Smoke Signals (30 page)

I changed into my gear, other than taping up my socks, and took a seat at my stall to finish getting ready for the game. I taped up a few sticks to have them ready for use, in case I broke one. Then I tied and retied my laces—an old habit that I doubted I’d ever break. Maybe it was a bit of superstition. All I knew was that the last time I’d played a game without doing that, my laces had broken while I was on the ice, and I could barely skate off for a line change. Finally, once everything else was done, I set to work taping my socks in the same way I always did—taping, removing it, and then taping them again.

“Fucking superstitions,” Slava muttered.

“Fucking surly Russians,” I replied.

“Not all surly,” Dima called from across the room.

I busted up laughing. “I hope you’re not trying to say you aren’t a crabby douche canoe, because you’re the grumpiest son of a bitch I’ve ever come across.”

He winked at me—the first time I’d ever seen him do something of the sort, which made me wonder if his eyelid would get a cramp—and he
almost
cracked a grin. “Grumpy son of bitch with proposition.”

“The last Russian who propositioned me ended up being my wife. Not sure you can beat that deal.”

“Not marrying your ugly ass.”

“Thank God for small blessings.”

“Need help for raising money for paraplegic athletes,” he said. “In December. Sledge hockey game for charity I told you about before.”

That one took me by surprise. I’d known he was thinking about doing something, but the fact that he was actually recruiting people now meant it was going to happen. It wasn’t just a possibility for some time in the future that might not actually come to pass.

“What do you want me to do? Be one of the coaches?” I hadn’t ever done anything like coaching before, but it couldn’t be too hard. I mean, Katie’s dad Webs was a coach, for fuck’s sake. And this was for some charity event, so it wasn’t going to be like real coaching. I’d just stand behind the bench, talking with whoever was sitting there.

He muttered something in Russian that had Slava snorting in laughter beside me. Using words he hadn’t yet taught me, no less. “You’re not coach,” Dima said. “Need you to play.”

“On a sled?”

“I’m doing it, too. I need at least a few other NHL guys so people will pay to watch. Rest will be experienced sledge players.”

“Right.” I fought to avoid rolling my eyes. Why the hell did he think he needed to rope me into something like this? I had enough on my plate sorting out Tori’s issues, which Dima knew better than any of the other guys, since he and Tori talked some. “So why me? And how is this supposed to be good for me?”

“You can do it as thank you. For helping Viktoriya and teaching you to speak Russian.”

“Seriously?”

“Better than marrying me, right?”

It was a hell of a lot better than marrying his grouchy ass. Still, I laughed.

I still had a smile on my face when the puck dropped.

We were playing the Stars tonight, a divisional rival loaded with high-end, top-tier forwards. They’d started their top line of Seguin, Benn, and Nichushkin, and all three of them were already bearing down on me with the puck.

Benn flew down the wing on my side, carrying the puck on his stick. Our forwards were still in the neutral zone, so it was just me and Slava against three of the most potent offensive threats in the league.

I churned my legs, staying with my guy and keeping an inside lane on him.

He passed the puck to Seguin, keeping it just beyond the reach of my outstretched stick. Nichushkin barreled in on our goal, banging his stick on the ice and shouting for the puck, but Slava had that lane closed off. Seguin could either shoot himself—the most likely scenario—or pass it back to Benn.

Split-second decision time.

He made his move, and I dropped to the ice to block the pass, trusting Hunter to make the save if Seguin chose to shoot.

The puck hit me in the ribs, and I managed to brush it out from under me with my glove and get my stick on it to send it out of the zone toward Drew, whose stick was on the ice waiting for it.

Slava joined the rush while I tried to get my ass off the ice and back in the play. By the time I was on my skates again, the red light was flashing and war drums reverberated through the arena.

Holy shit
.

We scored within the first minute of play in the season. I never saw that one coming.

Things were looking up.

SOMEHOW, WE ACTUALLY
won the game. I still wasn’t sure how we’d managed it almost an hour after the final horn had sounded, followed by the cacophony of war drums.

