Ice Breaker

I have a surprise for you. :) In fact, it's not just a surprise. It's a free gift.

I'm going to be giving away a free short story called Ice Breaker to all my newsletter subscribers.

Ice Breaker is part of the Portland Storm series. It's a prequel to the whole series, in a sense. And it's the story of how Jamie Babcock and Katie Weber first met, back when they were both blushing, adorable teenagers.

In this short story, you'll get an early glimpse at some of the recurring characters in the series: Babs, Katie, Webs, Razor, Zee, Jim, Jonny, and others. I think you'll love it. I know I loved writing it. ;)

Ice Breaker will not ever be available for sale. You won't be able to find it at Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, or any other ebook retailer. I won't ever have print copies to give out at book signings or reader conventions. You won't be able to download it from my website. The ONLY way you can get your hands on it is to sign up for my newsletter.

I should have it available sometime in the next couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, if you want to be sure you get it as soon as I send it out, sign up here.

Bury the Hatchet - Sneak Peek - Chapter One

It's almost here! The release of BURY THE HATCHET is only a few weeks away. And that means it's time for another sneak peek.

If you like what you read below, be sure you pre-order your copy! BURY THE HATCHET releases on July 9, and you can order it now at Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and All Romance eBooks. Add it to your Goodreads shelf now if you haven't already done so.

Here's the first chapter. Also, keep reading all the way to the very end for some other exciting news.
Enjoy!



HUNTER

The August sun in Tulsa was intense enough to melt my bones, hotter even than the water I’d recently found myself in after making a few drunken, pissed-off, and ill-advised comments in Vegas last month. I’d been there for the NHL Awards, hoping to celebrate one of my buddies from the goalie guild winning the Vezina Trophy.

I didn’t quite make it to that part of the awards presentation because my agent, John Stine, had slipped over to whisper some unwelcome news in my ear. An expansion draft had taken place earlier in the day so the league’s new team, the Tulsa Thunderbirds, could stock up on players for their debut season. I’d known that was going on, of course. Everyone did. I also knew my team had left me unprotected, meaning it was almost guaranteed that I’d get claimed by the new team since I was far and away the best goaltender left in limbo. Sure enough, I was the first player the Thunderbirds selected.

So instead of battling it out for the starting gig against Nicky Ericsson, another goalie with the Portland Storm, I was heading to Oklahoma to play for a team that would unquestionably be appallingly bad for many years to come. The Storm were a legitimate threat to win the Stanley Cup these days. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly excited about this latest development in my career.

After getting the news and being assured there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, I’d spent the rest of the night in the hotel bar, drowning my sorrows in an unending series of tequila shots. It was just my luck that half the contingent of hockey media present was hanging out just outside the bar. They stopped me when John finally hauled my sorry ass out of there, blinding my bleary eyes with their lights and shoving their damn microphones in my face.

Hunter, what do you think about the news that you’ll be playing for the Thunderbirds next season? they’d asked. It’s a real coup that they were able to claim a star goaltender like you in the expansion draft.

John should have jerked my ass away from them right then and there and said something along the lines of Mr. Fielding isn’t taking any questions right now. But he’d been distracted by a phone call from one of his other clients who’d been plucked up in the expansion draft, and I’d shoved my foot so far down my own throat that I should have choked on it and died.

Who the fuck wants to play in a goddamned backasswards place like Tulsa, and for a fucking upstart, no less? I’d replied, ignoring the fact that it might be aired on live TV and the censors would have to bleep me out, oblivious to the harm I was causing myself with a few simple words. Truth or not, sometimes it was better to bite your tongue.

At that point, John disconnected his call and shoved the mics away from me. Too late. The damage had already been done. The words had left my mouth and been caught on film. I couldn’t take them back. I was just going to have to face the consequences.

That was a little over a month ago, and now I had to pay the piper for my inebriated lack of common sense. That was why I was here now. I’d come to Tulsa to meet with the Thunderbirds brass. They wanted to figure out a plan for getting the fans—as if there were any fans to be found here—on my side. Or so they said. I was just waiting to hear what my penance would be for my perceived crimes, and the team’s executives and coaches were apparently my judge and jury.

The second I stepped outside the airport into the blistering heat—fully expecting farmers to rush me with pitchforks—I wished I could walk right back in again, get on a plane, and fly the hell out of here. But I couldn’t. There was no getting out of this unless I intended to walk away from what was left of my career. I was only twenty-nine years old. Way too young to hang up my skates and pads and call it a day. Hell, twenty-nine was when goaltenders tended to hit their prime. I had many years of hockey left in me, and I didn’t have the first clue what I’d do with myself if it was taken away so soon.

I just wished I wasn’t going to have to spend them in this hellhole.

John pulled up to the curb in a rental car and waved me over. He put the car in park and climbed out, as dressed down as ever: shorts, a T-shirt, a Thunderbirds ball cap, and sunglasses. I squinted and wished I had a pair of shades handy, myself. Just one of many adjustments I would have to make if I was going to live here. I got the sense that there was a hell of an education about life in the south in store. He grinned, tossed me a pair of sunglasses that matched his, and popped open the trunk.

“It’s hotter than the underside of Hades,” I grumbled.

He grabbed one of my bags and tossed it in. “You’ll get used to it. You’ll probably like it someday, actually. Especially in October and November when it’s still nice enough to go out without having to shovel a few feet of snow to get your car out. Spring will arrive here nice and early, too. Short winters; long summers. There are a lot of good things in Tulsa.”

I didn’t want to get used to it and John damn well knew it. He wasn’t just my agent. He was a lifelong friend, a guy a few years older than me. I’d grown up with his younger brother, Darren, and played hockey with both of them when we were kids. Darren and I had both been drafted while John was in college. Darren had never panned out with the NHL. He’d played a few years in Europe before deciding to go home and start his family. While the two of us had been playing hockey, John had decided to go on to law school. He’d been ready to start his career as a sports agent by the time the Storm wanted to sign me to my first pro contract.

There was no chance I would end up liking it here, and he knew it, so trying to sell me on the city was a waste of his breath. I knew I should have made him fight harder to get the no-movement clause when we’d signed the seven-year extension with Portland before the beginning of last season. Granted, I doubted even that would have kept me with the Storm instead of landing with the team that would be rock bottom in the league.

I glared at him to shut him up on all the supposed good things about life in Tulsa.

He tossed in my other bag, shut the trunk, and went around to get in the driver’s seat, not bothering to respond. I climbed in and slammed the door, a good dose of surliness taking over. At least he had the sense to have the AC going full blast.

Good thing he let the matter drop. Instead of selling me on the positives, he started shooting the breeze, catching me up on all the goings-on at home since I’d hardly been back to Prince George over the summer. I sat back and listened to him prattle, occasionally tossing in a question to keep the conversation flowing. The more I could get him to talk about that kind of thing, the less I would have to think about my predicament. But when the car came to a stop, we weren’t at a hotel. We were in a parking garage in a big complex that screamed of being the Thunderbirds’ main office.

“Already?” I grumbled. “You’re not going to at least let me settle in first?” I’d hoped to have the opportunity to shower and change into something more comfortable in this heat before dealing with the clusterfuck I’d created.

John shut off the engine. “The Jernigans want to get things moving in the right direction as soon as possible. They said to bring you over the second you landed.”

I ground my jaw. The Jernigans were the team’s owners. Tom Jernigan was a minister at some huge church here in Tulsa, one of those massive congregations that aired on television and they had to hold four or five services over the course of the weekend because there wasn’t enough room in the building to fit everyone in a single sitting. He and his wife, Sharon, were all over the place with Bible study books and videos. I was sure they didn’t know the first fucking thing about hockey. At least they’d had the forethought to hire a few guys who, combined, boasted several decades of experience running NHL teams.

