On the Fly - Unedited Chapter 1

When I was gearing up for the release of Breakaway, I posted the first few chapters in their unedited form for you. I thought I'd do the same again for On the Fly!


Here's the first chapter, unedited, to get you ready. It'll release at the end of February!

BRENDEN

My thighs had a good burn going, matched only by the burn in my lungs. I fought to take in enough oxygen to get through the laps Hammer and I were skating, trying to ignore the slight twinge in my left foot from my latest broken bone.

That hairline fracture was only one of countless injuries to keep me off the ice and out of hockey games in recent years. Ever since I’d turned pro, it seemed like injuries stalked me like a cat, waiting for another opportunity to pounce and take me out. The bone had healed now, but this was the first time I’d used my foot for anything physical, the first time I’d been able to push myself. That was the only reason it still felt a little sore, or at least that was what I told myself.

Everything on my body felt a little sore, though, and had for years.

“Two more laps around the ice, Soupy—as fast as you can go,” Hammer said. Daniel “Hammer” Hamm was one of the assistant coaches of the Portland Storm, the team I played for in the National Hockey League. Today, he’d been tasked with putting me through my paces, helping to test me to see if I was ready to return to game action. “Come on. Faster.”

Fuck. He didn’t even sound winded, and I could barely breathe.

I’d been out of commission for over five weeks. I’d gotten hurt about a month into the season on a night when we had been playing the Bruins in Boston. For some crazy reason, I’d thought it would be a good idea to block a Zdeno Chara slap shot with my foot. Admittedly, I’d never faced one of his shots before, so I didn’t know just how hard they really were. I might have been putting too much effort into proving I could hack it in the NHL, that I belonged with the big club and not in the minors. Whatever the reason behind it, blocking that shot had blown up in my face.

I probably should’ve been wearing one of those foot guards designed to give extra protection, but I hadn’t been. I’d never liked the feel of them over my skates. It was like they restricted my movement, like they slowed my skating.

Smooth skating and speed had never been areas of strength for me, a point which my dad, himself a former NHL player, was always ready to remind me of. But I couldn’t afford to lose any more speed, so I’d rebelled against the thought of wearing the guards—much like I’d rebelled against wearing a shield on my helmet because it limited my vision. I didn’t need anything else hampering my ability to succeed in this league, even if it meant maybe getting a few more stitches on my face.

Good thing I’d never been vain about my appearance.

My wrist shot and my readiness to go into the dirty areas of the ice were just about the only two things I had going for me to keep me in the NHL. Well, both of those things and a willingness to give up my body for my team. Those skills got me here, and they were what might keep me here—at least once the team’s head doctor cleared me first for contact and then to play.

I sucked in as much air as I could, churning my legs to keep up with Hammer. He had been one fast son of a bitch back in his playing days, before he started coaching. He had always skated with an effortlessness that made no sense at all given his size. Even though he’d retired as a player over a decade ago, he hadn’t lost a step in the speed department.

It was taking everything I had not to get left in his dust.

We turned around the goal and made a final push for center ice. Once I passed it and stopped, I bent over and rested my hands on my knees, heaving as much air in and out of my lungs as I could. I nearly puked, but I forced the bile down.

The rest of the team was just starting to trickle out to the ice for today’s practice. I looked up and saw Eric Zellinger, my best friend and the team captain, watching me from near the bench.

Zee wasn’t just my best friend. Not anymore. He’d started dating my sister, Dana, last season. That had created a gigantic clusterfuck in our relationship, mine and Zee’s, and things still weren’t great between us. Better, definitely, but not like before. It was mainly my fault, and I knew it. It was hard, though, thinking about anyone touching my sister after all she’d been through, knowing how for years after she’d been raped, she’d experienced massive panic attacks when any man touched her—even Dad and me.

Zee gave me a nod, but that was all. He had work to do, and I still wasn’t allowed to be part of it due to my status on the injured reserve list.

Hammer slapped me on the shoulder while I was still fighting to breathe. “Nice work, Soupy. After you get cleaned up and see the doctor, Jim wants a word in his office.”

I wasn’t surprised Jim Sutter, the Storm’s general manager, wanted to see me. All signs pointed to me being cleared for contact for tomorrow. If all went well, then I could be back in the lineup for Friday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“Yeah, will do, Hammer.”

He skated away from me, over to the far end of the ice to join the boys for the day’s practice. I made my way to the showers and then to see Dr. Mitchell, the team’s head physician.

Doc took a new set of scans to make sure everything was as it should be. He looked them over, then poked and prodded my foot, looking at it from every angle. “No pain after skating today?”

Pain was all relative, and I couldn’t think of a time in recent memory that I could say I had no pain. Anyone who’d suffered as many injuries in his career as I had would be in a similar position. “It’s a little tender,” I said. “Nothing I can’t fight through, and nothing that won’t be better after more use.”

“How close to ready are you?” Doc put another film up in front of the light, narrowing his eyes at it. “Seventy percent? Eighty?”

“One hundred percent ready to go.” I couldn’t stand sitting around any longer than I had to. The thought of spending even another week watching from the press box with my foot in a walking boot made me feel physically ill. “A little tenderness won’t make me any slower than I already am.”

“Hmm.”

What the fuck did hmm mean? Doc wouldn’t even look at me. He just kept studying my films, flipping through my medical chart.

“So am I cleared?” I asked, not even attempting to hide my frustration. It wasn’t his fault, but I was this close to going insane from being forced to watch from the sidelines. “Can I get back in a game?”

He didn’t answer me. Instead, he scribbled some notes on a notepad that looked like a prescription pad, ripped it off, and put it in an envelope. “You’re heading up to see Jim, right? Give him this.”

Then he handed me the envelope and left, taking my charts and films with him.

Asswipe. He could have just answered my question. How hard would that have been? It would have taken two seconds.

But he hadn’t.

I made my way up to the next level of the building where all the offices for the team executives were located.

