even going so far to burn him in effigy. At which Savage merely shrugs. “I understand their feelings,” he says. “Canadians are passionate about hockey. That’s what I love about them, but they don’t own me.”
When asked about his reputation for playing a hard physical game, he laughs and responds, “That’s my job.”
Faith looked up from the magazine. Ty laughs? She’d been around him several times in the past few weeks, and the man had barely cracked a smile.
She returned her gaze to the
“Some might say your hard physical style hurts people. That you’re not a very nice person.”
“I play hard physical hockey. That’s my job, but I never go after anyone who doesn’t have the puck. If that means I’m not a nice person, I can live with that. I’ve never been interested in the Lady Byng Trophy, and I’m not going to lose sleep worrying about whether people think I’m ‘nice.’ If I’m a dick sometimes, no one will ask me for money or want to borrow my truck to move their crap.”
“Has that happened to you?”
“Not so much these days.”
Speaking of money, the Chinooks paid $30 million for their captain, and there were a lot of people, including those in the Chinooks organization, who thought the money would have been better spent on their defense. But owner Virgil Duffy knows the wisdom of acquiring a player the caliber of Savage.
“Every time he steps on the ice,” Duffy is quoted as saying, “he increases the value of the Chinooks franchise.”
A few rows behind Faith, she heard the shuffle of newspaper mixed with the low hum of deep male voices. If Virgil had thought Ty was worth 30 million, then he was, and more.
Traitor or Saint doesn’t matter much to Ty Savage. He just wants to play hockey his way and win the cup. “I have no doubt we’ll make it into the final round. We’ve got the talent to get us that far. After that, it’s going to come down to who hits harder and puts the most points on the board.” He flashes a rare smile. “And what a guy’s got in his sac.”
Enough said.
Faith closed the magazine. Somehow she doubted Ty had been talking about those Sac poof chairs.
A warm breeze blew through the San Jose airport, bringing with it the smell of asphalt and jet fuel. Ty climbed down the steps of the BAC-111 and walked across the tarmac. He unbuttoned his team blazer, shoved his hands into the pockets of his wool pants, and made his way to the chartered bus.
“That’s my Louie hatbox.”
He glanced toward the cargo hold of the plane, where Mrs. Duffy stood, the wind whipping the tails of her black coat about her knees.
“And that’s the matching wheelie,” she added, pointing into the bay.
Jules took a big Louis Vuitton suitcase and a round case with a loop handle from one of the equipment managers who stood at the cargo bay unloading bags and equipment.
Ty glanced at the faces around him. Through the lenses of his sunglasses, he could see the guy’s confusion. He felt it too. Why did a two-day trip require two pieces of luggage? Especially a hatbox? How many hats could one woman wear in forty-eight hours?
He boarded the bus and took an aisle seat toward the front. Until she’d walked onto the plane in Seattle, he and the guys hadn’t even known she was traveling with them. Outside the window, Ty watched her move across the tarmac toward Darby. The loop of her hatbox circled one wrist and she shoved a pair of big sunglasses on her face. Her blonde hair slid across her cheek and she raised her free hand to push it behind one ear. The flight from Washington had been quiet. Too quiet for a group of guys who excelled at talking trash at 35,000 feet. If she hadn’t been on the flight, they would have questioned the paternity of several San Jose players, and they would have broken out the cards for air poker. Frankie was down five hundred bucks, and Ty was sure the sniper wanted a chance to get some of it back. Little had Ty known that when he’d suggested they all play poker as a way to bond, it would turn into a never-ending game.
“I’d pay a lot of money to see her on a stripper pole again,” Sam said as he slid into the window seat next to Ty. “Maybe busting out of a short little nurse’s outfit.” He sighed like he was in the middle of some porn fantasy. “And those clear plastic shoes they all wear. And an ankle bracelet. I love a lady in an ankle bracelet.”
“You should probably give up on that dream, Rocky,” Ty said, using Sam’s nickname. “Especially since she owns you, eh?”
Sam unbuttoned his jacket. “I don’t mind that she owns us. Not like some of the guys. She’s surrounded by a lot of smart people who won’t let her make a huge mistake. I remember Jules from five years ago. He knows a lot about hockey. Back then he was a pudgy guy with a mullet. He hadn’t come out of the closet yet.”
More players piled on the bus, and Ty looked out the window as Faith nodded at something Jules said to her. “He claims he’s not gay.”
“Really.” Sam shrugged. “I had a cousin who dressed like that in the nineties. He wasn’t gay either.” Sam shrugged. “But he was from Long Island,” he added as if that explained it. He turned his face and looked out the window. “What do you suppose she’s got in the box? Handcuffs? Whips? French maid uniform?”
Ty chuckled. “I’d guess hats.”
“Why would a woman need that many hats?”
Now it was Ty’s turn to shrug. “I’ve never been married.” In fact, he’d only come close to it once. That is, if he counted the time his old girlfriend, LuAnn, had proposed to
“Well, my ex never carried a hatbox around when she traveled.”
“I didn’t know you were married.” He looked up as Coach Nystrom and goalie coach Don Boclair stepped into the bus.
“Yeah. Been divorced five years. I have a little boy. His mamma just couldn’t handle the life, ya know.”
He knew. The divorce rate for hockey players was high. They were gone for half of the long season, and it took a strong woman to stay at home while her man was on the road working hard, living large, and fending off puck bunnies.
Or not. Being married to a hockey player had made Ty’s mother crazy, or so she’d claimed. Or perhaps she’d already been crazy, as his father claimed. Who knew? The only thing for certain was that she’d died of a toxic cocktail of Klonopin, Xanax, Lexapro, and Ambien. The doctors had called it an accidental overdose. Ty wasn’t convinced. His mother’s life had always been one long emotional roller coaster, and whether she’d been born with a mental illness or had been driven to it, the result had been the same. Ty’s mother had battled depression that had ended her life. He wasn’t worried that he’d end up sad and depressed like his mother. He worried that he was too much like his father to care.
Ty pulled back the thick sleeve of his coat and looked at his watch. It was a little after eight o’clock in Seattle and he wondered what his dad was going to do while he was gone. Other than what he always did: drink all Ty’s beer and watch ESPN. It had been two weeks now since Pavel had shown up at his door. Over two weeks of his father practicing his backswing or hanging out at strip clubs. Over two weeks, and it didn’t seem like his dad was planning on leaving anytime soon.
The door to the bus opened and Jules entered,
followed by Faith. The assistant moved to sit by the window, while Faith took a seat across the aisle and two rows up from Ty. She set her hatbox on her lap and placed her hands on the sides. The light caught on her huge platinum and diamond wedding ring and shone on her red nails.
Just as before, when she had stepped on the plane, silence descended like a heavy brick wall. Singly and collectively, every hockey player on the bus had been around a lot of beautiful women. They’d been around a lot of strippers. Some of them had even been to parties at the Playboy Mansion. But for some reason, this former stripper turned playmate made all those cocky hockey players tongue-tied. Probably it was because she had so much power over them. More than likely it was because she was stunning. Or it was both.
“Listen up, boys.” Coach Nystrom stood at the front of the bus. “We have practice this afternoon and then you’re on your own until light practice tomorrow morning. We have an important game tomorrow night; I don’t need to tell you all to stay out of trouble.” He sat in the first row. “Okay, bussie,” he said. “Let’s move out.” The driver
