Coasting (Gold Hockey Book 8) Read online

  He was certainly going to find out that was the case with Calle.

  Ten

  Calle

  “I have to tell you something,” she announced, barging into Bernard’s office in a move that was certainly rude but also made in desperation because she’d spent the morning upchucking at regular intervals in her office and knew that she needed to level with her boss.

  It had been three days since Anaheim.

  Four since the desk-time exploits with Coop in her office.

  Well four since Coop’s wonderful fingers, slightly calloused and broad, had slipped between her legs and found her clit without a roadmap, dropping into a rhythm that had sent her soaring with no little amount of confidence.

  She stifled a shiver, knowing she’d have been called a liar if she hadn’t said that she’d thought about that moment multiple times, that she’d dreamed and—

  Not the moment for that particular mental minefield.

  Bernard glanced up from his desk, stare heavy, face serious. “Coop?”

  She frowned. “What?”

  Silence.

  One white brow came up. “Does the something I need to tell you involve Coop?”

  “Um. No?” Or at least she didn’t think it did. Fuck. Had he found out about the scene in her office? She’d been so careful to stay away from him, to make sure there couldn’t be a single iota of her behavior that wasn’t the least bit professional.

  Except for coming on his fingers.

  Except dreaming about it every moment since.

  Except for thinking about it as she’d made herself come with her vibrator before going to sleep after returning from the airport, then again the next day, then again yesterday.

  Pregnancy hormones were no joke.

  Or maybe it was just Coop and the way her body always seemed to come alive when he was nearby, heat prickling down her spine, moisture pooling between her legs—

  She opened her mouth, shut it again.

  More silence. Then,

  “Close the door,” Bernard said.

  She nodded, spun to push the wooden panel shut, then turned back around.

  “Sit.”

  Another nod and she sat in the chair in front of his desk, mouth suddenly dry.

  “Spill.”

  It was an order, and she’d been a member of a team for too many years of her life to not immediately open her mouth and spill.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “It’s Coop’s?”

  Her jaw dropped open, gut twisting. “What? No.”

  Calle had thought she’d done such a good job of pretending their interlude in the office hadn’t happened, but clearly, she needed to be smarter and more distant. She sucked in a breath, released it slowly, trying to sort out her brain. “It’s Jason’s. He doesn’t want anything to do with the baby. In fact, I just overnighted him papers to terminate his parental rights yesterday.”

  Bernard leaned back in his chair. “I see.”

  “I’m not due until late August,” she said. “I know that’s good for this season, though the timing is shit for the next one. If you and management renew my contract, that is,” she hurried to add, knowing that this wasn’t great information or something that would bolster her contract negotiations. “I’ll make arrangements to get back to the team as quickly as possible and try not to miss any training camp or preseason games. I know it’s important for us to work out the kinks in the roster and—”

  She caught a glimpse of Bernard’s face and stopped talking so quickly that her teeth clicked together audibly.

  “Are you telling me,” he said after a moment, “that the dumbass you used to date got you pregnant and now is willingly giving up you and his baby?”

  Her chin dropped to her chest before looking up to meet Bernard’s stare. “It’s—” A shake of her head. “It’s not like that. I mean. It was a one-off thing after we’d broken up. Jason wants to live his own life. I knew that and shouldn’t have—” Another shake. “Well, I knew better and—”

  “He was there, too.”

  Calle sighed. “Yes, he was. But I let him back into my life and now . . .” She crossed then uncrossed her legs. “I know it was a mistake, and I definitely don’t want him involved, especially if he doesn’t want to be. A father should want to be in a child’s life, not—”

  Be forced.

  Fuck.

  She broke off, smothering the words, smothering the memories.

  Her father had been forced—her parents’ union a product of a shotgun wedding, and her arrival the catalyst. Which begged the question of how she could have been so stupid to have gotten pregnant by a man who didn’t want to be involved. But birth control. Fucking birth control that didn’t always work. Or maybe fuck Jason and his sperm that had managed to power its way through.

  Gross.

  But more importantly, she was pregnant. She was keeping it and kicking Jason the fuck out. She and her baby didn’t need to experience what she’d dealt with growing up. That little slice of unhappy hadn’t been good for anyone in her father’s sphere, but it had been worse for her mom, her, and her siblings.

  Miserable.

  No child should know they’re unwanted.

  She swallowed and placed her hand over her stomach, wanting to protect the tiny little being inside her from the feeling that had been so prevalent during her childhood.

  Bernard saw her hand, but then again, her boss had never missed much.

  His face softened.

  She didn’t want soft. She wanted to assure him that she wouldn’t fuck up, that her job was important to her, that she wanted to be here and keep coaching. But before she could say any of those things, he stood, picking up a folder and extending it over the desk.

  What was in it?

  A pink slip?

  They didn’t actually give pink slips, did they? More likely, they’d talk to her agent and tell Devon that they weren’t renewing her contract. The oldest Scott was a former player and ran Prestige Media Group, one of the best agencies in the country for athletes. He wouldn’t let her get pink-slipped. Or if he couldn’t prevent said pink-slipping, he’d at least give her some warning, especially when he’d told her everything was going well the last time they’d spoken and—

  “Here.”

