make-out session. But… it’s sweet, young and innocent Rose, and I just can’t do that to her. Luckily, she continues in a tirade without waiting for my response.
“Jordan’s too stupid. Callie’s too angry. Jessie’s too stubborn. You’re too pretty and I’m too lame. Everything is too. I hate too. Too is ruining my life.”
She looks completely despondent, and totally sincere, so I feel bad when I can’t keep the giant grin from overtaking my face. Her wide eyes get wider and that pouty, pink mouth—the one that is quickly maturing into something any man would have sex dreams about—drops into a perfect O. She whispers, “Crap. I said that out loud.”
She tries to move away from me, but I reach out and gently cup the side of her face in the palm of my left hand. Now she’s stuck, twisted around between my legs, staring at me. “Rosie, your life is not ruined. Everything will be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that because I will make it okay,” I vow, my voice dropping an octave. “I will always have your back.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve always had mine.”
She stares at me for another second as that sinks in. I know, even drunk, she knows why she’s as close a confidant as my best friend Jordan, and one of the few people I let completely in. She suddenly shifts her eyes back to the sand and slides away, so I can no longer touch her pretty face.
“But I want you to have more than my back,” she mumbles in such a low, slurred voice I almost miss it. “No one wants more than my back. Because I’m too lame.”
She starts to try to stand up but tips right back over and lands with a thud on her ass in the sand. I slip off the log and drop to my knees, reaching out to take her hands and keep her from falling all the way back and into the fire. I pull her close, sneaking the opportunity to sniff that amazing smell that is Rose Caplan. Some kind of soft, powdery-smelling perfume that screams delicate but makes my dick hard at the exact same time. I’m sure it’s some drugstore perfume, because Rosie doesn’t have money for anything more than that, but on her, it’s priceless.
I prop her up against the log again and lean in close, taking another deep inhale of that perfect, dick-twitching scent. “Oh, Fleur, you’re a drama queen when you drink.”
Our eyes meet again. I force myself to move back to the log and sit behind her. If I look at that face a second longer I’m going to kiss her. Because she’s pretty, and adorable, and I can. But I shouldn’t, and with Rosie that matters. I have to remember that matters. Once safely behind her, I put my hands on her shoulders and lean down, with my lips just behind her ear.
“You are not too lame. And all the other ‘too’ problems with Jessie, Jordan and whoever else will work out.” I pause and tell her what I have been thinking for months… only I do it in French. “Ta vie sera belle parce que tu Fleur, es belle. Et tu vas trouver quelqu’un qui t’aimera pour ça.”
&
nbsp; She twists her head and blinks up at me. “Not fair. I don’t understand.”
I smirk and give her a small wink. “One day I’ll translate it for you.”
She turns back to the fire in front of her, staring at the flickering flames, and murmurs, “I’m too scared to go for what I really want.”
She tips her head back and looks up at me. This time, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop myself from kissing her. I don’t even think I want to stop. Maybe she’ll be too drunk to remember. Maybe…
“Luc!” My best friend Jordan’s deep voice fills the night air and causes Rose to snap her head away from me. “Have you seen Jessie?”
Rosie jumps to her feet and starts congratulating Jordan on being drafted into the NHL. Our moment disintegrates and I’m grateful. As much as I wanted her in that moment, it’s for all the wrong reasons. I would break her heart, and I refuse to do that to Rose.
Chapter 1
Rose
I sit at the bar and smile at Cole as he pours me another pale ale from the keg. He slides it in front of me and, as I hear a loud, flirty laugh from the back of the bar where the pool tables are, my eyes snap shut and I grimace.
“You okay?” Cole asks.
I nod. “I will be. Just need a few more of these.”
I raise the glass to my lips and drink. I’m not really a fan of beer. I like wine and mixed drinks way better, but beer is cheap because Cole gives the staff a discount on whatever is on tap. And if I’m going to drink away my sorrows, I’m going to do it on a budget.
“Why are you in here on your night off?” Cole asks.
“Jordan and Jessie are coming home tonight and he asked me to give them some time alone.” I take another sip of my beer. I was living with my oldest sister and her boyfriend—who happened to be Cole’s brother—for the summer. “I have no idea why but, hey, it’s his house.”
“Probably wants to have sex,” Cole surmises bluntly and when I make a face, he laughs. “Trust me, Rosie. With guys, alone time is always a sex thing.”
“Thanks, Cole,” I say and gulp the beer now. “Thanks for the education.”
“Hey, Garrison!” Luc’s jovial voice fills the air. “Another round!”
And then he’s beside me. He’s styled his hair, and by style I mean he’s run a brush through it and probably added some kind of gel or something to keep it smooth. It’s falling to his chin now, and if it were blond he’d look like a surfer, but it’s chestnut and along with his olive skin, dark eyes and darker eyebrows he looks like a sultry Calvin Klein model, not a scrappy professional hockey defenseman. He’s in a vintage T-shirt advertising some kind of soap from the fifties. It hugs his hulking shoulders and his large biceps in a way that makes my mouth water… so I drink more beer.
He’s got a fistful of cash in his hand and, as he slides in between the barstools a few down from mine and rests his elbows against the bar, he finally sees me. His smoldering eyes spark and a broad, happy smile blooms on his sexy face.
“Rose Caplan!” He almost sings my name. “When did you get here?”
“Luc Richard!” I mimic his excitement, but not his smile, and say his last name with a French pronunciation, Ri-Shard. Because he is, after all, French. I give him a tight half-smile and I sip my beer again. “An hour ago.”
