True Love and Other Disasters

Chapter 2

Thousands of booing fans marked Ty’s return to the General Motors Place arena in Vancouver. Dozens of banners hung from the stands, the sentiments ranging from “Fallen Saint” and “Saint’s a Traitor” to Ty’s personal favorite, “SUCK IT, SAVAGE.”

For seven seasons he’d worn a Canucks jersey. For the past five there’d been a C just below his left shoulder, and he’d been treated like a conquering hero. Like a rock star. This season he still wore a C, only he’d traded a killer whale for a salmon swatting a puck with its tail. Players were traded all the time. At least he hadn’t waited until right before the deadline to accept the offer of more money and-something infinitely more valuable than gold-a better shot at the cup.

For more than a season it had been known that he wasn’t happy with Vancouver management and the direction of their coaching staff. Then, shortly after Christmas, Seattle’s captain, Mark Bressler, had been involved in a horrible car wreck and the team was left without its leader. The Seattle organization had made Ty an offer he didn’t feel he could refuse and he’d made the trade. There were a lot of people in the press and the entire country of Canada, including his father, who thought he should feel bad-like a traitor. But he didn’t.

At least the fans weren’t throwing things at him tonight, which was a shock considering how betrayed they’d felt by his defection 120 miles south.

A smile twisted one corner of his mouth as he jammed his helmet on his head and skated toward center ice to face off with his former teammate, Markus Naslund. He skated past the face-off circle twice for good luck and then stopped in the middle.

“How’s it Nazzy, eh?” he asked.

“Suck it, Saint,” Markus said through a grin.

Ty laughed. He liked Nazzy. Respected his skills on the ice, but it was his job tonight to make him wish he’d stayed home. Ty knew the opposition better than he knew the players on his own team, had played with them longer, but the Chinooks had the best 5-on-5 team in the league while their power play unit accounted for one quarter of the team’s extra-man goals. When the Chinooks were on fire, they dominated the ice with speed, brute strength, and hockey sense.

But that night in Vancouver, there was something weird in the air. Ty didn’t believe all that much in being jinxed. Sure, he always skated past the face-off circle twice before entering it, but he really wasn’t a superstitious guy. He believed in skill more than some intangible bad luck. He was one of only a handful of players who shaved during the playoffs.

There was definitely something hinky about this game though. From the drop of the first bouncing puck, things did not turn in the Chinooks’ favor. The defense had a hard time moving the puck up to the offense, and like the rest of the team, Ty couldn’t find a cohesive rhythm. He crashed the net but had difficulty getting the puck into scoring position.

Shots ricocheted off the pipes and the game deteriorated into old-time hockey by the middle of the second period. Sam Leclaire and enforcer Andre Courture spent most of their time in the penalty box for “innocently” tripping, elbowing, slashing, and roughing in the corners.

In the last seconds of the game, Ty finally felt in his zone and tore across ice with the puck in the curve of his stick. He knew the Vancouver goalie caught left and he deked right. The shh-shh of his skate was drowned out by the pounding in his head and the screaming crowd. He brought his stick back and fired at Luongo’s five-hole. The blade slapped the ice and shattered. Ty watched in disbelief as the puck slid wide and the final buzzer sounded. The score: Seattle-1; Vancouver-2.

A half hour later, Ty sat in the guest locker room staring at the carpet between his bare feet. He had one towel wrapped around his waist and one around his neck. His teammates stood in front of their lockers, toweling off and getting dressed for the flight home. The only good thing to come out of that night was that Coach Nystrom had banned the press from the locker room.

“We’re going to put that game behind us,” Coach Nystrom said as he walked into the room. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “The other coaches and I will take a look at the game tapes and try to figure out what the hell happened tonight. When we meet Vancouver again Saturday, we’ll be better prepared.”

“Game waz jinx,” Vlad “The Impaler” Fetisov said as he stepped into his pants.

Forward rookie Logan Dumont crossed himself. “Felt like it to me, too.”

