by Elise Faber
Except . . . he didn’t have that spark Luc had seen—still saw—in Oliver.
The kid had something special—broad shoulders to carry the responsibility, ability to own mistakes, and . . . a glimmer of greatness.
Oliver was a player who could lead them to the end.
They just needed to get the right players around them . . . and perhaps, to punch out the dents in his confidence.
Steepling his hands in front of him, Luc sat back in his chair, and debated how to accomplish that.
Oliver was quiet, not moving, his gaze steady.
“We’re going to set up a weekly meeting. You’ll bring any concerns to me—playing time, injuries that might have been missed or are unaddressed, personality issues. If someone’s dog died, I want to know.”
Oliver’s brows dragged together. “You want me to tattle on the team?”
“No,” he said. “I want to see the speed bumps before my car is barreling over them, throwing the suspension off. I want to know the things that are weighing on the guys. I want to understand the concerns.” He sat up. “And I need the team to understand they can come in here, talk to me or Tommy or any of the other coaches or Hazel without consequence. And I need you to provide stability,” he added, when the protest was still in Oliver’s expression. “We’ve got a mess to clean up in front of us, and I’ve never known you to be the type of person to shy away from hard work.”
Silence.
“So . . . are you with me?”
More silence.
Then Oliver nodded. “I’m with you.”
It was a start.
But Luc knew it was a good one.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Lexi
There were twenty-three sets of eyes on her, each belonging to a sexy, successful professional athlete, and Lexi was elbow deep in potting soil.
Though, she supposed, there were more than twenty-three men staring at her.
The four coaches—Tommy Franklin, the Breaker’s head coach, along with Steven Balko, Aiden Philips, and Tomás Petin, all assistant coaches.
Then there was Luc.
Her Luc, who had stared at her with pride as she’d put the guys to work, and who, perhaps a bit too gleefully, had been more than happy for her to direct his players to dig a ton of holes to help rehab this community garden. Trees—and not puny ones, either—had now been planted all along the far end of the field. They would provide a windbreak from the intense gusts that sometimes drifted up from the river and whipped through this neighborhood.
She was on the committee for this community garden, and while most of the year’s crops had been harvested and eaten by the locals (providing quality fresh produce to people who might not otherwise have access to it), there was still an entire section of winter squash and carving pumpkins that would be used in the next few months.
She couldn’t wait to see what carvings the kids would come up with.
Now, however, the competition began.
“You all have pots and supplies in front of you,” she said. “You’ll each pick a flower, name it, and then plant it in the pot. The player who manages to not kill it, and/or whose flower is the healthiest by the end of the season will win a prize.”
“What if we all kill it?” one of the players, Theo Young, asked.
Theo was a man with a wicked smile, a beard that many a woman had swooned over, and a pair of piercing gray eyes. He was young, like his namesake, and the requisite “funny” man.
Lexi didn’t normally have patience for class clowns, but she liked Theo.
He was a good kid.
“Then the one who kills it the least will win.”
He grinned.
“And”—she met each of the guys’ eyes in turn—“I’ve already spoken to each of your girlfriends, your partners, your wives . . . your mothers. They all know they are not to touch these plants.”
Brows lifted.
She heard a muttered curse.
“No cheating. No teaming up. No sabotaging teammates’ plants,” she said sternly. “I’ll be requiring daily pictures.”
“What about when we’re on the road?” Luca Castillo, one of the defensemen, asked.
“That’s the only time you can leave it in the care of those partners, girlfriends, or parents.” She smiled. “If you trust them to not kill your chance at winning the prize.” Then she shrugged. “Either that, or you can bring them with you.”
“This is like some fucked up version of that baby project from high school,” Flynn Robertson, the first line center, grumbled.
“Ridiculous,” someone on the end muttered.
And Lexi started to feel a bit disheartened.
Maybe this was a stupid idea. Maybe she should have just stuck with digging the holes and planting the trees. They’d all been smiling and joking then, instead of the frowns and shifting and sighs.
“This—”
Shit.
Her heart pounded. Her palms grew sweaty. Luc took a step forward, mouth opening, eyes flashing.
“Mine’s name is KiKi,” Oliver said loudly, grabbing a flower from one of the containers in front of him. “And she’s going to kick all of your flowers’ asses.”
Silence.
Then Conner Smith spoke. “No way,” he said, reaching for a flower. “This bitch is the winner—” He froze when Luc cleared his throat, glanced up at her. “Sorry,” he said, and she found herself shrugging and shooting him a smile. Such a loose cannon, that one. “This beautiful flower, Betty, is gonna win, mother—Mofos.” A dancing brown gaze met hers, and he winked.
Theo grabbed a pot and a flower, got busy with the soil. “I give you Plantessa,” he declared.
And suddenly, there was a mad rush for plants, a bit of jostling as the guys hustled to grab the flowers they thought would grow the best, their competitiveness finally coming to the forefront.
More soil was dispersed, flowers were transplanted, questions were asked of her.