  Calle scrambled to her feet when Bernard waved the folder slightly, fingers grasping the edge.

  He held firm to the other side, studied her closely.

  After an interminable moment, his fingers opened, and she was the sole person holding the folder.

  “It’s your new contract offer,” he said.

  Her breath slid out, relief pouring through her. “Oh.”

  “PMG has received it as well, but I thought you might want a full copy, too, so I asked management for it.” He came around the desk, clapped her shoulder lightly. “We wouldn’t let you go because you were pregnant, Calle.”

  She lifted her chin. “I know that.” Lie. Especially since she’d been thinking about pink slips ten seconds earlier.

  “Did you?” His tone told her he’d known what she’d been thinking.

  Nibbling on the corner of her mouth, she admitted. “No. Well, yes,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d directly fire me because I was pregnant . . . more like you’d find something wrong with my performance . . . so then you could let me go.”

  His brow lifted again and damn, but she’d always been jealous when people could do that. Her eyebrows only lifted in unison, so she couldn’t perfect the penetrating look that Bernard wielded on a regular basis. But then he opened his mouth and spoke, and she forgot about eyebrows altogether.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your performance, Calle,” he said. “And further that, we’re a family here. I know my wife, for one, would love to babysit, seeing as how she was just telling me the other day that our own kids are completely helpless when it comes to producing grandchildren.”

  “I—”

  “Also, I think you’ll find it helpful
for planning purposes to know that Mandy just got the approval for the team’s day care facility. There will be sites at both the practice facility and here at the arena.” He led her toward the door. “Though that doesn’t cover road trips, it should bring you some peace of mind for when the team’s in town.”

  Calle blinked, eyes suddenly burning.

  Must be some dust in the air.

  That was it.

  “Thanks, Coach,” she murmured, reaching for the doorknob, still blinking because aside from puking and being insanely turned on by a certain gorgeous forward, she was also ripe full of all the emotions.

  He brushed her hand away, placed his palm on the door. “Calle?”

  She glanced up. “Yeah?”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  A nod. “Yeah.”

  “Also”—she held her breath—“You feeling okay?”

  One side of her mouth hitched up. So, maybe she didn’t have eyebrow skills, but at least she had mouth skills . . . and okay, she took that back. Mouth skills sounded terrible and totally like something Mandy and Brit would give her a hard time for.

  Hard.

  Oy.

  She shook her head, forcing her normally focused, but hormone-and-space-cadet-riddled brain to focus. Seriously. Get it. Together. “I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks—”

  “Not nauseous?”

  Her expression revealed the truth before she did because Bernard smiled ruefully. “That good, huh?”

  “I’m assured the end is in sight,” she said. “I’m almost out of the first trimester.”

  “Speaking of that”—he dropped his hand but didn’t back away—“We need to talk planning for practice and ice time, and what your doctor okays as well as what the insurance company and board say will fly for that and travel. I don’t think we have any plans in place for what happens if a member of the coaching staff gets pregnant.”

  “My doctor said it’s fine for now.”

  “Okay,” he said, “but we’ll still need to talk about it.”

  Shit, she thought, but, “Right,” was all she said.

  “Tomorrow, though,” Bernard said. “I promised the wife I’d be home in time for dinner for a change.”

  “Don’t want to mess that up.”

  He shook his head. “I figured out a while back that I was done with messing up and have focused on making up. Life is a lot more fun that way.”

  “Making up for what?”

  A shadow crossed his expression, but then he smiled, and she knew she’d hit a raw spot. Before she could change the subject, he said, “Let’s just say we men know when a woman is worth the effort, and my wife is that ten times over.”

  Calle nodded. “She’s lucky to have you.”

  “The opposite is definitely true.” His lips twitched. “Especially having to put up with an asshole like me.”

  “Ah,” she said, wanting to lighten the moment further. “I see. You made her do extra off-ice workouts, didn’t you?”

  Bernard didn’t miss a beat. “She can’t stand the box jumps.”

  Calle laughed and reached for the knob again. “I’ll bring you in a plan for practices and the like to talk about tomorrow.”

  A nod.

  She tugged open the door.

  “Calle?” She paused on the threshold, turned back. “Check out the clause on page eighteen.” He nodded at the contract in her hands and she could have sworn there was a hidden smile in his eyes. But Bernard didn’t smile, least of which with his eyes. “Just in case someone else decides to make up instead of fuck up.”

  Her brows drew together, but before she could ask, Bernard grabbed his jacket, cell, and wallet, then brushed past her.

  “Shut that door, would you?” he called and took off down the hall.

  She watched him go, contract gripped tight, confusion swarming through her.

  That was when her cell rang.

  She picked it up, swiped a finger across the screen, and held it up to her ear.

  Devon’s voice drifted through the speaker.

  “What idiot on the Gold has managed to capture your heart?” he asked then paused. “And how painfully do I need to kill him?”

