True Love and Other Disasters

Chapter 18

Faith sat in the owner’s box as the Chinooks were announced. One by one they skated onto the ice amidst the roaring cheers of the hometown crowd. Her face felt hot and her stomach burned from pent-up emotion. Sam and Marty and Blake. Her team. Her players. The guys she’d come to know over the past two months. Tension pounded the base of her skull and everything seemed unreal as she went through the motions.

There had to be a way. There had to be something she could do to keep from losing everything. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. She had no choice.

Her first instinct when Landon had left her office was to run. Run home, pull the covers over her head, and pretend everything would be all right. But she couldn’t do that. Everyone expected her to sit in the box tonight as if her world hadn’t just come apart.

“Do you want a glass of wine?” Jules asked her.

She looked at him. At her assistant in his peach-and-green silk shirt, obviously still suffering from a metrosexual crisis. What would happen to Jules?

“Faith?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want wine?”

She shook her head. “No,” she answered and her voice sounded hollow.

“Number Twenty-one.” The announcer’s voice filled the Key and bounced off Faith’s brain. “The captain of the Chinooks,

Ty S-a-a-a-v-v-a-a-a-ge!”

The crowd went wild as he hit the ice, their screams drowning out the painful sob that racked her chest. He skated around the rink with one hand in the air, and when he passed below, he looked up and smiled. Faith’s heart shattered right there. Right there in the skybox. A keening little sound threatened to escape her lips and she rose to her feet. She covered her mouth to keep it inside and ran into the bathroom, practically shoving her mother and Pavel out of her way. She shut the door behind her and wrapped her arms around her stomach as the first sob broke her throat.

“What’s wrong, Faith?” her mother called through the door.

“Nothing,” she managed. “I feel sick.” Another sob racked her chest and she knew she couldn’t stay there. She had to get home. “Could you bring me my purse?” She turned to the vanity and looked at herself in the mirror. At her red cheeks and watery eyes. She ran a paper towel under cold water and held it to her hot face. Her mother entered the room and handed her bag to her.

“You don’t look good,” Valerie said. “Are you getting the flu again?”

“Yes. I have to go home.”

“I’ll get Jules to take you.”

The last thing she wanted was to break down in front of her assistant. “No. I can make it,” she said as she opened the bathroom door.

“Call me when you get home,” her mother called after Faith as she hurried from the owner’s box.

She stumbled into the empty elevator and her vision blurred as she rode it down. She held it together as best she could on the short drive home, but once inside the penthouse, she broke down. Tears poured down her cheeks as she pulled her jersey over her head and she wiggled out of her jeans. Both dropped into a pile on the floor and she crawled into her bed. Jules called to make sure she got home all right and she managed to convince him that she “sounded strange” because she was sick. Then she hung up and pulled the covers over her. She’d lost it all, and she’d never felt so desolate in her life. Landon had ripped everything from her, and she was empty. Except for the burning sorrow in her soul. Just when she was starting to really enjoy her role as owner, just when she was really excited about being involved in the Chinooks Foundation, Landon had taken it all from her. Worst of all, she’d made sure he’d taken Ty, too.

She felt like a kid again. Alone and helpless. She’d worked so hard never to feel those two things again, and here it was back.

A sob racked her chest and Layla crept into her head. She wondered how much it would cost to have someone kill Landon. He deserved to die. The world would be a better place without people like him. Of course Faith would never do it. Not only because she wasn’t that sort of person, but she also had a healthy fear of prison.

Two months. It had only been two months since Virgil died, but her life had changed so drastically, it felt longer. She felt like a different person. Stronger. Confident. More sure of herself.

Two months to have gained so much, only to lose it all. Such a short time to fall completely and totally in love, only to lose him, too. And it was ironic as hell, really. For the last five years she’d let a man take care of her. Now she was giving up her team to take care of someone else.

There was just no choice. No way to save herself and Ty and keep the team. She had to give Landon what he wanted. She wiped a hand across her cheek and wondered what Ty would say if she told him about the photos and Landon’s plan to ruin them. She could predict what he’d say and what he’d ultimately do. He’d want to kill Landon, just like her. And just like her, he’d do what was best for the rest of the team. In the end, she’d still have to sell the Chinooks. She’d still lose the man she loved.

She’d always known she couldn’t have both. That it would end someday. That it would hit her hard and shake up her life. But it didn’t have to be that way for Ty. It didn’t have to affect him. And it wouldn’t if she didn’t tell him about the photos.