“Really?” He looks shocked that he didn’t notice me. I’m not. It’s hard to see me when your eyes don’t leave the double Ds pouring out of your date’s top.
“Yep.”
“Are you working?” he asks as Cole starts pouring the round Luc had called out for.
I raise my glass toward him. “Does it look like I’m working?”
“Well, if you’re here for fun, why do you look so… not fun?” he wants to know.
“I’d rather be home. Alone,” I tell him honestly. “But your best friend asked me to give him and Jessie some private time.”
“Jordy and Jessie are back?!” He’s genuinely excited to see his best friend again and I can’t help but smile a little at that as I nod.
“They didn’t tell us they’d be back so soon,” he tells me and I know when he says “us” he’s referring to the Garrison family—his surrogate family and the reason he comes back to Silver Bay during the hockey off-season, even though his own family doesn’t live here anymore and hasn’t since he was a preteen. “Why do they need alone time? They can get that in Seattle.”
“I have no idea, but Jordan essentially begged for it,” I explain, a little perturbed. If this was going to happen a lot this summer, I may as well move into a motel. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad Jordan was back in Jessie’s life. They’d been best friends in high school and I always thought they should be more. Then they became more and it got complicated and my sister took off for school in Arizona. Jordan, heartbroken but too stubborn to admit it, headed off to Quebec to play in the NHL and proceeded to screw his way through the next six years. It wasn’t until our grandmother died and Jessie finally came back to Silver Bay, Maine, that the two of them reconnected. It was messy and complicated but eventually the two of them admitted they still loved each other and Jordan bought my grandmother’s old farmhouse that we’d grown up in.
“I bet he wants to christen the house,” Luc announces as Cole slides the last of four beers his way and Luc hands him money.
“What the hell does that mean?” I ask, confused. All I can think about is how you slam a bottle of champagne against a boat to christen it.
Luc gives me a long stare while wearing a suggestive smirk. I blink naively. “It means they’re having sex in every room of the house,” Luc informs me flatly when it’s clear his cute little look didn’t help me catch on.
“Cole said they were probably having sex too. But in every room?” I wrinkle my nose. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, totally.” Luc nods and Cole is also nodding behind the bar. They look like two bobbleheads. “That’s what couples do when they buy things together. They screw all over it. It’s a good thing they didn’t buy a puppy.”
I can’t help but laugh at the puppy comment. Luc grins brightly when he realizes he’s changing my mood and then he moves to the open space directly beside me.
“That’s my Rosie,” he says approvingly of my giggles. He reaches out and wraps an arm around my shoulders, hugging me to his side.
The contact makes my insides quiver. I tip my head onto his shoulder, lean into the hug and inhale the scent of him—something clean but earthy, like a pine forest after a strong rain. It’s a scent that has melted my insides for the last several years.
“Come hang out with me,” he whispers in my ear before releasing me from his arms. “We’ve both been back in Silver Bay for weeks but I’ve hardly spent any time with you.”
I quickly shake my head, not because I don’t want to hang out with him, but because I don’t want to hang out with him and the group he’s currently with. “Nah. I’m good here. Alone.”
“Come on, Rosie,” he begs and makes the puppy-dog face he knows always makes me cave. “I never get to see you anymore because you’re always working.”
“You do see me,” I argue stubbornly. “Because you’re always here when I’m working.”
“I mean I don’t get to hang out with you,” he returns. I just shrug so he resorts to his secret weapon. The one that gets me, and every girl he’s ever used it on, to readily bend to his will. He speaks in the language his French Canadian mother taught him. “Je veux passer du temps avec toi, Fleur.”
As if the French wasn’t enough, he throws in the nickname he gave me as a teenager. Fleur, the French word for flower, because my name is Rose. Realizing that protesting is futile, I glance over to the pool table he’s been occupying since before I got here. He came in with Adam Miller, an old friend of his from high school, and they headed straight for the pool tables. Before Cole had finished pouring my first beer, Luc and Adam had been surrounded by girls. Now Luc was playing a game against a busty redhead while Adam held
court with her two blond friends at a nearby table. This was a common scene since he came home last month. Luc was hot, rich and, for the first time in years, completely unattached. His relationship with Nessa Carlsson, a semi-famous model he’d met his second year in Vegas, had finally ended.
I’d been so excited when he’d mentioned it during one of our Skype chats a few weeks before we both moved back to Silver Bay for the summer. I wanted this to be the summer that things finally happened between us. So far it hadn’t gone that way.
“I don’t want to interrupt your game or anything,” I mutter and stare at my now empty pint glass.
“We’re not even really playing,” Luc explains. “I was just trying to teach Bri, but she’s hopeless.”
“Shocking,” I whisper under my breath as Cole hands me another beer.
“Rose. Come on.” Luc pokes me in the side and I squirm. “What are you going to do? Go home and wait on the porch until Jordan has taken your sister in every room of the house?”
My brain unwillingly conjures up a very unpleasant image of my sister and the giant blond love of her life naked in the kitchen. And then an equally scandalous vision of them in the living room replaces it.
“They wouldn’t do that,” I argue but, deep down, I’m guessing they just might.
“Please, Fleur.”
I sigh, grab my fresh pint and hop off the stool I’m sitting on. “Fine. You win.”
“I always do,” Luc replies with a proud grin.
I follow him back toward the group. I even help him carry his stupid beers. I’m greeted warmly by everyone, although the redhead, Bri, looks a little disappointed.
“Little Rosie Caplan! How are you?” Adam wants to know, smiling as he hugs me. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”
“I’m good. How are you?”
“I’m good. How are Jessie and Callie? Is Jessie still in Arizona?”
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