“Seattle is a big city, Dad. Couldn’t you find another woman besides Faith Duffy’s mother to bang?”
Slowly Pavel lowered his beer. “Don’t talk disrespectful, Tyson.”
That was the weird paradox about Pavel. You could treat women like shit, and that was okay. But you couldn’t talk disrespectfully. “What’s going to happen when you break up with her?” There wasn’t a doubt in Ty’s mind that he would, too. “I don’t want to have to deal with a hysterical woman showing up here.” Like when women always discovered that Pavel was married, or wasn’t going to marry them, or he had dumped them for someone else.
“Val isn’t the type to get too attached. She’s only in town for a short time to help her daughter through a difficult time. She’s a devoted mother.”
Which brought up a subject Ty had been meaning to talk about. He couldn’t come right out and ask the old man when he was going back to his house. “What are your plans?” he asked instead as he moved toward the refrigerator and opened the stainless-steel door.
Pavel shrugged and raised his can. “Just having a beer. Later Valerie invited me over for dinner. I’m sure the two ladies wouldn’t mind if you joined us.”
After his latest conversation with Faith and the enormous wood she’d given him, that wasn’t going to happen. “I’m meeting some of the guys at Conte’s for poker and Cubans.” He was definitely in the mood to kick some ass on the poker table.
“You spend too much time in the company of men and it makes you bad-tempered.”
“I’m not bad-tempered! Jesus, I wish people would lay off about that.”
Pavel shook his head. “You’ve always been so sensitive. Like your mother.”
His father was talking out of his ass again. Sensitive? Like his mother? Ty was nothing like his mother. His mother had spent her life loving the wrong man. Ty had never been in love at all.
“You need to find a woman,” Pavel suggested. “A woman to take care of you.”
That just proved how well the old man knew him. The last thing Ty needed was a woman in his life. A down- and-dirty hookup was a different matter, but even that was too big a distraction. And right now, he couldn’t even afford a quick, wham-bam distraction.
Chapter 12
On Monday morning Jane Martineau walked into Faith’s office at the Key. A petite little package with dark hair and glasses, Jane wore very little makeup and was dressed in black from head to toe. She was cute rather than pretty, and not what Faith expected in either a lifestyle reporter or the wife of former elite goaltender Luc Martineau.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” she said as she shook Faith’s hand. She put a black leather briefcase on the desk and reached inside. “I had to threaten Darby with physical harm if he didn’t at least approach you for the interview. I also sicced his wife on him.”
“I didn’t know he was married.” For the inter view, Faith hadn’t known what to wear and had dressed in a white blouse, her black pencil skirt, and black patent leather T-strap pumps. Clearly, she’d overdressed.
Jane took out a pad of paper and a pen. “To my best friend since grade school, Caroline. I introduced them.”
“Wow. You still see your friend from grade school.” Faith didn’t know why she found that unusual, other than she hadn’t seen her friends from grade school for about fifteen years or so.
“I talk to her almost every day.”
“That must be nice. To have a friend for that long.” She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to sound pathetic.”
Jane looked at her through the lenses of her glasses as she dug around in the briefcase. “You didn’t. People come and go. Caroline and I are fortunate to still be in each other’s lives.”
Faith eyed the small tape recorder Jane pulled out of her briefcase and asked, “Do you have to use that?” God forbid she said something pathetic and it ended up in the newspaper.
“It’s as much for your protection as mine.” She set it on the desk and put the briefcase on the floor. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask you any embarrassing questions. This isn’t an expose or a hit piece. Seattle hockey fans are excited about the playoffs and curious about you. They want to know a little bit about Faith Duffy. You don’t have to answer anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. Fair enough?”
Faith relaxed a bit. “Fair enough.”
Jane sat and started the interview with simple questions about where Faith had been born and how she’d met Virgil. Then she asked, “You’re only thirty years old; how does it feel to own an NHL franchise?”
“Shocking. Unbelievable. I still can’t believe it.”
“You didn’t know you were going to inherit the team?”
“No. Virgil never mentioned it. I found out the day his will was read.”
“Wow. That’s a nice inheritance.” Jane looked at her through the lenses of her glasses. “There are probably a lot of women who’d love to be in your shoes.”
True. She had a great life. “It’s a lot of work.”
“What do you know about running an entire organization like the Chinooks?”
“Admittedly not a lot, but I’m learning every day. I’m getting on-the-job training, and I’m actually starting to understand hockey and how the organization runs. It’s not as scary as it was a few weeks ago. Of course, Virgil was smart enough to hire good people and to let them do their jobs. So that makes my job easier.”
Jane asked about goals and points and the Chi nooks’ chances of winning the Stanley cup. In a 4–2 win the previous Saturday, the Chinooks had beaten the Sharks in Game Six and were set to play the Red Wings in the third round Thursday in Detroit. “Zetterberg and Datsyuk were both top scorers in their division during the regular season,” Jane said, referring to two Detroit players. “What’s the plan to slow down the momentum of Zetterberg and Datsyuk?”
“We just need to keep playing hockey the way we like to play it. We had thirty-two shots on goal last Saturday night, compared to the Sharks’ seventeen.”
The two of them left the office and headed down to the arena, where the team was practicing. “Everyone thinks we should be afraid of Detroit,” Faith said, and the closer they moved to the tunnel, the more the air thickened with testosterone. “They’ve got some great talent, but so do we. I think it will come down to…” she thought of Ty and smiled “…what’s in a player’s gut.”
“Hey, Mrs. Duffy,” the “Sniper,” Frankie Kawczynski, called out as Faith and Jane approached. He stood in the tunnel in front of a blowtorch heating the curve of his stick.
“Hello, Mr. Kawczynski,” she said, her heels sinking into the thick mats. Frankie was in his late twenties and built like a tank. At the moment, he stood in a pair of sweatpants, low around his hips, and a pair of flip-flops. He had a pit bull tattoo on his bare back. Her attention was drawn to the play of muscles as he heated his stick. “How are you?”
“Great.” His dark beard had gone full Mountain Man, and he flashed a brash, cocky smile. Faith was suddenly very aware that she was surrounded by men. Big, tough men who towered over her and Jane. Some of them were half naked. “Are you going to practice with us this morning?” Frankie asked.
Walker Brookes walked from the locker room and grabbed his skates off the sharpening rack. She fought the urge to whip her head around for a better look. “I forgot my gear.” Within her soul, Layla fought to get out. She kicked and screamed for just one little peek. Just one, but Mrs. Duffy did not stare at men’s asses. At least not when a reporter was around. “Perhaps some other time.” And she kept her gaze glued to Frankie’s face.
Vlad Fetisov walked out of the locker room with his helmet in one hand and stick in the other. A wide smile curved his mouth as he moved toward them on his skates.
“Hi, little Sharky,” the Russian greeted Jane.
“Hi, Vlad,” Jane said. “How’s it going?”
“Life iz good. How iz Lucky?” he asked, referring to Jane’s husband.
“He’s good.”
As soon as Vlad moved onto the ice Faith asked, “Why did he call you ‘Sharky’?”
“That’s the name the guys gave me because I beat them all at darts. They’re very competitive at everything they do.”