At the end of the main hall, in front of a large corner office, Martha Alvarez tucked her silver-gray hair behind her ear and pushed her bifocals up her nose, never even glancing over her computer monitor at me. She was Jim’s assistant, and probably the most efficient person I’d ever met. Nothing ever slipped past her; nothing got lost in the shuffle. If you needed anything, Martha could either handle it or direct you to someone who could.

“Go on in, Campbell,” she said. “Jim’s expecting you.” She pushed a plate of homemade cookies closer to the edge of her desk so I’d see them. Not that I would have missed them. I’d learned early in my time with the Storm that Martha always had cookies at her desk, and I had made a habit of taking full advantage of that fact. It reminded me of my mom.

Martha was one of the few people in the world who didn’t call me Soupy. My family called me Brenden, and Martha called me Campbell. Jim would flip between all of them indiscriminately. He’d played with my dad for a few years, and Dad had always been Soupy to his teammates, too. The use of nicknames is universal in the hockey world, and there is no nickname more readily at a guy’s tongue than Soupy for someone with the last name Campbell.

“Thanks, Martha,” I said. She didn’t acknowledge me, too absorbed in whatever she was doing. I grabbed two cookies and knocked on the open door. “You wanted to see me?” I said when Jim Sutter spun his executive chair around.

He nodded and pointed to the chair across from him. “How’d it feel skating? I told Hammer to really push you, see what you could handle.”

“Felt good.” As good as an intense skate could feel after spending more than a month off my feet, at least. I shoved the envelope across the desk to him. “Doc asked me to give you this.”

“No pain? No tenderness?” Jim pulled Doc’s note out and scanned it, looking through the lower part of his glasses. “Doc says you were pretty winded still when you got to him and that you had some tenderness when he prodded your foot.”

“I’ll be back in game shape in no time. One or two games, that’s all it’ll take.” It was easier to get the kind of conditioning you needed to play hockey by actually playing hockey, more so than skating laps or spending hours on an exercise bike.

“Hmm.”

I was beginning to hate hmm.

“Did he clear me for contact?” I asked when Jim still didn’t elaborate. “I’m ready, Jim. I can contribute. Waiting a few more days or another week won’t change that.”

He set the note down on his desk and took off his glasses. “Doc cleared you. You’re good to join back in full practices with contact starting tomorrow.”

It was about time.

He folded in the earpieces of his glasses and set them on the desk. “But…”

But was worse than hmm. By a fucking mile. I was already grinding my jaw—couldn’t stop myself—and I didn’t have a clue what was coming.

“I need you to get back up to game speed before you jump into a game,” he said. “The boys have been on a pretty good roll lately, really working together and picking up points at a nice clip. I don’t want to mess with that chemistry by bringing someone in who isn’t up to par.”

He was sending me back down to the AHL—to the Seattle Storm, the minor league affiliate of the Portland Storm. He didn’t even have to say the words. I could read it all over his face. I’d had enough conversations with enough GMs in my career to know. “This is bullshit, Jim. One game. That’s all it’ll take.”

He had a placating look in his eye that made me want to punch him. “I can’t afford to have you chasing the game for even one night, Brenden. I don’t need the boys trying to pick up your slack. This won’t be a permanent reassignment—”

“No, just until you trade my ass somewhere else,” I bit off. “Or are you hoping someone will pick me up on waivers?”

“Would you calm down for just a minute? I’m not trading you. I have no plans to trade you. You’re not going on waivers.”

Not going on waivers? That one tripped me up. I sat back in my chair and tried to calm down. I usually had a better grip on my temper, but sitting around with nothing to do for weeks had been eating at me from the inside. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“I want to send you to Seattle on a conditioning assignment. The Collective Bargaining Agreement says you have to consent to the assignment, though, so we need to talk about it.”

“I don’t want to go to Seattle. I want to play here.”

“I know you do. We want you to, as well.” Jim leaned forward, his elbows propping him up on his desk. “Here’s the deal. Scotty and I watched you with Hammer out there today. We don’t think you’re ready to get back in a game, not with how the boys have been playing without you. If you go to Seattle, you’ll play tomorrow. If you stay here, you’ll keep working with Hammer and watching from the press box until Scotty thinks you’ve earned your way back into the lineup—or until one of the guys gets hurt or stops performing as well as he needs to. That might be a few games. It might be a few weeks. We need you to be as good as we know you can be from the minute you step out on the ice. Anything less isn’t enough.”

It might not be as bad as I’d initially assumed, but I still didn’t want to do it. “But you need my okay?” I was trying to determine which would be worse—getting sent back to the minors for a few games or sitting in the press box for a few more.

“It would only be for a week. Seattle has three games on the schedule, all at home. No travel. You’d get top-line minutes, and then you’d be back with us.”

“You swear you’re not going to put me on waivers as soon as this conditioning assignment is up?”

“I didn’t sign you over the summer for you to get paid that kind of money and play in Seattle,” Jim said. “I signed you to play here.”

I knew he was telling it to me straight, but my natural instinct was to be distrustful of GMs. Too many of them had given up on me. Too many had told me one thing and done another. It didn’t matter that he was one of Dad’s old buddies. I had a really hard time trusting Jim Sutter on this, even though he personally had done nothing to earn my distrust.

“Yeah,” I said. “Right.”

“They’ll be expecting you in time for tomorrow morning’s practice. I’ll have Martha arrange a hotel for you, and we’ll see you back here in a week.”

I started to argue again, even though I didn’t know what my argument would be when I’d opened my mouth, but Martha knocked and opened the door, stopping me before anything came out.

“Rachel Shaw’s here, Jim.”

“Tell her I’ll be right with her,” he said. Then he turned back to me. “So you’ll do this conditioning assignment, right? You’re not going to fight me on it? I believe this is what’s best both for you and for the Storm.”

I scowled. If I went to Seattle, at least I would be put in some games. Not the games I wanted to be in, but it was something. He’d made no bones about what would happen if I stayed in Portland. Damn it. “Yeah, I’ll go.”

