Playing To Win

Holly sighed. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“Then you must hate me all the time,” her friend lamented with a grin. It faded after a moment. “Was that enough of a pep talk? Because I’ll bail on my date and we can go out for a drink if you want to talk this out some more.”

“Oh, right! You have a date.” Holly shook her head. “I keep forgetting since you’ve been so secretive about this mystery man of yours.”

“It’s new. We’re still feeling each other out. Once we start feeling each other up, then I’ll have some details to share.” Paige was the only person in the world Holly knew who could pull off a wink with such aplomb.

“Of that I have no doubt. Now go and have fun. Besides, I’m already in the middle of a sports-related crisis. There’s no way I can muster the fortitude and patience it would take to teach you that you don’t score baskets in soccer right now.”

Paige laughed at the jab.

Holly squared her shoulders. “Like you said, I made this choice. I’m going to honor this contract. Maybe I can even convince them to let me do some real reporting. Wow ’em so they give me a chance to document the Storm’s first time in the play-offs with the gravitas and seriousness that it deserves.”

“That’s the spirit! You show those men who’s boss.” The phone rang just as Paige stood to leave. “See? That’s probably some titan of the hockey world, impressed with your journalistic integrity and calling to poach you for his own team.”

“Who else could it be?” Holly agreed drolly. “Say hi to your date for me.”

“No way. Get your own man, which I hope you do soon. You’re in desperate need of some hunky distraction in your life,” Paige advised, heading for the door. “At the very least, this job will be great for that.”

Holly rolled her eyes in a silent goodbye as she grabbed the handset of her phone, recognizing Jay’s number on call display. Paige didn’t like him very much, but Holly and Jay had hit it off immediately in broadcasting school.

When the Storm offered to let her pick her own cameraman, she’d eagerly snatched Jay away from filming weddings and local stories. It was a relief not to have to fake sports stupidity with at least one person.

“Hey. The footage looks great.” Embarrassing as it might be for her personally, she had to admit that Jay had edited her interviews with Luke and the rest of the team into a professional-looking comedic montage that could now be viewed by the world at portlandstorm.com.

“I’m glad you think so, because the boss man agrees.”

“What?”

“That’s why I’m calling. Check your texts.”

“Or you could just tell me since we’re, you know, on the phone,” she pointed out.

“Okay, smart-ass. It seems your big-haired alter ego can do no wrong. Hits on the Storm’s website have increased twenty percent since your interview was posted last night. Usually after a loss, website traffic goes down. They’ve decided to give us an extra assignment.”

“Oh, God.” Holly cringed. She couldn’t help it. A twenty percent uptick? That did not bode well for Operation: Journalistic Integrity. She’d be stuck asking about favorite childhood breakfast cereals for the rest of her career while important stories, like Luke Maguire’s scoring drought that had now entered its twelfth game, went unmentioned.

On the upside, at least the team captain was so annoyed with her about the play-off beard thing that she could focus her insipid questions on the rest of the players. “What do they want us to film?”

“Some fluffy pregame interviews with the guys, tomorrow after their morning skate. The brass plans to air them as teasers between periods to help drive up website traffic. We’re starting with the big three, then we’ll try to fit in as much of the rest of the team as we can manage.”

The big three: goaltender Jean-Claude LaCroix, centerman Eric Jacobs, and, because sometimes life sucked with a vengeance, captain and left-winger Luke Maguire. Holly couldn’t bring herself to speak through the impending sense of doom.

* * *

THWACK.

Luke’s slap shot missed the net completely.

God—thwack—damn—thwack—mother—thwack—fuc—

“Mags!”

Luke looked up from the line of pucks he was systematically assaulting to see Jean-Claude LaCroix—J.C. to his teammates—standing in the players’ box. He was dressed in a navy T-shirt that mimicked the Storm’s home jersey, this year’s standard issue for doing press.

With another muttered curse, Luke skated over to the bench.

“I just finished with the reporter, and Eric’s in the hot seat right now. Someone can cover for you with her if you want to grab a shower, but to avoid the wrath of the higher-ups, I’d suggest you get a move on.”

