The Game of Love (24 page)

Tomorrow he had to go to brunch and tell his mother she wasn’t getting the daughter-in-law that she wanted after all.

He walked into the house early, knowing he’d beat the rest of his family by at least an hour. He also knew his mother, who rose with the sun, would be up and planning out the day’s menu.

Sure enough, the smell of fresh coffee and baking bread and his mother’s sweet humming greeted him as he opened the front door. He turned the corner to see the one woman he could always trust to keep his heart safe, full hips swaying to some oldies number only she could hear as she chopped veggies for omelets that would be made fresh later.

He waited until she’d put the knife down, walked up behind and kissed the top of her head, gave her a fierce hug. “Morning, Mom.”

“Well, what a surprise. What brings you by so early? Coffee’s fresh.” She moved to put the veggies in a Tupperware container.

“Needed to talk to you about something.” Mug of black coffee in hand, he took a fortifying sip, knowing he needed to spill before the family walked in and chaos ensued. “You know how I told you I was going to ask Chris to marry me?”

Anna whirled around, apron flying as she studied him. Wiped her hands on the cloth tied to her waist. “You did, didn’t you?”

“No, not exactly.” Another sip didn’t make the words easier, but it gave him time to swallow the lump in his throat. “Turns out, I’m not the only man in her life.”

The lines at the corners of his mother’s eyes crinkled as her gaze narrowed, and she tipped her head to one side. “I’m not following. Spit it out, please.”

He sighed, set the mug down on the counter and crossed his arms. “A man named Dax Riley came to see me. Warned me off of Chris. They dated some time ago apparently.” When she didn’t show any signs of recognition—not that he was surprised—he added, “He’s a major pro hockey star.”

His mother blinked.

“Another pro athlete?” he prompted, waiting for the reaction.

She blinked again, tilted her head to the other side, not unlike a cocker spaniel who’d been given an unfamiliar command and didn’t know what to do.

He tried again. “She’s a gold digger?” Why wasn’t she connecting the flashing, neon dots?

“You got that she is a gold digger because she happened to date another pro athlete at some point in her life.” She spoke slowly, as if trying to convince herself as much as him that she was on the right path.

“Yeah.”

She stood still for another moment, then quick as lightning, he felt the sting of her dishtowel snapping him on the arm.

“Ow! Mom!” He rubbed the already-reddening skin of his forearm, frowned at the woman who gave him life. “What the hell?”

“Language.” She turned her back to him and started mixing batter of some kind. “You love this woman, you’re convinced she loves you back, and yet suddenly some man you don’t even know personally comes to tell you stories and you jump ship like a rat.”

“He had pictures. And when I asked her, she didn’t deny it. But that’s not the point.”

“Your pigheadedness isn’t the point?” She waved a gooey hand over her shoulder as if to say,
Please, continue digging your own grave. It’s fun to watch.

“Katie helped me realize that maybe I wasn’t giving her enough credit, and that I needed to apologize. So—”

“Always liked that girl,” Anna muttered under her breath.

He couldn’t help but smile. “So, she told me it was time to break out The Grand Gesture.” He paused. “Do you know what that means?”

“Of course I do. It’s the thing you break out when you’ve been stupid and need to prove just how sorry you are and how much you care.” She made a face. “You didn’t get her flowers, did you?”

He ran a hand down his face, the rough stubble catching on his fingers. “Is there some female handbook that they pass out to you all in high school while the guys are busy in shop class, or something?”

“Perhaps if you weren’t all operating on a broken X chromosome, you could keep up.” His mother always loved to say that men were the weaker sex because the Y in XY was actually a broken X. “Now, stop stalling and keep talking.” She whacked the spoon with batter against the side of the sink.

“No. I didn’t get her flowers. I got her…something special. At least I thought so. When I went to take it to her house, she wasn’t there. But Dax Riley was. It was clear he was staying there. He’d just gotten out of the shower, and Chris wasn’t even there. She was out running errands.”

“Dax Riley,” she repeated, and her eyes glazed over. He almost heard the wheels turning in her head. “Suddenly it sounds so…oh!” Anna’s eyes brightened and she hopped once. “He’s that man who was in trouble for punching a fan. Right? It was on the evening news a long while ago.”

“Mom, where are you going with this?” But even as he asked the question, his memory kicked in, and he could see a man in full hockey gear flinging himself into the crowd. Was that Dax Riley, or was his memory just remembering what it wanted to?

