Any Man of Mine

Chapter Six

Any Man of Mine:

Fits into My Life

Sam left his truck running and groaned a little as he hoisted Conner to his shoulder. Beneath the neoprene ice pack wrapped around his waist, the muscles in the small of his back tightened, still in protest over the hit Modano had put on him in the third frame. He leaned a bit to his left and carried his son up the concrete, the soles of his leather loafers a thump on the concrete. He was getting old. His body couldn’t take the same punishment at thirty-five that it had at twenty-five.

The weak porch light shone down on his head as he rang the doorbell. The cool night air seeped through the tight weave of his thin gray sweater and white T-shirt beneath. He’d had Natalie call Autumn to tell her that Conner was staying after the game to meet some of the guys. He wondered if she’d mentioned that Sam would bring him home.

The door swung open, and Autumn stood within the soft glow of the entry. She wore a yellow T-shirt with a white wiener dog on it, yellow-and-white flannel pants, and white wiener-dog slippers. Her deep auburn hair shone like fire beneath a brass chandelier, but she didn’t look all fired up to see him. Not like last time.

“He passed out about ten minutes ago.”

Autumn opened the door wider and let him in. He followed her up a set of stairs and down a hall lined with framed photos. The house smelled of homey things. Like cooked meals, wood polish, and old carpet. It wasn’t the kind of house he expected her to live in with his son. It wasn’t a bad house. Not all that much different from what he’d lived in as a kid, but she could afford newer.

They moved into a bedroom painted with cartoon characters, and his muscles protested as he laid his son on a bed covered with a Barney quilt. Conner hated Barney. Didn’t he?

Sam straightened, and Autumn took over. She unzipped Conner’s jacket, and his eyes fluttered open. “I got a foam finger,” he said.

Her hands moved over him, and she helped him sit up as she pulled at his jacket. “Did you have a good time, little nugget?”

He nodded and yawned. “Yes.”

Sam moved to the doorway and watched Autumn carefully pull Conner’s arms through his Chinooks’ T-shirt. It had been a couple of years since he’d seen mother and son together. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Autumn so… soft.

“Dad told me a joke.”

Her head whipped around. Her eyes huge.

Sam put up his hands. “A knock-knock joke.”

“It was funny.” Conner laughed, sleepy and silly. “Knock knock.”

Autumn returned her attention to undressing Conner. “Who’s there?”

Conner waited until the shirt was pulled over his head before he answered, “Goat.”

“Goat who?”

“Goat is at… Goat ask…” He lay down, and Autumn moved to the end of the bed and untied his shoe. “I forgot.”

“Goat to the door and find out,” Sam provided.

Autumn turned her face and looked at him as she untied his laces. A smile worked one corner of her lips, and she rolled her green eyes as if she went through this sort of thing a hundred times a day. “You’re right. That is funny.” She took his shoes and socks off his feet and dropped them on the floor. “Peee-yew!” She waved a hand in front of her face. “Those are the stinkiest feet in the whole world.”

“You always say that, Mom.”

Conner and Autumn had a whole ritual, a whole life that he knew nothing about and that had nothing to do with him. He’d always known it, of course, but actually seeing it made him a little uncomfortable, and he really couldn’t say why.

He took a step backward into the hall. “I’ll go get the foam finger.”

“And my puck, Dad.”

Sam looked into Conner’s sleepy eyes and nodded. “Okay.” He moved back down the hall, past the walls lined with photos of Conner and Autumn and Conner with Vince the idiot. The small of his back hurt like hell as he moved down the steps and out into the chilly night air. When he got home, he’d shove a bag of peas against his back. He preferred peas over anything else. They fitted better to his back or knee or shoulder, and when they were hard, they kind of massaged his muscles like cold beads.

The Ford F-250 was still running, and he thought about turning it off, but he figured he wouldn’t be much longer and left it on. A guy didn’t buy an F-250 because he worried about gas consumption. He drove it because of the payload and because it hauled serious ass. Although he never hauled anything heavier than his sports bag, it was good to know it had the power if he ever decided to tow twenty four thousand pounds.

He moved to the passenger side and found Conner’s foam finger and the puck Johan had given him while he and Nat had sat in the lounge waiting for Sam to finish with reporters and getting his back iced in the locker room. You’d have thought the puck was made of gold, the way Conner had acted about it. Shit, if he’d known his kid would get so excited about a puck, he would have given him one years ago.