He got up and shook my hand, and I made my way out.

I was fuming so much that I almost ran headfirst into the most hauntingly beautiful, petite redhead I’d ever laid eyes on. She took three quick steps backward, and I put out my hand to help steady her. Her green eyes went wide, and her lips parted into an O. It was like Tinkerbell had sprinkled fairy dust all over her nose and cheeks and left freckles behind.

She was totally not my type, or at least not my usual type. I tend to go for leggy brunettes, girls who were completely put together in every conceivable way. This woman couldn’t look more out of place. Her clothes were probably from a thrift shop and didn’t fit her well, her hair was running riot out of her ponytail holder, her coat wasn’t nearly heavy enough for the local weather, and the fabric of her purse was dingy and covered in what looked to be cat hair.

Despite all of that, I couldn’t stop staring at her.

Holy shit.

“I’m sorry,” I said when I pulled myself back together again. “I should have been paying attention to where I was going.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

She didn’t look fine, though. She looked terrified. I really hoped I wasn’t the reason for her fear, but I figured I was. She gave a brief shake of her head and separated herself from me. In a single movement, she tucked a wild curl behind her ear and settled her purse strap more fully over her shoulder. Then she made a wide circle around me, going with Martha into Jim’s office, peeking over her shoulder at me as she disappeared inside.

So this was Rachel Shaw, then. Whoever Rachel Shaw was.

“Yeah. All right,” I said to her back. I spent too long watching her before heading back down to the locker room. I figured I should go ahead and sort out what gear I needed to take with me. I couldn’t get her out of my head, though. She definitely had a nice ass, this Rachel Shaw. Very nice. Curvy, over her short legs.

And that was pretty much the last thing in the world I needed to be thinking about, the curvy ass of some random, tiny redhead with fairy-dust freckles.

        Not when I had to prove to myself and everyone else I should be playing in the NHL.

RACHEL

It really shouldn’t have been so hard to concentrate on this interview. Not when I’d become such an old pro at them in recent days. But I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the man who’d run straight into me a few minutes ago. He’d been huge. I mean, I knew professional athletes were bigger than your everyday sort of man in general, and no one would ever call my five foot two tall, but holy cow.

Talk about an imposing presence. And if I was going to work for an NHL team, I was going to be around guys his size all the time. At least Maddie wouldn’t be around them, though. It wouldn’t be so bad for me, and I needed a job.

I might have been able to stop myself from thinking about him if he hadn’t been so good-looking. Not just everyday good-looking, but like a movie star—a bit like Pierce Brosnan, back in his younger days. I thought all hockey players were supposed to be missing half their teeth and have bent, broken noses and stitches and bruises everywhere. He’d had a long scar on one cheek that had faded to a pinkish hue, but that was pretty much the only flaw I could find on his chiseled cheekbones, perfectly straight nose, and piercing brown eyes.

And that was more than just a little disarming.

“I’m a little curious,” Mr. Sutter said, peering at me over the top of his glasses and jolting me back to the task at hand, “why the employment agency would send you to interview for an administrative position when your prior work experience is all in manufacturing.”

I knew that look he was giving me. The doubt. I’d been to a dozen interviews in the last week, and every single one of them had dismissed even the tiniest little inkling of a thought of hiring me, straight out of hand, for no reason other than I’d never done any administrative work before.

Well, not all of them. The woman at the doctor’s office on Friday hadn’t let that part bother her. Her problem had been the fact that I didn’t have a college education, that I only had a GED instead of a high school diploma.

I just needed someone—anyone—to look past my lack of experience and education, to give me a chance. I could do anything I put my mind to, and I’d prove it, but I could only prove it if someone gave me the opportunity.

I fought back my frustrations and took a breath to clear my head. “I’m looking for a change,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “I don’t have anyone to help me with my kids, so I need something with comparable hours to when they’ll be in school. When I worked in manufacturing, it was always second shift. I was at work when they were at home.”

And that was when all hell had broken loose.

I couldn’t go much longer without work. I had to have something, and I needed it now. There were only so many more nights I could afford the hotel room and to buy meals for my kids, Madison and Tucker. It wouldn’t be long before we’d go completely through the dregs of my cashed-out 401(k), and then what would I do? Sell the car? It wouldn’t be very easy to get to a job without a car. Besides, I doubted it would bring in much, as old as it was.

Mrs. Alvarez leaned closer to me and narrowed her eyes. She intimidated me more than Mr. Sutter did. It was her eyes. It was like she could see through you, see all the bits of yourself that you’d rather keep private.

I shifted in my seat and crossed my legs in the opposite direction.

“But you did have someone to help when you were in Texas?” she asked.

“I did. I don’t anymore.”

He would damn sure never step foot near my kids again. Thinking about Jason now would only make my blood boil, though. Either that or make me cry. One of the two, neither of which would help me get this job.

“Hmm,” Mr. Sutter said.

That was usually what interviewers said right before they thanked me for my time and ushered me out the door. I had no intention of letting that happen again today. I couldn’t stop myself. I was getting to be a bit desperate, or maybe a lot desperate, and desperation made me do stupid things.

“Look,” I said before I thought better of it, definitely more emphatically than I’d said anything since stepping foot in this building. “I’m a hard worker, as hard a worker as you will ever come across. I may not know how to do everything you need me to do yet, but I’ve never faced a challenge I couldn’t meet, and I learn fast. I was an honor student in high school until I got pregnant. I worked in manufacturing because that was the only job I could get without a high school diploma other than working a drive-through window, and manufacturing paid better and gave me benefits that a job in fast food couldn’t.” I finally took a breath and looked to see what sort of reaction my speech had garnered.

Instead of glaring at me like he wanted to kick me out of his office for practically begging for a job, Jim Sutter looked…I don’t know, interested. That shocked me. It shocked me a lot, actually.

“Do you know how to type?” he asked, leaning back in his chair with his hands forming a steeple in front of him. “How to use word processors and spreadsheets, that sort of thing?”

