She helped him strap on the ice wrap, then curled into the shelter of his big arm as he restarted the movie.
When it came to the scene where the young, principled hockey player played by Michael Ontkean did a striptease on ice, all the way down to his jockstrap, they both howled with laughter.
“If—excuse me, when—you win the Stanley Cup,” she teased, “will you do that?”
“Hell, what’s the point?” he joked back. “The whole world’s seen me in my gonch already.”
This was fun, relaxing, domestic. As domestic as reading with Anthony, their feet touching companionably on the coffee table. A girl could get used to this.
No, she couldn’t. Woody didn’t want domestic. He’d made his views crystal clear.
This was one little interlude for him, during the playoffs, when he needed to rest and focus and he thought Georgia was his good luck charm.
She couldn’t let herself want it to be more. She needed to be as sensible as Lady Emma, to enjoy the moment and not long for more.
Woody rose. “Time for bed.”
She gazed up at him, and it hit her. She’d stopped being sensible. She cared for this man. Really cared. Was falling for him. Maybe had already fallen.
He was so different from Anthony, but he was so special. Could Woody Hanrahan be her soul mate? To her, the answer was clear. Yes.
But would he let himself be?
He held out his hand and she let him pull her to her feet. He had to see how good they were together. How couldn’t he want the same things she did?
He’d proven he was a quick learner in a lot of areas, but maybe
when it came to commitment, he was slow. His parents had made him cynical about marriage, but perhaps, over time, he’d realize that it was so much more rewarding to be with one special person than to have a bunch of meaningless flings.
Was she crazy to hope?
Wednesday started great, with Georgia in his bed, which Woody figured was a good omen. Yeah, he would suffer through a bunch of ribbing about the gonch photos, but the guys would get past it. Game days were laid out in a pattern, with routines that kept everyone focused on what counted.
Sure enough, when he entered the locker room, he saw that some jerk—probably Stu—had gotten posters made. Woody didn’t let it rattle him. When he got the expected insults about the relative size of his package, he tossed them back. It was good practice for the trash talk he knew he’d face from the Caps on the ice.
He was about to change into his gear for the pregame practice when Coach Duffy stepped into the locker room. “Hanrahan, I need to talk to you.”
Nothing unusual about the head coach wanting a private word with the captain, nor the fact that, when they sat down in the coach’s office, Mike Duffy’s expression was serious. It was a game day in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This was a time to be serious.
The coach’s words weren’t what he expected, though. “Woody, you’ve always kept quiet about your childhood and your parents. You didn’t give us much for your official bio, and it’s a taboo topic for interviews.”
“Yeah?” he said warily. They’d been through this before.
“Has anything changed, like with this VitalSport endorsement?”
He shook his head. “Nah, I told them the same thing as you. That stuff’s off-limits.”
Coach Duffy ran a hand over his short, graying beard. “Then you don’t know what’s just hit the hockey gossip blogs?”
“You mean the gonch photos? Yeah, it sucks, and I didn’t realize the contract included underwear, but I’m stuck with it.”
The coach shook his head. “Not that. About your mom and dad.”
“My … mom and dad?” Woody had the same sinking feeling as yesterday, but ten times worse. “What are they saying?”
Duffy’s gray eyes, usually steely, held a touch of sympathy. “That your dad was an alcoholic who beat up on you and your mom, but she wouldn’t leave him.”
Woody sucked in a breath, feeling like he’d taken a hit to the solar plexus.
“That he was killed in a bar fight. That your mom’s dying of cancer—”
“She’s not dying!”
“Sorry. Just repeating what I read. The blogs say you sent her to Switzerland for some expensive alternative therapy.”
“Shit!” Woody fisted his right hand, wishing he could slam it into the fucker who was responsible for this. “Shit, fuck! Where the hell did they get that?”
“I dunno.” He scratched his balding head. “Is it true?”
Warily, Woody said, “Maybe.”
“Who knows about your parents? Hell, I didn’t know.”
Woody shook his head. Only his old friend Sam, and Sam’s dad, Martin, Woody’s former agent. But they’d never said a word, not in all these years, and never would.
Georgia knew.