He shut the truck door and headed toward the house. You should know. You’re his father, his guilty conscience reminded him. His conscience seemed to be more active lately, a fact that bothered him as much as his guilt. He didn’t like to feel guilty about anything. Seeing Autumn again had triggered something inside him, and seeing that his son lived in an old split-level in Kirkland while he lived in a five-million-dollar loft in the middle of Seattle didn’t sit very well with him either.

The front door to the older house squeaked as he opened it. She could afford better. He paid her enough in child support to make sure his child lived well. He paid enough that he shouldn’t feel guilty about anything anymore.

He moved up the stairs and looked around the living room. At the oak furniture and sofa and love seat that were made out of durable microfiber. The house was crammed with little homemade knickknacks and art projects. Pictures of Conner at every age and stage of his life were all over the place. He had photos of Conner, too, but nothing like this.

The cell phone in the front pocket of his black wool pants rang, and he pulled it out. Veronica’s number flashed across the screen, and he sent it to voice mail. He was tired and not in the mood to talk about Milan or Paris or wherever the hell she was staying. If by chance she was in Seattle, he wasn’t in the mood for that either. Sometimes he just wanted to crash by himself. Tonight was one of those times.

He set the big blue finger and puck on a coffee table and moved to the fireplace mantel. He reached past a photo of Vince with Conner on his shoulders and grabbed a photograph of Autumn sitting on a swing in a park somewhere. Conner sat on her lap, grinning. Conner was young, perhaps a year. His mother looked young, too. Maybe it was the smile. He hadn’t seen her smile like that in a long time. Five years or more. He put the photo back and looked up at a grouping of photos that hung above the mantel. Each individual photo was framed with black-and-white matting, and the theme seemed to be Halloween.

Conner at the age of three dressed as a mouse standing next to Autumn dressed up like a cat. Not a sexy kitty, either. Just a black cat. In another photo, Conner in a little cow costume and Autumn was a milkmaid. Again, not a sexy milkmaid. When Conner had been a baby, Autumn had dressed him as a monkey, and she wore a banana suit. At every Halloween party Sam had ever gone to, the women put the goods out on display. Sexy Snow White. Sexy cop. Sexy devil. Sexy harem girls and sexy nuns. That was what Halloween was about.

“He’s out like a light again,” Autumn announced as she walked into the living room.

He looked over his shoulder, then back at the photos. “What is Conner going to be for Halloween this year?”

“He hasn’t made up his mind yet. The latest is a vampire, but I’m sure he’ll change his mind several more times before the thirty-first.”

“I think I’m going to be in town this year.” Which wasn’t always the case and one of the reasons he never made a fuss about not seeing Conner on Halloween. He was fairly certain he’d be in Toronto on the thirtieth, but back in town the thirty-first. He remembered because Logan had said something about hitting a bar downtown known for their wild costume contests. A few years ago, he’d been a guest judge and recalled a certain Alice in Wonderland who’d forgotten her underpants. For some reason that he never understood, but certainly appreciated, Halloween seemed to give normally reserved women permission to dress slutty and make out with each other.

God love ’em.

“I put Conner’s finger and puck over there,” he said, and pointed to the table. “I think he had a good time tonight.”

“I think he did.” She raised her arms and pushed her hair back, gathering it in her hands and twisting it into some sort of loose knot that immediately fell apart. “He’ll probably sleep until noon.”

There wasn’t anything overtly sexy about Autumn. Not what she wore nor how she stood. Not even the way her shirt pulled across her breasts and distorted the wiener dog on front, kind of lifting his back end higher up her chest while his head was stuck under her right breast. In her dog shirt and slippers, she looked like a mom, and Sam had never been attracted to moms. Moms had baggage, and he didn’t mean kids. He already knew this mom’s baggage. Knew that when she got together with friends and talked about “that son of a bitch,” she was talking about him. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if she still liked to be kissed in the crook of her neck. Right where the collar of her shirt touched her warm neck. “I’m a little surprised to see you living in a house like this,” he said to change the direction of his thoughts. Fast before his mind wondered down that dangerous path. A path leading down her chest to her cleavage.

Autumn folded her arms beneath her breasts. “What’s wrong with my house?”

A lot. Starting with the carpet that looked a good ten years past warranty. Not to mention the hideous wallpaper border. He could see her eyes getting all squinty like she was about to get worked up. He didn’t want to fight, so he said, “Nothing. It just seems like it might need a little work, and I never figured you for a fixer-upper.”

“That’s probably because you don’t really know me.”

He could point out that he knew she had a little birthmark shaped like Oklahoma on her ass, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t the “you don’t really know me” she was talking about. “Are you handy with a hammer and nails?”