I nodded. “I learned in middle school.”

Mrs. Alvarez stared at me and then scanned the résumé I’d given them. She brought her eyes back up to meet mine. “You don’t have a phone number on here and the address is a hotel. What are you running away from?”

“I…” Okay, so maybe I only thought I was shocked before. I wasn’t prepared to answer questions like this. It seemed too personal. But I needed a job, and this was starting to feel like it might be my only real chance to get one. “Someone hurt my kid. He can’t hurt her anymore. He’s in prison. I wanted to give her a fresh start, a chance to reset and make her life what she wants it to be.” I wanted that for all of us, not just Maddie…but especially for her.

“That’s why you left Texas,” Mrs. Alvarez said while Mr. Sutter just sat back and let her take over the interview. “But why did you come to Portland? Of all the places you could have gone, why here? You said you don’t have anyone to help with the kids, so what brought you?”

My reason sounded stupid, even to me. I let out a half-laugh, but I told them anyway. “When I was a kid, my parents brought us here on a family vacation once. We saw all the sights, did the whole tourist thing. But on our last day, they brought us to Powell’s City of Books, and I thought it was the best thing ever, books upon books upon books. I could get lost in there and never want to be found. I thought maybe something like that would be good for my daughter, a place where she could live in someone else’s world for a while.” A fictional world was a heck of a lot better than her reality, lately.

With that pathetic explanation, I was pretty sure they’d be ending the interview any minute. Who picks up and moves their family halfway across the country because of a freaking bookstore? No one sane.

I probably wasn’t sane anymore. Good grief, how did this interview get so twisted around? Why had I let it? I probably should just end it myself, thank them and then get up and walk out, see what other employers the agency could send me to.

“Have you taken her to Powell’s yet?” Mr. Sutter asked before I could do that.

I nodded. “Over the weekend.”

“And did it help?”

Maddie, Tuck, and I had spent the whole afternoon there on Saturday, visiting each of the many floors, following the map to find where all our favorite types of books would be. When they called it a “city of books,” they weren’t kidding. It was just as magical a place as I remembered it being. Sure enough, Maddie and Tuck had both found a stack of books to explore, and we had holed up in a corner and read for hours.

I’d felt bad that we were spending so much time there and reading so many books, treating it like it was a library and not a store. So when we left, I’d given in and bought each of them a book. That just meant I’d be eating ramen noodles for my lunches instead of something more filling, at least for a while. It was worth it to be able to buy books for my kids, though. Maddie had already finished her book and had started reading it again, and today was only Monday.

“Yeah,” I finally said. “It’s helping.”

He nodded, but then he stared at me for so long that it made me squirm.

Mrs. Alvarez straightened the stack of papers in front of her and then said to him, “She’s the one.”

The one what?

“She is,” Mr. Sutter said without explaining. He got up from behind his desk and came around it, then sat down in an empty chair between me and Mrs. Alvarez. He took off his glasses and stared at me. “If you’re going to be my new assistant and learn how to replace Martha, I can’t have you living in a hotel with your kids. Why are you?”

If it hadn’t already been too personal, now it really was, but I felt oddly comfortable talking to him. To both of them. “I can’t sign a lease until I have a job, a source of income. Until I have enough money for a deposit and rent.”

“We’re more of a family than a company here,” he said, “the Portland Storm organization. It’s not just a team. We take care of our own.”

        I didn’t have the first clue what he meant by that.

On the Fly at Goodreads

On the Fly has been added to Goodreads! You can go add it to your bookshelves.

What's it about? Here's the blurb:

Injury after injury has put Brenden Campbell’s NHL career on hold for years. Now he’s playing for the Portland Storm and determined to make it stick. Few things in life drive him more than being told he can’t have something he wants, and what he wants most is to prove he belongs. Brenden also wants Rachel Shaw, the cute, little redhead who just got hired as the general manager’s new assistant. But then she went and made herself off-limits, telling him: “I don’t date.” Those three words pretty much guarantee that he’ll do everything he can to change her mind.

Rachel is changing things up on the fly for her family, moving them somewhere she can be the kind of mom her kids deserve. Allowing anyone else to be in their lives is out of the question, at least until her instincts get back on track. How else can she be sure who to steer the kids clear of? Right now she trusts no one, including herself, and especially not a man like Brenden Campbell. He’s way too handsome and a little bit cocky. Falling for a guy like him is a mistake she can’t afford to make twice.

Coming late February or early March.

Cover Reveal: On the Fly

The next book in the Portland Storm series is On the Fly!

For those who are wondering, YES, it is Brenden's story. (You might better recognize him as Soupy.)

It's due to my editor in February, so you should be able to purchase it by late February or early March.

More details to come in the coming weeks, including the back cover copy, some excerpts, and a more concrete release date. In the meanwhile, enjoy the cover. :)

Free Book Friday

Here's another opportunity to win an autographed copy of Breakaway. Go check out the giveaway at Free Book Friday.

Good luck to everyone who enters!

Did it Help?

"Did it help?"

The question, as vague as it may have seemed on the surface, was anything but vague in reality. I was at Erin Knightley's house, the first time the two of us had gotten together since I'd completed writing BREAKAWAY, and I knew exactly what she was asking me.

You see, Erin knew that I had written a romance novel about a woman who'd been raped and, in the aftermath of her rape, had suffered from panic attacks. Not only did Erin know the subject matter of my book, but she knew some of my past--enough to know where the idea for writing a character like that would have come from. She'd been the first person I'd told about my panic attacks, after something (completely innocent!) she'd said to me one day in passing had triggered one. I'd experienced panic attacks before that day, but I hadn't recognized them for what they were, and I hadn't pieced together what triggered them. That day I figured it out, and not long afterward I told Erin about it.

It could only help to talk about it, even if it was difficult.

Readers have asked me since I first posted the unedited chapters of BREAKAWAY on my blog how I would have come up with the idea of a character who has panic attacks after being raped, how I could understand and write so clearly and coherently about what a panic attack feels like. I know because I've been there. I thought of it because I've experienced it.

