Sneak Peek: On the Fly, Unedited Chapter 2

I had a great response again when I shared the first unedited chapter of On the Fly. To tide you over while I'm waiting to get it back from my editor, here's the second chapter!

If you haven't read the first chapter yet, you can find that here.

On the Fly will release at the end of February, on or around the 26th, so you've only got about two more weeks to wait before you can read the whole thing.

BRENDEN:

The team had almost finished practice by the time I’d gone to see Drywall Tierney, the team’s head equipment manager. He helped me to sort out what gear I needed to take with me and what would be provided in Seattle. They were winding things down on the ice, so I hung around for a bit. I needed to talk to Jamie Babcock.

Babs was an almost-twenty-year-old hockey phenom and, at least for this season, my roommate. Last season, he’d lived with Zee so he could adjust to life as a pro hockey player and to being away from his mom and dad. When I got called up to finish last season in Portland, I’d lived with them, too. This year, Babs and I both thought it would be better to give Zee and Dana some space, some privacy. We got a condo together near downtown, a nice place not too far from either the arena or the practice facility.

I liked Babs. He didn’t need me to babysit him or anything, but he had still jumped at the idea of us living together. I was pretty sure it was that he wouldn’t have to figure out how to cook for himself, more than anything, that convinced him it was a good idea.

Babs wasn’t that great in the kitchen. Actually, he was a holy terror in the kitchen. I’d banned him from ever touching the stove within a week of us moving into the new place. Not much later, I’d added the oven, the toaster, and the coffee maker to the list of off-limit appliances. It was best for all involved if Babs didn’t attempt to make anything more complicated than a peanut butter sandwich.

When the boys came off the ice, I told him the news about me heading to Seattle for a week.

He was busy changing out of his gear. “Damn, Soupy,” he said once I finished talking. “That sucks. I mean, it’ll be good to get back on the ice, but…”

He didn’t have to finish that thought.

“Anyway, you’ll have to find a way to feed yourself for a week,” I said, making a joke instead of focusing on the fact that, once more, I was on my way down to the minors. It was easier to laugh off my frustration than to face my fears.

Zee hung his pads neatly in his stall, proving himself to be just about the perfect human once again. His perfection would probably annoy me more if he wasn’t my best friend, but I’d spent more than half my life witnessing it. “You can come hang out with me and Dana some,” he said. “She misses you, and then you won’t have to starve.”

Babs blushed, which only made him more adorable than he already was. Adorable wasn’t a word I’d usually use about another guy, but this kid slayed me.

“Yeah, all right,” he said.

I was glad they were going to look after him. He may not need a babysitter, but he could definitely make good use of a personal chef.

Before things got even more awkward, I figured it was better for me to just head out. “Yeah. Anyway, I have to be there in the morning. Better go pack so I can get on the road.” It was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive so there was no point in flying.

I headed toward the garage, but halfway there I saw that redhead, Rachel Shaw, coming down the stairs. She had her head down and was talking to herself, having this whole long, drawn-out conversation back and forth. Well, conversation probably wasn’t quite the right word. It was more like an argument. Out loud. Every step of the way down the stairs.

I’d never seen anything more adorable, and that included Babs and his fucking blushes and dimples. I moved into position at the foot of the stairs and waited for her.

Once she was close enough for me to hear what she was saying, I realized she had the most fascinating southern accent I’d ever heard. I must not have heard her say enough when I’d run into her earlier, or I surely would have noticed it. “…But it isn’t for me,” she muttered. “It’s for Maddie and Tuck. I can accept it for them. I have to.”

She almost walked straight into me, which would have made us even. Plus, it would have given me a great excuse to touch her again, to put my arms out and help steady her. Right before she would have barreled into me she realized I was there, nearly jumping back in shock.

“Who’s winning?” I asked, giving her a smile that had always made girls melt in the past.

“Winning what?”

Yeah, so Rachel Shaw didn’t melt. Instead, she narrowed those green eyes on me, and she had to crane her neck back to see my face. She couldn’t be taller than five feet or so. Definitely not my usual type. Besides, she was eyeing me like I was the most suspicious man on the planet. This chick wanted nothing to do with me.

I couldn’t help myself, though. I wanted to talk to her, to keep hearing that southern accent. “The argument. Are you going to take it—whatever it is—or not?”