She relaxed a bit, and her hands dropped to her sides. “No.” She shook her head, and her red hair brushed her shoulders. “I can manage a hot glue gun, and I rock at table arrangements.” She cast her eyes about the room and let out a breath. “When I bought the house, I thought I’d have it completely renovated by now, but I just haven’t had the time.”

He asked what he thought was an obvious question. “Why not buy a house you don’t have to renovate?”

She shrugged. “Several reasons. One of which is that I wanted a nice, safe place for Conner to play.” She started toward the kitchen and motioned for him to follow. “I’ll show you what attracted me to this property.”

He moved past an oak dining-room table with fresh roses in a pink vase in the center. The kitchen was surprisingly updated and shockingly without those knitted cozies that some women favored.

She flipped on the outside lights and lit up a huge backyard with one of those play sets that had a fort, slide, four swings, and a climbing wall. “Conner loves it back there,” she said.

“Does he climb the wall?”

“Oh yeah, but I think he prefers to climb up the slide.”

Were they really standing this close to each other and not yelling? So close that her shoulder almost touched his arm? The last time they’d stood this close without yelling, they’d been naked.

He looked at her profile. At the smooth white skin of her forehead, straight nose, and full red mouth. They might be standing close, so close he could smell her hair, but there was a big distance between them.

“You can’t really see it, but behind the fence is a nice wooded area.” She raised her left hand and pointed outside. “Sometimes we have lunch in the woods on a little table Vin made for us.” She laughed and said something else. Something about slugs, but his attention was on the pair of angel wings tattooed on her wrist. The wings were blue, outlined in black, and totally covered what had been there before.

“-and ran screaming into the backyard as fast as his little legs would carry him. I told him-”

She’d tattooed over his name. Good. That was good. He’d tattooed over her name years ago. He should be relieved. He was relieved. Yeah.

She chuckled about something. A breathy little sound that made him antsy, and he backed away from her for no apparent reason. “I gotta go. I left the truck running.”

“Oh.” Autumn turned and looked up at Sam. He had a red mark on his cheek, probably from the fight she’d seen earlier, and his hair was slightly damp as if he’d recently showered. She’d been telling him about Conner’s funny little slug phobia. Trying to be nice to him. Trying to prove to herself that she could be civil to the jerk. “I’ll show you out.” Typical of Sam not to care about stories concerning his own child.

The cell in his pants pocket rang, and he shoved his hand inside and turned it off without looking. “I’ll be in town until Wednesday. After that, I have a grueling six-game grind,” he said, as she followed him through the living room. “My next home game isn’t until Friday, the twenty-third. I’ll have Natalie look over my schedule and call you.”

She wanted to tell him that Conner’s life did not revolve around his schedule, but during the long hockey season, it did. As a result, so did hers. “That’s fine.”

He opened the door, then turned to look at her. She stood on the step above him as the cool night air leaked inside. She folded her arms around herself and waited for him to leave. He didn’t. Instead, he tilted his head to the side and looked at her. His gaze moved across her face as if he was looking for something.

“Huh,” he said, just above a whisper.

She untucked one hand and held it palm up. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He turned on the heels of his Prada loafers and shut the door behind him.

Autumn took a step down and flipped the dead bolt. Okay, so she didn’t know for sure that his shoes were Prada, but she figured it for a fairly safe bet. Sam liked the best, in everything from his shoes to his women.

Which was why she didn’t fit into his life any more than he fit into hers. Never had. And was probably the reason he didn’t like her house. It wasn’t new and flashy. The latest model.

She chuckled as she moved downstairs to her office at the back of the ground floor. According to what she’d read online, Veronica Del Toro was Sam’s latest model. Tall. Big lips. Bigger boobs. Typical Sam.

And yes, she occasionally read articles about Sam and his latest escapades. She was Conner’s mother. It was part of her job. A tiny part, but still part of her job was to know what sort of women Conner was exposed to although she never heard her son mention anyone but the “assistants.”

Autumn walked to a big leather chair, spun it around, and sat. An event binder, several bride magazines, and a red laptop sat on her desk. When she googled Sam, she found articles that usually started off with: “When Sam LeClaire winds up for a slap shot, defenders duck, forwards flee, and goalies pray to God the puck hits them in a well-padded place.” Or links that led to stuff like “Greatest Hockey Fights” or “Hockey Brawlers” or “Sam LeClaire vs. Domi or Brown or Parros or whoever.” It was ridiculous, and she tried her best to teach Conner that violence was never the answer. That it was much better to be nice to people.

