Skating on Thin Ice: Seattle Sockeyes (Game On in Seattle Book 1) (6 page)

Brad had flown back to Seattle for a few days to do some schmoozing of politicians as they readied to break ground on the new arena and worked on all the upgrades needed to make the old arena usable for an NHL team. It barely passed muster, and the Puget Sound Hockey Alliance would be lucky to break even until they moved to the new place. Regardless, his group was well aware of the issues and were all-in regardless of the risk.

Pausing, he stood in front of the large picture window with a view of the city of Montreal. The view didn’t come close to what he saw from the windows of his historical mansion in one of Seattle’s most exclusive neighborhoods overlooking Puget Sound. It’d been in his family for over a century, and he’d been lovingly restoring it for the past two years.

Yet lately, something had been missing in his life, and he’d assumed owning a hockey team would provide the ultimate challenge and fill in the empty spaces.

Of course, his mother claimed his restlessness was due to his wandering ways when it came to women—his reluctance to settle down and raise a family. He’d never intended to be a bachelor into his thirties, but the right woman had never come along. He’d begun to wonder if his standards were too high, and he should just settle for a nice, sweet woman whose ambition centered around being a stay-at-home mom and a good wife.

Bloody hell
.

That type of woman would bore him into an early grave. He liked ambitious, driven women, and that type of woman would never give it all up for babies and relative obscurity.

A picture of a pregnant and happy Lauren flashed through his mind. She’d been invading his thoughts a lot lately, though the pregnant part was a new twist. Thank God. She’d make a good partner with their common interests and growing chemistry. Stupid idea, really. She’d never trust him once he revealed his secret. Who could blame her?

Ethan rubbed his eyes and sighed wearily. He’d always been honest in his business dealings and was proud of his well-earned rep as a straight shooter. The deception he’d been forced to perpetuate on his team weighed heavily on his conscience.

He raked a hand through his hair, noting it needed a cut. Whenever he was in the middle of serious negotiations, he totally forgot about stuff like that, as his appearance didn’t score high on his priority list. As a fifth generation Seattleite, he embraced flannel, jeans, and T-shirts, and like most natives, didn’t own an umbrella. He loved the outdoors and exercise and hated being cooped up inside for too long.

Leaning against the railing, he distracted his busy mind by watching ducks circle in the pond below. The distraction didn’t last long. His mind drifted back to the subject currently troubling him and perhaps the most perplexing.

Lauren.

She had a brilliant hockey mind, and like him she exuded this passion for the game that couldn’t be forced. It just was.

His horny little brain slipped around a corner into a dark alley he usually avoided and wondered if that passion ran over into the bedroom. The thought of her naked and sweaty, those expressive brown eyes half-lidded and sultry, beckoning him to take a walk on the wild side with her. Ah, hell. He rubbed his hands over his face. His dick was all-in, but then no surprise there. He’d always had a healthy sex drive.

She’d been ready to rip him a new one when he’d gone barreling into the locker room. He almost laughed. He loved her fire and didn’t hold her anger against her. In fact, he appreciated that she held the team above pleasing him and the new ownership, not knowing, of course, that he was the new ownership.

Maybe his tactics had been a little high-handed, and when he took actual possession of the team, he’d never pull that crap on a coaching staff he’d hired. He’d trust them completely to carry out his mandate of building an NHL dynasty, because he’d settle for nothing less, and he’d force himself to have the patience to wait for it.

Ethan had his eyes on a new coach, assuming he didn’t keep the existing coach, and he doubted he would. Ferrar was old school, a lot like Lauren’s father. Ethan was not. That’d be a problem, possibly an insurmountable one. Lauren, on the other hand, got it. She understood the value of the new types of statistics to measure the immeasurable. She also shared many similar opinions on the players, not that he’d been able to hear much in the way of criticism from her, but once he earned her trust, he suspected the floodgates would open.

Deserving her trust would be the hard part, especially when he was a lying bastard about his intentions and his identity, but Ethan often got what he wanted by sheer force of will. He’d do it this time, too. Sure, she’d be pissed as hell when she found out who and what he was, but she’d come around to his way of thinking when she realized how sincere he was about building this team.

