The Trouble With Valentine's Day

hockey. He'd been a public figure. As long as what she discovered was public knowledge, then it really wasn't an invasion of privacy.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she clicked on the Internet and typed his name into the search engine. She was shocked when it pulled up more than forty thousand hits. Most of the hits were for sports sites that showed his head shot next to a list of his statistics. In some of the photos, he had his mustache. In others he did not. In the pictures without the Fu Manchu, his jaw looked more square. More masculine, which she would not have thought possible. In all the shots of him, his green eyes looked into the camera as if he were up to absolutely no good.

On the site hockeyfights.com, there was a picture of him with some guy in a headlock. He wore a navy blue jersey and a black helmet, and the article read:

Rob Sutter may seem like a thug, but he is highly specialized and has an important role-to make the other team think twice before they do something stupid like score a goal, make a pass, or breathe the wrong way.

She clicked on sites that had photos of him skating down the ice or shooting or sitting in the penalty box with cotton shoved up his nose.

She read an article he'd written about himself in 2003 for The Hockey News. 'I am more than a punching bag,' it began, and he went on to list his goal and assist averages. Kate didn't know anything about hockey, but she assumed if his averages had been bad, he wouldn't have mentioned them. She read about his career highs, and she read the last Sports Illustrated article written about him. The glossy photograph showed him skating across the ice with a puck at the end of his hockey stick. The title read, 'Female Fan Shoots NHL Enforcer.'

Kate sat up straighter, as if she'd been pulled up by strings. If she'd been shocked by the number of Internet hits, what she read next was stunning.

According to the article, Stephanie Andrews, of Denver, Colorado, shot him three times after he'd put an end to their affair. Two bullets had struck his chest, causing life-threatening injuries, while a third had shattered his knee, effectively putting an end to his career. Kate had suspected that his knee injury had ended his career, but she never would have guessed the reality in a million years.

Kate dug a little deeper and read more about the shooting and trial. She found quite a bit written about it in the Seattle Times archives. Her gaze scanned the daily reports of the two-week trial, and she read that Stephanie Andrews hadn't even been Rob's girlfriend. She'd been a groupie he'd picked up in a bar, then she'd turned stalker on him.

Stephanie had pleaded temporary insanity, but in the end, the jury hadn't bought the plea, and she'd received a twenty-year sentence, with ten fixed. Kate wondered what Rob thought about that. If he thought it was fair that the woman who'd tried to kill him could get out of prison in ten years, while he had to live with his injuries the rest of his life.

Kate skimmed the last article, but a quote near the end caught her eye-'… Mrs. Sutter has no comment.' She scrolled up a paragraph and read, 'Louisa Sutter, and the couple's child, do not reside in the family home on Mercer Island. The Times tried to contact her for her reaction to the verdict.

Her lawyer returned our call and stated that 'Mrs. Sutter has no comment.''

Married. He'd been married at the time of the shooting, and he'd had a child. Still had a child. Kate pushed her hair behind her ears. She was stunned and shocked, certainly, but she was also surprised at the deep disappointment she felt. In spite of herself, she was beginning to like him. He'd stepped up and pounded on the Worsleys on her behalf. Yeah, he'd had a little too much fun doing it, but if it hadn't been for him, she was certain she'd still be at the Buckhorn playing pool. Because one thing was for sure, the Worsleys wouldn't have let her leave until she'd lost, and Kate never lost on purpose at anything.

Kate closed the laptop and placed it on the closet shelf next to a box of Tom Jones memorabilia. Rob had cheated on his wife with a hockey groupie. Kate had been cheated on before, and she hated cheaters. Still, no one deserved to get shot or lose his career over it. No one deserved to die, and there was no mistaking the fact that Stephanie Andrews had been aiming to kill Rob.

Kate climbed beneath the pink frilly covers of the twin bed. The bedding she'd brought with her from Vegas was all queen sized, so she was stuck with lace and frills and, of course, Tom.

Getting shot by a groupie he'd picked up in a bar might explain why Rob had turned her down in the Duchin Lounge. It also explained why, despite her best efforts to dislike Rob, she was attracted to him.

She reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose. For whatever reason, if there was a man within a hundred miles who would break her heart and treat her bad, Kate was drawn to him.

She flung the Kleenex at the Tom Jones waste paper basket and missed. Rob was a cheater. He had commitment issues-had 'bad bet' written all over him. He was every jerk she'd ever dated rolled into one gorgeous package. He'd smash her heart quicker than he used to smash heads.

Yeah, that might be cynical. And yeah, she was supposed to be working on her inner cynic, but it didn't make it any less true.

Kate was attracted to Rob, but she wasn't going to do anything about it. She was through with impossible men.

She laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. As Kate fell asleep, she thought about her life in Gospel. Sometimes she was so bored she thought she just might go as nutty as everyone else in town. But there was something to be said about the mundane. Something comforting in things that didn't change, like the monotony of shelving groceries and ordering produce.

Kate reminded herself of that sentiment two days later when she and her grandfather were having a discussion about how to cut some of the waste out of the business. Kate thought they should stop home deliveries or, at least, charge for them. Stanley wouldn't hear of it.

She wanted to put a tip jar next to the coffee machines to help fund the coffee the locals guzzled every morning. Stanley wouldn't consider that, either. She suggested stocking gourmet cheeses and pasta. Stuffed Italian olives and jalapeno jellies. He looked at her as if she were crazy.

'No one around here eats that fancy stuff.'

'Triangle Grocery stocks it,' she told him, referring to the other store in town.

'Exactly. If they stock it, why should I?'

They finally compromised on the sticker issue. No more stickers on items that were already marked. Her grandfather finally agreed with her that it was not only a waste of money but also a waste of time.

It was a small victory for Kate, but an important one. It proved to her that her grandfather wasn't completely unbending. He listened to her on some things. When the time came, he might be receptive to her ideas for updating the store's inventory and bookkeeping system. She might help his life get easier, after all. Things were looking up.

Or at least she thought they were until the door to the M &S opened and Rob breezed in looking slightly windblown. Over the stereo speakers, Tom belted out his version of Otis Redding's 'Try A Little Tenderness.' She hadn't seen Rob since the night of the Buckhorn brawl, and despite all she'd learned of him since, the sight of him made her want to check her posture and reach for her lip gloss.

She stood behind a bin of oranges and grapefruit, and as if he sensed her gaze on him, he looked over at her from the end of aisle two. He wore a dark green hooded sweatshirt the same color as his eyes. He had a black- and-blue bruise on his jaw, a reminder of the night he'd taken on the Worsleys on her behalf.

'How are you?' he asked, his voice a little rough, as if he hadn't been using it a lot lately.

'I'm good.'

His lips parted as if he meant to say something more. Instead, his gaze slid to the two boys buying candy bars.

It was three-thirty in the afternoon and business was slow. The only other customers in the store were Adam Taber and Wally Aberdeen, and they were arguing over who was tougher, Spiderman or Wolverine. Rob grabbed Adam around the neck and rubbed his knuckles in the kid's hair.

'Are you going to work for me this summer?' he asked.

'Yeah.' Adam laughed and wiggled out of Rob's grasp. 'Can Wally work too?'

While Rob pretended to think about it, Kate ran her gaze down his sweatshirt, over the brand name Rossignol printed on the front and down the sleeves, to his faded jeans. The seams were worn, and there was mud caked on