She flipped open the event binder she’d put together for the Willy Wonka party and reached for a pencil. She adjusted the catering cost and looked for some place to cut.

The last thing Autumn wanted was for Conner to grow up and be like his dad. It was up to her to make sure Conner treated people better than Sam did. Treated women better. No superficial supermodels. No revolving door in his bedroom. No getting married to girls he didn’t know in Vegas. Best just to stay out of Vegas-maybe the whole state of Nevada-altogether.

Once she’d popped the top on her Coppertone sunscreen that day by the pool at Caesars, her life changed forever. Once she’d run her hands all over those washboard abs and hard chest muscles, she’d fallen head over heels in lust. He was a gorgeous man who’d thought she was an exotic destination. Looking back, she’d like to say she’d put up some resistance to the deep desire pulling her under, but she hadn’t.

Instead of grabbing her beach bag and backing away from that smorgasbord of sin laid out in front of her, she had knelt beside his chaise and squirted sunscreen into her palms. “Are you here alone?” she asked, and dropped the tube on the ground. Beneath the brim of her hat, she glanced at his ring finger. It was bare, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married or had a girlfriend.

He shook his head and turned his face to the sun. “I’m here with a couple of buddies.”

That didn’t mean anything either, but this was the second time she’d seen him alone. She rubbed the lotion in her hands, then touched his abdomen. The heat from his skin warmed her palms and tingled the pulse at the base of her wrists.

“Are you here with friends?” he asked, his voice all calm and cool as if her hands on him had no effect. Like she was the only one getting all tingly.

“No. Just me. I asked a friend, but she didn’t want to come.”

He looked at her, the intense Nevada sun cut through the leafy palms overhead and bleached the corner of his mouth and a patch of his left cheek. “Why?”

Autumn shrugged, and her thumbs brushed the trail of hair on his hard stomach as she slid her hands to his heavily defined chest. She wondered if he was in town for some muscleman competition. “She said she doesn’t like Vegas.” Which was the excuse that her friend had given, but Autumn suspected that the truth was she’d grown in a different direction than the friends she’d had before her mother’s illness.

“But you came anyway,” he said matter-of-factly. Still sounding unaffected, but the muscles beneath her fingers bunched and turned hard.

“Of course.” She’d had a rough few years. “I made a to-do list.”

“Really?” One corner of his mouth lifted. “What’s on it?”

“Different things.” Good Lord was she really rubbing lotion on a gorgeous stranger. “Some of them I’ve already done.” Apparently she was.

“Like?”

And having a good time doing it, too. “Like I watched the Bellagio fountains and bought a flamingo from the Flamingo.” She rubbed lotion onto his solid pecs. Beneath the brim of her hat, she stared at defined muscles and tan skin and swallowed the drool in the back of her throat. “And I went to Pure last night.”

“I remember.” Her thumbs brushed across his flat brown nipples, and he sucked in a breath. “What’s left?”

She smiled. “I really want to see Cher’s Farewell Tour here at Caesars, but I can’t get tickets.”

“Cher? You have seriously got to be kidding me.”

She shook her head and slid her hands down to his belly just above his board shorts. “Don’t you like Cher?”

“Hell no.” He let out his breath as her palms slid along the waistband. “Only gay guys like Cher.”

“That’s not true.” She tilted her head back and glanced up into his face. Her hat dipped over her left eye. His blue gaze stared back at her, kind of hot and smoldering. Heat shimmered across her skin. The kind of heat that had nothing to do with the Nevada sun.

“I can pretty much guaran-goddamn-tee it.”

She returned her attention to his corrugated belly and fought a sudden urge to fall face-first onto his warm abdomen and kiss him there. To let her hands and mouth go on an exotic vacation and suck him up like an all-you-can-eat buffet. “Not all guys at a Cher concert are gay.”

“Maybe there are a few straight bastards that let themselves get dragged to a Cher concert.” He cleared his throat. “But I can also guaran-goddamn-tee that they’re only sitting there, listening to Half Breed and watching a shitty light show because they’re desperate to get laid.”

She sat back on her heels and laughed. “How do you feel about Celine Dion?”

“I’ve never been that desperate to get laid.” He sat up and grabbed her wrists. As he rose from the chaise, he pulled her up with him. In the little shaded spot in a corner of Garden of the Gods, he ran his hands up her arms to her shoulders. “Am I on that list?”

Even if she’d thought to put: rub-lotion-on-random-hot-guy on her list, she could not have envisioned Sam. “No, but I could pencil you in.” She touched his sides and pecs, anywhere her hands could reach. “Right after: meet an Elvis impersonator.”

