See Jane Score (12 page)

“Yeah, I know that part.” She waved a dismissive hand. “So, who has the best body?”

Jane thought a moment. “Well, they're all incredibly built. Powerful legs and upper bodies. Mark Bressler probably has the biggest muscles, but Luc Martineau has this horseshoe tattoo low on his abdomen that makes you want to fall right to your knees and kiss it for good luck. And his butt . . . perfect.” She held her cool glass to her forehead. “Too bad he's a jerk.”

“Sounds like you like him.”

Jane lowered the glass and looked over at Caroline. Like him? Like Luc? The guy who got her fired? More than all the other players combined, she felt most hurt and betrayed by Luc. Which, when she thought about it, probably wasn't all that rational, since she didn't really know him and he didn't know her. It was just that she'd thought they'd developed a tentative friendship, and if she was honest, she'd admit that she'd also developed a slight infatuation for Luc. No,
infatuation
was too strong a word.
Interest
better described what she'd felt. “I don't like him,” she said, “but he does have one of those Canadian accents that is only detectable with certain words.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What, uh-oh? I said I didn't like him.”

“I know that's what you said, but you've always been a sucker for a man with an accent.”

“Since when?”

“Since Balki on
Perfect Strangers
.
”

“The sitcom?”

“Yep, you were mad for Balki all because he had that accent. No matter that he was a loser who lived with his cousin.”

“No, I was mad for Bronson Pinchot. Not Balki.” She laughed. “And that same year, you were mad for Tom Cruise. How many times do you think we saw
Top Gun
?”

“At least twenty.” Caroline took a drink of her wine. “Even back then you were attracted to losers.”

“I call it having realistic expectations.”

“More like selling yourself short because you have typical abandonment issues.”

“Are you high?”

Caroline shook her head and her ponytail brushed her shoulders. “No, I read all about it in a magazine while I was in my gynecologist's office last week. Because your mother died, you're afraid everyone you love will leave you.”

“Which just goes to show, there's a lot of made-up crap in magazines.” And she should know. “Just last week you told me I had issues with leaving a relationship because I have a fear of getting dumped. Make up your mind.”

Caroline shrugged. “Obviously it's all the same issue.”

“Right.”

They watched the fireplace for a few more minutes, then Caroline suggested, “Let's go out.”

“It's Thursday night.”

“I know, but neither of us has to work tomorrow.”

Maybe a night of blowing out her ears with a garage band was just what she needed to take her mind off the hockey game she should have been covering but wasn't. Get her out of the apartment so she couldn't turn on the television and surf past the game. She looked down at her green T-shirt, black fleece, and jeans. She also needed new material for her
Single Girl
column. “Okay, but I'm not changing.”

Caroline, who'd dressed down tonight in a
Tommy
sweater with a flag on the chest and butt-tight jeans, looked at Jane and rolled her eyes. “At least put your contacts in.”

“Why?”

“Well, I didn't want to say anything because I love you and all, and because I'm always telling you what to wear and I didn't want you to feel self-conscious and have bad self-esteem, but those horrid people at Eye Care lied to you.”

Jane didn't think her glasses were that bad. Lisa Loeb had a pair just like them. “Are you sure they don't look good on me?”

“Yes, and I'm only telling you this because I don't want people to think I'm the girl and you're the boy.”

Not Caroline too? “What makes you think people would assume
you're
the girl and
I'm
the boy?” she asked as she got up and moved into the bathroom. “It's possible that people would think
you're
the boy.” There was silence from the other room and she stuck her head around the door. “Well?”

Caroline stood at the fireplace applying red lipstick in front of the mirror hanging above the mantel “Well, what?” She replaced the lipstick in her cute little handbag.

“Well, what makes you think people would assume
you're
the girl and
I'm
the boy?” she asked again.

“Oh, was that a real question? I thought you were trying to be funny.”

The next morning at nine o'clock, Jane's telephone rang. It was Leonard phoning to tell her that he and Virgil and the Chinooks management had reconsidered their “hasty decision.” They wanted her to resume her job ASAP. Which meant they wanted her in the press box for tomorrow night's game against St. Louis. She was so shocked, she could only lie in her bed and listen to Leonard's complete about-face.

