Georgia frowned. Surely they weren’t going to complain because Woody’d laughed so loudly. He had a wonderful laugh, rich and contagious. They could use that in the campaign.
The first young man, looking eager but painfully embarrassed, reached their table. Ignoring Georgia, he spoke to Woody. “You’re Woody Hanrahan.”
Woody smiled easily. “So I’ve been told.”
“Wow! Like, in person! Just having lunch here like Tim and me. Hey, can I shake your hand?”
Still smiling, Woody held out his hand.
The other man gaped at it. “Oh shit, that’s your Stanley Cup ring.” Reverently, he shook Woody’s hand.
Georgia glanced at the knuckle-duster, heavy and gold with a sparkling diamond, as the fan rattled on. “My name’s Benjamin and this is Tim—I already said that—and we have season tickets. Haven’t missed a single home game, and we’ve seen the rest on TV. You’re awesome, man, totally awesome.”
“Thanks, Benjamin.” Woody shook with the other man as well. “Nice to meet you, Tim.”
“You deserved the Conn Smythe last year.” Fervent words poured out of Tim. “It was a crime they gave it to LaBecque.”
Woody shrugged. “I’ve had my share, and Pierre LaBecque led his team to the win. Besides, he scored more goals than I did last season.”
“Yeah, but you had way more assists,” Tim said, “and that’s what it’s really about. Any idiot can wham the puck into the goal if the other guy sets him up right.”
Woody chuckled. “Trust me, it’s not quite that easy.”
Benjamin flushed. “You know what I’m saying. You’re the next Gretzky, for Christ’s sake.”
“Thanks for your support, guys. Now, if you don’t mind, the lady and I would like to get back to our lunch.”
The two men glanced at Georgia as if she’d materialized out of thin air. “Yeah, sure.” Chattering to each other and glancing over their shoulders at Woody, they headed back to their table.
“Apparently I’m invisible,” she said dryly.
“Sorry about that.”
She glanced at him curiously. “Does it happen a lot?”
“You mean, ‘Does it occur frequently?’ ”
“Right.” She smiled, remembering her lesson in the car.
He made a self-deprecating face. “The price of fame. Sometimes
it’s cool—gives me a boost if I’m feeling low, like if I’ve played a bad game.” He grimaced. “Like last night. Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass, like if I’m out with a woman.”
“You handled it well.”
His mouth twisted. “You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
She bit her lip. “Sorry. But you seemed at ease, genuine, polite.” Attractive, and too darned appealing. “It’s different from how you come across in interviews. And yes, I understand that the interviewers may catch you at a bad time, but you don’t want to come across as raw and violent.”
He scowled. “I’m not violent. But I’m not gonna come across like a wuss. Hockey players are tough, Georgia. It’s part of the sport.”
“All that whacking into each other, bashing each other into the boards, it’s uncivilized,” she protested. “Other sports aren’t like that, are they?” She’d caught only glimpses of sports like basketball and baseball as she changed channels, but she’d never seen the kind of violence she’d noted in last night’s hockey game.
“Hockey’s a Canadian game.” He grinned. “We’re tough guys up here, north of the forty-ninth parallel.”
His grin was infectious, but she resisted. “I can’t believe that’s the image Canada wants to present to the world.”
“Yet hockey’s our unofficial national sport.”
“Unofficial? What’s the official one?”
“Lacrosse.”
“Lacrosse?” No image came to mind. Had she ever channel-surfed past a game of lacrosse?
“See, you don’t even know what it is. Fans go for hockey. They like seeing guys getting bashed into the boards by a good, fair hit.”
“That doesn’t say much for the fans.”
“I’m sure there’s a psychological explanation. Bottom line, better they cheer for me smashing LaBecque into the boards than they go
home and beat up on their spouses.” His voice was heavy, his blue eyes shadowed.
She wrinkled her nose. “I hate to think those are the only two options.”
He gave a solemn nod. “Me too. Alls I’m saying is, there gotta be reasons hockey’s so popular.”
They were conversing, and he hadn’t touched his lunch for a good ten minutes. She’d let his poor grammar slide by. Instead, she took a bite of risotto and chewed slowly.
His fork went down and came up with a much larger portion of salad.