She wouldn’t tell. She’d sworn to keep his secrets, and he trusted her.
But she was in marketing. She hadn’t told him about the You-Tube video, not until he’d already seen it. If she thought it’d help the VitalSport campaign …
No, she wouldn’t.
“Someone betrayed you,” Coach Duffy said soberly. “You better figure out who that is. And what I want to know is, do they know about your shoulder? If the Caps find out about your shoulder—” He broke off.
Fuck!
Not only did Georgia know about his shoulder, she knew about Bouchard’s finger, Hammarstrom’s knee, the whole fucking catalogue of injuries. If she spilled those secrets, the Beavers didn’t stand a chance.
“I gotta go.”
Duffy’s eyes were steely now. “The captain missing pregame practice … That’s not good. But this is more important. You gotta shut this down before it goes any further.”
“No shit.”
Betrayed. First by Martin, the man who’d been almost like a father—a
good
father—to him. And now by Georgia, the only woman he’d ever trusted. How the hell had he let her get that close to him?
“I’ll talk to the team,” Coach Duffy said. “They’ll hear the gossip soon enough.”
The captain was the leader, the one who was supposed to be the strongest, the one who guided the team and motivated them. Not the one who could cost them the Cup.
Furious, Woody stormed down the corridor and out of Rogers Arena. He’d walked here, since it was so close to his condo. Now he pumped it up to a run, heading toward the heart of downtown and the office tower that housed Dynamic Marketing. When that bitch Angela went to the tabloids last year, he’d been royally pissed, but this was way different. As fast as he ran, he couldn’t outrun the hurt and anger at Georgia’s betrayal.
What a fucking idiot he’d been.
Sandra was at reception, and greeted him with a bright smile— until she really took him in. Her eyes widened.
Sweat dripped into his eyes and he flicked it aside as he strode past her.
“Woody?” she called after him, but he didn’t answer.
The door to Georgia’s office was open and she sat behind her desk, phone headset resting amid her red curls. Her eyes widened too, and she jumped when he slammed the door behind him.
Two long strides took him to her desk. He planted his hands on the edge and leaned into her face. “How the fuck could you do it?”
Georgia gaped at the sweaty, belligerent man looming toward her across the desk. The man who, only short hours ago, had kissed her good morning. The one she’d been falling in love with.
“I have to call you back,” she muttered into the phone, then slowly pulled the headset off.
She’d seen Woody annoyed before, but this time a dark energy rolled off him that actually scared her. She scooted her swivel chair back a couple of feet and gazed at him warily. “Woody? What’s wrong?”
“Like you don’t know.”
She frowned, shook her head. “Did the team give you a hard time over those photos?”
“Jesus! If that’s all it was. Fuck, Georgia.”
Clearly, he was furious about something, but that didn’t give him the right to behave this way with her. The heat of anger brought her to her feet. “Don’t swear at me. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“You betrayed me.”
Her lips parted, but shock held her mute. She would never betray Woody. How could he think that?
“You leaked those stories about my parents.”
“What stories?” Had he gone crazy?
Doubt flickered in his eyes; then he said, “If it wasn’t you, it was one of your team. You told them, didn’t you?”
“I—”
Before she could deny it, he went on. “Terry. Maybe he figured it’d help the campaign. Like how he posted the Facebook and You-Tube stuff before checking with you.”
“I still don’t know what stories you’re talking about.” She reached for her telephone headset. “Let me check.”
She dialed Terry’s local. “Do you know anything about some stories about Woody’s parents?”
When he said no, and asked what she was talking about, she said to Woody, “Where did you see them?”
“Coach told me about them. They’re on the hockey gossip blogs.”
“Hockey gossip blogs,” she repeated to Terry, sitting at her computer to do an Internet search. A moment later, she saw the headlines of the search results. It was all there: his father’s alcoholism, the abuse, his mom’s treatments in Switzerland. “Damn,” she muttered. Poor Woody. He was such a private man, and now his carefully kept secrets were spilled all over the Internet.
Terry said, “Yeah, I see it. Where did this stuff come from?”
“It wasn’t you?” she asked.
“I didn’t know anything about his parents. He said his family was off-limits.”
“I know.”