Luke pulled off one of his gloves so he could remove his helmet and set them both on the boards. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You okay, man?”

He ran a hand over his sweaty hair. “Sure. What could be wrong?”

J.C. gave him a look. “You’re the one who snapped two sticks in practice and is still out here pounding the boards. You tell me.”

Luke appreciated his friend’s tact. It wasn’t like his problem wasn’t obvious.

He couldn’t hit the net.

It had been twelve games since he’d scored a goal—the longest dry spell of his hockey career. But no matter how hard he practiced, how much extra time he logged out here working on his shot, when he was in the game, he froze up. And people were noticing. He’d read the grumblings in the paper, heard the callouts on television. Hell, people were even tweeting him to say he sucked. If he didn’t get his act together soon, he’d be headed for some obligatory couch time with the sports psychologist. And that meant talking about Ethan, a fate he tried to avoid at all costs.

“It’s nothing.” Luke brushed it off, hoping his buddy would let it go.

J.C. shook his head, rejecting the lie. Luke should have known he would. They’d been playing hockey together on and off since they were fourteen years old. At this point, his goaltender could read him just as well off the ice as on.

“It’s not nothing, man. Don’t overthink it. Besides, scoring isn’t the only way to help the team.”

“Easy for you to say. Your save percentage was .916 this season. You’re doing your part, but we won’t win if we don’t put pucks in the other guys’ net.” Luke’s shoulders tightened under the weight of expectation—from management, the fans, his teammates... “I haven’t scored in over a month. What am I supposed to do about that?”

“Just relax and play the game.”

Luke rolled his eyes at the Zen advice. “This is the reason people hate goalies, you know? You’re all a bunch of pretentious assholes.”

J.C. just grinned. “I’ll see you up there, okay?”

With a nod, Luke grabbed his helmet and glove and headed to the dressing room to shower and change, hoping he could clear his head before he faced Holly Evans. His brain conjured the memory of the curvy blonde in the siren-red outfit. Yet another complication he didn’t need right now. Because last night, he’d done something stupid.

With a self-directed curse, he’d opened a new browser window and typed “The Women’s Hockey Network” into the search field on YouTube.

And there she was, Holly Evans, all big blond hair and big brown eyes and big, beautiful breasts. In fact, she was damn near perfect...until she got to the Hockey Hunk of the Month segment.

He wanted to be pissed.

Instead, he was oddly flattered.

Sure, he wasn’t wild about the fact she’d used that damned shirtless picture of him from last month’s Sports Illustrated, but after his on-ice struggles over the last month, he found his battered self-esteem had sort of appreciated the boost from those pouty, shiny lips of hers.

She’d even managed to make the award about more than his pectorals, citing his work with his pet charity, Kids on Wheels, and explaining its focus on providing wheelchairs and wheelchair-friendly sports programs for kids in need. Hell, she’d even brought up his role as a goodwill ambassador for ice sledge hockey, a cause near and dear to his heart.

If he wasn’t so firmly anti-reporter, he might have approved of the way she’d so beautifully shifted the focus from the nonsensical to something that actually mattered. But in the end, what mattered most was winning, and ogling the pretty reporter wasn’t going to help him put the puck in the net.

Now, Luke stood outside the dressing room, temporarily set aside this morning so that she could make a mockery of the sport he loved, willing himself to man up and walk in.

He scratched his chin self-consciously, wishing to hell that he’d shaved this morning. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of assuming his decision not to shave had anything to do with her. If he’d been given any kind of heads-up about being locked in a room with Little Miss Play-off Beard today, he definitely would’ve given a big middle finger to all the doubts she and his teammates had planted about their loss. But there’d been no warning until just before practice. No doubt about it, karma was a stone-cold bitch.

With a deep breath, he stepped through the door to find his linemate was just finishing up his interview.

“That was great, Eric.” Holly’s voice, warm and sexy, called to mind the drizzle of honey on cream. Luke subconsciously turned toward it.

Goddamn, the woman was gorgeous. She was rocking the painted-on suit again, but this time the color was the same teal as the stripes and the cresting wave on the Storm jersey. (A color which, according to the Women’s Hockey Network color chart, indicated a driven personality whose inner turmoil was often masked by an outward appearance of calm.)

