“I heard the Chinooks are still in the playoffs,” one of Virgil’s business associates commented from Faith’s left side. She leaned slightly forward and looked into Jerome Robinson’s kind brown eyes. “How’s the team looking?” he asked.

“We’re looking good,” she answered, as a panna cotta with fresh berries was set on the table before her. “Of course there was a huge concern once we lost Bressler, but Savage has stepped in and done a great job of keeping the team focused. Our goal was to give the players a few games before the playoffs to find their legs and adjust before we started shuffling the deck, but they’ve adjusted so well, there hasn’t been much shuffling.” Or so Coach Nystrom had said yesterday. She shrugged and lifted her dessert spoon. “Our front line has a combined twenty-three goals and eighty-nine points so far in the playoffs. I think we have a really good shot at the cup this year.” That, she’d figured out on her own.

Jerome smiled. “Virgil would be proud of you.”

She liked to think so. But more important, for the first time in her life she was proud of herself.

“My father was a senile old man,” Landon said from across the table.

“Your father was many things.” Jerome turned to Landon. “Senile was never one of them.”

Faith smiled and took a drink of her dessert wine. Once the dishes were cleared, she stayed just long enough to make a few silent bids. As she stood at the coat check, she realized that in the short month since Virgil’s death, she’d become more comfortable sitting in an Irish pub with a bunch of hockey players than with the people she’d associated with for the past five years. It wasn’t that all the Seattle elite were supercilious snobs. They weren’t. A lot of them were like Jerome. Nice people who just happened to have more money than God. It was more like Faith was different now; she was becoming someone else. Someone she didn’t know. She wasn’t a stripper or Playmate or a rich man’s wife anymore. The weirdest part about it was that even though she didn’t know the new Faith yet, she liked her.

By the time she got home, Valerie had returned from the hockey game, where she and Pavel had used the box to watch the Chinooks dominate in a 2–0 victory over the Sharks. Wednesday night’s game would be in San Jose, and if the Chinooks won, they would advance to the next round. If not, it was back to Seattle for Game Six.

“Pavel wanted me to thank you for the use of your skybox.”

“When you see him again, tell him he’s wel come,” Faith said and headed to her room. She went straight to bed feeling oddly at peace with her life. She slept like a log until around one, when Pebbles jumped on her bed and curled up against her stomach.

“What are you doing?” she asked the dog, her voice a bit sleep-drugged. “Get out.” Through the darkness Pebbles’s beady eyes looked up at her as a deep moan filtered into the room. Faith recognized that moan and the next one too. Obviously, Valerie and Pavel hadn’t found a hotel.

The next morning Pavel was gone, and Valerie acted as if he’d never been there. When Faith confronted her mother, Valerie promised to “be more quiet.”

“I thought you said something about going to a hotel,” she reminded her mother.

“Every night? That could get expensive.”

Every night? “You could go to his house.”

Valerie shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s living with Ty. Maybe when Ty’s on the road. I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow.” She pulled off her chunky bracelets. “You don’t mind if he comes over Wednesday night and watches the game here with us, do you? I hate to think of him all alone with nothing but his big-screen TV.”

She wondered why her mother couldn’t go there. “I don’t really mind. Just as long as you didn’t make out like teenagers and plug in ‘Sexual Healing.’”

Valerie waved away her concern. “Pavel gets too engrossed in the game and can’t manage to pull himself away,” she said.

But the very next night, the two headed to Valerie’s bedroom during the first intermission.

“What are they doing?” Jules asked as he walked into the kitchen and reached for a section of the three foot-long sandwiches Faith had picked up at a local deli.

There was a large thump on the wall followed by deep laughter and a little giggle. “You don’t want to know.” Faith shook her head and bit into a deli pickle. “My mother and I have adopted the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.” She took a sip of her margarita and moved back into the living room. “At least I’m trying to make her follow it.” Pebbles lay in Faith’s spot on the couch with her feet sticking straight up in the air. “But like her dog, she doesn’t follow commands very well.”

Jules sat beside Pebbles and scratched the dog’s belly with his free hand. “You missed a good game the other night.”

She sat on the arm of the couch and looked across her shoulder into his green eyes. “I was at a benefit.” She thought of Landon and frowned. “Unfortunately, I won’t be going to many charity events. Landon and his friends have made me persona non grata.”

