Fair Play (Hat Trick, Book 1) Read online

  FAIR PLAY

  Hat Trick Book One

  Samantha Wayland

  Also by Samantha Wayland

  Destiny Calls

  With Grace

  Hat Trick Book Two: Two Man Advantage

  Hat Trick Book Three: End Game

  Fair Play

  Copyright © 2013 Samantha Wayland

  Published by Loch Awe Press

  P.O. Box 5481

  Wayland, MA 01778

  ISBN 978-1-940839-00-4

  Edited by Helen Hardt and Meghan Conrad

  Cover Art by Caitlin Fry

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Loch Awe Press, PO Box 5481, Wayland, MA 01778.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Dedication

  To Stevie, my dear friend and extraordinarily patient tutor on all things hockey. Never could I have imagined the impact you would have in my life when I met you all those years ago. Then again, you were wild-eyed with sleep deprivation and dropping f-bombs in a room full of Mormons like it was your job.

  Here’s to overcoming first impressions.

  Acknowledgements

  I could not have written this story without the help and patience of many. Above all, I must thank my family, particularly for putting up with my “research trips” to Bruins games. I promise I will take you with me someday.

  Many thanks to Victoria Morgan, Penny Watson and Bobbi Ruggiero, for hours of support, laughter, editing, and mango martinis (sometimes simultaneously!). Thanks to Dalton Diaz for delivering the hard feedback and doing it with such grace and kindness. You are a rock. And to Serena Bell. You gave me and this story a much needed shaking up and managed to improve both.

  My thanks again to Stevie, for turning what started as a research project into a passion for hockey. And finally, my thanks to Mike, who answered millions of questions about his beautiful hometown of Moncton.

  I’ve taken some creative license when it comes to both hockey and Moncton, all in the name of making the story come to life and/or protecting the innocent. Any inaccuracies or mistakes are mine and mine alone.

  Chapter One

  Miss Manners had never covered how to turn down a date when the lady in question already had her hands in the man’s underpants. A shame, really, since it seemed to happen to Savannah Morrison with alarming regularity.

  “Rhian Savage, you know better,” she chided, barely keeping a lid on her irritation.

  They were alone in her work room, the tight space made smaller and more intimate by the equipment jammed into every corner and the hot tub at her back. Rhian lay on her table, stripped down to skin-tight spandex shorts that left little to the imagination.

  And Savannah had a wonderful imagination.

  Finished with her inspection of the fresh bruises on his hip and flank, she slipped her fingers free of his waistband and let it snap back into place from a good six inches away from his skin. He flinched, muffling his snort of laughter, while she fought to keep her expression bland.

  Rhian shrugged, his massive chest shifting. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  She rolled her eyes before she turned away to gather more supplies and her composure.

  Rhian was one of the good guys, and more importantly, he listened to her advice. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be on her table, allowing her to climb all over him to stretch out his tight leg muscles. Now that she’d checked the damage from the previous night and was satisfied it wasn’t going to be an issue, she indicated he should stand up so she could wrap him for tonight’s game.

  She watched how he moved, searching for any sign of pain, studying the beauty laid bare before her with professional detachment. When she wasn’t feeling sensitive about it, she could admit her job was a little unusual. But being the athletic trainer for a professional ice hockey team was her dream. And she took it very seriously.

  Thus, Rhian was here. He didn’t have a pulled hamstring, not yet, and she was determined to prevent one. A lot of the guys would have ignored her suggestions for stretches, PT, Kinesio tape, and good wrapping. Not Rhian.

  Most of the time she fought what appeared to be some kind of code among the players. One that ignored thoughtful suggestions, “forgot” mandatory check-ins and flatly refused to admit to any pain, no matter how obvious it was to her well-trained eye. The question was if the code stemmed from the fact that all hockey players were notoriously hard-headed about showing any sign of weakness, or if the real issue was the Ice Cats’ new trainer was a woman.

  With a sigh, she worked a compression bandage around Rhian’s hard thigh and up over his hip, grateful he stood still and behaved professionally in spite of his gross breach of etiquette a few moments ago.

  Not for the first time, Savannah lamented the previous trainer’s disappearing act to Australia the minute he’d retired. She would have liked his thoughts on some of the players—their habits, their weaknesses—and then could have used that information to determine whether there had always existed a culture of resistance to the trainer or if it was all just sexist bullshit.

  Then again, if the previous trainer was an old-school kind of guy, he might have been too apoplectic over her very existence to be much help. Hell, at least four players still wouldn’t make eye contact, let alone speak to her unless forced. The only reason she had any interaction with them at all was because their coach, Rick, would kick their asses if she didn’t sign off on them to play.

  In the face of all that, the last thing she needed was to date one of her players. The very idea made her shudder.