It seemed that after her talk with the team, they'd all played brilliant hockey. Bressler had scored a hat trick after she'd shaken his hand, and Luc was back in his zone. He'd kept the score at six–zero, and for the moment surpassed his rival Patrick Roy in shutouts.

Suddenly Jane Alcott was good luck.

“I don't know, Leonard,” she said as she threw aside her yellow flannel duvet and sat on the edge of her bed. Her head and mouth felt as if they were stuffed with cotton, a result of too much late-night fun, and she was having a hard time grasping her thoughts. “I can't take this job and wonder if I'm going to get fired every time the Chinooks lose a game.”

“You don't have to worry about that anymore.”

She didn't believe him, and if she did decide to take the job again, she wasn't going to jump at the opportunity like last time. And truthfully, she was still severely ticked off. “I'm going to have to think about it.”

After she hung up the phone, she brewed a pot of coffee and ate a little granola to take away the hollow feeling. She hadn't gotten to bed until around two the night before, and she was sorry she'd even spent the money and wasted her time going out. She'd been unable to think of anything besides getting fired and she'd been bad company.

While she ate, she thought about Leonard's new offer. The Chinooks had pretty much treated her like a leper and blamed their losses on her. Now they suddenly thought she was good luck? Did she really want to subject herself to more of their superstitious craziness? Their synchronized cup-dropping and nuisance calls?

When she finished eating, she jumped into the shower and closed her eyes as the warm water ran over her. Did she really want to travel with a goalie who could look right through her? Even as he made her heart race? Whether she wanted it to race or not? And she most definitely did not. Even if she and Luc liked each other, which they obviously didn't, he only had eyes for tall gorgeous women.

She wrapped her hair in a towel and put on her glasses as she dried her body. She pulled on a sheer bandeau bra, a white University of Washington T-shirt, and a pair of old jeans with holes in the knees.

Her doorbell rang, and when she looked through the peephole, a man wearing a pair of silver Oakley sunglasses stood on her little porch all windblown and gorgeous, and looking exactly like Luc Martineau. She opened the door because she'd just been thinking of him, and she wasn't certain this wasn't a figment of her imagination.

“Hello, Jane,” he greeted. “May I come in?”

Wow, a polite Luc. Now she
knew
she was imagining things. “Why?”

“I hoped that we could talk about what happened.” That did it. He said
aboot
instead of about, and she knew she was talking to the real Luc.

“You getting me fired, you mean?”

He reached for his sunglasses and stuck them in the pocket of his leather bomber jacket. His cheeks were flushed, his hair messed, and behind him at the curb he'd parked his motorcycle. “I didn't get you fired. Not directly anyway.” When she didn't respond, he asked, “Are you going to invite me inside?”

Her hair was in a towel and the cold air was giving her goose bumps. She decided to let him in. “Have a seat,” she said as he followed her into the living room of her apartment. She left for a moment to take the towel from her head and to brush the tangles from her hair. Of all the men in the world, Luc was the last man she'd thought would ever be standing in her living room.

She brushed and towel-dried her hair the best she could, and for one brief moment she thought of maybe putting on some mascara and lip gloss. But she dismissed the thought just as quickly. She did, however, exchange her glasses for her contact lenses.

With her hair damp and the ends starting to curl, she returned to the living room. Luc stood with his back to her, studying a few photographs sitting on her mantel. His jacket lay on the sofa, and he wore a white dress shirt, the cuffs folded up his thick forearms. One wide pleat ran down the middle of his back and was tucked into a pair of Lucky Brand jeans. His wallet bulged one back pocket and the denim hugged his butt. He looked over his shoulder at her, his blue gaze moving from her bare feet, up her jeans and T-shirt to her face.

“Who's this?” he asked and pointed to the middle photo of her and Caroline in their caps and gowns standing on the porch of her father's house in Tacoma.

“That's my best friend Caroline and me the night we graduated from Mt. Tahoma High School.”

