Rachel Gibson - See Jane Score

She supposed the time didn’t matter as much as the bigger question. Was what Caroline always said about her true? Did she enter relationships with one foot out the door? With an eye toward the exit sign? Had she purposely written the article in such an obvious way to get out of her relationship with Luc before she fell too deep? If that was the case, she’d gotten out too late. She’d fallen deeper and harder than ever before. She hadn’t even known it was possible to fall so hard.

Her doorbell rang and she rose from the couch. It was past two a.m., and she couldn’t imagine who’d be standing on her porch. Her heart pinched even as she told herself that it wasn’t Luc, racing across the country after her like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate .

It was Caroline.

“I called all the hospitals,” her friend said as she hugged Jane tight against her chest. “No one would give me any information.”

“About what?” Jane extracted herself from Caroline’s grasp and took a step back.

“Your father.” Caroline lowered her chin and peered into Jane’s eyes. “His heart attack.”

Jane shook her head and rubbed her chilled arms through her long T-shirt. “My dad didn’t have a heart attack.”

“Darby called me and told me that he did!”

Oh, no. “That’s what I told the paper, but I just needed to come home and I needed a good excuse.”

“Mr. Alcott isn’t dying?”

“No.”

“I’m glad to hear it, of course.” Caroline sat hard on the sofa. “But I ordered flowers.”

Jane sat next to her. “Sorry. Can you cancel them?”

“I don’t know.” Caroline turned and looked at her. “Why the lie? Why did you have to come home? And why have you been crying?”

“Have you read Honey Pie this month?”

Caroline usually read all the columns. “Of course.”

“It was Luc.”

“I gathered that. Was he flattered?”

“Not at all,” Jane answered, and then she told her why. Through tears that wouldn’t stop, she told her friend everything. When she was finished, a frown pulled at Caroline’s brows.

“You already know what I’m going to say.”

Yes, Jane knew. And for the first time she actually listened. Jane had always been the smart one. Caroline the pretty one. Tonight Caroline was the pretty and smart one.

“Can you fix it?” Caroline asked.

Jane recalled the look in Luc’s eyes and him telling her to stay away from him and Marie. He’d meant it. “No. He would never listen to me now.” She leaned back against the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. “Men suck.” Jane rolled her head and looked at her friend. “Let’s make a pact to swear off men for a while.”

Caroline bit her lip. “I can’t. I’m sort of dating Darby now.”

Jane sat up straight. “Really? I didn’t know things had gotten that serious.”

“Well, he isn’t my usual type. But he’s nice to me and I like him. I like talking to him and I like the way he looks at me. And, well, let’s face it, he needs me.”

Yes, he certainly did. Jane figured Darby could probably fill Caroline up with a lifetime of need.

The next morning, Jane received flowers from the Chinooks organization expressing their condolences. At noon, flowers from the Times , and at one, Darby sent his own arrangement. At three, Caroline’s were delivered. They were all gorgeous and smelled wonderful and filled her with guilt. This was pure karmic retribution, and she promised God that she would never lie again if He would make the flowers stop.

On television that night, she watched the Chinooks play the Coyotes. Through the wire of his mask, Luc’s blue eyes looked out at her, as hard and as cold as the ice he played on. When he wasn’t cursing the air blue in front of his net, his lips were compressed into a grim line.

He looked up and the camera caught the anger in his eyes. He wasn’t in his zone. His personal life was affecting his game, and if Jane had harbored any hidden hope that she could fix the relationship, that hope died.

It was truly over.

Luc drew three penalties as he let his rage loose on anyone dumb enough to step inside his crease.

“What’s the matter, Martineau?” a Coyote forward asked after the first penalty. “Got your period?”

“Kiss my hairy beanbag,” he answered, hooked his stick in the guy’s skates, and pulled him off his feet.

“You’re an asshole, Martineau,” the guy said as he looked up from his position on the ice. Whistles blew and Bruce Fish was sent to the penalty box instead of Luc.

Luc picked up his water bottle and sprayed his face. Mark Bressler joined him at the net.

“Having an anger management problem?” the captain asked.

“What the fuck do you think?” Water dripped from his face and mask. Jane wasn’t in the press box. She wasn’t even in the same state, but he couldn’t get her out of his head.

“That’s what the fuck I think.” Bressler punched his shoulder with his big glove. “Try not to draw any more penalties and we just might win this thing.”

He was right. Luc needed to concentrate more on the game than on who was or wasn’t in the press box. “No more dumb penalties,” he agreed. But in the next frame, he wacked an opponent in the shin and the guy milked it for all it was worth.

“That didn’t hurt, you pussy,” Luc said as he looked down at the guy holding his shin and writhing in pain. “Get back up and I’ll show you hurt.”

The whistles blew and Bressler skated by, shaking his head.

After the game, the locker room was more subdued than usual. They’d put up two goals late in the third period, but it hadn’t been enough. They’d lost three-five. Phoenix sports reporters combed the room searching for sound bites, but no one was talking much.

Jane’s father had suffered a heart attack, and the players felt her absence. Luc didn’t believe the heart attack story, and was surprised that she’d turned tail and run. That wasn’t like the Jane he knew. Then again, he didn’t really know her at all. The real Jane had lied to him and used him and made a fool out of him. She knew things about him that he did not want to read in the newspapers. She knew that he iced down his knees and that everything wasn’t one hundred percent.

He was an idiot. How in the hell had he let a short reporter with curly hair and a smart mouth into his life? He hadn’t even liked her at first. How had he fallen so hard for her? She’d turned his life upside down and now he had to figure a way to get her out of his head. To get his focus back. He could do it. He’d battled back before, and he’d battled bigger demons than Jane Alcott. He figured all he needed was determination and a little time. Darby had told the team she wouldn’t be back to work until next week.

One week. Now that she was out of his life physically, it shouldn’t take that much time to get her the hell out of his head and get mentally back into the game.

And a week later, he was right. Partly, anyhow. He was back in his zone. Back to playing with skill instead of brute strength fueled by emotion, but he’d failed to get Jane out of his head completely.

The day he returned to Seattle, he felt bruised inside and out. He just wanted to sit on his couch, relax, and watch mindless television until Marie came home from school. Maybe they’d order out and have a nice relaxing dinner.

He should have known better. Like always with his sister, one minute things were fine, and the next everything went straight to hell. One minute she was filling him in on her day at school, then she took off her big bulky sweatshirt. Luc’s jaw dropped when he got a good look at her tight T-shirt and her breasts. They were a lot bigger than when he’d left on his trip a week ago. Not that he stared, but he couldn’t help but notice the difference.