The parking lot was thinning rapidly, but he still didn’t see another vehicle like his in front of them so he steered around to the back to search there.
“You do?” she said, surprised and—oddly—a little breathless.
Isaac peered over at her and was taken aback by the warmth in her eyes. Could he be reading that right? A man could lose himself in that clear blue gaze of hers. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what she was talking about and he had to run back through the conversation.
“You said you wished people would ignore half of what you say, then proved your point by suggesting you and I would make a good couple.” Clever illustration, that. “Point taken.”
“Oh.” Her voice hitched and she cleared it, her hold on him loosening. “Yeah. Okay. I think I see my van.” She pointed toward another Caravan in the back row of the lot, far from where they’d started out. She pulled her cell phone from her bag with one hand and studied the screen.
Apparently, she’d finished conversing with him. Maybe he’d offended her when he said he didn’t talk much.
Then again, why would someone sent to learn his secrets allow herself to be offended? Shouldn’t she keep up her chatty patter to try to see him again? Talk her way into his house or his office? His bed?
He was bizarrely disappointed she didn’t at least try. She was the most interesting thing to happen to him in months. But maybe she knew he wasn’t fooled by her act. Had she really expected him to buy her story that she’d confused his vehicle for hers when she hadn’t even tried to park in the same vicinity?
Isaac guided her down the row of cars to the van with fat rhinestones around the license plate. Yeah, no way she would mistake that girly grill for his.
“I can give you a hand getting in.” He steadied her while she searched for her keys, feeling strangely guilty for her retreat into quietness.
He should be grateful that he was sending her on her way, damn it. Releasing her, he saw a glint of tears on one cheek. Did her foot hurt that much? She clutched the cell phone to her chest as she came up with the keys.
Maybe she’d realized how badly she’d bobbled the task of spying on him. Steeling himself for whatever sob story excuse she might concoct to go home with him, he simply pointed toward her keys and ignored the tears.
“Would you like me to open your van and start it up for you?” Now who was the chatty one?
“That’s okay.” Hobbling forward, she jingled a noisy assortment of keys and plastic cartoon characters, most of which were painted pink and covered in glitter. Then, unlocking her vehicle, he noticed a fairy air freshener swinging from the radio knob. And someone had modified the glove compartment so that every inch was covered in rhinestones. She’d taken a lot of time with the details in creating a cover as an ultra-feminine bombshell.
But even now that the door was open, she didn’t move.
“You’re all set.” He prodded, memorizing her license plate so he could have his security team investigate her tomorrow.
“My matchmaker just quit,” she blurted, swiping away the tears on her cheeks. “My father is going to use his own and try to buy a man for me.”
Whatever ploy Isaac had been prepping for, it hadn’t been that. A matchmaker?
Standing on one foot, she took off her shoe and planted her injured heel on the ground.
“Be careful,” he warned. “There could be glass—”
“I don’t need help.” Stacy turned on him fiercely, pausing in her hobbled progress into her vehicle. “Doesn’t he get that? I need to figure out who to trust on my own and if I make a mistake along the way, that’s how I’ll learn. Can I help it if I figure things out the hard way?”
She started hopping again, her breasts threatening to break free of the neckline a little more each time. But given how upset she seemed, he didn’t take the same pleasure in the show.
“Can I—” He reached to help her again.
“No.” Collapsing into the driver’s seat, she tucked the skirt around her thighs. “I put myself on the line for the first time ever to ask a guy out tonight, and you thought it was so ludicrous an idea you didn’t even take me seriously. Another hint that I suck at dating, I guess. But I’m not giving up.”
Huh?
She started the van and hauled her door shut, leaving him to scratch his head. Whatever had just happened here, Stacy Goodwell didn’t behave like any corporate spy he’d ever met.
Rolling down her window, she seemed to be gearing up to rant at him more but he beat her to the punch.
“You asked me out?” Funny, because he’d been specifically listening for a pitch like that, figuring it would confirm that she was after the plans for his new 3-D graphics chip.
But apparently, he’d missed it.
“I said we’d make the perfect couple,” she retorted. “Remember? You don’t listen enough and I talk too much. I thought it sounded perfect. As an added bonus, you don’t stare down my dress and you haven’t paid me a bunch of ridiculous compliments meant to get me into bed. And for some reason—maybe because you don’t seem like you’re trying to impress me—I don’t feel intimidated to say what I think with you.”
