Author: Jaci Burton

God, it was freezing out, the icy chill biting right through her clothes. Her ears stung and she wished she’d thought to bring her hat.

They walked to his car and he held the door for her, then climbed in and started the engine. She wrapped her coat tighter around her to ward off the cold. Heat filled the vehicle after a couple minutes and she finally stopped shivering.

As Tyler drove, she focused on the road ahead, though she chanced glances at Ty.

He should be mad at her. She acted like a child in the club, running out of there because she hadn’t wanted to hear what he had to say.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said.

“About what?”

“I was abrupt in the club and I hightailed it out of there without even asking you what you wanted. You might have wanted to hang out there longer.”

“I was fine with leaving.”

Which didn’t tell her anything about how he felt about her behavior. She laid her head against the headrest. “This whole singing thing gets to me.”

“Obviously. But why?”

“It’s been nothing more than a hobby for so long. Just a fantasy to me. No one knows about it except you. And then tonight…”

“It became real.”

She studied the silver ring on her thumb. “Something like that.”

“Did you have fun?”

She turned her head and looked at him. “I did.”

“Then that’s good enough for tonight, isn’t it?”

“You’re right. It is.”

But it wasn’t good enough, because now she felt unsettled, as if she’d stood on the edge of a cliff tonight and had a glimpse of heaven, and all she had to do to get there was fly. She had been poised on the edge of that cliff, ready to take a leap of faith. The problem was, there was a good chance she could also drop like a rock straight to the bottom. She wasn’t confident about her wings. Hell, she didn’t know if she even had wings.

And in her way was a sheer rock wall. Immovable. Impenetrable.

She didn’t want to think about this, didn’t want to dream about what she was never going to have.

It was a stupid dream, anyway. She was never going to be famous, and she was never going to be a singer. She ran her family’s bar. That’s all she was ever going to do.

Ty pulled into the parking space in front of her condo and turned off the engine. She put her hand on his.

“No reason to turn that off. Your car will get cold.”

“In other words, you don’t want me to come in.”

“It’s late. And you have a game tomorrow.”

He arched a brow. “I’m a big boy. I can stay up late. If you want to get rid of me, Jenna, use plain language and tell me you don’t want me to come in.”

She swallowed. “I don’t want you to come in.”

He opened his door and came around to her side to let her out.

“I’ll still take you to the front door.”

She didn’t know what kind of mood she was in, but it wasn’t a good one. She was taking it out on Ty, which she absolutely hated since he hadn’t caused any of this.

She fished her keys out of her bag and turned to him. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”

He smiled down at her and took the keys from her hand. “You don’t owe me any explanations.” He opened her door and handed the keys back to her, then pulled her to him and brushed his lips against hers.

A fire burned low in her belly and started a flame as the kiss—meant to be brief—turned into something hotter. Despite the bitter cold outside, she held on to his arms and didn’t want to let go.

Ask him in, idiot.

But something stopped her.

He didn’t deserve her mood. Some other time.

She pulled away and licked her lips. “Thanks for tonight.”

His dark gaze made the barely banked flame inside her roar to life.

“You’re welcome. Night, Jenna.”

She hovered at the doorway as he walked to his car, and everything in her wanted to call out to him and ask him to come back.

But she stopped herself, and when he climbed back in his car, she went inside, shut the door, and leaned against it.

Yeah, another thing she wanted and wouldn’t allow herself to have.

FIFTEEN

TY ATTACKED THE PUCK WITH A VENGEANCE, SHOVING the defender with his shoulder as he advanced down the ice.

This was a tough game against Vancouver, and he was sweating inside his gear. The team was kicking their ass and they were down by two goals, but the one thing he never did was give up. Neither did his teammates. It was the beginning of the third period, which meant there was a lot of time to go. All they had to do was stay focused, tie the game, then go for the win.

One goal at a time.

He moved the puck in the center, swept it around the defender, and passed it to Victor. Ty pushed hard, skating toward the net, hustling back and forth with his opponent as Eddie fought the defender to get into position.

Come on, man. Work with Victor and Jerry.

The defender slid the puck behind the goal and it screamed around like a pinball and headed toward Vancouver’s side of the ice.

Dammit. Huffing and puffing, he reversed, on the defensive now, using his stick to stop their center from the attack.

But it was two on one and they skirted around him. Jerry and Steve were there, the goalie in position.

They took a shot. Missed. The defenders pushed the puck back out on the ice and Jerry brought it to him, sliding it in his direction.

Ty took it, this time Victor joining him as they volleyed it back and forth, keeping the opponents scrambling. Victor passed it to Eddie, and Ty got in position with Victor near the goal.

He was slammed into but held the puck within his stick, refusing to give up the prize, battling to hold on to it as he skated toward the goal. He shot it to Victor, who plunged it toward the net. The goalie shoved it out, but Eddie was right there and slammed it back in.

One goal down. Yes!

Now they had to hold them.