Still sulking, I ambled out and followed John inside. He led me through a series of halls, all decked out with various items bearing the Thunderbirds logo and colors—a Native American warbird with hockey sticks done in turquoise and terra cotta—before stopping at a board room.

A few familiar faces were waiting in there: Alan Krause, the team president who had been around the league longer than I’d been alive; Gary Asher, the general manager who had overseen the Blues for their one and only Cup a few years back; Tim Harvey, a former NHL defenseman who had been an assistant coach for two other NHL teams and would do the same here; Chuck Warren, who’d been a goalie in the league for a while—a backup goalie, no less, and who had never come close to my level of play—who was supposed to be my fucking goalie coach. There were a bunch of other guys in Thunderbirds golf shirts and the like, too. Maybe they were the other coaches, or else some of the PR people.

Off in the corner of the room near the windows, a slim, gray-haired man in a full three-piece suit stood next to a blond woman in the sort of conservative women’s suit that only politicians and clergymen’s wives tended to wear. Her shockingly blond hair looked like a helmet. She probably used a whole can of hairspray to keep it like that. No doubt these two were the team owners, the Jernigans.

It was the group huddled together near them that caught my attention, though: a knockout gorgeous brunette who looked like she should be on the cover of a fashion magazine, an older woman who could only be her mother, and a couple of older men. All three of her companions were currently eyeing me. One of the men seemed curious. The other, along with the mother, were both glaring at me like I was the devil incarnate. But the young woman? I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking because she wouldn’t look at me.

On top of that, I had no clue about the purpose of their presence. It was supposed to be a meeting about me being an ass and learning what I would have to do to appease the team’s brass after letting my idiocy show. What the hell did these people have to do with that?

Alan and Gary came over to shake my hand. They took me through the room, introducing me around to most of the new faces before we headed over to the big board table. I grabbed a bottle of water from a cart along the wall before taking my seat. Alan sat at the head of the table, folding his hands in front of him. He looked as intense as I’d always known him to be. Maybe more at present than usual. His stress had to be at an all-time high right now, trying to get ready for the Thunderbirds’ debut season, and my issues had only added to it. “All right,” he said once everyone settled into place and talk died off. “Let’s get down to business.”

Alan picked up a coffee cup and drank from it. “There’s no point in beating around the bush. We have twelve thousand new season ticket holders and a whole host of other potential Thunderbirds fans here in Tulsa who are up in arms over some comments made by our new star goaltender. They didn’t take kindly to being called backasswards, and they aren’t keen about one of their players not being fully on board with being a key part of this team. So now we need to figure out how to win them over.”

“You mean we need to figure out how I can win them over,” I said.

Alan nodded, a scowl marring his features.

Mollifying people wasn’t my strong suit and it never had been. I picked up my water, focusing more on it than I did on the conversation going on around me. Gary and the coaches all tossed out suggestions like getting me involved in some sort of community service project with some schools in the area or trying to get a grassroots youth hockey program started so that the locals could love and grow the sport here—with me at the forefront of it, of course.

These were exactly the sorts of things I’d been expecting, but they didn’t seem to be what Alan was looking for. He didn’t even like the idea of me starting up a charity here, or at the very least, he seemed to think there needed to be something more to go along with it. He kept brushing their suggestions off, telling them it wasn’t enough. What I’d done was going to take a lot more than a bit of community involvement to rectify, if Alan’s reactions were a good indication.

As for me? I kept my head down and my mouth shut while the rest of them batted ideas around, since John had already made it abundantly clear that I was going to have to play along with whatever they suggested, no matter how much I might not like it. I didn’t get a say since I’d already flapped my jaw too much. But then John kicked my ankle under the table. I shot my head up to find Mrs. Jernigan looking expectantly at me, a too-perfect smile plastered on her face.

“Gentlemen,” she said. “I’ve got the perfect solution. In fact, that’s why we invited the Roths to join us today, as they’ve got a part to play.”

The foursome in the corner met my gaze when I passed a skeptical glance in their direction. Well, three of the four did. The brunette ducked her head and stared at the floor after giving me the briefest glimpse of her honey-colored eyes and button nose. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing a long, slender neck that looked perfect for nibbling on. That was absolutely the wrong thing for me to be thinking about, though—nibbling on her neck. Or other parts of her, like her pert breasts.

“The perfect solution?” I repeated slowly, one hundred percent positive that whatever whack-job idea this lady had, it would be the complete opposite of what I thought appropriate.

Mrs. Jernigan didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm in my tone. Either that or she was an expert at ignoring things she didn’t want to acknowledge. “You see, the Roths have been members of our church since Tallulah Belle was just a sweet little baby. We always want to help members of our congregation out where we can, and Tallulah’s found herself in a bit of a pickle, too, sort of like you have. There was a dust-up last month while she was in Cancun with her sorority sisters, and now that she’s been stripped of her crown—”

“Her crown?” I interrupted. Who the hell wore a crown? And more importantly, why?

This was quickly devolving into a nightmare.

One of the men in the corner rolled his eyes. He, like Mrs. Roth, had been eyeing me since I’d arrived as if I were a child pornographer or something. “I told you this wasn’t a good idea, Sharon,” he said emphatically. He spoke slowly with a slight lisp, drawing out his words so that they seemed to have grown by a few syllables each. Even in this heat, he had on a blue turtleneck, not to mention a tweed jacket over it, and he waved his hands with every word he uttered. “The Neanderthal doesn’t even know who our Tallulah is,” the arm-waving dude bemoaned.

“Don’t call him that, Lance,” the brunette pleaded. For the first time since they’d been introduced into the conversation, she truly met my gaze, her expression a visual apology. Her face was also quite possibly the most flawless one I’d ever seen. She looked as though she’d stepped out of the pages of a magazine, without a single blemish in sight. Lightly tanned skin. High cheekbones. Impeccably arched, full eyebrows. And that was just her face. Her body? Made me think all kinds of things that I had no business thinking about a woman whose name I didn’t even know. She looked too good to be real, but damn if she wasn’t hot.

He ignored her, gesticulating so much he nearly whacked her in the face, which made me want to pick him up by the scruff of his neck and teach him a thing or two about how Neanderthals expected a man to treat a lady. I stayed put, though, and Lance was oblivious to anything but his own agenda. “He won’t work out. He doesn’t understand the pressure she’s under. The hooligan couldn’t even bother to get his hair cut before making an appearance. He’s exactly the opposite of the sort of man we need her to marry.”

My head snapped back upon hearing the word marry, and I pushed my chair away from the table. “Back the fuck up for a second,” I said. The movement unsettled my water, and the bottle fell over, rolled to the table’s edge, and dropped to the floor, narrowly missing my toes. “Who the hell said anything about getting married? I’m willing to do whatever you need me to do to make up for my perceived crimes—community outreach, volunteering, whatever—but how the fuck is getting married—”

“Which is precisely the point,” Mr. Jernigan cut in, his voice rising over mine. He arched an eyebrow in my direction, either daring me to interrupt or putting me back in my place, one of the two. “You’ll do whatever we need you to do—John assured us you would—and we need you to marry Tallulah. She’s gotten into a scrape. She needs a way out of it. You’re it, son. On top of that, she’s the best way to get the people here in Tulsa on your side.”

“How is marrying her supposed to help me make things up to all the people I pissed off?” I demanded.

