Gloves Off: a marriage of convenience hockey romance (Vancouver Storm Book 4)

“Last fifteen minutes,” my wife calls to the girls forty-five minutes later. “You know what that means.”

“Scrimmage?” one of the girls asks with a hopeful smile.

Georgia grins and nods. “Scrimmage.”

Excitement ripples through the team, each player wearing a sharp-looking red and black soccer kit. The Vancouver Devils. Everything tonight has been about rehabilitation and healing. They’ve done an easy warm-up, physio exercises, and low-impact skill work, but I can tell they’re itching for more.

“Easy mode, though,” she tells them with a this means business expression. “Slow it down. This is not the time to push too hard.”

They divvy up the teams and start the game.

“How’s the knee, Isabel?” she asks a player who’s wearing a knee brace.

“Fine,” the girl calls back.

“You sure?”

The girl gives her the thumbs-up.

“Sometimes she forgets she’s injured and goes too hard,” Georgia says quietly, still watching Isabel.

Within a few minutes, one girl steals the ball and kicks it at the net. It sails past the goaltender.

“Yes!” Georgia shouts, clapping hard, smiling like she never smiles at me. “There we go. That was beautiful. It’s okay, Beth,” she calls to the goaltender. “That was a tricky shot. You’ll get it next time. Thank you for not diving.”

The goaltender blows a raspberry, and Georgia laughs.

Speechless, I watch her. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. The game continues, the girls scramble for the ball, taking shots at either net. They’re laughing. They’re having fun. They love her.

She’s a great coach. I’ve never seen her so at ease, so determined and enthusiastic. She never shows me this side.

This is the version of her from the photo at the benefit. This is the person Darcy, Owens, and Jordan are friends with.

It hits me. The inheritance the doctor needs so badly? It has something to do with this.

Half an hour later, after the soccer equipment has been locked away in the storage room and the girls have all been picked up, Georgia and I walk to the car.

“What?” She gives me a strange look, and I realize I’m staring.

I clear my throat and look away. “Nothing.”

Frustration tightens in my shoulders. So I was wrong about her. We’re complete opposites. She said I was a lost cause.

When we get to the car, I have the urge to open her door for her, but that would be weird. She’d think it was weird.

I do it anyway, and she raises an eyebrow at me.

See? Weird.

I start the car and glance over at her just as she’s reaching for her seatbelt. “Put your seatbelt on,” I say, because I feel like playing with her.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

The corner of my mouth twitches. Such a fucking brat. “Don’t tell me you’d go without a seatbelt just to piss me off, Doctor.” I rev the engine once in warning.

“I don’t know. I really love getting on your nerves.”

“You’re good at it, too.”

That pretty mouth curves before she clicks her seatbelt into place.

We pull onto the road. Something about the way she was with the soccer team keeps snagging my thoughts. Across the front seat, she’s staring out the window, playing with her necklace.

She wrenches around and reaches into her bag in the backseat, pulling out one of those protein bars she’s always eating.

“Do you ever eat real food?”

She arches an eyebrow at me before her eyes narrow. “Yes.”

“Because all I ever see you eat are those protein bars.” I’m picking a fight, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “You need to eat a balanced diet.”

“You know I went to medical school, right? I don’t need you to lecture me on how to eat.”

Our gazes hold, tension snapping in the air, and I’m back in the library with my tongue on her nipple, listening to her shallow breathing. Frustration rages inside me. She’s just so—I can’t even—god-fucking-damnit, the doctor gets under my skin. She’s doing this just to piss me off.

And it’s working, which pisses me off more.

We never should have done what we did.

I yank my gaze back to the road. “You need your inheritance for this, don’t you?” I tilt my head in the direction we came from.

Our eyes meet, hers flaring with something guarded.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” I press.

She tucks her hand beneath her thigh, and I think about how that thigh felt, hitched up as I buried myself inside her.

Jesus. I need to stop thinking about that.

“The program’s funding was cut.” She doesn’t meet my eyes.

There we go. So that’s why she didn’t marry some guy when her grandfather died a few years ago. “What about the proceeds from the benefit?”

“It’s not nearly enough. The program costs at least a million a year.”

“And your inheritance is . . . ?”

“Ten million,” she says simply.

Something clunks in my chest. “You’re giving ten million dollars away?”

“I don’t know why I told you that,” she says quietly, and I don’t like the way I feel. I don’t like that she can’t trust me with these things.

I deserve it, after how I treated her, but I don’t like it.

“It matters to you.” I glance over at her.noveldrama

Her eyes meet mine, and her chin lifts half an inch, eyes determined. “It matters to me.”

Another heavy, uncomfortable clunk in my chest, and I yank my gaze back to the road.

“I met Walker’s parents,” I blurt out, running a hand over my hair. “They came to the game a couple weeks ago.”

A beat passes where she stares at me and I feel like a fool. I don’t know why I said that. I guess I just—I found out something about her, and I didn’t like how uneven we were. We always even the score.

She regards me with curiosity. “What are they like?”

“Nice. They’re proud of him.” I hesitate. “They thanked me for working with him.” A lick of shame hits me in the gut.

Her eyebrows lift. “What’s wrong with that?”

“I haven’t done anything. I’m going to tell Ward it’s not working out.” I’ve been flipping back and forth on it in my head since that meeting with Ward, since he told me I was getting a lifetime achievement award from the NHL.

For some reason, I want to know what the doctor thinks about it, though.

“What? Why?” Her eyes go wide with alarm.

“Because nothing I’m doing is helping. The kid’s playing worse than he did last season when he joined the team.” My gut twists. “If things stay the same, he’s going to get hurt.”

It’ll be my fault. I’m failing him.

She’s quiet for a moment, studying me. I wish I knew what she was thinking. “He needs you.”

I rear back. “No, he doesn’t. He’s better off without me. I thought you’d be the first to agree.”

“He needs you,” she says again. Her gaze is pensive and searching. Determined, too. My heart beats harder. “These rookies are scared shitless their first year in the NHL. The guys are bigger and faster and meaner and want to win more. The pressure’s more intense. They were one of the best guys on the team in the minors or in college but now they’re back on the bottom rung of the ladder. And they’re alone. Ward’s the best coach I’ve ever worked with, but his attention is split between an entire team and staff.”

My throat feels tight as I think back to my first few years in the league, when everything was so uncertain. Walker’s an annoying, overconfident little shit—but I hate the idea of him being scared.

“Luca’s a good kid,” she says.

“I know.” I sound defensive.

“He needs you.” The piercing way she looks at me makes me uncomfortable. “He’s talented.”

And yet I can’t figure out how to help him.

She frowns out the window, chewing her bottom lip. It’s addictive, seeing the doctor like this, without her tough armor. Soft and thoughtful.

“He could be really great, you know?” Her wistful tone tugs at something behind my ribcage. “And you could be a part of that, if you wanted to be.”

“Halfway out the door to retirement? Glued together with pins and K-tape?” I’m baiting her, trying to get her to insult me. It’s easier when we play that game.

She shakes her head, still watching me in that way that makes me feel exposed. “He’d be lucky to get that far, Alexei. If he could have the career you’ve had, I bet that would make Walker and his parents very, very happy.”

Silence stretches between us. I don’t know what to say. I’m trying to think of some rude quip or comment but I’m coming up blank.

She called me Alexei again. She complimented my career.

We spend the rest of the drive home in silence, saying a stilted goodnight to each other before heading to our separate rooms.

When I get into bed, instead of passing out immediately like normal, I lie there for a long time, thinking about the way she looked at me when she told me Walker needed me, the emotion in her eyes, and how she called me Alexei.