She was sporting mile-high heels, a barely there skirt, plenty of cleavage and that big, tousled hair that probably felt like a helmet of straw in real life, but always managed to look kinda sexy on TV. And yet, now that she wasn’t just a caricature on his computer screen, but a living, breathing woman, smiling and putting the notoriously shy Eric Jacobs at ease as they finished up their interview, he found himself wondering what she’d look like in jeans and a T-shirt.

The thought irritated him. He just wanted to get this whole thing over with so he could concentrate on the important stuff. Like winning hockey games. He made himself take a step forward. “So I guess that means I’m up?”

With obvious relief, Jacobs flashed him a thankful smile, said a quick goodbye and fled the scene.

Holly whirled around, tugging at her skirt as though willing more fabric to appear. “Luke! Uh, Mr. Maguire, I—”

“Luke’s fine.”

They lapsed into an awkward silence.

She bit her lip.

Damn, her mouth is amazing. And he really needed to stop noticing that.

He pulled a frustrated hand down his face, cursing inwardly as he realized his mistake. Satisfaction sparked in those coffee-brown eyes of hers—he and his day’s worth of stubble were busted. But to his surprise, her dawning smile was more teasing than mocking, and it made him want to wipe it off her face in a way that would be pleasurable for them both.

“You guys want to get started, or what?”

The cameraman’s sudden intrusion jerked Luke out of a mental image in which he and Holly were long past “started” and well on their way to “finished.”

What a hypocrite! He kept telling his guys to focus and here he was, distracted by a pretty face.

Except he sensed she was more than that. Something about her ditzy act wasn’t quite right. There was more going on underneath the glossy surface she presented to the world, he just knew it. He trusted his instincts—his livelihood depended on them. His shot might be off, but his gut wasn’t. And if Holly Evans had another agenda, she was a danger to him and his team. Then again, just the sight of her in that outfit was dangerous.

“What? Yes! Of course, Jay, thanks!” Holly’s voice was about an octave too high and a six-pack of Red Bull too perky. She gave Jay an overly bright smile and snatched her interview cards from the stool. “Luke, if you’ll take a seat?”

Like a good little soldier, Luke walked over and sat down.

“We’ll start with a quick Q and A with just you on camera, and then I’ve got a couple of more in-depth questions that we’ll shoot with the two of us on-screen.”

“Yeah, sure.” He tried to appear casual and nonchalant.

She gave Jay a nod and waited until the little red light on the camera flicked on and the boom was in place. Then she turned back to Luke, fixed him with a look of professional interest and got down to business.

“What’s the last thing you watched on YouTube?”

The question was like being cross-checked from behind, leaving him momentarily stunned. No way in hell he was going to admit he spent his evening re-inflating his ego by watching her call him hot.

“Are you serious?” He’d meant to sound casually mocking, but was afraid it had come out somewhat closer to defensive. “That’s the hard-hitting lead issue? You’ve got to have something better than that. What’s the next question?”

She looked flustered by his outburst, and he hated the fact that he felt badly about it. He should be out on the ice, working on his slap shot, not in here trying to hide his guilt. She glanced down at her note card and closed her eyes, just for a second, before opening them and meeting his gaze. She looked focused, determined and a little defiant, if he wasn’t mistaken. She cleared her throat.

“Boxers or briefs?”

All his composure deserted him. He held up a hand and glanced over at the camera. “Turn that off.”

He waited until Jay lowered the boom mic and stepped toward the tripod before he rounded on the woman who had the singular ability to distract and frustrate him beyond measure.

“Look, I get that you have a job to do, but what’s going on here, it’s a big deal. This team is in the play-offs for the first time in its five-year history. Not a single player on our roster has ever won a championship. We’ve got a chance to do something great.”

He took a deep breath and unclenched his fist.

“The problem is, two nights ago we handed Colorado a shutout victory on a silver platter. This team is now skating on thin ice, and if we’re going to get out of the first round intact, I need my guys focused on winning hockey games, not talking about their underwear and eyeing your cleavage. Everyone else thinks you’re cute and harmless and charming, but I don’t buy it. So if you’re just using us to make a name for yourself, then you’ve picked the wrong team. We don’t have time for distractions right now. I’m done here.”