He touched her, too. Her arms and shoulders and the bare curves of her waist. His thumbs fanned her bare belly, back and forth and pressed into her navel. She tore her gaze from the etched muscles of his chest and looked up into his eyes, the same hot, smoldering blue as the Nevada sky above his head. The fine hairs on her arms tingled and sent a shiver down her spine. Her nipples and belly got all tight, and he slid his palms to the small of her back. Slowly, he pulled her against him until the tips of her breasts brushed his chest. He raised one hand and took her hat from her head. He tossed it on the chaise and stared into her eyes. “That hat has been driving me crazy. Teasing me with little glimpses of your pretty face.” His gaze slid down her cheeks and stopped at her mouth. “There’s something about you that makes me want to catch you in my hands and touch you all over.”

She knew the feeling and rose onto the balls of her feet.

“It’s hot out here,” he whispered against her lips.

Yeah. Even in the shade, it was unbelievably hot and sweaty.

One of his palms slid down her arm to her hand. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” She liked Sam. She liked talking to him, and she really liked touching him. She wanted to spend more time with him, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to spend that time in bed. Okay, she did want to, but she knew she shouldn’t.

“Someplace cooler.” He raised his face, and she dropped to her heels.

Cooler?

He turned and pulled her across the hot concrete, past towering lions and columns, to the edge of the pool. He dropped her hand and eased himself into the waist-deep water. She sat on the side of the pool and dangled her legs over the side.

“Are you afraid to come in?” Sunlight turned strands of his hair gold while the water lapped his navel.

“No. I’m just not a very strong swimmer.” And she didn’t want to get her hair wet.

He slid his hands up the outsides of her thighs and stepped between her knees. “I won’t let you drown.” His fingers toyed with the gold-cord bows tying her bikini bottoms together at her hips. “I like you too much to let you drown.”

Which begged the question. “Why?” Why her out of all the women in Vegas?

“Why do I like you?” He raised his gaze from the ties at her waist, up her stomach and breasts to her face. “You’re pretty, and I like the way you dance. I like your hair.”

“It’s red.”

“Naturally?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never been with a natural redhead.” He flashed her a smile and slid two fingers beneath the golden cord. She half expected him to make some lame comment about her having a fiery crotch. Like some of the guys she’d dated, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “I want to know more about you, Autumn Haven. A lot more.”

She sucked in a little breath that got all tangled up in her chest. “Like if I’m married, have kids, or committed a felony?” That wasn’t what he wanted to know more about, and they both knew it. Did she want more, too? She knew she shouldn’t.

“For starters.”

“No to all three.” She slid her hands up his arms to the hard balls of his shoulders. There were a lot of things in life she shouldn’t do. A lot of things she’d missed out on over the past two years. “How about you?”

“Not married. No kids.” He grasped her thighs and eased her off the side of the pool. Her legs automatically wrapped around his waist, and he said, just above a whisper, “No felony, but by the time this weekend is over, I just might do several things that could land me in jail.”

The crotch of her bikini pressed into the front of his swim shorts. Pressed into the long hard length of his erection. Beneath the surface of the water, she squeezed her legs against him and against the hot, tight pressure building between her thighs. A lot of things like sex. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only lived in the U.S. for about two years now, and I don’t know what’s illegal here.” He lifted one wet hand and pushed her hair behind her shoulder. His cool fingers brushed down her spine to her bottom. “Sexually speaking.”

The cool water swirled about her legs and behind and the hot, liquid press of her body into his. The sensation of hot and cool heightened her sexual awareness, and she glanced around at the other people lounging about or standing in the large pool. She and Sam were far from alone. People could see them. This wasn’t her. She didn’t do this sort of thing. Not with a man she’d just met. Not in public. “Where are you from?”

“Originally Saskatchewan.” He moved backward until the water lapped at the bottom swells of her breasts. “Canada.”

Growing up, she’d lived close to the Canadian border in three different states. She summoned up her best Canadian accent and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her hard, aching nipples into his chest. “I think everything is legal in Vegas, eh?” she said next to his ear.

His chuckle was low and deep in his throat and ended in a groan as he grabbed her behind in both hands and lifted her slightly. “Everything?” Slowly, she slid back down his body. Down his hard chest and harder erection. He kissed the side of her neck, right where it met her shoulder. He sucked her skin into his hot, wet mouth, and any reservations she might have had about spending time in bed with Sam burned to a crisp beneath the hot Nevada sun.

Her head fell back and her breasts lifted. “Everything.”