“Would you please watch your language?” Mrs. Jernigan demanded, and I just about fell out of my chair. Of all the things to get worked up over, she was getting her panties in a twist over me uttering the words pissed off? How on earth was she going to handle being around a whole team of hockey players? It might be better if she was one of those hands-off team owners like we’d had in Portland, but so far it didn’t look like that would be the case.

She put her hands on her hips, prim, proper, and as incensed as I’d ever seen a woman. “Really, there’s no reason for all that foul stuff. Your mama should have taught you better than that.”

“Let’s leave his mama out of it, Sharon,” her husband said, never removing his gaze from me. No doubt he sensed that I was about to lose my shit, and he wanted to defuse the situation before I did something else I would regret. I might not like his wife, but so far he was okay. Well, except for the fact that he thought I needed to marry some random chick I’d never met before.

He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Here’s the deal, son.”

I gritted my teeth. “I’m not your son.”

He ignored me. “Tallulah won Miss Teen Oklahoma USA several years back, and then she won Miss Teen USA. She’s the reigning Miss Oklahoma USA, or she was until they stripped her of her crown last month because of a slight indiscretion. She was expecting to contend for Miss USA, and most likely Miss Universe after that. She’s been competing in and winning pageants for years, including some very high-profile ones. The fact is that Oklahomans love her. We adore her. But now her image has been tarnished, and she needs a husband so she can repair her image in the public eye. She fell down a few pegs when…well, never mind that. The point is that they want Tallulah to appear to be the role model they always assumed she was, and to do that, she needs to give the impression that she’s growing up, settling down, and doing the things they’ve expected of her all along.”

“Which is exactly why you can’t just shove her in with him,” the hand-waving man interrupted, pointing a finger in my direction so hard it seemed he might be attempting to jab me in the eye. “He’ll ruin her worse than she already is.”

Mr. Jernigan closed his eyes, shook his head, and sighed. “He’s not going to ruin her. They’ll rescue each other.”

I wasn’t in the mood to play knight in shining armor to anyone, even if she had legs for days and killer curves like this Tallulah chick did, and I’d be damned if I needed anyone to rescue me. I’d dug my own hole; I could damned well figure out a way to climb out of it myself. “I’m not marrying anyone,” I said, loud and clear enough to be heard over everyone else.

“You are.” This time it was John speaking.

I spun my head to glare at him. “You knew this was going on and you didn’t say a word about it?”

“Had to be sure you were going to show up,” he said, shrugging. Like this was no big deal. Like he wasn’t trying to tell me that my life as I had it planned was all being tossed out, and I was going to have to bend to someone else’s rules. Like I should have expected it since I’d been dumb enough to make an ass of myself, and this was my due penance. “We already discussed this. You’ve got to play by their rules, at least for a while. Things are different down here. You’re going to be living and playing in the Bible belt, and there are different expectations. Besides, it’s not forever,” he added sheepishly.

“You expect me to believe that a preacher”—I pointed in the general direction of the Jernigans—“is going to suggest a marriage that will end up in divorce in order to cover up some silly scandal.”

“Well, really, honey pie,” Mrs. Jernigan said. “It’ll be more like an annulment. It’s just for a year.”

“A year?” I scoffed. I didn’t know American marriage law very well, but this didn’t sound like the sort of thing a judge would consider appropriate annulment material. “And I’m not your honey pie. Either way, doesn’t matter since I’m not doing it.”

“Yes,” John said, more emphatically than before, “you are.”

I shot him a go-to-hell look. “No one can make me get fake married for a year. Not even you, and don’t fool yourself into thinking you can. Besides, that would mean I’d have to be celibate the whole damn time.” If the entire fucking state loved this Tallulah chick, the second I was seen with some other girl, hoping to scratch an itch, I’d be the bastard who cheated on Oklahoma’s sweetheart.

“Language!” Mrs. J shouted at me. The woman reminded me more and more of Effie Trinket from the Hunger Games movies, only minus the pink hair.

“Sorry if the mention of sex offends you,” I spouted off, and I didn’t even feel bad about the offended gasp she let out. The longer I was in this room, the shorter my fuse grew. I’d be lucky if I got out of here without them threatening to find a way to void my contract.

Hell, maybe I should really let loose. Maybe then they would try to void it, and then I could sign with some other team. Anything would be better than being stuck here and getting forced into some sham of a marriage.

“You wouldn’t…” Tallulah had spoken up again, drawing my attention, but she clammed up the second her mother and Lance shot looks in her direction.

“I wouldn’t what?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lance interjected. He reached across and put a hand over Tallulah’s, as though to prevent her from saying another word. The guy seriously needed a good throat-punching, and I was itching to be the one to have that honor. Not to rescue her. More to fuck with him because the half hour or so I’d spent in his company was more than anyone should have to bear in a lifetime. The guy was a serious ass. He met my glare. “No Neatherthals allowed near Tallulah Belle. Not now. Not ever.”

She tugged her hand free, and my esteem for her went up a few notches. She scowled at him before turning to me. “You wouldn’t necessarily have to be celibate the whole time,” she said, staring straight at me. “I mean, I’m not sure I’d want to stay—”

“Tallulah Belle Roth!” her mother interrupted before turning her hateful glare on me. “There will be no hanky-panky, not with Tallulah or anyone else. Just enough hand-holding and light kisses for the cameras, but when you’re not putting on a show for the media, you’ll be keeping your hands to yourself and your little thing tucked away in your pants.”

“It ain’t little, sweetheart,” I said before I could think better of it.

“Well, I never.” She shut up after that, though, crossing her arms and turning her back to me.

Tallulah didn’t keep quiet. “Mama, you can’t speak to him like that. And it’s none of your business—”

“My daughter isn’t my business?”

“—what happens behind closed doors,” she continued, ignoring her mother’s interruption. “The fact is, we will be married. And soon.”

Soon? I was about to speak up again, but the other man—the one who, so far, had kept his mouth shut and merely looked on, mildly amused by the proceedings—leaned forward and locked his gaze on me. “Saturday, actually,” he said, answering my unasked question. “And I’ve already got the prenup lined out. I’ll just need you and my Tallie to drop by my office later this afternoon to go over it so we can get it finalized.”

I pressed my fingers to my eyes, wishing I could push hard enough that my whole head would explode like the dude on Game of Thrones. My head hurt enough that it might explode from the internal pressure without any outside forces.

“Not him,” Lance tossed in. “We’ll find someone else.”

“By Saturday?” Mrs. Jernigan asked. “Everything’s already in place for this weekend, and we’ve already wasted too much time. They’re hounding Tallulah everywhere she goes.”

“Find someone else,” I ground out.

“There is no one else,” the father insisted at the same time as John said, “Whether you want to do this or not, you’re going to have to.”

“Why?” I roared. “Why this? What the hell is this supposed to do that couldn’t be accomplished some way that doesn’t involve fucking getting married?”

Tallulah stood up, planting both hands on her hips and drawing my eye exactly there. “Now you look here,” she said, suddenly turning sassy in a way that turned me on despite my better judgment—further proof that hormones had nothing to do with the part of the brain that processed thought. “I’m not any happier about this than you are, and clearly my mama and Lance don’t think you’re up to snuff, but they’re right about this one part. Whether you want to hear it or not, they’re right. The two of us getting married—at least long enough for all of this to blow over—is the best solution for both of our problems. So we’re going to do it. We’re getting married on Saturday, so you’d better just accept the fact that it’s happening. And you should probably call your mama. They don’t like finding these things out after the fact.”

        Well, holy hell. Even Tallulah wanted to go along with it. Apparently, Tulsa wasn’t just hell; it was also the Twilight Zone, only the people I was surrounded by didn’t realize it.