With that, Luke stalked away from her. Again.

3

“LUKE! HOW DID it go? I was just going to stop in and get a behind-the-scenes peek at the interviews.”

Luke pulled up short at the familiar booming voice. You didn’t stalk past Ron Lougheed, general manager of the Portland Storm, no matter how frustrated you might be. Besides, this was the perfect opportunity to bring up his concerns.

“Yeah, about that, sir... As team captain, it’s my job to make sure that my guys are centered, that hockey is the top priority. We’ve been through a lot this season and now it seems we’re finally gelling at the right time. I’m worried that Holly Evans is a distraction we can’t afford right now.”

“Nonsense! Holly Evans and her delightful brand of infotainment is exactly what the franchise needs in order to make some headway into the hearts and minds of hockey fans.”

Ron Lougheed was a heavyset giant of a man and despite his gregarious demeanor, everyone in the hockey world knew that when he made up his mind, there was no changing it.

Still, Luke had to try. “But sir, our time is better spent if we—”

“Let me tell you a little something about the business of hockey, Mr. Maguire. For the last five years, our merchandising and ticket sales have consistently ranked in the bottom third of the league’s teams. Since we made the play-offs, we’ve seen a fifteen percent jump in merchandise revenue and we’ve almost sold out tonight’s game. That’s after one post-season game. We need to ride this wave, and the Women’s Hockey Network is helping us do that. That clip of you walking away from her the other night has half a million likes. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it’s good.”

Luke nodded. Shut his mouth. Braced for impact.

“I trust I don’t need to tell you how eager we are to see results in the postseason?”

“No, sir.”

“Excellent. Now, what were you saying about concerns?”

A headshake was the best Luke could muster. “Nothing, sir. Nothing at all.”

“That’s what I thought. I’m looking forward to watching your interview footage from this morning. After all, a captain sets the tone for his team, and I know I picked the right man to keep these boys on track. And put a couple of pucks in the net, while you’re at it. Understood?”

“Perfectly.”

Ten minutes of fuming and a chicken and pasta lunch later, Luke was back in front of the doors emblazoned with the stylized cresting wave of the team’s logo. The doors burst open just as he reached for them, but instead of revealing his sexy, skirt-suited nemesis, he came face-to-face with the rookie.

“Dude, you up next?”

“Yeah.” He glanced over the kid’s shoulder, but the doors swooped shut before he could catch even a glimpse of teal. “Yeah, I’m up next.”

“Cool. Word of advice? If you stand close enough during the part where she’s on-screen with you, you can see all the way down her shirt.”

When his tip failed to elicit any reaction from Luke, Sillinger’s cocky grin faded. “Look, Cap, I want to apologize for what I said after the game the other day. Cubs explained why you’re so tense and everything.”

The kid glanced away as he said it, so he missed Luke’s look of surprise at the mention of Eric Jacobs, or Cubs, as everyone on the team referred to him. “Exactly what did he tell you?”

“Oh, you know. All the pressure you’re under from the higher-ups. And dealing with the media. And about your shot being off and stuff.”

Luke exhaled. He should have known Jacobs would have picked up on all of Luke’s behind-the-scenes crap. The guy was eerily intuitive—it was what made him so great out there on the ice.

“Um, you ever consider that maybe your shot’s off because, um...” The kid leaned conspiratorially close and murmured, “I’m just sayin’, maybe it would help if you changed the oil.”

Luke stared blankly at the right-winger. He didn’t like where this conversation was going, mostly because he’d been thinking about it a lot since he’d watched that damn video last night. Holly Evans was beautiful, and she’d made him think about something other than hockey for the first time in a long while. And she could certainly get him riled up. Not to mention she didn’t give a damn about hockey. All things he found way too appealing at this very moment.

“Sometimes things get rusty when the pipe’s not clean, you understand? I mean, how long’s it been, man? In my experience, a good lube job can really help work out the kinks. And lucky for you, right through that door is a smoking-hot woman who told the entire internet that she considers you a certified Grade-A cut of beef. Plus, when I made my move, she told me she’s looking for a guy with more maturity. That’s your in, dude! She totally wants someone old. You should hit that.”