Maybe a week before that day at Erin's house, I had been working at Starbucks one afternoon with Sabrina Jeffries. I'd recently posted the first chapter of BREAKAWAY on my blog. At one point, Sabrina had turned to me and asked if I'd based the character on myself. She had that look writer's have, when we recognize bits of our author-friends in the characters they write. And, like with Erin, she knew some of my past. Enough of it that it probably wasn't hard to piece together at least as much as she did.

Even though my characters are not me--and Dana Campbell, the heroine of BREAKAWAY is most definitely not me in so many ways--there are always bits and pieces of me, of my life, my personality, of the people I've known and loved. Those pieces find their way into the make-up of the characters because it is what I know. This one part of Dana just happens to be very much a part of me, too.

I was raped.

It was date rape. I'd said no. He'd stopped at first. But then he'd started again, and he'd kept going, and I was young and scared and insecure, and I didn't know what to do. It didn't take too many repetitions of this pattern before I stopped saying no.

He taught me that no didn't mean anything, at least not when it was coming from me. He taught me that I had to do what others wanted of me, whether it was what I wanted or not.

He was wrong, but I didn't know it at the time. I still have to fight to remember how very wrong he was.

It had happened a few times, and each time I hated myself a little more...until I hated myself so much that I couldn't function. I stopped answering my phone. I stopped answering my door. I stopped going to work. I curled up inside myself and wished I could undo everything.

When that didn't work, I tried to go back to my life as usual. I tried to pretend nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened. That didn't work either.

Then I ran away. I packed up, sold almost everything I owned, and moved from Texas to Alaska. I loved Alaska, but I still hated myself.

No matter what I did, I couldn't get away from myself, from all the shame and self-loathing and worthlessness I felt on the inside.

Over the next year, I gained about a hundred pounds. Looking back on it, I realize that was a subconscious move on my part. I was trying to make myself unattractive, so that no man would ever want to do something like that to me again.

Then I only hated myself more.

Eventually, I got into some counseling. It took several years, but I finally understood that I had been raped, not that I had simply made stupid decisions. I gradually grew in confidence. I stopped hating myself and even began to love myself a little. That last part--loving myself--is still hard, but I work on it every day. I started to figure out what I wanted out of life, and I started working toward it.

But I still couldn't bring myself to have a relationship with a man--at least not a romantic relationship.

It's not that I don't want one. I do. On an emotional level, I know that I'm ready for one. I've been ready for one for quite a while. At this point in time, I can't because of my panic attacks.

Over the years, friends have tried to set me up on casual dates. Not anything serious--more as friends. Each time that's happened, I've had a panic attack. At one point recently, I'd thought I was ready. I made a profile on a matchmaking website. As soon as a man contacted me through it, I had a panic attack. In my living room. While I was completely alone, other than my two cats.

So I knew exactly what Erin was asking me that day when she asked, "Did it help?"

I couldn't really answer her, though. All I could do was cry and stutter and mumble my way through an attempt at an answer which didn't even make sense to me.

The truth is--I don't know.

I am both a very analytical and highly emotional person. I spend a great deal of time trying to understand myself, trying to think through how and why I react in certain ways, trying to reorganize my thought patterns and my often overly emotional responses to things so that I can grow as a person. It's a slow, cumbersome process. It only takes a moment to destroy something. It takes years to rebuild.

I'm still rebuilding.

In writing about Dana Campbell, a character who went through a similar experience which resulted in the same sort of physical responses, I was able to confront it at least somewhat. I was able to at the very least conceive a means of getting through the panic. Would it work in a real life setting? Would it work for me? Without trying, I can only make wild, stab-in-the-dark guesses.

Which means that I have to try. I have to somehow screw up enough courage, to be brave enough to try something that I want but am terrified of.

So...did it help?

You tell me.

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Unleashing Breakaway on the World

Breakaway, the first novel in my Portland Storm series, is officially here!

She’s reaching for a breakaway pass.

Dana Campbell has spent the past seven years in self-imposed isolation for a crime she didn’t commit. The danger is well in the past, but her panic attacks make it impossible to have a normal, healthy relationship with a man. Even her counselor has given up on her. She has to find someone she trusts to help her fight through the panic, or her seven-year ordeal will become a lifetime sentence. There’s only one man she feels safe enough to ask.

He got caught with his head down.

As the captain of the NHL’s once elite but now fading Portland Storm, Eric Zellinger knows a thing or two about keeping his focus on the job. Questions are flying about his ability to lead the team back to the playoffs. If they don’t make it, he might be shipped out of town. It’s the worst time possible for his best friend’s kid sister to divide his focus. How can he give her what she needs without jeopardizing both the Storm’s playoff hopes and his future with the team?

It’s her only chance, but it’s his last shot.

Where can you find Breakaway? It's available as an ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks, and Smashwords. (It's still processing at Kobo, the iBookstore, and other ebook retailers.) You can also find it in print through Amazon.

Breakaway - Unedited Chapter 3

This is the third chapter of my upcoming hockey romance, Breakaway--still unedited, but a little something to whet your appetite. It's releasing later this month. If you missed the first two chapters, here are Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

“Drink your wine.” Eric had gone back to the kitchen, taking the half-full bottle with him. “Not enough to get drunk. Just enough to take the edge off. It’ll help.”

As soon as he said that, he downed the last of his glass.

He was right. I needed to calm down some after all of this. I was exhausted from all of my travel, from the emotional drain of talking to him about this—but I was also wired. It was a strange and decidedly uncomfortable combination.

I sipped on my wine, let it flow through my body until I was a little warm and tingly, but in a good way.

“What…uh? Damn.” He dragged his hand through his hair, mussing it up until it looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. “What do you want to do tonight?”

That question was way too open-ended. This couldn’t be all about me. He had his own life to live, too. I licked my lips, savoring the sweet taste of wine there. “What would you and Kim do when you had a night off like this?”