Ty stood up and pulled the towel from around his neck. It was too early in the playoffs to get spooked. “One bad game doesn’t make a bad playoffs season, and it doesn’t mean we’re jinxed.” In practice they worked like a well-oiled, unbeatable machine. On game nights, they didn’t jell quite so well, and Ty could think of only one way to turn that around. “Poker night,” he said. “I’ll get back to you all on the time and place. Bring cash and be prepared to lose.” The Chinooks loved poker and there was nothing like their love of poker to inspire a little male bonding. When Ty was a rookie, the guys had taken him to a strip club to initiate him. When he was traded to Vancouver, they’d bonded at Mugs and Jugs. Ty had never particularly liked strip clubs. Ironic, given the current owner of the Chinooks.

He dropped the towel and ran his fingers through his damp hair. He had heard that morning that the Widow was planning to sell the team to Virgil’s son, Landon. The little Ty knew of Virgil’s son, he pretty much figured that Landon was a massive tool. But he also figured it was better to be owned by a tool than a clueless trophy wife.

“Who’s gonna bring the cigars?” defenseman Alexander Devereaux asked as he buttoned his dress shirt.

“Logan,” Ty answered and lowered his hands to the towel knotted at his waist. “And make ’em Cuban, eh?” The thick cotton fell to his feet and he opened his sports bag sitting on the bench. He pushed aside an old issue of Playboy that Sam had given him and grabbed a pair of clean underwear. Even though he really didn’t have a burning urge to see Mrs. Duffy in the buff, he’d probably take a look at it when he got home.

“Me?” Logan shook his head. “Why me?”

“’Cause you’re a rookie,” Sam answered the obvious.

Ty pulled on his black boxer briefs and adjusted his junk. The Vancouver press would be waiting for him and he wasn’t looking forward to the walk from the locker room to the bus. The sportswriters had been brutal when he was traded. He didn’t expect that they’d go easier on him tonight.

And he was right. He got three steps out of the locker room before the first question was fired at him.

“The Chinooks only had sixteen shots on goal tonight. What happened to ’The Firing Squad’?” a reporter from the Vancouver Sun asked, referring to the forward line of Ty, Daniel Holstrom, and Walker Brookes.

Ty shook his head and kept on walking. “It wasn’t our night.”

“With the organization in so much turmoil and up for sale,” another reporter commented, “that has to affect your play and your chances at the cup.”

“It’s early in the playoffs season.” He shoved up one corner of his mouth and didn’t miss a beat. “I’m not worried about it,” he lied.

“Savage! You traitor. How does it feel to be owned by a woman?”

He kept walking.

“I hear she’s going to paint your locker room pink.”

“No. Salmon,” another reporter added. “And put bunny ears on your fishy.”

“Does she sign your check wearing her tail?” That got them all laughing.

Even though they weren’t the least bit funny, Ty smiled and laughed along with the reporters. “I don’t care what Miss January wears when she signs my check. Just as long as she signs.”

“What about the announcement that she’s in talks to sell the team?”

“Don’t know anything about it.” Except that he hoped it was all wrapped up soon. Protracted negotiations would affect the team. He held up one hand and walked out the back door of the arena. “Good night, gentlemen.”

It was Miss July. She’d been Miss July.

“It wasn’t enough that you are a shameless gold digger. You’ve turned my father’s team into a laughingstock. You’re an embarrassment.”

Faith looked up from the sports section on the table in front of her. If Ty Savage was going to make a derogatory comment about her, he could have at least gotten the month right. “Your father gave me the team,” she pointed out. “He wasn’t embarrassed by me.”

Landon Duffy frowned across the table from her. He looked so much like his father it was disconcerting, but while Virgil’s icy blue-gray eyes could be shrewd, Landon’s were cold. And today they were downright frozen over, letting her know just exactly how much he resented having to pay 170 million for a team he considered his. “He was a senile old man and easily manipulated.”

“Not so easily, or we wouldn’t be here. You’d already have the team instead of me.” Landon was one of the few people who intimidated her. A lot, but that didn’t mean she had to show it. She looked to the left at her attorney. She didn’t have to be here today. Her lawyers could have handled everything, but she didn’t want Landon to know he scared her. “Let’s get this over with.”

Her attorney slid a letter of intent across the table to Landon and his team of lawyers. As they looked it over, Faith thought about her own lawyer’s advice that they should entertain other offers. He’d said something about long-term tax advantages, operating-cost certainties, salary caps, and cross merchandising that would attract other potential owners and drive up the price. Faith wasn’t interested in the money. Just that she end any future dealings with the Duffys.