Ethan’s phone rang, and he walked back inside to pick it up. It was Brad. “What the fuck are you doing up?”

“Hell, the night’s still young. I’m on Pacific time, remember? I haven’t even gone to bed yet.”

Oh, yeah, he remembered. Brad played the part of a perpetual frat guy, always looking for the next party, even at thirty-two years old. Yet the gregarious Brad was the perfect front man for the hockey ownership. Everyone loved Brad, and he won a lot more points than straight-forward, driven Ethan ever would.

“So we’ve got company, buddy,” Brad said.

“What kind of company?” Sometimes Brad didn’t make a lick of sense.

“Competition.”

Ethan was getting exasperated with Brad’s short answers, designed to draw out the drama. “What competition?”

“For the team.”

“The team is ours.”

“They don’t know that, and when they find out they didn’t get a chance to make an offer, all hell will bust lose.”

“And I care about this why?”

Brad hesitated, most likely for emphasis and to tax Ethan’s patience, which he loved to do. “A couple reasons—this other group comprises hockey guys who’d keep the team in Florida, and the figurehead of this group is Lon Schneider.”

“Lauren’s father.” Ethan absorbed this bit of information; small as it might seem, it was a potential blockbuster.

“He’s a legend, and when it’s announced his group has been passed over, we’ll be even bigger villains,” Brad said.

“Shit.” Ethan knew this move would be tough, but disrespecting a group of heavy-hitters like that would be a potential powder keg across the league. Not that anyone in Seattle would give a rat’s ass, but the rest of the league sure as hell would. He had so wanted to play nice with the other teams, come across as a white knight rescuing a struggling franchise. Instead he’d be the outsider yanking the team out from under a city and an ownership group with sympathy on their side.

He was surprised the commissioner had the guts to do this; hopefully it was a purely political move as Ethan had the man’s blessing along with the Sleezers’ signatures.

He’d considered the sale a done deal, except for the formalities.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

This binding contract might be unravelling before his eyes, and Lauren could very well be right in the middle of it all.

* * * *

Lauren couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned most of the night. In all her thirty years, a simple touch had never affected her like Ethan’s. He’d grabbed her hand as a gesture to emphasize how much he wanted her on his team, not how much he wanted her in his bed. No matter, her fertile imagination didn’t need more than that to work with. Her brain took his simple gesture and elevated it to a whole new level in her dreams and her imagination.

When her phone rang at five-thirty
AM
, she answered it, grateful for an interruption. “Hi, Dad, what’s up?” The early hour didn’t alarm her. Her father often called at all hours to talk about an exciting prospect he’d found in the minors or vent his frustrations with the latest dumb-ass move by the Sleezers.

Lon Schneider worked as the head scout for the Giants. A former NHL great, he was a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, and the mere mention of his name opened doors wherever he went. “Honey, tell me I misunderstood your message about possible new ownership for the team.” Her father had been in Canada scouting some high school kids so he’d been out of the loop. He hated technology and rarely checked mail or answered his cell when he was heads down and sniffing out a diamond on the rink.

“It’s true. The league has given the Sleezers an ultimatum. No more bailouts. They have to sell the team after the season ends.”

“And they’re giving some asshole the red carpet treatment because he represents an anonymous billionaire owner?”

“That’s pretty much the gist of it. I’ve been relegated to hand-holding him.” Lauren walked over to the coffee pot sitting on a stand near the dresser to start a pot of coffee. She tucked the phone under her chin.

Her father harrumphed, a sure sign he wasn’t happy.

“Dad, I thought you’d be thrilled. The team could be sold to responsible ownership.”

“I think the league is creating a bidding war to jack the price up.”

“Bidding war? With who?” Lauren wasn’t following her father.

“I’ve been keeping you out of the loop on this. Didn’t want to get your hopes up, but I’ve organized a new ownership team with several deep pockets, all hockey guys, and we’re making a bid for the Giants.”

“What hockey guys?” Lauren went cold inside, not at all sure how she felt about her father’s announcement.

“Me, Earl, Mike, John Carver, a few others, all guys from my playing days.”

And all old school
. Great guys but no great imagination or willingness to try new things, just like the current management. “Does the league know you’re interested?”