Luke was pretty sure he’d never felt more ancient than he did having this particular conversation and he was only twenty-six. “Thanks for the advice, rookie.”

“Hey, no problem, Cap. I got your back.” Brett glanced at the door to the interview room. “You need a wingman in there, or you good?”

“I think I got it,” Luke assured him.

Their conversation was interrupted by the infamous “Charge” anthem, a staple of sporting events everywhere. The rookie yanked his phone out of his back pocket. He glanced at the screen and grinned like he was on the cover of Hockey Digest. “Yes! It’s the car dealership. You are not even going to believe the sweet ride I just bought!”

He was bouncing up and down like a Chihuahua that was about to pee on the floor. “The guys won’t be able to give me a hard time about my wheels anymore. I gotta take this, Cap. Good luck in there.”

Luke waited until Brett disappeared around the corner before he stepped inside for his mandated face-off with Holly Evans, intrepid reporter.

* * *

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME, Jay? You took Salt Lake City over Vancouver in the first round? That’s ridiculous. No wonder you always lose your hockey pool. I mean honestly. I expected better of you. Vancouver clearly has the edge and—Luke!” Holly bolted off the interview stool.

She hadn’t been expecting him.

Like the rest of the team, he was wearing the navy T-shirt that mimicked his jersey, with the cresting wave on the front and his last name and number on the back. His T-shirt even had a white C on the front.

But unlike the rest of the team, the sight of Luke in his T-shirt and jeans did funny things to her hormones. Seriously, is it hot in here?

“I thought you were...not coming back...ever. How long have you been there?”

“Not long,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he sauntered farther into the room. His cocked eyebrow and smug half grin said otherwise. Holly worried that her attempt to appear innocent was failing miserably, because her thoughts were anything but G-rated.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“You know,” she said, so brightly that she could have sworn he squinted a little. “This and that.”

Luke nodded, glancing over at Jay, who avoided meeting his gaze. “Sounded like hockey talk to me.”

“What? No.”

“Yes,” he countered, matching her wide-eyed tone. “It really did. I’m a bit of an expert on the subject. Salt Lake City, Vancouver, first round. Definite hockey talk.”

Luke had already nailed the fact that she was using this job to angle for a promotion. If she confirmed it by dropping the shtick, he could have her fired before she even got started. The best way to reassure him that she was harmless was to be harmless.

Holly’s laugh was both forced and slightly manic as she shooed his words away with the dainty flick of her hand. “Oh, that. I was just telling Jay about...uh—” Think, Holly. Think! “—the numerology class I took.” She nodded, warming to the story. “Yeah, really interesting stuff. I was explaining how it can help you make decisions about important things. Like which handbag to buy. Or in Jay’s case, he’s doing some hockey thing with his friends and I was showing him how he could use it to pick teams.”

“Cool. I’d love to see how it works.” He raised an eyebrow to punctuate the challenge, and she couldn’t quite hold back her frown. But she’d come this far. Might as well go all-in.

Holly could almost swear she saw something like respect in his blue eyes as she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.

“Uh, yeah. I just added up the letters in Vancouver—A is one, B is two and so on, your typical cipher—and then you take whatever the sum is, add those numbers together if it’s more than a single digit and you have it. And in this case, it was equal to nine. Jay’s birthday is September ninth, so obviously Vancouver is the luckier team for him.”

Luke smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So it has nothing to do with the fact that Vancouver is a team with enough depth and experience that it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that they’ll knock Salt Lake out of the first round?”

Holly shrugged. “What can I say? The numbers don’t lie.”

“Sorry to interrupt...whatever this is, but I gotta use the can,” Jay announced. “Down the hall and to the left?” he confirmed, and Luke nodded. The members of the Portland Storm were so superstitious that she and Jay had been asked to trek all the way to the building’s public washrooms because no one but the team was allowed in the dressing-room bathroom on game day.

The two of them watched Jay leave, and she used the silence to regroup. She felt much more formidable when her adversary’s baby blues swung back in her direction.