Risky Business Read online

  ***

  By the time Allison found Katie’s winter coat and booties, wrangled her into her cold weather gear, then right back out again for an emergency diaper change, then went through the whole routine over again, she was running far later than her usual ten to fifteen minutes.

  The ice rink reminded her of the one near her childhood home, with a ceiling open to the rafters and a no frills concrete floor surrounding the rink. Even the snack shack reminded her of getting nachos with her high school friends on Friday nights. She’d never been a huge fan of ice skating because what was worse than exercising on water? But it being frozen helped her make peace with the activity when her friends decided to go or when she’d been invited to birthday parties held there.

  She craned her neck to find that little room for kids’ birthday parties, another fond memory of hers from her childhood. Sure enough, it was on the far side of the snack shack. Maybe in a few years, Katie would be here taking ice skating lessons or having her own birthday party. The thought made Allison smile, determined as she was not to pass her fears along to her daughter.

  The rink was lined with intermittent bleacher seating all the way around, which was surprisingly full of people given that they were all there for a men’s league game. Barely any spectators had attended the games of Lowell’s beer league. Though she didn’t recognize anyone, it was clear that some people sure did know who she was. They glanced at her, some smiling, some with passing glances, and only a couple frowns. Despite the flip-flop of her stomach, she smiled and hoisted Katie higher on her hip as she walked toward the score table where Harper said she’d be.

  Before she’d taken more than a few steps, she heard her name from the right. Harper waved her over to the group of women she was standing with. Harper looped her arm around Allison’s elbow as her friends cooed over Katie.

  “Ladies, this is Allison, my newest neighbor and the owner of Cloud Nine. Allison, I’d like you to meet my friends, the best looking bitches in Destiny Falls. This is Marlena, Olivia, and Presley, the accountant I told you about.”

  Presley was a slim brunette with thick-rimmed hipster glasses and purple eye shadow. She wasn’t nerdy, precisely, not like most accountants Allison had met, but she did look like she could rock a business suit when her job demanded it.

  All three women greeted her warmly, lavishing praise on Katie that was partially drowned out by a cheer. Allison, Harper, and the rest of the group turned toward the ice to see it flooded with players emerging from the locker rooms. Allison’s eyes found Theo immediately. Her insides did their hummingbird thing, the fast heartbeat, the hollow, light feeling, the insuppressible nerves.

  He was dressed, along with a dozen or so other men, in a red, white, and blue jersey and black helmet. Gripping his hockey stick in both hands, he skated a slow turn around the periphery of the rink with his head down, as though he was lost in his own world, oblivious to the cheers of the crowd or presence of the other players.

  “There’s our boys,” Marlena purred with obvious appreciation. They did each cut a fine figure in their uniforms.

  “Guess we’d better get to our seats. It’d look bad for the official timekeeper to be late,” Harper said.

  Olivia, a beautiful blonde with a warm smile, clapped her hands together. “That’s my cue to get us some beers. Allison, would you like one, too?”

  A beer and hockey game with new girlfriends sounded absolutely perfect, one of the many missing pieces in her previous life with Lowell. Harper led the way through the bleachers to the center point of the rink, where a long folding table had been erected between the two penalty boxes, in front of a section of bleachers.

  Theo skated past them as they walked toward the table, close enough on the other side of the Plexiglasss for her to see the dark blue in his eyes and the five o’clock shadow on his cheeks. He never once lifted his head from the ice.

  “So, Allison, Harper told me she’d given you my name.” Allison forced her attention away from Theo, to Presley.

  “Yes. Good. What do you think?”

  “The timing’s great because one of my customers just retired, so I have an opening.”

  “That would be fantastic. I can’t even tell you. I mean, I hope I can afford your rate, but I can’t even figure out on my own if I can or not. Isn’t that terrible?”

  “Not terrible, not with what I know about Cloud Nine’s history of ownership. Don’t be so hard on yourself. And don’t worry about my rate. I’m sure you can afford it because it’s my business, so I get to make up my rate, which is always affordable for my friends.”