She tried to turn the car over, but since the engine was already running, it made a scraping, squealing sound.
“Stacy.” He had zero experience with hysterical females since he’d never incited this much emotion from a woman outside of bed. He wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
Could he have read the situation wrong? What if she wasn’t a spy and she was just a very unusual beauty with an overprotective father and a matchmaker trying to call the shots?
“Sorry again about trying to break into your van.” Putting the transmission into drive, she kept her foot on the brake and met his gaze under the buzzing fluorescent glow of a street lamp. Her eye makeup had smudged under one eye. “Goodbye, Isaac Reynolds.”
Tearing out of the lot, she left him shaking his head and wondering what had just happened. As spy missions went, she’d obviously failed. But on the off chance that she
hadn’t
been sent to learn his company’s secrets, it was he who’d messed up royally. No man with red blood in his veins and a few functional brain cells would let a woman like that get away.
A woman who might have been attracted to him.
The possibility blew his mind.
The only thing left to do was run a check on her and see what he found. Because if she wasn’t working for the competition, Isaac had a new goal in life, the first that didn’t have anything to do with his business model. He’d chase his sexy, futuristic spaceship captain all the way back to her home planet if he had to. He’d do whatever it took to get her back.
6
BLADES FLYING OVER THE ICE,
Kyle Murphy deked two defensemen, protecting the puck as if it was his firstborn. Beating the competition, he came face-to-face with the goalie, a rare one-on-one shot opportunity. An opportunity he excelled at creating. Lifting his stick, he faked a drive to the body, refired and…missed the goal all together.
For a moment, his teammates seemed too surprised to react. That shot was his bread and butter. The money shot.
Didn’t matter that this was a practice. He practiced like he played, and he always made that frigging shot.
Curses streamed from his mouth, rare for him even though the practice arena was frequently filled with creative and functional swearing alike.
Behind him, the coach’s whistle blew to end practice. Leandre Archambault had the audacity to clap him on the back.
“Tough shot, Murphy.” He almost kept a straight face when he said it.
Bastard.
“Ignore him.” Axel was in his face before Kyle could fire back something he’d regret.
The Finn dropped a heavy arm around Kyle’s shoulders and steered him away from their teammates as they headed toward the tunnel to the locker rooms and workout facility.
A foul mood had dogged him ever since he and Marissa had exchanged a terse good-night when he’d dropped her off at her car yesterday. He’d hoped that a good hard practice this morning would take the edge off, but if anything, he felt fiercer than ever.
“I don’t miss that shot,” he told Ax, even though his foster brother knew it as well as he did. “Leandre isn’t taking the starting position from me because of one missed goal. I’m not worried about him. But I don’t know what the hell went wrong just now, and that…”
Scares the crap out of me.
He didn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t need to. Ax would understand because hockey was a language they spoke fluently. Hell, some sports writers had suggested they had a telepathic connection on the ice. Their shots to each other were as fluid as any in the game, since they had a sixth sense for where each other would be.
“What’s wrong today?” Ax let go of him and pulled his helmet off. A dark red U-shaped scar on his cheek added to the intimidation factor of an already big guy.
The coaches were heading in now, the ice clear of everyone but them. Outside the glass boards, Kyle could see the rink was about half full of fans who’d come to see a Phantoms’ practice. Too bad he’d put on such a crappy show.
Ax wanted to know what was wrong?
“Marissa Collins.” His problem had a name. “The woman from the fundraiser.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Circling Kyle on his skates, Axel gave his shoulder a light punch. “It’s you who always said women complicate the game. I didn’t buy into it until the last one cheated on me and I started to play like crap. Now?” He made a decisive sweep with his hand. “No women while we’re in the play-offs. End of sentence.”
“Yeah. That’s the principle I’m working under, too.” Although if Marissa had shown any inclination to take things further last night, he had the feeling his resolution would burn to ash in the face of the heat they generated.
“What do you mean?” Axel stopped, glowering. “You said she was married.”
“She wears a wedding ring as a decoy because she’s a professional matchmaker and she doesn’t want to attract attention.”
