Rachel Gibson - True Love and Other Disasters

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.

Then she looked at us with those big green eyes and asked how much to get Terrible Ted to play for the Chinooks?”

Pavel Savage choked on the beer he held to his lips and lowered the mug to the table. “You’re screwed.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

Ty nodded and took a long drink of his Labatt’s. His father had shown up at his house an hour ago, unexpected. Like always. “Yep. That’s what I said.” He set down the bottle and picked up his driver. Since his father’s arrival, the two of them had talked about last night’s game against Vancouver and Round Two, tomorrow night. They’d talked about Virgil’s death and what it meant for Ty’s chances at the cup. “The GM suggested she dig up Virgil’s old assistant.” He stood with his feet a shoulders’ width apart and placed the club behind the golf ball. “I don’t care how many assistants she hires to tell her the difference between a cross check and slashing, she’ll never have what it takes.” He brought the club back behind his shoulder and swung. The ball shot across the room and into the center of the big net at the other end. When he’d bought the house on Mercer a month ago, he’d bought it because of the huge media room that would allow him to practice long drives inside. A wall of windows looked out at the lake and the city of Seattle beyond. At night the skyline was spectacular. “The old man could not have died at a worse time, but at least he created a strong front line before he croaked.”