She pulled the strap of her purse over her head to rest on the opposite shoulder. I let my eyes follow the line it made, angling down her chest, between her boobs. I shouldn’t have done that. But I’m just a man like any other, and as such there are few things in the world that will draw my eye like a good pair of boobs. Rachel Shaw definitely had a pair worth looking at to go along with her cute ass.

Hell, I had to stop thinking like that.

She didn’t answer my question. She glared at me, which she absolutely should have done since I was staring shamelessly at her rack. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, pushing past me and heading toward the parking garage. “I have somewhere to be.”

Since I was already on my way out to the garage, I figured I’d walk with her. She was much faster than me, faster than she should’ve been, considering how short her legs were and how long mine were. I’m six foot four, but I couldn’t walk at anything resembling a leisurely pace if I wanted to keep up with her.

Which I did—I wanted to keep up with her, keep talking to her, keep hearing that drawl.

I didn’t really understand it. Not at all. I mean, she was adorable with her freckles and all, but there ought to be a lot more involved in gaining my interest than appearances, shouldn’t there? “Where do you have to be?” I asked despite myself.

She slowed down enough to give me an exasperated look, but she didn’t stop. “I have to pick my kids up at school.”

Kids? Shit. I took a quick look down at her hand, but there was no wedding ring. But kids just meant complications—time spent with them, dealing with exes—and I had enough complications of my own. Not that it should matter to me. I wasn’t interested. I mean, not really. She wasn’t my type. Other than her breasts. They were nice and perky still, even though she had kids. Not too big, but more than enough to play with.

I had to remind myself that I had no business thinking about playing with her boobs. This business with getting sent to Seattle was obviously fucking with my head. That didn’t stop me from saying, “School doesn’t get out for a few hours. Can I buy you lunch?” Okay, so maybe I was interested.

She didn’t slow down. “No.”

“Coffee, then? That won’t take too long. There’s a place right down—”

“Not gonna happen.” This time, she stopped suddenly and spun around to face me. “I don’t even know who you are. I’d appreciate it if you’d back off.” Then she started her sprint-walking again.

We’d made it into the garage, and the heels of her flats were clacking along on the concrete. She pulled her keys out of her pocket, holding the long car key in front of her like a weapon.

Every time she shot me down, my interest only grew. How the hell did that work? I wasn’t used to being rejected, not by women. Just by hockey teams lately. “Brenden Campbell,” I said, holding out my hand, but she ignored it and kept going. “What is it? You have a boyfriend or something? A husband?”

Yeah, there was no ring, but it had to be something like that. Surely. Didn’t it? Girls didn’t just brush me off, not usually. I’d never been a player or anything like that, but I’d never had a problem getting a girl to go out with me before.

She stopped in front of a gray Ford Taurus that might have seen better days at one point but it was too beat-up-looking at present for me to be sure. The backseat was littered with toys and a couple of kids’ booster seats. She put the key in the lock and turned it, then opened the door and got in.

I put my hand on the door, stopping her from shutting it. “Just let me take you out. One date.” One date would be more than enough for me to work my charm on her, for her to come around.

I had no clue what the look she was giving me meant.

“I don’t date,” she said emphatically. Then she jerked the door out of my hand and closed it, started the engine, backed out of her spot, and drove off. I stood there watching her Texas license plate fade away into the distance.

She didn’t date?

I could have handled something along the lines of I don’t date athletes, or maybe I don’t date cocky bastards who don’t know how to take a hint. I could have figured out a way to work around those excuses, to break down her defenses and get her to see reason. But ‘I don’t date?’ No dating—period? That one statement, complex in its simplicity, had me standing in the parking garage scratching my head for a few minutes after she left.

I finally started making my way up to my car on the next level, but then I remembered I hadn’t gotten my hotel information from Martha. I would rather get that now than come back to the practice facility before heading out of town, so I made my way back into the building.

When I got to the second floor and arrived at her desk, Martha didn’t even look up from her computer. Again. She just reached over to a letter tray, picked up an envelope, and handed it to me. “Your hotel reservation and other pertinent information is inside, Campbell. Any questions, just call me.”

“Thanks, Martha.” I started to walk off, but then my curiosity got the better of me. I came back to her desk. “Actually, I do have one question for you. Who’s Rachel Shaw?”

For the first time in my experience playing for the Storm, Martha stopped what she was doing and really looked at me. “She’s my replacement. I’m finally going to retire and travel with my husband. She starts training next Monday.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, trying not to seem too interested. “Thanks, Martha.”

