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?”

Chapter 19

We Are the Champions” blasted from the huge arena speakers, clashing with the sounds of fourteen thousand fans cheering and stomping their feet inside the Key. The cacophony of noise faded into the background as Ty stepped onto the ice. He glanced up at the owner’s box and the rows of Duffys seated in it as if they had that right. Anger tightened Ty’s stomach and lowered his brows as he looked up at the man who’d had him and Faith followed. At the man who’d hired someone to take sleazy photos and ruin their lives. Or at least try.

Landon might scare Faith, but Ty wasn’t so easily frightened. He’d come up against men bigger and badder than Landon Duffy, and he hadn’t lost a fight yet. He wasn’t about to lose this one either. It was the most important fight of his life, and he’d thought long and hard about all his options. Short of having Landon killed, there was only one solution. Just one.

He had to win the Stanley Cup. And he had to do it without going into overtime. Pittsburgh had won the last three games in overtime.

Ty skated twice past the face-off circle and then moved inside. For the seventh time in two weeks, he faced off against Sidney Crosby. “Sid the Kid” was twenty-two and had the facial hair of a thirteen-year-old. But the Kid’s age and lack of anything resembling a beard had nothing to do with ability. He hit hard and skated fast and was already a top-five player in the NHL.

“Ready to lose, Cindy?” Ty asked.

“I’m going to kick your ass, old man.”

Ty laughed. “I’ve got more hair on my nuts than you have on your whole face, Kid.” He got into position and waited for the first puck of the night to drop. Faith was out there in the arena somewhere, but he wasn’t going to think about that. If he wanted everything to work out the way he’d planned, he had to focus on the game. One play at a time.

The puck dropped. Game on. Both teams had come to win. Both were determined to win the ultimate prize, and Ty knew this game wasn’t going to be easy.

In the first period, Daniel scored on a Chinooks power play, but Sid the Kid tied things up in the last few seconds of the first frame, confirming what Ty feared. A hard physical game followed by grueling overtime.

In the second period, the Chinooks forwards cycled the puck along the boards, and in the first few seconds of the second period, Ty saw an opening in the ice and ripped the puck at the Penguins goal. It was deflected wide. Daniel followed the puck, shot it to Blake, who slammed it in the five-hole. As the horns blew and “Rock and Roll Part 2” blasted from the sound system, the players crowded around Blake and pounded on his back.

Ty skated to the bench and squirted water into his mouth. The refs talked at center ice as the goal was replayed on the jumbo tran.

Faith was somewhere out there. Ty swallowed and thought about the hell she’d put him through. The truth about Landon and the photos had almost been a relief compared to what he’d been left to presume on his own. His imagination had ranged from a mysterious illness to her boredom with him to her involvement with another man. There wasn’t another woman on the planet who’d ever made him feel things like Faith. Who made him feel as if his life was better with her in it. Who made him look for her in a room filled with people. Who made him feel like smiling just because she smiled.

There wasn’t another woman on the planet who’d ever twisted him in knots like Faith. For two days, he hadn’t called her. He told himself to forget about her. That he was better off without the distraction of a woman. Then, before he knew it, he was in her lobby threatening her with a bomb and a building evacuation.

Maybe his father was right about him. Maybe he was more like his mother than the old man. Not the mental illness part, although the last week had made him a little crazy. Maybe his mother had felt about Pavel what he felt about Faith. A bone-deep longing that there was just no getting past.

Brookes skated to the face-off circle and Ty wiped sweat from his face. His intent gaze watched the puck drop and Crosby shoot it down ice. “Faster, boys,” he yelled to his teammates.

The Stanley Cup was in the building, waiting to be carried out and presented to the winning team. Ty had worked hard his entire life to get to this point. He’d gotten this close a time or two, but never had he had so much riding on the outcome. More than just having his name immortalized. To night was about more than just doing something his old man had never been able to do.

After a minute and a half, Ty jumped over the boards and changed on the fly. Logan shot him the puck and he dumped it in. There was only a minute and a half left in the second period and Ty skated across the ice and bodychecked a Penguin into the boards. He was shoved from behind and punched in the back, and he turned and aimed for a black helmet. His punch landed and the Penguins enforcer fell to the ice. The whistle blew and the punching stopped. Except for Sam, who continued to participate in some extracurricular activity in the corner with a Pittsburgh defender. All four players were given three-minute penalties and sat out the last few minutes of the second period in the sin bin.

“Quit taking stupid penalties,” Ty said as he took a seat within the Plexiglas enclosure, “and we just might win this thing.”

“You’re in here,” Sam reminded him as he spit between his own skates.

“The ref made a bad call.”

“Yeah. With me too.”

The Chinooks sent out their penalty killers, but neither team was able to convert on the 3-on-3.

In the third frame, the Penguins evened the score and it remained tied as the clock ran down.

Ty was exhausted. His legs were rubbery from long shifts and he was sucking up pond water when he breathed. God, the last thing he wanted was to go into another overtime.

On the change he took his seat on the bench and dried his face. He thought of Faith and her giving up her team to save his ass. Yesterday he’d been mad as hell about it. Today, he had to admit that he was a little in awe. Giving up a hockey team and millions of dollars was a whole hell of a lot of love.

He glanced up at the clock and the remaining two minutes before he hit the ice.

Pittsburgh dumped the puck, and the Chinooks battled in front of their own net. With only half a second left, Blake cleared the puck and Ty headed up ice. Blake passed to Vlad and Vlad shot the puck across ice to Ty. As the clock counted the seconds, Ty ripped a slap shot at Pittsburgh’s goal. The puck streaked past the goalie’s glove and slammed into the back of the net. The buzzer sounded and the arena went wild. The Seattle bench emptied and the players piled onto the ice and onto each other. Horns blared inside the arena, and Ty’s ears rang and his heart pounded. He sucked in a breath as he fell to his knees beneath a pile of hockey players and tried not to cry like a girl.