“Yeah, we’ve been in constant contact, especially John because he’s the tightest with the commish.” She could tell by her father’s tense tone he was irritated. Why wouldn’t he be? His group had made it known they wanted the Giants yet the league ignored them and brought in Ethan and his group—new blood, not necessarily a bad thing and not necessarily a good thing. Whether or not to support Ethan tore her in two. Adding her father’s group to the mix increased her confusion.

“So has John approached Straus?”

“Not formally, but Straus is aware of us. I wanted to see what info you had before we made a formal statement.”

Figures. Her father assumed she’d choose family loyalty over team loyalty and give him any dirt she might have. The good news was that she didn’t have anything useful. At least, nothing that the rest of management didn’t already know. “Nothing really. The guy that’s checking the team out is pretty hands-on. Asks a lot of questions.”

“Who’s he representing?”

“No one knows. It’s all a big secret, but it came down from the top that we’re to give him any information he asks for.”

“If my ownership group buys the team, I could end up as GM.” Her father’s voice took on that tone it often did when he was driving ahead to the goal and nothing and no one would stand in his way.

“Then I couldn’t work for you.” Lauren thought out loud. She’d be out of a job with a team she’d given her heart and soul to for the past several years, scrabbled her way up from the bottom, always working twice as hard as any man just to prove herself.

“Of course, you could.” Her father didn’t seem to get it.

“Dad, it’s nepotism. I couldn’t work for you.”

“Don’t worry, honey, it’s done all the time. I’ll find something for you with the club.”
Something
wasn’t what Lauren had in mind. Not at all. She hadn’t come this far to be relegated back to the clerical pool. There wouldn’t be a good place for her with the Giants or anywhere else. Other teams wouldn’t trust her because of her father’s position. Add being a female, and she was screwed.

Her father disregarding her concerns had been par for the course her entire life. She’d never been Daddy’s little girl, more like Daddy’s afterthought. With two talented sons to follow in Lon’s footsteps, he’d focused his energy on Lauren’s brothers, while allowing Lauren to come along for the ride. She absorbed everything she could about hockey in an attempt to win his approval, but he barely noticed.

“So what do you know about this guy?” Her father pushed for more information, and Lauren balked, unwilling to give her personal impressions of Ethan—and not just because the jury was still out on him.

“Not much.” Now that she thought about it, she spoke the absolute truth. She knew very little except he’d played college football as a quarterback. She had no idea where he was from, how old he was, how he made a living. Nothing. In fact, she didn’t have a clue why a billionaire would hire this particular person to evaluate a hockey team’s worth.

“You have to give me a tidbit. Something.”

“Dad, he asks all the questions. He doesn’t reveal a thing about himself or his employers.”

“I trust you, honey. You’ll do some digging for your old man, give me some leverage I can use with the league.”

“I’ll try.” Not a chance in hell. Not now. Not while she was still figuring out whether Ethan was a good guy or bad guy.

“Good girl. I’ve gotta go now. Bye, hon.”

“Bye, Dad. Love you.” But her words were met by a dead line. Lon rarely said he loved her, and she’d come to terms with that. Terms of endearment weren’t his MO.

Lauren set the phone down and paced the floor. It seemed obvious to her—if the league knew about her father’s group’s interest, either they preferred Ethan’s group, or they really were attempting to drive the price up.

And somehow she’d gotten herself stuck in the middle of a possible lose-lose situation.

Chapter 5—In the Net

Early the next morning, Ethan took a taxi to Montreal’s team headquarters for a league-arranged visit with Montreal’s GM to discuss hockey, running a hockey team, anything and everything. The GM was a little cautious about disseminating any info that would give the Giants an edge in the playoffs. Ethan almost laughed, as if the Giants’ coaching staff would listen to him if he did manage to glean any information.

Afterward, he sat in the first row of seats in the arena, watching the Giants go through their practice routine and taking notes. Cooper Black interested him the most. The guy was the heart and soul of this team, loyal to a fault, a workaholic, and a passionate player. Ethan wanted nineteen more just like him. Cooper’s contract was up after next season, and Ethan would do everything in his power to keep one of hockey’s premier players on his ice.