He had a good shot at his dream. At the one thing he’d worked for and waited his whole life to achieve. The last thing he needed to worry about was his picture in the Seattle Times and appearing on billboards. Especially now, when it was a foregone conclusion anyway. Unless she wanted to humiliate Ty and embarrass the team, she would sign those intent-to-sell papers when they arrived tomorrow and he would never know why she had agreed to sell the team.

The letter of intent was just the first step in the process, and if she remembered from the last time she’d signed the letter of intent, it would take several weeks to get approval from the NHL commissioner. After that, the sale would go forward, and once all the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed, Landon would own her hockey team.

She threw back the covers and walked to the huge windows in her bedroom. She wore her bra and panties and stood staring at the lights of the Key Arena. Ty was in there. Shooting pucks, throwing elbows and spitting on the floor, and she longed to be there too. All her guys were there, only they weren’t her guys anymore. She didn’t think it was possible to have her heart break in so many ways.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she wiped at them with the backs of her hands. She and Ty had thought they were being so careful, and they had been. Either she went to his house or he holed up in her penthouse. On the road, they never even spoke to each other. Valerie and Pavel had figured it out because they lived with them.

She thought about some unknown person following and photographing her without her knowledge. It was creepy and she felt violated. What kind of person hired someone to photograph people at three in the morning?

Someone determined to win. And he had.

Landon had won and she’d lost at a game she hadn’t even known she’d been playing. Only this was no game. This was her life. What Landon had done to her burned like acid in her stomach.

She pressed her forehead into the glass. Was it just this morning that she’d been happy? That she’d been with Ty, massaging his sore muscles for him? She’d always known it would end in disaster. Just not like this. Never like this. There was no way out for her, and she could see no other alternative but to give Landon what he wanted.

She loved Ty to the depths of her soul, but she didn’t know how he felt about her. Other than that he liked to have sex with her, but as she’d learned long ago in life, sex wasn’t love. When he found out she’d sold the team, he might be mad, but he’d get over it. When he found out she wasn’t going to see him anymore, he might be a little mad about that too. But again, she was sure he’d get over it.

She turned away from the window and crawled back in bed. She stared at the ceiling and wondered how she was possibly going to get through the next week until the final playoffs game. When they heard of the sale, would they miss her?

And what about the week after that? Or next month or the month after that? Her and Valerie and Pebbles. Maybe she’d travel. Or move. Move far away from Seattle and the Chinooks and Ty. Far away from the pain of seeing them.

And Jules. What was she going to do about Jules? He’d quit his job at Boeing to come to work for her. There wasn’t a whisper of a chance that Landon would keep her assistant. She could keep him on, but in what capacity? Shoe coordinator? Jules would hate that.

At ten minutes after eleven, the phone on her nightstand rang. It was Ty. After every game, she went to his house or he came to hers. Tonight she didn’t answer. She turned the television to a loop news channel and saw that the Chinooks had lost Game Three in overtime and the series was now on to Pittsburgh.

At five the next morning, Ty called again. Faith figured he was just about to board the team jet. She would have to face him, of course. She would have to face him and tell him they couldn’t see each other, but she needed time. Time to first face the truth and compose a good believable lie.

Later that day, she’d convinced her mother that she had a horrible strep throat and a fever of a hundred and two. Since she looked like crap, it really hadn’t been a hard sell. She laid in bed all day, and that night, she watched the Chinooks win Game Four alone in her room.

Ty called that night and early the next morning. He left messages, but she didn’t return his calls. Jules visited her, and she figured she deserved an Academy Award for her performance of a sick patient. Or at the very least, a daytime Emmy. She had to tell him that Landon’s family would be using the box that night at the Key, and that he and her mother would have to sit in the nosebleed section. She made up a lame lie about a promise she’d made to Virgil, but he didn’t believe her. He kept asking her over and over if something had happened that he should know about. And over and over she lied.

That night at the Key, as Landon and his family watched from the owner’s box, Faith watched from her living room a few blocks away. The Chinooks lost Game Five in overtime. It broke her already broken heart, but not as much as hearing her telephone ring and knowing it was Ty. She didn’t think her heart could hurt anymore, but the next two days proved her wrong. Ty stopped calling, which was even more devastating than listening to his angry messages, and the Chinooks lost Game Six once again in overtime. Her team seemed to be imploding and there was nothing she could do about it.