  She ripped off the last piece of tape with a little more force than necessary and finished Rhian’s wrap. Pleased with the results, she stepped back and put her hands on her hips.

  His grin was adorable, unrepentant, and absolutely not helping. She looked to the heavens for patience before casting a baleful eye on him. “Rhian, I’m flattered you asked.” She grimaced when his eyebrows lifted. “But you should try to remember I’m the only thing that stands between your hairy legs and a lot of very sticky tape.”

  Rhian winced and quickly yanked up his gym shorts. She refused to even so much as crack a smile at his antics.

  Even though he’d lost his head and asked, she suspected he understood her reasons for saying no. He was young, focused and building a reputation on the ice. He didn’t need any drama to fuck that up. Nor did she. The biggest difference between them was that he might get picked up by the NHL by the end of this season. She, on the other hand, expected to put in a few years with the Ice Cats before setting her sights higher.

  Rhian said his thanks and slid by, careful not to brush against her as he left the room. She made quick work of cleaning up the mess, shaking off her irritation, and turning her min
d to her schedule. Who is next? Hopefully not one of her problem children. She could use a minute to clear her head.

  Loud laughter echoed outside her door and Savannah resisted the urge to bang her head against the edge of her tub. She hadn’t known that just thinking “problem child” would bring the worst of the lot to her door.

  In the hallway, Rhian chatted with Garrick LeBlanc. How these two men could be friends was a mystery to her. Rhian was a good guy and a rookie. Garrick was…not.

  That Garrick was friends with anybody had to be an aberration. At the very least, she’d have guessed he’d hang out with the men he’d played with the longest, or knew from college teams, or even grew up with in the same town. Heck, how about with the other dogs who’d taken all the puck bunnies for a test drive?

  Instead, he gravitated toward the men with level heads and strong work ethics. The players she liked. The heart of the team.

  What she couldn’t figure out was what any of those guys saw in Garrick.

  She ignored another booming laugh.

  If she had come to Moncton to find a boyfriend and a party, she wouldn’t have had to look any further. Garrick LeBlanc’s reputation was on the order of legend. He’d been a sensation when he started in the league twelve years ago, his handsome face a favorite with both the female fans and the press.

  For more than a decade he’d been a star for the Moncton Ice Cats. Other teams had tried to woo him away, but he had grown up in Moncton and had made himself the beloved son by refusing to leave. The fans adored his antics, on ice and off. It would have been totally unconscionable if he weren’t an outstanding forward.

  Oh yes, she’d learned all about Garrick when she thoroughly researched the Ice Cats before coming north. She’d lectured herself to be open-minded, and when he introduced himself the day she arrived, his firm handshake and direct gaze had given her hope that what she’d learned about him would not be an issue.

  Then a nanosecond after Rick—the coach, her boss—turned away, Garrick had asked her out. Indeed, he had the dubious honor of being the very first player to do so—though it would have been tough to beat him, since she’d only been in the arena ten minutes.

  She’d figured she might get asked out at some point, but having to deal with it that soon had been disappointing.

  No, screw disappointing. It had royally pissed her off.

  Since then she’d been cool with Garrick. Actually, she was cool with all the players. She was downright frosty with Garrick. And he made it easy. Apparently, his ego hadn’t taken well to her less-than-tactfully blurted “no,” and he’d hardly made eye contact with her since.

  She snorted with amusement. Even as handsome as he was, she couldn’t possibly be the only woman who had ever told him no—not that she wouldn’t happily accept the honor.

  Fighting the sneer begging to make its way onto her face, she patiently sorted the last of her supplies into various containers as Garrick walked into her office. By the time she turned around, his gym shorts were off and another set of imagination-free spandex shorts and their contents were on display.

  In other circumstances, she might have enjoyed the view. She’d always had a thing for really big guys, and at six and a half feet of toned, hockey-playing muscle, Garrick was a fine specimen. Heck, she probably could look her fill, since his gaze was firmly fixed on the phone he held in front of his face.

  But ogling wouldn’t be professional. And she’d have her hands all over him in about two minutes anyway.

  She sighed. Why did he have to have a groin pull?

  Why, Garrick wondered again, as he had before every game this season, do I have to have a groin pull?

  He’d known the moment he twisted the damn muscle playing street hockey with his nephews over the summer that it would plague him. He’d never imagined it would persist this far into the season.

  Months of PT, stretching, hot soaks, strengthening, ice and wraps. Months of pure unadulterated torture.

  Not torture because it was hard work, or because it hurt like hell. He was tougher than that. It was torture because the only person who made a difference, who was able to help him and give him sound advice and support, was Savannah.

  She was damn good at her job, a fact he often celebrated and lamented in the same breath.

