Rachel Gibson: True Love and Other Disasters

Ty buttoned the front of his blue dress shirt and shoved the tails into his gray wool pants. He glanced around at the guys, who looked as stunned as he was. This was the second game of the playoffs. They’d won in their own house and the coach had granted the press full access to the team. Reporters loved full access. They loved it like a kid loved cake, but the sudden appearance of Faith Duffy prompted an en masse exodus. Like rats bailing from a sinking boat. What the hell?

Ty pulled on his socks and shoved his feet into his shoes. He combed his fingers through his damp hair and moved into the team’s lounge. Mrs. Duffy stood in the middle of the huge Chinooks logo woven into the blue carpet, smiling for the cameras and answering questions thrown at her by a knot of sports reporters. She looked almost fragile in the totally male environment. Beneath the bright lights and camera flash, her smooth hair shined, her skin kind of glowed, and her lips were a glistening pink. She wore a black suit that hugged her waist and buttoned beneath her breasts. He and the boys had worked their asses off tonight, and apparently all she had to do was show up all bright and shiny and the guys in the press went ape-shit nuts.

“What made you decide not to sell the team?” someone asked.

“My late husband, Virgil, knew how much I love hockey. He left me this team because he wanted me to be happy. It was only right that I keep it.”

What utter bullshit. Ty moved further into the room and shoved one shoulder into the doorway leading to the workout gym.

“What are your plans for the team?”

A smile curved her lips at the corners and damned if it wasn’t innocent and seductive all at the same time. She must have been one hell of a stripper. “To win the Stanley Cup. Virgil put together some great players, and I plan to do everything I can to make sure we bring the cup home to Seattle.”

“We hear there’s no plan to pick up Fetisov for next season.”

The corners of her mouth dipped and Darby Hogue stepped forward and saved her butt. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information,” Darby said, “but we have no plans to trade Vlad.” Then Coach Nystrom stepped forward and answered a few questions concerning trade restrictions while Mrs. Duffy smiled like she knew what he was talking about.

Ty glanced about the room at his teammates, and his gaze stopped on his father, who stood near the coaches offices talking to some woman in a lacy blouse and pink bra, and holding one of those hairy little dogs that yipped a lot. She was definitely the old man’s type: overblown, big blonde hair. Not bad looking but a little torn up around the edges. He wondered where the old man had managed to find her in the two hours since Ty had spoken to him.

“When was the last time you were at the Playboy Mansion?” a reporter asked, pulling Ty’s attention to the owner of the team.

A frown wrinkled her smooth brow. “Over five years ago.”

“Do you keep in touch with Hef?”

“No. While I appreciate Mr. Hefner and will always be grateful to him, my life is very different now.”

Ty half expected the reporters to ask for her number now that she was single. He thought of her naked photos in Playboy and wondered how many of them had seen her spread out across the pages.

“Tonight, the team had twenty combined penalty minutes. At the beginning of the playoffs, Coach Nystrom expressed his desire to keep penalty minutes per game at a minimum. Don’t you consider twenty excessive?” Jim asked the same question he’d asked Ty a few minutes earlier.

She smiled and tilted her head to one side. “I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to comment on that at this time.” A man with dark hair and wearing a teal silk T-shirt stepped forward and whispered something in Faith’s ear. “Oh. Okay. Our penalty minutes were up and we never like to see that,” she parroted.

Ty might have laughed if he wasn’t so annoyed. The reporters all glanced at each other and instead of calling her on being such a bonehead, someone asked, “What did you think of tonight’s game?” Totally letting her off the hook.

“It was great. All the guys played very well.”

“Virgil put together a solid team. I know that he’d tried to sign Sean Toews. What happened?”

Toews wanted more money than he was worth. That’s what had happened.

“I’m not at liberty to answer that.”

“What did you think of your captain’s hat trick?”

Bastards had barely asked him about the hat trick. She smiled, and Ty doubted she even knew what a hat trick was.

“We’re ecstatic, of course. My late husband believed in Mr. Savage’s talent,” she said, once again pronouncing his name wrong.

“It’s Sah-vahge.” He spoke out loud before he gave it much thought.

The press turned and looked at him. He pushed away from the doorjamb. “Since you’re the owner of the team, you should know how to pronounce my name. It’s Sah-vahge. Not savage.”

She pushed up her smile. “Thank you. I apologize, Mr. Sah-vahge. And since I sign your checks, you should know that it’s Miss July. Not Miss January.”

The Gloria Thornwell Society met the third Thursday of every month. The Society had been named after founding member Gloria Thornwell in 1928, and it was the most exclusive organization in the state. Much more exclusive than the Junior League, which seemed to let in all manner of new-money riffraff these days.

The Society was filled with rich women whose husbands kept them in designer knits and funded their pet charities. This year it was a school in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. Admittedly a very worthy cause, although Faith had put in her vote for a more local charity this year. She’d been vetoed, as always.

She fingered her long strand of antique pearls between the lapels of her raincoat as she moved toward the building near Madison and Fourth. The Society was really strict about their dress code, and Faith adjusted the long sleeves of her cashmere sweater set beneath her slick coat as she reached for the front door. She was met in the lobby by Tabby Rutherford-Longstreet, wife of Frederick Longstreet, president and CEO of Longstreet Financial and one of Virgil’s longtime friends and business associates.

“Hello, Tabby,” she said as she pulled back her sleeve and checked her Rolex. Lunch always started at noon, and it was ten till. “Is everyone already here?” She moved toward the elevator and Tabby stepped between her and the buttons.

“Yes. Everyone is here. They sent me down to speak with you.”

“About?”

“We all agreed that Dodie Farnsworth-Noble should be put in charge of the entertainment committee for this year’s fund-raiser.

“That’s my job.” Faith looked into Tabby’s blue eyes surrounded by fine lines and pressed powder. “I’m the head of the entertainment committee.”

“We think it’s best if Dodie takes over that position.”

“Oh.” Before Virgil’s death, she’d worked tirelessly on this year’s benefit. She’d already spoken to the Seattle Philharmonic, and her heart sank a little. “Then what’s my function?”

Tabby pasted a fake smile on her face. “We feel that with everything going on in your life right now, you won’t have time for your responsibilities.”

Sure, now that she owned a hockey team, she had a lot on her plate, but the Society’s work was important. “I understand your concern, but I assure you that I will make time,” she told Tabby. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

Tabby placed a hand against her own throat and twisted her pearls. “Don’t force me to be unkind.”

“What?”

“We think it would be best if you voluntarily gave up your Society membership.”