The seventh and final game would be played in the Key to a capacity crowd that would not include Faith.

The morning after the Chinooks’ loss in Pittsburgh, Faith took a shower and brushed her teeth before noon. Her mother was with Pavel, probably at Ty’s, and she was alone. She checked her phone, but Ty hadn’t called. Not that she would answer.

Maybe he’d moved on. Maybe he was over her. Which was good. It was what she wanted, but just not quite so fast.

At ten that morning, someone rang her intercom from the lobby of her building. “If you don’t buzz me up,” Ty said through the speaker, sounding not only tired, but pissed off, “I’m going to call in a bomb threat and the whole building will have to be evacuated.” Her heart pounded in her chest at the sound of his voice.

“You’re bluffing.”

“Grab your umbrella. It’s raining outside.”

She would have to talk to him sooner or later. She’d just hoped it would be later. “Fine.” He appeared at her door less than a minute later. He looked exhausted and angry and delectable and her heart skidded to a stop in her chest.

“You don’t look like you’re dying.” His brows lowered and he frowned. “So why have you been avoiding me?”

“Come in.” She turned and he followed her into the living room. Pebbles jumped and yipped in an effort to get Ty’s attention and Faith had to drag her out on the terrace and shut the glass door. She gave a thought to the dog jumping off, but her luck wasn’t running in that direction these days.

Before she lost her nerve, she turned and said, “We can’t see each other anymore.”

He put his hands on his hips and gazed across the room at her. “Why?”

Her palms were clammy and her chest ached. She folded her arms across her heart instead of running across the room and throwing herself on him. She’d thought up a perfectly good lie last night. Something about Virgil. “I’m a widow.” That wasn’t it. There’d been more.

“You were a widow the past few weeks, and that didn’t stop you.” His gaze lowered to her hand. “Where’s your wedding ring?”

Damn. “I took it off in the shower.” Wow, that was lame. She just couldn’t lie cleverly with him staring a hole through her. Where was Layla when she needed her?

“You’ve taken a lot of showers at my house with it on. Try again.”

Behind her, Pebbles threw herself against the glass. Faith swallowed past the burning lump in her throat. “Being with you is wrong. I can’t do it anymore.” Pebbles barked and ran headfirst into the door. “It should never have happened. You need to concentrate on winning and I need to be by myself.” Again the dog threw herself against the glass and Faith knew exactly how the little dog felt. Her nerves unraveled even more and she glanced at the dog and yelled, “Stop that!” She returned her gaze to Ty, his beautiful blue eyes, and her heart shattered all over again. “I

can’t love you anymore. Please go before Pebbles kills herself.”

His hands dropped to his sides. Instead of leaving, he looked at her for several moments before he said, “Anymore?”

“What?”

“You said you can’t love me anymore.”

Crap. “I meant I can’t be with you anymore.”

“That isn’t what you meant.”

She moved across the room toward the entrance. She had to get him out of her penthouse before she fell apart in front of him. “I don’t love you and I can’t be with you.”

He grasped her arm as she passed and looked down into her face. “You keep mentioning love. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

She tried and failed to pull from his grasp. “Stop.”

“I’ve tried.” He placed one big hand on the side of her face. “I can’t.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “These past few days, not knowing if you were okay, have been hell.”

“I’m okay.”

“I’m not.”

His lips touched hers and she sucked in a breath. “Ty. You have to go.”

“Not yet.” His mouth opened over hers and she felt his kiss everywhere. It poured through her, starting fires in her chest and belly. She held as still as possible, careful not to touch him or kiss him back. “I need you,” he whispered.

She raised her hands but dropped them to her sides before she gave in to her desire to touch him one last time. A sob broke from her throat.

He raised his free hand to the other side of her cheek and he held her face as he kissed her, long and deep, and after several long torturous moments, she placed her hands on his arms and tilted her head to the side. She could not stop herself. She could not stop the pounding in her heart or the fiery need racing through her veins, and she gave in.

He groaned deep in his throat, a sound of pleasure and possession. His tongue slid into her mouth, the kiss feeding all the hungry places in her starving heart and soul. All the places that loved him and longed to be with him. When he lifted his head, he looked into her eyes. “Why don’t you start over? Why have you been avoiding me?” His thumbs softly brushed her cheeks. “The truth this time.”