Well? Did you enjoy that? Good!

So here's what I promised above. Very soon, I will be releasing a surprise for my newsletter subscribers. What is it? Well, details are still to come, but it's related to Babs. Yes, the same Babs from my Portland Storm series, who everyone loves. I can't reveal what, specifically, this surprise is as of right now, but if you enjoy those books, you will want it. And the only way you can get it is to subscribe to my mailing list, as it is a FREE thank you for my newsletter subscribers. If you aren't already signed up for it, do so here so you won't miss out.

Portland Storm: The Second Period is Live

The box set of the second grouping of books from the Portland Storm series is available now. If you pre-ordered it, you should be able to download it to your e-reader now. If you didn't pre-order it, you can purchase it now from the following vendors.

AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksKoboGoogle PlayAll Romance eBooksSmashwords

What, specifically, is in this box set? It's got three full novels and two novellas: Delay of Game, Double Major, In the Zone, Holiday Hat Trick, and Comeback.

What's up next? Bury the Hatchet, the first book from the Tulsa Thunderbirds series releases on July 9.

The Tulsa Thunderbirds series is a spin-off from the Portland Storm. It's a hockey romance series following an expansion team in the NHL. You can expect familiar characters, lots of hockey action, and the same emotional backdrop you'd find in the Storm series, but it's all set within a sexier, edgier package.


He was poised to be an elite goalie for a contending team. 


Hunter Fielding has long since proven himself to be one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. The problem? His former team had another (slightly better) backstop. They left Hunter out to dry, the upstart Tulsa Thunderbirds claimed him in the expansion draft, and he made a few stupid comments about backasswards Oklahomans. Now the T-Birds say the only way he can redeem himself is to make nice for the media with some local goody two shoes who’s made some mistakes of her own. 


Oklahoma’s sweetheart could do no wrong until she could do no right. 

Tallulah Belle Roth was the reigning Miss Oklahoma USA until a night of out-of-control drinking, a naked foray in a hot tub with very bad boy, and a bunch of lowlights on TMZ. Now she’s been stripped of her crown and is facing the censure of the same people who made her out to be Little Miss Perfect. Tallie won’t ever get her title back, but her life is another matter—and the only way the public will allow her to do that is if she presents herself as happily settled with someone else under Oklahoma’s eye. 

The marriage is to be in name only—one year of sickeningly-sweet lovey-dovey PDA, all to get their detractors to bury the hatchet. Those kisses and tender moments for the cameras take an emotional toll, though. Can in name only be enough?

Pre-order Bury the Hatchet now at the following retailers.
Amazon
iBooks
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
All Romance eBooks
(Google Play pre-orders will come closer to release date.)

The next Portland Storm book will be a novella titled Home Ice, which releases on August 13.


There’s only one person in the world that Mattias Bergstrom allows to see his soft side: his younger sister, who was born with Down syndrome. She lives with their parents in Sweden, so there’s no worry of accidentally showing his players any part of himself other than the hard-assed former defenseman and current head coach of the Portland Storm. At least not until the doppelganger of Matti’s sister snags one of his young D-men in the corridor before the team’s skills exhibition event, and his frozen heart melts. 

Paige Calhoun has her hands full with four exceedingly boy-crazy, hockey-loving daughters—three teenagers and one pre-teen with Down syndrome. Everyday life is hard enough, but then her ex-husband scores tickets for Paige to take the girls to the StormSkillz Competition. The magnitude of her task is further complicated when her youngest spots the hockey player of her dreams and barrels through the crowd to claim him as her own. 

The team’s sexy-as-sin coach intervenes, and suddenly Paige feels just as boy crazy as her daughters. This girl might not be Matti’s sister, but he decides to give her and her sisters a weekend they’ll never forget. Too bad it never crossed his mind that in the process he might end up giving himself an unexpected happy ever after with Paige.

Pre-order Home Ice now at
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iBooks
Kobo
All Romance eBooks
(Google Play pre-orders will be available closer to release date.)

More to come soon!

Dropping Gloves is LIVE

It's here! It's here!

If you pre-ordered Dropping Gloves, you should have it now. If you didn't pre-order, you can purchase it now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, All Romance eBooks, and Smashwords.

The first chapter can be found here in case you're still undecided.

Next up, I'll be launching the Tulsa Thunderbirds series with Bury the Hatchet, but then I'll be returning to the Storm for Home Ice.

I hope you enjoy Dropping Gloves, and I hope the wait for Babs and Katie's story was worth it.

Dropping Gloves is releasing EARLY, plus more preorders

Everything in the preparation and planning stages for Dropping Gloves got finished in advance of what I anticipated, so I decided to move the release date up.

She left to follow her dreams; she’s back to follow her heart.

Katie Weber left her heart in Portland to chase a career in Hollywood. Now she has returned to sing the national anthem for the Portland Storm for their annual Hockey Fights Cancer night. Her longtime crush, Jamie Babcock, is hurting just as much as she is. One look in his eyes is all it takes to know that. She's done the Hollywood thing, though, and she's over it, but it might be too late to dig herself out of the hole she’s dug with him.

Jamie’s already done everything humanly possible to let go of Katie, but she keeps coming back, and she keeps crushing him all over again every time she leaves. His heart has been trampled on more than enough already. At some point, he has to draw the line. Doesn't he? Only, when it's Katie, he's not sure that's even possible. She's in Portland again right now, but he can’t be sure for how long.

Katie knows she has a fight on her hands, in more ways than one, if she’s going to convince Jamie she deserves another chance, but she’s willing to drop her gloves this time. Because in the game of love, all bets are off.


It's now releasing on April 14 instead of April 23. Yes, 9 whole days sooner.

If you haven't pre-ordered it yet, you can do so at Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble (they're still processing the change in date, but it WILL release early), and Kobo.




Do you know about the other upcoming Portland Storm books?





 
Home Ice will be up next on August 13. It's a novella, and it's about Storm head coach Mattias "Bergy" Bergstrom.

There’s only one person in the world that Mattias Bergstrom allows to see his soft side: his younger sister, who was born with Down syndrome. She lives with their parents in Sweden, so there’s no worry of accidentally showing his players any part of himself other than the hard-assed former defenseman and current head coach of the Portland Storm. At least not until the doppelganger of Matti’s sister snags one of his young D-men in the corridor before the team’s skills exhibition event, and his frozen heart melts. 

Paige Calhoun has her hands full with four exceedingly boy-crazy, hockey-loving daughters—three teenagers and one pre-teen with Down syndrome. Everyday life is hard enough, but then her ex-husband scores tickets for Paige to take the girls to the StormSkillz Competition. The magnitude of her task is further complicated when Sophie, her youngest, spots the hockey player of her dreams and barrels through the crowd to claim him as her own.

The team’s sexy-as-sin coach intervenes, and suddenly Paige feels just as boy crazy as her daughters. This girl might not be Matti’s sister, but he decides to give her and her sisters a weekend they’ll never forget. Too bad it never crossed his mind that in the process he might end up giving himself an unexpected happy ever after with Paige.

You can pre-order Home Ice at iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo. Here's the Goodreads page so you can add it to your shelf. Amazon pre-orders will be available in a couple of months.



The next novel in the series will be Losing an Edge, starring yet another of those lovable Babcock brothers, Levi. It releases on February 18, 2016, and you can pre-order it at iBooks or add it to your Goodreads shelf. Other pre-orders are coming, but February's still a long way off.