Ty and his group took the bench while the next went in. It was hard to sit the bench when he always wanted to be out there playing.

They were getting more shots on goal than Vancouver. They should be kicking their asses, but they’d been sluggish in the first period and Vancouver had pounced on them. Stupid. Now they were paying for it. They needed two more goals in or they were going to lose a game they needed to win. He looked at the clock—eight minutes left.

“Czenzcho is sluggish tonight,” he said to Eddie and Victor as they waited in the box for their turn. Tyler had read about Vancouver’s star defender recovering from a bout of the flu. He’d noticed it was slowing him down. “If we lean on him, double team him, we can get a shot past him and score these two goals.”

Eddie nodded.

“We will do that,” Victor said as if the goals they needed were already a foregone conclusion.

“Good. Pass it on and let’s get the job done.”

After Vancouver incurred a penalty for cross checking, they had the power play and now it was their chance to strike. Victor went after Czenzcho with a fury, Eddie right with him. Tyler circled back, crowding the goal, muscling in with the other defender, just waiting for the opportunity to slide the puck into the net.

Victor got the puck and shot it his way but it was deflected by the defender. Eddie was on it, slamming Czenzcho and scooping up the puck and taking the shot on goal. It was deflected by the goalie but the rebound hit air and dropped.

Ty was right there and sailed it into the net for the score.

They were tied, and the adrenaline hit a fever pitch.

Two minutes later, Eddie slid one in between the goalie’s legs on a two-man breakaway, and that was all she wrote.

Damn satisfying comeback. They’d worked their asses off for this win, and they’d really needed it. They’d lost three out of four on this road trip, and that just flat-out sucked. Tyler was drained and ready to get back on home ice again. Maybe it would help their mojo.

He hit the showers, shoving his head under the steaming hot water to tune out the sound of celebration from his teammates. Not that he didn’t want to take part—he would. Later. Right now he needed to be in his head, thinking about what the hell was wrong with his play the last few games.

He’d done everything right. Hell, they all had. But something wasn’t clicking. He just didn’t know what wasn’t working. Their shots on goal were above average, but they were being outscored and it pissed him off. He couldn’t blame the defense or their goalie, because they won or lost as a team.

He was going to have to study the game films to figure it out. In the meantime, he’d take tonight’s win as a turnaround, be damn glad they were grabbing a flight home, and that he had a couple days off to regroup before a stretch of home games.

He grabbed the soap and scrubbed down, his thoughts moving to Jenna.

He hadn’t seen her since the not-so-subtle brush-off she’d given him that night after they’d gone to the club.

Something about singing had bothered her. He didn’t know what kind of demons she wrestled with, but he knew about needing distance and time alone to think, so he hadn’t pressed it. But he’d missed her, which kind of surprised him. He enjoyed being with her, but he’d figured it was just a fun thing to do—that she was a fun thing to do to pass the time while he was hanging out at the bar.

She wasn’t like a lot of the women he usually dated. She was complex and interesting, and he wondered about her beyond the sex part of their relationship to what she thought and how she felt about things.

He turned off the shower and dragged his fingers through his hair.

Yeah, he couldn’t wait to get back home.

But this time, he was going to play a different kind of game.

“TWO MARGARITAS, ONE WITH EXTRA SALT. ONE BLOODY Mary, one Dewar’s neat, one dirty martini, and three Budweiser drafts.”

Jenna nodded and hustled to fill the waitress’s order, while at the same time sliding two bottles of beer across the bar to her regulars and cashing out a customer who was headed home.

It had been like this since happy hour started.

Work was hell. Hockey had been on every damn night, and the Ice had been traveling, which meant the televisions at the bar had been turned on to the games. She’d been forced to endure Ty’s face and body on multiple screens.

Even worse, she’d felt miserable when they’d dropped the first three games. Try as she might to ignore the games while she tended to her customers, their groans and curses made her look up and see just how badly the Ice had played. And because the media loved to focus in on despair, she’d seen close-up shots of Tyler’s dejected face—along with the other players.

By the end of game three, the frustration and anger had shown on his face, and her stomach had been in knots. She wished it had been a home game so he and the other guys could have come to the bar after for some solace.

All she could think about was how she had dumped him and run like hell that night. He’d been so nice to her, so encouraging about her singing, and she’d only thought of herself. And when he’d needed her she hadn’t even had the courage to pick up the phone and offer verbal support.

Thank God they’d won that fourth game, in an amazing come-from-behind victory, too. The entire third period had been nail-bitingly exuberant. She hoped it was an amazing turnaround and they’d hop on a winning streak with the start of their home games.

Yeah, and what if they hadn’t won? What if they’d lost the entire road trip? What would she have done then?

Nothing.

Some friend she was. Though she was more than a friend, wasn’t she? And that was the problem she’d been wrestling with, and why she continued to hold herself back, why she hadn’t picked up her cell phone and called or texted him. Their relationship was in some kind of limbo. She wasn’t his girlfriend, but she was more than just a friend to him.