“The man was acting like an enraged gorilla. Do you honestly think that Christina would want to be with a man who acts like that?”

“No, I didn’t think that. If I did, I wouldn’t be standing here with my freaking heart broken, Mom.” Something didn’t feel right, though, and it wasn’t the dull ache in his chest that hadn’t gone away, even with copious amounts of Scotch.

“I think there’s more to this story than meets the eye,” she said, nodding wisely.

“Mom, I know you liked her, but—” The sound of his cell phone chirping in his pocket cut him off. He glanced at the display and saw it was Katie’s cell phone. Normally he would have had no problem hitting the ignore call button and continuing the conversation with his mother. But it was an odd hour for Katie to be calling him, and his mind went to the worst case scenario. What if Jared wasn’t there and she needed help? What if it was the baby?

“Mom, I’m gonna take this, hold that thought all right?” Even as he said it, he turned and walked toward the front door and flipped open his phone. “Katie, what’s up? You okay?”

Katie was going to kill her.

Chris pulled into her parking spot, determined to take the world’s quickest shower before she called her best friend. Getting sucked into running a morning practice with some new recruits had been a poor choice. But her cell phone battery dying so she couldn’t warn Katie she’d be late? That was just bad luck. But it was only an hour, so she couldn’t get too mad, right?

As she slammed her car door and headed to her front porch, she chuckled. Katie was extremely pregnant, always hungry and more than a little testy thanks to lack of sleep. Chris would be lucky to walk away with all her limbs intact for stalling breakfast.

The moment she opened the door, something felt wrong. The HVAC system kicked in, blowing warm air, providing a humming noise to the house. The lamp she always left on by the front window was still lit. She didn’t hear anything suspicious. But it still felt wrong. Her heart skipped a beat as she shut the door behind her.

She took a quick turn around her living room, looking for anything out of place. Nothing jumped out at her.
Stop looking for something wrong. It’s all in your head.

As she headed toward the kitchen, the softest of sounds made her gasp and spin around. Hair from her ponytail flew into her eyes, caught on her lip. But nothing could distract her from the “something wrong” standing right in front of her.

Dax Riley. In her home.

He stood there patiently, as if waiting for her to register what his presence meant. Then his lips curled into a slow smile.

“Hey, Chrissy. I’ve missed you.”

“Brett, have you heard from Chris?”

Seriously?
“Katie, you called at—” he checked his watch, “—9:15 on a Sunday morning to ask if I’ve seen Chris?”

“She was supposed to call me when she got back, and I thought maybe you’d taken her gift over there this morning and made up and she lost track of time. But I needed to make sure, and she’s not answering her phone.”

He snorted. “Why don’t you just call the townhouse phone? If she doesn’t answer, I’m sure her boyfriend will.”

“I just tried, but nobody answered. And her cell is going straight to voice mail. So I don’t know—wait. Boyfriend? What the heck are you talking about?”

He wanted to scream, throw something, kick something. “I’m talking about me making an ass out of myself when I took her the stringer yesterday, and her old-slash-new boyfriend Dax Riley answered her door. In a towel.” He could barely get the words out through his clenched teeth.

There was silence, and then in a very faint, un-Katie-like voice, she asked, “Did you say Dax Riley was in her house?”

“Yes. He answered her door wearing a towel, said they got back together. That Chris ran to the store but hey, sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for stopping by.” Why didn’t Katie know this? They were best friends.

“Dax Riley.” Was she in a trance? “You’re sure it was Dax Riley, the hockey player, in her apartment? Yesterday?”

“Yes.” His dentist was going to have a field day if he kept grinding his back teeth.

More silence, then, “Oh, my God.” Her voice was muffled when she screamed, “Jared! Jared, get your ass down here now! We have to go check on Chris!”

The panic in Katie’s voice chilled his blood. “Katie, talk to me.”

“He was borderline abusive, which is why she left him in the first place, and he’s been harassing her over the phone again. He must have broken in. She wasn’t even in town this weekend, she went to see her old coach two hours away and wasn’t coming back until today and oh my God.” She ended the winded sentence on a sob. “Jared! This is serious, and if you’re gelling your hair—”

The line went dead.

His brain was rolling, connecting bits and pieces of information he’d gleaned from the conversation with his mother and that frantic phone call from Katie.

Abusive.

Harassing.

Broken in.