In any other family, Levi “501” Babcock would have been the golden boy. Instead, he’s lived his entire life in the shadow of his almost-perfect older brother. They both play for the NHL’s Portland Storm, but Levi is tired of being the second-best Babcock brother. He’s determined to find at least one thing he can do better. He thinks he’s found it when Cadence Johnson, Canada’s darling at the last Olympic Games, shows up in Portland; he’s going to land a girlfriend who’s more famous than his brother’s Hollywood-starlet wife.

Gold medals don’t mean much when every day is a living nightmare. Figure skater Cadence Johnson just did the unthinkable; she left her partner and her coach, and she’s starting over from scratch. New partner. New coach. New choreographer. New hair color. New city. She’s looking forward, not behind, keeping her secrets firmly locked up tight. Her bubbly personality and perpetual smiles conceal a world of hurt she can’t let anyone see.

After Levi charms his way into Cadence’s life, hope that it’s all been laid to rest blooms within her. But even the darkest of secrets eventually seek the light. Soon, Levi comes to realize that life with Cadence might not be all sunshine and roses, and attraction isn’t going to be enough to her. Now being the man she needs in her life seems a lot more important than finally besting his brother, but with every step, he feels like he’s Losing an Edge.



So why will there be so much time between Portland Storm books for the next little while? Because this summer and fall, I'll be launching the first two books of a spin-off hockey romance series called the Tulsa Thunderbirds.

The T-Birds are an expansion team, and they've picked up a few faces familiar to readers of the Portland Storm series: former Storm captain Eric "Zee" Zellinger, goaltender Hunter Fielding, and Babs's best friend, Ray "Razor" Chambers, who was traded to the Sabres during Double Major.



The first book, Bury the Hatchet, will feature Hunter.

He was poised to be an elite goalie for a contending team.

Hunter Fielding has long since proven himself to be one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. The problem? His former team had another (slightly better) backstop. They left Hunter out to dry, the upstart Tulsa Thunderbirds claimed him in the expansion draft, and he made a few stupid comments about backasswards Oklahomans. Now the T-Birds say the only way he can redeem himself is to make nice for the media with some local goody two shoes who’s made some mistakes of her own.

Oklahoma’s sweetheart could do no wrong until she could do no right.

Tallulah Belle Roth was the reigning Miss Oklahoma until a night of out-of-control drinking, a naked foray in a hot tub with very bad boy, and a bunch of lowlights on TMZ. Now she’s been stripped of her crown and is facing the censure of the same people who made her out to be Little Miss Perfect. Tallie won’t ever get her title back, but her life is another matter—and the only way the public will allow her to do that is if she presents herself as happily settled with someone else under Oklahoma’s eye.

The marriage is to be in name only—one year of sickeningly-sweet lovey-dovey PDA, all to get their detractors to bury the hatchet. Those kisses and tender moments for the cameras take an emotional toll, though. Can in name only be enough?

You can add Bury the Hatchet to your Goodreads shelf, and you can pre-order it on iBooks, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble. It'll release on July 9.



Following that will be Smoke Signals, releasing on October 22 and featuring Razor.

Growing up poor with a mother who would do anything—even sell her body—to help him get ahead in life had a profound impact on Ray “Razor” Chambers. Now he’s a defenseman for the NHL’s Tulsa Thunderbirds, which allows him the means to make sure his mother never needs to do anything like that again. He’s in Vegas because his best buddy is about to get hitched, but not before Razor and the guys throw him a bachelor party.

Viktoriya Dubrovskaya had been studying ballet in California, but money is tight and there’s no help coming from home in Russia. She started out making some extra money as a dancer in a club, and that eventually led her to the adult film industry. Porn may have paid her well, but it stripped her of everything she was and all she wanted. She’s left the business behind, but too late. Now she’s out of time, money, and options.

In desperation, Viktoriya makes herself available to Razor on the casino floor. There’s no chance he’ll take her up on what she’s selling, but he offers a counter-proposal—one involving a ring, a green card, and the chance to reclaim her body. It’s an opportunity she can’t pass up. For Viktoriya and Razor, learning to live together as husband and wife is as foreign as interpreting Smoke Signals, but where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.

You can add Smoke Signals to your Goodreads shelf, and you can pre-order it on iBooks and Barnes and Noble. Other pre-order links are still to come.

Sneak Peek: Dropping Gloves

We're a little less than a month away from release for DROPPING GLOVES, so how about a look at the first chapter to whet your appetites and tide you over?

She left to follow her dreams; she’s back to follow her heart.

Katie Weber left her heart in Portland to chase a career in Hollywood. Now she has returned to sing the national anthem for the Portland Storm for their annual Hockey Fights Cancer night. Her longtime crush, Jamie Babcock, is hurting just as much as she is. One look in his eyes is all it takes to know that. She's done the Hollywood thing, though, and she's over it, but it might be too late to dig herself out of the hole she’s dug with him.

Jamie’s already done everything humanly possible to let go of Katie, but she keeps coming back, and she keeps crushing him all over again every time she leaves. His heart has been trampled on more than enough already. At some point, he has to draw the line. Doesn't he? Only, when it's Katie, he's not sure that's even possible. She's in Portland again right now, but he can’t be sure for how long.

Katie knows she has a fight on her hands, in more ways than one, if she’s going to convince Jamie she deserves another chance, but she’s willing to drop her gloves this time. Because in the game of love, all bets are off.

DROPPING GLOVES releases on April 23, 2015. You can preorder it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, and Kobo. Here's the Goodreads page so you can add it to your bookshelf.

All right...without further ado, here's the first chapter of DROPPING GLOVES.

KATIE

Cancer sucks donkey balls. Great big, ginormous, hairy ones. There’s not really a better way of saying it, and I’d long since stopped trying to come up with one.

If anyone should know how bad cancer sucks, it was me. I was diagnosed with leukemia when I was a senior in high school. That was why I was here, at the Moda Center, where the Portland Storm played, staring out the end of the tunnel at the crowd gathered for their annual Hockey Fights Cancer night. If I could do anything to help even one person not have to go through all the crap I’d had to go through, then you could bet I was going to do it.

It might not seem like much, singing the national anthem at a hockey game, but for me it wasn’t about the singing or the game. It was about awareness. It was about raising money for research and treatments. It was about being sure everyone in this building right now knew how important finding a cure was.

The teams had already skated out for all of the pregame ceremonies, and the arena crew had gone through all of their music and video programming to get the crowd pumped up for the game. Not that they really needed to do much for that. The Storm had finally made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last season before falling to the Chicago Blackhawks in seven games, and most of last year’s key players had returned for this season. Expectations surrounding the Storm were high, regardless of the rough start they’d had. Tonight they were playing the LA Kings, one of their biggest divisional rivals for the last few seasons. With all that going on, the crowd didn’t need any extra pumping up. They were raring and ready to go, whether the team was or not.

But now, the lights dimmed and the music became more subdued, and a video started playing on the Jumbotron. Mom reached over and took my free hand, squeezing. The thing was, this video was about me.

It showed home footage and photographs that my parents and some of the Storm’s players had taken over the years, images of me at various Storm events I’d been part of, video of me skating at the team’s annual Christmas party, and other things like that.

A song by The End of All Things—a local band that had made it big, not to mention my favorite band of all time—played over the montage. I hadn’t heard this one before. It must have been from their upcoming album, which made me wonder how Tim Whitlock, the Storm’s in-arena entertainment director, had managed to get hold of it. Then again, there were connections between the team and the band. Brie Burns, one of the players’ wives, was a ballroom dancer who had worked with The End of All Things in the past.

The lyrics spoke of holding on to the best parts of life. That, combined with the images that represented some of the best parts of my life, had me getting teary-eyed. Not a good thing when I was about to have to get out there and sing in front of a crowd of eighteen thousand or so. Crying and talking was hard enough. Crying and singing? Pretty much impossible.