“If you want to participate in a charity event,”

Jules said between bites of his sandwich, “you should play in the Chinooks Foundation charity golf game this summer.”

“I’ve never heard of the Chinooks Foundation.”

“They have a charity golf game every year. I know they’d welcome you and it would be fun.”

Big boobs and golf didn’t go together. “No thanks. I’m better at chairing events and writing checks.”

“I know the foundation does other things to raise money too. I’ll look into it if you want me to.”

She might actually really like that. At least it was something she knew about. “Okay.”

“Has Darby talked to you?”

“No.” Faith glanced at the television and the remaining few minutes of the second intermission. After the first two periods of the game, the Chinooks were ahead by one goal, but they had the third period to go, and anything could happen. “Why?” she asked.

“He wants you to do an interview with a local reporter, Jane Martineau,” he said.

Faith had heard of Jane. Had read her columns in the Life section of the Post Intelligencer. “Doesn’t she write about life in Seattle?”

“Yeah, but she used to be a sports reporter for the Seattle Times. That’s how she met her husband, Luc Martineau. I don’t know if you remember, but Luc was the Chinooks goalie until he retired a few years ago.”

Faith only had one question. “When?”

“As soon as Darby can set it up. Probably sometime next week to coincide with the new billboards of you and Ty.”

“Which photo is going to be used?”

“I’m not sure, but we’ll find out at tomorrow’s PR meeting.”

Pavel and Valerie walked back into the room, and to fill the awkward silence, Jules asked, “What do you think of Dominik Pisani?”

“Pittsburgh defenseman? He’s fast and can feed the puck.” Pavel and Valerie sat in the love seat and Pavel laid his hand across the back of the small sofa and stroked Valerie’s hair. “Why do you ask?”

“If we play Pittsburgh in the final round, he’s going to go hard after our offense.”

“True. How do you feel, Faith?” he asked as he looked at her through blue eyes so much like Ty’s.

“About Pisani?”

Pavel shook his head. “The last time I saw you, you had just returned home early from San Jose because you weren’t feeling well.”

Oh yeah. The day she’d seen him naked. The morning after she’d made out with his son at the Marriott. “I’m better. Thank you.”

“Who Let the Dogs Out” blasted from the sound system on the jumbo tran, and Faith turned her attention to the players lumbering out from the tunnel. Their awkward gaits became smooth and gracefully athletic the second their skates hit the ice.

Ty was one of the last players to step onto the ice. This was the first time she’d seen him since he’d kissed her, and she felt a strange little pinch in her chest and a restless tumble in her stomach. On the sports screen, the camera zoomed in on Ty as he and the Sharks captain faced off at center ice.

The two men glared at each other from beneath their helmets and got into position with their sticks across knees. Their mouths moved as they spoke to each other. Each smiled and nodded, but somehow Faith doubted they were discussing the weather.

She raised her glass to her lips. “What do you think they’re saying?”

“Just exchanging pleasantries,” Pavel answered, and Jules laughed.

“What’s the matter?” Ty asked the Sharks captain as he stared into his eyes. “Got period cramps?”

The other man laughed. “Shut up and eat me, Savage.”

“Funny. That’s exactly what your sister said the last time I saw her.”

The ref skated to the circle and Ty turned his attention to the puck the man held in his hand.

“I hear your new owner has turned you all into pussies,” the other captain taunted.

Now it was Ty’s turn to laugh as the ref dropped the puck. The two captains battled for it and the third frame started with a sprint to the Sharks goal.

Ty played a three-minute shift before he skated to the bench and grabbed his water bottle, and his gaze lifted to the owner boxes inside the HP Pavilion. Faith hadn’t traveled with them. Thank God.

He wiped off his face with a towel, then hung it around his neck. It had been four days since he’d kissed Faith and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Couldn’t stop remembering every detail. He remembered the pressure of her soft lips and the taste of her in his mouth. She’d tasted good, like beer and hot passion and sweet sex. He’d pulled her body against his, pressed her breasts into his chest, and about lost his damn mind. She must have lost hers, too, because she hadn’t exactly protested. She’d kissed his neck and asked him to touch her all over, and God, he’d wanted to. Everything inside him had urged him to take that card key from her hand and push her inside her room. To shove her onto her bed and bury his face in her cleavage. “