       Next Monday. I’d be back in Portland by then.

RACHEL:

I was still shaking with excitement by the time I picked Maddie and Tuck up from school that afternoon. They were easy to spot in the crowd of kids coming out of the building and swarming toward me. Both my kids had my same bright-red hair, and they both hated it just as much as I had when I was their age. Redheads get picked on all the time, and being called “carrot top” is nowhere near the worst of it. At least it hadn’t been back when I was in school. I doubted things had changed much over the years.

As soon as I saw them, I raised my hand as high as I could and waved until they saw me.

Tuck ran straight at me and leaped into my arms with a ginormous hug. He dropped his backpack at my feet and let me lift him up into the air. “Guess what?” he said, grinning so big that the two holes where his front teeth should have been were gaping at me, one on top and one on bottom. “Two and two is four!”

“You’re right,” I agreed. I kissed the freckles on his cheeks and mussed his hair as I set him back on the ground. “Did Mrs. Christenson teach you that?”

He wasn’t yet six, and Mrs. Christenson was his second kindergarten teacher. I worried that uprooting the kids in the middle of the school year would hurt their education, but I worried more about what would have happened if we had stayed.

“Nah. I learnded it myself.” He was still learning how verbs worked, how to conjugate them properly. I loved how he would say things like learnded and burnded and fakeded. All too soon, he was going to know the proper way to say these things. He was growing up too fast. They both were. I sometimes wished I could freeze certain moments in time and keep my kids just as they were right then.

That wasn’t possible, though. They were going to grow up and experience whatever life had to throw at them. No matter how much I wanted to protect them from the ugliness life might bring, I couldn’t. Not completely.

I laughed and picked up his backpack, putting the straps over his shoulders. Then I smiled at Maddie.

She was hanging back like she did so often lately. Maddie didn’t smile much anymore. She used to be completely uninhibited like Tuck, giggling and saying silly things and making me smile. A few years ago, that all changed.

At first, I thought she was just getting older and it was normal. We all become a bit more inhibited, a bit more guarded, as we age. But not like Maddie.

I finally found out what was behind the change about six months ago. I had come home from work one night and relieved Jason so he could go home. Jason was my ex-husband, Maddie and Tuck’s dad. We shared custody, and he would stay at my apartment with the kids while I worked every night. By the time I’d get home, they’d be asleep in bed, and he’d leave. We’d been doing it that way for years, ever since the divorce, when I started working so I could provide for them.

But one night, when I opened the door to Tuck’s room to check on him, he wasn’t asleep. That shocked me, because Tuck was the soundest sleeper I’d ever known. He was crying these big, huge, gut-wrenching sobs. At first I’d thought maybe he’d had a nightmare. But it had been nothing as simple as that. Jason had spanked him because Tuck had come to investigate the cries coming from Maddie’s room. He’d gone to see what was wrong, and he’d found his father in the act of molesting my little girl.

Through the legal investigation and subsequent counseling for me and both kids, I learned it had been going on for at least three years.

Three years. Under my own roof.

The man who had given me my daughter had also taken her away from me.

She was still here, but she wasn’t the same. Maddie would never be the same again.

At least now I knew he could never hurt her again. Even if he someday got out of prison, the courts wouldn’t allow him to come near her. Now I just had to figure out how to protect her from everyone and everything else in the world.

“Did you have a good day at school?” I asked, holding out my hand to her. She didn’t take it, but she walked along beside me.

Maddie looked a heck of a lot older than her eight years—not in her physical appearance, but something in her eyes. She had my eyes, green with gold flecks all around them, but hers looked like those of an old soul. She talked like one sometimes, too, not like a eight-year-old child.

“It was fine.”

It was fine was her way of telling me to back off. Her counselor had suggested it back in Texas—a simple phrase she could use when she needed space.

That only made me more curious about what had happened, if anything, but it would have to wait for another time for us to talk about it. It might be nothing and she just didn’t want to talk. Or she might not want to talk in front of Tuck. She was really protective of him, always trying to make sure he was sheltered from things he was too young for. Similar to how I was with her.

“Okay,” I said as we got to my car. “Listen, I have some news. We’re going out for ice cream to celebrate.”