Now the video started getting to the point where my cancer came in. Me, bald-headed, wearing various scarves to hide the physical evidence of my chemo. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. This was why I was here. This was why they’d asked me to sing the anthem tonight instead of having the in-house singer do it. Looking away wouldn’t change anything I had been through. I’d already tried that in multiple areas of my life, and it hadn’t worked yet.

Dad put his hands on the backs of my shoulders and started to knead away some of my anxiety. Normally, at this point of the night, he would be behind the bench with the team. Dad was one of the Storm’s assistant coaches. He had been since the season after he’d retired as a player. He was my connection to the team, or at least he had been my first connection. But tonight was different. Tonight, he was with me. He’d take his spot behind the bench after this was over.

Just as he started rubbing my shoulders, an image flashed on the screen that choked me up like crazy and caused the whole crowd to ooh and aah. It was one of my prom pictures. There I was, in my ice-blue dress without anything covering my head, crying while Jamie Babcock kissed me.

I hadn’t intended to go to my prom. Not until Jamie asked me.

He hadn’t even been one of my classmates. He was one of my dad’s teammates at that point, a guy who I’d had a crush on since the first moment I’d seen him. But Jamie had asked to take me, and I would have done anything to be with him, and he’d made it perfect for me even if I was bald and felt like an alien. When I was with him, I’d felt like a princess.

But I’d beat cancer, and I’d moved on with my life—going off to Hollywood to star in an ensemble Glee-knockoff TV show called The Cool Kids—and he’d moved on with his. I’d broken my own heart when I’d left, and seeing that picture right now brought a torrent of memories and emotions flooding back to life.

“Why did you give them that one?” I hissed at my mom, trying to hold back the massive wave that was threatening to turn to tears.

She arched a brow and shrugged. “I didn’t.”

“Oh, sure you didn’t,” I said. I even rolled my eyes. My sarcasm knew no bounds. No one but my mother would have given the Storm that photo. Other than me, only Jamie and my family had copies of it. I definitely hadn’t given it to the entertainment people, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Jamie would have done it. I’d broken his heart, too, not just my own. Why would he want a reminder of that flashed in front of his eyes right before he had a game to play?

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” she insisted. “Not about something like that. I wouldn’t have given them any of those pictures. They’re too personal.”

Which was precisely my point. My mouth was open to argue with her again when Dad squeezed my upper arms from behind. “She didn’t. Your mom’s telling you the truth.”

“Then who did?” I demanded.

“I gave it to them.”

“What?” Mom and I said in shocked unison. I spun around to glare at him. Dad had been opposed to every guy I’d ever dated, some of them more than others. He’d just about blown a gasket when Jamie had asked me to prom. Why would he put that memory, that relationship, right up at the forefront of my mind at a time like this?

Dad shrugged. “Tim asked us for pictures that meant something, that would have an impact on the crowd.” He nodded his head toward the open end of the tunnel, indicating all the people out there who were watching in rapt silence. “That one meant the most to me, so I thought it would get the biggest reaction from them.”

I swallowed hard.

The song finished, the video came to a close, and Tim’s familiar voice echoed over the PA system in the cavernous arena. He introduced the Storm’s starters for the night, who each skated out to take their positions. The Kings’ starting line went out, as well. Then he introduced the Little Starter of the game before taking a moment to talk about the military veteran being honored tonight. Both the Little Starter and the vet were also cancer survivors. They headed out on cue, and the vet stood on his mark. The boy skated over to stand next to Jamie, who patted him on the head and said something that no one could hear but the two of them.

Then Tim introduced me. “Katie Weber has been a member of the Portland Storm family for close to a decade now. Her father, David Weber, played for the Storm for a number of years before becoming one of our assistant coaches. Katie spent her teen years here, and it was here that she was diagnosed with—and beat—leukemia. Our organization was given the task of seeing her through her own personal storm. We watched her grow up, and we watched her leave to become a star bright enough to shine over a much bigger world than Portland. She will always be part of our family, no matter how far away life takes her. Now she’s returned, at least for this one very special night. Storm fans, please join me in giving Katie Weber a big welcome back to Portland.”

That was my cue. I white-knuckled my microphone with both hands and headed out of the tunnel to the purple carpet that had been laid on the ice. The entire arena was on its feet, applauding and screaming. I’d always loved being in front of a crowd, but I still got stage fright. Being on The Cool Kids hadn’t helped with that at all. If anything, it had made it worse. For the last four years, I’d been doing all of my acting and singing in front of cameras and crew. But these days when I did something in public, the audiences were bigger, and everyone seemed to think they knew me, not the character I’d played. That was clear enough from the number of people in the stands wiping tears from their eyes.

Most of the people in the audience wore the typical purple-and-silver Storm jerseys I’d come to expect during my years here, but a few people had the road whites on, and a smattering had on Kings black and silver. It was easy to spot the pink Hockey Fights Cancer version of the Storm’s jerseys in the crowd, like the one I was wearing. The whole crowd was holding up signs they’d been given when they’d come in tonight, bearing the names of people they loved who had cancer, or maybe people they’d lost to cancer.

Mom and Dad followed me to the carpet. Both of their signs had my name on them.

I smiled and waved, trying not to let the turbulence of my emotions swallow me whole, but it seemed like a daunting—maybe impossible—prospect. I felt as if I would fall to pieces the moment I opened my mouth to sing, but this was different from my usual stage fright. It was bigger and more confusing, like a giant ball made up of rubber bands, each one representing a new, massive, devastating emotion, and the bands were contracting in on themselves. It was squeezing the life out of me.

“Please rise and remove your caps,” Tim said, not that there was any need for his reminder. Everyone was already on their feet. The rest of his words were drowned out in the unending applause. He was in the scorer’s box, the small space across the ice from the team benches that separated the two penalty boxes. I caught his eye across the distance, and he gave me a nod.

Nerves or not, it was time. I took out my pitch pipe, blew into it to find my key, shoved it back into my pocket, and did what I’d come to do. Somehow I got through the anthem without completely shattering, which I considered an absolute coup. Now that I was done, though, all I wanted was to run off the ice and find somewhere I could break down for a minute. But it wasn’t time for that yet.

Tonight, the Storm had planned a ceremonial puck drop to go along with all of the other special events, and they’d asked me to do it. Dad took the mic and pressed the puck into my hands. He kissed my cheek before taking his spot behind the bench. Mom hugged me and headed down the tunnel. I wanted to go with her. I wanted to be anywhere but here, doing anything but what I was about to do.

Because it meant I would be inches away from Jamie.

Dustin Brown, the Kings’ captain, came out and took his spot on one side of me. He said something, looking right at me, but my head was filled with the buzzing of a horde of bees, and I couldn’t make his words out. I couldn’t pay attention to him with Jamie skating over to stand across from him on my opposite side. All my attention focused in on Jamie like a laser beam.

In his skates, he was even taller than normal, towering over me despite my Jimmy Choos. His hockey pads only emphasized his muscle, making him seem larger than life. Even with a bit of distance between us, I could see the creases in his cheeks where his dimples always came through. With every year that passed, he looked less like a boy and more like a man, but I hoped he would never lose those dimples.

If this had happened last season, it would have been Eric Zellinger coming out for the ceremonial face-off. He’d been the Storm’s captain for over a decade, but there had been an expansion draft over the summer, and both Zee and goaltender Hunter Fielding had been claimed by the league’s new team, the Tulsa Thunderbirds. That had left the Storm with an opening for a new captain.