As soon as I said her name, I regretted it. Kim had been his girlfriend for years, so long I was sure they were going to get married any time. They looked great together, just the sort of girl a professional athlete should be with. He’d even talked to me about rings one summer. But that was before he’d come home from a road trip and found her in bed with a then-current teammate who’d been left behind to rehab a broken foot.

It’d been two years since their breakup, but still. I doubted he wanted to think about her right now. As far as I knew, there hadn’t been anyone since. He might still be hurting from it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“We’d probably sit and watch TV together for a while.” Eric didn’t look upset to me. He should have. It would have been easier for some reason if he was upset. “She’d lean against me and I’d wrap my arms around her, hold her close. Then we’d go to bed, and either make love or just go to sleep. That’s what most of our nights in were like. Easy. Relaxed.”

That sounded exactly like the Eric I knew. He was never a flashy type, never wanted to go out and party or anything. He typically got more than enough excitement from his job; he needed comfort at home.

I swallowed hard, trying not to let my panic set in about the implications of all he’d said. “We could maybe watch TV together.”

I didn’t say anything about having his arms around me or going to bed… I couldn’t think about things like that. Not now.

“Okay.” Just like that, he went into the living room and turned on the TV.

When I joined him, he’d left me plenty of space to sit beside him on the white leather couch or, if I wanted, I could sit in one of the two recliners. But that wasn’t what I was here for—separating myself. I needed to push myself, to push my boundaries so I could break through them and come out on the other side, hopefully still in one piece.

I sat on the couch—not quite pushing myself up against the far arm of it, but close. Eric was well on the other end. Not close enough to touch me. Safe.

I didn’t know what show he turned on. I wasn’t able to focus on that just now. Just trying to remember to breathe, to keep my pulse down at a normal level—those kinds of things took up all of my focus and there was nothing left to worry about a silly TV show.

After a while, I started watching Eric instead of what was on the screen. It was easier to focus on him, anyway.

He had his right leg tucked up underneath his left, the white athletic sock sticking out beside his left knee, just like he’d always done when we were kids. I guess he’d taken his shoes off while I was upstairs. I hadn’t noticed until now.

Every time my mom would catch him sitting like that, she’d admonish him. Not about damaging the furniture or anything like that. She didn’t really care about that, or at least she knew she was fighting a losing battle with growing kids in the house. It was more about the strain he was putting on his knees and hips. “They aren’t designed to turn like that,” she’d say. “You could hurt your chances of playing professionally.”

She was right. He knew she was right. Every time he’d straighten his legs out after sitting that way, he’d wince at the pain in his knee, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from doing it. Especially when he and Brenden would play video games. He told me once that if he sat any other way, he always lost. Eric didn’t like to lose at anything. Ever.

And he still sat like that.

After a minute, he turned to me and cocked a grin. “You’re making me nervous, staring at me like that.”

I looked down at my lap almost immediately, watching my hands twist together. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t want to make him nervous. I never wanted to make anyone nervous. Not when I knew how it felt.

“Do you not watch this show? The Vampire Diaries? The married guys all say their wives are addicted. I just…I assumed. I shouldn’t assume. I thought you’d want to watch.”

“You can put on whatever. I don’t care.” I didn’t. With all my heightened emotion right now, I didn’t think I’d be able to watch anything and really pay attention. It would just be background noise. Something to help me get through one minute and then the next.

“You’re sure? You don’t mind if I put on NHL Tonight? I want to see what’s going on around the league. Keep up with things.”

I shook my head. Putting on something about hockey might be best, anyway. Hockey was common ground, for us. It was familiar. It was safe.

“Okay.” Eric reached for the remote and flipped the channel. “You can take your shoes off, you know. Get comfortable.”

I could, but I doubted I’d ever be able to really be comfortable, shoes or no. At least not so soon. Not being in his house. I’d planned to be in a hotel. Somewhere separate. Somewhere I could escape to when things got too intense. Still, I did it for his sake, getting up and placing my flats neatly by the front door before coming back to the couch.

He’d shifted a little, moved down a couple of inches closer to where I had been sitting. I didn’t think he’d done it intentionally, but the fact remained he was closer to my space.

I sat down anyway and, with no shoes, tucked both my feet up beside me—between the two of us. He still wasn’t close enough that we were touching, I was relieved to discover…but I could feel the warmth from his body rolling over my toes.

He winked at me, then returned his attention to the TV.

“With tonight’s win, Colorado moves up into a tie with Portland for that eighth spot in the West,” the announcer said, catching my attention with the mention of Eric’s team. “Portland doesn’t play again until Saturday, and by then they could have fallen out of their current playoff seeding entirely, potentially dropping as low as number twelve in the conference. It’s going to be a bumpy ride getting into the playoffs in the Western Conference, as usual. There are only six weeks left in the season, and twelve teams are still reasonably in the race.”

Then they cut to the arena cam in Denver to interview Gabriel Landeskog about the win. He said all the usual boring and predictable things hockey players are taught from a young age to say in interviews. “Big team win; great effort from the goalie; we left him out to dry a few times but we held on when it counted and managed to pick up a big two points in overtime.” All that sort of thing. Focus on the team. Talk about what you need to do better. Don’t throw a teammate under the bus even when they deserve it—that stuff stays in the room. Don’t give any sound bites that can come back to bite you in the ass. Be as boring in front of the media as the rest of the hockey players in the world.

Hockey players weren’t boring if you knew them, though. I’d never been bored being around my teammates over the years, or Brenden and Eric’s.

I stole another glimpse over at Eric but made a point not to stare this time. His jaw was set, tight. If he was facing me, I had no doubt he’d have a big crease between his brows.

He put a lot of pressure on himself to be sure the team did well. He always had. I was sure that was a big part of the reason they made him the team captain when he was so young.

With the Portland Storm missing the playoffs the last three years, and barely holding onto a spot now, this was really bad timing for me to be asking him to help me. Damn it. He needed to focus, needed to pay attention to his job, to doing whatever it took to get his team to succeed. Not to me.