  Garrick wasn’t stupid. If the old trainer had still been around, Garrick’s career, and possibly his ability to walk normally, would have come to an end two months ago. But Savannah pushed. She fought his stubborn old body and worked magic. And what she couldn’t fix between games, she shored up and protected on the ice with pre-game hot compresses, icing, and wraps.

  Hell, she’d once constructed a support wrap reinforced with duct tape to get the job done. She was clever and tenacious, and he was incredibly fucking lucky and grateful.

  Not that he dared tell her that. At this point, he was afraid to look at her. Instead, he pretended to play games on his phone like a completely rude asshole while reminding himself to breathe normally. And if that didn’t work, he thought about his grandma and fuzzy little kittens and Mrs. Plum, his kindly and ancient elementary school art teacher. When times got really tough, he closed his eyes and pictured the time his friend took a line drive to his nuts in high school.

  Anything to keep from getting an erection.

  Not since middle school had he spent so much time and energy attempting to wrestle his cock into submission. Back then a long t-shirt and his hands shoved in his pockets had hidden a multitude of sins.

  Clearly, spandex shorts under a damn spotlight weren’t going to afford him the same protection, even if she wasn’t bent to her task, her nose level with his navel.

  She didn’t have to do a hot compress or ice for him today—weeks ago he’d taken over those pre-game treatments in an attempt to show himself some mercy. Though right now a freezing cold bag pressed to his junk would be helpful. Desperate, he recalled Mrs. Plum’s wrinkled visage and fought the flow of blood.

  Perverse as it was, some part of him still looked forward to coming here and giving himself over to her capable hands. He’d never pegged himself for a masochist.

  Firm fingers slid over his hip and he bit back the urge to shout “down boy!” He fought to focus on his game.

  Why were these birds so angry anyway?

  Sighing he put down his phone. Looking directly at Savannah was not the best strategy for controlling his little problem, but he was tired of being rude, and ignoring her wasn’t working anyway.

  “So, how are you settling in?” he asked.

  She stilled, glancing up at his face before refocusing on the bindings she was working around his thigh and between his legs. Her hand skimmed along the underside of his butt cheek. He bit his tongue. Hard.

  “Uh…fine.” Her brows drew together briefly while nimble fingers smoothed tape along his leg. “The season has me busy enough that I don’t think I’ll really feel like a resident of Moncton until the summer.”

  A pang of guilt hit his gut. He should have offered to show her around. Not on a date, of course, but as a local. Dorky as it sounded, he considered himself something of an ambassador for new people on or associated with the team to help them get comfortable with their new home.

  But after the wonderful first impression he’d made, he doubted she’d take him up on an offer for a tour of the town. He cringed, remembering his stupidity.

  His only defense—and he could admit it wasn’t a great one—was that he’d come to the meet-and-greet nervous about the new trainer, having hated the old guy but knowing the various aches and pains in his leg and hip weren’t going to help a veteran player further his career. In fact, he’d been thinking his career might be over, and damn it, he hoped to get a few more years in the league. At least long enough to figure out what the fuck he was going to do next.

  He hadn’t expected to find a beautiful woman, try though she might to hide it, standing in the lobby shaking hands with the rest of the players. She’d been wearing a frumpy
suit and ugly shoes. Her disguise, as he’d come to think of it. Tonight it was loose yoga pants, a boxy men’s Ice Cats pullover that fell to mid-thigh, and sneakers. As always, a tight knot pulled her hair back from her face.

  But Garrick saw the truth. Then and now.

  The curves. The silky hair. Smoky green eyes. Long legs, swelling hips, and a little dipped-in waist. Five feet ten inches of lovely athletic grace.

  Shit. Now he needed a distraction. ASAP.

  Tentatively, he smiled. “I’m from around here. Is there anything I can do to help?” At her suspicious look, he continued quickly. “I just mean, I don’t know…Good dry cleaner? Best pizza? Chinese take-out to avoid if you want to live? That sort of thing?”

  “As far as I can tell, such a Chinese take-out place doesn’t exist.”

  “Ah.” He chuckled, delighted that she’d actually responded. Also, the idea of food poisoning was working toward his goal of total flaccidity. “Then you have begun to settle in. I’m sorry one of us didn’t warn you about that.”

  Savannah made a sound that could almost be called a laugh. Garrick grinned.

  Refusing to let his big mouth get him back into hot water when, for the first time in weeks, he had one leg out of the tub, he shut up. Savannah finished his wrap. As soon as she’d applied the last piece of tape, he moved away. This warm fuzzy moment could result in a spandex pup-tent if he lingered too long.

  “Thanks.” He yanked on his shorts—a meager defense at best.

  “Let me know how that feels. I added some extra support on the side, see if it helps.”

  “I have no doubt it will,” he said. “You’re like god’s gift to tape.”

  A grateful, albeit bewildered smile was his reward. Months of torture suddenly seemed worth it, even if he’d come across as a complete dork.