True Love and Other Disasters (8 page)

The magazine had come out a month before Virgil’s death, and she thumbed past a story on Jeremy Roenick to the center of the magazine. On the
right side was a color photo of Ty appearing bare chested. He had his hands behind his head and his chest was rippled with clearly defined muscles. In black ink, his last name was tattooed down his side from just below his armpit to the waistband of his jeans. She had a Playboy bunny inked in the small of her back. It had hurt like crazy, and she couldn’t imagine getting a tattoo the size of Ty’s.

Looking at his photo, if she didn’t know better, she’d think she was staring at a “hunk of the month” calender. The shot was from the waist up and only the hint of a smile curved his mouth. The left side of the center spread was filled with columns of career stats with the byline “Saint or Traitor?” superimposed on the impressive list going back to his days in the minors. The article began:

Faith smiled. She knew exactly what the reporter was talking about. No one did surly better than Ty.

Faith looked up from the magazine. Ty laughs? She’d been around him several times in the past few weeks, and the man had barely cracked a smile.

She returned her gaze to the
Hockey News
in her lap and turned the page. She looked at the photos of Ty colliding center ice with a Flyer, and of him scoring a goal against Pittsburgh.

A few rows behind Faith, she heard the shuffle of newspaper mixed with the low hum of deep male voices. If Virgil had thought Ty was worth 30 million, then he was, and more.

Faith closed the magazine. Somehow she doubted Ty had been talking about those Sac poof chairs.

A warm breeze blew through the San Jose airport, bringing with it the smell of asphalt and jet
fuel. Ty climbed down the steps of the BAC-111 and walked across the tarmac. He unbuttoned his team blazer, shoved his hands into the pockets of his wool pants, and made his way to the chartered bus.

“That’s my Louie hatbox.”

He glanced toward the cargo hold of the plane, where Mrs. Duffy stood, the wind whipping the tails of her black coat about her knees.

“And that’s the matching wheelie,” she added, pointing into the bay.

Jules took a big Louis Vuitton suitcase and a round case with a loop handle from one of the equipment managers who stood at the cargo bay unloading bags and equipment.

Ty glanced at the faces around him. Through the lenses of his sunglasses, he could see the guy’s confusion. He felt it too. Why did a two-day trip require two pieces of luggage? Especially a hatbox? How many hats could one woman wear in forty-eight hours?

He boarded the bus and took an aisle seat toward the front. Until she’d walked onto the plane in Seattle, he and the guys hadn’t even known she was traveling with them. Outside the window, Ty watched her move across the tarmac toward Darby. The loop of her hatbox circled one wrist and she shoved a pair of big sunglasses on her face. Her blonde hair slid across her cheek and
she raised her free hand to push it behind one ear. The flight from Washington had been quiet. Too quiet for a group of guys who excelled at talking trash at 35,000 feet. If she hadn’t been on the flight, they would have questioned the paternity of several San Jose players, and they would have broken out the cards for air poker. Frankie was down five hundred bucks, and Ty was sure the sniper wanted a chance to get some of it back. Little had Ty known that when he’d suggested they all play poker as a way to bond, it would turn into a never-ending game.

“I’d pay a lot of money to see her on a stripper pole again,” Sam said as he slid into the window seat next to Ty. “Maybe busting out of a short little nurse’s outfit.” He sighed like he was in the middle of some porn fantasy. “And those clear plastic shoes they all wear. And an ankle bracelet. I love a lady in an ankle bracelet.”

“You should probably give up on that dream, Rocky,” Ty said, using Sam’s nickname. “Especially since she owns you, eh?”

Sam unbuttoned his jacket. “I don’t mind that she owns us. Not like some of the guys. She’s surrounded by a lot of smart people who won’t let her make a huge mistake. I remember Jules from five years ago. He knows a lot about hockey. Back then he was a pudgy guy with a mullet. He hadn’t come out of the closet yet.”

More players piled on the bus, and Ty looked out the window as Faith nodded at something Jules said to her. “He claims he’s not gay.”

“Really.” Sam shrugged. “I had a cousin who dressed like that in the nineties. He wasn’t gay either.” Sam shrugged. “But he was from Long Island,” he added as if that explained it. He turned his face and looked out the window. “What do you suppose she’s got in the box? Handcuffs? Whips? French maid uniform?”