“We have another final score for you just coming in,” the announcer said. “Let’s go to Nashville for the highlights.”

I watched the replay of Nashville scoring five unanswered goals against St. Louis, trouncing them pretty soundly, and felt Eric’s tension growing with each goal. It was rolling off of him, tightening his shoulders.

“So there you have it. Nashville pulls within a point of Portland and Colorado with this win, and they have two games in hand.”

Eric ground his teeth together.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He jerked his head around to look at me. “What are you sorry for?”

“This is…it’s just really bad timing. I should have realized you had more important—”

“Stop that. Stop saying you’re sorry, and don’t try to tell me a stupid game is more important than you.”

It wasn’t just a stupid game, though. It was his livelihood. Yeah, it was just a game, but it had made so many things possible for him. It was part of him, and he was part of it. I couldn’t think of what Eric would be like if he didn’t have hockey in his life. They’d always gone hand-in-hand for me.

I shivered, more from the intensity of his stare than from cold. He got up without a word and brought back a warm chenille throw, handing it to me instead of trying to cover me with it.

“Thank you.”

He nodded. “Look, I’m not gonna lie to you and tell you it’s not a tough time right now. It is. We have to get back to the playoffs this year, and frankly the possibility of that happening is looking pretty shaky. But that’s my job. My worry. That’s for me to worry about, not you. I don’t want you to worry about anything but yourself.”

“Yeah. Okay.” I unfolded the blanket and draped it over myself, carefully tucking it around my knees and feet. My toes were a little cold, actually. But Eric was full of it if he thought I would be able to not worry about anything but myself. He knew me. He knew I worried about anything and everything, especially if it wasn’t something I could control. That was part of my charm, or so Brenden had always told me. Sure, he was probably teasing me when he said that. That’s what brothers do. But still.

“Dana.” My name sounded tortured when he said it.

I met his eyes, but I couldn’t read him this time.

Then he put his hand between us, close to me, reaching for mine.

Instinct told me to jerk my hand away, to push myself back closer to the arm of the couch, to get up and move to the recliner or run upstairs and lock myself in my room or better yet run out the front door and not look back.

I didn’t.

I let him take my hand and hold it in his, resting them on the couch between us. His hand was big and warm and strong, his palm rough with a few calluses caused by hockey gloves and weight machines and God only knew what else.

My pulse was racing, hard and fast and terrifying, and I couldn’t take a full breath, and I was hot, suddenly, so very hot. With my left hand, I ripped the throw blanket off me and tossed it to the floor.

Eric moved to let go of my hand, but I grabbed onto him and wouldn’t let go.

“Not yet. Let me see if it’ll pass.” I could hear the desperation in my own voice, and the fear. Always the fear.

But he stopped pulling away.

I closed my eyes, focused on taking a breath in through my nose, out through my mouth, in, out, in, out, counting them in my head and trying to ignore how hard my body was shaking.

It was no good. I couldn’t ignore it. I couldn’t get enough air, and my head was pounding, pounding, screaming with the pain of not getting enough oxygen until I knew, without a doubt, I’d end up with a migraine from it if I couldn’t get it under control and fast.

“Dana, I can’t. I can’t watch you go through this. I can’t be the cause of it.”

Eric tried to pull his hand away again, but I couldn’t let him. I couldn’t give in so fast, so easily. I dug in with my fingers so hard it hurt. I doubted it hurt him, but it was enough to get his attention. He could still pull away if he wanted to, though. He was stronger than me by a longshot.

“Just hold me. Please.” Every word was torture because of the breath required. “Hold my hand.”

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t let go.

I tried counting my breaths again, in and out, reminding myself that it was Eric holding my hand. Eric Zellinger. Brenden’s best friend. I’d asked him to do this. I trusted him. I was safe with him.

Gradually, the shaking slowed down. The sweating stopped, but then I was wet and cold, shivering. I reached down to the floor and pulled the blanket back up onto me.

Eric didn’t let go of my hand through all of that.

Once my breaths weren’t quite so shallow anymore, the pounding in my head lessened and slowly went away.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I had to make a joke of it, make light of it, or I’d fall to pieces.

Eric didn’t respond, though.

I looked up at him, desperate to hear him laugh it off, too. He wasn’t laughing. I’d never seen him look so tortured, so pained, so—broken was the only word that seemed to fit.

“That was hell.”

An hour later, I didn’t know if it was Dana still shaking, or if it was me.

But I was still holding her hand.

She’d hardly moved a muscle in all that time, not to pull away from me, but not to move closer either. I wanted to twine my fingers with hers, to smooth the pad of my thumb over the back of her hand, calming, soothing, but I didn’t know if she could handle that. How much was too much, too soon? Where was the line? Would she even let me back away from the line in time, or would she insist on trying to push through her attacks until she actually did stop breathing? I just didn’t know.

But I didn’t let go, and neither did she.

Dana yawned. She had to be beyond exhausted. Jet lag, a day of travel, not to mention the panic attack. Those all took a lot out of her individually. Combined, though?

I was about to suggest she call it a night and go up to bed when the front door opened and Babs came in, laughing. He wasn’t alone. Razor was with him—Ray Chambers, one of the other rookies on the team this year.

Dana jumped, and I could tell she wanted to pull her hand away, she wanted to run, but she didn’t.

I should have told Babs about Dana when he texted earlier. I should have let him know it wasn’t a good night to bring anyone else in for a late-night snack or a drink or a video game, or anything. It was going to be hard enough for her to meet him tonight. This was asking too much.

The inside of her wrist was pressed against my arm. I could feel her pulse pounding, racing, nearly bursting through her veins. Damn it.

Babs went into the kitchen for a couple of waters from the fridge. “Sorry, man, she wasn’t looking at you.”