I would put my money on it having a hell of a lot more to do with the Stars imploding for the night than with us having our shit together, as three of our four goals had come as a result of their defensive miscues, and their offense had been so potent that they should have scored at least ten goals if not for Hunter standing on his head.

Any way we looked at it, though, we were all happy to walk away with the win. The big question now was whether we’d be able to do it again in a few days against a different opponent.

I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

That was the trick with this whole hockey thing. One game didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. We had eighty-one more to go before the season was over, and luck wasn’t going to be enough to make us look like a good team. Professional hockey wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Most of the rest of the guys had already left for the night, but I was still in the locker room talking with Dima about his sledge game and sorting out details for that. Apparently, he didn’t just want me to play—he wanted me to help him plan the whole shebang. “You’re better at talking to people than me,” he said.

And that was a good enough reason to drag me into it? I couldn’t wrap my head around his decision-making on this one. But Tori was waiting, so I convinced Dima we could hammer out the rest of it later…and maybe I could convince him to have someone else plan it with him. I’d never organized any sort of event before—not even Tori’s birthday party, yet, and that was right around the corner. I wasn’t sure I was the right guy for him to peg for this task.

He came with me up to the wives’ room so he could keep yammering in my ear, his words a half-Russian, half-English combination that was oddly starting to sound normal to me. I nodded as we went along, storing away details about what he wanted to do in case I couldn’t weasel my way out of it.

I’d expected the room to be virtually empty when we got there, but half a dozen guys and their wives were still around, and even a slew of kids. Not only that, but everyone was huddled in a big circle, the kids on the outskirts with wide eyes, and people were shouting to make themselves heard. Not at all what I’d been expecting. Worried about the possibility of Tori being caught up in that, I pushed my way in with Dima right behind me.

Mrs. Jernigan and Tori were right in the middle. Mrs. J had a hand on Tori’s upper arm. Tori was in tears.

In shock, I stopped short at first. What the fuck was she doing with her hands on my wife? Everyone was shouting so much that I couldn’t make out what was happening. But I couldn’t just stand by. Tori needed me. I forced my way to the center.

Tori’s eyes landed on me. Pain filled them, and not just the physical sort of pain.

Rage billowed up through my gut, and I took another step, not sure what I intended to do. Before I could do anything, Tallie stepped into my path, passed her baby into my arms, and said, “Take Harper over there, and act like you’ve got some sense. Let me deal with that bitch.” She pointed to a corner well away from the mass of bodies. Then she spun around and pried Mrs. Jernigan’s fingers free from Tori’s arm.

I couldn’t move, though. If I did, I’d be handing the baby off to someone else and doing something I probably shouldn’t do to the team owner’s wife. Probably why Tallie had given me the kid in the first place—to stop me from being an idiot.

Harper started fussing. I didn’t know what to do about a fussy baby, but no one else was paying any attention to the little girl in my arms. I settled on bouncing her up and down, since I’d seen Tallie do that a few times. It didn’t seem to help, but I didn’t know what else to do so I kept going with it while I tried to figure out what the fuck I’d just walked into.

“I told her she needed to stay away from team events,” Mrs. Jernigan shouted. She waved her cell phone around. “Look at this! Just look. The church is never going to recover from the scandal. My email is overflowing with concerned messages from our members, wondering how I could allow a porn star to be involved with the team in any way. And the phone calls! My phone’s been ringing off the hook. It’s bad enough all these players can’t seem to watch their mouths, but—”

“You’d think they’d have something better to do with their time,” Tallie cut in before Mrs. J could build up a head of steam. “And it’s not like Tori’s getting naked and doing the deed on top of the Zamboni during intermission while everyone watches.”

“Why, I never!”

“It’s not such a big deal,” Tallie said. “It’s over. It’s in the past. She’s not doing anything wrong. She and Razor are a perfectly respectable couple. Besides, Hunter and I recovered from far worse. Actually,
you
were one of the people who helped us get past what people were saying about us. How about you try doing something like that again? Or better yet, get your nose out of other people’s business. I’m sure there are plenty of other things you could be spending your time doing, other than getting involved with the team members’ private lives.”