“Doesn’t she know some guys hit on married women just for the hell of it?”
Unfortunately, they had a guy like that on the team.
“I’m not sure. Either way, nothing happened between us.” Other than Marissa giving him a matchmaking questionnaire to fill out. The memory still ticked him off. “But I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Interesting.” Axel nodded toward the tunnel, where the fans were now clustered by the players’ exit, hoping for autographs or the chance to say hello. “You played it safe with her, yet you’re still paying the price for it today.”
More like
she’d
played it safe with
him.
But the end result remained the same. His game sucked eggs and he needed to get on track before the next series in Pittsburgh. The Phantoms franchise hadn’t brought him here to play the way he had this morning.
They halted their conversation as they reached the mouth of the tunnel, where fans could stand above them and reach down with programs to autograph. Mostly, on a practice day, they came to just shake hands or exchange a word. These were the hard-core fans, local die-hards or faraway supporters who’d made a trip to catch a couple of games and a practice. A few hockey groupies showed up every day, a handful of women who’d had a hard go of it in life and enjoyed the sense of family that a sports team offered.
Ax took as much time as Kyle did, shooting the breeze with some, signing pucks and flyers for others. When they finished, they trudged over the carpet on their skates toward the locker room.
“Maybe the rules don’t apply to this woman,” Axel observed, picking up where they’d left off their conversation.
“Marissa?” Axel had managed to get her in his head again just when he’d avoided thinking about her for at least five minutes.
“The matchmaker,” he clarified, his round vowels still carrying the sound of Helsinki. “We know it kills your game to be with the wrong females. But maybe there are other women—the ones you’re meant to be with—who mess with your head when you avoid the inevitable.”
“You think I should break the No Women in Play-off Season rule?” Pausing outside the locker room with a big Phantoms logo on the double doors, Kyle wasn’t entirely sure he could win over Marissa even if he caved.
“Well,” Axel said, grinning, his new front tooth blending seamlessly with the rest after being knocked out in a game the week before. “You see how you play when you’re
not
with her. I would take a chance and see if being with her straightens you out. So to speak.”
The Finn was surprisingly gifted in the double entendre for a foreign dude, but then, he’d been around a lot of smack-talking, innuendo-loving, crude conversationalists in U.S. hockey clubs.
Then again, he probably learned everything he knew from living with five brothers in the Murphy household.
“What if that doesn’t help? What if being with her makes it worse?”
“I’m no expert, Murph. I’m doing my best here.” He punched open the locker room door. “But I think it’s worth a try. You don’t want to shoot like that tomorrow night.”
No kidding. But how the hell was he supposed to call her again after the way she’d shut him down last night, saying they’d made a mistake? He couldn’t exactly fill out the damn dating survey. That would make it look like he wanted to date anyone but her. She wouldn’t even buy it.
As they entered the locker room, all eyes turned his way. At first, he figured the guys were gauging his mood after the missed shot attempt. But then Alexandre, the backup goalie, stepped forward.
“Murph, you know the ladies, they wait for you.” The kid’s Russian accent was thick and his syntax a little sketchy, but Kyle could usually figure out what he meant.
Now he wasn’t so sure. Twenty teammates wouldn’t be standing around gawking over a couple of women waiting for a player.
“What ladies?” He looked around, hoping someone else would clue him in with more details.
Leave it to his smirky position rival, Archambault, to clarify.
“Professional matchmakers.” Leandre was already finished with his shower and reeking of cheap cologne in his street clothes. “Apparently Marissa was just the first in a long line. I went out to the lobby a minute ago and you have your own private fan club of matchmakers waiting. One of them has a video camera. I thought she was a reporter.”
The last freaking thing he needed before a game when his play was already off.
“You can walk out behind me,” Axel joked, flexing enough muscle to provide a human shield for anyone on the team.
Kyle wasn’t sure how he’d get out of the arena without speaking to them. But he was damn sure where he’d go when he left the rink. Marissa Collins had somehow gotten him into this mess. So she, in all her infinite matchmaking wisdom, would tell him how to get out of it.
After that, he was going to kiss her until the team flight left for Pittsburgh. With any luck, a thorough taste of Marissa would take the edge off. Because this time, he wouldn’t be the one to pull away.