“Yes!” Tuck said as he practically jumped into his booster seat. There were few things in life that could excite him more than ice cream. He fastened his seat belt and picked up a Hot Wheels car off the seat beside him, immediately making it race along his leg while he made vrrrroom sounds. He could entertain himself like that for hours.

I waited for Maddie to get in so I could close the door and go around to the driver’s seat. She looked up at me with wary eyes and dropped her voice so Tuck couldn’t hear. “Can we afford it? We shouldn’t go if we can’t afford it.”

God, I hated how she was worried about things like money. She should be worried about whether she should wear blue or purple barrettes in her hair with her favorite outfit, not about how tight my finances were. I dropped down to my knees so I could look her in the eye. “We can. I’ll explain when we get there, okay?”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded.

“Okay.”

I gave her a little peck on her forehead, and she got in. She buckled her belt, and I closed the door. By the time I got around to the driver’s side, a tear had trickled down my cheek.

Damn it. I brushed it away with the back of my hand while I got in and started the car. I checked the rearview mirror. Tuck was still racing his cars, and Maddie had pulled a book out of her backpack to read.

I took a breath and pulled out into traffic. This was going to get better. Maddie would get better. Otherwise, why did I bring my kids halfway across the country?

“We’re going to live there?” Tuck asked. His hazel eyes were as big as his face as he stared out the window of the ice cream shop.

The condo building Jim Sutter had recommended was right across the street from where I’d brought the kids. There was a park with a play area within walking distance, Powell’s Books was only a short drive away, and there was an after-school care program near the condo that I could get the kids into. I’d already gone by this afternoon before they’d gotten out of school and signed a lease, putting down a deposit with the money Mr. Sutter had insisted I take.

A signing bonus, he’d called it. I’d said only players get signing bonuses, but he just shook his head at me.

“Not in this case.”

I’d never in my life seen so much money at one time.

“We’ll go look at it after you finish your ice cream,” I said to Tuck.

The mint chocolate chip ice cream was dripping out of his cone and spreading all over the table. Nothing I could throw at the mess would stop it. I’d given up the fight to stop the ice cream’s progress after tossing a big stack of napkins on it. I’d have to get a rag from the workers once he was done. He had gotten more of that sticky stuff on his face than he had in his mouth. All I could do was grin at him.

Maddie had asked for a small bowl of vanilla, no cone, nothing on it. I figured she was still worried about money and was trying to get the cheapest thing on the menu.

“They’ll let Pumpkin live with us?” she asked between bites.

Pumpkin was the huge, fluffy, orange tabby cat I’d had since I was twelve years old. I was twenty-five now, which made him fourteen. He was starting to get on in years, and the move had been harder on him than it was on the rest of us.

It didn’t surprise me that Maddie was concerned about him. The day she was born, he’d become her cat more than mine. I’d caught him in her crib on countless occasions when she was a baby, curled up right by her side. If we’d tried to close her door so he couldn’t get in, he’d clawed at the carpet and whined and cried until we let him in out of fear that he’d wake her up. He’d always looked out for her, so now she was looking out for him.

I smiled. “Absolutely. It’s got hardwood floors. No carpet for him to tear up.”

Tuck gave me his best dubious look, raising his left eyebrow so high it was comical. “Are you really gonna work for a hockey team, Mommy?”

“Really, really.” I finished off my hot fudge sundae and wiped my face with one of the few napkins I’d held back from trying to clean up after him. “Mr. Sutter said we can even go to some of the games.”

One of my new job perks was four tickets to every home game. I’d told Mr. Sutter I wanted to donate all the ones on school nights to some charitable cause or another because that was too late to have the kids out. But it would be nice to be able to treat them to something like a hockey game on the weekends.

“Awe-some!” he squealed, emphasizing each syllable. Then the last of his mint chocolate chip plopped off his cone and splatted on the table. He started giggling uncontrollably.

His laughter was infectious. As good as I felt with how today had gone, I was laughing in no time. Even Maddie laughed for a second before quietly going back to her bowl of vanilla. I went to the counter for a bucket and rag to clean up Tuck’s mess.

I was still in awe over it all. I mean, the salary for this job was going to be more than I had ever come close to making before. It had full benefits—health and life insurance, 401(k), vacation and sick time—plus all sorts of perks like the game tickets. I couldn’t figure out why Mr. Sutter was giving the job to me. Yeah, he’d said he had a thing for the underdog and that his mom was a single mom, too. But still. It wasn’t quite clicking. Especially not since he’d handed me that check today.