If Landon had been a different man, a nicer man, she probably would have just given the team to him. The 50 million Virgil had left her was more than enough money. But, she supposed, if Landon had been a different man, a nice man, his father would have left him the Chinooks in the first place. And if Virgil had been a different man, a more forgiving man, he would not have seen to it that his son pay dearly for their contentious relationship.

Faith stood and smoothed the creases out of her camel hair skirt. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to discuss the details.” She grabbed her red wool coat from the chair beside her. She turned to her lawyer and said, “I’ll be at the Chinooks offices in a meeting with management to let them know of my decision.” She didn’t know the coaches or any of the management, but she figured they deserved to know what was going on. And she figured it was her place to tell them rather than let them hear it from her lawyers or from the media. She’d tell them how much the organization had meant to Virgil, and reassure them that they’d be in capable hands with Landon. As much as she hated Landon, that much was true. “Call me when you’re finished here.”

Landon signed his name with a flourish and then looked up. “Make sure you don’t take anything out of that building. Nothing there belongs to you.”

Lord, his continual insinuations that she was a thief were tiresome, but something she wouldn’t have to put up with for long.

“Everything there belongs to me until we sign the final papers and your check clears.”

“Just remember what I said, Layla,” he added, using her stage name.

She grabbed her clutch from the table and held it against the turmoil twisting a knot in her stomach. She’d dealt with men like Landon for most of her life. Demeaning men who were offended by her mere presence even as they undressed her with their hot eyes. No matter that she wore a sweater that covered her from her chin to her wrists, and her skirt hit just below her knees, to them she would always be a stripper who took her clothes off for money. No matter that they were the heads of philanthropic organizations that raised money for the less fortunate. They resented her for daring to breathe their exclusive air.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Landon what he could do with himself. She could feel Layla coming to the surface to kick ass and take names. But that’s what Landon wanted, and she could almost hear Virgil whispering in her ear. Landon’s a piss ant. Don’t let him win. Don’t let him see that he gets to you. Faith clamped her teeth shut and her mouth curved into a pleasant smile, a trick she’d learned since becoming Virgil’s wife. She shook her head as if to say he couldn’t bother her, and the end of her ponytail brushed the backs of her shoulders. She did not want to let Layla out. Layla was trouble, and Faith did not want Landon to win. “Good day, gentlemen.”

The heels of her Christian Louboutin leopard-print pumps tapped across the hardwood floors of the law office. She shut the door behind her and pulled a breath of clean air deep into her lungs. That had been close. She hadn’t let Layla out in a long time. Not since she’d had to pretend that she liked having men stuff money in her G-string. Layla was a fighter and a survivor, and she’d tell Landon to kiss her ass.

She pushed away from the door and threaded her arms through the sleeves of her coat. One of the benefits of selling the team was that she’d be free of Landon and his family. No more picking her way through that fractious web.

The drive to the Key Arena took twenty minutes and gave Faith a few extra minutes to tell herself she was doing the right thing. Virgil had left the Chinooks to her, not Landon, but it had probably been his intent that she sell the team to her stepson. Right? Or would he have been angered by her decision? She just didn’t know, and she wished Virgil had talked to her about it before he’d died.

A cool drizzle wet the windshield of the Bentley as she pulled into the parking garage and into a reserved space. The business offices for the Chinooks were on the second level, and everyone was already seated when she walked into the room. She recognized most of the men sitting at the long table from Virgil’s funeral. “Hello,” she said as she made her way to a vacant chair in the middle. “I hope I haven’t kept you all waiting,” she added, even though she knew she was right on time.

“Not at all.” General manager Darby Hogue stood and offered his hand across the table. His brown eyes were as warm as his palm. “How are you doing?”

“Better.” Which wasn’t necessarily true. She missed Virgil every day, and there was a large hole in her heart. “Thank you for asking.”

Darby reintroduced everyone in the room, starting with executive management, continuing around the table to include the hockey operations staff and concluding with the big captain of the Chinooks sitting at the far end of the table. Roughly eight men and her. Some of them more rough than others. Or rather, one more rough than the others.

