Tacker (Arizona Vengeance #5)(12)

“I love you,” I say gently. “I just want you to be happy.”

“You want everyone to be happy, Nora. You want everyone to find the same peace you have, and I can only offer you two truths about that. First… I’m happy just as I am, and I don’t lack for anything. And second, not everyone has the ability to find peace. Some prefer to stay in the dark.”

He’s talking about Tacker now.

Another slight warning that I’ve got my hands full with this client.





CHAPTER 6




Tacker


As I pace around my apartment, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. I got my workout in, which included a seven-mile run this morning. After I made a healthy breakfast, I went grocery shopping, adding more healthy items to my cupboards and refrigerator. Admittedly over the last two weeks since the crash, I haven’t been following the best of regimens when it comes to food and exercise. I think in my mind, I’d given up believing the Vengeance would want me. I’d started my slow descent into losing my six-pack to a pot belly.

Since meeting with management on Monday and accepting their terms, I’ve kicked it at the gym. Rid my apartment of the Cheetos and Cocoa Puffs I’d been living on.

Actually went and got a haircut.

I’m slowly making my way back, and now all I have to accomplish is the dreaded “talk” tomorrow with Nora that will supposedly start off my counseling sessions. The terms of my place on the team are clear… talk my shit out with a counselor and fix my shit so it doesn’t negatively impact the team.

There is no in between.

And it’s really a no-brainer.

It’s not like I have to really think this through. If I had a best friend, I wouldn’t be calling him or her up to ask their advice on what I should do. If I had parents I was close to, it’s not a situation where their wisdom and love would give me guidance.

But I have neither a best friend nor parents to turn to, so it’s kind of moot.

I make my way into the kitchen, but there’s nothing to do. The counters are spotless, the dishes are done, and I even mopped the floor two days ago.

I suppose I could go buy a table and chairs to go in here. Maybe even a couch and a coffee table for the living room? My furniture consists of a recliner and lamp there, and an air mattress in the bedroom. I’ve lived such a minimal existence since MJ died. I didn’t really need anything else. Mine and MJ’s house in Dallas was sold fully furnished. I’d only kept my clothes and a few things from the kitchen to cook with. I didn’t want anything to remind me of the home I’d shared with MJ.

But no one comes over—with the exception of Dax and Bishop storming my apartment the day before yesterday—when Bishop had told me to get my head out of my ass. I wish his words meant something to me, but they don’t.

Not really.

Okay, maybe a little bit. I mean… I live for hockey. It’s probably the only thing keeping me alive and when I commit to my team, I commit to them all. I want them to succeed, and, in that sense, I care about them deeply.

So yeah… it fucking hurts a bit to know I’ve let them down.

So maybe it does mean something worthwhile that they both took the time to come to see me after it was announced I’d be returning to the team.

A knock on my door startles me badly, mainly because I’d been steeped in thoughts of visitors to my apartment and no one ever comes over. The fact I’ve got someone here to see me is shocking.

But I’m also bored shitless, so I can’t say it bothers me. I move out of the kitchen, into my small dumpy living room, and then open the door without bothering to look through the peephole.

I can only stare at the blond man standing on my threshold in complete and utter fucking shock.

“Hey man,” he says with a grin, his green eyes flashing in the sunlight and crinkled at the edges.

Aaron Wylde.

Considered by some to be the wildest man in the league, both on and off the ice. It’s why most people just call him by his last name, Wylde, and why whenever we used to go out, he’d be swarmed by all the women.

But I never called him Wylde. Only Aaron.

He’s the man who, at one time, I considered my best friend when we both played for the Dallas Mustangs.

Of course, that relationship ended when MJ died. I cut him out like I did everyone else.

“Going to invite me in?” he asks, and it startles me.

“Yeah,” I mutter, taking a step back. “Sorry. Just caught me off guard.”

Aaron brushes past me, scanning my dump of an apartment. As I close the door, he says, “What a shithole.”

“It works for me,” I reply, not in any way defending my choices. Just being matter of fact.

He turns to face me, pushing his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know whether to hug you, shake your hand, or punch you in the face.”

“Take your pick,” I say flatly, but I move into the kitchen to pull a bottle of water out of the fridge to offer him.

He follows me in there, accepts the bottle, and just stares.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, leaning a hip against my counter and crossing my arms over my chest.

“You weren’t at the team meeting this morning, but I figured someone would have texted you at the least,” he replies with a smile. “I got traded here.”