Rachel Gibson - See Jane Score

“Of course.”

“And black.”

“You know I’m color blind.”

“You’re not color blind. You just can’t tell when things clash.”

“True.” That’s why she liked black. She looked good in black. She couldn’t make a fashion faux pas in black.

“You’ve got a nice little body, Jane. You should work it, show it off. Come back to Nordy’s with me, and I’ll help you pick out some nice things.”

“No way. The last time I let you pick out my clothes, I looked like Greg Brady. Only not as groovy.”

“That was in the sixth grade and we had to go to Goodwill to do our shopping. We’re older and have more money. At least you do.”

Yes, and she planned to keep it that way too. She had plans for her nest egg. Plans that included buying a house, not designer clothes. “I like the way I dress,” she said as if they hadn’t had the same conversation a thousand times in the past.

Caroline rolled her eyes and changed the subject. “I met a guy.”

Of course she had. Since they’d both turned thirty last spring, Caroline’s biological clock had started ticking and all she’d been able to think about were her eggs shriveling up. She’d decided it was time to get married, and since she didn’t want to leave Jane out of the fun, she’d decided it was time they both got married. But there was a problem with Caroline’s plan. Jane had pretty much decided she was a magnet for men who would break her heart and treat her bad, and since jerks seemed to be the only type of man who made her go all weak and sweaty, she’d been thinking about getting a cat and staying home. But she was stuck in a Catch-22. If she stayed home, she wouldn’t discover new material for her Single Girl column.

“He has a friend.”

“The last ‘friend’ you set me up with drove a serial killer van with a couch in the back.”

“I know, and he wasn’t real pleased to read about himself in your Times column.”

“Too bad. He was one of those guys who assumes I’m desperate and horny because of the column.”

“This time will be different.”

“No.”

“You might like him.”

“That’s the problem. If I like him, I know he’ll treat me like crap, then dump me.”

“Jane, you rarely give anyone the chance to dump you. You always keep one foot out the door, waiting for an excuse.”

Caroline didn’t have a lot of room to talk. She dumped guys for being too perfect. “You haven’t had a boyfriend since Vinny,” Caroline said.

“Yeah, and look how that turned out.” He’d borrowed money from her to buy other women presents. As far as she could tell, he’d bought mostly cheap lingerie. Jane hated cheap lingerie.

“Look on the bright side. After you had to dump him, you were so upset you regrouted your bathroom.”

It was a sad fact of Jane’s life that when she was brokenhearted and depressed, she cleaned with a vengeance. When she was happy, she tended to overlook towels falling out of the closet onto her head.

After lunch, Jane dropped Caroline off at Nordstrom’s, then drove to the Seattle Times . Because she wrote a monthly column, she didn’t have a desk at the paper. In fact, she’d hardly ever ventured into the building.

She met with the sports editor, Kirk Thornton, and he didn’t have to tell her he was less than thrilled to have her covering for Chris. His reception of her was so cold, he could have chilled a glass on his forehead. He introduced her to the three other sports reporters, and their welcome wasn’t much warmer than Kirk’s. Except for Jeff Noonan’s.

Even though Jane was hardly ever in the Seattle Times building, she’d heard about Jeff Noonan. He was known by the female staff as the Nooner and was a sexual harassment lawsuit just waiting to happen. Not only did he believe a woman’s place was in the kitchen, he believed it was on her back on the kitchen table. The look he gave her told her he was thinking about her naked, and he smiled like she should be flattered or something.

The look she returned told him she’d rather eat rat poison.

The BAC-111 lifted off from SeaTac at six-twenty-three a.m. Within minutes, the jet broke through the cloud cover and banked left. The morning sun shot through the oval windows like spotlights. Almost as one, the shades were slammed shut against the brutal glare, and a good number of hockey players put their seats back and sacked out for the four-hour flight. A mix of aftershave and cologne filled the cabin as the jet finished its ascent and evened out.

Without taking her eyes from the itinerary in her lap, Jane reached over her head and adjusted the air. She turned its full force on her face as she looked over the team schedule. She noticed that some of their flights left right after a game while others left the next morning. But except for the flight times, the schedule was always the same. The team practiced the day before each game and had a “light” run-through the day of the game. It never varied.

She set aside the itinerary and picked up a copy of the Hockey News . The morning light broke over the NHL team reports, and she paused to read a column concerning the Chinooks. The subhead read, “Chinooks’ Goaltending Key to Success.”

For the past few weeks, Jane had crammed her head with NHL stats. She’d familiarized herself with the names of the Chinooks and the positions they played. She’d read as many newspaper articles on the team as she could find, but she still didn’t have a firm grasp on the game or its players. She was going to have to fly by the seat of her pants and hope she didn’t crash and burn. She needed the respect and trust of these men. She wanted them to treat her as they did other sports journalists.

In her briefcase, she’d stashed two invaluable books: Hockey for Dummies and The Bad Boys of Hockey . The first gave her the rudiments and the how-tos, while the second told the dark side of the game and the men who played it.

Without lifting her face, she glanced across the aisle and down a row. Her gaze followed the emergency lights running down the dark blue carpeting and stopped on Luc Martineau’s polished loafers and charcoal trousers. Since their conversation at the Key Arena, she’d done more research on him than the other players.

He’d been born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His father was French-Canadian and divorced his mother when Luc had been just five years old. Luc had been drafted sixth overall into the NHL at the age of nineteen by the Oilers. He’d been traded to Detroit and finally Seattle. The most interesting reading had come from The Bad Boys of Hockey , which had devoted an entire five chapters to Luc. The book had gone into detail about the bad boy goalie, claiming he had the quickest hands on and off the ice. The photos had shown a string of actresses and models on his arm, and while none of them had come right out and claimed they’d slept with him, they hadn’t denied it either.

Her gaze rose to his big hand and long fingers tapping the arm of his seat. A sliver of his gold Rolex showed from beneath the cuff of his white-and-blue-striped shirt. She took in his shoulder and the profile of his high cheekbones and straight nose. His hair was cut short like a gladiator ready to do battle. Assuming half the juicy details of the bad boy book were true, Luc Martineau had a woman stashed in each city the team visited. Jane was surprised he wasn’t terminally exhausted.

Like all of the other players, this morning Luc looked more like a businessman or an investment banker than a hockey player. Earlier at the airport, Jane had been surprised to see the whole team show up in suits and ties as if they were on their way to the office.