True Love and Other Disasters

leave, I’ll have security take you out with the rest of the trash.”

Anger clutched her stomach and burned her cheek, and before she gave it a thought, she opened her mouth and said, “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not selling the team. I’m keeping it.”

Landon stopped dead in his tracks. “You can’t do that.”

Momentarily satisfied at her power to slap him down, she smiled. “I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to keep the team your father gave me.” God, she wanted to hurt him. To call him names and spit in his face. To give him a good hard knee between the legs. In another life she would not have hesitated, but Mrs. Duffy did not knee men in the nuts. Virgil had taught her that. “Stay away from my hockey team.”

He took a few more steps and reached for her. Before she could react, a big body stepped in front of her and she was suddenly staring at a wide back and white cotton T-shirt.

“It might be best if you leave now, Mr. Duffy,” Ty Savage said. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.” Faith wasn’t sure if he meant her or Landon. “And I would sure hate to read in the papers that Mrs. Duffy had you hauled out by security.”

From behind Ty’s back she heard Landon’s lawyers say something, and then Landon said, “This isn’t over, Layla.” After a few tense seconds, the door slammed shut behind him and Faith let out a pent-up breath. Her cheeks burned. She’d endured her share of humiliation. Some of it, admittedly, self-inflicted, but this felt like the time in elementary school when Eddie Peterson pulled up the back of her dress at the drinking fountain and exposed her holey pink underwear for the entire first grade.

Ty turned and spoke to her, “What did you do to make the man hate you so much?”

She looked up past the white scar on his chin surrounded by stubble, over his mouth and into his blue-on-blue eyes. “I married his father.” She gave in to her weak knees and sat. “Thank you for stepping in.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Her hands shook and she pulled them into her lap. “I guess I’m not selling the team,” she said, dazed, and to no one in particular. She turned and looked at the stunned faces around her. She knew the feeling. She was just as stunned by her announcement.

“I’ve never seen a man treat a lady like that,” Darby said with a shake of his head.

Landon didn’t think she was a lady, and the last thing she wanted to do was talk about Landon and what he thought of her. “I suppose I’ll need a crash course in hockey.” Her face felt a little numb from the shock.

“You can hire an assistant,” one of the coaches suggested. “Virgil had one until the lockout. After that, I don’t know what happened to Jules.”

She’d never heard of a Jules. “Jules?” Her voice sounded strange and she had to fight the urge to put her forehead on the table and groan.

What had she just done?

“Julian Garcia,” Darcy answered. “I’ll see if I can dig up his number for you.”

“Thank you.” She guessed she was keeping Virgil’s team. At least for now, and she really didn’t know what else to say but, “I’ll do what I can to make sure you all get the Stanley Cup. That was Virgil’s dream and I know he was looking at acquiring players to make the team even stronger.” Or at least she thought she’d heard him mention it.

“The trade deadline has passed. Our roster is set, but next season we sure could use a guy in the blue zone with a mean right hook,” someone at the end of the table said.

Faith wasn’t sure what that meant, but no one seemed to notice, as they talked over and around her in rapid- fire succession as if she wasn’t even there.

“Someone who can defend as well as fight.”

“We’ve got Sam.”

“Liking to fight and intimating your opponents are two different things,” Ty added to the conversation as he took his seat at the end of the table. “Sam’s better feeding the puck up ice than he is at fighting. No one’s afraid of Sam.”

“That’s true.”

“Andre and Frankie are both coming along.”

“Not fast enough. We need someone like George Parros, but who can shoot the puck like Patrick Sharp.”

“Someone like Ted Lindsay.”

Coach Nystrom said, “Yeah, like ‘Terrible Ted.’”

They all nodded as if ‘Terrible Ted’ was their guy. Faith’s head was spinning and the conversation swirling around her made her feel as if she might hyperventilate. She had every right to hyperventilate; her life was spinning out of control, but she figured she probably shouldn’t pass out on her first day as owner. It might look bad. “How much to get this guy? This Terrible Ted?” she asked in an effort to join the conversation and not appear so absolutely clueless.

The conversation came to a halt and their heads pivoted to stare at her. Somehow she’d rendered them all speechless. All except Ty Savage. His eyes squinted as if he was in pain. “We’re fucked.”

“Saint, there’s a lady in the room,” a man in a Chinooks cap admonished.

“Sorry.” Then Ty tilted his head back and said, “We’re screwed like a crack whore on payday, eh?”

She looked across at Darby. “What?”

“Ted retired in nineteen sixty-five.” He tried to give her a comforting smile but it looked as pain-filled as Ty’s squinty eyes. “Before you were born.”

“Oh.” She guessed that meant Terrible Ted wasn’t available. So much for not appearing clueless.

Chapter 3

Then she looked at us with those big green eyes and asked how much to get Terrible Ted to play for the Chinooks?”

Pavel Savage choked on the beer he held to his lips and lowered the mug to the table. “You’re screwed.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

Ty nodded and took a long drink of his Labatt’s. His father had shown up at his house an hour ago, unexpected. Like always. “Yep. That’s what I said.” He set down the bottle and picked up his driver. Since his father’s arrival, the two of them had talked about last night’s game against Vancouver and Round Two, tomorrow night. They’d talked about Virgil’s death and what it meant for Ty’s chances at the cup. “The GM suggested she dig up Virgil’s old assistant.” He stood with his feet a shoulders’ width apart and placed the club behind the golf ball. “I don’t care how many assistants she hires to tell her the difference between a cross check and slashing, she’ll never have what it takes.” He brought the club back behind his shoulder and swung. The ball shot across the room and into the center of the big net at the other end. When he’d bought the house on Mercer a month ago, he’d bought it because of the huge media room that would allow him to practice long drives inside. A wall of windows looked out at the lake and the city of Seattle beyond. At night the skyline was spectacular. “The old man could not have died at a worse time, but at least he created a strong front line before he croaked.”

“That is some comfort. God rest his soul,” Pavel murmured as he looked down at the little radar unit monitoring Ty’s speed and tempo. The speed read 101, and Pavel’s dark brows lowered. “Is she as beautiful as her pictures?”

“I haven’t seen her pictures.” Ty hooked another ball with his driver and lined it up on the golf mat next to the radar. He didn’t have to ask whom his father was talking about. “I don’t give a shit about her pictures.” After she’d announced earlier that afternoon that she was not selling the team, the Chinooks PR department had issued a statement to the press that landed Faith Duffy on every channel of the local news. They’d dug up film footage of her walking into an event with Virgil and had spliced it with footage of her wearing a low-cut dress from her Playboy days and smiling with Hugh Hefner.

Ty’s phone had rung nonstop, with reporters wanting to know how he felt about the new owner, and instead of answering, he’d unplugged his phone. After Landon’s behavior, Ty was certain Virgil’s son wouldn’t have been a