Ty chuckled. “I’d guess hats.”

“Why would a woman need that many hats?”

Now it was Ty’s turn to shrug. “I’ve never been married.” In fact, he’d only come close to it once. That is, if he counted the time his old girlfriend, LuAnn, had proposed to
him
. Though he didn’t know if that even counted, because he’d run screaming in the other direction. He wasn’t against marriage. For other people.

“Well, my ex never carried a hatbox around when she traveled.”

“I didn’t know you were married.” He looked up as Coach Nystrom and goalie coach Don Boclair stepped into the bus.

“Yeah. Been divorced five years. I have a little boy. His mamma just couldn’t handle the life, ya know.”

He knew. The divorce rate for hockey players was high. They were gone for half of the long
season, and it took a strong woman to stay at home while her man was on the road working hard, living large, and fending off puck bunnies.

Or not. Being married to a hockey player had made Ty’s mother crazy, or so she’d claimed. Or perhaps she’d already been crazy, as his father claimed. Who knew? The only thing for certain was that she’d died of a toxic cocktail of Klonopin, Xanax, Lexapro, and Ambien. The doctors had called it an accidental overdose. Ty wasn’t convinced. His mother’s life had always been one long emotional roller coaster, and whether she’d been born with a mental illness or had been driven to it, the result had been the same. Ty’s mother had battled depression that had ended her life. He wasn’t worried that he’d end up sad and depressed like his mother. He worried that he was too much like his father to care.

Ty pulled back the thick sleeve of his coat and looked at his watch. It was a little after eight o’clock in Seattle and he wondered what his dad was going to do while he was gone. Other than what he always did: drink all Ty’s beer and watch ESPN. It had been two weeks now since Pavel had shown up at his door. Over two weeks of his father practicing his backswing or hanging out at strip clubs. Over two weeks, and it didn’t seem like his dad was planning on leaving anytime soon.

The door to the bus opened and Jules entered,
followed by Faith. The assistant moved to sit by the window, while Faith took a seat across the aisle and two rows up from Ty. She set her hatbox on her lap and placed her hands on the sides. The light caught on her huge platinum and diamond wedding ring and shone on her red nails.

Just as before, when she had stepped on the plane, silence descended like a heavy brick wall. Singly and collectively, every hockey player on the bus had been around a lot of beautiful women. They’d been around a lot of strippers. Some of them had even been to parties at the Playboy Mansion. But for some reason, this former stripper turned playmate made all those cocky hockey players tongue-tied. Probably it was because she had so much power over them. More than likely it was because she was stunning. Or it was both.

“Listen up, boys.” Coach Nystrom stood at the front of the bus. “We have practice this afternoon and then you’re on your own until light practice tomorrow morning. We have an important game tomorrow night; I don’t need to tell you all to stay out of trouble.” He sat in the first row. “Okay, bussie,” he said. “Let’s move out.” The driver closed the door and the bus rolled across the tarmac.

The San Jose Marriott was in the heart of downtown and not far from the HP Pavilion. On the short drive to the hotel, Ty folded his arms across the front of his wool jacket and watched the sun
hitting the buildings and lighting up rows of palm trees. It was still early in the playoffs, but a win against the Sharks tomorrow night was very important. After practice today, he wanted to review game tapes of the San Jose defense and their goalie, Evgeni Nabokov. In last night’s game, Nabokov had stopped twenty-three shots on goal. He was cool under pressure and consistent, but even cool, consistent goalies had bad nights. Ty’s job was to make him wish they’d sent in the rookie.

A few rows up, Faith slid her hand up the sides of her hatbox, over the top, and then back down. Her long thin fingers brushed the Louis Vuitton monogram, back and forth, caressing it like a lover. Her shiny red nails scraped the hard surface, and Ty’s scalp got tight, as if she’d touched him again.

“Jesus H,” Ty whispered and leaned his head back. He was tired and his right ankle hurt like a bitch. He had a game against the Sharks to think about, and his old man was making him nuts. And thanks to Sam, one prevailing thought pushed everything out of his head: What the hell was in the damned hatbox? Sam might fantasize about nurses, but Ty was a lingerie man. He loved lacy garters and thigh-high stockings on a pair of smooth thighs.