When he’d finished it, she said, “What were those men talking about? Conn Smythe?” She took another forkful of risotto to eat while he responded.
“The Conn Smythe Trophy is the award for the MVP in the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. Uh, MVP means—”
“Most valuable player. That much I know. And NHL is the National Hockey League. But I’m not sure exactly what that is.”
Following her example, he’d eaten some pizza while she was talking. “Can’t believe you live in Vancouver and know so little about hockey.”
Some people had better things to do than watch grown men chase pucks. But saying so would be rude, and not an effective strategy. “I’ve never been into sports. Enlighten me.”
“Okay. The NHL is a formal organization with thirty clubs— what you’d think of as teams—that are franchises. Mostly American, seven in Canada. The players come from all over the world, and lots of Canadians play for American teams.”
“How’s it decided what team a player’s on?”
He swallowed the bite he’d been eating, and she realized he’d picked up the back-and-forth flow of eating and conversing. “There’s a draft, trades, free agents. It’s complicated.”
“And the season has all these games that build toward the Stanley Cup playoffs?”
“Pretty much. First we play some exhibition games against NHL clubs, European clubs, and so on. Then it’s regular season and we play clubs within the league.” He lifted his water glass.
Georgia stared at his hand, so large and brown. Surprisingly well shaped, but so very strong looking. That hand had touched her most intimate places with amazing delicacy. And deftness. As if he knew her body better than anyone ever had.
A tingly ache throbbed between her legs, craving more of that touch.
When Woody took a long swallow of water, his throat rippled.
She’d never been so physically aware of a man, but then, she’d never been with a man who made his living with his body. As well as his mind, if Terry was to be believed. She’d also never been with a man who’d brought her to climax.
“Then there’s postseason,” Woody went on.
Throat dry, she swallowed and tried to remember what they were talking about.
“That’s the Stanley Cup playoffs. An elimination system involving the top eight clubs. Two clubs play until one has won four games; then the winner advances to the next round.”
“Terry said the Beavers are in the Western Conference finals?”
“Yeah. There’s two groups, Eastern and Western Conference. We’re in the playoffs against the Ducks for Western Conference title. That club will play the Eastern Conference champs for the Cup.”
“You must’ve played a lot of games to get to this point.” Thinking back on what he’d said earlier, she said, “No wonder players are tired and injured.”
He nodded. “The further you go, the harder it is. But that’s how it’s supposed to be.” He flashed a grin. “Tough, remember?”
Georgia realized she was enjoying this. Woody could be good company. She was starting to like him. “How about you? Are you injured?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t say. We don’t talk about that stuff. Don’t want our opponents knowing our weaknesses.”
It was the same thing he’d said to the interviewer last night. The concept made sense, but she wasn’t an opponent or an interviewer, and she felt a little hurt that he wouldn’t tell her.
How silly. They weren’t friends. This was a business relationship. Except for the sex. The momentary lapse she needed to ignore. “You said the Conn Smythe Trophy goes to the MVP?”
“Yeah, in the Stanley Cup playoffs. There are other awards, like the Hart Memorial for the MVP during the regular season, voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association. And others based on statistics, like highest-scoring player.”
“You’ve won some of them.” She’d skimmed the details in Billy’s research, the names of the various trophies making no sense to her.
A smile flickered. “All of ’em.”
And, she recalled, some more than once. Georgia finished the last bite of risotto. She’d assumed Woody had an enormous ego, but that wasn’t proving to be the case. It made him even more appealing. That was good for the marketing campaign—which, after all, was the only thing that mattered. “Which one most recently?”
He shrugged. “Hart Memorial this season.”
This lunch was enlightening. The man had more depth than she’d given him credit for, he learned quickly, and he had a sense of humor. As well as a rough brand of sex appeal that didn’t quit. Even when she tried to concentrate on work, her body hummed with awareness of him. “What was the other thing that man called you? The next Gretzky? That’s Wayne Gretzky, right? Even I have heard that name. He was a really successful Canadian hockey player, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah. He was my hero, growing up.”
Something Terry had said finally sunk in. “Hockey is Canada’s favorite sport, and right now you’re the biggest Canadian star.”
“Jeez, don’t put it like that. A guy’s only as good as the men he plays with, not to mention the coaches, athletic trainers, medical staff, equipment manager. It’s a team.”
