instantly the deep blue polarized lenses eliminated the glare.
He'd parked his black HUMMER in the first slot, and he slid easily into the front seat. He didn't care what anyone thought about his HUMMER. Not his mother and certainly not environmentalists. He liked the leg room and the shoulder room too. He didn't feel so huge in the HUMMER. Cramped. Like he took up too much space. He liked the storage capacity and the fact that it plowed through snow and climbed over rocks with grit and spit and enough pure muscle to spare. And yeah, he liked the fact that he could climb over the top of the other cars on the road if he had to.
He fired up the vehicle and reached into the grocery bag to pull out the apple. He took a bite and put the SUV in reverse. From within the M &S, he caught a glimpse of red ponytail and black shirt.
Her name was Kate, and the night he'd walked out of the Duchin Lounge, he never thought he'd see her again. Not in a million years, but here she was, living in Gospel. Stanley Caldwell's granddaughter was working right across the parking lot from Rob, pricing cans and looking better than he remembered-and what he'd remembered had been pretty damn good.
Rob shoved the HUMMER into gear and drove around to the back of his store. She hadn't been pleased to see him. Not that he could blame her. He could have let her down easier that night. A lot easier, but being propositioned had pissed him off. It had reminded him of a time in his life when he would have taken her up on the offer. When he wouldn't have even hesitated before he kissed her mouth and tangled his fingers in her hair. A time when he would have stared into her liquid brown eyes as he had sex with her all night long. A time in his life when women had been within easy reach and he'd never gone without.
Back then, his life had been fast and furious. Full tilt. Balls to the walls. Everything he'd ever expected and could ever want. Yeah, he'd been blindsided and slammed in the corners more times than he could count. He'd made mistakes. Done things he wasn't proud of, but he'd loved his life. Every damn minute of it.
Right up to the second it had been blown all to hell.
Three
Rob opened the back door to Sutter Sports and pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. He took the stairs up to his office and bit into his apple. The sharp crunch joined the sound of his footsteps, and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He flipped on the light switch with his elbow and headed toward the open end of the loft, which looked down into the dark store below.
A tandem canoe and nine-foot kayak were suspended from the ceiling beams and cast shadows across a row of mountain bikes. With Sun Valley sixty miles away, and several gun and tackle stores within the city limits of Gospel, Surfer's didn't sell winter sporting goods. Instead he concentrated on summer recreational equipment, and last summer he'd made a nice profit off the rental side of the business.
The temperature in the building was sixty-five and felt warm in comparison to the biting chill outside. He'd lived in every time zone and climate in North America. From Ottawa to Florida, Detroit to Seattle, and several stops in between, Rob Sutter had been there and done that.
He'd always preferred the four distinct seasons of the Northwest. Always enjoyed the radical change in temperature and scenery. Always loved the raw, in-your-face wilderness. And there weren't many places more raw or in-your-face than the Idaho Sawtooths. His mother had lived in Gospel for nine years now. He'd lived here not quite two. It felt like home, more than any other place he'd lived.
Rob turned away and headed for his desk in the middle of the large room. A carton of Diamond-back fly rods and a box of T-shirts with his store's name and logo on the front leaned against his workbench on the far side of the room. His vise and magnifier competed for space with intricate tools, spools of thread, tinsel, and wire.
On top of Rob's desk, Stanley Caldwell had neatly stacked his mail. Rob had liked Stanley the moment he'd met him a year ago. The old guy was hardworking and honest, two qualities Rob respected most in a man. When Stanley had offered to 'look after' the sporting goods store while Rob was out of town, Rob hadn't thought twice before he'd handed over the key.
Rob took one last bite of his apple and tossed the core into the garbage can. He sat on the corner of his desk and kept one foot planted on the floor. Beside the mail sat the latest issue of
He picked up the magazine and thumbed through it, past the ads and articles, to the game stats in the back. His gaze skimmed the columns, then stopped halfway down the page. One month to the play-offs and the Seattle Chinooks were still looking good. The team was healthy. The goalie, Luc Martineau, was in his zone and veteran sniper Pierre Dion was on fire, with fifty-two goals and twenty-seven assists.
The last year Rob had played for the Chinooks, they'd made it to the third round of the play-offs before the Avalanche had narrowly defeated them by one goal. It was the closest Rob had come to getting his name inscribed on Lord Stanley's cup. He'd been bummed about it, but he'd figured there'd always be next season. Life had been good.
Earlier that same year, his girlfriend, Louisa, had given him a child. A six pound, green-eyed, beautiful baby girl. He'd been there at her birth, and they'd named her Amelia. The baby had brought him and Louisa closer, and a month after Amelia's birth, he and Lou had gotten married in Las Vegas in between road games.
Before the baby, the two of them had been together off and on for three years, but they'd never been able to make it work for more than a few months at a time. They'd fought and made up, broken up and gotten back together so many times that Rob had lost count. Almost always over the same issues-her insane jealousy and his infidelity. She'd accuse him of cheating when he wasn't. Then he would cheat and again they'd break up only to get back together a few months later. It had been a vicious circle, but one each had vowed to stop once they were married. Now that they had a baby and were a family, they were determined to make it work.
They'd made it five months until the first major blowup.
It was the night he'd gone out with the guys and come home late, and Louisa had been waiting up for him. He'd spent most of the night playing bad pool and decent darts in winger Bruce Fish's game room. Fishy was a damn good hockey player, but he was also a notorious womanizer. Louisa had flipped out and refused to believe that they hadn't been at a strip club getting lap dances and worse. She'd accused Rob of cheating with a stripper and stinking of cigarettes. That had set him off. He didn't have sex with strippers anymore and hadn't for a few years. He'd smelled like cigars, not cigarettes, and he hadn't cheated with anyone. For over five months he'd been a damned saint, and instead of yelling at him, she should have been taking him to bed and rewarding his good behavior. Instead, they'd slipped back into their past behavior of fighting. In the end, both agreed that Rob should leave. Neither wanted Amelia exposed to their contentious relationship.
By the beginning of hockey season that October, Rob was living on Mercer Island. Louisa and the baby were still living in their condo in the city, but she and Rob were getting along again. They were talking about a reconciliation because neither wanted a divorce. Still, they didn't want to rush things and decided to take it slow.
He'd just signed a four-million-dollar contract with the Chinooks. He was healthy, happier than he'd been in a while, and was looking forward to a kick-ass future.
Then he fucked up big time.
The first month into the regular hockey season, the Chinooks hit the road for a nine-day, five-game grind. Their first stop was Colorado and the team that had put an end to their chances at the cup the prior season. The Chinooks were fired up and ready for another run at it. Ready for another go in the Pepsi Center.
But that night in Denver, the Chinooks couldn't seem to get their game together, and in the third frame the Avalanche was up by one with twenty-five shots on goal. What no one talked about, what no one even dared to whisper out loud, was that losing their first road game by one point to the Avalanche once again could jinx the rest of the season. Something had to change-fast. Something had to happen to knock Colorado off their game. To slow them down. Someone had to fix the situation and create a little chaos.
That someone was Rob.
Coach Nystrom gave him the signal from the bench, and as Avalanche Peter Forsberg skated across center ice, Rob charged him and knocked him on his ass. Rob received a minor penalty, and as he served out his three minutes kicking back in the sin bin, Chinook's sniper, Pierre Dion, shot from the point and scored.
Game on.
Five minutes later, Rob was back at work. He checked Teemu Selanne in the corner and gave him a glove rub