Shit.

He leaned back in through the front door, called into the house. “Mom, call Chance, tell him to get to Chris’s townhouse
now.
It’s an emergency.” He rattled off her address then he ran for his Escalade and tore out of the driveway. His mom hustled onto the front porch, phone to her ear as he raced off.

Speed limits were nonexistent as he drove neck-or-nothing toward Chris’s townhouse. He couldn’t think of anything but that he’d fucked up, judging and not listening, not giving her a chance to explain, condemning her because of someone else’s actions.

He just hoped he hadn’t fucked up too much.

Stay calm. Don’t panic. Even breathing.

Right. What all those “survivor courses” and “women’s defense classes” forgot to mention was that it was easy to breathe and stay calm when you were practicing gouging out the eyes of a stationary dummy. The real thing was a smidge different.

Her mind whirled so fast she couldn’t focus.

Stop, Chris. That’s panicking. One thought at a time. What does Dax want?

Control.

The answer was easy as that.
Let him think he’s in control.

Try to sound nonchalant.
“You missed me? Interesting, since this is the first visit.” She placed her tote bag with the useless, dead cell phone on the table, hoping the action kept him from seeing her mind at work. He’d never actually hit her. Threatened, used his body to intimidate, yes. But never taken a real swing meant to hit her. It was as if even Dax had some invisible boundary he wouldn’t cross.

She hugged that knowledge tight, praying he hadn’t changed in that respect.

“I called,” he reminded her.

God, he was so…passive, so even. Almost like he’d swallowed a tranquilizer before she walked in the door. His voice held only the faint hint of amusement, no anger, no rage.

“Right. The calls.” She laced her fingers together to keep them from shaking, partly from fury, partly from fear. “By the way, how did you get into the house? I know you didn’t find a hide-a-key. I don’t have one.”

“Your parents gave me a key. Your mother had it.” He shrugged one shoulder.

Thanks, Mom. That was the last straw. We’re done.

“She agrees that we belong together, and she thought it would be a sweet surprise for me to come see you.”

“The problem is, Dax, I didn’t invite you in.” It must have been the adrenaline keeping her voice steady. “So what you essentially did was break and enter. I think it would be best if you let me unpack, relax from my trip, and then I’ll call you later to talk about things.”

Dax didn’t say a word. Merely lifted an eyebrow as if she’d made a bad joke and he was mocking her with his silence.

Before Chris could say anything else, the phone in the kitchen rang. She glanced at it, then back at Dax. He hadn’t moved a muscle, as if his entire concentration was locked on her and her alone. Making a split-second judgment, she darted toward the cordless phone, praying whoever was calling was in a position to help.

She made it three steps before her ex’s long legs caught up. He bumped her aside, and she crashed into the edge of the kitchen counter with her hip, making her left leg crumble. Oh, God, that hurt. And it would leave one ugly bruise in the morning.

If you’re still alive in the morning. Get your head out of your ass and stop worrying about a bruise!

The phone stopped ringing, then two seconds later started ringing again. Of course, she’d never gotten around to replacing her answering machine. Nobody would call her this insistently except Katie. She had to know something wasn’t right.

“I don’t like when you say things like ‘break and enter.’ Makes me think you want to invite more trouble into our relationship.” He tsked and loomed over her. “Let’s work out our problems together.”

She rubbed her hip, wishing she had something sharp to stab in his foot at that moment. “Uh huh. Our problems.”

“Mostly yours.” He shrugged, then sat on his haunches in front of her. “We all know you’re a little on the sensitive side, sweetie.”

She gave a hysterical laugh, which likely only fed his delusion about her own mental instability. “Me. The crazy one. Right.” Had he been this off-his-rocker when she dated him? He’d been an abusive son of a bitch, but this was Kathy Bates in
Misery
nuts. She rocked back so that she was leaning against the cabinets, her legs bent in front of her. “How should we fix that?”

He stared at her, like he was trying to detect any lies. Like the truth would be written on her face in marker. Then he nodded once. “First, you’re quitting your job and moving in with your parents. They see the importance of us being together.”

Of course they did. Dax was a major hockey star. And his influence might get her back on the tennis scene. Nothing else mattered, did it? Then again, her parents weren’t aware that it was partially his influence that had her quitting in the first place.

“We’ll make a few appearances together, then after a few public outings, our agents can leak the news that we’re back together. You come to my games, wear my jersey, stand by my side for conferences. It’ll be just like old times.”