The last time she’d seen Ty Savage, he’d appeared more civilized, in his designer suit. Today his volatile blue-on-blue eyes looked across at her from beneath his black brows, and he didn’t look civilized at all. His arms were folded across his muscular chest covered in a white T-shirt. The words “Chinooks Hockey” were printed in black up one of the long sleeves. It was just after noon and he already sported a five-o’clock shadow. “Hello, Mr. Savage.” Why the captain of the team needed to be in on the meeting, she didn’t know. Although she supposed it didn’t matter.

One corner of his mouth lifted, like she’d amused him. “Mrs. Duffy.”

She set her clutch on the table and took off her coat. One of the coaches rose and helped her. “Thank you,” she said as he hung it on the back of her chair. She pulled down the long sleeves of her cream angora sweater to cover her wrists and directed her attention to the faces around her. “My late husband loved this organization. He loved hockey and used to talk about trades and averages against and front-end deals. I’d listen to him for hours, but I never had any idea what he was talking about.”

She smoothed the back of her skirt and sat. “That’s why I’ve decided to sell the team to someone who has the same passion for the game as Virgil.” A lump formed in her throat and she wondered yet again if she was doing the right thing. She wished she were certain. “A half hour ago, Landon Duffy signed a letter of intent to buy the franchise.” She expected applause. Something. She looked across at the table for some sign of relief, but oddly, she didn’t see any. “When the sale is final, we’ll hold a press conference.”

“When will that be?” Coach Nystrom asked.

“A few weeks.” She folded her hands on the table in front of her. “Landon assures us that nothing will change.”

Someone farther down the table said, “We heard he’s thinking of moving the team.”

Faith had not heard that. If it happened, Virgil would roll over in his grave. “When did you hear this?”

“I got a call this morning from Sports Center asking to confirm it.”

“He didn’t mention it, so I assume he plans to leave the team here in Seattle.” She shook her head. “Why would he move the team?”

“Money,” Darby explained. “We’re still recovering from the lockout, and another city might offer him a new stadium with better concession deals and lower labor costs. A new city might give him more lucrative television contracts and better tax incentives.”

A frown creased Faith’s forehead and she sat back in her chair. She knew about the 2004-2005 NHL lockout. She and Virgil had been married a short time, and she remembered him flying off to meet with the players union, and the impasse that had resulted in the cancellation of the entire hockey season. She remembered a lot of swearing. Much worse than she’d ever heard in any strip club.

The door to the conference room opened and Landon entered, followed by two lawyers. She wasn’t all that surprised to see him. “Have you finished telling them the good news?” he asked, all smiles, as if he were an avenging angel sent to save the Chinooks from her clutches.

She stood. “We’re still discussing the details.”

“I’ll take over from here,” he said, sounding like the CEO that he was in his four-thousand-dollar suit.

“You don’t own the team yet, Landon. I don’t believe you can legally discuss anything.”

He waved his hand, dismissing her. “Run along.”

She felt her cheeks flush. From anger or embarrassment, she didn’t know. Maybe both. She stood a little straighter and squared her shoulders. “If you want to talk to the coaches and staff, you’ll have to wait outside until we’re finished.”

His smile fell. “Like hell, Layla.”

No maybes about it now. She was both mad and embarrassed. To call her Layla in the lawyers’ offices had been bad enough, but here in a room filled with these men was far worse. He meant it to be degrading. To remind all the men in the room of her former profession. If Virgil were alive, Landon wouldn’t have been so openly disrespectful. Not in public, anyway. Now he felt free to publicly insult her. “I said wait outside.” Then she smiled and used the nickname he hated, “Sprout.” She didn’t know why he hated his nickname so much. “Sprout” was kind of cute, and lots of kids had gone through adolescence called far worse.

Apparently Landon didn’t think so, and his icy gaze got all frosty again and he took a step toward her. “For five years I’ve been forced to tolerate you,” he said as a vein on his forehead popped out. “Not anymore. If you don’t leave, I’ll have security take you out with the rest of the trash.”

Anger clutched her stomach and burned her cheek, and before she gave it a thought, she opened her mouth and said, “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not selling the team. I’m keeping it.”

Landon stopped dead in his tracks. “You can’t do that.”

Momentarily satisfied at her power to slap him down, she smiled. “I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to keep the team your father gave me.” God, she wanted to hurt him. To call him names and spit in his face. To give him a good hard knee between the legs. In another life she would not have hesitated, but Mrs. Duffy did not knee men in the nuts. Virgil had taught her that. “Stay away from my hockey team.”