She loved him too much to tell him. “I can’t.”

“You can tell me anything.”

She shook her head. “It’s bad.”

“Have you found someone else?”

“No!”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he looked relieved. “Then what?”

“It’s best that you don’t know.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

Again she shook her head as tears filled her eyes. “Can’t you just leave it alone? Can’t you just take my word that you’re better off not knowing?” Where was Layla when she needed her? The tough one. The one who could resist interrogation and come up with believable lies.

He folded his arms across his chest, the belligerent hockey player. “I’m not leaving until you spit it out.”

Once she told him, he’d leave. He’d go away. Perhaps angry, but he’d have his answer. “Landon has pictures of us,” she relented.

His arms fell to his sides and one brow rose up his forehead. “Virgil’s son?”

She nodded. “I have to sell him the team or he’s going to send them to the newspapers and put them on billboards, like our PR photo.”

“You’re selling him the team?”

“I have to.”

A fire replaced the relief in his eyes and he said, “Like hell.”

She recognized that fire. She’d seen it on the jumbo tran when he faced an opponent in the corners. “I don’t have a choice.”

He stepped back and took a deep breath through his nose. Pebble threw herself against the glass and he walked to the door and let her in. “You have a choice. I’ll think of something.”

“You can’t solve this, Ty. He’ll do it. He’s not bluffing. He’ll ruin you to get what he wants.”

“He can’t ruin me, Faith.” He pointed to Pebbles jumping up on her back feet. “Settle your ass down.”

The dog stopped barking and sat. Faith would have been impressed if she didn’t have more important things on her mind. “He planned to trade you, but I think I’ve convinced him that you broke up with me. So I don’t believe he’s going to now. Which makes your being here too risky. You have to leave. Sneak out somehow, just in case.”

She expected some sort of gratitude. Instead his gaze narrowed even more. “And you weren’t ever going to tell me any of this?”

Her eyes started to water once more. “No.”

Deadly quiet, he asked, “Why the hell not?”

She thought she’d made it clear. “Because you have a lot of other things to worry about right now.”

“And you thought what? That you should sacrifice yourself and hand over your hockey team?”

She brushed a sudden bead of moisture from beneath her eyes. “I know how important winning the cup is to you.”

“Don’t you think you’re important?”

She stilled and her hands fell to her sides.

“I see that you don’t.” He folded his arms across his chest like he was mad at something. No, not something. At her. “You don’t have a very high opinion of yourself. Or is it me you don’t have a very high opinion of?”

“I have a high opinion of you.” She was confused and shook her head. “Why are you mad at me?”

“Why?” he asked, incredulous. “I’ve been in hell these past few days. I almost punched your assistant because he’d seen you and I hadn’t. I’ve been walking around worried and pissed off and it all could have been avoided.”

Now it was her turn to be incredulous. He’d almost punched poor Jules. “How?”

“You should have told me about this. You should have let me take care of it. This involves me too. Do you honest-to-God believe I’d let you hand over your hockey team to cover my ass?”

She nodded and laid it all out quite reasonably for him. “For five years I let Virgil take care of me. Now it’s my turn to take care of someone.”

He laughed without humor. “You want to take care of me?”

“Yes.”

“If I let you do that, what kind of man does that make me?”

She wasn’t sure what he meant.

He cleared it up for her. “It makes me a pussy.”

“It’s done.” She’d saved his ass and he was worried about being a “pussy”? So much for gratitude. “I signed the letter of intent to sell.”

“If I recall, you signed one before and changed your mind.” He moved toward her. “Do you trust me?”

“To do what?”

“Do you trust me, Faith?”

It seemed very important to him, so she answered, “Yes.”

He shoved his hand in his pants pocket and pulled out his keys. “Then show up for Game Seven tomorrow with your skates.”

“Landon banned me from the skybox.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just show up with your skates, and when we win, come out onto the ice.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Not real sure. I’m still too pissed off to think straight, but no one threatens me or what’s mine and gets away with it.” He shook his head. “Don’t ever make me crazy like you have the past few days.” He kissed her hard, then moved toward the door.

“Yours?” A smile curved her lips. A smile that lit up the dark empty places she’d been living in for the past few days. She hurried after him. “You think I’m yours.”

“I know you’re mine.” He walked out of the penthouse and headed for the elevators. “And for God’s sake, don’t sign any more papers Landon sends over—eh?”