Some questions she answered for the group at large (what the supplies in front of them were used for), some she left up to them (how often to water, how much sunshine, how much plant food), even though they were good questions.
This was a bit like that baby project, bringing home the crying, pooping/peeing doll for a night, except that it was a plant, and required significantly less care.
She’d also picked a hardy flower.
It would take a lot to kill it, so she had faith that more than a handful of them would survive the season.
But the task was onto them now.
And she hoped their competitive natures would bring about some good-natured ribbing and maybe a little bit more closeness at having to undergo this “torture” together.
Fingers trailed down the back of her arm, and then Luc was in front of her, his thumb brushing across her cheek. “You had a little dirt,” he said, when she raised her brows in question. “Sorry, the guys were . . .” He trailed off, shot a glare at the team, though they were all now dutifully planting their flowers. “Assholes.”
“They’re not so bad,” she said, leaning against his side.
He kissed her, not lightly, but also not shoving his tongue down her throat. Team event tongue, if that was a thing, just a little flick against her bottom lip, inducing the perfect amount of heat, enough so that she relaxed, the rest of the tension from their flower plan not going over quite as well as planned disappearing.
“Thank you,” he murmured, cupping her cheek for a moment before turning back to survey the tables that now appeared to have seen a tornado rip right through them.
Soil bags were torn open, dirt scattered into piles on the ground, on the wooden surface, brushed across the guys’ clothes and faces. Empty flowerpots littered the space, along with the plastic plant tags she’d noticed only a few of the guys paid attention to in their hurry to get their flowers planted. The name tags she’d brought were being decorated with paint pens (which she’d also brought), and she saw that Plantessa (oh, Theo, h
e sure did make her laugh) had gotten hers, along with a Danielle, a Frances, a Barbie, a Tricia, and even a Frank.
At least there was one male flower.
Amusement curling through her, she saw a few of the players track Luc’s hand around her waist, her body cuddled up to his, knew some had seen the kiss, and though a few sets of eyes widened, most of the guys just seemed to shrug off the change in relationship, though a few smiled widely. Conner winked at her.
Her cheeks heated, but she merely winked back, knew that some teasing was going to come, especially with what Luc was trying to do, trying to strengthen the team’s bonds.
Teasing and razzing were part of hockey.
She’d been around these guys enough to know that in her heart.
Lucky for her, she knew how to hold her head high . . . and how to tease back.
“Kiss her again,” Theo called. “Maybe then she’ll answer some of our questions.”
Luc growled.
Lexi laughed and turned in his arms, kissed Luc soundly on the lips. “Still not going to answer your questions,” she said, once she’d pulled away.
“Oooh,” Luca called to Theo over the laughter.
“I’m going to go check on the pumpkins,” she murmured to Luc. “I’ll leave you to your hooligans,” she added, a little louder and with a look slanted in Theo’s direction.
He merely grinned and waved, his fingers covered in dirt. “We’re all just glad that you decided to finally give him a chance.”
Oliver chucked an empty pot at Theo. It bounced off his chest, leaving another smattering of dirt there.
“Dude,” Luca muttered.
Conner shook his head. “Dumb ass kids.”
Luc glanced down at her, apology in his eyes, fingers drifting up her arm.
“Don’t you dare,” she said, smoothing a hand down his chest. “This is good,” she told him. “The guys are coming together.”
He made a face, grumbled, “Still want to dump that bag of soil on Theo’s head.”
“Save it for the pumpkins,” she teased, slipping out of his arms and heading around the corner, past the small shed where they stored their supplies, and to the large green vines that tended to take over. A few of the gourds had slipped off the mint-colored plastic cradles that helped to prevent the pumpkins from getting lopsided and rotten when grown solely on the ground.
She straightened them, checked on a few others, counting to make sure there were plenty along with a few extras for the kids—in case the squirrels got busy—and had just bent to adjust the drip line to ensure they got enough water when she felt a prickling along her spine.
Her eyes flicked behind her, but the guys were occupied in the planting.
She should have looked in front of her.
Because when she pushed up to her feet, brushing her dirt-covered hands on her jeans, she saw him.
And her heart seized.
Fuck, she’d been so happy, and now he was there.
Her dad. Again.
Why was he here?
He should be off in his RV, soothing his soul with solitude, ignoring her existence and everything their life had been before.
The urge to turn and flee was strong, but she lifted her chin, pressed her feet into the earth, and held her position as he closed the distance between them.
“Hi, baby,” he murmured.
The endearment tore through her, anger in its wake. Such red-hot fury that she was almost surprised by its intensity, how hot it burned. “Don’t,” she snapped, that rage making the word almost guttural, choking off more words that threatened to emerge.
Probably a good thing.
Because she’d gone from feeling slightly guilty to wanting to lash out, to be cruel, to unburden all her fury and hurt and grief of losing her mom and make him hurt.
“You were good with the team.”
Her shoulders tightened, tension coiling in them, leaking down into her spine. How long had he been here, if he’d seen them interacting? Was he spying on her? What else had he seen? And seriously, why hadn’t he just gone already?