“It’s not bad, though,” he said. “It humanizes him even more. Guy who rises above a rotten past. Takes care of his mom.”
It might not be bad for the campaign, but it sure wasn’t what Woody wanted. “Thanks, Terry.” Slowly, she took off the headset again. “Woody, this is terrible. But it wasn’t us.”
He’d stopped leaning on her desk and was standing, hands fisted at his hips, still looking intimidating. “Viv, then, or Billy
Daniels.” There was no uncertainty in his voice. “You told one of them.”
Her mouth fell open. “I did not!” she snapped. How could he believe, for one moment, that she’d share his secrets? “You told me in confidence.”
“And you broke that confidence.”
“No.” Shaking her head, feeling as if he’d stabbed her through the heart, she sank back in her chair. “I’d never do that.” They were lovers. Yes, he’d said their relationship was casual, but she’d thought he trusted her, believed in her. Cared for her.
Yes, she knew what betrayal felt like. He’d just done it to her.
“Women gossip. You told someone. Maybe not Viv; maybe one of those book club girls. Or your mother. You can’t tell me you didn’t talk to them about me.”
She forced herself to straighten her shoulders, though what she really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. “Yes, but never about your personal life. I thought you knew me better than that.”
“I don’t know you at all,” he spat out.
“And I don’t know you either. I had no idea you were such a jerk!”
He leaned forward again, his face—her lover’s face, now hard and cold as granite—mere inches from hers. “There’s just one thing I want to know.”
“What?”
“Did you tell anyone about the injuries? Are you going to? What’ll it take to stop you?”
It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to not break down. To open her mouth and say, “Get out of my office.”
“No.” He glared at her, hands still fisted at his hips. “Not until you tell me. Damn it, I’m the captain and I screwed my team over by trusting you. I gotta make it right. Gotta stop you, whatever it takes.”
She leaped to her feet, hands on her own hips. “Whatever it
takes?” She, who rarely raised her voice, was screeching now. “What are you going to do? Hit me? Pay me off?”
“George?” A male voice spoke from behind Woody’s huge frame. “Woody? What’s going on?”
Woody swung around, no longer blocking her view of the doorway. Billy Daniels had opened the door and stood staring at both of them.
“Tell her,” Woody commanded. “Tell her she can’t jeopardize the Beavers’ chances at the Cup.”
Slowly, feeling his way, Billy said, “George would never do that. Right, George?”
“Of course I wouldn’t.” She sank into her chair again. Could she go home, pull the covers over her head, and sob her heart out? No, she had to be professional. “Woody thinks someone at Dynamic has been leaking personal information to hockey gossip sites.”
Billy shook his head. “Only photos. We don’t have any information that could harm the Beavers. Right?” He looked at Georgia for confirmation.
She had that information. She knew the roster of injuries, information the Washington Capitals would love to get their hands on. But she’d acquired that privately, because she was—had been— sleeping with Woody. It wasn’t Dynamic’s information, and no matter how mad or hurt she was, she’d never use it against the team.
“No,” she said firmly, “we don’t. Tell Woody he has nothing to worry about.”
Uneasily, Billy eyed the two of them. “Woody, you heard George. Now, let’s all settle down, okay? There’s a game tonight. Shouldn’t you be at practice?”
With a final long, piercing glare at her, Woody stalked out of the office without speaking another word to either of them.
Billy stared after him, then turned to her. “Is there anything I need to know about?”
“No.” He didn’t need to know that she felt so miserable she wanted to die.
Focus? What the hell was focus? How could a guy focus when his teammates were tiptoeing around him like they were fucking ballet dancers? When the woman he’d let into his life had betrayed him? When he didn’t have an inkling whether the Capitals knew about the Beavers’ injuries?
He’d told the coaches there was nothing to worry about, and could only hope he was right. When the puck dropped in Rogers Arena, he kept an eagle eye on the Caps. They were sure as hell trash-talking him, but they weren’t going after his shoulder, The Hammer’s knee, or any of the team’s other physical vulnerabilities. Thank God.
Even so, the Beavers were having an off night.
Washington scored in the first period and again at the top of the second. The Beavers didn’t get many shots on goal, much less actually get the puck into the net.