It was the same kind of thing he’d said in interviews. There, it had come across as a platitude. Now it sounded totally sincere. Terry needed to overcome Woody’s awkwardness with the media and bring out this genuineness.
Woody shoved his plate away. “You finished? We should get that fan belt.”
Again, she’d forgotten her car.
They were arguing over the bill, with her insisting it was a business expense, when his cell phone rang. As he reached into his jeans pocket, she grabbed the bill, making a mental note to tell him to turn off his cell in restaurants.
“Yo,” Woody said into the phone. “Yeah, I’m great. Probably because I ran six miles first thing this morning when you were still in bed. Or hanging on to the toilet.”
Georgia’s stomach, full of risotto, did a somersault. Delightful. And a needed reminder that, despite his good qualities, Woody still required a lot of work.
“Yeah, that was one hell of a bender,” he said. “God knows how I staggered home.”
At least he’d had the sense not to drive.
As she listened to Woody’s side of the conversation, she glanced around the restaurant, noticing other women covertly watching him. Did they recognize him, or was it just that he was hard not to look at, with his large, rangy frame, tousled mahogany hair and beard, and rolled-up sleeves showing off muscular forearms? Female
eyes checked her out too, no doubt thinking she and Woody were an odd couple.
“Nah, I can’t this aft,” he said. “All booked up.”
As Georgia calculated a tip and punched her PIN into the card reader, she listened to Woody say, “Oh, nothing special.”
He glanced at her. “No, I can’t blow it off.”
“Okay, it’s this girl I met.” He actually had the audacity to wink at her. “Yeah, sure she’s hot; why else’d I be spending time with her?”
Ooh! How dared he?
He ended the call and turned his attention to Georgia. She glared at him.
He grimaced. “Sorry. Wasn’t really talking about you. Don’t take it personally.”
Oh good, that helped immensely—of course he didn’t really think she was hot, despite having had sex with her on a conference room table.
He gazed wistfully out the window. “Great day for golf. S’pose you don’t play?”
“Hitting balls of any kind isn’t my idea of fun.” Her Diet Coke was finished, but she crunched the remaining ice. “Why did you say those things to your friend? Is it essential to come across as a super-stud?”
He grinned. “Only semi-essential.” The grin died. “I should’ve just said I was hanging out with a friend. Didn’t think fast enough, and I didn’t want to spill anything about the fuck—stupid— endorsement deal.” All parties had agreed that the campaign would launch with a formal announcement, and Woody’s involvement would be a secret until then.
“You’re clearly not pleased about the contract. What’s the issue? You’re making a lot of money. Is it just about the underwear thing?”
She couldn’t see his leg but could tell he was jiggling it; the table
vibrated rapidly. “Money’s good, but the figurehead thing is embarrassing. And modeling gonch sucks.” He rose. “Let’s go.”
As they walked to her car, she said, “You were out drinking last night.”
“I guess.”
“I hope you don’t do it often.”
“Often?” He stopped and glared down at her. “None of your business. Alls you need to know is that I won’t tie one on at one of your fancy champagne
affairs
.”
“All,” she said coldly. “The word is ‘all,’ not ‘alls.’ There is no such word as ‘alls.’ And thank you for that extraordinarily articulate and convincing assurance.”
They climbed into the car in silence.
Woody turned the key and the Carrera’s engine roared to life.
Should have known it was too good to be true, those few minutes when he and Georgia’d been getting along. Didn’t take long for her to climb back on his case. According to her, there wasn’t one fucking thing he did right.
Well, he could damn well fix a car.
He headed to a parts and repair shop and picked up the right fan belt. When he drove back to the tow lot and parked, Georgia said rather grudgingly, “It’s nice of you to do this.”
Yeah, it was. And he was going to make her help, rather than sit all high-and-mighty on her tush. A tush that hadn’t been all that high-and-mighty yesterday, when he’d popped it up onto that conference table.
“Could you ask the kid in the booth for a bucket of water? Gotta fill up the rad.”
She nodded and walked away.
Woody, using the small toolkit from his car, cleared out the old fan belt, tightened a few screws, and by that time he was whistling. Nothing like productive work to put a guy in good spirits. Besides, he had a plan for taking Ms. Georgia Malone down a notch.