  “Thank you.” Talk about a load off her mind. Now if she could only get Theo to explain his process of taking and keeping track of reservations, she’d really be getting somewhere.

  Harper took the middle seat at the table in front of a black digital timekeeper and directed Allison to take a seat next to hers. Presley and Marlena, a curvy redhead with a serene face and pale, freckled skin who’d seemed particularly smitten by Katie, took seats directly behind them on the first row of bleachers.

  Presley set a hand on Allison’s shoulder. “We’ll exchange numbers before the game’s over and work out a time to get together next week. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great. Thank you again.”

  While Harper busied herself starting a countdown on the game clock to the start time, Allison got as comfortable in her chair as she could with Katie still strapped to her. Katie, for her part, was being particularly well-behaved, kicking and squealing with happiness, her eyes riveted to the players. Who would’ve guessed her daughter would be such a hockey fan?

  Though Theo in uniform, in motion, was mesmerizing, she vowed not to stare at him the whole time. Amid the other players, she immediately picked out Brandon, Will, and Liam. Duke stood in one of the players’ benches across the rink, looking as intense as any NHL coach she’d seen.

  Will was wearing a different prosthetic than he had while working at Cloud Nine. This one didn’t resemble a hand at all, but seemed specially designed with a slot to hold a hockey stick. Then she noticed another player skate past Will, this one with no left arm at all.

  She leaned toward Harper. “Help me understand something here. I met Will, so I know he’s missing a hand, but number twenty-three is also disabled. It seems unprecedented that there be two men on the same hockey team who are missing limbs.”

  “Ah. I forgot to mention that. Sorry. It’s not unprecedented on Bomb Squad. In fact, there are nine men on the team who are amputees. The team’s made up entirely of soldiers who were wounded in combat. The Canal Towns Adult League is open to anyone, with the exception of Bomb Squad, which is all wounded vets.”

  Allison blinked at the players as it all came together in her mind. Bomb Squad. Cool name for a team of wounded soldiers. Then it hit her that that would include Theo. Her attention shot his way. He didn’t look wounded or like a soldier. He wasn’t even American. “But Theo’s Canadian.”

  Olivia set a beer in front of Allison, then scooted it out of a lunging Katie’s reach. “He was in the Canadian army. Wounded in Afghanistan.”

  She felt instantly lame for that comment. Of course Canada had a military. Allison had just never given it much thought. She gaped at him as he skated to the bench for a pre-game huddle, seeing him in a whole new light. He’d been wounded in Afghanistan? Wounded how? Looking at him—solid, muscled, so vital a man—she couldn’t see any evidence of a wound. The person who’d gone over the canal wall with her, who’d kept her from burning or drowning, hadn’t been disabled in any way. She’d seen him stripped to his briefs, and she couldn’t recall any scars of note on his body. Not like some of the other men on the team.

  Her attention roved over the rest of the players. Number Eight had noticeable burns over his neck and scalp, Number Fourteen had a long scar cutting through the center of his face, and Will and Number Twenty-Three wer
e missing limbs, along with a third man Allison saw now. But other than that, she couldn’t tell what the other men’s injuries were. It seemed like such a private thing, to wonder what each’s injury was.

  She almost asked Harper and the others about Theo’s injury, but she already felt like she was prying by attending the game against his wishes. She hadn’t imagined that a hockey game would be so revealing about his past or personal details of his life that he didn’t want to share with her, but the very nature of Bomb Squad told her a lot about the man she was determined not to be attracted to. The trouble was, seeing him in uniform, and getting this glimpse into his private world, into his vulnerabilities, drew her to him even more. Thank goodness he was such a jerk or else she’d be in danger of developing a full-blown crush on him.

  Like you haven’t already.

  In the final minutes before game play started, Allison glanced at the bench to see Duke looking her way. She gave a little wave, and he smiled and nodded in return. Will and Brandon acknowledged her as they each skated by the scorekeeper’s table, and even Liam seemed to notice and be pleased by her presence.