* * *
MARISSA JUMPED WHEN
the doorbell rang downstairs.
Her mother was finally sleeping peacefully after a difficult physical therapy session that morning. Brandy had been frustrated and tearful with her lack of mobility, finally demanding the physical therapist leave. The encounter had been exhausting for all of them, ending with a call from the rehab center suggesting they move Brandy from the house into full-time rehabilitative care.
A step Marissa had been fighting tooth and nail for weeks.
“Please don’t ring again,” she muttered to herself, flying down the stairs to the main entrance, which no one used but strangers.
Probably neighbors selling Girl Scout cookies or something. And how could she tell those cute faces she was flat broke?
Wrenching open the door before she’d thought of a good excuse, she was surprised to find Kyle Murphy there, his finger hovering over the doorbell.
“Wow. You’re a far cry from a Girl Scout, that’s for sure.” She drank in the sight of him by daylight.
Green eyes, dark hair, sculpted cheekbones and square chin. A nose that took a wrong turn midway and somehow only made him more gorgeous, possibly because it broadcast a “don’t mess with me” vibe. Hard to believe she’d kissed a man that looked like him.
“I take it you were expecting someone else?” He shoved his hands in the pockets of a dark blazer that he wore over a white T-shirt with jeans. “I’m afraid I’m not selling any cookies.”
His voice did pleasant things to her insides, the sound humming over her skin and tickling up the back of her neck. What was it about him that appealed to her at a gut level? Because she’d seen plenty of good-looking guys in the years she’d toured with her mom—pop stars, actors, Hollywood royalty—and none of them had ever turned her insides out the way Kyle did.
“No one usually comes to the front door except for people trying to sell me something.” She wondered if she really needed to invite him in. A sixth sense told her if he crossed the threshold, he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.
Her heart rate had revved into high gear the moment she’d spotted him at the door. Now it sent the blood inside her body into a dizzying high-speed cycle. Apparently, she’d forced herself to be objective about men and dating for too long. Some wild and decadent impulse inside her was rebelling now…practically pounding to get out and have its way with the man standing in front of her.
“You should empathize. You’re a fairly hard-core salesperson yourself.” He drew out the matchmaking questionnaire she’d given him the night before. She recognized the creamy color of the stationery.
But she wasn’t sure she recognized the tone behind his words. Was he upset with her because of last night? Because she’d told him it was a mistake for them to be together?
“I won’t be pitching my services to you anymore.” The finality of the statement unsettled her. She couldn’t imagine not seeing him again. “I shouldn’t have come on so strong.”
Hearing how that sounded, she rushed to clarify.
“I mean, I shouldn’t have pitched my services so forcefully.” She didn’t want it to sound as if she’d thrown herself at him in a personal way. Although, there was no denying she’d all but melted in his arms.
“I agree. But lucky for you, I’ve thought of a way you can make it up to me.” He leaned forward to peer inside the house. “Can I come in or am I going to have to proposition you in front of the whole neighborhood?”
“Proposition?” Foreboding mingled with anticipation as she debated the wisdom of having him in her mom’s house. Marissa had moved into a converted guest cottage after the accident so she could be close to her mother all the time. Technically they lived in separate buildings, but they were within shouting distance if any of the caregivers had problems. No doubt that was how Kyle had found her, since her business card contained the address for the smaller building in back. “I don’t know. I’m not alone.”
She sneaked a peek toward the dining room but didn’t hear anything from her mother.
“We don’t need to be alone for this.” His smile was pure bad boy. “Although I’m glad to know you’re thinking along those lines.”
His words smoked over her with phantom heat.
Her mouth dried up and she couldn’t think of a comeback. She couldn’t have denied it if she tried.
“I’m here because I need your help,” he said finally. “I just want you to tell me how to get a rabid pack of professional matchmakers off my case.”
And didn’t that deflate her ego? She should have known he wouldn’t be chasing after her in the cold light of day for romantic reasons. Speaking of cold, the chill of a northern spring reminded her she’d let far too much cool air in the house. But then, Kyle had a knack for sapping away all her normal good sense.
“All right.” Stepping back, she gestured him inside. “Just give me a minute to settle my mother with her afternoon nurse and we can go talk in the guest house.”