Backhand (Gold Hockey) Read online

  “It wasn’t for you.” Mike crossed to her, placing his hands on those slumped shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “Or at least not you specifically. Blue is a good kid. The team is full of good guys. Not one of us would tolerate that about a teammate’s spouse.”

  “But—”

  “Not one.” He pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “We just need to ride this out.”

  Sara opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by the doorbell.

  Since the security team hadn’t called up to the house, it had to be either Brit and Stefan or Rebecca.

  Given the video running on repeat, he suspected the later.

  His suspicion was confirmed at the second chime of the bell as he strode to the door. Rebecca then. She was nothing if not impatient.

  And lived on her phone.

  “Yes, Devon. I know,” she snapped as she strode through the door, cell to her ear. “We’ve been behind this thing from the beginning. It’s all fucking damage control.”

  All righty then. Mike closed the front door, followed Rebecca into the kitchen.

  Sara was perched on a stool, her pencil in hand as she sketched rapidly. He might as well order an entire a box of notebooks at the rate she was filling them.

  She didn’t appear to notice or hear Rebecca’s cellular ranting. Either that, or she was way better at ignoring the publicist than he was. He closed the distance between them and peeked over her shoulder.

  Circles on top of circles filled the page. They were intersected with harsh, radiating lines, amorphous figures hidden in the shadows.

  He knew immediately what she’d drawn.

  They were huddled in his front yard.

  Rebecca tossed her phone on the counter, making Sara jump. The pencil hit the ground, but Rebecca didn’t seem to notice.

  “Dang, girl,” she said. “Rumor had it that you could actually draw, but this—” she snagged the sketchpad “—these are good. Like really good.” Her red nails were in stark contrast to the gray scale drawings as she flipped through the pages. “Oh, this is perfect. I can see it. Instagram. These. Drawings of the team.”

  Rebecca grabbed her phone and took a bunch of pictures of Sara’s sketches before typing frantically into her phone. Then it was back at her ear.

  “Do you see those, Devon?” Her voice was positively gleeful now. “Think of how well they’ll translate to Instagram. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Okay, I’ll set it up. Bye.”

  The phone landed back on the island.

  Holy tornado.

  “What’s going on Rebecca?”

  “The usual shit-show, but I think we finally have a way out.”

  “Through Instagram,” Sara muttered dryly.

  “Yes.” Rebecca turned and began pacing. “It’s perfect because you’re not on any form of social media—” Her head whipped around and fixed Sara with a glare. “You’re not, right? Not even under a fake name?”

  “No.”

  Mike slipped behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders and kneading the tight muscles there.

  “Perfect!”

  “What’s perfect?” he asked.

  “Social media personas are easy to craft but hard to undo. We can use these—” she held up the book “—to our advantage.”

  Sara stiffened. “I’m not sure—”

  “Be sure. Look, it’s like this.” Rebecca sat on the stool next to Sara’s. “We need a distraction. The team needs a break from the media. So, we give them what they want. Access, carefully crafted, completely controlled on your terms, but access nonetheless.”

  “And they’ll just suddenly leave us alone?” Sara asked. “I find that hard to believe.”

  Mike did as well.

  “Look, the issue is exposure. We don’t have enough of the right kind. We haven’t given a statement. Everyone is clamoring for the first shot at one. This gives you the chance to control the way it comes out.”

  Sara glanced back over her shoulder at him, raised her brows.

  “This is your decision, Sara girl. They’re your drawings, your life you’d share—”

  “Well, technically, it’s our life we’d share,” she said, ice creeping into the edges of her tone.

  He sighed. “You know what I mean. The exposure is going to be worse for you. The Internet is way harder on women than men.”

  A roll of blue eyes. “That is true.”

  Rebecca began humming the Jeopardy theme. “Three hundred dollars an hour.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Three hundred dollars an hour is my going rate, but feel free to take your time.”

  “That’s outrageous,” Sara said.

  “I’m good at my job.”

  Mike raised a brow. “I’d hope so.”

  “Don’t talk to me, you overpaid rink rat.”

  Her insult was delivered with a smile and a wink, and he couldn’t help but chuckle, especially when Sara giggled. “She does have a point.”

  “Of course I do.” Rebecca stood and tapped her toe impatiently against the hardwood floor. “So, are you in?”

  “Yes.” Rebecca fist-pumped at Sara’s answer. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I’ll take care of everything,” she said, already heading to the door, heels clicking, fingers typing on her cell. “You won’t have to worry about a thing.”

  Why didn’t Mike find her words reassuring?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE GOLD WERE on their worst losing streak of the season. They dropped another game to Vancouver, making it six games in a row.

  A few more losses, and their playoff hopes would be in jeopardy.

  Sara knew this because it was on every sports news show.

  Sara knew this because her poor influence was the lead story on every entertainment talk show.

  Sara knew this because of the fan in front of her.

  She’d ventured out of Mike’s house for the first time in ten days, wanting to see Mitch and needing to get out of her gilded prison.