  After the ref blew a whistle indicating that game play was about to begin and the teams both headed to their respective benches, Brandon skated over, his expression intense and heated, and only for Harper. Allison wondered what it would be like to be looked at like that.

  “I’m scoring the winning goal tonight,” he said.

  Harper rolled her eyes and tapped her pen on the score pad. “We’ll see.”

  It seemed a callous thing to say, totally out of character for the kind person Harper seemed to be. She remembered them standing together the first night at the landing. They’d seemed close, so Allison knew there had to be more to her comment than she knew.

  Brandon’s eyebrows flickered and his lips curved into the slightest of smiles. “I’ll come find you after the game.” Without waiting for her response, he pivoted away from them and skated to the bench.

  Marlena tapped Harper’s shoulder. “Don’t act like you don’t like it. We’re all on to you.”

  “I’ve never met a man with more hubris,” Harper grouched.

  Allison was still struggling to understand. “Are you and Brandon dating?”

  Olivia, Presley, and Marlena chuckled good-naturedly at the question.

  “God, no,” Harper said. “Brandon isn’t the dating kind. And neither am I.”

  “Then what was that about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Harper offered her a rueful smile. “I lost a bet to him last NHL season when the Flyers lost in the finals. So now, every time Brandon scores the winning goal, I owe him a kiss.”

  Okay. But they weren’t dating. Right. “His idea or yours?”

  “His alone. Trust me.”

  “So, then, he must be into you.”

  “He wants into her pants, all right,” Marlena said, hiding her smile behind her beer glass.

  “True,” Harper said. “But then again, he wants in every woman’s pants. He’s one of those guys who’s all about the chase.”

  Allison eyed Brandon with fresh understanding. As she’d thought the first time she’d seen him, he was classically handsome—balanced features, chiseled jaw. He didn’t have any combat wounds that she could see.

  She debated the wisdom of the observation she was tempted to make. She and Harper were new friends and they seemed to be treading on intimate ground, but she couldn’t help herself. “Sounds as though you might like him chasing you since you agreed to a bet like that.”

  “Exactly. Thank you,” Olivia said, as though she’d been trying to get Harper to see that point for ages.

  Luckily, Harper’s expression was more grin than cringe. “I’ve never met a bet I didn’t want to make. It’s my Achilles’ heel. And I really thought the Flyers had last season in the bag.” She pursed her lips together in a look that told Allison there was more to it than that.

  “And?” Allison said.

  “And . . . he’s a great kisser. So it’s not exactly a hardship.”

  Olivia threw up her arms. Presley and Marlena laughed.

  “The truth always outs,” Presley said.

  “When is the bet repayment over?” Allison asked.

  “When this season’s NHL playoffs start.” She speared a mock-scolding finger in the air at them all. “And, may I remind you bitches, it’s only when he scores the winning goal.”

  Presley shook her head. “But that’s the problem. Bomb Squad is undefeated and the whole team knows about the bet, so they feed him the puck all the time.”

  It was Allison’s turn to roll her eyes. “Of course they do. Boys will be boys, right? What would he have had to do if the Flyers had won the cup?”

  “A vow of celibacy until the next playoff season starts,” Harper replied.

  “Yikes. That’s a harsh bet. Then again, I’m in the middle of my own bout of celibacy, though not by bet or by choice. Just sheer, rotten luck and my terrible taste in men.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that? You’re way too decent a person to have been married to Lowell Whitley. No offense.”

  “None taken. Lowell wasn’t all bad.” Her mind flashed to the night he was arrested. “Just mostly.”

  “Well, if you’re looking to cure your celibacy problem, I’m sure Brandon would be more than happy to help you with that.”

  It would’ve been a pretty screwed up thing to suggest, had Harper not said it with an undertone of weary frustration, as though if only Brandon could stop sleeping around, the two of them might have a future. Funny coincidence—that turned out to be Lowell’s issue, too. What was it with men not being satisfied with only one woman? At least Harper knew that about Brandon up front, as opposed to Allison, who hadn’t had the advantage of finding out until it was too late.