So many questions, but she didn’t want to open herself up to conversation, to allow him in.
Who knew when he’d take off again?
Especially because this was probably some guilt-ridden penance for her mentioning her mother weeks before.
“Thanks,” she said, shoving down the anger because she didn’t want to lose her cool within earshot of the team then retreating a step when he came closer. “I should get back.”
“Lexi, baby, I need to apologize.” An intensity to the statement sliced clean through her. And a battering ram to her stomach, her lungs freezing.
“Don’t,” she whispered, curling forward, her arms crossing over her middle.
Pain flared across her father’s face. He reached for her.
This time, her feet couldn’t stay in place. She stumbled back a step.
And then . . . there was a warm hand on her back, Luc’s voice in her ear, his body covering hers. “You okay?”
She shook her head.
He glared up at her father. “You need to go.”
“I’m not leaving until I speak to my daughter.”
“You had that chance,” she whispered. “You had it so many times over the last years, a-and you didn’t bother.”
Luc tucked her closer when her voice broke. “This isn’t the right time,” he told her father. “You can’t just waltz back into her life and disrupt it when she’s working.”
“I know I treated you abhorrently,” her dad said, his eyes, more brown than gold in this light, were locked onto hers. He ignored Luc, still speaking in that same intensely quiet voice that had torn her insides to ribbons. “I was so worried about what I’d lost that I didn’t do a good job of looking after you.”
She’d been thirty.
Old enough to look after herself.
But . . . still needing her dad.
Maybe that made her pathetic. Maybe that anger and resentment that still flowed through her, twisting this way and that, vast rapids of fury with hidden dangers beneath, made her just as weak. None of which changed the fact that she’d practically been an orphan the last years.
Tiptoeing through their brief, halting phone conversations, not daring to bring up anything about her mom.
Because then she wouldn’t get a phone call.
And then even the scraps would be gone.
No phone calls. No emails.
Six months the first time. Longer the second, until she’d thought that, perhaps, she wouldn’t hear from him again.
Not answering her calls. Not returning her messages. Nothing.
She’d had her work and friends, and then she’d had Caleb, and he’d become the center of her universe until—
He’d gone, too.
More pain ricocheting inside her like a barbed pinball.
Because now, Luc had taken that top spot, and what she felt for him was so much bigger than what she’d felt for Caleb, and now she was wondering what in the fuck she was doing. Her dad had wounded her, sliced her to pieces deep down, burying her beneath the rubble of her grief, her loneliness. Caleb had rebuilt her, brick by brick, but without mortar, stones so precariously stacked. And then when he’d felt like it, he’d shoved at that tower of rock and sent it collapsing to the ground.
But Luc?
Luc went so much deeper.
He was built of blood and bone, of heart and soul, and she knew that if he ever decided to hurt her like Caleb had, like her father had . . .
There might not be anything left to piece together.
The thoughts in her head felt so dramatic, so over the top and ridiculous.
And yet, she didn’t doubt them.
Broken. She’d been broken twice before, and she didn’t think she could stand it a third time.
Luc held her against him, his body strong and capable.
He wasn’t broken.
He was whole and hearty and amazing and .
. . how long would it be until he sent her careening to the floor, to shatter into a million pieces.
The first had taken thirty years. The second only seven. The third would . . .
Fingers under her chin, tilting her head up, green eyes fierce. “No,” he growled, and she saw the breadth of emotions in those emerald depths, the way they seemed to scream I am not like them.
For a moment, she didn’t believe him.
For a moment, she wanted to hang onto the fear and protect herself from any future hurt.
But . . . Luc.
That heart and soul. His patience and perseverance. The sense of coming home every time she was with him. He wasn’t like the others. He was what she’d had growing up. He was her mother. He was the safety and security, the peace inside . . . the love filling her to the brim.
That was Luc.
He relaxed at whatever he saw on her face, his arms wrapping around her even more tightly, and she pressed so close, his warm body familiar and comforting, his hand stroking a gentle caress up and down her back.
And . . . his ear was right there, so close and tempting.
The words were bubbling up on his tongue.
She gave into the moment.
Maybe this was backward. Maybe she should pick a sweet, romantic moment to tell him all she held in her heart, not blurt out something right after he came to the rescue again, when he was still struggling to hold the broken pieces of her together.
But maybe it was the perfect moment.
Because he’d been the glue, the mortar so many times. Because . . . she was done being broken. Because there wasn’t any point in waiting for a perfect time. Life was built in the imperfect moments, cobbled together with pain and love, sacrifice and joy. It was fitting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that never seemed to sit correctly. And it was . . . soft hands on her back, tugging her toward a warm chest. It was lugging her plants around, opening his home and heart without question. It was light in his eyes, gentle kisses on her forehead.
It was . . . Luc.
It was her with Luc.
So, that was why she rose up on tiptoe and brought her mouth close to his ear, whispered, “I love you.”