  The gallery was doing well, and Mitch had liked several of her drawings enough to display them. Which she considered the least she could do after creating the chaos at his store. Though, thankfully, not showing up for work meant the press had pretty much left.

  She’d snuck through the back door, picked through the crowded and disorganized storeroom, cringing all the while, and spent ten minutes in normality.

  Then a customer had come in.

  One who was also a Gold fan. Who’d recognized her.

  And… cue awesomeness.

  “You’re fucking with the team, a goddamned distraction. Leave those boys alone.” The man was middle-aged with a huge potbelly, but there was nothing soft about his expression. He stared at her, fury in his eyes, spittle spraying from his mouth as he raged.

  Stepping back or cowering wasn’t her first instinct. She’d been to this particular rodeo before. In fact, this was actually almost calm, based on some of the vitriol she’d dealt with after her medal had been taken away.

  Usually ignoring was best, so she didn’t know why she attempted to answer. Reasoning with people like this was pointless. But nevertheless, Sara opened her big, fat mouth and got an entire two words out before the man cut her off. “I’m not—”

  “I’ll tell you what you are. Worthless. A fucking cheater who likes to whore herself—”

  “Stop. Right. There.”

  Mitch.

  “Get out of my store.”

  She’d never heard that tone come from her boss’s mouth. It was scary.

  “Who the fuck are you?” The man spat — yes, literally spat — at Mitch.

  “You have three seconds to leave or—”

  “What?” The man gestured to Mitch’s plum suit, the pristine striped tie. “You’ll make me?” he sneered.

  “In fact, I will.”

  “You fucking fa—” The homophobic slur didn’t make it into the air.

  “And that’s enough, thank you.” A huge man in a
suit that was not nearly as nice as her boss’s stepped from the back room, grabbed the man’s arm, and escorted him to the door, which Mitch helpfully held open.

  A second later, the pane of metal and glass was locked, and the man turned to face her.

  “Supposed to be with you today,” he said by way of explanation.

  Mitch raised a brow in her direction.

  “Apparently, I have a bodyguard.”

  “I’d say you need one.”

  She guessed she did.

  Her sigh was loud, and he bumped her shoulder, smiling coaxingly at her. “Let’s take a look at a few more of these, okay?”

  They flipped through her book, and Mitch carefully cut a few drawings out in order to try different matting and frame options.

  “This will do for now,” he said after they’d spent another hour on the process. “I know this whole situation is screwed up, but it has done wonders for your production.”

  She laughed. “If there’s a positive in the media tracking me like a dog, then it’s that.”

  “Be safe, okay?” He raised a brow in the direction of the security guard standing in the corner, trying to be unobtrusive while being completely the opposite.

  Six feet tall and wide as a Mack truck tended to be out of place in a gallery.

  “Thanks, Mitch,” she said, giving him a hug before crossing over to the man. “I’m Sara.”

  He glanced down at her outstretched hand and shook it as carefully as he might handle a fragile glass sculpture. “Pascal.” A beat. “Perhaps you shouldn’t sneak out next time?”

  Remorse swept through her because she had snuck out. As in, she had slipped through a gate in the back fence and called an Uber from two streets over. But she hadn’t done it to avoid the security; she’d done it to evade the press.

  “I’m an adult,” she said, feeling guilty despite herself. “I don’t exactly need a chaperone.”

  Mitch coughed, and she glared at him.

  “Mr. Stewart asked that I keep you safe.”

  Nice of him to tell her that, she mentally snarked, even though in the next heartbeat she knew she was being unfair.

  Mike was out of town with the team, would continue to be so at regular intervals. He was trying to protect her from exactly the kind of asshole who’d confronted her in the store.

  Holding on to that feeling, she wriggled her phone from her pocket and texted Mike.

  Sara: I love you, Hot Shot.

  He wouldn’t get the message for a couple of hours since it was a practice day, but it was vitally important she send it anyway. Second chances didn’t come around too often, and she needed, needed to not screw theirs up.

  “WAKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD,” MIKE said the next morning.

  Early the next morning.

  Really, freaking, insanely, crazily early.

  Sara rolled over and shoved her head under the pillow. “No.”

  She’d stayed up late the night before, waiting for Mike to get home, sketching into oblivion after watching the man from the gallery recite his encounter with her phrase-by-bitchy-phrase on the evening news. Never mind that she’d barely gotten two words out.

  A story was a story, and hers at the moment was a front-page one. And so, Mr. Potbelly would be enjoying his fifteen minutes, and the local news station had an exclusive.

  “Time to get up, sweetheart.”

  “It’s too—” She screeched when the blanket was ripped from her body, and the freezing air hit her skin. “Mike!”

  She was naked, of course. The pajamas they’d retrieved from her apartment had lasted all of five minutes.

  “Up,” he said and smacked her butt. Hard.

  “You’re an asshole!”

  “And you’re awake.” A kiss to the base of her spine, big hands cupping her butt, kneading, rubbing what was no doubt a red-ass handprint on her right cheek.

  Her hips canted up, and her temper waned. She sighed, thoroughly out of sleep’s clutches now.

  “Yes, I am — oh God!”