  “I’ll pass, thank you. I’m done with men who don’t know the meaning of fidelity.”

  “Amen to that.”

  After a moment’s debate, Allison asked. “What’s Brandon’s combat wound?”

  Harper didn’t take her eyes off him when she answered. “He lost his right leg when an IED blew up the armored vehicle he was riding in.”

  Allison blinked in shock. Brandon skated like a pro. She would’ve never guessed in a million years that he was wearing a prosthetic leg. “You can’t even tell he’s suffering a war wound.”

  “None of them are exactly suffering, and they’d kill you if they heard you use that term,” Harper said.

  “Understood. Suffering was the wrong word. More like thriving. He really is remarkable.”

  “Agreed,” said Harper. “Even if he is a player of the worst variety.”

  A buzzer sounded, signaling the start of the game. Katie whimpered, clearly not a fan of the buzzer, but settled down as soon as the players taking the drop gathered around the circle in the center of the rink. Katie’s attention remained glued to the rink. It was nice, for a change, not to be her sole source of entertainment.

  Theo was the Bomb Squad teammate taking the drop. He had yet to acknowledge her presence, which wasn’t a surprise even if it was a disappointment. But there was no time to dwell on that. The whistle sounded, the puck dropped, and play began.

  Chapter Eight

  Harper hadn’t been kidding when she’d told Allison the day before that Destiny Falls took its hockey seriously. A beer league, this was not. The game was intense and so were the spectators. The caliber of the players’ skills, on both teams, made it difficult to remember that this was only a weeknight men’s league game.

  Katie loved the noise, movement, and energy of the rink. Theo and the game held both their interests captive. He was a magnificent player, easily the best on Bomb Squad, though Brandon was a close second. Both men executed jaw-dropping spins around Brockport’s defense and shots on goal so fast and perfectly placed that they s
eemed to travel through the goalie’s arms and pads and into the goal.

  More than once, she’d wished for instant replays because Theo’s moves were so fast and sly. He was so good, she had no doubt he could have been a professional if he’d wanted. By the end of the second period, Katie had used up all her energy and had fallen fast asleep, while Theo had racked up one goal and one assist to Brandon, two stints in the penalty box, and three shots blocked.

  As far as she could tell, Duke worked Theo mostly on the offensive line, but he also sent him out, along with Will, when he needed enforcers. Both Will and Theo were physical players, despite the league’s no-touch policy that Harper had leaned over and explained to her after Theo checked a Brockport player into the wall early on in the third period. A whistle was blown and a penalty levied against him, his third of the game.

  He assumed a seat in the box on the other side of Harper, his body dripping sweat, his eyes pointed forward, never once turning his head their way, which was fine with Allison because she had no idea how to respond to him. What expression did one give to an employee crush who hated your guts as he sat in a penalty box? She could flip him the bird. That would probably be the most appropriate gesture, given their relationship.

  Actually, she knew what would annoy him the most. A wave and a thumbs-up, something peppy and friendly. That would really get him. She rose, her arm around a sleeping Katie in the baby pouch, ready to make her move.

  Then he was on his feet, his mouth guard back in. He looked her way as he shot out of the box, his expression aggressive, his whole being radiating a brutish virility. Their gazes locked. Her toes curled in her boots. She may have stopped breathing, but she wasn’t sure because all she was aware of was how utterly, deliciously turned on she was.

  Then he was off, across the ice, back in the game. Allison lowered slowly to her chair, recovering her wits.

  She’d thought she wanted a man to look at her the way Brandon had looked at Harper, but forget about that. This was what she wanted. She wanted to be looked at the way Theo had just looked at her, except by a man who wanted her. A man who did that right before he pinned her to the wall, ripped her clothes off, and gave her the hard, passionate sex she’d been missing out on her whole adult life.