Rachel Gibson: True Love and Other Disasters

“When will you make the announcement?” she asked.

“The night I’m handed the cup.”

Faith sat in the owner’s box as the Chinooks were announced. One by one they skated onto the ice amidst the roaring cheers of the hometown crowd. Her face felt hot and her stomach burned from pent-up emotion. Sam and Marty and Blake. Her team. Her players. The guys she’d come to know over the past two months. Tension pounded the base of her skull and everything seemed unreal as she went through the motions.

There had to be a way. There had to be something she could do to keep from losing everything. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. She had no choice.

Her first instinct when Landon had left her office was to run. Run home, pull the covers over her head, and pretend everything would be all right. But she couldn’t do that. Everyone expected her to sit in the box tonight as if her world hadn’t just come apart.

“Do you want a glass of wine?” Jules asked her.

She looked at him. At her assistant in his peach-and-green silk shirt, obviously still suffering from a metrosexual crisis. What would happen to Jules?

“Faith?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want wine?”

She shook her head. “No,” she answered and her voice sounded hollow.

“Number Twenty-one.” The announcer’s voice filled the Key and bounced off Faith’s brain. “The captain of the Chinooks, Ty S-a-a-a-v-v-a-a-a-ge !”

The crowd went wild as he hit the ice, their screams drowning out the painful sob that racked her chest. He skated around the rink with one hand in the air, and when he passed below, he looked up and smiled. Faith’s heart shattered right there. Right there in the skybox. A keening little sound threatened to escape her lips and she rose to her feet. She covered her mouth to keep it inside and ran into the bathroom, practically shoving her mother and Pavel out of her way. She shut the door behind her and wrapped her arms around her stomach as the first sob broke her throat.

“What’s wrong, Faith?” her mother called through the door.

“Nothing,” she managed. “I feel sick.” Another sob racked her chest and she knew she couldn’t stay there. She had to get home. “Could you bring me my purse?” She turned to the vanity and looked at herself in the mirror. At her red cheeks and watery eyes. She ran a paper towel under cold water and held it to her hot face. Her mother entered the room and handed her bag to her.

“You don’t look good,” Valerie said. “Are you getting the flu again?”

“Yes. I have to go home.”

“I’ll get Jules to take you.”

The last thing she wanted was to break down in front of her assistant. “No. I can make it,” she said as she opened the bathroom door.

“Call me when you get home,” her mother called after Faith as she hurried from the owner’s box.

She stumbled into the empty elevator and her vision blurred as she rode it down. She held it together as best she could on the short drive home, but once inside the penthouse, she broke down. Tears poured down her cheeks as she pulled her jersey over her head and she wiggled out of her jeans. Both dropped into a pile on the floor and she crawled into her bed. Jules called to make sure she got home all right and she managed to convince him that she “sounded strange” because she was sick. Then she hung up and pulled the covers over her. She’d lost it all, and she’d never felt so desolate in her life. Landon had ripped everything from her, and she was empty. Except for the burning sorrow in her soul. Just when she was starting to really enjoy her role as owner, just when she was really excited about being involved in the Chinooks Foundation, Landon had taken it all from her. Worst of all, she’d made sure he’d taken Ty, too.

She felt like a kid again. Alone and helpless. She’d worked so hard never to feel those two things again, and here it was back.

A sob racked her chest and Layla crept into her head. She wondered how much it would cost to have someone kill Landon. He deserved to die. The world would be a better place without people like him. Of course Faith would never do it. Not only because she wasn’t that sort of person, but she also had a healthy fear of prison.

Two months. It had only been two months since Virgil died, but her life had changed so drastically, it felt longer. She felt like a different person. Stronger. Confident. More sure of herself.

Two months to have gained so much, only to lose it all. Such a short time to fall completely and totally in love, only to lose him, too. And it was ironic as hell, really. For the last five years she’d let a man take care of her. Now she was giving up her team to take care of someone else.

There was just no choice. No way to save herself and Ty and keep the team. She had to give Landon what he wanted. She wiped a hand across her cheek and wondered what Ty would say if she told him about the photos and Landon’s plan to ruin them. She could predict what he’d say and what he’d ultimately do. He’d want to kill Landon, just like her. And just like her, he’d do what was best for the rest of the team. In the end, she’d still have to sell the Chinooks. She’d still lose the man she loved.

She’d always known she couldn’t have both. That it would end someday. That it would hit her hard and shake up her life. But it didn’t have to be that way for Ty. It didn’t have to affect him. And it wouldn’t if she didn’t tell him about the photos.

He had a good shot at his dream. At the one thing he’d worked for and waited his whole life to achieve. The last thing he needed to worry about was his picture in the Seattle Times and appearing on billboards. Especially now, when it was a foregone conclusion anyway. Unless she wanted to humiliate Ty and embarrass the team, she would sign those intent-to-sell papers when they arrived tomorrow and he would never know why she had agreed to sell the team.

The letter of intent was just the first step in the process, and if she remembered from the last time she’d signed the letter of intent, it would take several weeks to get approval from the NHL commissioner. After that, the sale would go forward, and once all the i ’s were dotted and the t ’s crossed, Landon would own her hockey team.

She threw back the covers and walked to the huge windows in her bedroom. She wore her bra and panties and stood staring at the lights of the Key Arena. Ty was in there. Shooting pucks, throwing elbows and spitting on the floor, and she longed to be there too. All her guys were there, only they weren’t her guys anymore. She didn’t think it was possible to have her heart break in so many ways.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she wiped at them with the backs of her hands. She and Ty had thought they were being so careful, and they had been. Either she went to his house or he holed up in her penthouse. On the road, they never even spoke to each other. Valerie and Pavel had figured it out because they lived with them.

She thought about some unknown person following and photographing her without her knowledge. It was creepy and she felt violated. What kind of person hired someone to photograph people at three in the morning?

Someone determined to win. And he had. Landon had won and she’d lost at a game she hadn’t even known she’d been playing. Only this was no game. This was her life. What Landon had done to her burned like acid in her stomach.

She pressed her forehead into the glass. Was it just this morning that she’d been happy? That she’d been with Ty, massaging his sore muscles for him? She’d always known it would end in disaster. Just not like this. Never like this. There was no way out for her, and she could see no other alternative but to give Landon what he wanted.