Just before the start of the season, they’d held a press conference to announce that Jamie was it. I’d been in a meeting with my agent, Derek Hatch, in LA when it was all going down. We’d been discussing various auditions he wanted to send me on, the direction he thought my career should take after the end of The Cool Kids, but I hadn’t been able to focus on anything Derek had said. My phone had kept buzzing with updates about Jamie and the Storm until, eventually, Derek had sent me on my way and told me to get my head straightened out so we could make a plan.

Easier said than done.

So now, here Jamie was, looking at me with that same hurt look in his eyes that I’d seen every time I’d come back to Portland in the last four years.

The look I’d put in his eyes.

The look that ripped me apart.

The pain in his gaze might even be more intense than usual right now. Probably because of that damn prom picture Dad had given them for the montage.

Jamie glanced over his shoulder toward center ice, then looked back at me with a wink. “They’re ready, Katie,” he said, indicating the slew of photographers and videographers who had lined up opposite us.

I nodded, swallowing down my feelings, and dropped the puck.

He gathered it up while Brown shook my hand and gave me a friendly, cursory pat on the shoulder. Then Jamie handed the puck back to me and wrapped me up in his arms.

I almost let out a sob. Almost. He’d hugged me countless times before, but this was different. He had all of his hockey gear on, the pads and whatnot, and I could hardly feel him underneath it all. We were touching, but it felt distant. Cold. I shivered, wishing I could draw closer to him and feel the warmth of his heart.

He pecked me on the cheek, causing an excited titter to run through the crowd, but it was ice that skittered through my veins. I wasn’t sure if the coldness was from him or from me, or simply because of the mountain range that stood between us these days.

“I’m glad you’re here, Katie,” he said, his voice all rough like gravel crunching under Cam Johnson’s pickup truck. His words were so quiet I could barely hear him over all the arena noise. He sounded completely unlike what I was used to. He gave me a grin, just enough to make his dimples pop out momentarily, and then he skated away.

“Me too,” I murmured to his retreating form, only I wasn’t entirely convinced that he’d meant it. None of this would have felt so detached if he really wanted me here. I was pretty sure—almost positive—he hoped I would be on a plane tomorrow, flying back to LA or maybe to New York like Derek wanted. It had to be easier for Jamie if I wasn’t here. I knew that, for me, it didn’t hurt as much without the constant, daily reminders of what I didn’t have. It was easier when we were apart.

My cheek tingled where he’d kissed me. I locked that up in my mind as tightly as I held the puck he’d handed me, while I walked across that purple carpet and back toward the tunnel. Several of the guys on the team skated over to shake my hand or kiss my cheek as I left, and Dad caught my eye and winked. I didn’t hear anything they said to me, though. My head was too filled with fading memories and a confused outlook on the future.

Derek hadn’t wanted me to come here at all. You’re bigger than this, he’d told me as he passed over a stack of scripts and another pile of travel arrangements. He expected me to get on a plane tomorrow, fly to New York, and make my mark on Broadway. To go to all the auditions he’d arranged for me. To follow the path he’d laid out for me, just like I’d done every step of the way for the last four years, despite that I’d hated so many of the things he’d asked of me that and I was still uncertain what I wanted.

       Coming here might not have lined up with my agent’s plans for my future, but it had accomplished one thing: I was more confused now than I’d been in a long time, and that could only mean that there was something here worth sticking around for, even if I’d end up heartbroken again.

JAMIE

Katie spun around and flew past her mom like a flash, racing away from the ice like a winger on a breakaway. I was pretty sure that picture from her prom had hit her as hard as it had hit me, so it didn’t surprise me that she was running off like that. There was a chunk of me that wished I could do the same. I didn’t have that kind of freedom, though. I had a game to play, so I had to get my head screwed back on straight.

Not such a simple thing to do with the knowledge that Katie Weber was still somewhere in the building. She was close enough I could still feel her essence lingering around me and only hoped that she wouldn’t stick around too long on this visit. The longer she stayed, the more of me she would take with her when she eventually left again.

Because she would. Leave. She always left.

I’d told her years ago that she should go and chase her dreams, so I couldn’t really blame her for doing the very thing I’d suggested. But fuck if it didn’t hurt like a son of a bitch every time she showed up and smiled at me like nothing had changed.

She wanted us to be friends. There was a part of me that wanted that, too—being her friend would be better than not having her in my life at all, or so I thought—but it was hard to do when I saw the way she let her boyfriends treat her.

At the moment, she might not be dating one of the shitheads she’d hooked up with in Hollywood, but it didn’t matter. That didn’t mean she was kicking them to the curb and making room for me, for the way I really wanted things to be between us. The fact was, Katie wasn’t going to stay in Portland. She was an It Girl now, a Hollywood starlet with people clamoring for her attention, and that meant she needed to get back to Hollywood so they could keep fawning over her. Her show had been cancelled, but it was only a matter of time before she got cast in something else, and then she would be gone again. Out of my life. Probably dating some new asswipe. Leaving me to be the brooding bastard I’d become.

Enough years had passed that, as long as she was away from Portland and not on the news too much, I was able to push her from my mind. I hadn’t watched The Cool Kids because that was a wound I didn’t want to open, and sometimes TMZ left her alone for a stretch. As long as she didn’t hit the mainstream news too often, I could almost pretend she had only been a dream. It wasn’t too bad, then. Without having her around, I could be the same guy I’d always been instead of the miserable grump I turned into when she was here but I couldn’t have her.

Like now.

I tried not to be that guy, but it was hard to brush things off when it felt like someone was stomping on all the broken pieces of me to be sure they were a puzzle I would never be able to put back together.

“Hey,” my brother Levi said. He was a couple of years younger than my twenty-four—he and Katie were the same age—a defenseman in his second year with the Storm. He tapped his stick on my shins harder than necessary to get my attention. “Earth to Jamie. Game’s about to start. Stop chasing after her in your fucking head.”

I gave him a terse nod and took a quick lap around our end of the ice to refocus. We were only a couple of weeks into the new season, my first as the captain of the team, and things had started off badly for us. There wasn’t any good reason for it, either.

We’d had some turnover in personnel on the ice from last year, but not too much. Zee and Hunter were with the Thunderbirds now. A couple of guys had changed in free agency, and there’d been a trade involving a few of the younger guys who hadn’t fully found their spots on the team. But the core that Jim Sutter, our general manager, was building around was all still intact, the coaches hadn’t changed, the systems were exactly the same… Essentially, there was no good excuse for why we’d taken a slide in play to start the year. Tonight, we needed to get back on track, and as the captain, it was up to me to set the tone for the rest of the team.

It was time. The carpet had been removed from the ice, and all the photographers were gone. The officials were in place, and my linemates, Riley Jezek and Aaron Ludwiczak, were already skating to center ice for the opening face-off. I headed over to join them, pushing aside all thoughts not relevant to the game at hand.

The puck dropped, and the Kings won it cleanly back to Matt Greene, one of their defensemen. I was closest to Greene, so I went straight for him and laid a bruising check on him, dislodging the puck so that either RJ or Luddy could grab it and we could get to work.

The crowd went wild as Greene went down hard. He was a big body. Hitting him like that had been enough to rattle the teeth in my head, so I knew he’d felt it more than he’d been prepared for. Luddy stole the puck and cycled it with RJ. I shook off the impact and skated in to join them. After a hit like that, my head was fully in the game. I couldn’t afford to think about Katie Weber right now.

I had work to do.

“That’s a bad fucking call,” Mattias “Bergy” Bergstrom, the Storm’s head coach, shouted as the ref who’d blown his whistle skated by our bench. “You fucking know it, too. Brown was diving.”