The preacher’s wife recovered enough to cross her arms in front of her, snapping her head to look at Hunter before turning back to Tallie. “Honey child, I wouldn’t say you two
recovered
from it. You should hear what the ladies’ group is saying about you when you’re not there.”

Tallie snorted. “Well, I’m not worried about what they think of me, but maybe you and Mr. J shouldn’t have bought a hockey team. Because I can promise you, Jesus couldn’t care less how many goals these boys score. He just wants you to preach the gospel to the people who need to hear it. I don’t know how owning a hockey team is helping you do that. Besides, all the guys want to do is play hockey, not make your church look good. They didn’t sign contracts stating they’d spread the good news. They signed contracts to play hockey.”

“They’re representatives of our church now, whether they want to be or not.”

“I think maybe you should’ve thought of that before. It’s too late now. And you know what? They’re just men. They’re regular, everyday, ordinary men, and they have real lives. They cuss, and they say stupid things in front of reporters when they shouldn’t, and every now and then one of them marries a porn star.”

I struggled not to laugh over that part. She made it sound like it was something that was likely to happen again. And who knew? Maybe it would. Maybe I wouldn’t be the only one.

Tallie looked like she was just getting started. “You’re just going to have to deal with it. And it could always be worse. Tori and Razor could be showing up at your church and passing out videos or something.” Tallie paused for a moment, bouncing up on her heels. She turned and winked at me before facing Mrs. J again. “Actually, that’s a great idea. I’m going to see if I can help them out with that.”

Mrs. Jernigan’s eyes went wide. I doubted anyone had ever given her an earful like that before, and certainly not someone who had grown up in their church like Tallie had. And she might even be taking Tallie’s suggestion about the video seriously. But then she pinched her lips together and made another grab for my wife’s arm.

Even though I still had the baby in my arms, I stepped forward to put an end to that. Mom beat me to it. She stepped in, making sure no one laid another finger on Tori. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that my mother was there until I saw her physically move between Tori and the preacher’s wife, right beside Tallie.

Tori backed away, but she bumped into Dima. He steadied her and gave me a nod, a silent means of letting me know he wasn’t going to let a fucking thing happen to her. Which was good, since I had a baby in my arms, who was currently drooling all over my jacket, and I wasn’t in any position to do more than I already was. At least the baby wasn’t crying anymore, and Tori felt safe enough with Dima.

“Now you listen to me,” Mom said, pushing a finger toward Mrs. J like she was going to stab her with it. “I don’t know you. I don’t
care
to know you. I don’t give a flying fuck who you are, but you’ve got to get one thing straight.”

Mrs. J’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head with that last bit from my mother. I silently cheered Mom on.

“Here’s what you need to get your brain wrapped around. You might own this team, but you do
not
own the men who play for you. They are contracted to do a job, and as long as they do those jobs and comport themselves in a professional manner, that’s the end of it. You don’t get to tell them who they can and can’t marry. You can’t tell them how to spend their free time. You definitely don’t get to tell their wives and girlfriends what to do, because those women aren’t bound to
you
in any way. You’re not God, and thank God for that because if you were, I’d worry for us all. Because holy fucking shit, lady, you’re a judgmental piece of work. So you just step back from my daughter-in-law, and you keep your damn hands to yourself before I take matters into my own hands or get the cops involved. I’m sure
that
would go over really well with all your uppity church members who think they’re better than her just because they’ve never had to make a choice out of desperation.”

This just proved, yet again, that my mom was the best mom in the world. Hands down. There wasn’t even any competition.

But then Mr. Jernigan stepped into the room, and things got really quiet. He pushed his way to the center and put an arm around his wife’s back. “Sharon? Is there a problem?” he asked her.

Mom answered him first, before his wife could get a word in. “There is a problem. Your wife seems to think she can manhandle my daughter-in-law and kick her out because of things in her past.”