“So you've lived around here all your life?”

“Yep.”

“You haven't changed that much.”

She stood next to him. “I'm a lot older these days.”

He looked across his shoulder at her. “How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

He flashed a white smile that slid past her defenses, warmed her up, and curled her toes into the beige Berber carpet. “That old?” he asked. “You look pretty good for your age.”

Oh, God
.
She didn't want to read more into that statement than he'd intended, which she was certain was absolutely nothing. She didn't want him to dazzle her with a smile. She didn't want to feel tingles or warm flushes or have bad sinful thoughts. “Why are you here, Luc?”

“I got a call from Darby Hogue.” He shoved one hand in the front pocket of those Lucky jeans and rested his weight on one foot. “He told me they'd offered you your job back and you turned them down.”

She hadn't turned them down. She'd said she'd think about it. “What does that have to do with you?”

“Darby thought I could talk you into coming back.”

“You? You think I'm the archangel of gloom and doom.”

“You're a cute archangel of doom.”

Oh, boy. “You were the wrong choice. I don't—” she stopped because she couldn't lie and say she didn't like him. She did. Even though she didn't
want
to like him. So she settled on a half lie. “I don't know if I even like you.”

He chuckled as if he knew she lied. “That's what I told Darby.” The corners of his mouth slid into a smile filled with charm, and he rocked back on his heels. “But he thought I could change your mind.”

“I doubt it.”

“I figured you might say that.” He walked to the couch and pulled something out of the pocket of his leather jacket. “So I brought you a peace offering.”

He handed her a thin trade-sized paperback with a pink ribbon tied around it.
Hockey Talk: The Jargon, the Lore, the Stuff You'll Never Learn from TV.

Shocked, she took it from him. “You did this?”

“Yeah, and I had the girl at the bookstore put that bow on it.”

He'd given her a gift. A peace offering. Something she could actually use. Not something generic men typically gave women, like flowers or chocolate or cheap underwear. He'd given it some thought. He'd paid attention. To her.

“They didn't have black ribbon, so she had to use pink.”

Jane's heart pinched in her chest and she knew she was in trouble. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

She looked up past his smile and into his blue eyes. Big bad trouble. The kind all wrapped up in a white shirt and Lucky jeans. The kind that dated Barbie Dolls because he could.

Chapter 7
Deke: To Outmaneuver an Opponent

L
uc looked down into Jane's green eyes, and he knew his gift had worked. He'd softened her up, maneuvered her right where he wanted. But just before he had her completely and she dropped into his hand like a puck from heaven, her gaze turned wary. She took a step back and skepticism pulled her brows together.

“Did Darby tell you to butter me up with this?” she asked and held up the book.

Damn. “No.” The little dweeb had suggested he bring her flowers, but the book had been Luc's idea. “That was my idea, but everyone wants you to come back and cover the games.”

“I find it hard to believe that everyone wants me back. Especially the coaches.”

She was right. Not everyone did want her back, especially management. After the disgraceful loss in San Jose, the team had been looking for something to blame. Something in the air or the alignment of the stars. Something other than their pathetic performance. That something had been Jane. They'd groused and bitched in the locker room, but none of them had thought she'd get fired. Especially Luc. After she'd told him she'd needed the job, he'd been able to think of little else but Jane living on the streets because of something he'd said. And looking at the size of her apartment, she probably did need the money. It was clean and, surprisingly enough, not everything was black, but the whole thing could easily fit into his living room. He was glad he'd come.

“I told management you're our good-luck charm,” he said, which was true. After she'd called him a big dumb dodo, of all things, he'd played one of the best games of his life. And Bressler pulled his first hat trick of the season after she'd shaken his hand.

A frown pulled at the corners of her lips. “Do you really believe that?”

Luc never questioned the source of good luck. “Of course, but mostly I'm here because I know what it's like to need a job and have the opportunity taken from you.”