The ref turned his head and shouted a few choice expletives back in Bergy’s direction, neither backing down nor admitting he might have made a mistake. It was a mistake, though. We’d been guilty plenty of times tonight, but in this instance, it wasn’t our fault. Levi just happened to be near Brown when the guy lost an edge and went down. Guilty by proximity.

The basic gist of the ref’s response was that Bergy needed to stop complaining and get his team to play a clean game, or else. There were a lot of implications at play in the or else part of that equation. The team could be issued a bench minor and we would have to kill off yet another penalty. Bergy could get fined by the league for abuse of officials. They could probably kick Bergy out of the game if it came down to it. There were lots of ways for this to escalate, and none of them would be good.

“Fucking dive,” Bergy said under his breath, but at least he stopped there. He wasn’t the sort of coach to lose his cool with the officials, not like our former coach, Scotty Thomas, had always been. Scotty had been more than a little hotheaded. Bergy was the type who tended to calmly let everyone know what he thought, setting the example he wanted us to follow.

He usually reserved his yelling for specific moments and specific individuals. Zee had been on the receiving end of it a lot, but Bergy didn’t usually yell at me. He got his point across in other ways, like keeping my ass planted on the bench when I fucked up.

Regardless of all that, right now it didn’t matter if the other guy had dived or fallen or what. The only thing that really mattered was that Levi was on his way to the box for a phantom tripping minor, and we had to kill our seventh penalty of the game—a game that we were trailing by a goal. We were only halfway through the game, but we’d already been penalized more times than we should have been in a full sixty minutes, at least if we wanted to keep Bergy happy. Still, there was a lot of time left on the game clock, which meant there was a lot of time for us to either fuck up some more or get our collective act together.

“Keep your fucking head in it, 501,” Andrew Jensen shouted across the ice to Levi. “We’ve got this.” Jens clearly thought we were going to be able to straighten up and pull ourselves out of the hole we’d been digging. Or maybe that was just the impression he wanted to give off.

At times like this, there was a part of me that wondered if Bergy and Jim had made the right choice in naming me the Storm’s next captain. I never knew what to say to help the boys out. Guys like Jens and Keith Burns were a lot more vocal. They always knew the right thing to say, and Burnzie had even been an assistant captain already for a long time. Shouldn’t he have been the new captain? Or maybe Soupy, who had been the other assistant captain for the last few years. Any one of those guys would have made more sense than me, along with at least a half a dozen other players on the team.

None of them were wearing the C on their chests, though. I was, and I didn’t have the first fucking clue how to lead this team.

We went to a TV timeout, and I made the mistake of looking up at the Jumbotron. Through the whole game, every time there had been a break, they’d been making more tributes to cancer survivors and doing things to draw attention to the warning signs someone needed to be aware of when it came to their own health. This time, they had a camera on Katie up in the owner’s box. She was sitting with her mom and several of the guys’ wives, each of them holding up a sign with a symptom of leukemia printed on it. Katie looked like she was a lot more relaxed than she had been when she’d left the ice, but the last thing I needed was to start thinking about her again. Not right now.

I turned my head away to stare at the ice in front of me.

“You dated her?” Grant Wheelan asked me. Wheels was a guy Jim had brought in over the summer to mentor me. I wasn’t sure he could teach me how to lead this team any better than Zee had in all the years I’d been watching him, but maybe he would surprise me. Mainly Wheels just talked to me a lot. So far, the biggest thing I’d learned was to do things the way I wanted everyone else to do them. Lead by example. Wheels had drilled those three words into my head every chance he got. He also liked to remind me I was supposed to be having fun, not taking everything so seriously all the time. I wasn’t so good at that one.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. Then I shrugged. “Kind of. I guess so.” We’d never really technically been a couple, even though I’d taken her to her prom. I’d wanted to, but she’d been so young and had cancer, and then she’d left.

He made a grunting sound next to me. “Bet Webs would be happier if she was dating you instead of the guys she’s been all over the news with.”

“Fucking right, I would,” Webs said from behind us before he moved on to talk to Blake Kozlow about something.

That was definitely a change from all those years ago. I wasn’t sure I would agree with that assessment. I’d changed a lot in that time, and I wasn’t sure it was for the better. “Doesn’t matter what Webs would be happier with,” I grumbled. It pissed me off that Wheels was trying to make me talk about this right now when all I wanted to do was pretend Katie wasn’t even in the state, let alone in the building. “We aren’t together, and that’s not going to change any time soon.”

“That’s too bad,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, if I were you,” Soupy put in. His name was really Brenden Campbell, but everyone except his wife and the Storm’s GM called him Soupy—even his two adopted kids. I glared at him, and he shrugged and looked back at the ice. “Just telling you what I see, is all. Up to you to figure out what to do with it.”

He had always had a bad habit of doing that—telling me things I didn’t want to hear.

The TV timeout came to an end. It was about time. At Bergy’s signal, Wheels and Cam Johnson headed over the boards to take the face-off.

“Soupy, Babs,” Bergy said once they were gone, his tone returning to normal. “Be ready to go.”

I nodded, but I kept my focus on the ice.

“I’ve got Jonny,” Soupy said to me. At least he was back to talking about the game instead of trying to tell me how to handle my personal life.

The Kings had a potent power play this year, always dangerous. They moved the puck well, changing up the point of attack in an effort to get a clear shot in on our goaltender.

Our boys moved as a unit—one guy shifted to block a passing lane, and the other three adjusted their positions accordingly. Jonny dropped down to block a shot from the point, and our D managed to get their sticks in the way and clear bodies out from in front of the net so Nicky could see where the puck was coming from. Finally, after almost a full minute of being hemmed into our zone, Wheels poke-checked the puck and sent it flying down the ice, and those guys were able to get off for a change.

Soupy and I piled over the boards as soon as they came off—me about a second behind him since Wheels moved about as fast as molasses in a Canadian winter—and we headed into position.

The Kings switched to their second power play unit and got set up in our zone. They moved the puck back to the point on my side. I dropped to a knee, ready to block a shot, but he passed it to the other point. Soupy tried to get into position to block the shooting lane, but his knee buckled under him, and he went down with an agonized shout.

The shot got past him. Jens got just enough of his stick on it to deflect it away from Nicky’s net. I let myself glance over long enough to see that, no matter how hard he tried, Soupy couldn’t get himself up.

The Kings cycled the puck back to the point again. I did my best to cover two guys who both had bombs for shots, but there was only so much I could do. One of them pulled his stick back to load up. I went down. A shot blew past my ear and went in the net.

I skated over to Soupy, pissed at myself even though I couldn’t figure out why. “You going to be all right?”

“Can’t put any fucking weight on it,” he said.

“Broken?”

He shook his head. “Felt something snap, but not bone.”

That made me think it was something like a ligament. Ken Archer, our head trainer, came over and talked to him for a minute before deciding it was safe to move him, at least. I gave Soupy a hand and helped him up, draping his arm over my shoulder while Archie did the same on the other side so we could assist him off the ice. The whole time, I was thinking I might have just witnessed the injury that would end his career. I hoped I was wrong.

Wheels clapped a hand on my shoulder as soon as I took a seat next to him on the bench. “You know,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen. Watching what just went down with Soupy is proof enough of that. If you want something, you should go for it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I groused, more agitated than confused.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

I did. Apparently, I still couldn’t hide what I was feeling. Not only that, but I was just as messed up over Katie Weber as I’d ever been. What the fuck could I do about it, though? If she was going to leave, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her…and I knew she would leave.

       She always did.