B
eing a trophy wife had been hard work. It had been more than champagne wishes and caviar dreams. It had been always looking perfect and going to country clubs and parties that you learned to enjoy. It meant sometimes socializing with people you might not like and who might not like you. Although Virgil had become Faith’s best friend, he’d always been the boss. There was never any doubt about it, but after being responsible for her own survival for so long, it had been nice to let someone else take care of her. To kick back and not worry about paying her bills. To have her biggest concern of the day involve which dress to wear to the Rainier Club.

Virgil had never made her do anything she’d felt strongly against, but he’d been in charge. The captain of his life, and for the most part, hers. She’d dressed to fit into his life, and she’d learned about perception and image. She’d learned subtlety. That sexy had more to do with what you covered up than what you let hang out. It was more than skintight clothes and flashy makeup—something her mother had yet to learn.

For the first time in years, Faith went shopping that afternoon to please herself and no one else. She hit the streets of downtown San Jose and shopped at Burberry and BCBG and Ferragamo. She shopped the more edgy designs by Gucci and a new, up-and-coming French designer. She bought casual clothes from Diesel in colors she hadn’t worn in years. She bought soft cotton T-shirts and jeans. She bought hoodies that she intended to wear for occasions other than to work out. By the time she was finished, it was six hours later and her feet hurt.

The sun had set. She waited next to the curb by Cole Haan for a town car to pick her up. Her cell phone rang and she dug it out of the depths of her Fendi tote.

“Some of the guys are at an Irish pub a few blocks from the hotel,” Jules said into her ear. “You need to go in there and have a drink with them.”

“What?” She’d spent the morning spying on the Sharks’ practice with Jules and the afternoon shopping. “I’m exhausted.”

“It’s a good way for the guys to get to know you. In case you didn’t notice, they’re kind of uptight when you’re around.”

Two teenage girls with complicated haircuts, tight black pants, and thick eyeliner walked past. They looked at her mountain of bags with sad emo eyes and shook their sad emo heads at her disgusting display of consumer greed. “I noticed, but I don’t know what to say to them.”

“Just be yourself.”

That was a problem. She wasn’t sure who she was anymore.

“I know you can be witty and charming,” he said, clearly lying. “Let them see a bit of who you are. Other than the owner of the team and a former playmate and Las Vegas stripper. Which is how they see you now.” He paused and added a quick, “No offense intended.”

The town car rolled up to the curb and she waved it to a stop. “None taken.” She was never offended by the truth. And the truth was that the last time she’d been in the same room with that many athletes, they’d been stuffing money in her G-string and trying to cop a feel.

“You need to develop a rapport with them.
Make them feel comfortable around you while they keep a healthy respect for you as the owner of the Chinooks.”

Which sounded fairly tricky. “Could you put these all in the trunk?” she directed the driver. She hooked her pinky finger in the cuff of her light wool jacket and looked at her watch. “It’s almost seven.”

“I know. Happy hour is over soon, so you need to get your butt in there.”

She wanted nothing more than to take a nice, long soak in the spa tub, put on a fluffy hotel bathrobe, and order room service. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” The driver opened the door for her and she climbed inside.

“I’m in the lobby waiting for you. We need to go over a few things before we go to the pub.”

“What? Why?”

“While you spent the afternoon shopping, I went to Chinooks practice and I took some notes.”

“I’m tired. I’ve hit the wall. I can’t absorb any more information. You need to relax a little.” The driver got into the car and she gave him the address of the hotel. “I’m not paying you by the hour, Jules.”

“You said you don’t want to look stupid in front of the guys.”

“Fine,” Faith moaned. “You can talk to me about
it while I change my clothes.” There was a long pause. “I have to change, Jules. I’ve been wearing the same clothes since this morning.”

“I told you I’m not gay.”

She frowned as the car pulled out of the huge parking lot. “I know.”

“You can’t change in front of me,” he said, his tone a bit scolding. “That isn’t professional.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was planning on changing in the bathroom.”

The Irish pub claimed to be the most authentic in San Jose. Ty didn’t care about “authentic” as he sat in a room near the back with ten of his teammates, eating shepherd’s pie and drinking a pint of Guinness. The playoffs beards around him ranged from Vlad’s outer Siberian scraggle to Logan’s baby fuzz. Ty had his share of superstitions; itchy beards just weren’t one of them.

