Alex (Cold Fury Hockey #1)(17)

Sutton Price, with her copper hair flowing all around and her hazel eyes shining bright. She’s smiling at me and it causes warmth to swirl in my veins.

Blinking hard, I banish her from my mind. That girl most definitely has no reason to be taking up any of my gray matter. Doesn’t matter that for the first time in like…ever, I had a natural conversation with a woman that felt relaxed and safe. Doesn’t matter that for the first time in definitely forever, I shared an intimate detail of my life with that woman, and she didn’t throw it in my face or try to exploit it. No, she looked at me with sympathy.

No, pity.

There’s a difference, and that is unacceptable to me.

“Let’s leave this party,” Cassie says as she takes a step toward me. See—big mistake to have shown her even a hint of kindness.

I take a step back, on the verge of reminding her just how nasty I can be, when someone thrusts a beer under my nose and says, “Here, man—looks like you could use one.”

My hand comes up and grabs the frosty bottle, turning to see my new linemate and right-winger, Garrett Samuelson. He just got traded to the Cold Fury and played in his first game with us last night. I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to him, other than to say “Good job” when he scored a goal off a pass from me.

“Thanks,” I tell him and take a sip.

“Mind if we talk?” he asks, just as he shoots an apologetic look to Cassie.

“Sure,” I say hesitantly, because I have no clue why he wants to talk to me. My other teammates pretty much know to stay out of my way, because I’m a cranky bastard, but Garrett hasn’t had time to acclimate yet.

So I’ll cut him some slack and lend him my ear for a bit, particularly because it gets me away from Cassie. I’m sure after five minutes, however, he’ll be scampering to get away from me. Turning to Cassie, I hand the birthday present to her. I have no clue what it is, nor do I care. She takes it from me without a word, and I’m confident she’ll get it to Leo’s kid. Turning my back on her, I follow Garrett across the backyard.

He leads me over to a couple of empty chairs under a huge shade tree, away from the screaming kids and blaring music.

“So,” he says as he sits down. “How lame is this party?”

“Pretty f*cking lame,” I concur and take a healthy pull on my beer as I eyeball my teammate.

He surprises me by his words. Most team members are very supportive of one another, and even if they did think it was lame coming to a kid’s birthday party, they would never voice those thoughts out loud. It seems Mr. Samuelson may be a bit of a rebel.

“Looked like you needed rescuing back there,” he says, nodding over to where Cassie now stands next to Allie, talking about God knows what. “But if not, my apologies, man, for messing up your game.”

I can’t help the laugh that bursts out of my mouth, shaking my head. “Nah…you did me a solid. She can be a little clingy.”

“Excellent. I’ve now ingratiated myself with you,” Garrett says with a laugh and clinks his beer bottle against mine. “Bros before hoes.”

“So, what’s your story?” I ask him, not really caring but feeling the need to fill the silence.

“No story. Love playing hockey, love f*cking women, love spending my money. I’m a pretty simple guy.”

I had heard some rumors about Samuelson when word came that he’d be joining the team. He’s supposedly quite the ladies’ man, and I mean the ladies adore him. Apparently not just because of his good looks, celebrity status and money—he supposedly is a modern-day romance book hero. But he never has the same woman on his arm more than one, maybe two nights in a row, and while he supposedly treats them like gold, he gets bored easily. Seems the rumors must be true.

“Hey, man—wanna get out of here, go grab some beers somewhere and play pool or something?” Garrett asks.

My eyes slide back over to Cassie and she’s watching me with thinly disguised hunger. Not sexual hunger…relationship hunger, and it gives me the willies.

Turning back to Garrett, I say, “Sure. I’m ready to blow this joint.”





Chapter 6


Sutton


I enter section 110 of the Cold Fury’s hockey arena and my first sight of the interior momentarily stuns me. The ice sits far below me, the steps leading down to it seem to stretch forever. All of the players are out on the ice skating around, and it looks like they’re taking practice shots at the nets on each end. I did a bit of research online before I came to the game tonight, and one of the first things I learned was that the team’s colors are black and silver. More precisely, their jerseys are black with a swirling, snowy tornado of silver moving across the front. The word Carolina is above the tornado, and the words Cold Fury below, in black outlined in silver and white piping.

To look like a fan, I went ahead and wore a simple black turtleneck with large silver hoop earrings and a chunky sterling silver necklace. I looked the part, but I didn’t feel it. I don’t know a damn thing about hockey and I have to wonder why I’m here.

Oh yeah, I know why. Because that jerk Alex Crossman cancelled our meeting this morning without any good excuse, but then later sent over a ticket to tonight’s game along with a note that we would meet after. I had half a mind not to come, but three things swayed me. First, I promised Glenn I’d get him an autograph and I figure the best chance of that is to be nice to the prickly bastard. Second, I kind of, sort of, okay…I really would like to learn about this game. Glenn loves the Cold Fury so much, and some of my friends watch hockey, so it’s probably time I got on the bandwagon. Finally, I’m dying to push our outreach program forward, and I can’t do it without Alex’s involvement.