“Get yourself a place to live,” he’d said. “Buy some furniture. Get an appropriate wardrobe, because we have a dress code. Do something fun with your kids and something to spoil yourself, and we’ll see you next week.”

Who did things like that? No one I’d ever met.

It’d been hard to have faith in humanity ever since I’d gotten pregnant when I was sixteen, and instead of loving me through it like I thought the Bible taught people to do, my parents had kicked me out and told me never to come back. Dad was a minister. He’d said he couldn’t allow sin like mine to stay in his house, that it was like inviting Satan to stay.

It had gotten even harder to believe in people after what Jason had done to Maddie.

But now, this man I’d only known for the length of a thirty-minute interview was trying to turn my life upside down in the best way possible. I didn’t know how to process it.

When I got back to the table, Maddie had finished her ice cream and Tuck was licking the table.

“You,” I said to him, trying hard to have a stern mom voice instead of falling into another fit of laughter at his antics. “Into the bathroom, right this second. Go clean yourself up. I don’t want any sticky stuff in my car, you hear?”

He was still giggling like a loon while he pranced off to wash. I set to work wiping down the table, and Maddie took all our trash to throw it away. When Tuck came back, his hair and shirt were drenched but at least he was clean.

“You’d better zip your coat up tight before we go outside,” I told him. None of us were used to the colder weather here yet. In Texas, we were more likely to have temperatures in the seventies than in the thirties in December.

“Yes, Mommy.” He got his arms in and was struggling with the zipper, but Maddie helped him close it.

I pulled my own coat on and slipped my purse strap over my head so it hung across my body. “All right. Ready to go see the new place?”

“Are we staying there tonight?” Maddie asked. She sounded nervous.

I hated that there’d been so much change for her, but change was necessary. “Not tonight. We’re just looking tonight.” That’d give her time to adjust to the idea and me time to get some furniture in there, some beds to sleep on.

“Okay.”

A minute later, I’d parked the car and was leading the kids to the elevator. Our unit was on the twelfth floor. We got off, and I led them down the hall to our door. I’d just put the key in the lock when the door to the unit directly across the hall from ours opened.

Out of habit, I turned to smile at my new neighbor, my Texan nature shining through.

Then I froze.

Brenden Campbell—the too tall, too big, and entirely too good-looking hockey player who’d hounded me for a date earlier—was standing in the hallway between our doors. He had a wheeled suitcase in his hand and a question in his eye.

“Hi, Rachel,” he said.

Shit.

“Mommy?” Maddie moved closer to me and reached up to put her hand in mine.

She never wanted to hold my hand anymore.

I finished unlocking the door and opened it. “How about y’all go check it out? I’ll be in in a minute, okay?”

They went in, and I closed the door after them. I could hear Tuck’s little feet clomping along as he raced from room to room. I turned around to find Brenden staring at me. Hard.

“So you live here?” I finally asked.

“Yeah, me and Babs—one of the other guys on the team. And you’re moving in?”

I nodded.

His eyes practically sparkled when he smiled at me, and my belly flipped with awareness. “Martha told me you were going to be Jim’s new assistant. And now we’re living across from each other? Well, that’ll make things nice and convenient.”

Convenient? Hardly. Awkward would be a heck of a lot more like it.

He rocked on his feet. “Yeah. Well, I’ve got to go. I’m heading to Seattle for the week. If you need anything, Babs is a good kid. He’ll help you.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said. I had no intention of asking this Babs person for help, or Brenden Campbell, or anyone else. It had been hard enough to accept the help Jim Sutter had insisted on giving me.

Brenden started heading toward the elevator, but then he stopped and turned around. He was smiling again, that same smile he’d given me a moment ago that made me tingle in a way I hadn’t experienced in years. “Just don’t let Babs cook,” he said. “Unless you want your kids to die of food poisoning or the place to go up in flames.”

I was pretty sure he was flirting with me. How sad was that, that a man might be flirting with me but I didn’t know for sure? I laughed briefly, but then he got onto the elevator and was gone.

A nervous zing raced through me. I tried to convince myself that it was because of the job, the new condo, all the changes taking place. Not because of Brenden Campbell.

       But that was a lie, and I damn well knew it.

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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.

New Giveaway!

I'm giving away 10 e-copies of Breakaway. Check out Rafflecopter for all the details!


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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.