“The Sharks’ offense is all speed and no seed,” said Ty, while U2’s “With or Without You” wafted from the pub’s sound system. He took a drink of the dark ale then licked the corners of his mouth. He’d spent that morning and part of the afternoon practice watching San Jose game tapes, and he was less concerned about their scoring than he was about their defense. “Speed might entertain the crowd, but it doesn’t put pucks in the net.
Clowe is their highest scorer, but he’s not setting any records with his goals or his points.”

“Defense is good.” Frankie “Sniper” Kawczynski took a bite of his sirloin. “If Nabokov is in his zone, he might be hard to score against.”

Sam grinned. “I like a challenge.”

Ty took one last bite and shoved his plate away. “If Marty plays like he did the other night,” he said, referring to their own goalie, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t beat ’em with our offense
and
defense.”

Alexander Devereaux stood and tossed money on the table. “I’m meeting up with some of the guys at a bar across town. I heard they have good music and hot waitresses in little outfits.” He reached for his leather jacket hanging on the back of his chair. “Anyone want to catch a cab with me?”

Ty shook his head. Even if his ankle hadn’t been aching like a son of a bitch, he wouldn’t have gone. He’d done his time in hundreds of bars in hundreds of cities, and he’d figured out a while ago that he wasn’t missing a thing.

Daniel and Logan stood and reached for their wallets. “I’m in.”

“Me too.” Vlad tossed two twenties on the table. “Cali-forn-ya girlz need zome Vlad.”

Ty laughed. “Don’t drop your pants on the dance floor and scare the ‘Cali-forn-ya’ girls.” More than
one American woman had run screaming from Vlad’s uncircumcised impaler.

“I don’t do zhat no more.” Vlad’s deep Russian laughter mixed with the ending strains of U2. Vladimir Fetisov had been playing in the NHL for ten years and had seen more than his share of action on and off the ice. A few years back, he’d been involved with a little figure skater. She must not have minded the impaler.

She had been Yugoslavian, though.

“You guys be careful,” Ty felt compelled to say. As the captain, he had to look out for his guys. “You don’t want to get busted with an underage rink rat. And don’t come to practice with your ass dragging because you drank too much and hooked up with someone you met in a bar. In fact, those late-night hookups can really take it out of you. Maybe it’s best to save your energy for the game.”

They all just laughed as they walked away. Two waitresses cleared the table and wiped it down for Ty and the five remaining guys. He ordered another Guinness and kicked back as Sam and Blake got into the age-old argument over the best game ever played in NHL history.

“1971,” Sam insisted. “Game Two of the first-round playoffs between Boston and Montreal.”

“U.S. kicking some Soviet ass in the 1980 Olym
pics,” argued Blake, the all-American boy from Wisconsin.

“Actually,” Jules said as he approached the table, “it was 1994. New York and New Jersey. Last game in the Eastern Cup finals. Messier’s shorthanded goal with less than two minutes on the clock was the best moment in NHL history.”

Ty looked up. “1996,” he said. “Game Four of the conference quarter finals between Pittsburgh and Washington. That game went into four overtimes, with the Pens finally winning after a hundred and forty minutes of brutal hockey.” He slid his gaze to the woman walking up behind Jules. A pair of black wool pants hugged her butt and fell loosely down her long legs to her red pumps. Tiny pearl buttons closed the black fuzzy sweater covering her large breasts, and her gold hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore huge diamonds in her ears and her lips were painted a deep red. She looked gorgeous and classy. Nothing like a stripper. So, why did he have a vision of her ripping the front of her sweater apart and tossing it to him? It was those damn pictures of her naked.

Ty stood. “Hello, Mrs. Duffy.”

“Hello, Mr. Savage,” she said above the noise and music in the pub. Her gaze rested on him for several moments before she turned her attention
to the other men rising to their feet. “Hello, gentlemen. Do you mind if we join you?”

Ty simply shrugged as he took his seat once more. The other five guys tripped all over themselves to assure her they’d love to have her take a seat, which Ty knew for a fact was complete bullshit.

“What did you do with yourself all day, Mrs. Duffy?” Blake asked in an effort to engage the owner.