She wanted to ask, “And where on your schedule do the other women you sleep with come in?” but kept her mouth shut. There was stupid, and then there was just too stupid to live.

He stood up, and immediately her brain was on alert, looking for another chance to escape. The ringing had finally stopped. No help from that direction. If she could just play the meek, compliant little lady for a bit longer, he’d let down his guard. He had to at some point. Right? Oh, please God.

Almost as if hearing her silent plea, he nudged her leg with the toe of his boot. “You stay there while I get something to drink.”

Like she was a dog following a command. No, nothing had changed. She waited until he opened the refrigerator door and ducked his head down to look inside before moving her legs under her and sprinting to the door. She heard the clink of bottles, a muffled curse, and then a heavy weight slammed into her legs. She tripped and fell to the ground five feet from the door.

Her right temple hit the hardwood floor, and she had to fight back the nausea that threatened to overtake her, blinked to clear the stars floating in front of her eyes. Dax’s heavy weight was on top of her, pinning her shoulders to the ground with his massive hands. She looked over her shoulder, realizing his expression would have made a rabid dog look tame.

“I told you to stay put!” He jerked her shoulders up, slammed her back into the ground, knocking the wind out of her. His knee pushed into the center of her back, and she struggled to regain her breath, unable to fill her lungs.

This was how she was going to die. Darkness edged her vision. At the hands of some crazy bastard who’d taken one too many pucks to the head. Her legs kicked once, twice, in a feeble attempt to get him to move. She wasn’t a weakling, but unless things had changed, she knew his stats. He’d had her memorize them. He was two hundred and forty pounds of muscle. No amount of struggling would get him off her without his consent.

The vague notion of trying to reach his balls entered her mind when she heard a crash from the front door, a feral animal growl.

And just like that, the crushing weight was gone. She stayed still for a moment longer, not sure where he’d gone, and not wanting to draw his attention back to her if she could use the opportunity to escape.

The sound of something breaking and male grunting made her turn her head. The first thing she saw was her lamp on the ground, shade askew, base cracked. Then from the corner of her eye, she saw four feet, four legs tangling and rolling.

She pushed up with her elbows. Brett and Dax were rolling and scraping, landing punches. Dax had blood all over his face, and Brett’s shirt was ripped at the neckline. They looked like two pissed-off junkyard dogs with nothing to lose.

She launched herself to her feet and stood, not sure what to do. Pound for pound, they were almost identical in size, both athletic and both going for the kill shot.

An elbow to the kidney had Brett sucking in a harsh breath, and Dax took advantage. He flipped over Brett and threw out rapid-fire punches, landing blows to his face and upper body.

All right. No more helpless female. Not letting herself think twice, she crouched down and sprang, her shoulder nailing Dax in the ribs. Caught off guard, he flew back, landing on his butt with a grunt.

Before he had a chance to react, strong arms grabbed her around her waist and hoisted her out of Dax’s reach and pulled her against a hard surface. She watched as Brett’s brother Chance twisted Dax’s arm behind his back and pulled him none too gently to his feet, telling him he was under arrest for a laundry list of offenses, not the least of which was being a dumbass.

“Get that piece of shit out of here,” Brett’s voice roared next to her ear. Ah, so the hard surface behind her was Brett’s chest. They followed behind Chance and Dax through the front door to the sidewalk.

She’d been operating inside a snow globe with the outside world nothing but a muffled landscape. The bubble suddenly burst. People yelled, sirens screamed, lights flashed. Two cops stood around, the parking lot was peppered with her neighbors unrepentantly enjoying the show. And then she saw Katie waddling with slothlike speed through the barricade toward the townhouse.

It hit her at once, and her legs felt like Jell-O. She melted back toward Brett’s solid strength, and his arm tightened around her ribcage under her breasts. “Need to sit down, baby?”

She nodded. The adrenaline that had been pumping through her veins, keeping her sane and in control and able to act fast, evaporated. Now she just felt like she hadn’t slept in a month.

He pulled her toward the front door. “Let’s let a medic take a look at you first, then we’ll sit down, okay?”

She nodded, floating toward the sunshine and swirling lights of the emergency vehicles. He guided her down to the curb, and she saw one particularly gossip-minded older woman speaking to an officer. Oh, Lord. How many times would her neighbors ask about this? Her hands covered her face and she groaned.