See Jane Score

pretty one. Tonight Caroline was the pretty and smart one.

“Can you fix it?” Caroline asked.

Jane recalled the look in Luc’s eyes and him telling her to stay away from him and Marie. He’d meant it. “No. He would never listen to me now.” She leaned back against the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. “Men suck.” Jane rolled her head and looked at her friend. “Let’s make a pact to swear off men for a while.”

Caroline bit her lip. “I can’t. I’m sort of dating Darby now.”

Jane sat up straight. “Really? I didn’t know things had gotten that serious.”

“Well, he isn’t my usual type. But he’s nice to me and I like him. I like talking to him and I like the way he looks at me. And, well, let’s face it, he needs me.”

Yes, he certainly did. Jane figured Darby could probably fill Caroline up with a lifetime of need.

The next morning, Jane received flowers from the Chinooks organization expressing their condolences. At noon, flowers from the Times, and at one, Darby sent his own arrangement. At three, Caroline’s were delivered. They were all gorgeous and smelled wonderful and filled her with guilt. This was pure karmic retribution, and she promised God that she would never lie again if He would make the flowers stop.

On television that night, she watched the Chinooks play the Coyotes. Through the wire of his mask, Luc’s blue eyes looked out at her, as hard and as cold as the ice he played on. When he wasn’t cursing the air blue in front of his net, his lips were compressed into a grim line.

He looked up and the camera caught the anger in his eyes. He wasn’t in his zone. His personal life was affecting his game, and if Jane had harbored any hidden hope that she could fix the relationship, that hope died.

It was truly over.

Luc drew three penalties as he let his rage loose on anyone dumb enough to step inside his crease.

“What’s the matter, Martineau?” a Coyote forward asked after the first penalty. “Got your period?”

“Kiss my hairy beanbag,” he answered, hooked his stick in the guy’s skates, and pulled him off his feet.

“You’re an asshole, Martineau,” the guy said as he looked up from his position on the ice. Whistles blew and Bruce Fish was sent to the penalty box instead of Luc.

Luc picked up his water bottle and sprayed his face. Mark Bressler joined him at the net.

“Having an anger management problem?” the captain asked.

“What the fuck do you think?” Water dripped from his face and mask. Jane wasn’t in the press box. She wasn’t even in the same state, but he couldn’t get her out of his head.

“That’s what the fuck I think.” Bressler punched his shoulder with his big glove. “Try not to draw any more penalties and we just might win this thing.”

He was right. Luc needed to concentrate more on the game than on who was or wasn’t in the press box. “No more dumb penalties,” he agreed. But in the next frame, he wacked an opponent in the shin and the guy milked it for all it was worth.

“That didn’t hurt, you pussy,” Luc said as he looked down at the guy holding his shin and writhing in pain. “Get back up and I’ll show you hurt.”

The whistles blew and Bressler skated by, shaking his head.

After the game, the locker room was more subdued than usual. They’d put up two goals late in the third period, but it hadn’t been enough. They’d lost three-five. Phoenix sports reporters combed the room searching for sound bites, but no one was talking much.

Jane’s father had suffered a heart attack, and the players felt her absence. Luc didn’t believe the heart attack story, and was surprised that she’d turned tail and run. That wasn’t like the Jane he knew. Then again, he didn’t really know her at all. The real Jane had lied to him and used him and made a fool out of him. She knew things about him that he did not want to read in the newspapers. She knew that he iced down his knees and that everything wasn’t one hundred percent.

He was an idiot. How in the hell had he let a short reporter with curly hair and a smart mouth into his life? He hadn’t even liked her at first. How had he fallen so hard for her? She’d turned his life upside down and now he had to figure a way to get her out of his head. To get his focus back. He could do it. He’d battled back before, and he’d battled bigger demons than Jane Alcott. He figured all he needed was determination and a little time. Darby had told the team she wouldn’t be back to work until next week.

One week. Now that she was out of his life physically, it shouldn’t take that much time to get her the hell out of his head and get mentally back into the game.

And a week later, he was right. Partly, anyhow. He was back in his zone. Back to playing with skill instead of brute strength fueled by emotion, but he’d failed to get Jane out of his head completely.

The day he returned to Seattle, he felt bruised inside and out. He just wanted to sit on his couch, relax, and watch mindless television until Marie came home from school. Maybe they’d order out and have a nice relaxing dinner.

He should have known better. Like always with his sister, one minute things were fine, and the next everything went straight to hell. One minute she was filling him in on her day at school, then she took off her big bulky sweatshirt. Luc’s jaw dropped when he got a good look at her tight T-shirt and her breasts. They were a lot bigger than when he’d left on his trip a week ago. Not that he stared, but he couldn’t help but notice the difference.

“What are you wearing?”

“My BEBE shirt.”

“Your boobs are a lot bigger than they were last week. Are you wearing a padded bra?”

She folded her arms over her chest like he was a pervert. “It’s a water bra.”

“You can’t wear that outside the apartment.” He couldn’t let her outside with her breasts pushed up and out like that.

“I wore it to school all last week.”

Holy shit, he’d bet just about anything that the guys at her school had stared at her chest too. All week. While he’d been on the road. Christ, his life was a mess. A whole churning cauldron of crapola. “I bet the guys at your school had a real good time staring at your hooters. And you can bet they weren’t thinking very nice things about you.”

“Hooters,” she gasped. “That’s disgusting. You’re so mean to me. You always say mean things.”

Hooters wasn’t a bad word. Was it? “I’m telling you how guys think. If you show up in a big padded bra, with your breasts falling out, they’ll think you’re smutty.”

She looked at him as if he were a child molester instead of her brother who wanted to protect her from the little perverts at her school. “You’re sick.”

Sick? “No, I’m not. I’m just trying to tell you the truth.”

“You’re not my mom or my dad. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“You’re right. I’m not Dad and I’m not your mother. I may not be the best brother either, but I am all you’ve got.”

Tears leaked from her eyes and messed up her makeover. “I hate you, Luc.”

“No, you don’t. You’re just throwing a fit because I won’t let you walk around in a padded bra.”

“I bet you like women who walk around in padded bras.”

Actually, he’d grown an affection for, and an obsession with, small breasts.

“You’re a hypocrite, Luc. I’ll bet your girlfriends wear padded bras.”

Out of all the women he’d known, the one woman who had fascinated him the most didn’t wear a bra. He wondered what that said about him. He tried not to care, but he did. His cauldron of crapola churned a bit more.

“Marie, you’re sixteen,” he reasoned. “You can’t walk around in a bra that turns boys on. You’ll have to wear something else. Maybe a bra that has locking hooks.” That last he’d thrown in to be funny. As always, she failed to share his humor. His sister burst into tears.

“I want to go to boarding school,” she wailed and ran to her bedroom.

Her mention of boarding school set him back on his heels. He hadn’t thought of boarding school for a while. If he sent her to boarding school, he wouldn’t have to worry about her wearing padded bras when he was out of town. His life would be simpler. But suddenly the thought of her going away held not the slightest appeal. She was a pain and moody, but she was his sister. He was getting used to having her around, and the thought of boarding school