“Nah, bro. She wanted me, eh.” Razor was oblivious to the two of us as he came into the living room and plopped down on the first recliner. “Not you. You’re cute, like Bieber or a puppy or something. They want to pet you, but that’s about it. But me? Girls dig me. Tell him, Zee.”

Babs came back and tossed the bottled water at Razor, trying to hit him in the head with it. It almost worked, but Razor tossed up his hands at the last second and caught it.

Then he looked over at me, and saw Dana. “Oh. Sorry, Zee. I didn’t… Damn, Babs, why didn’t you say he had a girl here?”

Babs just gave him a how-the-hell-was-I-supposed-to-know look, then brushed his hands through his hair, trying to straighten himself up like if his mom was around or something.

Dana, however, was strung so tight I knew she was going to blow at any moment…not in anger, but in panic.

I tightened my grip on her hand, trying to reassure her. “Guys, this is my girlfriend Dana. Dana, that’s Babs on the left and Razor on the right. And Razor was just on his way out.”

“I—” Razor thought twice about arguing that point. Smart move. “Yeah, right. See ya in the morning, boys. See ya around, Dana.”

Babs followed him to the door and locked it behind him. He had a huge, sheepish grin on his face when he came back. “Sorry, Zee. I didn’t…” He shrugged. “You’ve been keeping quite a secret from the boys, there.”

Dana was squirming, and the temperature of her hand shot up fast. In no time, it was covered in sweat. She tossed the blanket off her lap again and looked at me with wild eyes.

Fuck.

“A pretty secret, though.”

Babs should have kept his damn mouth shut.

Dana jerked her hand out of mine and bolted up the stairs. I only counted to three from the moment she left until I heard her bedroom door slam closed.

“Did I say something wrong? Chicks are crazy. Maybe I should have left Razor to it, if this is what they’re like.”

Getting mad at Babs wouldn’t help anything, but I needed somewhere to vent. Not on him, though. He didn’t know better.

“Dana isn’t crazy.” I picked up the throw blanket and tossed it back onto the sofa. “She’s going to live here. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.” Then I went up the stairs behind her.

“Yeah… I’m sorry, Zee. ‘Night.”

In the morning, on our way into practice, I’d tell him more than I intended to tell the other guys. If he and Dana were going to live in the same house, there were things he’d have to understand. But I trusted Babs. Like I’d told Dana, he was a good kid. He’d never do anything to intentionally hurt anyone. But, he was a kid.

When I got to her door, I knocked.

No answer.

“Dana?”

I could hear her struggling for her breath just on the other side of the door, down near the floor. I dropped to my knees, pressed my ear up against it.

“It’s just me. Are you… Do you need anything?”

“I’m s-s-sorry.”

“Please stop apologizing, kid.”

Times like this, I just wanted to pull her into my arms and hold her until it passed. I’d done that before. When she was twelve, Soupy got hurt bad in a game we were playing. Got knocked out cold. They took him to the hospital in an ambulance, and her parents went with him and left her with me and my folks. She was terrified. We both were. She cried and cried, and all I could do was hold her tight for hours, until we heard. Until we knew he would be okay.

But I couldn’t do that now. Even if she would let me in, even if she hadn’t locked the door to protect herself, I couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe, if she was right, if this plan worked how she hoped it would…maybe someday.

But for now, all I could do was sit on the floor by her door and hate myself for not being able to protect her from her demons.

It wasn’t the first time I’d done this, sitting by her door. When Soupy and I went home for Christmas our senior year, the first time we’d seen her after… She couldn’t bring herself to come out of her bedroom that whole break.

Her parents tried to just go on about their lives, hoping that she’d snap out of it.

Soupy couldn’t take it. He went to the gym for hours at a time, coming home with bruised and bloodied knuckles because he spent too long beating up punching bags.

But me? I sat by her door a lot, listening, waiting, hoping maybe she would tell me what I could do, ask me for help. Anything.

She didn’t.

She was better by summer, at least if you consider how she was now better. She wouldn’t let us hug her anymore, and she couldn’t look me in the eye. There were no more kisses on the cheek or arm wrestling contests, none of the things we used to do. But she would come out of her room again.

That was progress. That was all we could really ask for, I suppose—progress.

My knees hurt, so I dropped lower until I was actually sitting on the floor instead of kneeling. I leaned my back against the wall and dropped my head back, listening to be sure she started breathing normally again.

I had to wait a long time.

It scared me, the breathing thing. Especially since she had locked the door. I had a key, but it would just take more time if we had to get in there. I racked my mind, trying to remember exactly where I’d put the key. Just in case.

It was probably in the drawer of my nightstand. But I wasn’t sure. I was debating with myself over whether I should go make sure that’s where it was or whether I should stay put, making sure she was breathing, when I heard it.

“Eric?” Just a tiny voice.

“Yeah? I’m still here.” I’d be here as long as it took.

“I need water to take my meds.”

She sounded more normal. Calmer. She wasn’t crying anymore, at least.

“Okay. I’ll be right back with it.”

I took the stairs two at a time. Babs had gone off to his room, whether to play video games or watch porn or sleep, I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

I grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and took them back up, setting them on the floor just outside the door.

“They’re right here when you open the door. And there’s a flashlight and pepper spray in the nightstand.”

“I know.” She sounded a little stronger. Less shaky. “I found them earlier. Thank you.”

“Do you…do you need anything else?” I wanted her to say yes. I wanted her to need something that would force her to open the door and let me see her, let me see with my own eyes that she was better again, or at least on her way to being better.

“No, I…”

Please need me.

“I’ll be fine.” She sounded firm on that, damn it. “I’ll see you in the morning, Eric. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“All right. But wake me, whatever time it is if you need anything.”

“Good night, Eric.”

Now was not the time to push. “Good night, Dana.”

I went back down the hall to my room and closed the door, and I waited. A minute later, I heard her lock turn and the door open, then just as quickly she closed it again and locked it.

Instead of going to bed, though, I threw every pillow I had across the room, ripped the sheets back off the bed, pounded the mattress.

It didn’t help.

And now I had to make my bed.