Jane looked down at her bare feet and Luc studied the part in her damp hair. The ends had begun to curl about her shoulders as if she'd twisted them around her finger. He wondered what they'd feel like curled around his own finger. Standing so close, he was reminded of how short she was. How small her shoulders, and how young she looked in her University of Washington T-shirt. Not for the first time he noticed her nipples poking at the front of her shirt, and again he wondered if she was cold or turned on. Warmth spread through his veins and settled in his groin. He felt himself get semi-hard and was shocked as hell at his response to Jane Alcott. She was short and flat-chested and too smart. Despite all of that, he heard himself say, “Maybe we could start over. Forget about the first time we met when I offered to piss in your coffee.”

She looked up again. Her skin was smooth and flawless and her lips full and pink. He wondered if her cheeks were as soft as they looked and he lowered his gaze to her mouth. No, she wasn't his kind of woman, but there was something about her that intrigued him. Perhaps it was her humor and her grit. Perhaps it was nothing more than her puckered nipples and his sudden interest in her soft curls.

“Actually, that wasn't the first time we met,” she said.

He raised his gaze to her eyes. Shit. There were several months of his life that were a blur to him. When he'd done things he'd only heard or read about later. He hadn't lived in Seattle at that time, but he'd certainly traveled with Detroit here. He was almost afraid of the answer, but he had to ask. “When did we meet?”

“Last summer at a press party.”

Relief poured through him and he almost laughed. He would have remembered if he'd slept with Jane last summer. It was the summer before that his memory got a bit dicey. “The press party at the Four Seasons?”

“No, at the Key Arena.”

He tilted his head back and looked at her. “There were a lot of people there that night, but I'm surprised I didn't remember you,” he said, even though he wasn't at all surprised. Jane wasn't the sort of woman he would have remembered on first meeting. And yeah, he knew what that said about him, and he still didn't really care. He lived his life a certain way, looked at things a certain way. He'd lived it so long, he was comfortable with himself. “But maybe not all that surprising, since you were probably wearing black,” he joked.

“I remember exactly what you were wearing,” she said and moved across the room to the kitchen. “Dark suit, red tie, gold watch, and a blond woman.”

He let his gaze slide down her back to her round booty. Everything about Jane was small but her attitude. “Were you jealous?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Of the watch?”

“That too.”

Instead of answering, she moved into the kitchen and asked, “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks. I don't drink caffeine.” He followed but stopped in the doorway of the narrow kitchen. “Are you going to take your job back?”

She set the book he'd given her on the counter and poured coffee into a tall Starbucks mug. “I might.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a quart of milk. The door had Post-Its stuck all over it with notes reminding her to buy everything from pickles and saltines to Comet. “How much is it worth?” she asked as she put the milk away and shut the refrigerator.

“To me personally, or the team?”

She raised the mug to her lips and looked across at him. “You personally.”

She was going to take advantage of the reversal of circumstances. Squeeze it for all it was worth. He couldn't say he wouldn't have done the same thing if the situation was reversed. “I gave you a peace offering.”

“I know, and I appreciate the gesture.”

She was good. Maybe he'd fire Howie and hire Jane to negotiate his next contract. “What do you want?”

“An interview.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “With me?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“After I've had time to do some research and get my questions together.”

“You know I hate interviews.”

“I know, but I'll make it painless.”

He rocked back on his heels and looked down at the front of her shirt. “How painless?”

“I won't ask you personal questions.”

She was still cold and should probably put on a sweatshirt or something. “Define
personal
.
”

“Don't worry, I won't ask you about your women.”

He slid his gaze to the delicate hollow of her throat, past her lips to her eyes. “Some of that stuff you've probably read about me isn't true,” he said and didn't know why he was defending himself to her.

She blew into the mug. “Some?”

He dropped his hands to his sides and shrugged. “I'd say at least fifty percent was made up to sell books or papers.”

From behind her coffee, one corner of her mouth lifted. “Which fifty percent is true?”

She looked so cute looking up at him, smiling, he was almost tempted to tell her. “Off the record?”

“Of course.”

Almost. “None of your business. I don't talk about the women in my past or my time in rehab.”

She lowered the mug. “Fair enough. I won't ask you anything about rehab or your sex life. There's been enough written about that, and it's boring.”