“Well, I hit downtown San Jose and ran up my credit cards.” She took a seat next to Ty and reached for the menu. “I shopped till I dropped. I found the most wonderful sweater at BCBG. It’s fuchsia.” Two slim fingers, with those shiny red nails, slid down the menu. “And the coolest leather coat at Gucci. It’s scarlet. Normally I would never wear such bright colors. They’re just too bold and scream ‘look at me.’ Like waving and jumping up and down in a crowd to get attention.” Her fingers stopped near the bottom of the menu. “And I haven’t bought leather…well, except shoes and bags, in years. But…” She shrugged. “I’ve decided to live dangerously. Which would explain the sheer madness of the thigh-high boots and the matching lambskin hobo. The last thing I need is another hobo.” She looked up at the men staring back at her with varying degrees of stunned faces.
“I’ll have the grilled salmon and a Guinness,” she told the waitress who’d approached during her babbling onslaught. Ty didn’t know if she was nervous or drunk or both.

Jules ordered a steak and a Harp’s from his seat across the table. “The poor bellman had to cart all that stuff up to your room.”

“I tipped him well.” She handed the menu to the waitress. “But it wasn’t until I spread everything out in the room that I realized that there might not be enough space in the jet’s cargo hold for all my bags.”

“Oh. Ah,” Johan Karlsson managed to utter.

She looked at them all, green eyes shining, and flashed a beautiful smile with her straight white teeth and full red lips. Ty could almost hear their collective gulps. “You-all don’t mind if we leave some of your equipment behind. Do you?”

“Like what?” Sam asked as he raised his beer. “We don’t travel with unnecessary baggage.” He took a drink, then added, “Unless you count Jules over there. Pound for pound, he takes up a lot of wasted space.”

“Pound for pound,” Jules jumped in, “your ego takes up a lot of wasted space.”

Faith tilted her head and seemed to consider it. “No, I need Jules. But you-all don’t need that many sticks.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I figure one apiece is good. Am I right?”

There was a collected inhalation of horrified breath. Everyone knew that a man’s stick was sacred, honed for hours until the curve was just right. Not even for a former Playmate of the Year who just happened to be the owner of the team would these players willingly leave them behind. Pads and helmets? Yeah. Their sticks, no way.

The hockey players at the table cast uncertain glances at Ty as if they expected the captain to step in and do something. Like maybe give her a glove rub.

Faith laughed. “I was just kidding, you guys.” She waved away their concerns, flashing the huge rock she still wore on her left finger. “If there isn’t enough room, I’ll have the hotel ship everything.”

Ty almost smiled. No one could bullshit and get the uninitiated going like a hockey player. As a bullshitter, Mrs. Duffy wasn’t great, but she wasn’t bad for a rookie.

“Jules and I watched the Sharks practice,” she said as her beer arrived. “We were up in the skybox with binoculars. It was all very undercover hush-hush secret-agent stuff.” She took a drink and licked the foam off her top lip. “They seem to have a lot of speed, but I’m not convinced they can shoot the puck as well as we can.”

Ty felt his brows rise up his forehead.

“I think we have them beat on offense,” she
added as she leaned back and folded her arms beneath her breasts. “We’re better delivering tape to tape and capitalizing on turnovers.”

Sam looked at Ty as if an alien had just landed at their table. A sexy-as-hell alien who talked about hockey and sounded like maybe she knew what she was talking about. Just a few weeks ago, she’d wanted to sign Terrible Ted. He wondered if she even had a clue what she’d just said.

“Ah, yeah,” Sam managed. “We were just talking about how we need to beat them offensively and hammer their goalie.”

Above the smell of food and beer, Ty caught the scent of her perfume. He recognized it from the other night at the photo shoot.

“I don’t know a lot about their goalie.” She raised one hand and toyed with the top button of her sweater. “But I’ve read that he isn’t consistent.”

“Don’t believe what you read,” Ty told her. She looked across her shoulder at him and her green eyes stared into his. “That’s where a lot of people make mistakes.”

“Believing what they read?”

“Yeah.”

“I read that you’re persona non grata in Canada. Is that true?”

“Pretty much.”

“I also read that you think the Stanley Cup will come down to who wants it more.”