“I’m not talking about the ring.” She shook her head and wiped at the tears slipping down her cheeks. “Do you really want to marry me?”
“Yes. I want us to grow old together and have five more children. I’ll make you happy, Georgeanne. I promise.”
She gazed at his handsome face and her heart pounded. He wasn’t taking any chances. He had a television camera, a big diamond, and a crushing grip on her hand. Last night she’d wondered if he’d choose her. She’d wondered what she’d do if he did. Now she knew the answer to both questions. “Yes, I’ll marry you,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Jesus,” he sighed, relief flooding his features. “You had me worried.”
Out in the stands, thunderous applause rolled through the arena, chased by a maelstrom of several thousand cheering fans. The walls of the arena shook with their enthusiastic response.
John looked over his shoulder to the cameraman. “Are we patched into the Jumbotron?”
The man gave a thumbs-up sign, and John turned his attention back to Georgeanne. He took her left hand and kissed her knuckles. “I love you,” he said, and slid the ring on her finger.
Georgeanne wrapped her arms around his neck and flattened herself against him. “I love you, John,” she sobbed into his ear.
He stood with her clinging to his neck and glanced at the men in the room. “That’s it,” he told them, and the camera was shut off. Georgeanne clung to him as they were congratulated, and she didn’t let go even after the last man filed out of the room.
“I’m getting you all sweaty,” John said, smiling down at her.
“I don’t care. I love you, and I love your sweat, too.” She rose onto her toes and pressed against him.
He gathered her close. “Good, because you’re responsible for a lot of it. There were a few seconds there when I thought you might say no.”
“When did you plan all of this?”
“I bought the ring in St. Louis four days ago, and I talked to the television guys this morning.”
“Were you so sure I’d say yes?”
He shrugged. “I told you I wasn’t going to play fair.”
She leaned back and kissed him. She’d waited a long time for this moment, and she poured her heart into it. Their mouths met, open and wet. She slanted her head to one side and licked the tip of his tongue. Her hands slid along his shoulders, up his neck, and into his damp hair.
Lust tugged at John’s groin, and he pulled away from Georgeanne’s sweet kiss. “Stop,” he groaned, and bending his knees, he shoved a hand inside his shorts and adjusted himself. His hard plastic cup pinched his testicles like a nutcracker, and he sucked in his breath to keep from swearing in front of Georgeanne. “My jock is getting real snug.”
“Take it off.”
“It’s about four layers down, and there’s something I have to do before I start peeling to my skin.” He straightened and read disappointment in her tilty green eyes.
“What could be more important than peeling down to your skin?”
“Nothing.” She wanted him, and the fact that she did filled him with macho, chest-pounding pleasure. He loved her in a way he’d never loved anyone else. He loved her as a friend, as a woman he respected, and as a lover he wanted every minute of every day. And she loved him. He didn’t know why she loved him. He was an ornery hockey player who swore too much, but he wasn’t about to question his good fortune.
Now he wanted nothing more than to take her home and strip her naked, but he had one last piece of unfinished business first. He took her hand and pulled her with him out of the room and down the hallway. “I just need to clear something up before I can leave.”
Her steps slowed. “Virgil?”
“Yep.” Worry puckered the skin between her brows, and he stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you afraid of him?”
She shook her head. “He’s going to make you choose, isn’t he? He’s going to tell you to choose me or your team.”
A trainer walked past him on the way to the dressing room, and John moved closer to Georgeanne to allow the man by.
“Congratulations, Wall,” he said.
John nodded. “Thanks.”
Georgeanne tangled her fingers in the front of his T-shirt. “I don’t want you to choose.”
He returned his attention to Georgeanne and kissed the worry from her brow. “There was never a choice. I never would have chosen a hockey team over you.”
“Then Virgil will fire you, won’t he?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Virgil can’t fire me, honey. He can trade me to a team below five hundred if he wants to, or worse, I could find myself wearing a duck on my sweater. But only if I don’t beat him to it.”
“Huh?”
He squeezed her hand. “Come on. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can go home.” Last week he’d given his agent the green light to contact Pat Quinn, the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks. Vancouver was a two-hour drive from Seattle and needed a first-line center. John needed to control his future.
With Georgeanne by his side, he walked into Virgil’s office. “I thought I’d find you here,” he said.
Virgil looked up from the fax on his desk. “You’ve been busy. I see your agent has contacted Quinn. Have you seen the offer?”
“Yep.” John closed the door behind him and wrapped his arm around Georgeanne’s waist. “Three players and two draft picks.”
“You’re thirty-five. I’m surprised he offered so much.”
John didn’t think he was surprised at all. It was the usual trade for a team’s captain or any franchise players. “I’m the best,” he stated.
“I wished you’d talked to me first.”
“Why? The last time we talked, you told me to choose Georgeanne or my team. But you know what? I didn’t even have to think about it.”
Virgil looked at Georgeanne and then returned his gaze to John. “That was quite a show you just put on a few minutes ago.”
John pulled Georgeanne tight against his side. “I don’t do anything half-assed.”
“No, you don’t. But you’ve risked a lot, not to mention the possibility of getting a rejection broadcast on ESPN.”
“I knew she’d say yes.”
Georgeanne looked at him and raised one brow. “A little cocky, aren’t you?”
John leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Honey, ‘little’ and ‘cocky’ are two words a man just never wants to hear strung together in the same sentence.” He watched her blush, and chuckled. But there had been those horrible seconds when he hadn’t felt so “cocky.” The sick moments when she hadn’t answered his proposal, and he’d had a hazy thought of tossing her over his shoulder and running out of the room, kidnapping her until she said what he wanted to hear.
“What do you want, Wall?”
John turned his attention to Virgil. “Pardon?”
“I asked what you wanted.”
He kept a straight face, but he was smiling inside.
Checkmate. The old bastard had been bluffing. “For what?”
“I made a very rash and extremely poor business decision when I threatened to trade you. What do you want to stay?”
John rocked back on his heels and appeared to give the question some thought, but he’d already anticipated Virgil’s backpedaling. “A second-line enforcer might persuade me to overlook the fact that you threatened to trade me. And I’m not talking about a fourth-line rookie you can pick up for spare change. I want an experienced hockey man. Someone who isn’t afraid to play the corners and hang out in front of the net. Big. Low center of gravity. Hits like a freight train. You’re going to have to cough up good money for a guy like that.”