  She sat in Devon’s office, the handsome former hockey player—and cover model—pouring over the printout of the digital copy of her contract. He was comparing it to the one Bernard had handed her, going line by line, turning page after page until he finally glanced back up at her.

  “It’s the same,” he said. “Word for word identical.”

  “And the clause on page eighteen?”

  “You mean the clause that makes me want to murder whoever dared to put hands on you?”

  “Devon,” she warned.

  They’d dated—briefly—when he’d been an up-and-coming rookie NHLer and she’d been new on the national team. He was quite a few years older, and that wasn’t a surprise to her mental state at the time.

  She’d been looking for a father figure.

  Definitely not the right mindset for a newly eighteen-year-old girl, nor for a twenty-three-year-old man who was just starting his career. They’d been introduced through mutual friends, had gone on exactly two and a half dates—half, because they’d both realized it wasn’t working then had moved on to being what they should have started off as: friends.

  Devon had gone off to do great things in the league, then off it, including dating a bevy of beautiful models and founding Prestige Media Group, before marrying the wonderful Becca. Throughout the years, they’d stayed in touch and when he’d heard about her name being in the running for the position with the Gold, he’d offered to be her agent and negotiate the deal.

  She’d accepted without reservation.

  Because even though she and Devon might have never worked out in the dating world, he was a good man. He’d called her after her devastating knee injury—which had happened on international broadcast during primetime—to offer her words of encouragement . . . and the name of a doctor who specialized in rehabbing professional athletes. And when rehabbing had failed, he’d continued calling, not letting her sink into what-should-have-beens and encouraging her to find a new path. Later, he’d helped her secure the opportunity of a lifetime when the occasion presented itself.

  So, yeah, maybe they hadn’t had sexual sparks, but he’d still protected her and been there for her. And maybe, if she were admitting it only to herself, had still become a bit of a father figure anyway.

  His face at that moment was certainly giving her intensely disapproving fatherly vibes.

  Probably why she was hesitant to admit the next.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  A thundercloud crossed over his face. That was the only way she could think to describe it—eyes sparking like the precursor to lightning, a jaw that was tense as an impending tornado, words that clipped across the room like hail colliding with the roof of a car.

  “I repeat. Who. Am. I. Going. To. Kill?”

  “What exactly does that clause say?” she asked. She’d read the entire page eighteen and could barely make heads or tails of it. The language was filled with words like indemnifying and holding harmless and due diligence and while she knew what each of them meant individually, contract law wasn’t her specialty.

  He growled.

  Calle wasn’t cowed. Yes, they might be friends. No, she might not want to disappoint him. But also, yes, she’d seen him snort coffee through his nose on their third—well, second and a half—date when she’d declared they didn’t have a chance in hell of making a relationship work between them. So, no, cowering didn’t happen with this man. He’d spent the years making her feel safe and protected and not alone, and while she appreciated that, she also didn’t need to be packed with cotton and stored safely away from trouble brewing on the horizon.

  This was her job. Her life. Her future.

  She had it.

  “Devon.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who?”

  She sighed. “It’s Jason’s baby, De
v. None of the guys on the team are involved.” Lie, her brain reminded her. Coop is involved. Except, Coop wasn’t involved. Because it wasn’t his baby.

  But you want him to be, her brain said in a nah-nah-nah-nah tone.

  Shit.

  She did want that.

  Forcing the mental dialogue away, she looked back up at Devon. “Jason doesn’t want anything to do with the baby. I’ve talked to a lawyer and sent him paperwork to terminate his rights. He told me he would sign,” she said and watched the thundercloud transform into a lightning storm on Dev’s face. His eyes filled with such fire that she could imagine bolts of electricity hurling themselves across the room, reducing innocent furniture to charred wood. “And before you say you’re going to kill him, know that I don’t want Jason in my life. Our . . . time together was a mistake.” She shook her head. “He was in town for Thanksgiving, and I was lonely and—” Her words broke off because—

  So. Fucking. Stupid.

  But then she thought of the fluttering heart on the monitor, the tiny arms and legs, and her palm came up, pressed lightly to her stomach. This was her chance to make sure the past didn’t repeat itself. Her baby was never going to feel unwanted or like a burden. No matter what.

  “I knew I should have made you come to Thanksgiving dinner with me and Becca.”

  Calle’s lips quirked. “That might have been too many Scotts, even for me.”

  “You should have been there. You could have judged Kelsey’s”—his younger sister, who was Calle’s age—“boyfriend.”

  “You said Tanner was a good guy.”

  And apparently Kels had led Tanner on quite a chase.

  “He is,” Devon said, grudgingly. “Plus, she’s happy.”

  This was so much better, to have the conversation focused on Dev rather than her. “Then why do you sound like you’ve swallowed glass?”

  He made a face. “Tanner was Bas”—his younger brother—“and my friend. He’s too old for her and it’s . . .”

  “You’re protective.”

  Dev didn’t comment.

  She reached across the desk, patted his hand. “That’s what makes you a good guy, Dev. Also,” she added with a teasing lilt to her words. “I seem to remember you dating a younger girl once. One who was your younger sister’s age.”