Boring?
His sex life wasn't boring. Lately he hadn't had a lot of action, but what he did get wasn't boring. Well . . . maybe just a little. No,
boring
was the wrong word. Too strong. There was something missing in his sex life lately. Besides the sex itself. He didn't know what that something was, but once he had the Marie situation resolved, he'd have more time to figure it out.

“And besides,” she added, “I don't want anything you tell me to blow my illusions of you.”

“What illusions?” He leaned one shoulder against the doorway. “That I have threesomes every night?”

“You don't?”

“No.” He looked at her standing there telling him his sex life was boring and he decided to shock her a little bit. Just a bit with something she'd probably read about anyway. “I tried it once, but the girls were more interested in each other than me. Which didn't do much for my self-esteem.”

She started to laugh and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been alone with a woman in her apartment, laughing and talking with her, and not trying to maneuver her toward the bedroom. It was kind of nice.

The night after Luc's visit, Jane sat next to Darby in the press box for the Chinooks' Vancouver game. An octagonal scoreboard with four video screens hung from the center of the pyramid-shaped roof. Lights bounced off the big green Chinooks logo below at center ice, and the pregame laser show had yet to begin. It was half an hour until the scheduled puck drop, but Jane was ready with a pad of paper and her recorder in her bag. She was back and more excited than she let on. Except for Darby, management had yet to arrive, and she wondered if they'd give her the cold shoulder.

She looked across at him. “Thanks for getting my job back for me.” His forearms rested on his knees as he gazed out at the arena. Tonight he'd applied a little less hair gel than usual, but beneath his blue suit jacket, he wore his trusty pocket protector.

“It wasn't just me. The players felt bad after you came to the locker room and wished them luck. They thought anyone that gutsy should have her job back.”

“They wanted me back because they think I'm lucky now.”

“That too,” he said through a smile as he gazed at the ice below. “What are you doing next Saturday?”

“Aren't we on the road?”

“No, we leave the next day.”

“Then nothing.” She shrugged. “Why?”

“Hugh Miner is having his jersey retired at a big banquet at the Space Needle.”

The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. “Who's Hugh Miner?”

“Chinooks goalie from '96 to his retirement last year. I was wondering if you'd want to go.”

“With you? On a date?” she asked as if he were crazy.

His pale cheeks flushed, and she realized that had come out all wrong. “It doesn't have to be a date,” he said.

“Hey, I don't mean that like it sounded.” She patted his shoulder through his jacket. “You know I can't date anyone involved in the Chinooks organization. It would only cause more speculation and rumor.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Now she felt really bad. He probably couldn't get a real date to go with him, and she'd added insult to injury. “I suppose I'd have to dress up.”

“Yes, it's black tie.” He finally looked at her. “I'd pick you up in a limo, so you wouldn't have to drive.”

How could she possibly say no? “What time?”

“Seven.” The cell phone hooked to Darby's belt rang and he turned his attention to the call. “Yes,” he said. “Right here.” He glanced at her. “Right now? Okay.” He disconnected and returned the phone to his belt clip. “Coach Nystrom wants you in the locker room.”

“Me? Why?”

“He didn't say.”

Jane stuffed her notebook in her bag and headed out of the press box. She took the elevator to the ground level and moved through the hall to the locker room, wondering the whole time if she was about to get fired again; if she was, she feared that this time she just might go ballistic.

When she walked into the room, the Chinooks were all suited up and imposing in their battle gear. They sat in front of their stalls listening to the coach, and Jane stopped just inside the door as Larry Nystrom talked of the weakness in Vancouver's second line and how to score against their goalie. She looked across the room at Luc. He wore his big goalie pads and white jersey with the blue and green Chinook on the front. His gloves and helmet were beside him as he stared at a point just beyond his skates. Then he looked up and his eyes locked with hers. He simply looked at her for several heartbeats, then his blue gaze began a leisurely journey down her gray sweater, over her black skirt and tights to her black penny loafers. His interest was more curious than sexual, but it pinned her in place and made her heart feel heavy in her chest.