He took a few more steps and reached for her. Before she could react, a big body stepped in front of her and she was suddenly staring at a wide back and white cotton T-shirt.

“It might be best if you leave now, Mr. Duffy,” Ty Savage said. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.” Faith wasn’t sure if he meant her or Landon. “And I would sure hate to read in the papers that Mrs. Duffy had you hauled out by security.”

From behind Ty’s back she heard Landon’s lawyers say something, and then Landon said, “This isn’t over, Layla.” After a few tense seconds, the door slammed shut behind him and Faith let out a pent-up breath. Her cheeks burned. She’d endured her share of humiliation. Some of it, admittedly, self-inflicted, but this felt like the time in elementary school when Eddie Peterson pulled up the back of her dress at the drinking fountain and exposed her holey pink underwear for the entire first grade.

Ty turned and spoke to her, “What did you do to make the man hate you so much?”

She looked up past the white scar on his chin surrounded by stubble, over his mouth and into his blue-on-blue eyes. “I married his father.” She gave in to her weak knees and sat. “Thank you for stepping in.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Her hands shook and she pulled them into her lap. “I guess I’m not selling the team,” she said, dazed, and to no one in particular. She turned and looked at the stunned faces around her. She knew the feeling. She was just as stunned by her announcement.

“I’ve never seen a man treat a lady like that,” Darby said with a shake of his head.

Landon didn’t think she was a lady, and the last thing she wanted to do was talk about Landon and what he thought of her. “I suppose I’ll need a crash course in hockey.” Her face felt a little numb from the shock.

“You can hire an assistant,” one of the coaches suggested. “Virgil had one until the lockout. After that, I don’t know what happened to Jules.”

She’d never heard of a Jules. “Jules?” Her voice sounded strange and she had to fight the urge to put her forehead on the table and groan. What had she just done?

“Julian Garcia,” Darcy answered. “I’ll see if I can dig up his number for you.”

“Thank you.” She guessed she was keeping Virgil’s team. At least for now, and she really didn’t know what else to say but, “I’ll do what I can to make sure you all get the Stanley Cup. That was Virgil’s dream and I know he was looking at acquiring players to make the team even stronger.” Or at least she thought she’d heard him mention it.

“The trade deadline has passed. Our roster is set, but next season we sure could use a guy in the blue zone with a mean right hook,” someone at the end of the table said.

Faith wasn’t sure what that meant, but no one seemed to notice, as they talked over and around her in rapid-fire succession as if she wasn’t even there.

“Someone who can defend as well as fight.”

“We’ve got Sam.”

“Liking to fight and intimating your opponents are two different things,” Ty added to the conversation as he took his seat at the end of the table. “Sam’s better feeding the puck up ice than he is at fighting. No one’s afraid of Sam.”

“That’s true.”

“Andre and Frankie are both coming along.”

“Not fast enough. We need someone like George Parros, but who can shoot the puck like Patrick Sharp.”

“Someone like Ted Lindsay.”

Coach Nystrom said, “Yeah, like ‘Terrible Ted.’”

They all nodded as if ‘Terrible Ted’ was their guy. Faith’s head was spinning and the conversation swirling around her made her feel as if she might hyperventilate. She had every right to hyperventilate; her life was spinning out of control, but she figured she probably shouldn’t pass out on her first day as owner. It might look bad. “How much to get this guy? This Terrible Ted?” she asked in an effort to join the conversation and not appear so absolutely clueless.

The conversation came to a halt and their heads pivoted to stare at her. Somehow she’d rendered them all speechless. All except Ty Savage. His eyes squinted as if he was in pain. “We’re fucked.”

“Saint, there’s a lady in the room,” a man in a Chinooks cap admonished.

“Sorry.” Then Ty tilted his head back and said, “We’re screwed like a crack whore on payday, eh?”

She looked across at Darby. “What?”

“Ted retired in nineteen sixty-five.” He tried to give her a comforting smile but it looked as pain-filled as Ty’s squinty eyes. “Before you were born.”

“Oh.” She guessed that meant Terrible Ted wasn’t available. So much for not appearing clueless.