  He’d slipped his fingers between her thighs then bent and flicked his tongue against her—

  “Put these on.”

  A pair of sweats landed on the bed next to her, followed by a shirt. “I need fresh—” she said, starting to sit up.

  Underwear smacked her in the face. A sports bra landed in her lap.

  With a glare, she got dressed. “I’m afraid to mention socks.”

  Mike smirked and held up a hand. “I’ve got you covered.” He knelt at her feet and tugged on a pair of patterned cotton crew socks then slipped on her sneakers.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yup.” His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he pulled her up from the bed.

  “Good grief, what else could you possibly—?”

  The rest of her words were muffled when he hauled a sweatshirt over her head. “That.”

  “Mike,” she warned.

  “You’re supposed to be the morning person,” he teased.

  “Remind me of that when it’s a reasonable time.”

  He chuckled, pushed her into the bathroom. “Brush your teeth.”

  “I should make you deal with my dragon breath,” she muttered, snatching up her brush and putting her hair into a loose ponytail.

  “Except you can’t stand when your teeth are fuzzy.”

  She stilled, one hand on her toothbrush, the other on the toothpaste. Little details. He always remembered the little details. What type of pencil she liked to draw with. Her favorite ice cream. The way she took her coffee. That she hated kale but loved broccoli.

  That she couldn’t function without scrubbed teeth.

  Why hadn’t she accepted that damn ring? That perfect, wonderful promise of a future.

  A future he hadn’t brought up again over the last weeks. A future she desperately wanted. Because he was being patient. For her — a crazy, emotionally frazzled chick with a checkered past.

  “You really don’t care, do you?”

  “About what?”

  “My past.”

  He rolled his eyes, leaned back against the wall. “Now that question doesn’t even deserve an answer.”

  This man.

  Love spilling over the edges of her heart, she brushed and rinsed, and then with minty fresh breath, she walked over to Mike and kissed him.

  Sara put everything she had into that kiss, every drop of love, every bit of pain from the past, every ounce of guilt for refusing to do the right thing and step aside for the good of the team.

  She gave it everything she had until her brain screamed for oxygen, and she had to pull back.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, eyes misty.

  “For what?”

  “For finding me again.”

  “Oh, Sara girl,” he said, sounding a little choked up. “I shouldn’t have let you go in the first place.”

  “It’s not—”

  He waved her off. “I shouldn’t have brought that up. No more past talk, right?” When she nodded, he snagged her hand. “Now, come on. I’ve got your coffee downstairs, and we don’t want to be late for your surprise.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  MIKE GAVE PASCAL a fist-bump as he led a blindfolded Sara out the back gate. A car was parked on the street, not his, but a rental the security company had arranged for him.

  He buckled Sara into the passenger seat and was driving away from the house just as the sky began to lighten.

  It might be insanely early and way before the hour that he normally wanted to get up, but he was practically giddy with excitement.

  He’d woken, showered, dressed, double-checked that every detail was in place, all before Sara had moved a muscle.

  Though, in fairness to her, he had kept them both up very late into the night. He knew the attention was weighing on her, and though Rebecca was working on shifting the public image of Sara, it wasn’t a fast process, especially when the team wasn’t playing well.

  When Pascal told him what had happene
d at the gallery—

  Suffice it to say, he was glad he hadn’t been there.

  At least the bodyguard had handled things calmly. If he’d seen some asshole come at Sara like that… Mike shook his head, knowing there was no way he would have been able to stop himself from punching the fucker.

  “Not that I’m opposed to a blindfold in some cases,” Sara said, finally speaking and sounding a lot more like her normally chipper early-morning self, “but are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  He filed that bit of information away for later use. “Nope.”

  “Umm. You remember that I don’t like surprises, right?”

  “From me, you do, remember?” When she sighed, he laughed. “And that’s still a nope.” He grinned at her, not that she could see it.

  Before she could question him further, he turned on the radio or rather queued up his playlist.

  If he was going full-out for a romantic sunrise surprise, he needed appropriately sappy music.

  James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” filtered through the car’s speakers.

  Heaven help him if the guys ever got a hold of his phone.

  But Sara’s reaction was worth it.

  She stilled, sniffed, and fumbled around until her hand was on his thigh. “Oh, Mike.”

  “Not too cheesy?” he teased.

  “Perfect amount of Swiss,” she said, lips twitching.

  “Good,” he said, taking one hand off the steering wheel and placing it over hers where it rested on the top of his thigh, dangerously close to his cock… which was supposed to be behaving.

  Since it wasn’t, he casually inched her hand a little lower.

  Not slyly enough, apparently. Fingers slipped from his, crept up. “What’s in your pants, Hot Shot?”

  He snorted. “Pretty sure, you and he are on a first-name basis, sweetheart. Now—” he slid her palm back down “—we’re almost there. Behave.”

  “Where’s there?”

  “Nice try.”

  Mike waved at the guard and pulled through into the deserted parking lot. Or, nearly deserted since there was one other car.

  Brit winked at him when he led Sara inside the arena and gave him a thumbs-up as they walked by.

  “Why does it smell like disinfectant?”